"Feeding On the Bread of Life"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the Word of God. What is the message of the feeding of the 5000 that's meant to change my life? What is in here that was meant even in the 20th century to change my life and make me different because of what Jesus did here?

And that's the question that we need to answer together that I hope to answer for you this morning and I hope you can take out of here as you leave. Now let's look together at the passage. We're in chapter 9 verse 10. And when the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done and he took them with him and they withdrew themselves to a town called Bethsaida. Now remember if you look back in verse 1, you'll see that the apostles, the disciples had been out on a preaching tour and now when they get back, they're exhausted.

I mean they're elated, but they're exhausted. Jesus says to them, why don't you come on and let's go get some R&R. In fact, Matthew chapter 14 says that they went to a desolate place as you saw on the slide to go get some R&R.

Now what happened? Well, verse 11, it says, but the crowds learned about it and followed him. Jesus was a celebrity. Everywhere he went, people knew where he was. So when he started to slip off for a little R&R, people wouldn't let him go. They knew how to find him and they went after him.

Now let's stop for a minute and think. How would you feel if you had gone away for a little bit of well-deserved rest, well-deserved privacy and all of these people followed you and wouldn't leave you alone? Every time I think about this, I think about the movie, What About Bob? You know, it's the story of a psychiatrist who leaves the big city with his big practice and all of the stress to go find a little mountain to hide away with his family and get a little break. And then this nutty patient of his named Bob, he comes to see him and he can't get rid of him.

Whenever I think about this passage and I think about how the crowds followed him, I think about that movie and about how that psychiatrist reacted. He reacted with anger and bitterness and resentment. He was cranky. He wanted to be left alone. But that's not what Jesus did.

Look what he did. Verse 11, it says that he welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed healing. Mark chapter 6 says the reason he did this is he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And Jesus Christ cared about these people.

He didn't see them as a bother or as a nuisance. These people mattered to him. He cared about them. You know, before I was a Christian, one of the worst things about not being a Christian is loneliness.

The feeling that nobody really, really cares. One of the greatest things about coming to know Jesus Christ in a personal way for me was that I, for the first time in my life, felt like I had somebody who was really interested, that I couldn't bother, that I wasn't a nuisance to when I went and talked to, that no matter how many times I brought my problems to him or my struggles to him or my needs to him, he never looked at me like I was a nudge. But he was always interested and always available. And I felt like I could never be so much of a nudge that he'd ever say, get lost, Solomon, I'm sick of you.

He would never do that. He didn't do it to these people and he never did it to me. And if you're here and you've never had that real personal experience with Jesus Christ, one of the greatest things you're missing is a sense that somebody really cares and you can't bother them enough to stop them from caring. They love you. You're valuable. That's the greatest part, I think, or one of them, about knowing Christ because he's going to treat you and me just the way he treated these people. They matter to him.

Well, let's go on. He says in verse 12, late in the afternoon, the 12, the disciples came to him and said, Lord, send the crowd away so they can go into the surrounding villages and countryside and get food and lodging because we're out in the middle of nowhere here, Lord. And so the Lord said to them, you give them something to eat. And they answered and said, well, we only have five loaves of bread and two little fish, which, by the way, they took from a little kid. You know, I mean, there's a little kid who was willing to donate them unless we go and buy food for this crowd.

Where are we going to get anything to give them? For there were about 5000 men that were there. And that's not women or children.

That's just men. So Jesus said, well, if you're worried about these people not having something to eat, you give them something to eat. The disciples throw their hands up and go, Lord, where do you think we're going to get enough food to feed all these people? I mean, we got two fish and we got five bagels.

And that's all we've got. God, where are we going to get the food to feed all these people, huh? Verse 14, he says, all right, have them sit down in groups of about 50. And the disciples did so and everybody sat down and taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and he broke them.

Now, what did that look like? Well, he lifted them up and I'm sure he said, Baruch atah Adonai l'heinu melech ha'olam ha-motzi lecha min ha'aretz, which means in Hebrew, blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth food out of the ground. And then the Bible says, he began giving the bread to the disciples to set before the people. And they all ate and they were all satisfied and the disciples picked up 12 baskets full of broken pieces that were left over. Jesus, after he prayed, began taking the bread and breaking it and giving it out and filling up basket after basket after basket. The bread just kept coming, no matter how many pieces he broke off and putting the baskets of the disciples.

