John 7:11-24

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Wyman

John 7:11-24

¹After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. ²Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. ³ So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. ⁴For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” ⁵ For not even his brothers believed in him. ⁶Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. ⁷The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. ⁸You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” ⁹After saying this, he remained in Galilee. ¹⁰But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. ¹¹ The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” ¹²And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” ¹³Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him. ¹⁴About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. ¹⁵The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” ¹⁶So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. ¹⁷ If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. ¹⁸The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. ¹⁹ Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” ²⁰The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” ²¹Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. ²² Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. ²³If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? ²⁴ Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Human beings love stories about individuals who are wholly consumed and recklessly obsessed with singular ideas.

For example, in 2004 Denzel Washington starred in a movie called “Man on Fire.” It’s about a former Marine named John Creasy who has been hired to offer private security for a wealthy family in Mexico. His job is to protect a little girl named Pita. Kidnappers take Pita, almost killing Creasy in the process. When he comes to and realizes what has happened, he goes on a single-minded, no-holds-barred, one-man mission to get her back. In fact, the movie is simply an ode to a man who has been gripped by a single idea: get Pita back. So the movie is entitled, “Man on Fire,” for Creasy was on fire with this one idea and nothing was going to get in the way of it.

People love stories of people gripped by single ideas. That’s probably why “Man on Fire” made over 100 million dollars worldwide.

This is also the reason why many people were really gripped by Liam Neeson’s 2008 movie, “Taken.” It’s similar to “Man on Fire” in many ways. In “Taken,” Neeson’s daughter is kidnapped and he is immediately gripped by a single idea: get his daughter back. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that Neeson’s character allows nothing to get in his way. He flies overseas, whoops countless bad guys, overcomes amazing obstacles, and does not stop until he gets her back.

A man gripped by a single idea, a man on fire with one thought, is a dangerous and fascinating thing.

Many years ago Soren Kierkegaard tied this idea into the purity of heart. Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will the one thing.”

That’s true isn’t it?

How quickly fame flies away.

In the beginning of our last chapter, we found Jesus at the height of what we might call “fame.” He has performed a dazzling miracle by feeding thousands of people out of just a little bit of bread and fish. In the aftermath, the number of people following Jesus increases dramatically. Even so, by the end of last chapter, the majority of His followers have left Him and He even presses His own twelve disciples to think long and hard about whether or not they might want to leave Him too. Bolstered by Peter’s strong declaration of faith, the twelve stay with Him. But here, in the beginning of chapter 7, we find a truly pitiful scene indeed. Jesus is rejected by His own brothers and then is questioned by a conflicted crowd.

Yes, fame doesn’t last long, especially when one is trying to do God’s will.

I. Jesus Honored the Father’s Timing (vv.1-10)

¹After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. ²Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.

There are two interesting truths presented in our first two verses. First, we see that Jesus was staying Galilee and avoiding Judea because of the hostility towards Him in Judea. We must understand that this does not mean Jesus avoided Judea because He was afraid. The text dispels that notion at many different points. Instead, the issue was God’s timing. It was not time for Jesus to be killed. It was not time for the final redemptive events of the last week of Jesus’ life to take place. So Jesus avoids Judea.

Second, we see that the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, is at hand. This is very important. You will remember how, over the last number of weeks, we have seen how John is retelling the story of the Exodus in the life of Jesus. We saw this in chapter six in Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of food, in Jesus saving the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and in Jesus’ amazing teaching that He is the Bread of Life. It is interesting, then, that chapter seven begins with the Feast of Booths, for the Feast of Booths was the Jewish celebration of God’s miraculous provision for the Jews in their wilderness wanderings in the Exodus. The feast happened after harvest. It was seven days long, followed by an eighth day of celebration. It was one of the mandatory feasts. Jewish men had to attend it. It was called the Feast of Booths because, during it, there were countless little huts, booths, built all over Jerusalem for the people to stay in and to feast in.

So this is an occasion of great religious fervor and anticipation, for the Feast of Booths was also a time when the Jews looked forward to God saving Israel and miraculously providing for them again.

There is obvious irony here, isn’t there? This feast that commemorated God’s miraculous provision for Israel and God’s promised salvation of Israel was happening at just that time when Jesus was revealing that He was both of these things: the reason for Israel’s survival and the hope of Israel.

On the occasion of this feast, Jesus’ brothers taunt Him:

³So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. ⁴For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” ⁵ For not even his brothers believed in him.

One cannot help but grieve here. It is a painful and awkward scene. In chapter six we saw an increasing measure of opposition to Jesus. His opponents multiply in their numbers. Now Jesus receives opposition from His own family, from His own brothers.

Mary and Joseph would have had other children after Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth. We know that many will come to believe in Him as Savior and Lord. But not yet. At this point, they not only don’t believe, they positively bristle at what is happening in their brother’s life. In their defense, it was certainly an awkward situation for the brothers to be in. There can be no doubt about that. How, after all, would any of us react to the suggestion that our brother was the unique Son of God? Even so, it is painful to see their rejection of their own brother in this way, and it is tragic that they do reject Him at this point.

They reject Him and they seem to taunt Him as well. “Hey, if you’re really so special, you need to go act on the big stage big brother. Go down to Judea, to the feast, and show the crowds what you’re really all about. Enough of these tricks in the countryside. It’s time to go big time!” You can image their sarcastic tones and knowing winks as they say this.

Jesus’ brothers, in essence, are tempting Him to go ahead and set the big events of His passion in motion. Jesus does not give in to their temptation:

⁶Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. ⁷The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. ⁸You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” ⁹After saying this, he remained in Galilee. ¹⁰But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.

Jesus plainly announces his absolute resolve to walk in the Father’s will and to reject all other competing timetables. His words clearly reveal the presence of two differing and conflicting timetables: God’s and the world’s.

Jesus’ brothers are thinking in the world’s terms. The world knows nothing of delayed fame. The world wants what it wants right now, immediately. So it is only fitting that Jesus’ brothers tempt Him, like Satan, to don a crown right here and right now. Their immersion in the world’s way of viewing time means that they themselves do not stand in conflict with the world. This is why Jesus says, “My time has not yet come, but your times is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.”

It is a fascinating and disturbing thought. Our conception of time, of our own plans, of the execution of our own agendas, runs counter to the divine conception of the same. We see this clearly in this exchange.

A man or woman on fire is a man or woman wholly committed to God’s plan and God’s timing for his or her life. Jesus refused to deviate from the script. He refused to take time into His own hands. He knew that His course was charted by the Father and He determined to honor that plan. This meant that Jesus’ timing often seemed nonsensical to those watching Him. Why, after all, would He not jump at the opportunity for greater fame during this Feast of Booths? In the world’s understanding of things, what better time could there be? And why, later, when His name was known by seemingly everyone, would He knowingly and willingly go up to Jerusalem to die? That made no sense at all to His disciples.

To be committed to God’s timing means standing resolutely on the conviction that God’s timing is superior to our own. Perhaps some of you have experienced this. Perhaps you have turned down a job because you knew it wasn’t God’s timing even though your family and friend’s could not understand it. Perhaps you delayed marriage simply because it wasn’t in God’s will for you at that particular time. Whatever it is (and it might be a thousand different things) it can be confusing to those watching when a believer commits to God’s timing. However, to the believer, there is no other option.

Like Jesus, we must decide whose plan and whose script we’re going to follow. We must determine to walk in His timing.

II. Jesus Taught the Father’s Will (vv.11-17)

A person wholly resigned to a singular conviction will necessarily be joyfully resigned to the timing of God. He will also be resigned to the will of God. Jesus was singularly resigned to the timing and will of God, as He revealed when questioned by the crowd.

¹¹ The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” ¹²And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” ¹³ Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him. ¹⁴ About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. ¹⁵ The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?”

You will recognize the Jews’ question as essentially the same question they have asked many times over in many different ways before: “Who is this Jesus, really? How can He know the things He seems to know? How can He do the things He seems to do?” Their question is bolstered by two realities: (1) their mistaken assumption that they know the truth about Jesus (that He is merely a carpenter’s son) and (2) the fact that their carnal minds cannot grasp the truths of God. So they marvel at and stumble over the divine truths Jesus teaches as well as the fact that He, Jesus, is teaching them.

Jesus’ response to their questioning further demonstrated His unity with the Father and His singular conviction to walk only in the will of the Father.

¹⁶ So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. ¹⁷ If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

In saying this, Jesus not only revealed the other-worldly origin of His teaching, but also the importance of walking in God’s will. “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.”

Desiring to walk in God’s will is therefore the doorway to perceiving, knowing, grasping, and understanding the origin and nature of divine truth. This is because only a will that has been redeemed desires to do God’s will in the first place. So when a man is saved, he desires the will of God and, in doing so, his mind and heart are opened and receptive to divine truth. Above all else, the redeemed mind is able to know Christ further: to know His origins, His identity, His nature, and to love Him.

Jesus walked in the will of God. His will was God’s will. Whoever saw Jesus saw the Father for Jesus walked only in the will of the Father.

This fact explained the conflict between Jesus and the Jews. There is no greater way to be in conflict with the world than to walk in the will of God. This is because the will of the world is diametrically opposed to the will of God. Some of you know the painful reality of this. It is, of course, never painful in an ultimate sense to walk in the will of God, but one does pay a price for doing so, no? Some of you have no doubt been the objects of questioning, of derision, and of laughter because you turned from a plan that made sense to the will of the world and embraced instead the will of God.

The two wills are not synonymous. To walk in the will of God is to conflict with the will of the world…and vice versa. It takes courage to walk in the will of God, but, when a person has bowed to Christ, no other option makes any sense at all. One may pay a price, including his own life, to walk in the will of God. Even so, this is what it is to be possessed by a singular idea, one all-consuming notion: to walk in the timing and will of God.

III. Jesus Desired the Father’s Glory (vv.18-24)

Above all else, a man on fire, a man possessed by a single and singular idea, is a man who desires the Father’s glory. Above all else, Jesus sought the glory of the Father.

¹⁸ The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

His desire for the Father’s glory validated His teaching, for “the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” In other words, had Jesus simply been seeking His own fame, His own reputation, and His own advancement, His teachings could have been questioned as self-serving and therefore false. But this is not what Jesus sought. Instead, He sought the glory of God. He sought it so radically that He was willing to give everything for it. The extent to which Jesus was willing to go and the extent to which He did go proved the validity of His own person and teaching, for nobody will give themselves to a horrible death merely for a reputation.

¹⁹ Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?”²⁰ The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” ²¹ Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. ²²Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. ²³ If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? ²⁴ Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Jesus is speaking of the amazing miracle of the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda. The Jews stumbled over this miracle. Furthermore, they committed hypocrisy in condemning it as a violation of the Sabbath. For the Jews would circumcise on the Sabbath when necessary and did not consider this a violation of the Law. In fact, they occasionally had to circumcise on the Sabbath in order not to violate the Law. If, then, the Jews were obeying the Law in the act of Sabbath circumcision, how much more was Christ in healing a man’s entire body?

But the hypocrisy of the Jews was not their greatest condemnation. Rather, their failure to see that the miraculous work of Jesus was for the glory of God was their greatest condemnation. They could not conceive of that which was most important to Jesus: the glory of the Father. There is also the implicit suggestion that the meticulous and bewildering lengths to which the Jews would go to keep the Law had become, for some of them, a means for their own self-glorification. Some of the proud Pharisees seemed to revel in their obedience to the Law. In doing so, they exalted themselves and violated the very heart of the Law. In contrast to this, Jesus did what He did because He understood both the particulars and the heart or essence of the Law: the glory of God.

All that Jesus did, He did for the glory of the Father. Jesus never sought to serve Himself, never sought His own advancement, and never sought His own glory. He was not like the religious celebrities of the day who condemned Him. They sought their own glory. Not so, Jesus. Jesus sought only God’s glory.

This was the single idea that consumed, drove, compelled, and defined Him: the glory of God.

What a marvel a glory-driven life is! What a world-transforming and gloriously-dangerous thing a glory-driven life is! This was seen ultimately and definitively in the life of Jesus. He was a man on fire with the glory of God, and He strove to get the people to see and understand this.

It is as if Jesus is saying, “Can you not see and will you not see that I am not doing what I am doing in order to exalt my name? I am doing what I am doing to exalt the name of my Father. I left my glory to come and be born out back, behind the Holiday Inn, so that God might get the glory. I am living as a simple, lowly man so that God might get the glory. I anger you by calling you to repentance so that God may get the glory even in you. I preach the Kingdom so that God may receive greater glory. I heal the sick to the glory of God and you call Me a blasphemer! Soon, I will be delivered into the hands of men, stripped of what little earthly dignity I yet retain, and be crucified naked before the world. But I do that too for God’s glory. I will be spat upon for His glory, beaten and buffeted for His glory, mocked, taunted, abused and pummeled for the glory of My Father. My closest friends will abandon me, but I will endure it for His glory. My mother will watch her son die in agony, but deep down she will know that I have done it for the glory of the Father. But then, the glory of God which drives me and to which I have given all that I am will shatter death’s chains and I will rise again, emanating and blazing with glory! It’s not about Me and My name. I give my life for the glory of the One who sent Me, and I am calling you now to do the same!”

I want to call upon the church to embrace a glory-driven life. I want to call upon any of you who do not know Jesus to come to Him today. Come to the Father through the Son. There is indeed no other way. Come as you are. Come in repentance and faith and trust. Let us all come to the glory-driven Christ and embrace Him today.

John 6:60-71

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Wyman

John 6:60-71

⁶⁰ When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” ⁶¹But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³ It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But 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.) ⁶⁵And 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. ⁶⁷So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, ⁶⁹and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” ⁷⁰Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” ⁷¹He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

Wilbur Reese really disturbed my world. Now, I don’t know Wilbur Reese, but he wrote a little poem that I first heard a number of years ago and it really, sincerely disturbed my world. It’s a sarcastic poem, a tongue-in-cheek poem, a disturbing poem.

Here it is:

I would like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please.

Not enough to explode my soul,

or disturb my sleep,

but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk, or a snooze in the sunshine.

I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.

I want ecstasy,

not transformation.

I want the warmth of the womb,

not a new birth.

I want about a pound of the eternal

in a paper sack.

I would like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please.

Honestly now, how much of Jesus would you like to buy? How much of Him do you want?

That’s essentially the question that Jesus had to ask those who claimed to want to follow Him. In the aftermath of Jesus’ frankly shocking teaching about His being the Bread of Life, about His being broken for the world, about the need for those who would follow Him to “eat His flesh” and “drink His blood,” the crowd is faced with a tough question. How much of Jesus did they want?

How much of Jesus do you want?

You have to ask yourself that question because following Jesus presents certain challenges, as our text will show us this morning.

I. The Challenge of Uncomfortable Truths (60-66)

The first great challenge the disciples of Jesus faced was the challenge of uncomfortable truths. Remember that the light of John 6 began wide and has grown ever more sharp and penetrating as Jesus revealed more and more about Himself. He began with literal bread, then explained that He was the bread, then revealed that His flesh was the bread, then proclaimed that His flesh would be broken, and finally announced that unless one ate His flesh and drank His blood He could not be saved.

As Jesus progressed in His teachings, the disciples’ discomfort grew more and more intense.

⁶⁰ When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”

The response of the people reveals two things: (1) that Jesus teachings’ were difficult and (2) that they were so difficult they were causing the people to rethink whether or not they really wanted to follow Him.

“This is a hard saying,” they proclaim. James Montgomery Boice has helpfully explained this word:

“…Christ’s teachings were ‘hard’ to accept. The Greek word is skleros, and it clearly does not mean ‘hard to understand.’ It means ‘hard to tolerate.’ So long as Christ’s followers could not understand him, they stayed around and asked questions. It was when they did understand him that they went elsewhere. They left because what they heard was so contrary to their own views that they would not accept it.”[1]

“This is hard to tolerate,” they say, and they are right. Many of the teachings of Jesus are indeed very difficult for the natural mind to tolerate.

⁶¹ But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But 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.) ⁶⁵And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

Here, Jesus explains the true source of their great discomfort.

⁶⁶ After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

Jesus proclaimed uncomfortable truths, difficult truths, awkward truths. Jesus did this so often that I do wonder if a man can really claim to be following Him if he has never felt himself challenged by the teachings of Jesus? And yet, many people in churches in America seem perfectly cozy with Jesus, as if they have never once felt the internal tension and outward pushing that the radical teachings of Jesus cause in the hearts of men.

My whole life I’ve heard religious people and preachers soften the sharp edges of Jesus. And, in truth, I’ve done the same at times. For instance, how easy it is to explain away or soften Christ’s teachings that we love our enemies. “Well,” we say, “I’ll love him, but I’m going to sue him for all he’s worth and destroy him.” Or, “I’ll love her, but she is going to pay me back everything she owes me, then some.”

