2021.08.08
Notes
Transcript
What’s It Mean To ‘Eat From This Bread’?
What’s It Mean To ‘Eat From This Bread’?
41 So then the Jews were complaining about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.”
42 And they were saying, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’ ?”
43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop complaining among yourselves.
44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.
46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.
47 Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life.
48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
50 This is the bread that comes down out of heaven, so that anyone may eat from it and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world also is My flesh.”
What’s It Mean To ‘Eat From This Bread’?
What’s It Mean To ‘Eat From This Bread’?
A few years ago, my High School best friend lost his brother and his dad in short timeframe. Shortly after all of this, I was in Louisville and had supper with him. As we ate, we remembered bygone days, and we talked a bit about our jobs. Rick told me that a lot of our circle of friends wonder how he can be friends with me because I’m a pastor. He’s a very involved member of the LGBTQ community. So many of these people don’t understand how I could possibly believe what I believe biblically, and still love him. AND … they remember the twerp I was in High School.
He said he told them, you don’t know Chris anymore. You know a Chris that doesn’t exist anymore. And I almost cried.
Rick sees beyond the stupid little twit I was in my younger years, even though many of our mutual acquaintances can’t. They’d see the difference if they’d look past what they think they already know about me.
The Jews in today’s Gospel reading are struggling with the same thing. They’ve totally missed that he called himself “bread” (what the heck does THAT mean anyway?), and are struggling because he said he came from Heaven.
They watched Jesus grow up in Mary and Joseph’s household. They saw him get in scrapes with the neighborhood kids; and break neighbors windows with snowballs; and steal baseball cards from the corner store … okay, maybe those things are more me than him. :)
But they’ve known him since early childhood, so they know he didn’t come from Heaven … he came from Nazareth!
He bears the marks, though, of someone who came from Heaven, if only they’d look beyond what they think they already know about him.
After Jesus claims to be bread from heaven, he then tells them (and us) that we should “eat from this bread” in order to live forever.
There’s a lot of symbolism in this language, so let me brush on that before I dive into the real teaching in this passage.
Jesus referred to the Pharisees and Scribes’ teaching as yeast. In Judaism, yeast is a bad thing. It represents sin. It puffs up the bread and provides more air than nourishment.
Bread, however, is the whole package. Bread provides the basic sustenance of life. So on a symbolic level, Jesus is saying he is a more life-giving teacher than their other teachers.
But what is in this bread?
That’s where the Ephesians passage is helpful.
While this passage in no way holds all of Jesus’s nourishing teaching, it is good nourishment for those who would listen, learn, and follow it.
At the end of the passage, Paul tells us to be imitators of God based on what he’s just taught, so let’s very quickly look at what he’s taught:
25 Therefore, ridding yourselves of falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are parts of one another.
Get rid of falsehood. Do not bear false witness. Stop lying! Tell each other the truth … no embellishment … no partial truths … speak the truth.
26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
We are human beings, and we will be angry about things from time to time. Is anger a sin? NO! Paul says, “Be angry, yet do not sin,” so sin and anger don’t have to be tied together. Instead, we should find ways to handle our anger so that we don’t end the day still angry. A good night’s sleep may diminish the emotions … or it may cement them into your heart. Anger that you let stick around will grow.
It will morph into bitterness, and eventually a grudge against someone else. Believer/non-believer, it makes no difference: Holding a grudge is sin. That’s why we should get rid of our anger before it sits on us too long.
Think I’m making up anger can cause sin?
27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.
Holding onto anger gives Satan an opportunity. We think he’s active in our world, and he is. But Satan’s greatest work today is being done in church folk.
Satan is actively driving wedges between believers because he knows if he can divide us, we’ll be distracted from offering hope to non-believers.
Eventually, that grudge you find so comfortable will eat you alive. The wedge between you and your brother will become an obsession that pushes you far away from discipleship … and Satan wins.
31 All bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice.
Disagreements don’t cause church splits.
THESE things cause church splits.
If we are passionate about winning souls for God’s Kingdom, at some point we are going to disagree about the best way to do that. It’s very different when we disagree about approach or technique than about the Truth.
Contrary to what the world will show you, We can disagree without bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice.
How?
Paul says these things “must be removed”.
What’s It Mean To ‘Eat From This Bread’?
What’s It Mean To ‘Eat From This Bread’?
This is part of the nourishing teaching of God … the bread from Heaven. And removing those things is part of what it means to ‘eat from this bread’. So whatcha gonna do?
Do you disagree with someone else? Are you holding bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, or malice toward another person? If you want to be fruitful for God’s Kingdom, YOU must remove those things from your life.
In a minute, I’m going to pray, and then we’ll sing. My prayer will be pretty general. If you’d like to pray more specifically, I would invite you to come to the altar rail during the song to pray about whatever it is that needs to be removed from your life, so you can ‘eat from this bread’.
As you come forward, if you want to pray by yourself, just come forward, kneel or stand and spend however much time you need dealing with the Lord. If you’d like me to come pray with you, just catch my eye and wave your hand at me, and I’ll come pray with you.
Last week, we ate the bread that represented God’s redemption. This week, I invite you forward to ‘eat this bread from Heaven’ that leads to eternal life … by removing bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice from your heart.
Let’s pray.
