I Am - The Bread of Life

good morning everyone it is so great to see each and every one of you with us this morning whether you're here in person or online we're just glad that you are worshiping with us hey today I'm going to be preaching out of one of these scripture journals of the Gospel of John we have these for sale out in the lobby for $5 a piece if you're wondering why we're do that you'll remember Keith mentioned this last week but I want to reiterate it in the month of April we are going to do a reading plan through the Book of John to sort of get us ready for Easter and the way it's going to work is starting on April 1st you'll read John chapter 1 and then on April 2nd you'll read y'all are so smart I'm so proud of you that's right you'll read chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 and here's the beautiful part y'all on April 20th on Easter Sunday that day that we're going to gather together we're going to throw a big old Resurrection party guess what you're going to read that morning you're going to read about that this is spoiler alert by the way but you know you're here you're going to read about the disciples finding a very empty tomb and what a way to start your Easter Sunday by just soaking in that word before we just gather together and have a big old party for Jesus so I want to invite you to that again these are out there in the lobby so go ahead pick one up grab it it's also going to be helpful as you follow along with our sermon series that we're in which is I am we're looking at the seven I am statements of Jesus in The Gospel of John and before we dive into our scripture for today I just want to ask you have you ever had a moment where you had an expectation of how something was going to go you had an idea of what something was going to be like only then when you actually experienced it received did got to the place that you were picturing it it wasn't what you actually thought it was going to be I had a moment like that once uh when I was a senior in high school I applied for something called the beter foundation scholarship uh now we're in Colorado a lot of you are probably familiar with the beter foundation but if you don't know the beter foundation supplies around 50 full ride scholarships to students in Colorado every year it's a very competitive uh application process and I put forth my application made it through to the second round put through my application and I made it through all the way to the final round of the beter now at this point in the process there's hundred students left whittel down from the over 3,000 that had originally applied for the beter and and so my family and I drove up from our tiny little town in mcclave Colorado to the big city of Denver we went to downtown Denver we went into this skyscraper we went up to the like 56th floor and then I had to go into this really fancy boardroom like fancer than anything I'd ever seen in my life and sit and give an account of myself to this uh interview committee made up of CEOs and nonprofit leaders and just you know people who you're like oh my gosh I can't believe I'm in the presence of these people and then you know what you do you wait and you wait and you wait as the other people do their interviews and then uh B basically they're like okay so now you're just waiting on a letter and in that period as I was waiting for my letter from the beter foundation I had all of these ideas and dreams about what it was going to be like the day that it got there and I was going to open it up and I was going to see those words congratulations Dawson rush you have been selected as one of the better scholarship recipients you're going to get to go to college for free you're you're going to get and I was just going to focus on my studies and I was just going to dive so deeply into the word of God it was just going to be this incredible thing and I remember vividly I came home I'd been at a track meet earlier that day it was a Saturday uh I come home from the track meet and my mom is sitting there at our kitchen island and she has the letter in front of her and we open it together and it says Dear Dawson Rush unfortunately you were not selected as one of our B scholarship recipients for this year but not only that you also weren't selected for the wait list because some people that get beter scholarships also get accepted to West Point or to somewhere else where they're not going to need the beter and so they give it up and it moves down the late list but I was given a letter that pretty much said thank you so much for your time have a nice life my expectations that I had built up in this period of waiting were just dashed and I was crushed because I felt like what I was expecting what I wanted from this had not been met and here's the problem is that so often we can do the same thing with Jesus we have an expectation in our mind of who Jesus is and what he's like and what he's going to do and what he wants and what his plans are and if we find that our actual experience of Jesus Jesus's plans and Jesus's purposes are different than that we're like I don't understand I don't get this a great example of this comes from the movie Talladega kns anybody seen Talladega Nights is a will Ferell movie from the early 2000s it's about a NASCAR driver right and here's what happens there's a scene in that movie where Ricky Bobby the main character played by Will farell is sitting with his family and they're about to have dinner and Ricky Bobby is giving the grace he's praying before dinner and here's what he says Dear 8B 6 o baby Jesus and your little Golden Fleece diapers don't even know a word yet just so cuddly and his wife goes honey you can't you can't pray to baby Jesus you got to pray to adult Jesus because if you don't do this prayer good then Jesus isn't going to let you keep winning NASCAR races and then the Buddy chimes in that's eating dinner with him and he says you know I like to picture my Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt because it says I want to be formal but I'm also here to party and I like to party so I want my Jesus to party with me and then one of Ricky Bobby's Sons chimes in from the other side of the table and he says I like to think that Jesus is a ninja fighting Samurai and the The Comedy of this whole scene is that for all of these people Jesus is not a person to be known as he is Jesus is not a person who's revealing himself to us Jesus is like a cosmic vending machine that you can make however you want you can ask for whatever you want and who is whatever you want him to be and the Jewish people living at the time of Jesus found themselves in a similar situation because God had promised that this Messiah this anointed one was going to come to them but it had been centuries since that promise had been made and in that waiting and waiting and waiting they began to develop some expectations some ideas about who the Messiah was going to be about what the Messiah was going to do when he came and today we're going to see Jesus confront those

