Always takes a little bit for a new guy to get all settled into the pulpit here, so be patient with me. Okay, here is the word of God from the Gospel of John. Chapter six, verse 35. 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. And then a little bit farther along in verse 48, Jesus repeats his saying and says, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Again, let us ask God's blessing. Father, we pray you might minister to us and help us to live these words in Jesus' name, amen. Well, you're probably all familiar with the I am sayings in the Gospel of John. They're beautiful testimonies to the claim of the Lord Jesus to be more than just a mere man. to be more than just a prophet who walked amongst the people, although he certainly was a prophet. but to truly be the Holy One of God, as Peter affirms just a little bit later in this text, that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. He is our Lord and Savior, the one who truly is the bread of life. Now, there are a number of I am sayings. This is just one of them, and they're all in the Gospel of John, which makes it rather unique to study them and to hear them proclaimed. In this particular one, this occurs right after the feeding of the 5,000. So think of all the people who are gathered there on the Sea of Galilee on that hill, hearing our Lord proclaim the truth about himself. And as they heard this truth, Jesus then fed them from the loaves and the fishes. And there were just a few loaves and two fishes, yet through the power of Jesus's miracle, we find that all the people are fed, well fed, and there are many baskets of food left over. But it's more than just a lesson about our Lord to provide food and to deal with the physical elements and to show his power and authority over them. It's more than that. Jesus actually is telling us in this particular set of words that as physical food is necessary for our earthly life, that spiritual food is necessary for our spiritual life. That Jesus gives us a bread that is representative of him, that we feed upon him by faith. And he works in our life spiritually to build us up and to strengthen us for this life here on the earth and also in eternity. Jesus makes it clear in this text that those who follow him must eat him. And they found those words, all the people who heard them, to be hard words. The text actually uses that expression. These were hard words. And some of the people who followed him determined that they would follow him no longer. because they found these words too difficult for them to understand or to accept. Yet Jesus persisted in saying it, and those who were called by the Spirit and drawn to him in time responded to those words and came to see that they were true, that Jesus indeed is the bread of life and we need to feed upon him by faith. Now I'll explain those words from the text and also from our confession in just a moment. Now I'm a privileged man. The Lord has given me a wife and many daughters who love to bake bread. And over the years, I've been the recipient of a lot of homemade bread. And I thought there could be absolutely nothing better than to have that aroma in the kitchen. being able to smell it and to realize that, OK, I'm going to go and I'm going to enjoy some really wonderful bread. And by my observations, there are eight simple steps for making bread. Now, my wife might take issue with my eight steps and say, well, it's a little more complicated than that. But this is how I see it. You grind the wheat. You sift the flour. You make the dough and roll it out. The dough rises, it's baked in the oven, it's cooled off, it's sliced, and it's eaten. It's that simple. Making some really wonderful bread. Of course, you know if you've made bread, it's a little more complicated. There's getting all the ingredients just right. There's having the right texture that you're looking for in the dough. There's making sure it's the right temperature in the oven and all of that. And I have to confess that my efforts to make bread have never turned out, but my efforts to eat it have always turned out just fine. Thankfully, when it comes to the bread that Jesus speaks of, this spiritual bread, it's not up to you or to me to make it. It's something he does for us. And he makes it just right. He gives us spiritual food to strengthen us as we go through this earthly life. And he ministers to us in a way that we could never do ourselves. Let's turn to the text now and just drill in on a number of these different aspects from John chapter six. First of all, looking at the beginning of this chapter, we see starting at verse one that the immediate context is the feeding of the 5,000. And Jesus tells us in The 10th verse actually, yeah, Jesus says, have the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. That tells us that it was a far greater crowd than just 5,000. That was just the men. There were women and children present as well. A staggeringly large crowd. And the immediate problem came up, well how are we going to feed all these people? The disciples wanted to know. It would take more than 200 denarii to feed these people. And they didn't have that kind of money. But Jesus tells all the people to sit down. And one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother in verse 8 says, There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? But Jesus said, Have the people sit down. And the people did sit down, for there was much grass in the place. And then verse 11, Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who receded. 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. And so they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the barley loaves, five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. And when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this indeed is the prophet who has come into the world. Well, what we find in this text here is that Jesus is beginning to extend his public ministry throughout the region of Galilee, and in so doing, he's attracting many crowds to him. And amongst these crowds, there were some who were very serious in knowing more about him. Then, of course, there were others who were merely curious to find out what this was all about. He was a sensation. And so many people came. And they didn't quite understand all that was going on. They were happy to receive the bread and to fill their bellies, so to speak. But they also realized that perhaps this indeed could be the person who would deliver us from our enemies, namely those Romans who had taken over all of Judea and Israel. Now there had been a series of invaders that had come upon the land of Israel over the centuries. They started with the nation of Assyria, which was like a steamroller, just rolling over all the nations of the ancient world in roughly 700 BC. That was followed by the nation of Babylon that came and destroyed Jerusalem and took all the people of Jerusalem into captivity. Then after that we see the rising of Egypt, and Egypt as well swept across the land, destroying many of the cities and imprisoning the people of God. Then came the Greeks under Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Kingdom, and finally the Romans. And so you can see there was a sense of oppression in these people. They were under the domination of a foreign power. They wanted nothing more than to be delivered. And so when we come to chapter six, verse 10, excuse me, verse 15, we see why they were wanting to do what they did. Look at verse 15. 