John 6:1-21 – The Gospel of John

Well, good morning.

Let me add my welcome to Ben's.

My name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at the church.

Very welcome to you if you're new or uh visiting with us.

It's uh great to have you here as we uh continue in our series in John's Gospel.

We're going to be looking at that passage that Erica read for us in just a couple of minutes.

Turn, please, on your phones or in your Bibles to John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

If you need a Bible, uh, there is one down the front.

You can run down and grab one when I pray in just a moment.

Um, we're going to look at just the uh just the first 21 verses.

This is a long chapter.

Uh it's got 71.

Aren't you glad that we didn't do all 71 today?

Uh let's uh let's pray as we come to God's word together.

Our Father, we thank you uh for these times that we've had studying uh your word, and we pray that, as we just talked about in the music, that you would both inform our minds and stir our hearts for the Lord Jesus.

Uh, would you give us uh affections for who he is and help us to follow him as his disciples?

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Uh this morning actually marks the beginning of the end uh of this first part in John's Gospel.

Uh, this first part in our series in John, we're going to hit pause at the end of chapter six and go into our Advent series in the run-up to Christmas.

But the end of chapter six is a good juncture to uh to hit pause and to stop because uh things have been going well up until this point.

You know, Jesus has been uh turning the water into wine, and the crowds have been very impressed by that.

And uh, and then Jesus has been uh healing people and healed the official son and healed the uh the lame man, uh the town of Sychar in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

We're very glad to follow him, the woman at the well, all of those things, really positive.

And John chapter 6 begins with this massive crowd.

John 6 · chapter mention

We read 5,000 men, probably about 20,000 people, because back in those days they counted heads of households, right?

So around about 20,000 people coming out to meet Jesus, huge uh swell of love and affection for for him.

But then John chapter 6 ends, and everybody is gone.

John 6 · chapter mention

It's remarkable.

John 6 begins, huge crowd.

John 6 ends, everyone's gone.

Everyone's gone except for the twelve.

It's really quite remarkable.

Everyone is gone except for the disciples.

Why?

How is that possible?

Now you've had you've had hints of it all the way through.

You know, uh Jesus cleanses, you know, turns over the tables in the temple, and uh and lots of people kind of turn and believe in him, and we read in John's gospel that uh Jesus said, you know, I didn't, you know, Jesus didn't commend himself to them, didn't entrust himself to them because he knew what was in a man, he knew that that people were kind of fickle, kind of kind of flighty.

Why does everybody leave?

Well, because it's possible to be really enthusiastic for the wrong Jesus.

It's possible to be really enthusiastic for the wrong Jesus.

You can be all about Jesus the healer, Jesus the winemaker, uh, Jesus the good time giver, and have no time for Jesus the King, Jesus the one who made you, Jesus the one who owns you, Jesus who calls you to follow him, whatever the cost.

You can be really enthusiastic for the wrong Jesus.

The difference between the crowd and the disciples is just this the crowd was enthusiastic for the wrong Jesus.

Both the crowd and the disciples were following the same man, but they were seeing two different people.

The crowd was saying the Jesus who provides, and the disciples were saying the Jesus who is present with them.

You can either want Jesus' provision or you'll want Jesus' presence.

The crowd want Jesus' provision.

Disciples want Jesus' presence.

Both of these miracles, there's two miracles here.

Well, there's possibly three, but we'll talk about that in a second.

Uh the two miracles, the the feeding and the walking on the water, they're two life-giving miracles.

Think about it.

Uh, in the in the kind of sense of John 5.

Uh, last week we saw one of the things that God does.

He gives life and he judges.

Well, these are two more life-giving miracles.

You, if you don't have enough food, you'll die.

Hunger will kill you eventually.

And so to feed them is a life-giving miracle.

Also, too much wind will kill you, not gastric.

That's not too much wind on the sea.

You talk to anybody, uh, I'm reliably informed that uh if you sail, the thing that you need to be afraid of is not the rain.

Rain's fine, you can deal with rain.

The stuff that you really need to be scared of is the wind.

Because it's the wind that makes the large waves that are going to break over your boat and possibly capsize it.

Too much wind out on the sea will kill you.

And so Jesus coming to them is another life-giving miracle.

But here's the contrast: the crowd wanted Jesus to give that which sustains life.

The disciples want him to be that which sustains life.

Do you see?

So let's look at it from the vantage point of both the crowd and the disciples.

The crowd, first point, the crowd want Jesus' provision.

The crowd want Jesus' provision.

And we know that the crowd is following Jesus in order to get from him because of what we read in verse 2.

And a large crowd was following him.

Why?

Because they saw the signs, that's the miracles, that he was doing on the sick.

