John 6:25-40
Labor for the food which endures to everlasting life, Jesus Himself. “I am the bread of life.”
Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
Opening
Father, we thank You for our time here today. We thank You for the opportunity to worship You. We thank You for the opportunity to look into Your Word. And Lord, we do acknowledge that these privileges that we have are because of Jesus Christ, because of what He’s done for us on the cross, by His death for our sin, His burial, and His resurrection. We can now come to You as justified and accepted and loved children. I pray, Lord, that as we hear Your Word today we would hear the word of our Savior, the word of a loving God. We ask You, bless the little ones, Lord, and give them wisdom beyond their years. In Christ’s name, amen.
If your kids are in catechism they can go out now. And while they’re going out, turn your Bibles to John chapter 6. Now John 6, there’s a very long passage here and it’s really all together, but we don’t have time to read the whole thing. It starts in verse 22 and it goes all the way to the end of the chapter. John has some long chapters, and there’s 71 verses in this chapter. So that’s a long passage. So I’m going to be highlighting portions of it, but it’s really one seamless narrative, and if you have not read the whole narrative, you need to read it over to really appreciate what’s happening here. But we’ll highlight different verses.
If I were to outline this whole section, there’s really four things here that I want to touch on. One is that Jesus gives a command or an exhortation. And that’s in the first section in verse 27, where He says, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” That’s an exhortation or a command. Then we have an assertion later about Himself. That’s in verse 35, where Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” And as you know, we’re going to look in John over the next several weeks about the assertions or claims of Jesus where He uses this phrase “I am,” and this is the first one in the book of John where He says, “I am the bread of life.” Then thirdly there’s a promise attached, where He says in verse 37, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” It’s a promise: I will by no means cast out. And then the last thing, if we have time we’ll touch on, is the response. Because after Jesus explains what it means to be the bread of life, which we’ll look at in a moment, there’s two responses here. Some of the people listening to Him walked away. And then others chose to stay. And we see that response starting in verse 60, where it says, “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ’This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?’” But many of them walked away. But others chose to stay. For example, in verse 68, Simon Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” So in response to this assertion that He’s the bread of life and the people must come and they must feed on Him, there’s a dual response. And that’s almost always the case when the gospel is given, right? There’s only one or two responses. And we’ll look at those in a moment.
The Exhortation
Let’s go back to the first point, and that’s what I call the exhortation and the command. Back in verse 27. Jesus says, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life,” or everlasting life, “which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
Now as you know, this whole discussion about food is based upon the fact that the day before Jesus had fed the multitudes. The multitudes then the following day followed Jesus, and when they came seeking Jesus, it says at the end of verse 24, the very last phrase in verse 24, it says they crossed over to the shore, “seeking Jesus.” I was reading this and that jumped out at me. These people are seeking Jesus. Isn’t that a good thing? Seeking Jesus. Well, the problem was they were seeking Jesus for the wrong reason. And so they found Him, verse 25 says, and they found Him. So they’re seeking Jesus and they found Him. Well, that’s good. They’re seeking Jesus. But Jesus said in verse 26, “Surely I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” In other words, they sought Him for the physical benefit of food. They were physically hungry. They followed Him to get physical food. Not because they saw the spiritual significance of the sign. The sign meaning the miracle. If they’d seen the miracle, they would have sought Him because of who He was. Because the sign authenticated the fact that He was Messiah. That’s why He says in the end of verse 27, you see this mark of identification or authentication. In other words, the feeding of the multitudes, like so many other miracles, these were signs to authenticate that Jesus was the Messiah. So they ate the food, but they didn’t see the sign. So they got the physical benefit, they didn’t get the spiritual benefit. So they sought Him, but for the wrong reasons. So Jesus says to them, don’t labor for the physical food, labor rather for the spiritual food. Do you mind if I move this? Because I can’t see some of you, and I know you want to see me. Oh, yeah. Well, last week when I was in the back that was there and Rob Graham was talking, I couldn’t see him because it was right between his eyes. Okay, so the Lord says don’t labor for the perishable food, but rather for this eternal food.
