I want to take a look at Psalm 4 6-8, and then we're reading from John 6, looking at the theme of Jesus, the bread of life. And I read Psalm 4 earlier. I just want to go back to the last couple of verses from Psalm 4, verses 6-8. There are many who say, who will show us some good, lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord, you have put more joy in my heart than they have when they're grain and wine abound. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. And then, reading from John 6, it's a fairly lengthy passage, and just sort of set the scene. Jesus has fed the 5,000, and then he departed with the disciples. They had instant with Christ walking on the water to greet the disciples. The next morning, the multitudes who had been said, many of them had gotten into little boats and they had crossed the sea, and they're out looking for Jesus. As scripture says, they wanted to go and find him and make him king. And then, in verse 26, picking up with verse 26, I'm reading from the English standard version. Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor 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 said his seal. Then they said to him, what must we do that we, of what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the man in the wilderness as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, sir, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me, shall not hunger, whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you, do you have seen me and yet do not believe? All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know, how does he now say I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets and they all, they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he was from God, he has seen the Father. Let's pray. Father, as we come to this passage, we realize there's a lot here. We will not cover it all today. We just pray that your spirit would instruct us and take that which is your truth and apply it to our hearts. In a way that would be honoring to you and transform us by it. For ask in Jesus name. Amen. My guess is that you've all sort of experienced something as I have. You've had a great meal. You know, after dinner and maybe you're sitting down, you're watching something on television. And here comes the commercial. A commercial that is, you know, showing all the angles of that triple bacon cheeseburger or the pizza deluxe with the extra gooey cheese or, you know, dairy queen blizzard or the sonic foot long chili dog with tater tots. And you're sitting there and maybe you ate a couple hours ago and you hadn't really thought about, you know, being hungry. Boy, you see this on TV and feel like me, you're thinking, man, I'm hungry. You know, it just sort of kind of flings a craving on you right there. And because the reality is that we eat, but we're going to get hungry again. Somewhere down the road. Some of us, you know, get hungry more often than others. But no matter how many times we eat and no matter how full we may be, we're always going to get hungry again. That's just the way we're built. One meal will not do us forever. Well, as I mentioned, in the passage we just read, this follows Jesus feeding the multitude. Scripture says they were filled. I mean, they were all full and they were, they were celebrating. I'm sure they were celebrating. They're out there. They didn't have food for the whole crowd. Jesus does a miracle. Feast the 5,000. They have food left over. And now, you know, it's hours later, it's further than next, even in the next morning. So they're hungry again. They're looking where is it? Okay, where's the guy who provided all the food? We got to go find him because we're hungry again. And they thought he, you know, he did a great job there. And so they, Scripture says, you know, they wanted to take him and crown him king, but Jesus has a different agenda for them. Jesus has an agenda for them for their soul hunger. Verse 35, a familiar statement of Jesus is one that says, in the bread of life, whoever comes to me, shall not hunger, whoever believes in me, shall never thirst. This verse, this statement is one of the I am statements of Jesus in the gospel of John. There are seven of them in the gospel of John. As you read through John, you'll see these statements that he comes in these pictures, these metaphors that Jesus gives that I am the bread of life. He says, I am the light of the world. And John, chapter 8, he says, I am the door. And John 10 says, I am the good shepherd in John 10. He says, I am the resurrection and the life in John 11. He says, I am the way, the truth of the life in John 14. And then I am the true vine in John 15. Each image is rich in meaning. Each image shows us a picture of who Christ is. And it is amazing because no human being has ever talked about himself this way. I mean, this is just something that you don't hear normally. If you go to work tomorrow, some guy comes walking in, some lady comes along and says, I am the bread of life. I am the door. I am the vine. I am the resurrection of the life. You're going to think, this guy is a little daft. Well, Jesus not only presents these images, but in each one he teaches and he talks about it and the significance of it. And you can do a series, obviously, on the whole thing, but they were going to consider Jesus the bread of life. And we're going to look at this in terms of the importance of the bread, how we get the bread, how to know if you've come to Jesus as the bread of life. The first thing is the importance of the bread. Now, one of the things that this sermon takes me back a number of years because this was the first sermon that I preached in France. We've been in France for