FEEDING ON THE BREAD OF LIFE
JOHN 6:51-58
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: ALL YOU CAN EAT PLACES
1. I think that one of the wisest decisions ever made in the food industry was the idea of the “All You Can Eat Buffet.” Many restaurants only offer this option and it has proven to be very successful.
2. For years, whenever we went out to eat with my (now deceased) Father-in-Law – this was the only type of restaurant he preferred, especially fish/shrimp places.
3. I must admit I’m also a fan of Golden Corral, Ryan’s, Grand Buffet, and Hartz Chicken Buffet. There are very distinct reasons why many of us like the buffet style restaurants:
a. To see the food before we eat it;
b. Observe the quality of the food beforehand;
c. Choose our portion size according to our tastes;
d. If you want a little extra desert and fewer vegetables- it’s not a problem; you can eat as healthy or unhealthy as you want to;
e. And finally, because it’s ‘All You Can Eat!’
B. TEXT
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?” 53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” John 6:51-58
C. THESIS
1. Jesus’ words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood sound, if we took them in a physical sense, like behavior that God said was against His Law – cannibalism and drinking blood. This is obviously NOT what Jesus was saying, as shown in verse 63, “The words that I have spoken to you are spiritual. They are life.” God’s Word Trans.
2. Jesus was speaking of how we need to spiritually absorb His words and His presence, with the result that they will impart to us God’s “Zoe-Life.”
3. So we’re going to look at 5 aspects of the Bread of Heaven (manna), the necessity of eating it daily, and two of the ways this can be done. The title of this message is “Feeding on the Bread of Life.”
I. FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MANNA/BREAD
There are five ways in which the manna is similar to feeding on Jesus Christ and His Word:
A. IT IS DELICIOUS TO THE SOUL/TASTE
1. It was like wafers made with honey (Ex. 16:31). It was like fresh oil. God didn’t give them convenience store food. He “rained down bread from heaven” for them. Heaven’s bread undoubtedly was delicious to the taste.
2. Ezekiel said the scroll gave him to eat was as sweet as honey in his mouth. The Psalmist called the manna “angels’ food” (78:25), and food that falls from the table of cherubim and seraphs must be incredible!
B. IT WILL ALWAYS SATIFY YOU
1. It was always the right amount. “He that gathered much had nothing over and he that gathered little had no lack” (Ex. 16:18). The manna seemed to shrink or swell to be exactly what was needed to satisfy the hunger.
2. God’s Word & Presence will always be enough; “My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
C. IT MAY NOT LOOK LIKE ANYTHING GRAND
1. The manna was a small, round thing, like coriander seed, or like the hoarfrost. Though it seems insignificant, just a little bit of God’s Word packs an unseen power.
2. If you only find one new thought or one fresh idea, pick it up, and put it into your soul. You will find that your spiritual hunger will be satiated and your strength renewed!
D. HUMILITY
1. It was always down low. Imagine seeing the Israelites go out of their tents seeking manna. You would see them stooping down to pick it up. Most of them would be down on their knees gathering it.
2. That’s the way God wants us to gather our heavenly food – to gather it on our knees, stooping low with humility and in prayerfulness. May His Word be sweet to our taste!
E. IT’S ANOINTED BY THE DEW OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1. Before the manna formed, a heavy dew would come from God (Ex. 16:13-14). This moisture kept the manna supple. The dew represents the Holy Spirit. He reveals the Word, He anoints the Word.
2. As one old preacher said, “If you have the Spirit without the Word, you BLOW up. If you have the Word without the Spirit, you DRY up But if you have the Spirit AND the Word – you GROW up!”
II. A DAILY NECESSITY: FEEDING ON CHRIST
A. YOU MUST DEVELOP AN APPETITE
1. What would happen if you were invited to someone’s house for dinner, and an hour before the meal you ate a bag of chips, a Coke, and a package of Oreo cookies? After all this junk food, you’d have little appetite for the good stuff!
2. Paul tells us, “you can’t drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too” (1 Cor. 10:21). Only God’s word and presence can satisfy your spiritual hunger. A lot of Christians live their lives on empty, because they worldly junk food.
B. DAILY FEED ON CHRIST
1. Every day you need to eat. If you would have spiritual life, you must feed it. Christ himself is the food to feed your soul. He is that Bread of life: you must feed on Him. The Israelites had to gather the manna morning by morning. Don’t neglect the Word of God; search through it. Get up early in the morning to read your Bible.
