Amen. Well, Happy New Year again. We've just come through a time of year of excess, haven't we?
of eating and of drinking. People fill their faces on Christmas Day and they kind of work it off in the month of January, don't they?
But even with all of the consumption over the Christmas period, it seems to me that people generally are still very hungry.
People are hungry for something that food and drink cannot satisfy. And if that's true, what is it that we are missing?
What is the superfood that is going to make us satisfied, that is going to make us fulfilled people?
My wife Emma, she's going to give birth in about three weeks, we hope, to our second child.
And my hope, kind of baby permitting, is to look at this chapter, John chapter 6 with you over the next three weeks.
It is a chapter where Jesus discusses all about how we eat and how we get real, lasting nourishment.
It is a chapter where Jesus explains to us how we should be filled.
Christians call it the bread of life discourse.
And it focuses on the central verse in verse 35 if you look to the bottom of your sheets.
Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
You hear of people winning, don't you, a year's supply of shopping at a supermarket.
But what about a lifetime's supply of shopping at a supermarket?
What about an eternity's supply? Imagine that.
It's quite a claim to make.
Jesus says he is able to give you eternal fullness.
Eternal satisfaction.
No more hunger, no more thirst.
Ever. It's quite a claim.
But how do we do this?
How do we get this food that Jesus is claiming to be able to give us?
To do that, to get the satisfaction,
Jesus explains to us in this section of John that we need to go on a special diet.
This is your diet for January, he says, and for the whole year, and actually for the rest of your life.
These are Jesus' dietary requirements for you, his five a day for you,
for this eternal fullness and satisfaction from him.
We've got to get with the diet that he gives us.
Firstly, by eating food that lasts.
We need to seek food that lasts.
Just look at verse 27.
Do not labour for the food that perishes,
but for the food that endures to eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give to you.
I'm no expert in foods,
but they say that carbs, carbohydrates, last longer than sugar in keeping you full, don't they?
So if you have a Mars bar for breakfast,
you'll want something by nine o'clock, won't you?
But if you have whole grain porridge oats,
you might not get hungry until lunch.
Some foods last longer than others, don't they?
And you can see the contrast that he's making here.
He says, don't spend your time eating foods that will not keep you full.
Don't spend your time looking at eating foods that will last a little while, just for a bit.
But look for a type of food that will fill you up,
that endures not just to lunch, but to eternal life.
In this diet, Jesus says we need to think long-term food.
Jesus offers us carbs, if you like, not sugars.
But the problem of the people Jesus speaks to here,
is the problem that we have,
is that we are gripped by short-termism.
We've sort of jumped into John 6 a bit cold, haven't we?
Let me give you a bit of context.
If you look to the beginning of chapter 6,
Jesus famously and miraculously feeds 5,000 people,
that famous story,
with a few bits of fish and bread.
And the crowds that come to Jesus are satisfied.
They have their fill.
There were even 12 baskets of leftovers left behind.
And so the crowds follow Jesus around the Sea of Galilee,
and eventually they track him down here,
on the other side of the sea.
And you can understand that, can't you?
Food was much more scarce for them than it is for us now.
It wasn't easy in their agricultural society,
to just nip down the shops and get a thick sliced loaf.
And so they find the source of this food that they've just had from him.
But Jesus is quite negative about them, isn't he?
In verse 26, he says,
You're seeking me not because you saw the sign,
but because you had your fill of the loaves.
He's saying,
you guys are thinking about the wrong food groups.
And you are not going to enjoy the kind of food that I can give you,
unless you see that filling your tummy today
is less important than filling your soul for tomorrow
and filling it forever.
They see the amazing sign of who Jesus is
as the promised saviour to deal with their sin.
And yet all they see really,
and all they feel,
were their full tummies.
They were really enthusiastic, weren't they?
Jesus had their full attention.
They worked hard to try and follow him around.
And looking at them,
we think these guys look like really keen Christians.
But actually all they saw were the loaves.
A precious and valuable gift in that day and in that moment.
But all they wanted was an answer to their short-term problems.
Their physical stomachs growled for Jesus,
but spiritually they had no appetite for him.
They were thinking about the short-term provisions that he might give them.
They weren't thinking about anything that would last into eternity with him.
Maybe they thought,
if we could just kind of follow Jesus around all the time,
he could just repeat the feeding of the 5,000 every day.
Wouldn't that be great?
But even people who have plenty of food will die eventually.
Many are interested in Jesus, aren't they,
for the gifts that he might give in this life.
