In John 15:1-5, Jesus has told the disciples that he is the vine and he’s compared his followers to the branches. Beginning in verse 6, Jesus warns those who do not follow him.
Jesus uses powerful imagery to point to himself as the source of life. He is the true vine, referring to grapevines. And life is found on that vine. Life is found in being part of the vine, in growing on the vine, in receiving your nutrients from the vine.
In John 15:6, Jesus says: If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
At the end of the harvest, fruitless branches would be cut off of the vine and thrown away. That is what Jesus is alluding to here. And Jesus is talking about a specific type of person.
He’s talking about a person who’s within the church, within the group of believers, within the vine, but who’s not actually bearing fruit on the vine because they’re not actually alive on the vine.
And they never truly were. On the night before he went to the cross, the most obvious example of this was Judas. But while Judas might have been the first person to disingenuously follow Jesus, he was not the last.
And I talk about this because it’s an important warning to the church.
That there are frauds..
That there are people in churches who say they’re Christians, who profess to be believers but who aren’t really walking with Jesus, who don’t really know Jesus, who don’t really believe in the gospel and who have not been born again.
And while those people can fool a church, fool a pastor, fool their spouse, they will not fool the Lord.
Where is your hope?
It is the blood of Christ that cleanses us for our sins. It is his death to sin for us and his resurrection and faith in that which gives us eternal life. It is that and nothing else.
If you want to rely on yourself, if your hope is in your goodness and that is why you believe God will accept you, then your faith is not in Jesus, your faith is in yourself.
In Matthew 7, Jesus talks of the people in the community who were active participants but who were never genuine believers.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
My point isn’t to make a believer doubt. But the point of this is to make a person who doesn’t believe in the saving work of Christ, and that alone, to question where their faith, hope, and assurance are found.
For the person who abides in Christ, and for that person alone, you are delivered from God’s judgment, and the reason for that is because of Christ and what he has done.
That we are sinners, but Jesus redeems and forgives us of our sins when we have faith in him.
Kobe beef
Being a Christian in Name Only, but not actually believing in Jesus counts for nothing. It is Jesus who justifies and forgives when we come to him as Lord and savior. I was reading about Kobe beef this week. Kobe beef is the holy grail of beef. True Kobe beef has rigorous standards of quality and marbling. It’s a specific type of cow in a specific region of Japan to truly be kobe beef.
A 2016 report from Inside Edition found that there were only 8 restaurants in the entire United States that sold genuine kobe beef. And it is not sold in retail.
The upscale steakhouse McCormick and Schmicks advertised a kobe burger with beef that was not from Japan, but was from Kentucky. Class-action lawsuit. Restaurants and grocers have tried to call things kobe beef that aren’t.
And my point is this: just because you say something is something doesn’t make it so.
Just because you SAY something is kobe beef, doesn’t make it kobe beef. Again, it has to be the right type of cow, from the right region, to the right standards.
Anything else is inauthentic.
A person can say that they’re a Christian, but if they do not have faith in Jesus, if he is not the savior in whom they have placed their hope, and they don’t believe that he died for them and rose for them, then it’s not Christianity, regardless of what you call it.
But the person who believes in Jesus and who abides in Christ is delivered from God’s judgment.
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“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes,
In saying that he is the true vine, he’s pointing to himself as the one who sustains his people. Jesus is the vine. God the Father is the vinedresser or gardener.
Christians are attached to the vine and bear fruit, which refers to good works and to Spiritual growth which is the result of one’s relationship to the vine, to Christ. A vine branch cannot blossom and produce fruit apart from the vine. A vine branch cannot survive off of the vine. Neither can a Christian exist apart from Christ.
Jesus talks of two different types of branches in these verses. There are the branches which do not bear fruit and the branches which do bear fruit.
This is a reference to two different types of people within the church. People who believe in the gospel and those who do not. The fruitless branch is someone who goes to church, they know how to speak the churchy lingo. They might say they’re a Christian. They know a little bit about the Bible. But they don’t really believe in Jesus. They don’t truly believe that he’s their Lord and savior.
And because they don’t really believe in Jesus, there’s no fruit. They never had fruit. It’s not that their production slowed down or that they had a bad week. It’s that they never believed in the first place.
In the Gospel of John, the most obvious example of someone to whom Jesus is referring here is Judas who had been one of the disciples and who had departed from Jesus at the end of chapter 13.
It’s not that Judas was a believer in Jesus who walked away from him. Judas never believed in Jesus in the first place.
every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
God is the vinedresser who prunes the grapevine.
Understanding viticulture
Properly pruning grapevines is essential to maximizing the harvest. Without pruning vines, they can quickly become overgrown and entangled.