Sometimes we soften the sharp edges of Jesus to make ourselves more comfortable. Did Jesus really say that He was the only way to the Father? Did Jesus really say that we must repent? Did Jesus really tell that wealthy young man that he had to sell all that he had and give it to the poor? On this last point, I’ve grown up hearing preachers say that, of course, that’s not literally intended for every person, and that the point is that we must be willing to rid ourselves of whatever it is that’s destroying us. True enough, as far as that goes. I agree. Jesus never told everybody to sell everything. But I sometimes wonder why He has seemingly never called any of us to sell everything since that moment? And what about me and this teaching? How convenient that I’ve never felt that call in my life. Has He called me to do that and I’m refusing, or has He called me to give up something else?

It’s a challenge isn’t it? At the very least can we agree to put back on the table at least the possibility that the hard teachings of Jesus may have been intended intentionally and literally for me?

We must let the teachings of Jesus stand. We must not remove the discomfort of His truth.

May I suggest that the reason many people in church who claim to be following Jesus don’t feel uncomfortable with Jesus’ teachings at times is because we have simply picked and chosen what portions of the teachings of Jesus we will follow? We have, in others words, removed the uncomfortable parts out of Jesus, remade Him in our own image, and then followed that image. But the problem is that whenever we seek to alter the image of Jesus we inevitably alter it into the image that we know best: our own.

Few people have said this better than Soren Kierkegaard, the great Dutch existentialist:

“What we have before us is not Christianity but a prodigious illusion, and the people are not pagans but live in the blissful conceit that they are Christians. So if in this situation Christianity is to be introduced, first of all the illusion must be disposed of. But since this vain conceit, this illusion is to the effect that they are Christians, it looks indeed as if introducing Christianity were taking Christianity away from men. Nevertheless this is the first thing to do, the illusion must go.”[2]

Yes, the illusion must go. Some people who claim to be following Jesus are actually following a Jesus that they have recast in their own image, along the lines of their own understanding, and in ways that do not offend their own sensibilities. This leads to a shocking thought: many people think they are following Jesus when, in reality, they are following themselves.

It is this misunderstanding that Jesus confronts in this poignant, tense scene. The people had to face the challenge of Jesus’ uncomfortable truths. So must we.

This raises the interesting issue of courage. Do you have enough courage to allow the teachings of Jesus to be what they are? Do you have enough courage to take Jesus for who He is and not recast Him into what you want Him to be?

II. The Challenge of Total, Intentional, Personal Commitment (67-69)

In the aftermath of this exodus of a large number of folks who were following Jesus up to this point, Jesus turns to His disciples:

⁶⁷ So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”

I think it matters how we read these passages. The tone in which they were spoken affects how they should be read. For my part, I find it unlikely that Jesus said this with shocked, caught-off-guard sadness: “Do you want to go away as well?” As if Jesus was now tentatively turning to His disciples, shuffling His feet, His fingers crossed behind His back, hoping that the disciples would stay.

No, I don’t think that’s the way to read it. Jesus knew that many who were following did not understand and would be offended when they began to understand. In truth, Jesus was leading to this moment. It was necessary that this line-in-the-sand moment happen with His own disciples. For the first time they are seeing the cost of discipleship. They are now understanding that Jesus isn’t a wise sage they are simply hanging out with. Rather, He’s God’s incendiary, life-changing, discomfort-bringing, salvation-granting Son, and to follow Him will change everything about their lives.

So He asks them not with hurt but with the light of further revelation in His eyes and tone: “Do you want to go away as well?” As if to say, “Do you see that what following Me is going to entail? Do you now understand that I am not like the other teachers you’ve seen. This isn’t a field trip. This isn’t vacation. It’s going to cost you to follow me. It’s going to cost you your reputation and your comfort and your old way of living. It’s going to cost you your lives. But it’s not going to cost you more than it will cost Me.”

It is a powerful, tense moment. “Do you want to go away as well?”

First of all, let me point out that Jesus would almost certainly never have been hired to teach the “Church Growth” seminar at the local Bible college or seminary. You see, we live in a church climate that holds to a “growth at all costs” model. We will do anything for a crowd. To that end we surround ourselves with gimmicks and tricks and enticements so that we will have lots of folks come to the church. We seem almost paranoid about the size of the audience, don’t we?

But Jesus seemed to think that this little thing called “truth” mattered more than the size of the crowd. In fact, Jesus challenged the crowd with offensive, uncomfortable truths, and asked them to think long and hard about what is was going to mean to follow Him.

Jesus never checked attendance records. Jesus’ own church growth record was a dismal failure by our standards. Just look at this text! Most who are following leave Him, then He gives the few who remain a way out. In the end, ten of the twelve will abandon Him on the cross, and one of the other two will help place Him there by betraying Him.

Jesus had His eyes wide open when it came to the commitment level of the majority. So He revealed Himself in truth to them and most left. Then He asks His disciples whether or not they really wanted to follow Him.

Have you ever asked yourself that question? “Do I want to go away as well? Do I really want to follow Jesus? Am I prepared for what this is going to mean for my present and my future? Am I willing to embrace what this is going to mean for the living of my life? Do I want to go away or go on with Jesus?”

This is the question Jesus puts to His disciples. What Jesus is doing is putting before them the challenge of total, intentional, personal commitment. Will the disciples commit themselves to Him totally, intentionally, personally? This is what Jesus is asking. When He does so, Simon Peter steps forward. It’s always a little unnerving when Simon Peter steps forward, isn’t it? But listen to his answer:

⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, ⁶⁹and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Some commentators suggest that this may be John’s telling of the scene from Matthew 16, when Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Whether this is the same scene or a different one, the substance of Peter’s response reveals their determination to press on with Jesus. They will commit totally, intentionally, and personally, though, as we know, their commitment will be severely tested and, in the main, abandoned for a time. One, as we will see, never truly bowed to Christ as Lord and will betray Him.

Even so, this powerful confession is an important example of what it means to follow Jesus, the offered, broken, saving Bread of Life. Peter asks, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

To be a disciples is know that no matter how difficult it might be to follow Jesus at times, He is the way, the truth, and the life, and there is literally no other option for us. “Lord, to who shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Peter proclaims that they have “believed, and have come to know.” We truly embrace Christ when we believe the gospel and know the gospel and plant our feet firmly in the beautiful, saving truth of the gospel.

Can you say that the horizon of your life is so dominated by the greatness and grandeur of Christ that there literally is no other option for you? Can you say that you have “believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God?”

The challenge of total, intentional, personal commitment is a powerful but important challenge. We must reach the point where we can face Jesus’ question, “Do you want to go away as well?” and say, “Lord Jesus, there is simply no other place I can go or will go because You and You alone are life and truth and salvation.”

III. The Challenge of Enduring Discipleship (70-71)

Presumably, all twelve of the disciples placed themselves under Peter’s confession by not denying it at the moment. Yet, one who allowed his name to stand under the confession truly was no disciple of Jesus. I am speaking of Judas Iscariot.

Jesus receives Peter’s confession of faith and commitment, then reveals something most disturbing:

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.

Here is the challenge of enduring discipleship. Will those who claim to follow Jesus follow Him or abandon Him or, worse, betray Him?

The reality is that Judas’ commitment and discipleship was superficial. He never embraced Jesus as Lord. He never met the challenge of personal, intentional, total commitment. Not, I would argue, that the disciples were ever fully aware of that until Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.

I’m always amused at how some of the movie depictions of Judas present him as an almost sinister, dark, brooding character. As if Judas were perpetually lurking in the dark corners until those moments when he shuffled out, Igor-like, hunched over, dragging the money bag on the ground behind him, wild-eyed and maniacal, knuckles dragging on the ground, and slobbering out, “Yessss Master!”

No, the truth of the matter is that if Judas were a member of this church we’d likely offer him a Sunday School class or a position of leadership. Why? Because people are good at hiding weak commitment under the guise of religious verbiage. Judas sang the hymns like the rest. Judas paid attention like the rest.

The exact psychology of Judas is hard to grasp. I am attracted to the theory that Judas was following Jesus because he thought Jesus was going to lead an political insurrection against the Roman occupying forces. When that did not materialize, and when Judas realized, to his horror, that Jesus meant something very different from the normal meanings when He used words like “Kingdom” and “King,” Judas betrayed Him. He may have betrayed Jesus in an effort to try to force Jesus’ hand, to bring Him out into the open as a political revolutionary. It’s very possible, and I think that theory makes sense of the events of Judas’ last days.

Regardless, Jesus was never Lord to Judas. His discipleship was temporary and calculating. He did not endure to the end. He wanted to walk with Jesus so long as the possibility of his getting from Jesus what he wanted to get still existed. But the moment his alliance with Jesus was no longer advantageous, Judas betrayed the Lord.

The challenge of enduring discipleship confronts us with the question of whether or not Jesus is Lord of our lives, now and to the end? Will we follow Him, walk with Him, and, if need be, die with Him? Or is Jesus simply useful to us insofar as He is profitable to us?

How many set out to walk with Jesus but, in the end, like Judas, betray and abandon Him? Judas implicitly agreed with Peter’s confession by not denying it, but, as Jesus well-knew, he had no place with them.

There are those who walk beside Jesus who are not walking with Jesus. They will not endure to the end. They have no real intention of walking with Him wherever He leads, though they may have convinced themselves that they do.

Let us understand that there are challenges to walking with Jesus. Even so, the challenges do not eclipse the joy of doing so. Jesus summed up both of these realities when He said in Matthew 11:

²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Following Jesus is a yoke. It challenges our carnal minds and our flesh. But when one sees the beauty and glory and grace and wonder of Jesus, one sees that it is an easy and light and wonderful yoke indeed.

[1] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), p.530.

[2] Soren Kierkegaard. Attack Upon Christendom. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univesity Press, 1968), p.97.

John 6:41-59

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Wyman

John 6:41-59

⁴¹So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²They 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’?” ⁴³Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. ⁴⁵It 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 he who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your 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. ⁵¹I 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.” ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So 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. ⁵⁴Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷As 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 like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

The 1967 film, “Cool Hand Luke” is, hands down, one of the coolest movies ever made. It starred Paul Newman at his absolute…well…coolest!

Newman plays Luke, a petty criminal sentenced to do hard time in a dreary detention center in the deep South. Pretty soon, Luke earns the nickname “Cool Hand Luke” after prisoners observe what a “cool hand” he is.

Luke is smooth, charming, and determined to survive. The movie chronicles his fascinating journey of survival and his attempts to escape from the hard time and ruthless guards at the labor camp.

Because of his exploits, determination, and resolve, Luke soon wins the admiration and respect of the other prisoners. They begin to see him as a kind of leader, their leader in fact.

There is a particularly poignant scene in the movie in which Luke has been captured after escaping the prison camp yet again. After being brought back to the camp, Luke has two sets of chains placed on his feet. He is beaten, exhausted and defeated. His nearly lifeless body is drug back into the bunks where he is surrounded by his fellow prisoners. The prisoners idolize Luke and refuse to believe that he has been beaten, that his spirit has been broken. They begin to press him on the glories of his escape, on his exploits while he was away, and on the strength of his spirit. In other words, they want the old Cool Hand Luke back and refuse to believe that he has been beaten.

At this, Luke, weary, dirty, filthy, defeated, and drained of all energy, looks up at the men around him, the men who admire him, the men who refuse to believe that their hero has been defeated. As he looks at them, his face fills with exasperation and rage and he screams at the men surrounding him: “Stop feeding off me!”

It is a powerful moment. “Stop feeding off me!”

It is Luke’s plea for the men to stop living through him. It is Luke’s revelation to the men that he isn’t as strong as they think he is, that he cannot be for them all that they need for him to be. It is Luke’s heart-broken cry of his own limitations. In screaming at them, he is telling them that he cannot supply them with their needs, that he cannot be their source of hope.

“Stop feeding off me!” Luke screams. “Stop feeding off me!”

On the other hand, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Feed off of me.”

Jesus stands before the people and says the exact opposite of what Luke says. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus said that the people could draw their strength and hope and vitality and nourishment and courage and resolve from Him forever.

Cool Hand Luke said, “Stop!”

Jesus says, “Come!”

The people wanted Cool Hand Luke to be all of this for them, but he couldn’t.

The people did not want Jesus to be this for them, but He could.

Luke could not be the nourishment the prisoners needed to survive.

But Jesus can.

Jesus is the bread of life.

We’ve been looking at this reality for two weeks now. First, we saw Jesus’ miraculous provision of bread for the hungry people. Then we saw Jesus correct the mistaken assumptions of those who received this bread. Now Jesus sharpens the focus even more. Here, He draws the people into even deeper realities of His own person and presence. And what Jesus said about the bread of life – about Himself – was staggering indeed!

The Bread of Life is a Gift From God

Our text this morning reflects a growing tension between Jesus and “the Jews.” At the center of this tension and conflict is the inability and refusal of the Jews to see and hear and understand what Jesus is saying. So our text begins this morning with their displeasure at Jesus:

⁴¹ So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

This word “grumbled” is significant because it is the same word used to describe what the children of Israel were doing to Moses in the exodus. They “grumbled” against Moses. They “grumbled” against Jesus. The use of this word at this point further demonstrates the powerful link between John 6 and the events of the Passover and Exodus. Furthermore, we find their grumbling bolstered by their mistaken assumption that they themselves knew the true identity of Jesus:

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’?”

Of course, there is irony here. The Jews reject Jesus because they claim to know Jesus’ earthly father, but in reality they are rejecting Him because they don’t know His Heavenly Father. They claim to know His father at the exact time that He’s trying to introduce them to His Father!

So Jesus moves to the very heart of their rejection of Him. Their minds are carnal.

⁴³ Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 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.

Here we find one of the great, controversial texts of the New Testament. I would say that it is not inherently controversial. It is controversial only because our own minds do not natively love and relish the truths of God and because we demand systemization where the Bible defies it.

First of all, let us remember the context of this passage. Jesus is trying to reveal Himself and the people will not receive Him. The reason they will not receive Him is because their minds and carnal and they will not come to God.

In this context, Jesus speaks of the drawing power of God unto salvation. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”

This verse is controversial because it sits squarely in the middle of modern debates surrounding predestination, election, the sovereignty of God, and the responsibility of man.

While I do not want to miss the main emphasis of this text (i.e., Jesus’ revelation of Himself as the Bread of Heaven) in this one verse, let us take a moment and consider its meaning.

To begin, let us all agree that we must take any passage for what it says and not for what we want it to say. Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” So the verse means precisely that.

Some people say, “Yes, this is true, but then God is drawing the whole world to Jesus.” But this does not work at all, for those whom the Father “draws” to Jesus, Jesus definitely raises up on the last day. In other words, those who are “drawn” will be “raised.” This is a drawing unto salvation, not a general desire for people to know Christ. If, then, you claim that God is drawing every person, then you must believe that everybody will be saved since those who are drawn will be raised. You cannot say, in other words, that God draws all but Jesus only raises some (i.e., those who trust in Him). No, all who are drawn are raised, so if all are drawn all will be raised.

This is called “universalism,” the idea that all will be saved. But the New Testament clearly does not teach that all will be saved. If not all are raised then not all are drawn.

Furthermore, there is a simple biblical truth in these words: no heart and no mind can embrace Christ and His gospel unless and until God has opened that heart and mind to the things of God. We are lost, condemned people outside of Christ and we need our hearts softened and our eyes and ears opened so that we might see and hear and know and trust Christ. This is why Jesus goes on to say:

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 he who is from God; he has seen the Father.

This is the plain meaning of the text and I would propose that we embrace this plain meaning. Jesus says that nobody can come to Him unless the Father draws Him and that all whom the Father draws to the Son will be raised.

The doctrine of election is quite clear in this regard. This Bible says this and we should not shrink from it.

The Bible exalts the sovereignty of God in salvation. But the Bible also teaches the responsibility of man to respond to the gospel, to repent and to believe. This is likewise very important. In fact, in verse 47 Jesus turns to the responsibility of man to believe: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”

So here we have two biblical ideas: God’s drawing and man’s believing, divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

The problem comes when people try to push one truth to the exclusion and informing power of the other. There are those who speak of God’s drawing but never of man’s need to repent and genuinely believe. There are those who speak of man’s responsibility but never of God’s sovereign election in salvation.

Whole systems have been built up around these two realities and intense theological battle lines have been drawn around them. And this is understandable, for, on the surface of things, these two truths seem incompatible: God’s sovereign election and drawing in salvation and man’s responsibility in responding. If, after all, God is drawing, in what meaningful sense is man genuinely responsible? If, on the other hand, man is genuinely responsible to respond, in what sense is God drawing?

May I make a proposal that some of you will find unsatisfying but that others of you will likely find liberating? May I suggest that the New Testament teaches both realities in such a way that neither can be denied. May I further suggest that this tension between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man is even necessary if God is God and we are fallen man? May I suggest that it is only our innate desire to master the mysteries of God that makes us unable to live with and relish the beauty and tension of these mysteries?

I am not trying to take a middle road because I find it easy. I am trying to take a middle road because I find both of these beautiful truths taught in scripture. God is sovereign to save and draws those He will. Man is responsible to respond and must embrace the cross of Christ.

