August 6 sermon John 6 24-35 Who Are You

Jesus just yesterday fed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and a couple of fish. The next day comes and he is on the other side of the lake, but he didn’t take the boat that was left for him. Well that makes the people wonder.
They all run around the lake to where he was. “Rabbi, when did you get here?” That’s the question of the day huh. More like how did you get here. Then in Jesus’ first sentence to them, he is trying to teach them something. He says “Don’t look for me because you are looking for miracles, but because you are getting fed.”

He is telling them upfront to not search for the miracles, but to take in the spiritual food he is providing and be nourished by it. “Come to me for the truth. I can fill that hole in your heart.
In the next verse he says “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures for eternity, which I will provide.”
Well what does that mean? To understand it, we have to go all the way to the front of your bible. It’s the Old Testament. There in Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit from the tree they were told to stay away from.
God says “Cursed is the ground because of what you did. Through painful toil you will eat of it.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread until you return to the ground.
Jesus is saying that all this time they are working so hard to get the bread that will give them life, and now it’s available right in front of them as an offering. The next verse tells their thinking.
“What work must we do?” Many people today are the same way. What works, what jobs, what chores must I do to get this eternal life??? Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Why? Because it gives you a way to earn your salvation.
If you say your 5 prayers a day and live the holy life prescribed by Mohammed and Allah, you will go to heaven. You don’t have to rely on someone else that lived 2000 years ago;
you can rely on yourself and your ability.
I don’t think I’m ready to do that. Should I rely on my ability to get into heaven? If I miss a prayer or eat the wrong thing, what then? Can I catch up the next week. I think I would be a like a lot of unbelievers today. Throw up my hands and say
“I can’t live up to this. It’s too much. Forget it. I’ll stay like I am.” Or “ I have to get to be a better person before I can enter that church.” My brother used to say he would burst into flames if he entered the church again. ……… He didn’t if you were wondering.


Jesus doesn’t give them any rules to follow today. He says that to get the eternal food, they much believe that he is who he says he is and that God sent him. But unfortunately they revert back to their old ideas.

I call this next one the “Do a trick for us monkey, I want to see a trick monkey” verse. So they ask him, SLOW DOWN “what miraculous sign will you give that we may see it and believe in you? What will you do?”

I’m sure you have watched magicians. David Copperfield was a great showman. David Blain would walk the streets doing tricks. They are all great to watch and wonder “how did he do that?” They were looking for a miracle.

BILL WALKS IN WITH WOOD AND NAILS.
Moses got our forefathers bread from heaven when they needed it. What can you show us. WHO ARE YOU? Prove who you are. Isn’t that the question we ask Jesus also? Who are you Jesus?
But does Jesus (or others) ask the same of us? Who are you? Think about that because I might come ask you. You see, our identity comes out of our hunger. It comes out of our desperate need to BE.
I want to BE someone. I am nothing compared to Jesus. I am trying to build my identity while Jesus is before me emptying out himself and making himself nothing for my sake.
At 5th Sunday singing last week, I gave an invitation for everyone present and listening on the radio to come to church on Sunday morning and then I gave the opening prayer. When I walked back to the back of the room, Brandy said “that’s your first step to televangelism.”

I am somewhat envious of the television preachers and those with mega-churches. Not because of their success, but because they have an opportunity to reach thousands of people all at once.
One-on-one evangelism is great and needed, but I love coming to worship here on Sunday mornings. It gives me a chance to share Jesus and his teachings to many people at one time. I’m not interested in having a mega-church, but more interested in us making deeper disciples of Jesus Christ.
So who are you? What sayeth you? GO OUT TO BILL FULLER GIVE HIM THE WIRELESS TO KEEP

Do you have an identity? All those unbelievers outside that door want to know.
Your identity comes out of your hunger to BE somebody.

Jesus says in the next verse that “it was not Moses that gave the bread to the Israelites, but it was God who sustained them.” He then says about himself, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
He is saying that the bread they were searching for and the life that each of us is searching for is Jesus himself. Jesus is the bread of life. All that looking we have done all our lives trying to fulfill a picture we have in our mind of what we will be and who we will be has been distorted.

When we look in the mirror we should see Jesus looking back at us. We were made in the image of God as children of God. As we fill that empty hole in our soul with more of Jesus, his teachings, and doing what he said, the picture will become clearer.
These people Jesus is talking to want the bread, but they don’t want Jesus.
They see him as he trick monkey. “Come on monkey, do another trick for us”. He is not a magician who is here to entertain. He is the bread of life.
When we feast at this table before us we are eating with Jesus. Someone once said “how bad it would be to not give control of your life to Jesus today and walk out that door and fall down dead.” That makes sense. But how much worse it would be to walk out that door without accepting Jesus as your savior and you live another 100 years.
Jesus did not come to the earth just to save you from death and hell. He came to be with you in this life also and help you build a life worthy of him.


And so we come to the table before us. This is not a Methodist table, but a Christian table. If you a Christian you can celebrate with us the Bread of Life. Join me on page 13.

Hymnal ritual


Bill and I will be up here. I’m not going to direct you to come up. Come as you desire to be part of the feast. Neal or stand at the alter rail and when you are ready, hold out your hands and we will come and serve you. Stay and pray and eat as long as you like.