expectations and we're going to see that Jesus is offering to us the bread of life but the question is what are you hungry for because if you're not hungry for the bread of Life why would you want it so we're going to pick up uh in verse 25 but before we do that let me set the context just a little bit so the the bit of John we're going to read today comes right after a very famous miracle in the life of Jesus you see Jesus is teaching up on a mountain side and there's all these people that have come to listen to him and they're hungry and so the disciples go to Jesus they're like hey Jesus how are we going to feed all these hungry people that have have come to listen to you teach and Jesus says well what do we have and they say well we've got uh five loaves of bread and we have two fish and Jesus is like I got this and so Jesus miraculously multiplies the Five Loaves and the two fish and feeds 5,000 people now there could have been more than 5,000 but the Bible records 5,000 that's the number I'm going to go with that's a lot of people to be fed by Five Loaves and two fish and here's what the Bible tells us is that after Jesus had done this miracle for them that the people who were there that Jesus had helped wanted to make him their King they they're running up to Jesus they want to Crown Him King and Jesus runs away from them he's not interested and it's like what because that makes no sense to these people with what they're expecting from the Messiah let me I want to read to you this morning from a a work called the Psalms of Solomon this is a work that was written in this period while the Jews are waiting for the Messiah and I think what it really shows you is what the expectations were for the Messiah here's what it says here's if you're if you're a Jew living in the times of Jesus this is what you think the Messiah is going to do neither settler nor alien shall live among them anymore he shall judge the peoples in his righteous wisdom and he shall have the peoples of the Nations to serve him beneath his

yoke that's that's what the Messiah is going to do he's going to come he's going to beat up all the people that we don't like he's going to kick them out of our land and he is gonna make Israel great again and Jesus says I am not interested not interested and so Jesus runs away from these people but the next day they catch up with him and we're going to see what the misunderstanding that has kind of cropped up between this group of people and Jesus about what he's trying to do so look with me in verse 25 here's what it says when they found him that's the crowd on the other side of the sea they said to him Rabbi when did you come here 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 do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal love life which the son of man will give to you for on him God the father has set his seal then they said to him well what must we do to be doing the works of God Jesus answered them this is the work of God that you believe in whom he has sent so they said to him well then what sign do you uh what sign do you do that we may see and believe you what work do you perform Our Father fathers ate Mana in the wilderness as it is written he gave them bread from Heaven to eat Jesus 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 for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world and they said to him the crowd sir give us this bread always and so we're seeing here the misunderstanding that has popped up between Jesus and this crowd about what he's actually on Earth to accomplish like what is his mission what is his ministry really about and what they think he's here to do is to do two things it Jesus makes clear that their understanding of him is one that he's here to meet their physical needs that he is going to day after day continue to feed them bread and fish like that that that's what they want from him Jesus we don't care about anything just feed us every day so we don't have to work for it anymore so we don't have to do things on our own to get food anymore we just want you to keep feeding us and then secondly like we talked about there's this expectation of and also beat up all the people we don't like kick them out of our land and and rule over us and rule over them especially with an Iron Fist and Jesus says that is not why I'm here that is not what I'm here to do Jesus says I'm here to offer this this bread of life that offers eternal life to you and he's going to clarify that a little bit more as we go on and so they say well okay Jesus we hear you a little bit so what what works must we be doing like what what things should we be doing in order to receive what God is offering what you're offering to us and they're expecting Jesus to say keep the law follow the Torah perfectly you know be a be a perfect Jewish person and what Jesus said is this this is the work of God that you believe in him who he has sent that's it that's all it's all Jesus is asking but this word belief uh is not I want to be clear about what it means because I think when we in English when we hear the word belief that's a very it's tied up with the mind that if I believe something it's that I asent that it's it's true in my mind I think it's factual I think it's a correct statement but that's not what the Greek word underlying this which is called pisto that's not what that means let at least not fully if I'm going to believe something in that way here's a great example let's say there's a chair sitting right here and I believe in my mind that the chair could hold my weight if I sat on it well okay I'm believing something in my mind but that's according to the the meaning of the word pisto I don't really believe it yet it's only pisto belief when I say I think yep that chair could hold my weight and then I go sit in it there's an action part to this belief it's not just intellectually believing something it's then adjusting your life adjusting your habits adjusting your actions as if you that's true living out the belief that we have and so that's what Jesus is saying you have to believe in the one who he sent not just like mentally because all these people believe there's a messiah in fact some of them I think actually believe that Jesus is the Messiah but they are not really believing in him because they haven't adjusted their lives in the way that Jesus is Calling them

