The Bread of Life

How hungry are you this morning? Your body is probably thrown off because of the time change, so I bet you are extra hungry.

When I get like this, there is one thing that I am a sucker for: good rolls.

Which restaurants do you think have the best? For me, it’s a toss-up - O’Charley’s and Texas Roadhouse. I think my favorite might be O’Charley’s when they are just a little underdone and they melt like cotton candy when you bite into them.

I would probably eat my body-weight in rolls if each basket came out right.

Have you ever eaten so many rolls that you weren’t hungry when the meal came?

Here’s the thing, though—have you ever eaten enough rolls that you were full for the rest of your life?

You may have skipped a meal after a big lunch, but even the most satisfying meals have always left you wanting more.

A few hours later, or the next day, you are looking for something to soothe that ache in the pit of your stomach.

Jesus is going to use that reality this morning to point us again to the fact that he alone can satisfy our heart’s deepest longing.

If this sounds familiar, it is a similar picture to what he used in John 4, where he offered living water to the woman at the well.

Why are we going back and looking at this same kind of concept again?

Because this time, Jesus pushes the crowd further into understanding just what it takes to find that lasting satisfaction that only Jesus can give us.

He uses language that, when we get down to it, makes us uncomfortable. It did with the crowd that day, and it still is odd to hear today.

Here’s the main truth I want you to take home with you today: Feeding on Jesus is the only way to find life.

If you aren’t familiar with these verses, then that sounds incredibly strange. However, we will see that Jesus is using a beautiful picture as we get further into it.

With that said, let’s dive into our text this morning.

The account unfolds in several different movements, but let’s divide it into three as we give this overview. We are actually only going to have two main points and a conclusion, but let’s divide this into three different parts.

In the first part of the account, we see Jesus multiplying five loaves and two fish and feeding 5,000 men plus women and children, and there are twelve baskets of bread left over.

In the second part of the account, we see the crowd chasing after Jesus, and he talks with them about what that bread symbolizes.

In the final part, we see the responses of the crowds and his disciples to what he has said.

We are going to cover a lot of ground this morning, so let’s dive in and quickly go through the feeding of the 5,000. Start in verses 1-15...

After feeding the 5,000, Jesus sends his disciples across the lake in the night, and he walks out on the water to join them later.

The next morning, everyone figures out Jesus had to have left at some point and they rush to the other side of the lake.

When they catch up to Jesus, here’s how he responds. Look at verse 25-29...

Here’s where we get to the meat of the message this morning.

The first observation we can make from what we have seen so far is that...

1) Tasting what God can do isn’t enough.

There is quite a crowd that is following Jesus.

John said back in verse 2 that it was a huge crowd.

Scholars estimate that with women and children, the crowd he fed was likely well over 10,000 people.

He took this kid’s lunch and used it to feed a massive amount of people, and he had twelve baskets left over.

When the people saw it, they thought this man must be the Prophet they were looking for, and they were ready to make him king.

They were following Jesus; they even chased him around Galilee.

At first, doesn’t that sound right?

Isn’t Jesus the one who fulfilled all those promises in the Old Testament? Isn’t he the one who is bringing his kingdom into the world? Isn’t he the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

Shouldn’t we leave everything to follow him?

All those things are true, but the crowds still didn’t understand who Jesus was and what he was doing.

Look back at verse 25-26.

They were coming to Jesus because they wanted what he was dishing out.

They saw the signs, but then they ate the food, and it filled them up. They wanted in on more of that.

They wanted all the benefits that they thought would come with being in the Messiah’s kingdom.

However, Jesus said that all of that was just the external stuff that wouldn’t satisfy.

He went on to say that following Jesus for the outward benefits was similar to the manna that the Israelites ate in the wilderness while they were wandering around for 40 years.

Here’s what that looked like on the first morning God provided it:

Exodus 16:14–16 CSB

When the layer of dew evaporated, there were fine flakes on the desert surface, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was. Moses told them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each person needs to eat. You may take two quarts per individual, according to the number of people each of you has in his tent.’ ”

They called it “manna”, which literally means, “What is it?”

