A lot of times people ask, where
do I start reading the Bible? And you can start anywhere really,
but it's hard sometimes to understand. But I remember when I was little,
when I was young, my mom told me to start reading in the book
of John. This is that book, the Gospel of John. It's always good
to understand what the writer thinks is important before you
really dive into a chapter or book or anything. It's especially
important if you've read it and you've missed it to reflect on,
well, what was he really trying to say? Thankfully, the writer
here John, who was a disciple of Jesus, he tells us at the
end of the book what his goal was in writing. And that's what
my goal is today. And I'm going to tell you that
as soon as we pray and ask the Lord to help us. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word. We know that whatever you say
is true. All of your thoughts, there's no falsehood in them.
Everything you think will come to pass. You cannot change, you
are eternal, and all that you say and all that you do is good
and holy and right. in contrast to us and all that
we say and all that we think is wrong and sinful. And so we
come to you as your creatures knowing that you only do good,
you can only accept what is perfect and holy and right, and therefore
you in your own character must reject us, and yet in your perfections
you have seen a way to make even unclean and unholy sinners right
in your sight, and that's what we want to know. We want to understand
how you could be so good as to find a way to accept us who are
so opposed to you by nature, that you would find a way and
glorify your own character in doing so, to receive us to yourself. So we pray, Lord, that you would
magnify your greatness, and you would teach us, as your children,
what is true. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
The Gospel of John, in the 20th chapter, the 31st verse, it says
this, but these things are written that you might believe, that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you
might have life through his name. By nature we don't know the son
of God. By nature we don't know who Jesus
the Christ is. And so by nature we don't have
life. And God is telling us here there's
only one way that we can live spiritually, live eternally.
And that is if we know and believe Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
And so we want to understand that today. In chapter six of
John's gospel, we have an account, if you want to turn to chapter
six, if you're there, we have an account of where Jesus fed
5,000 people, men, and all the women and children too. There's
no count given of the total, but there were 5,000 men plus
the women and the children. And they had come to Him at this
time. All the people flocked to Jesus
while He was on earth. There was something they couldn't
resist about Him. And so they came to Him, and
one of the reasons they came was because many, many of the
people who came were diseased and sick and dying. And these
also had loved ones who were sick and diseased. And so these
people who were really outcasts, because in those days, if you
were sick, you would have been separated. You would have been
considered under some kind of judgment from God. And they would
have been considered lower and undesirable by society. So these people came to Jesus
who were sick because he welcomed them. not only because he welcomed
them, but because what he said to them was different, entirely
different than what anyone else had ever said. He spoke to them
about how God makes it so that sinners can be accepted by God,
and worship God, and know God. But they were diseased in their
bodies, and so when they came to him, they knew that he could
heal them. because they had seen him heal others. So that's what
initially drove them to him. So that's what we see here in
the very beginning of John chapter six. I'm going to read it a little
at a time, and then we're going to comment on it. It says, after
these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is
the Sea of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him because
they saw his miracles, which he did on them, that were diseased. Now we just read at the end of
this book how the purpose of the writer was to tell us about
Jesus Christ so that we might believe on him, to believe who
he is, Jesus, which means the Savior, the one who takes away
the sins of his people, and Christ, which means God's anointed to
do that. Christ really is a title given
to Jesus. It's not his last name, it's
a title, and it means he's God's anointed prophet, the one who
makes God known, priest, the one who does for sinners what
God requires to accept sinners and reconcile them to himself.
