The Bread of Life


Sermon by Billy Dempsey on July 26, 2021 John 6:51-71

Thank you, Edward. We can turn our attention to John chapter 6. I have listed a 20-verse section of John 6 for us to read. I really want to concentrate on the last six or so verses, so we’re going to go there, beginning our reading with verse 66. I’ll be pulling information in from the earlier sections, in fact from all over John chapter 6. Before we read, let’s pray.

Father, this is Your Word, and so we ask that You would still our hearts. Help us to draw from Your Word, Father, as we hear Your Word and we hear Your Word explained, that we would hear Your voice and You would speak to us, that You would teach us, that You would shepherd us, indeed nourish us with this portion of Your Word now. Draw near, our Father, and bless us as Your Spirit teaches us. We make our prayer, Father, in Jesus’ name, amen.

John chapter 6, verses 66 and following:

“After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.’ He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.”

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

Let’s think about something – What does it mean to believe? That’s really what John chapter 6 is about. It’s about belief. Let me catch us up. We here are at really the climactic point in the verses that we just read, but to back up and to kind of catch us up to this climactic moment is John chapter 6 in which Jesus feeds the 5,000 – actually more than 5,000; 5,000 just numbered the men. There was quite a bit bigger crowd, I would think, there. Jesus has gone from Capernaum, across the arc of the upper portion of the Sea of Galilee to another spot to the east of Capernaum in which that multitude has followed Him. He has taught them there and then, at the end of that time, He breaks the bread and the fish that feed this fantastic multitude. At the end of that time, the disciples depart. Jesus Himself withdraws from the crowd because you see, verse 15, “Perceiving that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.” He sent His disciples on, in their boat, back across to Capernaum. He withdraws so that there is an ugly confrontation that can be avoided.

And the next day, here’s the crowd looking for Jesus and they start counting the boats. “Oh, He’s left. There’s a boat gone.” And so they then make their way back to Capernaum and see Jesus there. Verse 28 of chapter 6, “They said to Him” – well He says, verse 26, “They say, ‘We found You on the other side. Rabbi when did You come here?’” as He encounters them back in Capernaum. Verse 26, Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you, you are seeking Me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him, God the Father has set His seal.” Then they say, “Well what must we do to do the works of God?” That’s their response to what Jesus has said. Jesus hasn’t even answered the question. He confronts them right away. “You’re here because you want more loaves!” “This is the work of God,” Jesus said, “that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” What does it mean to believe?

And Jesus spends the rest of this chapter talking to these people about the meaning of belief. He uses some of the most vivid language of His entire ministry, some of the most vivid language of His entire teaching ministry. He says in verse 35, “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.” That’s not very vivid. What’s more vivid is verse 51. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I give for the life of the world is My flesh.” That’s more vivid. That certainly would arrest the attention of Jesus’ hearers. And so He goes one step further – verse 53. So Jesus says to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink.”

Often we begin to think about and talk about the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper right here. I don’t think that’s what Jesus has in mind. I don’t think He is preparing the way for the Lord’s Supper. We talk about the bread as the body broken and the cup as the blood of the new covenant. I don’t think that’s what’s in Jesus’ mind right here. He’s talking about belief. Certainly we talk about the Lord’s Supper as a sacrament of nourishment. Our spirits are nourished; our souls are nourished in those Gospel realities. But I don’t think Jesus is trying to establish a connection here between what He is saying and presenting Himself as the Bread of Life and that sacrament that He institutes later. There is something different here. I think He is still talking about belief. What does belief do? What does belief do? He’s trying to help these people understand if the work of God is to believe, what does belief do? What does belief accomplish?

Certainly there is that image of nourishment, but even more than that image of nourishment I think right here is that image of union. Jesus is talking with His hearers – who yesterday wanted to make Him king – He’s talking to His hearers about union. Belief creates union, certainly as the breakfast you ate a couple of hours ago is now united with you and can’t be separated from you, it’s part of you, Jesus is saying, “Belief unites you, belief unites you to Me.” Belief is not just an agreement with a set of principles. It’s not simply a commitment to an idea. But belief does something organic as well. It is those things. There’s data; there’s truth to sign off on. There is a commitment to claims, yes that’s true, but there is something organic also that happens when we believe, when we believe Jesus, when we trust in Him. There is an organic union that is created.