For instance, have you ever noticed that the last phrase of verse 44 shows up again ten verses later?

⁵⁴Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Do you see the verbal connection between the two?

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.

⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Here again we see two sides of one beautiful truth. “No one can come to me unless…” and “Whoever feeds….and drinks…”

Let us keep the mystery and beauty of these truths without distorting one to the exclusion of the other, for, when we do so, we do violence to the Word of God.

I agree with New Testament scholar D.A. Carson when he writes:

“Yet despite the strong predestinarian strain, it must be insisted with no less vigor that John emphasizes the responsibility of people to come to Jesus, and can excoriate them for refusing to do so.”[1]

I agree with Gerald Borchert when he writes:

“Salvation is never achieved apart from the drawing power of God, and it is never consummated apart from the willingness of humans to hear and learn from God. To choose one or the other will ultimately end in unbalanced, unbiblical theology. Such a solution will generally not please either doctrinaire Calvinists or Arminians, both of whom will seek to emphasize certain words or texts and exclude from consideration other texts and words. But my sense of the biblical materials is that in spite of all our arguments to the contrary, the tension cannot finally be resolved by our theological gymnastics. Rather than resolving the tension, the best resolution is learning to live with the tension and accepting and those whose theological commitments differ from ours.”[2]

I agree with the Dutch Reformed New Testament scholar Herman Ridderbos when he writes:

“No attempt is made to explain faith’s involvement in the vivifying power of God. The Bible speaks in two ways about a reality that as a miracle from God is not transparent to the intellect but to which the gospel seeks to open the eyes and hearts of people.”[3]

I agree with Andreas Kostenberger when he writes that “the reference to the Father ‘drawing’ is balanced by people ‘coming’ to Jesus.”[4]

We need both of these truths. God is not passive in salvation and man is no mere puppet.

Both of these truths are taught in scripture and both are present in Jesus’ discourse with the Jews.

We reject because we want to reject. We come because God is gracious to draw.

Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are both taught in the Bible and are both needed for a healthy theology. They form different sides to the prism of the whole counsel of God’s Word. One holds up the prism and turns it this way and that. At this angle, the one truth is emphasized: “Come unto Me!” At that angle, the other truth is emphasized: “Drawn by the Father!”

Spurgeon likened it to walking through a door. On the front of the door post are the words, “Whosoever will may come.” But when you pass through and look at the other side you find these words, “Chosen before the foundation of the world.”

What this means about Jesus, the Bread of Life, is that the Bread of Life is a gift from God. He is loving and compassionate to offer it to us and draw us to Him. The Bread cannot be seized by greedy hands, but it can be received in hands of repentance.

The point of the passage isn’t our silly controversies over Calvinism and Arminianism. The point of God’s drawing power is the glory and sovereignty of God in Christ and the wonderful gift of salvation.

The Bread of Life is Eternal and Unending

The Bread is a gift, but it is not merely a gift. The Bread of Life, Jesus, is an eternal, unending, all-satisfying gift.

⁴⁷ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life.

How do you embrace eternal life? You believe. “Whoever believes has eternal life.”

“Belief,” here, is not mere mental assent. Salvation is not a matter of, “Eh, ok, I believe that.” “Belief” in the New Testament is a matter of whole-hearted acceptance, a complete embrace of a complete truth with broken heart and conviction of mind.

Do you want this Bread, this eternal Bread of God? Then believe! Then call out to Jesus! Call out to Jesus and live!

This bread is different from the bread their fathers ate in the wilderness, the bread they are asking Jesus to provide:

⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

Yes, it is very different. The bread the people want, the bread for which they are clamoring will not save them. They will eat it, it will satisfy them for a moment, but it cannot overcome death.

But Jesus, the Bread of Life, can overcome death. He is a different kind of bread because of who He is and where He comes from:

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.

Ah! Jesus, the eternal, life-giving Bread of Heaven, takes root in those who partake of Him and gives eternal life. Normal bread is digested and expelled. The Bread of Life takes root in the human heart and transforms the life of the one who eats from the inside out. It is living bread.

I always love when Dale Prater shows up at the office with a cardboard box. Dale, of course, has a partnership with Panera Bread and he gets bread from them daily to give to those who need it. Every so often he will swing by the office and ask the staff if any of us would like a loaf of bread or a pastry.

Dale Prater is the Santa Claus of the office! We love it and we feel nothing but gratitude. But the bread in that box, as amazing as it is, doesn’t last forever. In fact, no sooner is Dale out the door that I’m thinking, “I do hope Dale comes back again!” Why? Because the bread he brings, while delicious, does not last forever.

The bread we want is bread that does not last.

But Christ lasts. Jesus, the Bread of Life, is living bread. He nourishes and He sustains. He truly lasts forever, as do all who partake of Him.

The Bread of Life is Broken for Us

The bread is a gift. The bread is eternal. But now Jesus move to the most shocking characteristic, one that stands at the very center of our faith and one which Jesus now begins to reveal to the already scandalized Jews: the Bread of Life is broken.

Again, we see the spotlight on Jesus increasingly narrowing in this 6th chapter. It began broad and wide in the miraculous provision of literal bread. Then it began to narrow as Jesus revealed that the bread was a symbol of His own self, that He, Jesus, was the bread of life. Now the spotlight narrows with increased rapidity, intensity, and clarity as Jesus reveals two more realities about the Bread of Life.

“And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Utterly astounding! Yes, Jesus Himself is the bread, but, in a special sense, His flesh is the bread. The blindness of his audience now mingles with outrage:

⁵² The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Again, their over-literalized mindset cannot fathom the divine truth of what the Lord is saying here. They are blind, deaf, and dumb to the gospel. But Jesus does not tone down the blunt shock of his teachings:

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.

“What can this mean?” the Jews must have asked themselves. It means nothing less than that Jesus, the bread of Life, will be broken, torn asunder, killed, crucified, and murdered. The bread that is His flesh will not remain a whole loaf. No! The hands of men will take this Bread of Life and hate it. They will hate it because they prefer only the temporary bread of the earth. They will hate it because the bread of Jesus will threaten to undo, to change, and to redo all that they are.

So angry men will take the Bread of Life and rip it apart. But in doing so they will be furthering, not hindering, the plan of God. For bread must be broken to be given, and it is through this breaking of Christ on the cross that God has willed to give Him to the world.

When we come to Christ crucified, Christ offered to the World, Christ given, Christ broken, we live! To eat His flesh and drink His blood is to believe and trust and embrace Him in faith. And in believing and receiving, we live!

This is the will of the Father, that we would partake of Christ through faith and live.

⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Again, we see here divine sovereignty (“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws Him.”) and human responsibility (“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…”). But note the beautiful end: the one who is drawn and the whoever that comes to the broken, offered Bread of Life will be raised by Christ on the last day.

If you will take this crucified Jesus, you….will…live! Why?

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 like the bread 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.

So it is through our consumption through faith of the Bread of Life, which is Jesus, that we are given life from the living God who gives us Jesus.

Jesus, then, is God’s offering to starving humanity so that all who come to Him might live and never die. He is a broken offering, a crucified offering. We eat of eternal bread when we trust in this crucified Jesus.

What a heart breaking thing it is when a man rejects this eternal bread.

Just a couple of days ago Roni and I were hiking in the Grand Canyon. We had never been there before. It is, in a word, astounding! It is also a bit intimidating hiking some of those trails. It’s intimidating not only because of the sheer drop off the edge of the path in certain sections of the trail, but maybe more so because ever in your peripheral vision, if not your direct vision, is the overwhelming grandeur of the Grand Canyon itself.

I don’t know if I can explain this, but it is a strange and somehow dizzying sensation walking that closely to such an amazing, jaw-dropping Canyon. It’s always right there. Even when you try to look only at the path in front of your own feet, you still see and sense and feel this indescribable, beautiful, and slightly frightening Canyon all around you. It can create a weird kind of attraction, or pull, or draw as you try to walk that can throw your equilibrium off.

In fact, when Roni and I were hiking back up the portion of the trail we hiked, as we neared the highest, steepest, and most dizzying aspects of the path, a group of three young people passed us. I noticed that the young man in the group was holding a baseball hat up to the left side of his face. The rock wall was on his right and the Grand Canyon stretched out to his left. I asked him if he was ok. He said he was fine but that he got dizzy when he saw the Grand Canyon below him. So he shielded his eyes so as not to be able to see. In this way, by blotting out the sight of the Canyon below, he could continue on his path unobstructed.

It was an interesting moment. This young man believed that so long as he didn’t look at the Canyon he would not feel its drawing, dizzying power.

We do the same with Christ, don’t we? Some of you may be doing this this very morning. You know that the grand Savior is beside you. You feel Him and sense Him and can even detect His drawing, dizzying power. You know that He is too awesome to be ignored, yet you are trying to blot out any vision of Him that might distract you from your path. So you hold before your eyes petty things that yet have the power to obscure His presence: jobs and hobbies and families and relationships and pleasures and wishes and wants.

But you still feel Him. You still know He is there.

Friends, do not shield your eyes from the grand Savior any more. Drop your shield and fall headlong into His grace. There are open arms there and a loving Savior. The enormity of Christ is terrifying to a lost soul but comforting to those who know Him. His presence is dizzying and disorienting to those who want to stay on their own little path. To those who embrace Him, however, His path becomes their path.

He is the Savior.

He is the Bread of Life.

Church! Visitors! Families! Friends! There is bread at the cross for you! Living bread, offered bread, broken bread, sacrificed bread, crucified bread, God-sent bread, incarnate bread, resurrected bread, alive-again bread, Kingdom bread, Hell-destroying, soul-redeeming, life-preserving, glory-securing, Satan-destroying, joy-producing, faith-confirming, eternal, immutable, beautiful, glorious, majestic Bread here, in this Jesus, for you, now….right now!

Come and taste and live.

[1] D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Gen. ed., D.A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), p.293.

[2] Gerald L. Borchert, John 1-11. The New American Commentary, vol.25A. Gen. ed., E. Ray Clendenen (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1996), p.268-269.

[3] Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John.(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), p.234.

[4] Andreas J. Kostenberger, John. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), p.213.

John 6:22-40

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Wyman

John 6:22-40

²²On 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. ²³Other 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. ²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” ²⁶Jesus 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. 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.” ²⁸Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” ²⁹Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” ³⁰So 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.'” ³²Jesus 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. ³³For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ³⁶But 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. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And 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. ⁴⁰For 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.”

In an interesting way, great leaders are always judged by whether or not they provide bread for the people they govern. We remember fondly those leaders who cared for the well-being of their people. We remember harshly those leaders who lived well while people starved around them.

For instance, the night before she committed suicide or was murdered, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s wife (who had become a Christian), bitterly shouted at the revelers attending a banquet of the wealthy and the powerful, “I hate you all! Look at this table, and the people are starving!”[1]

Or, more famously, we might think of Queen Marie Antoinette’s infamous statement. While the words are almost certainly wrongly ascribed to her, the old story is that when she was informed that the peasants had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette callously responded, “Let them eat cake!”

France’s Henry IV openly declared his desire that there would be “a chicken in every pot.” This hope was picked up by the Republican Party in 1928, with the addendum, “and a car in every garage.”

Yes, we may judge rulers on whether or not they provide bread for their followers. It’s always been that way. Bad rulers don’t care if the people have bread. Good rulers care a lot.

It is interesting, then, to find Jesus providing bread, miraculously, for the hungry crowd, then using their hunger for more bread to take them deeper into the reality of who He is. For Jesus indeed came to give sustenance to the world, but not in the way that the world imagined it. In fact, the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand gave rise to certain tensions between what the people expected of Jesus and what He knew He needed to be for them.

Points of tension are good. These are the moments where we grow. So it was into these points of tension that Jesus stepped and led the people to a greater understanding of Himself.

The people wanted the immediate whereas Jesus wanted to give them the eternal.

In the aftermath of two dramatic miracles (the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water), Jesus has to clarify the meaning of the first miracle to those who come to Him again wanting more.

The disciples, you will remember, had gone to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. When they left, Jesus was not with them. After the miraculous events of the night before, however, He arrives with them on the other shore.

The people, of course, want more of Jesus. But, in truth, what did they really want? Their true intentions, and the truth of who Jesus is and what He wanted to be for them would both surface in the conversation to come.

²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” ²⁶Jesus 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.

There can be no doubt that this revelation of the people’s flawed intentions for wanting to be near Christ stung and confused many of those in the crowd. It always stings when Jesus puts His finger on the unpleasant truth of who we really are and what we really want.

What was driving the people, Jesus revealed, was not a desire to know the One to whom the signs pointed, but rather a desire for the immediate gratification that the miraculously-provided loaves offered them.

They wanted bread.

In revealing this, Jesus announces one of the great, abiding, conflicts that exists among many who come to Him: the conflict between the immediate and the eternal.

The people wanted the immediate. They wanted bread…now! They would, of course, have claimed that they wanted Jesus. But, in truth, what they wanted wasn’t Jesus but more of the material offerings He earlier gave them.

After pointing out the reality of their hearts’ desires, Jesus next reveals the fallacy of this approach to Him:

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.”

“Do not labor for the food that perishes.” Do not set your hearts on the gifts, no matter how good, that are here only for a moment. Do not love the expression of love more than the One who loves you. Do not want what I am capable of giving you more than you want Me!

It is almost as if Jesus is saying, “I didn’t give you the bread to make you hungry for more bread. I gave you the bread to make you hungry for Me! Come unto Me! Don’t come unto My miracles. Don’t come unto the bread I have given you. Don’t come unto what you think I may do next. Come unto Me!”

Oh what a great, great tragedy this conflict between the immediate and the eternal has wrought in Christianity today. What carnage has been left because people, in the name of Jesus, desire the gifts more than the Giver?

The tyranny of immediacy – the desire for instant gratification at the hands of God (what Calvin Miller has called “the sensual thrall”) – is a powerful tyranny in the church today.

I read an expose on a large pastor in the Atlanta, GA, area who has grown a large and prosperous church that emphasizes immediate gratification. The article reported how, when offering time came, the people would all stand and wave their offering envelopes and shout, “I want my stuff! I want my stuff!”

There is perhaps no greater image of many in the church today than that: “I want my stuff!”

This was the cry of those who came to Jesus in search of more bread and this is the cry of many who come to Jesus today. “Give us more bread! Give us more wealth! I want my stuff!”

There is a whole army of prosperity preachers who teach that one of the great points of Christianity is that God wants you to have good bread whenever you want it and in whatever amounts you desire.

It is true that Jesus told us to pray for “daily bread,” but that is “daily bread.” It is bread for today, enough to live on.

Even then the Bible does not disparage wealth in and of itself, though it points out the inherent dangers that can come with it. But what the Word of God manifestly does not say is that the point of knowing Jesus is having what you want when you want it.

The people wanted provisions whereas Jesus wanted them to have a Person.

In verse 27, the Lord Jesus elevates the eternal above the temporal (while never denying that the temporal does, in a meaningful sense, matter) and calls upon those who would follow Him to “not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life.” So He has called them to labor, to work, for eternal food. Naturally, given their state of mind, they respond:

28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

This crowd, like all crowds that come to Jesus, are pragmatists. They want to know the nuts and bolts of what this labor for eternal things looks like. So they ask the same question that the rich young ruler asks in Luke 18:18: “What must I do?”

The very question reveals that their minds are still bound to the earth and to earthly things. What must we do to make this eternal bread happen? How do we achieve this amazing feat? Then Jesus goes on to show that they misunderstood the nature of this labor. He’s not talking about new ways to make even better bread. He’s talking about the only way to receive the only bread that lasts forever:

29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Ah! Here it is! When Jesus tells them to “labor…for the food that endures to eternal life” He means that they are to trust and believe in the Jesus who is the bread of life. In saying this, Jesus draws attention away from the provisions they are fixated on and onto the Person they are missing.

The point isn’t the bread, the point is the eternal Bread of Life, Jesus Himself, Who has come from Heaven to satisfy all who will partake of Him!

30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?

Will you allow me a moment to vent the full force of my amazement at this astounding question? “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you?” What? What?! What sign? Did they really just ask Jesus what sign He was going to perform so they could believe in Him?

What had Jesus just done? What miracle did He just perform, leading them to seek Him out in this place?

Honestly, the mind boggles at the amazing lunacy of this request! Then again, it is just possible that they are using even this amazing revelation of Himself as an occasion to use Jesus for their own purposes. It is just possible that the sign they really want to confirm that He is God’s own Son, the bread from Heaven, is (you guessed it) more bread from the earth!

It is almost as if they simply refuse to go where Jesus is trying to take them mentally, spiritually, and psychologically. There is a pernicious determination implicit in this question that belies their utter determination to get more food out of Jesus.

So Jesus says, “It’s not about bread to eat, it’s about believing in the One who gave you bread to eat.” And the people seem to say, “Ok. Give us more bread so we can believe!”

