Jesus is the Food

Open your Bibles to John chapter 6, please. It's the Gospel of John chapter 6. I'll start John chapter 6, verse 25. We'll read to verse 35. So John chapter 6, verse 25. When the crowd found him on the other side of the sea, They said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work 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. Then they said to him, What must we do to be doing the works of God?

Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So they said to him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus then said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. So they said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall never hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Let us pray to our God. Oh Lord, would you please bless this word to our soul.

God, let this word teach us truth about who you are, who Jesus is, and who we are and our need for Christ. Lord, direct our hearts and minds where you would have us so that we would live our lives on this earth to the end that Christ would be glorified and it would be for our good. Oh Lord, we're in desperate need of his benefits and blessings that he's brought to his people, of his good spirit, his Holy Spirit.

So may we, God, look to you by Christ through the Spirit. and may this time be a blessing to our souls we pray these things in the wonderful matchless superior awesome name of jesus christ our lord amen a truth we learn from the book of ephesians is that marriage as foundational as it is to society actually serves a deeper purpose that points outside of itself. That is, it was created by God to reveal the relationship Christ has with his people. We are the bride and he's the groom.

And it can be surprising to learn this at first, since marriage is so foundational to our existence. We might think it is an end in itself. But the Bible teaches us that it actually points to a still more foundational reality to existence, Christ's relationship to his people. In John chapter 6, we get a similar truth presented to us. Eating, like marriage, is a fundamental aspect of our existence.

So foundational is eating that it can seem like it is an end in itself. but like marriage eating is not an end in itself but points to christ and his relationship with his people too so that means eating has a deeper meaning that gives it an even greater purpose so each time you eat each time we eat we should consider a truth that transcends simply filling our stomach. Rather, it is revealing to us a rich, eternal, and spiritual truth that should delight our souls more than it delights our physical senses. This is certainly not something the crowds that are seeking Jesus understands in John chapter 6.

If you remember, the crowds have been seeking and longing for Jesus. They had followed him to a desolate place. They were miraculously fed by the Lord. And when he disappeared from them by walking on the water, they sought him and found him across the sea in Capernaum. No doubt they were seeking further physical blessing. And in John 6, verse 26, when they finally find Jesus, he chastises them for seeking him so eagerly, but not because they saw signs that revealed he was the Son of God, ready to give salvation, but because he fed their bellies.

He said to 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. He's saying, you are seeking me not because when you ate, you realized it was pointing to something greater I can give you, salvation and relationship with God, but simply because your belly was filled. You see, they were failing to see the bigger picture behind eating.

They were treating eating as an end in itself instead of desiring what it points to and what we get for the rest of this chapter here in John 6 is a teaching from Jesus on how eating temporary food is meant to reveal a need to eat eternal food And the pleasant nourishment that we get from temporary food should drive us to want to be eternally nourished from eternal food. In short, the temporary is not an end in itself, but should drive us to desire the eternal realities that it points to. And in verse 27, moving forward from 26, it is an introductory statement from Jesus that has the three major points he's going to use to make this deeper eternal point. each one of these points will be expanded on later in chapter 6 in his teaching and we will spend a sermon on each point and he says in 27 do not work for the food that perishes before the food that endures to eternal life which a son of man will give to you for on him god the father has set his seal.

The point Jesus is going to make last in the following teaching of chapter 6, he makes first in this inductory verse, and that is eternal consumption. He says, do not work for the consumption of the food that perishes, but for the consumption of the food that endures to eternal life. Jesus tells the crowd that they should be working to consume eternal life, not temporary food.

And Jesus will focus more on this point of consuming eternal life last in verses 47 through 58, which we will cover in a couple weeks. The second point we see in this introductory verse is the who that consumes. In verse 27 again, look, do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.

You see, there is a particular people that will receive this food and consume it, that will be able to connect the dots of what they experienced with the temporary food and strive for the eternal food. Jesus will expand on the who that consume second in verses 36 through 46, which we'll cover next week. The first point Jesus will expand on that we'll cover today is the eternal food.

Look again at verse 27. Do not work 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. You see there, we see the food he tells them to consume offers nourishment, not of temporary physical health, but eternal life. It endures to eternal life. And the food is given by the Son of Man.

And as we will see when Jesus expands on this later, that's because the food is the Son of Man himself. And we see that it is the Father who has prepared this food. Jesus will expand on this point of the eternal food in verses 28 through 35, which we'll cover today. So Jesus introduces three points here that he's going to expand on for the rest of chapter 6.