Paul talks about it. Paul uses this language. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Catch that phrase – “those who are in Christ Jesus.” Or he mentions it here twice in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. “Therefore,” verse 17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.” Verse 21, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” That phrase, “in Christ,” “in Him,” that peppers throughout Paul’s writing is exactly Paul’s explanation of what Jesus is saying right here. Faith, belief, unites us to Christ in an organic way. We become part of Him; He becomes part of us, so much so that Paul would tell the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who gave Himself for me.” Paul sees an inseparable intertwining in His life and the life of Christ. Why? Because he has been such a great guy all this time? No! Because he believes. Because he believes. And belief has created a union that’s intimate, organic, and can’t be separated. I can’t take your breakfast out of you. It’s there. It’s part of you. We’re united. That’s what belief does. Belief unites us to Christ.

Go back and read the upper room discourse. We recently preached a Sunday evening series through the upper room discourse. And about John 14, the middle part of John 14, I want you to start counting the number of times Jesus makes reference to, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me and we will be in you.” I want you to go back and count from the middle part of John 14 throughout the rest of that upper room discourse the number of times that Jesus makes reference to, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. We will be in you. My Father is in you.” That’s radical language, theologically radical language, but that’s what belief accomplishes. For Jesus to be saying that to those men at that time, He’s talking about a whole new world. That’s not part of the religion of Moses. That’s not part of what they’ve learned so far. That’s not old covenant theology. There’s reference to it. Jeremiah talks about a new heart. Ezekiel talks about a time when, “I will live in you.” God has promised it. It’s not totally foreign but that’s not the way of the old covenant. It’s the way of the new covenant. It’s the new and better way. That’s what belief establishes. It establishes a connection with God the Father and a connection with His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, that’s unbreakable, that’s more intimate than we’ve got words for. We know God. We commune with God. We talk with Him. We look to Him. He nourishes us. That’s why Jesus is using this nourishment image – “Eat My flesh. Drink My blood” – because of the nourishment of faith.

How could these apostles, these disciples who become apostles in the next season in Acts, how could they rejoice over persecution and beatings? How could Paul and Silas sing hymns of praise to God in a prison in Philippi after being beaten with the lictors’ rods? Because faith nourished them. The Bread of Life fed them. How can prisoners now, prisoners for their faith in horrific conditions, how do they not renounce, call the guard and say, “Okay, I’m done. I’ve had it. You win. Jesus is a liar”? How do they not? Because the Bread of Life feeds them. The Bread of Life is united to them. And they hold to Him as He holds to them. How do we live under horrific trials? Because the Bread of Life feeds us. The Bread of Life holds us, holds us as we hold to Him, and bears us up day after day, week after week, in sometimes extremely difficult circumstances. That’s what belief does. That’s what belief does. It’s not simply an intellectual exercise but there is an organic union between us and Christ as we trust in Him, as we believe Him, as we set our confidence on Him that He is true, His words are true, and He indeed is the Bread of God sent for the world.

Well that brings us to the verses that we just read as Jesus is talking to this crowd, this crowd of disciples, the crowd that John would describe as disciples, people who had followed Jesus. Maybe they had been part of a multitude that has followed Jesus and followed Jesus’ ministry in and around Capernaum very closely. They felt closely enough identified with Jesus that when He went someplace else they did too. They wanted to be close with Christ. They wanted to be around Him. They wanted to hear Him. They are disciples. And so Jesus begins to talk to them about belief and what belief is and what belief does and using this vivid language. And their response eventually in verse 60 – “This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?” Jesus almost doubles down on hard things to say. “If you take offense at this, then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life, but there are some of you who don’t believe.” Followers of Jesus who Jesus says, “There are some of you who don’t believe.”

Well verse 66 brings us to the upshot. We started with this a moment ago. “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” It was too much. It was too much, especially because here was the one they thought they could really make a stand with against the Romans and toss those nasty Gentiles out of the land of the promise of God and reestablish the reign of David, reestablish political Israel under this king. He wasn’t having that so He called them out for unbelief and they said, “This is too hard. This is too hard,” and began to melt away. They began to melt away. They no longer walked with Him.

That’s when Jesus turned to the twelve and says, “Do you want to go away as well?” A moment of reckoning, I suppose, as they are watching. Think about their perspective for just a moment. They have been watching these great multitudes come around and follow and it must have been somewhat heady and somewhat exciting because they don’t have a better idea about what Jesus is doing than the great multitudes do. And now they see that multitude melt away and they’ve got to be questioning, “What’s happening here? This is not the direction I thought things were going. What happens next?” And so of course Jesus is going to say, “Do you want to go too?” It helps us understand that faith doesn’t require an exhaustive understanding of everything that is happening because these men don’t have an exhaustive understanding of everything that is happening around them. But see Peter’s response. “To whom do we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter gets it and the twelve get it. They don’t understand a great deal, do they? There’s a lot of confusion and faith will yield knowledge as they listen to Jesus and especially as the Spirit comes to make all things clear. They don’t have the benefit of the Spirit yet. They’re listening to Jesus and it’s somewhat muddled at times. You read through the upper room discourse and you see their confusion, but they believe. They believe.

