LOJ #78: ‘Bread of Life Part III’
Andover Baptist Church-October 3rd, 2010
Opening
A. Text for today is John 6:41-58 and our sermon is titled ‘Bread
of Life Part III’
B. Children’s Sermon(SLIDE)
1. Explain the Lord's Supper to the kids
2. Have a cup and a piece of bread out already
3. Ask them what the juice looks like?
4. Why are we supposed to remember Jesus death on the
cross for us when we eat the bread and drink the juice?
5. Jesus' blood flowed, and His body was broken…we are
to take this in remembrance of Him
6. We have all done things that are bad that makes God
sad, things that will keep us out of His Home in heaven
7. Jesus came to pay for all the bad things we have done,
and if we believe in Him and that He died for us we take
the juice and cup to remember what He has done
C. Introduction
1. The last couple of weeks we have been looking at Jesus
calling Himself the ‘Bread of Life’
2. We have seen the Jewish crowds confusion and hostility
Towards His claim
3. This week we get the joy of not only truly understanding
these words but getting to celebrate them by partaking
in the Lord’s Supper that symbolizes them
Sermon
READ: John 6:41, 42 (Scripture slide)
“6:41 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” 6:42 and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
A. Not all the Jews were hostile to Jesus, but these speaking were
1. They are Jesus’ opponents to His ministry
2. They likely are Jews from Capernaum and probably the
leaders of the synagogue there (cf. vs. 59)
B. Their problem with Jesus is not so much His self-designation as
the Bread of Life, but from where He says He is from
1. Where does Jesus claim to be from? Heaven
2. What is their problem with this? They know Him as a
local person with local family
3. Even though they see His miracles and teachings, which
point to a heavenly origin, they can’t get over the fact
that He is commonly known to them
4. To them Jesus had a lowly background to be from
heaven
5. Lowly in the fact that they incorrectly, and ironically
claimed they knew Jesus Father…it’s really not Joseph
but they had no idea of the virgin birth
6. Jesus points out in several places that they have not a
clue about His Father
John 8:19 (NET)“Then they began asking him, “Who is your father?” Jesus answered, “You do not know either me or my Father. If you knew me you would know my Father too.”
John 8:42 (NET)“Jesus replied, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I have come from God and am now here. I have not come on My Own initiative, but He sent Me.”
7. It seems as even Mary, who should know better, at times
forgot Who Jesus’ Father really was
Luke 2:48–49 (NET)“2:48 When his parents saw him, they were overwhelmed. His mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” 2:49 But he replied, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
C. One thing that I believe we need to watch within the church is
having a too common view of Jesus causes one to not give Him
the respect He desires (He is not ‘Buddy Jesus’, but ‘Lord and
Savior’)
READ: John 6:43-45 (Scripture slide)
“6:43 Jesus replied, “Do not complain about Me to one another. 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 6:45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Me”.
A. Enter the Mumblers
1. Jesus confronted their mumbling
2. These Jews bickering among themselves and with Jesus
are the equivalent to the Jews that were rebellious in the
wilderness
3. Notice the similarities
Exodus 16:2 (NET)“The entire company of Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron in the desert.”
Exodus 16:8–9 (NET) “16:8 Moses said, “You will know this when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord.” 16:9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole community of the Israelites, ‘Come before the Lord, because he has heard your murmurings.’”
Numbers 11:4 (NET)“Now the mixed multitude who were among them craved more desirable foods, and so the Israelites wept again and said, “If only we had meat to eat!”
4. Jesus has no patience for grumblers and mumblers
a. And mumbling happens a lot….at our jobs, in our
homes, in God's church
Philippians 2:14 (NET)“Do everything without grumbling or arguing”
b. You may think that your mumblings go unheard
but the quietist whisper is broadcast in the throne
room of God
c. If you can't say it in front of someone's face, if
you can't say it before the church…don't say it!
d. For One day you will stand face to face with the
One Who hears everything
B. The #1 Question of Debate in Church History
1. Do we use our freewill to choose God, or does God use
His sovereignty to choose us?
2. Calvinists scream, because they are compelled to do so,
God's Sovereignty!
3. Arminiasts scream, because they choose to do so, We
choose!
4. Uhmm….so let’s look at the facts
John 6:37 (NET)“Everyone whom the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never send away.”
John 6:44 (NET)“No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws Him, and I will raise Him up at the last day.”
5. We see in these verses the selective choice of God
6. Case settled, we should all be Calvinists right? You
Calvinists predestined to say Amen can now do so
7. Not so fast…let’s look at John 5:40 where Jesus
speaking to the Jews says: ‘but you are not WILLING to
come to Me so that you may have life’
8. Now we see the choice of man’s free will
9. Case settled, we should all be Arminists right? You
Arminists, if you choose to, can now say ‘Amen’
10. Not so fast we have a seeming problem! God’s Word
seems to teach both the Sovereignty of God and the
freewill of man? Yep it does
11. So I haven't chosen yet whether I'm a Calvinistic
Arminamist or Arministic Calvinist, then again I'm
sure God will choose for me
C. What does Jesus mean when He says people will be 'taught by
God'
1. Jesus is telling them that His ministry fulfills the
prophecy: 'And they will all be taught by God'
2. He quotes Isaiah 54:13, but listen to what God’s Word
says about what will be accomplished by the ministry of
the Messiah and the Holy Spirit He will send
Jeremiah 31:31–34 (NET)“1:31 “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 31:32 It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the Lord. 31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the Lord. “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.”
