Bread Of Life | John 6:25-59 | June 28th, 2026

A full stomach is easy to recognize. A hungry soul is harder to name, and even harder to satisfy. We open John 6 with Jesus’ famous claim, “I am the bread of life,” and we follow the story behind it: the feeding of the five thousand, the crowd’s obsession with the sign, and the quiet warning that you can chase miracles while still missing the meaning.

We wrestle with the question the crowd asks and we still ask today: “What must we do?” Jesus answers with gospel simplicity and clarity, calling belief the work God requires. From there we examine the subtle ways we try to improve the message: adding extra requirements that create guilt and judgment, or adding extra benefits as if Jesus isn’t enough. Along the way, we connect Jesus’ “I am” to God’s name in Exodus and show why that little phrase carries thunder.

Bread runs through the whole Bible, from manna in the wilderness to daily bread in prayer to table fellowship in God’s presence. Jesus gathers all of it into Himself: dependable provision, intimate relationship, and a life that is not only eternal but abundant now. We also face the hard saying about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and why it points us toward communion and a daily, desperate hunger for Christ rather than shelf-life religion.

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Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Reading

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Alright. Please turn to your Bibles to John chapter six, which is on page 892 in the Pew Bibles, and follow along as I read God's word. Jesus said to them, 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 do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me will net I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the 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. This is the word of the Lord.

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All right, thanks, Laura. Good morning, everybody. All right, so so we are taking a break from the book of Daniel. So if you're like me, you've enjoyed the book of Daniel for the past few months. But while Will is on sabbatical, we will be taking a sabbatical of our own from the uh from the book of Daniel. So apologies to those of you who still brought your book of Daniel note-taking journals. You can uh put those on the shelves, but don't get rid of them because we will come back to Daniel here in uh in August or September or so when Will comes back to us. And so in the meantime, what we're doing is we're looking at seven statements that Jesus makes in the book of John. So seven times in the book of John, Jesus says, I am something, and he follows this with a metaphor. And and if if we are a group of people that want to understand who Jesus is, and who want to

Why Jesus Uses I Am Metaphors

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follow Jesus and who want to um who want to be like Jesus, then we ought to pay attention when Jesus identifies himself, when Jesus tells us who he is. So I think that's the first reason why these things are important. If we want to follow Jesus, then we ought to pay attention when he tells us who he is. The second reason that I think these statements are important is because I think it is a tremendous kindness that Jesus uses the stuff of earth to describe to us who he is. All right, here's here's what I mean, right? So so Jesus says to us here that he is the bread of life. And if y'all recall uh a few months ago, before we started reading uh the book of Daniel, we read in Colossians. And and Colossians is a great book. Colossians has a lot to tell us about who Jesus is. And and it is, if if you want to know who Jesus is, you ought to start by reading the gospels. And when you finish the gospels, you would do well to read Colossians next. But the thing about Colossians and the things we were reading there, it's not easily understood, right? If you recall, Colossians chapter one has this amazing section called the Great Christology, where it says he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Friends, this is this is beautiful language. This this is important language. This is rich, deep, important theological language, and it is not easily understood. Right? If you want to understand these words here, like you need to sit down with your Bible and a pen and uh and a commentary and maybe a friend and uh and an extra cup of coffee, or if you're like me and Greg Difspane, uh an extra cup of ice water, uh uh if you're a non-coffee drinker, but you need to spend time with this, right? This is not the type of thing that you can just easily read that, like, okay, yeah, I got that, right? Like this is complex language. But when Jesus says to us that he is the bread of life, what he's doing is he is making himself understandable, right? Because Jesus is incomprehensible in so many ways, right? Jesus is Jesus is eternal, right? And I can I can define eternal. I understand that that that if something is eternal, it has no beginning and it has no end. And so I can define that, but I can't understand it, right? I Jesus is omnipotent and I can define that, but I can't understand it. He's omniscient, I definitely can't understand that. And so Jesus is so incomprehensible in so many ways. And what he does here is he uses things that we do understand to make himself understandable. So Jesus, when he when he says, I am the bread of life, he's he is identifying with using a metaphor that we can't understand. I'm gonna talk a lot today, but at no time am I gonna have to explain to you guys what a loaf of bread is, right? Like we understand this and we can take this metaphor and learn about who Jesus is. Now, if any of you guys have have ever been in my MCG, and and a lot of you have, right? So I've been we've been hosting a group at our house for the past six years. And uh, if you've ever been in my MCG, you know that I care a lot about context. All right. So before we before we read anything in our MCG, we always review everything that's happened in the past sometimes seven, eight or more weeks. And we we want to practically memorize the context. And we review, I would dare say, more than some of the people in my group would care for. But um, but in any case, we review because I think context matters, and and context helps us to understand passages that we're looking at. And so before we before we get into this bread of life discourse that Jesus uh takes us through, I want to I want to talk about the book of uh about about chapter six here and the things that happen. So a lot happens in John chapter six. Uh it starts out with with a miracle. So Jesus is is is teaching, and uh, and there's thousands of people gathered around him, and uh, and and then Jesus notices that they have nothing to eat, and so he asks, What should we do about this? And a child comes and he brings uh brings up five loaves of bread and two fish, and Jesus blesses this, he breaks it, and uh, and he passes it out. It says that more than five thousand people were fed. Now, interesting bit of trivia. This is the only miracle that's recorded in all four gospels. And so we've got this miracle to uh to start this. And the people were excited about this, right? They said it said that they knew that they had seen

