August 25, 2024
Morning Service

So far in chapter 6, we have seen Jesus feed the 5,000, walk on water, calm the storm, and makes His first of seven “I AM” statements here in the Gospel of John.  He states that “I Am the Bread of Life.  He who comes to Me shall never hunger and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”  We drilled down to understand that Jesus was telling me that He is all I need.  I am complete in Him (Col. 2:10).  He commands me to “seek first the kingdom of God” and not to worry so much about the many cares of this world.  He will take care of me.  He values me.  He chose me.  I am His and He is mine.  He loves me and I love Him.  Today He invites me to believe in Him and through my belief receive eternal life.

Joh 6:47-51 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.  (48)  I am the bread of life.  (49)  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.  (50)  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.  (51)  I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

            Jesus confirms what it takes to receive eternal life; we must believe.  We must have faith that He is who He says He is. (Heb. 11:6) This is the foundation our salvation is built upon.  It really is that simple.  Paul explained it this way to the Roman church:

 

Rom 10:9-10 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  (10)  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

            Jesus is showing us that by believing in Him with our heart and confessing with our mouth we will be saved.  He is our path to salvation; our Bread of Life.  This is not like the manna, Jesus again refers to, that the children of Israel ate because they still died (it only filled a physical need for the moment). He is the living bread that we need to partake of that gives us eternal life (filling our spiritual need for eternity).  In verse 51, He then prophesies that the bread we must eat is His physical body which will be offered to God upon the cross creating the path for us to move from death to life.  This begins a time of doubt among the followers who are not fully committed to Him.

 

Joh 6:52-59 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"  (53)  Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  (54)  Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  (55)  For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.  (56)  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.  (57)  As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.  (58)  This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."  (59)  These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

            Notice that Jesus does not take a step backwards and try to explain this difficult teaching, He actually makes it much more clear and is so doing He makes it much more difficult.  He is testing those who are not following for the right reasons.  Their “why” is not right.  They are seeking Him out of curiosity or for self-satisfaction not diligently seeking His spiritual guidance to something far greater.  We have to admit that if we were there and heard Him say; “unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood you have no life in you,” we too would not fully understand that, though we are blessed to know now.

  This is where He has led each person in this large group to a point of decision.  Will you believe and follow Me even when you don’t understand and things are difficult?  I believe Jesus has led each one of us to a point like this in our lives as well.  Has there been a time in your walk with Jesus where you felt confused and did not fully understand where He was leading you or even why He had led you to that point?  That is when we find ourselves in the same situation as the disciples and this group of people find themselves.  Notice Jesus does not coddle them here, but speaks straight forward.

 

 

 

Joh 6:60-65 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?"  (61)  When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?  (62)  What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?  (63)  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  (64)  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.  (65)  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."

            Jesus basically is telling them that if that can’t fully trust and believe Him in the little things, like this teaching, then how can He then invest in them by revealing even bigger, deeper things of the faith?  “If this offends you, what will you do when you see Me ascend to heaven before your very eyes?”  We must believe the little things to receive the “milk” of the Word to build up our ability to one day eat the “meat’ of the Word.  He then reemphasizes His point in this teaching in verse 63 (read).  Every word He says is the truth.  This truth is not of the physical world but the spiritual one and the Spirit leads us to life.  It is the things spiritual that He is pointing us to for us to understand and to long for, not the physical; putting first things first.  That brings them, and us, to a point of decision.  This is a hard place Jesus has led you to.  The road ahead is dark and scary. I am not understanding what He is trying to teach me.  Do I really trust Him enough to follow Him now?  Let’s see the decision this group makes.

 

John 6:66-71 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.  (67)  Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?"  (68)  But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  (69)  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  (70)  Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"  (71)  He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.

            Through this teaching Jesus led this group to a point of decision.  He does not want us to casually follow Him picking and choosing the things that are easy or convenient and skipping the harder parts.  He brings us to a point of choosing; do we really, truly, deep down believe and trust in Him or not?  How sad is it that even one person walked away this day let alone a large part of the group?  Notice also that Jesus did not pursue them, plead and beg them to come back and reconsider their decision to leave.  No, He gave them the free will to choose to believe or to reject His words.

            He then sees a teachable moment and confronts the disciples as they see the majority of the crowd leaving; “do you want to leave as well?”  Peter again speaks from His fully committed heart and proclaims even more than Jesus was asking for.  "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."

          I am sure Jesus rejoiced on the inside when He heard Peter boldly proclaim His commitment to follow and his faith proving he was “in it to win int.”  Peter was catching what Jesus was pitching.  He understood that no matter how hard this teaching was to understand, his understanding of who Jesus is overcomes that. 

Are you there today?  Have you been, or are you today, finding yourself at that same point of decision?  The road ahead looks dark and uncertain.  You are not sure where it leads or how hard it will be to make it through.  The choice is yours to make.  Do you believe?  Where else will you turn to, He is the Christ the Son of the Living God!  Choose hope.  Choose Life.  Choose Him.  He is what we are longing for. He is the Bread of Life and if we choose Him we will never regret it as we will never hunger or thirst again.  He, as the Living Bread will satisfy what our soul is searching for.  He completes us.  He invites us to abide with Him by partaking of His body and His blood as a symbol of that bond.  He abides in us, and we abide in Him. 

 

Psalms 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

 

Heavenly Father, thank You for the simplicity of the plan of salvation and that Jesus completes that for us. Build our faith to believe so strongly that when the path is dark and we don’t understand where You are leading us or why, we still follow without hesitation.  We too have come to believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.