They saw the signs, they saw the miracles, and so they're going and say, let's see if we can get more.

See if we can get more out of him.

Let's see what he's gonna do next.

Dance, monkey, dance.

And Jesus' response is interesting, isn't it?

Because he knows exactly what's gonna happen.

And he knows exactly why they're following him.

And so his response is curious because he doesn't turn around to the crowd and say, Look, guys, I've had enough of you.

You're just using me, and so I'm gonna cut you out of my life.

You know, those people, oh, you just I'm they just use me, and so I'm cutting them off.

Jesus doesn't respond like that.

You're laughing because you maybe experienced that, right?

He doesn't say that.

He doesn't say only those who have true and unadulterated faith get my provision.

He doesn't say that.

Isn't that remarkable?

He's not like us.

He doesn't work in quid quo quos the way we do.

He doesn't work in transactions the way we do.

He knows that they're he knows that their faith is pretty rubbish, really.

He knows that they're only after, you know, full bellies and uh and and healed healed children and healed sick people.

And yet he actually still provides for them.

Isn't that remarkable?

He initiates this miraculous for b provision for people who aren't really seeking him for who he is.

We read in the Old Testament that you know the psalmist says that the Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

It's just like that.

The Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Because the Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

He graciously provides for people, regardless of their response to him.

Isn't that curious?

Doesn't that speak of the Lord's graciousness, kindness, and patience?

In Mark's account of the feeding of the 5,000, all four Gospels have this miracle.

It's the only miracle, it's in all four.

But in Mark's account, what we see is that uh one of the motivating things that we're told in Mark's account is that Jesus had compassion.

He has compassion on those who are seeking him for the wrong reasons.

That's remarkable.

Such grace.

So Jesus asked this question of Philip.

You know, where should we uh go to buy these guys some bread?

Verse uh verse five.

Uh and we are told that he said this to test him.

Now, Jesus is not trying to catch Philip out, Jesus is essentially trying to arouse faith in Philip.

And Philip responds uh with this response Philip answered, verse 6 200 denarii uh would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.

Uh, I'm sure you all know how much a denaria is worth, but uh let's just clarify for those who don't.

A denari was uh uh was a day's wages for a man, and so uh Philip is saying more than half a year's salary uh wouldn't buy enough for these people.

So what are we talking about here?

Uh Philip is essentially saying, I'm not carrying around about 20k in my pocket, and it's not something that I that I have.

Uh and then Andrew again comes along.

Andrew also, like Philip, can't see beyond the material, and uh it's hard to know whether Andrew's toe whether Andrew is just a moron, uh, or whether Andrew is uh is kind of tongue in cheek, or whether Andrew actually expects that oh Jesus could actually do something with this, but whatever it is, Jesus Andrew's like uh this this kid has a packed lunch.

This kid has a this kid has a lunchable.

Maybe if we break it up really small, do you know some people you know some people who like to interpret the interpret the Bible in ways that kind of discount all of the miracles?

You can get those people.

Uh they say, oh, miracles can't possibly happen.

They make the feeding of the 5,000 being about sharing.

No, they actually shared what five loaves and two small fish?

Uh very curious.

But anyway, Andrew can't see beyond the material either.

Both, in essence, are saying something like, There's no earthly way that we can satisfy these people, and that's the point.

That's the point that Jesus is bringing them to.

There's no earthly way that these people can get what they need.

And so Jesus takes charge, and we have this miraculous feeding.

Again, like I say, feeding about 20,000 people with a pack lunch.

How much food did each person get from Jesus?

A ration?

A communion-sized morsel?

No, look at uh the end of verse 11.

Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish.

And here's the phrase As much as they wanted.

As much as they wanted.

Next week he's gonna say that to him and say, You're only following me because he ate your fill of the loaves.

And you're here again the next day going, uh, feel a bit hungry, Jesus.

Um bread was really good yesterday.

Um, still um, still no shops.

Do you guys say you're only here because you're you're looking for your fill of the loaves?

And yet, and yet, and yet, he still abundantly provides for them.

Jesus' provision always points beyond itself.

Jesus' provision here for the crowd points beyond the actual meal to who he is.

It points beyond the provision to actually his presence.

One of the things that we need to see about this passage and to understand is that this passage is absolutely submerged.

Yeah, it's a little uh walking on the water pun there.

Uh, it's absolutely saturated, good to see you're still awake, with imagery from the Old Testament.

Jesus is deliberately showing us, and John the Gospel writer, is deliberately telling us that this miracle has a deeper significance because of some of the clues from the passage.

Let me draw your attention to them.

All of the illusions from this passage come from the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible.