John 6 Set Up And Miracles

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a sign. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who has come into the world. And and John refers to miracles as signs, all right. So the idea, the reason that John calls miracles signs is because the miracle is not the point. Jesus didn't come into the world to to give people bread, okay? Jesus came into the mirror in the world to save the world, save us from our sins. And so when he when Jesus performed this miracle and provided bread to thousands of people, the the the reason he did this was to point to the fact that he is the bread of life. So the the bread, the this bread that he provided is a sign, right? Just yesterday I was driving around with Quentin, our seven-year-old, and uh um Q perked up when he heard his name. But I was driving around town with Quentin and uh and and we we went through a car wash, and he says, rock pop, and and so he calls me rock pop. He he made that up, not me. But in any case, he calls me rock pop, and I can I can explain that to you after church if you really want to know. But he calls me rock pop and he says, Rock pop, what's that sign for? I'm like, Well, what do you think it's for, buddy? And he says, Well, that sign tells us what this place is. I'm like, yes, that's exactly what the sign does, right? The sign tells us what the place is. The sign tells us what the thing is. And when Jesus performs the sign, it tells us what he is. It tells us that he is the bread of life. And you all understand signs, right? Because when you arrived this morning, the first thing you saw was a sign. And nobody got out of their cars and sat down at the sign and thought, okay, we've arrived. Like, let's get out lawn chairs. We're gonna hang out here by the sign, right? Nobody did that. You guys saw the sign and you continued and you made it to church this morning because you recognize that the sign points to the real thing, just like the miracle points to the thing, right? You could argue that the church itself is a sign, right? That the tr that that the church is a sign that's supposed to point us towards Jesus. And so if we stop at just the church and don't see Jesus, we still haven't made it all the way and we're still missing the thing. And so the people who were who participated in this miracle knew that they had seen a miracle. And this is this is just a quick aside, but this has been a miracle that's always intrigued me. I've always just wondered what it must have been like to be in this crowd and have somebody hand you a loaf of bread, and you tear or cut off a piece and you hand it to the person next to you, and she cuts off a piece and hands it to the guy next to her, and he cuts off a piece, and you're looking down the row, and still there's still there's still plenty of bread for everybody. And I don't know if bread was was was replicating in their hands or multiplying, or if it was warm to the touch, or if they could smell it like there was baked bread being baked all around them. I don't know how it was, but it must have been incredible. And the people saw it and they knew that it was incredible, and knew that they had seen a sign. And they were excited about it. Verse 15 tells us this it says they were so excited that uh that they were seeking to take Jesus by force and make him be their king. They wanted more bread, right? They wanted more of the sign. And so they they they wanted they wanted Jesus to be their king right now so he could solve the problems that they have among them, was that they didn't have bread. And so they they wanted to make Jesus be their king, but Jesus didn't come to be their king right now on earth. So instead he retreats and he gets away, right? And he goes up a mountain. And uh and while he's up the mountain, he uh he prays. And and then a curious thing happens. While Jesus is praying, it says that the disciples left. And it's not real clear from reading the text if Jesus told them, like, okay, y'all go on ahead without me, I'll catch up, or or or not. But in any case, Jesus is up there praying, and then the disciples leave, and they don't just sort of leave, they get in a whole boat and leave, right? And so they they leave and get they get in a boat, they're sailing across the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus comes down from praying, notices that they're gone, and Jesus knows that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. And so rather than walking around the Sea of Galilee, he walks on it, right? And so it's just easier that way. And so he's walking across the Sea of Galilee, and uh, as he's walking across the Sea of Galilee, he sees the disciples in the boat and says that they're struggling against waves, struggling against wind. And uh and they see Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. So now we've got our second miracle already in this chapter. So a lot happens in chapter six. So we've got our second miracle. Jesus is walking on the water. It says they were frightened. And I think they were frightened because up until this point, the disciples had seen miracles. They just saw him feed 5,000 people the day before, or earlier that day, I guess. Um, they'd seen him turn water into wine, they'd seen him heal people. But by and large, these are what I would refer to as feel-good miracles, right? When Jesus heals, uh when he heals somebody, like nobody understands how he did it. Like, okay, I like that, right? Like I don't understand what just happened, but this is good. When Jesus, when Jesus turns water into wine, like nobody knows how he did it, but they think, okay, like I like this, right? Like I have this is a miracle I can get on board with. I don't know what just happened, but I like this. This feels good. When Jesus walks on water in defiance of basic principles of physics, this is different. Like he is, he is now displaying a type of power that they have not observed with these other things. And it says that they are frightened because he is defying gravity. And so it says that they're frightened, and Jesus gets into the boat with them, and he says that his eye, do not be afraid. And it says they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. So Jesus calms their fears and he gets in the boat, and they find themselves on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And so the people in Capernaum, they notice these people that had been trying to make Jesus be their king, they noticed that Jesus is gone, and uh, and they notice that the boat is gone and that the boat had left without him. And we come to verse 25. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Now, now, if if I was Jesus in this moment, I would have been dying to say, Oh, I walked here last night, right? Like you guys, did you guys see somebody walking on the Sea of Galilee, like defying gravity? That was me, right? Or did you notice that the waves were really high, and then suddenly they weren't anymore? Like that was me too. Like sometimes gravity doesn't apply to me. And but he doesn't do that, right? Because Jesus doesn't want them following him for the miraculous. And so he doesn't, he doesn't even mention the the next miracle, and he doesn't even answer the question. So he said, When did you come here? And verse 26, he answers by saying, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw

Wanting The Sign Not The Savior

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signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. He's basically saying, You're not looking for me, you're looking for more bread. Right? You're you're you're looking for more of the sign. They're not interested in him. They want more of the sign. It's like coming to church because you love that we have donuts every week, right? And and I'm not knocking the the hospitality ministry. What you guys do is so important. And I and I tell you guys that every every chance I get, but but if you come here because you love donuts and you never ever want to miss an opportunity to get a free donut, you are missing the point, right? If you come here every Sunday because you love it when Bennett plays the keys, and you say, if Bennett is sitting behind the keyboard, I want to be there, you're missing the point. These things are great, but they're signs, right? They are signs that point us towards Jesus. And if you're coming to church for the sign and not coming for Jesus, you're missing the point. And these people are coming to Jesus for more of the sign. They want more bread, they want more of what Jesus can provide, not more of Jesus. They're coming to Jesus with a hunger in their bellies, right, instead of with a hunger in their hearts. And so verse 27, Jesus goes on. He says, 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. Now, did you guys notice what Jesus just called himself here? This is just a this a quick callback, but but you guys recall two weeks ago we were reading the book of Daniel, right? And Daniel has these terrifying dreams, right? Four monsters, each one's worse than the than the one before it. And uh, and at the end of that, of that sequence, there is the son of man, right? And the son of man is given authority and given a kingdom that will last forever. And this is the title that Jesus is claiming for himself here. And they would have recognized this,