Pruning requires cutting off small branches and old branches so that you can make room to support the new year’s grapevines. You wanted the vine to be cut to a certain length. Too long and it’s more susceptible to breaking. Pruning was primarily done twice a year. It would be done in the spring when they planted and again in the fall at harvest to ensure healthy vines.
And that is all important to the metaphor and what the passage is teaching.
Because for the branch the bears good fruit on the vine, God as the master vinedresser, God prunes in order to maximize the harvest.
That’s what a vinedresser does. They have to cut away at the vine for the good of the vine. Imagine that you’re a branch on the vine. You might have all of these other branches and shoots that look good and are about to blossom. And then the vinedresser starts cutting.
It’d seem cruel!
But a good vinedresser knows it’s necessary to get the most fruit out of the vine.
God brings about things in our lives sometimes for our growth that can seem painful, that can seem harsh, that can seem unfair. Yet all of it is meant for ultimate good. And God has to prune us.
God prunes us
It can be different ways in different seasons of life, but God must use the knife to cut into us. This calls to mind a passage like Hebrews 12, where God is a loving father who instills discipline in his children.
Hebrews 12:6: the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Sometimes that’s how God prunes us. By discipline. Sometimes it’s through the challenges we face.
James 1:2-4:Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James says that we are to count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds because God uses those trials to work greater results in us.
There’s pruning. Sometimes it can be through illnesses or life circumstances. Sometimes God takes things away from us, but for greater purposes. Sometimes it can be through setbacks. But God works through those challenges and situations.
In the process, he produces different results. No two branches are pruned exactly the same. But to be a Christian is to be part of the vine, and to be part of the vine is to produce fruit. And to be part of the vine is definitely to be pruned. God is a perfecting God.
God is faithful to work in us.
God can prune us through relationships. People in our family, people in the church, people from work. He can use people to be transformational in our lives. Kari is getting me a pruning knife in October, Lord willing. He can prune through his word.
2 Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
God can use his word in mighty ways in our lives. And let us remember that when we read our Bibles. That the Word should challenge us. We are sinful and imperfect. God’s Word is true and points us to holiness. It can be challenging to be confronted with the Bible.
You can have weeks or months of reading the Bible and nothing really stands out to you and then you come across a passage that feels like it was written with you in mind. Because God uses his word to cut us. He uses it to prune us.
Hebrews 4:12 says:
the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
How is God pruning you?
Is there an area of your life where you’re not living up? Where you know you’re not honoring God? Is there an area of sin that you’re struggling with? Is there an idol that you’re holding onto? Is there a person you’re withholding forgiveness from?
The answer for that question will vary from person to person. But what does not change is that God is working in his people. You’re not a finished product.
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
We thank you for this day.
Lord with all of the cases of Covid going around town right now, we continue to praise you for the health of this church. And Lord, we continue to pray for that.
We pray for people in our community who have been afflicted by this virus. We pray for their recovery.
Lord, we continue to pray for the development of a vaccine.
But in that, may we be pointed to the gospel. That there is one true plague on our world: human sin and there is only one remedy for that. The blood of the Lord Jesus.
Lord, we pray for Mila.
Lord, we pray for our time in your Word this morning. May you lead our hearts and minds to the praise of your glorious grace. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction
In the Bible, there is this contrast between light and darkness.
Light is good. You can see in the light.
Darkness is sinister. Darkness is where bad things happen.
I read an article that said 11% of adults have a fear of the dark. Another article mentioned that fear of the dark is common in children.
I thought the article should have begun “fear of the dark is common in children…and in adults who tell the truth.”
Because fear of the dark is not so much about a fear of the dark. It’s a fear of the unknown.
No one walks down in an alley at night and is thinking “This is great. I love this.”
Nighttime is when most crimes happen.
It’s when virtually all murders in horror movies occur.
No one goes camping and hears some animal and doesn’t automatically assume it’s a bear that’s about to eat you.
The unknown, the unfamiliar, the things unseen. All of it makes a fear of the dark rational.
And so where I want to begin this morning is with a brief survey of light and darkness in the Bible.
And I do this because we’ve all heard the verse “I am the light of the world.”
But when we look at it against the backdrop of the Old Testament, I’m trying to bring some of the force that it would have had to its original audience.
First place to start. We see light in creation.
Opening verses of Genesis:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5)
Throughout history, many of the world’s religions have worshipped the sources of light. Pgan religions have had sun gods, moon gods. But the Bible begins with Lord God showing his dominion over light itself.
The first words of the Lord in the Bible are “let there be light.”
It’s what God begins his creation with.
During the Israelite wanderings, God uses a pillar of light to guide the Israelites in the desert.
Exodus 13:20-21: the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.
So there we see the fire and light associated with God’s presence with his people.
And that’s especially significant when Jesus says that he is the light of the world.