The only thing that keeps us from an outright complete denunciation of these people is the painful realization that we are capable of the same myopic short-sightedness ourselves. It is difficult to break the terrible habit of wanting to use Jesus for our own purposes.

Then, their manipulation continues:

31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”

Not only does this statement strengthen the connection between John 6 and the events of the Passover and Exodus, it also reveals just how far the people are willing to go to get Jesus to do for them what they want Him to do. “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness.”

Among other things, the people are no doubt seeking to move Jesus by the fact that Moses fed them in the wilderness. Do you see what they are doing? “Jesus, Moses, mighty Moses, the great Moses, he gave us food. This Moses, our hero, who we celebrate at this time of Passover, he cared for our physical needs. Would you like to be as mighty as Moses, Jesus? Moses gave us bread. Can’t you do the same just one more time?”

At least, that seems to be their common understanding of the events of the Exodus, as evidenced by Jesus’ response:

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.

Jesus attacks their unspoken assumption. He reminds them that it is not and never was about Moses. Indeed, Moses did not want it to be about Moses. It’s always been about the Lord God. It’s always been about the Father’s provision for His people. And here, in Jesus, Almighty God has offered them the greatest provision: the person of Jesus.

33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Ah! So the bread is a person! “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

The people saw the bread as mere provision. Jesus revealed that the true bread was His own person. In doing so, Jesus wrenched their attention free from their unhealthy fixation on physical provision and temporal needs and focused it firmly on His own nature and person and work.

Life isn’t about provisions. Life is about a person.

Finally, the light of understanding seems to begin to dawn in their hearts and minds:

34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus’ response to this, I believe, is best read with an imaginative view of Jesus slapping his forehead and breathing out these words in amazed but loving exasperation:

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.

Take note that Jesus here uses the name of God that was given to Moses in response to Moses’ inquiry concerning how he was to explain his coming to Pharaoh. The Lord answers: “I am has sent you” (Exodus 3:14). This is the divine name that Jesus applies to Himself, thus, once again, strengthening the connection to the events of the Exodus: “I am the bread…” More than that, of course, it reveals once more the startling reality of Jesus’ diving nature.

Jesus, the person, fully God and fully man, is the bread that satisfies all hungers and quenches all thirsts.

It’s about a person, not provisions.

Church, have you planted your feet firmly in an understanding and knowledge of the fact that the person of Jesus is of infinitely more value than the temporal provisions for which you and I slowly ruin our lives? Upon what, exactly, are you spending your life?

It is a deep and abiding tragedy when the people of God yearn for and obsess over and weep over and fight over the temporal provisions of the world in the exact same way those who do not know Christ do these things. As if we did not have something of greater value freely offered to us! As if Christ isn’t enough! As if these provisions our culture is drunk on could add one iota to resplendent glory of the risen Christ!

Do not destroy yourself on the anvil of provision when the beautiful person of Christ is offered to you instead!

The people wanted to survive whereas Jesus wanted them to live.

Finally, we see the tension between mere survival and the full living of life that Jesus intends for his disciples to have and experience.

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.

Christ is the eternal bread from Heaven, and those who trust and believe in Him are partakers of this eternal sustenance. That was true two-millennia ago and it is true today. We must trust and believe.

Of course, we do not trust and believe in a vacuum. God is at work in the hearts of those who trust in Christ. God is opening the ears and eyes of the lost man or woman who calls on Christ.

To what end does the Father give the Son those who come to Him?

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 end is nothing less than eternal salvation, eternal security, forgiveness, joy, and peace. In other words, bread will help you survive for a moment but Jesus will enable you to live for eternity.

The people wanted to survive. Jesus wanted them to live. Our culture wants to survive. Jesus wants us to live. “Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

We spend our lives scratching for survival. Jesus gave His life to bestow upon us eternal life! But we can miss this life in our frantic lust for survival.

Is it possible that we love the lesser things so much that we miss the greater things? Is it possible that our society’s fixation with bread – with survival, with winning the rat race, with reaching our own goals, with getting that promotion, with getting that house, with reaching that financial goal, with having that relationship, with achieving that level of fame, with having as much stuff as our neighbors, with finally getting what we think God owes us – is it possible that our frantic, feeble, pitiful, soul-destroying obsession with these things can actually cause us to miss the greater gift and the greatest gift of Jesus?

How can this be? It can be because of fear. We fear to let go of the bread of survival and so we cannot receive the bread of eternal life, for we cannot receive a gift in hands that are too full of worthless trinkets and cheap diversions. We must let go of the lesser things to receive the greater things.

I believe that Jesus is here pleading with these dear, confused people to give up the lesser things so that He might give them the greater things.

There once was a little girl who had loving, caring parents. She loved her mommy and daddy and, like a lot of little girls, she had her daddy wrapped around her finger! He loved her so very much, and she loved him.

In fact, they had their own little nightly ritual that nurtured their love for one another. Each and every night, after dinner, her daddy would sit in his big chair in the den, next to the fireplace, and he would call his daughter to him. He never had to wait long, for the little girl delighted in these moments with her daddy.

So every night she crawled up into his lap and they talked. “What did you do today?” he would ask. “Oh, daddy, today I learned my letters! Would you like to hear? Daddy, today our teacher read us an amazing story! You’ll never believe what it was about!”

On and on it went, every night, to the delight of them both.

One night, as the little girl climbed into her daddy’s lap, she was particularly animated. “Daddy, you will never imagine what happened today!” “What happened sweetie? Tell me?” “Mommy bought me this!” And with that she held up a plastic necklace comprised of multi-colored, plastic beads.

Her father smiled at her mother then at his daughter and said, “Oh, honey, they are so very, very pretty! Put them around your neck and show me how they look.”

She did so and her daddy carried on with great enthusiasm: “Look at that! You look soooo pretty! How very pretty your necklace is!”

The next night the little girl crawled into her daddy’s lap. She had the beads on again and, like the night before, all she could talk about was her plastic, colorful beads. Her father complimented her and them yet again and then tried to change the subject to other topics, like her day and her life, the topics upon which their very relationship was built.

But the little girl was having nothing of this. She was so enamored with her plastic beads that they dominated her speech.

The next night, once again, her plastic necklace dominated the conversation. She could speak of nothing else.

By this time, her father was quite frustrated and somewhat concerned. His continued attempts to get his daughter to speak of other issues consistently failed. The little girl seemed to see nothing but her beads, her plastic necklace. Her interests did not and seemingly could not go beyond them.

The next night, she crawled into her daddy’s lap and started to talk about her beads again when her father stopped her.

“Honey, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes, daddy.”

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes, daddy!” she said, smiling.

“Do you know that your daddy would never hurt you?”

“I know that, daddy.”

“And do you trust me?”

“Yes, daddy,” laughed the little girl, hugging herself to her father.

“Good,” said her daddy. “Honey, I want to ask you to do something. It’s something you might not understand, but I need you to trust me, okay?”

“Okay, daddy, of course. I trust you.”

“Honey, what I want you to do is this: I want you to hop off of my lap, walk over to the fire there in the fireplace, take off your necklace, and drop it in the flames.”

The little girls’ expression changed from joy to horror. Tears filled her eyes and, through quivering lips, she asked: “What, daddy?”

“I want you to trust me, honey. I want you to go and drop your necklace in the fire.”

For a brief moment the little girl stared into her father’s eyes while tears brimmed over the lids of her own. Slowly, she slid off of her father’s lap, walked to the fireplace, took off the necklace, hesitated, looked back at her father, turned back to the fire, and dropped her necklace into the flames.

The flames made quick work of the plastic necklace as the little girl turned and ran past her father to her room where she cried herself to sleep.

The next night, after dinner, for the first time ever, the girls’ father had to ask her to come and sit with him. Slowly, her head lowered, her feet shuffling, she walked to her waiting father. He picked her up with strong hands, placed her on his lap, and hugged her tightly to himself. Again, the tears flowed down her cheeks.

After a moment, and a kiss on the head, her father spoke: “Sweetie, do you know that your daddy loves you?” She slowly nodded her “yes.” “Did it make you sad to have to throw your beads into the fire last night?” Again, the silent nod. “And do you understand why I asked you to do such a thing?” This time, a nodded “no.”

At this, her father lifted her face up so that their eyes might meet. “I know it was painful dear. I know you do not understand. But I asked you to throw your beads away because I need for you to know something very important. I need for you to know, dear, that your father will never ask you to give anything up unless he has something better to give you.”

And with that, her father reached into his shirt pocket and slowly drew out a pristine, perfect, beautiful strand of costly white pearls. To her amazement, he held the pearls before her face for a moment and then affixed them around her neck, saying as he did so: “I love you so much, honey!”

I believe that this is an accurate illustration of the nature of the God we serve. Yes, He asks us to give up those treasures that dominate our small horizons – our bread, our provisions, our survival – but He only does so because He wishes to give us something greater.

He wants us to give up our worthless beads so that He might give us pearls. He wants us to let go of the bread that has come to dominate us so that He might give us Christ.

Christ is the pearl necklace.

Christ is the greater gift.

Christ is the eternal, all-satisfying bread of God.

Christ is all.

Christ is enough.

Central Baptist Church: Christ is enough.

[1] D.M. Thomas. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p.55-58.

John 6:16-21

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Wyman

John 6:16-21

¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. ¹⁸The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹When 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.” ²¹Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

A few years ago I preached a series of revival sermons at a church in Flagler Beach, Florida. Flagler Beach is a small beach community on the east coast of Florida that has a wonderful, long ocean pier reaching out into the Atlantic Ocean. I was there for three or four days. We kept driving by this pier and I determined that, before I left, I would walk out on it.

One night, after our services and after dinner, I told my host good night and, before going back to my hotel, I decided I would see if the pier was still open. It was near closing time but it was still open so I paid the charge, passed through the gate and walked out onto the pier. It was a strange feeling walking out onto an ocean pier with church clothes and a tie on!

I walked slowly down the pier, further and further out. There were one or two people sitting on the pier near the entrance of it, but nobody further out. I had it all to myself.

When you go out of town and preach revival services, it puts you in a contemplative mood. You’re usually alone and have time to think, so, as I walked further out onto this pier I was lost in thoughts of my own.

After walking out a good ways, as I approached the end of the pier, I stopped and looked over the edge. It was a dark, windy night and the black waves were hitting against the pier pilings. Suddenly, I turned around and noticed something very unnerving…I was very far away from the entrance and the shore, all alone, in the night, in the dark, on the end of an ocean pier surrounded by the black sea.

I do not wish to be overly-dramatic, and it is no good testimony to my own courage, but, honestly, I grew very, very uncomfortable. I was no longer lost in my own thoughts. Whether real or imaginary, I could almost feel the pier swaying beneath me. I felt the wind whipping my tie back over my shoulder. The waves seemed very loud all of a sudden. I looked out into the black ocean around me and suddenly thought, “I don’t want to be here.” The wind suddenly seemed stronger and the waves seemed even more aggressive.

I slowly turned around and walked right down the middle of the pier back toward the entrance. I can still feel the sense of relief I had when I got to land. Oddly enough, a few weeks after that I was watching one of those amazing home video shows on TV and saw video of hurricane-whipped waves ripping the final thirty feet off of that exact pier in Flagler Beach some years earlier! No, this is not a “preacher tale.” It was the exact same pier. I could not believe it! When I saw that, I got the heebie-jeebies yet again.

It is a frightening thing to be on scary waters in the night, in the dark! If I felt that way being out on an ocean pier, how much more did the disciples feel afraid on the storm-tossed Sea of Galilee in the night!

The Sea of Galilee is not an ocean mind you. It is a lake. But any of you who have been out in the middle of a large lake know that, for all practical purposes, you might as well be in the middle of an ocean. You can drown just as easily in either, especially in a storm.

After miraculously feeding thousands of people, Jesus’ disciples go on ahead of Him in a boat across the Sea of Galilee. In the midst of their journey, they find themselves in a scary situation on the water.

It is then that Jesus comes to them. It is then that they learn even more about just who this Jesus is.

Christ, the Friend (vv.16-19)

From verses 16-18, we learn a number of important things about the situation the disciples were in:

· It was evening.

· They were in a boat.

· They were out on the Sea of Galilee.

· It grew dark.

· Jesus was not with them.

· The wind was blowing and the sea became rough.

As I mentioned earlier, it is a scary thing to be on a dark, stormy, sea, alone and at night. While I think we should be careful not to spiritualize basic details in the Bible, it is understandable that many in Christian history have seen a spiritual reality in the disciples’ predicament. In other words, many suggest that these physical details also apply to the spiritual condition of those who are not in Christ or who are not walking with Christ as they should. For instance, the church father Cyril of Alexandria, the Patriarch of Alexandria, wrote this in the 5^th century about the disciples’ situation:

“Those who are not with Jesus are in a fierce tempest of a storm. They are cut off from him or at least seem to be absent from him because they have departed from his holy laws. Because of their sin they are separated from the one who is able to save. If then it is overwhelming to be in such spiritual darkness, if it is oppressive to be swamped by the bitter sea of pleasures, let us then receive Jesus. For this is what will deliver us from dangers and from death in sin.”[1]

Again, we need to be very careful spiritualizing the physical details of stories, but it must be admitted that loneliness, darkness, and danger are more than accurate descriptions of a life lived without Christ, aren’t they?

When you look at your own life and think of those times when you were not walking closely with Jesus (or, if you have never trusted in Christ, if you look at your life today), is it not the case that loneliness, darkness, and a sense of danger surround your soul? Do you not feel, at times, as if you are drifting alone on a dark and dangerous sea?

In light of this, verse 19 becomes all the more important:

¹⁹When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.

For the moment, I would like to ask that we focus less on the miracle of how Jesus comes to them and more on the miracle that Jesus comes to them. Sometimes in our amazement at the miracle we forget the simple beauty of the wondrous fact that Jesus does in fact come to His disciples.

His walking on the water is a miracle of power and revelation. His coming at all, though, was a miracle of friendship.

Yes, there is a miracle here, but, first, there is friendship here.

I’m not sure how you feel about this, but I suspect you would agree that there is nothing so beautiful, so comforting, so encouraging, and so wonderful as the sight of an approaching friend in a time of danger.

Did you know that Jesus comes to us as a Savior and as a friend?

In John 15, Jesus says:

¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

What a beautiful statement! “I have called you friends.” And do you know what friends do? Friends come to one another in a time of need.

Somebody has defined a friend as the one person who walks in when everybody else has walked out. Is this not what we see in the person of Jesus?

In 1855, Joseph Scriven was in Canada while his mother was in Ireland. She was going through a very difficult time and Joseph, her son, decided to write her a song. So he took pen and paper and wrote these words to help his mother:

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear
May we ever, Lord, be bringing all to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright unclouded there will be no need for prayer
Rapture, praise and endless worship will be our sweet portion there.

It is important that we do not think of Jesus as a friend to the exclusion of thinking of Him as our King. But it is also important that we do not think of Jesus as our King to the exclusion of thinking of Him as our friend.

He is both. He is our King and He is our friend. He deserves our praise and honor, yet He draws near to us in companionship.

Let me say something to those of you who find Christianity confusing or difficult. Let me say something to those of you who are struggling to understand what the Christian faith is. In a very simple sense, Christianity is nothing more than a relationship with a friend whose love you cannot imagine. Christianity is a relationship with the One who comes to His struggling, frightened disciples and saves them.

Christ comes to the disciples and Christ comes to us. They are powerless to come to Him, but He comes to them…and He comes as a friend.

Christ, the Conqueror (vv.19-21)

But there is also the matter of how He comes. The friend of struggling humanity comes in a shocking way:

¹⁹When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.

He comes “walking on the sea”! This is no small feat, church! Jesus comes walking on the water.

You can imagine the ingenious ways around this miracle that skeptics have devised. I think my favorite was printed in the April 2006 Journal of Paleolimnology (which, as you know, “provides a vehicle for the rapid dissemination of original scientific work dealing with the reconstruction of lake histories.”) The study suggested that portions of the Sea of Galilee could have contained hard-to-see patches of floating ice during one of two cold periods in that region somewhere from 2,500 to 1,500 years ago (obviously, this includes the time of Jesus’ incarnation). It suggests that during these two periods, temperatures in the region of the lake dropped to 25 degrees Farenheit. So, while it stopped short of saying this was definitely the case, the study suggested that Jesus may have been walking on hard-to-see floating ice patches. And, no, I’m not joking![2]

Skeptical human minds may struggle with such a miracle, but those who know the truth of who Jesus Christ is will not struggle at all. On the contrary, we will marvel at the miracle, not only for what it is but, more so, for what it says about the Savior! And what it says is Jesus is the conqueror of all enemies, no matter how powerful.

The Lord Jesus is Master and King and Conqueror. He is strong. The surging, raging waters are unconquerable from a human perspective. I imagine these disciples clinging in terror to the side of the boat. They see beneath themselves the dark watery abyss of death. They are helpless in the face of such an obstacle. They are undone by the power of the deep. There is, quite literally, nothing they can do!

