Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Introduction

Tonight we begin a 7 week series through the “I Am” statements of Christ.

We find all of them in the gospel of John - so I’d encourage you to be reading through the gospel of John if you are in HS or not part of our JH SS class, because our JH SS class has a reading schedule.

We are going to spend the rest of the semester looking at who Christ is because as A.W. Tozier once said, “what comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…we tend by secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”

What he was saying is that we become like what we worship or we move toward how we view God.

And that means we need an accurate and deep and true picture of who Christ is.

One of the songs that we’ve sung around our church for the past six years or so is “The Great I Am”.

It’s a song about the wonderful fact that God Is.

That before all things and above all things God exists.

That He is the great reality.

In the gospel Jesus makes 7 claims about who He is - what we call the Seven I Am statements of Christ.

Each of the statements give us a slightly different window or view by which we should understand and see Christ.

Tonight we are in and we see Christ claim that he is “The Bread of Life.”

Turn with me to , let me pray and then we will begin.

Pray

The Context

So the day before Jesus made the claim “I Am the Bread of life” Jesus was with a group of 5,000 men plus the women and the children.

Estimation - 12-15,000 people.

That’s a large group in that day and culture.

And he performs a miracle.

He feeds them all.

A boy had 5 loaves of bread and two fish - and Jesus used that to feed roughly 15,000 people.

It was a big day for the people.

In fact, it was such an amazing miracle that the people remembered another who had brought bread like this to Israel - Moses.

Through Moses, God sent manna, which was like ancient Honey Grahams, that would rain down from Heaven, the sky, each morning.

So when Jesus did this miracle - the people thought - “hey, this is awesome” - much like the miracle of golden grahams from Heaven, manna, during the 40 years Israel wandered in the desert.

They thought it was so great that in (v.14) this is what we read:

The crowd was correct about Jesus - in fact, Moses said that a prophet was going to come after him that was greater than him:

But, they missed the point of Jesus being the Prophet who was to come.

We know they missed it because of (v.15):

So, the people wanted to make Jesus the king, but Jesus knew this so he got out of their - He went to a mountain to be alone.

Then verses 16-24 tell us that Jesus decided to take a stroll across the sea of Galilee to go to Capernaum - where the crowd followed and found him.

It was like paparazzi type stuff - Jesus, he just couldn’t get away.

You would think it was a good thing for people to follow after Jesus, but they were pumped about about the wrong thing (v.26-27):

The Bread of Life

So here’s the skinny - the people loved having a full belly - that’s why they followed Jesus.

Not because He has authority over the material world, not because of His power over all things including food, but because He could meet their physical needs.

And that’s why they wanted Jesus to be king - if Jesus was king they would never go hungry.

If Jesus was king they would have their fill of food.

See, Jesus was bringing good news of rescue to the people.

He was bringing forgiveness of sin, appeasement of God’s wrath, access to the Father through His own self.

He was coming to take away the sin of the world, but for the crowd - well the good news of Jesus was full tummies.

It was Wednesday night meal.

It was Friday night pizza night.

They missed the Giver of Bread for the gift of bread.

And that’s when Jesus turned the entire scene on it’s head.

They wanted to know how they could labor for the food that last’s forever.

Listen to what Jesus says:

John 6:29

The work and labor that they needed to do was to trust or believe on God’s messenger - the Prophet - Jesus.

How did they respond to this?

John 6:

They responded with “prove yourself”.

Perform.

They demanded for more signs - and more bread!

, “Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven...” now Jesus is going to clue them into the real source of heavenly bread.

, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

So now, Jesus is beginning to hint at what the true bread is - listen to their response:

And, then Jesus does the mic drop:

So as the crowd wanted more yummy bread for their tummies, Jesus corrects their thinking.

The bread that they needed was not a commodity that you could buy or trade, but a Person that you must believe on.

Dental Work Illustration - so hungry, I bought Chick-Fil-A and it just hit the spot.

When you are starving food is incredibly nourishing.

Transition: in the same way Jesus is the nourishment for our starving souls.

In Christ, we find a satisfaction that nothing in the world can give us - it is an eternal satisfaction.

As fallen, sinful humans we run to money and relationships and pleasure and popularity - external and outward things to try and complete an inside and internal need.

Who in here has an iPhone X? It’s great right?

Yes, but you aren’t obsessed with it like you once were.

It’s not as shiny and it doesn’t make you feel as happy.

See, external and outward things are good, but what we tend to do is elevate them above God - and when we do this we commit idolatry.

We become captivated to a lifeless and powerless idol.

And in the midst of our search for meaning and satisfaction and contentment - Jesus stands ready offering himself as the bread of life.

In our culture bread is optional, but in there early culture bread was an essential staple.

Students, Jesus will meet and satisfy every longing of your starving soul.

He is eternal bread - in fact, listen to what He then says - this is when things get juicy:

John 6:53-

Eating is Believing is Drinking is Believing

Wait…what?

Dude, Jesus this is getting weird.

Eat you?

Drink your blood?

I mean my wife - Katie - loved the Twilight series, but she is no vampire.

Side note - students, whenever someone tries to tell you Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, but He was just a good moral teacher - I love to take them to this passage.

Then I say - really?

Jesus doesn’t sound like a “good, moral teacher here”!

He sounds like a cannibal!

So, in these verses Jesus says that if you drink his blood and eat his flesh you will have eternal life.

Or, in (v.53) he says that if you don’t eat and drink him you will have no life.

So what did Jesus mean by these disturbing statements?

J

Look back at :

What’s the work of God?

To believe upon Christ!

Or:

So what keeps us from hungering - coming to Christ.

What keeps us from having soul thirst?

Believing in Christ.

Or:

What brings about eternal life?