Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Happy Father's day to you all. Glad that you've chosen to join us today. I know there's many things that you could be doing today. Many lakes that may have fish in them somewhere, or restaurants that may be waiting for you to eat their food or whatever it may be. We're glad that you've chosen at least for this portion of the day to join us. If this is your first time here, we have been going through the book of John starting in chapter one, verse one, and walking our way through the book. And the whole book is focused on calling people to believe in Jesus. And so if this is your first time here, we've just been walking through this, looking at the life of Jesus and seeing what is he calling us to do? Who is he telling us that he is. And we know that as we go through this, God is continuing to show us more about not only who Jesus is, but who we are to be because of who Jesus. So chapter six is where we are today. If you have your bulletin with you inside, you'll see all sorts of things happening in the life of the church. You could read through that yourself. On the back of it you'll see the outline for our time today. Chapter six, verses 41 through 59 is what it says. There is the verses that we'll be looking at. And so open up there and we will jump into God's, into God's word at the top of the bulletin there on the back end where the outline is, it says in this passage we find Jesus teaching a crowd of people to seek spiritual satisfaction rather than physical satisfaction. So a few weeks ago we talked about one of the miracles that John speaks to. Speaks about that is the feeding of the. Anyone know what I'm talking about? The feeding of the 5000, right? So that's when Jesus multiplies lots of little fish and some bread and feeds thousands, more than 5000 people. Actually probably closer to maybe twelve to 15 or more thousand people with just a few loaves and fishes. And then after that happens, what we see occurs is people begin to follow Jesus. And I'm just kind of giving you a background, a little context here of what happens in chapter six. A little bit of background here. This shows that people started following Jesus and they said, we want to keep following you. And what he ended up saying is, actually the reason you want to follow me is not because of even the miracles that I was doing was because you were hungry and then I gave you some food. You like free food? Do any of you here like free food?
[00:02:25] They liked free food. And they said, we're gonna follow you because we got free food. And we all know that they were willing to do some work to follow Jesus to find a way to keep getting some free food. And he said, listen, you got some free food, which is great, but that's only going to last for a moment. And I would like to give you something that's going to last longer than just a moment. And last week, Pastor Carl walked through the first portion of Jesus, really monologue here, starting in verse 22. If you look in your bibles in chapter six there, Jesus is beginning to speak to them and say, really? You need to know who I am, not who you think that I am, but who I truly am. And I'm one who is going to offer you eternal life. And so we pick up kind of the second half of Jesus monologue, Jesus speaking to these people. It says at the end of our passage in verse 59 that he's now in CapernauM, which is on the western side of the sea of Galilee, and he's talking to a bunch of Jews that are listening in. And so he is walking them through who he truly is. One of the things that's really key before we read this passage and then pray for us to understand is if you know some about the Old Testament and the Jews, they held tightly to their forefathers, ABRahAM, Isaac, and JACob, and the stories around their life and God's faithfulness in their life. And one of the stories that we see spoken of earlier on in this monologue from Jesus and the Jews bringing up is Moses in the wilderness. And they say, look, Moses gave the people in the wilderness. He gave the manna that came from heaven. He fed these people Manna. And you here are saying that you're gonna feed us something better. What are you talking about here? And so Jesus kind of runs with this analogy or this history and says, I'm gonna build an analogy off of this. You talked about manna in the wilderness that came from heaven. Now, what I'm gonna talk about here is bread, which is me, that came from heaven as well. So we're gonna go back and forth a little bit. You see, at the bottom of your outline, it says, additional passages for reading Exodus 16 and 17 speak about how the manna that came from heaven was a gift from God, but it also was a picture of God's faithfulness. So keep that kind of in the back of your mind as we read through this passage, starting in verse 41. So read with me verse 41 through 59. And then we'll pray God's word says this.
[00:04:56] The Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Remember, he's referencing manna that came down from heaven. And he says, I am actually the bread that came down from heaven. That was a foreshadowing of me. The bread that came down from heaven. They said. Verse 42.
