“You Saw The Miracles But You Missed The Meaning”

Thank you Warren and congregation for helping us to preach the gospel to ourselves in song.  I hope you could follow that along.  That is the deep purpose of Christian music, to praise God and to speak to one another through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. 

Let’s look at John 6 please.  Jesus has just done the miraculous.  He has taken a little boy’s lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish, he has asked God to bless it; he broke it and fed over 5,000 people.  Had you been there, what would you have done?  Taking in the scenery, understanding what had happened, amazed at the miracle that took place, what would you do?  What would you do about the man, who performed such a thing?  Well, what the people did is probably the same thing we did.  In the middle of the night he sent his disciples away, he goes to the mountain to pray. They only know that and the next day they can’t find him anywhere so they go on a search.  This is the kind of guy you want to follow around. 

On the ski trip this week, and, by the way everybody did come back in one piece but with many bruises, Terry Henderson had this wonderful idea the last day…we didn’t ski.  He wanted to take us up to this little town called “Park City.”  Most of us had never been to Utah before, but there something was going on in Park City called the Sundance Film Festival.  That film festival is the largest film festival our country has.  Robert Redford is one of the sponsors of that, so you had these creative, a few weird looking types, walking around.  Now, I will tell you that Scott Riggs, Allen Powell and Justin Henderson really felt at home there.  [laughter] They just really fit into that climate; we kept trying to find Justin a wife while we were there.  He didn’t like any of them I picked out for him.  But, you know there were some big names that were there.  You know, a lot of people that were there were only there because of the big, well known names that were there.

At this instant Jesus had a big name.  And the people wanted to know where he was, so that is where we picked up with the reading.

Verse 25 says:

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

So many times in scripture, people ask Jesus a question and he doesn’t answer it, because he knows they don’t need an answer to that question.  They need to deal with a real life issue, and here I find his response quite direct and strange.

Verse 26:

 “Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you. [That is the way of emphasizing the weight and the truth of what he is saying] you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, [which would be a work done of God to point people to heaven] not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food the endures to eternal life.”

Now, very quickly we learn two things from this passage of scripture:

It’s easy to see that you can seek Christ for the wrong reasons.

There are churches all over and auditoriums all over this country this morning that are filled with thousands of people [and ours would be fuller if it weren’t for a little ice and snow today], filled with thousands of people who are going there to get their stomach’s fed, not their souls.  Now, not literal food, but the hunger that the world craves, that if they will believe rightly they will get what they want.  They’re chasing around the miraculous.  They are following around huge personalities just as sometimes we will follow Jesus, to get what we wanted.  They had their stomachs filled and he said, “Because I fed you with food and you saw this miracle, you follow me.”  You saw the miracle but you missed the meaning.

They go on and continue this conversation. Jesus said again, “Do not labor for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 

Their response and here we are seeing that they do not connect at all.

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

All Jesus told them to do was labor for that which would bring them eternal life.  He was revealing to them their blindness, that they were wanting their stomachs filled in the end would do them no good. 

And John, the writer, telling us this story is astounded.  That these people readily stand up and say, “Oh, God wants us to work.  Well, I’ll tell you what, Hey, God, tell me exactly what you want me to do and I am ready.  I can handle this.”  Do you really think you can?  They thought they could and then, one more time, Jesus sets them straight.

 “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” 

And you see there we get to the difficulty of the cross.  The cross tells us that we cannot save ourselves.  It tells us that we will not save ourselves and it tells us that there is nothing we can do to help God save us.  So, Jesus said if you want to do the work of God, don’t work…believe in me, the one who does the work of God.  And then to me they say one of the most unthinkable human statements that is recorded in scripture:

Verse 30:

“So they said to Him, ‘Then, what sign do you do, that we may see and believe   you?’”  You just got fed with a little boy’s lunch, 5,000 of you, you saw the sign but you missed its meaning.  So many people have seen and understood through history and through teaching and through the scriptures, the cross, but they miss its meaning.

