Only You Satisfy (John 6:35)

A sermon preached on Sunday, February 17, 2013 at Hebron Baptist Church, Denham Springs, LA

Scripture Reading: John 6:25-59 (Focal Verse, 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.’”

Introduction:
It’s an obvious fact that we must eat to live. Hunger, like the lighted gas pump icon in your car is your body telling you it’s time to stop and refuel. And regardless of how full and satisfied you are after a meal, it won’t be very long before you have to eat again. In South Louisiana we take our eating pretty seriously. Many of our neighbors are celebrating Lent (which began last Wednesday). Lent is a time of prayer, reflection, and fasting, but only in Louisiana could we take that solemn celebration and make it about food! So during the season of fasting, we’ll eat twice as much seafood!

But there is another kind of hunger that we also instinctively have, it’s a spiritual hunger. We are created in “the image of God,” (Gen. 1:26) we are spiritual beings. God has set eternity in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11).Our spirit must feed to live and there is no physical food that can satisfy that need. Evidence of this spiritual hunger is present in every human being. We have a longing to know our purpose in life, why we are here. Where did we come from? Where are we going? We long for internal harmony and peace, we long to be accepted, to be loved, to be forgiven, to relate to people in healthy ways, to belong, to be fulfilled in life. These intangibles, things you cannot acquire in the physical world are real needs that we have. And they are real needs that can only be met by Jesus who is the bread of life.

Life Application: To believe in Jesus (“the bread of life”) is to experience a full and meaningful life on earth and to be with God forever.

(Read John 6:35). This is quite an amazing statement at face value. Jesus claims to be “the bread of life.” People familiar with the Bible will immediately see a connection with this statement with other similar “I am” statements in the Bible. The first occurrence of this “I am” statement is found in Exodus 3:14. Moses was being sent by God to deliver the Israelites from Egypt but he was worried that they would not receive him. He wanted to know who was sending him, on what authority was he coming to them with a plan of deliverance? “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God disclosed His name to Moses as “I am,” meaning “I will be what I will be,” a designation of deity.

So when Jesus used the expression “I am,” it was no coincidence and it was not without a specific purpose. Jesus claimed that He was the LORD! That Jesus claimed to be God is an issue in the Bible that you just cannot get around. Everything hinges upon the truthfulness of His statement. Only God is worthy of worship, only God can forgive sins, only God can change a life, only God is worth committing your life to. So Jesus claiming to be God is no small matter. That the people he first spoke this to understood what Jesus meant is clear from the context because later in the conversation they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (v.42). The argument made by C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel and others is appropriate in this text. Jesus is either the Lord, a Liar, or a Lunatic! Jesus Himself gives us no other way of viewing Him, there are no other options.

Equally astounding is Jesus’ claim to be “the bread of life.” He and He alone is able to satisfy the hunger and thirst of the soul. “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3). The account that precedes our passage was the feeding of the 5,000, the miracle of the loaves and fishes. This feeding met their immediate physical need, but what about the spiritual needs? Jesus said the people “looked” to him (notice it doesn’t say they believed) because they “ate the loaves and were filled” (v.26). To them Jesus was some sort of “food-pantry Messiah,” able to meet their physical needs, but to most that was the extent of it.

But now after satisfying their stomachs, Jesus turns their thinking towards their spirits. “Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (v.27). That they did not understand this is obvious for they said, “What can we do to perform the works of God?” (v.28). Man is always looking for a way to save himself, to “do” something. Because this spiritual hunger is a part of our human nature, we naturally seek to have this need met in nature, what we can touch, see, experience. So in this quest for meaning, for this hunger to be met, we fill our life with earthly substitutes.

Substitutes that Will Not Satisfy: Materialism (1 Jn. 2:15-16), relationships (Matt. 10:37), the love of money (Matt. 6:24), a career, job, work, self (Lk. 9:23-24), success, even religion (Matt. 15:8-9). But these “idols of the heart” (Ezek. 14:3-6) will not quench the hunger and thirst for God. They cannot satisfy. They still leave us empty.

In the movie, The Pirates of The Caribbean, Captain Barbossa and his crew have found the chest of Cortez containing 882 pieces of Aztec Gold, but now they are cursed men, they are the undead. Explaining the curse Barbossa describes finding the gold and coming to grips with the curse he and his men were under. “We took them all [i.e., the gold pieces]! Spent ‘em, traded ‘em and fritted ‘em away, for drink and food and pleasurable company. But the more we gave them away, the more we came to realize. The drink would not satisfy, food turned to ash in our mouths, nor the company in the world would harm or slake our lust. We are cursed men . . . compelled by greed, we were. But now, we are consumed by it.” “For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starving to death and haven’t died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea.” “We are cursed men.” Earthly substitutes for God will not satisfy.

If this is our condition, where do we find satisfaction for our spiritual hunger and thirst?  “Jesus tells us, ‘This is the work of God – that you believe in the One He has sent” (v.29). Instead of “doing” something to meet the need we have, Jesus said God is the one who does the “doing,” He is the one who meets our need.

God does the work of salvation, we are to “believe in the One He has sent” (v.29). And who might this “One” be? Jesus, who is “the bread of life” (v.35).

Three Tremendous Truths about Salvation
1. Salvation is God’s work and gift to man (6:27-29)
But man fails to grasp this because the world despises grace. Man wants to naturally contribute to his salvation, but Grace means I come to Jesus just as I am, I humbly bow before God a sinner in need of a savior. It’s easy to see why the Jewish leaders were offended by what Jesus said and who he claimed to be.