[00:05:18] 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? In other words, we know your mom and dad. Jesus said, answered them. Verse 43, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
[00:05:40] It is written in the prophets, and they will be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the father except he who is from God. He has seen the father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has what? Eternal life. Very important verse there.
[00:06:03] I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna. We talked about that a moment ago. Manna in the wilderness. And they what? They died? That was short term. That was supposed to be a foreshadowing of God's faithfulness, shown in a reality to come. Verse 50. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that 1 may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for life, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews listening, and this is strange things that they're hearing from Jesus. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh, flesh to eat?
[00:06:46] Reasonable question. Perhaps we'll get to that in a moment.
[00:06:50] 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. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him, as the father sent me. And I live because of the father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
[00:07:21] For this is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate. Remember what he was talking about, Moses? The wilderness. The Israelites eating manna. They ate it and they died. Whoever feeds on this bread, Jesus, speaking of himself, will live forever. Verse 59 concludes and says, Jesus said these things in the synagogue while he taught in Capernaum. Let's pray.
[00:07:47] Jesus, we come before you today as a people who is able to approach your throne this morning, not because of any work that we have done, but because of what you have done, because of the work that you did on the cross to make us clean before you. For all those here today who have trusted in you and around the world, our brothers and sisters, who have trusted in you, who have, as this passage says, eaten the bread, trusted in you, consumed you and your sacrifice as applicable to us. And so today, as we walk through this passage, Lord, I pray that you would give me strength and wisdom and clarity in the things that I say, that it would be just your heart displayed here before us as you desire us to consume your truth, your identity, to be a part of us.
[00:08:39] That you, Jesus, would not be some distant figure for us or a right moral person or a great prophet or anything of the sort. But truly, Lord, you would be our savior.
[00:08:53] That we would invite you to be a part of our life as the creator of life itself. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:09:02] All right, let's jump right in. So the first word on the outline here, as we walk through this together, as you see, Jesus is the bread of life. But he starts off in verse 41. There's at least in my Bible, verse 41, the fourth, I think it's one, two, three. The fourth word in.
[00:09:20] There's a key word there that tells us about the heart of the people listening in. And this word is also a word that, if you remember back to the book of Exodus, was also a key word in the hearts of people, in the mouths of people in Exodus. What's that word there?
[00:09:35] Grumble. Can you all say grumble together?
[00:09:38] Yeah, that kind of sounds like grumbling, too.
[00:09:41] Everyone says that together when we see this word grumble and we look at everything else going on. When I read that first, I thought, man, that reminds me of what we saw in Exodus, when God's people, right after being freed from Egypt, God parts the water they walk across, and not too long after that, what do we hear from their mouth? Can you say grumbling together?
[00:10:08] It sounds like that again, right? There's grumbling again. That occurs in these people. And what we see that that means, what that communicates is this rejection of God's faithfulness. That's what that tells us. They rejected God's faithfulness. And so we see here the blind, those here in this passage, they're rejecting Jesus. The fact that they're grumbling about what Jesus has to say tells us they reject him when it says the Jews, most notably when we see that regularly through John talking about the jewish leaders, the majority of the jewish leaders, they were complaining because of what Jesus had said. They looked at him as maybe a great prophet, perhaps Elijah reincarnate, maybe even the messiah, but their attention was on him as a man, not on God. Thus the reason they say, we know your mom and dad, right? And then he says the phrase, I have come down from heaven. And this must point us back to the text just before this, when Jesus references Moses and the Hebrews in the wilderness. And they say that Moses gave us bread from heaven to sustain this. And then Jesus says this, and he says, I'm actually from heaven. And here's what he's pointing out at least two things. One, when he says, I am the bread from heaven, he's saying his prior residence is in where? Heaven. Right? If I'm from heaven, my prior residence is in heaven. So I'm coming with authority here. Secondly, he's speaking of his deity. Who else can come from heaven in this way but God? Now don't forget as well. Up to this time, though, only John records a few of Jesus miracles. Jesus has done many, many miracles. We only see a few up to this point in the book of John. But he has done miracle after miracle after miracle, claiming again and again, I am God. I am God. And then they look at him at this point in time and say, I know your mom and dad.