The physical food ministers to our body. The spiritual food ministers to our soul. So when He says to labor here, this word means to exert yourself. Severe exertion. And it’s the idea of a strong desire or a strong passion. When we want something intensely, then we labor for it, right? So what Jesus is saying is, when He says, “Labor for the food that endures to everlasting,” He’s saying, make this the object of your desire. Make this the object of your pursuit. Now, the Lord is not saying, neglect your body. He’s not saying, neglect your job. He’s not saying neglect the material things. That is not the message that Jesus is preaching here. What He is saying, what He is criticizing, if you will, is the making of worldly goods the supreme object of desire and pursuit, to the neglect of the heavenly or the spiritual blessings that God has for us. In Matthew, Jesus put it simply, and He put it like this: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” right, “and all these things will be added unto you.” It’s not seek the kingdom only and neglect these things, but seek the kingdom first, and these things will be added unto you. So the tone of the discussion here, Jesus is turning from the carnal or the earthly to the spiritual and to the eternal. They sought Jesus, but they were thinking in a worldly way. And He’s trying to get them to stop thinking about the worldly goods, the worldly bread, the worldly food, and to get their minds on heavenly food.
So they respond, okay, well, then what do we do? Verse 28: “What then shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” That is, by faith you labor for and you receive the divine and spiritual blessings. Faith is the means by which we receive from God all the good things that He wants to give us. It is, as I’ve said many times, the empty hand that receives the blessings that the Lord wants to pour out on His people. Perishable food may be gotten by physical labor, but the imperishable food, spiritual food, must be gotten by spiritual labor. And Jesus says this spiritual labor is faith. We must believe. They sought Jesus, but they didn’t really believe. Doesn’t that seem funny to you? They followed Jesus, but they didn’t really believe. And so it wasn’t proximity to Jesus. It wasn’t that they had received some of the physical blessings that Jesus gives. But what Jesus was calling them to was faith to recognize who He is. Faith to see Him for who He is.
Have we not all at times sought the gifts and not the Giver? I have. “Oh, Lord, I need wisdom. Oh, Lord, I need patience. Oh, Lord, I need strength.” And that’s all true. I need all those things and much more. But the thing we have to understand, and one of the prime lessons here, is that when it comes to our relationship with God, when it comes to spiritual growth, the Christian life, however we want to phrase it, the gifts never come apart from the Giver. When we ask for strength, we’re asking for Jesus. When we ask for wisdom, we’re asking for Jesus. When we ask for patience, we’re asking for Jesus. Because Jesus is the gift of God. And all the blessings that we need, all the blessings that we seek, are bound up in Jesus. So as we seek these things, we must seek Him. Or let me put it this way: as we seek Him and as we know Him and as we fellowship with Him, then we get all these things. Because they’re bound up in Him.
The Assertion: I Am the Bread of Life
That’s why after exhorting them to believe, then Jesus goes on and He makes an assertion about Himself. Let’s go on. Verse 30. Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do?” Well, let’s see. I just fed thousands of people two days ago. Okay. He’d already done a sign. So they’re really being argumentative here. Verse 31: “Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as it is written, ’He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give 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.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.” I am. They wanted the bread, and Jesus offered Himself. “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” So the Jews here assert that Jesus has to prove His divine commission, although He really already proved it. In other words, we want You to be like Moses. Moses did miracles; can You do some more? Can You prove that You are really who You are claiming to be? Jesus gently reproves them here by pointing out that it wasn’t Moses who gave the manna, it was God. It was My Father who gave the manna.