Joel 2:28 (NET)“After all of thisI will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your elderly will have revelatory dreams; your young men will see prophetic visions.”
3. That was fulfilled by Jesus sending the Holy Spirit
which Jesus testifies that He would send
John 14:26 (NET)“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.”
John 16:12–15 (NET)“16:12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 16:13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His Own authority, but will speak whatever He hears, and will tell you what is to come. 16:14 He will glorify Me, because He will receive from Me what is Mine and will tell it to you. 16:15 Everything that the Father has is Mine; that is why I said the Spirit will receive from Me what is Mine and will tell it to you.”
4. If you listen to God and learn from Him you will go to
His Son…it is the only way to Jesus is through Him
5. But like these Jews you need to be careful if you think
you've got all of God's plans sorted out…because you
don't
READ: John 6:46, 47 (Scripture slide)
“6:46 (Not that anyone has seen the Father except the One Who is from God – He has seen the Father.) 6:47 I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life.”
A. How can we work around the fact that others have seen God,
such as Moses and Isaiah?
B. Jesus has seen the pure, unveiled holiness of the Father
1. In fact He shared in the Father’s glory before the
creation of the world (John 17:24)
2. Jesus has no sin to cause there to be any separation from
Him and the Father
3. And only Jesus fully knows the plans of God because
He is the exact representation of God’s Being, He and
the Father are One, He is in the Father and the Father is
in Him
C. So salvation relies on believing in Jesus, the One Who the
Father sent! The one who believes in Jesus has eternal life, so
plain, so simple, yet so deep
READ: John 6:48-58 (Scripture slide)
“6:48 I am the bread of life. 6:49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 6:50 This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” 6:52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 6:54 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 6:55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 6:56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood resides in Me, and I in him. 6:57 Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes Me will live because of Me. 6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
A. 'Bread of Life' vs. Manna
1. Jesus again identifies Himself as the Bread of Life
2. And He goes on to indicate there is a difference from the
bread they want to physically eat and the Bread of Life
that they truly need
3. The manna was not living it was just bread…Jesus on
the other hand is
4. Just like the bread of manna, He was provided by
Heaven but He is a permanent source
5. The manna this crowd wants cannot give true (i.e.
eternal) life and the proof of this was that those Jews
who had eaten were now dead
6. The manna of their ancestors simply stilled their
stomachs for a short time
7. As many of you know I have been trying to be a better
steward of this body God has given me
a. Well last night this temple was really craving a
nice, fat juicy cheese burger
b. In fact if Marv had taped a hamburger bun
on a cow in front of me last night he would have
endangered both my diet and that cow
c. I had that cheeseburger last night…but you know
what…I'm gonna want another….because the
benefits of last night’s was to calm my hunger
than….it's not that way with Jesus
8. Jesus is the complete fulfillment of the manna in the
desert in the fact that He satisfies you spiritually
eternally
B. In fact those who partake in Him as the Bread of life will 'not
die’ but ‘live forever'
1. Jesus is the gift of heaven, specifically His flesh, a
concept the Jews did not understand
2. The word 'flesh' = links to His Incarnation
3. If you recall John 1:14 it states that ‘the Word became
FLESH and made His dwelling among us’
4. Jesus stepped out of heaven not to sightsee but to
become our sacrifice
John 1:29 (NET)“On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:36 (NET) “Gazing at Jesus as he walked by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
5. Jesus is giving Himself sacrificially to be the Bread of
Life that gives us life eternal
Mark 14:22–24 (NET)“14:22 While they were eating, he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it. This is my body.” 14:23 And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 14:24 He said to them, “This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many.”
6. Now the law of Moses forbade even the eating of meat
with blood still in it, let alone the drinking of blood
7. The use of 'blood' in the Bible almost always in relation
to a sacrifice or a violent end = both of these come
together in the story of Jesus
8. In order for Jesus to be the Bread of Life, He would
have to be the Lamb of God
Hebrews 9:13–14 (NET) “9:13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.”
9. We celebrate the Lord's Supper to remind us of His
sacrifice
a. Those who partake in the eating of this bread
(GO AND UNCOVER THE LORD'S SUPPER)
b. lives eternally
c. Now it’s not the bread and juice here…but the
fact that you are doing this because you have
believed on Jesus as the Son of God and that He
has died for your sins
d. The Lord's Supper symbolizes the Lord's giving
of His body and blood on the cross for you and I
e. By taking it physically you are claiming you
have taken it spiritually
Application (slide)
A. Jesus point blankly tells them that the only way they can have
this life eternal is if they partake in His flesh and blood
B. Jesus' body and blood is the only recipe for eternal life
C. if you are to have eternal life in His Kingdom it will only be in
the belief that Jesus is the Son of God and that He poured out
His blood and allowed His body to be broken to become the sin
offering for our sins
John 3:15 (NET)“so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”
D. If you do not come to God through Jesus, than you do not
come to God at all
E. Jesus is the ANSWER to death
F. He came, He lived, He died and He rose again so that you may
live eternally
G. So today we have the drawing of God and the choice of man
H. God is telling you Jesus is the way, now have you chosen to
partake in His sacrifice? Has His blood covered you? Have
you looked to His broken body to save your soul?
I. No amount of grumbling is going to take away the fact that
Jesus is the only True Bread that gives Eternal life and if you
haven't consumed that you do not have eternal life
Invitation
Let us sing our last song #,
LORD’s SUPPER
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