There was always another piece of bread to break off. The Bible says he gave them bread until they would go up to people and they would say to people, here, have some more bread and the people go, I can't, I'm sick. In fact, the Greek word that used here in verse 17, it says the people ate and were satisfied is a Greek word that literally means to gorge yourself. It's used of animals who would eat so much that they would literally be bloated. They had eaten so much.

And that's what it says these people did. They ate till they were bloated up. They, they porked out on this food. I don't know how you are, but when the food I'm eating is free, my appetite seems to go up about six levels.

Is that true of you guys? And I'll bet you this is exactly the way these people were. I mean, Jesus offered them an all you can hold buffet and he had food coming as long as they wanted to eat.

And these guys just gorge themselves. Listen, friends, the reason Jesus stopped making bread was not because he couldn't make any more bread. The reason he stopped making bread is because nobody could eat any more bread. He had 12 baskets left over as it was.

He could have fed 5,000 million people if he'd wanted to. You say, well, on one final question, how do you explain this? Well, folks, you don't explain this. This is a miracle. A miracle means that God suspends the natural laws of the universe to do something that can't happen.

But he did. You don't explain a miracle. A miracle is a miracle. God did it.

That's the only explanation there is. And if you believe that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh the way he claimed, and I believe that, then this miracle doesn't give me one bit of heartburn. I don't have any problem accepting the fact Jesus did this, and I hope you don't either. If he can create the world, he can certainly create a bunch of bread for folks. I don't know how he did it, and I don't care if I know how he did it. God never asked me to understand how he did it just to believe that he did, and I believe he did. Now, that's the end of the passage, but it leads us to ask the really important question, which is, so what?

And there's a bunch of so-whats we could get out of this. For example, we could talk about the little boy who brought his two fish and his five loaves of bread, which was a very small amount, and put it in the hands of Jesus, and Jesus multiplied it and turned it into a lot. And I could talk to you about the fact that you might not feel like you have much talent or you have much education or you have much ability or you have many resources, but you take them and put them in the hand of God and watch what happens. I mean, when I became a Christian at the age of 21 years old, I had hair out to my shoulders, was on dope.

I wasn't a college graduate because it's hard to graduate from college when you haven't been to class in two years, and I hadn't, at least not except for marginally. And I put myself in the hands of God and said, God, I don't know what you can do with somebody like me, but whatever you can do, I'm yours. And frankly, I think God has done more with me than really he should have been able to do with me. I think God's done a lot of things beyond what you could have expected to happen with me, and God will do more with you than you think he can do with you if you put it in his hands.

Now, that would be a great so what, but that's not the one we're going to do. Or we could talk about Jesus praying. You know, when he lifted up the bread and he prayed, you say, did Jesus have to lift up the bread and pray in order to do this miracle?

No. Well, then why did he do it? Well, I believe the reason he did it is because he wanted people to make sure that they gave the credit to the right place. And that's an awful good so what. Whenever God blesses your life or gives you some victory, I believe it's really important for you and me to make sure that the credit goes to the right place.

We don't have to be obnoxious about it, but we need to be outspoken about it. And we can make a pretty good so what out of that, but we're not going to do that either. The so what that I want us to focus on is the one that Jesus himself provides for this event. You know, whenever you can get a so what that Jesus gives you, that's always better than what I can think of.

And so Jesus provides his own so what for this. You'll find it back in John chapter 6. And I'd like you to turn there, John chapter 6. And what we're going to see here is one of the greatest sermons Jesus ever gave. And it comes the very next morning after the feeding of the 5,000.

It comes right on the heels of that. It's a sermon about eternal life. It's a sermon about true saving faith. It's a sermon about what believing in Jesus Christ really means and the way in which God wants us to relate to him so that we really see results, okay?

This is what it's about. And remember, it's an outgrowth of this miracle. By the way, this miracle is the only miracle that all four gospels mention in the whole Bible, other than the resurrection, of course.

And this is John's follow up to this event. Now let's look at verse 24. It says that once the crowd realized that during the night Jesus had gone on someplace else, they got in boats and they went after him. And when they found him, verse 25, they said, Rabbi, when did you get here? But Jesus said, I tell you the truth, you're looking for me not because you saw the miracle and you want something spiritual, but because you ate the loaves and you had your fill.

You liked the bread I gave you. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him, God the Father has placed his seal of approval. Jesus says to them, look, don't be more interested in your stomach than you are in your soul.

Well, they didn't really understand exactly what he was talking about. Verse 28, so they said to him, Lord, what do we have to do to do the works that God requires? How can we get this eternal life food? Jesus said, it's very simple, the work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent. Jesus said, you want eternal life, you need to believe in me. But folks, you know when I do too, that believe is one of those easy to misunderstand words. You know what I'm saying?