So Jesus then plays off of their allusion to the manna. And by the way, why do you think they brought up the manna? I mean, there are a lot of miracles in the Old Testament. That’s a good one. So they mentioned manna. And Jesus says, I am, I am the true manna. I am the true bread of God. The manna was really just a type. You know what a type is in the Bible? The type is a symbol or a picture or a shadow of something that is later fulfilled. So for example, when you read about the Old Testament temple, there’s many things in the description of the temple that as you study them and then learn about the Lord Jesus, or you learn about the church in the New Testament, you see how they foreshadowed Christ or His church. So you have the type and then you have what’s called the antitype, or really the fulfillment of the type. And in the Old Testament, you remember how Jesus at the end of His ministry, it says in Luke and some different places, how He basically expounded the Scripture to His disciples before He left. And it says that He went back into Moses and the prophets and the Psalms and He taught them all those things concerning Himself. So He goes back and He reads an Old Testament Scripture and He says, oh, guess who this is about? Me. He reads a psalm and He says, guess who this is about? Me. So the manna is like that. It’s a type of Jesus. And whenever you study types, you see that types sometimes tell us, they teach us by comparison, and they can teach us by contrast.
[audio unclear] The conception of Jesus was miraculous. The bread that came down from heaven in the Old Testament was a miracle, but the bread that came down from heaven, born of the virgin, was a miracle. It says in the Old Testament that when they went out and they picked up the manna and they tasted it, it said it was sweet to their taste. Wow. Is that how Jesus is to us? He’s sweet to our taste. So when we learn to taste and feed on the Lord Jesus and to know Him, He becomes sweet to us. The manna was given daily in the Old Testament. And of course that suggests the idea that daily we need to commune with Christ, right? Daily we need to feed on Him and seek Him. But there’s ways that the manna is not like Jesus. The manna, and this is one of the main lessons Jesus wants, I think, us to understand, the manna was provided by God, just as Jesus was provided by God, but the manna fed the body. Jesus feeds the soul. And that physical eating of the manna was really only symbolic of how the believer in Christ is to feed on the true bread from heaven. Just as the manna supports physical life, so the bread from heaven, Jesus, supports spiritual life. Indeed, [audio unclear] this idea of hunger and thirsting, this speaks of the deep longing that everyone has for fulfillment.
We have our physical needs, and when you don’t eat for a while, you get hungry, you feel that hunger, you know. Well, that physical hunger, that’s just really kind of a type of the fact that in our soul, every person has a hunger. Every person is seeking fulfillment, seeking satisfaction. And what Jesus is saying here is the true satisfaction is not found in perishable bread. True satisfaction is not found in the things of this world. It’s not found in power, pleasure, or profit. It is not found in anything that is mortal. You know, we can seek, and even we Christians can do this at times, we can seek happiness or fulfillment in things. Whether it’s a bigger house, a nicer car, more money, whether it’s relationships. You know, I think one of the most common mistakes that young people make is they think that if they get that person, then they’re going to be happy. That person is going to fulfill them. You know what? No human being can fill the need in your soul. Because the need in your soul is God-shaped.
I remember when my wife and I were courting, I don’t think we called it that, but no. The Lord was working in her life and she was going through healing and she had to work out some things, had to deal with some security issues. And I remember we had a conversation, and the sum of the matter was this. I love you, so therefore I’m breaking up with you. Because you need to find your security in God and not in me. And she spent, that was a very hard time for both of us, but she spent months then wrestling with God and letting God deal with her and heal her about some things so that she got to the point to where our relationship then could be healthy. Because to make a man the object of your security, the object of your fulfillment, well, it’s not only idolatry, it’s futility, because no one can ever give you the fulfillment that you want except Jesus. Husband, wife, child, it doesn’t matter. We have a God-shaped vacuum in our soul that only God can fill, and He has provided the fulfillment for that in the person of Jesus Christ. And when we receive Christ we can have a profound security, a profound fulfillment that nothing mortal, nothing perishable can ever give us. And if you’re young and you’re not married yet, let me assure you, find your security and your fulfillment now in Jesus. Because true satisfaction comes in knowing Jesus Christ.