[00:12:07] I don't think you're actually God. And Jesus could easily, and does, says, look at all of the things that I have just done. Even remember yesterday? Remember yesterday how I gave you all a bunch of free food, which you all really liked? But again, you weren't following me because of the free food.
[00:12:24] You were following me. I'm sorry. Because of the free food, not because of the miracles that I did or me pointing out that I am God. Their hearts were hard.
[00:12:33] The problem for these folks is not a lack of evidence. Their problem is a hard heart. Now ask this question. How do we know if someone has a hard heart? That's a reasonable question, right? Three things that I posed to you this morning. How do I know? How would you know? How do we know is looking at God's word? How do we know if somebody has a hard heart? That is to say that evidence is not the problem. You can see all the facts, but they still say I'm going to reject. I'm going to reject. And here we see these people. They saw the evidence of Jesus words over and over again. His power, his words, his power, his words. And they said, nope, I'm still going to reject you.
[00:13:13] We don't believe that you are God. And here's what we can see. Three things at least. How do we know someone has a hard heart? One, they're unable to keep God's goodness or faithfulness in focus.
[00:13:23] They see the work of God, and then they say, I have to focus more on my stuff than on God's things. Do we see that in the wilderness? Right? God parts the sea and they walk across and they say, did they just forget what God had just done?
[00:13:41] They immediately forgot. Again, hard heart. They did not keep in focus God's faithfulness. Secondly, they were unwilling to change, to become healthier despite good reason. In other words, this is true for us as well. How do you know? Or people in your family or friends, or perhaps as you think about your own relationship with God, how do I know if I have a hard heart? Am I willing to change?
[00:14:07] Am I willing to change? Or do I look at myself as having the right opinion all the time?
[00:14:14] I decide when I change. I'm unwilling to listen to somebody else's suggestions for me. Thirdly, insensitivity. This is specifically thinking about christians here. Insensitivity to the words of scripture or the Holy Spirit. That's when you do this, friends. I know I'm doing something that's not right or whatever. I'm doing my own life over here. And then I'm like, I should get in God's word. And then I open God's word and I'm like, wow, look at this. Let's read God's word. And then God's word says, you shouldn't do x y, z, the thing that you're doing over here. And you're like, that's a nice thought. And then you put down God's word and you go back to doing what that is. You know what I'm talking about?
[00:14:50] And then you go back maybe later, and you read something or you hear something in a sermon or something and you're like, wow. Yeah, that's good. That's really good.
[00:14:59] That's from the Lord. I mean, it's good for other people. By the way, just to clarify, it's good for other people, not for me, because I'm fine. And then I go back and I do my own thing that friends, another sign of a hard heart. I'm insensitive to the spirit saying, please change. Please change. Please change. The words of God written in the text in front of us in black and white, quite literally saying, please change. And we say, no, no, I'm good.
[00:15:25] I don't want to.
[00:15:27] Our brains at times, I'm sorry. The problem in their case was the problem was disbelief in Jesus, or even in God's existence for that matter. But it wasn't about what was going on in their heads. It was about what was happening in their hearts. This is true today as it was then. Listen to this. Write this down. Maybe our brains don't need more proof. Our hearts need more softening. This is true then and today.
[00:15:56] So if Jesus were to show up, imagine today if Jesus were to show up, I don't know. Let's say new York City. There's cameras all over the place. There's people all over the place. Jesus were to show up. And he points out, he raises his hand and says, hey, everyone, I'm Jesus. I'm real. You have the Bible. It's actually true. And he does some miraculous sign to show that he actually is telling the truth, that he actually is there something that's indisputable, totally amazing. And people saw it. Cameras all over the place. It's recorded. Do you think everybody in the world would believe that Jesus is real and that Jesus should be believed in? And the Bible is 100% true. Jesus said it on camera and he showed everybody. Here's proof. Would people believe that? Why not? They had proof shows. Again, it's not about the proof. Sometimes. Sometimes it's about your heart. You know this to be true as well. You've had conversations with people. You're like, look at. Look at the proof. Look at the facts. Will you please just think differently about this? No.
