1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the agent of creation, the Savior of all people, promises to abide IN His people. Several weeks ago we began a three-part sermon series on Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse in John 6. The first promise we looked at from our Savior Jesus was, “The Bread of Life Satisfies” (based on John 6:35). The second promise was, “The Bread of Life Raises” (based on John 6:40). This week we are looking at Jesus’ words in John 6:56 and the message is entitled, “The Bread of Life Abides.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Of the three, the promise in this sermon is the most personal. The promise to satisfy speaks to what Jesus provides FOR us. The promise to raise us from the dead speaks to what Jesus does TO us. This promise to abide speaks to what Jesus does IN us. Jesus says in John 6:56, “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (6:56). You can’t get more personal and intimate than that. Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the agent of creation, the Savior of all people, promises to abide IN His people.
3. The remarkable thing about this promise is that it’s not unique to this chapter. Paul writes this way in Galatians 2:20 when he says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Jesus speaks similarly in John 15 with the image of the vine and we, His disciples are the branches. He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). In John 17:21-23 Jesus prays that He would be one with us as He is one with the Father. He says, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:21–23) The image here is not only Jesus as the one who saves us from our sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, but He takes up residence in us and becomes one with us.
4. This profound truth that, Jesus the bread of life abides in us, has several far-reaching implications. In fact, we are going to look at three areas in our lives that we may consider how Jesus’ gracious promise to abide in us impacts us who believe in Him as our Lord and Savior.
5. The first truth we are going to look at today is that, “You are not alone.” That’s encouraging as we continue to endure the other pandemic. I’m talking about the “loneliness pandemic.” That is what a recent article in Harvard Magazine called it. The article notes that, in 2017, former United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness a public-health epidemic. A year later, the United Kingdom appointed a “Minister for Loneliness,” and that was before such terms as “social distancing,” “self-isolation,” and “shelter in place” became part of our everyday vocabulary. Loneliness not only effects those who have suffered the last year and a half behind masks and safe distances. It also afflicts children whose parents are too busy working, wives whose husbands are practically married to their hobbies, to their work, or whatever sport happens to be in season, and social media butterflies who have countless “friends” on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, but no one to listen to them at the end of the day.
6. In fact, many people in America feared that the isolation and unemployment from Covid lockdowns would lead to an increase in “deaths from despair.” Those predictions were tragically spot on. According to new numbers from the CDC, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. skyrocketed by nearly 30 percent in 2020, the greatest increase in decades. The Wall Street Journal in an article on July 14th entitled, “U.S. Drug-Overdose Deaths Soared Nearly 30% in 2020, Driven by Synthetic Opioids,” states that most of the 93,000-plus fatalities last year involved fentanyl. This information tells us as Christians that responding to health crises by focusing only on physical sickness just won’t do. Nor can we continue to value pharmaceutical profits over human life. These numbers expose a second pandemic facing our culture: a radical lack of hope and feelings of isolation and loneliness. We’re worshiping at the altar of stuff, sex, state, and self, and it can’t satisfy. We were made for something more. We were made to worship God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sharing this with the world is more than a matter of obedience—it’s a matter of public health.
7. Many people struggle with sufficient social support, which is what stands behind the loneliness pandemic. The need for social connection is not undone by this promise of Jesus. But one of the implications of Jesus’ promise to abide in us is we are never truly alone. Jesus abides, remains, resides, dwells IN those who trust Him. In fact, this is why Christ gives us the Church, which is His body where we are not only united to Jesus through His Word and Sacraments, but we are united to one another as a body of believers. Hebrews 10:24–25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” And St Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:24-27, “But God has composed the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it.”
8. The second impact of having Jesus the Bread of Life abiding in you is that, “You are fully known.” In his brilliant exploration of marriage, called, “To Understand Each Other,” Christian Counselor Paul Tournier describes a successful marriage as one in which husbands and wives are constantly seeking to understand one another. That reminds me of my wife who asks me on a regular basis, “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” The reason is relatively simple. We long to be known by someone. We long for someone to understand us. An effect of Jesus abiding in us is that He knows us completely, even the hairs of our head are numbered by Him as he teaches us in Matthew 10:30. The last verse in Psalm 1 comes to mind. “The Lord knows the way of the righteous,” and beginning Hebrew students understand that this type of knowing (יָדַע – yaw-dah) involves much more than mere information. In fact the Hebrew word, “to know” means to know someone intimately. It is used in the sense of Adam “knew” his wife Eve and their sexual union produced a son. Genesis 4:1 says, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”
9. Think about that. Jesus knows us deeply, personally, and intimately and He still loves us. In fact, He knows you and me even more than we know ourselves and yet He still loves us. Romans 5:8 says, “8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As the pillow that one little boy received at his baptism says, “Jesus knows me, this I love.” And we do love it because it means we are understood. When no one can relate, or no one cares to try, the promise in John 6:56 means Jesus truly knows us and loves us. Remember Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him (John 6:56).”
10. The third impact of having Jesus the Bread of Life abiding in you is that, “You are not you own.” For self-reliant people such as ourselves, this may not sound like good news. But it is only a bad thing if the one who owns you is self-centered and self-serving. If, on the other hand, the one who owns you is capable of and willing to do what is best for you, there is nothing more freeing. But, this freedom is not to be used selfishly. As Martin Luther puts it in, “The Freedom of the Christian Man,” our perfect freedom is at the same time complete servitude. Luther says, “A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none, a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” In other words, if we are freed from our sin, from death, and the power of the devil through Jesus’ life-giving death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, then that means that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature have no power over us. But, now that means that we are free from serving ourselves and our own sinful lusts and desires and we are free to serve our neighbor in Christian love.
11. Paul speaks this way in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 when he says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in our body.” How might we glorify God with our bodies? We might begin by looking around at our neighbors—in our homes, in our congregation, in our communities. It might include working a few less hours to spend time with your kids. It might mean missing a college football game to spend time with your wife. It might mean reaching out with a private message to a friend and taking them out for a cup of coffee. It would mean that we keep our eyes and our bodies away from sexual immorality. That we avoid temptations to pornography and crude and crass jokes. That we honor marriage between only a man and a woman as God’s divinely ordained institution and that we encourage people to honor marriage and protect the family.
12. Jesus’ promises here in John chapter 6 do change us. His promise as the bread of life does truly satisfy, raise us from the dead, and assure us that He personally abides in us through His Word and Sacraments. They bring us into the world as it really is, and they enliven us for right living within it. He promises divine and eternal gifts, and as a result, he turns us away from ourselves to the people who need us. Jesus presents himself before you today in Word and Sacrament. He tells us that in receiving the bread and wine, we are eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and that in so doing we are receiving the forgiveness of our sins. Many are as offended by this today as those who heard him centuries ago when Jesus first spoke these words. And then he asks us as he did them: “ ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God’ ” (John 6:67–69). Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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