Sermon Cloud

INTRO; Weeding around cactuses!  Did I offend you?  Today’s creed…

Review and clarification of Jewish Feasts w/ pilgrimages (Lev. 23) = Pesach à Spring // Shavuot à Summer // Sukkoth à Autumn.  What we celebrate today is Pentecost (Shavuot)

Just as the Lamb was slain at Passover, so was Christ upon the cross (pesach)  Jesus raised on the feast of First Fruits, where the first stalk of grain was waved as an offering – but that signaled a 50 day countdown, 7 Sabbaths equaling 49 days would pass after first fruits, and the day after was the feast of the harvest (Shavuot).  50 days after Passover, the Jews celebrate the receiving of the law. 

So Shavuot, now called Pentecost (50 days) is the occasion for all the Jews being in Jerusalem when the Spirit comes down and descends upon the disciples, and all the pilgrims hear the gospel in their own language in Acts. 2.  But once again, Shavuot is a harvest festival, but Sukkoth is an ingathering festival (explain) one day God will gather every tribe nation and tongue

I think John 6, 71 verses –is both a very Pentecostal and Sacramental passage.  And even though we shaved a bit off last week, it is still – TOO MUCH to cover -- so we’ll embark on an introductory read of Jesus’ 4^th sign of walking on the water, and then consideration of one of the greatest extended sermons of Christ captured by John, which is offensive enough that many people walk away from Jesus.

¹⁶ When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷ got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. ¹⁸ The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹ When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. ²⁰ But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." ²¹ Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

John’s account of Jesus walking on the water does not contain some of our favorite elements mentioned in the other gospels, namely, the disciples thinking that they were seeing a ghost, and Peter trying out his wave riding abilities.  But what John has in common with the other gospels, is that in the stormy darkness, in the futility of their rowing, they freak out at seeing Jesus approaching them – walking on the water.  But when Jesus speaks to them, their fears are relieved – WHEW, it’s only Jesus walking on the water, cuz, I have a phobia about that = aquabipedalphobia! (Guys standing on long boards – I can handle that!)

But let’s put John’s boat into context.  We’ve just had Jesus feeding the 5K.  Jesus escapes the crowds because they want to make him king.  The disciples are waiting for Jesus, but since he’s not on the dock, they decide to row off as it’s getting late.  Because of the geography of the Sea of Tiberius, or lake Galilee, and because of a local wind condition sweeping out of the Golan Heights, the disciples are in a stormy situation, and then Jesus appears.  He gets into the boat, and at that exact moment, they arrive to where they had intended (movie scene!)

Question is:  Why the back to back signs – feeding of the 5K and walking on H20?  Because of the stormy conversation about to take place in the balance of John 6.  Jesus is now at the Zenith of his public ministry.  He has a mass of people following him – this is called success in ministry!!  People actually wanting what He’s offering!  But do they really have an accurate understanding of Jesus and what He offers?  We will learn that the only thing that Jesus offers is a life that is totally dependent upon who he IS!!  Religious confidence CAN NOT be placed in keeping feasts, OR making pilgrimages, OR observing temple rituals – NO MORE confidence can be placed in your family heritage, or national identity, or buying your mother a religious gift on Mother’s day!  Jesus is replacing all of that!

And Jesus is NOT offering us a new plan, or a better way, or proven principles, or a more concise theology – [Now you theologians, just let that go for the moment!] – According to John 6, Jesus isn’t offering anything!  He is commanding, he is demanding, he is requiring of those who follow him, that HE must become our all consuming passion.  Jesus demands our ultimate and final allegiance, and if we can’t handle that truth, we might as well walk away! 

So the disciples see Jesus feed the crowds, and they are filled – Just like when Moses led the Israelites in the wilderness.  Then Jesus walks across the raging waters and brings the disciples safely to the other side – Just like when Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea.  Two very profound signs that equate Jesus to Moses!   And we must ask ourselves by way of preparation – how did the wandering Israelites do with receiving God’s words?  They grumbled!!  Even though God cared for them and got them to where He promised – they grumbled and rebelled!

Unbelieving Israel was happy to follow Moses out of slavery; but when they had troubles -- they grumbled – NOW, we will see that the people are happy to follow Jesus out of hunger, but when he says something they regard as “troubling” – they will grumble…

²² On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. ²³ Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. ²⁴ 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. ²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" ²⁶ 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.

Here is a clear indication that Jesus wants the people to realize that his miraculous SIGNS point to something greater than the miracle itself.  The sign signifies that Jesus is GREATER than the miracle itself, (would you rather have Jesus or healing?) and the sign points to what Jesus provides for people in their salvation – salvation is a wonderful term that describes spiritual and eternal realities – and THAT is the realm WHERE Jesus RULES!  His signs indicate that Jesus rules the natural world where hunger and storms and disease and death reign – but they also point to the fact that Jesus rules spiritual and eternal realities – where hunger, storms, disease, and death will not affect us – forever!