several years and it took a while to get up to a preaching stage in the language. And so I worked on this sermon in French and had a tutor and we worked through all sorts of stuff. It was the first sermon that I preached, and I could say sadly, or maybe happily, I no longer have that sermon on file. I looked forward and didn't have it on the computer, couldn't even find a paper copy of it. So, but it takes me back and I know one of the things that I mentioned when talking about the bread of life was I had to say something about French bread because if you're in France and you're talking about Jesus the bread of life, you've got to make an illusion to French bread because the French take their bread very seriously. I mean, you know, they're really big in the bread and it's good bread. And there's nothing like fresh bread. Nothing like a fresh baguette or a fresh croissant when you're walking past the little boulangerie and they've just made it fresh and the aroma comes out the door. I mean, you just want to stop and go get something because it's just, it is so good. And Jesus, he's talking about himself as being the bread of life. And I don't think things have changed since Jesus preached this, you know, I don't think things changed from prayer to that one thing has remained the same that bread is a dietary staple for every culture. It is an essential staple in every culture, typically because it's relatively inexpensive. People can make it at home and different types of bread, you know, depending on the part of the world you go to what the bread may come in a different form, but bread is essential for the rich or poor. Everyone needs bread and enjoys bread by saying I am the bread of life. Jesus is showing that he is necessary and relevant for every, every class of society, for everyone in society. And without bread, people don't. That's what the gist is. We need bread. We need Jesus. Bread is necessary for life. And he is claiming to be the one that we can't live without. Now let me ask you this, are you coming to Jesus for some other reason than coming to him as the bread of life? Are you coming to Jesus with some other agenda? Just as the people in John, we see the description that they came to Jesus. They wanted to make him king. Jesus had a different agenda. And so today we may come to Jesus for a different reason. We come to Jesus. We want to make, you know, Jesus an icon make him a mascot for whatever our agenda is. You see that in the political realm. You see that in spiritual realms. That everybody sort of wants to get a little bit of a corner on the Jesus market in our society today. It's not that way in a lot of cultures, but here it's still pretty much that way. And I'll read a short excerpt from the play The Cotton Patch Gospel. And this is after Jesus, Peter has made the profession that, you know, you were the Christ. I said, you are the living Lord's man, you're the son of God. Jesus says, and this is a, this is a, it's not a translation. It's not really even a paraphrase, but it goes like this. You're a beautiful Simon and rock Johnson putter there. I'm giving you the keys to the city of God. And you remember that when you take me to Atlanta to be lynched. And Simon, Peter says, Jesus, I'm sorry. You've got to hush up all this lynching nonsense. We've got your takeover all figured out. See, Matthew is going to organize us into a nonprofit corporation. Then Andy is going to get some old friends from high school that made a big time in Hollywood. And so we're going to do a TV special on you. And Ted's already started getting your followers to vote for politicians who'll support your policies for world peace once they're in office. And then they sing a song about, you know, how they got to get organized. But Jesus says that they finished the song and Jesus said, they say, ain't that something Jesus? You don't look real keen on all this. Jesus responds, I did not come to star on a TV show or preside over some corporation. I did not come to lead the political peace movement of all time. See, they had their agenda of what they wanted Jesus to do and what they wanted Jesus to be. Jesus has his agenda and he says, I am the bread of life. You've got to need me and hunger for me as much as you hunger for ordinary bread. Now, how about you? Do you hunger for Jesus as bread? Or are you like the guys in cotton patch or they've got sort of another agenda going where they're trying to fit Jesus into another box? Trying to fit Jesus to be the leader of their corporation or their plan, their vision, their goal or whatever it is. And totally forget about him as the bread of life. It's so easy to do that. Or are you sort of on a spiritual atkins diet? You're cutting out the bread and so you're cutting out Jesus and you're feeding on something else. In your heart, you're feeding on the things that the world has. You're feeding on the people, the possessions, the power, the performance, whatever it might be. You're feeding on those things. There's something deep in your soul you're saying, I've got to have this to be satisfied. But you've gone atkins in your soul and you're cutting out the bread and saying, I don't want something else. Jesus says, you need me, you need me as the bread of life. So the bread is important. The second thing we see is how we get the bread. Jesus, how do we get the bread? They say, sir, give us this bread. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me, shall I hunger? Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. How do we get the bread? We come to Jesus. We come to Him. Becoming and believing they're equated here, we come to Him. We believe in Him. And now the rest of the text, as I read through it earlier, my guess is if you read along and you saw some of the things that Jesus said, you were thinking, whoa, there's a lot of stuff here that is kind of complicated and Jesus is telling people to come. And then later he says, nobody can come to me except God draws them. I mean, there are all sorts of questions that are going on here about what it means about coming to Jesus or how we can come to Jesus. And a lot of those questions will probably not be answered this morning. I apologize. We just don't have time for the whole thing. But I want to focus in a little bit on what Jesus is saying here. When we were in Acapulco a few months ago, Alejandro had a little illusion trick. He had this little box. And those of us who were there, he would do this little trick with the kids and with folks. The other guys on our team, Seth, who was from the Westminster church in Columbus, Georgia, was on our team. And during the week, he was just banned and determined to get Alejandro to show him the trick. And he wanted to know the trick. I mean, when you go to a magician, an illusionist show, somebody does a car trick and they say, wow, then how did you do that? And we say, how did you do that? Because we want to know how they did that. And usually they don't tell us how they do that. They guard that secret for themselves. And in this passage, we have an answer to perhaps the most important question ever. And that is, how did I or how did you ever come to believe on Jesus as Savior and Lord? Jesus isn't keeping the trick hidden. This is the question. This is what some of you have heard me use this illustration. This is what I call the Casa Blanca question. From the movie Casa Blanca. I assume everybody has seen Casa Blanca. If you haven't seen Casa Blanca, you need to. One of the top two or three greatest films of all time. And there is a redemptive message there. But in a scene, Humphrey Bogart plays the lead character. He runs a cafe there in Casa Blanca in Morocco. And his former lady, Ingrid Bergman, comes in to his cafe. He doesn't know she's coming. She doesn't know that he runs that cafe. And of course, she comes in and it just is very disturbing to him because he thought she ran out only years ago. And it's a long story, great story. And he's sitting there that night after he's after she's been there. And he's had a little too much to drink. And he says, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, why'd she have to walk into mine? Now, if you're a Christian at some point, I'm guessing you have asked of all the people in all the towns in all the world, why am I saved? And my friend here isn't my brother, my sister, my father, my mother, my child, the people that I know that I grew up with who went to the same church, had the same background, same experience. And he is that I'm saved of all the sinners in all the cities and all the families in all the world. Why am I saved and this person isn't? Have you ever asked that question? Most believers that I've talked to at some point have asked that. And Jesus sort of pulls the curtain back a little bit and gives an answer. It's not an answer that is necessarily easy for us to hear, but it's pretty clear when he's telling us. And it's interesting to note, this is in the context of this I am statement. And in two of the other I am statements, Jesus gives the same basic teaching, which he gives here in verse 44 that we read, no one can come to the father, or no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. Jesus is opening back the curtain a little bit and saying, this is what it means. We're coming to him that this passage and other passages in Scripture teach us there is an inability of man and a sovereign grace of God's choice in salvation. Now we sang earlier. I cannot begin to understand what God has willed and God has planned. But we know this. We have a Savior. And so Jesus doesn't, doesn't lay it all out, doesn't explain all the essence or butts about it, doesn't answer all of our questions about it, but he lays it out and they're saying, what do we need to do to work the works of God? And Jesus says, believe. Because if he goes and tells him there's a long list of things, they'll think they've done it and they'll just be arrogant. And Jesus, what he does is in the sense he cuts them off at the spiritual knees. And he says, you need to believe in him and then he tells us basically that even that is impossible for us to come to Christ, we must be drawn by the Father because throughout Scripture, man's inability is demonstrated and God's grace is magnified. That's what it's all about, is God's grace. Our inability, we're easily Scripture. The theme is God saves sinners. Now desire, inability and some way taint or neglect, negate a free offer of the gospel, no. Jesus is all, all are invited and all who come will be received and will not hunger a thirst, but Jesus knows the heart of man. John chapter 2 says that he knows that they're those standing right there in front of him who don't believe him. They say, well show us the size, show us some words. What works have you done? He just paid 5,000 people. Like that's not enough. Back in John chapter 2, he had the first miracle in chaining the water in the wine and the wedding in Canaan. Scripture says that was the first sign that Jesus has done. The signs are the confirming pointing miracles that Jesus has done to prove who he was. And they're standing right there in front of him having seen this and they say, show us his own. Do something Jesus. Jesus understands that our hearts are naturally opposed to grace. And we think that we can do it in some way on our own and we're opposed to believing, to coming, to receiving empty handed the