We're starting a new series this week! For the next 7 weeks, we'll talk about the seven "I AM" statements in the Gospel of John.
This week's topic: I AM the Bread of Life (John 6:35)
OT Background: Exodus 16; Deut. 8:3; Ps. 78:23-25
NT Fulfillment: John 6:22-59, especially verses 28-35.
· If you had to choose one meal to eat everyday for the rest of your life, what would it be?
· Are you a white bread or wheat bread kind of guy?
Synopsis: Jesus enters a dialogue with Jews who had followed him because of his miracles—including the recent feeding of the 5,000—and yet they missed the reality behind them (He is the Divine Messiah). More important than solving their physical hunger for food through bread, Jesus offers himself as the Bread of Life to fulfill deeper longings and an eternal need.
READ John 6:25-35.
What perspective is Jesus pointing them toward?
READ Exodus 12:12-21.
How does bread actually connect the minds of the Jewish people to the heart of God?
READ Exodus 16:1-16.
There is more to the bread from God than the bread itself (Exodus 16). It’s not an earthly bread but a heavenly bread. It comes from above—from God—and comes down to us only by his grace and goodness. We need more than physical bread and we need it from someone other than ourselves. God will provide what we need most, and we should raise our eyes in faith.
READ JOHN 6:35-59.
Jesus takes this Old Testament background to bread for God’s people and He claims to be the bread of life. He explains the bread in the wilderness of Exodus was only a temporary provision, and that it points to a true and eternal bread from heaven God would later give. This bread is now before the Jews. The manna pictures Jesus, who is sent from God, comes down from heaven, must be taken by faith, who must be eaten/fully taken in, and who gives life.
· Into what kind of life is Jesus inviting us?
· How can we be sustained by Jesus?
· How does this remind us of how much God loves us?
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