bread of life

1
Series: Conversations with Jesus
Avoiding a life marked by indifference

Ever had one of those days, you need to make some phone calls and you get put through to the computer? ……………………………

- NOT THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE.
In John 6, Jesus tells us how it is supposed to be
- Here we come to another conversation

CONTEXT (verses 1-24)
- Jesus was in Galilee (verse 1)
- With a growing crowd, impressed with the miracles
- Here, two more powerful miracles took place
- Feeding of 5000 (verses 10-13)
- And walking on water (verse 18)
- All served as road signs, pointing to something beyond themselves
- Beyond human explanation
- Something of God had invaded this world turning things upside down things were mathematically possible; heaven was coming to earth
- As Jesus warned Nathanael with His coming, “Behold you will see the heavens
open up” (chapter 1)
- Everyone was impressed, impressed enough to want to make Jesus king (verse 15)
- Once they grasped the potential power before them, they were ready to vote Him into office
- So Jesus fled, and in a near comic-chase scene, the crowd sailed in hot pursuit
(verse 24)
- It all set up one of the longest conversations in John, between Jesus and the crowd (John 6:25-60)

CONVERSATION
- Their question seemed innocent enough
- “When did you get here?” (verse 25) but what they meant was
- “How did you get here?”
- But behind it all was really this: “When will you feed us?”
- And Jesus knew this, for he knows the heart of man (verse 26)
- It wasn’t that they wanted Jesus
- Even wanted His miracles
- at the bottom of it all
- They simply wanted what Jesus could give
Illustration – ????????????
- Jesus could see this; that their pursuit had little to do with Him
- Much to do with what He could give
- Someone to satisfy their bellies, and keep it coming
- A Jesus on the telephone, where you push the buttons to get what you want
- Helpful but impersonal
- They all were preoccupied with appetite, oblivious to who they were talking to
- So Jesus gave them a challenge, He gives to us too! (verse 27)
- LIVE FOR SOMETHING, SOMEONE BIGGER THAN YOUR EARTHLY
APPETITES
- Live life on another level
- Literally, stop living for things that are dying
- For if the satisfaction of your earthly appetites is your main aim, then your epitaph will read like those in the wilderness
- “They ate and they died” (verse 58)
- Your life, in essence, will be a waste of time and wasted

- INSTEAD, desire the bread that endures
- And throughout the rest of this conversation, He repeated it over and over
- Devote your energies to that which is lasting
- To the bread which has no shelf life, that does not perish, spoil, rot
- Bread that will not leave you hungry
- Bread that will satisfy the soul (verse 35)
- Work for bread that gives life forever (verse 50)
- So what is this work he calls us all to? Jesus answered…
1) BELIEVE IN ME (verse 29)
- Words that went beyond mere assent, creeds, keeping certain laws, to relational trust
2) PURSUE ME
- I am this bread that comes down from heaven (verse 33)
- I am this bread of life (verse 35)
- Always fresh, never stale
- As the conversation continued, Jesus went deeper
3) EAT ME, CONSUME ME
- “Unless you eat this flesh, you will have no life” (verse 53)
- “The one who consumes Me will have life” (verse 54)
- “I am the real food” (verse 55)
- But what was he saying? What could this mean?
- Throughout this conversation, Jesus rearranged the words giving them a different angle
- Words that together are calling us to something, but what?
- Perhaps the same thing He is calling for when it comes to His word
- Where the same language is occasionally used
- Where its readers are called to eat this book
- Move from distancing eye to listening ear to passionate followers
- Ezekiel was called to this (2:8ff)
- Jeremiah the same (15:16)
- John, on the island of Patmos, was told to take the scroll and eat it
(Revelation 10:9)
- And Peter tells us to long for the Word as pure milk (I Peter 2:2)
- They ( and WE) were told to take the book and do more than read, do more than study, learn it
- More than tick the boxes when we have read a chapter
- They were (and by application, all of us) to masticate, chew, gnaw.
- Consume the words in such a way that these words “spread through your blood”
- Work their way into your gut, nerve endings, reflexes, imagination
- Read such that the text gets into our muscles and bones, our oxygen breathing lungs and blood pumping heart
- And for good reason
A) It is in this Word faith is awakened, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17)
B) It is what God uses to make us alive, the words I have spoken to you are life (John 6:63)
C) It is in these words we are set free
- “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32)
D) It is when we consume these words that prayer is unleashed
- “If my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish” (John 15:7)
- So take this book and consume so it:
- becomes a part of you
- into your heart into your head, into your soul into muscle, gristle, bone, so that it ultimately flows out intoacts of love and holiness
- Here in John 6, Jesus was challenging the crowd (challenging us) to do the samewith Him, the Living Word
- “Consume Me such I spread through your blood”
- “Work My way into your gut, into every fabric of your being such that you
feel My presence in every corner of your being”
- In all of the organs and juices
- “Come after Me. Consume Me like bread, that we might
abide, remain in one another”
- That we might live in radical connection (verse 56)
- But it all was too much, from questioning the conversation turned to grumbling, to sharp disagreement to mass defection (verse 60)
- These words were “hard”
- Not in the sense of intellectually tough, but harsh, offensive, intolerable
- They preferred the more impersonal
- The computer voiced Jesus
- Christianity apart from relationship
- They were unprepared for a call to relationship, and it maybe so for some of us
- Which should not surprise
- For it is the devil’s work to take what is endearing and perpetuate it
into DEVOUT INDIFFERENCE
- Take Jesus and shift the focus from relationship to object
- Take the gospel and reduce it to a set of steps, sanitized and correct, factual and precise
- Take faith in Jesus and make it a statement of beliefs to cling to
- Where we are more in love with words than Word
- More in love with truth than the One who is true
- CHRISTIANITY TRAGICALLY BEREFT OF RELATIONSHIP
- Is your faith a relationship?
The conversation this weekend is between Jesus and the crowd. This crowd followed him and wanted all they could get from Christ but only on a physical level. Jesus could see this but gave them the challenge of their life, one that is applicable to us, too.
Their Challenge was this
• Live for something, someone bigger than your earthly appetites
• Live your life at the God level, walk on the water of life, consume Him
Our Challenge:
• Do as the crowd was challenged to do, live for God, eat of God, let him become a part of you
• Make God personal, don’t live by rules, just factual, or sanitized, consume him, be hungry for him, feed upon him, forget the trappings of religion, discover the joy of relationship, nurture that relationship, so you miss meeting with him, receive his Spirit, devour his word, experience the joy of knowing Jesus, see your life grow purpose in ways you can never imagine, Lamp chop school.