I'm specifically going to deal
this morning with verses 22 through 29. For those of you who are organized
people, it may be a little flustering for you because I'm not going
to go with the headings that you find in your Bible. But what I want to do is follow
the narrative, and most importantly, I want to follow the theology.
Why does the Gospel of John exist? Why does it exist? Chapter 20,
verse 31 says, these things are written that you may know that
Christ is the Son of God, and you might believe in His name,
and by believing in His name, you would have what? Life everlasting.
These things are written, that you may know that Jesus is the
Christ, and believe in His name, and by believing in His name
you may have eternal life. So John's gospel is written so that
you may know you have eternal life. Now keep that in mind. John's gospel is written so that
the lost may know that they have eternal life. Now, that seems
a little bit Oxymoronic. How can the lost know that they
have it? In other words, it is through this writing that God
purposed that people would read who are lost and hear who are
lost and be regenerated. Because within it, it tells of
Christ It tells of His Word, it tells of His work, and it
tells of His power. So that there is no other means
through which a man, woman, or child can come to salvation except
through Jesus Christ alone and except through, listen to this,
the explicit, dogmatic, exclusive teaching of Scripture. Period. You cannot come to faith
through pretexts. That means I cannot come, I cannot
teach you in a sufficient way that you may be born of God if
I teach you a life lesson out of John 6. I cannot see that
there would be any power in the life of any human being from
a divine nature if I piece apart this text and say, well, Jesus
fed some people, so one of the great ways in which we honor
Christ is to feed some people. That's the devil's teaching.
When I say stuff like that, it always aggravates people. It
aggravates people because they don't want their babies to be
called ugly. I mean, who does? What do you
mean by that? Isaiah 44, Trey read this morning. People fashion idols out of their
hands. They worship them. They cry out
to them. Friends, our hands and our hearts
are not far apart. Our hands and our minds are actually
connected. What we do with our hands comes
from our minds. Never has my hand just in the
middle of the night slapped me and pointed itself at me and
sign language to me something that wanted to communicate. No.
Whatever my hand does, my mind has intended to do. Now I have
some nerve problems and some nerve damage. Need to go see
doc. and I have had my hands feel
funny, and I've had my body do things that it shouldn't do,
but never has it of its own volition left me, attacked me, etc. The idols of our mind, the things
that we do in our creativity are as much idols against the
greatness of God as anything else. As a matter of fact, I
would say that it is more dangerous to have thoughts about God that
are not biblical than it is to have a statue of God. Let me say that again. I believe
it is more dangerous to have thoughts that are unbiblical
about God than it is to have a statue of God or a statue of
a false God. I think that it is something
that we need to understand about the teaching of Scripture. Today,
I'm going to talk about the people, the multitudes that are in this
particular narrative. Now I say the word narrative
a lot, and you hear me talk about the teaching of Scripture. And
the reason that I bring this up often is because it's part
of trying to help us all stay in tune of how we understand,
read, and interpret and apply Scripture. Because the Bible
gives us the lesson that something actually happened historically,
does not mean that the Bible is teaching that. For example, Sodom and Gomorrah. The man there who the angels
went to, the men of those cities wanted to know them. And that's how we'll leave it. And the mob wanted in this house
so that they could have their way with these two angels. And
the man was so frightened that he decided he would throw out
his daughters to the raping mob. and people will argue with me
and say, the Bible teaches that's okay. Really? No, the Bible taught
that it happened and then God rained judgment on the city because
of crap like that, excuse me, garbage like that. First time
I said that word in a bullpen, I got sucked off the stage by
the old ladies. Sorry, garbage like that. There, I said old
ladies, there's no old ladies in this room. I'm down. The elder. The wise ladies. Having breathing problems. I
mean, you know, anyway, I digress. The Bible doesn't teach that's
okay just because it records that it took place. It wasn't
okay for Judas to sell Jesus to the authorities. But it happened,
and it was divinely ordained. It is not okay for Cain to bash
his brother's head in with a rock. But it happened. So when we see
Jesus feeding a multitude, it's not teaching us to feed the multitudes. The Bible, if it teaches us something,
it says, do this. Don't do that. We call that didactic. That means it is commanding,
it is teaching. We can be taught the history
of what Jesus' ministry looked like, but when we are commanded
to follow in like manner, like nowhere are we commanded to tip
over tables or to make a whip and beat people who are acting
up in the church. Oh, how fun would that be? Could
you imagine? We'd all have our whips. Like
back in the day before air conditioning, you had the fans that were so
gratefully donated by the funeral homes. There's something a little
bit off about sitting in a church fanning with a funeral home fan.
It's like they're just waiting on us to die to think, oh, you
know, Mama always fanned with that funeral home fan. Let's
put her body there. Anyway, there's just something
weird about that to me. But we're sitting there fanning,
imagine if we sat here and had scourges in our hands, just get
out of line. Child cries, cries even louder,
whip the parents. You think that's funny, but that's
how people treat each other. I don't want to say friends.