And the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus, is the story of God's rescue of his people out of slavery.

Where are they in slavery?

In slavery in Egypt.

Might have seen Prince of Egypt or something like that.

But they are in slavery in Egypt, and so God comes, and God, through his servant Moses, breaks their chains and sets them free on that great dramatic night of Passover, where the lamb is sacrificed and the angel of death passes through the land, and finally his people are set free.

They are set free, but then God also brings them to himself.

They leave Egypt and go on a journey to Mount Sinai where God meets them.

This is how your relationship with God works.

This is how the message of Christianity works.

God doesn't just set you free, God sets you free in order to be something.

He releases, he rescues you from slavery and rescues you to himself.

Do you see?

He sets them free and brings them into relationship.

And so the people of Israel in the book of Exodus, like I say, they're brought to Mount Sinai, and God from the mountain gives them his law.

God met them on the mountain and declared to them how they could live together, how it was that a sinful people could live with a holy God there on the mountain.

But as they followed through the wilderness, as they followed the presence of God, the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud, as they followed him through the wilderness, they grumbled.

They were hungry.

And so, what did God do in the book of Exodus?

He fed them.

He fed them by sending bread from heaven, that manna, those little flakes that they they baked into cakes, into loaves, which sustained them and they ate.

But then they still grumbled and they turned from him and they they worshipped other gods.

Why?

Because they they might have loved his provision, they might have loved the rescue, they might have loved the bread that was coming down from heaven, but they didn't love him.

They didn't want his presence.

Here, there is a crowd coming out into the countryside to follow Jesus, to meet with him.

And where does Jesus go?

Verse 3.

Jesus went up on the mountain.

So here's Jesus on top of a mountain with a multitude of people coming to meet with him.

What time of year was it?

Well, we have it there in verse 4.

Again, John is deliberate in telling us.

Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

The time when we remembered the rescue from slavery, it was that time of year.

We know it was that time of year from the little phrase uh on down where it says that the grass was green.

That is, it wasn't late summer.

Uh, so the sun hadn't burnt the grass uh into hay.

The grass was still green, meaning it was springtime, that's the time of Passover.

It was the time when people had the Exodus rescue bubbling in their mind.

And what does Jesus do with this multitude?

He feeds them.

How?

Miraculously.

And we're told later on that at the end there is 12 baskets left over, and the twelve disciples go and uh collect up the twelve baskets, mirroring who?

The twelve tribes of the people of Israel.

Jesus is, in a sense, reconstituting his people.

This is an unmistakable claim to divinity.

That Jesus is the God of the Old Testament.

Yahweh.

He is Yahweh.

He is the one who would bring his people out of a better Exodus.

He won't just rescue them from earthly tyranny, from earthly slavery, he'd rescue them from eternal tyranny, from slavery to sin, to that addiction to me, myself, and my and rescue us ultimately from death that we might live with him forever.

He will set his people free and provide for them and be present with them.

The people were told down in verse 14, have a look at it.

When the people saw the sign, that is the miracle, the feeding of the 5,000, when people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.

The prophet who is to come into the world is a phrase from the Old Testament from the book of Deuteronomy when Moses is about to leave the people in the wilderness, he's about to die.

Um, and he says, Look out for the one who comes after me.

Look out for the one who comes after me, who's a prophet like me.

And they perceive that, but they perceive wrongly what it means.

So John doesn't say, Oh, and they were mistaken, it wasn't true.

No, they understood rightly, but they'd missed the significance.

They had understood it in terms of Jesus is like Moses because Moses is the guy who uh who got victory over the Egyptians, and so Jesus is gonna get victory over the Romans.

Moses is the guy who split the stone or split the rock with his staff and water gusts.

And so Jesus is gonna give us those earthly material things.

But no, when Moses was saying this prophet that comes after me, he's saying, No, there's one that's gonna affect a better rescue.

The significance of Jesus being the prophet like Moses is that Jesus would be that who would lead them out of slavery.

They saw him and saw the one who gives food, the one who gives victory.

And that's why they they wanted to make him king.

They say, Oh, what a great king he would be! He keeps on providing.

He's just a gift that keeps on giving.

So let's let's get him to a throne.

He's gonna kick out the Romans.

They were so fixated on the provision.

And they will continue to be through this passage.

Here's a warning for us all.

A warning.

If you only want to make Jesus your king when your belly is full, then you're part of the crowd.

If you only make Jesus your king when things are going well, when your relationships are all as they should be, when you're feeling provided for and sustained, you're part of the crowd.

And the warning there is by the end of this chapter the crowd is gone.

That sort of following of Jesus won't sustain you through a lifetime.