But then they see this Jesus…walking on the sea! He walks on the water! This is no hidden, floating ice patch. This is no trick of the camera. These are not Hollywood special effects. Here is Jesus the Lord walking on the sea.

Their initial reaction is one of even greater terror. Their horror at the stormy waters is eclipsed only by their terror at seeing what they suspect is a ghost walking on the waters. Spirits and night spirits were commonly feared in the ancient world. In fact, the spirits of those who had drowned at sea were considered especially dangerous and frightening.[3]

Jesus acknowledges their fear and, when they hear the voice of their friend, their fear turns to joy:

²⁰ But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” ²¹Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

There is nothing – nothing – as comforting as the presence of a power greater than the power that is threatening to destroy you. The sea is strong, but Jesus is stronger. The waves are great, but Jesus is greater. Somehow, in His voice and in His face, once the fear and shock occasioned by His presence subsides, the disciples find peace in the storm.

The waves can destroy the disciples, but somehow, unbelievably, wondrously, they cannot touch this Jesus. He walks on them! Jesus is the conqueror of the threatening waters!

Let us return for a moment to our spiritual interpretation as well. The seas of sin and death and hell threaten all who are outside of Christ. The sea of destruction rises up to swallow whole those who are condemned by their sins and their guilt. The sea of justice and of wrath condemns the little boat of mankind.

Again, many of you feel this, even this morning. You feel the spray of the foam off the waves of your own wickedness. You hear the crashing waves of death all around you. You know that you are not going to survive by yourself where you are. You are in a destroying sea of your own making. You and you alone have put yourself here. You cling to the side of the boat of your own existence. You cling and weep and fear the certain death that is reaching up to you with its icy fingers. You recoil when you look into the waters. Down there are the sea monsters of death, the serpents and snakes of doom. You cry out but nobody can hear you over the storm of God’s own wrath.

Your little boat is sinking. Some of you feel it this very morning. It’s sinking! The waters of death are in the boat now, rising up to your knees, and they bite at you with bitter cold.

All of a sudden, you look into the distant darkness. Is it a mirage? Is it a ghost? Is it some avenging angel?

Somebody is coming to you…and he’s coming on the waters! It is unbelievable! You fear the sea of wrath and death and judgment and despair, but this one comes walking on the waters! He draws near and you shrink in fear from His presence.

“Who are you?” you scream over the storm.

He pauses and looks into your eyes. Then He steps forward and speaks. “It is I, Jesus. I am the Jesus you have rejected. I am the Jesus you have avoided. I am the Jesus you have made the punch line of your jokes. I am the Jesus you have not accepted. I am Jesus.”

You cry out again, “Jesus! Oh, Jesus! Have you come to destroy me? Have you come to cast me into the sea? Have you come to pour your wrath onto me? You would be right to do so. You would be absolutely right. Have you come to finish me, Jesus?”

Then this Jesus on the waters smiles and extends His hand to you and says, “Child, I love you. I am not here to condemn you. I am not here to destroy you. I am here to save you. It is true: if you reject Me you will sink into the sea of destruction and death and hell. But I have come to save you. I am greater than the sea. I am your friend and I am also the conqueror. I can conquer the sea of yours sins. I am greater than all that threatens you. I have come to you. I love you. Come to Me, and I will give you rest.”

And there He stands on the raging sea and there you sit in your sinking boat. Let me ask you now: what are you going to do? What…are…you…going…to…do?

Will you take His hand or will you die alone in the dark? What will you do?

In the early years of the 20^th century, in Saugatuck, Connecticut, James Rowe and Howard Smith wrote and created the music for a hymn that is dearly loved today. Their song speaks of the power of Jesus in saving perishing humanity from drowning in a sea of sin. Listen:

I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more,
But the Master of the sea, heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me!

All my heart to Him I give, ever to Him I’ll cling
In His blessèd presence live, ever His praises sing,
Love so mighty and so true, merits my soul’s best songs,
Faithful, loving service too, to Him belongs.

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me!

Souls in danger look above, Jesus completely saves,
He will lift you by His love, out of the angry waves.
He’s the Master of the sea, billows His will obey,
He your Savior wants to be, be saved today.

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me!

Christ Jesus conquers the sea. The sea is death. The sea is separation. Christ walks on it, subdues it, and conquers it. Perhaps this is why Revelation 21:1 says the following about the glories of the new heaven and new earth:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”

There is no more sea. There is no more separation. There is no more threat. Christ is the conqueror of the waters. Christ has subdued the sea.

His walking on the water was an amazing display of His conquering power.

Christ, the Lord

Yet, I wonder if we realize the full implications of this miracle? Do we get all that is being said here? I doubt it.

I daresay that a good Jew would have seen something else in this story, something astounding. I daresay that even the disciples in the midst of crisis likely felt stirrings of a deeper truth when they saw Jesus approaching them on the water.

I say this because a good Jew would have been schooled in the Hebrew scriptures and, as such, a good Jew would have had a number of scriptures come to his mind at the sight of Jesus walking on the water.

For instance, you may remember that we commented last week on the fact that the feeding of the five thousand has shades of the Exodus in it. Just as God miraculously provided manna and sustenance to the children of Israel, so Jesus miraculously provided food to the five thousand. This connection is strengthened by the fact that the beginning of John 6 says that these things happened at the time of the Passover. The Passover was when the Jews remembered their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. So it is not inappropriate to say that, in some sense, John 6 is taking us back to the Exodus.

That is interesting, of course, because God’s miraculous provision of food in the wilderness was not the only miracle in the exodus, or even the greatest miracle, was it? Even greater was God’s miraculous deliverance of Israel from Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea. In other words, the Exodus began with God showing dominance over the waters that threatened His children with death.

If John 6 is linking the miracles of Jesus with the Exodus at the time of the Passover, and if the feeding of the five thousand reminds us of manna from Heaven, then what is Jesus walking on the water supposed to remind us of? Right: Jesus walking on the water is meant to remind us and to reveal to us that the God who showed miraculous, life-saving sovereignty over the waters of the Red Sea is the same God who shows miraculous, life-saving sovereignty over the waters of the Sea of Galilee.

In other words, in Jesus a new Exodus has come! Jesus is our new Moses, but He is so much greater than Moses. Moses led the children to earthly deliverance. Jesus leads us to an eternal promised land.

Also, a good Jew would have been well-studied in the book of Job, and he might well remember that in Job 9 Job speaks of the glory of God in this way:

⁴He is wise in heart and mighty in strength
—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—
⁵he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
when he overturns them in his anger,
⁶who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
⁷who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
⁸who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;

Job says that God tramples the waves of the sea. It is God and God alone who walks on the waters.

As a child, a good Jew would have heard the Psalms read. He might well have even sung them himself. And no doubt he would have heard the words of Psalm 29:

³The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, over many waters.
⁴The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

Then verses 10 and 11:

¹⁰The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.
¹¹May the LORD give strength to his people!
May the LORD bless his people with peace!

So a faithful Jew, like the disciples were, would have known that Yahweh God is Lord over the waters, the Lord over many waters. God is the God of the waters, and He is over them.

A good Jew would have known what the psalmist said of God in Psalm 65:

⁵By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
⁶the one who by his strength established the mountains,
being girded with might;
⁷who stills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples

Yes, he would have remembered, if not explicitly then subconsciously, this great recurring theme of God as Lord of the waters. He would have remembered Psalm 89:

⁸O LORD God of hosts,
who is mighty as you are, O LORD,
with your faithfulness all around you?
⁹You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.

The words of Psalm 107 would have stirred in his heart if not in his waking mind:

²³Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters;
²⁴they saw the deeds of the LORD,
his wondrous works in the deep.
²⁵For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
²⁶They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their evil plight;
²⁷they reeled and staggered like drunken men
and were at their wits’ end.
²⁸ Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
²⁹He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
³⁰Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
³¹ Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
³²Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Yes, yes! This sight of Jesus walking on the waters would have agitated deep connections in the minds of the disciples between what they were witnessing in Jesus and who they knew God to be. Amazing, scandalous, shocking, almost unimaginable conclusions and implications would have begun impressing themselves on the minds of these amazed disciples. Do we not see this in the question that Mark records the disciples asking in Mark 4:41 when Jesus rebukes the waves and the sea: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Indeed! Who is this? Who can this be?

For deep in the minds and hearts of these watching, trembling disciples they would have gone even further back into their childhoods, back to when a loving mother or father or grandparent opened up and read the very beginning of the Hebrew scriptures to them. Perhaps as they saw Jesus walking on the water they dared even to remember those first words of holy scripture from Genesis 1:

¹In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ²The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The Word of God begins with a declaration that at the beginning of creation “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” At the very beginning of all things, God was over the chaotic waters.

Who can this be? What can this mean?

If God is the God who calms the storm and conquers the waters, what should we conclude about this Jesus doing the very same?

Yes, dear church, there is a miracle here. But as miraculous as it is, the primary miracle here isn’t Jesus walking on the water. That’s a miracle, to be sure. But the bigger miracle, the really jaw-dropping miracle, the truly amazing miracle is Jesus Himself.

He is God among us.

He is God the divine friend.

He is God the amazing conqueror.

And He is calling you today to come to Him.

[1] Joel C. Elowsky, ed., John 1-10. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. vol.Iva. gen. ed., Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006) p.219.

[2] Sara Goudarzi, “Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice, Scientist Says.” (April 4, 2006)https://www.livescience.com/othernews/060404_jesus_ice.html

[3] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John. Volume One (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), p.674.

John 6:1-15

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Wyman

John 6:1-15

¹After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. ²And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. ³Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. ⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” ¹⁰Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.¹¹Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹²And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” ¹³So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. ¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” ¹⁵Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

I have entitled this sermon “Trouble at the Church Picnic.” I do find it wonderfully ironic that this is our text and that today is our church picnic. Indeed, nothing could be worse at a church picnic than for everybody to arrive and find that there is no food! I hope that is not the case later this afternoon at our picnic, though it certainly was the case here in John 6.

You may have noticed that the first six chapters of John seem almost inordinately concerned with food, drink, and there being enough of both. Of course, Jesus’ first miracle was the miraculous provision of wine when the wine scandalously ran out at the wedding feast. Also, Jesus encounters a woman at the well who is seeking to put water into her empty vessel. He uses the occasion to speak to her of the water of eternal life. In the same story, Jesus’ disciples have found a convenient excuse to absent themselves from the Samaritan episode so that they could – you guessed it – go shopping for food.

John is a good gospel to read if you’re hungry, for John talks a lot about food and drink. Obviously, it’s talking about much more than mere food and drink. John’s gospel is consistently showing empty people how to be filled, not with food, but with the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ.

This morning some of you likely feel filled-to-overflowing. Life is going great and you can barely contain your joy this morning. Others of you, however, feel like the men described in T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Hollow Men”:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form,

shade without colour,

Paralysed force,

gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes,

to death’s other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.[1]

Some of you feel like this. Some of you feel empty. If so, this story is the story you need to hear. More than that, this Jesus is the Jesus you need to meet.

Let’s talk about this miraculous meal.

A Meal of Expanded Expectations (vv.1-9)

1 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

Let me encourage you to take note of the detail provided in verse 2 as we begin. Verse 2 provides us with the people’s motive for following Jesus: “because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.” This does not necessarily mean that the faith of most or all was merely miracles-based, but we find once again that many followed Jesus less for who He was than for what He might potentially do for them. File this observation away for a moment, particularly John’s use of the word “signs.” It will be significant for us at the end.

3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

This is no mere incidental observation. This miracle was performed when Passover was at hand. One commentator has noted that Passover meant more to the Jews than the 4th of July means for Americans. I suspect that is right. Passover was that time when the Jews remembered their miraculous release from bondage in Egypt. It was a time when they remembered that Yahweh God could overcome any obstacle, no matter how seemingly insurmountable. It is significant that it was at the time of this remembrance of miraculous provision that Jesus likewise miraculously provided for the hungry people.

5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

Jesus sometimes questions us to offer us opportunities to grow in our walk with Him. Have you ever experienced this? Jesus never asks us anything for His benefit. He does not need our insights to learn more. When He asks us questions, He asks for our benefit. He is wanting to offer the disciples an opportunity to show that they have learned the point of the miracles preceding this one.

7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

Philip fails the test. Jesus wants to know if he is now prepared to think on the upper-story-level of God’s sovereignty or whether he is still bound to the lower-story-level of man’s own earthly view of things. Philip shows that his mind is still tragically bound to the earth. Jesus next turns to Andrew.

8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”

R.C. Sproul, commenting on this passage, points out that “the boy was carrying the lowest quality of bread available to people at the time. Only those who lived in poverty, for the most part, ate bread made from barley.” Furthermore, these “loaves” are really more like small cakes, “similar in size to Twinkies, if you will.”[2]

In other words, these were meager offerings indeed! It is not surprising that the disciples were skeptical. We would be too, had we lived on that side of this miracle.

Jesus’ question, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” was not accidental. It was a question leading to an answer that transcended the obvious surface answer to the question. Jesus knew what was going to happen and He also knew that this little boy was going to come forward with his lunch box and little lunch.

Jesus not only knew this was going to happen, Jesus, as sovereign Lord and God of all, orchestrated that it would. Jesus relished the seemingly impossible task and the apparently insurmountable obstacle.

Jesus drew attention to the big problem to see if the truth about Himself that He had already demonstrated and taught the disciples was beginning to take hold in their lives. In other words, would the disciples dare to believe that Jesus was bigger than this problem? Would they dare to trust that this Jesus truly was Lord and King? Jesus wanted to know if their expectations had expanded to accommodate His glory or whether their expectations had merely encrusted around their own paltry understanding of this, or any other, situation.

Do you see how Jesus takes the disciples into a moment of crisis here with an eye toward expanding their expectations? Do you see that what to the disciples was a logistical catastrophe and nightmare was to Jesus an arena for the further display of His glory? Can you begin to grasp and accept that some of the moments we fight the hardest to avoid and some of the moments we fear the most are the very moments that Jesus wants to take us into to mold us?

The disciples saw a puzzle that could not be solved instead of a Savior that could not be contained…and guess what: so do we, oftentimes.

Oh, listen: it’s in the crisis that He meets us and it’s in the silence of our own lack of answers that He whispers, “I am here!”

The point wasn’t the bread and the fish. The point was Jesus. The point wasn’t the predicament. The point was the Savior. The point wasn’t the problem. The point was the provider.

Some of us miss the growing moments of crisis because we cannot hear Jesus over our own protests about the crisis! We are like Philip: “We don’t have enough money.” We are like Andrew: “We don’t have enough food.” Except that oftentimes we keep the protest going so long that we miss the teaching moment with Christ. How often do we miss Christ in our complaints? How often do we miss Jesus in the midst of our moaning about how unfair this or that situation is?

Do you know what the disciples could have said? They could have said, “I don’t know how we’re going to do this Jesus, but I know You can do it! We don’t have enough bread, but we do have enough Jesus! Show us, Lord, and teach us.”

We can say the same. Learn to see the crisis moments not as the absence of God but rather as the desire of God to expand your expectations about who He is and what He can do.

A Meal of Revealed Power (vv.10-13)

Having failed the test, Jesus next presses His disciples to prepare for an amazing miracle.

10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”

I would suggest that Jesus’ tone in verse 10 is markedly different from his tone in verse 5. In verse 5 His tone likely had an edge of excitement to it. “How are we going to feed them all?” It was said with a twinkle in His eye and knowing smile on His lips. It was an opportunity for the disciples to join with Him now on the inside track of God’s glory and sovereignty. The question of verse 5 drips with delicious rhetorical flavor. They should get it now! The question in verse 5 was perhaps said with a knowing wink. Jesus knew, of course, that God could overcome this. He wanted the disciples to know it too. In fact, by now they should have known it.

On the other hand, when we come to Jesus’ words in verse 10, it is perhaps not inappropriate to read this sentence with an air of exasperation: “Have the people sit down.” As if to say, “Have we really been through so much and you still fail to see what I’m continuously trying to show you? Do you really still think that the central issue here is money and food? Have you not yet grasped the point that my Father can overcome any problem? Ok. Have the people sit down.”

Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.

There were five thousand men, not five thousand people. (I’m sorry ladies, but they did not count women and children in this day.) So who knows just how many people were actually here for this event: ten thousand, fifteen thousand? Regardless, it was an amazing crowd of people.

11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

And here we have it: an amazing, spectacular, unfathomable, display of the problem-solving, obstacle-overcoming sovereign power of almighty God. We are not given the “how” of it, we are simply told that He did it. Jesus miraculously multiplies the bread and the fish and feeds not only this vast multitude but also His own doubting disciples.

There is more happening here than meets the eye, though. Recall that John has already told us that this is happening at the time of Passover, at the time of remembering the Jews’ deliverance from Egypt. It was a time of remembering when the door of slavery in Egypt was obliterated and the children of God were allowed to exit. But remember that they exited to forty years of wilderness wandering. They faced many trials in the wilderness with Moses, not the least of which was a concern about food. In the wilderness, God Himself miraculously provided sustenance for His hungry children.