He is the bread of life. The bread sustains us, strengthens us, feeds us. I don’t know about you, but you know that feeling? I’m going to make you guys really hungry. I know you’re probably going to have lunches. You know, that feeling right after you eat, as long as you don’t eat too much and it’s uncomfortable, but right after you eat, you’re really hungry and you have a great meal, right after you eat that sense of that craving is gone, that hunger is gone, and you feel filled. That’s the kind of feeling that we can have in our souls through Jesus Christ. Our deepest need and desire is spiritual. It is not physical. Therefore true satisfaction is spiritual fulfillment. And this fulfillment is found in Jesus Christ Himself. Not just the things He gives, in Him.
The Promise
Let’s go on quickly. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” That’s the assertion. But then He makes a promise, and the promise is very simple. He says in verse 35, after He says, “I’m the bread of life,” “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” I love this because in the original it’s a double negative. There’s no other way in this language, the Greek language, to make a stronger negative assertion. By no means, no never, under no circumstances, He’s saying, I will by no means cast out. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Now that is a promise of security. Not only will He receive us, He will never cast us out. He will not lose us. [audio unclear] “Nor shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” That is security. That is what every one of us is looking for, whether we know it or not. That kind of security. That unconditional love and acceptance, no matter how we may fail, no matter how we may mess things up, Jesus said I will never cast them out. It’s a sweet promise, a sweet promise. I will receive him now, but I also will never abandon him.
He says that He will give to them eternal life. Now this eternal life is not just life forever, although that’s clearly part of it because it’s eternal, right? Eternal means like a long time, like forever. But eternal life is also a quality of life. It’s the life of God. You see, Jesus said, well, can we look at one more verse? Look at John 17 for a moment. In John 17 we have a prayer Jesus is praying to the Father. Let’s read the first three verses. It says Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life.” Now this is the only place I know where you could say there’s almost like a definition of what it is. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” You see, eternal life is a gift, but as I said earlier about other gifts, it’s not that we get the gift apart from the Giver. To get eternal life is to get Jesus, because the life is in the Son. As in one of His epistles, to have the Son is to have life. “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life.” In dispensing eternal life, He’s giving people the bread of life. That’s Jesus. And when you receive Jesus, you receive eternal life. And that eternal life is a quality of life as well as a quantity of life. It’s not just the length of life, it’s the nature of the life. You now have spiritual life residing in your soul, and it’s the very life of God. That’s why it’s fulfilling, because now that God-shaped vacuum has been filled with this spiritual life, and it resides in the Son and in the Father, and we experience it in our communion with them, our communion with them. So Jesus promises, I’ll raise them up at the last day. They will live forever. I will never cast them out. Wonderful promise of security.
The Response
Quickly, let me close by saying a word about the response. We don’t have time to read through all of this. But essentially, starting in verse 60, there’s two responses. After Jesus said, “I’m the bread of life,” He said, you have to eat My flesh and drink My blood. Well, these are shocking words because the Jews misunderstood them. Not literally, figuratively. What does this mean? To drink His blood and eat His flesh means to believe. All throughout this passage, remember how it started? The work of God is faith. Believe. If you come to Me, if you’re hungry and you come to Me, then believe. Eat My flesh: believe. Drink My blood: believe. Well, they misunderstood Him. So therefore, verse 60, many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?” When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” And from that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Man, that’s just a sad verse to me. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” Then Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.
So we see there are two responses here to Jesus’ assertion that He’s the bread of life, and they are very simply, some did not believe and they walked away. Others, like Peter, believed and said, Lord, where are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life. And that is always the case with the gospel. There’s only one or two responses. Either an individual comes to Christ and they believe and follow Him, or they walk away. “This is too hard. I don’t understand,” whatever the objection may be. And they walk away. Jesus Christ offers Himself here in this passage as the bread of life to all men and women, all those who will come to Him, all those that recognize and acknowledge their hunger, their thirst. So this is a call, this passage is a call of Jesus to come to Him, to believe in Him, to feed on Him, if you will. And when we do that, Jesus says, we’ll never hunger, we’ll never thirst.
