Jesus The Bread of Life: The I AM Statements of Christ

John 6:22-40 Jesus The Bread of Life (The I AM Statements of Christ) Introduction: Many people, Christian and Non-Christian would see the Scripture, Biblical doctrine and following Jesus as the denial of “life” the denial of true satisfaction, a boring life, but the exact opposite is true. I’m not saying that if you follow Jesus all your wildest dreams will come true, but the continual offer of scripture is “Life abundant and eternal in Jesus.” “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward … promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” -C.S Lewis Jesus statements: • “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” • “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” • “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” • “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” • “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. A most certain reason we see the scripture as opposed to fulfillment and life, is that we think WE know what life is all about and WE think we know what we truly need to be satisfied. The Original lie of the Devil…God is keeping you from true Joy, God is keeping you from what can really satisfy, and you are going to miss out on life if you surrender to and follow Jesus The truth is just like Adam and Eve, we don’t know what is best for us, and we don’t naturally seek after what can truly satisfy. But God knows. He created us and he knows exactly how we can be filled up - how we can be satisfied. That’s what Jesus Bread sermon is all about. "Do you want a delicious and permanently satisfying meal? Let me tell you where to get it” The human person knows deep down inside oneself that the food that gives us this earthly life is not lastingly satisfying. We long for a deeper quality of life. The Gospel of John is one repeated promise after another to provide this life. 1. You Are Chasing the White Whale 1. “On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 2. Just like the conversations with Nicodemus and the Woman at the Well Jesus cuts right to the point and down to this multitude’s deep issue - you are chasing the wrong thing. 3. They are seeking Jesus, not because they saw the sign and realized that it points to Jesus uniqueness, power and true identity; but because they had a meal provided by Jesus that filled them up. They didn’t even see the sign. 4. Since they have completely missed the point of the sign, Jesus is going to help them to see what they should have seen. He tells them work for or labor for food that doesn’t perish but that endures to Eternal life. Work for what can truly satisfy! 1. Most of us have an idea of what will truly satisfy us, what the missing ingredient to our happiness is……. But the scriptures tell us over and again that we are most likely wrong. We do not know. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death.” 2. I’ve said this before but God does the same thing with us, each day in many different ways God is telling us, “do not labor for the the food which perishes (the mere physical)” - it doesn’t satisfy and it won’t last. God often does this by allowing us to achieve those goals, only to find that they were not the “true bread” we were looking for. 1. You might have the perfect plan for your life, a great education, career, marriage, family, and if these things don’t happen something inside of you dies, or when they happen, and they aren’t life fulfilling, again something inside you dies. “ 2. “That mini-experience of death is a warning sign. Beliefs that let us down are prophetic whispers, saying, ‘Don’t you see where this is going?’” -Ray Ortlund Jr 2. What Should we be Chasing? 1. “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 1. The People now ask Jesus, “How? What are those works of God? How do you work for the bread that gives eternal life? 2. Jesus gives them the most simple answer: “This is the work of God, (singular) that you believe in him whom he has sent.” There is only one work, one thing they have to do and that is believe, trust in, in the One he has sent. 3. The people miss the whole point of Jesus statement. They then ask him to do a sign to prove that he is the sent One - Moses fed the children of Israel with Manna daily for forty years - Jesus has fed them once. If Jesus is truly greater than Moses and sent by the Father they’re expecting him to up the ante a bit, and hopefully to get some food out of it… 4. But Jesus clarifies for them that the bread of life that he is speaking of is not a thing it is a person… “The Bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 1. So if we are chasing after, working for, laboring towards things..please wake up! Things cannot satisfy! 2. “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.” - Lewis 3. How Do We Get Satisfaction and Fulfillment? 1. “They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 1. We get there simply by asking what his hearers just now asked, “Lord, please always give us this bread.” What a simple prayer… 2. How do we get the bread of Life, how do we get this fulfillment Jesus is speaking of? 1. Jesus says, “the person simply coming to me.” 3. Answer: Just come, and then come again, and then come again. Coming to him in faith, believing that he is all that he says he is and that he will do exactly what he says. (“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. - Hebrews 11:6) 1. “All the grandeur and the greatness belong to the heaven sent, cosmos coming one. He does all the work. Is there any simpler way, then, to describe our responsibility? "Just come” - The simplest prayer “comes.” The simplest personal presence in his Church, where is people, Word, and Sacraments are present, “comes.” The simplest God-ward thought “comes.” A personal time of Prayer, a family time of prayer, a small group meeting in his name “comes.” The simplest personal obedience to the will and Spirit of God, whom we have learned and received from Jesus in various personal and public situations "comes.” Of course Jesus does not list all these out for us. He simply invites us to be “comers,” and thats all. And to all such comers he promises no real hunger ever again.” -F.D. Bruner 2. Where you and I get into trouble, where we get into sin and idolatry is when we stop going to Jesus, when we start thinking that “Life,”that, “satisfaction,” exist apart from him, or outside of him….. We make the same mistake as our first parents.. we make the mistake of the Jews 1. In the garden man sought ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction outside of God by eating of the physical, and thereby became himself only physical subject to hunger and subject to death. Whereas if he were to have feasted on God, (continually have gone to God) he would have remained eternal and would have been eternally satisfied in God…. 2. “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." - Jeremiah 2:12-13 3. “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.” -2 Samuel 12:7-8 4. Conclusion: The Bread of Life - true satisfaction, true fulfillment is offered us in the person of Jesus Christ. God the Father gives the gift of life to the world through offering his Son, The True Bread of Life, the desire of nations, the joy of every longing heart. God gives us himself in his Son. And by giving us himself he gives us all things. 5. “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us peace and happiness apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” -Lewis 1. Our part then is to come to him again and again and again so that we may be satisfied by him, that we may be filled up. 2. Do we believe this? 3. When you are dissatisfied, when you are empty, when you are disillusioned about life, where will you go? 4. Will you go to entertainment? Will you go to recreation? Will you go to new life goals? Will you go to new relationships? Or will you go to Jesus? 5. Will you come to him today? Will you put aside your ideas about what will truly satisfy you and will you come to Jesus? Will you take Jesus at his word? Will you allow him to be all that the Father intends him to be for you? My prayer is that each of us would.