The eternal food, the who that will consume it, and the act of consuming it. So in your mind, it might help, picture a setting of a meal with a certain people at the table eating it. Today, Jesus details the meal. Next week, Jesus will detail who the people are at the table consuming. And the following week, Jesus will detail the act of eating the meal itself.

So the first thing Jesus expands on is the food God has prepared for eternal nourishment. But Jesus doesn't go straight from this introductory verse of 27 to saying he is the food that the Father has prepared for eternal nourishment. He will make that statement in verse 35. If you look, he says to him, I am the bread of life. That's like a climactic statement from Jesus.

And he's going to kind of lead the conversation to that great statement that I am the eternal food. What we get from where we're at in the introductory statement, verse 27 to 35, is a preparation for that great I am statement from Jesus. And so what we see in these verses leading up to that climactic statement is the need for the eternal food, the proof of the eternal food, And finally, the statement, Jesus is the eternal food.

So let us look first at the need to consume the eternal food God has prepared. After Jesus' introductory statement, the crowd asked Jesus in verse 28, they asked him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? This question from the crowd is both excellent and it's also misguided. Excellent in that they hear Jesus' introductory statement in verse 27, do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures eternal life.

They hear that and they sense that he is telling them that they are focused too much on temporary food and not showing interest in what points to eternal food. And so in their minds, so their minds, in light of Jesus talking about working for eternal food, goes to what God would have them do. Works of God, they ask. The works of God there does not mean works that he does, but works that he approves of.

And this is spot on. A life devoted to eternal food is a life devoted to works that God approves of A life devoted to eternal food is a life devoted to works that God approves of This is what makes us human, separate from the animal kingdom, and special before God. Creatures not made in the image of God pursue food and anything that feels good to their physical senses.

And that's okay. They are lesser creatures. But humans, as made in the image of God, do not have as their end to simply eat and do what feels good to their physical senses. We are not animals. In fact, there are even times when we do not do what feels good to our physical senses when it gets in the way of doing works that pleases God. This is essentially what is meant by God when he wrote through Moses in Deuteronomy 8.3, man does not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord animals live by bread alone but man made in the image of God lives by something beyond bread something eternal we live for God who is who for what God has commanded us to do and if you remember when the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan and was fasting and he was very hungry, Satan tried to get Jesus to use his divine power to turn stones into bread to eat and satisfy his physical desires.

But Jesus quotes this verse in Deuteronomy telling Satan that it is better to obey God and not have his physical senses please than to feel good physically and disobey God. So the eternal things that we are to pursue as humans is to do what pleases God, the works of God. And this is our primary aim in life, not what pleases our flesh, even when it's eating food.

So when the crowds find Jesus and he says, stop acting like the physical is all that matters, but let your main aim be eternal food, the crowds rightly hear Jesus talking about works that God approves of. We're on the right track there. This is where their question in light of his introductory statement was actually very excellent. What must we do to be doing the works of God?

Where there is a problem with their question is the assumption behind the question that there are works or laws of God that man can do, that we can do, that will please him. When the sad reality of our conditions as humans fallen after Adam is we cannot please God in our fallen state. There are no works we can do that pleases him. There is no eternal food that we can eat of our own ability.

Romans 3.20 says, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Romans 3.23 says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There are major things the Jews got wrong about what God was telling them throughout the Old Covenant. There's a lot of things the Jews got wrong about what God was trying to tell them in the Old Covenant, and we'll cover two this morning.

One we will see later is that they think God was mainly concerned about blessing Israel physically when God does what he does for them to bless them spiritually. But the thing they got wrong here about what God is doing in the Old Testament is they think that God set the law up before them as if it was something they could do of their own power to please him. And the Jews still make this mistake to this day.

Now, a lot of people are hating on Ben Shapiro nowadays. I want to be careful here. But listen to why Ben Shapiro, who is an Orthodox Jew, listen to why Ben Shapiro thinks he is right before God. He believes he does the works of God on his own. He sounds similar to a Christian in that he knows there are eternal reasons why we exist on this earth, and he will even connect those eternal reasons to our relationship to God, but he will assume that we can do the eternal things of our own power.

He and any legalist without grace thinks that they can partake of eternal food by their own power. So this question from the crowd in verse 28 was good, and that they understand the eternal food Jesus is referring to has something to do with what we do before God. But it is faulty in that they assume it's works they can do by their own power that God set up his law for us to do by our own power in our fallen state.

