Bible Text: John 6:22-40 | Pastor: Eric Danielson | Series: The Great I Am | Many people end up living the Christian life weighed down by obligation and duty – never really fully free; never really fully alive. What can an encounter with Jesus as the Bread of Life do to change that?

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The Bread of Life
John 6:22-40

In the weeks leading up to Easter, we are seeking to personally connect with Jesus by seeing more clearly who he is for us and experiencing him in a deeper way. Connecting with Jesus is sweeter and more fulfilling to our souls than anything in this world and we need it. It is through personal encounters with our Lord that we are refreshed and filled with joy, hope and strength to face each day.

In order to try to connect with him more deeply we are going to look into several different “I am” statements Jesus makes in the New Testament. These are statements he gave to people to reveal more about who he was and invite them to experience him in a deeper way. So we are going to look at each of these with the hope that we too will draw near to him. Last week we looked at Jesus’ claim to be the Great I Am. Even though is fully human, he is also the eternal, self-existent Son of God. And because of that, he is also able to be for us many other things, including the Bread of Life, which we will look at this morning.

Valentine’s Day was this past Friday and I heard a few people on the radio who were talking about giving and receiving Valentine’s gifts. They were talking about how they didn’t get a gift for their spouse, but they had talked about it beforehand and agreed not to, so they were “off the hook.” Now let’s say that was you and you didn’t get a gift for your spouse, but they went ahead and got you a really nice, thoughtful, and kind of expensive gift – how would you feel? I suppose when someone gives you a nice gift, you’re supposed to feel thankful and loved and appreciated – you’re supposed to feel good… But in that scenario, how would you feel? I’d feel really bad. I’d feel ashamed and guilty and like I really blew it. I’d feel like I would need to do something to make up for me not getting her a gift. Why would I feel like that?

It seems like there’s some kind of psychology of gift giving that leads us to feel that way. When we receive a gift we feel obligated to do something in return – either give them a gift or write them a really nice thank-you note. It seems like there are gift-giving scales that something inside us tells us we need to keep balanced. It’s ok if our side outweighs the other, but if their side outweighs ours, we feel an obligation to do something. And the greater the gift is that they’ve given, the greater the obligation we feel.

So what do we do when it comes to the gift that Jesus has given to us? He’s given the gift of eternal life through his death on the cross… That’s an enormous gift! The scale is so far out of balance on his side there’s no way to even measure it. What do we do with that? Again, we’re supposed to feel overwhelmingly thankful and loved and appreciated – we’re supposed to feel good. And I think we all probably do to some extent. But I also think many of us feel like now we’ve got to do things to try to even the scales a little bit. We feel obligated to do good works to try to pay him back. And if we take a break or do something wrong, we can feel like we’re even further behind; like we’re just never going to be good enough, and like we’ll never really measure up. So we end up living a Christian life weighed down by obligation and duty – never really fully free; never really fully alive. Encounters with Jesus just remind us of how much we owe him and how hard it is to pay him back.

Well one day Jesus was talking to some people who thought they were required to live a life of obligation and duty in order to please God and Jesus made a statement about himself to them that if believed and experienced would have set them free. I want to see if that same statement can set some of us free this morning.

The day before this conversation these same people had listened to Jesus preach and watched him do one of his amazing miracles. John chapter 6 tells us that about 5,000 men, plus women and children were in the crowd and when it came time that they needed something to eat, Jesus took 5 loaves and two fish and miraculously multiplied them so that the whole crowd was fed. There was even a bunch of food left over. So the next day, people from the same crowd caught up with him again and we pick up the story there.

Read John 6:22-27.
22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 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. 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.”

So when this crowd of people found Jesus, he recognized they weren’t looking for him because of the signs he did the previous day – they weren’t seeking him because they wanted to follow him as the Messiah, they were seeking him because they were far from home and didn’t have any food, and they were hungry. He fed them the day before and they were hoping he would do it again. They even went so far as to take a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee to try to get a free meal.

So Jesus looked at them and said, “I know why you’re here. You want some more food.” And then he told them, “Don’t work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, the food that the Son of Man, or the Messiah, will give you.” By saying this he was claiming to be the Messiah and telling them that he would give them food that would give them eternal life.

