Jesus Christ is without a doubt the most important figure in the history of the world. He was born more than 2000 years ago, contrary to the laws of life. He lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He exchanged a royal robe for a pauper’s ragged coat. He did not travel extensively. Only once did He cross the boundary of the tiny country in which He lived; and that was during His exile in childhood. 

He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His relatives were inconspicuous and He had neither training nor formal education. Yet in infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled doctors; in manhood He ruled the course of  nature, walked upon the waves as if pavements, and hushed the sea to sleep. He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charges for His service. 

He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the country could not hold the books that have been  written about Him. He never wrote a song, and yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all the songwriters  combined. He never founded a college, but all the schools put together cannot boast of having as many  students. He never marshaled an army, nor drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun; and yet no leader ever had  more volunteers who have, under His orders, made more rebels stack arms and surrender without  a shot being fired. 

He never practiced medicine and yet He healed more broken hearts than all the doctors far and  near. Every seventh day businesses and public offices close down and multitudes wend their way to  worshiping assemblies to pay homage and respect to Him. The names of past, proud statesmen of Greece and Rome have come and gone. The names of past scientists, philosophers, and theologians have come and gone, but the name of  this man abounds more and more. 

Although 2000 years between the people of this generation and the scene of His  crucifixion have passed, yet He still lives. Herod could not destroy Him and the grave could not hold Him. 
He stands upon the highest pinnacle of heavenly glory, proclaimed of GOD, acknowledged by  angels, adored by saints, and feared by devils, as the living personal Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Such we can say from the vantage point of history and the testimony of the Word of God. Though millions today that claim to believe His teaching, that are attracted to Jesus, yet Jesus Himself said that many are called but few are chosen, that many will seek to enter His kingdom but will not be able. Though many are attracted to Him, there is a tremendous difference between true and false disciples. Two thousand years ago, even his own family did not believe in Him and his own nation rejected Him and put Him to death. Even after feeding 15000 people and healing many of the sick in attendance, when He began to preach His gospel many of His disciples stopped following Him. John 6:66 says,“As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”

Those disciples who came for the miracles but left after the message were obviously superficial. They were disciples or followers in name only. There were still the 12 however. Christ’s inner circle. And when the others left Him, He turned to them and said, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Peter, acting as spokesman answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” But even then, Jesus said that one of them had a devil and would betray Him.

So Jesus ministry was characterized by true and false disciples. I believe much of Jesus’ teaching is to show a distinction between His followers, to separate those that followed Him for superficial reasons, and to develop true discipleship. Jesus seems to almost go out of His way to talk people out of following Him. Let me give you just a few examples.

In addition to telling people that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood, Jesus told those who wished to follow Him to let the dead bury the dead, and not even go to their father’s funeral. He told a rich man to sell everything he had and give it to the poor and then to follow Him. At another time He told a crowd that unless they hated their father and mother and family, and even his own life, he could not be His disciple. Then He told them to pick up a cross and follow Him. He said in Luke 14:33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” Jesus told others to leave their nets, their professions as fishermen, and He would make them fishers of men.

I could go on and on. Jesus called disciples to abandon all that they held dear in life for the sake of knowing Him. I’m sure most of us would have responded to this call for radical abandonment with the response; “you lost me at hello.” But sadly this call of leaving all for Christ is not the gospel message of the modern church today. We have changed the message to be as accommodating and appealing as possible. We don’t ask for anyone to leave anything, but to come as you are. We don’t ask for any sort of personal sacrifice; but say all God wants is a relationship with you because He loves you so much.

If we are not careful, we find that we have redefined discipleship. We are guilty of twisting the Jesus of the Bible into a version that 21st century hipsters are more comfortable with. A non condemning, non controversial genie who is able to grant wishes upon our command and more importantly, places no demands upon us.

But that is not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus never presented discipleship as anything close to being easy. The Jesus of the Bible talked about offering Himself as a human sacrifice for sin, and man’s need to repent for the forgiveness of their sins, and the people rejected Him. When He condemned religionists of His day as hypocrites in turn they hated Him and plotted to kill Him. So it says in 7:1 that Jesus avoided going to Judea, which was the seat of religion in Israel, because He knew that they wanted Him dead.

His home by the way was in a small city called Capernaum, in Galilee, which had a population of about 1500 people. We can assume that it was the family home. And so about six months after the feeding of the 5000/15000 on the seashore of the Sea of Galilee, His brothers come to Him and said, “Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.”

From a logical perspective, what they said seemed to make sense. It seemed to be good advice for how to raise up a ministry, or in Jesus’ case, how to establish your Messiah-ship. But their motive was not really in the best interests of the kingdom of God. The underlying motivation for their comments are found in vs.5, “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” So even His own brothers were false disciples. They were perhaps willing to benefit from their relationship with Him if in fact He could pull off some sort of coup in the socio/religious culture that they belonged to. But in fact they did not really believe that their own brother was the Messiah, much less the Son of God.

In chapter 6, you will remember, the crowds were taken back by His claims of having come down out of heaven, and they said in vs. 42, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Now in chapter 7, you have His brother’s agreeing with the crowd. After all, they had grown up in the same house with Him 24/7. They shared the same parents, or so they thought. How could He have come down from heaven?

Matthew’s gospel identifies His brothers. Matt. 13:54-58 “He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household., And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.”

So from that text we know that Jesus didn’t do many miracles in His hometown because of their unbelief. And in John 7 we learn that even His brothers didn’t believe in Him. That explains why they say, “IF you do these things show them to the world.” They didn’t even believe that He had done any real miracles.

I see a parallel here in the life of Joseph from the Old Testament. Joseph was hated by his brothers, because they were jealous of him. And so they scorned him and eventually plotted for his death. Jesus’ brothers did not plot His death, but I do think that they rejected Him and really wanted Him to get out of town. He was an embarrassment to them. And His greater brethren, meaning the family of the Jewish nation did plot His death, even as with Joseph.

The Bible does indicate that His actual brothers did eventually come to believe in Him, even as Joseph’s brothers eventually came to bow down before him. But it was not until after Christ’s resurrection according to Acts 1:14. Tradition tells us that Simon became a servant of the church for many years. And James became the author of the book of James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, and a martyr for the faith. He describes himself in his epistle as “James a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” establishing Jesus as Lord, Messiah and equal with God. Jude describes himself also as a servant of Jesus Christ. And then in his book he speaks about looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. So His brothers eventually come to recognize Him as the Son of God, but at this stage they are filled with contempt and scorn for Him. Though they could claim a relationship with Him, yet they could not claim true discipleship.

Their suggestions are indicative of false disciples as well. They basically are espousing the mantra of modern evangelism; that if you are successful, if you have a big crowd, then you must be doing something right. That’s why they wanted Him to go to Judea. Why hide out in Smallville Galilee when the big crowds and the success was in Judea. If you’re really the Messiah you are going to have to become popular with the multitudes and accepted by everyone. But notice that’s not Jesus’ plan for taking over the world. In chapter 6 Jesus spent about 2 days teaching the 15000 people. But they all deserted Him there when they found out the cost of discipleship. So for the next 6 months Jesus spent all His time primarily with just 12 guys – discipling them. That was His plan for establishing the kingdom of God in the world.

Jesus’ commission is the same to us; Matt. 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The command is not go into football stadiums and attract a crowd. Not to organize giant crusades and get a lot of people to walk and aisle and repeat a prayer. But make disciples, and teach them, note that, teach them, to observe all that I commanded you. Attracting a crowd is easy if you have enough money. But making disciples is hard work. It’s time consuming. It’s not done in a single outreach. It’s not done in a short term mission trip. It’s a long term affair. It’s teaching disciples to be doers of the word and not just hearers, not just superficial disciples.

Now the occasion of His brother’s suggestion to go to Judea is because it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. There were three feasts which Jewish men were required to Jerusalem to celebrate. The Feast of Tabernacles was one of those feasts, which lasted 7 days. From a human perspective, it would have been a great opportunity for Jesus to appear before every able bodied man in Israel and start doing some miracles and show everyone that He was indeed the Messiah.

That’s another indication of false disciples, by the way. They are attracted by signs and wonders. Great crusades happen in our country all the time which purport to be visited by signs and wonders. One just happened last week I believe in Los Angeles, the city of the angels. And one of the organizers of that event claimed to see a giant golden angel up in the sky above the stadium as he was driving in on the freeway. Their whole program was about signs and wonders. I heard one speaker proclaim that everyone there was going to be able to walk behind someone afterwards and know everything about that person. I guess that is what they consider a word of knowledge. There were people who were acting “drunk in spirit” all over the auditorium.

But the Bible warns about such signs and wonders as a means of leading people into a false discipleship. . Matt. 24:24 “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” Jesus rebuked others who followed Him for seeking signs and wonders in John 4:48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” And Paul warns in 2Thess. 2:9 about “the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”

Jesus is not interested in accommodating man’s agenda, even if it’s His own family members who are pushing it. So He responds, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.”

There are a couple of points that need to be made concerning this important statement. First of all, God has His own timetable and agenda, and we need to be aligned with it, rather than trying to get God to accommodate ours. Jesus had an appointed time that He was going to go into Jerusalem and present Himself as the Messiah. It would be 6 months later at the Passover Feast. At that time, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and the crowds celebrate His coming as the Messiah, the son of David. A week later, He is crucified as the lamb slain for the salvation of the world. That is the timing of God, and Jesus is fully in agreement with that plan. This was the plan of God before the foundation of the world. And though it doesn’t look like it to His brothers or His disciples, all is going according to God’s plan.

Listen, I’ve said before that there is no safer place than in the will of God, and there is no safe place outside of the will of God. It should be a great comfort to us to know that we are in the will of God, so that even when it seems like everything is going wrong, we can trust that God is in control, and He has a plan and things are going according to His plan. If you are going to be a disciple of Christ, then you have to get in tune with the timing of God, and then trust in His sovereignty to accomplish His will in HIs time. All our anxiety is usually because we have a different timetable and different expectations than God has.

Trusting God is hard work. Faith is hard work. The idea that faith is easy is contrary to scripture. It’s hard to walk by faith and not by sight. I heard a story that illustrates trust. It’s setting is back in the day when televisions still required antennas on roofs. Something that has gone by the wayside in the digital age. But this man was up on his roof fixing his television aerial when he slipped and began to slide down toward the gutters. He tried to catch himself, but he went over the edge. He managed to grab hold of the rain gutter as he dropped, and he hung there, suspended in the air. He couldn’t look down and he didn’t know how far it was to the ground, and in his desperation he cried out. “Oh, God help me!” And a voice replied, “I am ready to help you.” And he said, “Tell me what to do.” The voice asked. “Do you trust me?” He said, “Yes, I trust you.” The voice said. “All right then. Let go.” And man asked, “Is there anybody else up there who can help me?” Trusting God isn’t always easy. Letting go of things we depend upon though is fundamental to really trusting in God.

Secondly, if you are on God’s timetable, doing God’s will, then you are in opposition to the world, and the world is going to hate you. True disciples are hated by the world. But contrarily, false disciples love the world, and so the world does not hate them. Now why is this true? Well, because if you are a true disciple, then you are in agreement with what Jesus said, “it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” That’s it. We call sin, evil. And we testify that their deeds are evil.

Let me tell you something that you need to really understand. This is the defining point of true disciples versus false disciples. The defining point between true and false disciples is their deeds. Don’t get me wrong. You are not saved by works, you are saved by grace. But don’t get Jesus wrong either. You shall know them by their fruits. The most damning statement of Jesus was for false disciples, found in Matthew 7:20-23 “So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

So their fruits are the deeds that they did. Notice that they did signs and wonders. They even cast out demons and performed many miracles. They named the name of Jesus. And yet they were not true disciples because they practiced lawlessness.

Now that is exactly what Jesus accused the Jews of in vs.19. He said to them, “Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?” They claimed the righteousness of the law, but they did not carry out the law. They sought to kill Him, in opposition to the law.

Their hatred of Jesus was equal to murder, and so it beget a plot to murder Him, which was eventually fulfilled. So if you are a true disciple of Christ, then the world will hate you. That really is the irony of the seeker friendly church model, isn’t it? That we are trying to ingratiate ourselves to those who really hate what we stand for. Because what we stand for is the truth of God’s Word which declares sin as evil, and defines it by God’s law.

So Jesus did eventually go up to the Feast of Tabernacles, but secretly. That means that He did not enter into Jerusalem with a big fanfare. His family would have been part of a large caravan, and His coming would have been with thousands of pilgrims, which would have probably instigated some sort of great political, religious rally to make Him King. But He was not interested in their agenda, He was interested in fulfilling God’s agenda. So He shows up midweek, without fanfare, and when they find Him, He is teaching in the temple.

But notice that there was grumbling going on amongst the people concerning Him. Vs.12, ‘There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, “He is a good man’; others were saying, ‘No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.’ Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”

Notice that neither of those comments are the marks of true disciples. Jesus was not just a good man. Either He was God incarnate, or He was a lunatic. Most of the world’s false religions say that Jesus was a good man. But they fail to believe that He is God. That He is alive, having risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. And as such their belief is of no avail. Believing that Jesus is a good man will not save you. Of course, the other half of the people were under the influence of the religious leaders who were saying that He was a deceiver. But neither group were professing saving faith, and neither group spoke openly about Him for fear of the Jews. That word Jews is used of the religious Jewish leaders. They feared being ostracized, or kicked out of the temple because of any allegiance to Christ.

I read a quote by DA Carson which said, “as the social cost of claiming to be a Christian increases, the percentage of nominal Christians decreases.” I believe the day is already here when being a true disciple of Christ will bring persecution in the social arena, which may cost you your job, or mean you are sued for everything you have and then some, or even thrown in jail. That day is here.

So Jesus starts teaching in the temple. And the Jews hearing Him, ask in astonishment, “How has this man become learned, having never been educated?” This is the great thing about preaching the Word of God. It’s the wisdom of God. The Holy Spirit working in us, in conjunction with the Word of God, teaches us the things of God, so that we have the wisdom of God. You want wisdom? Read the Word of God. [1Co 1:25 NASB] 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Notice Jesus says in John 7:16-17 “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” Jesus spoke the words of God. When He refuted the devil in the wilderness, He quoted from the Word of God. This is the habit of Jesus when He preached. So as well I believe it’s a good habit for preachers to preach the Word of God. Jesus goes on to say, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” We have a lot of glory seeking preachers out there today who speak in order to glorify themselves. They speak to gain a crowd, to please people, to entertain people. And they fail to preach the full counsel of God. Jesus testified that people’s sin was evil. He preached the Word of God in it’s fullness. Only when man is convinced of His sin does he come to know his need for a Savior. And only when man has come to know Jesus as His Savior will he come to serve Jesus as Lord.

But here is the key Jesus gives us in those passages regarding true discipleship. He says, “If anyone is willing to do His will, that is the Father’s will, he will recognize the teaching is of God.” (my paraphrase) Here is the key to true discipleship. You first have to come to a point of being willing to submit and obey the will of God, and when you do that, when you obey, then God will reveal more truth to you. This is the principle I have mentioned so many times, that of progressive discipleship. When you are obedient to the light God has shown you thus far, then He will reveal more to you. God’s word is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. That means it’s walking revelation. As you walk out the truth in obedience, God will continue to lead you. Too many people want to see the light at the end of the tunnel before they start to walk. That’s not discipleship. Believe and obey. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way.

Well, there is more to this message that Jesus gives during the Feast, but it will have to wait for next Sunday. In the meantime, I believe that you have been given enough light to start to be obedient to the light you have. I hope that you will prove to be a disciple this week by your deeds and not just your claims on Christianity. I hope that you are indeed a true disciple. If not, then today is the appointed day of salvation. Salvation is simply believing all that Jesus claimed He was, that He was the bread of life which came down out of heaven, that men might eat of Him and receive eternal life. To eat of Him is to receive Him, as Savior and Lord. To be willing to forsake the world, even all that life offers, in exchange for eternal life. To be willing to take up your cross and follow Him. True discipleship is not without a cost. But the reward is so much worth it all. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

We are considering today one of the great sermons of Christ. This message marks a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. It reveals the moment when the vast throngs of people that initially followed Him in response to His miracles, turned away and rejected Him when confronted with the truth of the gospel. It would be foolish for me to think that I can add anything new to this message. But I do hope that we can exegete the text in order to make it’s meaning more clear. Jesus was speaking to a large group of disciples, or followers, of which the 12 were included. There were, as verse 66 indicates, a large number of superficial disciples there, as well as His inner circle. And we know from studying the gospels that in most cases Jesus taught by using parables or metaphors, to illustrate spiritual principles. For reasons known only to God, He said in Matt.11:25 that He spoke in such a way as to hide things from the wise and reveal things to infants. And He does so in this sermon as well, especially by use of the metaphor of the bread of heaven.

So as we consider this sermon of Christ, we are going to break it down into 6 courses, in hopes of helping us to better digest it, as we see the picture that Christ presents, the provision of God, the predicament of the people, the principle of salvation, the proposal to believe, and the profession of faith. That’s our outline of Jesus’ sermon.

First then, the picture that Christ presents. Before we can go too far in the text we must recognize that Jesus is speaking metaphorically. He is using the picture of a physical thing to illustrate a spiritual principle. He did that also when He healed. It was not simply to provide healing, but to illustrate a spiritual principle. So when He says He is the bread of life, we must understand that He is speaking metaphorically. He obviously did not look like a loaf of bread, His body was not actually made up of bread, and people were not being told to physically eat His body. You would think it unnecessary to have to say that, but unfortunately, there are those who have misapplied certain verses in this passage as a result of misunderstanding of the nature of a metaphor.

In fact, this is the first of seven “I AM” statements of Jesus given to us in the book of John. The purpose of course is to show Christ’s correlation as the Lord who appeared to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus 3:14, where God answered Moses’ question as to His name by saying “I AM Who I AM.” There are seven of these statements in the gospel of John, this being the first in vs.35, “I am the bread of life.” Then in John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” In John 10:9, “I am the door.” In John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd.” In John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life.” John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” And 7, in John 15:1, “I am the true vine.”

Now in all those statements Jesus uses metaphors to illustrate His divine character and purpose. He was not literally a door, He was not literally a vine, not actually a light. He is speaking metaphorically in all of these statements. To say that He is bread is to use really a metonym for food, bread being the staple of man’s diet, which sustains life. Jesus is basically saying that I am the spiritual bread that gives spiritual life, which is the source of all life.

But the people continually seem to misunderstand what He is saying. They have just eaten bread that He manufactured out of His hands at the feeding of the 5000, and as a result they can’t seem to get beyond the physical aspect of bread. In fact, back in the 31st verse, we see them speaking of the manna, or bread, from heaven which Moses had given them. They wanted Jesus to give them bread which they could eat which would be for physical nourishment. We need to be careful we don’t make the same mistake. We need to understand the picture; Christ is like bread which comes down from heaven, in that He is the source and sustainer of spiritual life which is given for men. So that is the picture.

Next, let’s look at the provision of God. He is the bread of life which came down out of heaven. He came to be broken for man. Notice how many times Jesus states this in His sermon. He starts by accommodating their comment regarding manna, and clarifying it in vs. 32; “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” But they still don’t get it. So He continues to stress that He is the bread of life which has come down out of heaven. Verse 38, “I have come down from heaven.” Verse 46, He says, “Not that anyone has seen the Father except the One who is from God.”  He is saying He has come down out of heaven.  Verse 50, “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven.”  Verse 51, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven.”  Verse 58, “This is the bread which came down out of heaven.”

This is the provision of God, that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son to the world, so that the world might be saved by receiving life. Jesus is emphasizing what John said in his opening remarks in chapter one, that the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The plan of God from before creation was to select a people from the face of the earth to be HIs bride, and in order to accomplish that, it was determined through the foreknowledge of God to send Jesus from heaven to man, to offer Himself as an atonement for their sins, that they might be joined to God.

