The Bread That Sustains Us

You might be familiar with today’s passage where Jesus feeds the 5,000. And actually, according to verse 10, 5,000 was just counting the men, so the full number with women and children could have been anywhere from 10,000-20,000. This is a popular story in the life of Jesus, and it’s the only miracle from his ministry that’s recorded in all four of the gospel accounts we have in the New Testament.

And that’s not because the scale was bigger or what happened was more impressive. In John 11, Jesus is going to raise a man named Lazarus from the dead. That’s a pretty big deal, and yet the gospel of John is the only one of the four biographies of Jesus that mentions Lazarus.

We get the feeding of the 5,000+ in each of the gospel accounts because it was a pivotal point in Jesus’ ministry. It began with a lot of people coming to him, but by the end of John 6 we’ll see how it leads to many people leaving him.

What the feeding of the 5,000+ and the teaching that follows reveals to us is who Jesus is. We’re going to spend 8 weeks in John 6 because of the depth of what Jesus communicates on who he is and what it means to follow him. Whether you’re a Christian or not, I think this chapter can offer both a lot of clarity as well as maybe challenge how you relate to him.

Our new worship leader, Kihren, has been with us for over a month now. And last week his parents gave him and Gina a surprise visit and came to our service. I had never met them, so when his mom came up to me and very warmly said, “Hi Rob”, I immediately started panicking—“Oh no, who is this lady? Clearly, I’m supposed to know her.”

I started essentially guessing names in my head hoping one of them would spark a memory, but I just stood there shaking her hand and smiling because I had nothing. Eventually, she was kind enough to bail me out and tell me that she was Kihren’s mom.

He’s actually told me a good bit about his parents, and once I knew who they were I was so happy that I get to meet them. But because I didn’t understand who she was, even though she was standing right in front of me, I wasn’t able to respond appropriately to her.

That’s the way a lot of us come to Jesus. We’ve heard about him. Maybe we’ve read about him. Maybe we grew up talking about him and being taught about him. But if you don’t really understand who he is, then you’re not going to respond the right way when you engage him.

With over 2,000 years of history behind his name, there are all kinds of things people might and do project onto Jesus, but our wrong understanding of who he is, or why he came, or what he accomplished is going to leave us with an unsatisfying relationship because the Christ we’ve created in our mind doesn’t really exist.

Even for the Christian here this morning: if you’re struggling with what feels like a shallow faith—wondering why it’s hard to get into Scripture more or see it influence more areas of your life—the solution is not you trying harder; it’s you getting to know Jesus better.

Many of you might be familiar with this story. And we’re going to walk through the details of what happened as well. But as we dive into Jesus feeding the 5,000+ this morning, I want us to approach this popular passage with two categories of questions: Why don’t people understand who he is? and then What does this miracle teach us about who he is?

So, why does it seem to be so challenging for people to understand who Jesus is? I mean, that’s a consistent theme in each of the biographies we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: people are often either confused by Jesus, frustrated by Jesus, or they lose interest in Jesus.

Well, here in our passage, we see three groups of people, each misunderstanding him for different reasons. First, we see those who are curious in verses 1 and 2. Let’s look at the verses together.

John 6:1–2 ESV

¹ After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. ² And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

So, remember: the way we relate to Jesus is based off of who we believe he is. Here, a large crowd is following him, but why are they doing that? Verse 2 says, “Because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.” We’d probably be the same way. I’ve watched tv shows that I didn’t like much for longer than I should simply because I wanted to know how the mystery played out.

Whether they wanted to see what would happen next, or they hoped for some of this highly effective, free healthcare that Jesus seemed to be offering, curiosity was largely what was driving Jesus’ popularity at this point in his ministry. That’s totally understandable.

But curiosity doesn’t have much endurance. It falls away when it’s met with reality. I watched the entirety of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother curious about how the main character was going to meet the mother of his children, which was the whole point of the show—only to be met with the worst finale of all time. And even though I’ve rewatched the show, I gotta pretend that finale isn’t real. I have my own version of the end of the story in my mind.