And King, the one who saves them from their enemies and rules
over them in righteousness, and gives them all the blessings
that God has, He is the Christ. He makes God known, He brings
us to God, and then He blesses us. It's all in Him. This is
the only way we can come to God. because we're sinners. And so
this was the purpose that these things were written that you
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised
one, the anointed one of God, to bring sinners to God and reconcile
them to God by taking their sins away in his own self and then
giving them that salvation as a king, the sovereign of this
universe. But these people saw his miracles,
which he did on them that were diseased, and so they came to
Jesus." All that's written here is meant to teach us what we,
as sinners, must do. God has to give it to us, but
this is the work of God. These people were diseased, and
what was the result of their disease? They heard of Jesus,
they were drawn to him because they needed healing, but in their
coming to Christ as diseased people, they were showing by
God's revelation that this is the way Christ saves people. In order for him to heal anyone
of a disease, he has to do something first. It says in Matthew, In
the eighth chapter of Matthew, chapter eight, in verse 16, he
says, when it was evening, there were brought to him many that
were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with
his word. He simply commanded them, and
they left. And he healed all that were sick. So he had the power, the Lord
Jesus, had the power to simply command devils and they would
obey him and to heal all that were sick. And then it says in
the next verse, he did this that it might be fulfilled, which
was spoken by the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament, who said
this, himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. So how
did the Lord Jesus heal people? Well, you could say because as
God, the Son of God, he had all power, he could just do it. But
there was a lot more required than just simply commanding it.
You see, God is holy and nothing can be done. God will not do
anything that's not in perfect harmony with justice and righteousness
and truth and holiness. People are sick and die because
of sin. Therefore, in order to heal anyone,
in order to raise anyone from the dead, in order to cast devils
out of people, Jesus Christ had to do something about the cause
why God had afflicted them with the sickness and brings death
and allows Satan to control people. He has to deal with sin. Sin
is an offense to God. God has to be satisfied. His
law, which we broke, has to be given the due justice that He
requires and fulfill that righteousness that He requires. Only Christ
can do that. You can't obey God's law. Haven't
you found it so? Everything you do is full of
sin. Your thoughts and motives, your
words, your actions, The only one who can do this is Jesus
the Christ, the prophet, the priest, and the king, the son
of God, in our nature, doing for us, to God, what we could
never do. So he himself took our infirmities
and bare our sicknesses because in order for God to receive from
us a full satisfaction to his justice, the Lord Jesus Christ
had to bear our sins and bear the sicknesses that we deserve,
the outpouring of God's justice and wrath upon himself in order
to satisfy God and to fulfill our obedience in his obedience.
Now in John chapter six, he's talking about these people. They
came to Jesus and he healed those who were diseased. They were
drawn to him. They had diseases. He healed
their diseases. It's a very simple lesson. We
have sin. Our sin is the cause of all of
the consequences of death and everything associated with it.
We don't know God. We're estranged from him. We're
separated from him. And we can't make up what we've
already messed up. We can ruin ourselves, but we
can't save ourselves. That's the message here. So they
came, the only way they could be healed of their diseases is
if the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, who he sent into the world
to save sinners, actually took their sins and therefore took
away their diseases. And that's a simple lesson here.
What did they do? Because of their diseases, they
came to Jesus Christ. They came to him and he healed
them. That's the whole lesson here. in this chapter and throughout
scripture. He heals sinners. So, listen
further. In verse 3 of John 6, and Jesus
went up into a mountain and there he sat with his disciples. A
mountain in scripture is like a place of rule and power. Jesus
Christ accomplished the will of God in his life, in his sufferings,
in his death, and then he rose from the dead and he ascended
into heaven and he sits as king and sovereign over all to save
his people. And so here he sits with his
disciples. And something's gonna happen in this chapter. In verse
four it says, and the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.
A Passover was the time when the Jews were in Egypt under
the bondage of the king of Egypt, Pharaoh. They had no way out. They'd been there over 400 years.
God sent Moses. God sent plagues. He brought
the people out of Egypt, but the last plague by which he brought
them out was called the Passover. And in that night, God promised
that he was going to destroy all the firstborn in Egypt. And
the only way the firstborn would survive is if they were in the
house where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled. And when
God saw the blood, then he would pass over that house and the
firstborn in the home would be spared. Well, the Egyptians had
no interest in the lamb. They had no interest in the blood.