Because in our passage in chapter 8, Jesus is still speaking at the Feast of Tabernacles. And as we’ve said numerous times, part of the purpose of this feast was to commemorate the Israelite wanderings as they journeyed to the Promised Land.
The pillar of light and fire was a powerful symbol.
Light at the feast of tabernacles
And at the feast of Tabernacles itself, light was a symbolized in a meaningful way.
Towards the end of the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, massive torches were lit.
They did it on the Temple Mount, which was the highest point in Jerusalem.
They had four lamp stands and each had four bowls that they would fill with oil.
I think of it like the Olympic torch.
It was said that this light lit up all of Jersuaelm. That may be an overstatement. But nevertheless, there was tremendous brightness created from this fire.
It’s not known if those lamps were still burning or if the fire had gone out when Jesus spoke these words, but the imagery was still fresh in people’s minds when Jesus stood up and said
I am the light of the world.
It’s a well known verse to Chrisitans. But as we continue, I want to focus on a few images of light in the Old Testament that I think help give meaning to Jesus’ words.
Light has a great symbolic richness in the Old Testament.
And I think it will be very helpful to take a few moments and go over this.
For starters, in the Old Testament, light is associated with God himself.
Psalm 27:1:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Light is given as a symbol of the Word of God, the scriptures.
119:105:
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
Then again in Psalm 119:130:
130 The unfolding of your words gives light;
it imparts understanding to the simple.
Light is a symbol of goodness and righteousness. This goes back to creation. God saw that the light was good.
Light is also seen as a sign of goodness in contrast to darkness. In the Bible, light is good, darkness is bad.
Proverbs 4:19:
19 The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble.
Darkness is seen as apocalyptic judgment and God withdrawing his presence.
Isaiah 13:9-10:
9 Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the land a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.
In the Old Testament, there is a significant link between light and the temple.
As we’ve said umpteen times in our study of John, the temple represents the presence of God with his people.
And the temple was a place of light.
That even goes to the design of the temple.
It was built facing the east. Towards the sunrise.
Lamps were prominent in the temple.
Exodus 25:37:
You shall make seven lamps for it. And the lamps shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it.
At our church, when no one is here, we shut the lights off.
But in the temple, the lights were meant to continually burn.
Leviticus 24:1-2: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly.
Most translations say “a light may be kept burning continually.”
They kept the light burning in the temple. A symbol of God’s light.
Light can be a symbol of glory.
Isaiah 60:19 talks of the light which the Lord brings. It’s a picture of final triumph.
19 The sun shall be no more
your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
give you light;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
This same idea is picked up in Revelation 22, the Bible’s final chapter which again talks of no need for sun or moon in the New Heavens and the New earth. God’s glory itself is the light of heaven.
Revelation 22:5: And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light
Let’s tie this all together.
You have light associated with God, with his word, with his righteousness, with the temple, and with the divine glory. And we see all of these in the opening chapter of John’s gospel.
Jesus is all of those things. Light is associated with God. Jesus himself is God.
John 1:1-2: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And Jesus is also himself the Word of God.
Same text.
Jesus is the word who was in the beginning, who was God and is God.
John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh.
Jesus is the true word o fGod.
I talked about light and righteousness.
We see the connection of Jesus and his righteousness in John 1:4-5: In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness of a sinful world.
And Jesus is also the temple.
Same verse in the opening of John. John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us
And as we’ve discussed before, but just as a reminder, the word for “dwelt” in 1:14 in Greek literally means “tabernacled” or “pitched a tent” among us.
And so it has a much deeper meaning than that Jesus simply came into the world. But that Jesus is God who took on flesh in order to be the literal tabernacle, the literal temple among us, the literal presence of God among us.
Lastly, Jesus himself is the divine glory. Same verse. John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Man is not glorious, but Jesus is. Jesus displays his glory during his ministry and makes known the glory of God. Jesus enables us to come before God and to be reconciled to God.
Jesus is God, he is the word of God, who displays the righteousness of God. And he is the temple of God who displays the glory of God.
We also see light in the Old Testament associated with the Messiah and his presence in the world.
Isaiah 9:2:
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
Jesus will apply that verse to himself at the beginning of his ministry in the Gospel of Matthew.
He is the great light that has come into a dark world.
And it is because Jesus is all of this and more that he could stand up at the temple in Jerusalem and proclaim: I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Jesus’ I am statement doesn’t introduce the idea of Jesus as the light, and it’s not the final passage in John’s Gospel – or in John’s other Biblical writings – where he’ll touch on the idea of the light that is in God and in Christ.
But this passage is the high point of that theme.
Jesus is the light of the world.
So let’s take a look at that statement word for word.
I am
That in itself is a claim of divinity.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus makes seven statements which are known as the “I am statements.”
We covered the first of these back in July when Jesus said “I am the bread of life.” This week’s statement is the second.