to and here's the big thing I want you to see from right here is that Jesus does not offer us what we want he's not interested in what the crowd wants Jesus offers us what we need Jesus Jesus is not a cosmic vending machine he does not exist for us to tell him what he's about he exists to tell us what we need and what do we need well Jesus is going to clarify that in the radical statement that he gives in verses 35-40 so look with me there 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 but I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe you and again this is where Jesus is saying you might mentally think that I'm the Messiah but you don't believe that I'm the Messiah all that the father gives to me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but to do the will of him who sent me 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 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 this crowd came to Jesus saying all we want from you Jesus we'll do whatever you tell us but all we want is bread to eat and for you to beat up all the people that we don't like especially with your Miracle working Powers we'd really like you to use those to beat up the people we don't like and Jesus says let me do you one better how about I offer you eternal life dwelling with God and the people are like that's not what we asked for and Jesus is like no it's so much better than what you asked for Jesus says I am the bread of life and that if you come to me you won't hunger and that if you come to me you won't thirst he's not talking in terms of like physical need he's talking about as you look around the world as you see Brokenness and death and Decay and sin that that's that should make you hungry for those things not to be the Cas you should be hungry for a world without sin you should be hungry for a world without Injustice you should be hungry for a world thirsty for a world without death and Jesus saying if that's you that's what I'm offering I'm offering you life eternal satisfying full life what are you hungry for but not only is Jesus offering us this eternal life he's offering it to us as a guarantee I don't want to miss what Jesus says here when he says that all that the father gives to me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out Jesus is saying once you believe in me once you believe that I am the Messiah who can give you this life you will have it and no one can ever ever take it away from you one of my favorite things about early Christian art um is that you'll see these pictures of Jesus and he's pulling someone out of a coffin and whenever Jesus is pulling someone out of a coffin obviously there's a there's a metaphor there for the eternal life that's being offered here but he never has them by the hand Jesus is never pulling someone up by the hand Jesus has people by the wrist Jesus is saying I've got you you can't let go and no one will break my grip I've got you if you're going to believe if you're going to trust I've got you and the other thing I want to show you here is what would make this statement so shocking to people well part of it is the way that Jesus phrases it so back here on the screens what you're going to see is the Greek translation of Exodus 3 this is when God is talking to Moses uh commissioning him to go to Egypt and call his people out of slavery and I'm going to read it to you in the Greek and then I'll I'll give you Dawson's translation uh the the do the international Dawson version or something we can call it here's what it says Kai aenos PR mosa ego and God said to Moses I I am you see in Greek uh the pronoun of a a uh that's attached to a verb is implied in it right so the word a me up there it means I am like that's what's being communicated there but ago is the pronoun I it's not necessary grammatically in the sentence the sentence would make perfect sense without it and yet God includes it well that's fascinating let's look at how Jesus says what he says here in John ego a meas taste zoas I I am the bread of life you see earlier we saw that the crowd was saying what sign will you do for us you know Moses gave us bread in the wilderness and how did Jesus correct to the crowd he said no no no no no no no no Moses didn't give you bread God Gave You bread I I am gave you bread I'm not Moses I'm not like Joshua I'm not just your leader I am God himself that has come down to offer you the bread of life if we believe and trust in him Jesus offers us an eternal and satisfying life if we believe and trust him Jesus offers us an eternal and satisfying life what are we hungry

