Sermon Tone Analysis

“I Am the Bread of Life”

; Who is Jesus?

Week 1, 3/6/19

Introduction

Who assassinated Kennedy?

Did aliens actually land in Roswell, New Mexico?

Is Bigfoot real?

There are questions that arise in culture that develop their own cultish following in seeking the truth.

These questions persist and remain due to the craziness of the answers, the conspiracies that arise, and the belief of some to go against the grain of human thought.

However, one question has remained and stood out above all the others:

Who is Jesus?

This question has been circulating for thousands of years, and people have answered it in many different ways.

Some have viewed him as a fictional character used to teach morals.

Some have believed him to be a man who was a great teacher, instructing the religious people of that day.

Some have understood him to have died on a cross and remain dead and buried, while others believe in the resurrection, calling Him the Son of God.

Across the world, people have believed different things: I remember being in Gonaives, Haiti, seeing a giant cross in the middle of the street.

That cross that represents freedom from sin and life everlasting for so many, it stood for the people of that village as a reminder of Satan’s victory over Jesus.

The voodoo people of that town believed Satan won, Jesus lost.

But with each belief about Jesus, we have to reconcile whatever we believe with what Jesus said about Himself.

The claims of Jesus about who He is are written and recorded in Scripture, and when we read them, we have to decide in our hearts whether we believe these claims to be true or not.

C.S. Lewis famously wrote that when making this decision, we are deciding whether Jesus is a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.

He either knowingly lies about who He is, deceiving the masses to follow Him as a practical joke.

Or He’s a lunatic, who actually believes the things He says but is too crazy to understand that it is not actually real.

Or He is Lord.

What He says is truthful and as the Son of God, He has paid the debt for our sins so that we may freely receive everlasting life.

Who is Jesus?

That is our question for the next few weeks, so we’re going to spend some time examining who Jesus says He is, and my prayer is that each of us develop a clear view of our Savior and Lord and can readily answer the question: Who is Jesus?

Tonight, if you have your Bible, let’s look at .

In the gospel of John, Jesus makes several different statements that begin with “I Am…” and in , Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”

He had just fed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and some fish.

Read .

25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

27 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, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”

28 “What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked.

29 Jesus replied, “This is the work of God—that you believe in the one he has sent.”

30 “What sign, then, are you going to do so we may see and believe you?” they asked.

“What are you going to perform? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

32 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

33 For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 Then they said, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

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.

36 But as I told you, you’ve seen me, and yet you do not believe.

37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

39 This is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me but should raise them up on the last day.

40 For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

We’re going to stop here in this passage though their conversation continues through this chapter, what is Jesus saying here about himself?

Jesus says He is the Bread of Life, and we see a few things that are very important about this bread of life:

First, we see that God gives bread to those who are hungry.

1. God Gives Bread to Those Who Are Hungry.

God does not stand by and watch His creation starve.

Look in the beginning.

Where did God place Adam and Eve?

In a garden.

A place of satisfying one’s hunger.

When God’s people wandered in the wilderness, how did God satisfy their hunger?

He miraculously provided bread for them.

The day prior to this conversation, Jesus fed 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and two fish, and everyone was filled.

God proves himself time and time again throughout the Scripture to be the One who gives bread to those who are hungry, and what does this reveal about God?

a. God cares.

How many of y’all are familiar with the books and movies about the Hunger Games?

Pretty much everyone, so you understand the concept of how God could be?

He could be like those who watch the games from afar, from the safety of their own homes, and they delight in the misery and death of those they watch.

Instead, God watches us live our lives, God sees us in a great need, and He does everything He can to meet that need.

So God cares, and God satisfies.

b.

God satisfies.

In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, we see God meeting both physical and spiritual needs.

We look at the bread He just provided for the mass of people.

Look at Jesus in the gospels, He’s curing diseases, providing food, He’s meeting many physical needs, yet there are moments like this where Jesus says that’s not enough to fully satisfy us.

Jesus tells the people “you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

27 Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life”

Jesus says these things will only temporarily satisfy you, but I will fully satisfy you.

I remember Christmas as a child, waking up early, waking up the parents, going to the tree to rip open presents, seeing toys that I had wanted and begged for, then spending all day playing.

I remember the joy and fun that was present on those days.

But then a few weeks passed by.

I’d worn the clothes, beat the games, and each of these things that brought me joy were placed on a shelf as I moved on to other things.

Think of the things that seem to satisfy you.

Winning the game, getting new clothes, passing that test…each of these things we work for and strive for, yet at the end of the day, even if we accomplish every goal on our “To-Do” list, those feelings pass.

The satisfaction they bring fades away.

We consume ourselves and our schedules with things that do not fully satisfy, while Jesus stands here saying, “I am the Bread of Life.

Come to me, and I will truly satisfy you.”

How does he satisfy?

Not because He meets physical needs, but because meets the greatest need we have: He gives us life.

2. Only God’s Bread Can Give Life.

The people are looking for bread like Jesus had given them the day before, they’re looking for bread like God provided for in the days of Moses, yet Jesus says to them

“Truly I tell you, Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

33 For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

God’s bread gives life!

Jesus says here “I am the bread of life!

If you believe in me, you will have eternal life!”

This life that Jesus brings is two-fold:

a. Life for now

The life that Jesus offers us affects us now!

Paul would later say about our lives in :

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

Think about the life that Jesus brings and offers us: how does it affect us now?