In these statements, Jesus is making revelations about himself, his ministry, and his mission in the world.
When Jesus says “I am,” he’s referring back to Exodus 3, when God reveals himself to Moses at the burning bush.
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
Jesus says: I am the light of the world.
He’s not A light of the world.
He’s THE light of the world.
There is no other light. There is no other goodness. There is nothing else which exposes the darkness of sin, of fallen humanity, and of our own hearts.
It’s yet another reason why you cannot compartmentalize Jesus the savior from Jesus the man from Jesus the teacher from Jesus the Lord.
It’s only because he is God that he can be the light.
A great teacher cannot be the light of the world.
Plato said a lot of great things. He didn’t claim to be the light of the world.
Buddha had an interesting philosophy. It wasn’t that he was the light of the world.
Gandhi was one of the most influential leaders in modern history. He never said he was the light.
Jesus did. It’s because of who he is he can say it.
For anyone else to say they’re the light of the world, they’d be mad.
They’d be self-aggrandizing.
But it’s because Jesus is God, the word of God, the righteousness of God, the temple of God, and the glory of God that he can say to a dark world that he is the light.
Also notice that he says that he is the light of the world. He is not just the light of the Israelites, he’s not the light of Jerusalem. He is the light of the world. The gospel is for the whole world. The salvation that he brings is for the whole world. The mission he came for was for the whole world.
Jesus brings a message of life to a dead world because he is the light in a dark world.
He is the light.
There is no other source.
Back in our verse. Jesus says: Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
In 1954, a navy pilot named Jim Lovell – who would later become famous as the commander of the failed Apollo 13 mission – was on a training flight near Japan. In the air, some of his instruments failed during the flight.
He was in darkness.
The lights shorted on his instrument panel.
More darkness and he didn’t know the direction he needed to fly in order to get back to his aircraft carrier.
Lovell was led back to shore by the glow of phosphorescent algae which glowed. In the wake of the ship, the algae were stirred up. In the darkness, it was that light which led him back to safety.
When you’re in the darkness, you need light.
And the Bible teaches us that the whole world is sinful and in darkness.
But the issue is that even though there is darkness in the world, the world doesn’t want light.
Jesus makes this pronouncement in chapter 3. This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
While it’s true that the way to find our way in the darkness is to look to the light, what this verse tells us is that the world often doesn’t want the light.
As we’ve talked about the dangers of darkness and the benefits of the light, the world hates the light because light exposes.
Darkness allows us to hide.
Darkness allows us to do what we would not want to do in the light.
That’s what Jesus says in 3:20: everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
But Jesus calls us to follow him.
He says: Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
What Jesus is saying at the end of this verse is that our lives indicate whether or not we are truly following him.
Because a follower of Jesus does not walk in darkness, because a follower of Jesus has the light of life.
Something very similar is said in 1 John 1:6: If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Is that saying you’ll never sin again? Clearly not. Is it saying you’ll never struggle? No.
Last week, I talked about the balance between grace and law.
Grace is a wonderful thing. It is by grace that we are saved.
But what grace should not become is a crutch that we use to justify sin.
God is gracious. He is merciful.
We are called to be gracious and merciful to others as God is towards us.
But what today’s verse should do is keep us from ignoring God’s call upon our lives to live in holiness, to live for Christ, and to follow his light.
The issue isn’t whether or not God is forgiving.
He is.
But if you’re living a life that is contrary to the will of God, it can be convicting that we’re not walking in his light to begin with.
There are two ways. Light and darkness.
One is to sin, one is to righteousness.
One is to God, one is to the world.
Let us be people who walk to the light, and as we live and pursue God, and as the darkness in our own lives and hearts is more and more exposed, let us walk further and further into the light of Christ.
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. -John 6:35
Jesus tells a group who’s following him that he is the bread of life. What the perfect food to pick. Something so universal, something that’s such a staple of life. Most foods, you can find someone who doesn’t like them.
Cheese is amazing. There are people who don’t like cheese. There are people who don’t like fish, or beef. There are even weirdos who don’t like chocolate. But everyone likes bread. It’s a universal staple.
Think about bread for a moment. A lot of restaurants you go to, they just give you a bowl of bread. You go to an Italian restaurant, maybe it’ll be breadsticks, maybe it’ll be bread with some olive oil. You go to a Mexican restaurant, they bring you chips and salsa. The tortilla chip is just bread that they then fried.
They don’t even charge you for it. Just “here, have some bread.”
Go to a Mediterranean restaurant, the meal will come with a pita. An Indian restaurant, it’ll be naan.
And that only works with bread.
Can you imagine going to a restaurant and they bring the table a bowl of broccoli? No! You can’t even imagine that.
Really, a lot of popular chain restaurants are known more for their bread than their actual entrees. No one is really going to Red Lobster for their week old fish and ocean roaches. It’s all about the cheddar bay biscuits. Olive Garden? The breadsticks are the real star of the show.