They had no interest in what Moses had to say. They were concerned
because their whole country was decimated by the plagues. But
on that night, the Israelites that heard what God had told
Moses and obeyed, they took the lamb, they killed it, they sprinkled
his blood on the doorposts, and inside that house they stayed
and they ate that lamb. And God sent his destroying angel
and destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, even the firstborn
of the cattle, the animals. the firstborn of Pharaoh, the
king, the firstborn of the slaves, the firstborn throughout the
whole land. Only when God saw the blood did he pass over that
house. And this was a lesson to teach
us the only way a sinner can survive the judgment of God is
when God sees the blood, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the Passover. It says in 1 Corinthians 5-7,
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. All of the years when
the Jews in the Old Testament sacrificed the Lamb, the Passover,
it was to point them to the true Passover, the only one by which
God would accept the blood of the Lamb in sacrifice and substitution
for those inside the house. And this is the message of Scripture.
Again, it's teaching us as sinners to look to the Lord Jesus Christ
alone to save us from our sins. Otherwise, we're going to have
God's wrath poured out on us for our sins. And so the Passover,
a feast of the Jews, was nigh or was near, verse five. When
Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come
to him, he said to Philip, whence shall we buy bread that these
may eat? There's a large number of people coming to Christ at
this point. He's out on this mountain with
his disciples. He sees these people coming.
Before the people even are hungry, before they even realize they're
going to be hungry that day, the Lord Jesus Christ sees this
large number of people, 5,000 men plus women and children,
and he asks his disciple Philip, what are we gonna do to feed
all these people? And it says in the next verse, this he said
to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. This is
a key truth in scripture. Jesus Christ always knows what
he's going to do. No matter the trouble we're in,
no matter the trouble of our life, no matter the sin that
we've committed against God, Jesus Christ knows what he's
going to do to save his people. but he had to ask his disciple
in order that he would test his disciples. Because soon he's
going to the cross, soon he's going to go to the grave, and
soon he's going to rise from the grave and ascend to heaven
and sit on the throne of heaven and send these same disciples
with the gospel news to preach to sinners. Remember John said
at the end, these things were written that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, in that believing
you might have life through his name. That's the message. What
are they gonna say? What are they gonna teach the
people and preach to them? They're gonna teach what Jesus
Christ did as the Passover lamb, what he did to heal these sin
sick souls. They're gonna teach them what
he did here in this chapter to feed these people. And so he
goes on, he proves his disciple. At some point, they're going
to take the message of what Christ did to people throughout the
world, and they're going to believe. And in believing, what are they
gonna have? Life through his name. So he asked Philip, what
are we going to do? What are we going to do? He knew
what he would do. Philip answered and said, 200
penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them
may take a little. It's going to take a huge amount
of money to buy enough food for all these people. One of his
disciples, whose name was Andrew, who was Simon Peter's brother,
said to him, there is a lad here which has five barley loaves
and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? All we
know about is this one boy here has five loaves of bread and
two fishes. What are we gonna do? 5,000 men
plus all the women and children, there's no possibility that we
can feed them with this. So the test that Jesus had for
Philip was what we're going to do. He knew what he's gonna do,
and that's what we're gonna find out here. And so Jesus said in
verse 10, make the men sit down. So this was a command, sit down. And then he says, now there was
much grass in the place, so the men sat down and number about
5,000. Before Jesus Christ feeds these people, he's gonna make
them sit down. on the grass. This is exactly
what scripture speaks about him. He's called the good shepherd.
The good shepherd leads his sheep by side still waters and makes
them lie down in the grass because that's where they are fed. That's how they're fed. So he's
going to feed these people like sheep. And he commands them,
sit down. Because he must have us sit down
and stop doing anything sinners because only he can do what God
requires to take our sins away and he's going to tell us what
he did. That's what the rest of this
chapter is about. And so it says in verse 11, and Jesus took the
loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed to the
disciples and the disciples to them that were sat down and likewise
of the fishes as much as they would. Jesus takes these five
little loaves and these two small fish, and first thing he does
is he looks up to heaven, he says in the other Gospels, and
he gave thanks to his Father. And he's about to break them,
but he first looks to God in heaven as his Father before he
does so, because what he's about to do represents what he actually
did to save his people from their sins. And so he thanks God, the
father, that he gave to him, his son, this gift to give himself
to save his people from their sins. And he's thanking his father
for this. And he's asking him to bless
the purpose for which he sent him into the world, to bless
the gift he was about to give these people in his own life. And so the breaking of the bread
and the fish is just simply teaching this, as we're going to see in
a minute. Verse 12, when they were all filled, he said to his
disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be
lost. Therefore they gathered them
together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five
barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that
had eaten. So clearly he had created bread out of nothing.