2. In John 6:57, the Greek word translated “feed” is trogo and means “to eat, to gnaw,” and emphasizes our need to constantly “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8), to imbibe, absorb, consume, devour, incorporate, and assimilate the Person of Jesus into our beings by worship, prayer, reading the Word, communing with Him, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and receiving the Lord’s supper.
3. “God has given us eternal life, and THIS LIFE IS IN HIS SON. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” 1 John 5:11-12. Jesus is the ONLY SOURCE of spiritual life! We must get connected into the Vine to have life.
C. THE 2 MAIN WAYS TO EAT OF CHRIST
1. Seek Him in prayer and worship. Wait on Him like Martha’s sister Mary did, who sat at His feet and heard His words. Or as David did out on the hills of Bethlehem, singing to God on his harp. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you!
2. The second way is to meditate on God’s Word. Since many aren’t familiar with how to do this, I’d like to spend extra time discussing this (next section).
III. MEDITATE ON THE WORD
A. WRONG CONCEPT OF MEDITATION
1. When most Christians think of meditation, they think of the practices of Eastern religions, wherein the mind is “emptied.”
2. But Biblical meditation is much different. In Biblical meditation, instead of emptying the mind, the practitioner fills his/her mind with thoughts of God and/or scripture and ponders upon them.
3. “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes” Ps. 119:97-99.
4. There are 21 mentions of the word “meditate,” most about God’s Word, miracles, or God Himself. “I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds” Ps. 77:12. “While I meditated, the fire burned” Ps. 39:3.
5. When Paul told Timothy to "meditate upon these things, give yourself wholly to them" (1 Tim. 4:15), he used the Greek word, "meletao," which means "to take care of," by implication, "revolve" in the mind.
6. As of a precious jewel, we are to turn the truths about Christ over and over in our minds and souls. Contemplate them. Feed on them. Draw the life out (nutrients) of them.
B. MEDITATION SIMILAR TO DIGESTION
1. Meditation is similar to digestion. Food will do us no good if it’s not digested well. Digestion doesn’t just occur in the stomach, it start with us chewing up our food well.
2. Digestion breaks food down to its most basic forms and through the chemical reorganizations of our bodies, the raw materials are reconstituted into new substances we need.
3. Charles Spurgeon said of those who DON’T meditate on the Word; “Instead of putting facts into the [wine] press of meditation, and fermenting them until they can draw out inferences, they leave them to rot and perish. They extract none of the sweet juice of wisdom from the precious fruits of the vine-tree. A man who reads only a tenth part as much, but who takes the grapes of Eschol that he gathers, and squeezes them by meditation, will learn more in a week than your pendant will in a year, because he muses on what he reads."
4. CHEWING THE CUD
a. Cows, sheep and goats all have four(4) stomachs. The food is initially chewed and swallowed to the first stomach.
b. That which is not adequately digested, is brought back to the beast’s mouth for a second chewing. This helps in its eventual digestion.
c. This is what meditation does: it gives the Holy Spirit time to expand, in the mind of the reader/ hearer, the great vistas and meanings God encapsulized in the Word, which descends from the tiniest particles (quarks) to the furthest expanse of the universe!
5. “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple” Ps. 119:130. Let’s thoroughly digest the words of Jesus by meditating on them!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. There was a wealthy business man with an only son. This son was undisciplined and couldn’t seem to keep a job. The father put him on a yearly stipend, but the father noticed that the son only came to see him when he wanted to pick up his yearly check. The father missed him and was sad.
2. One year the son showed up & received a very small check. He went into his father’s study and said, “What’s the deal? This check is really small. Don’t you care if I have enough to eat?”
3. The father answered, “It’s not because I DON’T care, but because I DO CARE about you! I’m restructuring your payments to once a month. You will have to come over and spend time with me every month if you want to get your check!”
4. At first the son was angry, but after a few months of hanging out with his dad, he realized how much his dad loved him and his heart went out again to his father. Eventually his father became his best friend and he changed his life to one of honor. This is a picture of how God is treating us.
5. Why does God require that we go to Him each day to get our daily bread? Because He’s mean? No! It’s because He loves us and wants us to spend time with Him. The only way we’re going to be changed will be by being in His presence!
B. THE CALL
1. How many of you want to begin a new discipline of gathering the fresh manna every morning?
2. How many want God to change some areas that haven’t had change in a while?
3. How many want to begin to walk with Jesus? Prayer.
