Sunday, April 7- The Bread Of Life
2024-04-07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3BanuhR-cc

Following this remarkable moment in the ministry of Jesus, and before we head to John chapter 6, we are beginning a new series that begins this week, and we'll go for six weeks following this, where in the Gospel of John, Jesus will identify himself in these sort of seven different ways. One of the interesting things is most people have an opinion about Jesus, have some thoughts about who Jesus is and what he did. What we are trying to do is, rather than talking about Jesus, is to hear what Jesus has to say about himself. And so, in the Gospel of John, Jesus will say, "I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life." And then he will say, "I am the vine."

Over the next seven weeks, we're going to take a look at these. They are woven together not just in John's Gospel, but through the other Gospel accounts and into the Old Testament in such a beautiful, wonderful, and encouraging way. So let's have a word of prayer, and we'll dive right into it. Father in Heaven, thank You for Your Word. Be with us this morning. May You help us to see the truth of who Jesus is, and not just His greatness and glory, but You would help us to see how much better He is than all the things we tend to trust. So help us this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now, there are some things that really grab your attention quickly, and I remember one time in college, I was driving home from working. It was like 1:00 in the morning, and on the main road, there's a couple of stoplights, and at this time of night in rural Missouri, they're all flashing yellow, so you don't have to stop.

And so I'm just cruising home, and there was this one four-way stop right before I got the turn to our college dorm, and I'm going along, and it's night, and there's nobody that I can see around me. I kind of look at my mirrors, look behind me, not really looking that carefully, don't see any headlights, kind of look at the four-way stop, and I'm like, "You know what? Nobody's here, so let's just go for it." So I just kind of roll through the four-way stop, and immediately, the one thing that gets your attention in the middle of the night, right, blue lights right behind me flashing, and I'm just like, I'm having a heart attack. I'm like, "Man, I don't make enough to pay a ticket for not just running a stop sign, but like blatantly running the stop sign. I didn't even touch the brakes."

So I pull the car over to the side of the road, and this policeman drives, not in behind me, but by me really slow, just waving at me. And I'm just like, I'm never going to run another stop sign, Lord. I'm a changed man. I repent. And I went home, you know, thankfully without a ticket. But there are those moments in life, the things that just grab our attention. And one of the things in the Gospels, as we have these four Gospel accounts, one written by Matthew, one by Mark, one by Luke, and one by John, is they all tell about Jesus and record the life of Jesus, and there's so much about it that they all contain things that are just a little bit different. And in all the four accounts of the life of Jesus, there is only one miracle that is recorded in all four accounts, and that is the feeding of the 5,000.

And that should grab our attention like flashing lights, because what that means is that as the Gospels are being compiled and written, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, says that each Gospel account, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, none of these accounts are complete without the feeding of the 5,000. And what it means is that God Himself is saying that every single one of us, as we learn about Jesus, needs to hear this, because there are some wonderful things we will learn about Jesus. And so we're going to begin, and I'm going to walk through a little bit of John chapter 6, and there is so much here. But we're only focusing on one phrase, but in order to get there, we have to have some context. And I will say this: this is an overwhelming situation, I feel, for Jesus and the disciples.

So this is not early in the ministry of Jesus, likely this is in the third year. Not too long before the cross, most of John's Gospel is not years one and two, but so much of it is devoted to the third year of Jesus' ministry. Jesus, at this point, very popular, very well-known, people can't wait to see Him, hear Him, bring their sick people to Him. The religious leaders can't wait to argue with Him and try to trap Him. And the context of John chapter 6 is the twelve have just been sent out on their own for the first time. And they go out, and we learn from the Gospel accounts that they come back and they are walking ten feet tall, right? Demons came out, people were healed, we proclaim the good news, and they're so excited.

