There are many voices calling out for attention in the church today. And there are perhaps as many messages as there are voices. How are we to know which are true, and which are trustworthy? Many of them sound convincing. Many of them claim to be based on scripture. And yet many messages are at odds with one another. So they cannot all be true. If some are true, then others have to be false. The great difficulty comes in discerning which are true and which are false.

I believe that the Bible teaches us that the way to know the truth is by the leading of the Holy Spirit. When I got right with God 30 years ago in California, that was the primary thing I asked of the Lord, that I would know the truth. And later on that evening, as I read the book of John, God gave me three passages which I believe instructed me that the Holy Spirit was the source of truth, and the means by which we can know the truth. The apostle John records Jesus as introducing the Holy Spirit specifically as the Spirit of Truth. Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:16-17 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

And Jesus reiterates that in the next two chapters. John 15:26, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” The third is in John 16:13 “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.”

So three times Jesus gives us this phrase, the Spirit of Truth, as both a title and a description of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now that is significant, because the law required that every fact is to be confirmed by two or three witnesses. So when Jesus declares three times this truth, we can be certain that it is an essential doctrine, and it’s validity is without question.

Understanding that principle helps us to understand then the nature and purpose of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest misunderstandings in Christianity today is that of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just taking these three verses at face value, then we must recognize that the primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal to us the truth. So many people seem to miss that altogether. They think that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us feel something, ie, the presence of God, or to give us some spiritual response from God which registers on our emotions or feelings. But that simply is not taught in the Bible.

Paul makes it clear in 1Cor. 2:11-14 that we have been given the Spirit so that we might know the things of God, through the word of God. He says, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” So we have to have the Spirit of God to understand the things of God, particularly the word of God, which of course was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

It’s also interesting that the Holy Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of Christ. Or as Paul said in vs.16 of 1Cor.2, the mind of Christ. Also look at Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” In other words, all three are one in agreement, in unity, and are the same in nature, but different only in administration. So Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in flesh, speaking the words of the Father and doing the deeds of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the exact representation of the Son in the Spirit, enabling us to do the deeds of Christ and to know the words of Christ, which is to know God.

Now this may seem like a lengthy introduction and unrelated to the passage before us, but I believe that it is actually very pertinent to understanding today’s text as I hope to show you in due time. Because what is at stake here is the authority of Jesus Christ. How could the Jews know for sure that what He was teaching was true? Was His message trustworthy? Was He claiming to be God, and was that a true teaching?

The Gospel of John is different from the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Even more specifically than the others, John strives to show that Jesus is the Son of God, the very God come in the flesh. In the first place, rather than starting his gospel with the birth of Christ as the other writers do, John opens with Jesus in heaven. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John does not present miracles in his gospel, he has signs. That is, his miracles are intended to teach spiritual truth. He is very strategic in deciding which signs to include, and those which he does are used to point to Jesus’ divinity. Furthermore, John is characterized by the upper room discourse, in chapters 13 through 16, and then the great high priestly prayer, in chapter 17.

But one of the primary things that characterizes the Gospel of John as different is the claim of divinity that Jesus Christ makes for Himself. They are unique in the sense that they are self-proclaimed. And that was a problem for the Jews. It was a problem because the law specified that truth cannot be established on the basis of a single testimony, but that only by the testimony of two or three men may a matter be established.

The claims of Christ are extraordinary to say the least. The well known prophets of other religions such as Mohammed or Buddha or Confucius did not claim to be God. But Christ claimed to be God. For example, Jesus has proclaimed in the temple, with thousands of people in attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles, three great claims equated with the pre-existent God of the Israelites. The first statement was, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”

Now in that claim, Jesus is speaking at the exact moment when the priests poured water into basins which spilled down upon the altar, signifying the water which came from the rock in the wilderness when Moses struck it. John tells us in the next verse that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit who had not yet been given to those who believed. Paul said in 1Cor. 10:4 that “all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.” So the rock was Christ, and the water is a picture of the Holy Spirit which springs from Christ, welling up inside of the believer. This picture of living water flowing from our innermost being is representative of the life of Christ, the power of Christ, living in us, enabling us to do the works of Christ and to understand the truth of God.

That was the reason that in the first instance of water coming from the rock, Moses was told to strike the rock, signifying that God would smite Jesus on the cross, and by His sacrifice making us holy we are able to receive the Holy Spirit. But 40 years later in the second occurrence of Moses smiting the rock for water he was disobedient. Because God does not strike Jesus again and again. He was the sacrifice for sin once on the cross, and now He ever lives to make intercession for us. Hence, the second time Moses needed only to speak, to ask for God to give water, signifying that we have a mediator, great high priest in heaven, Jesus who is able to make intercession for us.

So in the first statement in effect Jesus is saying that He was the Rock in the wilderness, from which the Israelites were able to drink. And in the second statement, Jesus cries out during another ritual when the priests lit the great candelabras which lit up the courtyard and the temple during the evening, saying, “I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

In this second statement, Jesus indicates that He is the great “I Am”, the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush. And then thirdly, He compares Himself to the pillar of fire that led and protected the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness. That was the significance of the ceremony during the Feast which was the context for Jesus’ proclamation. It celebrated the light that shone above the tabernacle over the camp of the Israelites and protected them as they traveled. And at just the moment when the priests lit the candelabras, Jesus cried out in the temple, “I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

So Jesus proclaims with great boldness who He is, and what His purpose is, and I’m sure the full import of what He said was not lost on His hearers, especially the Pharisees. And yet their response is not to fasten on the truth of what He was saying, but to focus on a technicality. They say, “You’re bearing record of yourself. Your record therefore is not true. “ What they are really saying is, “You’re not following the teaching of the law.”

In fact, Jesus Himself had stated that principle of the law, back in chapter 5 verse 31 Jesus said, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” So you would think that perhaps the Pharisees have a point in their accusation. But Jesus answers them in a way that shows that while in His flesh He has submitted Himself to the Law, but in His divinity He is outside of the Law, because He is the author of the Law.

So to establish that He is outside the law, first of all He says, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.” In other words, men are creatures of this place and time, and as such they are creatures of the present. Time renders all living men captives of the present. We cannot revisit the past, nor can we know the future. That is the province of God alone. Therefore the testimony of men is unreliable, but what Christ knew in Himself embraced the two eternities, the eternity of the past and the eternity of the future. And therefore, He knows that the things that He says is true.

Secondly He says He does not judge by appearances or human standards. Vs.15, “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone.” That is exactly what Jesus said in John 3:17, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

But the world would in fact one day be judged by Him, because they rejected Him. So vs 18 says, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” The judgment of sin is already in place in the world. It is only removed by Christ. So to reject Christ is to reject forgiveness of that judgment, and thus the judgment remains upon him. But Christ came the first time to save the world, not to judge it. Judgment came upon the world way back in the Garden of Eden with the first Adam. Salvation from judgment comes with the second Adam.

Not only can we say that Christ was the second Adam, but there is a sense in which Christ was the second Noah as well. Heb.11:7 says “By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Again, the condemnation of the world had already been established. The ark represented salvation for the world, but they rejected it. The Bible says that Noah preached 120 years, and yet we have no record of his message. His message was the living testimony of his life, and the coming destruction was foretold by the building of the ark. So also Christ is patient, not willing for any to perish, and the gospel is being preached for 2000 years so that they who reject it are without excuse, condemning themselves to destruction.

The third argument Jesus presents to them is to say that divine testimony can only be attested to by a divine being. Note vs.16 “But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.” So Jesus says that God the Father also testifies concerning Him. Only divinity can attest to the truth of divinity. No man was there in the beginning with God, only God was in the beginning with God. So if we are going to know the truth about God, then God must divulge it Himself. Finite man cannot know it, therefore he cannot attest to God’s truthfulness.

So Jesus is saying then that God can testify about Himself, otherwise we could not come to know God. God has to reveal knowledge of Him if we are to know Him. Otherwise we worship Him in ignorance. Otherwise we are left to guess how to please God. We have to imagine what God is like or compose a picture of Him based on earthly evidence such as creation. We can in fact learn that God must exist from observing nature, and we can ascertain certain eternal characteristics about God through nature, but we cannot know God fully as He wants to be known simply through nature. He must disclose Himself, He must testify of Himself if we are to know Him. And God has testified about Christ, and Christ has testified about God. He was the exact representation of God, according to Hebrews 1:3.