And Jesus' answer to their question in verse 29 confirms that eternal food has to do with what we do before God, but he highlights that such eternal food is given by God to us, not something we produce or give to God. Jesus reveals in his answer here that we're about to go through that eternal food is something God has prepared for us like a bountiful meal a mother prepares for her family. Look what he says in verse 29.

Jesus answered their question, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. Notice how the work goes from plural, works of God in their question, to singular, work of God and Jesus's answer that he provides. Jesus is saying it's not a matter of what laws you need to do to be doing eternal things. It's a matter of one thing you must do.

Believe in him whom he has sent. See, the Father saw our inability to nourish ourselves. The eternal things that we as humans were meant to be nourished by So in his kindness he has prepared a meal for us to eat or to believe in And that meal is the one he has sent to help and enable us to do the work of God Where we are spiritually malnourished because of our sin before God, we do not do the works of God.

Jesus was spiritually well nourished as he always did what was pleasing to God. as we see in chapter 8 verse 29 of John Jesus says for I always do the things that are pleasing to him and yet it was the aim of Jesus' life to give himself up as a sacrifice to the Father so that our malnourishment would be his on the cross and his nourishment would be ours when we eat or believe upon him 2 Corinthians 5.21 says for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So the first major point Jesus makes to prepare for his great I am the food statement is the need to consume the eternal food God has prepared, not the high processed garbage that we try to prepare. And the next, point, that is proof that something is eternal food God has prepared, or the proof.

If our lives are meant to be more than simply satisfying our physical desires, but to do the work of God, and if the work of God is to believe upon the food he has prepared for us, what is the proof that something is the eternal God, or the eternal food God has prepared. This is what the crowd asked Jesus next in verse 30. So they said to him in verse 30, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you?

What work do you perform? They ask. Again, this is in a certain way a really great question to ask Jesus. What they are asking is, if you are the eternal food God has prepared for us to believe upon and receive, what work do you do to prove it if it is not our own works that gives us eternal nourishment what work do you do to prove that you are the eternal nourishment they're asking and the answer would be what i've already said jesus lived a perfect life yet died a sinner's death so that his life with god would be ours and our wrath from god would be his on the cross.

So what work does Jesus do to prove he is the eternal food from God? Well, his perfect life was a work that proved he was the food God prepared for us. Think about the different times the Father spoke from heaven, this is my son whom I am well pleased with. His death would be a work that proved he was the food prepared by God. His resurrection would be a work that proved he It was the food God prepared.

But also all the miracles he did up to this point in John 6 revealed that he was the food prepared by God to give eternal nourishment to those who believed, including the work of feeding the 5,000 he just did. So what work does Jesus do to prove he is the food God has prepared? Every day they spent with Jesus was a proof that he is the food set by God.

So their question comes not for a lack of evidence and proof on Jesus' end, but their question reveals a massive display of ignorance on their end. And that ignorance is magnified when they qualify their question in verse 31. If you look in your text, they say, Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Here they are saying that the proper proof that Jesus could display to them that he is the food God has prepared, is to provide more physical food for them, like he did the previous day. By quoting either Nehemiah 9.15 or Psalm 78.24, they are saying their ancestors miraculously ate food for 40 years in the wilderness. Jesus had only fed them once, yesterday.

So proper proof would be to do what Moses did in the wilderness, keep on feeding the crowd in the wilderness. That would be the proof they need to see that he is the eternal nourishment. Now, if you remember, I said we were going to see two major things this morning that the Jews misunderstood God was doing in the Old Testament. The first was that he set up the law to be something they could do themselves to enjoy eternal food.

And now the second thing that the Jews misunderstood what God was doing in the Old Testament is that the physical blessings he gave them was an end in itself. That's the second major misunderstanding that the Jews, the crowd here, had about what God was doing in the Old Testament. That the physical blessings he gave to Israel was an end in itself. That the food that nourished the Israelites in the wilderness was a blessing in and of itself. that the land that they were brought to that was flowing with milk and honey was the final blessing God was interested in giving his people.

And so since these physical things were misunderstood to be the final blessing God has for his people, they expected Messiah to come and do the same blessing or more of it than was experienced before. But the truth to what God was doing in the Old Testament is that all the blessings we see in that covenant was pointing to something greater and outside of itself. A greater blessing that the Son of God, Messiah, would come and give.

So when Jesus walked this earth, he gave such physical blessings to show he would be the one to give the greater blessing it was all looking to. So for the crowd to think that the proof that Jesus was the eternal food God has prepared is to do a lot of what was done already in the Old Testament is to miss the fact that those things were pointing to the right direction. greater Jesus came to do. And to be so focused like they were with those physical blessings of the Old Testament would be to shortchange what Jesus actually came to do.