Belief As The Only Work

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right? When when Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, people or people around him would recognize this and recognize that this is a big, a big deal. And so Jesus is laying claim to a messianic title that we first see in the book of Daniel that we just read about two weeks ago. So I just say it's kind of cool to tie the Old Testament back to what we to what we're reading today. And so then they said to him, they said, What must we be doing? Excuse me, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So here we see Jesus confronting a problem that I think still lingers to this day, right? So these people are wanting to know what they can do, right? Like what they can do to get this bread that's that Jesus is talking about, what they can do to achieve eternal life. And Jesus just gives them the gospel, right? You simply have to believe in me. But it's not just that they want to know what they can do for the sake of gospel, they they also want not just Jesus, but they want bread also, right? They want Jesus and something. And this is something that we still do. I think that we that we add to the gospel in one of two ways. So the gospel, as we see it in Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9, says, For it is by grace that we are saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works that no one can boast. This is the first verse I can never recall memorizing when I was a kid. And this tells us the gospel. If we simplify this even further, we can simply say, it is by grace that you are saved through faith. Like this is the gospel, it is by grace that you're saved through faith. But what we do, what they're doing, is we want to add to the gospel in one of two ways. We say it is by grace that you are saved by faith if, right? If you think like me, it's by grace that you are saved

How We Add To The Gospel

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by faith if you go to my church. It's by grace that you're saved by faith if you vote like me, if you dress like me, if you educate your kids like me. The lift goes on. We add all these requirements to the gospel that aren't there. We add requirements to the gospel where the gospel gives us freedom, right? It says the gospel tells us in Romans 8, there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ, but we add requirements to it. And when we do this, we either help heap guilt on ourselves, right? When we when we add standards that we're not measuring up to, or we or we or we judge others, right? We judge others who don't think like us, who don't, who don't agree with us on things that our church holds as secondary doctrines, right? All of you have been to Roos class. We have our secondary doctrines, things where we believe that we are that we are able to disagree with earnest Bible-believing Christians, and we and we and sometimes we add to the gospel, and uh, and when we do this, we we focus on things that divide us instead of the gospel that uh that that brings us together. So that's one way we add to the gospel. The other way we add to the gospel is we want to say, it is by grace that you are saved and right, it's by grace that you are saved and have good health. It's by grace that you are saved and have a good job. It's by grace that you're saved and have any number of things. The list goes on. We want as if being saved isn't good enough. As if being saved forever from your sins isn't good enough. We want to add to the blessing of the gospel. It's by grace that we are saved and John Piper tells it to us this way. He says, When I say that God is the gospel, I mean that the highest, best, final, decisive good of the gospel, without which no other gifts would be good, is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed for our everlasting enjoyment. The point of salvation is Jesus. Anything else is secondary without him, none of these other things are even good. Or if you're a Christian hip-hop fan, Shylin tells it to us this way. All right, Shylin says, if you come to Jesus for money, then he's not your God. Money is. We want more of the bread, more of the sign. And they go on in the next few verses. They say, Well, Moses gave us bread, right? Moses gave us bread every day. They seem to assume that Moses gave them bread by their own, by his own efforts or his own righteousness. But his bread spoiled every day. And Jesus just answers that. He says, It wasn't Moses who gave you the bread, God did, right? And so, verse 34, they said to him, Well, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. It's me, right? I am the bread of life. It's me, I'm the one who satisfies, I'm the one who sent from heaven. It's me, I am the bread of life. And so for you note takers today, I have uh we've got four points. The first one is I am the bread of life. Second, I am the bread of life. Third, I am the bread of life. I see it, you've got it down there, right? So you can see where this is going. I am, I am the bread of life, and I am the bread of life. And then last, this is the weird one. It says, You must eat my flesh and drink my blood. So we'll get there. First, I am the bread of life. When Jesus says, I am, this would have obvious connotations that the Jews of this time would recognize. All right. So I am personally not a Greek scholar. I'm not even a Greek novice. All right. So I'm standing on the shoulders of people who are here. All right. But the way this, the way he they would have talked in this time, like we have we have words that we don't always have to say. Right. So there are ways that like languages evolve and there are there are words that are understood that aren't necessarily spoken every time we say something. So for instance, like I've got cousins who live in the upper Midwest, and they'll say something to me, like, hey Scott, I'm going to the store. Do you want to come with? Right. And and I understand that when they say, Do you want to come with, they mean do you want to come with me? Like we all understand each other. And so they're able to omit this word and we still get each other, right? Or

I Am And The Name Of God

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or like if I'm talking, you know, to you, if I'm talking and so like, you know, I can say close the door, right? And you understand, I mean you close the door, but I don't have to say you. Like we all understand each other. So we're able to take words out of sentences and and still understand each other. If I say you, close the door, that's a much more emphatic statement, right? And so Jesus wouldn't have had to say I am the bread of life, but he does. And when he does, I am rings loudly over this statement. It thunders over the whole statement. When he says, I am the bread of life, he is calling back to a title that God himself used in the book of Exodus.