So in the provision of God, the disciples were challenged to believe in the preexistence of Christ, having been in heaven, One with God, and now coming down out of heaven to mankind. And we also see the purpose of God, in sending Christ to be the provision by which man is reconciled to God.

Notice the purpose of God in verse 32, “It is my Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.”  Verse 33, “The bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven.”  Verse 38, “I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  Verse 39, “This is the will of Him who sent Me.”  Verse 40, “This is the will of My Father.”  And again in verse 57, “As the living Father sent Me.”  So you have here divine preexistence and divine purpose.  The Father sending the Son and the Son’s obedience to the predetermined will of God.

Then there is the predicament of the people. This is really a two fold problem. The first predicament is that they cannot understand how Jesus can say that He has come down out of heaven. After all, they say in vs.42, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Don’t forget that Jesus had grown up in this area. Most of those people came from small villages, and so they would have known Him, seen Him grow up, known His brothers and His family members. Remember we said that at the wedding in Cana it was probable that one of Jesus’ family was married there that day. So He was known of prior to His ministry, and now to suddenly declare to be the Messiah, the Savior of the world, to have come down from heaven, sent from God, would have been a stretch for their imaginations. It would be a stretch for our imaginations, frankly. Imagine if I were to start saying that I had been sent down from heaven to teach you. You would probably nod appreciatively and then call the men in white coats at your earliest convenience. It wasn’t a logical conclusion for those people either, in spite of all that Jesus had done.

So how did Jesus answer that concern? Why not perform some undeniable sign? Why not call down fire from heaven? That would probably at least scare them into obeisance. Instead, Jesus tells them to stop grumbling. Notice He says do not grumble among yourselves. But what or better yet, who are they grumbling against? I would suggest that it is Jesus they are grumbling against. I think in effect they are saying, “Who does He think He is? He puts His pants on the same way we do. We know where He is from. We know HIs family. He is not better than we are.” Right there, even before they walk away at the difficult statement about eating and drinking His blood they are already turning on Him.

So 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. It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.” Now a lot of preachers want to get off the train right there and preach a series of messages on election. And I could do that as well. But Jesus is not necessarily presenting a side message here about predestination. What He is doing is deflecting their criticism. He is saying in effect; you cannot believe Me because you have not been taught of God about Me. You don’t know what the Father has said about Me, and so you cannot come to Me. That’s a soft, backhanded rebuke right there. Because they thought they knew about God. They thought they knew what the scriptures said about the Messiah. But Jesus is saying they are ignorant of both.

I find that true today. People think that they know about God. They think that they know about Christianity. But the truth is they have created a god out of their own imagination, which is subservient to their own desires. And when a preacher such as I challenge those assumptions that they hold so dear, I become the object of their grumbling. Their criticisms. But as Jesus said, a servant is not greater than his master. If Jesus suffered that criticism, then so will I.

The other predicament of the people is found in vs.52. Their predicament is characterized by grumbling and now by arguing. “Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?’” Now here is what Jesus had said which prompted this debate. He said “I am the bread of life, I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” And the question is based in a literal interpretation of Christ’s words. How can this man give us His flesh to eat?

Notice how Jesus emphasizes this truth over and over again. Verse 53, “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 yourself.”  Vs.54, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.”  Vs. 55, “For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink.”  Vs. 56, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me in and I in him.”

Now it’s apparent that the Jews stumbled over this saying. From the perspective of the law, what Christ was asking them to do, even if possible, was reprehensible. It was against the law. What they were arguing about then the same thing we might argue about. In fact, I would suggest that the church has been arguing about the correct interpretation of this since the Middle Ages. One of the main arguments of the Reformation was against the doctrine of transubstantiation which was and is practiced by the Catholic church, in which they believe the elements of the Lord’s table literally become His flesh and blood, and by eating it, you receive remission of sin. However, I don’t believe that this is a statement about communion, but it has been incorrectly interpreted that way for centuries, and consequently has given rise to the view that when you eat the bread and wine of communion, you are actually eating the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

But my answer to that is to remind you of point one; the metaphor of bread is the means by which Jesus illustrates Himself as being offered by God to man to give life to the world. It is a picture, a symbol, the same as the door, the vine, or the light was a symbol. But the Jews miss the symbolism and are fixated on the literal, physical bread and blood, and consequently miss the truth in what Jesus is saying. And in like manner, those who misconstrue the physical eating and drinking as a means of the remission of sins are in error as well. So after hearing Jesus present the sermon, the disciples say, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?”

And that leads us to the principle of salvation which Christ is declaring. Vs.61 But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?” Notice that the disciples are still grumbling. They are grumbling at the dual predicament that Jesus has generated by His message. And so Jesus answers the first predicament, the one of His coming down from heaven, of His preexistence. He says in vs. 62, “What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” He is saying, “Look guys, you have a problem with Me saying that I came down from heaven? What are you going to do when you see Me going back up into heaven? Is that going to be a problem for you too?” Of course, Jesus knew that He was going to ascend again into heaven after His resurrection. The problem for those that rejected Him now would be that they would not be there to witness the ascension. That speaks to the progressive nature of revelation, by the way. To those that are obedient to the light that they have, God will give more light. But if you reject the light God has given you, then you will not receive more. God gives progressive revelation to those that are obedient, as they are being obedient. What God had revealed to these disciples up to this point should have been enough to believe. But since they don’t believe HIs words, and the signs which accompanied His message, they would not be given more.

The answer to the second part of the predicament, that of eating flesh and blood is found in the next verse, 63: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” This verse is the key to understanding the symbolism of what Jesus was preaching. Eating bread, even eating His flesh, profits nothing. He isn’t speaking of eating literal flesh and drinking literal blood. That has no benefit whatsoever. Rather, it is the Spirit who gives life. If you want spiritual life, then it must come from the Spirit of God. It cannot come from physical things, it cannot come from physical effort, but it must come from the Spirit of God. So obviously what Jesus is offering is not to eat of His physical flesh or to drink His literal blood, but spiritual life through the Spirit of God.

And what does that Spirit life look like? Is it goosebumps and chills? It is signified in animal sounds, or speaking in tongues, or writhing in convulsions? What constitutes the Spirit given life? Listen to this: “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Man! I hope you get that folks. I hope you are not duped into thinking that the Holy Spirit gives life through physical convulsions or expressions. But the word of God is Spirit and life. That principle is stated by Paul to Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:14-17 “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” The word is life from God, the scriptures are God breathed(pneuma, breath of God, inspired), able to produce salvation which is spiritual life, and able to sustain that life by training us in righteousness, so that we might be equipped to live as God would have us live. The word life there which Jesus uses is zoe in the Greek, not bios, which means organic life, but zoe which refers to the vitality of the soul, an animated, abundant life in the spirit.

So that is the principle: the Spirit gives life, and the words of Christ are spirit and they are life. Now then the fifth course; the proposal to believe. There are multiple aspects of what it means to believe in Christ. First in verse 35, He says, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to Me.” Listen, don’t get so hung up on the sovereignty of God that you neglect your responsibility in the matter. We cannot understand the predestination and election of God. That doesn’t mean we don’t accept it, it just means it’s above our pay grade. But what we do understand is our responsibility.  So the first requirement is to come.  Verse 37 joins those two principles together saying, “All that the Father gives Me will come, and the one who comes to me, I will not reject.” So you don’t have to worry about whether or not you were elected for salvation. If you come to Christ, He will not reject you. Period. Let God worry about God’s responsibility of divine appointment, and you just worry about your responsibility. Come to Jesus. That is the invitation of Christ. Come to Me. All come. The invitation is open to all who hear.

The second aspect of believing is to look.  Notice verse 40, “This is the will of My Father that everyone who beholds the Son…” Notice the word “everyone.”  There aren’t limitations here based upon our understanding of the doctrine of election.  All who come, anyone who comes, I will not reject.  Everyone who beholds. Not a cursory glance. I really think it’s similar to the idea found in Hebrews 12:2, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.” The word behold in the Greek means to look at intently, to examine, to study, to gaze on. Jesus is saying, look closely at Me. Examine Me in the light of the scriptures. He can accept that kind of scrutiny, in fact He desires it, because He knows it will produce faith in Him.

There’s another phrase that’s really critical as well.  Look at verse 35, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to Me will not hunger and he who believes in Me…”  He who believes in Me.  Verse 40, “This is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life.”  Verse 47, “I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.”  John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 20:31 says the same thing. The theme verse for the whole gospel of John, “These things are written that you may know that Jesus is the Christ, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing have life in His name.”  Salvation is about believing.   Another way to understand it would be John 1:12, “As many as received Him.”  You have to come.  You have to look.  You have to be exposed to the truth, but you must believe.

Going back to the metaphor of the bread, go to verse 50, and from verse 50 on is really the proposal to believe unto salvation from Jesus. “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven so that one may eat,”   Believing is eating.  Taking in, receiving, appropriating.  Verse 51, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”  Verse 57, “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.”  Again, verse 58, the end of the verse, “He who eats this bread will live forever.”  Eating the bread is a powerful metaphor that everyone should understand as believing or receiving who Jesus is and what He came to do.  You have to take Christ in.  It’s not enough to just believe He existed. It’s not enough to just come to church and listen.  You have to eat.  You have to appropriate. That’s what it means to believe.  You have to receive Christ.  That’s our responsibility.

You not only have to believe in Him as living bread, you have to believe in Him as dying, which is represented by blood.  Verse 51, “I am the living bread.  I came down out of heaven.  If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.  And the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”  There He’s talking about giving up His life so that we might have life. But listen to what He says in verse 53, “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 yourself.”  54, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.”  Verse 55, “For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink.”  Verse 56, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me in and I in him.”

Blood is simply a metonym for His death, as it is throughout the New Testament. You must believe in Jesus as the preexistent Son of God who came into the world and is the source of spiritual life, eternal life, and you must believe in His sacrificial death in order to be saved.  As bread, He gives life.  As blood, He cleanses us from all unrighteousness.  Blood, then, speaks of His death by which He makes a sacrifice for our sin.

That brings us to the last point, the profession of faith. When the disciples hear the words that Jesus says, they do not accept it. They say this is too difficult for us to accept. Vs.66, “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” So Jesus turns to the 12 and says, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” And Simon Peter, speaking on behalf of the 12 gives the quintessential profession of faith in vs.68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

What a great profession! First of all, note that even though it was a difficult statement, Peter recognizes that there is no where else to go because these are the words of eternal life. I find that so many people today are seeking for a more palatable gospel. And so when you speak of judgement, of sin, of the wrath of God, of repentance, of obedience, they don’t like the sound of those types of doctrine. So they turn away. They walk away, looking for something more palatable, something that is more appealing to the flesh. A taste of religion but still able to satisfy the lusts of the flesh. But the fact is, that the truth is life, and anything less than the truth is a lie. It’s like taking your prescription if you are seriously ill. You have to take it all, if it is going to have the desired cure. I will admit, there are some difficult things in the gospel. It’s not easy to renounce the world, to give up sinful habits that you enjoy. It’s not easy to let go of the pursuit of fame or wealth in exchange for life in the Spirit. But it’s the way of life. And if you don’t accept it all, then it’s not going to be effective. There is no half truth and no half gospel.

And notice also that Peter capitalizes on what Jesus said earlier in vs.63 which says, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Peter reiterates that in his profession; “You have the words of eternal life.” He believes the word of Christ. Secondly, he believes in Christ. And what exactly does He believe? He believes and has come to know that Jesus is the Holy One of God. That’s a tremendous statement of faith. That is saving faith. That is faith whereby God imputes righteousness to our account.

Peter and the disciples don’t know everything yet. But the gospel is progressive. God is willing to take the faith of a child and develop it to mature faith. But we start with what light we have been shown. And as we are obedient in faith to that light, then He will show us more light. Sometimes we have to believe what we don’t understand in order to gain understanding. In due time, Peter and the apostles would see everything clearly. But for now, they understand enough. They understand that Jesus is holy, that He is from God, that He preexisted with God, and that God had sent Him to earth so that we might have eternal life. They believed that He was the source of life, and that His word was the bread of heaven by which life is sustained.

Listen, Jesus spoke this sermon 2000 years ago, but today I believe God has spoken to you through His word, and as a result, God has given you a proposal; to believe in Christ, to receive Him as your Savior and Lord. I trust that you have made a profession of your faith in response to that proposal; That He is the Holy One of God, that He is the source of life, even eternal life, and that believing in Him, you will trust Him for the salvation of your soul. That is only made possible by the fact that Jesus offered Himself as our substitute, bearing our sins upon the cross, so that God might transfer our sins to Him, and Christ’s righteousness to us. If you believe that, and receive that, then you have eternal life. Note that vs.54, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, HAS eternal life. Not will have, but has now. It is the present reality of your salvation. Eternal life begins today if you receive Him today. I trust that today is the day of your salvation.

I think that quite often, the greatest difficulty in living the Christian life of faith is being able to distinguish between the physical and the spiritual distinctives of our faith. By that I mean, how does God operate in the physical realm, and how does God operate in the spiritual realm, and by extension, how are we to operate in both? I have said from this pulpit repeatedly, that every physical healing or miracle presented in the gospels, is given to illustrate a spiritual principle. And that seems to be accepted by most Christians. You may not have thought of it that way before, but you are not necessarily opposed to it. For instance, what I mean by that is when Jesus healed the paralyzed man, spiritually speaking He was giving life to that which was dead, so that it illustrated spiritual new life in Christ. We all agree with that, do we not?

But let’s take that principle and work it out more thoroughly and I think you will find it’s difficulty. Does that mean then that God is not concerned so much about the physical as He is the spiritual? Does the fact that we do not see paralyzed people restored to full use of their limbs today emblematic of the primarily spiritual nature of the kingdom of God? Should we then expect to see faith producing physical healing or spiritual healing? Are miracles something that we should expect in this new life in Christ? Or does being a Christian mean we find spiritual life which transcends physical difficulties? And even if that is true, does that mean that all physical difficulties must simply be endured in suffering until we one day die and our only hope is in the resurrection?

I don’t know if I can fully answer all those questions in our study today. But I will truthfully say that I ask myself many of those questions on an ongoing basis. I am quite familiar with all the arguments and doctrines on both sides of all those questions. But in practice, in day to day living, I still find myself asking where is the line of demarcation between the physical world we live in, and the spiritual kingdom we belong to. And I must confess that it is a daily struggle to find that line and live within it’s boundaries.

But I will suggest that this question of the spiritual and the physical characteristics of the kingdom of God is exactly what Jesus is getting at in this passage. And yet it is still difficult at times to understand precisely the limits of what our salvation qualifies us to expect. And to be quite frank, even Jesus Himself seems at times to deliberately leave us with some questions unanswered even as He is teaching us the principles.

The question though which is quite clearly presented in this passage is – what constitutes the kingdom of God? How do we understand it, grab hold of it, appropriate it from the spiritual realm into the physical realm and what does that look like? And I think we find a key illustration of this question in vs.15, as the people wished to make Christ king in response to His miracles, and yet Jesus obviously does not want that to happen, and so He withdraws from the crowd and basically disappears into the mountain alone, only to walk across the storm tossed lake in the middle of the night to arrive at the opposite shore, leaving the multitudes to try to figure out where He went. Now that would be almost comical if it were not such a serious issue. Imagine a preacher today becoming so popular that the people want to make him president of the United States. Most of us would think that would be a great opportunity. Christians seem to think that is the answer to our problems, to get a Christian into the White House. And then imagine that this immensely popular preacher disappears from public view and goes into hiding right before the Republican Convention. (of course he is Republican). It would go against all reason for a successful, popular Christian preacher to act like that, and throw away such a great opportunity to exercise his influence in the nation. And yet that is exactly what Jesus did. He disappeared.

Now though it is not stated here explicitly, we know the reason that Jesus refused to be king of Israel. We know that He came to establish a spiritual kingdom and not a physical one. He said to Pilate in John 18:36 “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” We could imagine that even after His resurrection He might have chosen to set up His rule on the throne of Israel and began a physical rule over the world. But instead He chose to leave this world and send us His Holy Spirit to rule from our hearts. So we know without a doubt from the vantage point of history that Christ did not come to establish a physical kingdom but a spiritual one. We also know through prophecy that He will one day come again and at that time He will physically rule the world because the world will be spiritually and physically remade.

As Christians, we are given a new spirit, being born again spiritually, and then our spirit in unison with the Holy Spirit is to rule over our soul, that is our mind, will and intellect, and our soul is to rule over our body. But how far does that authority extend? Are we to spiritually create a new body, or as Romans 8:13 asserts, are we to just put to death the deeds of the body, crucifying the flesh? So do we now worship God in spirit, but sacrifice our body?

So there is this disconnect as Christians in determining how we live in God’s spiritual kingdom and yet live in the physical realm. On the one hand, Jesus as God’s ambassador to Earth, reveals certain spiritual principles in physical manifestations of power, and yet on the other hand, He does not want to establish a physical kingdom by exerting His rule physically. And as I indicated, not only was it difficult for the Jews to understand, but it is difficult for us to understand in this age. On the one hand we read in Phil. 4:19 “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” And on the other hand we read in Phil.1:29 “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” It’s tough to make the right distinction sometimes as to what we are to expect in the spiritual life.

And then to add even more confusion there are a lot of people out there which are teaching that as Christian you never need to have to suffer at all. But that we are to claim success or prosperity and God’s blessing on our lives so that we are able to live above the fray and have victory in all things. They teach that the things which beleaguer the world such as sickness or hardship does not have to be the lot of people of faith. If you have enough faith, you can create your own reality. That is widely taught, and wildly popular, especially by certain preachers on television, but also in many churches throughout our country.

So as I said, I don’t anticipate being able to address all those questions and concerns here today, but I do believe that this discourse that Jesus engages in here is the beginning point for us to understand the distinctions between the spiritual and the physical. So I want to look at five of those distinctions, in a sort of comparative manner, and I think we will get some insight into understanding the difference between the spiritual and physical perspectives. And so we are going to look at two types of appetites, two types of work, two types of signs, two types of bread, and two types of disciples.

First two types of appetites. Remember the context; Jesus had fed the multitude bread and fish on the mountain the day before. Probably close to 15000 people had eaten dinner and been filled up from one little boy’s lunch of 5 loaves and two fish. That was a dramatic miracle of great magnitude which 15000 people experienced. The result was they wanted to make Christ king of Israel, He disappears because that is not what He came to do at that time.

So the next day the multitudes are looking for Jesus. They can’t find Him, they know that He didn’t get in the boat with the disciples, and so eventually they get into boats themselves and go to the other side, thinking that somehow He will eventually go home to Capernaum and they will be there when He arrives. Turns out, He is already there. He walked across the lake in the middle of the night in the midst of a storm. They don’t know that, so they say, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

This would have been a good opportunity for Jesus to put another feather in His cap, and tell them about how He walked upon the water and all of that story. But Jesus doesn’t do that. He instead discerns their motives for seeking Him, and so He cuts to the chase. He says is in vs. 26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

So here is the problem. These people are seeking Jesus. Most preachers would think that is a good problem to have. People want to come to your church. They are seeking you out. But not so much for Jesus. He wants seekers who are interested in the truth, not just looking for a free meal. See, the difference is that they had an appetite, but for the wrong things. They wanted to eat. They wanted to fill their stomachs again. They were hungry again. And their appetite for physical fulfillment was what was driving them to Jesus.

So there is an appetite which is geared towards the physical. It’s an appetite fixated on finding physical fulfillment. On being physically satisfied. And for those people, they will find that nothing physical really ever satisfies. We are programed to eat three meals a day everyday, because everyday we get hungry again. And that is a picture of the food which perishes.

Jesus is offering another type of food. Spiritual food. He says the Son of Man will give you spiritual food, which leads to eternal life. But they could not see that. They could only see the physical bread. That is why He rebukes them by saying “you seek me not because you saw the signs but because you ate of the food.” In other words, the miracle of feeding the 5000 was not an end in itself, to quench physical hunger, but it was to be a sign. And a sign points to something. A sign advertises something. And what that sign should have revealed to them was the truth about Christ; that He was the source of eternal life.