I’m afraid that happens for a lot of people with Jesus. They experience a loss, or they start a family, or they meet someone who goes to church, and it sparks a curiosity about what Christianity has to offer. Those are all very valid and helpful starting points for someone to begin exploring the Bible. But then as we start to read the Bible more and get to know who Jesus is and what he taught, we’re inevitably going to be faced with things that we struggle to agree with. I mean, he’s God and we’re not, right?

So it makes sense, especially if it’s true, that there’s going to be some things in there that are hard for us. And there are whole denominations today that have taken my “How I Met Your Mother approach” to the things they don’t like in Scripture—they’ll pretend it just means something else. Maybe even re-write that part of the story to fit a certain agenda or narrative.

But if Jesus doesn’t change—if he’s the same yesterday and today and forever as Hebrews 13:8 points out—then the Bible can never mean what it never meant because God has never pivoted away from who he’s always been. It’s okay to be curious about Jesus—I’d say it’s actually a really important thing.

Two people who aren’t curious about each other on a first date won’t get to a second. A married couple of 20 years won’t continue to grow if they don’t continue to feed their curiosity with finding new ways to know and understand their spouse.

Curiosity is a great driver… in the context of relationship. Christian, hear me: if that doesn’t describe you today, pray this morning and ask the Lord to spark a new curiosity in your heart for the things of God. But if your curiosity about Jesus right now isn’t actually leading you to get to know Jesus—if it’s only motivated from how you can benefit from Jesus—then you’ll find yourself distorting your understanding of him to either meet your own desires or it’ll be your excuse for walking away.

In a lot of ways, we can be very pragmatic people. Our first question we bring to the Bible is often not, “Is it true?”, but more like, “Is it helpful?” “Will this work for me?” “Is It beneficial?” When those are the only questions you ever have, then they center your relationship with a person around you, so even when you learn about them, your focus isn’t actually on them.

We just looked at the first two verses of our passage. If we jump ahead now to the last two verses, we see another kind of person who struggles to understand who Jesus is, and that’s those who want to use him for themselves. Look with me at verses 14-15.

John 6:14–15 ESV

¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

¹⁵ Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

This is largely the same crowd that was curious about Jesus at the start of the chapter. But because their curiosity stayed focused on themselves, when they saw Jesus perform a miracle for them in feeding the multitude, they sprang to action with how they best thought they could use him.

In verse 14 they call him “the Prophet”, which was a reference from the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 18 where God promised to raise up a prophet like Moses to lead his people. And that prophecy was actually about Jesus. They got that part right. Jesus is the ultimate prophet—he’s the Word of God who leads the people of God to follow the ways of God so that they might glorify God.

That’s true of Jesus. But the crowd in John 6 saw this truth about Jesus through the lens of their own desires for Jesus, so rather than submitting to him they tried to force him into being their king. They wanted him to liberate the Jews from the Romans, and their self-centered approach in relating to Jesus kept them from seeing what it would actually look like to know him and follow him.

And don’t get me wrong: this isn’t something that only has application for the non-Christian here this morning. I’m prone to often put myself at the center of my relationship with Christ. I don’t have to look much further than the way I pray to see how easy it is to act like God was made for me rather than the other way around.

Of course, God wants to know the desires and the burdens of our hearts. We’re told in Scripture to bring our requests to him. I believe following Jesus is the greatest joy you can experience in life, so please don’t hear me say that if you want to find peace or purpose or fulfillment that those are bad motivations for exploring the Bible or placing your faith in Jesus. Those are wonderful motivations.

But there is a difference in wanting to use Jesus and being satisfied in Jesus. Both brings our desires to him, but the former views him as a means and the latter views him as our end. We don’t make Jesus king. He is king. And you can get to know who Jesus is and what he’s done and bring everything on your heart to him and find satisfaction in Christ when you see he’s the chief end of every good thing we were made for.

The last type of person we see who struggles to truly understand who Jesus is at the start of John 6 is his followers. In verse 5, after seeing the crowd approaching him and sitting down on the mountain that’s known today as Golan Heights, Jesus asks his disciple Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”

Philip was from the nearby town of Bethsaida, so he would have been familiar with the area. And it makes sense that Jesus would ask him for ideas or options. But then, in verse 6, we get a little extra commentary that changes things. It says, “[Jesus] said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.”