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Right?

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So in Exodus chapter 3, verse 14, God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you. When God says, I am, he is saying that he always is, right? That there has never been a time that God isn't. There never has been a time in the past that God isn't. There never is going to be a time in the future when he isn't. From all of eternity in both directions, God always is. He is fully self-sufficient and he is uncreated. And when Jesus says, I am in this way, he is claiming that title first. Jesus also says this in the in uh John chapter 8. He's uh he's discussing Abraham, and he says, uh he says, before Abraham was I am. Right? He could have said, before Abraham was, I was. That would have been impressive. But no, he says, before Abraham was, I am. He lays claim to this I am title. And the people who were hearing it understood, right? Because they wanted to kill him. Right. So we know that they understood what he was saying. And so he said, I am, and I am, rings loudly over this statement. I am. Second point, I am the bread of life. What do you know about bread? Of all the things that Jesus could have used as a metaphor here, why bread? First, I think it's important to realize that that hunger and bread are very meaningful things in this time, right? Because hunger was a way of life for these people. Like by and large, most of the people in this room are pretty far removed from the physical tasks of planting and sowing and gathering and harvesting our own food. For the most part, we pay others to do that, right? Some of us grow gardens. I grew a garden. And but if my garden totally fails this summer and I don't grow a single vegetable, my family will still eat fine. Like we are we are very much separated from the necessity of doing physical work to get our own food. I understand we have jobs

Bread In Scripture And Daily Need

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and we provide for ourselves in other ways, but we are not the ones actually doing the physical work of getting the food. But not so back then, right? Like hunger was a way of life, and they and they spent a significant part of every day making sure that they had enough food to eat for that day. And so when Jesus speaks of something that addresses hunger, he's speaking of a real need. And then also bread was a staple, right? Bread was a staple in a way that's not right now. All right, bread was like if people were eating, they were eating bread. They they ate very little meat, and so if they were eating, they were always eating bread. And so I want to let's look at what the Bible has to say about bread. So first we see manna, right? So the the first, excuse me, um, and there are plenty of places, but the first one I want to talk about is manna. All right, so so we when when we think of the manna, you guys are familiar with the story, right? So that when when the uh when the Jews fled from Egypt, they wandered the desert for uh for 40 years. And every morning, they would wake up in the morning and find manna on the ground. And and and they could only gather enough for the day, right? So they had to they had to gather enough manna to eat for that day. And if they gathered extra, if they thought, you know what, I don't feel like doing this tomorrow, I'm just gonna get some extra today. If they tried to store overnight, it would spoil. So they had to gather enough for that day. And they did this every day, except for Sabbath days, that's a whole nother thing. But every day they did this for 40 years, which means that every night they went to bed and didn't have anything to eat tomorrow. In a desert, in a place where you don't really find food, right? And so they're going to bed in a desert every single night, not um, not having any food for the next day, and every single day for 40 years until they entered the promised land, they would wake up and find manna on the ground every day. And when Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he is saying, just like the manna that came from heaven, that he is the one that has come from heaven, he is the one that fully satisfies, he is the one that is always there, that is fully dependable, fully trustworthy. Where else do we see bread in the Bible? In Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 24, verse 8 and 9, it says, Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it, it being twelve loaves of bread, one representing each tribe in Israel. They shall arrange it before the Lord regularly. It is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever, and it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual duty. So the idea here, right, is that the priests are eating this bread in the tabernacle. All right, so the holy place is the area right outside of the holy of holies. And so when the when the when the priests gather, they're breaking bread in the presence of God, right? In God's space. They're breaking bread in the tabernacle. And and just like now, if you eat bread with somebody, if you break bread with somebody, if you share a meal with somebody, but that implies all sorts of things, right? When you share a meal with somebody, that implies relationship, that implies trust, that implies familiarity. And and and that is what God is doing with his people. When the priests eat in the town in the tabernacle, it is God demonstrating that he wants relationship with his people. And so when Jesus says that that he is the bread of life, he is telling us that emphatically that he desires intimate relationship with his people. I am the bread of life. We also see bread one more time, or that I want to point out here in the New Testament, in the Lord's Prayer, or what uh Will told us last week to call the disciples' prayer. He says, give us this day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread. Bread here doesn't just mean bread, right? So it's not only referring to bread, it's not even only referring to food. When Jesus says, give us this day our daily bread, what he's saying is give us everything that we need. Everything that we need. And so when Jesus is saying that he is the bread of life, he is saying that he is everything that we need. And he's saying this to people who've just come to him because they just want more bread. What else do we know about bread? We've eaten it before, right? Bread's filling, it's delicious, it satisfies. And in order to eat it, you have to break it. Bread must be cut to pieces, torn to pieces with your hands. Bread must be broken to be consumed. So taken all together, when Jesus says he is the bread of life, he's saying he is all sufficient. He's always there, he satisfies, he desires intimate relationship with us, and that he will be broken. Now I am the bread of life, of life. First, obviously, we're talking about eternal life here. So John mentions eternal life 17 times. You could argue that that eternal life is the theme of the book of John. But eternal life is not just life that goes on forever. If eternal life was just life that goes on forever, but doesn't change, doesn't get better, who would even want it? Right? If if eternal life was just life forever, but we still had to deal with back pain and arthritis and anxiety and cancer and all these other things, who would even want it? But it is a life that is abundant and it's a life that is better, and it's a life that is different. I was listening to a great podcast this week. And in it, uh Thomas Grockey was interviewing Tim Sexton. I was listening to the uh the What

