John 6:25-34

Thanks for being with us as we finish out a week here in the Gospel of John.

We are in the 25th verse of chapter six and,

we need to just kind of

connect a few dots here before we jump in.

John has inserted

a couple of stories, but this whole sixth chapter

is really dominated, dominated by the discussion of the feeding

of the 5000, particularly the imagery of bread and

that's going to come up again today as Jesus moves

toward a discussion with lots more of those implications.

So, if you remember, Jesus fed the 5000,

then he and the disciples left the disciples first.

Then Jesus walks on water.

Now Jesus is back.

The crowds have followed him.

And what we're getting today in this passage is Jesus

having a conversation, which is almost a confrontation with the crowd.

So, jump in here, verse 25 read down through, oh, I don't know, 33 or so.

And then

we'll come back for,

some discussion.

When they found him on the other side of the sea,

they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus answered them,

I tell you the truth.

You're looking for me

not because you saw signs me, but because you ate your fill of the loaves

do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food

that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.

Then they said to him, what must we do to perform the works of God?

Jesus answered, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

So they said, what sign are you going to give us

that we may see it and believe you.

What work are you performing?

Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness.

As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven.

Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth.

It was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven,

but it is my father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is that which comes down

from heaven and gives life to the world.

So again,

we have one of these passages in John where there are misunderstandings

and some rabbit trails, and John uses imagery to kind of help us get there.

And in this case, bread.

Jesus.

Semi critically says, you know, you're following me for the wrong reasons.

You you came over here, but I don't think it's

because you saw the signs and understand what you saw.

I think it's because you got free bread and you want to be filled up again.

And then Jesus occasions this conversation.

Don't work for food, but not for food that perishes, but for food that will last.

And then the people get where the people in John typically go.

Will show us a sign, validate what you're saying.

Which of course in John is always the wrong thing to say

because Jesus is his own sign and anyone who's paying attention should know that.

And so Jesus then

says, look, it's not about Moses.

It's about what God does.

And the bread that God gives is the bread that comes

from heaven, clearly referencing himself.

This is not to steal next week's thunder, but this is all headed toward

a place where Jesus is going to say, I am the bread of life.

And so I think it helps to keep that destiny in mind.

It maybe to see the through line here that we're getting.

But, you know, Michael,

these are the moments that,

Yeah,

maybe John runs the risk of losing people,

because we do get these back and forth kind of dialogs. But,

clearly, Jesus point here is essentially

be motivated for the right things, for the right reasons.

And again, don't don't ask for signs because you shouldn't need them.

You know, some small interesting details that you're going to find in the story,

like verse 25, the first question that they ask, Rabbi, when did you come here?

And you might remember that when Jesus was saw coming across the lake,

you remember that suddenly the boat ends up on the other side.

We talked about sort of the mysterious circumstances of that.

You know, it's so it's interesting that the crowd leads in with a question, hey,

when did you get here?

Maybe more than just a narrative question.

There may be a little bit of,

some also some spiritual significance in that, you know, that Jesus has done

this miracle not just walking on the water after he fed the crowd,

but that that boat just suddenly moved.

And now how?

Well, you know, Jesus.

How how is it when is it that you got here?

And then Jesus, I think very tellingly, in Gospels,

in the gospel of John's account, Jesus makes it abundantly clear

that he is seeing in this crowd not signs of faith,

but rather signs of appropriation, that Jesus is going to be

a great source of food and daily sustenance.

He's going to be a good Messiah, as had been expected.

And I think that you're going to see

that argument only continue when Jesus pushes back on that.

And then the crowd says, well, our our ancestors

ate the manna in the wilderness.

And then Jesus turns this and says, no, no, no, no,

it wasn't Moses who gave you that bread. It's the father.

And this is a theme claimed that that John

makes it clear to us that Jesus returned to often.

What's this theme of the fact that it's the father who sends the son,

who gives his life for the world, and that that ordering is essential?

That's a theological proposition.

It's that that there is the father, and then there is the son.

And you have in that this triune kind of idea that

if you understand that ordering, then you can understand what Jesus is teaching.