If you're just looking for Jesus' provision, be careful that you don't desert him when you start to not get what you want.

The crowd want Jesus' provision, the disciples want his presence.

It's strange that the account of Jesus walking on the water is here, really, if you think about it, because you know.

Just loads of verse.

Let me see how many.

You know, from verse 22 to verse 71, it's all given to explaining the feeding of the 5,000.

What we just read in the first 15 verses.

And yet there's no explanation of why Jesus comes walking on the water.

It's weird that John just kind of dumps it in there.

If we'd gone from 15 to 22, what would we have lost?

Because you've got the miracle, and then you've got the explanation of the miracle.

And yet in between, in the middle, you have Jesus coming to walk on the water.

It's just because, you know, was John kind of say, oh I've got this miracle, where will I shove it in there?

Top tip that's not how the Bible writers worked.

And so if something is surprising, if you're like, oh, why is that there?

Then that's probably important and you should probably pay attention to it.

I think it's here because it actually helps us to understand the feeling of the 5,000.

I think it's here because it helps us to understand the feeling and who Jesus is.

It's worth noting as we uh look more at the walking on the water that there are a number of contrasts between the disciples and the crowd.

The crowd in the first 15 verses is completely passive.

They are passive, they are receiving from Jesus.

The disciples, however, are actually active.

Jesus for sure is in charge, but he brings the disciples in, he asks them questions, he directs them to make them sit down in their groups, in their groups of 50.

So don't think that says here, but it is in the other account.

He is the one who uses his disciples to orchestrate this ministry, this miracle.

He invites the disciples not to be passive recipients, but actually to be those who participate in the work.

Do you see?

This is what it's like for us to follow him.

If we are his disciples, we aren't passive.

He works through us, with us.

He invites us to contribute to the mission with our own gifts and talents and the way that he has empowered us with the personalities that he has given us.

The disciples of Jesus aren't passive, they're active.

None of this let go and let God nonsense.

Take that off the back of your car.

Right?

Take that down from your screensaver.

It's not true.

You know, Jesus take the wheel.

No, that's no.

The disciples are active.

They work with the master.

And God, this is how gracious Jesus is.

Jesus looks at the disciples who are only thinking in material terms, and Jesus looks at you, and he looks at me and he goes, Hey, what do you think?

How can we solve this problem?

He says, All right, you guys go.

Make them sit down.

Go and start, and you distribute the bread.

Jesus does the miracle.

Jesus does the supernatural stuff, because that that's kind of his thing, it's not our thing.

But he uses ordinary people in it.

Isn't that wonderful?

Moreover, another contrast.

The crowd are satisfied wonderfully, like we've already noted.

The crowd, they eat their fill.

They have as much as they want.

But the disciples are provided for abundantly, do you see?

Any piece larger than an olive, apparently, wasn't to be thrown away.

And so he says, Go and pick up the fragments.

And he gives them this basket overflowing with his provision, with this miraculous bread.

The crowd gets satisfied.

The disciples get abundantly provided for.

The sad reality is if you're the kind of person who just wants Jesus to provide, there's actually so much more to be gained by being a disciple.

The crowd is provided for sufficiently, the disciples are provided for abundantly.

Ultimately, we'll see because actually what they get are his presence, not just his stuff.

Here in verses 16 to 21, the disciples face uh another threat, like I said, not from hunger this time, but from a storm.

Uh a couple of the details here.

They've rode out uh three or four miles.

Uh the Sea of Tiberius, verse one tells us that's where they are, Sea of Galilee, Sea of Tiberias.

Uh, that's the same sea, it's just the Jews called it the Sea of Galilee, the Greeks called it the Sea of Tiberius.

And so John's saying, just be under no confusion as to what sea you were talking about.

And it's about seven miles wide or so.

And so when we read that they've rode out three miles, uh they're about halfway through.

Again, people who like to kind of uh butcher biblical interpretation would say, Oh, the walking in the water.

Jesus, Jesus, he can, he has a different perspective than the people in the boat.

He can see the sandbank, and so he's walking on the sandbank.

So for three miles?

I don't think so.

So they're halfway across the sea, and it's dark, and the winds got up.

You mean like there's no light anywhere, and so they can't see hardly anything, only whatever the night sky is giving, and there's a wind whipping up a squall.

How terrifying.

I don't know if any of you have ever been out on the sea at night.

I'd love to talk to you afterwards about what it's like, but I imagine that it's pretty gnarly.

And this time the disciples don't need baskets of bread.

It's not like, oh well, uh the wind's getting up, but we've got this bread.

That's not what they need.

That doesn't help them.

Jesus here doesn't give them a miracle of his provision, he gives them a miracle of his presence.

