Theme: We need the food that comes from heaven
Text: Ex. 16:2-4, 9-15; Eph. 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35
The worsening food situation, especially in the developing nations, is one of the major problems facing the world today. We have all seen pictures of starving and dying children from areas devastated by famine and in Africa millions die yearly from hunger and starvation. The sad aspect of this problem is that it cannot always be blamed on the failure of the rains. It is very often the result of civil wars, bribery and corruption, mismanagement, greed and lack of concern for human life. Starvation also occurs in the developed nations where there is an abundance of food and we sometimes read of people who have abundant food and yet die from starvation. They die from an eating disorder and many of us are familiar with the one known as anorexia. Those who suffer from this disease are so scared of putting on weight that they would go to great lengths to prevent it. They would often induce vomiting after eating and end up starving to death. But eating disorders go beyond the physical food we eat. We have all inherited an eating disorder known as unbelief that results in the refusal to eat the food of life and a preference for the delicacies of death. It was unbelief that made Adam and Eve sin in the Garden of Eden by eating of the only tree that they had been forbidden to eat from. They were allowed to eat of every tree, including the tree of life but not of the tree of knowing good and evil. Instead of eating from the Tree of Life and living forever, they ate from the forbidden tree. Their action led to spiritual death and separation from the tree of life and all of us have inherited this eating disorder. Although man no longer had access to the tree of life the hunger and the appetite remained. This is the driving force behind the search for the wonder drug that can cure every disease, the wonder diet that can prevent cancer and heart disease, or the wonder food that can be eaten without putting on weight. This search is really intended to lead us to the right food, the living Bread. Christ is the food that deals with our spiritual eating disorder. We need this food that comes from heaven.
Man consists of a physical material part, the body and an invisible immaterial part, the spirit and the soul. Both parts, when alive, need to be nourished. Just as our physical body needs to be kept strong and healthy, so also does the spiritual body. The physical body needs food and physical exercise to satisfy physical hunger and sustain life. Without the right kind of food a person will become malnourished and eventually die of starvation. We also need nourishment for the spiritual body but this body first needs spiritual life. Just as someone who is dead physically does not need any food so someone who is dead spiritually has no use for spiritual nourishment. And just as a physical body needs food to satisfy hunger and sustain life so a spiritual body needs spiritual food to satisfy spiritual hunger and sustain spiritual life.
Because of the sin of Adam all of us are born spiritually dead and need spiritual life. Only the Living bread can give us this life. How we receive this life can be illustrated in the behaviour of a group of tourists whose boat overturned above a waterfall. As they were being carried down the current people on the shore managed to float a rope out to them. Some of the men seized it. Others held on to the boat and refused to let go and the rest, seeing a great log come floating by, let go of the boat and clung to it. The men who held onto the rope were safely pulled to the shore. But the others who believed that they had a better chance went right over the fall to their death. The boat and the log were of no benefit to them because what they needed for their safety was something to connect them to the people on the shore. Anything that does not connect us to Christ will fail us. Material things, good deeds, Church membership and Church attendance cannot save us. Only our relationship with Christ can save us and we need to be sure of this relationship. Some time ago I was watching a quiz on TV and a contestant was asked what the Devil tempted Eve with. He did not have to give the answer all by himself but choose from four answers given to him - riches, beauty, knowledge, or a wardrobe of clothes. I believe everyone here knows the answer. The contestant, however, did not know the answer. All he knew was that it was not a wardrobe of clothes because there were no wardrobes in those days. He had the choice to ask a second person to assist him but his friend also was not sure of the answer. The surprising thing was that this person was well informed about many other things. This man, like many others, needs the food that comes from heaven. They need to have a relationship with Christ. All of us need to have a relationship with Christ to be saved from destruction. We are all born spiritually dead but can become spiritually alive by coming to Christ and accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour. Only Christ can give us spiritual life and sustain this life.
Christ declares, “I am the bread of life.” He uses the revealed name of God in the Old Testament, the name “Yahweh, I Am Who I Am”. It is a name that reveals God’s eternal and unchanging nature. It reveals that in God past, present and future are united in an eternal present - an eternal I am. Jesus Christ by describing Himself with the words “I am” is saying He is God. “I am who I am” is only fully revealed in the words “I am the door. I am the good shepherd; I am the way, the truth and the life, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life.” Jesus Christ is the key to our spiritual birth and our spiritual survival. He is the only one who is able to satisfy our spiritual hunger and He does this through His Word. We cannot say that we love Christ and not love His Words. In fact the measure of our love for Christ is the measure of our love for His Word. The Word of God reveals Christ.