And so, what was the test? Well, Philip replies in verse 7: “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” Basically, he’s saying we couldn’t even make this happen with 8 month’s wages. There’s no way. Jesus asks how they can feed these people, and Philip thinks about what they can do rather than trusting in what he can do.

If you ask me a question about cars, I can try to answer and waste both our time, or I can introduce you to our guitar player, Chad. That’s the helpful answer because he can actually help.

Philip responds with what they can’t do because he’s still learning to trust in what Jesus can do. That might be some of us here this morning. Growing in an understanding of your inability is a good thing. You can’t have a Savior if you don’t need saving. But we can also let our own attempts and our own failures turn our focus inward instead of raising our eyes upward and resting in the ability of our king, Jesus.

All these things can get in the way of us truly understanding who Jesus is, what he’s done for us, and what it means to follow him. But this passage doesn’t just draw out the ways we misunderstand Jesus—it also gives us an important insight into who he truly is and how we should relate to him. The miracle in these first 15 verses gives us the metaphor that Jesus teaches on throughout the rest of the chapter, and he summarizes his main point later on in verse 35:

John 6:35 ESV

³⁵ 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.

Jesus is the bread of life, and in this miracle where he feeds 5,000 men plus women and children with just five barley loaves and two fish, we see three different ways that Jesus is able to be like bread to us today. Now, Jesus is going to teach much more on this throughout the rest of the chapter, but we can begin to understand the comparison he’s making as we briefly touch on each one this morning. Let’s start by looking at verses 4-7.

John 6:4–7 ESV

⁴ Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. ⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”

This is the second of three Passovers that John’s going to mention in his biography of Jesus. And each time he does we see Jesus do something significant that ties directly into the feast. If you’re unfamiliar with the Passover, it began when God used Moses to free his people from slavery in Egypt. After nine other plagues that God sent with the command to let his people go, the tenth plague was God’s judgment over the land with the death of the firstborn of every living thing.

But on the night beforehand, God told his people to cover the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a lamb, and they would be passed over and spared. As we already heard John the Baptist call him twice in John 1, Jesus is “the lamb of God.” It’s because of his sacrifice that we are passed over and spared from God’s justice against sin (because Jesus took it for us).

But now as we get to this second Passover in the gospel of John, we see that Jesus isn’t just the one who saves us; he’s also the one who sustains us. After the Israelites were set free and left Egypt, they wandered the wilderness on their way to the land God had promised them. But God didn’t just save them and then send them on their way. He continued to provide for them. He gave them food from heaven each day when they would wake up and there would be these little wafers of bread called “manna”.

That’s the picture John wants the reader to have in mind in John 6 when Jesus looks at the crowd during the Passover and asks where they can “buy bread, so that these people may eat.” Sure, when we read this story in the other gospels, like in Mark 6, we learn that Jesus had already been teaching the people for a while, but he doesn’t just want to feed them because they’re sticking around. No, he’s trying to meet their need.

In the heat of the day on the side of a mountain, the people needed something to eat. They needed bread to be able to continue. And Jesus is needed bread for our very lives as well. This is where the connection to God providing manna for his people in the desert is so helpful for understanding this passage.

Because, if you’re like me and you grew up going to church, it might be easy for you to make the connection that Jesus meets our need as our Savior who died for our sin—that through our faith in who he is and what he’s done that we can be forgiven and restored in relationship with a holy God who continues to be perfectly loving and yet also perfectly just. We need Jesus for salvation.

But that’s not the primary connection with reference to manna from the Old Testament. The Israelites had already been rescued from the Egyptians; now they needed to survive as free people and make it to the destination God had prepared for them. God gave his people the bread to meet that daily need then, and he gives us bread to meet our daily need now.

If you have trusted in Jesus for your salvation (the thing that freed you from your bondage to sin), but you’re stilly relying on yourself for your sanctification (the thing that grows you to be more like Christ), then you don’t understand what it means that Jesus is “the bread of life.”

Think of it this way: I care about coffee. I tried to say that in a way that wouldn’t be as pretentious, but I think that might still have come off as pretty pretentious. I love good coffee. I love drinking it. I love making it. I love learning about it. On an even more real and possibly sadder note, this father of a three year old and one year old loves the energy I get from drinking coffee.