[00:16:54] No. So the question stands, who then can believe if it's not about just a bunch of facts? When someone has a hard heart, they're just going to say, no, I want to do things my way. Who then can believe? How does someone get from a heart that is willing to look at evidence and not believe to. Now I'm willing to look at evidence and say, I am going to believe.
[00:17:16] Here's the truth. God is the one who changes the heart of mankind to see him for who he truly is. God is the one who changes people's hearts. And Jesus knows this. Look what he says.
[00:17:29] He says in response to this, they said, we know your mom and dad and he could go on and give them some other answers. But look what he says in the following verses. He doesn't go on to argue about this. Look what he says. Verse 43. And this is the next point in your outline. He goes on and says, don't grumble among yourselves. No one can come to the father unless he is drawn by the father. The next point in your outline, you can write this down. Is this the enlightened? And the word enlightened sounds strange, but the word truly just means the spiritually aware or educated or informed or knowledgeable. So the educated or informed, the knowledgeable person accepts Jesus. Jesus. His reply is, I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on those of you over here who are just set on rejecting me. Your heart is set on rejecting me. The ones who are going to believe in me are the people that God has stirred their hearts, has worked in their hearts. No one can come to me unless the father who has sent me draws the word draw there is literally like, imagine a well being right here. And there's a rope and a bucket. The idea is this drawing water out of a well. That's that picture that you get there. And then Jesus says, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will be taught by God. Again, the prophets, even this is speaking Isaiah, chapter 54, verse 13. If you want to write that down. Speaking about how God is going to work in people's hearts to show them that God is real.
[00:19:02] Everyone who has learned, who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone who has seen the father, not that anyone has seen the father, except he who is from God. He has seen the father. Jesus is clear here that someone comes to accept Jesus because God has done a work in their heart. And Paul speaks about this too, doesn't he? He says that before we were alive in Christ, we were all dead. Now if someone's dead, they are dead. The greek word for dead is.
[00:19:34] You don't know Greek. It's dead. But yes, yes, it also still means dead. What is it?
[00:19:43] There you go. Yeah.
[00:19:46] It still means dead, though. Very much apart from life, right? There's separation that exists there. And the truth that Jesus is communicating here is the way that you have life is through me. The father is going to draw you to me. In John, chapter ten, verse 29, it says this, my father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. This, friends, is why we pray for people's salvation.
[00:20:14] This is why we don't just sit and read lots of books on how to convince people better to believe us. This is why we know that I can have a conversation with someone and they can say, no, I don't want that, perhaps. And then I'm gonna pray that God continues to work in their heart, and then maybe they have a conversation with somebody else and they say, no, I'm still not ready. And that person's praying for them. And five or ten or 15 people later, maybe this. Speaking of your sibling who doesn't know Jesus, or your child who doesn't know Jesus to this day, it's praying for them. It's praying for them. It's praying for them. And God, we pray works in their heart. And then maybe all it's gonna take is for them to watch, I don't know, some movie somewhere and them to be reminded of something that somebody says, because it doesn't take much, does it? God just prompting their memory of something he's done.
[00:21:02] God works in people's hearts, even when they can be very resistant. He can say, no, no, when I want you, I want you, and you're going to hear the truth. I was reading through some things as I was preparing, and I ran across the story. I want to read it to you. And it's the person who wrote it. He's a pastor in southern California who since passed away, actually. His name is Ray Steadman, and he says this. My wife and I had dinner last week with a christian couple from Sacramento. The woman was raised in a non religious family and had never gone to church. When she was in high school, some 15 or 20 years ago, Billy Graham held his first crusade in Sacramento. She was invited by some of her friends to go hear him. So she went, out of curiosity, got to begin to tell where her heart is.
[00:21:46] She told us that she sat there determined not to be influenced by him. Billy Graham, she listened to the choir, to the testimonies, to the special music, and she said to herself, I know this man is using this to manipulate these people. He's psychologically preparing them to respond to an invitation. She said she felt very confident that she could withstand what she considered to be manipulation because she knew exactly what he was doing.