In Matthew 5:6, Jesus speaks of satisfying our spiritual hunger, saying, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” So that is the comparison that I think Jesus is speaking of. They were seeking satisfaction for their physical appetite, and consequently would not find satisfaction. If they would have had a spiritual appetite, then they would have found Jesus, who can satisfy all our needs for all eternity.

The second comparison we see is two types of work. Vs.28, “Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’” Now obviously, two types of work refers to physical works or spiritual works. The work that they are asking about is physical work, because they say, “what shall we do?” This is really the quest of religion, isn’t it? All religion is a system of works whereby man seeks to gain acceptance with God. And that is what Judaism had devolved into. A system of works, keeping the law, keeping the Sabbath, circumcision, sacrifices, etc. This was the universal approach of the Judaism. Remember what the rich young ruler said to Jesus in Mark 10:17, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The Jews were conditioned to think in terms of works as a means of salvation.

So when Jesus says that there is a work of God which results in eternal life in vs.27, they want to know what work that is. Like the Jews that asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment. And today in religion the question is the same; what must I do? What work can I do to ensure my acceptance before God?

Well, we know the answer to that question, don’t we? According to Titus 3:5 it’s “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” So on the one hand Jesus said in Matt.5:6 that we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness, but in Titus it says that it is not by our works of righteousness. So then how are we saved? It must be by another’s righteousness. That is the answer. By faith we appropriate Christ’s righteousness for ourselves.

That is what Jesus is referring to in vs. 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” Believe in Him. What does that mean? They could see Him, so it could not refer to simply believing that He existed. To believe in God does not save you. Then what? To believe that Jesus was sent by God, that He was God. And if He was God, then He was righteous and holy. That there is none righteous but God. That was the answer Jesus gave to the rich young ruler. Righteousness is the character of God and God alone. We are not righteous, and cannot become righteous, because sin has corrupted even our good works.

Note the contrast in what Jesus says though in vs.29; He says that faith is a work of God.They has asked what work they could do, and Jesus responds by saying what work God has done. Faith is not a work of the flesh, but a work of the Spirit. Ephesians 2:1 in the KJV says, “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” The idea behind that verse is that God must give us eyes to see, and ears to hear, and hearts to understand so that we might believe. Faith then is a gift of God. It says that very thing just a few verses further along in Eph.2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Neither grace nor faith is of yourselves. But in the mystery of God He predestined us, and called us, and justified us, so that He might glorify us. Salvation is a work of God from start to finish. But the Jews thought that salvation was through their own work. But like Jesus told Nicodemus in chapter 3, if you want to be spiritual, and receive spiritual things, then you must be born again spiritually. So we are to trust in the spiritual work of God through Christ. That is faith, that is what it means to believe in Him.

Then they asked Him another question, and this one illustrates yet another comparison; the comparison of physical miracles or spiritual signs. In vs. 30 they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.’”

This is the cry of the world, the cry of the unbeliever, the cry of the doubters. Give us a miracle so that we might believe. Jesus said to the crowds in Luke 11:29 “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.” I have to interpret that as it is wicked to ask for a sign. You can even go so far as to say that it is a sin to ask for a miracle, if you are asking as a pretext for faith. Remember what Heb. 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

I will admit to a similar failure of faith, and that is to doubt or fail to trust the Lord because He does not act in a supernatural method when I ask Him too. I will say this with some degree of admitted confusion. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what we are at liberty to ask for, and what things we need to trust God in spite of. I will admit to wanting God to act in a supernatural fashion and when He doesn’t do it as I wish, I find myself doubting the goodness of God, or the reliability of God, or perhaps my understanding of God. And in such cases I would just say that we must be careful not to treat God like a genie, which if we say abbra caddabra, in just the right formula, He is obligated to perform our wishes as His command. God is not a genie, or our servant, but He is Lord, and we are His servants. So we must come to Him not in an air of entitlement, but of entreatment for His favor, if it be according to His will.

So what they were looking for was a daily evidence of food, like Moses seemed to provide. They followed Moses because everyday there was manna from heaven. That was the daily evidence that they needed to follow Moses, even though they did not accept all that Moses said, yet they followed him because of the miracles. But Jesus corrects their thinking. Vs.32, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”

Now there is a lot in those verses which we don’t have time to expand on right now, but suffice it to say that it’s like what I said earlier; a sign points to something or someone. And in the case of the manna from heaven, first of all Jesus said Moses didn’t give them the bread, God did. And the sign of manna from heaven was designed to point to the bread of heaven which God gave to the world, that is Jesus Christ. They not only misattributed the miracle to Moses, but they completely missed the message of the sign.

That is I think the problem with the church today that is so taken up with signs and wonders. They point back to the signs of the apostles and say that since they had that power, then we should have the same power. But they make the same mistake that these Jews made; they misattribute the power as residing in the apostles. It was God who was working through them. It wasn’t in the apostle’s power to perform miracles. God had to do it, and He did it for a purpose. And that purpose was to point to Jesus Christ. The signs and wonders of the apostles was to attest to the fact that they spoke the life giving words of Christ. And once that was established, and the Bible was written, then the signs and wonders ceased, even as the manna from heaven ceased.

Jesus did not need to give manna from heaven everyday in order to prove He was the Son of God. The life that He came to give was not physical, which is sustained by bread. But the life He came to give was spiritual, and in that sense He gave Himself once and it was sufficient for all the world, for all eternity.

So that leads us to the fourth point, where we see that there are two types of bread. Vs. 34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” I think that the Jews were still expecting physical bread. I guess they could not really see what Jesus was talking about beyond what they could see, touch or taste. They were sensual, physical and spiritually dead. They desired an experience that they could feel or taste. And so notice that they sound like they are asking for the bread of life, but the fact that they add “always” indicates that they still don’t understand the spiritual nature of what Jesus is talking about. They are still hung up on the manna which fell from heaven every day for the life of the Jews. That indicates they are still thinking physical. That reminds me of those poor souls that go into confession week after week, saying prayer after prayer, doing penance after penance, trying to find assurance of salvation. Trying to earn their way into heaven by being good. Instead of realizing that by one sacrifice their sins were put away forever they sacrifice Christ daily in an effort to effect their salvation. But Heb.9:26 says, “but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

So there is a bread of self effort that results in only sustaining the physical. But there is another spiritual bread which gives everlasting life, abundant life, spiritual life. And Jesus says if you eat of this bread, you will never be hungry again. He obviously is speaking of something better than manna, better than daily bread, but bread which is eternal, which satisfies forever.

I’m reminded of how back in the hippy movement, it was popular to use the slang word for money, which was to call it bread. I think they were right to some degree. It’s physical bread. It makes the world go around. It really takes me back to the original statement of Jesus in vs.27, “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” I think of so many people today who are working for the physical bread which perishes. They are working for what they call the “blessings” of God according to the American Dream. That means a nice house, cars, vacations, entertainment, the latest technology. I particularly see our Christian young people seduced into thinking that they have to acquire those things first, at whatever expense spiritually it may take, and then at some point in the future they think that once they have achieved the American Dream then they will be able to focus more on God’s desires. But the truth is, they have believed the lie of the devil that there is satisfaction to be found in the physical bread of this world. It will not satisfy, and so at middle age they will still be looking for more, more of what will never satisfy.

I can only hope that such people are actually, truly followers of Christ. Because the truth is that there were two kinds of disciples there that day in Capernaum listening to Jesus. All of them were followers. Get that please. All of the people there that day were following Christ. And John even goes so far as to call them all disciples. But disciples as a very general term. It means followers, learners, students. And so some were following Jesus for the wrong reasons. They wanted the daily benefits to their life that He seemed to be able to give. They were looking for a king to deliver them from physical oppression. There were probably as many reasons for following Him as there were people there. But when Jesus really laid down the requirements for what constituted true discipleship, then it says in vs. 66 “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”

Why did they fall away? Because they did not believe His word. Jesus said in vs. 35, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” They believed in what they could see, taste and touch, what seemed good to them. They did not believe in what they could not physically see, and so failed to appropriate spiritual insight.

Listen, we are going to continue this sermon of Jesus next week and we will look at all of this in more detail. But our study today should have led you to examine yourself in light of the comparison between the spiritual and the physical. What is your motivation for following the Lord? Is it only in hope that He will fulfill your appetite? Is your appetite for things of this world, for the physical, for the material? Or do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? How about your work? Are you trying to work your way into heaven? Are you hoping that in the long run your good deeds will outweigh your bad and so God will let you in? Or is your work faith in what Christ has accomplished for you? And how about your attitude towards the supernatural? Have you found yourself trusting or not trusting God based on your efforts to manipulate God to do your will? And then the ultimate question; have you eaten of the bread of life which satisfies, which saves forever? If so, then you are truly a disciple of Christ. But if you are seeking the bread of material gain, and trying to use Christ to fulfill that desire, then I’m afraid that you haven’t yet believed in all that Christ is, and came to be. He came to be our substitute for our sins, our Savior by His sacrifice, and our Lord and King when we surrender our will to do His will. I hope that you are not one of those who turns away from the truth of Christ, but believes on Him unto salvation.

I don’t know what it is about religious holidays, but I just can’t get too enthusiastic about them. I guess I’m less concerned about formalities, and more concerned about realities perhaps. Somehow, the more ceremonial and religious it gets, the less it does for me. So that’s my excuse why I’m not too concerned that my message this morning is not a typical Easter message. I guess I’m not your typical preacher, and this isn’t a typical church for that matter.

The fact is though, we celebrate Easter every Sunday. If it were not for the reality of the resurrection, we would still be meeting on Saturdays. But we meet on the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the church established in the first century. Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs came several centuries later and as far as I can figure out have little to do with the resurrection.

But I don’t want to knock your traditions here this morning. Paul said in Romans 14:5, “One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” So if the traditions of Easter celebrations help you to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, then go for it.

But on the other hand, you shouldn’t be upset if I don’t follow the traditions of the holiday. I have been preaching through the book of John verse by verse for some time now and I see no reason to change course. If the resurrection isn’t true and didn’t happen, then everything I preach is worthless and void. So the fact of the resurrection is something that is essential to the foundations of our faith, and because of that we can build the church of Christ here on earth.

However, we should be careful not to add pomp and circumstance as a substitute for substance. Religious ritual and ceremony which was instituted by the law was what was done away with at the cross. So we have to guard against adding new ceremonies. Paul writing to the church at Galatia said in Gal.4:9 “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.…”

Here is the point I wish to make; there is a form of religious ceremonialism and mysticism that is acceptable and pleasing to the masses, and yet it is powerless to really make a difference in your life. This is what Paul warns Timothy about saying that such people “have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Worship then is not merely pageantry or ceremonies or rituals or even music. Worship requires first that you be made spiritual, by believing the truth of God and acting upon that truth in faith and trust.

The resurrection teaches us that we must die to the old man, and be raised to new life, spiritual life in Christ. In Adam we were all made dead spiritually. God said if you eat of the tree you will surely die. What died? Well, the spirit of man died immediately. The spiritual sustains the physical. So that in due time the flesh died. Thus all men are born dead spiritually. The cross of Christ illustrates that death that is unavoidable as a result of our sin. But by faith in Christ as our substitute affecting our atonement, we are made alive spiritually. And because we are alive spiritually, we can have life, and have it more abundantly.

Now that new life is what is being presented here in this chapter symbolically in the feeding of the 5000. Jesus is illustrating that He is the source of life. At the end of the chapter we are going to be looking at a rather long discourse by Christ about how He is the bread of life, by which we eat and are made alive spiritually. But in the first section we have two miracles which serve as illustrations of life in and by the Spirit. The feeding of the 5000, (which was just men, so probably closer to 15000 with women and children), and then Jesus walking on the water.

In the first miracle, the illustration teaches us that Jesus is the source of life. He is the bread of life. Bread being understood to be the staple by which life is sustained. And as Jesus supernaturally manufactured bread and fish from HIs hands, He powerfully demonstrates that He is the source of life. But if you look at vs.15, Jesus knew that the people weren’t interested in spiritual life, but only in temporal, earthly things. They wanted to make Him King. Everyone who follows politics recognizes that whoever can give the masses free food and free health care has the people’s vote. Jesus seemed to be healing everyone of their diseases, and now providing free food, so “hey, let’s make Him King!” They wanted a King to deliver them from Rome and Jesus seemed at that point like the deliverer Moses was from the Egyptians.

But that isn’t what Jesus wanted. He did not come to earth to set up a physical kingdom at this time. He said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” So Jesus did not come to enact a physical kingdom but to establish a spiritual kingdom. He came to make men spiritually alive, and once that element of the kingdom comes to completion, then He will come again physically and bring His physical kingdom into existence. So the principle is that the spiritual empowers the physical. That is an important principle of the Christian life. The spiritual empowers the physical. That’s what happened in the garden of Eden. When the spiritual died, the physical died.

And that is the operative principle for the life of a Christian. The spiritual gives life to the physical. That principle is going to be preached by Christ later on in this very passage; Jesus said in vs.63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

What Jesus did by feeding the 15000 was one of the greatest miracles in the Bible. I mean by that the magnitude of the miracle. It wasn’t one person being healed; but 15000 people eating food that He created. But what does that miracle teach us? It teaches us that the physical food that Jesus created and gave them to eat, may have sustained them physically, but it did not do anything for them spiritually. They were not saved as a result of eating the food that He provided. They would have been saved by responding in faith to what that taught; that He was the source of life, God incarnate. That’s the message that He was preaching, the message concerning the nature of the spiritual kingdom of God. If they had responded to that message, they would have been saved. But the eating of fish and bread did not save them.

Folks, for that reason, eating communion, or taking the mass, will not, cannot, save you. It does not impute righteousness to your account. Eph.2:8,9 says “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

So though the feeding of the 5000 did not provide salvation, it illustrated that faith in Christ is the source of life, and that spiritual life as well as physical life comes through Him. But not all who heard Him that day, nor ate of the miraculous food He provided were saved. Only by receiving the spiritual food He offered could they be saved and receive spiritual life.

Now then what is the meaning of the second miracle? In this miracle we see Jesus sending the multitude away, according to the parallel passage in Mark 6, and then making the disciples to get into the boat and sending them across the Sea of Galilee. So note first of all, this is not a miracle for the mixed multitude, but it’s a miracle for the saved, the believers, for the church if you will. So that’s going to give us a context for how to understand it. It’s for His followers, those that already have believed in Christ,and consequently are made spiritually alive.

I believe in some respects that this event is a foreshadowing of what to expect in the Christian life, as we live the spiritual life that we have been given, particularly for these disciples, but also for us in the church as well. And that is evidenced by the fact that Jesus is separated from His disciples. They don’t want to go away from Him, but He has to send them away. And I think that this prefigures the ascension of Christ after His resurrection. He offers Himself as the bread of life which was broken for us on the cross, and soon after His resurrection He is taken up into heaven and His followers are left alone. In this event we notice that Christ is alone on the mountain praying or interceding with the Father on behalf of the disciples. In Mark 6:48 it says that Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars, and yet at that point He was on the mountain and they were several miles away on the sea in the darkness. This is a picture of the separation that the disciples would experience after His resurrection.

Now there are several things we can notice about this event. First of all, that trials are the predetermined, sovereign plan of God. Jesus knows what is going to happen, and yet He deliberately sends the disciples into a storm. You know, a lot of people expect that the Christian life is going to be a trouble free existence. That somehow, being a Christian is insurance that life is going to be smooth going. But the Bible doesn’t promise that at all.

In fact, if we had time I could show scores of texts that show that we are promised tribulation in the Christian life. We are promised persecution. We are promised hardships. That’s not to say that Christians are necessarily going to experience more difficulties than the unsaved. On the contrary, I think the Bible teaches us that by following God’s way we are delivered from many hardships. But the difference is that as Christians, God uses trials to teach us and refine us, to enable us to be stronger spiritually, capable of achieving more for the kingdom of God. That’s why James says in James 1:2, that we are to “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

So Jesus makes the disciples go out without Him, and notice that though the disciples don’t really want to go, or necessarily understand why, they are obedient to the Lord’s commands. In fact, they continue to be obedient even though all the circumstances seem to be against them. It should have only been a short trip by boat of about 7 miles, but the wind started to pick up against them. The wind of course produces waves which makes it almost impossible to row the boat with any forward speed. And then it gets dark. So there is a lot going against the disciples, even though they are being obedient. In fact, the trip seems to take forever. They leave Jesus on the shore before sunset and start rowing. And Mark says that it was the fourth watch of the night when Jesus came walking on the water towards them. That’s between 3am and 6am. Can you imagine rowing a boat against a gale force wind, with waves crashing over the front of the boat for perhaps as long as 8 hours? Those disciples never imagined that the trip could have lasted so long.

There are so many things we can learn from that. The main thing I would emphasize is that the walk of faith, or the spiritual life is not easy. It’s not easy because it’s not normal. As a Christian, you are figuratively running against the wind. You are swimming against the current. The world is described in Ephesians 2:2 as a current, as a course in which the river of life flows. And it goes on to say that it is designed by the devil to keep you enslaved to it. So when salvation comes to us, and we are given new life in Christ, by which we walk in the Spirit, we are in effect striving against the forces of this world which are in opposition to us. And that is a battle. It’s so tempting sometimes to just give in to the current, to allow yourself to get swept along by the things of this world.

Notice in Mark 6:48, Jesus sees them straining at the oars. I hope you can picture that. These guys were straining. The Christian life can sometimes require a battle that tests all your resolve. I’ll give those disciples something. They persevered. They kept at it. Eight hours after saying goodbye to Jesus on the shore they are still rowing with all their might. And they are still only in the middle of the lake. Listen, sometimes our trials last a lot longer than we think they should. Sometimes we think that there is no way that God could be in this situation. It’s gone on too long. There are too many things working against us.

I’ve been guilty of thinking that far too many times. I start counting all the things working against us, all the things which have gone wrong. I start thinking about how long I’ve been rowing and have so little to show for it. I sometimes get so discouraged. And then there is the darkness. How depressing is the darkness. The nights when you wake up every hour and it’s still only the middle of the night. When you pray and doze off, and then wake up a few minutes later and do it again. And the nights seem to go on forever, and God seems so far away. Sometimes, we soldier on in obedience, but we have long since run out of joy and our hope is almost completely gone. There is a song which is from a sermon I think, that I’ve come across a couple of times this holiday, which says, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a coming.” The idea being that when it’s dark and things look hopeless, hang on, Sunday’s coming. The darkness was crushing on the Friday of crucifixion, but on Sunday, when the sun comes up, it reveals that the Son of God has risen.

Well, the disciples still had a few hours to go before the dawn, and it was dark, raining, waves threatening to sink their boat, they had made practically no progress, the wind was pushing them backwards for every foot of progress they made, and it had gone on far too long. But what they didn’t realize was that Jesus was watching and praying for them on that mountain. Oh, if they could have known that truth, how much more encouraged they might have been. I want you to know something this morning, ladies and gentlemen. No matter how difficult your long night of trial, no matter how long you have been straining against the oars, no matter how long the wind has been against you, or how big the waves are breaking against your boat, Jesus is watching over you, and He is praying for you.

I want you to know that you are not alone on that dark night of your trial. Jesus is watching you and praying for you.If that doesn’t encourage you then I don’t know what will. But if you are HIs child, then He has promised to watch over you and to intercede on your behalf to God. Hebrews speaks of our great High Priest who is Jesus Christ, who has been seated at the right hand of the Father as our mediator, and intercessor. And so it says in Heb 4:13-16 “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Now that should be a great comfort. But notice that Jesus doesn’t just pray and leave them there to deal with it alone, but He comes to help them. However, I want to point out that Jesus delays coming until the poor disciples are worn completely out and the night is almost gone. You know, my biggest problem sometimes in the spiritual life is understanding the timing of God. Why does He so often delay? Why does He let us reach the end of our resources, the end of ourselves before coming to help us? I think it is to teach us that the end of our extremity is God’s opportunity. God wants us to reach the end of our strength so that we might come to rely on His strength. Paul said in 2Cor. 12:10 “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” The Lord’s strength is made perfect in my weakness, but I must recognize my weakness for His strength to be completed in me.