I have people that I know, personally, who their entire ministry is
to act like Jesus in the temple, cleansing it. And they think
their entire call is to be the arbiter of exposing crud that's
going on in the body of Christ. That they are the ones who have
all the discernment and all the power and all the authority and
everything that God cannot possibly do without them if they do not
shine some light on it. So they believe and they use
that text of Jesus kicking over tables and throwing out animals
and whipping people as a valid way that the Bible teaches that
we have the right to be cruel and mean and rude and hurt and
punch people. Jesus is God, and anything Jesus
does is right because He is God, and everything that He did on
His humanity was right because He is God, and He is holy, and
He is righteous. So therefore, when Jesus goes
in under the authority of God as God and cleanses out people
from the fellowship of the temple, He is right in that. When we
are instructed by Paul and James and John and Luke and Peter and
others. Not Luke, but when we're instructed
by the other apostles in their epistles, in their letters, we're
told to do the exact opposite, are we not? We're told to speak
not against someone. We're told not to be violent.
We're told not to be aggressive. We're told, even as elders, when
someone comes after us, when someone falsely accuses us, and
when someone tries to cause division in the church, we are to patiently
and humbly and kindly rebuke them. And then if they do not
listen, we all collectively agree they're going out the door. We're
not going to whip them and throw them out, because what do we
want? We want them restored, not hurt. Jesus cleansed the
temple, and the temple is not a picture of the church. It's
a picture of the presence of God. It's a big difference. Judaism is a satanic religion. You understand that, don't you?
That's difficult for people to hear, too. What's the religion
of our God? No, it's not! It's the shadow
of our God's revelation, of the gospel. And that's what Jesus
is trying to get us to see, trying to get these multitudes to see.
But men, without the work of the Holy Spirit, without the
birth of God, like John 3, without the reality of God's will, causing
them to be born again like we see in John 1, we will never
see the truth. We will always think fleshly
about things. We will always be looking for
a way for Jesus to do something on our behalf. And so that's
where we are today. Look at verse 22. On the next day, the crowd
that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had
been only one boat. Now put this in your mind. Here
is Jesus. Here is Jesus on the sea, on
the shore of the sea. He's gone up the hill. When I
say a hill, I'm not talking about a mound. I'm talking about a
hill. Three, four hundred feet high,
He's gone up on this hill, and He's standing there with His
disciples, and the people of the town, five thousand men plus others,
are walking around looking for Jesus. They see Him in a distance,
and the scripture we see in Mark's gospel where they run. They see
Him, and then they go... There's, you know, twenty thousand
people running. You ever seen a soccer match go bad? You know,
on TV? And people die. I mean, 20 people
were trampled to death. Yes, because people start running.
So there's this mass of people, this herd of people, running
to see Jesus. And they get there. Well, they're
exhausted. They're not going to climb the mountain. Jesus,
why? Because Jesus turns around and
addresses them, and He begins to teach them. according to the
Synoptics. Why doesn't John talk about that?
Because John wrote this book so that we could see the divinity
of Jesus, and he doesn't waste any time repeating what people
have already had for several decades in the Synoptics. The Bible that we have today,
the New Testament letters we have today, are the exact same
ones that John had, and then John added his four letters,
five letters, to them. So here, on the next day, the
crowd remained on the side of the sea, and they saw that there
was only one boat. So here's this hill, and on the
back side of this hill, to get to the sea, Jesus would have
had to come down the hill and through the crowd to the shore.
And there was only one boat there. And it was the boat that Jesus
and His disciples came in on. By the way, Jesus and His family
lived in Capernaum. That's why most of His ministry
was in that region. That's where they lived. And
so they saw Jesus, they ran over there, they noticed that there
was one boat, He did the miracle, He fed them, He took up what
was left, there was one boat, and that Jesus had not entered
the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone
away alone. Verse 23, Other boats from Tiberias came near the place
where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.
Important. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there,
nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to
Capernaum seeking Jesus. You see the contradiction? Something's
wrong with the story. We'll fix it. When they found
him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi,
when did you come here? Jesus answered them, "'Truly,
truly, I say to you, you are seeking Me not because you saw
signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.'" Then He
gives them a command, Do not work for the food that perishes,
but, it is implied, work for the food that endures to eternal
life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the
Father has set His seal. They said to Him, What must we
do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, This
is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He has sent.
And I'm going to stop there. These people. Every point that
I make today is going to start with the word, these people.
These people. The multitudes. These people,
according to verse 22, continue to look for Jesus. And I alluded
to this last week in the teaching. But these people continue to
look for Jesus. Jesus, in some miraculous way, dispersed the
crowd. I mean, some of them went home,
some of them left. So there wasn't 5,000 plus, maybe there was 3,000
plus. Or maybe there was just a few hundred. We don't know. But we know that they continued
to look for Jesus. Like so many, they wanted to
find Him. They want to know Him. They want
to get more from Him. They want something from Jesus.
That's the point. That's why they followed Him.
That's why they found Him. That's why they went there. And
that's why they stayed there all night long. waiting to see
what he was going to do. I mean, I've seen throughout
my own life where many friends would get up and go stand outside
the store of a video game store for 10 hours so that they could
get their pre-order copy of a particular game. I've seen in San Francisco
when the new iPhone was coming out, people would put tents up
and stand outside of the Apple stores and lay on the streets
so they could get their iPhone, you see what I mean? I've been
party to going and seeing a, what do you call those movies?
A picture show, I couldn't remember what it's called, I'm tired.