[00:22:15] But.
[00:22:17] But when Billy Graham, after sharing the gospel message, gave the invitation, she said this, I was the first one to respond. I jumped out of my seat and went down immediately. And as I walked, I saw that I was the very first person to respond.
[00:22:37] She was converted. She was born again that day. Why not? Because she was convinced and convinced and convinced and convinced and convinced and shown all sorts of proofs because God worked in her heart and drew her.
[00:22:49] Jesus is clear about this as well. God works in the hearts of people. So we pray that he does just that. Yes, it's good to show proofs. There are plenty of proofs that we can show. So Jesus, he recognizes that to the people before him. And then he steps back into his conversation about bread and about life and about eating right, because that just happened the day before for many of them. They ate this bread. He's just talked about manna that was from heaven. That's really the crux of what we're talking about here. So he steps back into that. So let's lean back into that. In point number three, the bread that gives eternal life is Jesus. That's the big idea here, that he's communicating to all of those listening. Now look what it says, verse 47, truly, truly. Which what that's telling us to do is this. It's pay attention, pay attention. What I'm about to say is very important.
[00:23:42] I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
[00:23:49] That seems like an incredibly simple verse.
[00:23:54] We have to ask this.
[00:23:56] What does it mean to believe?
[00:23:59] The word there of its root is the same root word that we see. The same word, I should say we see for faith. It's Pistis in Greek. It's this idea of holding or clinging to something. It's to rely on something. This is perhaps the most important concept we need to understand and teach in the church today.
[00:24:20] Believing in Jesus is not raising your hand, is not saying, I think he's a good person. It's not saying yes, I like what he has to say. It's not saying yes, I'm willing to commit my hour and a half on Sunday morning to that person. It's not saying I'm willing to try to do what he calls me to do. That's not what it means to believe in Jesus. Jesus didn't say, ask me into your heart, go to church, read the scriptures, pray and be a good person or even believe that God is real and that he loves you. No, he called people to cling to him as the answer for your personal sin problem before God.
[00:25:07] That's the thing, friends, we recognize. I have a problem before God that I can't fix.
[00:25:14] And to believe in Jesus says this, I can't do it by myself.
[00:25:21] As much as I try, I'm going to fall off the side of the cliff every single time. And Jesus throws the rope down and he says, believe in me.
[00:25:30] To believe in him means I'm going to let go of the cliff face and hold tightly to the rope that Jesus just threw down. It's not saying I'm going to do both of those things part way. It's I'm going to hold tightly to what Jesus has to say. Now, Jesus has been repeating this over and over through the gospel. He says, believe in me, trust in me, cling to me alone over and over again. Now, why does he repeat himself? Because he's a good teacher, and good teachers know that repetition is how people learn something, right? If any of you try to teach someone something, if you say it once and they don't get it, what do you do? You probably say it again and again and you say it a different way and a different way and a different. Right. You just keep going on. You teach that in different ways to help them understand the same point. And here's what he goes on to say. Verse 48, I am the bread of life. Here's the connection, this metaphor that he's drawing here.
[00:26:21] I am the bread of life. Now, I brought a piece of bread with me because that's appropriate, right? So here's a piece of bread because he's talking about bread. And so he says, I am the bread of life.
[00:26:35] Now, the reason he has he's speaking of bread here is because bread was a key part of their regular meals that was regular in their culture. Now, and I don't mean to sound trite or anything or to make light of this in any way, if he was speaking to a different culture, he might have used a different analogy, okay? He might have used it for a different culture. He might have used, like, rice or something or noodles or whatever it was, because. But for this culture, they would have understood bread is a normal piece of a normal part of our diet. And also the connection, again, back to the wilderness, back to Manna, the bread from heaven. And he's saying, I, too, am this bread. So now we have to kind of have that picture in our head. And then he goes on and he says this, as he continues, your fathers ate this bread, temporal, this manna in the wilderness. And they died. So they ate the bread. They died. Here's me new bread.