At this point the people made some assumptions. “If this guy really is the Messiah, then the food he’s talking about must include certain works that we will have to do.” The only way they thought they could inherit eternal life was by doing works for God. That’s what God wanted from them – works of righteousness, works of obedience. By those works they would enter the eternal Messianic kingdom. So theirs was a life of obligation and duty and their religion was about earning a place in the everlasting kingdom. They were in bondage to that kind of life. So with these assumptions, they asked Jesus a question.

Read John 6:28-29.
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

So they were expecting him to send them on a mission to do works for God, but instead he told them the only work they had to do to inherit eternal life was to believe in him – embrace him as the Messiah sent from God. This was a bold new idea and by saying that, that brought his claim to be the Messiah to the forefront. A lot rested on that claim and the people weren’t quite sure what to think about it. “Faith instead of works? And how do we know you’re really the Messiah?”

Read John 6:30-31.
So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

They wanted him to prove that he was the Messiah by giving them a sign – and the sign he did the previous day in multiplying the bread and fish didn’t cut it. Moses had done a sign greater than that when he gave their fathers manna from heaven to eat. And the Messiah was supposed to be much greater than Moses. Multiplying loaves of bread was great but sending down manna from heaven was greater. So they wanted him to do something else in order to prove that he was the Messiah. So Jesus responded…

Read John 6:32-34.
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. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

So first he corrects them: “It wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it was God, My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” He grabs on to their idea of bread from heaven and he uses that idea to turn the attention back to himself and what he could do for them. He was the “true bread from heaven.” God had sent him down from heaven to give life to the world. The manna that God had sent to their forefathers in the wilderness had kept them alive day after day, and the true bread from God would also come down from heaven to give them life. He was talking about himself, but they didn’t quite get it yet. They were still thinking about a special kind of bread, so they wanted him to give them that bread always. And then Jesus broke through the confusion to make it crystal clear.

Read John 6:35-40.
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. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever 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 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Jesus made it plain to them that he was the bread of life – he was the bread from heaven that would give life and the kind of life he would give would be eternal life. He was explaining to them a revolutionary concept: the Messiah wasn’t going to come to send them on a mission to do certain works that would earn them a place in his eternal kingdom. The Messiah was going to come and give them life freely as a gift – eternal life in him – if only they would come to him and believe. Faith instead of works… God’s will for their life was not a life of obligation and duty, but a life of faith in the one who called himself the bread of life. Through faith in him they could truly live.

Later on in the chapter he went on to tell them that the way he would give them life was through his flesh and blood that he would give for them (vs. 51). He was alluding to his death on the cross for their sins and how through faith they would be united with him forever and receive eternal life. If I would summarize what I think he was saying to them, I think it would be: “I am the bread of life. Come to me and believe in me to have eternal life. You don’t have to do works for God in order to inherit eternal life – he gives it freely to all who believe in me. Break free from a life of bondage to obligation and duty and live for me in freedom and joy. Come to me and find life that is truly life.”

And the same is true for us today – even as Christians who already believe. Jesus is our bread of life. He is the source of life that is truly life and that’s the kind of life he’s given you and wants you to experience in him. There are no scales to balance with Jesus – he is always the Giver of Life and we are always the receivers and he wants us to live like that… If he could address us about this here this morning, I think he would say: “I am the Bread of Life. I have freely given you life and you don’t have to pay me back. Don’t quench your joy in me by working to pay for something you’ve been freely given. I died so that you would be free from a life of obligation and duty. Believe in me. Taste and see that I am good and let your works be done as an overflow of my love for you and the joy you have in me.

As the bread of life Jesus is like a life-giving friend. I have some friends that I would describe as life-giving friends. When I spend time with them I leave feeling refreshed and rejuvenated – like they’ve given me a shot of energy and encouragement. Their life and friendship fills me up and gives me life. And that’s the way Jesus wants you to experience him, only much more so than any earthly friend. He doesn’t want your encounters with him to make you feel heavy with the weight of obligation and duty. He come to give you life and set you free.

So if your spouse got you a really nice gift for Valentine’s Day, you should probably do something for them in return to balance the scales. But you don’t have to do that with Jesus! Jesus is the Bread of Life. He is the life-giver and he wants you to experience eternal and abundant life in him. He doesn’t want you to be weighed down with the obligation to try to balance the scales. That’s never going to happen and he never wanted it to! He wants you to come to him and experience the freedom that the bread of life can give you. And in that freedom you can joyfully live your life for him.