So Jesus finally comes to them, walking on the water in the midst of the storm. There is an interesting principle there. When you pray for someone, there is a good chance that God will appoint you to be the answer to your prayer. And Jesus illustrates that principle right there. I appreciate it when someone says I will pray for you. But sometimes, I think if they really prayed, they would find that God has given them the means by which to answer that prayer. God choses to use people to minister to His people. But sometimes I believe people try to get off the hook by praying and not doing. James said in James 2:16 if you say to someone in need, “’Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?”

But the disciples see what they think is a ghost on the water walking to them. Now a lot of people give the disciples a hard time about being frightened, but I think that when you have been in the middle of a fierce gale for 8 hours, and rowing yourself to exhaustion, probably haven’t eaten or drank anything because of the severity of the storm, you obviously haven’t been able to sleep either, and suddenly you see a figure walking on water through this storm and through the waves, you would probably freak out too.

So Jesus says to them, “Take courage, it is I, be not afraid.” I don’t know for sure what fear Jesus was referring to. Was it the fear of the waves, the fear of the wind, the fear of the night, or the fear of Him? I sometimes think that we fear complete surrender to the Lord almost more than we do the terrors of tribulation. It’s amazing to me sometimes to talk to someone who is caught up in some destructive sin, and it has almost completely destroyed their life. They have lost everything or are about to. And yet when you tell them that the only hope that they have is to surrender to the Lord and ask Him to help them you would think that you just asked them to do something terrifying. People are so afraid to surrender completely to the Lord, to ask Him to be their Savior. And I can only guess it’s because they are afraid that they will have to let go of the steering wheel of their lives and let God have control. We are so conditioned to try to control our lives. And the devil’s lie is that we still have control even when our lives are clearly out of control.

But I suppose at it’s simplest Jesus is saying that if we are God’s children, and we are doing what He tells us to do, we are living in obedience, then He is in control over the events of our life and we don’t need to be afraid. I’ve said it before and I will say it again; there is no safer place on earth than to be in the will of God, and there is no safe place outside of the will of God. If you are doing what God has told you to do, then you need not fear what man or nature can do to you. Rom. 8:31 “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”

This miracle illustrates that not only is God for us, but He is with us. Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” In the storms of our Christian life, we can be certain that not only does God superintend the trials we go through, but He has promised that Jesus would pray for us and watch over us as we go through them, and that He will be with us when we go through them. He says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” He says in Isaiah 43:1-2 “But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel,”Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;I have called you by name; you are Mine! “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,Nor will the flame burn you.” We can be unafraid of life’s trials when we know that the Source of life is with us.

And there is one more application that I want to make today which is that He is the strength and the supply we need to do what He tells us to do. The disciples had rowed all night and made practically no progress. But John tells us that when Jesus got into the boat with them, they were immediately at the other side of the lake. It says in vs.21, “So they were willing to receive Him into the boat.” Listen, that’s not talking about salvation, but sanctification. Jesus gives you new life at justification, but He empowers your life through sanctification. You get the power to overcome sin, and the power to get through temptation and trials when you let Jesus take command of your boat. That’s the secret to sanctification. We have been given the power to triumph over sin and temptation, but it’s not in our strength, it’s not in our straining at the oars, it’s in giving Jesus permission to captain our vessel. When we look to Him for wisdom in every decision, for guidance in every action and then let Him direct our lives according to His will, then we will find ourselves arriving safely at our destination.

The destination for a Christian isn’t just heaven, ladies and gentlemen. The destination for a Christian is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To be remade in the image of God. To reflect the light of Christ in our lives. And to do that in our own power and might is not possible. The only way it’s possible is to be filled with the Spirit of God, in accordance with the truth of God, and in obedience to the word of God, and in the power of God, we then walk as Jesus walked.

To be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ is to be sanctified here on earth, and then one day to be glorified with Him in heaven. That’s the purpose of the trials of life, to sanctify us for His purposes. Paul said in Rom. 8:28-30 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

That’s the lesson we need to learn from this passage; that Christ is the source of life because He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the beginning and the end. What He has called us to, He is able to make possible. But in doing so He often brings us through times of difficulty and trial, and though sometimes it seems to take forever, He is working in us that which is pleasing to Him, to bring about conformity to His Son, that we might be His representatives here on earth.

In closing, let me remind you of what I said at the beginning. The physical cannot produce the spiritual. You must be born of the Spirit of God to have spiritual life within you. Then once you are spiritual, the physical is empowered by the Spirit of God, so that we might do the works of God. The question I have for you is do you have life in the Spirit? Have you been born again by the Spirit of God? If not, then today I offer you the Bread of Life. Believe in Him and receive life.

And if you are saved, then I hope that you have come to know more completely the process of our spiritual life. That our purpose is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to do the works of God, so that others may see our good works and glorify God. It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to mean swimming against the current, but God has a plan for you, Jesus is praying for you and interceding on your behalf, and He will come to you and help you if you will receive Him as captain of your soul. He is the source of our life, and the source of our strength, and He is ever ready to help us in time of need.

This miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is probably one of the best known miracles in the Bible. Perhaps that’s because it is the only miracle that is presented in all four gospels. And as such it is perhaps difficult to provide new insight that hasn’t already been presented elsewhere at some point in the past. But that’s not really my job anyway. A pastor’s job is not to try to find out new information, or a new perspective and show everyone how smart he is because he has something different. But the pastor’s job is just to present the old, old story – to a new audience. So I probably won’t have anything new to say this morning, but I do hope that God will provide the impetus of the Holy Spirit through the Word, so that it will come home to you in a practical way.

The danger of familiarity is that we can lose sight of the practicality and the purpose, and think we already know the answers. It’s like the little boy who was asked what his favorite Bible story was. He said, “I like the one where everyone loafs and fishes.” He was familiar with the story, but he misunderstood the meaning. Maybe some of you may have that kind of familiarity. I know I do. I grew up in the church. Literally. My dad was a pastor. I was born while he was at Bible college. I grew up attending church about 4 times a week. Back in those days, they used to give you a little pin for attending Sunday School if you attended every Sunday during the year without missing one. And each year thereafter you got another pin that hung off the bottom of the primary pin. It was like a medal, that had a ribbon added every year that you were in attendance every Sunday. By the time I was a teenager, I had about 13 little ribbons on my pin. I was like a Sunday School hero.

But growing up in the church has it’s downside. One was I knew all the songs in the hymnbook by heart. But the downside was I learned them before I could read. So in later years I discovered that some of the lyrics to songs were quite a bit different than what I thought they were. For instance, it was a few years before I realized it was “blessed assurance, Jesus is mine” and not “blessed insurance, Jesus is mine.” I had heard what I thought were the words, but turns out I was substituting another word that sounded like it, but had a different meaning.

Maybe that illustrates the difficulty in coming to familiar passages of scripture. We think we know the words, but we may have missed the meaning. So rather than give you some new geography insights, or historical insights, or even theological insights, I want to just focus on the purpose of the miracle this morning, and make sure that we all have the right message.

This is the fourth miracle that John presents in his gospel. And yet at this point in Christ’s life, Jesus has been in public ministry about 2 years. So John leaves a lot out. In fact, since the end of chapter five, it’s probably been at least 6 months to a year that has elapsed. But the miracles that John does give us are strategically presented in order to illustrate his stated purpose found in the 20th chapter. John 20:30-31 “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

So that’s the purpose of this miracle. It’s to teach us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that if you believe in Him, receive Him, then you will have life though Him. That is the summary of John’s opening thesis of chapter one where he sets forth the theology and doctrine of Christ whom he calls the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And then he says that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

You should know by now the principle that I state almost every week – that every physical miracle presented in the gospel is given to illustrate a spiritual principle. And that is especially true of this event. There have been many misinterpretations of this miracle over the centuries. Not the least of which is that of a social gospel, the idea that this presents a template for what the church is to be about; feeding the hungry. Or another favorite interpretation of Sunday school teachers, that it teaches little boys that we need to share, and if we share, then we contribute to the accomplishment of the purpose for which Christ came; to make us nicer, more gentle, giving people, and to make the world a better place.

But the fact is, that Jesus took care of natural needs only as a means to take care of spiritual needs. I have to be constantly reminded of this myself as I go through life. I tend to focus on the physical, on the immediate, and I lose sight of the spiritual. But what this miracle illustrates is that Jesus did not come to set up a physical kingdom on earth, where peace and goodwill would prevail. That is exactly what He took great pains to avoid, as you can see in the last section of this passage. Look at vs.15, “So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”

Jesus didn’t come to set up a physical kingdom, where He would provide universal health care, and universal welfare. People will vote for that kind of king. But Jesus didn’t come to establish an earthly kingdom, or overthrow a political empire. Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom. So whatever He did in the physical, was designed to serve that purpose, and no other.

And as Christians, we need to be reminded of that. Christ always sought to expound the spiritual principle through the physical illustration, and not vice a versa. So when Christ works in our lives, it’s to promote spiritual growth, not physical growth. There may be times when He works in the physical, but it’s to bring about a spiritual transformation. It’s not just for physical comfort or success or profit, or just to make life more enjoyable. That’s how we get the cart before the horse.

But the fact that Jesus is also compassionate towards our physical needs goes without saying. These people were hungry and so Jesus is concerned about that and wants to provide for their needs. But there is a big difference between God supplying our needs and supplying our wants. Our wants never get satisfied. And God will not serve our wants. But He does promise to provide for our needs.

The multitude may have been following Jesus for less than perfect reasons, but He was still compassionate towards them, and so He feeds them physically, but as a means of feeding them spiritually. That’s what we really see going on here. It says in Luke 9:11, that when Jesus saw the crowds following Him, “He began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing.” In effect, His miracles were designed to teach them that He was the source of all life, even the Son of God. That’s what it means to teach them about the nature of the kingdom of God. But as is often the case, the people were a little short sighted. Most of them really only cared about the immediacy of the miracles and the signs that He was doing.

But it shows the mercy and compassion of God towards sinners that Christ does not rebuke them, knowing their lack of spiritual insight. But rather He continues to be gracious to sinners, in order to open their eyes to the truth. Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is designed to lead us to repentance. God is gracious and compassionate and kind, even towards sinners who are selfish, or motivated by self serving reasons. Paul said in Titus 3:4 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

So Jesus has already determined that He is going to feed the multitude, but He’s going to do it in such a way as to teach some important spiritual lessons. And so He turns His attention first to His disciples. That’s the first principle. That if we are going to change the world, it starts with us that are saved. It starts with the church. God wants to include us in the building of the kingdom of God. Why? Because I believe that this is merely practice for what we will be doing in eternity when we rule and reign with Christ in His kingdom. He wants to teach us and prepare us now for the day when we will be exalted to sit with Him on His throne in His kingdom.

Jesus turns to Philip in vs.5 and says, “‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’ This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.” Now understand something. When it says that Jesus said this to test him, it doesn’t mean to trick him, or to embarrass him by asking him a question that he knew he would get wrong. Jesus isn’t like our old high school teachers who liked to ask us questions when they knew we hadn’t done our homework. The idea of testing is to prove something. To prove that something works as it was designed to work. David, you will remember, said about Saul’s armor that he had not tested it, or proven it. That means he had not tried it out and knew that he could depend on it in a fight. Jesus wants to prove or test Philip’s faith. And maybe sometimes that means He has to stretch our faith. He presents an obstacle, and gives us the leeway to tackle that obstacle, not to watch us fail, but to show us the way that He wants us to overcome it. At the time, it may seem impossible, and we might not handle it right, but the divine purpose is to teach us to be overcomers, and that nothing is impossible with God, when it is God’s will.

Philip though pulls out his calculator. He is a practical guy. Maybe he was an accountant in his old life. But irregardless, he is practical. He does the math, and says, “Listen Lord, if we had 200 days worth of wages, we couldn’t buy enough bread to give everyone here a snack.” By the way, Matthew says in Matt.14:19, that there were 5000 men, not including women and children. So there were probably 15000 people in attendance. A denarius was a day’s wage for a Roman soldier, so we could estimate that equates to about $20,000 by today’s standards. Philip says we don’t have nearly enough money to feed these people. He was practical, but he was missing the point.

The point Jesus wanted to make was that it was impossible. Not practical, nor possible, but impossible. That’s the whole point of the gospel. It’s impossible for us to be reconciled to Christ. Our sins have created a chasm between us and God that cannot be jumped across. God gave us the law to show us that it was impossible to achieve God’s standard of righteousness. So God made the impossible possible through the impractical; holy, righteous God became sin for us, that we might be made righteous through Him.

Now in Mark’s gospel, chapter 6 we read that Jesus tells the disciples to go into the crowd and see if they could find some food. And when they come back Andrew reports that there is only one boy’s lunch, which is five barley loaves and two fish. But that only further emphasizes the impossibility of the situation. “What is that for so many people?”

Now a lot of commentators want to disparage the disciples for their lack of spiritual comprehension. Personally, I cringe whenever I hear preachers disparage the disciples, as if to say if they were there, they would have had all spiritual discernment. They wouldn’t have been like those knucklehead disciples who couldn’t see the forest for the trees. But I prefer to think we should give the disciples the benefit of the doubt. If Andrew didn’t have any faith, then I don’t think that he would have offered Jesus the boy’s lunch. I think he would have looked at that lunch and said, “there is no need to bring this to Jesus.” But I think there is a hint of a little faith here.

And let me tell you some good news. God can use a little faith. I preached last Wednesday on Psalm 121, and I never got past the first verse which was “I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains, from where comes my help?” And if you were there then you will remember that I used that as a pretext to go to Zechariah 4, where God tells Zerubbabel that the rebuilding of the temple will not be accomplished by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. And then the Lord goes on to say that he is not to despise the day of small things, but He will make this great mountain into a plain. Now I don’t want to go off on another tangent on that passage, but the point that I want to make is that God doesn’t despise small things, and He can use small things to move impossible mountains. Not by might, not by power, but by His Spirit.

In Matthew 17:20, there was a demon that the disciples could not cast out, and Jesus said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” The point is, a mustard seed is the smallest seed in the garden, and yet even faith of that small size, when it is faith in the right source, can move mountains. And nothing will be impossible with God.

Andrew had a little bit of faith. And the little boy had a little bit of lunch. But it was still an impossible situation. And Jesus wants to illustrate that even more. So He says, “have the people sit down.” It was a grassy knoll there, and the other gospels tell us that Jesus said to make the people sit in groups of 50 or 100. I like that. It shows Jesus had a sense of humor. Tell 12 disciples to go into a crowd of 15000 people and get them to sit down in groups of 50 on the ground. That’s 300 blocks of 50 people. That’s like a miracle in of itself to get that many people organized and quieted down and seated in rows. I think that was another test of faith. But the disciples didn’t object, they didn’t complain, and they got it done. They had enough faith to be obedient, even when it didn’t make sense or they didn’t understand it or it wasn’t easy.

Listen, that’s an important principle. When you are faced with an impossible situation, don’t start running around in circles like a chicken with it’s head cut off crying that the sky is falling. Go to God with what little faith you have, trust God to deal with the impossibility, and then just do what He tells you to do. Do what you know you are to do. Let me put that in practical terms for you. When your life is in chaos, don’t stop coming to church. Find your place in the congregation, sit down, and put yourself under subjection to God in spite of the difficulty. Be obedient to what God has already told you to do. Don’t stop praying, don’t stop reading your Bible. Order your life under the authority of God and make yourself ready to trust in God’s providence.

So Jesus takes the food in His hands and blesses it and breaks it and gives it to the disciples to distribute to the crowd. John doesn’t say that He gave it to the disciples, but the other gospels do. Again and again, you see Jesus using the disciples. But notice that He blesses the food, He gives thanks. He is giving thanks to illustrate that God is providing the miracle of feeding the multitude. Jesus isn’t doing this for His sake. If He were hungry He would not have created food for Himself. Satan tempted Him with that in the wilderness and Jesus rebuked him by saying, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus is doing this to glorify God, and to feed these people spiritually.

By the way, I hope you are in the habit of blessing your food before you eat. Jesus did it as an example to us, that we should give thanks in all things. Give thanks when you have but a little and God will multiply His blessings unto you. And don’t be ashamed to do it publicly as a testimony to others. That’s what Jesus was doing.

So how did Jesus feed 15000 people from 5 loaves and two fish? Well, he obviously created food already cooked and ready to be eaten. That’s what they call in the military MRE’s. Meals Ready to Eat. But I bet you Jesus’ meal tasted a whole lot better than the military version. Anyhow, the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how the miracle happened. But what it does tells us is the result of the miracle. Everyone ate until they were full. And the disciples gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers. John 1 told us that Jesus made everything in creation. So that is exactly what is being illustrated here. Jesus is manufacturing fish and bread out of His hands, and giving to the disciples and they give it to the people.

The how of the miracle is not as important as the why of the miracle. One thing that was being taught was that someone greater than Moses was here. That is what they meant in vs.14 which says, “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.’” What they are referring to is the prophecy made by Moses in Deut. 18:15 who said, ”The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and fed them with manna and quail for 40 years. But of course, Moses didn’t feed them himself, God rained down manna from heaven. Now they see Jesus, manufacturing bread and fish out of His hands to feed 15000 people. The parallel was apparent. This was the prophet that Moses spoke of. This was the Messiah. So their impulse was to make Him their king, thinking that He would overthrow their oppressors the same way that Moses did.

But that was not God’s purpose in doing the miracle. Yes, it was to confirm that someone greater than Moses was here. The Messiah was here. The kingdom of God was at hand. But not a physical kingdom, but a spiritual kingdom. Jesus told Pilate in John 18:36 “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

So if Jesus did not come to establish a physical kingdom, then what was He coming to do? Jesus will say later in chapter 6 vs.35 “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” The real significance of the miracle is to illustrate that Jesus is the bread of life, the source of spiritual life. That is how He establishes a spiritual kingdom, by transferring sinners from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God through the forgiveness of their sins. He is the bread of life that was given for us.

My wife is the baker around our house, I am not. But I do know that to make bread there are certain things you have to do. The grain that grows in the field must be cut down. The grain must be crushed under the grinding stone to make flour. And then that flour is mixed with oil, and then baked in an oven. And all of that pictures the life and suffering of our Lord Jesus. So when the Lord says, “I am the bread of God that comes down from heaven,” or “I am the bread of life,” we need to understand the process by which bread becomes bread. And Jesus becomes bread by virtue of the fact that he gives his life for us. So it is a lesson in the sufficiency of our Lord for salvation. In order for him to become bread He must be cut down and crushed, He had to be filled with the Spirit of God, and He also bear the punishment of God for sin — the fire of God’s wrath on sin. He must be baked in the oven of God’s wrath, executing penalty upon Him for our sins.

Isaiah 53 records the beautiful prophecy concerning Jesus doing just that. It says “For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground….Surely our griefs He Himself bore,And our sorrows He carried;Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions,He was crushed for our iniquities;The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,And by His scourging we are healed.”

So the significance of the miracle was to show the impossibility of man’s situation; that man was without hope, cut off from God, cut off from the source of life, and unable to accomplish his own deliverance. There was no way to provide for what was lacking. Spiritually speaking, we were starving, facing an impossible barrier, an impossible mountain that we could not overcome. But God in His compassion and mercy sent Jesus to offer Himself as the bread of life, as our substitute, that by faith in Him, even a little faith, by believing in Him; believing what the Bible said about Him and what He was claiming to be, believing His teaching and His works, by even a little faith, we are able to partake of that bread and receive life.