[00:27:33] I'm better than that.
[00:27:35] I came down from heaven. Yes, that came down from heaven, from God, but it was a picture of something better. And that's me now.
[00:27:44] I am the bread that came down from heaven. And I want to show you some proofs. Verse 51 says, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. You can write that down. A on your outline is this. Jesus came from heaven. He's giving further proofs that they should believe in him. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. So on one part over here, we have man that came down from heaven. Bread from heaven. He says, you eat this. They ate this in the wilderness. They died. But here's me eat this and you will live forever. By Jesus telling them that he's the bread from heaven. He's saying, one, three things. One, this is significant.
[00:28:22] This is significant. If you consider eternal life as significant, you should pay attention.
[00:28:30] And all of them did. If you look earlier on in the passage, jesus says, I have bread that's going to give you eternal life. And they're like, we want that bread. Wouldn't you like some of that food if someone said, hey, I give you one meal and you'll never have to eat again? Well, some of you are like, maybe I would want to eat again, but I give you one meal and you will never die. They're like, yeah, that sounds great. And Jesus says, here's the bread that you can eat and you'll never be hungry again. And it's me, spiritually, you can eat of this and never want to eat, never need to eat again. This is significant. Pay attention. Secondly, just as bread, eating bread, that's something that you do. Jesus also, is to be acted upon. You don't just look at bread and get full, do you? I don't know. Do any of you do that? You just look at food and you get full. No bread. If you're going to get full, you act upon it. The same thing is true of Jesus.
[00:29:23] Jesus isn't to be looked at from a distance. If he is as he says he is the true living bread, we are to act upon the bread of Jesus. What does that look like in reality? If we're eating something, we take it and we eat of it. That's how we're satisfied. The same thing is true of Jesus. Let's act upon the bread of Jesus. That is, we don't sit and talk about it. Look at him, take pictures of him, but we take and consume. We also see this. He can offer eternal life. And he's drawing this out for them. He's drawing this picture for them saying, look, this is significant, friends. And they look at that and say, what are you talking about, Jesus? We have no, like, we don't know what you're talking about. Now, some of the people listening, I think they understood.
[00:30:09] I think they understood. I think they understood. Wait a minute. Jesus is drawing a parallel between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He's drawing a parallel between what God did and who he is. Now, we see this, perhaps one or two people yell out, verse 52.
[00:30:26] How can you say this? You want us to eat your flesh? In other words, are you telling us we should be cannibals?
[00:30:33] That's what they're saying. You see that in verse 52, the Jews disputed among themselves. How can this be? How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Now, this may have been somebody just mockingly throwing this out there. This may have been a serious question from somebody, but Jesus seems to believe, by the way we read this text, that those who say that their hearts are not ready to hear from him, but there are other people who know exactly what he's talking about. And so because of that, and for those listening who knows exactly what he's talking about, he leans in a little bit further. And that's what we see in the following verses. Point B on your outline. Jesus then clarifies that he's bred from heaven and also he is a sacrifice that is sufficient to make them right with God. You can write that on point b on your outline. Jesus sacrifice is sufficient. Look what he says as he continues on. In response, Jesus said to them, in response to that comment, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man, that is a reference to himself and drink of his blood. So now he's just gone from eating of his flesh to also drinking of his blood a little bit further, which, by the way, to the Jews, would have been a terrible thing to say, right? No one should be drinking blood in this culture. And then he says, drink my blood. You have no life in you if you don't do that. Verse 54. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on, on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.
[00:32:06] Wow. The bread. Here's what he's saying. Maybe write this down somewhere. Jesus died physically so believers could live spiritually. Jesus died physically so believers could live spiritually. Now, the parallels that we see here between the laying out of his flesh and the pouring out of his blood is a clear symbol of sacrifice over and over. And to all those Jews in the synagogue, they should have known that. They would have thought through, wait a minute. I know what it looks like to pour out blood. I know what it looks like to lay out flesh to give up life. And so they're thinking sacrifice. What?