The thing on the, what you do on the, whatever, with people
on it. The screen, seeing a premiere of a movie and you're standing
out there and most people are dressed up with whatever character
it is, It's been happening for ages. Everybody's just standing
out there. I want to see the midnight show because it's the
first night. I mean, I've been party to those things. I've been
party to, you know, seeing the hot now sign at Krispy Kreme
and being over the median to try to get there for the line
as it just comes on because they know it's on all the time now.
But used to, back in the day, they actually had to run lines
and they would cook some and they'd be hot and then when they
weren't hot, the hot sign went off. Now with microwaves, it's
just hot all the time. But I mean, you see that hot
sign come on you. I gotta have a dozen or three. And then you just jump
the curve. You just go. Why? Because there's
zeal in our hearts. There's passion for those things
we love. We'll stay up all night for this. We'll travel across
the world for that. I mean, the eclipse. And I'm
not gonna lie, I would have loved to have gone and been somewhere
where I could have experienced the eclipse in its totality.
It would have been neat. But for me, eclipse, you know,
versus everything else I've got to do is just not something that
I was going to do. But so many of my friends and
some of my family even traveled, and it was an interesting experience.
I wish, you know. Why do we do that? Because we
want to do that. Sports. I mean, people think,
well, why would 5,000 people follow this man around? I don't
know. Why do 40,000 people follow a football team? Because they
love it. Why do we follow the orchestras?
Why do we follow the pop stars? Why do we follow the movie stars? I mean, what is it, some guy
standing next to you at the left when you're at a resort and you
look at him and you're like, wait a minute, that was John Travolta. All of a sudden, this
guy who's nobody who's in your way is like, something's going
on here, it's John Travolta. Who cares? A lot of people. A lot of people. A lot of people
cared because Jesus was around. And just because their idolatry
of Jesus for their own personal gain is pointed to Jesus doesn't
make them believers in Jesus. It's no different than the entertainment
mindset or the materialistic mindset. As a matter of fact,
it's exactly what was happening here. Now, I'm not frowning upon
movies and iPhones and anything else like that, but we will remind
ourselves that John says, do not love the world or the things
of the world. And Jesus will say, do not labor for the bread
that perishes. Friends, when we're all gone, somebody's going
to go through our stuff and chuck it. When we're all gone, our
children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or whoever, are going to be digging
through all of our belongings going, what's going on? What
was wrong with Dad? Why does Granddad have all these saxophones? What is up with all these bullets?
I mean, you know, how much ammo does one man need? How many squirrels
are coming? I mean, you know, we've got all
this stuff in our life. Antique furniture. Shoes! Earrings! Clothes! Pickup trucks!
Dogs! Don't even get me started! These
people were looking for Jesus. They were looking for Jesus,
and they wanted Him to do something for them. They didn't see Jesus get into
the boat, but they saw the disciples get into the boat. In Mark's
Gospel, Jesus tells them, I want you to go get in the boats, and
I want you to leave without me. That's what he says. So that's
what they do. And the people saw this. But they waited, and
they continued to look for him. They saw the disciples take off
in the one boat. And so that's why I want to bring
this to your attention. In verse 23, it says, other boats.
I thought there was only one boat. Well, there was only one
boat when the disciples left. Now, where'd all the other boats
come from? Well maybe, there's only two
explanations. Maybe some people left Capernaum
during the middle of the night and came over to see Jesus as
well. Maybe they heard He was there
and they just rode the six miles in the storm. Because remember
what happened, the wind was blowing and Jesus teleports the boat
three miles immediately. Dry land. So here's these other
boats. Critics say, well, the Bible
is full of errors. There's one. There was one boat. Now there's
other boats. And then all these people got in all these other boats.
You know what I think happened? What's the most logical reason that
there were other boats there and boats that people didn't
mind if somebody just got in? Because I think the wind blew
them all to the shore of Tiberias. I think that during the storm
the night before, when Jesus teleported His disciples in His
boat to Capernaum, that God, the master of the wind, was blowing
boats for these people to get in and go and find Him. That's
what I think. Maybe it's another miracle. Who
knows? We can't subject it because the text doesn't tell us, but
let's use our common sense. Let's use the understanding of
who Christ is. They got into this place, but what is the point
of verse 23 anyway? For us to speculate? No. For
us to know something certain. What does it say? They came near. Other boats from Tiberias came
near. Did it say people? No, it said
boats. came near the place where they
had eaten the bread. This is what's important, where
they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. When the Scripture reminds us
of something that seems trivial, we need to remember what it is
it's pointing to. What's the point of them wanting
to follow after Jesus anyway? They wanted more. Jesus did something, and they
wanted more. So here's an opportunity. So
here's point two. The first point I had, if you
want to take notes. These people continued to look for Jesus.
Point two. These people saw an opportunity to get to Jesus.
There's these boats. And I believe they were divinely
sent through the weather. Because Jesus wanted to talk
to them on the other side. He wanted to show the condition
of men. The disciples left and logic says, where they were going,
Jesus would be there. History said, where they were,
Jesus was close by. The question is, how did Jesus
get to where He was going and how do we get to Jesus? See,
they looked and they looked and they looked and they looked.