Not only was this manna unique because it was on the ground every morning, God had also commanded them just to take enough for each day. Anything left over until the morning would rot overnight, with the exception of the bread they collected Friday morning that would last through the Sabbath on Saturday.

It was miraculous provision that God gave his people through their wandering.

However, it was bread that perished. Every day, they needed to get more.

Not only did the bread perish, everyone who ate the manna eventually died themselves. The manna didn’t kill them, but it also wasn’t enough to give them eternal life. It sustained them and gave them the energy they needed, but it wasn’t actually giving them life.

Look at the contrast Jesus makes in verses 47-51...

There is something different that Jesus is offering here. He isn’t offering bread that perishes or that simply sustains; he is offering bread that gives life.

The crowds were coming because they wanted more baskets of food. They wanted the external blessings of following Jesus, seeing diseases healed and having an abundance of bread.

However, Jesus was offering something far better than that.

Let me ask you: why are you following Jesus today? Why are you here?

Is it because you have seen a little of what God can do, and you like it?

Have you seen someone on TV who claims that Jesus made them rich, or have you even seen how God has changed someone’s life when they got right with him?

Let me be clear: there are incredible benefits that come from following Jesus, but they are secondary and not the primary reason we follow. He doesn’t heal every disease or make everyone who follows him rich or fix every problem in your life.

I get concerned that some of you who come here and sing and hear the Word preached, or who join us online for our services—that some of you are just here for the food.

You are here because the people here are nice, and the songs make you feel something. You are here because you want to be a good person, and Jesus seems like a really great guy.

Let me be clear and say that I am so glad you are here, and I am glad you are listening to our services.

You may still be figuring out who Jesus is and whether or not you want to follow Jesus, and that is part of the process.

However, I want to read a passage for you as a warning:

Hebrews 6:4–6 CSB

For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.

I will be the first to admit that this is a tricky passage, so let’s break it down.

Some believe that this is talking about people who lost their salvation. They were Christians, but they walked away, and now they aren’t saved anymore.

That goes against what we believe the rest of the Bible teaches about salvation, even with what we just read in verse 45.

So, what is this talking about, then?

I believe this is talking about people like the crowd that day.

It’s people who have been around church, who know what to say and how to behave, and think that they are squared away with God, when the reality is their hearts were never changed.

They took a bite, but they never fully committed to Christ.

It’s impossible to restore them to repentance, because they don’t think they need it.

Is that talking about you? You’ve tasted Christianity, you have tried it some, but you think you are good to go, and you don’t need to get all radical about this whole Jesus thing.

Listen, can I be bold enough to point you to what Jesus says here, and with all the love I can muster tell you that that isn’t enough?

You see, if you and I are going to be fully satisfied in our inner being, and if we are going to have eternal life, then we have to recognize our second observation:

2) Feeding on Jesus leads to life.

Jesus said in verse 48 that he is the bread of life.

He is the bread that gives life.

Look at what he means by that. Pick up in verse 51-58...

This is disturbing, isn’t it?

The Jews were confused by what Jesus meant, and in fact, the early Christians were accused of cannibalism by the Romans because of this teaching.

Jesus said you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood to find life.

In fact, did you notice that he stepped up the analogy in verse 57? Not just eat, but feed on his flesh.

That is a different picture, isn’t it?

For those of you who are used to church, your mind may immediately go to the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, where we eat bread and drink juice to commemorate Christ’s death until he comes.

Although that picture illustrates this truth, that doesn’t seem to be what he is primarily talking about.

No, Jesus is saying that eternal life—life that goes on forever—is found only when we are willing to feed on Jesus’s flesh and blood.

This isn’t a tasting, where you get half a bite of some food that you have to roll around in your mouth for a while to get a sense of it.

