the gospel of john: bread of life

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved.

Transcript October 18/19, 2014

The Gospel of John: Bread of Life Aaron Brockett | John 6:16-40

Alright, how are we doing today? Good to see you. If you have a Bible go ahead and grab it and get to John, chapter 6. If you would like to have a Bible, maybe you don’t have one, please stop by Connection Central. We’d love to give one to you as our gift. You can also download our church app. We have a Bible there that you can use to follow along. If this is your first time with us, we are in the middle of a series in the Gospel of John. We’re working our way through. What I love about the Gospel of John is that this is coming from a guy who is older and he has a proven track record of following Jesus faithfully decade, after decade, after decade. And so now he is writing to us and he is basically saying, “Look, I know that wherever you are in your spiritual journey, there are probably some barriers to belief. There are some unexpected things that have happened in life. Maybe there are some questions that you have or there are some doubts that you have. John is saying, “I can relate to that and I want to try to help you navigate those. I want to try to navigate the barriers to belief so that you would come to a place of belief, not in a religion per say, not in just a bunch of moralistic statements or even a worldview, but I want you to put your belief in a person and His name is Jesus Christ.” Last week we covered the first 15 verses of chapter 6. If you missed that sermon you can get caught up online. We looked at the feeding of the five thousand. Now, we’re taking three weekends to cover all of chapter 6 because it’s 71 verses long. So, there is a huge amount of content that Jesus is giving us here in this chapter through John. Last week we covered the first 15 verses, the feeding of the five thousand. And I basically ended in this way, Jesus takes a boy’s small lunch and He meets the tremendous need of the crowd in front of Him. And I basically threw this question into our laps. What is your lunch? We know that there is a pretty significant need that is in front of us in the world today. If you just turn on the news for a millisecond you are reminded of the things that are a threat, the things that are dark, and the things that are discouraging. We hear about things like Ebola, we hear about ISIS, we hear about the economy, we hear about fighting, and we hear about gun outbreaks – all this stuff that is in the news. This need in front of us is huge. Here’s the temptation. We think, “Well, I can’t do anything about it. My lunch is pretty insignificant. What could God possibly do through me?” And Jesus is saying this not just to us individually but He is saying it to the church. The church has largely lost its voice in this culture, the church is largely dismissed, and in many ways that should concern us. But in some ways it should encourage us because God says, “I do My most powerful work through that which is perceived to be powerless.” So, He would basically say to us, “What is your lunch? It’s pretty insignificant in comparison to the need that is in front of you.” And Jesus says, “In humility and availability, would you come and would you give it to Me and watch My power surge through your insufficiency.”

The Gospel of John: Bread of Life October 18/19, 2014

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

So, I hope that you’ve been wrestling with that question, “What am I holding onto? What am I afraid to give to Jesus because I don’t think that it will be enough to meet the need that is in front of us?” Or, “Maybe I just want to hold on to it because I just want to snack on my lunch. I’ll just keep it for me.” And, Jesus says to us and to the church, “No, would you make it available?” Now, as we come to verse 16 (we’re going to cover verse 16 to verse 40 today) this is a great passage where Jesus is actually going to repeat Himself next week, but He’s going to say some very, very difficult things that not everybody can hang with. But Jesus is giving us this idea. Jesus is saying, “Look, you have an appetite, both physical and spiritual, and I’m the bread of life. I’m the bread from heaven.” Is there anything more satisfying than bread? Have you ever heard the phrase “bread is a filler”? Restaurants give you bread before your meal because it’s a filler – they’re filling you up with it. I’m not complaining. We eat it every time. And Jesus is basically going to give us this analogy. He’s going to say, “Look, one of the staples, one of the basics of our diet is bread. I’ve come to be the bread of life,” because He knows that all of us have this insatiable hunger. Now, we know what it’s like to be physically hungry, but Jesus is going to go beyond that and He’s going to say, “You are also emotionally and spiritually hungry.” All of us are desperately searching to satisfy that hunger with something. How many of you have ever eaten at In and Out Burger? Any of you in the room? A fair number of you have. Aren’t you bummed that we don’t have them in Indy? Man, I’m bummed. I love Five Guys, nothing against Five Guys. I love Bub’s. But In and Out has got to be my favorite. When we lived in California we lived down the street from an In and Out which was very, very bad for my health because I would go there all of the time. Here’s what I would order. I would always get a double, double animal style, fries, a chocolate shake, and water, because the water off-‐sets the chocolate shake. I don’t know if you knew that or not. Last year I was going to be in Phoenix for a meeting with some other pastors and my flight was late Sunday afternoon and I was going to get into Phoenix around 8:30 or 9:00 at night. So I knew that there are In and Out restaurants in Phoenix. And so, this is not a healthy thing at all but I decided to not eat anything on Sunday, which is bad because I have to preach multiple times – so I was preaching hungry which is not good. I don’t even remember the sermon. But, I knew that In and Out was coming and I wanted to be really hungry for it because I don’t get to eat there that often. So I was developing an appetite for it – in an unhealthy way – I can see the judgmental stares. So, I preach, I get on the plane, I go to Phoenix, I land and I’m really, really hungry. My friend picks me up at the airport in a rental car and says, “Where do you want to go?” And I’m like In and Out, “Seri, where is the closest In and Out?” So we go to In and Out and I walk up, order my usual double, double animal style, fries well done, chocolate shake, and water. I go sit down in a booth – have you ever been so hungry you inhale your food? You just devour it and when you get done you don’t even feel like you’ve eaten anything? Your stomach hasn’t had time to send messages up to your brain (or however that works) that you’re full. You should probably just wait – but I didn’t want to.