Salvation, as I’ve said over and over again, is by repentance and faith. Repentance is simply acknowledging your sin, your inability to attain the righteousness that God requires. Repentance is coming face to face with the impossibility of your situation, and recognizing that Jesus is your only hope. And then the second step is faith. Your faith is just a willingness to believe that He is sufficient to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That He is God and the source of life eternal. By simple faith and repentance you receive Him, just as the multitude ate of the meal and were satisfied, Jesus is the bread of life that satisfies forever. You will never hunger for righteousness again. Because Jesus is the source of spiritual life.

Listen, there are a lot more applications that I could make from this miraculous event. Most of which I’m sure you probably have heard before. But what I want to express to you today above all else is that the gospel is for lost people. It is for broken people. The gospel is for destitute people, hopeless people. Jesus did a lot of things in that miracle to emphasize the hopelessness of their situation. I think He even planned it so that they would be far away from every source of food so that they would realize the hopelessness of the situation. Jesus came to save sinners. He came to seek and to save those that are lost. He did not come to make good people better. He came to make sinners righteous by the grace of God, because of the compassion of God towards man.

And that primary application demands a response from you. Have you received the bread of life? Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good? Have you received the forgiveness of your sins and been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ? Listen, no amount of money could purchase the bread that was needed to feed that multitude. Jesus gave it without charge, without cost, so that whoever would receive it might receive life, and be filled abundantly.

There is one other obvious application as well which must be made and that is the involvement of the disciples. When Jesus had witnessed to the woman at Samaria in chapter 4, He sent the disciples away to buy food in town. And when they came back, urging Him to eat, He told them that He had food to eat that they did not know about. He said in vs. 54, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.”

And that principle is laid out for us here in this passage through the disciples. He wants them to do even as He did in Samaria. He wants them to find spiritual food in feeding others. And when they do that, they end up with 12 baskets left over. Twelve baskets for 12 disciples. That was the disciples’ spiritual food. In doing the will of God, God provided more than enough for their own needs. Each of them ended up with their own basket filled with provisions. So for us that are Christians, our job is to be obedient, even as the disciples were, and feed His sheep. And when we do that, we will find food for our souls, and life for our spirit.

I want to close this service today by asking you once again, have you eaten of the bread of life? He was broken for you. God loved you so much that He sent Jesus to be broken and bruised, to bear your sins upon the cross so that you might know the forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life. Have your received Jesus as your Savior? He says, “eat, drink, this is My body, which is broken for you.” You can’t do anything to earn salvation, or buy it, or try to find it on your own. But what you can do is come in faith to Christ as your Savior and the source of all life, and you will find spiritual life in Him. Do it today. It’s already bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and He offers it to you as a free gift today. Receive Him, eat the bread of life and live.

As we continue in this study of the fifth chapter of John, I would remind you of the claims that Jesus made concerning Himself in the second half of this chapter. They really are amazing. He claims to be the Son of God, equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life, the one in perfect unity with the Father, the judge of all the world, and that He would raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or that He would give them eternal life. Now those are exceptional claims. No man in history has ever made such outrageous claims.

As I said last week, Jesus was either the Son of God as He claimed, or He was a lunatic and a blasphemer deserving of being locked up or executed. But there is no middle ground. He could not be just a good teacher, or a good man, or just a prophet. He was either God incarnate, or a complete fraud. Jesus doesn’t give us any other choice.

It’s no wonder really, that the Jews were skeptical of Christ’s claims. Couple His claims with a lack of prestige or pedigree, and you can almost understand the animosity towards Jesus by the Jewish establishment. But I say almost understand because in reality there were many accompanying signs which should have verified who He claimed to be. The fact is, that the evidence for Him as the Messiah was overwhelming, but they choose not to believe in Him, because He did not fit into their template for how they wanted the Messiah to operate. It’s almost as if God sent Jesus to be the Messiah, and they looked Him over pretty good, examined His resume, and said, “No thanks. He’s not what we’re looking for right now.” And so John says in vs.18, that the Jews were already conspiring to kill Him. Not only did they not accept Him, but they believed the best way to get rid of Him was to murder Him. Pretty amazing really. They hated Him without cause. Without proper justification. They hated Him simply because He did not fit into their plans for self-aggrandizement.

The first part of the chapter illustrates their attitude perfectly. Jesus healed a paralyzed man who had been sick for 38 years and all they seemed to care about was that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath Day. They really didn’t care about the sick man or the Sabbath Day. They just wanted to exercise their power and position over Jesus and the traditions of the Sabbath served their purpose. They really wanted Jesus to have to submit to them instead of them submitting to Christ.

That’s not just an exclusively first century bad attitude, by the way. That’s a common 21st century bad attitude as well. We still have people who want Christ to serve them, rather than to submit to serve Christ. People may be willing to believe in Christ, but they want to limit Him to serving their agenda, to helping them achieve their goals, their happiness, their success. Rather than understanding that the crux of the gospel is the cross of the gospel. And as Jesus went to the cross for us, so we are to go to the cross for Jesus, sacrificing our world, our goals, our priorities for the sake of Christ. So we have the same problem today that the religious Jews had in that day. A convoluted, self serving sense of entitlement at the expense of Christ.

So Jesus made these outrageous claims, in effect saying that He was equal with God, and now in verses 31-47 He is going to present validation for His claims. And to do so, to establish His deity, He is going to put forth five witnesses. That was in keeping with the law, by the way. The law said in Deuteronomy 19:15, that every word was to be corroborated by 2 or 3 witnesses. In other words, in a court of law, in order to establish truth, there must be at least 2, or better yet 3 witnesses to validate one’s statement as truth. So Jesus is upholding the law here and actually exceeding the requirements of the law. by offering multiple testimonies to His deity.

But I have to say as I have studied John’s writings over the years, I’ve often struggled with his writing style. I get the sense sometimes that he is overlapping things or being repetitive in laying out certain principles. And I have to admit sometimes I am almost frustrated by it. I kind of want to move the pace along a little bit. But as I was thinking about this style that he seems to have, I found myself comparing John’s writing style to something which is called in engineering terms, redundancy. According to Wikipedia, in the field of engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the form of a backup or fail-safe. So redundancy is very important in engineering things like airplanes. When you are 30,000 feet in the air in a tin can going 600 miles an hour, it is comforting to know that the essential hydraulics and components of the engine have redundant features. So if one system should fail, there is at least one or two more that are designed to sustain the aircraft. Redundancy may produce a more complicated system, but it generally produces a more reliable system.

And perhaps that is what John does with His gospel. He takes the essential doctrines of the gospel, and overlaps principles or evidences or witnesses in such a way as to provide a fail safe salvation. It provides for a faith that will prove to be reliable, no matter how great the stress that is placed upon it. And that should be a comfort to us as we go forward in his gospel. Sometimes as we study it, it may seem complicated, but I hope when you feel that way you will remember that the principle of redundancy is there for your safe keeping.

So John is going to be somewhat redundant in this passage in order to verify the claims of Christ, upon which we base our faith, and thus our salvation. And so he records several testimonies or witnesses of Christ. And the first witness that Jesus mentions is that of His own testimony. He gave witness of Himself as we read in vs.19-30. In them He makes the claims that we enumerated earlier which are all statements reserved for deity. But Jesus says that they don’t accept them as true. And so Jesus sets His own testimony aside, because He knows that they will not admit His testimony alone as legal proof. However, of course we know that His testimony is true, just as we know His words are true, because the Spirit says amen in our hearts. But these men who don’t know God, do not have the Spirit of God, and so they do not know the truth, nor recognize the truth. They were blind to the truth, even as Paul said in 2 Cor. 4:3-4 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

I’ve noticed this phenomenon myself from time to time. I can preach a truth until I’m blue in the face and not get any response but some sort of vague skepticism. But then someone in the church hears another preacher say something similar, and they accept that as the truth. I don’t know what to attribute that to. I guess it’s just a natural skepticism on the part of man or inability to recognize truth as truth.

The second witness that Jesus presents is that of the Father. In vs.32, Jesus says, “There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true.” Now He is going to go on in the next verse to the witness of John the Baptist. But in vs.32, He is speaking of His Father. And he picks up this witness of the Father again in vs. 37, “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form.”

Now how did God bear witness of Jesus? Through multiple dispensations. There were several instances at His birth when angels who are the messengers of God spoke concerning Him as being born of the Spirit of God, as the Son of God and as the Savior of the world. And God appointed a special star to shine out of heaven to guide the wise men to birth of the King of the Jews so that they could worship Him. Then there was the Spirit of God in the form of a dove descending upon Him at His baptism in fulfillment of prophecy. And there was the voice of God declaring “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” So God the Father bore witness of Christ’s deity.

The third witness Jesus brings forth was that of John the Baptist. Vs.33, “You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.” Now John was an important witness, and yet Jesus says in the next verse that He did not receive the testimony of man. What does He mean by that? He means that God is self sufficient. He does not need the testimony of man to validate Himself. Christ needs no letters of recommendation from man – He is able to establish His own credentials. But He includes John’s testimony so that they might be saved. So then, He brings up John not to prove Himself, but as a benefit for our salvation. God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching we are saved. And God has chosen to use men to preach the gospel to other men, so that they might believe. He includes John’s testimony for our sake, and not for His own.

He goes on to say that John was a lamp that was burning, and they were able to rejoice for a while in that light. They received for a while the ministry of John. It was a novelty in their minds, he was popular for a while. But because they did not truly believe his testimony, they eventually grew tired of him. But Christ says that His testimony was greater than the lamp of John, because He was the light. John was a lamp in which the light was reflected. But Jesus is the Light of the world, that sets ablaze the lamps of men. Jesus’ testimony is greater than John’s testimony even as the light is greater than the lamp. But nevertheless, God uses lamps to draw men to Himself so that they might be saved. God has designed you to be a lamp as well. You are to reflect the light of Christ in your life that men might see your light and be drawn to Christ. We are told not to hide our lamp under a bushel, but set it on a hill that men might see the light of salvation and the result of that salvation reflected in us.

The fourth witness then which is greater than the witness of John was the works of Christ. Vs. 36 “But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish–the very works that I do–testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.”

Now we know that the Jews knew that Jesus did the works of God, by the testimony of one of their own and that was Nicodemus whom we were introduced to in chapter 3. Remember Nicodemus said in 3:2, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” They knew that He did miracles that only God could do, and so He had to be of God. And yet they still planned to kill Him. That’s why I said last week that I am convinced that the Jews knew that He was the Son of God, and yet they still wanted to kill Him because He did not fit into their religious paradigm which was designed to promote themselves. That is a damning accusation, and as such it is more than enough justification for God’s judgment to fall upon Israel as it did in AD 70.

So the miracles and works that Jesus did were testimony to the fact that He was God incarnate. John the Baptist didn’t do any miracles. Did you ever think of that? God designed that John would simply preach the gospel of repentance. The miracles Jesus did were evidence that He was the Son of God. The miracles that the apostles did were evidence that they were spokesmen for the Son of God, appointed for the foundation of the gospel. Paul said in 2Cor. 12:12 “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” Are there true apostles today? I would say there is not. They were specially commissioned men who had been with Christ that were given attesting miracles to show the veracity of the word of Christ that they were speaking.

So then we might wonder if God is doing miracles today? I would say a resounding yes. But I would add the caveat that God does not work through apostles any more, and He has not appointed certain people to be healers. He may heal as He sees fit, but the purpose of that healing is not to validate the word of God, nor to validate a person as a spokesman of God. God has sufficiently done that through Christ, through the apostles and His word is established and verified and sealed as being true. It does not need continual verification by miraculous means. But yet God may still heal as He sees fit.

I remember a service we had on the beach last summer, and afterwards a woman came up to me and said that she had recently been diagnosed with stage four cancer. She was a believer, yet she wasn’t coming to me for healing, but simply to ask for prayer and to let me know that she desired to live out her remaining days for the glory of God. I prayed with her there on the beach, and I asked that God would grant her wish that her life would bring glory to God, and that if it was His will, that He would heal her. Well, that lady’s name is Pat Nordstrom. And I can tell you that today this woman is cancer free. I don’t know how or claim to have anything to do with it. I am not a healer. Lot’s of people besides me I’m sure were praying for this lady. But I will tell you that God healed this woman, and that all the glory goes to God. And today she is very involved in a Christian ministry. So God heals as He sees fit.

But I also will tell you another story. I was at a pastor’s conference a few years ago. And a missionary from Africa spoke there and he began telling stories of an evangelistic campaign that he was a part of to many villages that had not had the gospel presented to them before. And at one point of that ministry he said there was an entire village that accepted Jesus as their Savior. And in this large conference in which were over 1000 pastors, I heard a few isolated “amens” sound out as he described the conversion of an entire village. But as he continued his message he talked of another village in which they were baptizing people who had become saved. And as the townspeople were standing beside the river, one of the women supposedly realized that her baby had died. And the pastors called the woman to come into the river, and when the baby touched the water, the baby supposedly came back to life. And when the missionary reported this, the entire 1000 attendees stood to their feet and gave a standing ovation.

Now I found the story skeptical to begin with. But what I found even more ironic was that when an entire village was saved from eternal damnation, hardly a few grunts and amens emitted from the crowd. But when one baby was supposedly brought back to life, all 1000 men jumped to their feet and applauded. Now what is the greater miracle, I ask? To give physical life to one child, or eternal life to an entire village? What should we be excited about? A physical healing or a spiritual healing? I would remind you of the two healings we have looked at so far in John, that Jesus made sure that they were spiritually healed and not just physically healed. Christ always sought to expound the spiritual principle through the physical illustration, and not vice a versa.

The fifth witness that Christ brings forth is the testimony of scripture. Vs. 38 “You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” What was amazing about this statement was that the Jews were the custodians of the scriptures. They of all the people in the earth had been given the word of God and were supposed to be stewards of it. Yet though they physically possessed the scriptures, they did not spiritually possess it. God wrote the law upon tablets of stone, but He desired to write it upon the tablets of the heart.

That is speaking of salvation by the way. Jesus will say in the next chapter in John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” When the word of God is combined with the quickening power of the Spirit of God, then it brings about spiritual life. Jesus gave a parable concerning the soils, and He said that the seed was the word of God and some fell on good soil and some fell on bad soil. That soil which was good caused the seed to spring up into life, producing fruit, which was spiritual life. These men were those who were illustrative of bad soil, on which the seed fell but did not remain. So that Jesus says they didn’t have the word abiding in them. And they didn’t have spiritual life because they did not receive Jesus whom God had sent.

Ironically, they searched the scriptures, they memorized the scriptures, they knew the scriptures backwards and forwards. And because they knew them, they thought that they had eternal life. They saw the rules and the laws and read ordinances between the lines and found symbolism in every syllable, and they thought that they could do the things of the law and find righteousness, thereby earning eternal life. But they missed the point of all the scriptures. The scriptures present Jesus Christ from Genesis to Malachi, and yet they did not see Him. They saw only themselves as being more righteous and honorable and deserving than others, and so they missed the entire point of the scriptures. So in vs.40 Jesus says that you missed out on eternal life, because you do not come to Him who is the source of eternal life. He is not talking so much about ignorance, as about their will. Their was ample evidence, but the problem was that they were not willing.

I think that is true of all men that reject Christ. It is not that there is not ample evidence of God that men and women become atheists. It is because they do not want to have this Man rule over them. Men and women today champion independence as a virtue. While that may be true of nations, it is fatal for individuals. Our total salvation is dependent upon being dependent upon Christ. That is one of the reasons we go to church by the way. We go to church to declare publicly our dependence upon God. Those that claim to believe in God and yet will not bow to depend upon God, and declare that dependence in the congregation must still be intractable in their independence from God.

Note that is what Jesus continually asserts He cannot nor will not do. He is never independent from God. What God does, He does. What God says, He says. They are unified, but never acting independent. And by the way, that is the purpose of the Holy Spirit as well. So many Christians today seem to think that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, and that was replaced and done away with by Jesus Christ, who is the God of love. And now that Christ has gone into heaven, He has given us the Holy Spirit, who is the God of experience. So when some spiritual experience happens in the Christian realm, whether at church or a concert or crusade or whatever, they attribute such things to the Holy Spirit.

Folks, that is poppy cock. That is borderline heresy. The Trinity is One God. There is one faith, and one baptism. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. And furthermore, listen to the unity of the Trinity as Jesus describes it in John 14 an 16. John 14:9-11 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” So everything Jesus did was mirrored in the Father. He was the exact representation of the Father God.

Now consider what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-14 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.” So then, Jesus is the perfect representation of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the perfect representation of Jesus Christ, so that all three are One. One nature, One essence, and one voice, but separate in persons.

So in vs.41, Jesus says that He does not receive glory from men. He does not need glory from men because He receives glory from God. But Jesus is rebuking them because they should have been glorifying Him, but they were not. He says that they don’t glorify Him because they don’t have the love of God in them. That means that they don’t love God. Instead, they love the glory of men. They love receiving honor from men. That’s the condemnation of mankind, that they are lovers of self, and lovers of men, lovers of ungodliness, and rejecters of righteousness. That is our nature. We love darkness rather than light. We love the adulation of men. We love the glory of men. And as such we dishonor God who made man for His glory.

That is why repentance is a constant staple in the diet of a Christian. We must constantly be renouncing the pride which is such a part of the warp and woof of our lives that we hardly even recognize it. It seems normal, and perhaps it is. But normal means natural and therefore it is not spiritual. That’s why God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God hates pride.

So because men love the honor and glory of men more than God, then God will give them over to a deluding spirit. Jesus says that they will receive those that come in their own name, that seek after their own glory, and in accepting those false prophets they condemn themselves.

Jesus says in vs. 44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” Paul classified such men this way in 2Cor. 10:12 “For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”

The point is that they used religion to compare themselves among themselves and even to commend themselves, and as such they did not seek to glorify God nor the glory of God. And so they are unbelievers. And as such they will deserve the judgment due them for rejecting Him. Vs. 45 “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.” The very scriptures in which they professed to know, will be the thing that accuses them and judges them.

But, Jesus says in vs.46, if you truly believed Moses, you would have believed in Me, for He wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

I think that Jesus is indicating there that the greatest witness of all is the Word of God. Not the miracles, though God did use miracles. Not some experience, though God may use experience. But the great expression of God is the Word of God. John says in chapter one vs one, that Jesus is the Word of God manifested in the flesh. To reject the Word of God is to reject Jesus Christ. To believe the Word of God is to believe in Jesus Christ. It is the testimony of God, the testimony of Jesus, and the testimony of the Spirit all in One. That is a greater testimony than miraculous works, that is a greater testimony than John the Baptist, and it is a testimony that will endure forever. 1Peter 1:25 “BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.”And this is the word which was preached to you.”

I hope that you do not reject the testimony of God’s Word concerning His Son. If you believe in Him, in all that He claimed to be, then you will receive life, and His word will abide in you, and you will be fruitful. But if reject His Word, then you are rejecting the solemn testimony of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and as such you will enter into judgment. And that judgment will be merciless. Because you have rejected Mercy and lived independently.

When I am judged, thank God I will not be judged independently. I will be judged as dependent upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Because I have trusted in Christ as my Savior, and my substitute. 2 Cor. 5:21 “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” When I come before God I will stand dependent upon Christ’s righteousness alone, and not my own.

You can either be found righteous in Him on that day, or you will stand alone in your independence, and have no answer when you are asked why you rejected the gift of God’s Son’s righteousness. You want to remain in your sins and face that judgment? That is your choice. But I pray that you choose to come to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the One equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life, the One in perfect unity with the Father, the Judge of all the world, and the One who will raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or choose Him, and believe in Him and be saved.

This is difficult material. It would be more gratifying perhaps to give a sermon that is more energizing, uplifting, or empowering rather than deep theology. But if our faith is going to really and truly be those things, if our faith is going to have any power, or any energy, or any ability to lift us up out of darkness, then it has to be grounded in truth. Jesus said in the previous chapter (4:23) that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. He would later declare that He was the way, the truth and the life, and that no man comes to the Father except through Him. So foundational to our theology then, Jesus has to be God in the flesh, or our faith is in vain, and our worship is worthless.