It's like when you go to a concert to see your favorite artist perform. Remember you had to sit through like so many opening acts and it's kind of annoying, right? It takes forever. The opening acts their objective is to amp up the crowd for the main attraction right for the the main artists that you came to see imagine how they would feel though imagine how you would feel as if you sat there waiting through all the opening acts and the main attraction finally comes and all they did was play all the same music of the opening acts to be upsetting you want them to play their own better greater music these blessings of the old testament were the opening acts meant to amp people up for what Jesus would come to do later.

And now that Jesus arrived, he came to provide the better acts, not more of the opening acts. So Jesus moves to correct their misunderstanding of what proper proof is of being the eternal food God has prepared by contrasting the bread of the Old Testament to the bread of the New Testament. He says in verse 32, in your text, verse 32, Here, Jesus is saying, Moses in the wilderness, period, did not give you the true, highlight the word true, bread from heaven.

Now, a problem seems to arise because the Old Testament says that Moses, as a tool of God, did give bread from heaven, as the crowds already quoted. Listen to me as I read Nehemiah 9.15. He says, You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst. And you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.

Or Psalm 78.24. And he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. Obviously, Jesus is not denying that the bread given was a miracle from God from heaven here. But what Jesus is saying is that the manna in the wilderness was not an end of itself, but rather something that pointed to a greater blessing. This greater blessing is the completed bread from heaven.

So the true bread from heaven that the Father gives does not mean the manna in the Old Testament was false, but it means that it was not the final blessing God was preparing in heaven, only something that pointed to it. and what is the final blessing from heaven that god gives we'll look at verse 33 when jesus says for the bread of god is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world the man of god provided in the wilderness to give physical life to the israelites pointed to the person that the father would send down from heaven to give spiritual life to the world how did the man appoint to Jesus? Well, the physical hunger of the Israelites in the wilderness reflects the spiritual hunger of the world due to being in sin and separated from God. The setting of the wilderness that the Israelites were in revealed the lack of ability for them to provide for their own hunger And this world is a wasteland when it comes to being able to provide for our spiritual hunger Psalm 63 1 says this well when the psalmist says Oh God you are my God earnestly I seek you My soul thirsts for you my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Try to be near to God by just using what this world has to offer. Try to feel satisfied with life using only what this world has to offer and you will only be left feeling spiritually hungry and thirsty. The great promise of the last century with technological advances that gave us more food, entertainment, and less work has proven only to make us more spiritually hungry and malnourished.

It is not a coincidence that a phenomenal rise in physical blessings while denying God has given an equally phenomenal rise in depression, drug addiction, and whatever else personifies spiritual hunger. This world of itself is a wasteland for spiritual nourishment, just like how the wilderness was a wasteland for the physical nourishment for the Israelites. And God, in his kindness, provided manna to this physically hungry people in a total wasteland, and God, in his kindness, sent his son from heaven to a spiritually hungry people in a total wasteland of this world.

And as manna gave physical life to the Israelites, so the one from heaven gives life to the world that is union with God and true satisfaction in this life. So for Jesus to come and waste time giving all the physical things that the crowd desired would be to fail to give the greater blessing God had prepared for the world. Therefore, the proper proof of eternal food that God has prepared was not to feed them over and over again or to continue to do what was already done in the Old Testament.

But proper proof of eternal food was to do the things necessary to give spiritual life to the world. The last, the greatest, the final act. But the crowd proved to have a hard time following the deeper spiritual point Jesus is making here when they say in verse 34, sir, give us this bread always. Given the fact that they later are offended at the notion that Jesus is the bread from heaven, we know that they do not mean give us this spiritual bread that you're talking about always.

But here they are saying give us this physical bread that you are supposedly referring to always. You see they cannot see through the physical for the spiritual. Jesus is saying I am the spiritual bread, the final. And they're saying with misunderstanding give us this physical bread always. You remember the Samaritan woman made this mistake too when Jesus offered her spiritual water.

She took it as physical water. Remember John 4, 13 through 15? Jesus said to her, 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 again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And then the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

See, she confused completely the spiritual point for the physical. One of the symptoms of being fallen in a state of sin and separation from the eternal God is an inability to understand spiritual, hidden, and yet very real and important realities. In a sense in our fallen nature we have become like animals that have no vision or taste for the eternal and spiritual things Instead we only have desires for the physical and the things that will please our immediate physical senses This is why the Samaritan woman had trouble keeping up.

