We are going to begin today in our text in verse 36 of John Chapter 6 where Jesus is faced with unbelief.  But that’s a bit ironic isn’t it…to say that these folks were face to face with God yet they did not believe. 

We talked about this last week…The fact that belief in God is more than accepting the existence of God as fact….True belief causes action.

To understand what true belief is, start asking yourself two simple, but very important questions.  First: "Do you believe in God?" and Second: "Do you believe God?" These are not asking the same thing. The first, "Do you believe in God?" is aimed at whether or not you believe God exists.  Most readily answer that they do believe there is a God…The second question, "Do you believe God?" is pointed at not only believing that He exists, but just as importantly, believing that what He says is true.

A good example of this is a doctor.  You go to a doctor and they tell you what is wrong with you and what you must do in order to be cured.  Whether you do it or not will determine whether or not you truly believe the doctor.  And so it is with God. 

Jesus is dealing with unbelief.  Not unbelief in God, but unbelief of God.
 
If we truly believe that what God says is true, we will act on that belief. But if we merely believe that God exists, we will be indifferent, and let what he says go in one ear and out the other, just like we would do with the doctor at the hospital.

Most all of the issues that I see and counsel are based on one simple fact…that many people believe in God, but don’t believe God. They don’t believe that He will do what He said. Jesus said that unless people repent they will perish. What does it mean to repent? It means to confess your sins, and forsake your sins. But too many people who say they believe in God, read those important words of Jesus, and show that they don’t really believe God because they disregard them…how so?  They don’t grow…they don’t turn from sin…

And remember what we already concluded, that true belief causes action. This means that one who really does believe that what God says is true, will repent, or will totally and completely turn their back on all they know is wrong, and turn toward all they know is right.

Eph 5 says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.  Do you sir?  Do you believe?  Eph 5 also says wives respect your husbands.  Do you ma’am?  Do you believe?

Col 3 says to set your minds on things above not on earthly things…and psalms says to meditate on the word of God both day and night…do you?  Do you believe?

1 Timothy 5:17 says “let the elders who labor in the word and doctrine be worthy of double honor.”  Do you live this out?  Do you serve your elders?  Do you believe?

Jesus said in Mark 1:15, “Repent, and believe.”  Have you repented?  Do you believe?

These folks here, they obviously believe He is there with them, they obviously believe He exists, but man o man, they just don’t believe what He is saying…and we’ll see that today…

Verse 36, But I say to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.  (Oh what a wonderful and timeless promise!)

So we see God’s sovereignty and mans’ responsibility meet in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus says ‘all that the Father gives Me (God’s sovereignty) shall come to Me, and the one who comes (mans’ responsibility), I will surely receive with open arms.  And He says this is the will of the My Father. 

This doctrine is hard for us to naturally reconcile.  It is certainly hard to accept that predestination, God’s perfect/complete sovereignty and mans’ capacity to choose, mans’ responsibility are not mutually exclusive.  The Bible teaches them both and again, they come together in perfect harmony at the cross of Calvary.

Even with that set aside for a moment, it still requires humility and submission to accept.  Why do I say that?  Well, because if all God requires is for you to place your trust in Him, believe in Him, then as Spurgeon said it…”away go the doctrines of penance and confession, away goes the paying for the pardon of your sin.  If grace be free and soverign in the hand of God, down goes the doctrine of priestcraft, away go buying and selling indulgences and such like things; they are swept to the four winds of heaven, and the efficacy of good works is dashed in pieces like Dagon before the ark of the Lord…the sole duty of men is to repent and believe.

Jesus has said to these folks who are hungry, who have been searching, the work of God is to believe, He has called...you come.

Verse 38, For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.  This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.

Jesus says, “…this is the will of the Father.”  So many struggle with, “am I in God’s will…God’s perfect will?”  My answer, ‘are you walking with Whom He has sent?”  God the Father’s will for you is to see His Son, to believe in His Son, to accept His Son, and to come to the knowledge of the Truth…to have eternal life, and finally to be raised up at the last day unto everlasting life with Him!

The truth is that God wants the absolute best for you…well not me Matt, I’m offensive to Him.  No, child, no you’re not.  Your offenses have been dealt with…and freedom from the destructive power of sin has been provided…it is us who choose to wrap ourselves in chains…and truly God’s will for you is to be free!
 
These people have come so far, yet they do not believe…and so they remain hungry.  Let me ask you, what did God ever have that He didn’t Himself create?  Nothing but Jesus > and you were worth giving all He had for…it’s time to face God friend.  It’s time to receive His grace and live for Him.  His love compels you does it not?  His goodness stops you dead in your tracks, does it not? 

Verse 40, And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

What does God the Father desire for you?  1 Timothy 2:4 tells us that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth…so that one day this promise of Jesus may be fulfilled, that we would all stand together in everlasting life upon the sea of glass, like unto crystal, delivered from evil, delivered from unrighteousness, pain, strife, all that defiles and truly alive forevermore.

Hebrews chapter 2 tells us that when Jesus presents us to the Father at the completion of the age of the church, when the fullness of the gentiles has been completed, at the last day, He will say “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”  (Hebrews 2:13)  What an amazing hope…and that hope is founded upon the finished work of Christ…alone!

Verse 41, The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, ‘I am the bread which came down from heaven.’  It’s interesting that the word here complained can also be well translated murmured which is exactly what the Jews did in the wilderness when God had fed them with the manna. 