The cross offends my pride, it’s a stumbling block, it shows me my true self (See 1 Cor. 1:22-24). It’s not surprising that people have always been attracted to a pseudo-Christianity where you are encouraged to pick and chose what you like, and set aside troubling things like the cross. It’s not surprising that people still want to make Jesus a good man, and dress his teaching up with some positive self help principles. The real Jesus is too demanding!

Jesus’ audience still wants to see a sign “so we may believe You” (v.30). Had they not just seen “The Sign” of all signs in the miracle of the loaves? Had they not seen evidence multiplied over ten times that Jesus was the “One”? But what about you? Have you not seen enough of God’s grace and mercy and goodness in your life to save you ten times over? Has God not brought to you the truth repeatedly? Are there not countless reminders everyday of the reality of God? No amount of signs and wonders or human reason will convince people whose hearts are hard and prideful. Jesus has just told these knuckleheads  what to do, to “believe in the One He has sent” (v.29), but what are they doing? They are still  looking for another way, a way of escape. But there is no escape! “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3).

In an attempt to escape, they employed the tactic of “let’s get him sidetracked on some religious controversy.” So they bring up the history of their “fathers” (v.31). The manna that rained down from heaven in the wilderness was bread miraculously provided by God for the Israelites (Ex. 16:4; Ps. 78:24). But Jesus turned the discussion of bread to the giver of “real bread from heaven,” the bread that satisfies the soul. This “bread of God is the One who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (v.33). Jesus says that this “bread of God” is a person, “the One.” And who could that be but Jesus, the one who is telling them these words.

Salvation has never been in a religion, or a ceremony, or in something that you do, but it’s always been in a person.
2. Salvation is in the person of Jesus Christ (6:33-35)
In the Old Testament people were saved looking forward. Today we are saved looking backwards. But on both sides salvation has been provided by “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Still thinking only of earthly bread, they said, “Sir [not Lord], give us this bread always!” (v.34). It’s at this point Jesus makes the astounding claim of our text, “I am the bread of life” (v.35).

Jesus is “the bread of life,” our salvation. His hearers could have experienced this amazing promise of salvation but Jesus explains why they did not. “You’ve seen [some Mss omit “Me”], and yet you do not believe” (v.36). What did they see? They saw God in the flesh at work in the world, they saw God’s miracles, they listened to God’s Word, they have had many opportunities to believe but they have refused to do so. Their problem is not a knowledge problem, it’s a heart problem. It is not that they cannot believe, they are unwilling to believe.

To those who have come and who will come in the future, there is a tremendous promise of security in verse 37. Jesus “will never cast [us] out.” God will never forsake His children. God’s desire, His plan is to have a family, and He desires us to be with Him forever. God in Christ will “lose none” but will “raise them up on the last day” (v.40). Instead of this being glorious good news, “the Jews started complaining about Him because He said: I am the bread that came down from heaven” (v.41). The Jews could accept a teacher, a Rabbi (v.25). They could accept even a prophet, a miracle worker, but they could not accept Jesus as God, as Lord.

3. Salvation is available to all who will believe in Jesus (6:44-51)
We come to Christ when “the Father . . . draws” us. But the question is, how does God draw people? The same word for “draw” is used at John 12:32-33. “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.” There is a magnetism in the cross of Jesus. The cross exposes our sinful condition but we are drawn by the cross because Jesus points us to reconciliation with God the Father. In Jesus all souls become clean, forgiven.

The people Jesus was speaking to were drawn (v.44) but they were not saved. Jesus said that they had “the prophets,” they were “all taught by God” (v.45). Their problem was not knowledge, they did not believe God’s Word. They had the truth but they refused to even be open to the possibility that Jesus could have been God, and as a result of their obstinance they did not come to Jesus to be saved. Jesus said, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14, ESV). They were not saved because they “could not” come (they were “called”), it was because they “would not” come (thus, they did not believe and become “chosen”). Salvation is available to all who will believe in Jesus.

Bread is good for one thing, to be eaten (v.51). Bread is not for display, it is food for life. Jesus reminds the Jews that their fathers ate the bread (the manna) in the wilderness but that they still died (v.49). The bread that he is speaking of is bread given “so that anyone may eat of it and not die” (v.50). But they said, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (v.52). Jesus did not soften His demand but pressed even more deeply. “I assure you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves” (v.53). The question is, “Is Jesus serious here?” “Is He advocating canibalims?” “How does one ‘feed’ on Jesus (v.57)?”

Clearly, Jesus is saying that we partake of the body of Christ, his flesh and blood by faith, by believing in Him, the major theme of this entire passage repeated at least six (6) times (vv.29, 35, 40, 47). To believe in Jesus is “to accept as true, genuine, or real” that Jesus is who He claimed to be – the bread of life – God! To believe in Jesus is “to have a firm conviction” in His ability to save, to reconcile me with the Father, to raise me on that last day.

What is the result of belief in Jesus? “No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again.” Impossible? No, it’s good news and it’s available to all who will come in faith to Jesus Christ. It’s not enough to know about Jesus, to sing about Him, to admire Him. But do you know Him? Have you believed in Him? “‘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.’” To believe in Jesus (“the bread of life”) is to experience a full and meaningful life on earth and to be with God forever. Only Christ satisfies! Are you satisfied?




For His Glory!
Pastor Joe