So, I didn’t want my friend to think that I was a pig so I just kind of casually wadded up the paper. Got up. He was almost done and he thought we were headed out the door. I threw my paper away and then I walked up to the counter and reloaded. Alright? That’s what you call that. So I did the same thing, double, double animal style, fries well done – this time I left out the shake, just a water. I came back and his eyes were huge. He’s like, “Dude, what are you doing? You’re going to kill yourself.” I was like, “Man, I’m hungry. I’ve been fasting all day for this moment.” I developed an appetite. Now here’s the thing I regretted it big time! There’s something called meat sweats. Have you ever had that? It’s just gross. Disgusting. Why did I ever do that to myself? I hate myself. Here’s the thing. The very next day I was hungry again. And isn’t it the thing about food? Thanksgiving is right around the corner. You can have one of the best meals ever and you can get satisfied in the moment but you’re going to be hungry again. Physical bread can only take you so far. The same thing would be true of anything material. Money can only take you so far. Money can satisfy something, temporarily. But it eventually wears off. That promotion can satisfy, temporarily. But eventually it will wear off. And in many ways material things can provide some of our greatest moments of satisfaction and some of our greatest moments of frustration because whatever it is that we partake of, we know it will never satisfy fully. That’s the idea that Jesus is going to get at in these few verses together. So, let’s start in verse 16. It says, “When evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But He said to them, ‘It is I, do not be afraid.’ Then they were glad to take Him into the boat and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.” So, just before Jesus gives us this concept that He is the bread of life, we see the disciples get into a boat and get caught up in a storm. What’s happening is that the previous day was the feeding of the five thousand and the disciples are exhausted because of the stress level that they would have experienced when you’ve got 15,000 hungry people demanding that they be fed. So the disciples are straining about that. I also think that the disciples were probably emotionally let down and disappointed because of the simple fact that they had this idea that this kingdom that Jesus was going to usher in was completely earthly and political in nature. The disciples never fully grasped what it was that Jesus was talking about when He was referring to His kingdom coming. So they thought that Jesus was going to run for political office in Rome. They thought that the way that Jesus was going to bring change was that He was going to get voted in. They were going to take Rome by storm and they were going to be His right hand men. The disciples are just waiting for the right moment for Jesus to take His platform and jump into the spotlight. So from their earthly perspective they were thinking, “The feeding of the five thousand – there’s never been a more opportune time for You to run for office, Jesus. You just fed 15,000 people. People are talking about it. There is a buzz. They’re excited. We think they’ll vote for You.” But do you remember verse 15 from last week? It says that when Jesus saw that they wanted to make Him king, what did He do? He withdrew. That’s never a good thing. When you hear that in politics it



