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The Great I AM

07/08/2007 - The Bread of Life, John 6:35

How many of you had a piece of bread this week? A roll? A muffin? A sandwich? A piece of toast? Sure, most of us did. And why did we have that bread? Because we were hungry and for a time that roll or muffin, sandwich or piece of toast satisfied our hunger and it tasted good too. But it didn't last too long before we got hungry again, did it?

This week I discovered that bread is the only food in the world that's eaten by people of every race, culture, and religion. The average American consumes about 53 pounds of bread a year, that's more than a pound a week. And even though bread is relatively cheap it still gives us a rich source of nutrients because it's packed with vitamins and minerals and the fiber that we all need for a balanced diet. Bread is important for a healthy life.

In ancient Israel, bread was eaten with every meal. Everyday fresh bread was made. It was one of the main activities of every Jewish household. Wheat or barley was ground up on a millstone to make flour. Then the flour was mixed with water and kneaded into a flat circle of dough which was then slapped onto the hot interior walls of the bread oven. And when the bread was done it would come loose from the wall and fall into the ashes below.

In Israel, the middle and upper class ate bread that was made from wheat while animals and the poor ate bread that was made from barley. But before they ate any of it the father of the family would say the Hebrew blessing, "Baruch atah Adonai Eloheynu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, who brings bread from the earth." Bread meant life to every Israelite.

But there was a time in Israel's history that they all knew about, when they couldn't make bread because they had no grain. They had no fields to harvest. They couldn't get wheat or even barley because they were nomads, a million and half strong, wandering around in the hot desert sun. And they would have died out in the wilderness had not God sent them bread from heaven. And that bread was called manna which in Hebrew literally means "What is it?" "What is the stuff?" the people said.

And every morning they would wake up and find manna covering the ground like dew, little wafers, like frosted flakes, that tasted like honey. And they could collect as much as they needed for the day, but they weren't allowed to store it up or keep it overnight, because God was teaching them what it meant to trust him every single day for their daily bread. "Give us this day our daily bread." It was a miracle that lasted forty years, 24/6 not 24/7, because no manna fell on the Sabbath. Instead, a double portion fell on the sixth day of the week.

And it was so significant in Israel's history that God said, "I want you to take a pot of manna and put it in the Ark of the Covenant, the gold box, and lay it next to Aaron's rod and the tablets of the Ten Commandments. And I want you to put that gold box in the most sacred place on all the earth, the holy of holies, as a reminder for generations to come of how I provided for you."

For forty years God gave his people frosted flakes from heaven until they crossed the Jordan River. And when they came into the Promised Land the first thing they did was celebrate the Passover. And for the first time in forty years they ate fresh produce from the land of Canaan and the very next day the Scripture says the manna stopped. They didn't need it anymore now that they were in the land flowing with milk and honey.

Why am I telling you all this? Because we need to understand the importance of bread in Israel's history to fully appreciate the words of Jesus when he says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

This morning we begin our summer series called The Great I Am. It's a series that's going to take us through some of the most significant statements that Jesus ever made, statements about himself that affect every single one of us because who Jesus is, changes who we are.

And they're all contained in the gospel of John. So if you want a good read this summer, a book that will encourage you, and give you hope, and make you a better person then join me in reading the gospel of John. And if you've read it before then try reading it in another translation like The Message or The Living Bible just to give it a fresh feel.

But I have to warn you, the Apostle John has an agenda in writing his gospel. And it's not a hidden agenda either. It's very clear. He makes no bones about it. He is out to convince you and me that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that by believing in him we may have life in his name. That's how he puts it in John 20:31.

And to accomplish his agenda John arranges his book around eight miracles of Jesus starting at a wedding in John 2, when Jesus turns water into wine, and ending with a funeral in John 20, when Jesus rises form the dead. The number "eight" in the Scriptures is the number of new beginnings. And in Christ we all have a new start.

John also includes the eight "I Am" statements of Jesus that are meant to convince us that Jesus is God because it's God who referred to himself as "I Am who I Am" when he appeared to Moses from the burning bush in the desert.

So throughout this series we'll discover what Jesus meant when he said, "I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the I am. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. ! am the vine." And in the process our faith will be strengthened and we'll be better equipped to live out the mission of Christ in a world full of darkness because who Jesus is changes who we are.

