Today is the first Sunday in December and we begin looking ahead to Christmas in a few weeks. Our December message series is called “The Child Who Changed the World Forever.” The child who changed the world forever was named Jesus. Jesus was the most influential person who has ever lived on this earth bar none. I’d like to read a quote about the influence of Jesus Christ by James Hefley.
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the Child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a Cross between two thieves. When He was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave. Such was His human life—but He rose from the dead.
Centuries have come and gone and today He is the Centerpiece of the human race and the Leader of the column of progress. All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.
Today, Christianity is the largest religion in the world with 2.3 billion adherents out of the earth’s 7 billion people. Not only has Jesus had an enormous influence on the entire world, that influence has transformed many individual lives. What is different about Jesus? Was He just a good teacher as so many think? Or was He something much more? To begin to answer that question, let’s look at God’s answer to Moses when Moses asked God His name.
Exodus 3:14 (NIV) God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
So, the Jews of Jesus’ day knew that God’s name was I am, for God is always there, past, present and future, He exists outside of time.
John 8:58 (NIV) “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
In this statement, Jesus not only claims to have existed thousands of years ago, He also claims God’s name for Himself. The Jews regarded this statement as blasphemy and wanted to stone Jesus. So Jesus made the audacious claim that He was God on this occasion and in a number of other passages. In this message series, “The Child Who Changed the World Forever” we’re going to look at a number of Jesus’ I am statements and what they mean for us today.
Today, my message is entitled “Jesus Our Provision.” People everywhere are searching for the answer to their needs, both needs in this life and the need to relate to the God who created them. There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person that can only be filled by Jesus. Whatever your need is this morning, Jesus wants to provide for it.
Let me give you a little background to the passage that we’re going to be looking at this morning in John 6. Jesus had just fed a crowd of 5000 people with a boy’s lunch, 5 loaves and 2 fishes, a great miracle. That evening, Jesus crossed the lake by walking on the water. The next morning the people found Jesus on the other side of the lake and asked him how He got over there. Jesus didn’t answer that question, He knew that their real question was …