Jesus then moved to a figure of speech that the Jews had a real hard time understanding.  They said Moses gave our fathers manna or bread from heaven in the wilderness.  Jesus corrected them, as we said;

Verse 33:

          “For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life   to the world.  They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’  Jesus said to them, I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger.  Whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

As he goes on, the conversation gets more and more tense.  They grumble back and forth among themselves because of things Jesus said.  They begin to say, Well, how can this man be the bread from heaven?  Isn’t he Joseph’s son?  Don’t we know his brothers?  And then he continues the conversation, and in verse 50, I want you to look at what Jesus said:

Verse 49:

“Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  And the bread that I will give for the light of the world is my flesh.

The Jews then disputed among themselves, [they weren’t even talking to Jesus, they turned around and talked with one another; what does he mean? What’s this? What’s that?] “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?  So, Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you; [He didn’t let up, he pressed harder now].  Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.  As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.”

Hard words.  His disciples, some of them left him and wouldn’t follow him anymore because of that.  We read that, and, it’s always strange to me when difficult passages like this in the Bible come up, and I know us well enough to know that sometimes we look at that and, ooh….it kind of raises the hair on the back of our necks.  What’s he talking about, eating his flesh and drinking his blood….but I’m always amazed at that when people are a little bothered by the rough parts of scripture when I think about what we watch in our culture on television or the movies.  But, as Don Carson said in his commentary: “Any dullard would have known even this day, that Jesus was speaking metaphorically.”

Now, hang with me while we lay this groundwork because it is essential to understand what he means.  The figure of speech is plain to see.  Let’s look at it for just a minute .  I’m going to take you through several verses so you can see it clearly:

Chapter 6, Verse 27 says this:

“Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life.”  [He’s dealing with food.  What kind of food is it that could give eternal life? So we know we’re talking metaphorically, he’s using pictures here; figures of speech these people were very familiar with.]

Verse 33:

Jesus says, “For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” [He gives the clue:  Food, Bread, He] So we know we’re talking metaphorically, nobody calls himself a loaf of bread!

Verse 35:

In that verse he says, “I am the Bread of Life.  Whoever comes to me, [okay there is no problem with the word ‘come to me’ is there?  “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.” [Okay, can you follow the metaphor? If you come to me, you’re not going to hunger.  So we know he’s not talking about physical hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.]  So, the word come and the word believe are synonyms and the word hunger and the word thirst are, so there is something about our soul that Jesus can do for us that no food in life can do.

Verse 40:

Jesus says, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.”  So, now he’s gone from bread and coming and believing  to looking.  John has already written in Chapter 3 that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” and all it took in the Old Testament for the people to be saved from the poisonous snakes was to look at what God said to look for, for salvation, and he’s saying, if you will but look and cast all your hope on me, I will give you eternal life.  So looking is a synonym to believing.

Verse 41:

“So the Jews grumbled about Him because he had said, ‘I am the Bread that came down from heaven.”  I am the Bread.

Verse 50:

“This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.”  It is so plain to see that Jesus is using figures of speech to tell us that if we don’t take Him in as our soul sustenance in life for eternal life, we have no life in us.  And following that later in the church, the Lord gave us The Lord’s Supper.  This passage is not about The Lord’s Supper.  It is the underlying meaning of the supper and then, once again, in teaching us with symbols. 

In a moment we’re going to hold a little unleavened wafer in our hand, we’re going to hold a cup that is juice from a crushed grape, and we’re going to take that into us as a symbol of many things.  It is to help us to remember in the past, it is to help us to proclaim in the present the death of Christ, and it is to help us anticipate in the future the return of Christ, and it is to remind us that if we’re not constantly feeding on Jesus, we have given up the source of eternal life.

Verse 52:

“Then the Jews disputed among themselves saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So, Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”

Blood is not a figure of speech for drinking that which flowed through Jesus’ veins. In that day, when the word, Blood, was used, it was a reference to death and usually a violent death.  Unless you cast all of your hopes for eternal life and forgiveness of sins on my life and my death, then you have no hope.  That is the essential of what Jesus is saying.

So, what do we learn from this?  How can we, in our day and time, learn from what Jesus said to these Jews that they couldn’t understand? Well, we have the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to shine His light on the scriptures and show us what is there, but it is actually far simpler than you would think.