Now, if you see Jesus

for who he is, then that becomes a gateway to revelation for who God is.

And all of this flows one into the other.

And I think there's a sense in which Jesus is saying,

you know, as they say, show us a sign.

And Moses gave us bread.

I think there's a

sense in which Jesus is asking them if they're paying attention.

I mean, Jesus has just done that.

Yeah, Jesus has just given them bread in the wilderness.

Also, Michael, I think we have to be a little careful with this

because our reformed theological tradition has made up,

significant debate between the idea of faith and works.

But if you read this passage, there's a little bit of it here.

They say, what do we have to do?

What work do we have to do?

And Jesus rather says, you have to believe that

that if you believe and and please know that for John,

believe doesn't just mean mentally accept something.

It means to trust something and follow something and put one's

faith in something.

It doesn't just mean accept it as true,

it means orient your life by it.

And I think there's a sense in which Jesus says, if you do that, the works

will take care of themselves.

It isn't about what you have to do.

So they say

here, what must we do to perform the works of God?

And Jesus says, this is the work that you believe in him whom he has sent.

And so I, I think there's a helpful lesson there for those of us who consider

ourselves inside the faith that, yes,

we are called to do the things of God.

But those things, rather than being,

requirements in and of themselves,

are the natural outcome of belief.

And it is more important

that we practice faith that bears fruit, that then

that we try to cross off the list of works that are required of us.

And that's not a main point of the passage,

but I think given our lens as reformed

Christians, there is a sense in which we can see it in there.

There's also an aspect of belief

connected to observation or proof.

And John, with this language of sign really I think emphasizes that.

And we specifically see that here.

When Jesus in verse 26 says, I, I tell you,

you are looking for me not because you saw signs, in other words, that

the bread that they ate, that the miracle that they literally took into themselves,

drew them outside of themselves to see the truth of who Jesus was.

No, it's because you ate your fill of earthly bread, right?

You filled your body and that felt good.

That's why you're here.

But then ultimately, the crowd returns back to him in verse 30.

What sign are you going to give us then?

And at this point, I just imagine Jesus exasperated, right?

Like, what sign am I going to give you?

What more do you want me to do for you?

Right, right, right.

Like there is 12 baskets of food left over.

The disciples just literally saw Jesus

calm a storm that what more

do you need to see the truth of who Jesus is?

And I think that that's a constant and kind of growing tension for Jesus.

And I think plenty of it does explain a little bit

why Jesus says conflict with

the crowds does increase so quickly and rapidly in the Gospel of John is

because when Jesus does these things, John makes it clear they should.

Every single one of these should be enough

for the crowd to to be tipped off to who Jesus is.

And yet

repeatedly and consistently, the crowds don't get it.

They're not there.

And and so then the question is, ultimately, what would it take

for us to believe? How much do we need to believe?

And to what extent do we need the miraculous to be able

to see into life, to understand who Jesus is?

And I think the the sub theological foundation in John,

I don't know that this gets teased out explicitly many times,

but I think it's there throughout the whole. Is that

the normal, the common, the

physical, the stuff that we do every day is enough

if we but look with eyes of faith, if we allow ourselves to believe,

suddenly that opens the door to understanding in a way

that we could have never imagined otherwise.

And I think John wants to make it clear it's not the fantastical displays

that reveals who Jesus is, though there are signs to who he is, it's

very much the one who sent him, and the truth

that he proclaims.

Yeah, I,

I wonder if one could say.

That absent faith,

there's never enough evidence

to come to faith.

But on the other side of faith,

one is able to see

evidence in abundance of of who Jesus is.

These, these crowds, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, etc.

they see all the things Jesus does,

but they've already decided

something about who Jesus is.

And so they they miss what those things offer to teach them.

And and I'm not sure if that's the conversation

we're having here with the crowd,

but if one is looking for certainty,

absent faith, or if one is looking for proof

absent faith, I think you won't find that in the gospel.

And I certainly think you won't find it in the Gospel of John.

It it is a the conviction of who

Jesus is is affirmed by what Jesus does.