And he does give us many good things.
I'm afraid it is what certain branches of Christianity base their preaching around,
on material blessing.
But that is sugar Christianity.
It's not long-lasting carb Christianity.
And we want to bury the future, don't we,
in the pleasures of today.
We are so gripped by short-termism.
But Jesus says,
you've got to think long-term.
You've got to think about the future.
Not just the future when you leave work and when you retire.
Not even the future of when you die.
But way in the distant future.
The very distant future of eternity.
And the food that Jesus offers, he says,
endures on even into that endless time.
It gives life like a loaf of bread does for a few days,
but forever into eternity.
And so he says, get with this diet.
Seek the food that lasts.
Seek lasting food.
Secondly, he said,
eat food that is not only long-lasting,
but that is substantial.
Seek the food that is substantial.
Growing up, there was a phrase that my mum used to use when we were kids.
And I think it might be a northern thing,
because I've never heard anyone else use it.
Maybe it was just her.
If food was a bit insubstantial,
it was a bit of a waste of time,
she would say it's a bit waff.
It's a bit waff.
You know those puff pastry cakes you get?
They're all air, aren't they?
And for a northerner,
food like that is just a waste of time.
The kind of rule is,
if it isn't heavy enough to have its own gravitational force field,
it isn't worth eating.
It's just a bit waff.
It's just not heavy enough.
It's not weighty enough.
It's not substantial enough to satisfy you.
And in this passage,
it is clear that Jesus is talking about a food
that is of an altogether different kind of substantiality.
The crowds want him to fill their tummies, don't they?
But not only do certain foods not last long enough,
they are not substantial enough for a human being.
Verse 27, he says,
don't labour for the food that perishes.
He's talking about something else there,
as well as longevity.
He's talking about the substance of the food.
He's talking about a food that is different from the food that they seek.
Because the food that he gives comes from a different place.
And it has different ingredients.
And a different substantiality.
He says of himself in verse 33,
the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.
I am the bread of life, he says.
Jesus gives food from heaven
as he is sent from heaven to human beings.
And it's a different kind of food from ordinary food that we eat on earth.
He serves spiritual food as the main course.
To bring us eternal satisfaction,
rather than physical food.
But if you think about what is most substantial,
that is completely upside down to how we normally think.
We normally think, don't we,
that the physical things of the world
are the substantial things.
And the spiritual things of our lives
are the kind of light,
floaty froth on the top of our lives.
We think satisfaction comes in mainly the physical realm.
And that is because just the air we breathe
as a culture is fundamentally materialistic.
I'm not just talking about our obsession with buying stuff.
But it's the fundamental belief that what we touch,
and what we see, and what we feel,
is seen as the most substantial thing there is.
That there is nothing more real than the material.
And so our spiritual life is just not as important as our physical life.
Your body, people would say,
is more important than your soul.
And our physical health is more important than our spiritual health.
But really, the Bible doesn't see it that way at all.
The Bible doesn't say that the body is not important.
That is a mistake that other people have fallen into as well.
But rather that Jesus teaches here
that the spiritual is the substance that gives the physical its value.
If you've kind of lost me at this point,
let me try and simplify it.
What Jesus is saying here
is even the best and most substantial foods
that we can get in this world,
if they aren't the food that Jesus gives from heaven,
honestly, they are just waft.
Those foods are just light.
They're like puff pastry.
They are perishable.
And those foods will eventually rot.
And if that is all we eat in our lives,
we will rot along with those foods.
John opens his gospel,
and he speaks of Jesus before he comes in the incarnation.
And he says, chapter 1, verse 4,
In him was life,
and the life was the light of men.
He's saying something amazing there
about the second person of the Trinity,
the son of the word, Jesus.
He is saying that universally,
Jesus is the food that all people need.
Whether you recognize that or not,
all life, physical life, depends on him.
I am the bread for every woman and man and child
of every living thing.
Because Jesus is the bread from heaven.
And so his food is no sugary puff pastry treat,
but a spiritually substantial,
weighty,
carby,
eternal food from heaven.
It is a food that is so weighty
that when you have it in you,
it will last you even beyond the grave
and into eternity.
Seek the food that lasts.
Seek the substantial food,
the spiritual food that Jesus gives.
And thirdly, he says,
get with the diet
and labor for this food by faith.
Labor for this food by faith.
It's true, isn't it,
that throughout the ages,
the biggest and greatest challenge
of the human race is finding food.