One of the amazing things this passage illustrates is that although these men claimed to know God, they really did not know Him, because they did not recognize the truth about Jesus. I find this is the problem with many people today. They say they know God, but the god they are talking about is a god of their own imagination. They are merely projecting an idea about God that is a fantasy of their own imagination. Consequently they do not know God at all. Neither do they worship God; they are worshiping a figment of their imagination. As James said, “you say you believe in God, so what? The devil’s also believe and tremble.” You are not saved by believing that there is a god. You are saved by worshipping God as He requires.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had this to say about such people: “Their god is something which they created themselves, a being who is always prepared to oblige and excuse them. They do not worship Him with awe and respect, indeed they do not worship Him at all. They reveal that their so-called god is no god at all in their talk. For they are forever saying that “they simply cannot believe that God will punish the unrepentant sinner to all eternity, and this and that.” They cannot believe that God will do so, therefore, they draw the conclusion that God does not and will not. In other words, God does what they believe he ought to do or not do. What a false and blasphemous conception of God! How utterly untrue and unworthy! Such is the new paganism of today.” That was written about 50 years ago. How much more true it is today.

So once again, the Pharisees don’t want to acknowledge the truth of what Jesus is saying. Instead they try a personal attack to disparage His credibility. Jesus is obviously speaking of His heavenly Father, but they try to disparage His legitimacy by bringing up the rumor of His illegitimate birth. They are insinuating that His father in the flesh, Joseph, who was actually His step father, was not his legitimate birth father, and so then Jesus was born out of wedlock.

Vs. 19 So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” Now you might look at that at first and think, well now, that’s an incomplete answer, He hasn’t said where is the Father. He hasn’t answered their question. But He’s answered the more fundamental question. He said you don’t know Me. because you don’t know my Father. If I produced my Father you wouldn’t even know him. If you had known Me, you would have known the Father. One knows the Father only as he knows the Son. There is no other way to the Father, except through the Son. The God of the Scriptures is only known through the Son. Over and over again the Bible teaches that. The Lord Jesus later on will say, after Phillip asks him, “Lord, show us the Father.” He will turn to Phillip and say, “Phillip, have I been so long time with you, and yet you have not known Me? He that has seen Me has seen the Father. How then do you say, show us the Father.” And then later on he will say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.” It’s impossible to know God except through the Son.

Now John concludes this section by saying in vs.20, “These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.” And I can’t help but think that this is the conclusion of a single thread of teaching that began back in chapter 7 vs. 8 where Jesus said to His brothers, ”Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.” Now in chapter 8vs.20 we see that even though Jesus said all these things in the temple, in the very headquarters of those who sought to kill Him, no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not come. His hour speaking of course, of the hour in which He would lay down His life for the sins of the world.

And I think if you look at this section in total you will see that the theme of Jesus being sent from God, being in unity with God, presenting the truth to the world and then going back to God is consistent throughout the whole section. Implicit in this passage is the principle that God exists out of time, and Jesus being One with God, existed in eternity past, but came into time present, in order to bring the truth of salvation to the world. Those that believe in Him, He promises to give them life, to give them the deposit of their inheritance, the Holy Spirit, and to give them all the blessings of God. But those that reject Him remain in darkness, and as such will ensure their own destruction as they remained condemned by that rejection.

This principle of faith in Christ revealing the truth of God was stated in chapter 7 vs. 17 “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.” This is the principle that belief in Christ is self validating, when you submit your will to God, then God will reveal His will to you. You will know the truth, when you submit to the truth that has been revealed to you. Repentance and faith leads to confirmation of the truth.

Those who claim a superficial form of Christianity would rather skip over texts like the one we have in front of us today. Instead they would rather find a text that focuses on some benefit to us, like the power to heal, or the power to perform miracles. Let’s find something that assures us of our specialness. Something dramatic, exciting. The attention of many in the church today is firmly fixed on what they suppose to be the dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit. We don’t want to know God, we want to experience Him.

But if we are going to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, then we need to make sure that our worship is based in sound doctrine, and that our doctrine comes from the facts of the gospel which were written for our instruction. Jesus has much to say here about who He is, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So it behooves us to study this passage thoroughly, that we might fully know the truth of God, so that we might worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and not be led astray by a gospel which is not according to Christ, but manipulated by self serving individuals who wish to twist the gospel to serve themselves rather than serving the Lord.

As I said earlier, to judge according to appearances means to judge according to human experience. Human experience is the fail point of much modern Christianity today. Unfortunately doctrine has taken a secondary place to experience. So then, what we feel, what we think, the way we determine truth, is dependent upon our human experience, our human judgment. And from our experience, or human reasoning, we then interpret scripture or even reject scripture and determine for ourselves what is worship or determine according to our dictates what God is like. But that is not the pattern of the gospel and that is not what Jesus taught. God must disclose Himself to us if we are going to know Him. And we have to submit ourselves to His truth if we are going to be found acceptable to Him. So all human experience must be subject to sound doctrine. And when we believe in Him as He has declared Himself to be, then we must submit ourselves to do His will, and then we will know the truth of God, because the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us as we study His word. That is the pattern of the gospel. Only then can you know the truth that can truly make you free.

My daughter asked me to solve a riddle the other day. She said the riddle is this; “As I get older, it gets weaker.” What is it that gets weaker? Well, I told her that from my experience there are a whole lot of things that get weaker as I get older. Some of which I can talk about in public and some perhaps are better kept private. But I told her the answer which I think she wanted, and that was my eyesight. The older I get, the weaker my eyesight becomes.

But as I thought about it later, I remembered learning that it is not that your eyesight necessarily gets weaker, which makes it difficult to read, or see clearly. But as you age, your eyes do not receive light as well. And that I know by experience. I can hardly read with my glasses on when I am inside and don’t have a good light to read by. But on a bright sunny day, I can read outside without my glasses on.

Light then, is a great metaphor for the Christian life. Because as Jesus says in vs.12, He is the Light. And as we receive that Light, we have the clarity to see the truth, and then to follow, or obey the truth. And so we see that this idea of light is a common metaphor in the scriptures, particularly in regards to the Messiah.

John has already introduced this idea in chapter one, in his great opening theological statement. He says in vs.4, speaking of Christ, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” And in vs.9 he says, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

So as we read, Jesus confirms this idea that He is the Light by saying, “I am the Light of the world.” And so I want to just focus on this one statement today in an effort to glean all that we can from this important principle.

First of all, let’s consider the setting in which Jesus has made this claim. As you will recall, the Feast of Tabernacles is going on during this time. This was a week long celebration in Jerusalem during which everyone would live outdoors in huts that they had constructed out of leafy branches. This was to commemorate the time when the Jews were wandering in the wilderness after God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. It was a time of festivities and song and ceremonies that lasted 8 days.

In particular, there were numerous ceremonies during this feast that occurred in the temple in Jerusalem. One such ceremony we looked at a couple of weeks ago, when the priests poured water from the pool of Siloam into a basin which ran down upon the altar, symbolizing the water which came from the rock during their sojourn. And you will remember that at that time, Jesus stood up in the midst of that ceremony, after the trumpets had sounded and the water was gushing out upon the altar and He cried out with a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

Then the next day, Jesus is teaching again in the temple, early in the morning, and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. We looked at that text last Sunday. In today’s text, it is probably now the evening of that same day. And as it neared dark, the priests would light these great candelabras, raising them up on pedestals and illuminate the temple court. The white marble and gold plated walls of the temple would reflect this light and as the darkness settled down over the city, the temple became a shining beacon seen throughout the city in which people would gather and celebrate the feast. From historical accounts, it was a magnificent sight, and thousands of people would be gathered there in the court celebrating together their deliverance as a nation by God.

Now the significance of lighting the candelabras around the temple was to remind them that during their time of sojourning in the wilderness, God had provided a pillar of smoke to guide them by day, and a pillar of fire to watch over them by night, for all the years that they were in the wilderness.

The account is found in Exodus 13:21-22 “The LORD was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.” And in the next chapter it says, in Exodus 14:19-20 “The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night.”

And then in Numbers 9, I won’t read it due to time limitations, but it says that the cloud covered the tabernacle, and during the evening a pillar of fire over it, so that when it moved, then the camp of the Israelites moved, but when it stayed in place, then the Israelites stayed where they were. The Lord directed their movements by the cloud and by the pillar of fire.

Now that is the historical context of the ceremony for the lighting of the candelabras during the evening. And it was at this point, perhaps at the very moment that the priests lit all the lights and the temple and courtyard were set ablaze by their glory, that Jesus stands up and declares; “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

Now there are a number of things that can be understood from that incredible proclamation. The first thing we should point out is that this is the second “I AM” statement that the Lord makes. He has already said, “I am the bread of life.” He will say in chapter 10 that “I AM the Good Shepherd” and that he gives life to the sheep. He will later on say “I AM the door, and that if men enter through him they will have everlasting life. And then He will say “I AM the resurrection and the life.” He will also say “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” And finally he will say “I AM the true vine.”