grace of God. We want to think that we can do what is necessary on our own. But Scripture tells us over and over that we can't. There's no man can come except the father, draw him. And the word draw that is used is an active force. It's a word that is used when you throw out the net and you start to pull it in. It's full of fish. You're drawing it. When you take it a sword and your sheath, you draw the sword. It is active. It's not sort of a simple kind of a passive wooing that God does. It is an active movement on the part of God. We don't need to have our hearts wooed. We need to have our hearts changed. We need an active work of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit to change our cold dead rebellious hearts. It's an issue of the heart. Romans 8 tells us the natural man, the natural heart is hostile to God. We hate God in an natural condition. Scripture says. People say, I don't hate God. I looked back in my life before I came to faith in college. I didn't hate God. I didn't think. At least that's what I thought. I just sort of, you know, indifferent to God. God, you go your way. I'll go mine. If we look up somewhere, that's fine. Now, Scripture we described that is hate. When you're dealing with the God of the universe who made us, who created us, who was worthy of all of our worship, worthy of everything, and we sort of have this subtle indifference or great indifference to Him, it's right for Him to say, you hate me. You've experienced this, and just in your own relationships with people. It may have been a spouse might have been a good friend, somebody in the church. You've gone maybe a little bit of time there where you just haven't given as much attention as you used to, and maybe man, you can identify with this. And you're watching my site, honey, why do you hate me? You said, what would you say I hate you? Well, you just haven't been as warm and as tender and as attentive. And you're not hate. But we experienced that on a human level when we ignore the created universe. The Bible says, it's not just we're ignoring God. It says, we're hostile. We need a change of heart. What better proof of the human impossibility to come of coming to Christ than to see the world's reaction when Jesus came? What happened when Jesus came? He was killed. The very people who in this passage, they're going to Him. They want to make Him king. This is early in His ministry. Within a couple of years, Jesus is brought into Jerusalem. He rides into Jerusalem as king, and they proclaim Him. Hail, Son of David. And within a couple of days from that, they're saying, we have no king but Caesar. It's impossible. Faith is impossible for us. Scripture tells us that it's amazing that even the writers of Fiddler on the roof understood this. I watched a few minutes at that last night. I was flipping outside. That was on. And there's a line in that where one of the the the matchmaker lady says, man, you know, humans, what are they said? If God comes, if God came to live on earth, people would break His windows. So well. The people who wrote Fiddler on the roof understood that. That's what the Bible says. They're just a natural disposition opposed to God. We don't need to be rude. We need a Savior. And if we're really honest about our own hearts, we know. Deep down, we know that it's true that God saved us. We didn't save ourselves. So what if somebody wants to come to Christ? You know, is that he isn't chosen or given to Christ by the Father? The very fact that somebody desires to come to Christ is evidence that God is drawing. The God is it working in the heart. So what if I'm here today and I don't have to come to Christ? I don't know him. I don't have faith in him. What should I do? Should I pray and ask God to give me a new heart and to draw me? You could do that. But better yet, I'd say this. Look at Christ. Look at Him. Read the Word and look at Him who is the object of our faith and our trust. Look at Jesus who lived a perfect life who gave Himself for His enemies. Look and realize that all of our doing is vanity. And all that He has done is perfect. Look at what He has done. He obeyed the Father. He became hungry and thirsty and was cut off so that we might be forgiven and might be satisfied. He was raised for us. He intercedes for us. If you look to Him and you find that your heart is melting, that's a great sign that God is drawing you. And come and embrace Him and believe. And Christian, we need to do the same thing. We need to look to Him. We need to look upon Him and consider Him and contemplate Him and draw near to Him as He is revealed in His Word. So that our hearts are melted and we hunger and thirst after Him. Now, how do we know if we've come to Jesus? Well, there's soul satisfaction. Jesus says, if you come to me, whoever comes shall not hunger, whoever believes shall never thirst. It means that we realize we come and we hunger. But we're not hungry anymore. We know where our hunger can be satisfied. And so we don't have to chase around after everything else. There is a satisfaction that comes from knowing Jesus. It means that the satisfied soul is a gracious forgiving, obedient, generous soul. And what does it look like? Well, it means we've ceased striving to have power, position, possessions, performance, and reputation to prove yourself. It means you get off the treadmill of performance and get others off. It means that they don't have to do things the way that you do them in order to validate your own decisions, your values and your experience. It means that you're more other centered and less self-centered. You're not using other people to feel the void in your life. You're less critical, less defensive, not so easily offended. And