Jesus is saying that you have to feed on his flesh if you are going to have life.

Before we move too quickly into the explanation phase, let’s sit with this for a minute.

Does it make you uncomfortable to think that following Jesus means consuming his flesh and blood?

That doesn’t sound like some minor commitment, does it? Feeding on Jesus sounds a lot more involved than just coming to church and going through the motions and throwing a little money in the plate when it goes by, doesn’t it?

That sounds difficult, repulsive even.

Good—now you are getting it.

Jesus makes it clear in verse 63 that he is using imagery here, conveying spiritual realities through physical pictures.

You see, eternal life is a free gift that God offers through his Son.

How do we gain that eternal life? Look back in verse 47.

We gain eternal life through belief in Jesus.

We believe that we were lost and without hope, separated from God because of all the wrong things we have thought and done, which the Bible calls sin.

Jesus was alluding to something that we know more clearly than they did that day. His body, his flesh and blood, would be broken as he was hung on the cross to pay for my sin and yours.

He was buried, and three days later, he proved that he was God and the source of life by rising from the dead. He paid the penalty for my sin and yours, and now he offers us himself as the bread of life.

How do we feed on Jesus’s flesh and blood? By believing in him.

True, saving faith in Jesus calls us to lay down everything that we would hold on to otherwise.

We lay down everything we think will satisfy us, and we let him lead us. We lay down our jobs, our degrees, our families, our health, our money, our time, our energy.

We can’t keep taking a nibble of the Bible here and a nibble of Jesus there; instead, the bread of life calls us to feed richly and deeply on Christ.

Think about someone you know who changed their eating habits after the doctor gave them news.

I had a man who tried to sell us pots and pans that literally cost as much as my car one time. He described a man who ate lots of fried foods and had a heart attack. He grew convinced that this cookware would allow him to cook healthier food for his family, so he spent over $10,000 in pots and pans for himself and his children so he could extend his life and spare his children the pain he had endured.

That is a dramatic reorientation to feed on something different, isn’t it?

That’s what Christ calls us to do: to reorient our lives around his body that was broken for us, and his blood that was shed on our behalf.

Look again at verses 54-55… His body and blood are the true, satisfying food and drink that we long for.

So, how do you respond to that this morning?

You have two different options—turn away life the crowd, or lean in like the disciples.

Look at verse 60, 66 - This was too much for the crowds. They were here for the easy-to-see food. That was enough for them, so when the time came and they saw what it would take to follow Jesus, they figured they could find food elsewhere.

Is that you this morning? You’re content to put Jesus in this little corner of your life and leave him there, just so long as he doesn’t mess anything up about how you want to live?

You might have every intention of leaving this service or turning off this stream and never coming back to a church again.

Don’t make that mistake—you are missing out on the only thing that can actually satisfy your soul.

Instead, you can react like Simon Peter and others did. Pick back up in verse 67-69.

Imagine if this morning, as I was preaching this, people just started to get up and walk out.

By the time I was done, there were only a handful of people still here.

Can you imagine the tension if I asked the same question Jesus did?

All the air has been let out of the room, and I imagine everyone kinda stared at their feet for a minute.

Finally, Peter speaks up—”Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

I may be wrong, but don’t those words sound heavy to you? They are laden with the acknowledgment that following Jesus is going to be costly and lonely and painful and challenging and even confusing at times, but with that is the understanding that this is the only way to walk in light of eternal life.

Yes, feeding on Jesus is an offensive picture, but it points to the most beautiful truth in history: the God of the universe gave himself so you could live. How dare we refuse to follow him?

We don’t have a choice to run off; this is the only way to satisfaction and life and joy and peace, so where else are we going to go?

Is that your resolve this morning, or are you a part of the crowd that is ready to bail the moment anything goes wrong?

Remember who is calling you to follow him: the God who is life, yet was willing to lay down his own life so he could pay for your sins and give you his life in its place.

Don’t be content to nibble on those truths; feast on them!