All seven of those “I AM” statements would have been recognized by the Jews as a statement of deity. It would remind them of the meeting Moses had with God at the burning bush, and when Moses asked God for His name, He said, “I AM THAT I AM.” What that meant was that God would not allow Moses to put Him in a box. A name in Old Testament times defined you. But God would not allow Himself to be limited to a name. He has many names because it takes many names to speak of the multifaceted nature of God.

There is I think a disturbing trend among Christians today, especially in the music industry, to call God by the name of Love. God is love. But that is not all that God is. And so we do Him a disservice if we limit Him by naming Him according to one characteristic and denying His other attributes. We must recognize and worship God for who He is, and not who we want Him to be.

But among the Jews, they would have recognized that “I AM” was a reference to God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. So it is a reference to deity. It is interesting that the first words recorded in the Bible that God spoke was “let their be light” in Genesis 1:3. It says in Genesis that in the beginning there was darkness, and chaos ruled over the earth. What a picture of the world without God. But then it says the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and God said, “let there be light.” That is a picture of the gospel, is it not? The Light became the light of the world. It’s interesting that before the sun was created, Light was given to the world.

1John 1:5 says that God is light. So in effect, Jesus is declaring Himself as God. He is the Light that existed with God and who was God. He is the source of life which is characterized as light. And He came down to a world in darkness and chaos and brought the light of truth. I don’t think I should have to tell you folks here today that the world is in darkness. The world is an evil place. You only need to pick up a newspaper, or spend a few minutes looking at the news on television or the internet and it becomes apparent that the world is in darkness. Jesus said in John 3:19 that even though Light came into the world, men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

And that illustrates what John was saying in chapter 1 vs.5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Actually the word translated “comprehend” could have two meanings: 1)comprehend as in understanding the Light, or 2) comprehend might be translated as overcome. The darkness could not overcome the Light. In fact, we know that Light has triumphed over darkness. We haven’t yet seen the culmination of that triumph, but the battle has already been won. Darkness may look like it’s winning if you watch the news, but we have seen the headlines of the newspaper of the future. God wins. Darkness loses. In fact, the forces of darkness are already vanquished foes. But we still are called to stand firm and fight the good fight of faith until the Lord comes back.

Also, Jesus is referring to the fact that He was the Light which led the Israelites out of bondage. He was the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and they that followed Him were led out of enslavement in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land.

Now the Messianic metaphor of light is readily apparent in the prophecies, found particularly in Isaiah. In Isaiah 60:1-2 for example, speaking of the coming of the Messiah; “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.” Notice how that prophecy echoes the Genesis account.

And though there are many others, let’s look at Isaiah 9:1-2, which also is quoted from in Matthew 4, “ But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.”

All of these and many more speak of the coming of the Messiah as the appearance of light shining in a dark world. I can’t help but think in this context of the Apostle Paul, who before his conversion was known as Saul, the persecutor of Christians. And the reason that Saul was arresting Christians and even putting them to death was because they taught that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. To him this was blasphemy and worthy of death.

So it’s ironic that when God chose to reveal Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus, He did so as a flash of blinding light. It was a light so bright that Saul became blind for three days. God showed Saul that though he thought that he knew the truth, the fact was that he was spiritually blind. The Lord said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And Saul said, “Who are you Lord?” And the voice out of the light said, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting.”

That conversion really illustrates the principle of the Lord as light. The world is in darkness, the world is blind to the reality of who Jesus is, and what He came to do. But when the light of God shines in our hearts, it illuminates the truth about Christ, that He came to save us from our sins, and it illuminates the depravity of our sins so that we recognize our need of forgiveness and our need of a Savior.

I just want to emphasize that this illumination is a sovereign act of God by which we see the truth and we see our condition. Without God especially shining the light in our heart, we will not be able to recognize the truth, or to know that we need to repent. So there is a need as it was in the beginning, for the Spirit of God to move upon the darkness and void of our souls, and bring light to illuminate the eyes of our heart, so that we might recognize the truth.

So Jesus is the Messianic Light of the world, the very Light of God, sent by God, so that the world might be saved. And then notice the second phrase; “He who follows Me will not walk in darkness.” Now that symbolically was represented by the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire that the Israelites followed as they wandered in the wilderness.

But fortunately, we have a paraphrase of that statement made by Jesus Himself in chapter 12 vs 46: Jesus says, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” So we can understand that Jesus is saying that to believe in Him is to follow Him. You believe that He is the Light of the world, that He was in the beginning with God, and that He was God and all things were made by Him. And if you believe that He came to the world to save the world by His atonement on the cross for our sins, then you simply follow Him, you obey Him, you adhere to Him, you worship Him. You don’t add a little Jesus to an already full agenda. If you really believe He is the source of all life, the source of abundant life, then you forsake all to follow Him. He is the pearl of great price which you will pay anything to have. He is the treasure in a field which finding you sell everything to buy.

It’s like the story of the fountain of youth which Ponce de Leon risked everything to find. If you really found the fountain of youth, then nothing else is important. You move there and live there and drink of it constantly. As Jesus said in chapter 7, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

I think that the problem with most people today is that they don’t really believe that Jesus is the source of life. They may think that Jesus is an important part of life, but not the only source of life. They see Christianity as somewhere on the lower part of the priority list. It’s important, but not as important as my marriage, or my fiancé, or my career, or money, or sports, or whatever. Not really. We say He is, but our lives say otherwise. Unfortunately, we are not fooling God, but only ourselves.

So not only is He the source of life, He is the guide of life. I think to follow Christ means to become a disciple of Christ. The disciples left everything and followed Him. When Jesus asked them if they too would leave Him, when the great crowd had left Him after one of His messages, Peter said, “where are we to go Lord? For you have the words of life.”

Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’” If we truly believe that He is the source of life, then we follow Him so that we may eat of that spiritual food and live. To not follow Him would be to wither away from spiritual hunger. We follow Him because we live by His word. His word feeds us, so that we may grow in maturity to be like Him.

But back to the metaphor of light, we follow Him because as Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” We will walk in the light because we walk according to the word. We follow the light of God’s word, step by step, day by day. This is how the Holy Spirit leads us in the paths of righteousness. This is how we do not walk in darkness. First of all we have the light of the Spirit of God to shine in our hearts. And then we have the light of the word to guide us in the truth.

This is the path of sanctification. Like I have said so many times, as you are obedient to the light God has shown you, He will reveal to you more light. You cannot understand truth and be conformed to the truth, by standing still or sitting in a monastery some where. You comprehend the truth by following, obeying the truth, step by step, each flagstone of your journey another truth of God proven and made manifest by your life, by your discipleship.

I wonder sometimes at so called Christians who I have known for 15 years or so, and they don’t seem to have grown at all. They still hold onto weird prophesies or spiritual fantasies that they held to years before. I wonder why they haven’t grown in their faith. And the answer must be because they have not been obedient to the light God has shown them. They have not allowed the word of God to guide them in the truth. You cannot not grow without discipleship.

The last phrase of Jesus’ statement we have already alluded to, but we will look at it briefly in closing; “But will have the Light of life.” First, as I’ve already pointed out, when you believe in Christ and follow Christ, you receive Christ. Christ is the Light. So when we believe in Him then we have the Light of Christ within us. Then we become lights in the world. As the moon reflects the light of the sun, so we reflect the light of Christ. That’s what Isaiah 60 said, “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” We shine because His Light is in us.

But having that Light in us, and then following the Light, also means that we can see clearly. We can have discernment. We have understanding of the word of God. John 16:13 says, ”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.” And in 1John 4:6 we read, “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” So we do not walk in darkness if in truth the Spirit of Christ lives in us. As we walk in obedience to the truth, He illumines our hearts so that we know the truth and have discernment.

And notice He correlates that the Light is life. “The Light of life.” The word “life” is “zoe” in the Greek. It means animated life, abundant life, the absolute fullness of life. It means eternal life, everlasting life. It doesn’t say you will one day get life, but you will have the Light of life, present tense. Zoe life is a present reality, not just a future one.

Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” I know that a lot of people want to take that statement and run to Macy’s with it. But we should all know that is not the right interpretation of that. What He is promising is abundant life, fruitful life, meaningful life, a blessed life, Those that have been in our Wednesday evening Bible studies know what I am talking about when I speak of the beatific vision. It refers to the ultimate source of blessing, to be in the light of God’s countenance. In that place is fullness of life, for He is the pure source of life, abundant life, even eternal life. And you can have that life now, if you will just receive Him and follow Him.