Now that is the crux of the difficulty that Jesus has found Himself in after healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. By what authority did Jesus do these things? Jesus had told the paralyzed man to get up, take up his pallet and walk. And so the man was immediately made well and obediently picked up his pallet and headed to the temple, presumably to give thanks to God for healing him. But the Jewish religious leaders see him coming and say, “You aren’t allowed to carry your pallet because it’s the Sabbath day.” But he said, ““He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’”. Well of course they wanted to know who that was. But he didn’t know who had healed him. However, later Jesus discloses Himself to him in the temple and so afterwards he tells the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

The Jews then, it says in vs.16, began plotting to persecute Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. John reveals here by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the reason these religious leaders persecuted Jesus was that He was disrupting their religious system. They had a system, and they had learned to manipulate that system to their advantage. Jesus would later accuse them of being hypocrites, because, according to Matt. 23:4, “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”

This is the thing about false religion or false doctrine that is so damning, and which I believe will justly bring the judgment of God upon it one day. And that is that men find a way to manipulate religion to serve their own interests, while at the same time keeping the naive under bondage. That’s why I get so angry over false teachers. Because they are manipulating what should be liberating, in order to feather their own nests, and at the expense of naive people. Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. But when it’s not truth, then it leaves people in captivity. And so false teachers and false doctrine has to be exposed.

So in vs.17, Jesus has presumably been cornered somewhere in the temple by the religious leaders, and accused of breaking the Sabbath. And His response is to say, ““My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” The Jews knew that, of course. They knew that God’s work is to keep all things in existence, all things holding together, working together. Nothing exists outside of the power of God. If God shut down the power by which He holds the world, then it would be destroyed. God has to be working, or nothing works. What causes the earth to stay in it’s orbit? What keeps the sun in it’s course through the galaxy? What keeps the atoms spinning by which all life exists? It is the power of God.

1Cor. 8:6 says, “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” So God is the Creator, through whom are all things, and yet He shares that responsibility with the Son, so that Jesus can say, God is working, and I too am working. Specifically, He is working as Col. 1:15-17 declares: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” So Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.”

But notice how that really infuriates the Jews. Vs.18, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” Why does this infuriate them so? Was it because they honored God so much? Hardly. It was because if He was the Son of God, then He was equal with God, and therefore He had the authority to over rule their religion by which they had established their livelihood and power base in Israel. I believe there is evidence to support the idea that the Jews knew for certain by the time of the crucifixion, that Jesus was the Son of God. And they knew the full implications of that title, as evidenced by this verse. It meant that He was equal with God. For our western, modern minds the title Son of God seems to be a lessor title. But in their minds, in a patriarchal society where all the rights and privileges of the father were passed on to the son, they understood the full implication; that He was making Himself equal with God. And yet their response is to want to kill Him even more.

I mean, these aren’t “sincere, but sincerely wrong” kind of people here. Their response to the paralyzed man being healed shows that clearly. There is no interest in the man’s healing. There is no rejoicing that a man 38 years lying paralyzed has been restored fully to health. They obviously could care less about that. They are frothing at the mouth at Jesus in an insane desire to kill this man who could heal the sick. The only reason for that kind of hatred is that they were demonic, steeped in apostate religion that took advantage of people, and they wanted to protect their position and lifestyle at all costs. They could care less that people were being healed. You will see that attitude evidenced by the Pharisees again and again in the gospels.

So Jesus is going to use this as an opportunity to authoritatively declare His unity with God, even though He knows it will be just more fuel for their hatred, and eventually be used against Him in order to put Him to death. But in the process, we get one of the most comprehensive perspectives on the divinity of Christ, from Christ Himself.

So let’s just take Christ’s statements in order then and I’ll give a running commentary as needed. In vs.19, Jesus declares His unity with the Father. This is one of the greatest mysteries of the gospel. How Jesus could be fully God and fully man in one bodily form. It is a mystery that we cannot fully understand I think until we get to heaven. But though we can’t understand it, we can believe it, and in fact we must believe it in order to be saved. Saving faith is believing that Jesus was fully God in the flesh. John has already declared that in his opening prologue in chapter one. Jesus was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Unity and equality.

So Jesus says to that effect, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Now what Jesus is saying is that this is proof that I am God, because I do what the Father does explicitly. I do the works of the Father. Jesus says this over and over again in His ministry; that His works, and His words, are of the Father and therefore offer proof that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. John 14:10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”

Incidentally, that is how we know we are children of God, is it not? That we do the works of God. We are known by our fruit. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Peter says that now that we are saved we are to follow in Christ’s footsteps, according to the pattern which He gave us through His own obedience.

So as we study the gospel, we need to remember that the key to the unlocking all of the treasures of this gospel, is that we are to be to Christ all that He was to his Father, and that Christ is willing to be to us all that his Father was to Him.

So Jesus is saying that He cannot, nor will not act independently of the Father. In some mysterious way, He was both separate, yet unified with the Father. I would suggest that in Spirit He was unified, but the separation was in HIs flesh. In HIs flesh He was a man, and yet He lived constantly, continuously in the Spirit in unison with the Father. And that is how we are designed to live now that we are saved. Though we are in the flesh, we walk by the Spirit and not according to the passions of the flesh. We put to death the lusts of the flesh, that we might do the works of God through the Spirit.

Now for us, it is never perfect while in this body, but progressive. But in Christ it is an absolute unity, something that could only occur in the life of an individual who was equal with the Father. He speaks about the fact that “He can do nothing of himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” That’s an expression of absolute unity. Later on he will say even more clearly, “I and the Father are one.” Meaning not simply one in will, but I and the Father are one in essence.” Literally, He says, we are one thing. So he’s talking about absolute unity only possible for those who are truly possessed of the same nature.

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature.” That is the basis for their unity, and that unity is the basis for Christ’s deity. Now that perfect unity that Christ claimed an amazing thing for someone to profess. C.S. Lewis said, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic — on the level with a man who says he’s a poached egg — or else he’d be the devil of hell.” And J. B. Phillips said something similar, “You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But don’t let us come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He hasn’t left that open to us.”

Now then in vs.20, Jesus said, “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” The word Jesus uses there for love is interesting. Usually the word for love found in the NT is agape. But this time the Greek word is phileo. It’s the word we get brotherly love from. It speaks of a familial love, the love of family. Jesus loves His Father, and the Father loves HIs Son, and so the Father reveals all things that He is doing, so that the Son may do them. They are united not only in nature, but in love. This is perfect love. There is no independence, no contest, only a perfect mirror of activity because there is perfect love.

And note that He says that because the Father loves Him He will show Him even greater works than these. There is a progressive nature to Christ’s ministry. There is a progressive nature to the gospel and it’s revelation. And there is a progressive nature to our revelation by sanctification as we are obedient to what God shows us, and we do it, then He will show us greater works than these. And the same was true with Christ. He learned obedience from the things which He suffered, and so God produced in Him ever more works, greater works, until the great work was finally accomplished in His resurrection.

But specifically these greater works that He speaks of are shown in vs.21-23, and they are the work of giving life, and the work of judgment. Vs.21, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.” Now what Jesus is talking about there is that the Son of God is able to give life to whomever He wishes. Now He is not talking about just physical life to a dead person. He will do that with Lazarus and others. But He is talking primarily about giving life to spiritually dead people.

And we know that to be true because He elaborates on that principle in vs.24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” Now that is clearly talking about salvation. The dead He speaks of are not those in the grave. He will talk about them in a moment. But for now He is talking about spiritually dead. That He has the authority to give life to the dead, sight to the blind, ears to hear the word of God and that by hearing and believing in His word they might be saved. He says that explicitly in vs.34, “I say these things so that you may be saved.”

Notice that salvation, eternal life comes through hearing the word of God. This is such an important principle. Rom.10:17 says, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” That’s why I put such an emphasis on preaching the word. It’s not that I can’t find some nice stories to tell, or that we can’t find a Christian themed movie to watch, or listen to some Christian singers give a concert. We could do all of those things, but we chose to preach the gospel because it is how God has ordained that men might be saved. 1Cor. 1:23-25 “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 1Cor. 1:18, 21 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. … 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” So we are saved by hearing the word of God.

Now what does it mean to be saved? Simply speaking, to be saved from judgment. From the wrath of God against sin. And that is the next work that God has given Christ. The work of judgment. Vs. 22, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

So Christ has the authority as the Son of God to give life to whom He wills, and that life results in deliverance from judgment. He has the authority to deliver from judgment because He also is the judge of the world. Christ has been given the authority as the Son of Man to judge the whole world. Vs.27 “and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.” That is an interesting distinction of titles. Many times Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man because it is a title of humility, but also because it is a Messianic title. In the Old Testament it is used almost exclusively in the book of Ezekiel. It is a title used in conjunction with the judgment that was coming upon Israel for their rebellion. But I also think that in this case, it may be that Jesus switches from Son of God to Son of Man because as Son of God He is our Redeemer; only God could redeem mankind by His substitutionary death. But as the Son of Man He is qualified to be our judge, because He suffered in the flesh as we did, yet without sin. He knows our frame, He knows our weaknesses. Because He too was in the flesh, and so He is intimately acquainted with man and thus able to judge man justly. He says that in vs.30, “My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” His judgment is just, because He is righteous and lived righteously while in the flesh.

But what about that judgment that Jesus will render? Jesus describes it in vs. 28 “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” Now notice the difference between this verse and vs.25. Vs.25 says the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of God and be saved. That’s speaking of the spiritually dead. In the present time. The time that now is.

But vs. 28 speaks of the time to come. An hour is coming. It isn’t here now. It’s in the future, when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth. The tomb or the grave speaks of physical death. They are not literally in the tombs, of course. Their bodies are there, and as such they represent the person who lived in that body. But the spirits of men are either in Hades or in Paradise. Either of which I believe is taught clearly is in the heart of the earth. Jesus gave a very clear description of it in Luke 16. Between Hades and Paradise there is a great gulf fixed, Jesus said, which no man can cross. I believe this is where Jesus went for three days upon His death, as He told the believing thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” And Paul, speaking in Ephesians about the resurrection of Jesus said, Eph. 4:9 (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?” And Peter, in 1Pe 3:18-20 says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, (He was laid in the tomb) but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” He is speaking of the demonic angels in hell, in prison who were disobedient to God’s restrictions upon His creation, when the sons of God went into the daughters of men in Genesis 6.

Now I don’t say all of that to start a eschatological debate with anyone. But I say it to illustrate that the tomb or the grave speaks of the abode of the dead which was Hades. And Jesus says that one day everyone will hear His voice and come out of the tombs. Everyone. Christians and non Christians will be raised from the dead and will either go into the resurrection of life, or the resurrection of judgment under the supreme Judge of the earth, King Jesus.

Rev. 20:4-6 speaks of the resurrection of life, the resurrection from Paradise of the souls that are saved; “Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.”

And then it speaks of the second resurrection, which is called in this place the second death, which refers to those that are spiritually dead in Hades; Rev 20:11-14 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”

And then finally in vs.30, Jesus basically recaps His unity and authority with God. “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” It’s amazing how Jesus can state authoritatively His unity with God, His authority as God to be the judge of the whole earth, the source of life for those who believe in Him, and at the same time express so eloquently His humility. And so once again Jesus expresses through His nature how we are to be unified to Him.

The best commentary on scripture is scripture. And so upon that note I will close by reading Phil. 2:5-11 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

May God give you the grace to walk after the example of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. Amen.

I have said before that every miracle presented in the gospels is given to illustrate a spiritual parable. And so it is with the miraculous account of the healing at the pool of Bethesda. In fact, this text perhaps more than many others offers several spiritual lessons which I would like to bring out today. Not the least of which is the nature of healing. That is the most obvious application in the context and so we should look at it first.

I suspect that everyone sooner or later will come to a point of desiring to receive a healing from God. If not for yourself, then perhaps for a loved one. It is the nature of human frailty to find oneself afflicted in the flesh sooner or later. It is the nature of man to die. That is a certainty. And the same curse of death also produces various illnesses, not all of which produce immediate death – we may in fact recover – but eventually everyone will one day still die.

However, there are numerous examples in both the Old and New Testament of people being healed. And while I believe that they symbolize a greater spiritual principle, I do not want to minimize the fact that physical healing does occur in the Bible and that the possibility exists for physical healing today. But I would strongly emphasize that being healed of an infirmity is not universally promised in the Bible. And that is proven by our text today. Not every facet concerning healing is dealt with in this text, but let’s start by looking at what it does teach us, and then at the spiritual principles it teaches.

First of all, a little historical background is necessary. John says that Jesus has left Galilee, where He had healed the nobleman’s son, and now has returned to Jerusalem to attend a feast. There were three feasts which Jewish men were required to attend, and it’s possible that this could be any of the three or even a lesser feast. Many would like to say this is THE feast, that is the Passover. And that is possible, but to say that extends the ministry of Jesus by a year more than that which the synoptic gospels seem to indicate.

But as to which feast it is, it is not really that important to John, otherwise he would have made it clear. He then describes a pool which is by the sheep gate. It was called Bethesda, which means “house of mercy.” That sounds like one of those holy roller healing churches, doesn’t it? I recently saw one called “The Holy Ghost House of Deliverance and Healing” or something like that. You see them here and there in Sussex county, and I suspect other places as well.

So I suppose that people are drawn to that sort of thing. The promise of miraculous healing. John tells us that this pool was called Bethesda and it had five porches or porticos. Now there is a very interesting historical fact here which is helpful to know about. And that is, when you read early commentators, particularly those in the 18th and mid nineteenth century, there was a common consensus that this place did not exist. And many skeptics said that was evidence of the unreliability of the scriptures. Additionally, they pointed to the fact that the Bible said it had 5 porticos and suggested that it had to be untrue because that would indicate a five sided pool which would have been unheard of in those days. But in any event, there was no evidence for it’s existence, so it put a doubt upon the reliability of the scripture.

But in the late 19th century certain excavations were made by archeologists during which this pool was discovered, and they found that it actually did have five porticos. Turns out that the pool was rectangular shaped, but divided across the middle to form in effect two pools, and the center division had it’s own porch on it. Thereby creating 5 porches. So as in so many other cases, archeologists came to verify what the Bible claimed all along, but they had not yet discovered.

There is another situation regarding these verses which have been viewed suspiciously as well. Starting halfway in vs.3 and through vs. 4, you will notice that your Bible may have brackets around those verses indicating by a side note that they are not found in the best manuscripts. Some Bibles eliminate them altogether. And so a lot of translators say that those words were not inspired in the original text, but were added later by an overzealous scribe.

The fact is that the information contained there is not essential to the story. Most commentators dismiss the legend concerning the pool being stirred up as superstition and therefore not factual, and furthermore should not even be in the Bible. But I am not so sure about all of that. I am hesitant to dismiss something that God let stand as scripture for 500 years. The truth is, that there are no original copies of the New Testament. However, there are a tremendous amount of early copies compared to other historical texts. There are about 6000 early copies of the New Testament. But of those, some are considered earlier than others. The KJV of the Bible used one set of texts called the Textus Receptus. But since that time, translators have found other copies which they believe are older and thus more reliable which are called the Morphological Greek New Testament. But both are copies of the original texts. There are not a lot of differences between the two, but this is one of them.

However, there is some other evidence that this suspect information does in fact belong in the text. It is found in the Alexandrian manuscripts, and in the Latin and early Syrian versions. The second century Christian writer Tertullian refers to it. So all of this points to a wide acceptance from the second century onwards, which lends a lot of credence to it being claimed as original.

So that being said, I have no problem accepting those verses as part of the original text. However that does not answer the question if what it’s speaking of was just superstition or if it was a divine act of God that brought about healing at certain seasons.

There is another historical note that is of significance and possibly has bearing on the correct understanding of what happened in this pool. When archeologists discovered the pool of Siloam which is mentioned in context with another miracle healing of Jesus in John 9, it was determined that it was a mikveh, which was a pool constructed in such a way as to perform ritualistic cleansing. And since the discovery of the pool of Bethesda, it is also believed by some to be a mikveh. So there is a possibility that Jesus deliberately healed two people at mikvehs, which may have some theological implications in the stories.

Now I know this is a lot of technical stuff, but I promise it has some application if you will just bear with me for a moment. In order for a pool to be considered a Mikveh, it had to have a well of water or spring of water coming up in it, so that it had fresh water flowing through it. They referred to it as “living water.” Interesting, isn’t it? Especially in light of the previous chapter when Jesus was speaking with the woman at the well and said that whoever asked of Him He would give them to drink of the living water.

The purpose of the mikveh then was to provide a means of ritual cleansing according to Jewish law. A man had to be ritually clean before he could enter the temple. And there were a number things that could make him ceremonially unclean. The bath by the way had to be big enough and deep enough so that they could be fully immersed. This was also the bath that was used to baptize persons who wanted to convert to Judaism. So this is the predecessor of the baptismal pool. And it should answer the question of whether baptism is by immersion or sprinkling. John the Baptist did not initiate a new ordinance, but he simply administered it to everyone as a means of repentance, which symbolized spiritual cleanliness.

So that’s the context of the pool. The pool at Bethesda then was more than likely a mikveh, and also had become known as having miraculous powers at certain times. Now the question remains was the angel stirring up the water causing healing true or just superstition? I would say it is impossible to know for sure. But I would lean towards being true. To accept the text at face value, then at certain times, an angel of the Lord would stir the water and the first person who made it into the water was healed. I would suggest it may have just been a way that God showed His mercy towards HIs people, and especially towards the sick. I would also suggest that it would seem that this man had been there a long time (maybe as long as 38 years, but not necessarily), and there were many others there as well, so that there would undoubtedly have been multiple examples in those years of people who were healed. Otherwise, I think that it would have soon been proven to be a false hope, and the sick people would have deserted it. Many infirmed people in those days survived by begging, and there would have been limited resources for that if all of them stayed there together. So I think they stayed there because there was real hope, but it was only achievable for a few.

And I think there is Biblical evidence of God showing that kind of compassion upon His creation. Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, “for [God] causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” And Paul said in Acts 14:17 “and yet [God] did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” So God does good because it is His nature to do good, to be merciful, and to leave Himself a witness on the earth so that men might turn to Him.

Now note also that it says all kinds of sick or infirmed people were lying around this pool. Vs. 3, “In these [porticos] lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered.” Now to this place Jesus comes, we are not sure why. Maybe He or His disciples needed to ritually cleanse themselves prior to entering the temple. But irregardless, He goes to this place full of sick people who were lying around this pool under these porches. And yet He focuses His attention on just one man there, the paralytic who had been sick 38 years in that condition.

There are a couple of points to be made about this. First, that Jesus does not heal everyone who is sick at the pool. Some people have a hard time with that. They have a hard time with the sovereign prerogative of God. That He has a right to choose some and not choose others. We want to know why. We want to try God according to our understanding, according to our concept of justice or fairness. But I would suggest that to question God is to have a failure of faith. And the Bible says whatever is not of faith is sin. So I would caution against questioning God’s motives. Rom.3:4 says, Let God be true and everyman be a liar. God is true, He is just, He is good, and He is merciful. But He is also sovereign. Our responsibility is to trust Him.

So the obvious conclusion that we can make from this is that not every person is healed of every disease. Everyone there at the pool was desirous of being healed. But only one was chosen to be healed. God does not chose to heal everyone.

This man laying there did not even seem to know who Jesus was. But Jesus knows who He is. He knows that he has lain there for 38 years in that condition. And if Jesus knew that, then obviously He knew the man’s heart. Jesus reveals His omniscience with this man the same way He revealed His omniscience with the Samaritan woman. So for reasons which are the domain of only God to know, Jesus spoke to this man and asked him what seems to be a superfluous question; “Do you wish to get well?”