But there's also massive crowds surrounding them. And so Jesus will say as they come back, "Come away with me for a little while and rest." Because they can't rest because of the clouds. And the upside of having some disciples that are fishermen is there and says, "Make a break for the other side." But while they do that, this crowd is so excited to be around Jesus that they just take off running around the lake, right? Jesus is going across the lake in the boat with the disciples to find quiet. And this crowd just takes off running to try to meet Him on the other side. And as they do, they run through cities and villages, spreading the news. And so by the time Jesus gets to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, we learn in the Gospels there's 5,000 men in addition to women and children.

Most scholars think that this crowd is somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 people. So I want you to try to put this in context for a minute. So imagine you're in Winchester, we have Apple Blossom coming up in a month where tens of thousands, sometimes Winchester can grow by 100,000 people coming to visit town for Apple Blossom. People who live in Winchester generally like, "Hey, that's the time we like to go on vacation and not to be in town." So imagine Apple Blossom coming with the tens of thousands of people and you say, "You know what, I'm going to my cabin in the West Virginia woods." So you get in your car and you leave the crowds behind and you drive out and you pull down your driveway. And as you do in your driveway, you look over and the Apple Blossom carnival is set up across the driveway from your house.

And then you look behind you and here comes the Apple Blossom parade down your driveway. And you look over and in your front yard, the Boy Scouts are selling seats so that you can watch the parade from there. There's a guy making cotton candy on the porch. Cars are parked all over your lawn, your neighbor's lawn. And the neighbor, you know, two miles away is on and you got to walk inside. That's what's happening with Jesus. They're going to a place of rest to escape the thousands of people. And they get there and there's 20,000 people waiting for them. And I want you to think how Jesus could have responded to this crowd, right? Jesus could have simply said to them, "Sorry, I'm off duty." I've done this before. We'll go somewhere on a Sunday afternoon and we're getting ready to eat.

And somebody says, "Oh, there's a pastor here. Why don't you pray?" And they go, "Sorry, I'm off duty as of like 11:30 this afternoon." It kind of is a joke, and then I pray anyway. But Jesus is tired and he's busy. He could say, "Guys, it's been a long day. Can we do this tomorrow?" Jesus could have said, "I have the disciples here. I'm trying to get them ready for these guys. They haven't been great at stuff so far. We've got a lot of work to do before the end of my ministry. I love you," to the crowd, but I'm busy. But that's not what Jesus does. In Mark 6, it says, "When he went ashore and saw this great crowd," he's not mad, he's not angry, he's not too busy, "he had compassion on them."

Because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. And when it says that he had compassion on them, it's not simply an intellectual, man, these people need some help. It is a gut feeling. In fact, the word in Greek literally means your guts. That he looks at this crowd, and his stomach turns for love for them. That he feels a physical manifestation of the motion of compassion for this crowd. And he looks at them and says, "There are sheep without a shepherd." We'll talk about that in a few weeks. It goes back to Moses and his prayer for the people. And Jesus begins to teach them. Jesus has compassion. But as he's teaching the crowd, he's also teaching the disciples. Right? Philip, where are we getting bread? And he's teaching Philip some humility.

Philip has just done some amazing things. And Jesus is saying, "There's still things that are bigger. You still need to turn your eyes to me." And look at what Jesus does. As food comes, Andrew brings this young boy to Jesus. That's what Andrew does in the Gospels. He just constantly brings people to Jesus. Andrew said, "There is a boy here. It has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" And Jesus says, "Have the people sit down." And there was much grass in the place. The men sat down, about 5,000 in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples,

"Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. You've gone from a sack lunch to a full food truck. And the crowds began to look at this, and they began to think Jesus would make a great king because in John 6:1, he heals a bunch of people. Now he feeds a bunch of people. And what better person could you want to lead an army to revolt against Rome than a guy who can feed you, heal you, and who can teach you with wisdom? And so what Jesus does is he goes up into the mountains to pray, leaves the crowd behind. The disciples get into a boat, the only boat, and head out across the lake.