The disciples went at night. The next day, the others get
into these boats who have all of a sudden appeared on the shores. The disciples went during the
night and were there. Jesus met them in the sea and
took them to their destination. He took them safely home because
He can. And He's the only one who can.
Because Jesus, as John is reminding us, did the miracle of the work
of God. The work of God. He thanked God,
and he does the work of God. He speaks the Father's word.
He follows after the Father's will, and he reveals the Father's
majesty and wonder. The gospel writer wants to remind
us that these people were still there, and they were still in
awe, and they still desired to know and follow after Jesus,
but they were satisfied only in their flesh. These people
saw Jesus and they saw people following Jesus, and they looked
around and they thought, this man has the power and his charisma
to lead people. He has the power and his magic
to feed people, but in the end, They thought, we'll make Him
king. We'll capitalize on this opportunity. We've got to get
to Jesus. Because isn't that what we leave
there? Isn't that what we saw happening? Perceiving that they,
in verse 15, were about to come and take Him by force and make
Him king, Jesus again withdrew to the mountain. That's what
happened. These people were going to monopolize
on this opportunity to get something that was good for them from Jesus. And this is what happens. These people saw this opportunity
to get to Jesus. And then in verse 25, these people
honor Jesus. They find Him, don't they? They
look for Him. They know He didn't go with the
disciples. Here's all these boats. Let's just go to Capernaum. They
go to Capernaum. And they get there and they look
for Him, and they find Him. Where does all this take place?
Where does this whole conversation take place, starting in this
verse? In the synagogue, in Capernaum. There He is, standing in the
synagogue where He always was, teaching. So they go up to Him,
in verse 25, it says, When they found Him on the other side of
the sea, They said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? When
did you come here? Now you may not get that, but
you know, when you're in the ministry and you're ordained
as a pastor in our country, you're given the title from a legal
standpoint as reverend. I don't even understand what
that means. Reverend. Because it signifies
that you're a pastor. that you're ordained into a recognized
ministry. Rabbi was much more, was much
deeper than that. No one just flipped around the
word rabbi. Because was everybody a rabbi?
No. Nobody just went, hey, what's up, teach? What's up, rabbi?
How you doing, brother? I mean, people called me doctor
when I was, what, 23 years old? And it was an inside joke with
me and one of the other pastors in the church. And so every time
I would sign an email with this guy or a letter, I'd put, you
know, B.A., Bachelor of Arts. But I put B.B.A., and I put D.D.,
H.G. And they just started calling
me doctor. I started calling him doctor. It was really funny. It was just
a joke. And what it meant was, born again with a double dose
of the Holy Ghost. And it was just an inside joke.
It was just a joke. And nobody but he and I knew
about it, but it became so prominent of him saying, doctor, doctor,
doctor, and I wore a suit in my 20s. I had a woman come out
of Sunday school one time and say, do you mind, can I talk
to you for just a minute? And I'm thinking, OK. It was sort of odd. She was
like, I've got this rash right here. Do you think you might
tell me what it is? I said, girl, you need to go
to a doctor. You look like you had a plague or something. That's not good.
You're going to die. She said, I thought you were
a doctor. I said, no, that's a joke. You know, we just throw things
around. The point I'm getting at is, I mean, people don't throw, we joke about
all sorts of things. And when we left that church,
they gave us a plaque, Robin and James Tippins for all your
service, and we love you, and we hate to see you go. And they
put doctor with quotes around it in front of my name. It's
the funniest thing. Rabbi isn't a joking term. It's not a joke
for someone to say rabbi to someone who's not a rabbi. So let me
explain this to you. For these people to call Jesus
rabbi, it means that they were honoring Him, that they recognized
His authority and the authenticity of His teaching as good and true. Oh, but what do we see revealed
of these people's intentions and heart when they say, Rabbi
today, now, and then in just a few minutes they will curse
him and walk away. They honored him. But they were
puzzled how he got to Capernaum. When did you get here? You know
what they were really asking? How did you get here? Now Jesus
could have said, Oh, it was so cool. And I was just floating
around, and I saw the storm. I was flying over the sea. I
was trying to get to Capernaum. I was looking for my disciples,
and they were so slow. I said, get in the boat and go,
and they waited till dark. They just don't listen, like
children. And I saw y'all all down there, and then the sea
got... They were scared, so I decided I'd walk around on the sea, and
I teleported the boat. That's how we got here. They'd
be like, wow! Oh, my goodness! Hey, y'all,
come here. Listen to what Jesus did. Jesus flew around, walked
on the sea, teleported the boat. Isn't that cool? Oh, show us! Tell me! Do it again!
I mean, you know, that's what magicians get. Do it again! Jesus could have told them what
He did, and they would have been in awe, once again, of His power. They would have been awestruck
that He could have done so much, and had so much strength, and
so much power, and so much supernatural ability, that they would have
just wanted to know Him more, and more, and more, and more.
They loved Jesus in their own way. But the problem is, they
only had physical sight. Jesus had just done something.
that pointed to not only the necessity of their salvation,
but to the object of their assurance of salvation himself. And yet,
they could not get past the fact that they ate more than they
could hold. They could not get past the fact
that this man could be our king. They could not get past the desires
of their flesh. And I think about this sometimes
in my own past and the questions that I used to think about when
I would see something and get a little creative with it. And
I would say, what can this do for me in my ministry? Think
about that for a second. What could this do? If I could
just get this to work, what would it do for my ministry? What would
it do for my church? What would this church do for
me if I could put this together? And that's what they're doing
with Jesus. What can Jesus do for us? What can Jesus do for
our humanity? What can Jesus do for our flesh?