We love bread.
It plays a major role in so many of our favorite foods. Pizza. Cheeseburgers. Fried chicken.
Meatballs. Already a brilliant idea unto itself. A ball of meat, but we say “needs bread crumbs.”
We add bread to things that have nothing to do with bread. A salad. Mostly vegetables, let’s add bread crumbs. Soup. Mostly liquid, let’s add crackers and put it in a bread bowl. A bowl of ice cream. We look and say “the soup people were onto something. Let’s get rid of the bowl and replace that with a piece of bread.”
Most of our favorite desserts are just sweeter versions of bread. Cake. Donuts. All the best breakfast foods. Bread. Pancakes, waffles, french toast, bagels. We LOVE bread.
Rich people love bread, poor people love bread. Old people love bread, young people love bread. We love it so much that many years ago, people said “I wonder if we can find a way to drink this stuff.” And that’s how beer was invented!
Bread and language
Bread even impacts our language and sayings.
We judge the greatness of achievements and innovation by how it stacks up with sliced bread. We have indoor plumbing, we have cures to horrible disease, we’ve been to the moon, we have the internet. But no, when something great comes along, we compare that to the invention of sliced bread. When we eat together, we call that breaking bread. In many cultures, bread is a symbol of peace. We call money dough and the person who makes more money in a relationship is called the “bread winner.” If someone wants too much out of a situation, we say “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
Bread in the Bible
And then we consider it in the Bible. God feeds the Israelites with manna (which was bread) from heaven. Jesus references that in the Lord’s Prayer when he teaches us to pray “Give us each day our daily bread.” It is bread to which Jesus refers when the devil tempts him. He’s quoting from Deuteronomy but he says “Man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Even the place where Jesus was born. Bethlehem in Hebrew means “house of bread.”
And it is bread at the Last Supper when Jesus institutes communion which he takes and breaks and says “this is my body, which is broken for you.”
Bread matters in our lives and the Bible.
Jesus is the bread of life
So in John 6, a great crowd has seen miraculous signs done by Jesus. He’s just fed multitudes. But the crowd wanted to be dazzled with greater signs and wonders but Jesus instead explains the significance of the sign when he felt the multitudes.
The manna from heaven was the bread which God gave to the Isrealites to sustain them on their desert wanderings. Jesus is the bread of life which God has given to sustain the human soul.
The people had followed Jesus because he filled their stomachs, but Jesus came to save our souls.
The people wanted to see a physical display of glory and power but Jesus came to fulfill the longings of the human soul.
And it’s for that reason that Jesus is the greater bread. The manna had to be collected everyday. Jesus is the bread which gives eternal life at the moment you believe in him.
But as the manna was collected daily, there is still a daily element to the bread which Jesus provides as he himself is the bread we need everyday for our spiritual sustenance. Without the bread which Jesus provides, we grow spiritually hungry and malnourished. We need to feed upon him everyday.
We need to commune with Christ everyday. Anytime you’re struggling spiritually, you feel like you’re just going through the motions, the first thing you should ask yourself is what your daily time with Jesus is looking like.
Going to him, praying, meditating on his word, serving his people, loving his people, orienting our lives around him.
Jesus is the eternal nourishment and the daily bread without which we will Spiritually starve.
The world wants to just satisfy your body.
If you can just have enough money, you’ll be secure and have what you need. Some people are drawn to intimacy and feel like that will sustain their soul. It’s looking to a physical desire. Some look to prestige and power. Those are still ultimately fleeting accolades that you can’t take with you. Dying people in a dying world honoring one another. Some people look to politics. The right party being in office. Men who are fallen and sinful, flesh and bones are our hope.
The world makes idols of what is fleeting and feeds the body. Jesus feeds the soul.
Jesus is the bread of life.
Where is your hope though? Is it in the material? Is it in today? Is it in what you have or who you are? Is it in what’s in front of you? Or is it in the eternal Lord of creation?
The crowd had said to Jesus: What must we do, to be doing the works of God?
Jesus says: I am the bread of life. whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst
We’re called to come to him. Coming to him in humility, coming to him realizing our needs, realizing our hunger.
And we are to believe in him. To trust in his gospel and his grace. We must recognize that we’re sinners in need of a savior.
That is what we do to receive the bread of life. We believe in Jesus. And he invites us to never hunger or thirst because he fulfills the longings of the human soul.
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.” 28 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.” 30 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.’ ” 32 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.” 35 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.
Our heavenly father,
We thank you for this day and the opportunity to come together to praise your glorious name. Lord, may we be ever mindful of the wonders of your goodness. May we love you with all of our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. And we thank you for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come into the world to bring your kingdom, to shine as light, and to reconcile sinful humanity. It is Jesus alone who is the author and perfecter of our faith.