Middle of the night, Jesus comes down from the mountain and walks across the water in the midst of a storm to the disciples to the other side. And that's not the end of the story because the crowd who has slept on the ground wakes up the next morning and goes, "Where's Jesus?" and there's no boat, and they know Jesus, and they know Jesus went to the mountains, and the disciples went to the boat, and then some boats begin to show up on the shore. They will hijack the local boats and make their way across the Sea of Galilee to find Jesus. And it's here we begin to see the patience of Jesus. And between verses 25 and 35, if you want to follow along, either on your handout or in your Bible, there is going to be this conversation between Jesus and the crowns.

And in John 6:25, they will say, "When they found him, Jesus, on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come to be here?" And if you've ever watched a movie in a different language, right, you have subtitles on, and you hear the person in the movie, and they'll say something, something, something, and then you see the subtitles, I want you to understand the subtitles for these people saying, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" The subtitle would be, "Where is the bread?" Right, that's all they want, and we know that that's what the subtitle would be, because Jesus, in his answer, will say this, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves." And so when they say, "Jesus, when did you get here?"

What they're really saying is, "We want bread." And Jesus will see that, understand it, and then say this, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him God the Father has set his seal." Jesus, so wonderfully and full of grace, doesn't just address their want, he sees past the things they want, to the deepest need of their heart, and addresses that. And he says, "I have what you need." And what they say is, "What then must we do to do the works of God?" And that sounds really good, except what they're really saying is, "Jesus, how do we earn and get this bread that doesn't spoil?" So their conversation has been, "Where's the bread? How do we get the bread?"

And then Jesus will respond like this. "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." So Jesus says, "Believe in the one that God has sent." Listen to their response. "So they said to him, 'What sign do you do so that we may see and believe you?' 'What work do you perform?' Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat." And so they said, "Okay, so we want bread. You've said there's this everlasting bread. We've asked you how to get it. You've said believe." Now historically, when people tell us to follow them, they give us bread. Are you seeing a pattern in the crowd, right? Where is the bread? How do we get the bread? If we're going to follow you, there had better be bread.

And Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he," not an "it," but a "he" who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Number one, it wasn't Moses. Number two, it's not a "what," but a "he." Do you know what they say? Give us this bread always, right? There's a pretty clear pattern, right? We want bread. How do we earn the bread? If we follow somebody, they give us bread. Now we want the bread. And then Jesus will simply say this, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall not thirst. The bread you seek is me." How patient is Jesus?

Right? The one-track mind of these people, "Where's the bread? How do we get the bread? Our leaders give us bread. We want bread." And Jesus, instead of telling them, "Stop with the bread," answers them, engages them, and teaches. And I look at this and I say, "Why is Jesus so patient with this obnoxious crowd?" He sees them wandering and lost. Not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally, and He loves them. And He's saying to them, "Let me take you home. Let me bring you to the place where there is love and there is hope, where your heart can rest." Jesus is patient because He loves these annoying people who can't stop talking about bread. And before we're too hard on this crowd, because of their missing Jesus and seeing only bread, we have to remember that for these people, bread is their staple food and it is necessary for survival.

For us, bread is a nice side dish, right? We're going to have some spaghetti, let's have some garlic bread. We're going to Texas Roadhouse, bring us some rolls and butter, right? For us, bread is a side dish for people in the first century. It was their means of survival. You would go to work, you would work all day, earn enough money to buy bread, to eat a meal, to go to sleep, to wake up, to earn money, to get bread, to eat a meal. It was your means of survival. Now, our fixation may not be a nice loaf of sourdough, but every single one of us has something in front of our eyes that is competing with Jesus. Something that is shouting to our hearts, "Trust me. Put your hope in me. You need me if you are going to survive."

A job, a relationship, a hobby, a plan, a future, an idea. And we have this in our mind. If I could have this one thing, it would be okay. And it may not be for us bread, but we are just as fixated on seeking something that we think would save us other than Jesus. And to the crowd and to us, Jesus says, "Stop looking at that, and look at me." Secondly, this is likely the first time that many of these people have eaten everything that they've wanted. I sit down and make breakfast for our kids, and we make a package of bacon, right? And you get the bacon to the table, and you count how many people there are, and everybody gets two and a half pieces of bacon because that's what's in a package. And our kids are like, "Well, we love bacon."