²⁷ Do not labor for the food that perishes, but 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."

Two key points about Jesus signs.  1) Don’t look at the temporal result – it’s the eternal value that is the take away.  Sure, Jesus can heal, he can feed thousands, he can even turn water into wine – but all that stuff is temporary – healed people will still die, fed people will get hungry, and the wine will run out – what are we to really understand from these signs?  That Jesus has eternal power to raise, satisfy, and completely change those who believe in him.  And who is he that we should believe in him?  2) The Son of Man!  Who is the son of man?  Well to be fair, just by the shear usage of the term – The prophet Ezekiel is the Son of man.  Just read the OT book of Ezekiel, and you will read close to a gazillian times that when God addresses Ezekiel, he calls him, “Son of Man.”

But in Daniel 7:13, we read that the Son of Man is the one who comes from the Ancient of Days = Daniel 7:14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

The son of man is the one who would come from God and establish an eternal kingdom.  And to prove that Jesus is this person known as the son of man in Daniel 7, Jesus comes with God’s seal of approval, the very SIGNS he is performing!  So the people respond in vs. 28

²⁸ Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" ²⁹ Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

Mark these verses, memorize these verses, love these verses!  For every quazi-christian cult that comes to your door – quote these verses!  What are the works of God?  To believe in him whom he has sent!!  What are the implications of this verse? God specifically SENT salvation to us – and you can EITHER believe that – OR you can try to ADD TO THAT – Which I think is repulsive to GOD!

The bottom line is this = everything about who Jesus is and what he has done is sufficient for our salvation, and the only way to get connected to that salvation is to believe that JESUS did it all – Believing rightly is the work of salvation, and we have yet to discuss who is responsible for that work of OUR BELIEVING, and who gets credit for that…

Why am I bringing this up – is this in the text??  IT is in the totality of what the Bible teaches; BUT IN FAIRNESS, I am harkening back to my recent conversation with the Mormon Missionaries who told me flat out that they were saved by grace – absolutely saved by grace AND repentance, prayer, controlling their life, growing in knowledge, getting baptized, and having hands laid on them to receive the holy spirit  à where in the blazes did the grace go??  With each mention of an additional thing that they must do to be saved, they erode any concept of being saved by GOD’S GRACE!

They are saved by a grace as defined by that theological luminary, Benjamin Franklin, God helps those who help themselves.  BUT this is not true, we’re helpless!

I asked the Mormons, “Where does your grace begin?”  “What does that mean?”  I said, “According to the bible, the grace by which we are saved began before we were born, before we could even do anything good or bad!  It was God’s electing grace that saves us by His predestination.”  “Predestination?”  “Yes, Ephesians chapter 1, Romans chapter 8,

1 Peter 1:1,2 …To those who are elect … 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Grace starts with the Triune God, as the Father elects us in his son, and sets us apart to himself by his Holy Spirit; and salvation is completed with the Triune God as he alone receives the glory for this salvation!  The reason why I bring this up in this fashion is because of all the religions who claim grace (but really champion human decisions), redefine grace as the opportunity for us to DO something to earn salvation!  Working and earning is NOT and will never be GRACE! 

Biblical grace is defined as God choosing to show his favor upon a damned human race by graciously electing them before they ever do anything good or bad, and with a grace strong enough to save them even though their lives are fraught with human weakness and failure – but those who are saved will always maintain THIS SAVING GRACE in this way: they believe in the works of the one whom God has sent – and will always believe it to the end.

Of course, the religions who claim grace (but really champion human decisions) are frightened of this kind of grace because it seems to them that people who really believe in God’s total grace from start to finish, will not live God glorifying lives – I had a great time telling the Mormons that I get to do whatever I want to do!  They looked at each other with wild eyes like I was a completely lost soul and asked, “You can do what ever you want?”  ABSOLUTELY!  And what do I want to do?? I want to thank God every day for saving me by His grace.

So back to our text, I told the missionaries that the only work of God required of us is to believe, to believe in the one God has sent.

 “Where does it say that?”  John 6, “I’ve never read that before”  Well, you should read all of John six and see that God’s Grace is all HIS WORK, and not your own; AND by His grace God will work in you, through you, for you, and in spite of you!  I ran into them yesterday, and I got their phone #, we’ll be talking again!

All of this is background for what Jesus says in John 6.

³⁰ So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? ³¹ Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" ³² Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." ³⁴ They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

Here is a JoJo!  A John Joke: Jesus makes a statement, they misunderstand, it gives Jesus the opportunity to be crystal clear about the truth…

 ³⁵ Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ³⁶ But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.³⁷ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

The phrase, “eternal life” is used of John 17 times in his gospel and Jesus is always the link for obtaining it.  We must listen very carefully here:  God the Father has chosen a people, He is entrusting them to the Son, and Jesus will raise them up on the last day – raise them to eternal life!