Lord, we pray for this season that we’re in. For many of us, these are stressful times. Uncertain times. We see what’s going on in our nation and around the world, and it can be easy to be discouraged. Lord, we pray for your nearness. May we not be people who are stressed by the concerns and worries of the world but let us be people who walk in faith everyday.
We again pray for our time in your word. I thank you for every person here and I pray that we can again be encouraged, edified, exhorted, and enlightened through your Word. And most importantly, I pray that we can be pointed to your gospel.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
In World War II, thousands of children throughout Europe were left as orphaned. Some of them ended up in refugee camps. With the trauma of war, losing their homes, and losing family, it should be no surprise that many of them struggled to sleep. Efforts to reassure the kids or comfort them did not help. Until someone came up with the ingenious idea to give the kids a piece of bread to take with them to bed in the evening. It was a reminder to the kids that they had eaten the day before and also had food for the next day. It was a reminder that they were cared for. It was a sense of security.
Among our most basic needs we have as people is our need to eat. And this morning, as we continue in the Gospel of John, Jesus will make a profound statement to a crowd which has been following him when he says “I am the bread of life.” And so we’re going to look at our passage this morning in three parts and with that we’ll jump right in.
Part 1 – A question answered We’re in a section in John 6 which covers Jesus feeding a multitude of 5,000 men – not to mention wives and children – with five loaves of bread and two fish. It’s the next day and Jesus is speaking to people from that crowd who have followed him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.
Beginning in 27 and Jesus says to the crowd: 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.
So there are two kinds of food: the food that perishes. That was the food which Jesus has provided for the crowd. And a second type of food is the food which endures to eternal life. That is the food which Jesus ultimately came into the world to bring. The crowd is focused on the first kind, the food that perishes. Jesus is focused on the second kind.
They’re preoccupied with what’s natural and physical. If you remember from last week’s passage, Jesus had rebuked the crowd when he said: you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
They miss the true point of the sign. They’re focused on what Jesus is doing for them. They’re focused on the world around them and not the world above. Verse 28, the crowd asks: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”
Not an unreasonable question.
But the work of God is not about a level of moral achievement which we can attain. Jesus tells them: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
What a wonderful summary of the gospel. The world labors to earn salvation, to be good enough for God, to have a leg to stand on before the Almighty. Do you want to be right with God? Do you want to be forgiven? Do you want to know forgiveness and grace?
Believe in the one he has sent, believe in Jesus. Where is your belief? If you ever question if you’re good enough, you’re not. But the good news is that Jesus is.
If you ever struggle with doubts, struggle with despair, remember that salvation is not about how good we are. If it were, none of us would have any hope. Real salvation is in believing in the one whom God has sent. Jesus has already said similar things in this gospel.
John 3:16: God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 5:24: whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Paul says in Romans 10:13: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The work of God is faith, genuine belief in who Jesus is. That is the basis for our forgiveness and right-standing before God. It is entirely the work of Christ. To quote the great Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards: “you contribute nothing to your own salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
Where is your faith?
If it is in anything except for the saving work of Christ, then you are resting your hope in another gospel, which is no gospel at all.
There is one way to do the work of God in the world and be made right with him. It is believing in the Lord Jesus.
Point 2 – A sign demanded We come to our second point. They want to see greater signs from Jesus. Jesus is saying that they need to believe in him. Jesus has literally just done a sign when he fed them, but they want to be even more dazzled.
Verses 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? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
Basically what the crowd is saying is that they want an even greater sign than the manna from heaven that had been provided during the Israelite wanderings. Just to get us all up to speed, while the Israelites were in the desert, they didn’t have a lot of options for food. It was a nation of people traveling. The desert is not the best ecosystem for foraging or hunting. It’s not like they could just stop at the grocery store every few days and get supplies.
But it was God who had led them there. And if God leads, he will always provide to achieve his purposes. And so God had miraculously fed the Israelites with this bread from heaven called manna. Six days a week, and they were supposed to collect two days worth on the sixth day so they could rest on the seventh.
But God did this week after week and year after year for the Israelites.
The crowd demands a sing. But what’s their motivation? Illustration – Messianc expectations I’ve talked about this before, but in the first century, you had all sorts of expectations about what the Messiah would do, what he would be like. And Jesus doesn’t really fit into any of their expectations. A lot of people thought that the Messiah would be an earthly king. And that’s actually their response after Jesus originally fed them.
John 6:15: Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Jesus is the king of kings, but he did not come to primarily be the earthly king that many in the first century expected. And as we mentioned a few moments ago, Jesus has also rebuked the crowd for following him not because of who he was but because he had fed them when he said: you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
So the crowd asks for another sign. Is it really because they want to follow him?