But I would suggest that it isn’t superfluous. I don’t ever see Jesus do anything superfluous in the gospel accounts. His every word and action were in obedience to His Father. Rather, I think that Jesus asks this man a simple question, similar to the question that He asked the Samaritan woman, in order to produce a desired response. Even though God acts in His sovereign will to do whatever He pleases to do, He almost always includes the agency of man. He doesn’t override man’s freedom to choose, but operates His will through the agency of man’s will. So Jesus asks a question designed to get the man to admit that he wants to be healed.

I have some experience with people that are caught up in addictions. And one fact I have learned is that rehab or AA or anything like that cannot deliver a person. They can help, they can be tools to help that person who desires to be healed. But in order for a person to be healed of addiction, they must come to the point of surrendering all hope of doing it themselves out of their own strength. They have to come to the point of asking God to heal them. And when that point is reached, then the help of God is there for them. I know of many people who have done that and have been delivered from addiction, but as far as I know they may not have been saved. But God heals people who stop trusting in themselves and call on Him.

So that is what I think Jesus is doing. This man is hopeless, helpless, depressed and probably close to giving up. I would suggest Jesus picked him because he had already given up. He had no friends to help him get into the pool. Year after year he must have waited only to see someone else, maybe someone who didn’t even have as serious an illness as he had, and yet they slipped into the pool and were healed when he wasn’t hardly able to move. Perhaps he had given up on anyone helping him. Perhaps he had given up on having enough strength to muscle his way into the pool. Perhaps he had come to the end of hope in himself and his circumstances. And that is the point at which God can help us, when we surrender.

So the paralyzed man says to Jesus, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Notice the phrase, “I have no man to put me into the pool.” What a tragic statement. I have no man to help me. I can hear the heartbreak in this man’s voice, even 2000 years later. Lying by this pool in misery for years and years, being in this paralyzed condition for 38 years and there is no one to help him, no one who cares about him.

But Jesus has compassion on him. Jesus said I have come to seek and to save that which is lost. This man was surely lost. He was hopelessly, helplessly lost, and he knew it full well. And perhaps in response to some private unspoken prayer, God sent Jesus to help him. In 1 John 2:1 John says that Jesus is our Advocate with the Father, acting on behalf of sinners. Advocate is from the Greek word Paracletos, which means one called alongside to help; an Intercessor. Jesus comes along side this man to help him because of the mercy of God.

So Jesus said, “Get up, take up your pallet, and walk.” I love that. I think there is a sermon in that statement alone. Get up, take up, and walk. That’s a formula for the Christian life. Get up out of your sin, get up out of the world, take up the full armor of God, take up the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith, and then walk with your feet shod with the gospel of peace, walk in the power of the Holy Spirit in obedience to His commands and after His example.

Now notice something. This man didn’t even ask to be healed. Christ chose to heal him out of compassion and out of a desire to show forth the glory of God. And notice that Jesus didn’t ask him if he had enough faith to be healed. I don’t think this man had any faith at this point. He had no man, no one that showed him compassion, so he had no reason to hope in any man or even perhaps in God. The Jews really believed that to be infirmed was evidence that God was punishing you for your sins. So he had no reason to have faith that God would heal him. And note that Jesus doesn’t do all kinds of physical remonstrations in order to heal him. He doesn’t smack his head, He doesn’t knock the poor guy over backwards, He just simply speaks and gives him a command to get up, take up his bed and walk.

You might say, well the guy had faith in that he tried to obey Jesus. I don’t think that is indicated in the text at all. I think that the power flowed into this man’s body, and he suddenly felt strength in his legs that hadn’t been there before. He was able to move, to feel, and so he got to his feet. Vs. 9, “Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.” In fact, I think that the spoken word of Jesus brought this man to his feet. It says immediately. He didn’t have to think about it, or get used to the idea, or try it. Jesus spoke it and it came to be. That is the power of the Creator. He spake everything into existence and it came into existence. That’s what John was talking about in chapter 1,vs.3, when he calls Jesus the Word and says about Him that “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” The Word spoke and it came into being. So Jesus spoke and the man got up completely and immediately healed.

This man is obedient as well. Jesus said “walk”. And I”m told by Greek experts that the tense of that word indicates “keep on walking.” So this man walked right out of the porches of Bethesda and kept right on going. Some have criticized this man for not stopping to thank Jesus and find out more about Him. We see in vs.13 that the man did not know who it was who healed him because Jesus slipped away into the crowd.

In fact, most commentators I read seem to want to find fault with this man. They say that he ratted out Jesus to the Jewish leaders. That he showed more allegiance to them than he did to Jesus. They say that he was some sort of obvious sinner since Jesus said to him to stop sinning or something worse would happen to him. But I just don’t buy all of that. I believe this man was sincere, earnest, and appreciative of what Jesus did for him. And I’ll tell you why. Because immediately after being healed this guy headed for the temple. Why would he do that? Maybe because his prayers had been answered. Maybe he didn’t know who Jesus was, but he believed that God had healed him and so he went to the temple to give thanks to God. Maybe he had lain there in that portico for umpteen years and had wanted to go to the temple, but couldn’t. But now that he was healed he made a beeline for it.

I would to God that more people were like this guy. I’ve seen far too many people caught up in some sin, or some addiction, or some debilitating situation and they pray and pray for God to have mercy on them and deliver them. But then when God does deliver them, they quickly forget all about God and all the pledges that they made to Him when they were in need. When God answers your prayers folks, then He expects to find you worshipping and praising Him in HIs temple.

So this man picks up his pallet and walks, and heads for the temple. But the Jewish religious leaders head him off at the gate and say “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” I don’t think that they could have known at this point what happened to this guy. I think that they just see this man walking in the gate of the temple carrying his pallet on his head on the Sabbath day. He probably stood out from the crowd just a little. So he says, ““He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’” See, I told you this guy was obedient. He didn’t care about the laws concerning the Sabbath because the One who made him well told him to pick it up and walk. He was just being obedient.

Of course they want to know who that was. And he says he doesn’t know. So presumably they left him alone. But then afterwards, Jesus found him in the temple. That’s why I think Jesus went to the pool to be cleansed or His disciples needed to. Because Jesus was going to go to the temple. Remember they had stayed in Samaria for two days. That wasn’t forbidden by the law particularly, but who is to say that something there did not ceremoniously defile them. But anyway, Jesus finds him at the temple. To me that is an indication that this guy was sincerely ready to surrender to God. Jesus didn’t find him at the bar, Jesus didn’t find him fishing, or at a nice restaurant. It was the Sabbath, and he was in the temple. Boy, we can learn a few things from this guy for sure. We aren’t under the law of the Sabbath anymore. I will be the first to declare that and defend that freedom we have in Christ. But I think the principle is the same. That there is to be a day set apart to the Lord as His day. A day of rest. A day of worship. A day to come together corporately as a body to give thanks to God for all that He has done for us.

I’m appalled that Sundays have become Little League days. They have become football game days. They have become “get out of town” days. Us Christians love to blame the woes of this world on the sinfulness of the unsaved. But I think that’s the wrong focus. I think that the world is so corrupt because the salt has lost it’s savor. We can barely give an hour a week to God, and everything seems to take precedence over church. And then we wonder why the world is in the mess it is. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:14

So Jesus found him in the temple. When the Lord comes back, I hope that he finds us in church, don’t you? I hope He doesn’t find us in a bar, or at a rock concert, or watching some Hollywood movie. I hope we are not embarrassed when He comes back.

Vs. 14 “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.”

So this is where the critics point to say that this man was obviously guilty of some heinous sin and was loyal to the priests and not Jesus. But again, I don’t see that at all. I would rather believe that this is the means by which this man was saved. Up until this point, he was merely healed. But as I said concerning the nobleman and his family last week, God had something bigger in mind than just a physical healing. God desired salvation; spiritual healing. The physical healing was just to bring him to the point of recognizing that Jesus was the Son of God.

Jesus meets him and says don’t sin anymore so that nothing worse happens to you. What could be worse than 38 years of being paralyzed? Well, the answer of course, is an eternity in hell. That’s far worse. So what Jesus is presenting here is the need of this man for repentance. To turn away from his sin. To be willing to turn from it, to want to turn from it. He needed to understand that if he really wanted to be well, then he needed to be spiritually well. He needed salvation. He already had a belief in God. That’s why he was in the temple to thank God, to worship God. But as Jesus said in the last chapter, they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. What is truth? Well, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except through Him. So this man needed to know who Jesus was in order to be saved. And so I believe that Jesus introduced Himself to him there in the temple. I’m sure that John does not record all the conversation that occurred there. He doesn’t say that Jesus said, “Hello, I’m Jesus.” But yet the man tells the priests that it was Jesus who healed him. So there was obviously more conversation than what was stated in the text. And I believe it was enough for him to know that Jesus was the Son of God.

So then salvation comes to the former paralytic by repentance and faith the same way all men come to Christ. The physical healing was only an instrument of God’s grace to show this man Jesus Christ. The physical healing had not saved him. It merely was the means by which Jesus opened his eyes to see who He was and to believe in Him.

That’s the spiritual application. This whole scene was divinely designed to illustrate a greater spiritual truth, the only truth that can set you free. All of humanity is represented in the multitude of sick and lame and blind and withered people that were lying by the pool of Bethesda which was by the sheep gate. “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have each turned to our own way.”

So the entire world lies in the sickness of sin, bound to the captivity of sin and under the penalty of death. The world is gathered together in the “house of mercy” where the living water is supposed to be stirred up on occasion so that some may be cleansed of their illness, but where many come to be washed ceremoniously. It’s a picture of the ineffectiveness of ceremonial religion that believes in a form of God, but denies the power thereof, and relies upon the sick person’s power to get himself into the pool at just the right time.

But Jesus comes into this world, into this world of death, into this world of religious ritual, into this world of hopelessness and helplessness, and He finds there one who is ready to be well. Who wants to be made well, but who realizes that there is no way to be made well without God’s intervention. And so to that aching heart, Christ speaks, “Get up, take up, and walk out.”

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” This water that the angel stirred up in the pool of Bethesda could only heal one person. The water of the mikveh could only make one clean until they sinned again. But the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, for all time and forever, and purchases for us an inheritance which will not fade away. He is able to save completely. He is able to heal completely, both inside and outside. Both physically and spiritually.

The question for each of us today is the same as it was for the paralyzed man. “Do you wish to get well?” Not just get healed from some malady. That may or may not be in the plan of God. But it is the desire of God that you would be made well. That you would not have something worse happen to you. The formula is simple; repentance and faith in Jesus Christ results in forgiveness of sins and new birth resulting in eternal life. God will produce in you a well of water springing up into eternal life, everlasting life, where sin and death will no longer have dominion over you. I trust that you wish to get well. Surrender to God and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior today and receive the eternal life that God has promised.

There are many degrees of faith. Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or too small of faith. So as believers, it is important for us to consider our faith and examine it in light of what the word of God says.

There are a lot of ideas out there which seek to say what constitutes faith, but the best definition of faith is found in the scriptures themselves. Several places in the scriptures speak of faith, but Hebrews 11:1 says it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith then is believing in what is unseen, but hoped for.

Many professing Christians however, if questioned, base their faith not necessarily on the unseen, but on a tangible or physical experience that they had sometime in the past. Perhaps they were going through some sort of crisis and they prayed to God for help, and He seemed to bring about deliverance in some miraculous way. And so they believed in God and now consider themselves to be people of faith. They believe in the existence of God because of something that happened which established their belief.

That may be well and good up to a point, but I would suggest that sort of faith which is founded on an experience is a lower tier type of faith. I believe God does sometimes work in visible ways in order to bring about the beginnings of faith. So that may serve as a starting point in our faith, but I think that is not the kind of faith that satisfies God. I think that God desires us to grow in faith so that we believe what God says without having to rely on substantiating evidence.

A good verse which speaks of that kind of faith is found in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” This is the standard for faith in the scriptures. God speaks, and we believe it, and trust it, and then act in obedience to it. So then our actions prove our faith, and not waiting for God to prove our faith before we act. That is the example throughout the scriptures, from Abraham through Moses, and on into the New Testament. God spoke, they believed and then acted in faith. So faith that pleases God is that which trusts in God’s word and acts upon it.

Today in our exposition of this text we are going to see four examples of faith. Two that were pleasing to the Lord and two that were not. The Samaritan woman exemplifies that sort of faith that was pleasing to God. You will remember she had a conversation with Jesus by the well, and though they started off by talking about Jesus being thirsty and wanting a drink of water, He skillfully led the conversation around to spiritual things. And in the process, He brought her under conviction of her sin. She responded by trying to talk about religion and the difference between the way the Samaritans and the Jews worship God. But Jesus continued to press her towards the goal of accepting the truth of God. And then Jesus said one of the most forthright claims to His divinity to ever come from HIs own mouth, He said in response to her statement about the Messiah, “I who speak to you am He.”

Now at that point is where she believed in the word of Christ and she was saved. She doesn’t have some out of body experience, she doesn’t walk down the aisle or repeat a sinner’s prayer, she isn’t even baptized at that point. But the fact that she is saved by faith in Christ is evidenced by the fact that she leaves her water pot and goes back into town, telling everyone about Jesus.

There are a number of things that can be learned from this text. But the main point which is brought out in this passage is that saving faith is believing in the word of God and then acting upon it. The Samaritan woman believes in the word of Christ, His declaration that He was the Messiah promised in scripture. And she obviously believes Him and so begins to share her new found faith.

Now much has been made by commentators about the way she phrases the question found in vs.29 as if she expected a negative response. But I don’t think that’s really born out by her actions. I’ve looked at all the major translations of this phrase, and I think it is best understood as follows, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; is this not the Christ?” Now that statement still lends itself to some ambiguity. But I don’t think she is really being ambivalent at all. I think it’s evident she believes that Jesus is the Christ. And obviously that is not all that she said, as evidenced by the men of the cities answer to her in vs.42: “and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’” Obviously she told them much more about Christ than that simple statement because what she had said was enough to make them believe in Him. At least enough to be a starting point in their faith.

And there is another important aspect to her testimony. She says “Come and see…” Not go, but come. She is inviting them to come with her to see Jesus. She left her water pot by the well with Jesus because she was coming back. And she was coming back with her townspeople. That’s evidence that she was rejoicing in the news about the Messiah. And she knew that her people would rejoice as well. In spite of the flaws in their theology they knew that the Messiah was the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He was the Savior of the world, and so it was only reasonable that she would share it and rejoice in it.

What a contrast to most Christians view of sharing their faith. I don’t know if it is a product of the PC culture, or just a reticence on our part to give testimony to our faith, but how many of us fall far short of the example given by this Samaritan woman. She boldly goes into town and begins to broadcast the fact that Jesus was outside of town at the well. And she invites them to come with her and listen to Him.

Our lack of willingness to witness makes me wonder if we really believe what we say we believe. Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life? Do we really believe that our friends and loved ones who are without the Lord will end up being cast into outer darkness for eternity? Do we really believe that there is coming a day when everyone will be judged by what they did concerning Jesus? I’m afraid we must not really believe what we say.

You know, back to the Samaritan woman’s statement, I think there is not a hint of unbelief there at all, but rather a hint of a challenge. She is suggesting that they need to decide for themselves based upon her testimony. I know that some of you may feel intimidated about sharing your faith. The culture is not very tolerant towards real Christianity it seems. And maybe you feel intimidated because of that, or because you don’t think you know enough to be able to answer people’s objections or questions. But I would encourage you to consider this woman’s example as evidence that you don’t have to have all the answers to point people to Jesus Christ. If you don’t feel adequate to explain everything, then simply invite them to “come and see.” To come to church and hear the word of God for themselves.

I will also suggest to you what else made her testimony effective. And that is the transformation that she obviously exhibited. There is no more effective testimony to the saving grace of God than a transformed life. We don’t have a description here in the passage that articulates her transformation. But we do have the evidence. When she began spreading the word about Christ through the town, all the townspeople started coming out to see Jesus. Something about this woman was different than before she went to the well. It must have been very obvious. And so people wanted to see this Jesus, if He made such an impact on this woman. It’s evident from the text that she was a woman with a sordid past. It must have been well known to everyone in a small town. But after being with Jesus, there must have been a noticeable change is this woman’s demeanor. I believe she was rejoicing, for one thing. And people took notice of that and wanted to examine it further.

I remember when I got right with the Lord in California after years of living in sin and rebellion against God. And the next night I stopped by work after the shift was over and all my coworkers were sitting in the lounge. And when they saw me they thought I was drunk. I wasn’t staggering around or acting boisterous or anything. But I must have had a different demeanor than what I normally had. Maybe I seemed happy. And so they noticed it, and it gave me a chance to share with them about my faith. It wasn’t too long after that my friend who worked with me gave his life to the Lord as well, and he cited the change that he saw in me as a reason for his faith.

So the first example of people believing the word of God then is that of the Samaritan woman. She believed, and was saved. Consequently, she immediately began to confess Jesus as Lord in her community. And people believed in Christ due to her testimony. Vs. 39 says, “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’” God wants to use our testimony to bring people to Christ. That is our mission; to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, starting in our homes, then our neighborhoods, then our communities, and then to the ends of the world. This woman may not have been the best role model before she was saved, but she is a great example of the transforming power of faith after she is saved.

There is a second example of faith that is given in this text as well. It’s sort of understated, we need to read between the lines so to speak. But it’s not such an exemplary example of faith. It’s a lower tier faith. And that is the faith of the disciples of all people. They have faith, but at this point it’s a superficial faith that eclipses the spiritual and focuses on the physical. Even to the point of neglecting their commission.

The Samaritans were considered outcasts, half breeds who the Jews would disdain to even speak to. And yet their response to Jesus is that of coming out from the city in droves to hear Him. In fact, some commentators have suggested that when Jesus told the disciples that the fields were white unto harvest, He was referencing the white robed Samaritan’s coming out of the village and walking across the fields the half mile or so to the well.

Jesus uses that illustration as an inducement to the disciples to be about the Father’s business. It’s ironic that all of the disciples had just been in the village buying food. And yet in spite of the fact that 12 Jewish men descended on this little village in Samaria, when Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid Samaria, yet not one Samaritan was presented with the news that the Messiah was sitting just outside the town by the well. The disciples were just too focused on buying food. They were hungry. They were in a hurry. They didn’t like those people anyway. So they missed an opportunity. And in reality, they missed the purpose of their discipleship. They missed the purpose of their faith.

The disciples came back from their mission with the food and saw Him talking to the woman. They were surprised by that, but didn’t want to ask Him why He was talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan. So they just kind of ignored it, and when she left they offered Him the food that they brought. But Jesus isn’t thinking about food at that point. He says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And their answer is to ask did someone bring Him food while we were gone?

You know, the disciple’s cluelessness would be funny if they were not so indicative of the way we are oblivious to the opportunities that God puts in our path to be about the kingdom of God. I’m afraid too many times that we are just thinking of the physical, rather than the spiritual. Our concerns are our appetites, our work, our little routines or duties that we do each day. Instead of looking for opportunities to witness for Christ.

Jesus said to the disciples in vs.35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

Now there is a whole sermon in that which I don’t have time to delve into today, but suffice it to say that Jesus is saying that half of the work has already been done, all you have to do is reap the benefits of what other’s have done. Now that’s pretty amazing isn’t it? That should encourage you to witness to people that God puts in your path. He is saying, I have already begun a work in those people’s hearts, they have already had the sowing of the word into their hearts. Now if you will just be willing to act in faith and speak to them, you will reap what other’s have sown.

But as I said, many Samaritans believed in Him, simply by the word which He was preaching. He did not do any signs or wonders or miracles in Samaria. But then it says that He went into Galilee, which was His own country. And the people were coming out to Him, but not because they had accepted Him formerly when He was among them, but because they heard of the miraculous works that He did when He was in Jerusalem. So Jesus quotes what was probably a well known proverb; “that a prophet has no honor in his own country.”

