To Whom Shall We Go?

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Opener

Folding Analogy

Review

We cheated and looked ahead to the end of the chapter so we know this whole time that except for a few, everyone with Jesus in chapter 6 is a counterfeit disciple.
Even one of Jesus’s 12 disciples is a fraud - Judas.
But if we didn’t know this ahead of time and we got to verse 34 we might be confused by what follows.
I bet even the crowds were confused by what followed - they’re getting excited about this guy.
Wannabe Disciples
Astonished at Jesus’s miracle feeding - want to make him king - 1-15
Desperately pursue him across Galilee - 22-24
Seeking an answer to who he is and how he does what he does - 25-31
If we were to approach this passage in Chapter 6 like we’d never read it before we would likely have a favorable view of the people.
Hard to imagine that by the end of the day they would be abandoning Jesus - calling him radical, crazy, confused

Mixed Metaphors

Because these folks are desperate for something. They think Jesus might be the Messiah but they’re not sure. They figure it’s worth a shot - let’s hear this guy out. See if he’s the real deal!
By v. 33-34 their interest is peaked! Edge of their seats!
The people hear the Jesus speak of this eternal bread that the God will send down from heaven and beg Jesus, “Sir, Give us this bread!”
You think they might almost be ready to make the leap and confess Jesus is the messiah.
When we read the people’s demand in v. 34 “Give us this bread!” that’s a powerful statement in the right context.
To the soul surrendered to Christ in worship, when they look at Jesus on the cross and see God’s provision for eternal life, for forgiveness of sins - they cry out “Give me this bread always!” That’s the collective plea of the true church, friends!
But that’s not the case for this crowd in front of Jesus today in John 6
When Jesus speaks of bread and when the crowds asks for bread - they’re on two sides of a great divide
Jesus means something totally different than what they WANT him to mean

Bread as a Metonym

Jesus is using a Metonym when he speaks of bread!
Sounds a lot like metaphor but different:
Metaphor is a rhetorical device used to compare an object or action to something that it cannot actually do or be.
Like: “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
Romeo sees Juliet in the window and compares her to the sun! That’s a metaphor.
Metonymy is a similar device that you actually use pretty often
Any time you hear someone the current presidential administration as “the white house” or Facebook and Google and “big tech” - that’s metonymy.
It’s replacing a proper name with a word that gives metaphorical meaning to it’s antecedent

Jesus’s Definition of Bread

Jesus uses metonymy here for rhetorical effect.
As a symbol for food - all food, not just literal bread
v. 27. “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures”
Jesus interchanges bread and food - the point being - the stuff that sustains you.
As a metaphor for the Father’s provision for his people
v. 32. “My Father gives true bread from heaven.”
v. 33 ‘The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven.”
What Jesus means by bread or food is not something served on a plate or baked in a loaf -
Like he says in Luke 17:20

20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

The kingdom is “Within” - it’s a spiritual kingdom.
The eternal bread in John 6 is not some magical bread that grants eternal life like the fountain of you.
This isn’t an Indiana Jones movie!
Maybe this seems elementary that Jesus isn’t referring to literal bread here but the entire catholic church seems to have misunderstood this so I want to be clear!
Catholic Mass - where they take Eucharist or Communion - is built around the idea that when a priest blesses the elements (bread and wine) of communion it becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus -
called Transubstantiation!
In their view Jesus is literally sacrificed over and over again at every meal so parishioners can receive God’s grace. To them you must perform some sacred, magical act to commune with God - where there’s some mediator between the person and Christ - catholics like to think it’s the church and the pope but this is false - Christ is the sole authority and mediator of God’s kingdom.
It’s a mutilation of these scriptures -
Romans 6:10 clearly tells us “The death Christ died, he died to sin, ONCE FOR ALL...”
There’s clearly STILL some confusion over Jesus’s words here so I want to be careful
Jesus is speaking in spiritual, not physical terms - the crowds in John 6 and the catholic church’s doctrine are fixated on the temporal and the physical.

The Crowd’s Definition of Bread

v. 34 “Sir, give us this bread always.”
The crowd’s definition is different than Jesus’s. They quite literally expect a meal.
Beyond that they expect the Messiah to be a king, with a throne and an army.
They fail to grasp the significance of who the Messiah is, who Jesus is...
Got all the OT scriptures wrong.
They’re religious system has failed them. God in the flesh is right there in front of them and they miss it.
Jesus is talking about spiritual food and the crowd thinks he’s talking about the lunch menu.