[00:32:43] What are you talking about here? Jesus is communicating to them and to us a simple, powerful truth. It is only by taking on me that you're going to have a right relationship with God. It's only by consuming, taking me in. And he says, eating of my flesh, drinking of my blood. By the way, it's not a reference to communion that is yet to be instituted. That is the only way that you're going to have life. Remember, if we go back again to Exodus, chapter 16 and 17, we have manna from heaven and then water that came out of a, they came out of a rock, right? Both of which were signs of God's faithfulness. God saying, I am faithful here, trust me. I am faithful here, trust me. And so they ate of the manna, they drank of the water. God showing I am faithful. And now here's Jesus saying, eat and drink of me. That's the way that you're going to have life. And it's the way that God is showing his faithfulness. We go on to the last point here. Jesus on the inside brings life.
[00:33:48] Jesus on the inside brings life. We'll go through this point and then I'll share just a few detailed pieces, some application, and some questions to think about. So don't close up your bibles and put all the things away. Walk with me through these last few verses. Jesus has now laid out to them all that he is the only way that they're going to have eternal life, of which they said that they want. He said, I'm from heaven. I am a sacrifice sufficient for you. In other words, believe in me.
[00:34:15] If your heart is ready and drawing to God, drawn by God, you will believe in me that I am enough. And here he clarifies even more so for them. And this is where the teaching gets even harder, gets even harder. Here as the Father verse 57. As the living father has sent me, I live. Notice by the way, how many times we see the word live. Here the living father has sent me. I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate. Here again, reference to the past and who died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. One commentator speaking about this said this, and you all know this phrase, this saying, you are what you are what you eat, right? Have you all heard that? Right? For those of you who've never heard that. That's a phrase that's said.
[00:35:10] This is even more true spiritually. Do you know that you are what you eat? Just because you're around other people who are well fed does not mean that you are well fed. If we consider real food, it's easier to tell when a person is well fed, isn't it? And I'm not making any point. It's. I'm not pointing out anyone or anything, but when you see that somebody, you can see on the outside someone is well fed.
[00:35:35] But in christian circles, we can fake that we're well fed, can't we?
[00:35:42] We can fake that. We can look on the outside like, I'm a well fed person. I am feeding on the Lord. But in reality, that can be far from the truth. It's harder to fake that in reality with physical food, but it's easier spiritually.
[00:36:01] Do you want to be spiritually healthy? I hope that's a question for all of us.
[00:36:07] You have to personally choose to take Jesus for yourself. He won't shove himself down your throat, right? He's not going to take himself, shove himself down your throat. He's saying, I'm going to offer myself as the bread of life. I'm going to offer myself as the one who can grant you true relationship with God. He lists, you see on the screen there, there's kind of that outline he lists off. Here's the reasons. Here's the ways that you can be right with God is first believing that I'm from heaven, that my sacrifice is sufficient, and then accept me on the inside. He who eats this bread will live forever. Jesus offers us heavenly bread for eternal life, but we must eat it. Faith in Jesus is not compared, by the way, to tasting, to admiring, but rather to eating. Jesus says that we must have him within us and we must partake of him. Seeing this loaf of bread, I'm just trying to break this open. Seeing this loaf of bread, will that satisfy your hunger? Most likely, if you're already hungry, will it make you more hungry? Right?
[00:37:10] Knowing the ingredients of this bread, will that satisfy your hunger?
[00:37:15] Taking pictures of the bread and posting it on social media, will that satisfy your hunger? Isn't it so funny when you're, like, really hungry and you have to take a picture of your food? Someone's like, no, I just want to eat, no, I got to take a picture of it first.
[00:37:29] Telling other people about the bread, will that satisfy your hunger?
[00:37:35] Selling the bread, will that satisfy your hunger?
[00:37:38] Playing catch, it's like, who's ready?
[00:37:44] Will that satisfy your hunger.
[00:37:47] No, it won't. The only thing that will satisfy your hunger is taking the bread that was broken for us, right? And taking it and eating it. Now some of you are wishing I would share with you.
[00:38:05] Go home and make your own bread or go to nugget and buy your own.