When I have a really good cup of coffee—whether it’s from a new roaster, or a new blend—do you think I just move on and never try that coffee again? Of course not. I need my coffee every day to survive, and when I find one that’s as enjoyable as it is caffeinated, I keep coming back to it.

If you’re a Christian here this morning, think back to when you first repented of trying to live apart from God and placed your faith in what Jesus has done for you. When we first turn to something as a savior, it’s because we’re deeply aware of how badly we need it. And yet, when it comes to the Christian life, we never leave our need for him to do for us and in us and through us what we cannot do on our own.

Do you still feel your sense of need? Does coming to him still provide you with the joy of that wonderful first cup of coffee in the morning? If it doesn’t, or if it never has, my encouragement to you this morning is to reflect once again on the good news of Jesus—how he saw you while you were still far from him, just like the crowd in verse 5.

And yet, as we read in verse 6, he already knew what he would do. He already knew how he would meet your greatest need. He already knew how he would provide for you each day of your life as he continues to make you more like him, giving you himself as the bread from heaven, until you one day reach the promised land. We never leave the gospel. Jesus is our needed bread. But he’s not just needed; he’s also sufficient. Let’s keep reading in verses 8-12.

John 6:8–12 ESV

⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”

Jesus brings up the need to his disciples, and they bring back to him all that they have—a boy with five barley loaves and two fish. Barley loaves were inexpensive and were a really common bread made by the lower class. When verse 9 mentions two fish, don’t think catfish. These wouldn’t have been that big. Mostly likely they were pickled fish that were just used as a side dish for the bread.

When Jesus asked what they had, his disciples didn’t have much. But here is where we can get tripped up with this story. The point is not that the disciples didn’t have much, but they gave it to Jesus, and it was enough. No, the point was that they couldn’t meet the need, but Jesus could. It wasn’t that what they had to offer was enough in the hands of Jesus. It’s that Jesus himself is enough.

When we focus on those five loaves of bread and two fish as the foundation for the miracle rather than who Jesus is, we can twist the story to think that our salvation is God making the most out of what we have to offer. But what is five pieces of bread in front of 10,000-20,000 people? It’s nothing!

We have nothing to contribute to our own salvation. We are incapable of making ourselves right with an all righteous God, we are incapable of steadfastly following our all-righteous God, and we are incapable of changing ourselves to be like the righteousness of God.

Do you know what some of the sweetest words in the world are when it’s late at night and you’re exhausted and your toddler or your baby starts crying over the monitor in the other room? Your spouse saying, “I got this.”

Having Jesus be sufficient for something you’re incapable of doing on your own doesn’t suppress your freedom—it satisfies your heart. It brings rest to your soul. He’s the bread that nourishes us, and he is all that you need for every aspect of your life.  Following him gives you a unified purpose for your life, a passion in the various aspects of your life, and a peace regardless of the circumstances in your life.

In verse 10, he leads the people where they need to go. In verse 11, he breaks the bread, so that it can be given to the people (representing how his body was broken for us on the cross). And then in verse 12, we see that everyone who took of the bread Jesus offered was able to eat until they were full. He is our sufficient bread.

And whether you’re studying him for the first time or you’re a newer believer or you’ve been a Christian for decades, don’t miss the invitation in the metaphor to feast on the good news of Jesus every day of your life.

And as we close this morning, verse 13 reminds us that our feast is not just for ourselves. That the sufficiency of Jesus extends beyond what he’s done for you and me. There are people in our families, in our jobs, in our community who also need the sufficient bread of Jesus, and there is more than enough for them. Look with me at verse 13:

John 6:13 ESV

¹³ So [the disciples] gathered [up the leftovers] and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

The good news of Jesus isn’t something that ends with us being satisfied. He’s the bread that multiplies for every person that becomes his people. The twelve baskets of leftovers represented the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus is saying that he’s enough, and that he can provide for all of his people.

The miracle started with the disciples acknowledging what they couldn’t do, but after Jesus gave his bread, they were given the responsibility to gather it up into the twelve baskets. If you are a follower of Jesus, then we have the God-given privilege of sharing the bread of life with those around us trusting that he alone is able and sufficient to meet their need.

Let’s pray.