The Gap

There’s a Gap in the thinking of the crowds. A space between what they perceive and what they believe.
There’s a book called A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken that Sammi and I read in college
It’s a memoir and a powerful love story that recounts Sheldon’s life, how he meets his wife Jane, how she died and how Sheldon became a Christ follower.
Sheldon was a skeptic of religion and all things spiritual and through his interaction with a gentleman by the name of C.S. Lewis - he came to a rather important conclusion regarding his skepticism of God.
He realized that you couldn’t reason your way to faith in Jesus. There was no proof that made it incontrovertibly real. The final element of faith in Jesus was the lead you have to take from evidence to belief.
He says it like this…
“There is a gap between the probable and the proved. How was I to cross it? If I were to stake my whole life on the risen Christ, I wanted proof – I wanted certainty. I wanted to see him eat a bit of fish. I wanted letters of fire across the sky. I got none of these. And I continued to hang about on the edge of the gap … it was a question of whether I was going to accept him or reject him.
My God, there was a gap behind me as well. Perhaps the leap to acceptance was a horrifying gamble, but what of the leap to rejection! There might be no absolute certainty that Christ was God, but there was no certainty that he was not. This was not to be borne. I could not reject Jesus. There was only one thing to do once I had seen the gap behind me. I turned away from it, and flung myself over the gap towards Jesus.”
This GAP is the same place the people in the crowds find themselves in v. 34 asking for bread. They refuse to make the leap. Jesus points out in v. 36 “You have seen me and yet do not believe.”
As soon as it becomes apparent that the people have misunderstood - Jesus clarifies.
That’s where we land in v. 35.
In. v. 35 Jesus begins a sermon to clear up the misunderstanding about the bread, identifying himself as the bread
“I am the bread of life...”
Jesus’s sermon here at the end of the bread of life has one clear purpose - to clearly preach God’s plan of salvation.
Jesus is going to tell us about...
The Father Who Provides the True Bread
The True Children Who Eat the Bread
This is the simplest way to think about it
What the Father Does and How We Respond - that’s what Jesus’s sermon on the bread of life teaches us.

The Father Who Provides the Bread v. 35-51

The first point Jesus wants to make is…

This Identity of the Bread - what is it? Where does it come from?

Two things to note here:
The Bread is Jesus
v. 35 Jesus says, “I Am....”
We talked about this back when we studied Jesus walking on water
This phrase “I Am” or “Ego Emi” - Yahweh - Jesus is uttering the proper name of God, kept so holy and revered by the Jews it was never to be uttered.
This is the first of seven times in John’s gospel where Jesus uses the name of God
Jesus uses it here for great effect - he does not want to point missed -
“You want the bread from heaven that God sends down. It’s me. I and the father are one. I am God and I am the eternal bread.”
When Jesus talks about bread from heaven, he means himself - he means that He himself is the thing that comes down from heaven that gives you eternal life.
Jesus is Eternal Bread
Jesus not only tells us that he is the bread but he gives us insight into his nature as God’s heavenly provision for eternal life.
Where does Jesus come from?
Christmas story - born of the virgin girl Mary - but Jesus’s birth was not the beginning for Him!
v. 38 He says, “I have come down from heaven…”
v. 50 “This bread comes down from heaven...”
v. 51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven..”
v. 57-58 “Whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven...”
Look elsewhere in John’s gospel and you find…
John 13:3 where he washes the disciples feet John says…

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

John 17:5, 8 in the high priestly prayer before Jesus’s betrayal…
“glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
“For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”
You even see this in Jesus’s “I AM...” statement in v. 35. He’s identifying himself as the eternal God.
These clowns comparing him to Moses saying, “Moses fed Israel in the desert for 40 years…how are you going to prove you’re as powerful as him?”
Jesus is thinking, “Who do you think spoke to Moses in the burning bush? Who met with Moses on the mountain? Who spoke to Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire?”
Do you see this church? Jesus is no ordinary man, though he was born as another man this was not his beginning! Jesus always was.
He was not created or born. There was no point when Jesus didn’t exist.
This is a point of contention for the people in the crowd - see their response to Jesus in v. 42
“They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
They’re thinking, how can this guy that we saw grow up come down from heaven? We know his parents.
They don’t understand the miracle of the incarnation or the power of the Messiah standing in front of them.
They don’t understand that God’s purpose in coming down from heaven is not to glorify Israel by defeating their enemies. But to glorify himself by defeating death and sin!
This means that God did not create a messiah as some afterthought to the fall of humanity - like a backup plan.
No. It means that God himself, took on flesh as the primary means of atoning for our sin against him!
This leads us to the second thing Jesus teaches us about the Father Who Provides the Bread

The Father’s Purpose for the Bread

Jesus reveals to us that God, from the beginning of creation, had always intended to send Jesus as the bread from heaven for eternal life.