Because there's no possible way that five little loaves and two
fish could fill 12 baskets, even one basket. The boy was probably
carrying it in a pouch. Now suddenly he multiplied it
and fed 5,000 men plus the women and children. You see, in the
Old Testament in the wilderness, God had fed a whole nation of
people, the Israelites, for 40 years. And how he did that was
he told Moses, look, I'm going to send, I'm going to rain down
bread from heaven every morning. And you send them out every morning
to gather up that bread. And so the first time they did
this, they woke up in the morning and the Israelites, the people
in the wilderness that God was leading into the land of Canaan,
they went outside and they looked at this stuff on the ground and
it was like frost. And they looked at it and they
said, what is it? And that's what the word manna means. What
is it? They didn't know what it was.
But God fed them with this bread from heaven for 40 years. And
so here, the son of God is feeding 5,000 men plus the women and
children by making bread. There's a connection. And it's
meant to be a connection because he's about to teach them that
that bread given by God in the wilderness for 40 years to the
children of Israel was pointing forward to the true bread that
God would give, which would not just be for the life of the people
then in the wilderness so they could live, but it would be for
their everlasting life. And that's the bread we need.
So he's taking this bread and fish and breaking it and giving
it to his disciples, and they're distributing it to the people,
and the people sitting down are eating that bread, and he's teaching
them. As God sent manna from heaven
to feed Israel for 40 years, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
is now feeding these people with this bread, and he's about to
teach them the fulfillment of both that manna and this bread
in his own giving himself, giving himself for the life of his people.
And so it says here that in verse 14, then those men, when they
had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, this is of a truth,
that prophet that should come into the world. Look, like Moses,
God told him about the manna, manna came down, we ate for 40
years, or at least our fathers did. Now this man, he's making
bread. He must be a prophet. But there
was a big, big problem here. The fact is, is that in the Old
Testament in the wilderness, the people who ate that bread
for 40 years, they died. because they didn't understand
that that manna, they said, what is it? They didn't understand
what it was. It was pointing them to Jesus
Christ, the one through whom we would have life. Remember,
these things were written that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you might
have life through his name. Where does life come from? Well,
in our bodies, it comes from eating, like bread. But in our
souls, in our eternal life, comes from Jesus Christ, and it's believing
Him that we have that everlasting life. And so there was this wrangling
going on here, and I'm gonna skip ahead because Jesus, these
men saw Him making bread, they suddenly wanted to make Him a
king. That's not why He came, to be a king over the nation
of Israel in that land then. He's the King of glory, the Lord
of heaven. His kingdom was not of this world.
And the bread that he would give was not physical bread. It was
spiritual bread himself. But these people are intent on
making him king so they can have groceries, auto-delivered. And
so he sends his disciples away in a ship across the sea. He
himself goes away and they're going to have a rendezvous here.
The people find the disciples missing, they don't know where
the Lord is, so they put two and two together, they realize
that he must have gotten a ship and gone across the sea. So they
get in the ship and they follow him there. And I'm going to pick
it up back in verse 12. Verse 25, and when they had found
him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi,
which is another word for master. It's a title that the Jews would
give one another. You're a great person, a great
teacher that called one another rabbi or master. Jesus said,
no, no, don't call anyone on earth rabbi. You have one master,
it's Christ. That's what he said. So here
they meet him, they said rabbi, because they were trying to pay
him the same honor they paid to the Jewish leaders, the religious
leaders of those days. They said, when do you come here?
Verse 26, Jesus answered and said, verily, verily, I say to
you, you seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because
you did eat of the loaves and were filled. Now, again, in the
Old Testament, in the wilderness, the Israelites ate the manna
every day, 40 years, and they died. They didn't believe God. They didn't understand what the
manna meant. They didn't look further than
the manna. And so they perished in unbelief. And now these people,
they're coming to the Son of God in the human nature that
He had taken in order to save His people. And they come to
Him, and they're looking at Him and hearing Him. They saw Him
perform this miracle, and all they can think about is bread.