you complain less. And you experience a deep sense of soul contentment. I would say not unlike a well-fed man on Thanksgiving day with a good football game in remote control. I mean, from sort of the, you know, the worldly perspective, that is just a picture of contentment, isn't it guys? You know, man, you had the big meal, there's a good gang, you got the remote, and the easy chair, and it's like, okay, there we go. We were content. Well, there's a sense in which we have a soul sense of contentment in our lives. But if we're not doing that, if we're not content, not feeding, it means we're going after what they said to Jesus, what do we need to do? What does our performance need to look like? What kind of things do we need to do? And I want to just run through quickly some performance as the bread of life or Jesus as the bread of life. First, performance is the bread of life. I think that my rules, my wise shepherding, my training, were produced, godly people. Okay? It's all about performance. Jesus, I have faith in God's promise to save others as the gospels live before them and presented to them. And let me say this. I'm deeply indebted to Johnny Long, a PCA pastor, a friend with World Harvest Mission for this particular breakdown as he has used it and taught it before. But when you're performance driven saying, what do I need to do? The idea with others is if I were a perfect person, because if I've got to do it myself, I've got to see myself as one who's doing it. Okay? Or come to Jesus and we realize I can relate to others at the fellow center, admit my own sin, free to ask forgiveness and very free to give it. Or there's an outward behavior of others is very important. I deal almost exclusively with surface problems. I'm satisfied if we obey enough to look good to outsiders. As opposed to feeding on Jesus means I'm free to accept others the way they are and trust the spirit to bring deep and lasting changes that are needed. Or performance driven, there are many rules in my relationships, my family, my marriage, my church life. I find myself creating a new set of rules, free situation. Okay? What do I need to do? Jesus, what do I need to do now? What do you need to do now? What do you need to do now? What does he need to do? What does she need to do? Before we feed on Jesus, we come to him and say because I know that rules need to guide their minds, can produce another's a love for God or others. I repent, love, pray and trust the Holy Spirit to work on the root problems in my life and in my family as I bring them, as God brings them to the surface. If the bread of life is performance, then I'm depressed when I think I'm failed and I'm proud when I think I've succeeded or go back. Or as opposed to remembering the gospel teaches me that I'm a loved moral failure. That's the good news of the gospel. We are loved moral failures. But if I'm living on performance, I do with problems that have guilt. In fact, sometimes I'm dripping with guilt as opposed to feeding on Christ. We preach the gospel to myself, to our students, our kids, others, energized by knowing there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Knowing that God has set His love on you personally in Christ, that we were helpless, hopeless, alienated, lovers of self, and that God actively came and drew us enabling us to embrace Christ, knowing that God has done that, that God saved sinners that should make us want to shout. Kick my heels up and shout, thank you, throw my hands up and throw my head back in. We're present here because we don't do that well, okay? But that's what it ought to do in our lives. When we understand these truths, or Psalm 4 said, it says, you have put more joy in my heart than when they have when they're grain and new wine abound, or paraphrase, than when the dogs, the jackets, whoever wins, or I get that great t-shot, or get that promotion, I get the bonus, I get the new car, I got the right house, I got the right person who's asking me for a date, I got the right person who said she'd go out with me. More than when all of those things happen, we should experience the joy of knowing Christ, and knowing that salvation has nothing to do with us, with our performance, with our behavior, with our intelligence, with our wisdom, with our good decision-making, or our opening our own hearts to God should lead to a life of humility. Otherwise, we're just preaching the gospel of me. We're not really preaching Jesus is the bread of life, we're preaching, we're the bread of life in some way because we're doing it, and Jesus says, no, we can't do it, it's impossible for us. God saves sinners. He chooses a people to give to the Son, the Son there's perfect obedience and sacrifice, accomplishes salvation, the Holy Spirit draws, enables, renews the hearts of those whom the Father has given, and whom the Son has purchased. Friends, we're beggars at the feast, and the bread never runs out, and there's nothing that smells or tastes better than fresh bread. Let's pray. Fathers, we come, we want to know the fresh bread of Jesus, and maybe there's some here who have never tasted it, and don't know it, we pray that they would look at Him, and they would see their own inability, and they would see His perfect ability to do everything for salvation, and come to Him. And Lord, for those who know Him, help us today to experience Him as fresh bread, and that the aroma would cover our lives and our families and our church, that when the doors of this church are open, the people would smell fresh bread, people who have been with Jesus broken sinners, who've run to the bread of life. And we pray this, O Lord, that Jesus would be honored. It's in His name we pray. Amen.