He comes to them walking on the water.

Notice here in this account, perhaps in distinction to some of the other kind of uh storm-calming accounts, Jesus doesn't say anything.

He doesn't say anything to sorry, he doesn't say anything to the wind of the waves.

So Mark 4, with the calming of the storm, Jesus gets up, he rebukes the wind.

Literally says, be muzzled.

Isn't that an interesting way of thinking about it?

He doesn't say anything to the wind and the waves.

He doesn't tell the sea to be calm.

Why?

Because that would be a provision miracle.

Oh, look at the look at the authority of the all-providing king.

What a great king that would make.

But that's not what's going on.

This is not a provision miracle.

This is a presence miracle.

He comes to them in the wind and the waves and simply says to them, It is I, do not be afraid.

We're not told that the sea became calm.

We infer that, but isn't that interesting?

He comes to them and simply says, It is I, do not be afraid.

We uh with our translations, we lose the force of the it is I.

It is I is the it's the Greek term egoami or I am.

Again, it's another Old Testament reference because when Moses says to God, Who will I say has sent me?

God says, Tell them, Ego Ami sent you.

Tell them I am sent you.

And so Jesus comes to the disciples and says, Ego Ami.

I am here, it is I.

Do not be afraid.

Both his walking on the waves and his declaration of it is I are laden with the significance that Jesus is God, because he is doing what only God does.

Let me read to you from Psalm 72.

When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid.

Indeed, the deep trembled, the clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth thunder, your arrows flashed on every side, the crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind, your lightning lighted up the world, the earth trembled and shook.

Your way was through the path of the sea.

Your path was through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen.

You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

What does God do?

He walks on the water.

Jesus is the God who doesn't just turn tell the wind to stop from afar.

He gladdens the disciples by his presence and he gets into the boat.

The thing that the crowd needed to see is that Jesus doesn't just give bread, that he is bread.

That's what he'll say next week.

The whole thing about giving bread, that's good as far as it goes.

But that was always just a symbol.

I am the bread you need.

That's what the crowd needs to see.

He is the one who will sustain their life.

More on that next week.

But here he shows that he doesn't just make the wind stop, he gets into the boat.

And he is with his people.

Sometimes the fear that grips us can be overwhelming.

It is at those moments that we need to realize that if we are a disciple of Jesus, that he comes near and he gets into the boat with you.

And he turns our fear to gladness.

Isn't that what we read?

Verse 21.

And they were glad to take them into the boat.

They were afraid, but then they were glad.

They don't just look for his provision, they look for his presence.

It is his presence in the first miracle that empowers their ministry.

There is no point in the disciples making the people sit down if Jesus hadn't been there.

Okay.

He empowers them in that miracle by his presence.

And now it is his presence again that turns their fear to gladness.

It is his presence again that not only empowers their ministry but actually empowers their journey.

And this is the curious potential third miracle.

Strictly speaking, verse 21 implies that there is a third miracle going on.

Because they're halfway across the sea when Jesus comes to them, they've got another three miles to go.

But what does verse 21 say?

Then they were glad to take Jesus, to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

I'd never seen that before this week.

Isn't that curious?

Like some sort of wormhole.

Space and time folded over, and they arrived immediately at their destination.

You ever have those conversations with people, maybe uh maybe on a uh on a date or with a good friend?

You have those, you have those kind of time-compressing conversations where you uh where you sit down and you begin to talk, and then you suddenly look at your watch and you realize that three hours have gone past.

Oh gosh, where did the time go?

Jesus' presence makes the journey all the more bearable, and he will bring us safely home.

You say, and with this we're nearly done.

How can this be?

How can I have the soul gladdening presence of Jesus in my life?

How can I have the soul gladdening presence and the abundant spiritual provision of Jesus in my life?

The answer is simple.

It is because the one who walked on the waters, on the waves of chaos, would later be willingly submerged under those waters on the cross.

He would plunge down into the depths and take all of our fears, all of our failings, all of our faithlessness, all of our sin, all of that addiction to me, myself, and my.

And where does the Old Testament tell us that God puts our sin?

Into the heart of the ocean.

Jesus plunges down into the depths and buries our sin at the heart of the ocean.

Why?

So that he might rise again and walk forever with us.

Don't just settle for Jesus the provider.

Don't just settle for Jesus the winemaker and the good time giver and the boyfriend provider and the good job giver and the nice marriage sustainer.

Seek the Jesus who will be present with you, both on the mountain side and in the valley of the storm, who will walk with you on the raging seas and make you aware of his presence, and who will embrace you in your boat and turn your fear into gladness, and we're going to be able to do that.