I am the Bread of Life.

I want to talk to you about the great I AM.

The God that we serve has no CONFUSION as to who He is.

The definition of I am: I am is the first person singular present tense form of the main copular verb in English.

God describes himself in the bible as I am, and we serve the ONE TRUE God – with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit making up that one true God; it is first person, singular.

The bible teaches us that God is three persons sharing one essence; the trinity…God is tri- personal.

Also this name signifies the important fact that this God that we serve and love is still very much present. We don’t serve a God who is dead. We serve a God who is involved in our lives on a daily level; who hears our calls, sees our needs, and answers our prayers. He is present. Sadly even though our God is assured of who HE is – we struggle with who He is - to us.  It truly is just like that old standby phrase when a person breaks up with somebody …

"Its not you – its me." It will NEVER be God who pulls away – if we are seeking Him, loving and worshipping Him – He will be as close as a whisper…. But it’s when we quit calling and begin to miss our dates with Him that things start to feel awkward…so we break up. There are countless of people confused about who this God is that they heard about and maybe even thought that they met.

God’s NOT CONFUSED…He knows who He is.

In Exodus 6 when God speaks to Moses preparing him for the work that he was called to do – to go and speak to Pharaoh about releasing the Israelites from slavery – God said…

"I am God. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the strong God, but by my name God

(I am present) I was not known to them. I established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the country in which they lived as sojourners. But now I’ve heard the groaning of the Israelites whom the Egyptians continue to enslave and I’ve remembered my covenant. Therefore tell the Israelites: I am God. I will bring you out from under the cruel labor of Egypt. I will rescue you from slavery. I will redeem you, intervening with great acts of judgment. I’ll take you as my own people and I’ll be God to you. You’ll know that I am God, YOUR GOD, who brings you out from under the cruel hard labor of Egypt. I’ll bring you into the land that I promised to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and give it to you as your own country. I am God."

We serve a God who isn’t confused about who He is.

He is confident.

He isn’t vague.

He is assured.

He isn’t ambiguous.

He’s definite

He isn’t confused.

He is ours and Jesus’ heavenly Father.

And He sent His son to die on the cross for our sins.

Because of His assurance, Jesus wasn’t confused about who He is either.

In John 6 right after feeding the 5000 Jesus speaks the first of seven I am statements in John’s gospel, each one emphasizing an important aspect of what Jesus came to do.

This miracle, Jesus taking two small fish and five loaves of barley bread that a young little boy had with him; multiplies it and feeds all those people who were there to be healed….even filling twelve large baskets of leftovers. 

Right after that Jesus slipped away up to the mountains to escape because he could see that the people in their enthusiasm wanted to make him an earthly king. The disciples, themselves saw this miracle performed … along with all the others…they saw that this was no normal man but soon after when they got back into the boat and headed back across the water without Jesus and the winds came and churned up the sea…. They saw Jesus approaching the boat walking on top of the water and they were scared senseless. To calm them he had to tell them… "It’s me, it’s all right, don’t be afraid."

Maybe the reason why God is always telling us who He is – is because we just can’t seem to recognize him????

The next day, all those people who were there that saw Jesus perform the miracle of feeding the 5000 realized that He had left and wasn’t coming back so they hopped into some of the new boats from Tiberias that had brought people there and headed for Capernaum to look again for Jesus.

When they found him they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"

They called him teacher…. They didn’t call him Lord. Even though they witnessed a miracle they didn’t recognize him as God. Jesus answered, "You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, I filled your stomachs for free."

Jesus wasn’t afraid of calling out people on the truth… He wasn’t afraid to offend a person if they were headed to hell and he could give them an alternative…. THAT IS WHAT WE ARE MISSING TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We should care enough about someone’s final destination that we risk hurting their feelings or that we make them uncomfortable.

Jesus tells them, "don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that, work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what He does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.

To that they said, "Well, what do we do then to get in on God’s works?"

Jesus said, "Throw your lot in with the One who God has sent; that kind of commitment gets you in on God’s works."

Isn’t that just how we are still today? Don’t we just seem to look for the quick fix, the patch up – instead of the overhaul that will cost us much more time and energy but will last so much longer?

They waffled; "why don’t you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what’s going on? When we see what’s up, we’ll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert. It says so in the scriptures, "he gave them bread from Heaven to eat."

It says in Exodus 16 that after about a month and a half the people who were saved from slavery were beginning to complain about their lives; asking Moses and his brother Aaron why didn’t God let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat?

What is wrong with these people… they would rather be slaves, getting beat and working in the hot sun with no freedom than they would go without a meal?

And are we no better?

So, God said to Moses, "I’m going to rain down bread from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to my teaching or not. "

Going back to the text in John 6 when the people asked Jesus, "why don’t you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what’s going on? When we see what’s up, we’ll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert. It says so in the scriptures, "he gave them bread from Heaven to eat."

They showed their ignorance…

Moses didn’t give their ancestors manna, God did.

Obviously, these people who were talking about the scriptures didn’t read them themselves and they didn’t hear the real truth from people who knew it because that wasn’t what happened at all.

Jesus at that moment showed them right there the most important thing that they were overlooking, He said,  "the real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from Heaven but that my Father is RIGHT NOW offering you bread from heaven, the REAL BREAD. The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world." Their response- "the jumped at that, saying "Master, give us this bread, now and forever."

At that point they began to recognize Jesus… they saw the, I am… NOTICE, they no longer called him teacher but called Him Master instead.

Jesus says "I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is the bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this bread will not die, EVER. I am the bread, living bread who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live - and forever! The bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh and blood self."

Let me ask you…Do you know the, I am?

Have you met the bread of life?

Let me explain something to you that you’ve got to know…If change didn’t happen after you say you met Him – then it didn’t happen! You didn’t recognize Him. You didn’t meet the Master!

Last week we wrote down  I am _________.

If you wrote something good – He heard it. If you spoke of hurts, he heard it, and if you spoke of a complaint… he heard it.

Those people walking for 40 years in the desert complaining about the lack of food… every time they said…. I AM HUNGRY. I AM MISERABLE. I AM TIRED…. He didn’t miss it….HE, the Great I am, heard them…

Moses spoke to Aaron in Exodus 16 "tell the Israelites, come near to God, He’s heard your complaints."

Now, take the time, examine your hearts…do you know the true I am? Do you want to call him teacher or do you want to call him Master?

My hope is that you never look at bread in the same way.

Let me remind you again, "Jesus said I am the bread of life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don’t really believe me.

Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go.

 I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.

This in a nutshell, is that will, that everything handed over to me by the Father will be completed, not a single detail missed and at the wrap up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole.

This is what my Father wants – that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and aligns with him will enter real, eternal life."