⁴¹ So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." ⁴² They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" ⁴³ Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves.

See the connection to Moses. He led the grumbling Israelites in the wilderness, even though God sent them bread from Heaven?

 ⁴⁴ No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me- ⁴⁶ not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." ⁵² The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Did they hear what Jesus said?  Your father’s had a sign of God’s presence with them in Moses and the Manna – that didn’t know what the Manna was, In fact, the word manna is a question, “manna?”  What is it?  But they ate it and lived for a time, and then died – but now Jesus is the new gift of heaven demonstrating God’s presence with his people – God in the flesh!  And if you want to live forever, you must hunger for him as the staple of life– we must feed on who Christ is and recognize that in His righteous body and soul he is the antidote for death!  So we must chew on this:  Jesus is the only person who can sustain us for all eternity, and unless his life becomes our life – we will perish!  It is a beautiful and graphic way of getting everyone’s attention!  We must take in all of Jesus so that he can raise us up!  (As we depend on him, we must reject all others as a deadly diet!)

 ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." ⁵⁹ Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. ⁶⁰ When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" ⁶¹ But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? ⁶² Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

Reference Daniel 7:13, 14

 ⁶³ It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴ But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) ⁶⁵ And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." ⁶⁶ After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

John 666, many disciples walking away from Jesus!  As Jesus speaks graphically about consuming his very body and blood, he interjects a final point of utmost importance – the spirit gives life to these words.  This is obviously a passage framing the sacrificial work of Christ which we contemplate at the Lord’s Supper.  But on this Pentecost Sunday, there is only one way that anything sent by God to us would have any effect – and that is when the Spirit makes it a reality to our hearts and mind!  At Pentecost, The Father and the Son send the Spirit to those elected to inherit saving grace.  And who is elect?  Those who believe and confess the truth!  We will hear a proper confession in a moment from Simon Peter.  But before we conclude this section to which we have only glossed – please note that this section is replete with the Father giving, and the Son giving, and the Spirit giving – and they all give life to those who are drawn to believe.  All of the Triune God is working to call a people to depend on Christ alone!  Great language for the early church to read, and comprehend about their salvation!  Great language for us today!

⁶⁷ So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, ⁶⁹ and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." ⁷⁰ Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil." ⁷¹ He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

In John 6, Jesus meets with people who grumble with God’s Grace!  Jesus lays all the implications of grace and faith and life on the line, even though he had become wildly successful in drawing crowds, he tells them that he is here for his chosen.  That IS a hard teaching.  We would be happy to make Jesus a bit more approachable, somewhat user friendly; but he is the God who shows mercy to whom He pleases.

As a preacher, I would prefer to make this message a bit more palatable, but this is exactly where Jesus challenges ME – I must swallow the truth about who I am, and what I really want.  Like the crowds that were willing to follow him, I am so interested in just getting daily bread, the great things that Jesus offers!  God knows I have daily needs, he asks me to pray about that!   But what I am in most need of is Jesus pouring his life into me as a disciple, and giving me life by His spirit.  And I can only acknowledge that any of this is simply a result of HIS grace, and not my works, not even my desires – A grace that conquers my unbelief, A grace that makes me completely dependent upon the Savior.

XXX CUT XXX

--- The bread didn’t feed the 5000, Jesus did!  The boat didn’t get them there.  Jesus did. 

If you have plans to be fed in this life, if you have plans to get somewhere – there is only ONE way to do that – only in “Christ, the son of the living God.”

Cactuses

So here the people know that TRUE representatives of God must be accompanied by signs.  Even in our day!  2 Cor. 12:12 says that a true apostle is accompanied with signs, wonders, and miracles, and as soon as the Mormon Apostles show me some, I think I’ll give them a chance to make a case; of course 2 Corinthians 11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.  That’s why there are not apostles today anyway, or prophets – only servants of the king!

For all the graphic nature of Jesus language here.  And especially since this passage is truly connected to the observance of the Lord’s table – it seems rather important that this verse frames the discussion of ingesting Christ – It is the Spirit who gives life.  The discussion of eating flesh and blood is repulsive but as the miracles are signs of something greater, I think Jesus language speaks of something greater.  Those who have the Spirit are not repulsed by this language, we see it as our spiritual source of life!  AND also with this mention, we have a Trinitarian salvation – the Father has elected a people, they are saved by Christ, and they are preserved by the Spirit.

I must stop here and depend on Jesus’ speak! We are going to read it in detail in a few moments; but this has always been Bible language, which has been called as a theological category – Calvinism.  First of all, you don’t need to read a lick of what John Calvin wrote to be called a Calvinist!  All you need to do is read the Bible!  And there in the Bible you will read that God is the author of salvation from first to last!  That God’s grace begins in eternity past, where God made an eternal decree to save a perishing human race by electing some to salvation to the praise of His glory!