means, “I’m no longer running. I’m going the other way. I’m not trying to cling to this.” So Jesus withdraws to a mountain. Here’s what I think we miss in this. The disciples are standing there like, “We don’t get you. What are you doing? This is the right opportunity for You to jump in and cease control yet You’re going off by yourself on a mountain?” And I think that they were disappointed and I think that they may have been a bit discouraged. These verses we just read explain something here. Jesus comes to them. What we find in those verses is the fifth miracle in the Gospel of John. And notice that John always underplays them. John never makes a big deal out of them. I mean, walking on water – that’s pretty astounding. Any of you ever see somebody do that? No. John mentions it like it’s matter of fact. It’s like, “Yeah, Jesus comes walking on the water, the storm calms down, and they’re automatically at the shore.” And they are like, “What just happened here?” Now, here’s the question I had while studying this. Why didn’t Jesus do a moon-‐walk on the water in front of 15,000 people? That’s pretty astounding. Why didn’t He save that one for a big crowd? Jesus saved that one for 12 men. And we wonder why He wouldn’t do that in front of a whole bunch of people? It’s because Jesus always downplayed the miracle. The miracles themselves were not what he wanted people to be drawn to. The miracles were always to get people’s attention to the discourse. To get people’s attention to what Jesus might teach them, to what He might offer them. I think what Jesus is doing here is that He’s saying to the disciples, “Look, guys. I know that you’re disappointed. I know that you’re let down a little bit. I just want you to know that I know what I’m doing. I just want you to know that I’m still in control. I just want you to know that I’m still the Messiah. Here’s another thing that I think is important for us to know about the miracles themselves. John, maybe more than any of the other gospel writers does not make a big deal out of them. Never do you hear John say, “And then Jesus did a miracle.” And then you hear him say, “This was fantastic, this was incredible, watch Jesus – abracadabra – none of that. John always slides it right in there. We saw that last week with the feeding of the five thousand where it says that Jesus began to pass out the bread and then it just kind of subtly said, “And everybody had their fill.” That was how John introduced a miracle. Have you noticed this? So when Jesus heals a royal official’s son he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. When He heals the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. And if Jesus was trying to dazzle us with tricks to get us to see that He was the Son of God, I think He could have done some more dazzling miracles – like, I don’t know – fly. If Jesus was like, “Hey, I want to show you how powerful I am,” and He just takes off into the air. Or what if He just said, “Watch this,” and He disappeared from there and reappears over here. But He didn’t do that because the miracles themselves are not the main attraction. They are to get us to focus our attention on Jesus. Here’s the other thing about miracles. Some of you have probably been tracking with us through this series and you’re like, “Hey, you know I don’t have a problem with the content that we’ve covered so far. Jesus’ teaching seems pretty interesting. The points that John makes are interesting. But when you get to the miracles themselves I have a hard time believing that because, what a miracle is is suspending the natural order of things for supernatural and, man, Aaron, I have a really hard time believing that Jesus healed somebody, walked on water, or fed 15,000 people with a boy’s small lunch.”



I understand what you are saying. But here’s the point. If you look at the miracles themselves, the reason He didn’t fly, the reason that Jesus didn’t just disappear and reappear is because He’s making a point about how unnatural things really are. Here’s a point of tension that will always set some of us back in our faith. It’s this question, and maybe some of you have wrestled with it or are wrestling it. Why does God allow evil, pain, and suffering in this world? Why does He allow it? And every religious system, every worldview has to honestly say, “You know what? We don’t know fully? We don’t know why God allows that.” Christians have to say at least one more thing. We know what God thinks about it, partly because of the miracles. When Jesus does a miracle it’s either Him sustaining life or bringing order to a very unnatural world. So when Jesus heals somebody, or when Jesus calms a storm – what’s He doing? He’s basically saying, “That’s not natural and I hate what sin has done in the world.” And so instead of suspending the natural order, what if Jesus is showing us what the natural order was intended to be? Are you tracking with that? I know it’s like 9:30 in the morning and that’s a really complex idea and your brains are blowing up, and you’re hungry because you’ve seen In and Out. But I want us to grasp this. When Jesus does a miracle, He’s not trying to dazzle us with tricks. Jesus is pointing back to Eden and He’s pointing to the restoration of all things. So, whenever we see Jesus walking on the water, I think that it’s important and we don’t want to miss that, but here’s the problem. We want to make too much of the miracle itself. Going on in verse 22, it says, “On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.” He’s talking about the feeding of the five thousand there. Verse 24, “So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.” Now stop there for just a minute. Verse 24 – does that seem like a bad thing or a good thing? It seems like a good thing, right? They’re seeking Jesus, wrong motive though so hold that. They’re seeking Jesus – wrong motive. Verse 25, “When they found Him 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,’” should be a good thing, right? But then Jesus gets to their motive, “‘not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.’” What’s Jesus saying there? He’s saying, The double, double animal style, with fries, and a chocolate shake wore off and you’re hungry again. Your stomach’s empty again, that’s why you’re seeking after me.” Verse 27, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal.” One of the things that we’re going to see here in John, chapter 6 is that Jesus gets really frustrated. We’re going to really see it next week. He gets to the point of utter frustration. He keeps repeating Himself over and over again and it just seems to be going over everybody’s head. So, He says to them, “I’m glad that you’ve sought Me out here but I just want to clarify here that the only reason that you sought me out is that I fed you yesterday and you’re hungry again. And that’s not



