Shammah Temple Fellowship: Sermon of Sunday April 27, 2025
By Gad Ndayihimbaze
Theme: How far does Jesus want us to go believing Him?
Reference scriptures: John 6:22-59
To be able to boil water, there’s a level that one needs to get to to say, ‘now, it’s done’. For example, experts say it’s 100℃. In our faith life as well, there’s a level of believing Jesus wants us to get to so He’s satisfied with our ways.
So, what level of Believing does Jesus want us to reach?
- Jesus wants us to believe Him as the one cannot live without
Bread is symbolic when it comes to what one needs to eat and live. In the wilderness, God sent the Israelites manna. It’s compared to a bread. ‘The bread of life’ was used three times throughout the Bible, by Jesus referring to Himself signaling the urgency and necessity for everyone to really life a life of Believer.
Back to this passage, Jesus rebuked the crowds coming His way as they only saw Him as someone who could give bread away, the physical bread that they could eat and then go hungry before the same day ended. He wanted them to rather believe Him and get His eternal bread. “Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that endures and leads to eternal life…” (John 6:27).
Jesus wanted them to eat of Him, to get their thoughts off things that are temporal, but focus on things that are eternal. It is clear they couldn’t understand the concept.
Why can we not live without Him?
- Because He is the only one capable of getting our sin away. “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29).
- Because He is the only one able to restore our relationship with God. “For there is only one God, and only one Mediator between God and mankind, the Man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the right and proper time,” (1 Timothy 2:5).
- Jesus wants us to believe Him as a source of life over which death has no control
The words “eternal life” are used to mean the covenant of God to those who believe Him and live even after death. This eternal life starts even from here on earth as we start putting all our trust in the very life He offers us. It liberates us from sin, the sin that brought death to mankind.
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake (resurrect), these to everlasting contempt (abhorrence)”, Daniel 12:2.
When we believe Jesus as a life not suppressed by death, we lead lives full of hope and positivity.
In short, Jesus wants us to believe Him as the only one we put our life assurance in, the one without Him our life is reduced to nothing. He also wants us to find the everlasting life in Him because He never lets us down and He is always there for us, even in our most challenging moments. He gets us safe before most dangerous things such as death, because He conquered death and it can no longer stop Him and His own people.