1. God Sends the Son

Jesus makes it clear that He has come down from heaven but also that he didn’t come down of his own accord but at the will of the father.
v. 38 “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but the will of Him who sent me.”
v. 40 “For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life...”
The father has a will and a purpose for the son. His plan was not just to send Jesus and see how it worked out.
So God sends the son and then draws people to the son …

2. God Draws People to the Son

v. 37 Jesus says “All that the father gives me will come to me…”
v. 44 “No one can come to me (Jesus) unless the father who sent me draws him.”
v. 45 “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”
This is The Purpose of the Bread
The heavenly father’s purpose in sending the son, the bread of life, is not to teach people a better way to live or give them life tips on holiness - no it’s to draw them to Jesus - Jesus is the eternal food.
We also see that The drawing of the soul to God is not done by persuasive arguments or impressive oratory. It's not a feet of human logic - you cannot reason or be reasoned into the kingdom. God reveals and draws according to his own power.
A preacher or an evangelist is just a messenger. You are just a messenger. Carrying a message for the king. The king’s authority and the king’s words are what give the message it’s power. Don’t forget that.
Jesus’s words, “everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” shows us that the father is actively working and drawing people to Jesus. But Why?

3. The Son Receives and Keeps All that the Father Sends

v. 40 and 44 give us this process of salvation that Jesus is trying to explain to the crowd of Isrealites.
The Father sends the son, The Father draws people to the Son, the Son receives ALL those the Father sends, The Son raises them up to eternal life.
This is The Promise of the Bread
What does the bread, what does Jesus DO? Why would we want to eat this eternal bread that Jesus claims is his body?
Look at v. 35 again “It is the bread of LIFE”
Life
In the greek it’s ζωῆς· (zoase) - not BIOS - not biological life. it’s more.
Dzoa is your soul - true life - what makes you alive.
Jesus’s promise as the bread of life is not to give you fullness of biological life - no. that’s what food is for. This is not about living longer or living healthier or living with more happiness
I Don’t care what new age nonsense the pastor on the TV is spouting off about - THAT’s NOT LIFE!
Jesus brings fullness of spiritual life - eternal life. Life that goes on forever in the presence of God.
Look at v. 40 again - “That everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have ETERNAL life…
And here’s the promise, “And I will raise him up on the last day.” THAT is the promise we cling to church. The promise of what awaits us in the NEW Heaven and New Earth - not this one.
The son receives and Keeps all that the father draws to him..
Raises the question, did I come or did the Father call me?
Answer: “Yes”
You cannot come if you will not. You will not if the father doesn’t call.
“How can I be sure the Father has called me?”
John D. Faith Is Mental Assent (6:34–51)

How can one be sure that the Father has really given him to Christ? Will he come only to be rebuffed? Jesus made plain that human salvation is no surprise to God. He summons men to himself by his Word and by his Spirit. They can come only at his invitation. The invitation, however, is not restricted to any particular time or place, nor is it exclusively for any one nation, race, or culture. No man needs to fear that he will come in vain, for Jesus said emphatically that he would not refuse anyone. Man does not make his opportunity for salvation; he accepts its free offer. A superficial attachment to God is not enough, for if the desire for salvation is not inspired by God, true salvation will not result (Tenney, EBC, p. 76).

The Father draws, the Son Keeps - and nothing can tear a genuine disciple from the Lord’s grasp. It is the firmest, strongest promise ever made. Seek the bread of life church - always. It is given for you by the Father who wills that ALL will not only be drawn to Jesus like the crowds but will cling to Him and receive eternal life.
This leads to the Jesus’s second point in his sermon - how should we respond to the Father’s offering of this bread of life.

The Children Who Partake of the Bread

What is our responsibility? Do we sit and wait for salvation to happen?
NO! "He who comes to me"

First Requirement is to Come (.v 35)