That Jesus performed this miracle at the time of the Passover was no accident. Yahweh God miraculously provided for the children of Israel in the wilderness. Now this Jesus miraculously provides for the children of Israel here. The implication would not have been lost on most of the people: in Christ God Himself was still working to provide for His children.

The Jews were still in the wilderness, a spiritual wilderness of darkness, and this Jesus, who was greater than Moses, came to lead them home. In this, Christ Jesus revealed His power and also His person. To see Christ work was to see God Himself work.

A Meal of Misunderstanding (vv.14-15)

Tragically, however, even the assembled crowd failed to understand what was being said.

14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

Do you remember that I asked you to file verse 2 away, especially its use of the words “signs”? Here is that word again: “When the people saw the sign that he had done…”

We have seen this before. We have seen before that many people loved the signs of Jesus more than the person of Jesus. We have seen before that many loved the miracles and the power more than the One who performed the miracles and had the power. In doing so, they completely missed the point, as Jesus’ reaction illustrates:

15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Jesus left the crowd because the crowd saw in Jesus a miracle worker and a solver of problems. As such, they saw in Jesus a solution to their problem of foreign domination by Rome. They saw in Jesus a way out of a predicament. After all, if Jesus could get this many people out of a predicament of hunger, then surely Jesus could get all of them out of the political, cultural, and religious predicament of their time.

The Jews wanted to make Jesus king, not because they loved the King but because they loved what the King could do for them.

I am always weary of people who run here and there to this or that “revival” looking for some miraculous display of power. I am weary of any movement that exalts gifts over the Giver of gifts and miracles over the Jesus who works miracles.

Let me ask you outright which of these you love more: Jesus or the miracles of Jesus?

The point of the miracles was not the miracles. The point of the signs was not the signs. The signs pointed to something beyond themselves. The signs pointed to the Jesus that worked the signs.

Earlier this year NPR reported on a “Pew Forum on Religion” study showing that 80% of Americans believe in miracles. Interestingly, the same report also showed that “young adults, the so-called millennial generation, don’t attend church services regularly, are less inclined to express religious preference or affiliation than their elders, but profess widespread belief in the afterlife, in heaven and hell and in miracles. Nearly 80 percent of all Americans, in fact, say they believe in miracles.”[3]

This is very interesting, because it shows that people today believe more in miracles than they do in a solid, biblical understanding of Jesus and the body of Christ. People have stronger feelings about signs than they do about a relationship with Jesus.

Church, your God is the God of signs and wonders and power. But the signs are simply that: signs. If you love the signs more than the One to whom the signs point, have you not perverted the signs into something monstrous almost?

Marvel at the miracle-working Jesus. But marvel at Jesus more than the miracles.

[1] T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays,1909-1950. (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1980), 56.

[2] R.C. Sproul, John. (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2010), p.101.

[3]https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124007551

John 5:30-47

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Wyman

John 5:30-47

30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true. 32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. 33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. 34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. 36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. 41 I do not receive glory from people. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? 45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Os Guinness has passed on a fascinating story about looking for answers in the wrong places:

One of the most celebrated personalities of the Middle East is Nasreddin Hodja, the endearing holy-man-cum-scholar of Turkish folklore. His famed wisdom is often threatened by his equally famed stupidity. One day, so a particular story goes, the Hodja dropped his ring inside his house. Not finding it there, he went outside and began to look around the doorway. His neighbor passed and asked him what he was looking for.

“I have lost my ring,” said the Hodja.

“Where did you lose it?” asked the neighbor.

“In my bedroom,” said the Hodja.

“Then why are you looking for it out here?”

“There’s more light out here,” the Hodja said.[1]

In truth, many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day were making a similar mistake. They were looking for the answer, but refusing to look in the one place where it could be found.

In fact, this entire lengthy discourse by Jesus on His nature and person is occasioned by opposition from the Jews (which was itself occasioned by the scandal of Jesus healing a paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath). So Jesus is here explaining to those who oppose Him why He is indeed the Son of God.

In our text this morning, Jesus is responding to a common legal mindset among the Jews. It was commonly asserted by the Jews that evidence was not to be accepted on the basis of just one witness. Furthermore, it was asserted that no man could bear testimony to himself. He needed witnesses to corroborate his claims.

Let us begin by observing how Jesus reasserts his primary claim in verse 30:

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

That Jesus was sent by the Father was the great claim that the Jews found so offensive and which they were unprepared to accept. Jesus recognized and defined their hesitation by articulating their legal objections to His claims:

31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true.

The Jewish authorities knew well that the scriptures forbade making a final verdict on a matter in the absence of more than one witness in Deuteronomy 17:

6 On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.

Furthermore, the Mishnah stated that “None may be believed when he testifies of himself for no individual can be deemed trustworthy in himself.” The Jewish historian Josephus also wrote, “Put not trust in a single witness, but let there be three or at the least two, whose evidence shall be accredited by their past lives.”[2]

So Jesus is going to meet their superficial demands for more evidence. He is, in short, going to offer the testimony of many who bear witness to His claims of deity and divine commission. Let us understand that Jesus was acting mercifully here. He no more owed the Jews an explanation than He owes us one. But His desire for the Jews was that they be saved, so He meets their legal demands for extra witnesses.

Furthermore, we should acknowledge that Jesus knew fully well that the problem with the Jews was not a lack of evidence, it was the wickedness of their own hearts. So it is with us today. When we reject Christ, it is never because we don’t have enough reasons to believe. The witnesses to Christ surround us everywhere we turn. Rather, it is that we are born in a state of perpetual rejection of Christ. Nonetheless, Jesus speaks to the Jews and to us of the evidence of His deity and person and work.

In verse 32, Jesus offers an umbrella statement concerning the ultimate witness concerning the validity of His own person and work:

There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.

While its proximity to verse 33 may lead us to believe that Jesus is here speaking of John the Baptist, verse 32 is actually speaking about God the Father. Christ’s validity is ultimately and fundamentally granted in the fact that He has come from the Father. That is enough. Nothing else is needed. Now, He is going to offer the testimony further witnesses, but all of these are simply meant to supply further support to this amazing claim of God’s commission on the life of Christ and God’s testimony concerning the person and work of Christ. In reality, the witness and testimony of the Father concerning the Son is above all other witnesses and testimonies.

I. John the Baptist’s Witness to Jesus

To begin, Jesus points out that His cousin, John the Baptist, bore witness to Him:

33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.

We know that John was the bright star on the religious scene before the arrival of Jesus on the scene. All of Jerusalem was going out to John at the Jordan. Jesus reminds them of this. He reminds them that while they reject Him, they still flocked to John to see what he had to say. But John, of course, came only to bear witness to Christ. So while many flocked to John, they ultimately rejected his message by rejecting the Christ to whom John pointed.

34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.

Once again, Jesus points out that John’s witness does not establish Jesus’ glory. Jesus’ glory comes from the Father and no other testimony is needed. But John came so that more people could know of the coming of Christ, come to know Him, and be saved.

35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

Here again we see the irony of the Jews’ rejection of Jesus. “You were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.” Meaning, “You liked John. You were attracted to the wonderful, odd, and appealing ministry of John. You all went to see and hear John. But John’s entire ministry was about Me. When it comes right down to it, you all enjoyed the religious show more than you enjoyed the point of John’s message. You were willing to believe that John was a light…until, that is, you saw what John’s light was illuminating.”

John the Baptist bore witness to Christ, and Jesus appeals to his witness as evidence of His claims to divinity.

II. The Miracles’ Witness to Jesus

But there is more. Not only did John bear witness to Christ. Jesus’ own works bore testimony as well.

36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

We have seen miracles of Jesus already in the first five chapters of John: the turning of the water into wine at Cana, the healing of the officials’ son, and the healing of the paralytic at the beginning of chapter 5. Jesus now points out that the miracles not only accomplished certain results in individual cases, they also offered a cumulative witness to His own deity. The miracles “bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.”

This is equally the case today, by the way. It is always the case that the works of God revealed in a life given to Christ bear greater testimony than our mere words about Christ. The greatest witness we have to offer is the evidence of Christ in us: a changed life, a transformed character, and a new heart.

Mothers, would you like to convince your children that Jesus is real? Let them overhear you on the telephone refusing to gossip about somebody else. Let them hear and know that their mom’s speech has been changed by the Christ who lives within you. Dads, would you like your children to believe and know that Christ Jesus is real and true? Let them see that you value them more than you do your job or your hobbies. Let them see that you invest time in their lives and interests. Let them see that their dad’s life is different than the lives of dads who do not know Christ Jesus.

Church, the world may dispute our words, but they cannot dispute our lives. They cannot dispute the miracle of a changed heart. The works of Jesus bear witness to the person of Jesus. It has always been true. It is true today as well.

Let the works of Christ bear witness to the truth of Christ in your life today.

III. The Father’s Witness to Jesus

Above all else, God the Father bears testimony to God the Son:

37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

Jesus is not trying to be provocative, but this is indeed a provocative thing to say! If the Jewish authorities thought anything, they thought they knew the mind and heart of God. But Jesus reveals to them that their rejection of Him ultimately meant their rejection of the God they claimed to know.

God the Father has etched His testimony concerning the truthfulness of Jesus into the very fabric of the universe. Everywhere you look you can see God’s witness to His Son. Nature itself proclaims the truthfulness of the gospel of Christ. Consider the cycles of nature: birth in Spring, life in Summer, the dying lights of Fall, death in Winter, and resurrection in Spring! The earth itself speaks of the person and work of Jesus.

I believe that the testimony of the Father concerning the Son is so etched in and on our hearts that even people who may not know Christ cannot help but bear witness. For instance, Roni and Hannah and I recently saw the new movie “Thor.” It was a fun and entertaining movie about a popular comic book hero: Thor, god of Thunder. The next day my brother Condy watched the movie and texted me these words: “Father sends the son to earth. He loves the people. Gives his life to save them. Rises from the dead. Reclaims power.” I had missed it, but he was right: even here the basic contours of the story of Jesus is being told. We see this all of the time in popular culture, don’t we? The Father’s witness to the Son is everywhere, and life cannot be lived without its proclamation!

“The Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me.” The Father did so at the baptism of Jesus when He proclaimed Jesus His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. More than that, the Father’s affirmation rested on the Son like a prayer shawl. The voice of the Father proclaimed, “Behold my Son!” over Jesus at every turn.

IV. The Scripture’s Witness to Jesus

Jesus also pointed out the profoundly ironic truth that the scriptures bore witness to Jesus.

39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

These Jewish leaders treasured the Old Testament scriptures and searched them with a meticulous care that would astound us today. They poured over the scriptures and they saturated everything the Jews were. But the tragic irony was that the very scriptures they poured over bore witness to the very Jesus they were now rejecting. Furthermore, they searched the scriptures because they were looking for eternal life, but eternal life was standing in front of them in the person of Jesus. Thus, the tragedy of verse 40:

yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

The scriptures joined with the testimony of John the Baptist and the miracles of Jesus to make a canopy of testimony to the glory and power and truthfulness of Christ. The Jewish leaders, however, while in possession of each of these witnesses, rejected the One to whom witness was borne.

41 I do not receive glory from people. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

The rejection of Jesus the Son meant the rejection of the love of God the Father, for God’s love was manifested supremely in the Son. The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus were characterized by fervency for the law, knowledge of the scriptures, and a zeal for God, but they missed the very heart of God when they missed Christ. Their rejection of Christ was utterly heartbreaking:

43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

The Jews heaped glory on the great Bible scholars of their day. They lived in a day and culture that relished knowledge of the scriptures. There were celebrated celebrity Bible scholars in that day in much the same way that there are celebrated athletes or movie stars today. Jesus pointed out, once again, the amazing irony of this fact. The Jews heaped glory and praise on those they thought knew the scriptures while simultaneously refusing glory and honor to the One to whom all of scripture bore witness.

45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

The Jewish scholars claimed to be masters of Moses’ teachings, but they missed the very heart of Moses’ teachings when they missed Christ. In this way, their adoration for the writings of Moses (i.e., the first five books of the Bible) did nothing but condemn them as they refused to accept the very embodiment of Moses’ teachings when they rejected Christ.

What is more, Moses was the recipient of the law of God. In rejecting Christ, the Jews were committing the ultimate act of lawlessness by refusing to receive fulfillment of all the law in Christ. As such, these Jewish leaders were in a strange trap of their own making: they were rejecting the Jesus who was proclaimed in all of scripture. They were searching for salvation but refusing the only One who could save them.

Ravi Zacharias has pointed to the failed 1996 Mt. Everest expedition as a powerful example of a dying man rejecting life itself:

John Krakauer, in his book Into Thin Air, tells a gripping story. His book recounts the ill-fated ascent of Mount Everest in 1996, in which many lives were lost, including those of the most adept leaders. At one point he recounts an episode with Andy Harris, one of the expedition guides, who had been exhausted by his conquest of the summit. On his descent, Harris started to run out of oxygen when he came across a cache of oxygen canisters. But, though starved for oxygen, he argued with his fellow climbers that all the canisters were empty. Those to whom he was speaking shouted back that these canisters were indeed full – they themselves had left them there for just such a time as this. But Harris was beguiled by a brain devoid of oxygen and made the false judgment that that which he held in his hand could not help him.[3]

This is a perfect illustration of the Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus. They of all people should have known and seen in Christ Jesus the fulfillment of the scriptures they so highly esteemed. They of all people should have seen how the prophets’ many prophecies about the Messiah were being fulfilled in their very presence in Christ. They of all people should have seen (as others saw) the hand of God in and on Christ. But they did not. They, the leaders, the experts, the guides, were standing in the very presence of life but were refusing to embrace it.

Like Andy Harris on Mt. Everest dying from lack of oxygen while holding a canister of oxygen, these religious elites were dying a slow spiritual death while standing in the presence of the very One who could grant life!

In truth, so are some of you. Some of you are so close to Jesus, but you will not take Him. Some of you are dying from the inside out, but you refuse to take the nail-pierced hand of the One who said He was “the resurrection and the life.”

He is right here, right now, and His arms are open to you. Do not refuse to see what you know is true. Do not refuse to listen to the message you most need to hear and embrace. Do not reject the many witnesses that all bear testimony to this great and glorious fact: that Christ is Lord and King and God and Ruler of Heaven and Earth.

[1] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), p.132.

[2] Andreas J. Kostenberger, “John.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, vol.2. gen. ed., Clinton E. Arnold (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.60.

[3] Ravi Zacharias in This We Believe (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), p.45.

John 5:19-29

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Wyman

John 5:19-29

¹⁹So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. ²⁰For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. ²¹For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. ²² The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, ²³that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. ²⁵“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Many in the religious establishment of Jesus’ day claimed to love God but to hate Jesus. They did so because they felt that Jesus was twisting and perverting the truth of God into something diabolical.

Many people today hold the opposite position: they claim to love Jesus but don’t care much for God. They claim that the God represented in the Bible is ultimately unlikeable and unlovable, but that Jesus, on the other hand, is a character they can admire.

In his novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Umberto Eco has a character named Gragnola explain to a character named Yambo why he respects Jesus but doesn’t respect God:

“When we go to mass, I sit quietly in the back of the church, because Jesus Christ I respect even if I don’t God…To tell the truth, I’m not sure Jesus was God’s son, because it doesn’t make sense to me that a good guy like that could be born from such an evil father…if you read the Gospels closely, you’ll realize that in the end even Jesus realized that God was bad: he gets scared in the olive grove and asks, Let this cup pass from me, and nilch, God doesn’t listen; on the cross he shouts Father why has thou forsaken me, and zilch, God turns his back. But Jesus showed us what a man can do to offset God’s wickedness. If God is evil, then we at least have to try to be good, forgive each other, refrain from doing each other harm, heal the sick, and turn the other cheek. We’ve go to help each other, seeing as God doesn’t help us. Do you see how great Jesus’ idea was? Imagine how much it must have irritated God. Forget the devil, Jesus was the only true enemy of God, and he’s the only friend us poor wretches have.”[1]

This, obviously, is an extreme example, and likely nobody in here today would be comfortable with such outlandish thoughts, but if you listen closely even to some who call themselves Christians, they seem to care more for the Son than for the Father, and oftentimes on the same grounds expressed by Gragnola in the statement above. Dallas Willard recently wrote, “We have people today in ‘Christian’ settings who believe in Jesus but not in God.”[2]

The truth is, though, that claiming to love God but not Jesus (as many of the Jewish leaders did) or claiming to love Jesus but not God (as many today claim to do) are both impossibilities. Jesus made this truth abundantly clear in our text this morning. In John 5:19-29, Jesus begins one of the most profound and illuminating discourses on the Son’s relationship with the Father that you will find in all of scripture.