so much a bad thing, but you’re only thinking about your stomachs and I want you to think about your souls.” Then He says to them, “Don’t strive for, don’t just aspire to, and don’t just work for food that perishes.” What’s He talking about? Our earthly bread, He’s talking about food that will go bad. Now, in the First Century they didn’t have such a thing as preservatives like we have today. So, they’re food would go bad very easily. Today, a Twinkie can sit there for 20 years. You can eat a Twinkie 20 years later and it’s just a good because it’s packed full of preservatives. Jesus is saying, “The food that you work for, that’s good for you – no preservatives – you better eat it because it’s going to go bad.” And He says, “Don’t just work to fill your stomach. Work to satisfy your soul.” So they’re like, “Well, okay. Tell us how to do that work.” And it’s pretty astounding but notice that He completely goes over their heads. Verse 28, “Then they said to Him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’” So, “Alright, Jesus, we hear what you’re saying. We don’t want to work for food that just perishes, so tell us what do we do to do the work of God?” And this is the thing that we’ll trip over all of the time in trying to follow Christ. We simply say, “Okay, well tell me what I have to do to earn this. What do I have to do to work for this?” And we can’t possibly do it. We can’t possibly pay off the bill. I could even say this. You and I are not “mistakers” in need of a life coach. We’re sinners in need of a Savior. And Jesus says that we need to put our trust in the finished work of Christ alone. That’s what He says to them in verse 29, “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” So, He’s like, “Your work is to put your trust in the finished work of Christ alone.” Seven times in this chapter it says that God the Father has sent Jesus to us. And what he means by that is before you’re hungry you need to develop an appetite. And so, Jesus comes to develop that appetite within us for the bread from heaven. One of the things we’re going to get into more next week as we cover the end of chapter 6, is this whole tension between does God make us aware, does God choose us or do we choose Him? It’s this whole debate called predestination. What I want us to understand is that the Bible teaches us that God develops an appetite within us and we have to choose. The two are not opposed. They go together. So we see here that Jesus basically says to them, “I’ve come to you to develop an appetite, but will you choose to partake in the true bread of life?” Meaning your only work is to put your trust in the One who has done the work for you. But instead of receiving that in humility, here’s what we have a tendency to do as human beings. We have a tendency to question and attack the credibility of Jesus Christ. And that’s exactly what this crowd does with Jesus. Re-‐read the passage again for yourself later today. What Jesus has just served up to them sounds really, really good. He’s like, “Hey man, look. Your work is just to put your trust in me.” And they just don’t want to hear it so they attack His credibility. Look at how they do that in verses 30, “They said to Him, ‘Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?’” Now, here’s what’s amazing about this question? What did He just do yesterday? He just fed them with five barley loaves and two fish – 15,000 people. If I’m Jesus, I’m going, “Do you guys have short-‐term memory loss? Do you not remember yesterday? Do we need to play the video tape back?” They just saw that yesterday but they’re challenging Him again. And