Eternal Life That Starts Now

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Got Cut podcast that's uh that we do here at Midtree. That's right. And in it, in it, uh Tim said, Tim said, Life eternal begins now. Life eternal begins now. It means it will have fullness of life, not merely existing forever. The Jews are still thinking about bread. They thought that if they that they would be satisfied if they just had enough bread. We know this isn't true, right? We have by and large, we have enough bread. And so many other people have enough bread, and yet we're not satisfied. And it's because we seek satisfaction in all sorts of places that can't offer it. So many places we seek to be satisfied that cannot offer it. C. S. Lewis tells it to us like this C. S. Lewis says, most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. Isn't that true? We can seek after all that this world has to offer and never be satisfied. Look at pop culture. All right, so you think about the Rolling Stones, right? The Rolling Stones, one of the most successful bands in their era, and one of their greatest hits is they can't get no satisfaction, right? You too still hasn't found what they're looking for. Any any theater fans, right? Theater fans. Angelica Schuyler, what's her problem? Angelica Schuyler will never be satisfied. Never. Jenny Lynde and the greatest showman says towers of gold are still too little. These hands could hold the world, but it'll never be enough. Not being satisfied is practically thematic in pop culture. We could go on. But this world can never satisfy. How many of us have done this, right? We've pursued the thing that we thought would would provide satisfaction. Like if I can only get this next thing, if I just get this promotion, if I just graduate from this school, if I just get, you know, this house, this girl, like whatever the thing is, and then found it and realized you were just looking for the next thing and the next thing and the next. And it's because those things cannot satisfy. Only one can satisfy, and he is the bread of life. John 10 10 tells us the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, and I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. This is the life that Jesus calls us to as the bread of life. It's abundant. Dr. Constable describes it this way. By the way, this is just a quick plug. There's an extra QR code there that says Sonic Light. If any of you guys are looking for a free uh Bible commentary, particularly you guys who are reading uh leading MCGs, uh Sonic Light is phenomenal. It's got uh all 66 books of the Bible are there and it's free. So check it out, check that QR. But in any case, here's what Constable has to say about this life abundant mo um, let's see, I just lost my place. Jesus, on the other hand, not only came to bring spiritual life to people, but he came to bring the best quality of life to them. The eternal life that Jesus imparts is not just long, but it is also rich. He did not come just to gain sheep, but to enable his sheep to flourish and enjoy contentment and every other legitimately good thing possible. An abundance of all that sustains life. He's the only one that satisfies. Last point you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. Verse 53, Jesus says, 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. Now, this is a strange saying, right? So I I uh I attempted to crowdsource the source this. I asked my son Grant. I said, Hey man, I'm giving a sermon here pretty soon. Do you think you could read this and tell me what you think? And and Grant looked at it, he just said, Yeah, dad, that's weird. You're you're on your own for this one. And so that that didn't end up helping. All right. But it is weird. It's okay to say that. The people who heard it thought that it was weird. They said, This is a hard saying. We don't know what to do with this.