Richard Phillips talks about this in his commentary of John. But he suggests that it’s because the crowd actually wants to justify themselves and continue doing what they’re doing and believing what they’re believing and so they instead undermine and challenge his authority? I think that’s the most reasonable interpretation.
They’re not asking for a sign because they want to believe. They’re challenging Jesus because they don’t want to believe. As we’ve already seen numerous times in John, there’s a lot of irony.
They ask for a sign when he’s already done a sign when he fed them. In fact, Jesus did another sign when he walked on water but they hadn’t seen it.
They ask for bread when Jesus has already given them bread! The bread was the sign that was indicative of Jesus coming to provide the greater manna! The bread which Jesus gave was greater than the manna because unlike manna which needed to be collected everyday, the eternal life which Jesus provides is something that he gives once and forever.
There’s irony in that they’re challenging him by comparing him to Moses when Jesus actually does do things greater than Moses ever did. But Jesus is not a magician. He’s not an entertainer. He doesn’t exist primarily to impress people. And he’s not going to bend to their whims.
Back in our passage. Verse 32, Jesus is responding to the crowd who wants to see further signs.
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.
Jesus brings up Moses because that is what he’s being compared to. But Jesus is greater than Moses. And the bread that was provided during the time of Moses had come from God, not Moses.
He continues: For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Jesus is referring to himself. He is the bread of God who comes down from heaven. While the manna sustained life, Jesus is the one who gives life, true life, eternal life to the world. Jesus is once again using a metaphor to communicate a profound truth about the world. He is the bread from heaven that sustains the human soul. Validation – missing the metaphor
In chapter 3, when Jesus talks to Nocodemus, he tells him that he must be born again. Nicodemus misses the point. He takes Jesus literally. Chapter 4, Jesus talks to the woman at the well and tells her of the living water that he provides. She misses the point and thinks he’s simply talking about water. And here again, Jesus talks of the bread from heaven. And the people miss the point. Verse 34, they think he’s just talking about bread.
They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
And we come to the key verse in the passage.
Point 3 – a sign explained 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.
Before we get into this verse, I want to give a brief aside on two words.
“I am.”
In John’s Gospel, Jesus makes seven statements which are known as the “I am statements.” Verse 35 is the first of the seven when Jesus says “I am the bread of life.”
In other sections, Jesus will also go on to say: “I am the light of the world” “I am the gate.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am the true vine.”
There are a few reasons why these statements are significant.
First, Jesus is making revelations about himself, his ministry, and his mission in the world through these statements.
Second. Each of these statements is unique to John’s Gospel. In the other gospels, Jesus certainly makes many statements which inform us to who he is. But the formula of him saying “I am” and following that a metaphorical statement about his identity is only in John.
Third, the statements matter because they have resonance to the Old Testament. For instance, the bread of life alludes to the manna from heaven.
But the I am statements also allude to Old Testament passages such as Exodus 3 when God has called upon Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Moses asks God for his divine name.
Exodus 3:13-14: 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
God simply refers to himself as “I am.” He is being itself. We often like to anthropomorphize God. We give him human characteristics. Dennis Phillips points out language that the Bible sometimes uses about God in his book “Before Abraham was, I am.”
“His hand offers protections. His arm indicates strength. The heavens are the work of his fingers. We are under his watchful eye. He is our King and at the same time, our Heavenly Father.”
All of those ideas are Biblical. And all of them are helpful in our understanding of God.
But God is also grand and mysterious. And it is his being that he communicates to Moses and that is the same language which Jesus picks up in his “I am” statements.
Pure existence and being. None of us can say that. Because there was a time when we were not. And our lives depend on God’s provision and sustenance.
But God can simply say “I am.” And so can Jesus. So while the “I am” statements do make claims about the ministry of Christ, they also inherently make claims of his own divinity.
Jesus is the I am. Something else that’s interesting if you know a little bit about Greek. There’s basically two ways to say “I am” in Greek. The typical way is the Greek word “eimi.” That means “I am.” You’d use that in any regular setting if you had lived in first century Greece. “I am Josh.” “I am a pastor.” “I am going to the grocery store,” etc.
But for the “I am” statements, and other times when Jesus says “I am,” they actually add the Greek personal pronoun. So you have the word “I” followed by “I am,” which seems to be done for extra emphasis. It’s the same language you find in the Greek translation of Exodus where God tells Moses “I am.” Because of that, I take the form of language in which Jesus’ “I am” statements are recorded to be an obvious claim of deity. Returning to our passage. Jesus says “I am the bread of life.” Bread
Let’s think about bread for a moment. What the perfect food to pick. Something so universal, something that’s such a staple of life. Most foods, you can find someone who doesn’t like them. Cheese is amazing. There are people who don’t like cheese.