actually, John even implies that Jesus did many other signs. This is all we have but He’s done several signs. And then they say in verse 31, “Our father ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” So, they’re referring back to the Old Testament, back to the Israelites in the wilderness and they’re like, “Hey, Moses gave us bread from heaven.” So, they’re challenging Jesus with this. They’re saying, “Hey look, Man. You fed 15,000 people yesterday with a boy’s small lunch. Pretty impressive, Jesus. Not bad for a rookie. But you know, Moses, our father, he fed us bread from heaven,” now notice the distinction. They’re still thinking that Jesus just fed them physical bread, “Moses, he fed us bread from heaven. Not just for one afternoon, but for 40 years straight. Jesus, can You top that?” That’s what they are doing here. Could you just imagine the gall that they had? Jesus has just said, “I want you to put your trust in my finished work,” and they attack His credibility. This is where I think that looking at a parallel passage or another passage would bring some insight into this. Paul writes to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 22 – 25. Listen to what Paul writes. This is on the screen behind me. He says, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,” so, in other words, this is a Jewish crowd and they’re demanding signs from Him. And the apostle John is writing to a Greek, intellectual crowd saying, Jews – they want miracles, Greeks – they want logic, “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,” but listen to this, “but to those who are called,” those who have an appetite that has been developed within them by the Spirit of God, “both Jews and Greeks,” in other words this is available for everyone, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In other words, Jesus is the sign of God and He is the logic of God. Now, I love this last sentence, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” In other words, the smartest thought that I’ve ever thought, God looks at that and He’s like, “That’s so dumb I’ve never thought of that.” On my strongest day, when I’m like, “Man, I feel strong.” God is like, “That’s really puny and pathetic.” That for me solves about 99.9 percent of my issues with God. God is like, “Your smartest thought, your strongest moment, really weak.” He’s basically saying, “You’re demanding these miracles, these signs. You’re demanding this logic. Jesus is both and you’re missing it. He’s standing right in front of you and you’re missing it.” You see, the Jewish people, they thought that when the Messiah would come that He would renew the miracle of the manna. So, here’s what the people are doing. They’re saying, “Jesus, You had a good start yesterday. You fed 15,000 people with bread. Now, let’s do it for 40 more years and then we’ll trust You.” Jesus annihilates their argument with two sentences. Look at verse 32, “Jesus then 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.’” And true bread there would mean Jesus, Himself. Verse 33, “‘For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to Him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’” So, here’s what Jesus does. Jesus basically says, “Alright, guys. You need to get your facts straight. Moses did not give you the bread, God gave you the bread. Moses drove the bread truck. There’s a difference. Moses organized the bread, Moses distributed the bread, he didn’t break the bread – he just gave it to you.” The second thing He says is, “The bread that Moses gave you went bad real quick. We read in the Old Testament that when the Israelites tried to save that daily portion for the next day it would go bad, it



would spoil over night.” So He’s like, “But God has given the true bread from heaven which is His Son, Jesus Christ. It will never go bad.” The third thing that He says is, “Moses provided bread for a small group of people, the Israelites. But I come for everyone. This true bread is available to everyone.” So, they just challenged Jesus to a duel and they lost, miserably. Verse 34 shows us that they knew it, because they said, “Hey, Give us this bread always.” But they’re still not grasping it. Their intentions were good. I think they were like many of us. I think their intentions were good. They wanted to grasp it, but they were materialists. They were thinking with their stomach. They weren’t so much thinking with their souls. I love how Tim Keller phrases this in his commentary on it. He says, “Instead of seeing in the bread a sign, they had seen in the sign only the bread.” Do you hear what he is saying? He’s like, “And they saw a miracle and they said, ‘Oh, just give us more sandwiches, Jesus.’” And Jesus is like, “No, I gave you the sandwich to stimulate your appetite for the true bread from heaven.” Let’s finish up the passage. Verse 35, “Jesus said to them,” this is so clear, “‘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 you do not believe. All that the Father gives 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 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.’” Those words of Jesus at the tail end of that passage are such a comfort and security. He’s basically saying, “Man, if you partake in Me then I’ve got you. I won’t lose you. Man, trust Me in this. What I offer will sustain you, not only in this life but in the life to come and I will raise you up. Man, your life is secure with me. You can either receive that and allow that to penetrate into your heart and soul, or it can go over your head and you can simply dismiss it.” What the people are struggling with is what we often struggle with. We are okay with Jesus offering us an occasional meal, but it’s another thing to actually feed upon Him, Himself so that He would become our nourishment. So, what many of us want is not so much a Savior, because to admit that we need a Savior is to admit that we are in trouble. Many of us don’t like to admit that. What we would rather treat Jesus as – we would rather think of Him as a personal assistant who just helps us whenever we have a need. And Jesus refuses to be our personal assistant. Not because He doesn’t care, not because He doesn’t have compassion, but because that’s not your true need. He doesn’t want to just be your personal assistant. He wants to be your Savior. And oftentimes we just want to kind of reduce Jesus – we don’t want to completely dismiss Him, but we want to reduce Him. And here’s how we often do it, “Well, I think that Jesus is a good teacher. He’s teaches some good stuff. I think that we can take a little bit from Jesus, and a little bit from Buddha, and a little bit from over here, and just kind of make our own cocktail of religion and we can live our own way.” So we just want Jesus to be a teacher. Now, here’s the problem with Jesus being a teacher. If Jesus is a teacher only, then His standard only condemns. You don’t want Jesus to be a teacher only. Have you heard what He teaches? We’re going to



actually get into this next week. The disciples are like, “This is too much. We can’t do this.” And many of them walked. They walked away from Him. We’re not thinking about the irrationality of this. If Jesus is just a teacher, He condemns you. He doesn’t save you. Here’s what I mean. Jesus says this, “You have heard it said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’” I don’t know about you but I am relieved, check! I’ve not done that. I’m good. Then He goes on, “But I say to you, if you’ve had a lustful thought in your heart you’re guilty.” Oh, stink. Really? Jesus would be like, “Hey, you have heard it said, ‘Do not murder.’” Man, absolutely. I’m with You. I’ve not murdered anybody. “But I tell you that if you’ve lost your cool, if you’ve lost control and had an angry though against somebody, you’re guilty.” Really? If Jesus is just a teacher, His standard only condemns. Jesus says, “You can’t handle that. I have to be more than that.” So here’s what He says. He says, “I teach this standard that you can’t live up to and then I am the bread of life, I make the sacrifice for that which you cannot live up to and sustain your life.” Here’s what Jesus basically says. He says, “I’ve come to make a sacrifice. I’ve come to be torn apart so that you might receive the nourishment of My sacrifice and have life.” If you were to look at this bread right here, which actually smells amazing, I’ve been smelling it the whole sermon. And this is like some really dense stuff here. If you were to go out to a restaurant and they served you this bread, how are you going to get this bread into your body to receive nourishment? You’re not going to swallow it whole. You would choke. At a very practical level, in order to get this bread into you it’s got to be torn apart. And this is a very practical illustration of what Jesus gives. Some of us have struggled with the brutality of the cross. Why does the cross have to be so brutal? Well, because sin demands it. Because if you’re going to receive the sacrifice, the nourishment of what Jesus has done for you, the bread, the body has to be torn apart. So, I might say it this way. If the bread is torn apart, I get made whole. If the bread stays whole, I fall apart. Jesus says, “I have come to make sacrifice so that you might have life and life to the fullest.” Now, here’s the problem with this statement. A couple of things here. Number one: We think that Jesus died on the cross to give us eternal existence. And eternal existence and eternal life are not the same thing. When I was growing up and I was in church and I would hear about heaven, honestly it scared me to death. Partly because I was like, “I’m just a little kid. I want to live a full life and then I’ll go to heaven. So, God, you can come back when I’m really old – that would be awesome. That way I can live a full life here,” I was totally missing it, right? Any of you with me in that? Here’s my second thought, “Aren’t we going to get bored in heaven? After 100,000 years of getting up every day, putting on our halo, and getting our harp, and putting on our diaper (because that’s standard wear in heaven) and then going to cloud number nine and playing the harp for a while and worshipping – after about 100,000 years of this aren’t we going to be bored to death? That’s eternal existence. And that’s not what Jesus is offering. He says, “I’ve come to give you eternal life,” and He would say, “the fullness of life.” Now, our problem is that in the English language we only have one word for life and it is life. That was worth the price of admission today. But in the Greek there are two words for life. The word “bios” which is where we get the word “biology” it’s the idea of nature, the physicality of life, how things work together. But the other word for life in the Greek is “zoe”. And that means fullness of life. That means extreme life. Life filled with purpose. Life with meaning.



Let me give you an example of this. A few years ago, I took my oldest daughter, Campbell, with me to New York City. She’s 10 now. She was seven going on eight at the time. She was really excited to go to the Big Apple. So, she packed up all of her things. I had a meeting there. We got on the plane and we flew to New York. We got in the cab, went to the hotel, we were staying on the 35th or 40th floor – way up there and it was really quiet. You could faintly hear the noise on the street below but it was really quiet. We had about an hour before we had to be somewhere and so we go into this hotel room. She unpacks her things and you need to understand, my oldest daughter is probably the most reflective, the most quiet, the most introspective of all of our kids. She always has her nose in a book. So, she takes a book, she sits down on the bed, and she just begins to read. I dug out some papers that I had to review before my meeting. And so, I’m laying down on the other bed and for about an hour neither one of us said a word. We were just kind of in our hotel room, real quiet, reading. And, after about an hour of that, she looks over at me and she takes a deep breath, and she goes, “Daddy, I love my brother and sister. But they’re really loud.” And she goes, “This is the life.” Now, what is she talking about there? Is she talking about biology? Is she saying, “Daddy, I’m breathing right now. Daddy, my heart is beating right now.”? No, she wasn’t talking about biology. She was talking about zoe. She was talking about, “This is filling me up. This is a life worth living.” You get the idea. That’s what she’s grasping here. So, when Jesus says, “I’ve come to give you life,” He’s not so much talking biology. He’s not talking about eternal existence. He’s talking about life to the fullest. Now, here’s the point. Every single person in this room is searching for zoe. You’re not searching for existence. You’re not waking up every day saying, “I’m going to keep my heart beating throughout the day.” What we’re searching for is living a life worth living. Don’t we all want that? That’s an appetite. And we’re seeking to fulfill that appetite with anything that we think can fulfill it. And Jesus is simply saying, “Don’t try to satisfy it with a double, double and fries. Satisfy it with the true bread from heaven.” The issue that is in front of you right now that I want you to identify is what is your zoe? What is that thing that you have been chasing or that you think will give you life? And it could be anything. It could be a promotion, it could be a vacation, it could be a home, it could be money, it could be relationships, or it could be your reputation. Whatever it is you say, “Man, if I had that – that’s a life worth living. If I had that then I would finally feel fulfilled.” And those of us who are old enough, those of us who have had enough experience have probably had these moments where we did finally get the promotion, and we did finally get the square footage, and we did finally get the raise. And what happens? You get hungry again. They don’t fully satisfy. And Jesus says, “That’s not a life worth living. I want to give you bread – I want to give you life to the fullest.” This is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 5:18 when he says, “Do not get drunk with wine for that leads to corruption but be filled with the Spirit.” What Paul is saying there is, “Don’t just chase after a stimulant, go after the Spirit. The Bible doesn’t prohibit alcohol. It prohibits drunkenness. And the reason is that alcohol as a food thing is not a sin. But alcohol, when you consume it to try to get courage, when you consume it to try to forget your circumstances, when you consume it to loosen up – that’s a sin because you’re basically saying, “That’s my zoe.” And that’s not just about alcohol. That’s about anything.



So, Jesus comes to this crowd that is so concerned about their material needs, so concerned about their stomach, and He says, “I want to give you, not just eternal existence. I want to give you life if you partake in Me.” If you just put your trust in the finished work of Christ on the cross. We’re going to do that now in the next few moments as we take communion together and as the ushers come. So, I just want you to, over the next few moments, I just want you to spend a little bit of time with the Lord. Spend a little bit of time in reflection simply asking this question. I want you to identify it, “What’s my zoe? What’s that thing that I have been chasing and then what does it mean for me to partake in the bread of life that is permanent and can truly satisfy.” Let’s pray. Father we come to You right now and pray that in these next few moments together that Your Spirit would meet us right where we need to be met. Some of us need to be ministered to. Some of us need to be comforted. I pray that Your Spirit would do that. I pray that we would do that through our church family, that we would come around those individuals and serve and minister to them. God, maybe we’re feeling a little proud, or we’re feeling a little numb to the circumstances around us. I pray that Your Spirit would convict us, and bring us to that place of repentance where we would maybe grasp that all of us are like this crowd that Jesus is growing frustrated with here in John 6. I can see myself in it where Jesus continually states very plainly who He is and what He has come to offer and instead of just receiving that in humility I have a tendency to dance. I have a tendency to ask questions, to try to attack His credibility instead of just receiving the true bread from heaven. God I pray that there would be some people here today who for the very first time ever would fully surrender to you. That they would realize that they have been chasing after zoe, they’ve been chasing after that which they think would give them full life and they’re tired of being on that treadmill. They’re tired of eating it, thinking that that was it, and then growing hungry once again. Maybe there are some people here who are Christians but are severely malnourished because they have stopped feeding upon You, they have stopped chasing after You and Your word, they’ve stopped falling on their face before You in prayer, they’ve actually begun to allow some cynicism to creep into their mindset. God, I pray that You would renew them. I pray that You would come. I pray that they could partake of Your body, Your sacrifice, Your Spirit that would renew them once again. So in these next few moments may Your Holy Spirit meet us in this room wherever we need to be met. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

the gospel of john: bread of life

Documents