The One Jesus Loves, Part 15: The Bread of Life

Note: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17cYZHFZIBUq1Mk9CH3bCy_RKhVzOYOFC/view?usp=sharing

The One Jesus Loves pt15 The Bread of Life

John 6

22 The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea knew there had been only one boat.[e] They also knew that Jesus had not boarded the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone off alone. 23 Some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord gave thanks. 24 When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

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, “I assure you: You are looking for Me, not because you saw[f] the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

 

1.   Why you look for Jesus will determine what you find.

 

·     God knows and cares about the motives of our heart.

 

 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.”

2.   If we seek anything more than Jesus, our search will never end.

CS Lewis-Mere Christianity

Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.

 

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 fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

 

3. If we treat Jesus like a genie, we’ll miss Him as our Lord.

 

32 Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the real 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.

4.   Jesus offers Himself as the answer to our greatest hungers and deepest thirsts.

53 So Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54 Anyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, 55 because My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. 56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in Me, and I in him.57 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. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna[m] your fathers ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”

59 He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60 Therefore, when many of His disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is hard! Who can accept[n] it?”

61 Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were complaining about this, asked them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? 63 The Spirit is the One who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

Final Thought: Jesus is always greater than we know Him to be.

66 From that moment many of His disciples turned back and no longer accompanied Him. 67 Therefore Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”

68 Simon Peter answered, “Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God!”[p]