Eat My Flesh And Drink Blood

SPEAKER_01 36:36

In verse 66, it says, After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. People heard this and they walked out. They're like, Yeah, we we we don't know what he's talking about, but we we want nothing to do with this. So if this sounds strange to you, you're not alone. But verse 67 and 68, Jesus says, Do you want to go away as well? Right? Everybody else has left. What about you guys? He's left for the 12 disciples. Do you guys want to leave too? And Peter gives us one of the most clear descriptions of the gospel. I think we have the most earnest answer. He says, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Where else would we go? And so Jesus is mixing his metaphors here a little bit, right? We've been talking about bread, now we're talking about eating flesh. And this language is extreme. And I think it speaks to the desire that we must have for Jesus. This is extreme because we must carry this desire for Jesus. I have a dog, and uh, my dog is about seven months old. And um every morning we we we get her up, okay, and she sleeps in a crate in our bedroom. And when we get when we get up, we open the the front of the crate and uh and she just peels out, right? Like she she she can't get any traction. We've got hardwood floors in our room. You guys have dogs, right? And so she's like doing this number, and she kind of skids into our bed, and then she gathers herself and peels out and goes this way and skids into the door, and there she is. So that's Maggie, all right. And and then she she runs outside, she's got a kind of a whole thing she's got to do before she can eat. But she goes outside and then and then um she comes back in and we won't let her eat until she sits still. All right. She she has to sit still, and while she's sitting, the um uh she her whole body shakes, right? Her her tail wags, like she she's clawing at the ground, she she can't stand it. I have never ever seen anyone want anything as badly as my dog wants to eat in the morning. All right, did did you run run this thing already? Can we can we can we there there she is? Like Maggie, she's she can't control herself, she's gonna have to sit. It's got that little tack, like like she wants to eat so badly. And Gina finally snaps her fingers and says, go, and then it's time to eat, right? And and she wants to eat so badly, and this is the desire that we are called to towards Jesus. We should desire this bread of life the way my dog wants to eat. Okay, we should desire, have a similar desire for the bread of life, right? Psalm 42 tells it to us this way it says, as a deer pants for water, so my soul pants for you, oh God. Psalm uh 130 says, I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits. And in his word, I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Right? Any of you guys who have been in the army, who've who've guarded a post overnight know what it's like to wait for the morning. And all you want is the sun to rise. Like this is the desire that God is calling us towards. Towards this bread of life, that we would allow this bread to satisfy us. If we want to be truly satisfied, we have to consume Jesus' life. We have to let him fill us, we have to let him satisfy us. And this is something we have to do every day. Bread on a shelf doesn't satisfy. Bread only satisfies when it gets into us. And Jesus is the only one that satisfies. Now, when Jesus says that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, we can't help but read with an eye toward communion that will be taken here in just a few minutes. One of the most poignant details about bread as we think about communion is that in order to eat bread, we have to break it. It must be broken. Jesus is our bread of life, was broken. He was pierced for our transgressions, his blood was poured out. When we take communion, we are reminded of Jesus' body broken for us and his blood shed for us. We're commanded to eat and drink in remembrance. If you want satisfaction, you must consume the bread of life. As we prepare for communion, I want to close with words from John Piper. He says, the purpose of the Lord's Supper is to receive from Christ the nourishment and strength and hope and joy that come from feasting our souls on all that He purchased for us on the cross, especially His own fellowship. So now we're going to close by taking communion. The ushers could come forward, Van could come on up here. As we get ready to take communion, a couple of just practical details. So if uh if if you require uh gluten-free bread, we'll have that in the middle. There's, I think, eight guys that are gonna have have uh communion elements, but that'll be here and then in the middle of the back. Uh so if that's the thing you require. We invite you all to participate in, to take communion with us. If you are if you're not a member of Mid Tree, you are still welcome to take communion with us. If this is the first time you've ever been here, you're welcome to take communion with us if you have placed your trust in Christ. If you have not yet placed

Communion Invitation And Practical Details

SPEAKER_01 42:38

your trust in Christ, if you if you do not know Jesus as your Savior, then we would ask that you uh let this opportunity pass you by. All right. And we would love to talk more with you about it, but we'd ask that you uh that you uh not participate in this until or unless you've come to trust in Jesus as your Savior. But let's come to the table and feast our souls on all that He has purchased for us on the cross, especially His own fellowship.