I Am
Week one - I Am the Bread of Life
John 6:25-52
Who is Jesus?
Beyond the healings, and the teaching, and the cross - who is this One who changed history and made claim as the Savior of the world? Just a good guy with a good message… A prophet…
Jesus tells us who He is - “I Am…” (seven statements in John’s gospel)
God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and sent him to Pharaoh to free God’s people. Moses asked, “Who should I tell them has sent me?” And God answered, “‘I am who I am.’ Say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)
As Jesus tells us who He is, are we taking Him at His word, or are we trying to make Him who we want Him to be, or who we think He should be?
John 6
Context - Jesus has just fed the five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish. And now, the people want more…
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” —John 6:25-27
Jesus immediately calls out the crowd for their true motivation in following them back and forth across the Sea of Galilee - they want what He has to give.
28Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” —John 6:28-42
Who is this Jesus? (and, do we care?)
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,”Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” —John 6:43-52
Just like the disciples, we get caught up in the immediate need, the immediate
In the desert, God fed the Israelites with manna from heaven - only enough for each day (Exodus 16).
Jesus doesn’t pull any punches - He tells them, “yea, it was awesome, but they still died.”
We want a supplier, but Jesus is both the supplier and the