This is why this crowd had a hard time keeping up with Jesus here. And this is why our culture today has fallen into the death spiral of materialism and naturalism. a blindness to the spiritual realities, and an expectation that fulfillment as humans can be found only in the physical or the material. A most common human experience is an aching feeling of emptiness deep within our stomach, deep within our very souls.

And the greatest lie Satan has ever told and continues to tell is that it can be filled if you just keep your head down like an animal and eat. fill your life with physical blessings on the earth and don't look up eve was told don't look up to what god had said about the forbidden fruit just eat and enjoy and now all her offspring are told to continue to look down and do what feels good to our physical senses with no mind for the spiritual and when jesus tells this crowd that the proof of true eternal food is the one sent by god who comes from heaven to give life to the world, like animals, they assume this means more physical food and more physical blessing. And so, with all the authority, power, goodness that comes from being the Son of God sent by the Father from heaven, using the divine title of the Great I Am, just like God did when he spoke to Moses in the burning bush, just like Jesus did when he walked on the sea and comforted his terrified disciples. Jesus, the true God from true God, says in verse 35, I am the bread of life.

What this means is that in all creation, there is no one or nothing else that the Father has ordained to be the eternal satisfaction of man made in his image. You can search high and low across all the earth to find meaning and satisfaction from creation. The best of foods, the best of drinks, the best of entertainments and comforts. It all leads to further spiritual hunger and further spiritual thirst.

In fact, more so since the hope of finding ultimate meaning and satisfaction is dashed when disappointed by these temporary measures. You can also try with all your might to do the works of God. You can search the world with all its religions to find a deeper spiritual meaning. If the end of the law and the sum of your religion is not Christ, you will end up with the same eternal hunger and thirst that comes with the person pursuing eternal meaning by material means.

Jesus says, I am the bread of life, the eternal bread for eternal life. and the promised nourishment from this bread of Jesus is to never hunger or thirst again for those who believe or eat of this bread that is you will never be seeking for the deeper meaning and satisfaction again in fact so fulfilling is Jesus as the bread of life that you would gladly go without eating physical food ever again if it meant being sustained by the spiritual food Jesus offers In fact so satisfying is Jesus as the bread of life that you put your nose up to any religion or any moralistic path that does not have the great I am as the bread that nourishes all who live by faith in him So, we have the people at the table with a meal set before them. and that meal is Jesus Christ the Lord who has done all things well to provide eternal life for all who partake of the meal the father has prepared are you like the crowd in John chapter 6 desperate to find Jesus but only to receive lesser blessing from his hand you might be thinking well my pantry is pretty full of food I'm not too worried about food like they are but don't miss the point here. An anxious life for the things that will disappear is no different than the crowd's anxious search for Jesus for temporary food. So in your anxiety over your money, your health, or any temporary circumstances, no matter how great they may be, hear the correction from Jesus to the crowd.

Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. God in his kindness has provided you with many physical blessings and your anxious soul will do anything to keep it all and even gain more if possible and so even as christians you can be like the crowd searching and following jesus but it is really for the maintaining and acumen and the accumulation of his lesser blessings so here's the correction of our savior here's the correction of our loving shepherd to have your pursuit be found in consuming his higher blessings. In verse 27 again, do not work 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. Let us pray. Oh Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ the Lord. Lord, we know that it's so easy for us to be deceived by all the lesser blessings, to think that our end and our fulfillment is found in them. We can be just like this crowd that is wandering about desperately seeking Jesus but for lesser things.

I pray, God, that our will would be conformed to his will, that our desires would be conformed to his desires, that we would see that it is greater blessing to be found forgiven of our sins and walking righteously or doing the works of God by grace through faith in Jesus than to have all the wealth and riches in the world. I pray, God, that we'd be the type of people in which we have looked up to the eternal things. What would God have of me?

And we would then look to see Jesus as the one who is prepared by God so that we can do the eternal works of God. God in heaven, again, it is so easy for us to go through the motions and to be like animals of this world, just simply trying to get more temporary blessings that will fade away. But let us be the people of Christ who have been awakened to our deeper need, to the spiritual realities, to the forgiveness of sins, to the life of Jesus Christ the Lord, who has provided himself for the spiritual or eternal nourishment.

Let us look to him. Let us believe upon him. and may everything come under him so that it gains its proper meaning. So we thank you for Jesus. We thank you for this truth. May we live in light of it to the glory of his name for the glory of your name and the good of our souls. In Jesus' name, amen.