You and I can believe even if Jesus confuses us sometimes, even if we stand with our arms akimbo and say, “Jesus, I don’t know what You’re doing here in this situation, but I’m willing to trust You. Where else can I go? Who else have I got?” That’s what Peter is saying. “Who else have we got? You have the words of life.” That’s the other thing that belief does. It eliminates other options. If I believe Jesus, I’m not looking for other options. I’m not looking for another body of truth out there somewhere. I believe Jesus. I don’t always understand it, but I’m growing there. I believe Jesus. I trust Him. I’ve got confidence in Him. He has got the words of life and that’s what I need.

Think for a second about Elisha and the armies of God. You remember that story? Second Kings chapter 6. The city of Dothan is surrounded by the army of the king of Syria; they’re after Elisha. Gehazi, Elisha’s servant – “Master, what should we do? What should we do?” You know what Elisha prays – “Lord, open his eyes.” At that moment, Gehazi saw the armies of God filling the hills and the valleys. You know it doesn’t say that Elisha saw the armies of God. The passage said Gehazi did. Elisha knew they were there without seeing them. Gehazi needed to see them. Sometimes we need to see them. Elisha knew they were there without seeing them. Elisha was living on the words of eternal life. As you and I live on the words of eternal life, that’s enough for us. That’s enough for us. Jesus has spoken; I believe Him and I rest with Him.

Well as you can imagine, Peter’s profession of faith speaking for the twelve of great encouragement to Jesus’ heart. You hear in this statement of great joy, I think, from Jesus’ mouth – “Did I not choose you the twelve?” The language, the grammar includes a reflexive form of the verb, “Did I not choose you the twelve for myself?” That’s really the sense of the verb, “choosing;” the reflexive nature of it. “Did I not choose you, the twelve, for myself?” So there is a deep joy in the fellowship that they have together. A deep joy on Jesus’ part. And the fellowship around the words of eternal life; the fellowship around belief. His heart is warmed by their believing.

So there is a joy for Him there, but it’s not an unclouded joy, is it’? Look at the very next thing He says. “And yet, one of you is a devil” – what a strange thing to say. It’s a strange thing to say. Let’s just remember that Jesus lived all His days with the rejection of His people, the rejection of the religious authorities, the unbelief of His own brothers and their own type of rejection because of that. And even in this intimate group of twelve He has chosen there is rejection and there is betrayal and there is murder. This is about a year before Judas will actively betray Jesus into the hands of the religious establishment. For Jesus, the shadow of the cross is always there. The shadow of the cross – in every joy, in every step forward, in every moment in which He would feel like they’re beginning to get it, there’s always the shadow of the cross. His mission and His coming sacrifice is always before Him. He never gets away from it. That struggle that He knows is coming; He sees it from afar. That moment, those hours of alienation and isolation from His Father, that pleading in the garden – “Let this cup pass from Me.” The pain and the agony that He is to endure, it’s always there. It’s always there. That’s why Isaiah calls Him, “the man of sorrows, a man who is acquainted with grief” because of what He knows is His lot. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord. What a Savior, what a Savior, who in every waking moment is knowing that He is a day closer to that terrible time; that every exchange is seeing, “I live with my death right in front of Me and My most intimate group of men, My most intimate disciples.” What a Savior. What a Savior. He lives with the pain far longer than He ever experienced it. He lives with this reality, what it will cost Him, every day. For you and for me so that we can have the Bread of Life. That’s the Savior. That’s the Savior He is. That’s why He calls us to Himself because we have life nowhere else.

So as we think today about belief, understand that belief unites us to Him. Understand that belief calls us to eliminate options and calls us to declare, “Where else do we go? You have the words of life.” That’s so because a Savior lived in the shadows of His cross a long time before He was ever placed there. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we thank You for the Bread of Life Himself. We thank You, Lord Jesus, that You gave Yourself for us. We thank You that Your words are spirit and life and they give us life. And so our Father, would You indeed help us to pull that life into all our comings and goings, all our trials, all our heaviness, all our joys. Would they be joys that are seasoned with the life of the world to come that Jesus has bought for us. And so Father, we give You our thanks. We raise to You hearts in this room that don’t know that life yet. Would You bury these words deep within them? Would You call them to Yourself, folks who have not made this decision? Would You do a great work in those of us who have and let us know anew and afresh the reality of being fed and being united with Your own Son, the Bread of Life. Hear us. We make our prayer, Father, in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.

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