Before we look at our text, however, it will be important for us at this point, if we are to understand what is being said here, to grasp three important truths about the Lord Jesus:

1. For starters, the Bible speaks of Jesus as eternally pre-existent. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but Jesus did not begin in Bethlehem. Jesus Himself spoke of His divine, eternal nature in John 8:58 where He said, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.” This is significant because Jesus reveals His uncreated, eternal nature. Furthermore, He applies the divine title, “I am,” to Himself.

The ancient Christian statement, The Nice Creed, speaks of Jesus as “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

That’s well said, and is hard to improve upon. Jesus in His person is eternal, divine, uncreated, God the Son, “of one substance with the Father”

2. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, however, he embraced a position of subordination or submission to the Father. Paul explained this in Philippians 2 when he wrote the following about Jesus and His incarnation:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus, then, when He became a man, “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,” or “hoarded,” we might say. Furthermore, Jesus “made himself nothing” and “humbled himself.”

What this means is that Jesus the Son is God, but He limits Himself in His enfleshment to a position of subordination to the Father. He does not abandon His deity, but, in taking on humanity, He enters into a subordinate relationship so that, in His incarnate state, He can speak of watching the Father and doing nothing outside of the will of the Father. As the second person of the Trinity, He likewise watches and works in harmony with the Father, but the language of subordination is attributed to His incarnation.

And, finally,

3. It is important to remember that Jesus used terminology, especially in regards to His relationship with the Father, that was intended to inform and benefit us. He described the deep and profound relationship between Himself and the Father – a relationship that would otherwise be beyond our own limited understanding – in words and images that we could grasp and see and understand.

This is not to say that the words of Jesus are not true and accurate, only that they are not exhaustive. The words of Jesus about His relationship with the Father give us an accurate picture, but let us not assume that we could ever even grasp a complete picture. The Son’s relationship with the Father is so utterly complete and perfect that the only thing minds like ours can do is be gracious for what God chooses to reveal.

With this in mind, let us learn from Jesus this morning about his relationship with the Father.

I. A Relationship of Perfect, Loving Reflection (vv.19-21)

To begin, Jesus spoke of his relationship with God the Father as being one of perfect, loving reflection. The Son observes the Father and perfectly reflects Him.

19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.

The point here is not that the Son has been stripped of His deity. Rather, He has embraced what we call “divine self-limitation.” Jesus chose to be in a relationship of humble subordination to the Father. He did not begrudge His sonship. He continues:

For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

The Son does only what he sees the Father doing. The Son observes and perfectly reflects the character and actions of the Father. The Son, then, is a perfect, unerring, flawless depiction and reflection of the Father.

This is why it is impossible to love the Father but not the Son and it is impossible to love the Son but not the Father. Perhaps you remember that in John 1:18, John says that nobody has seen God, but Jesus makes Him known.

If you would like to know who God is and what He is like, you need only look at Jesus, for Jesus was a perfect reflection of the Father. But this reflection was not mechanical of impersonal. On the contrary, it is a relationship of perfect love:

20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.

Do you see? The Father and the Son love one another. If somebody were to ask you, “What is the greatest bond of love in all of existence and reality?” what would you say? Would you say, “A parent’s love for a child?” Would you say, “A spouse’s love for a spouse?”

In truth, the greatest bond of love is the bond of love that exists between the Father and the Son. Indeed, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost abide in a relationship of mutual, perfect, love and harmony. Theirs is a love untainted by fickleness, pride, or conflict.

The Father loves the Son and the Son perfectly reflects the Father to us. The Son then tells the Jews that the Father will show Him even greater work:

And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

The relationship between the Father and the Son, then, is one of perfect, loving reflection as the Son reveals the Father. This reflection is so utterly perfect, that Jesus the Son likewise has the power to give life. “So also the Son gives life to whom he will.”

This final statement in verse 21 was an amazing statement of Christ’s divinity, as D.A. Carson points out:

“The Old Testament writers presupposed that the raising of the dead was a prerogative belonging to God alone: ‘Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life’ (2 Ki. 5:7). The same presupposition is amply attested in later Jewish tradition. Rabbi Johanan asserted that three keys remained in God’s hand and were not entrusted to representatives: the key of the rain…the key of the womb…and the key of the resurrection of the dead.”[3]

This relationship of reflection, then, was more than mere imitation. It spoke of a deep and profound union in the Godhead. The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, but both the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equally God.

II. A Relationship of Agreed-Upon Judgment (vv.22-23)

It is also a relationship of agree-upon judgment as the Son’s judgment becomes the determining factor in deciding who comes to the Father:

22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

To reject the Son is to incur the judgment of the Son. To reject Jesus, then, is to reject God the Father. To have Jesus pronounce judgment upon you is to be cut off from God forever.

As the Son perfectly reflects the Father, so the Son is the determining factor in whether or not we come to God the Father. Nobody comes to the Father except through the Son (John 14:6).

In this sense, Jesus tells us that the Father judges no one, but the Son does. The Son’s judgment is the determining judgment.

In one of his last albums before his death, Johnny Cash released the amazing song, “The Man Comes Around”:

There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names.

An’ he decides who to free and who to blame.

Everybody won’t be treated all the same.

There’ll be a golden ladder reaching down.

When the man comes around.

The hairs on your arm will stand up.

At the terror in each sip and in each sup.

Will you partake of that last offered cup,

Or disappear into the potter’s ground.

When the man comes around.

The Son’s judgment is perfect and true. The Father gave judgment to the Son. This goes against our popular image. We think of the Father judging and the Son dispensing grace. Of course, in another sense, this is true. But the Father and Son, let us not forget, are one in purpose and intent. In another sense, as the Lord Jesus tells us here, the Son is Him who judges, for the favor or disfavor of the Son, received either through accepting or rejecting Him, determines whether or not we come to the Father.

Do you realize that you must embrace the Son to come to the Father? Where do you stand, now, with Jesus?

Oh I plead with you, this morning, to come and embrace Jesus the Son!

III. A Relationship of Agreed-Upon Salvation (vv.24-29)

Just as the Son judges, He also saves. For if rejecting the Son brings death, accepting the Son brings life:

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Jesus speaks of “hearing” and “believing.” We hear the words of Christ and we believe that Christ has come from the Father for us. This is what it means to be saved. To be saved is to receive the favor, grace, mercy, and forgiveness of Jesus through hearing and believing.

It is possible that some of you have heard but have not believed. Some of you have heard all of your life. Some of you have grown up around the gospel and near the gospel. But it is one thing to be around and near the gospel and another to believe it.

Can you say that you have trusted in Christ? Have you accepted Jesus the Son?

I do pray it is so! Why? What is at stake? Jesus tells us:

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

Ah! Do you see? To receive the Son is to receive the hope and sure knowledge that death will not have victory over you, that you will rise again with Christ! How amazing! The Son has “life in himself.” He is life! To be in the Son is to be in that life over which death has not victory or authority.

To be in Christ is live! To reject Christ is to be separated from God for all of eternity in the eternal judgment of hell. Christ makes the choice explicitly clear:

27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

There are two resurrections. Everybody is going to live forever, somewhere. There is a resurrection of life and a resurrection of judgment. To accept Christ is to receive the resurrection of life. To reject Christ is to receive the resurrection of judgment.

Do you understand how very important it is that you accept and receive the God-explaining, judgment-pronouncing, life-granting Jesus? Have you bowed before the King of Kings and given Him your life?

[1] Umberto Eco. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. (New York: Harcourt Inc., 2004), p.336; 351.

[2] Dallas Willard, The Great Omission. (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2006), 47.

[3] D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John. The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), p.252-253.

John 5:1-18

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Wyman

John 5:1-18

¹After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ²Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. ³In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. [waiting for the moving of the water; ⁴ for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had[i]] ⁵One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” ⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” ⁸Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” ⁹ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. ¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” ¹¹But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.'” ¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” ¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. ¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” ¹⁸This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

On January 30, 2000, a fascinating and controversial commercial by Nuveen Investments aired during Super Bowl XXXIV. The commercial showed the late actor Christopher Reeve walking. This would not have been controversial had it not been for the fact that Christopher Reeve suffered a cervical spinal injury after being thrown from his horse on May 27, 1995, and was, until his death in 2004, paralyzed from the neck down. It was a shocking injury, especially to those of us who grew up watching Christopher Reeve play Superman in the movies. But Reeve turned his efforts in the years after his injury to raising awareness for people who had suffered such injuries, and he won a lot of admiration and respect for doing so.

The Super Bowl commercial showed Christopher Reeve getting up out of his chair and walking. Of course, it was a computer generated effect. Christopher Reeve never walked again after his injury.

The commercial was controversial in some quarters because it seemed to offer false hope to many people suffering from incurable disabilities. Others questioned the commercial being for an investment firm, wondering if perhaps Reeve was being shamelessly used by this company to play on people’s emotions so that the company could reap the profits. One news source reported that a number of phone calls were coming into hospitals wanting to know how Christopher Reeve had been healed, apparently confusing the commercial for reality.

Regardless, Reeve said that he did the commercial because he believed that with enough money invested, attention given, and effort directed toward overcoming the effects of these injuries, those who had suffered them could, in time, be healed.

It was an interesting episode in American culture: an image of a paralyzed man being healed leading to controversy among those who witnessed it.

It was not the first time such an episode had happened. We find a similar situation in John 5, with the exception that the paralyzed man really was, in fact, healed. The man healed in the beginning of John 5 actually walked again and without the benefit of computer generated effects. What he had was an encounter with a mighty Savior who actually and really healed him! In the aftermath, the man and the Savior found themselves in the midst of a storm of controversy. What came out of it revealed a great deal about the man, but more so, about the Jesus who healed Him.

A Powerful Miracle

What sets this amazing scene in motion is the working of a powerful miracle by Jesus. The historical exactness of the description of the scene of this miracle reveals that the place was well known.

¹After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ²Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

Craig Blomberg, in his wonderful book The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, tells of the archaeological discovery of this site:

“John 5:2 was dramatically corroborated by archaeological discoveries in the 1890s, as the site of the pool of Bethesda was located in Jerusalem…Identification of the name of the site was later made possible by the reference in the Copper Scroll from Qumran…to Bet esdatain.”[ii]

This is interesting, of course, but not nearly as interesting as what actually happened at the pool of Bethesda. This pool was a gathering place of the sick, the infirm, and the suffering, as verse 3 tells us:

³In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

There are many places in the world where the sick come in hopes of being cured or helped by healing waters. This was one such place. The scriptures tell us that “a multitude” gathered at this pool, but our attention, this morning, is going to rest on one man in particular:

⁵One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

Thirty-eight years?! That is one year longer than I have been on the earth. For thirty-eight years this man suffered as an invalid. How very sad! What had his life been like? What indignities had he suffered? How many dreams of a better life had he seen squashed? There was an air of despair and resignation about this man, and Jesus saw it in his eyes:

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

It is an interesting question, is it not? “Do you want to be healed?” We might protest: “But of course this man wants to be healed!” To which we might respond, “Not necessarily!” After all, the world is full of people who do not want to be healed of their sicknesses. Oh, they would never say it, but, deep down, some people become friends with that which is killing them and have no desire for healing at all. Perhaps they prefer the pity and attention they get to the idea of being healed of the actual problem.

I once heard a joke in which Jesus goes up to a man who cannot walk and attempts to heal him. “Don’t do that!” the man shouts as he recoils from Jesus. “I’m drawing disability and you’ll ruin everything!”

No, some people really do not want to be healed. But there was a reason Jesus approached this man out of all the crowd assembled there. He did want to be healed, but he despaired of ever being so? Why? Listen:

⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

How very pitiful! Yes, he wanted to be healed, but the reality was that the surging crowd blocked him from getting into the waters, so healing wasn’t an option. His was a life of constant frustration. He was close enough to the healing waters to see them, but, in reality, he might as well have been one hundred miles away, for the crowd kept him from drawing near.

⁸Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” ⁹ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

Perhaps with the miracles of Jesus more than anything else familiarity has bred contempt in the modern Christian mind. We read this so blandly, so matter-of-factly: “And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.”

Church! Hear me! Thirty-eight years! Thirty-eight years! Thirty-eight years of pain and frustration and misery gone…in an instant! Boom! Just like that! Thirty-eight years of suffering, of loneliness, of agony, gone!

Let us never grow accustomed to the miracles of Jesus! It is an awesome thing that the Son of God could speak a word and a man could be healed in a moment!

When we look at this sudden, explosive event, let us remember that Jesus is displaying the nature of God. It is as if He is saying, “This is what God is like! You are healed NOW!”

I believe Jesus can do so today, and sometimes does, though not always. He may or may not do this physically in your case or in the case of a friend for whom you are praying, though He always does this with our hearts and souls. It is how God saves us when we turn to Him in repentance and faith. When we repent Jesus does not say, “Ok, the support group meets on Tuesday nights and, in twelve months, if you pull it off successfully, you’ll get your certificate.”

No, He saves in a moment, in an instant. It is how God works.

Sometimes people are delivered from terrible habits in just this way as well. I have heard many people say that they drank for many years, or smoked for many years, or used profanity for many years, only to have God deliver them from even the desire to do it in a moment! That is an amazing thing.

Even so, others who come to Christ have to journey to recovery. They are forgiven in a moment, but they have to walk to victory over a period of time in this or that area of their lives. But this, too, is a miracle, is it not?

God works in various and sundry ways, but I would like to remind you all that this is one of the ways He works.

Jesus heals this man in one brilliant moment of glory!

An Outraged Protest

One would expect, of course, that the religious leaders of the day would be thrilled about this, right? Surely those who studied the ways of God would rejoice at a movement of God, correct?

Hardly. In fact, history has shown that “religious folk” are oftentimes the last to see exactly what God is doing in the world. You can see this dynamic time and time again in the New Testament as people completely missed the point of Jesus, or ascribed His divine work to the devil, or saw Jesus as being in conflict with God instead of in concert with the Father.

Oftentimes, as in our text this morning, this happened around the Sabbath. In fact, Jesus’ divine work on the Sabbath usually elevated the tension between Him and the religious authorities of the day. This was because of how the Sabbath was understood by many Jews and because of what the Sabbath had been allowed to become.

For one thing, as Gerald Borchert has pointed out, “it was thought at least minimally that the coming of the Messiah was linked to the perfect keeping of one Sabbath.”[iii] By linking the perfect observance of the Sabbath with the coming of the Messiah, the Jews were especially watchful of any would-be-Messiahs, particularly on the Sabbath.

Jesus knew this. His healing work on the Sabbath was in no way accidental or incidental. He oftentimes chose to heal on the Sabbath precisely because that day in particular provided Him a uniquely charged stage from which to challenge the mistaken understanding of the Sabbath and of God and of God’s Messiah that was held by the religious authorities.

The Sabbath was precisely that day that the religious leaders were most sure they understood. If they knew anything, in their minds, they knew the Sabbath. Likewise, it was precisely the day on which Jesus chose to challenge their errors.

Coupled with the heightened sense of religious tension that surrounded the Sabbath (especially in regards to the coming of the Messiah and the perfect observance of the Sabbath) was the absurd proliferation of stifling rules and regulations that had grown up around it.

God’s word called for the holy keeping of the Sabbath in the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8). This was and is right and good. This is a divine commandment! But the religious establishment had consistently attempted to define what it meant to keep the Sabbath holy by the multiplication of rules to assist in this endeavor. Over time, these rules came to choke the very heart out of the fourth commandment and reduced this holy day of rest and worship into a stifling and impossible observance of multiple laws.

R. Kent Hughes has offered a list of some of the more fascinating rules and traditions that grew up around the fourth commandment. For instance:

You were forbidden to look into a mirror on the Sabbath lest you spot a grey hair and be tempted to pluck it out. Plucking grey hair would be working on the Sabbath.

You were forbidden to wear false teeth on the Sabbath lest they fall out and you pick them up and put them back in. That would be working on the Sabbath.

You were not allowed to carry a handkerchief on the Sabbath.

There was an open question about whether or not a man with a wooden leg could carry it outside in the event his home caught on fire.

You were allowed to spit on the Sabbath, but not on the dirt. If you spat on the dirt, and your foot scraped where you spat, that would be considered cultivation of the soil, which would be work.[iv]

On and on it went. In the name of keeping the Sabbath holy, the day had been perverted into a legalistic circus of rule-keeping and judgment. This can be seen in the fact that the Pharisees are outraged to find this man carrying his bed:

¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

Observe here the blindness of the religious leaders! Here in front of them stood a man who had been an invalid for almost forty years. It is almost impossible to imagine that they did not know who he was and what his condition was. And here he is walking! He is healed and walking! And what do they do? Do they marvel? Do they rejoice? Do they see that God has been honored on this most holy of days? Do they praise God’s name because here, on the Sabbath, this man was now given a miraculous occasion for greater joy?