He can feed us. He can be king. He can free us. Wow, with Jesus, there's nothing
we can't be. With Jesus, there's nothing we
can't have. With Jesus, there's nowhere that
we can't go. And that is a message that is
preached most dominantly and predominantly in our culture
every day. And it is a message of demonic
proportions. Because then it turns from Jesus
in our culture to, what can the church do for me? What can the
church give to me? What can the church be for me? What can the church provide for
me? This is why the human-centered
and the man-centered gospel, which is no gospel, is so appealing
because it satisfies the soul of man's depravity. When man
sees that he's depraved, when man sees that he's guilty before
God, when man sees that he's in need of a Savior, the last
thing a man wants to do is admit he's powerless to do anything
about it. And the man, the woman, the child,
our heart, our depraved heart rules our desire to fix ourselves.
The man wants to fix himself. He wants to reign over his heart
authoritatively, knowing that Jesus is the answer. But the
authoritative reign of a man's volition is that he can make
the decision to give Jesus permission to do something with him. The gospel is Christ died for
his people, satisfied the wrath of God for his people, lived
a holy life in place of his people to be received by faith. So I
guess a gospel call would be, are you the people of God? Oh,
that doesn't bode well. Well, if there's another message,
that we're preaching. We're putting the authority back
in man. Nicodemus, the most moral man we see in the New Testament,
the most knowledgeable man we see in the New Testament of Scripture,
the teacher, the pastor of pastors, the teacher of all Israel. And
yet, even with the right confession, you are the one come from God.
You are the one come from God, and Jesus says, you can't see
me. You can't enter into my kingdom.
This kingdom that these people, this multitudes were looking
for was an earthly kingdom, a human-centered kingdom. Goodness, Jesus, how
did you get here? When did you get here? We, golly
gee, we really want to know. And we're wanting to be with
you. We're wanting to follow you. We want to learn from you,
O great Rabbi. You see how they're placating
to his flesh. or thinking they are patronizing
Jesus in their own minds. They honored Him as teacher because
they wanted something from Him. The teaching that He gives will
prove their honor was a lie. It was lip service once we see
them abandon Christ. And people say, well, why did
they do that? Because they were not converted. Let me help get you off the hook
for a minute. When we want to see people believe
so badly, we want to see people change so badly, we want to see
things rearranged in their lives so badly, if you want to see
lives rearranged and changed for the glory of God, then teach
the gospel of Christ. Don't teach the commands to the
believers of how they relate without teaching the power through
which one can do so. And even then, it's only a mimic. It's not true practice. When people are not converted,
they cannot see. They cannot hear. So they must
be born again. They must be given spiritual
sight. They must be gifted faith. They
must be made new, all by the power of God, through God the
Holy Spirit, through the hearing of the Word of God alone, not
the not-gospel. Not the not gospel. We can't
evangelize people by saying, this is not the gospel, that's
not the gospel, that's not the gospel. We evangelize people
by saying, this is the gospel. This is a microphone, this is
a microphone. I don't have to say, this is
not a microphone, and this is not a microphone, because you
can see what a microphone is. But if all I do is show you 400
things that are not a microphone, and I've never shown you one,
you'll never still know what a microphone is. The gospel is
the same. These people honor Jesus as their
teacher, but then these people, in verse 26, were called out
by this teacher. Jesus answers them, truly, truly,
I say to you, you're seeking me not because you saw signs,
but because you ate your fill of the loaves. See, what does
Jesus do there? He does not tell them He walked
over the sea. He does not give them any other means to dilute
their faith through some miracle. You hear what I said? Dilute their faith through some
miracle. Just like the meal, they were
in awe but all does not lead to saving faith. Guilt does not
lead to saving faith. Belief in the facts that Jesus
is who he says he is does not lead to saving faith. What leads
to saving faith is Christ. It's the Word of Truth by the
Spirit who leads people to saving faith, whereby they see and they
trust and they believe, and it's a full, continual, absolute guarantee
that they will constantly be believing in Jesus for their
salvation. And miracles in this group only
led to more desire to see more of their flesh get more from
Jesus. They could not see the miracle's
purpose. You see, that's how it works, isn't it? Someone was
healed. Oh, I want to be healed. Oh,
I got a friend that needs to be healed. Oh, wow, we could
go and go to the hospital. See, if anybody had the gift
of healing, they'd be in a hospital instead of charging 80 bucks
a ticket. Yep, 80 bucks a ticket. There's never a healer that doesn't
charge to get in to hear them preach. It's always a tick. Any
preacher that charges to get in the door ought to be drawn
and quartered. I can say that because it's so
archaic. Nobody does it anymore. If they
start doing that, I'll stop saying it. Tar and feather. That's less
graphic. You don't charge. Preach. You don't put ticket sales at
the door. That's why I'm just about done
with conferences. I want to pay to hear somebody
preach something I can read for myself. I'd rather be with y'all
than some big preaching head on the stage getting a million
dollars. They couldn't see the purpose.