for so Jesus has offered this to this crowd what an amazing offer what an incredible thing an Incredible Gift of God that he is laying before them and they don't even have to like work for they just have to trust they have to believe they have to live their lives like it's true but all of these things that they think they have to do in order to be right with God Jesus says you you don't have to do those things you will do those things if you believe and trust what I'm saying but that's my requirement and I'm not going to read every single line of of uh 41 to 51 I'm going to summarize it but I do want to say this so that was the offer and here's how the Jews respond I want you to see this in verse 41 so the Jews grumbled about him because he said I am the bread that came down from heaven think about this they just wanted to make him King they wanted him to feed them and kick the butt of the people they don't like and he offered them something way better than that and their response is did Jesus guide and what he know about anything I you know like are you kidding me and it's so easy to read this and be like what is wrong with you people and yet how many times in my own

life have have I thought something was more important than what Jesus is offering me here how many times have I not been hungry for the right

things we we think that J that Jesus exists to give us what we want but Jesus is saying no I'm going to give you what you need and what you need is life and this is just part of human nature we look we we look for what we want we look for what we want let me tell you a story um in 1961 there was a company called Deca records and deca records was a big name in The Record industry there's still exists today they have several artists that perform underneath their Le label but in 1961 a group of young British men from Liverpool came into the DECA records studio and played a few test tracks for them and the DECA Executives listened to this group of young men from England and they said you know we like it we like your sound you you've got good voices we we kind of think that's cool what's going on here but to be honest we think guitar bands are kind of on their way out so we we're going to have to respectfully say no thanks guys you know thanks for coming in we appreciate uh your time today that was the Beatles The Beatles Deca records had the opportunity to sign the Beatles and said no thanks we think that guitar bands are on the way you imagine like someday one of those Executives was sitting in his car in traffic and Hey Jude came on the radio and he was just like banging his head into the steering wheel like it could have been us but they weren't looking for the right thing and because they weren't looking for the right thing they missed it and that's what's happening in this passage this Jewish crowd is missing it we can miss it because we're not hungry for the right

thing and how this is the final question that I think we need to answer how is Jesus going to offer us this life here's what he says verse 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven if anyone eats of this bread by belief right by pisto that's what we talked about earlier he will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my

flesh Jesus is saying you want want me to give you food and a

kingdom and I and you want me to accomplish that by committing violence against people you don't like he says I'm coming to offer life to you and you know how I'm going to do it by letting people do violence to

me rather than taking the throne that you You' given me I'm going to go up on a

cross I'm going to get whipped I'm gonna have a crown of thorns placed upon my head instead of a crown of gold I'm GNA have nails driven through my wrists and my feet I'm going to be stabbed in the side with a spear because I want you to have life

Eternal satisfying full

life life is offered to us through Jesus's sacrifice that's how it's done this is the way that it was

accomplished what are we hungry

for our our world is full of competing voices that are trying to tell us what we should be hungry for from politicians we hear that we should be hungry for beating the other guys and winning the culture war that that should be the defining hunger of our life is to beat the Republicans or to beat the Democrats and to win the so-called culture war that that's what we should be hungry for businesses and advertisers tell us that we should be hungry for Stuff a nice car a nice house a nice lawn the American dream that that's what life is really about that that's what we should be hungry

for and Jesus is telling us that we need to be hungry for the bread of life that he is offering to us through his sacrifice on the cross and that every other thing that we desire must be subordinated to that highest desire one of the great church fathers of History a man named Augustine um he wrote this book uh and in this book he talks about the idea of disordered loves and what he realized was that before he became a Christian the big problem of his life was that he loved all these different things but he loved them too much or in the wrong way he loved power or money or sexuality or all of these things he he had elevated them to a level that they didn't deserve in his life and he ultimately found that they weren't satisfying they promised to be satisfying but but they weren't really satisfying and his heart was restless and here's what he said you have made us for yourself oh God and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you it was only when Augustine said that the love of God that faith in Christ must come first in his life that everything made sense to him again but allow me to to paraphrase Augustine for us

God we are hungry we are spiritually starving and we continue to hunger until we find our satisfaction in the bread of life Jesus

Christ what are we hungry

for I can think of no better way way to celebrate what Jesus is offering us here in John 6 than by taking communion together because in communion we remember we remember that the bread of life was broken that he was scorned we remember that his blood was poured out so that we by faith in him might have life so I'll invite our elders forward to preside over communion