If you have a Bible turn with me to John 6 as we look at the first "I Am" statement of Jesus when he says, I Am the Bread of Life. In my Bible the chapter is titled "Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand." You can follow along as I read and make some comments that will help us understand the context behind Jesus' statement.

Look at John 6:1-4, Some time after this (that is after Jesus had healed a lame man in Jerusalem in chapter 5), Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), ²and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. ³Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. ⁴The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

One thing we learn early on when reading John's gospel, or the rest of the Bible for that matter, is that nothing is written by accident. And so when John starts to describe this miracle of Jesus, that we call the feeding of the five thousand, he starts by telling us that the Jewish Passover Feast was near. And that's significant.

In Israel people prepared for the Jewish Passover the way we prepare for Christmas in our culture. It was a festive time. It was the holiday season when every Jewish male was required to leave home and go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord at the Temple. So often they would save up money all year to take their family to Jerusalem with them for the holidays.

And just like we think about the birth of Jesus during the Christmas holiday, so they would be thinking about the birth of their nation, Israel, during the Passover holiday. Specifically they would think about the Exodus out of Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea and the way God had provided manna from heaven and the hero of the story, Moses. He was the George Washington of the nation of Israel. And during the Passover Feast it was always their hope that a new Moses would come and deliver them once again, this time from the tyranny of Rome. They were hoping and praying for a Messiah, a hero, a deliverer like Moses to set them free. And now they wondered, "Could Jesus be the one?"

Look at verse 5, When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" ⁶He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.⁷Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

A great crowd had followed Jesus to check him out and he had spent all day healing them. The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle found in all four gospels and in Mark's account we learn that it was very late and the disciples were urging Jesus to send the people home. But Jesus wanted to feed them and so he said to Philip, who was from Bethsaida, the closest village, "Hey, Phil, do you know a place that does take out?" And Philip said, "Yea, I know a place that does take out, but it would wipe out our Community Care Fund just to give each person a bite!"

So we read in verse 8, Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, ⁹"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

Thank God for Andrew. Whenever we find Andrew in the gospels he's always bringing people to Jesus. Philip saw the problem, but Andrew saw a possible solution. There was a boy in the crowd with a little lunch of five small barley loaves and two small fish, probably pickled sardines. Not much meat on them. And we already know that barley loaves meant that this boy was from a poor family. But that doesn't stop Andrew from bringing him to Jesus or stop the boy from offering Jesus his lunch.

And I think there's a lesson for all of us right here, a bunch of lessons. So often in life we find ourselves in situations where we don't know what to do. And God allows those situations to come into our lives to test our faith in him. He knows what he's going to do, but we don't. And often we respond like Philip. We feel overwhelmed like he did. And we can't see any solution to the problem.

But we need to get through the Philip stage and move into the Andrew stage where we look around and bring what we have to the attention of Jesus because we never know what he's going to do with it. Andrew saw the same crowd that Philip saw, but he brought a poor boy to Jesus, and then he had to trust Jesus for the rest. Part of our faith walk with Christ is the expectation that he's going to do something unexpected for us, something new, something creative that we have never seen before. But it will never happen unless we go to Jesus with what little we have. For us as a church right now, that's the Sunnyside Project.

Then there's the little boy. How often I think about him, bringing what little he had to Jesus. I think about him often before I teach. I think about him a lot when I serve in Africa or someplace way out of my comfort zone. I thought about him last week when Peter and Talitha were sharing how they went to Bangladesh and never taught piano and never taught art and never coached basketball and never preached a sermon, but they offered Jesus what they had, their five loaves and two fish, and he multiplied it. He always does because little is always much in the hands of Jesus.

So Jesus smiles and says in verse 10, "Have the people sit down."There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there.) ¹¹Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

In those days they only counted the men in the crowd which probably means there was more like 10 or 15,000 people on the hill that day. And after they sat down in groups of fifty and a hundred, Jesus took the little boy's lunch and acting as the father of the family gave thanks, "Baruch atah Adonai Eloheynu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, who brings bread from the earth."