[00:38:15] If Jesus is on the outside, you will never experience the redemptive power that he offers.
[00:38:25] If you're willing to let Jesus come on the inside, you will experience, according to the promises laid out before us, true life on the inside. And that's not just I know I'm going to go to heaven when I'm dying, but rather true connection with the Father, God in heaven, starting today. Now we have to ask this question, and I'll give you three answers to this question that I encourage you to write down. How do you eat the bread?
[00:38:52] Right? We see this parallel between physical and spiritual. Physical and spiritual. How do you do this? Firstly, first thing, write this down somewhere. You trust in Jesus as your personal savior and lord. He is not good enough for all those people out there. That's not. We can't say Jesus is good as a savior for all of them, but for us to eat the bread, for us to say I'm gonna take and eat, it's to say, he's good enough for me too. Whatever baggage I have, whatever sin that I have, whatever shame that I'm carrying, he's good enough and strong enough to cover all of me. That's the first step. Secondly, how do you eat this bread that Jesus offers? Is you spend time with it with him, take time out of your day, every day to eat of the food. Now, what's noticeable is this. You all know if you go a day without eating food, do you and I all notice if we go a day without spending time with Jesus, does that make us hurt a little bit? Does that make us uncomfortable a little bit? You all know that if you go a day without eating food, you're like, man, I'm feeling it right now. I would really like some time to go and eat some food. We all have time. We set aside time. We plan out our day to go find places to eat good food. Do we do the same if we consider the food of Jesus Christ? If we recognize I have to spend time to get away to feed myself with Jesus.
[00:40:19] Thirdly, turn away from that of which Jesus hates and turn towards what he loves.
[00:40:27] Turn towards what he loves. When we're eating things that are bad for us, we're not eating the things that Jesus says are good for us and are gonna bring us life. How do we eat the things that Jesus has for us? How do we eat of Jesus, as he says, eat of this bread. It's to put aside. It's to shove away. It's to take off garments, as it says in other parts of scripture, to put away the things that are not of him, so that we actually have margin in our life space in our life to consume what he wants us to. Three questions to ask, and then I'll close in prayer. Have you personally taken up Jesus on his offer and believed in his work on the cross as the only way that you can be saved from your sins?
[00:41:12] Second question, is what you're consuming in your life. On the radio, on podcasts, music, on tv stuff screens, movies, books, social media, magazines, all of those things. Is what you're consuming helping or hurting your relationship with God?
[00:41:35] Think about all the things in your life. Lastly, as bread was a part of their daily meal, is Jesus a part of your daily meal? If you go a day without time with Jesus, will you notice?
[00:41:49] Jesus, we come before you as a God who loves us and wants the very best for us because you are our father.
[00:42:01] Because you're a God who has a huge heart and desires that none fall away from you, that none resists you.
[00:42:14] Every person here in this room, Lord, you know where their heart is.
[00:42:19] You know where our heart is, and you desire our hearts to be united with yours.
[00:42:27] Thank you, Jesus, that you came to this earth, that you died a death in payment for our sins, a payment that we could not do by ourselves so that we truly could have a relationship with the father and know him as a good, kind father.
[00:42:46] And I pray that as we.
[00:42:50] As we step into this week, as we think about this passage, Lord, that we would set aside time in our life to remind ourselves of your faithfulness, that you would remind us of your faithfulness. You would soften our hearts, that we would not be grumblers, but rejoicers in what you have offered us and the life that you sustain us with. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:43:16] We're gonna close our time with a great song about the coming of Jesus, the glorious day that will come before us. Whenever Jesus decides. If you would like to pray with myself or pastor Les, there'll be a couple people in the back who have a lanyard around their neck who'd be happy to take you into a side room and pray with you. If there's things on your heart. Maybe you're thinking through some of those questions that I just asked. Maybe you're thinking through your relationship with Jesus and you know it's not right and you want to make it right. Do that today. Don't leave here knowing that you're not in a right relationship with the Lord. You'll be blessed when you know confidently that you are so wholly surrendered to him. Let's stand and sing together close.
