"FOOD THAT ENDURES TO ETERNAL LIFE"
(A Series on Jesus)
C.R.3/1/87p.m. John 6:22-71
PROPOSITION: The food that Christ urged His disciples
to eat was a food that gave eternal life, a life that came from heaven, that satisfied forever, that could not be terminated by death, that was to be found only in Christ.
I.INTRODUCTION
- YOU are what you eat!
- AT least that is what nutritionists are telling us nowdays.
- AND, the older I get the more I believe it.
- ONE of my favorite after-church meals is Pizza and Pepsi. You just can't beat it. But you also can't sleep after you eat it.
- ABOUT a year ago, when I was the heaviest I have ever been, I started having some strange things happen. I would lay down in bed at night and have my heart play Jail House Rock.
- IT really scared me. It would either skip a beat or hurry up a beat every so often.
- I JUST knew that I was having heart trouble.
- BUT I started noticing something. When I would go on a fast for more than a day, my heart would go back to normal.
- I CALLED Irene Cramer, our resident heart specialist, to find out if I had sugar diabetes.
- I WAS nervously eating everything in sight, especially foods high in sugar, and the sugar was affecting my heart rhythm by the end of the day.
- COFFEE never used to affect me, or pop with cafeine, but now if I have either after 5p.m., I am awake until 3 in the morning.
- I REMEMBER hearing old people talking about cafeine keeping them up at night, but never me. Now it is my turn to stay up at night.
- YOU are what you eat! I am becoming a believer.
- BUT this truth is much deeper than Pizza and Pepsi.
- AND Jesus introduces His disciples to the subject in John 6:22-71.
- YOU see, food taken into the body is digested and then assimilated so that it becomes part of the body of the one who consumed it. It actually becomes part of the cell structure of the body.
- THAT had happened when the crowd had eaten the food Jesus miraculously provided earlier in John 6.
- AND that had so excited them that they wanted to make Him king immediately.
- THEY were going to abandon their plans to go to the Passover and make Him king so that He could provide them with food forever and overthrow the Roman empire.
- THEY were a roaring, enthusiastic crowd.
- THEY had found the Messiah and He would make their lives liveable again by providing all their needs and wants.....they were going to put Him on the throne right on the spot.
- NO wonder He had a difficult time getting them dispursed after feeding them.
- NO wonder they followed Him all the way to Capernaum. They wanted more. Their taste buds were awakened.
- THEY would make Him king.
- BUT they were after food that would sustain this life only....they were too short sighted....they were too earthly in their desires.
- SO Jesus had two purposes with His teaching in verses 22-71.
* First, He had to challenge their true motives for their desire of Him.
* Secondly, He had to reveal to them a food that would endure to eternal life.
- WE have to read these verses together to catch the significance of His teaching. READ vv25-71.
- JESUS Himself is the food that endures to eternal life.
- EVERY other kind of food will eventually die;
* The bodies quickened by Jesus miracle loaves and fish...was a food that they wanted that eventually died.
* The nation of Israel that they wanted Him to deliver from the Romans....was a food that they wanted that eventually died.
* The throne that they wanted Him to reign from....was a food that eventually died. In AD 74 it was destroyed forever.
* That career that consumes your hopes and dreams and energies and satsifies your ambitions....is a food that will eventually die.
* That home that you want so badly, or give so much time to improving......is a food that will eventually die.
* Your bank balance that gives you a feeling of security....or a sinking feeling.....is a food that will eventually die.
* That hobby that has begun to control you instead of you controlling it.....is a food that will eventually die.
* That marriage, or even family, that is the object of your dreams and hopes....is a food that will eventually die.
* That body that needs healing....even if it is healed...is a food that will eventually die.
* Even that ministry that is so important to you....is going to have eternal results...but, in itself, .....is a food that will eventually die. (eg. The Billy Graham Association.etc.)
- IN a very real spiritual sense, you are what you eat.
- YOU will become the food that feeds your inner man.
- AND to this mind-set Jesus teaches from verse 53-57;
"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me."
- JUST as it is with food taken into the physical body, so it is with the person who puts his faith in Jesus Christ.....Christ lives in that person and that person lives in Christ.
- SO Jesus taught the crowd that He was the only way that eternal life could be obtained.
- YOU have to partake of Him by faith in order to receive eternal life.
- HE is the only food that endures to eternal life.
II.IT IS A LIFE THAT IS ETERNAL
- EVERYONE is immortal.......that is, they will live a created life here on earth, and, after death, there will be conscious existence for all eternity.
- ONLY God is eternal. Only God has eternal life. Only God can give eternal life to those who believe in Christ.
- THE food Jesus encourages us to go after in this life, is a food that will endure to eternal life.
JOHN 6:27 "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life."
JOHN 6:40 "For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
JOHN 6:47 "I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life."
JOHN 6:54 "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
- THIS is the eternal life that God gives those who partake of Jesus body and blood, by faith.
III.IT IS A LIFE THAT IS FROM HEAVEN
- THE only origin of this eternal life is from the Father in heaven. Jesus said;
JOHN 6:32 Jesus said to them, "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."
JOHN 6:33 "For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
IV.IT IS A LIFE THAT IS SATISFYING
JOHN 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
- THERE is nothing in this life that will satisfy to the depth of the life of Christ within.
- AND that should not surprise us, we were created to be in fellowship with Him.
V. IT IS A LIFE THAT IS RESURRECTION LIFE
- THIS life cannot be terminated by death.
- JESUS said;
JOHN 6:40 "For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
JOHN 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day."
JOHN 6:50 "But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die."
JOHN 6:58 " This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
VI.THIS IS A LIFE THAT IS ONLY FOUND IN CHRIST
- THERE is no other one to whom you and I can go to receive this life.
- JESUS said,
JOHN 6:48 "I am the bread of life."
- CHRIST is LIFE.
- CHRIST in you is LIFE.
- JOHN also wrote in his epistle "He who has the Son has life." (I John 5:12)
- CAN you see now why Jesus said in JOHN 6:51, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
- AND then He said in the next verse, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."
- THIS life is only available through receiving Jesus into your life and you entering His life....by faith.
VII.CONCLUSION
- WHICH brings us to the communion service.
- THIS is a physical celebration of a spiritual reality.
- THIS is the celebration of a food that endures to eternal life....Jesus body and blood.
- THE crowd on that day in John 6, wanted the bread and fish that HE gave, but they didn't want Him for their food.
- THEY left disappointed.....and even some of the disciples left Him that day....never to return.
- SOME of the saddest words of Jesus are recorded in verse 67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
- AND Peter's reply is, I pray, our reply tonight. In full view of all the food offered by this world, Peter answered,
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
- IS He your food tonight?
- LET'S celebrate this truth together around His table.
HERE COMES JESUS