There are people who don’t like fish, or beef. There are even weirdos who don’t like chocolate. But everyone likes bread. It’s a universal staple. Let’s talk about bread for a minute. A lot of restaurants you go to, they just give you a bowl of bread. You go to an Italian restaurant, maybe it’ll be breadsticks, maybe it’ll be bread with some olive oil. You go to a Mexican restaurant, they bring you chips and salsa. The tortilla chip is just bread that they then fried.
They don’t even charge you for it. Just “here, have some bread.” Go to a Mediterranean restaurant, the meal will come with a pita. An Indian restaurant, it’ll be naan. And that only works with bread. Can you imagine going to a restaurant and they bring the table a bowl of broccoli? No! You can’t even imagine that. Really, a lot of popular chain restaurants are known more for their bread than their actual entrees. We love bread. It plays a major role in so many of our favorite foods. Pizza. Cheeseburgers. Fried chicken.
Meatballs. Already a brilliant idea unto itself. A ball of meat, but we say “needs bread crumbs.” We add bread to things that have nothing to do with bread. A salad. Mostly vegetables, let’s add bread crumbs. Soup. Mostly liquid, let’s add crackers and put it in a bread bowl. A bowl of ice cream. We look and say “the soup people were onto something. Let’s get rid of the bowl and replace that with a piece of bread.”
Most of our favorite desserts are just sweeter versions of bread. Cake. Donuts. All the best breakfast foods. Bread. Pancakes, waffles, french toast, bagels.
We LOVE bread. Rich people love bread, poor people love bread. Old people love bread, young people love bread. Have you ever seen someone on the Atkins diet? They look the spark of light in their eyes. Bread even impacts our language and sayings.
We judge the greatness of achievements and innovation by how it stacks up with sliced bread. We have indoor plumbing, we have cures to horrible disease, we’ve been to the moon, we have the internet. But no, when something great comes along, we compare that to the invention of sliced bread.
When we eat together, we call that breaking bread. In many cultures, bread is a symbol of peace. We call money dough and the person who makes more money in a relationship is called the “bread winner.” If someone wants too much out of a situation, we say “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
And then we consider it in the Bible. We’ve talked at great length about the manna. Jesus references that in the Lord’s Prayer when he teaches us to pray “Give us each day our daily bread.” It is bread to which Jesus refers when the devil tempts him. He’s quoting from Deuteronomy but he says “Man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Even the place where Jesus was born. Bethlehem in Hebrew means “house of bread.” And it is bread at the Last Supper when Jesus institutes communion which he takes and breaks and says “this is my body, which is broken for you.” Bread matters in our lives and the Bible.
The crowd wanted to be dazzled with greater signs and wonders but Jesus instead explains the significance of the sign when he felt the multitudes. The manna from heaven was the bread which God gave to the Isrealites to sustain them on their desert wanderings. Jesus is the bread of life which God has given to sustain the human soul. The people had followed Jesus because he filled their stomachs, but Jesus came to save our souls.
The people wanted to see a physical display of glory and power but Jesus came to fulfill the longings of the human soul. And it’s for that reason that Jesus is the greater bread.
The manna had to be collected everyday. Jesus is the bread which gives eternal life at the moment you believe in him. But as the manna was collected daily, there is still a daily element to the bread which Jesus provides as he himself is the bread we need everyday for our spiritual sustenance. Without the bread which Jesus provides, we grow spiritually hungry and malnourished. We need to feed upon him everyday.
We need to commune with Christ everyday. Anytime you’re struggling spiritually, you feel like you’re just going through the motions, the first thing you should ask yourself is what your daily time with Jesus is looking like. Going to him, praying, meditating on his word, serving his people, loving his people, orienting our lives around him.
Jesus is the eternal nourishment and the daily bread without which we will Spiritually starve. The world wants to just satisfy your body. If you can just have enough money, you’ll be secure and have what you need. Some people are drawn to intimacy and feel like that will sustain their soul. It’s looking to a physical desire. Some look to prestige and power. Those are still ultimately fleeting accolades that you can’t take with you. Dying people in a dying world honoring one another. Some people look to politics. The right party being in office. Men who are fallen and sinful, flesh and bones are our hope.
The world makes idols of what is fleeting and feeds the body. Jesus feeds the soul. Jesus is the bread of life. Where is your hope though?
Is it in the material? Is it in today? Is it in what you have or who you are? Is it in what’s in front of you? Or is it in the eternal Lord of creation?
The crowd had said to Jesus: What must we do, to be doing the works of God?
Jesus says: I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
We’re called to come to him. Coming to him in humility, coming to him realizing our needs, realizing our hunger. And we are to believe in him. To trust in his gospel and his grace. We must recognize that we’re sinners in need of a savior. That is what we do to receive the bread of life. We believe in Jesus. And he invites us to never hunger or thirst because he fulfills the longings of the human soul.