But it's, I think, fundamentally an act of belief.

I mean, that's the word that John will come back to over

and over and over again.

And interestingly enough,

evidence generally doesn't lead to belief.

But once one believes,

they will see myriad evidence

that affirms what it is that they see in Christ.

Well, and the crowd's response to this, I think, is striking.

And, you know, my Bible, I've got the red letters here.

So look at the little,

black leathered section here in verse 34.

They said to him, sir, give us this bread always.

I think that is just, written by John.

This is so, John.

This is such a beautiful encapsulation of the misunderstanding

of the spiritual truth.

I mean, Clint, let's be honest.

If you're, a literalist and you want to read Jesus's teaching, literally,

you will be like the crowd and always confuse the Gospel of John, right?

Like, yes, okay.

Is the bread of God is sent from God himself.

We want more of that Jesus.

Like, hey, we finally got you back on the same page.

Now we're talking about bread again.

And and the moment that the crowd does that, it on one hand,

I do think displays their lack of understanding.

But in a way, Clint, there's also a kind of generous moment

here in that, though the crowd doesn't understand

the subtleties of what Jesus is teaching them.

The request give us this bread always is the hope of the gospel.

That's also a deep, deep kind of first step into the faith.

Yet even if they do

mean the physical brother, even if they continue to misunderstand,

there's enough interpretive space and room that John is giving us that maybe

inviting the bread always is the first step, that ginger first,

just tiny little edging into what God might have to reveal us.

And that Jesus, though he does get into this kind of conflict

with the crowds, he's always yet still leading them.

He's always inviting them.

And there's a kind of graciousness, even when you see a phrase like that.

And we've seen we've seen this before, the misunderstandings

with Nicodemus, how can a person be born from above?

The woman at the.

Well, this is very much patterned on the conversation with the woman at the well.

There's living water will give me that living water,

because then I won't have to come out here with a bucket.

Yeah, John loves those kind of misunderstandings.

And I think John loves to leave the reader pondering over

earthly

questions that have heavenly implications.

You know, give us this bread.

We, the reader, know that they don't know what they're asking,

but they are asking the right question.

They're making the right request.

They just don't understand what it is.

And I think, John, I think John does that purposefully,

because the idea is that that's what we would say, too.

But rather than talking about physical bread,

we would be talking about what Jesus is talking about,

what Jesus is trying to communicate, the, spiritual

nourishment and eternal,

the eternal bread, bread of life, as he's about to call it.

So yeah, I think those stories are well loved in

John, the misunderstanding which leads to

Jesus stating a truth

that people don't quite understand.

They're close, but they're not quite there.

Which leaves the reader asking, well, what do I understand?

I very, very briefly here at the end, just verse 33, notice

how John repeats these themes so consistently throughout the book.

This sounds a lot like John 316.

If you take a step back,

the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life.

To what? To the world?

There's this consistency in the teachings of John.

Yes, it's spiritual teaching.

Yes, it can be easy to get caught on autopilot. Yes.

I think there's moments where the book does

feel like it gets bogged down, especially as we get further into it.

But Clint, yet there's a consistent theme throughout it.

John 316 is not an accident of the book.

It's not somehow you know,

saying

that just for a short moment glows brightly.

No, I think it is woven throughout this book that God's the one

who proactive Lee sends and God sends

for the purpose of saving who?

The world, the God's intention, God's direction,

God's plan is central to this book, and it's never it never changes.

It's rooted at the.

Core and the mechanism being those who believe, those

who come to trust Christ.

Yeah.

We experience the salvation that God hopes or intends for the world.

So yeah.

John 316 is a very good foundation to keep in mind.

I think, when you interact with this book.

Okay. Well, thanks for being with us, friends.

Hopefully there's been something,

here today that encouraging, challenging that that has given you pause.

I certainly like this video.

If that's true, it helps others find the study

and have that moment for themselves and do subscribe

so you can stick with us on studies like this.

Grateful to all of you who have subscribed.

It's crazy.

We've crossed 1100 as of the making of this video,

so thank you for being with us.

We will see you next week. Have a good weekend.