Hello. I am glad that you are joining me for another edition of the Weekend Sermon. I hope that everyone is doing well.
This past week I have had the opportunity to do some things that I enjoy for a change. On one of my days off, I went out to the lake, and that was nice. I've felt fairly well this week. Work is about the same. Please continue to pray that my health will be good and that I will find more and more ministry opportunities. I had a chance to work extensively on the book I mentioned last week. If everything goes as planned, the book will be available by the Spring of 2016.
In prayer this week, let us remember the people of Myanmar who are going through a terrible situation with flooding in the that nation. Let us also continue to pray for peace in the world. Let us pray especially for peace in Syria. Also, the refugee crisis around the world is becoming quite severe. May those who need help and assistance find the help that they need at this time.
Last week, we began a series of messages on the divinity of Jesus as expressed in the Gospel of John. John's gospel is very different from the synoptic gospels. In John, we find Jesus making several "I Am" statements. We saw last week that these "I Am" statements were Jesus' way of stating clearly that He was divine. The religious leaders understood what Jesus meant. They regarded Jesus' statements as blasphemy, and they wanted to stone Him to death.
Today, we will examine another of the "I Am" statements of Jesus found in John. In John 6:35 Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
First, let us look at the context in which Jesus makes this statement. At the beginning of chapter 6, Jesus performs the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. After this miracle, Jesus sends the disciples across the Sea of Galilee. Later, Jesus will walk on the water out to His disciples and calm the raging storm.
When they reach the other side of the lake, the people swarm to Jesus. They want to see Jesus perform another miracle. They want to be fed again with the physical bread that Jesus provided the previous day. Jesus will go on to tell the people that the bread that He has come to provide is much more than physical bread. Jesus did not come to establish on earthly kingdom where people will have some type of abundance and riches. Jesus came to fill the hearts of people with His love and forgiveness.
Jesus will go on to say that unless one eats His flesh and drinks His blood, that person can have no part with Him. Jesus says in John 6:54-56, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them."
When Jesus said these words, the people did not like what He said. Many of the people turned away from Jesus at this point, and they followed Him no more.
So, what does the statement "I Am the bread of life" mean for us today. I think that there are at least three aspects to this statement. I believe that Jesus is saying that He is the one who sustains the spiritual, psychological and physical aspects of person if that person will allow Jesus to be the Lord of their life.
Let's look into this more. First of all, Jesus is the answer for the spiritual problem that people face. Because of the sin of Adam, sin and death have passed upon everyone who has ever been born. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Because everyone has sinned, everyone deserves punishment for sin and separation from God. However, God so loved the world that He sent His Son into the world. Jesus came to this earth to live a holy and sinless life. In every point where the first Adam failed, Jesus succeeded.
Because He was without sin, Jesus could be the spotless Lamb of God who by His sacrifice could take away the sins of the world. Jesus offers His love and salvation to everyone who is willing to turn to Him in repentance and faith. He is willing to forgive and dwell with any person who believes in Him and believes that He has risen from the dead. He will be the Lord of any person who asks Him to sit on the throne of their heart.
Without Jesus, we are dead in trespasses and sins. We are starved spiritually, but Jesus is the bread of life who brings new life to our souls. He makes us alive, and He makes us a new creation in Him.
Jesus is also the one who sustains us physically. I know that in my own life, Jesus is the one who by His indwelling presence allows me to go on each day. He is the one who provides for my needs according to His riches in glory. As the God of the universe, Jesus has all the resources to make sure that I have what I need.
Jesus as the bread of life also sustains us psychologically. How true this is for me. As many of you know, and I have mentioned this on the blog many times, I have suffered from depression on and off for many years. I have had times when it has been much worse than at other times. The worst times of my depression occurred when I was at the Christian school at the fundamentalist church where my parents attended when I was a boy. In order to help me not be depressed, the Lord Jesus sent me my friend Toby to help me to make it through. The second time I was really depressed was after my parents died five years ago.
The only way that I have been able to make it through these time and other times of depression in my life is through the power and presence of Jesus Christ. He has sustained me in the darkest hours of my life and helped me to make it to where I am today. Without Jesus in my life, I would not be here today.
I guess what I am trying to say, and what it all comes down to, is that as the bread of life, Jesus is truly what life is all about. He wants to be Lord of all of our lives and be the one who sustains every aspect of who we are. Without Jesus Christ we will all wither away in every aspect of our lives. It is only through Jesus that we have true and abundant life in this world and in the world to come.
That is what Jesus is getting at when He talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He wants us to take Him into every fiber of our being. He wants us to make Him primary in all aspects of our existence.
In order to begin to do this, we first must turn to Jesus in repentance and faith. We must ask Him to forgive us of all of our sins. Then, we must believe in our hearts that Jesus has risen from the dead. We must ask Jesus to be the Lord of our lives.
Once we have asked Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, we need to build a relationship with Him. This involves communicating with Him in prayer and meditating upon Him. We need to read the teachings and the commandments of Jesus contained in the four Gospels, and then we need to be doers of the word and follow what Jesus has told us to do.
All of life then needs to have Jesus at the center. In all that we do, we need to seek Jesus' will in it. We must look to Him for He is the author and perfecter of our faith.
Next week, we will continue with this series of messages focusing on another of Jesus' "I Am" statements. I will post the verses on Monday and a book review on Wednesday. May God bless you. Amen.
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