And so they say, how'd you get here? And He pulls back the cover
of His mouth, of their facade that they put on in front of
men, this religious good works and attitude of knowledge, and
we know this stuff, and he pulls it back and he shows what they
truly are. Under all of the pretenses, there's something lay there,
pride. They had this arrogant attitude
that they knew God, that they were blessed of God when they
were completely ignorant. They stood before the Son of
God and they were blind to the fact of who he was and why he
came. They were looking for bread on
earth, something that they could eat and they would die, something
that just perishes. And this is describing all of
us. By nature, this is who we are, completely blind to what's
important, to the truth of God. We look at the things of this
life and we're completely taken up with what's going on in this
life and our pursuit. For what? For something that's
gonna perish, and we're gonna perish with it. We have no interest
in what God is like, no interest in our own salvation. By nature,
this is what we are. We're stupidly blind spiritually
and arrogantly ignorant. of our state before God, completely
blind to the fact that we have offended the God who created
us and holds our life and breath in his hand. And we seek for
the trivialities and the falsehoods of this world, and we try to
sort it out as if we're know-it-alls. We're stupid. And here these
people stand before Christ, the Son of God, stupidly blind to
who He is, and they put themselves on His level, and they want to
manipulate Him in order to do what He did so they can gather
followers to themselves and enrich themselves by making bread like
He did. And so that's what they're saying
here. He said, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus said, you
seek me, not because you saw the miracles, but because you
did eat of the loaves and were filled. Your God is your belly,
you're seeking for things that are gonna perish and you're gonna
perish with them. That's what this means. And he
says in verse 27, labor not for the meat which perisheth, but
for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life. The son of
God, the eternal God standing before them in the nature of
a man, he's telling them, look, I know what I'm talking about,
verily, verily, There is a meat that endures to everlasting life,
and you're not seeking it, you're seeking for things that perish.
This is what you need. You need to labor for this. And
so they said to him, he goes on, he says, labor not for the
meat which perishes, but for that meat which endureth to everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give to you. He is the Son of
Man, he's referring to himself. Verse 28, they said to him, What
shall we do? He said, labor for the meat that
perishes. He said, so what shall we do? That we might work the
works of God. How do we do this miracle that
you've done? We would like to be able to make
this bread too. We wanna be able to make bread that we don't have
to look anywhere further. We'll get this bread and we'll
be able to live forever. They're still completely blind. Verse
29, Jesus said to them, this is the work of God. Now they're
expecting something big here. Okay, give me something to do,
lay it on me. The Ten Commandments, we couldn't
do that. We said we could, but we didn't. Of course we failed
miserably. We didn't keep one of them. We said we would do
them all, we failed miserably. But give me something to do that
we might have this everlasting life. And Jesus said, this is
the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent. You see, the work God requires
is not something we can do. It's only done by the One He
sent. We have to look to Him whom God
provided, who did the work, and trust, believing Him that God
accepts us for what He provided and what He thinks of His Son.
The work is not what we do, it's what Christ did. It's looking
to Him who did the work God requires from us. None of us can do the
work God requires, not one. No man can come to God except
the Lord Jesus Christ, and we can only come to God through
Him. Jesus said in John 14, six, I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father
but by me. One mediator. One way to God,
it's in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he tells them this, this
is the work of God. Not what you can do, but what
Christ is going to do, what Christ did. And so he says to believe
on him. Remember, these things were written
that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that believing you might have life through his name. That's
what Jesus said here. And so in verse 30, they said
therefore to him, what sign showest thou then? What are you going
to do? Give us a sign that we may see
and believe you. What do you work? Now talk about
a denial. of the plain facts. He had just
fed 5,000 men plus women and children. He had just healed
all the disease that came to him. Visibly, they had evidence
that he was sent of God. Why are you asking for another
sign? But their question really is teaching us something. Because
in the Old Testament, that manna that came from heaven was simply
a sign. a sign of Jesus Christ coming, the Son of God coming
in our nature, the nature of a man, and as a man doing all
for his people, God required of them to save them from their
sins. So the sign they're asking for,
he's going to give them, but they're not expecting it to be
himself. You see, the miracles had a message, and the message
of the miracles was the miracle worker, the one who did the miracles.