It can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. So Jesus goes on to try to define a little bit better the kind of believing that he's looking for and he uses this miracle of the bread for the 5,000 and all this food they ate, they pigged out, right? He uses this as a backdrop to help explain to these people what the kind of belief that he's looking for is. So do you understand what we're going to do now? Now let's watch him do it. Verse 35, Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.

How appropriate, huh? He just fed them bread. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Now skip down to verse 47. I tell you the truth, he who believes in me has eternal life.

I am the bread of life. So now he's been talking about believing. Everybody see that? He's talking about believing in him, believing in him. Now he's going to switch and connect it up with what they did the day before and that's eat.

Watch. Verse 49, your forefathers ate manna in the desert. Remember that's that bread God dropped from heaven for the Israelites and they're dead. But here is bread pointing to himself that comes down from heaven which a man may eat of and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If a man eats this bread, he will live forever.

This bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world. Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves and say, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Now folks, why would Jesus use that kind of strange language? Because he was trying to help these people understand what true believing is all about. You see, Jesus knew it's easy to misunderstand the word believe, to turn it into just a head word, okay?

To stand there and do your catechism. I believe Jesus was the son of God. I believe Jesus died on the cross. I believe Jesus was buried.

I believe Jesus rose on the third day from the dead. End of catechism. Do you believe in Jesus?

Of course I do. You just heard my catechism, didn't you? Jesus says, this is not belief. Jesus said, if you really want to understand what believe is, then the kind of believing I'm talking about is like eating.

You say, what does that mean? Well, when we eat food, what do we do? Well, you ingest it, right? You take it inside of you, not just in your head.

You ever see people just put food in their head? You put food into your whole being. You take it in, it becomes an inseparable part of you.

You assimilate it. It nourishes all the cells in your body and gives life to every part of you. Your relationship with food is not an intellectual relationship. Your relationship with food and mine is an experiential relationship.

Do you understand? Look, I love food. I do. I love to eat. You say, but you look so thin. Well, thank you.

Thank you. I just lost 30 pounds. Say, 30 pounds? Yeah, I did. I ballooned to 215. You say, all right, 215 minus 30, 185. Right. Very good.

183, actually. But, you know, it's a fight to keep it off every day. It's terrible. You say, well, Lon, how could you let yourself get to 215 pounds? And how in the world could you put yourself through this? Because, listen, my relationship with food is not an intellectual relationship. Nobody gains weight off an intellectual relationship with food. You see, if you stand there and go, yes, I know this is food. Yes, I know that it will nourish my body cells.

Yes, it is tantalizing and will touch my taste buds way down deep. You don't gain weight from that. You gain weight because you what? You eat it.

That's right. And you eat more of it than you should. See, that's an experiential relationship. I took that food in.

It became a part of me, a big part of me. And, folks, you can purchase food. You can prepare food. You can smell food. You can see food. You can touch food. You can sit at the table with food all around you.

But it's no good unless you eat it, unless you take it in. And do you understand what Jesus is saying? What he's saying is it's the same way with me. I'm spiritual food.

He said that, didn't he? He said, I am spiritual bread that came down from heaven. I'm spiritual food. See me as spiritual food and eat me the way you eat physical food. Make it that personal.

Make it that experiential. I'm not a theological theory to be debated in some classroom. I am a personal savior to be ingested into your life and into your soul, just the way you guys ate all that food yesterday that I made for you. By faith, I'm to be taken into your life in that same way so I can nourish your soul and so that I can nurture every cranny of your being. That what you do to food physically is what you need to do to me spiritually by faith in order to believe properly. That's what believing is all about. And that's why in the book of Revelation it says that, well, Jesus Christ is knocking at the door of our life and we need to open the door. And what? Invite him in. See, that's eating spiritual food.

You know what I'm talking about. And you chew that thing up and you savor it and you swallow it and from that point on, that chocolate donut is part of you, friend. That's the way Jesus wants to be accepted spiritually by faith.

Invite him in your life and he becomes part of you. Look what he said. Verse 57. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me, here he is, listen, the one who feeds on me spiritually will live because of me. I am the bread that came down from heaven. Our forefathers ate manna out in the wilderness and they died.

But the person who feeds on this bread, me, will live forever. If you're here and you've never embraced Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, if you've never ingested him the way he ingests food, then may I say to you that no amount of intellectual assent will do? That is not saving faith. See, it's not good enough to say Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I know that.