Now, if you’re a Christian, you might be thinking, wait a minute. I’m hungry sometimes. I’m thirsty sometimes. Let me illustrate it like this. There’s different kinds of hunger. Sometimes I’ll come home from working all day, and I’m really hungry. Call away home, hey, what’s for dinner? And I’ll be hungry, and I’ll come out and say, man, I’m starving. I’m hungry. I’m not starving, but I am hungry. And as I’m talking about how hungry I am, I’m sitting there looking at a table full of food. I’m hungry, but there’s a table full of food. Well, then there’s another kind of hunger we see. That’s the hunger of the person in the third world who’s hungry, and they have no food. They’re thirsty, and they have no water. And they will be hungry for days or thirsty for days and then they die. And thousands of people die daily from hunger. So when Jesus says we’ll never hunger, I don’t think it means we’ll never desire the bread. But rather He’s saying we will always have the bread to feed us. If you’re a Christian and you know Jesus Christ, you ought to have hunger. You ought to be thirsting, but you’re not thirsting for the perishable things. You’re not hungering after the bread that gets moldy. You’re hungering and thirsting for Christ now. That’s the difference. So some people come to Christ and they say, well, wait a minute. They go through a honeymoon period. Maybe it’s weeks or a couple of years, and then the Lord deals in their life and wants to mature them, the hard things, and it’s not so easy anymore. [audio unclear] And sometimes we can even do that, Christian. We can get tired of Jesus because the way sometimes is hard. So we look back, ah, maybe it was better then. Or maybe this worldly thing will give me more satisfaction. Friends, Christian friends, no matter what your hunger, whatever your desire is, there is a banqueting table spread before you. And the meal provided is Jesus Himself. And every longing of your soul can be met in Jesus Christ. It’s true. And much of the Christian life is prospective, is nothing more than learning that. Learning that.
I’ll read you a very brief quote by George MacDonald. It really sums it up. He says this. This is an opening remark in a sermon he gave. He says, “If I cannot persuade you to understand a little more of Christ, my labor is lost in coming to you. I do not come to try to please you. If I cannot help any human heart to draw closer to the living One, my labor is lost.” Well, that sums up my feeling. He said, “Did the fact ever cross your minds that you were here in this world just to understand the Lord Jesus Christ, and for no other reason? Do you think you were sent here to struggle after this poor poverty-stricken existence? We are sent here that we might choose to live, and there is no life but in knowing Jesus Christ and the Father that sent Him.” That sums it up. That’s why we are here. That’s why we exist: to come to seek Him and to know Him. And to the Christian I’ll say, you know Him some. We all know Him some, but we don’t know Him enough. Because Paul says that in Jesus Christ there are unsearchable riches. And the more that we learn to feed on the bread through a daily communion with Him, the more we understand how rich we really are, the more we can be truly fulfilled.
If you’re not a Christian, you came here today not a Christian, Jesus Christ is offering Himself to you as the bread of life. He’s offering to you that if you will come to Him in faith that you will have eternal life, that you will never be cast out, that you will then come into God’s presence in heaven when you die. He’s inviting you to do that. You and I have sinned, but God loved us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to pay for those sins, to wash away all those sins, so that we can come to know Him by simple faith, simple faith. Labor not for the food that perishes, labor for the food that endures to eternal life. And as we close, we’re going to have the worship team come up. As we close in worship, we’re also going to take the offering.
Lord Jesus, we thank You for who You are. We thank You that You are the bread that feeds our souls. Those of us that know You, that we would never forget this. That we would not seek fulfillment in people or things, but Lord in You. That we, Your people, would seek You daily. That we would go out and pick up the manna daily. That we would read Your Word daily. That we would pray daily and worship daily. And seek You daily. And as we do that, Lord, we pray that You would feed us spiritual food which is Yourself. And Lord, if there’s any here that don’t know You, may You grant them ears. May they know that You love them, that You are offering Yourself to them. You are inviting them to come to You, to know You by simple faith. “Yes, Jesus, I believe that You are the bread of life. Feed my soul. Give me eternal life.” He will answer that prayer. I pray all these things for Your glory alone. Amen.