They're like, "I love bacon. I could use more bacon," right? And I remember the first time we went to Golden Corral for breakfast, and I'm walking that line with the girls, and you come to like this bucket of bacon, and it's like, "Well, how many can we eat?" As much as you want. These people came to Jesus having eaten enough bread to survive, and all of a sudden they could eat all that they wanted. They went from never enough, enough to a point where their hearts were filled from fullness, brought to fullness from survival. Jesus' point is that this is not just a physical thing. The purpose of this is to point you to that this is a reality for your soul. The things that you've desired and the depth of your being that you want, that you hope in, that hunger and thirst are filled by Jesus.

And they can't see that there is something more wonderful. Their minds don't stretch that far. C.S. Lewis says it this way, "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards 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 around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. And that is the picture of these people seeking physical bread when Jesus says, "I can give you something that's so much more wonderful." And it is a picture of our hearts when we focus our joys and affections on something that is temporary rather than on Jesus.

And Jesus simply says this, "I am the bread of life." To a group of people who are hungry and tired and in life frustrated and oppressed, and there's never enough, and spiritually they've never been good enough. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life." And not to give you a grammar lesson, but the way this is constructed in Greek is literally the bread of life I am. It's constructed in such a way that the point of this is not the bread, but it's Jesus. Jesus is saying to them that this bread that you've eaten your fill of is a giant flashing sign pointing to something more wonderful. Something that doesn't just fill your physical hunger, but satisfies the desire of your soul that is so good and is so wonderful, and it's found in me.

Jesus is doing and saying something far bigger than a sermon illustration about bread. And what's interesting is in Greek there's two ways to say I am. One of them is a word that's probably familiar, ego. It's where we get our idea of the same word in English, in ego, we can say ego meaning I am in Greek. The other way to say I am in Greek is a me. And so usually people pick one or the other, ego or a me, but it's interesting when Jesus says I am the bread of life, he takes those two words and he puts them together. And he says ego, a me, I am the bread of life. And the reason why this matters. It's about 300 years before Jesus. The Hebrew Bible is translated into Greek. And there comes a passage in Exodus chapter 3 where Moses is 80 years old

and he's standing in front of a burning bush. And God speaks to him out of the burning bush and said, "I've seen the suffering of the people, and I'm going to send you to rescue them." And Moses goes, "Who am I?" And in his question of who am I as an 80-year-old facing this mission, wrapped up in his question are the fears and uncertainty and unworthiness and inability and brokenness, saying, "I'm on the run, and I don't know how." And he says, "Okay, who shall I say sent me?" And in English, out of the burning bush, God will say, "I am send you." And 300 years before Jesus, when they translated that Hebrew into Greek, you know what they said, "Who shall I say send you?" God says, "Ego a me." Literally, when Jesus says, "I am the bread of life," he's calling us back to Exodus 3:14,

where Moses, uncertain, too small, afraid, and on the run, asked God what he should do, and God simply says, "I am." And to you and I, in our uncertainness and our struggle, and we're too small, and we're not good enough, and we're on the run, and we're afraid, and we don't think we have what we need, Jesus says, "I am." And in this world, in these words, we find certainty in the presence of Jesus in the midst of our fears. Just as God said to Moses, "I am always there." Not I was or will be, but I am. At creation, I am. With Adam, I am. With Abraham, I am. With Joseph, I am. And Moses, with you, I am. And in the wilderness, I am. Jesus says the same to us. He says, "I am." In the droughts, in the joys, in the sorrows, I am here. And Jesus is saying, "You are not alone."

And when you say, "Who is with me?" You hear the response of Jesus saying, "I am yesterday, today, tomorrow, right now." And it's not just the presence of Jesus. It's that Jesus, in the midst of this, is moving us to progress. It's not just when we're stuck, we need to be reminded. But in our lives, we need to be reminded. Jesus, by referencing Exodus 3, is saying, "I am at work for your good." And in our perspective, we don't always see it. This Thursday, we went to the Air and Space Museum in Dulles with our kids and our nephews and our niece. And we were planning to eat at the museum, and so we've been about three-quarters of the way through the museum. And we look up at the one fast food place in the museum, and there is a line that resembles the crowd waiting for Jesus on the other side of the lake.