No, no, no. You've got to reach the point where you can say Jesus Christ is my Savior. It's not good enough to say Jesus died on the cross for the sin of the world. No, you've got to be able to personalize it, be able to say, no, Jesus died on the cross for my sin.

If I'd have been the only person in the world, he would have died for me. It's not enough to say Jesus belongs to the world. You've got to be able to say Jesus belongs to me. He's mine because by faith I've reached out and grabbed a hold of him and invited him in my life and ingested him as spiritual food and we're inseparable now like me and that donut.

You can't separate us. That's the kind of faith that brings eternal life. And maybe you've been going to church all your life. Maybe you've been saying catechisms all your life. Maybe you've been taking sacraments and doing things all your life. But friend, if you haven't done this kind of believing, then you don't have eternal life because Jesus doesn't grant it to anything but this kind of believing. And I hope God will bring you to the place that you see the difference and that you're willing to reach out and take him in your life.

Now if you're here and you're a Christian, I think there's also a great message here for us. Jesus says he's living food. He's everyday living food. He didn't teach us to pray give us our monthly bread, did he? Or give us our weekly bread. Or for some of us, some people give us our twice a year bread at Christmas and Easter. He taught us to pray give us our what?

Daily bread. And you know folks, when you went out, if you were an Israelite that lived out in the wilderness and God was dropping manna on you for 40 years, you know what's interesting? God would never allow you to collect more than one day's supply of manna. If you did and you tried to cheat, you stole a little bit away so you didn't have to go out the next morning. You know what happened to it?

It rotted. And the reason for that is God was trying to teach these people a lesson. He was trying to teach them you can't live off yesterday's manna.

And God's trying to teach us as Christians a lesson. You can't live off yesterday's bread of life. There are a lot of Christians who try, but in order to be healthy as a Christian, we need to ingest a fresh supply of the bread of life every single day. I mean we need a fresh filling by the Spirit of God every single day. We need a fresh touch by Jesus Christ himself on our life every single day, a fresh experience with God every day. If we're going to have the strength we need to love our husband, love our wife, love our children, live biblically, act righteously, hate sin, have righteousness, pursue holiness in our lives, friend, you can't run on fumes and do that.

You need a fresh experience of God every day. I think in the Old Testament of the guy named Samson. Well, you remember he's the guy with the beard that Delilah cut off his beard and lost all his strength? Samson was a man who knew God. Samson had a problem though. Samson's problem was his diet, his spiritual diet. He didn't eat right. Samson had a few good spiritual meals here and there along the way, and in between Samson tried to run on slim fast. Can't do it. And as a result, his life was inconsistent, his spiritual life was unstable, and there was all kinds of sin in his spiritual life even as a believer because of the fact that he tried to eat spiritual food on a quarterly basis.

You can't do that and have the kind of Christian experience that God wants you to have. Now, I know this is a fast-paced world. I know we're busy. And I have a schedule like yours.

My schedule is just as crazy. But you know what? When you start running on fumes like that, you begin losing the power and the vitality of the Christian experience. You can't maintain it any more than if I didn't feed you for three days, you could maintain the physical strength that you've got today. You couldn't do it. So I want to challenge you. Don't be a slim fast Christian.

You can't make it that way. Your life will show the very negative effects as a Christian of trying to do that. Well, whether you're Christian or you're not, I hope God spoke to you about something this morning and I hope it will change the way you live.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for the Word of God this morning. And Lord, I want to pray first of all for those of us here who are not Christians, who've never really had this kind of personal ingesting of Jesus Christ into our soul and into our life. Lord, maybe there are people here who've been to church all their life. Maybe they've been to sacraments and they've taken communion and they've been baptized and they've sung in a choir but they've never reached out by faith and eaten the bread of life, ingested it into their soul. And Lord, I pray that you would help them this morning understand what the difference is. Enlighten their heart by your Spirit. And Lord, I pray that they would opt not just to an intellectual belief in you but to the kind of soul belief like eating food that you want them to have that produces results with God. And Father, I want to pray for those of us here who are already Christians.

We understand that concept. We've reached out and we've invited Christ into our life and we've eaten and ingested him as the bread of life. But yet, Lord, many, many times we let our schedule crowd him out so we're really fasting so many days spiritually, running on SlimFast. Lord, I pray that you would challenge us today that if we're too busy to spend time with the living God each day, then we're too busy. We need to make some priority decisions that will allow us to draw on the bread of life every day. Lord Jesus, change our habit patterns and our daily schedule based on what we've heard here today that our lives might make a difference for Christ. And we pray that in Jesus' name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.