I will attest to the truth of that. I’ve lived in this area 16 years, not all of which I was a pastor. And the result of that proves another true proverb which is; “familiarity breeds contempt”. In other words, it is much easier to go someplace where you are not known and be received with a certain respect than it is to grow up around people who think they know you. I think that’s part of the reason why our summer services on the beach are well received by out of town people, but the locals rarely come.

So anyway, the Galileans are coming out to see Jesus, but they are not necessarily believing in Him the way the Samaritans did. They don’t believe Him for His word, but for His miracles. So Jesus rebukes them when He responds to the nobleman’s request by saying, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” I don’t think Jesus was necessarily rebuking the nobleman, but He was rebuking the Galileans who obviously were gathering together hoping to see a miracle. Perhaps they would believe in Him if they saw some astonishing miracle, but not because of His word.

So the third group, the Galileans, receive a rebuke because they did not have the faith in HIs word, even though many of the Samaritans who were hated by the Jews believed in Him simply from His word. They were more noble than the nobleman and the rest of the Galileans. And I’m afraid that most Christians today fall into that category of the Galileans. We go from church to church, from concert to movies, to revivals, to conferences, all in the hopes of finding some new experience which is going to galvanize our infantile faith into something substantial. But in fact faith comes by hearing the word of God, not by signs and wonders or music or concerts or movies or conferences.

And that leads us to the fourth group which is illustrated in the nobleman. He is from Capernaum, which is about 25 miles from Cana, where Jesus was at that point. Cana, you will remember, was the site of the first miracle Jesus did in His ministry, in which He turned the water into wine at the marriage feast. Now Jesus has returned to Cana, and this nobleman, probably of Herod’s court, has heard that Jesus has returned from Judea. So he made a 25 mile trip from Capernaum in order to come to Jesus and implore Him to come home with Him and heal His son. In fact, his son was at the point of death.

I can commiserate with this nobleman. When calamity strikes your child, there is nothing you wouldn’t consider doing to save them. I would suggest that this example is given to us here for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is to provide a contrast between the apathy of the disciples who felt no pity on the Samaritans, and the anguish of this father for his dying son. Would to God we felt the anguish over our brothers and sisters and loved ones impending death the way that this man felt over his son. It’s just that we cannot see the cancer of sin which is leading our loved ones to a certain spiritual death, but we can see the physical suffering from sickness that leads to physical death.

So this man travels 25 miles in hopes of seeing Christ and getting Him to come home with Him to heal his son. And certainly, the Galileans who have gathered there are watching to see what Jesus will do. Perhaps many of them would follow Him to Capernaum if it meant they could see a miracle. I’m not surprised that so many Christians will pay all sorts of money and travel great distances to see some supposed faith healer. It was common then, it’s common today. I had a business partner once who stole money from our business to fly to have a private meeting with Benny Hinn. It only cost him $10,000 to get a private audience and his blessing. Didn’t do us any favors though. Our business went bust in 3 months because of that kind of foolishness.

But Jesus is not going to go to Capernaum. Not because He doesn’t commiserate with the nobleman, or because He isn’t compassionate. It’s noteworthy that no one ever comes to Jesus for help and leaves without Jesus helping them. Jesus said in John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

But Jesus doesn’t go to Capernaum with the nobleman because He wants to teach an important lesson. And that is the lesson that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” He wants this nobleman to believe in His word. Jesus is going to heal the boy. But for 24 hours this man is not going to know that for sure. He is going to have to take Jesus at His word. So Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.”

Now the rest of that verse is amazingly understated. It says, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.” Let me tell you why it is understated. It’s understated not just because it took a lot of faith to believe Jesus could heal with a word from 25 miles away. But it is also understated because it doesn’t just mean that the boy was healed, but it also means that the nobleman was saved. Jesus didn’t go with him because He wasn’t compassionate, but He didn’t go because He was compassionate. Jesus wanted to give more than just the physical healing, He wanted to give spiritual healing as well.

I have told you many times before that every miracle in the gospel is a spiritual parable which illustrates a spiritual principle. And this one even more so. Because as a result of this man’s faith, he was saved, his son was saved and healed, and his entire household was saved.

Vs.51-53 “As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household.”

There are so many applications that we could take from this illustration. But let me just try to leave you with a couple. One, our faith is not founded on experience, but on the promises of God. That is what we are talking about when we talk about the word of God. We are talking about God’s revelation of Himself, what He has to say about Himself, and His plan and purpose for the world. And He gives that to us in the form of promises. He gives us His word, His promises, by which we may believe. And when we believe in Him as He has revealed Himself through His word, He credits that to us as righteousness.

Three times in the New Testament, in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23, it says “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” This is how we are saved, by grace through faith in the word of God, made flesh, and written down for us.

Another application we can take from these verses is that when we are saved by faith, God can use our faith to save our families. We saw that with the Samaritan woman. I believe she started witnessing to all her former husbands. That was probably half the town. But the whole village responded as a result of this woman’s faith. And of course this nobleman’s faith resulted in his whole household coming to the Lord. And we see other examples of that in scripture. I think of the centurion who called Peter to come and preach the gospel, and the whole house was saved. I think of the jailer who was saved when Paul and Silas presented themselves after the earthquake, and his whole house was saved.

The point being that you can have a confidence that when you believe in the word of God resulting in your salvation and you share that with your family, then they can be saved through your testimony. I’m not going to say it is guaranteed. That is not taught in this text. But I do think it’s a principle that we can use to reach our families and that God will bless when we act upon it.

Well, let me close by encouraging you today to make sure that your faith is grounded in the word of God. If God said it, then trust Him and obey. God may give you an experience, He may give you a miracle, but more importantly He has given you His word. And that is the greater miracle, which produces a greater faith, and a greater work in you. Because God’s word is sufficient for every circumstance, for every day. We don’t need to wait for a sign, when we have the word made more sure, the written word of God, tested and proven for thousands of years. And that is what John calls this miracle – a sign. It points to something greater, and that is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. That was the purpose of the miracles Jesus did. They point to Him.

And then finally, don’t keep your faith to yourself. God didn’t give your salvation to you so that you can say, “us four and no more.” God gave you your salvation so that you might be an ambassador of the gospel. He has given you the good news to share with those that He has already started a work in their hearts. There is no greater work on earth than leading someone to Christ. As Jesus said in vs.36, there is reward in heaven for those that reap souls; “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.” We were saved that we might bear fruit for eternal life. I hope that you will focus on the will of God and accomplish His work in the time we have here on earth.

Jesus said in John 15:16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” Let’s pray.

Today in 21st century Christianity, one of the most misunderstood words or principles in the church is the word worship. If I were to ask you this morning to write down a succinct sentence describing worship, I would not be surprised if there were as many definitions as there are attendees. Today when we think of worship, we think of a church service, or worship music, or even a worship pastor. The connotation is that worship is a part of a church service, or a separate experience in the church or life of the believer.

But as I indicated, worship is misunderstood by most Christians today. In our passage we are looking at this morning, Jesus talks about worship with a Samaritan woman by the well. And in the process of this conversation, He teaches us the Biblical meaning of worship and how we are to engage in it. In fact, in just 5 verses, the word worship or a derivative is used 10 times. I believe this indicates that God wants us to worship Him, and that He has a plan for worship. So I want to take this passage this morning and break down the principle of worship so that we might be sure we are accurate and authentic in our worship. Because as Jesus said in vs.24, God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That’s an imperative statement. If we are to worship God, then we must worship Him as He wants us to.

So I am going to apply all the standard questions, like what, where, why, how and when, to this question of worship. Rather than asking you to define worship according to your perception or experience, or rather than consulting the so called experts out there for their two cents worth, I want to go to the source, which is the word of God. Because I believe that what Jesus is saying, in addition to all, is that you must get it right. God is not obligated to accept false worship, or strange worship, which does not meet His requirements.

So let’s start with what is worship? We could look it up in the dictionary and get a human definition. But let’s look it up in scripture. Worship simply means honor paid to a superior being. The common word in the New Testament Greek used for worship is prosekuneo, which means to kiss toward, and it came from that ancient custom of kissing the hand or foot of a superior, a person bow down on the ground, bow his head and kiss the hand in a sign of submission and honor.

But I think we can go a little deeper into all that scripture teaches us concerning worship by employing a principle of hermeneutics called the principle of first mention. The principle of first mention says that the first time a word or principle is mentioned in scripture provides a basis for how we are to perceive it or understand it.

Now if you go to your concordance and look up worship, the first one will be in Genesis 22, when Abraham is taking Isaac to the mountain that God showed him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. And I am not going to take the time to review all of that story this morning as I’m sure most of you are very familiar with it. But perhaps you missed the word worship there. Abraham says in vs.5, ““Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”

Now think about that for a moment. God asked Abraham to take his son and offer him as a sacrifice on an altar on Mt. Moriah. By the way, this is really interesting. When the Samaritan woman tries to wiggle out of the convicting questions of Jesus, she says something interesting. She says, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Now the mountain she and Jesus was on was called Gerizim, which was the place the Samaritans built their temple in opposition to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. But the thing was, both the Jews and the Samaritans believed that their temple was seated on Mt. Moriah, the spot where Abraham offered Isaac.

Now knowing that helps us to understand why she brings up worship, and then Jesus says to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” Jesus is saying the time is at hand when neither mountain is going to be the place of worship. There is going to be a new place, a new way to worship, which will not be defined geographically. So that’s the historical significance of Abraham taking Isaac to the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice. Both Samaritans and Jews claimed to have their temple on the correct mountain. And what Jesus indicates, is that the Jews were on the correct mountain. But that is not going to matter anymore. What had served to be an argument between them would be completely done away with when Jesus was sacrificed on Mt. Zion. The temple veil was rent from top to bottom, signifying that the way into the presence of God was open to all, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

But let’s think back to Abraham and Isaac for a moment. Abraham has been commanded to kill his son, and he speaks of this offering of his son on the altar as worship. Now that’s a heavy thought. Can you imagine comparing sacrificing your son as worship to God? Well, what can we learn from that incident concerning worship? First of all, it shows me that worship involves an offering. Secondly, worship involves sacrifice. Thirdly, worship involves obedience. Fourthly, worship involves submission, humbling yourself. Abraham’s pride and joy was his son. And yet he was willing to humble himself in order to worship God.

Now that is the first mention of worship. But there are a couple of other examples that come to mind which are not described as worship, but which obviously incorporate worship. The first one is that of Cain and Abel, in Genesis 4, when they come to bring an offering before God. “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.”

What does this example tell us about worship? Once again, that there was an offering, a sacrifice. We recognized that already. But what new thing do we learn about worship? That God accepts some worship but not others. God isn’t obligated to accept all forms of worship. To worship God in an unacceptable manner is to reduce God to an image, to reduce God to a material representation, to reduce God to an idol, or to reduce God to anything that is the result and product of your own thinking.  I very often hear people say, “Well, everyone is free to worship God as they think Him to be.”  But if your definition of God does not square with the Word of God, then your worship is unacceptable even though you may identify it with the true God.

And that correlates with what Jesus said in John 4, that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. It has to be a worship based on the truth that God has given us, if it is going to be acceptable to Him. So then we might define worship as a sacrificial offering, as obedience, as humbling yourself before God, and according to His truth. That’s the what of worship.

We could say from those examples what worship is not but we won’t take the time to produce a definitive list since that could go on forever. But let me just be brief; worship is not a song, worship is not ritual, worship is not a building. And you can do the rest of the list on your own.

So the scriptures have defined what worship is. Next, Where. Where should we worship. Well, we have already answered that to some degree. Worship is not a building, or an auditorium, or a mountain or even a temple. Jesus said in vs. 21, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” And then vs.24, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.” The first reference to Spirit is capitalized because that refers to the nature of God; He is Spirit. That means He is not corporeal. But the second use of the word spirit in vs.24 is not capitalized, because it is speaking of our spirit. He is saying, we must worship God in our spirit. It’s not physical, it’s spiritual. It’s not a location but a state of the heart.

True worship must come from the heart. Worship is not dependent upon where you are, but who you are.1 Cor. 6:19 says we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. If you have been born again, then you are the temple of God because the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you. You don’t just come to church, you are the church.

Unfortunately, though a lot of people may have heard that truth, they don’t live that truth. We get all cleaned up for Sunday morning, we dress a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way because we know we are in church. And yet on Monday we act completely different. We talk differently. We behave differently, seemingly unaware that the Lord of our temple is still in the building.

Worship should then be a way of life. Not just on Sunday. But in all our ways, in everything we do we do it for the glory of God. We are obedient to what He asks us to do because our body is HIs church. Our time is His time. Our possessions are His possessions. You can’t expect to have an intimate relationship with the God who dwells in us when we act like He isn’t there 6 days out of the week and then suddenly act all friendly to Him on Sunday. God isn’t blind. He was there all week. We just ignored His presence.

When we have a full time, 24/7 intimate relationship with God, then we are worshipping all the time in private. And what’s on the inside will reveal itself on the outside. In other words, what was private produces corporate. What is spiritual will produce physical. We are the church so we come together with the rest of the body as the church to serve the body. Not for routine and ritual, but to serve Him.

And that brings up another definition of worship. To serve God. Romans 12:1 gives us a great illustration of that. Paul says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Present your bodies as a sacrifice to serve God. That’s worship. Once we are born again spiritually, we become holy, which results in becoming obedient, which in turn produces righteous living, in the fear or honor or reverence of God knowing that God is in you, and then God can use the body that you submit to Him in humility to serve Him. And that comprises worship. The where of worship then is wherever we are, we are the temple of God, and therefore all that we do is for the glory of God.

The next question is Who. Whom do we worship? Well the answer of course is God. But Jesus narrows that title down further in vs.21 and 23. Three times Jesus calls God the Father. That is specific. God is the Father of who? Well, first He is the Father of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God. The only begotten of the Father. So we know who God is by who Jesus is. Jesus told Philip, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.” He told the Jews in John 10:30, “I and the Father are One.”

Now that narrows God down. Those that worship Allah cannot be worshipping God because Allah is not the father of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, because He is the only Son of God. And if you do not believe that Jesus is God’s Son, then you cannot worship the Father.

Secondly, God is the Father of the saints. The believers. Those that have been made holy by the blood of Jesus, that have been born again by the Holy Spirit. So that we are children of God. John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” So God then as our Father speaks of our relationship. We are born again not of the flesh, but of the Spirit into the family of God.

And thirdly, God is Spirit. Vs.24, Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” That means that God is not corporeal. He is an invisible being. He does not have a body like we have, but He is eternal, divine, unknowable, unsearchable, holy and righteous. He is a person, but not a body. His essential nature is that He is Spirit. And so we must be made spiritual to have communion with God who is Spirit.

1Tim. 1:17 says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.” Those qualities, eternal, immortal, invisible, are spiritual qualities. God is Spirit speaks to His immortal, eternal and invisible nature.

The next question is who can worship? Who can worship God? In vs. 23 Jesus said, “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.” First, note that God seeks worshippers. God wants to have a relationship with men, and so He has made it possible through Jesus Christ. So in order to have this relationship, Jesus said in John 3:16 that we must be born again. We must be born of the Spirit, and this is accomplished by faith in Christ. So in order to worship Him, God must become our Father. We must be born again. The Holy Spirit must dwell in our hearts by faith. Just as the Old Testament saints had to bring a sacrifice to offer to God in order to worship, so Hebrews 10:14 tells us that “by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” The sacrifice of Jesus Christ has purchased for all who believe in Him the sanctification by which we may be reconciled to God.

The Old Testament priests had to always offer a sacrifice first for their sins and then the sins of the people before approaching the Holy of Holies into the presence of God. Heb 9:11-14, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Notice the phrase, “serve the living God.” So then, those that can worship God are those who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The next question, is how do we worship? And Jesus makes that clear in vs.24, we worship God in spirit and in truth. First we are made spiritual by new birth through faith in Jesus Christ. I think we have made that point. But also we must worship God in truth. According to His truth. Not according to our understanding of God, according to our concept of fairness or righteousness, or any standard other than God’s standard.

There are lots of people in our society who think they worship God, and they have some self-invented way to do that.  I heard about the lady in New Mexico who baked tortillas, named Mrs. Rubio.  The Chicago Tribune recorded the story some years back, and one day she was frying a tortilla, and she took the tortilla out of the pan and she said with a great amount of shock, “It is the face of Jesus.”  Because burned on that tortilla were skillet burns that she said looked like Jesus.  And so, she was so thrilled she showed it to her husband who agreed that it must be Jesus.  And she showed it to her family and they agreed, and a neighbor and she agreed.  And she went to her priest to have the tortilla blessed.  And the priest, who had not really been accustomed to blessing tortillas, was somewhat reluctant to do so, but nevertheless he did it.  And she took the tortilla home and she built an altar in her house.  She put the tortilla in glass and put piles of cotton around it so it looked like Jesus floating on a cloud.  And within a matter of months, Mrs.  Rubio had over 8,000 people come to the shrine of the Jesus of the Tortilla.  And everyone unanimously agreed that it looked like Jesus except one reporter who said it looked to him like Leon Spinks.  And so, she worshipped the tortilla and she gave her testimony which was recorded in the Chicago Tribune, and said the tortilla had changed her life.  And her husband agreed she’d been a more peaceful, happy, submissive wife ever since the tortilla had arrived.

We must worship God as He is, and for who He is, and not as we imagine Him to be. Anything less is idolatry. And the only way we can worship God as He is with any certainty is if we rely upon the truth of God’s word. In John 1 Jesus is presented as the Living Word made flesh. In Hebrews 1 He is the exact representation of God. And then in John 17 Jesus says that the word of God is truth. God has presented Himself in His word. When we combine the Living Word with the written word, then we are worshipping God in truth.

To worship God in spirit and in truth then signifies that of the heart and the head. Worship must be authentic and accurate. Worship in spirit speaks of our attitude. Our heart must be aligned with God by faith. When that happens the Holy Spirit dwells in us, linking the inner man with God. And truth speaks of information. God has revealed Himself most completely and accurately in the scriptures.

As I said last night at the Valentine’s dinner. Knowledge produces intimacy. The more you know and learn about your loved one, the more you love them. We tend to worship God but a little, because we only know a little about God. But the more you know about God the more it produces true worship.

Spirit and the truth signifies worship from the heart and the head. It’s kind of like Valentine’s Day for some of us men. We know that it is Valentine’s Day because the calendar tells us. So we know that we have to respond by buying a card, maybe some chocolates or flowers. The expectations of what we know about Valentine’s Day produces a response on our part which is expected. But if that is all that it is, then it’s a form of legalism, of ritual that your wife is going to know is not from the heart. But she wants much more than just fulfilling an obligation or a ritual. She wants romance, passion, love, intimacy, fellowship. She wants you, she wants your heart.

And so does God. He wants all of us. Yes, He wants us to follow His word. He has written down His expectations and requirements for worship. But when we just show up for church and drop our offering in the box and sing a few songs and go through the rituals only then we are missing the heart of worship. God wants your heart. He wants a heart in love with Him, a heart that wants to intimacy with Him, fellowship with Him. That comes from a right relationship with Him.

Finally, one last point. The result of worship. In vs 25 the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” This is the most clear statement that Jesus ever makes concerning the fact that He is the Messiah with the possible exception of His response to Pilate before His crucifixion. But what did the Messiah accomplish? Jesus declared His purpose in John 14:6. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Through Jesus, and only through Jesus, has the way to God been made available. He is the peace between God and man. He has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God. So when we come to Him and worship Him, we have fellowship with God, we have the benefits of being the children of God, and we have the inheritance of ruling and reigning with Christ for eternity. Worshipping God in spirit and in truth is simply began in salvation, and it continues as our sanctification, and will be consummated in our glorification. We who worship God now as He has presented Himself and according to His requirements, will worship Him forever and ever in glory. I don’t think that’s going to look like what popular imagery indicates though. I don’t think we will be sitting around on clouds playing harps, or even just having a praise service for eternity. But I think that we will be serving God for eternity, and all that we do will result in praise to His glory. Worship here on earth is just practice for what will go on for eternity.

Eph. 3:14-21 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”