And what happened next was miraculous. It was a seafood buffet. All you can eat! Look at verse 12, When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." ¹³So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

The crowd was filled to the full and there was bread leftover. In fact, enough bread to fill twelve baskets. In a Jewish feast it was important that nothing be wasted. And so the leftovers were given to the servants. And in this case the twelve baskets of leftovers were given to the twelve disciples who had served the crowd, one basket for each.

There's another lesson right there. Jesus could have fed the crowd anyway he wanted. He could have brought manna from heaven and had everybody collect their own portion but he wanted to include his disciples. He wanted them to get involved meeting needs. So they distributed the food and they gathered the leftovers and they were blessed because of it. Jesus wants us to care for people today, inside and outside our Valley View community, and he wants you and me to be involved in the mission. And when we are we'll see him do awesome things and he'll make sure we receive some of the blessings. But we have to give him our five loaves and two fish first.

Now look at verse 14, After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." ¹⁵Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

After dinner was done the buzz began. "Maybe this Jesus is the prophet that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 18 when he said, 'The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me from among your own people.' Maybe Jesus will take us from slavery to freedom just like Moses did."

And, of course, Jesus would, but not in the way they wanted. They wanted to make him king, right then and there, king of the Jews in a purely political sense, but Jesus had to show them that he was more, much more than that. So when he heard the buzz he disappeared and took a hike up into the mountains by himself.

And the next day, when the crowd caught up with him again, hoping he'd buy breakfast I'm sure, Jesus told them what really happened at dinner the night before.

Look at verse 25, When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" ²⁶Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval." ²⁸Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" ²⁹Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Jesus says to them, "Don't miss the point. The 'All you can eat seafood buffet' that you enjoyed on the hill was not just about filling your stomachs. It was about filling your souls. The miracle on the mountain yesterday was meant to show you that I am more than Moses. I am the Son of Man. I am the one on whom God has placed his seal of approval. And what he's asking you to do is to believe in me."

So they asked him, in verse 30, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

Can you believe these people? This is a tough crowd. Feeding 15,000 from a box lunch wasn't enough! They wanted manna from heaven because the rabbis believed that when Messiah came he would feed them with manna just like Moses had done in the desert. But Jesus isn't going to give them another miracle, at least not now. Instead, he's going to offer them himself.

Look at verse 32, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

Jesus had to correct two mistakes in their thinking. First, he said, "It wasn't Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. It was God my Father. And second, the real bread form heaven is not manna, but me."

Look at verse 34,"Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." ³⁵Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Jesus' first "I am" statement is I am the bread of life. It's so important we understand that that he says it three times. In verse 48 he says it again, I am the bread of life. And in verse 51 he puts it this way,I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

What Jesus wants us all to see is that there are two kinds of hunger in this world. There is physical hunger that can be satisfied for a time with bread, but sooner or later we're going to get hungry again. And then there is a spiritual hunger that can be satisfied once and for all through faith in Jesus. Jesus is the one our soul hungers for. Jesus is the one our soul thirsts for. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

And how do we satisfy our spiritual hunger? By believing in Jesus, believing that Jesus is who he claimed to be. He is more than Moses. He is more than a prophet. He is the God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. He is the great I am. And when we believe in him he gives us eternal life, which is John's way of saying we enter into the kingdom of God. And the only work needed is simple faith. Who Jesus is changes who we are if we believe, but not everybody does believe.

Look at verse 36, "But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All whom the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day."

What wonderful assurance Jesus gives to all who do believe. When we put our faith in Jesus he changes us, he satisfies our hunger, he gives us eternal life, he brings us into his kingdom, he promises to raise us up at the last day and he will not renege on any of those promises. Do you believe in Jesus? Have you had your hunger satisfied? If so, you are part of his kingdom and he will not leave you behind. And if you haven't you can come to him right now. Jesus said in John 6:47, I tell you the truth, those who believe in me have eternal life. It's that simple.

If you do know Jesus then I want to ask you, "Are you on the mission of Christ?" Are you helping to meet the needs of a hungry world? He wants to involve you and me in the process. Have you brought him your five loaves and two fish so that he can multiply them and pour out his love through you? That's what following him is all about.

And as you do that remember that nothing we have is too small to bring to Jesus and nothing we do for him is ever wasted. Nothing.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.