And we go, "There is no way possible that we're going to survive." And so the adults hold a council among ourselves and say, "Let's finish up the museum and go find some lunch." And there were some small children who were so hungry, and all they could hear is, "We're not having lunch right now." Not knowing that we were going to go to a place that had better food. It was going to be quieter. They would get their food faster, and more importantly for mom and dad, it would be significantly less expensive, right? We had a plan, but in the moment they couldn't see it, right? How many times is that the reality of your life? That there is a plan that God has and He is working on, but we simply cannot see it. It may be that we're just looking at the turn of a head where God stands at the mountain and sees the road unfold.

When Jesus says, "I am the bread of life," He's not just saying, "I am with you." He's saying there is progress being made in your life, whether you see it or not. And there is certainty in the satisfaction that Jesus brings our hungry souls. Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst." Jesus never runs out. We eat lunch. Four hours, we're hungry again. We eat dinner. We're hungry again. We're ready to go to bed. We need a snack. We wake up in the morning. We're hungry for breakfast. The satisfaction that Jesus brings your soul does not run out. It doesn't spoil. It doesn't get moldy. You never get to the end of the presence of God. The things that you have been chasing in your life will never bring you to satisfaction and fulfillment like Jesus does.

Here's the problem. We don't see it. Last week or two weeks ago, I was coming home, and I looked down the street, and there was a dog just kind of running down the street, heading toward Route 50. And so I pulled up, and I was like, "Hey, buddy. Come on. Jump in the car." And this dog, like a big old doofus, comes running over and jumps in the car. And so I come back here, and Rachel gets a leash, and he's just a little guy. So I put him on the leash, and you can't take him inside because we've got dogs. We haven't introduced him. I was like, "I've got to put this guy somewhere where we try to find the owner." So I bring him into the church, and the big room downstairs with the concrete floor, I said, "He's not muddy. I can stick him in here."

So I put him in there, shut all the doors so he can't get out. I go home so we can try to find his owner, and Rachel's posting about it online. And next thing I know, as I look out in the parking lot, and here goes this dog just running down the road with a leash around his neck. And here is the dog who I put in this room, and he looks around the room, realizes that he can jump onto one of the folding tables, and that there's a window into the kitchen that he can jump through, and jumps off that folding table, goes down, jumps against the door, opens the door, and heads on down the road. And so here's a dog who is being saved, and in a place of safety with refreshment and nourishment,

and all he could see was a way to run away as fast as he can. We go, "Man, that dog is a doofus." But that dog is us. And the safety and nourishment and goodness and refreshment that Jesus brings, we're so often just jumping out the window, heading our own direction. In fact, that's what happens in John chapter 6. In verse 60, the crowds go bread of life, and they begin to grumble. And in verse 66, they say, "Who can accept this teaching?" And of this 15,000 to 20,000 people, all of them leave. All of them, except for the 12. And Jesus looks at them and goes, "Do you want to leave too?" And Peter goes, "Lord, where should we go?" You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and we have come to know you are the Holy One of God.

I want us to think about our lives this morning and what it is we are chasing. Because it's so easy to, like those crowds, just jump out that window and like that dog and head our own way. And when we hear Jesus say, "I am the bread of life," I want you to know with certainty that Jesus is with you, that He is working in you, and He will satisfy the desires of our soul. And instead of running after all of the promises that we see made to us about what will make us happy in this world, I want us to run to Jesus as individuals and as a church. And maybe you're not a Christian. You've just been running your whole life. I want you to know that you don't have to hide, and you don't have to run, and there is safety and that there is hope in the arms of Jesus.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for your grace. Thank you for your word. Help us not to run after all of these empty things, but that you would help us to hold close to you, to see that you are always with us, you are always working in our lives, and that you are the one who satisfies the longing of our soul. It's in Jesus' name we pray.