How did he heal the diseased? He himself took our infirmities.
He bare our sicknesses because he bare our sins. He bare the
punishment God would bring upon us for our sins in his own person,
in his own nature. And now he's saying they're asking
for a sign. So what is he gonna say here?
Verse 31, they go on, they said, our fathers ate manna in the
desert, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to
eat. So now they want to refer back to Moses and the manna in
the wilderness, because he had been making bread for these people.
They want to make bread, they want to enrich themselves, maybe
sell it, maybe gather people to themselves, hey, we can make
bread, follow us. They were arrogant, they were
blind to Christ, they were blind to their disease, of their sin.
They didn't come to Him as sinners needing a Savior. They came to
Him wanting to use Him, and manipulate Him, and to prove themselves
better than Him. And so, they refer back to Moses. Our fathers ate manna in the
wilderness, in the desert, as it is written. He gave them bread
from heaven to eat. And then Jesus said to them, he cut them
off at the knees, as it were, in his explanation. He said, verily, verily, I say
to you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father. And then he goes on, not just
the manna, he says, my Father giveth you the true bread from
heaven. And what is that? Well, let's
read on. Verse 33, for the bread of God And you would expect them
now, they're anticipating what he's about to say, the bread
of God is what? What are we, where are we gonna
see it? How are we gonna find it? How
are we gonna get it so we can eat it? He says, the bread of God is
he which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. So the bread of God is not a
loaf, it's Christ. He says in verse 34, then said
they to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. They still didn't
understand it. And it's often our case too that
we ask for things we have really very little understanding of.
We come to God and say, Lord, I need this, I need that. We
really don't know what we need and we don't know what we're
asking for even when it's told to us. But thank God the Lord
Jesus Christ knows what we need, and he knows what he's talking
about, and he knows what's required to give us life. And so he goes
on. Listen, in verse 35, Jesus said
to them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never
hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst. So
people need to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And coming to the
Lord Jesus Christ, when they come to him, he says, they never
hunger. And they that believe on him
never thirst. The two things are put together.
Hungering and thirsting are ways of explaining a spiritual condition. We're famished, we have no way
to eat because we don't know where the food is and we don't
have the tools to eat it with. We don't know what we need, the
food isn't there, and we don't know how to consume it. Jesus
Christ says, I am the bread of life. But when you come to me,
that's not, you don't think of that as eating. And when you
believe on me, you don't think of that as eating and drinking,
but that's exactly what it is spiritually. Our bodies live
on bread. We eat it, we ingest it, and
it helps our bodies to live. We couldn't live without food.
Our souls live also on bread, but not physical bread, but on
Jesus Christ and him crucified. And that's what he's saying here.
Whoever looks to Christ, coming to him for life, for salvation
from our sins, that person has been given by God to come to
Christ and they find the satisfaction of their souls in him because
God is satisfied with him. God gave him, remember? He gave
thanks for the bread. He gives thanks that God has
given himself that he might give himself for his people, for their
life. And so he says, the one who comes to me never hungers,
the one who believes on me never thirsts. Because we can eat bread,
we can eat meat, we can eat all sorts of things in this life.
Drink water, we get hungry again. We can get things in this life.
We can get jobs, and cars, and houses, and children, and we
can live a long life. And then we're gonna die, and
we're gonna stand before God in judgment. And at the end of
it all, it's like, remember what you ate last week? Remember how
hungry you were? You ate, oh man, I can't eat
anymore. And then the next day you wake up, you're hungry again.
Because that food doesn't satisfy your spiritual need. But Jesus
Christ, believed, satisfies all of your soul's needs. It's an
eternal satisfaction. Once you eat, in other words,
once you believe on Christ, then you keep believing him and your
soul is continually satisfied. You don't want anything else
for your life before God because you found it. Christ is everything. And having Christ, you have not
only enough, but you have all things. So he goes on, verse
36. But I said to you that you also
have seen me and believe not. What was the issue? Believing.
What work did Jesus said you need to labor for the meat which
doesn't perish? And they said, well then what
should we do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus said,
this is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has
sent. Here he says, you've seen me, but you haven't believed
me. Just like the children of Israel, they ate the manna, they
didn't believe God, they died. The manna didn't do them one
speck of good. Jesus Christ stands before these
people, he's the bread of life, they don't believe him, he did
them not one speck of good. Because they perished in their
unbelief. They rejected the plain truth
that Jesus Christ is the one and only one through whom sinners
come to God and have life. Their sins are removed, therefore
the curse due to us because of our sins is removed. And that's
the only way we know God and what he's done to save his people
from their sins by Jesus Christ. So he says, you saw me and you
haven't believed me. This is your condition right
now, verse 37. Okay, so if the Jews who had the bread in the
wilderness ate it for 40 years and died, they didn't believe
God. And if these Jews here now who
saw Jesus perform this miracle and heard his words and talked
to him, they didn't believe, you have to ask the question,
then who is he talking about when he says, verse 32, verse
33, he says, for the bread of God is he which comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world. Who then is he talking
about? Because these people clearly didn't believe They in the wilderness
didn't believe. And if he came to give his life
for the world, then there's some here that perished even though
he came to give his life for the world. Because what he's
doing here is in the nation of Israel, they thought that because
they were born to Abraham and they practiced the Jews' religion,
that they were God's people and God was satisfied with them.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It's evident because
the children, those brought out of Egypt and walking in the wilderness
for 40 years actually died even when they ate the bread God gave
from heaven. So something more is needed.
God has to do something to save us. He has to give us an understanding
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's not what you are by your
birth to Abraham, nor is it what religion you practice. None of
those things count for nothing. Remember, what's the one thing
that counts? It's what Christ did, who He
is. All of us are sinners, and none
of us can save ourselves. We're under the wrath of God
for our sins. God has given His Son to save His people. So Jesus
says, you've seen me, you haven't believed, but in verse 37, nevertheless,
all that the Father gives me shall come to me. So it's not
whether you're a Jew, it's not even that you're a Gentile, it's
those throughout the world given to Christ to save by his Father. And he goes on, he says, not
only all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, but him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And we wonder,
well, if only those given to Christ by the Father can come
to Him, or will come to Him, then what about me? What warrant,
what grounds do I have to come to Jesus Christ? I don't know
if God the Father has given me to Him. That's not your concern. It might be your concern, but
that's not something you can figure out. Christ said all the
disease came. Those who were hungry were fed.
All who come to Him, Jesus says, I will not cast out. But He's
also revealing that there's no uncertainty in this. Everyone
the Father has given to Christ will come to Him. And that's
why He doesn't cast them out. And that's why they come. Verse
38, it tells us how he can be the bread of life. For I came
down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him
that sent me. That's the way he's the bread
of life. Not only because as the son of God, but because as
son of God, taking on our nature, now as a man, he could, according
to God's will, be the substitute, stand in the place where we stood
before God And there, before God, bearing our sins, and God
pouring out His wrath on Him, as if on us, because it was our
sins laid on Him, therefore, as our substitute, He answered
God in everything, so that we might be accepted by God. And
this is what Jesus Christ did. He says in verse 38, this is
the will, I'm sorry, in verse 38, he said, I came down from
heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. He came to do God's will. And he did that, and in doing
that will, that's the way he is the bread of life. And what
was that will? Well, he goes on, I'll read it to you in verse
51. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. How
is Jesus Christ the bread? He gives himself. And how did
he give himself? He laid his life down. He was
taken and men falsely accused him. They beat him. They spit
upon him. They put a crown of thorns on
his head. They nailed him to a cross all the while. It was
God's will that he would pour out upon his son what was due
to us as sinners. So he's given himself, his life
for our life. The bread of God is, Jesus Christ
is the bread of God because he came to do the will of God, and
the will of God is that he would offer himself as a lamb, the
Passover lamb, as a sacrifice with our sins on himself, and
in enduring the wrath of God poured out on him, he would save
all those who were in the house. God sees the blood, passes over
us. God sees His Son, He sees His
suffering, He sees His death. God did this. God provided this. This is all that God is interested
in, insofar as sinners are concerned. And when God brings us and reconciles
us to Himself, He makes Christ and Him crucified, all that we
are interested in. We find that what God has done
in Christ is very good. This reflects to me who God is. He's not only just and holy,
not only is he perfect and can't tolerate sin, but he also found
a way to make the ungodly righteous in his sight by putting his son
in their place and doing all for them they could not do and
receiving in payment from him all they could not pay. And so,
the bread of God. Now listen to verse 39, And this
is the Father's will which is sent me, that of all which he
has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. There's a day coming when the Lord Jesus Christ
is going to call forth all people out of the graves, and everyone
will stand before him in judgment. And on that day, he says, all
those the Father has given me, I'm gonna raise them up to life.
Not death, but life. Verse 40, and this is the will
of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, not like
you, Jews, who were looking at him and talking with him, saw
him, but didn't believe, but everyone who sees the Son and
believes on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. That was the will of God. God
the Father gave his son something to do. What was it? To bring
his people, to raise them from the dead by himself bearing their
sins and taking away God's wrath against them and then giving
them life from the dead. Giving them faith in himself.
All those who believe Him are given to Christ by the Father.
They come to Him, they believe, they come to Him, they forsake
all they trusted before, and they come to Christ laying their
eternal souls in His hands. And they ask Him, Lord, save
me. That's eating, that's trusting, that's believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Forsaking all else. All the meat
that perishes, all in this life, is nothing. compared to Christ,
it's all gonna perish and go away. And so the Jews thought
they could just barge their way in. They thought they were entitled
to it. Jesus says, you don't know. You
see me and you don't believe. Look at verse 44. No man can
come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him, and
I will raise him up at the last day. What is he saying here? This is God's work. It's God's
work not only to draw you, it was God's work that sent me,
it was God's work who appointed me to give myself as a substitute
in satisfaction to God, to do the will of God for my people,
to save them from their sins. Now here we are. We're like those
people on the hillside. We've come here, we've heard
God's word, and we ourselves are either diseased, and nobodies
who come to Christ for everything, our life and all things. And
we personally, and I don't do it for you. A priest doesn't
do it for you. A rabbi doesn't do it for you. Nobody can do
this for you. You yourself go to the Lord Jesus
Christ. In your mind, in your inmost
being, when you hear the word of God, God moves you. He compels you. to go out to
Him, and to look to Christ, and find your all in Him, because
God appointed Him, God gave Him, and God received all that He
did for His people, and that's your confidence, that's all your
hope, that God will look at His Son, and receive the answer Christ
gave of Himself for sinners, and so receiving Him, receive
you for His sake. That's faith. God gives it. God
has to sustain it. And once we believe, we don't
stop believing. The people in the wilderness
not only ate the bread, they continue to eat it. Believers
not only look to Christ, once they continue looking, God does
this. May God give you that grace and
save you from your sins. If he doesn't, Jesus said, you
will perish in your sins. If the Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that can save you, if you believe his word, you know
what you're gonna do? You're gonna say, Lord, save me. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you for your
goodness. Thank you for your mercy in Christ. Thank you for sending your only
begotten son into the world to bear the sins of your people
and for bringing them, telling them this great news. this glorious
news of your righteousness and justice satisfied in the death
of your Son, and your love and grace poured out in abundance
to give everlasting life to those for whom Christ died, those who
look to Him for all things. Thank you that you tell us this
message like the bread of heaven. You point us to the Lord Jesus
Christ and our souls eat and live upon Him. Truly He is our
life. You've made it so. In our hearts
you've convinced us that this is the way things are, and so
we depend on it, and we find our satisfaction in Him alone.
We don't hunger and thirst after another Savior. We found the
Savior. We found God's Son. He's made
Himself known to us from the Word of God. And Lord, we pray
that as the Apostle John said, these things were written that
we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
so believing we might have life through his name. We pray, Lord,
that you would grant that mercy to all here today, that they
would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray,
amen.