We sometimes hear someone use the expression, “it was like a light bulb went on” to describe an “a ha” moment. A more sophisticated word is an epiphany, which means a sudden revelation of truth. I wonder if someone here today has perhaps heard the gospel for years, and suddenly today a light has shone upon their hearts. Suddenly they had an epiphany, perhaps like Paul had on the road to Damascus, a realization of who Christ is, and what He came to do, and what our response must be if we are to have the Light of Christ in us.

If that person is you, then I pray that you will accept Him today. As His light has shown in your heart, I trust that the depravity of your heart has been revealed, and you know your need of a Savior, of forgiveness. You can have that forgiveness and know the abundant life that God has provided through Jesus Christ through repentance of your sins and faith in who Christ is. Then simply commit to follow Him, leaving all the darkness of this world behind and simply follow Him, and He will lead you and guide you in the truth.

Let me close with the words of John found in 1John 1:5-7. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

The subject of sexual impurity of various sorts is at the forefront of evangelical debate these days. For many, the questions surrounding sexuality and immorality are the defining issues of our times. And without a doubt, there are some very serious debates going on in the public arena which may have a great impact on our society, which I would say have already influenced our culture for the worse and will have tremendous negative consequences. So I want to be clear at the outset that what we are going to say today about this particular response of Christ to immorality does not diminish the tragic effect of these issues on our society. God will forgive sin, but that doesn’t mean we disregard or redefine sin. God, not us, has defined sin, and sin has tragic consequences.

As we consider the story before us, I think that it illustrates very clearly that in the eyes of God, all sin is damning. There are not some sins which are more acceptable than others. We cannot climb upon a pedestal and look down at other people who are caught up in some obvious, grievous sin, and then claim some sort of spiritual superiority because our sins are not so obvious, and in our minds, not so terrible as someone else’s.

Paul said in 1Timothy 5:24 “The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after.” The point he is making is that all sin requires judgment, and the wages of sin, he said in Romans 6:23, is death. Though some people’s sins are evident, such as the sin of alcoholism or drug abuse or prostitution, going before them to judgment, yet the sins of others are secret, such as hate or lust, yet whether obvious or secret they will face judgment. Either way, both lead to judgment.

James makes it clear that even if you commit only one sin, it condemns you of all sin. James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” So all are guilty of sin, all of us are under the penalty of sin, and only through faith in Christ can we be saved from our sin.

Now let’s look at this story and see how this is illustrated for us here. There are a few points that I would like to make before we get into the main part of the story though. First, there is a debate in theological circles as to the authenticity of this text, or as to to location of this text in the book of John. I don’t wish to spend a lot of time on that, but only to address the notes that you may have noticed in your translation, indicating that some of the ancient manuscripts do not contain this story. But I would point out that the fact that it is included in practically all translations, indicates that though their may be some uncertainty about the text, yet almost all conservative translators and theologians concur that it should be included in our Bibles as the word of God. I would add that John wrote this gospel around 90AD, and by 100 AD or shortly thereafter, it was referenced by a couple of early church leaders in ancient writings. It has been accepted as part of the gospel since the very beginning. But some manuscripts do not include it, some put it in another place, some leave a blank area where it should be, and one manuscript includes it in Luke’s gospel. But most theologians believe that it is consistent with John’s style of writing, it is consistent with scripture as a whole, and it is consistent in it’s portrayal of Christ with the other gospels. So I believe that it is the inspired word of God and as such we will study it as the Word of God.

Another point not to be overlooked is that in vs.53 of vs.7, it says everyone went to their home, and then in vs.1 of chapter 8, it says that Jesus went to the Mt. of Olives. While He is in Jerusalem, He is living outdoors, perhaps spending most of the time on the Mount of Olives. Jesus said in Matt. 8:20 “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” That’s such a poignant statement, and so much can be inferred through this little note that says Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and spent the night out under the stars. This was a daily part of Christ’s life. The very God Incarnate – while everyone else is at home with family and sleeping in a warm house – the Son of God is alone, sleeping under the stars. I find it ironic that there are some who are teaching that Christians are somehow entitled to the luxurious standard of living that we have here in America. What about Jesus’ statement that said, a servant is not above his master? Yet some teach that if you just have faith and ask for a 4 bedroom house with all the modern amenities, then God will give it to you. But yet God let the King of Kings live in the cold and damp outdoors. You know, I have to admit, if God let me live without a roof over my head I would have to wonder about His providence. But maybe that speaks more to our priorities rather than God’s priorities.

And one final note is it says early in the morning, Jesus went to the temple to teach. A lot of good stuff happens in the Bible early in the morning. This seems to be a favorite time of God to work. I know our early service seems to be a hardship on some people, and I wish I could do something to make it easier on everyone. But I believe if you look at scripture, you will find that God is at work early in the morning in more than a few cases, and if we want to get in on some of those blessings, it may behoove us to seek God early in the morning. But I am not going to get dogmatic and mandate that, of course. I just throw that out there for your consideration.

Alright, so to the story; Jesus is in the temple teaching very early in the morning, and the scribes and Pharisees come barging in, dragging a woman who was caught in adultery and they present her to Jesus. Under Jewish law, adultery was considered a capital offense. Lev. 20:10 says “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Now the interesting thing is that they have only brought the woman. They said they caught her in the act, but yet there is no man brought forth, only the woman. That makes the whole situation suspect. I think it indicates that she was set up, and obviously they are trying to set up Jesus as well. They say to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”

The truth of the matter is that though adultery had a serious penalty attached to it, it was a rare thing in Jewish society to actually condemn someone for it because it was so hard to prove. There had to be at least 2 witnesses to the actual act, not just seeing them go in to a house together or seeing them come out together, but they had to actually catch them in the act. And there is good indication that in most cases it was a law that was not enforced.

So I think it is possible to read between the lines here and suspect that someone had a reason to dispatch of this particular woman. It could be that a man wanted to divorce his wife, and didn’t want to go through all the requirements involved in that, including dividing his money with her and so forth. We don’t know for sure, we can only speculate. But we can say unequivocally that there was something fishy about the proceedings, because there was only the woman caught and not a man. A woman cannot be caught in the very act of adultery alone. That is an impossibility. So the whole thing is a set up.Now that shows the corruptness of the scribes and the Pharisees.

The interesting thing about these scribes and Pharisees is they never seem to catch on that Jesus can read their thoughts. It would be humorous if their hatred was not so vile. I think they would have changed their tactics if they realized that He knew their thoughts. But it’s also indicative of the sinfulness of these men. They have already decided to put Jesus to death. That was established by John in chapter 7:25. He says it was widely known that the Jewish leaders were trying to kill Him. And to do that, they are willing to set up a woman to commit adultery, probably with one of their own leaders, probably having ulterior motives for having her put to death as well, and at the same time they are going to present themselves as being the arbiters of all righteousness. Their hypocrisy and hard heartedness is appalling.

It’s no wonder that when they come bursting in with all of this that Jesus doesn’t answer them at first. He seemingly ignores them, kneels down and starts writing in the dirt. And then they continue to hound Him for an answer, and finally He stands up, says “Let him who is without sin be the first to cast a stone” and then squats down and continues writing on the ground.

Now much speculation has been made concerning what Jesus was writing. There have been numerous suggestions, from the men’s names to various verses of scripture, you name it, it’s been suggested. But the fact is that we don’t know, because John through the Holy Spirit does not think it’s necessary to tell us.

But I have my own theory which I would like to propose to you this morning. Everyone is quick to point out that Jesus is never recorded as having written anything during HIs life on earth. He did not write His own gospel, for instance. And yet John calls Him the Word. But He never wrote a word that we have record of. But what we also know from John is that He was in the beginning with God, and was with God, and was God. So I cannot help but think of two instances, the only two that I can find in the Bible when God wrote something.

The first instance of course was with Moses on Mt. Sinai, when God wrote upon tablets of stone the 10 commandments as recorded for us in Exodus 31:18, which says, “When [God] had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.”

Now what I suggest is that Jesus wrote the 10 commandments on the ground with His finger as the scribes and Pharisees watched and waited. I don’t know, but I imagine that it took a while, and all the while perhaps the Jewish leaders are getting more and more uncomfortable as they read the words of the Law written there upon the temple floor. And as they read the Law, their guiltiness would have been inflaming their conscience, especially as they watch this poor woman who was undoubtedly sobbing and kneeling on the floor there in front of them. I can imagine that even these hard hearted men began to feel guilty.