But they were willing to follow Jesus, weren't they? I mean,
they stayed up all night, they left their homes, they left their
jobs, they were walking around the countryside like a bunch of homeless beggars,
wondering where this Jesus was. They were dressed to the nines,
because it was Passover, in all their finest apparel, all the
colors that they could possibly dress in that were not customary
for their normal attire. And it was just this weird horde
of people, staying outside and traveling across in boats and
looking after Jesus. Which if we had that kind of
buzz today about anything related to church, religion, Christianity,
or Christ, we'd be like, oh my gosh, there's revival! Oh my
goodness! It wouldn't be revival. It wasn't
revival here. Revival happened in Sychar, remember, not Jerusalem. Revival happened with the, with
the what? Samaritans, not the Jews. Salvation
came not to the people of God ethnically, but came to the people
of God spiritually. Jesus rebukes them. They wanted
to follow Him. They wanted to be counted among
the number because of His working and the filling of the things
that He gave them. But Jesus rebukes them because He knows
their motives, why He's God. He knows what they're thinking.
He says, You are seeking Me because you are full in your flesh. That's why you're coming after
Me. You know that I can do things for you. Now some people would
say, Well, what's wrong with that? You ever thought about
that? You ever had somebody say in their entire doctrine of Christ,
their entire understanding of Christ, theologically, is that
Jesus exists to help His people. Now, is that a wrong thing? No, it's not wrong. But in what
way is Jesus going to help His people? Brother Eddie and I were
having a conversation this past weekend. We had a question on
the table that we were trying to answer about what is the most
damaging doctrine that comes against the church of Jesus Christ
in our present culture. You know, there's a lot of things.
And we came to talk about two things. One, the answer to two
questions, really three questions, two questions as one and then
another question. How people answer this question, how does God save His people? How people answer that question
will depend on whether or not they're orthodox or heretical
in everything they do, because it flavors everything they do.
And the second one is, how do we hear from God? How do we hear from God? And we're
going to expound on that in the weeks to come. We're going to
talk about that as we move on into John's Gospel. Part two
of the first question would be, for whom did Christ die? Whose
sins did He pay for? Jesus rebukes them. He knows
that these people are looking for something for themselves.
They want Jesus to help them materially. Materialistically. Well, that doesn't ask for anything.
They wanted food. They wanted rule. They wanted power. They
wanted freedom. That's material. It doesn't have to be tangible
to be material. Mark 6. Mark records this, "...for
they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts
were hardened." You see what happens? They wanted everything that Christ
could do except for what He actually came for. People want church
and their life for what it can do in their life instead of what
we exist for. People want God to work and they
want to pray so they can do what they want to do instead of being
who God's called them to be for what God has purposed for them. What He's going to do for His
glory. Christ helps His people, but
He helps His people through divine, glorious sacrifice. These people were called out
by this teacher. And these people were thinking
about earthly kingdoms and ministries. Let's unpack that for a minute.
Verse 27, Jesus responds in this most... He says, You didn't come
after me like that. You came after me for material
reasons because they were thinking about earthly kingdoms and ministries.
Do not work for the food that perishes. See this command. Do
not work for perishing food. That's what Jesus says. The woman
of the well did not want to come back to the well and to that
well because she was ashamed in the community in which she
lived because she was a very sinful woman. And so when Jesus says that I
have water that wells up to eternal life, She's thinking, I will
never have to go dig another, I mean, I will never have to
go dip another tub of water again in my entire life. I want this
water, give it to me. And in a few minutes, tomorrow,
next week, we'll see that these people say, give us this bread
always. So they're thinking they'll never
have to worry about finding food again. Do not work for perishing food.
Do not work for perishing food, following after Christ for more
bread. Do not work for perishing food, following after Christ
for more money. Do not work for perishing food, following after
Christ and desiring an earthly kingdom. Do not work for perishing
food. These people were seeking after
Him for their own benefit. Like many so-called ministries
today, they feed the flesh. Ministries feed the flesh. They
feed the notion that they're ministry, and what it does on
the earth is necessary. I have a dear brother who is part
of a publishing ministry, and it's very vibrant, and it works
well, and they give books away. And recently they have really
been trying to get more and more and more and more and more people
involved and more and more and more and more money for this
to the detriment of the local assembly. And I just was honest
with him. I said, God hadn't called anybody
to publish books at the expense of the church. When I say expense,
I mean to its demise. And if we're going to publish
books, do you know what book we need? The Bible. You know
what book we don't need? Any other. We don't need any
historical theology. We don't need any commentaries. We don't need any of the Reformers'
writings. We don't need any of it. It is
not valuable at one bit. We need the Word of God. But
oh, what a blessing it is to eat it. Sometimes ministry, sometimes
churches, sometimes pastors, sometimes people think that their
ministry is God's gift to this earth. God's gift to this earth
is the Son. God's gift to this earth is the
gospel of His Son. It's the power of His divine
Spirit moving and saving and redeeming people justly and judicially
through the work of Jesus Christ. So many ministries, flesh-feeding
ministries, point to everything but Christ in His work. We've
got a ministry that's going to help you be a better dad. We've
got a ministry that's going to help you be a better mom. We've
got a ministry that's going to help you have better kids, have
better finances. And I'm not saying that... I
mean, there's always good times for good therapy. I guess. But what is it in the end? If I'm going to spend 20 hours
studying how to be a better husband, why not just take Ephesians 5
and tattoo it to my feet? So that every time I put on my
socks and take them off, I'll be reminded of what Christ did
for His bride. And if God through the Spirit
doesn't cause me to love my wife like Christ loved the church,
then there's no hope for my marriage. I can play the therapeutic game
all I want. And I'm not saying there's not
a place for good counsel. I'm just talking about from a
spiritual point of view. Guess what? Marriage ends. Parenthood ends. Children leave. It's over. We die. It's done. Why? Because it's
a shadow. It's a pointing to Christ. That's
what it is. So we're not going to labor for
these things. We labor for the bread that endures. And in doing so, will all these
other things fall into place? It's hard to get the motive in
the right place, isn't it? So many ministries point to everything
but Christ and His Word. They shower people with promises of
these buzzwords, these things that have been around for 20
years in my head, of a new vision and a new mission. A new vision. Can you see yourself in this?
