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Bread Of Life Series

Contributed by John Oscar on May 20, 2018 (message contributor)

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Scripture: John 6:25-70

Denomination: Assembly Of God

Summary: Explanation of Jesus saying He is the bread of life

Bread Of Life

CCCAG May 20th, 2018

Scripture- John 6:25-70

I’m grateful someone made a movie about John’s Gospel, because it helps bring to life a lot of the harder teachings in this part of the bible.

This morning we are going to tackle a lengthy and very complex section of John’s Gospel. A few of the commentators and experts in sermon preparation warn that this is no way you can do this justice with just one sermon, and I would agree with them, so I’m making a small compromise. I’m going to still tackle this in one message but after we complete our current Sunday School series, we will go back and do a line by line study of John’s Gospel, so we can really dig into all of these deep truths that we are quickly going over during our sermon time on Sundays so that we can move onto other parts of the bible more quickly.

Most of you know I grew up in a Lutheran Church on the south side of Kenosha. One of the pastors I greatly admired was a man named David Meisner. He was the only pastor I ever met that made me want to be like him.

Pastor Dave was different. HE took a genuine interest in me and he would usually track me down on Wednesday nights just to see how I was doing, even though we probably had 50-70 teens in the confirmation classes at the time.

One Monday morning I had some friends at school that didn’t go to that church that were telling me about a special event going on at their church. That church at the time was only about 10 blocks from my house and they were doing a full carnival and free candy type outreach to the community that Saturday so I said I would walk down and go to it. That church was called First Assembly of God.

Wednesday night rolls around and Pastor Dave sees me and askes me how I’m doing. I told him about the carnival at this church by my house I was planning to go to, and he asked me which church it was at. I didn’t remember the name, but I said “It’s on Pershing Blvd and 60th Street”.

Pastor Dave’s eyes got really wide and he said, “The Assembly of God church?” I said, “Yeah, I think that’s the name of it”

Pastor Dave said, “Johnny, you can’t go anywhere near that church- it’s a huge cult and they believe weird things and I don’t want you to get sucked into that junk”

It’s ironic that I’m now an ordained minister in what the favorite pastor from my youth called a cult.

I used this event from my life as an illustration to what the people surrounding Jesus must have felt like during this time in John’s Gospel.

They had heard about the wedding feast where Jesus changed water to wine.

They heard of the healings surrounding Jesus’ ministry

They had witnessed Jesus feed thousands of people.

Then, they heard his disciples say Jesus walked most of the way to where they are now- across the Sea of Galilee.

All these people are excited and following Jesus like He is some type of traveling road show. It’s like they are waiting for Jesus to pull another rabbit out of a hat, or do something supernatural so they can be amazed and blessed.

Maybe they are thinking, “Well, he fed us yesterday, let’s see what is on the menu today or see how he can bless us in another way.

Then Jesus takes a sudden turn and goes from traveling miracle worker, to a Rabbi teaching deep spiritual truth.

To paraphrase what Jesus initially told them- “Look, you are following me for the miracles- to get something that will satisfy your flesh but you are missing the point.-

27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Reading the crowds response to that, I don’t think they understood a thing Jesus said. Perhaps they were thinking, “Well, he is talking about us working, so this is the money talk that had to come sooner or later. Jesus needs a living, so now we have to break out our checkbooks and give toward his expanding ministry with a gift.”

So they ask a question that brings us into our first exploration of these verses-

I. What Must We Do? Verse 28

What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Throughout the Gospels, this is the question repeated by many people. The rich young ruler comes to mind when he comes to Jesus and askes what he must do to inherit eternal life. I imagine his hand in on his money bag ready to hand over an offering that will ensure him a free ticket to heaven.

Instead Jesus hits him right where this young man’s heart truly is focused-

“Sell everything you have, and then follow me”

Paraphrased- You have to give up that which is most precious to you in order to receive eternal life.

Jesus said the same thing to His disciples in Luke 14

26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

This is an example of what theologians call “the hard teachings of Jesus”, and Jesus keeps piling on it here in John chapter 6.

This is the root of the same teaching Jesus is giving to this crowd, so it puts his answer to them in context-

Jesus answered- “The work of God is this- to believe in the one He has sent”

That rocks them back on their heels a bit. They don’t know what to do with that statement.

Remember- Jewish audience- their whole religion and actually every other religion other than Christianity is works based. In the Jewish mind, God only blesses you if you follow the 613 laws found within the Old Testament without fault.

That’s why they have the reaction they did. Their response tells you were their brains were and it boiled down to this-

“Wait a second, all I need is faith? All I have to do is believe?

That’s crazy Jesus. Look, you gave us food for a day, but God gave our ancestors food for 40 years. How can you say you are all we need?”

They were trusting in a religious system

I don’t’ know how many people have ever tried to talk to a person who is steeped in a religious system. I’m not talking about Christianity as Jesus founded it. I’m talking usually well-meaning people that form a system around one or two doctrines and put all their focus on that.