You know, I find that people who are living in sin, even when they exhibit a particularly rebellious, indignant spirit, end up feeling guilty just by being around me as the pastor of the church sometimes. I make them feel guilty and I haven’t even said a word. And when I start preaching, even it is unrelated to their particular sin, they will find something to get offended at in my message and go off in a huff and not come back. But I can’t help but notice how their guilt becomes almost unbearable just hearing the word of God.

Anyhow, I think the indication is that Jesus left them on tenterhooks for a while, as He writes the Law upon the ground. Knowing of course, that these are people who prided themselves on knowing the law, and so they would know that Duet. 27 said that to be guilty in one aspect of the law was to be guilty of all of it. So I suggest that it’s a good possibility that Jesus was writing the law upon the ground, as the religious rulers were shuffling from one foot to another, and it was convicting them of their sin.

And if my suggestion is correct, as each of the commandments convicted their consciences, they became ever more incensed. After all, the law of adultery is pretty far down on the list, being number 7. And the law against murder was number 6 by the way. So they are fidgeting, Jesus’ silence is deafening, the Law is condemning them, and so they began urging Jesus to give them an answer. So Christ’s answer to them fits the situation perfectly; “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” At that point, their conviction must have been at a breaking point. You know, I get accused sometimes of preaching too much about sin. But in reality I really don’t think that I do. I just preach the Word of God. God has a lot to say about sin, and the Word of God convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit brings conviction through the Word of God. And as Jesus wrote the Law of God upon the ground, I think it pricked their consciences.

Then it says that Jesus knelt down again and began to write on the ground. Now He could have just continued to write the Law. We don’t know. But as I said earlier, there are two times in the Old Testament that God wrote with His finger. The first was the Law, and the second is found in the book of Daniel. If you remember the story in Daniel 5, Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar was having a feast. He brought in the utensils from the Jewish Temple and was using them to serve his guests. He was not like his father Nebuchadnezzar who had repented. Belshazzar was a wicked man. And suddenly, in the middle of the feast, a man’s hand appeared and started writing on the wall of the banquet hall.

Daniel 5:24-28 says, “Then the hand was sent from Him and this inscription was written out. Now this is the inscription that was written out: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ This is the interpretation of the message: ‘MENE’–God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. ‘TEKEL’–you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. ‘PERES’–your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

Now this is just speculation on my part, of course. But I can imagine that Jesus wrote on the ground the second time, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” These scribes and Pharisees would have instantly recognized this famous line from the story in Daniel. And they would know that Jesus was directing it towards them. God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. This is what Jesus would prophecy later on when He came out of the temple, and said that God would destroy it, leaving not one stone upon another. And then “you have been weighed in the scales and found wanting.” These men who wanted to judge this woman according to the law, in spite of breaking the law in order to do it, these men that wanted to murder Jesus, and as such broke the law concerning murder, these men were guilty, they had been weighed in the scales and found wanting. They were condemned by their own standard.

Romans 2:1 says, “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” Jesus in preaching the Sermon on the Mount said in Matt. 7:1-5, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Well, John tells us that one by one, the Jewish leaders began to go out, beginning with the older ones. We could speculate on the distinction as to the age difference, but I would just say that it was the elders who left first, followed by the younger members. Undoubtedly, they were on the one hand convicted of their own sin, and secondly, I think they were undone by the wisdom of Christ. You see, they had set a trap for Jesus. Either way He answered, they thought that they had Him. If He said she did not deserve to die, then He was guilty of going against the Law of God. If He said she should die, then He was guilty of going against Roman law which forbid the Jews to execute anyone. That is why when they eventually sought to crucify Jesus they took Him to the Roman governor to pronounce death and provide the Roman soldiers to carry it out.

But Jesus brilliantly evaded their trap, and at the same time provided a means of grace for the woman. Note that Jesus does not say that the woman did not deserve death, but says, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” None there could say after that soul searching time when Jesus wrote on the ground, that they were without sin. Their sin was staring them right in the face.

I think it’s also evident that the woman was in fact guilty of adultery. She might have been set up, she might have been left to take the fall all by herself, she may have been duped to think that the man had loved her, but she was still guilty of adultery. The woman doesn’t deny it, and more importantly, Jesus doesn’t deny it, and He knew the heart of the woman. And Jesus said He did not come to annul the Law but to fulfill it. So the woman was guilty and deserved death, and Jesus knew that.

But Jesus also said in John 3:17 “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” See, the Law condemns man. That was the purpose of the Law, to bring men to conviction so that they would recognize that they needed a Savior. Galatians 3:24 tells us, “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

Now the Jewish leaders are convicted of their sin, but they are just embarrassed by it, so they leave. There was no repentance. There was no faith in Jesus Christ. If anything, they exhibit by their later actions that they hated Him even more. So they filed out, and they rejected the only one who could save them from their sins.

The woman, on the other hand, has very little to say. Or at least, John records only three words of this woman. Perhaps she was sobbing so hard, there was little else she could say. You know, I can’t help but feel sorry for this woman, and I know Jesus had compassion on her as well. My reason is that this poor woman was doubly hurt. She was upset that she had been caught in adultery and marched into the temple in front of everyone and basically sentenced to death by the Pharisees. But she also must have been crushed to be so deceived and duped by some guy who said that he loved her, but who was only using her. I don’t want to make excuses for the woman’s sin, but I do think that sin does not negate compassion.

People are deceived. That is why they go into sin. They believe the devil’s lie, that it will be good, it’s not so bad, it will be fun, it won’t hurt you, it’s not addicting. It’s all a lie. Sin is a cruel master that hopes to enslave you, and ultimately destroy you. Sin is a lie, and it is from the devil, the father of lies. But Jesus is the truth, and the life, and when you come to know the truth, the truth will set you free. That’s why we need to have compassion on the lost. They are deceived. I know that sometimes it’s hard to be compassionate, sometimes they attack you personally, they hate you because you are destroying their lie, upon which they have built their life, which they have sold their soul to. But our job is to have compassion on them, and snatch them like a brand from the burning, and compel them, convince them of the truth, because they are being destroyed by the lie of Satan. This is the battle we have been called to fight. Not against the sinner, but FOR the sinner. Against the lie, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places. But not against the sinner. We are called to have mercy and compassion and go to them, suffering whatever is necessary in order to bring them the truth.

Now I believe you have to read a little between the lines in this story, and certainly that is the case with this woman. She was left alone with Jesus there in the court of the temple. And Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

First of all, I believe this woman knew that she was a sinner. She had been caught in the act. She had been duped perhaps, but she knew that she was a sinner. That is so important. People must come to understand that they are sinners. And that is possible because the Law reveals what sin is. Don’t misunderstand that. The Law is necessary, or we would not know what sin is. That’s the danger with this whole culture war out there about homosexuality or transgenderism. Go back to Leviticus 20 and read it for yourself. It lists all kinds of sexual sins. They are all there, and it’s the Law of God, the Word of God. And it’s still relevant today. The law teaches us that we need a Savior.

So she was repentant, because she recognized her sin, and she knew it carried the penalty of death. But note that she called Jesus Lord. Some translators have it as “Sir” but in the KJV kyrios is translated as Lord 667 times, lord 54 times, and sir 12 times. I think she was calling Him Lord. It was a title in Jewish culture which was given to God and the Messiah. It means ruler, master, sovereign. I like the first definition listed under kyrios, which is “he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding.” This woman was not only recognizing Jesus as Messiah, but recognizing that He had the power of deciding her fate, because she belonged to Him.

So Jesus forgave her of her sins. He said, “neither do I condemn you.” Now there are a couple of things to notice in that statement. First, is He was the only One there who was innocent of all sin. So He had the right to condemn her of sin, and He had the right to punish her. And yet He says, “neither do I condemn you.” Now how can He say that? Can He just do away with the Law? Can He do away with justice just because He feels like it? Well, no He cannot and be true to HIs nature as God. God is just and holy and the righteous Judge over the earth. And God is also a God of love and compassion and mercy. But how are the two contrasting natures married? The answer is a principle taught in the Law; the principle of the substitution of the innocent for the guilty. This was the principle taught by the system of sacrifice in Levitical law. But in the New Covenant, God does not stop counting sin, God counts sin upon Jesus Christ. He is the innocent One who was slain for the guilty.