It’s been over a thousand years yet the heart of the Jews, the people of God, the decendents of Israel…their heart is to complain against their God.  Ah but God’s grace is unstoppable.  His patience, immeasurable…we’ll see Jesus continue to reason with them, continue to teach them, continue to plead with them to come and believe and be filled.  Just like He does with us today…



Verse 42, “And they said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?  How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”  (actually, they’re wrong…He’s not simply ‘this man Jesus’ and no they don’t know His Father and mother…they may know His mother…but Jesus said if you knew My Father then you would have known Me because I came down from My Father…so no, ya’ll don’t know)

Verse 43, Jesus therefore answered and said to them, ‘Do not murmur among yourselves.  No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.  All are given the capacity to choose Jesus.  All are given free will.  But, it’s been said that water will not flow uphill…if one refuses to accept the truth that was spoken by Isaiah that the whole of man is sick and all of man is without strength…from the sole of the foot even to the top of the head, there is no soundness, nothing good…then the heart cannot hear the voice of One who is able to deliver…

God’s will is that all would hear, all would turn to Him and be healed, but the fact is, God will not force Himself upon His own children and therefore in being rejected, is disallowed by man’s ability to choose to draw them to Himself.  But to anyone who will hear the truth, (which is so very obvious), God draws them to the Bread of life, the doorway to eternal victory, to His Son, Jesus Christ.






Verse 45, It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’  Therefore everyone who has heard (with their heart) and learned (the truth) from the Father, comes to Me.  Jesus confirms with the scriptures what He has just said, what we have just covered, and this is a reference to Isaiah 54:13.

Verse 46, Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.  Jesus again testifying clearly to His Deity, His otherness, because the Jews would know very well that written in the pages of their Torah, Exodus 33:20, God said to Moses that no man may see Him and live…but Jesus is no man, He is the God-Man.

Verse 47, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.  Again, Jesus calls out to them and to us.  Believe in Me.  He continues, I am the bread of life.  He again repeats His first of seven I am statements in this Gospel.

Understand, these statements that Jesus is making are clear and they are just slicing to the hearts of the Jews!  They would immediately associate Jesus’ “I AM” statements to the conversation between Moses and God recorded for us in Exodus 3:14 where Moses said, “who should I say sent me?  Under whose authority should I make a demand of the people?”  And God said to Moses, “tell them I AM THAT I AM.”

We get that story wrong don’t we?  We tell the story that Moses went to God and asked Him “from whom should I tell Pharoah that I’ve come?”  But notice, it was what should he say to God’s children!  So applicable to this conversation now between Jesus and the Jews as they do not hear Him, why?  They’re not His!
Rather than following Him, accepting Him, this enrages them and just cuts them to pieces.  So interesting, in the Greek this I AM statement is translated ego but in the Hebrew, you know what it is?  Hayah and God said it twice!  I AM that I AM > hayah hayah! Chopping them all to pieces kung-fu style!

This also shows the progressive revelation of God to His children.  The Book of Hebrews starts out, “God, who at various times and in various ways showed Himself in the past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, showed Himself to us by His Son…”  Progressive revelation.  He said to Moses, I AM that I AM but now as we continue to study Jesus’ words, God says I AM the bread of life.  He’ll later say, “I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way the truth and the life, I am the true vine.”  It’s like an outline in the OT and then the completion as we study Jesus. 

And so Jesus says, I am the bread of life.  Bread, such a basic element of life.  What’s at the foundation of the food pyramid?  Bread…And listen, without Jesus as the base, the foundation of our faith, our salvation, our very lives…we simply are not alive and even more importantly, our religion is useless (as James points out in 1:26 or worldly religion).

Jesus continues this thought, look at the next verse…







Verse 49, Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.  (Kosmos – this word speaks of organization and understand this world, this present system has been arranged under the prince of the power of the air using forces such as greed, selfishness, ambition and pleasure.  This world system is imposing and powerful even unto military might.  But in all this, it’s dead.  It gives no life, it takes life!  Be Jesus came to do away with it all…now and forever!)

A very intriguing aspect about Jesus’ identification with bread is the process by which bread is made.  A seed of grain is planted in the ground.  After some weeks, it springs up and grows into maturity.  Then it is cut down, ground up, and placed in the fire.  After, it is thoroughly baked, and then it feeds, it fills, it strengthens, and it is enjoyed by humanity.

That is exactly what happened to Jesus.  A seed was planted in the womb of Mary miraculously.  God Incarnate came forth and grew to maturity.  He was then cut down as He was pinned to the cross; ground up as He was cursed and spat upon; and placed in the fire of God’s wrath as He absorbed all of our sin.  And because He had been planted, cut down, ground up and burned in the very fire of God’s wrath, you and I have the opportunity to eat of Him daily – to take Him in, become one with Him, never tiring of Him, always receiving strength and sustenance for the challenges of any given day. 

Truly Jesus is the Bread of Life.  And the fact is, all men are eating something…taking in something…either the bread of corruption that the world has to offer, or the bread of life that only is offered through Jesus.  So the question is, which bread are you eating today?  Is it something you found in the refrigerator of religion, or the pantry of pride and pleasure?  Just gonna leave you hungry, unsatisfied, weak…sick and it will have no power to save…the bible says that it will leave you ashamed even at the revelation of Jesus Christ at the last day.

Or are you taking in the real thing, eating of the true Bread of Life, Jesus?  Let’s just say for one month, all you ate was junk…fast food…they actually made a movie of this and what happened.  The man became sick, moody, sluggish…and similarly if you’re diet consists of the things of this world, then you’re short-fused, selfish, restless, hungry, you feel unclean, guilty, contentious, envious (it’s all there in Galatians 5:19-21).

Ah but the True Bread of Life, taking Jesus in, taking a seat at the Father’s table, you’ll be calm, at peace, freed from the power and penalty of sin, and that realization, as you grow in the things of God will produce love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…and eyes that see truth, ears that hear eternity…and a heart filled with the glory and grace of the one true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.