See, that's what a vision is, something you can see. A mission is something
you do. A vision is something you see.
Can you see yourself? Can you see us? Can you see us with 12
campuses? 300 church plants? 400 million
dollars in missions every month? Feeding 63 billion children.
I don't know where they live, but they'll be there. On every
planet. You know? Every solar system. We're feeding the ants, people.
We've got a big ministry. Never you'd have to throw down
an apple again. We're feeding the ants on purpose. We're feeding
all that. There's no stray cats, no stray
dogs. I mean, and I'm being a little jokey here, but friends, this
is the vision. And then for you to be a part
of it, you've got to what? Invest in it. You've got to see
yourself in it. You've got to see yourself doing
it. That's the mission. And then you've got to invest in it. So
you've got to be a part of it. Where there's no vision, the
people perish. You know what? Where there's no Christ, they're already
dead. Where there's no gospel, they're condemned already. And
when there's no word of God, there's no power, no matter how
good we build. Babel was a wonder, and God just
disrupted it all. And one day God will disrupt
the ministries of this world that are fleshly. And the only
thing that'll be left are like our brothers and sisters who
are running for their lives in other countries, who are doing
things in clouded ways, baptizing people in toilets, because they
could dare not put a crowd in a river. The kingdom of this world has
been given to the devil, and it will be crushed. Jesus did
not come to build a kingdom of this world, and He says here,
do not work for this. Do not labor for this. Do not worry about this. Do not
make this your mission. It is so nearsighted, and it
is dead. It is a waste. It is a waste. The second command there, do
not labor for this food that perishes. The second command
is, do labor for the bread that endures. For the bread that doesn't
perish. For the bread that is not physical.
For the bread that is spiritual. Because this bread is life. This
bread is Christ. And that's what the miracle of
their feeding was supposed to show them. And they did not see
it. You can see it, beloved. If there's a more practical sermon
that we've had in John, this is the first one. I mean, this
is a practical sermon. This is pragmatism 101 here. And it's
not spiritualizing anything. It's strictly showing what these
people did, what they loved. Labor. Some people say, well,
we've got to work for it, right? No. That's not the point. That's
not what Jesus is saying. See, this is the narrative. It's
the expression He's given. He's not commanding you to work
hard for your salvation. He's not saying, earn it, because
no one is able to earn it. He's not even saying, seek really
hard and try to find it. But it's the contrast of what
they were seeking very hard to see. and find and obtain. It's an expression of the fact
these people labored. They stayed up all night. They
walked around and looked for Him. They got in boats that didn't
belong to them. They went across the sea so they could do what?
Get what they wanted for their own lives. for their own kingdom. They cared more about national
politics and national stage of their own government and their
own expressed ability to be a people and a nation than they did about
the glory of God in heaven standing before them on the mountain feeding
them. They wanted Him. They sought
after Him. They wanted a chance to have a king. This is a wasted
life, Jesus says. It is a wasted effort. We work
to see and to find and to know the truth of Christ that He is
trying to teach them, but they cannot grasp it. Now this is
the kicker. They can't grasp it. He's saying, don't work for
that, work for this. Now the obvious question for
all of us is what? Okay, how do I do it? And that's exactly
what they say. They can't grasp it. Why? They
were not alive. They could not envision how they were able to
do such work. They could not figure it out.
Material blessings in their mind were all they could see and touch
and feel. And that's a fool's errand, Jesus says. It's a waste.
So don't strive for that. Strive for the bread that endures.
And they asked the question which they should have asked. What
must we be doing to do the works of God? And if I were to give
that point, it'd be these people ask a dumb question. But it's
the question we all ask. Because without divine knowledge,
we can't know anything but that. It's what every person that Jesus
talks with in this gospel does. What must we do to be doing the
works of God? You know what they're really
asking? They're not saying, can we be like you and do the work
of God? No. They're asking, how are we to
walk a work that fulfills the will of God? What does He want
from us? What is it then that God wants
from us? What are we supposed to be doing? What does God want
from us? What is it that we're doing?