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. The people were happy to have this physical food, but they wanted something more. They wanted an earthly deliverer who would come and save them from their enemies. They sought the fulfillment of that messianic expectation. Jesus tells them in verse 26, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. They were wanting to have someone provide food, but they also wanted someone to provide deliverance in this political, earthly realm. And so Jesus, knowing what they were going to do, withdraws. And we see our Lord doing that over and over again because his mission was to come to this earth and to lay down his life as a sacrifice for sins for the people of God. That's what he came to do. And he would not be deterred by this effort to make him the king. in an earthly sense, or to be a deliverer and to raise a grand army to fight off the Romans and to bring the people of Israel back into a place of prominence. That was not Jesus's mission. He had a far more significant and important mission, and that was to die for the people of God and to give them life. And so when we think of his words here and begin to see them in that sense, where he says that he is the bread of life, then we realize that Jesus is more than interested than just the physical fulfillment of giving them bread. He wants to give them spiritual bread, which will give them in turn spiritual life. Jesus says in verse 27, do not labor 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. And so we see again a statement here from John explaining what Jesus was all about, why he was doing what he did. Now we come to verse 35, to that startling statement that Jesus makes in the midst of this whole dialogue and effort to make him an earthly king. He says to them, verse 35, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Jesus here gives what you might call a self-authenticating statement. What do I mean by that? Well, just that it's plain on the very face of it that if he's making this statement, either he is totally false in being able to say it, or he is totally true. That's a self-authenticating statement. As you ponder this, and as you get to know him, and as you think about him, then it becomes clearer and clearer that Jesus had the authority and the right to say this. And that's why it's self-authenticating. I remember early in my ministry, I was driving down to the church where I was serving as a director of Christian education and youth, and I saw a sign spray painted on the side of the road on a cement block wall. And it simply said these words, Corky is God. And I thought, that is the strangest piece of graffiti I've ever seen before. And I started thinking about it. I would really like to meet this Corky. Because I'll bet within only a moment, maybe even a few minutes, I could see clearly that his statement, his claim was utterly and absolutely false. I could interview his mother, I could interview his brothers and sisters, they would assure me Corky definitely is not God. But when we see this statement from the Lord Jesus, When we start examining these I am statements from our Lord, then it begins to weigh upon us that the words of Jesus are self-authenticating by his words and by his deeds. And this continues to draw us to himself, just like the disciples of that day. Some found the saying hard. Others found it life-giving, that Jesus truly was the bread of life. Look at the second half of verse 35. Jesus said, I am the bread of life, and then the second half. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Jesus gives us two very strong statements about his reason for making the claim about being the bread of life. He says, whoever comes to me shall not hunger. He's not talking about physical hunger here. Although he demonstrated he was able to meet that need as well. But he's talking about those who are in his kingdom who crave for spiritual food. who crave for that relationship with the Lord, who enjoy that ongoing sustenance and nourishment that comes only from Jesus as we're involved in a relationship with him. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, he says. Isaiah spoke of that in Isaiah 49 verse 10. John actually quotes that in Revelation 7, verse 16, where Isaiah prophesies, they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching thing. And what that promise tells us is that there is a time coming, Isaiah prophesies, when the one who gives true food will be walking on this earth and will minister to us in a way that no one could ever minister before. That the Lord Jesus will come, the Messiah, and he will give us true food and we shall no longer hunger for that which we desire. A second promise Jesus makes in verse 35, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. He makes it clear that he not only brings this true spiritual food, but he also brings this living water, which we encounter in other parts of the gospel of John as well, notably in John chapter four with the woman at the well. Jesus gives us water that satisfies us spiritually. He's not talking about physical water, as if I might take this cup here and take a drink. Well, that's all good and fine, and it satisfies us physically. But it doesn't do anything for us spiritually. It doesn't do anything for us for the inner man or that relationship we desire with God. But Jesus promises there will be that water which is truly living. Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4.13, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And he makes this promise for whoever believes in me. Our confession addresses this in the 14th chapter where it speaks of our saving faith or saving faith in contrast to that intellectual faith that we might believe for different earthly figures who lived a long time ago or that crisis faith that we might believe in the midst of sickness or suffering and we're calling out to God. But a saving faith is that faith that trusts upon the Lord Jesus Christ and trusts in the work of Christ. The confession states it this way, which is a wonderful summary of what the Bible teaches. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein, and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth. yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing of the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. Now listen to this. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace. See, our confession is showing us, in summary form, what the Bible teaches and what Jesus said. And that is that we are called to, as it were, accept Him, receive Him, and rest upon Him, to use the words of our confession. Now, many of us come to faith in Christ at different points in life. Some who are born into Christian families from the earliest of days, they have known the gospel and heard that proclaimed and they have received it and accepted it and rest in it. Their faith is in Christ, they've never doubted. Some of my children are in that category and I'm thankful to God for that. Then there are others who come to faith in Christ later, like myself. who came in my 17th year, having heard the gospel but never having understood it before. And come to that point where finally wrestling with the words of Christ, statements like this and other statements as well, realizing that Jesus was truly who he claimed to be. And that he was drawing me to faith in him. And so I received him and rest in him and have accepted him, as it were, as my Lord and Savior. That's what our confession speaks of. That's what the Bible teaches. It's interesting to note that the young Pastor Timothy is an example of that covenant child being raised up in the faith by his mother and his grandmother, never having really a day that we know of where he doubted or disbelieved. And then the Apostle Paul comes in a very different way on the road to Damascus in a very dramatic fashion. It's interesting to me to consider that they both work together, conceivably never having a problem with the experience of the other, but accepting the fact they both had come to God and trusted in Christ by the saving faith that God alone gives in drawing them And in so drawing them, then the Lord brings about our union with Christ, that ongoing relationship. The confession says in chapter 26, all saints that are united to Jesus Christ, they're had by a spirit and by faith have fellowship with him in his graces, suffering, death, resurrection, and glory. And so we see in that text, which summarizes scripture, a wonderful testimony to the union we enjoy with Christ. And so Jesus, in talking about all these statements of saying that he is the bread of life and you must eat him, there were some, as I said, who found these statements to be very hard, hard sayings, and they rejected him and walked away. But there are others who received him gladly and walk with him for the remainder of their life. And here we see an example of the very thing that the Lord does. He draws people to himself, he gives them faith, and he brings them to that point where they believe and accept the statements of Jesus. It tells us in John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. This shows us that same basic truth of the work of God in our life. Now in verse 49, Jesus deals with some of those who reject him. He says, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. He's talking here about those who had no interest in following the true God. We can read about them in the 16th chapter of Exodus, where God had provided for them for the manna and the meat and all of their needs, yet even in the midst of that, they were a rebellious generation who walked away from God and would not receive him or rest upon him. In Psalm 78, we also read about them, where the psalmist encouraged us to not be like those people, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God. Or Hebrews 3, which also speaks of that rebellious generation. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. These are not the people we want to be. Those who walk in unbelief. Those who are rebellious to the things of God. But God is calling us by His Spirit to trust in him. And as he draws us and calls us, then we are to place our faith, as it were, in Christ, knowing that he has authenticated himself and has given us all we need to know that he is truly the one whom he says he is. He is the bread of life. Look at verse 50 and 51. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. There's some obvious connections in these words and the words that follow in the sixth chapter with the Lord's Supper. that Jesus gives us these signs and seals. But it's more than just bread and wine, although the bread and wine certainly are what we consume. But they represent something wonderful and something so much more, that spiritual reality, that connection with the living Lord. And so when we receive the supper, We are communing with the living Lord and enjoying that union that our confession speaks of. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die, so that we receive that assurance of eternal life, that would we die tonight, we could know we would be with the Lord forever. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, he says. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh. Jesus here is just telling us over again and again that these words that he stated at the very beginning of this time of teaching, I am the bread, I am the bread who gives life, is a true statement. What happens to the disciples? I've mentioned there were several who saw this as a hard scene and they walked away from him. But there are many others who stayed. They were drawn by the spirit. They rested in Christ and they received him. The disciples saw Jesus, Simon Peter declares, as the one who is the Holy One of God. Jesus asked them, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answers, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. It's this kind of faith that God gives. Now, because Simon was better than you or me, or different from you or me, Simon was an ordinary man who was lost in his sins, but by the grace of God, is brought to a place of faith and trust in Christ. And that's exactly where you and I are at, in having that same responsibility of responding in belief and trust. And so are those who did not walk with him, But how about you? And how about me? Well, as for me and my house, we will walk with the Lord. And I trust also with you and your house that you will follow him, that you will love him, that you will obey him, that you will serve him, that you will see and deed and proclaim to all you meet that Jesus is the bread of life, and in Him, Him, in Him, we find true spiritual food. Let us pray together.