An example would be the 7th Day Adventist Church. The focus so much on putting legalistic doctrine around what day the Sabbath Day is, and how you follow it, that they miss the central point of what Jesus is saying here-

“I’m the bread that came down from heaven. I’m all you need, all you should trust in, and all you should desire. They who believe in me will never hunger and never thirst for anything again”

But the religious person cannot and will not see this. Underneath all that supposed humility and religion, there is an undercurrent of pride that still exists. If you were to dig into their heart of hearts, you would hear the echo of Frank Sinatra’s song- “I did it my way”, with my effort, with my works, and if God is blessing me, then it’s because of me.

The religious person will always point to themselves as the reason they should go to heaven or be rewarded, and never Jesus.

What that leads to is one of two cancers within the body of Christ in the Western World and particularly American. The first is easy belief- just say a prayer and you have your ticket to heaven even if you never let Jesus change you or take up residence in your heart. These are the Christian’s in name only crowd.

The other cancer is what we call prosperity theology.

II. Problems with Prosperity Verse 49

A proper definition of prosperity preaching is actually closer to that of karma then it is to Jesus. Basically, it says that your blessing here in life is completely dependent upon your works toward God and His Kingdom.

I was watching one of the (quote) Christian TV stations recently. The person speaking (I won’t call him a teacher or pastor out of respect for that divinely and biblically appointed position) said this to his audience-

“If you give to this ministry to see God’s kingdom grow and flourish, it’s like you have god in a headlock or an arm bar, and he has to bless you just like he blessed Jacob and formed a nation through him.”

I almost came out of my chair and yelled at the TV when he said that, but I didn’t want to wake Tammie up or things would not go well for me.

It is blatant heresy to say or even think that any human being can force Almighty God to do anything.

I want to see this man get even ahold of one of God’s toe hairs and see what happens. I know God the Father is immaterial and has no form or body but I’m just using his language here. To disrespect God in that way makes my heart quake for him, and all the people in the audience standing up, waving their hankies and shouting amen to that stupidity.

The evil of Prosperity theology is this- it takes your and mine efforts and elevates them above the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Gal 2:16 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

That’s the first danger of the kind of prosperity thinking these people are bringing to Jesus that it lowers the Godhead to human level.

The second problem with prosperity theology and mindset is that it focuses people on this earthly plane.

Let me ask a question (don’t shout out the answer)- when does your eternal life begin?

Does it begin when you take your last breath here and your first breath in heaven?

Unless you get saved at your last breath, no!

When you accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior and became HIS disciple, you died. I think this is one of those facts we may acknowledge but not really live it as we believe it.

I sometimes think Christians should buy their tombstones and put the date of death at the moment you got saved, and then have a second date under the first date of that date with simply a dash.

Your eternal life starts as soon as you surrender to Jesus.

That is why believing a system of prosperity on this earth is so dangerous- because it focuses your life here and not in the eternal kingdom.

That is why the bible tell us that we are supposed to live dead to this world.

Jesus makes this point-

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna (bread) in the wilderness, yet they died. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever!”

Jesus is telling this crowd, and us that HE is everything we need, and that leads us to the next part of the message.

III. True Christianity Verse 58

The scene has switched here- Jesus is now attending the church of his time, and He is allowed to speak.

Jesus tells them and us what true followers of HIM will look like.

If you want to get into a very heated argument with a Muslim or Jewish person, read this part of John to them. Especially verse 53 here-

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.

This would not be the verse I lead with if I’m witnessing to someone. These are some of the hardest sayings of Jesus to accept and understand. In fact, there is an entire movement within Christianity that believes this about communion- that the with the blessing of the priest the bread and the wine actually become the physical body and blood of Jesus. They believe this so much that in the older church’s of that movement when you take of the bread, they have a plate to catch any crumbs that might fall because you can’t have Jesus falling on the floor, and at the end anything left is consumed by the priest so that the sacrament is not wasted.

And they call us a cult.

That is not what Jesus is saying here. Are their definite allusions toward what we celebrate during communion? Absolutely. Communion is a commemoration and remembrance of what Jesus did for us by sacrificing his body and spilling his blood to satisfy the Father’s justice regarding sin.

But that isn’t the central point of what Jesus is saying here-

Jesus is saying to these people , “Look, you guys want me to make your life better here on this sin ravaged earth. That’s like giving you a comfortable mattress while you are in a prison cell.”

Jesus said, “I am going to give my life so that you can experience a new life in the eternal Kingdom.”

“Not only am I going to lay down my life in sacrifice, but I will come and live inside you through the Holy Spirit to be the nourishment you need for this Kingdom”

Let me illustrate this-

I tie 100 pounds of weight to you and throw you in the middle of the Mississippi River, what happens?

You die. You cannot survive under water and without oxygen for more than a few minutes.

But what if I gave you a SCUBA Tank, wet suit, flippers, and a mask?

You will be able to exist in a realm that would you would normally not be able to survive. We would have a life support system to exist within a realm that would previously kill us.

This is a example of what Jesus did for us. If any of us, prior to salvation, were raptured into the presence of God we would vaporize under the incredible weight of God’s glory and Holiness.

Jesus covers us with Himself. The sinless one becomes our life support so that we can enjoy heaven and exist in that realm.

That is pure Christianity. That thought is expressed in a hymn.

Robert Lowery

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again?