What is God doing with us then? If He's not going to bring you
to be our King, if He's not going to bring you to feed us, if He's
not going to bring you to set us free as a people, then what
are you here for? What does God want from us? If
we're supposed to work for something that's eternal, some bread that
will never perish, whatever that means, what are we supposed to
do? What does He require of us? You
see, they got the point that they were not working rightly
or pursuing rightly, but now what? Show us the way, Jesus.
Tell us what to do. Give us this bread. Give us this
water. Let us see it. That's what they'll
say in a minute. But verse 29, and this is it,
this is all we're going to do today. He answers the question. Okay, you ask, here's the work
of God. Here's the work of God. that you believe in Him whom
He has sent." What? We've got to believe in
you? Believe in you how? We believe
you're going to be a king. No, no, no, no, no. And He'll
answer this in a minute. He'll say what? I'm the bread
that came down from heaven. Eat of my body. Drink of my blood. And He's not teaching the Eucharist
there. This is not didactic. This is narrative. This is divine
revelation. This is to show us the teaching
of Christ. The Bible teaches the Lord's table at that point,
not here. Let's don't spiritualize what
Jesus is trying to do in the intent of showing Himself as
Savior. Jesus says, that the work of
God is that you believe in Him who He has sent." Now think about
that for a second. In other words, what God wants of you is for
you to believe in the Son, and this is the work of God. You
see that? Now see, people... I'm going to go back to what
I mentioned already in closing. People say, well, that's not a gospel
presentation. That's the only gospel presentation. No, no, no. You're teaching the
theological system. No, I'm teaching the gospel.
God alone can save you and cause you to believe. Can you believe
in that? Can you put faith in God alone? What does it do? You're at the
end of yourself. There's nothing that you can do. God supernaturally causes
you to understand and see. It's called regeneration. It's
called conversion. It's called salvation. But we are so hung up on these
decisions. We're so hung up on these responses.
We're so hung up in our culture today about all of this altar
calling, and aisle walking, and prayer praying, and all these
things that get in the way of the work of God. They don't stop
it, but they get in the way. And they all actually, in many
ways, if you remember what I talked about how it feeds the flesh,
it actually continues to put man, for the most part, on the
rule of his life. In Malachi 3, verse 1, the Lord
says, Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before
me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple,
and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold,
he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. Believe in the one whom
the Lord has sent. Have faith in the one whom the
Lord has sent. It's not the details. It's not
the details. It's not, how did you get over
here, Jesus? What are you going to do? How are you going to save
us? Now, exactly how does that work? Jesus just says, believe. Believe that I am the only one
that can work it. If it is to be done, the work
of God, it is in me. If you are to be saved by the
work of God, it is I who will do the work. Believe that I can
do the work. Believe that I have done the
work. Believe, if Jesus were speaking, that I am the bread
that gives you the only life that you could ever have. As Paul would teach us, we hold
that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
There is no work whereby man can be justified before God.
There is no work that is added to and conditioned to the gospel
of grace. By faith alone are you saved,
period, in the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is a fight
to be that simple-minded. Do you hear me? That's what it is. It's too simple. It's too stupid
for us thinkers. It's one of the meanings when
Jesus talks about, unless you have the faith of a child. If
we tell every child in here there's a bag of chocolate in the left
bathroom, but you have to drink toilet water, there'd be drippy
water all over this building. Okay. One dip of water and a
bag of chocolate. They'd do it. They'd believe
us. Children believe all sorts of fairy tales. See, when we grow up, we stop
believing in fairy tales. Good! But it takes that kind of mind
to believe in the simplicity of Jesus Christ. Jesus is all
it takes. Jesus is the only way. Faith
in Jesus is the only object of my desire that's necessary, only
object of my redemption. He's the only one. He's the one
who performed the right work. He is the one that did everything
that was required for me to have life. That's it? I don't even
have to reach out and touch Him? I don't have to come hug Him?
I don't have to say something special to Him? No, none of that.
You just believe in Christ. Believe what the Scriptures teach,
that God has justified sinners, His people, through the work
of Jesus Christ, who obeyed where we could not, and who paid where
we never could. And we live. We live. And I pray, church,
that as we continue in this, I pray that you would read it.
I pray that you would be prepared to receive the teaching each
Lord's Day as we continue through this, because it's just going
to ramp up more and more and more as we see what Jesus has
to say as He explains the work of God in their believing. I
pray that you would believe. And I pray that you would pray
that God would continue to cause us to walk in faith. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord. We love you,
Lord, for your amazing grace. God, for your divine mercy, for
your everlasting love. To us, through Christ, for us,
for the sake of your name, that we are glorified in you and share
in your glory, God, because we are your beloved. How weird that
is to me, to hear that. But Father, it is what you teach
us. Lord, may your word be true in us and in our hearts this
day and forevermore. We thank you, Father. We continue
to pray for those who cannot be with us this day. Lord, we
miss them, we love them. We pray for our family and our
loved ones, those who are displaced, Father, those who are dead in
their sins and don't know it. God, those who are deluded in
their thinking. Lord, that You would open their
eyes to see the Gospel. We pray for the sick, we pray
for the hungry, we pray for those in need. But Lord, more than
all their physical needs, God, we pray that You would save them
And Lord, we worship you for your power, your awe, your wonder.
But God, we praise you so much so for your glorious grace. And
you were glorified so much in the work of redemption. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen.