I Am The Bread Of Life Series

I am the Bread of Life

Series: Divine Declarations

Brad Bailey – March 3, 2024

Note: The following notes were to long to share completely, so were moved through in slightly abbreviated fashion but still provide a what could serve teaching through the text.

Intro

In just 4 weekends from now… we will come to days set apart to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On various Easter Sundays in recent years… I have expressed how the events of that Friday… and Sunday transformed all who were there… so much so….that it broke out into the whole of human history. Something happened. There is no explanation of apart from the resurrection…BUT it was not because SOMEONE rose from the dead… the resurrection of merely any human life… it was WHO was raised. Because of who they had claimed to be.

And this can help us appreciate…that as Jesus comes towards Jerusalem…for the final time…there is a shift. Until then… he had tended to guard his identity ….but now as Jesus begins to approach Jerusalem for the last time…he wants begins to declare and reveal who he is.

So …in these next few weeks…we are going to listen to what Jesus revealed.

No statements are more profound than what have become known as the great “I am” statements.

“I AM.” - Two of the most powerful words; for what you put after them shapes your reality.

Each is a divine declaration…

“I am”… is the name God had given…When Moses is called by God to go lead the people out of Egypt….Moses says… how do I refer to you… and God says tell the “I am that I am”. (Ex 3:14-15)

(This name…transliterated in four letters as YHWH or JHVH and articulated as Yahweh or Jehovah. Jesus takes the tetragrammaton YHWH, the verb “to be” in Hebrew, the name of God who is the I AM that I AM, and applies it to Himself.)

Each of these “I AM” declarations makes clear that He is one in the same as God. Which is likely why he limited such declarations until his time of confrontation had come.

We may want to believe that the world would welcome God…but the reality is more conflicted.

Each of these statements is also a divine revelation… of what Jesus is providing.

He adds a metaphor to explain who he is to us. “I am the Bread of life. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the Vine. I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Life. I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

He is the Bread… Light… Vine… Good Shepherd. Each of these speaks to our souls… in different ways… about who Jesus is in relationship to us.

Each is an invitation to know him… and more importantly…to receive him as such.

Let us open our hearts and minds to these life-changing revelations.

Opening Prayer: Want to know you… as you want to know us.

As is often the case, Jesus speaks into the situation at hand.

In this case… he had massive crowds following him… and one late afternoon when a crowd followed him across the Sea of Galilee, the obvious need for food arose as it was late and there was no place to get food… Jesus was offered a boys lunch.. and from it miraculously multiplies a few fish and loaves of bread…and fed somewhere between 5,000 to 15,000 lives. He and his disciples then “cross to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee” which is about 8 miles wide. Soon after we come to this dialogue with those who followed him.

Here we have a more extended …but engaging text…

John 6:25-35, 38-40, 48-58

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" 26 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs 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. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval." 28 Then 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 miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" 32 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, 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 he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.