God said to Adam,
in Genesis 3,
by the sweat of your face,
you will eat bread.
And there is grace there,
isn't there,
in the curse.
There will be bread.
God is going to provide bread.
But it's going to be really,
really hard.
Food has always meant one thing for us,
work.
Bread is back-breaking.
And as Jesus describes the diet
that they need,
Jesus uses words like labor.
Labor.
In verse 27,
doesn't he?
Don't labor for this food,
but another food.
Verse 29,
this is the work of God
in order that you get this food.
And so we think,
don't we,
here we go again.
Like any diet,
there is no pain,
no gain.
And it's another hard
and brutal
and harsh regime
of spiritual nitpicking,
of counting the calories
of prayers
and of good deeds
and of Sundays in church
and so on.
You are what you eat
and all of that.
And imagine then,
the crowds,
they are hungry,
they've travelled across
the Sea of Galilee
to get some more bread.
And it's as if,
maybe Jesus,
we think,
at first glance,
is like some sort of
divine version
of Mr. Motivator.
But he shocks us,
doesn't he?
Because the diet,
the work,
how do you get this food,
the work God wants you to do
to labor for this food
is there in verse 29.
He says,
this is the work
that you believe.
That you believe
in the one he has sent.
Jesus echoes that
a couple of verses later.
I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me,
whoever believes in me,
will never thirst,
he will never hunger.
The work,
the labor of this food,
it is not a work
of striving
and of jumping on the scales
of spiritual performance
every month.
But it's a work of trust
and a work of faith
in Jesus
to give you life.
The work is being open
to, isn't it,
what God gives
and what God does
in Jesus.
It is seeing
with the eyes of faith
that he doesn't merely
give this bread
from heaven,
but Jesus is
the bread from heaven.
That he doesn't merely
give life,
but he is the life.
It's seeing
and receiving him
by faith.
It is to kind of
roll up your sleeves,
to get out in the fields,
to get in the dirt
and to humble yourself.
That is the work
you need to do.
And that might feel
pretty uncomfortable
for many of us
at times.
But really,
it's like no other work
that you'll ever
be asked to do.
It's actually
a work
that we do
to let him
do the work,
isn't it,
of feeding us.
It is letting Jesus
be the breadwinner
of our lives.
To work,
to be fed by him,
to look to him,
to feed us.
And for some of us,
that is a really
hard thing to do,
isn't it?
We want to be
the main man
or the main woman
in our lives.
But we must work
to let him feed us
and stop pretending
we can be
the breadwinners
of our lives.
Let me go from
the sublime
to the ridiculous.
Do you remember
the cartoon Scooby-Doo?
Maybe you do.
The dog Scooby-Doo.
Scooby is obsessed
with food,
isn't he?
You watch Scooby
as he downs
a giant oversized
baguette
and swallows it
in one mouthful.
And he would look,
wouldn't he,
and he was obsessed
with food.
He would look
at inanimate objects
and his imagination
would run wild.
It's like the kind
of mind of a dog,
I suppose.
So he'd look
at a lampshade
and it would
transform into
a sort of
juicy drumstick
or something.
He'd look at anything
and imagine it
as food.
He'd lick his lips
and in a cartoon style
his eyes would
sort of pop out
and he'd imagine
all sorts of food
all around him.
I want to say
that Christians
are like that
with Jesus.
They're like Scooby.
Christians look
at Jesus
and when everyone
else sees just
a man
who could be
all sorts of
things to them
what Christians
see in Jesus
is food.
They see Jesus
as unctuous,
nourishing,
wholesome
bread.
Christians look
at Jesus
and they lick
their lips
seeing that he's
not just a man
he's not even
just a very
very good man
but he is
food from heaven
and our eyes
pop out
and we desire
Jesus
not in a
carnal
flesh way
but in a
spiritual way
by faith
and we receive
him
and we are
satisfied
forever.
and that is
what God
calls you
to do
today
this work
that he
calls you
to do
this is
the work
of God
it is simply
to have an
appetite for
him
and to
believe in
the one
that God
has sent
to you
to feed
you
and to
look to
the long
term
to look
to the
substantial
by faith
and to
open your
mouth
and to
take him
into your
life
and if
you do
that
the Lord
Jesus
promises
here
doesn't
he
promises
you
that
you
will
never
be
hungry
again
and you
will
never
be
thirsty
so
join me
this January
in this
diet
join me
this year
and for
the rest
of your
life
in feasting
on Jesus
and being
filled by
him
let us
pray