No. No they do not. What they do is immediately and instinctively bemoan his violation of the lesser laws they had encrusted to the fourth commandment. “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

R.C. Sproul has offered the very interesting observation that “the rabbis…had enumerated thirty-nine specific types of work that were illegal on the Sabbath day, and the thirty-ninth rule of Sabbath observance – the very last one on the list – was the prohibition against carrying something from one place to another.”[v]

So there you have it. This man has violated Rule #39. So the Pharisees press him in their outrage. The remaining conversation is intriguing:

¹¹But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.'” ¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” ¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

Seeking to defend his technical violation of the rules, the man points out that he is simply obeying the one who worked a miracle in his body. There may be a subtle implication here from the man to the religious elites that perhaps he was simply obeying God since God had healed him. But this is offered timidly. The religious authorities were not to be trifled with.

Imagine the conflicting emotions in this man’s heart and mind! He had been gloriously healed by God only to be smacked with a rule book. He handles himself pretty well, all in all, though he obviously would prefer the leaders harass the one who healed him instead of harassing the one who was healed. When pressed on the identity of his healer, the man cannot answer because he does not know Jesus’ name.

At this point, the man’s uncertainty as to the name of the one who healed him is incidental to the more outlandish point that the religious leaders were blinded to the work of God…by their religion!

Dear church, it is a sad state of affairs when people love religion more than God. It is a sad condition to be in when we are so blinded by our traditions and secondary customs that we cannot see the work of God that is being manifest under our very noses!

How heartbreaking this is! It is the very nature of legalism that it causes those perpetrating it and those suffering under it to focus on man-made rules more than God-worked miracles.

To be sure, there are rules, but God’s Word and the immediate and obvious implications of it should be sufficient in this regard without having to resort to an unending catalogue of contrived laws and customs. We marvel that the Pharisees could miss God because, in their minds, they were serving God. Even so, this happens all the time in our day as well, doesn’t it?

How often in our lives as individuals and perhaps in our life as a church have we been more concerned about the religious machine than about God Himself? How often have we missed His mighty power and awesome strength because we were too busy reading the footnotes of our own religiosity?

We dare not cast off or minimize God’s Word because we find it difficult. However, neither should we add to God’s Word because it makes us feel more righteous to do so.

Make no mistake: the Pharisees were convinced they were doing the work of God. The only problem was that they had become so blinded by their own devotion that they missed God in the name of God!

Beware, brother and sisters, the leaven of the Pharisees. Beware the seductive whisper of self-righteousness. Beware the sweet prison of legalism. All of these things kill in the end. They kill the spirit and they kill joy and they kill authentic relationship with Jesus Christ.

A Scandalous Claim

The Lord Jesus, of course, does not flee the controversy. The controversy was no doubt one of the points. He worked a miracle then used the occasion to teach more about Himself.

¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

This is a very interesting statement because Jesus reveals that this man’s physical condition was a result of sin in his life. And, of course, sometimes sickness is a result of sin. For instance, in addition to our text here, in 1 Corinthians 11:30, Paul tells the Corinthian believers that the reason many of them were “weak and ill, and some have died” was because many of them were making a public mockery of God in the way they were perverting the Lord’s Supper to their own glorification and their own physical gratification.

Clearly, then, sickness can be a result of sin. But let us be careful here. The fact that Jesus links this man’s sickness to his sin does not mean Jesus is teaching a universal principle for all sickness. In fact, in John 9, when the disciples assume a blind man is blind because of his sin, Jesus responds, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (v.2) And, of course, we likewise have the example of righteous Job, whose sickness and suffering were the result of reasons other than sin.

But this man had sinned, and Jesus cautions him to do so no more. In doing this, Jesus was making an amazing claim about Himself. He was claiming to know the man’s spiritual condition, to have the authority to comment upon it, and to have the authority to forgive the man’s sins. The forgiving of sins would get Jesus into hot water with the religious authorities elsewhere in the gospels, but certainly the implication was not lost on the man in this story.

So the man goes and reports back to the Jews on the identity of his healer:

¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

The Jews respond with incensed outrage. This is one of the many episodes that heighten the tensions between Jesus and the religious establishment. What Jesus says next does not ease those tensions in the least:

¹⁷But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

Ah! If only we could understand how unbelievably incendiary and offensive this statement was! It is as if Jesus is setting fire to a powder keg. But He does not do so arbitrarily. Jesus is not trying to pick a fight or offend for offense’s sake. He intends to teach them about the true nature of the one they hate.

This statement was difficult for the Jews for a number of reasons. For one thing, Jesus calls God “My Father.” It was not out-of-bounds to call God “Father,” but it was out of bounds to call God “My Father.” To do so was to claim a familiarity with God that was deemed offensive and implied a status for the one saying it that was deemed blasphemous.

God was not “the Father” to Jesus. He was “My Father,” Jesus’ Father, making Jesus the unique Son of God. This was entirely inappropriate in the minds of the religious authorities.

More than that, Jesus said that His Father “is working until now, and I am working.” In doing so, Jesus was entering an ancient religious debate that was raging among the Jewish religious elites about the nature of the Sabbath and how it was to be observed.

The question centered around the meaning of the word “rest.” What did the scriptures mean when it said that God “rested” on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2)? Some Jews interpreted rest as complete passivity. Therefore, in their minds, God literally did nothing at all on the Sabbath. Thus, to honor God, we must literally do nothing either. So out of this understanding the various legalisms of the Jews arose. The laws were there to assure that you likewise did nothing!

Other Jews, however, argued that God could not have literally done “nothing” since that would mean He would have failed to keep the created order going through the power of His providential hand. In this understanding, “rested” meant that God consecrated this day and set it apart as holy. This meant that we are to do the same: consecrate the day and set it apart as holy. This meant that the day was less about keeping legalistic minutia than honoring God in a spirit of rest and worship.

Jesus enters this debate by saying that God is always working. He is saying that God did not literally cease from all activity. He did not cease from being God. He is God. And here is the key: God was also at work on this Sabbath in the healing of this man.

If the point of the Sabbath is to honor God, then what is more honoring than celebrating the miraculous work of God in this man’s life? If the focus of Sabbath rest is to draw deeper in the presence of God, how better to do that than to see, recognize, acknowledge, and rejoice at where and how God is working in the world today?

“My Father is working until now,” Jesus says. He then adds: “and I am working.” When, in other words, they see Jesus working, it is because God is working, and he who sees the Son sees the Father.

This was an astounding claim! Jesus is claiming nothing less than that He and the Father are one (John 10:30). The reaction to this statement was swift and extreme:

¹⁸This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Here, then, is the great decision of this passage: do we see Christ as God or do we see Him as the devil who is warring against God? Do we accept His work, even when it conflicts with our own assumptions about God, or do we deny His work? Do we change for Jesus, or do we seek to make Jesus change into our understanding of what we think He should be?

God is at work. He is at work in His Son Jesus. You may reject Him or you may come to Him. I do pray that you will come to Him today.

[i] Some translations include these words.

[ii] Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), p.109.

[iii] Gerald L. Borchert, John 1-11. The New American Commentary. vol. 25A (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), p.228.

[iv] R. Kent Hughes, John (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), p.154-155.

[v] R.C. Sproul, John (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009), p.79.

Philippians 3:7-11

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Wyman

Philippians 3:7-11

⁷But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

John Stott is a wonderful Christian writer and theologian. He is also an avid birdwatcher. In his last book, Stott tells the story of the late Roger Tory Peterson, famous birdwatcher and artist. In particular, he tells the story of how an encounter with a bird changed Roger Peterson’s life as a boy:

On a walk in the country at the age of eleven he spotted a flicker (a species of wood-pecker). It appeared to be just a bundle of brown feathers, clinging to the trunk of an oak tree.

Gingerly I touched it on the back. Instantly this inert thing jerked its head around, looked at me with startled eyes, then exploded in a flash of golden wings, and fled into the wood. It was like a resurrection – what had appeared to be dead was very much alive…

Elsewhere Peterson described this as “the crucial moment of my life.” “I was overwhelmed,” he continued, “by the contrast between something that was suddenly so vital and something I had taken for dead.”[1]

It occurs to me that some of you may find yourself in the same position in which Roger Peterson found himself at the age of eleven, when, out for a walk in the country, his life was forever changed. Perhaps you have come this morning not knowing quite what to expect. Perhaps some of you have come out of a sense of duty. Perhaps you have come because you feel that it is expected of you. Perhaps it is expected of you! Perhaps subtle pressures have been administered to get you here. Or maybe you were just passing by.

Either way, I suspect that some of you may view Jesus and the gospel of Jesus in the same way that Roger Peterson viewed this flicker. Perhaps you have come – for whatever reason – to draw near, but, in reality, you have come to look at something that you think is a dead thing. Maybe you even want to touch it, just to see.

If so, I want to caution you: this Jesus is not dead after all. In fact, when you draw near to touch Him, you will find that He is very much alive, and He will shock you with His vitality.

This Jesus did die. He was, in fact, dead. But when the women drew near to touch His dead body, they were shocked by the amazing beauty of resurrection. In fact, for over two thousand years, believers in Christ have been shocked by the dazzling beauty of resurrection. Or, to use Roger Peterson’s words, for over two thousand years, believers have been “overwhelmed by the contrast between something that is suddenly so vital and something [we] had taken for dead.”

My prayer for you this morning is that you, too, will be overwhelmed by the contrast between something that is suddenly so vital and something you had taken for dead.

The women who came to the tomb that first Easter morning were overwhelmed. The eleven hiding disciples were soon overwhelmed too. So was one of Jesus’ late-coming disciples, a man we know today as the Apostle Paul.

Paul was transfixed by the resurrected Christ. His heart’s desire was to know this Christ, but knowing Christ would mean being drawn into His death and resurrection. Let us hear again the amazing testimony of Paul concerning His desire to know Christ from Philippians 3:

Knowing Christ: The Most Valuable Possession

Paul was a man of no small accomplishments before he met Christ on the road to Damascus. He was brilliant, for one thing. He was learned and schooled and had a sharp and penetrating mind. Also, he was considered a righteous man, a keeper of the law. In the Jewish world and mindset, Paul would have been considered a man who had it all. In fact, he rehearses his prior credentials in the verses immediately preceding our text. Begin in the middle of Philippians 3:4:

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

So Paul had it all, as far as righteous Jews were concerned. Then, one day, on the way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, the resurrected Jesus confronted Paul with power and glory, and Paul’s life changed forever. What he valued before did not matter at all, and what he despised before became the most valuable possession of his life. Listen to his amazing testimony of concerning his change in values:

⁷But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Do you see? The sterling reputation, the scholar’s mind, the sense of his own righteousness: none of it mattered now. Why? Because he had encountered something infinitely more valuable! What did Paul find? Listen:

⁸Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Why did Paul now despise what he once valued above all else? Because he now knew “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Knowing Christ, for Paul, changed everything! A church in Rochester, NY, put the following words on an invitation to their Easter services a couple of years ago: “This changes everything. This change is everything.”

This was Paul’s position as well. Knowing Christ is, for the believer, the greatest and most valued possession in life. Not only did Paul come to value Christ above all else, he was willing to lose it all for Christ as well. He continues in verse 8:

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

And what did Paul get in return for what he was willing to give up?

⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith

What he received was a righteousness that he did not have before. He received the righteousness of God by grace through faith. The righteousness he had previously trusted in – his own – had proved to be nothing but pride. The righteousness he had previously despised – Christ’s righteousness – now became for him his only hope and salvation.

Knowing Christ changes everything for the believer! In His amazing prayer from John 17, Jesus speaks of “knowing God” as salvation:

¹When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

So, to know Christ is to know the salvation of God. To know Christ is to have the greatest possession in the world! Knowing Christ changes everything for the believer.

The magazine, Commonweal, once had the following words on the cover: “Easter: Has It Made a Difference?” The subtitle on the article said: “The Evidence is Mixed.”[2] How utterly absurd! It is not mixed for the believer. For the believer in Christ, Easter has made all the difference in the world.

Let me ask you a question this morning: what do you value most? What would you say is your prized possession? Is it some thing? Is it a relationship? Is it a career?

None of these things, in and of themselves, are sinful or wrong, but they become so when they are elevated above the greatest good of having and knowing Christ. For Paul, knowing Christ was the greatest possession of his life. Hands down, it won the prize!

How about you? Do you know Him today? Do you treasure Christ Jesus?

Knowing the Power of the Resurrection

But Paul did not merely want to know about Christ. Neither did he wish to have a mere acquaintance with Christ. There is more:

¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection

Paul wanted to know Christ “and the power of his resurrection.”

Let us make no mistake, the resurrection of Jesus Christ involved a staggering divine power that trumped all of the naturalistic expectations that come with death. Dead men don’t come back to life. They don’t, that is, unless some power greater than death exerts itself on the dead man raising him to life again.

The scriptures speak often and consistently of God having raised Jesus from the dead:

“This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.” (Acts 2:32)

“let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.” (Acts 4:10)

“if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

This involved an astounding display of divine power. God worked a staggering miracle in that tomb, and the Son rose again.

Even more staggering, the same power of God that resurrected Jesus is open to believers today. In Romans 8:11, Paul writes that “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.”

Paul wanted to know this power. Please note, however, that Paul wanted to know this power not so that he could acquire and posses it himself. The thought of claiming divine power for himself was nowhere on Paul’s radar. No, Paul wanted to know the power of Christ’s resurrection simply because he knew that the same divine power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead was his only hope as well. Furthermore, Paul wanted to be so drawn into the life of Christ that he, too, would be drawn into and nourished and strengthened by the reality of God’s power working in his own life as well. Paul wanted to rest in Christ Jesus, and that meant resting in the power of God in which Christ walked.

Paul also spoke of resurrection power in Colossians 2.

¹¹In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

We are raised with Christ “through faith in the powerful working of God.” We see, then, that the resurrecting power of God is also one of the worthy objects of our faith. We believe that God has raised Christ from the dead, so we dare to believe that He can raise us up as well.

Sharing Christ’s Path to Resurrection

Paul wanted to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, but that’s not even all. He has yet to make his most shocking declaration:

¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Simply astounding: “and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead”!

It is astounding because this sounds so utterly foreign to our way of thinking, doesn’t it? “Share in His sufferings?!” We are tempted to say, “What can that possibly mean? Why on earth would I want to suffer with Christ? I want the blessings of His sufferings, but I do not want to suffer myself.”

But that is not what Paul said, is it? Paul wanted to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

This means many things. It means, on a practical note, that the suffering Paul was going through when he wrote this letter made sense when he viewed it alongside Christ’s sufferings for him. Christ had suffered for Paul, in other words, so it was an honor to suffer for Him.

Furthermore, it is a statement of recognition that if a person claims to know and follow Christ, he cannot distance himself or herself from the Jesus’ central saving act: the cross. To know Christ is to take up your cross and follow Christ. Jesus said the very same in Luke 9:

²³And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

But Paul also wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ because Paul knew that he must reach the end of himself and truly be willing to give his life, his everything, to Christ. This explains verse 11 of our text:

¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Paul is not saying that one must die a violent death to be saved. Paul is not saying that he contributes to his own salvation through personal sacrifice. Rather, he is saying that he has not truly trusted in Christ until he has been willing to give it all for Christ, even to the point of dying with Christ.

Church, Paul understood that the resurrection of Jesus meant that Jesus, not Paul, was truly Lord! Paul did not merely want the glorious benefits of resurrection. He was willing to know Christ even in the path that led to His resurrection, namely, Christ’s sufferings on the cross.

Paul was a man on fire. He was, as we say, “all in.”

What a deep, deep tragedy that we have divorced the resurrection of Jesus from the path that brought Him to the resurrection. Brothers and sisters, you cannot have the empty tomb without the cross! You cannot rise with Him if you have never truly died for and with Him!

Are you willing to embrace Christ resurrected? Very good! But what about Christ crucified? Are you willing to embrace Christ crucified? Are you willing to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”?

We live in a consumer market as it pertains to God. People simply want to visit God like they are visiting a supermarket and take from Him what they desire. But the Lord Jesus came to offer you a life, not merely a service. Jesus came to lift you from your sins, not merely give you the blessing of eternal life.

The blessings of the resurrection of Jesus Christ are yours: His power, His victory over sin, death, and Hell, and the hope that the resurrection brings. But His cross is yours as well: yours to embrace and yours to imitate in your willingness to give everything to God as well.

I pray for you this Easter the great joy of resurrection. But I will do more. I pray for you as well the great joy of suffering for Christ should He call you to do so. I pray for you and for me the privilege of the cross that leads to resurrection.

I pray that we will embrace Jesus and His gospel, all of it, the blessings and the burdens, so that we might truly know the beautiful Savior. To follow Christ is to know true joy, whether it be the joy of giving all for Christ or the joy of His empty tomb.

Come to Him today.

[1] John Stott, The Radical Disciple (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), p.113.

[2] Richard John Neuhaus, “While We’re At It,” First Things. April 1993.

Walking Together Ministries

A Resource for the Pilgrim Church

Category Archives: Written Sermons

John 7:11-24

John 6:60-71

John 6:41-59

John 6:22-40

John 6:16-21

John 6:1-15

John 5:30-47

John 5:19-29

John 5:1-18

Philippians 3:7-11