Let me ask you a question and let’s start working our way back to the passage and make it personal to you and me and to us as a church today.  Okay, here’s the question:  “How do you eat and why do you eat?”

I could think of seven reasons as to how we eat or maybe mostly why we eat.  Now, these are not profound.  You could think of them in about 60 seconds, but let me help you out a little bit.

1.       The first reason we eat is out of necessity.  Now a newborn infant  knows that, don’t they?  And they are eating out of necessity as soon as they   come out of the womb, many of them are ready to eat, just like that.  But as we grow, we not only out of necessity but out of desire. 

2.       That’s the second reason we eat.  We have a desire to eat.  So far, so       good.

3.       There’s a third reason why we eat and we have to admit this, we eat in     search of pleasure.  Do you like to eat? Why do you like to eat?   You   know, God did not have to make food taste good.  You understand that, don’t you?  You have taste buds because he designed it that way.  Then he designed food to go into your taste buds so that it would be pleasing to you. So we eat in search of pleasure.

4.       We eat regularly, right?  No?  Yes you do.  We eat regularly.

5.       We eat for relationships.  How many of you enjoy eating lunch alone? It’s really not very fun to eat alone is it?  When you have company at your house and you have a beautiful living room with lots of chairs in it to sit down that are soft, but you are feeding people snacks or a meal, where does everybody end up talking? In the kitchen that is not big enough for anything.  We eat for relationship and fellowship.

The last two reasons we eat are a little different.

6.     We eat out of nervousness; comfort food.  You know what the phrase, comfort food, means don’t you?  For me it’s a bowl, well….it’s a tub of Cheerios before I go to bed at night.  Or something richly chocolate and about a half a gallon of milk.  That is comfort food for me!  Don’t you think it’s okay to eat for comfort, especially if Christ is the Bread of Life, and when we reach for that comfort food of Cheerios or chocolate we should set it aside and realize that our anxiety is our sign to pray because Paul said, “Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which passes understanding shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” 

So when I reach for my comfort food, I should reach for the real comfort food in Christ and bow myself before Him and say, “Lord Jesus help my nervousness.”

7.     The 7^th reason we eat is we eat out of boredom. You’ve eaten because you didn’t have anything else to do, didn’t you?  You’re just bored, you grab some microwave popcorn or just whatever is there.  One thing a Christian should never suffer from is boredom, because they have the Bread of Life to spend their life with and to give them life.

So, let me draw some conclusions, okay?

Basically the Bible is teaching us that we eat to satisfy our needs.  We eat to satisfy our hunger. Jesus said it this way in Verse 33: “For the Bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Verse 35:  “I am the Bread of Life.  Whoever comes to me shall not hunger; whoever believes in my shall never thirst.”

We eat to satisfy the needs of hunger, thirst and relationships.  Those are the essential reasons we eat.  In heaven itself there’ll be a huge banquet where we sit down together.  We’re not going to be eating in little rooms by ourselves, we’re all going to be there. 

Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” 

The psalmist said, “Oh, God, you are My God.  Earnestly I seek you.  My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  Are you thirsty?  I know what it is to be a bit thirsty.  Practicing in the August heat, knowing a water break is coming and you’d die to get your next drink.  But I also know what it is to have a soul that is thirsty.  And, maybe that’s where you are this morning.  Your soul aches.  It is empty.  It’s hungry.  You’ve searched for satisfaction in 100 ways, and it’s so strange that everything in which we search for satisfaction always comes to an end and always leaves us unfulfilled.  That’s why there are alcoholics, that’s why there are sex addicts, that’s why there is all kinds of craziness in the world and the more you get, the more you have to have, and it becomes a perversion.  Only Christ can satisfy the need of the human soul.  The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “God has set eternity in our hearts” and our hearts hunger, and our souls thirst, and we need relationships and it is at the table of Christ that we find all of those things.