The Jews had the greatest sign before them, the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet they did not recognise Him. They were more interested in His miracles, like when He fed 5000 people with five loaves and two small fish. This miracle involved a true act of creation, which no mere man could perform yet they still wanted a sign. They wanted a sign they could compare to the manna that came down from heaven. The manna fell every day except the Sabbath day for forty years to feed the Israelites and then stopped. The true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ, lasts forever and feeds the whole world. So what sign could be greater than Christ Himself, God coming down from heaven as a man, as the true spiritual bread? Today we are still more interested in miracles than in Christ. We treat the Bread of life in the same way as the Israelites treated the Manna in the wilderness. Just as the Israelites became bored with the Manna and longed for the food they ate in Egypt so many Christians have become bored with the Bread of Life and long for the food they ate in the world. Indeed the Church is under considerable pressure these days from both within and without to add the food of the world to their menu. We look to Jesus and ask Him for things in this life, but the Lord wants us to expand our horizons and open up our vision to see that there is more to this life than just this life. Jesus Christ alone is the bread of life and should be the focus of our attention. But just as bread must be eaten to sustain life so Christ must be invited into our life to give us spiritual life and sustain it. We receive spiritual life when we come to Jesus Christ.
Man can only satisfy his spiritual hunger and sustain spiritual life by a right relationship with Jesus Christ. We come to no other but the One who declares, “He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” Receiving spiritual life is allowing Christ to dwell in one’s heart to the extent that He takes control of one’s life and reigns as Lord in every area of one’s life. After receiving spiritual life we must sustain that life with the Word of God. His Word is as essential to the believer as milk is to a newborn child. No normal parent would deny his or her baby the nourishment it needs to grow. They make sure the baby is fed daily. Without spiritual nourishment we become malnourished and fail to reach Christ’s goal for our life – the goal of spiritual maturity.
Jesus stresses the importance of spiritual food in His encounter with the devil in the wilderness. At the end of His forty-day fast He was hungry and the Devil tempted Him by suggesting that He turn stone into bread. Jesus replied by quoting from the Old Testament that ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ The obvious message is that we need both physical and spiritual bread. The eternal value of the bread of life is celebrated in the Lord’s Supper. This meal was instituted at the time of the celebration of the Passover, which was in remembrance of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery. The original Passover meal was composed of roast lamb and unleavened bread. The blood of the lamb had been applied to the doorposts and lintels for their redemption. The meal was for their salvation, healing and health. Eating at the Lord’s Table not only reveals our relationship with Christ, it reinforces and deepens it. It is a source of God’s grace for the forgiveness of sins, health, eternal life and every problem that comes our way. As believers let us hold unto the Word and unto the promise that the Bread of Life offers. It is a promise that no other Bread in this world can deliver. The promise is for both this life and the life to come. We need to feed on Christ for Him to become part of us.
Today, many people are trying to satisfy the hunger in their lives with what the world offers and they are discovering it just doesn’t satisfy. The hunger remains. I don’t know what each person here is looking at to bring satisfaction into their life, but I do know this, if it is not Jesus Christ then that person is going to come up hungry every time. Only Jesus Can Satisfy The Soul. We need the food that comes from heaven. We need spiritual nourishment just as we need physical nourishment. We cannot live without food because God has given us a physical body. In the food are all the nutrients necessary for the sustenance of our physical body. If all we do is look at the food, it does us no good. There must also be the physical activity of eating. Still more, the food must be digested before the body can use the nutrients. What happens physically is simply a mirror of what must happen spiritually. Spiritually too it is necessary that we receive nourishment that must be digested in order to benefit us. When we receive Christ, by the wonder of regeneration, the Spirit of Christ gives us life. Regeneration is not a physical process - it is a spiritual one. God by His Holy Spirit changes our life from spiritual death to spiritual life. And this new spiritual life needs spiritual nourishment, the Living bread. Jesus Christ is the only Bread on earth from which a person may eat and not die, a bread that gives eternal life. He is God’s gift to us. Billy Graham once said that one of the great mysteries of redemption is that while many bad men will go to heaven, many good men will go to hell. This is because like the guilty thief, who died on the cross next to Jesus, they, the bad men, accepted God’s gift of eternal life. The guilty thief in his dying moments simply prayed ‘remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ This prayer contained all the elements of saving faith. He accepted Jesus as king. He believed the king would have a kingdom and he asked to be included in that kingdom. Is Jesus Christ your King? Is He your Saviour and Lord? We all need this food that comes from heaven. Amen!