Jesus could forgive this woman her sins because He would take her sins upon Himself and die on the cross so that she might be forgiven and have eternal life. 2Co 5:21 says, “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that is the gospel. God hasn’t stopped counting sin, but for those who believe in Him, trust in Him, surrender to Him, God counts our sin against Jesus, and so He crushed Him, bruised Him, whipped Him, nailed Him to a cross and let Him hang there until He was dead, so that He might transfer our sins to Jesus, and transfer Jesus’ righteousness unto us, so that we might be called sons of God, and be given an inheritance with Christ, sharing in His glory in heaven. What a tremendous thing is this gospel!

Don’t forget the last phrase that Jesus said to her, “Go and sin no more.” We that have been saved are declared righteous in the sight of God, but sin is still sin. Sin still has consequences. Jesus has paid the penalty of our eternal punishment; death. But sin is still sin, and there are consequences to sin. Paul said sin shall not have dominion over you now in your new nature. And we now have the Holy Spirit in us to convict us of sin, to teach us and lead us into righteousness. He has written the Law of God upon our hearts as Paul says in 2 Cor. 3:3, “you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” That is the third time God has written, He has written in our hearts. We have the law of God written upon our hearts so that we might walk according to His will.

If you have trusted in Jesus this morning for the forgiveness of your sins, then go, and sin no more. You are a letter of God written to the world, His law is written in your heart, that you might walk in His statues and keep His commandments, so that the world might know from your life the compassion and love of God and be saved. John said in 1John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

In this section of scripture, John records for us, at first glance, the highlights of what transpired on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and in that context, a few seemingly disconnected declarations of Christ and various remarks from those in attendance. And though it might be possible to give a running commentary on those disparate statements and try to tie them together into a sermon of sorts, I wanted instead to focus on primarily one statement of Jesus found in vs.37-39, which I believe is the main point of this section of scripture.

In this declaration, Jesus stood up in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as the Feast of Booths and shouted out this statement in a loud voice. Now this was a shocking thing that Jesus did at a very strategic moment. But in order that you might get the full import of what happened, let me tell you a little about the Feast of Tabernacles which will help us to understand the context.

There were three great feasts which were mandatory for every male in the vicinity of Jerusalem to participate in; the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is described in Leviticus 23. That feast occurred in the 7th month, and began on the 15th day, and lasted 8 days, from Sabbath to Sabbath. In this feast, the Jews were required to make huts or booths or tabernacles from green leaved branches, and to dwell in them during the week, so that they might commemorate the deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt, when they wandered in the wilderness. It was to be a joyous feast, a time of rejoicing.

One of the special ceremonies involved in the feast was on the last day, the priest would go to the Pool of Siloam, and dip a golden pitcher in the water and bring it back through the water gate to the altar. As all the people gathered together, the trumpets would sound, and He then would pour the water into a basin which would run down through pipes to the altar. This was to signify the water which flowed from the rock when the Israelites suffered from thirst in the wilderness.

It was at just this point, when all the people are gathered together, and the trumpets had sounded, and the priest lifted the pitcher of water and the water gushed down upon the altar, that Jesus stood up and shouted in a very loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

Now that certainly was guaranteed to get everyone’s attention, wasn’t it? I can imagine that everyone stopped and turned and stared incredulously at this person shouting out in the middle of this ceremony. So I want to examine this incredible declaration this morning and see what we can learn from it and how we can apply it to our lives. Because, though the context of Christ’s statement was in reference to the Feast of Tabernacles, the truth of His words are just as relevant for us today.

The first phrase that I would make note of this morning is “if anyone is thirsty…” The correlation between the murmuring of the Israelites in the desert when they became thirsty for water and Christ’s invitation at the Feast should be apparent. God led the Israelites into the wilderness, and fed them with manna from heaven in the morning, and quail in the evening. He provided a cloud to guide them by day and a pillar of fire by night. He gave them victory over their enemies, and delivered them from slavery. And yet He allowed them to become thirsty so that they began to cry out.

Why did God allow the Israelites to become thirsty? I would suggest that it was to make them to desire God and to recognize their total dependency upon God. I would remind you that Israel is a picture of the church. And sometimes God allows us to suffer thirst as well. I would go so far as to suggest that if there were not difficult times in our life, then there would be little if any times of spiritual growth. Though the grace of God provides all things for us to enjoy, and gives us life, and breath and health and many such things which we all too often take for granted, yet God allows us to remain thirsty for that which satisfies the soul.

Men and women are continually seeking that which can never satisfy, which can never quench the burning thirst that all men feel in their soul. We may try to satisfy our soul’s thirst with physical things, material things, but nothing on earth can satisfy the longing of our heart. Pascal, the philosopher said there is a God sized hole in our hearts that only He can fill. And Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:11 identifies that vacuum by saying that God has set eternity in their hearts.

It’s interesting that when Jesus said “out of his innermost being,” or literally, “out of his belly” He used a word in the Greek which is “koilia”, from the root word “koîlos” which means hollow, or cavity. St. Augustine spoke of this very thing, when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

And yet still man does not seek for that which satisfies, but seeks to slake his thirst on things which can never satisfy. In Isaiah 55, God says, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?” The world today is eagerly seeking for something that will fill the void in their life, something that will satisfy the thirsting of their soul, and yet as the old country song says, they are “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

I would suggest that is because mankind does not naturally seek the Lord. Romans 3:10-11 says, “as it is written,’THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.’” Unless God stirs the heart, unless God brings conviction, unless God brings a person to a place of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, then man will continually seek to fill that void with things that can never satisfy his soul, and if he should die without the water of life in him, then he will be forever spiritually dead.

In Israel’s case, they had known the goodness of the Lord, and as a type of the church, we might say that they were a picture of the saved, believers if you will. But yet they turned back to the worthless and elemental things, they lusted after those things which they had been delivered from in Egypt, and as such God was not pleased with them.

I cannot leave this first question, without asking you this morning – what are you thirsting for? Does your soul thirst for God? Can you say like the author of Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?” The question, “are you a believer” or “are you a Christian,” is much overstated I am afraid. I think the answer is better evidenced than spoken. And if you are not thirsting for God, for the living God, the living water, if you are not coming to appear before God at every opportunity, whether corporately or privately, then I would suggest that the evidence shows your desire is set on things of earth and not things of heaven.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” If you find yourself in that state of the prodigal son, having grown tired of the husks and pods of the world which cannot fill the need of your soul, then Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” That is the next phrase I would like to think about for a moment. Let him come to Jesus.

Listen, all the thirsting of your soul cannot be slaked in anything, nor in anyone but Christ. He is the Living Water, which as He said to the woman of the well in chapter 4; “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.”

Coming to Jesus is the same as believing in Jesus. If the sovereign call and conviction of God causes the spirit of man to thirst for righteousness, then coming to Jesus is the response of man. No man can come to God unless the Lord draws him, but yet man must believe. This is the doctrine of both the election of God and the responsibility of man. Both are necessary.

So if you are thirsty, you must come to Christ. The reason that nothing else can satisfy the longing of the soul but Jesus is because He is the source of life; John 1:3, All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. He is the sustainer of life; Hebrews 1:3, “And He is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” And thirdly, He is the Spirit of Life; Romans 8:2, 9-11 “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. … 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

This is what Jesus had been trying to make clear to the people gathered in the temple that day. He began by saying that He was teaching the word of God in vs.16, that He was sent from God in vs.28, that He knows God because He is from God, in vs.29, and in a little while He is going back to the Father in vs.33. So to come to Christ is to believe in Him, that as John says in chapter 1, He was in the beginning with God, and He was God, and all things were made by Him, and He came into the world, and the world did not receive Him, and after He rose from the dead He ascended back into heaven to sit down at the right hand of God. So in effect, Jesus is restating the same message He gave in Galilee in chapter 6, vs. 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” And that believing in Him is equated to coming to Him. Vs. 37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

This idea of coming to the Messiah as the source of life is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 55:1 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” This is the invitation of Christ to all men everywhere and at every time as stated in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Let me ask you a question this morning – are you tired yet? Are you tired of the rat race, are you tired of searching for peace, are you tired of searching for what might satisfy your soul? Come unto Jesus. Unload your burdens at His feet. Let Him have your sins and your sorrows. Let Him bear your burdens. And He will give you rest. He will give you rest when you finally reach the place where you are ready to surrender fully to Him. Don’t hold anything back. But lay it all down, all your sins, all your striving, all your works, all your life, lay it down at the cross and find that Jesus has paid it all, and provided all that you will ever need. And in Him you will find rest for your soul.

There is one more important element though in Jesus’ invitation. And that is drink. Come to Him and drink. And I suggest that to drink of Christ is to trust Christ. That means to follow Him, to live for Him, to leave all that you have in order to be His disciple. You could realize this morning that you are very thirsty. And I could offer you a glass of water. You could believe that I have a glass of water in my hand. But until you drink of it, you will not be satisfied. Drinking of Christ is the same idea as we saw in the last chapter with eating His flesh. It is appropriating what is true about Christ for yourself and acting upon it. Listen, saving faith is active faith. Abraham believed God so he left Ur of the Chaldees, not knowing where he was going, and he went out to the place God told him to go. Abraham believed in the promise of God that He would produce an offspring from Isaac through whom the world would be blessed, and so he offered his son upon the altar. There is no separation between active trust and faith.

As I have said before, there are three aspects of saving faith; notitia, knowledge; assensus, assent or agreement; and fiducia, trust. And we see all three in this invitation; knowledge that you are thirsty and cannot find satisfaction, assent is coming to Jesus, believing that He is the source of life, and trust, drinking from the fountain of life which is Christ, being willing to submit to His will and renounce your own. That is saving faith. Not just intellectual. Not just knowledge of a few Bible facts. Not just believing that He lived 2000 years ago. But believing that in Him is life. And then entrusting your life to Him, even if that means forsaking all that you hold dear, all that you hold onto for security. Trusting Him and obeying Him.
Then what is the promise for those that know that they are thirsty, come to Jesus and drink of His fountain? The answer is found in vs.38, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this is an interesting statement. Jesus has just likened Himself to a stream of living water which gives eternal life to all who drink of Him. And now He is saying, that to those who believe in Him, they also shall have living water springing up out of their soul. Now how shall we interpret that?

Well, to start with look at the next verse. John gives us some commentary in vs.39 so that we might know what He is speaking of. “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” So we know that the rivers of living water that flow from the believer will be of the Holy Spirit, which at that time was not known because Jesus had not ascended into heaven and sent to the saints His Spirit.

In John 15:26 Jesus tells the disciples prior to His crucifixion, that “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” And Jesus elaborates on that statement further in the next chapter, 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 what Jesus is promising is that for those that believe in Him unto salvation, He will give them the Spirit to live in their soul, so that we might know the words of Christ, that we might do the works of Christ, and so that we might be like Christ. That is the goal of our salvation, is it not? That we might be united with Christ, so that we might do the works of Christ, and that we might be conformed to the image of Christ.

O ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived by those that misrepresent the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He came to give us life, and without His indwelling presence, we have not life. Romans 8:9, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” We cannot be saved unless we are born again by the Spirit. We cannot have life unless the Spirit of Life gives us life. And we cannot do the works of God unless we have the power of Christ that flows from our innermost being.

Listen to the prophecy of Ezekiel 36:24-27 “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

The Spirit of God not only is the agent of regeneration, but He is the agent of activation, whereby we desire to do the works of God. So that we are able to walk in His statues, and keep His ordinances. He is the power filling us and flowing from within us which empowers us to do the will of God. So that we become the channel by which the living water is spread to the world.

The maturity of a believer is marked by becoming a channel by which the gifts of the Spirit are used for the edification of the body of Christ. For the building up of the body. For the water of life that flows from you to those who are thirsty, even to those who are lost.

Listen, the goal of Christianity isn’t so that you are set up for success, and have all your material needs met, and fulfill all your physical goals, so that you are fulfilled and satisfied. No, the goal of maturity in Christ is coming to a place where the gifts of the Spirit are utilized to bring life to the world around you. That you become like Christ, doing the work of Christ. Reaching the lost with the water of life, refreshing the body with the water of Christ which flows through you and out of you. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that you might dam up the water and keep it all to yourself, but so that it might flow from Him to you, through you, to another and so spread to all the world. You are to be a conduit for the flow of the Holy Spirit, not a culdesac.

I’m not going to prolong the sermon this morning expounding the remainder of the text. I believe that it is fairly straightforward and as such is easily understood. But I do want to leave you today with an admonition, to consider what you are thirsty for. What is your soul thirsting for? Is it thirsting for material gain, or for physical fulfillment, are you searching this world over for things that will never truly satisfy? I hope not. I hope that someone here today recognizes perhaps for the first time that they are thirsty for righteousness. They long to be forgiven, to know freedom from the burden that they are carrying. And for that person I say, Come to Jesus. Drink from the living water. He will give you rest. He will satisfy your longing and give life to your soul.

And also a word to the saints, to those who already have claimed to come to know Jesus, and have believed on Him. I would remind you of the Israelites who murmured and complained in the wilderness because they were thirsty. God supplied all their needs, and delivered them from so much, and yet they found themselves thirsty because they turned back in their hearts to the flesh pots of Egypt, and so God brought them to a place of thirst.

My question for you this morning believer; are you thirsting once again for things of the world? Have you lost your first love, and turned back to those elemental things from which you were once delivered? They could never satisfy you then, you think they will satisfy you now? Are you not supposed to be growing in the grace of God so that the living water flows out of you and brings life to others who are thirsting? Has your appetite for the world overshadowed your usefulness as a channel for God? I hope that you will reconsider your appetites. David prayed for the Lord to renew a right spirit within Him. A broken and contrite heart He will not despise. Present your bodies to God as a living and holy sacrifice, and He will once again cause your innermost being to flow forth with rivers of living water, that you might be the source of blessing to others, even as Christ is the source of all blessing for you.

I am going to put to the test your spiritual acumen this morning. I know it’s early, and maybe you can’t think all that well first thing in the morning. Todays message is not a story, maybe not so easy to understand, but nevertheless it is essential doctrine that must be understood and followed if we are going to be true disciples of Christ. So consequently, I am not going to approach this text today in my typical fashion of exegeting each verse in order, but I’m going to expound on a few verses from the text, not focusing so much on the historical content but hoping to bring us to a deeper understanding of the underlying doctrinal principles found here.

I hope that most of you here today would already know the fundamental doctrine that salvation is by faith. We read a passage that illustrates that last Wednesday in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” So salvation is by faith. But what is faith? That is the question. Well, we have the Biblical definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So you can combine those truths by saying that salvation is by faith in what is not seen, but believed to be true and evidenced by my life.

Now that is the essence of what Jesus said in John 7:17, isn’t it? “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.” So what Jesus is saying is believe in Me, and believe that My words are the Word of God, and then be willing to do what I say, and when you do that the truth will be evidenced. Now that is counter intuitive, isn’t it? Be willing to obey what God tells you, and when you do His will, the truth will be evident. That’s contrary to the way we normally do things. We want to see the evidence, the proof before committing. But Jesus says My words are truth, and when you are willing to believe that and do it, then you will know the truth.

Now that segues into another important statement of Jesus, which is found in the next chapter, 8:31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” See, freedom doesn’t just come from accepting that Jesus lived on earth, or that God exists, or even from knowing that the Bible contains truth. True freedom comes from knowing experientially the truth. That means that you submit to it, and obey it, and act on it, even though all the evidence may not be apparent when you start to do it. That means that our faith which saves us is not just an intellectual assent, but trusting in what God has said, even when we can’t see the proof of it.

Jesus says you must continue in My word, if you are truly disciples of mine. Continue means to keep on being obedient, to keep following His commands, to keep walking by faith in the path of God’s truth. That continuance proves that His word is truth. As we continue in it, we prove it, and as such we know it. It’s so important to recognize the difference between realizing something is truth in a detached kind of way, and appropriating that truth to the point of trusting in it for yourself and committing yourself to it. When you trust in God’s truth, so that you prove it, you know it is true, THEN the truth will set you free. A lot of people believe in a kind of theoretical way that God’s word is true, or contains the truth, but they have never acted upon it, and as such they have never been set free.

So being set free, what does He mean? What does it mean for the truth to set you free? Free from what? Well, Jesus makes it clear that you are set free from the bondage of sin and death. Jesus said in 8:34, that “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” But that the Son will make you free indeed. And so freedom comes from doing the will of God, even when that means not relying upon the natural senses for evidence, or upon your common sense, or even academic evidence, but believing what God says is truth, and acting upon it.

Now let’s look at the next statement of Jesus which will help us to see how this is acted out and applied in our walk. Jesus accused the Jews of breaking the law of Moses which they claimed to be upholding, because they were trying to kill Him. And of course, they deny it. So in vs. 22 Jesus said, ”For this reason Moses has given you circumcision (not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath?”

Now first we need to understand circumcision in order to understand the text. I’m sure everyone here has a general idea of what circumcision is without me having to go into detail. But do you know what circumcision symbolizes? It represents the cutting away of sinful flesh, so that you might live in the Spirit. It was a picture of the man’s sinful nature which is passed on from generation to generation, and which needs to be cut away in order for the promise of blessing to come from God.