And second, you eat for pleasure.  We have somehow gotten the idea that pleasure is wrong when it comes to the spiritual side of life.  That God made us for pleasure.  Let me see if I can get this clear.   We are needy creatures, we are made for pleasure.  One of the reasons we eat is for pleasure.  How many of you, when you think about your relationship with God, that you are coming to Christ for pleasure?  Our world is so upsidedown, pleasure for so many people means sensual pleasure and we can’t get beyond that.  I’m talking about a soul-satisfying, soul-relaxing, soul-calming pleasure.

The psalmist said in Psalm 34:8, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.” If that’s not pleasure, I don’t know what pleasure is.  Somebody offers you a dessert and says, “Hey, take that, it’s good.”  Why are they giving it to you? It’s sure not for nourishment, is it?  It’s because it tastes good.  The thing about Christ, however, is that no matter how good He tastes, He is always for soul nourishment .

You eat for pleasure. Let me prove to you that you eat for pleasure.  When I ask you a question, answer it in your mind as quickly as you can. 

What’s your favorite restaurant?  What’s your favorite meal there?  What’s your favorite dessert there?  Do you have an answer?  “Popcorn.”  Thank you, Donna. There were some guys on the ski trip that liked popcorn.

One of my favorite restaurants is Macaroni Grill.  My favorite dish there is Pasta Milano; and my favorite dessert is Tiramisu.  Because I like it.  Hey.. I got an Amen on Tiramisu.  Thank you!  Somebody’s awake!

How would you agree with this, or would you? That we are needy creatures and we were made for pleasure.  You were!  Where are you going to find it?

What then can best meet our needs and satisfy our souls for pleasure?  No wonder Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Because something had to come from heaven to satisfy the needs of our soul.  Nothing on earth can do that!  The psalmist says, “Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee; my flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart.”

So, this morning, don’t miss the meaning for the miracle.  The Jews saw the miracle. They saw him feed 5000.  They just missed the meaning.

In just a few moments, we’re going to hold that little piece of bread  in our hand.  As I said earlier, it is a connection to the past.  Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  In that we are to use every ounce of our sanctified imagination that God has given us.  I think at this point it is to remember all you can know and even see in your mind’s eye what Christ did on the cross for you. 

“This do in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you do shew forth the Lord’s death till he come.”

Remember!  As you hold that in your hand, you are to think about the one that died for you. 

As you hold the cup in your hand, you’re to think about the one who shed his blood for you!  Now, let me remind you that holding that bread and drinking that cup is for those of you who know for certain that Jesus did that for you.  This is not some kind of ceremony that by taking it you can get eternal life into you.  This is some ceremony that you take because eternal life is already in you. It’s not for someone who hasn’t placed their faith in Christ.  Because, how could it picture something that hasn’t happened to you?  How can you remember his death, other than an historical happening, if you haven’t placed your faith in him and said, “Lord Jesus, satisfy my soul, I am hungry; satisfy my thirst, I’m thirsty.”  This is to remind you of what he’s done to do that.

We are God’s creation.  We have fallen from Him. To redeem us back, He sent his Son.  He took on flesh like ours, He died on a cross in our place and He was raised from the dead.  As we take this we are also proclaiming in the present that Christ’s death still has its intended effect, it saves.

And third, as we take it in, we are doing it in anticipation of the future.  He said, “You do show forth my death until I come.”

So, I want you to engage your entire person.  He gave us these elements, that we can touch, that we can taste, that we can take into us to show us that the object of our faith, Christ, is real.  He’s concrete.  This is not the object of our faith. It is to direct us to the one who is! Who really died; who we really can take in, who we really can trust to give us life.  So, as your senses touch that, as you taste it, as you smell the juice as it goes by your nose, it is to tell you that in reality God’s son died for you.  In reality God’s wrath was expended on Him, so in reality you could go to heaven.  That is what satisfies the soul.  It is through your senses that you see the revelation of God in Christ, and as you take that information in, your soul takes it in and you feel it and you think about it, and you, by God’s grace, judge it to be true, and you choose to have life. 

Now, he’s engaging you in the present.  He’s saying, “Look into your heart, are you mine?  Look into your life, are you walking with Me? And is my Son, the Bread of Life, that is satisfying your soul?