“whoever COMES to me shall not hunger.”
No one can know whether they've been chose or if God will draw them we must GO!
Anyone who comes! Open invitation
Come - Look - like the seekers in the crowd that day -
In my own testimony, the way the Lord sought me out, I can look back and see that the difference between hearing and believing the gospel and running headlong into a life of sin was the curious longing the Lord gave me to want to hear more about this Jesus and his death.
There’s no reason I should have come to Christ. I was happy in my sin as a teenager. I wanted more of what the world had to offer but the Father, through many appointed people and circumstances begged me to come and look. Just look at Jesus - come see.
I had heard it all and read it before. I knew the message but I had never looked at Jesus - really looked. The Lord moved in my soul.
The first requirement of salvation is to come which means there’s a second. There’s second because just standing off and admiring Christ is not enough.
Many people like to do this even today:
“I respect the teaching of the bible. There’s lots of wisdom in there.”
“You know, I try to live life by the good book. Live by the golden rule.”
I get this all the time when people ask me what I do and I say I’m a pastor. “Good for you. That’s nice.”
That’s code for - “Quick. Look Christian so he doesn’t preach to you!”
Sammi told me this week about an author who wrote a book about how to read the bible from someone who, based on their understanding of the scriptures, had not read it before - I 100% believe that.
This admiring from a distance though, it’s not a valid response to Christ’s claim to be the bread of life!

Second is to Believe

This is the thesis of John’s gospel!
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that whoever BELIEVES in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”
John 5:24 “Truly I say to you whoever hears my words and BELIEVES Him who sent me has eternal life”
John 1:12 “But to all who recieved him, who BELIEVED in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
You must come into contact with Jesus but you must ALSO BELIEVE!
What does this look like according to Jesus’s sermon here? Look at V. 50
“This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die
Belonging to Christ is not about appreciating him or acknowledging him, you must partake of him.
It’s not about looking at the yummy bread. YOU MUST EAT. YOU MUST CONSUME!
Look at v.53-55
“53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
Believing in the PERSON of Christ is NOT ENOUGH
Jesus set’s it straight
Believing that in my life and my works is not enough. You must also believe in my death!
Shocking message. Offensive to Jews.
see in v.52 and 60
They grumbled at this and said “How? Who can listen to this?”
The messiah is going to die? NO WAY
Think of Peter's response to Jesus teaching about his own death in Mark 8
Peter rebukes Jesus for saying such a thing.
"get behind me satan."
Only when Jesus meets the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection did they really receive this truth!
You must believe in Christ's death -
Jesus is not a teacher or and example or a prophet
You must believe and confess his sacrificial death
As bread he nourishes. As blood he cleanses.
This death is a stumbling block.
The people didn't like this. They didn't get it so... v. 66
"many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him."
They could believe He was sent from God. They could believe He was the messiah, the bread come down from heaven, but the death, the blood. Too much.
I doubt many of here this morning would have qualms with the theological statement -
“Christ's blood alone washes away sins.”
I can ask my unbelieving kids, “Why did Jesus die on the cross?” “To take away my sin.” they’ll say.
Many of you have heard that phrase and that teaching more times than you could count. You know that to be a true statement. Perhaps even you confessed that to God in a prayer you prayed long ago when you walked down an aisle a lot like this one.
You have contemplated and understood the principle of Jesus's death - but you have not believed it. You have not staked your life on it and you have not died with Christ.
Let us consider the wealth of scripture that proves to us that the call to Christ is a call to come and partake not just of his life but of his death! To die with HIM!
Colossians 2:11-12

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Colossians 3:1-3

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Romans 7:4-6

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Romans 6:9-11

9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

2 Cor 5:14-17

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

You have not believed in Christ's death because you have rejected the call to come and die.
You cannot be new if the old has not died. You cannot be a new creation if the old one has not been buried.
That is what Christ means when he calls you to come and eat the Bread of life.
That you come a die - to yourself, to the world, to the passions of the flesh, to sin, to the old self
And then to be buried, SO THAT he can raise you up to new life, eternal life, a life dedicated to feasting on the Bread of life every moment of every day - resting in the glory of the Son of God.

What Kind of Disciple Are You?

Counterfeit Disciple

Accepts the Invite But Miss the Meal
Jesus tells a parable at a feast saying,

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”

The Lord is calling EVERYONE - it’s not enough to RSVP though. You have to come.
Dinner Bell & Death Knell Analogy
Two kinds of bells we don't really use any more.
We used these to signal a call to come - a call to come and eat. a call to come and mourn the dead.

Christ's call is a call to come and eat

Isaiah 55:1-3

“Come, everyone who thirsts,

come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price.

2  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

and delight yourselves in rich food.

3  Incline your ear, and come to me;

hear, that your soul may live;

and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

my steadfast, sure love for David.

Christ's call is also a call to come and die

Mark 16:24-25

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

The Genuine Disciple answers both.
Our text ends like this…

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Many turned back because the call to come and DIE was too hard, they said, “I can’t do that!”
Peter’s response, should be our response, “I have to do that.”
because Christ alone is everything
Everything alone without Christ is nothing.
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