Jesus is referencing circumcision because it was routinely performed on the Sabbath when a child’s eight day after birth fell on Saturday, and even though it was considered work it was acceptable because it was mandated through the law. Jesus, on the other hand, was being condemned for HIs work of healing the lame man on the Sabbath. So what Jesus points out is the hypocrisy of saying that it was ok to cut away the flesh through circumcision on the Sabbath and yet condemn Him for freeing a man from the enslavement of the flesh on a Sabbath.

See, when Jesus healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda back in chapter 5, He not only removed the impediment of the flesh, but He gave him life in the Spirit. The lame man, you will remember, encountered Jesus in the temple, and Jesus revealed Himself to Him, resulting in salvation; new life in the Spirit. So that this man was able not just to walk physically, but to walk in the Spirit, to walk as a new creation in a new life. This is a picture of salvation for us. The Sabbath then, argues Jesus, should be a day for freeing men from enslavement to the flesh so that they can walk in the Spirit.

Now let’s make sure we understand all that is implied by this new life in the Spirit. First of all, when you are given new life through salvation, you are given a new nature. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that you still have the old nature. So now there are two natures in you warring against one another. Rom. 7:22-23 “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”

So there is within us a war between the old man and the new man, or the physical versus the spiritual.  Which one wins is up to you.  Which one becomes dominant depends upon which one you listen to, the one you are obedient to. The way of faith is to cut away the old nature. Or to look at it another way, to starve the old nature. To ignore it’s cries for the lusts and passions that it craves. In effect we put to death the flesh, or as Paul said, we “crucify the flesh” and walk in accordance to the Spirit. That is the way of sanctification, and the way of a true disciple.  That’s the way to have fellowship with God, to love God, and to know the truth of God experientially in your life. This is the path to freedom, to put away the old nature, and put on the new nature.

I was trying to explain this to a Christian the other day who had backslidden and fallen back into sin. And so I likened it to waking a sleeping dragon. There should be a sign posted in your soul somewhere which says, “don’t feed the dragon.” Because when you wake him up, and then feed him, he is going to want more, to take over your life again. The only way to deal with him at that point is to starve him to death until he becomes too weak to roar any more and eventually becomes dormant. So Paul says we wait eagerly for the final redemption of our body when this natural man is exchanged for a glorified, sinless body.

Unfortunately, so many Christians miss out on true freedom because they are looking for some sort of experience or feeling or emotion that shortcuts obedience. But there are no shortcuts. God works through our sufferings to bring us to sanctification. Even Jesus, the Bible says in Hebrews 5:8 “leaned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

Sometimes you may not feel close to the Lord.  But the way that intimacy happens is the result of listening to the truth, then obeying the truth, and then the feelings come as you are being obedient.  Don’t rely on feelings. But as you draw near to God, He will draw near to you and as you trust the Lord, and rely on the Lord, and have intimacy with the Lord, then you will experience the joy of the Lord.

So this new life in Christ requires that we put to death the old nature, and live according to the new nature. Or to say it another way, to turn away from the old paths, renounce the old lies of the world, and walk after the Spirit, according to the truth of God’s word. Ephesians 4:21 tells us to do that very thing.  “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him,  throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God–truly righteous and holy.”

Listen to what Paul says about this new nature in Romans 8:4, I’m going to read from the New Living Translation; now that we are in Christ we  “…no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.  Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.  So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.  For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.  That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.  But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)  And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.  The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.  Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.  For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.  And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.  Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.”

Now that is the practical application of what it means to cut away the flesh through circumcision. What Paul calls having been circumcised in our hearts. This is the practical application of what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, to walk in the Spirit and not according to the flesh. It is living according to the new nature, and putting to death the old nature. Letting go of the things of the flesh which are our security, in which we put our hope, and trusting in that which is unseen, yet true, things of the Spirit.

Then notice the next statement of Christ which I want to capitalize on, verse 24; “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” Now I don’t want to go sailing off on a different tack with this verse, but I can’t help but point out this verse to those people who like to quote “judge not, lest you be judged.” Here it says we are to judge, but to judge with righteous judgment. Now I will let you figure out what that means in that context.

But to stay within the context of my message this morning, I would just say that this statement is really the culmination of all I have been trying to say to you. And that is, that we cannot depend on our natural sight, but we must use spiritual discernment if we are going to know the truth so that the truth will set us free. But unfortunately as Christians, I think far too often we hold onto a token amount of what we think is the truth of God, presumably to secure our salvation, but we still hold onto, and rely upon the great variety of lies from the world and the devil.

In other words, we claim Christianity, but we live as if it’s all about the here and now. We say we trust God, but in reality we trust what we can taste, touch, or feel. And that is not exactly the life of faith, is it? Not according to the definition of Hebrews 11:1 – “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Now Jesus rebukes these Jewish leaders because they were judging, or looking at things as they appeared outwardly. They did not have spiritual discernment because they were not spiritual. They had not been born again by the Spirit of God. They did not have the Spirit of God in them, so their spirit was dead. As 1Cor. 2:14 says the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

Listen, these Jewish leaders prove that it is possible to be very religious, to be knowledgeable about the Bible, to claim Jehovah God as your God, and still be spiritually dead, and as a result, spiritually blind. I worry about some people that attend our church from time to time. If you asked them, I’m sure they would claim to be a Christian, and yet they do not understand the kind of things that I am talking about today. And even more to the point, they live very obviously in the here and now, as a citizen of the world, entranced by the things of the world, and perhaps unbeknownst to them, enslaved by the world.

This statement of Christ could be said differently and still, I think, retain the principle that Jesus is teaching. We could say, “don’t look at things as they are externally, and be attracted to them or believe in them. But look at things spiritually, and be attracted to the things unseen. That is spiritual discernment so that you might know the truth.

That is what Jesus means when He said, “judge with righteous judgment.” He’s not necessarily talking about judging people, He is talking about spiritual discernment. Having eyes that have been opened spiritually, so that you might know spiritual truth. Spiritual discernment is being able to know truth from error, to recognize the lie of this world, and believe the truth of God’s word.

Now these Jewish leaders missed the truth that would have set them free because they were looking at external things, and depending upon external appearances. They loved the externals. They loved banging a gong or blowing a horn to announce their good deeds. They loved the chief seats in the synagogues, the seats of prestige and power. They loved parading their good works and claiming their righteousness based on the law. They loved their long robes and funny hats and all the bells and whistles which showed their religious pedigree.

Jesus did none of that. I don’t think you could have picked Jesus out of a crowd and said anything special about Him. Isaiah 53:2 says, “He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should ]be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

So the Jews scorned Him because He came from Galilee where they believed the second class citizens lived. They scorned Him because they didn’t think that He had the right credentials to be a teacher. They derided Him because He hadn’t graduated from the right rabbinical schools. They scorned Him because they were jealous of the authority with which He taught, and the power that He had. They looked at Him in derision because they didn’t think that He had the right kind of evidence of being the Messiah that they considered important. Ultimately, the thought that if they needed a Savior, it would have to be someone more important looking than He was in order to be of use to them. So they rejected Him on the grounds that He didn’t meet their expectations, and I also I think because they were afraid that the kind of kingdom He was espousing would result in them being dethroned from power.

And as a consequence they did not believe His teaching. And because they didn’t believe His words then of course they would not do His will, and because they would not do His will, they would not know the truth, and because they did not know the truth, they were not set free from their sins.

I’m afraid a lot of people are like the Jewish leaders. They are happy with a form of religion, which is a religion made up of half truths. Which amounts to nothing more than a lie. But they are happy there, perched upon their thrones, in which they judge truth based on their criteria. From the throne of their self rule they live as they want to live, and do as they want to do. And as such they reject the will of God, living in the natural world, while claiming to have some part of the spiritual.

But that is not the way of the new life. We must cut away the old nature if we are going to be set free from sin and live in the new life. And that happens through true repentance. That is really what Jesus is saying in vs.17. If you are willing to submit to do God’s will – that is repentance, you give up your will in exchange for God’s will. If you repent, then God will give you His Spirit, and having spiritual discernment, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

I hope that you will examine yourself today in light of God’s word and see if you are really of the faith, or if you have never actually renounced the world, put away the old nature and lived by faith in the new nature. True discipleship is simply recognizing truth from God, then submitting your will to obey the truth, and asking God to help you be obedient to the truth. I pray that you will believe the truth, and that the truth will set you free.

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.