Sermon Tone Analysis

Bread of Life

November 29, 2009

*John 6:1-15*

*On April 24th, in Experiencing God Day by Day, Henry Blackaby wrote about “Spiritual Bread” and quoted John 6:35 */“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them.

“No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again.”/

We know how to use physical bread.

Whenever we are hungry we simply go and eat.

Do we do that spiritually?

Jesus said if we believe in Him, we will never be spiritually hungry, or malnourished, for He is the “bread of life.”

Every time we face a spiritual need, it is a simple matter of going to Christ and allowing Him to provide us with what we need.

Our problem is that sometimes we interpret Scripture based on our own experience.

We say, “Yes, but I remember a time when I was spiritually hungry.”

If that is true, then either God did not tell the truth, or we misinterpreted our experience.

Could it be that we tried to satisfy our spiritual hunger with human resources?

Could it be that we relied so heavily upon friends and the experiences of others that we have never learned how to go to Christ for our own spiritual food?

Could it be that we had a great spiritual feast several years ago, and we were so “full” of Christ that we thought we would never have to eat again?

We grew lean and hungry because we were still operating on an encounter with God we had years ago.

If you are lacking something spiritually, it is not because God does not have an abundance of resources prepared and available for you.

It is that you have not come to Him in faith as He invites (John 10:10).

When God gave manna in the wilderness, the children of Israel had to go out each day to receive God's daily provision.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Spiritual nourishment is something you must seek daily.

Have you found spiritual food from Christ today?

Did you get your spiritual nourishment this past week?

Where did you go for it?

It’s only available from the Bread of Life – Jesus, right?

How many of you took up the challenge that I threw to you last week to give up Christian television and, instead, go directly to the Word for your spiritual nourishment?

If you haven’t taken up the challenge yet, I urge you to consider turning off the TV for this next month.

Instead, delve into God’s Word – delve deeply.

Set yourself a goal to read the words of Jesus and savor them again.

He is spiritual meat and potatoes and dessert.

Today we’ll read of one of Jesus miracles: the miracle of feeding the 5,000.

Turn with me to John 6 and I’ll begin reading in verse 1:

/After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.

Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”

He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”  Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”

Now there was much grass in the place.

So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.

Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.

So also the fish, as much as they wanted.

And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”

So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

/

One of the reasons God created bread — or created the grain and the water and yeast and fire and human intelligence to make it, and I mean the really good kind, that’s not mainly air — is so that when Jesus Christ came into the world, he would be able to use the enjoyment of bread and the nourishment of bread as an illustration of what it means to believe on him and be satisfied with him.

I believe that with all my heart.

Bread exists to help us know what it is like to be satisfied in Jesus.

This is true for water (John 4:14) and light (John 14:6) and every other good thing that God has made.

Nothing exists for itself/.

“All things were created through him and for him”/ (Colossians 1:16).

Every honorable pleasure that we have in the created world is designed by God to give us a faint taste of heaven and make us hunger for Christ.

Every partial satisfaction in this life points to the perfect satisfaction in Jesus who made the world.

The pleasures of warm bread should send our senses and our spirits to Christ as the bread of life.

The pleasures of cold water when we’re hot and thirsty should send our senses and our spirits to Christ as the living water.

The pleasures of light making all other natural beauties visible should send our senses and our spirits to Christ as the true light of the world.

So in John 6 we watch Jesus work a miracle with natural, created bread — the kind they ate every day.

That’s verses 1-15.

Then in the rest of this long chapter, verses 16-71, Jesus shows people, with increasingly provocative and even offensive language, that this miracle of bread is about himself as the bread of God that comes down from heaven.

* *

By the time Jesus is done pressing on this comparison between himself and bread, many of his followers have abandoned him.

Verse 66/: “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”/

But not all left him.

When so many left, Jesus asked the Twelve in verse 67, /“Do you want to go away as well?”/

And in verse 68, Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.”

Indeed, to whom shall we go?

There is no other!

Today I want us focus on how Jesus set up this long discussion — namely, with the miracle of making real bread — enough real bread to feed over 5,000 people by using only five barley loves and a few fish.

So the chapter — the story as John tells it — has these two parts: the miracle itself, verses 1-15, and the explanation and controversy over Jesus as the bread of heaven in verses 16-71.

So let’s concentrate on verses 1-15.

The beginning and the end of this section about the feeding of the five thousand shows us both that Jesus is doing more than feeding people with natural bread, and that the people in general are in no spiritual condition to see what he is doing.

We have seen this before in this Gospel.

Jesus says something or does something in the natural realm as a way of pointing to the spiritual realm, and the people don’t get it.

He told the leaders in Israel, /“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” (/John 2:19).

And they said, /“It took forty-six years to build this temple.”/

He told Nicodemus that he had to be born again, and Nicodemus asked how you get back in your mother’s womb (John 3:4).

He told the woman at the well that he would give her living water (John 4:10), and she said, But you don’t have a bucket.

Now notice how this happens again in the feeding of the five thousand.

And the point of John’s showing this to us again and again is to wake us up from being this dull.

His aim is our faith, so he shows both the deadness of unbelief and the greatness of Christ.

Notice first verses 1-2: /“After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.”/

They were following him because of the signs they saw him doing.

He was healing the sick, and they were amazed and desired more of the benefits of this power.

But this is not encouraging.

We have seen this phrase before: /“because they saw the signs he was doing.”/

John 2:23 said, /“Many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.”/

But then John adds in verse 24, /“But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people”/ (John 2:23-24).

Something is wrong with their hearts.

They are excited by Jesus’ signs.

They believe he is a genuine miracle-worker.

But something is wrong.

Now jump to the end of the story of the feeding of the five thousand in John 6:14-15, and we will see what’s wrong.

/“When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’/

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”

Why did Jesus withdraw?