Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] John Chapter six is where we're at in part five. So, again, if you're joining us for the first time today, welcome. What we've done over the last now four years is that we've gone from Advent, the Christmas season, into a gospel. That gospel takes us all the way through to Easter. So we're going slowly through the Book of John.
[00:00:24] Even though we're going to cover a ton of ground today, we're going to try to cover the entire chapter six, which is a big chapter that I would recommend that you go back and reread and take into account yourself after this teaching. This happens after what Pastor Evan was talking about last week, in which Jesus heals a man next to a pool who had spent years and years and years trying to be healed. And the result is, of course, a beautiful healing of a paralyzed man.
[00:00:47] But then the secondary result is a bunch of religious leaders that viewed the healing and how it happened on the Sabbath, and they become extremely angry and frustrated. And so this immediately follows that which is on purpose. We have to believe with the writing of John, where Jesus now makes angry another group of people that would be considered really on the other side of the social. Social spectrum in a rural area full of people that we are led to believe that would have been a high population of Jewish radicals ready to overthrow the Roman government. And into that context, we come into John, chapter six. So would you stand with me as we read this portion of Scripture, as we have been through this entire book so far, and we'll continue on.
[00:01:32] It says in John 6, verse 1, it says, sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee, that is the Sea of Tiberius. And a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. And then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. And the Jewish Passover festival was near.
[00:01:50] When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? He asked this only to test him, for he had already in mind what he was going to do. Jesus being a little cheeky right here, Philip answered him it would take more than half a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. And so another one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. Here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.
[00:02:17] But how far Will they go among so many? And Jesus said, have the people sit down. There's plenty of grass in that place. And they sat down. About 5,000 men were there. And so Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. And he did the same with the fish. And when they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted. And so they gathered them, filled 12 baskets with the pieces of five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. And after the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, surely this is a prophet who has come into the world. And Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
[00:02:59] This is the word of the Lord. Amen. You can have your seats.
[00:03:04] And so John 6 begins in this really wide open, kind of rural setting in place. No city gates any longer. There's not the temple courts, no Roman garrisons nearby, just hills and grass and space.
[00:03:18] This isn't accidental. The people who follow Jesus into this place are not just hungry for food. They would tell you that they're following after this man because they've heard the stories and they are wondering if this real wind of change is coming, that the nation of Israel will once again rise to the position and place that it has been or should be in their minds.
[00:03:40] And so these Israelites living under Roman occupation are carrying behind with them these stories of Moses in the wilderness and manna or bread that has fallen from heaven and God overthrowing empire. So there's all these seeds of familiar storytelling that they're aware of. It's a little bit like, for me, as a Seahawks fan, seeing a Seahawks, Patriots, Super Bowl.
[00:04:01] Yeah, I am pumped that the Seahawks are in the super bowl also. They, like the amount of times I have seen that stupid interception from 10 years ago, May it be sent to hell, all the video clips of it.
[00:04:18] And they're like, hey, your team's in the Super Bowl. I'm like, oh, great. We gotta deal with this terrible old narrative that I'm so sick of. I just see it and I go, that makes me give me chills in the wrong way.
[00:04:30] These people are getting these little inclinations. They're seeing a man who may be a prophet who has performed miracles, and now all of a sudden, they're being fed miraculous bread, just like our ancestors, just like in the story of Moses with the people of Israel who wandered in through the wilderness, who had been delivered from Egypt and now are receiving their meals from heaven. This could be our time.
[00:04:55] And so in this setting, Jesus feeds them five loaves, two fish, enough for everyone, leftovers to spare. There's probably something in this, but ever since I was a kid, I always loved the imagery of the idea of 12 baskets being left over, like a little to go box for each one of the disciples on the other end.
[00:05:13] And so the crowd is thinking, this is it. And then John tells us plainly what the crowd has decided next. That they intended to come and make him king by force.
[00:05:25] This is our man.
[00:05:29] All the momentum and the popularity and the numbers suddenly are behind him.
[00:05:33] Jesus could win any election that he wants in this moment.
[00:05:38] This is a movement with mass appeal. And what does Jesus do on the other end of this incredible miracle? And with this crowd behind him, he just walks away.
[00:05:50] Now, it's interesting that Jesus doesn't shame the crowd for. For being hungry, right? He feeds them. It's this massive group that has come out and all of a sudden didn't understand maybe what they were fully getting themselves into and they found themselves hungry. I can't imagine anything less Bend than that.
[00:06:06] The amount of people in this town that somehow have snacks and lunchboxes and goodness, Stanley water cups and hydro flasks everywhere. The idea of a massive group of people looking at each other and going, you didn't bring the lunch. Where was. Where's your cup? Have you hydrated?
[00:06:24] Just sitting on a hill in the old mill, yelling at each other about how nobody brought the snacks.
[00:06:29] Would never happen here. This miracle would not happen in Bend.
[00:06:36] But this matters, right? Because Jesus isn't.
[00:06:39] He doesn't play everything in just this kind of spiritual realm. Jesus cares about the physical needs of the people. He cares about the body. He's not dismissive about their physical need. And God always meets us, just like in this story where we actually are and not just this idea of where he wishes we would be.
[00:06:57] And sometimes this is the temptation that we can fall into when it comes to in the church, that we only belong here if we've actually gotten to a place where now God can minister to us or deal with us or welcome us in, when the fact of the matter is, is that Jesus is not waiting for you to get somewhere else so that finally you can receive instead. God is with us in all things, in all ways.
[00:07:18] And that makes us welcome with God and in this space at any moment. Moment.
[00:07:23] But the problem isn't that they want bread. He can take care of that very easily. The problem is that they're looking for something a little bit more than bread. They would like bread, plus political and social power. And they want a messiah that will feed them, protect them, defeat their enemies, and restore national greatness. That's what this crowd of people wants.
[00:07:43] And they're hoping that he can be king following this.
[00:07:49] Now they've got some of it right. They're not wrong about God's power, that he has much of it. But they are wrong about God's priorities.
[00:07:57] They're not wrong about God's power, They're wrong about his priorities.
[00:08:02] They want a king that will use power for them. But instead, what they don't quite understand yet is that they have a king who will give himself up for them.
[00:08:14] Those are very different kinds of salvation, but they're both salvation nonetheless. Right?
[00:08:19] It's the kind of salvation that this group of people that has gathered, they feel like they can see and they can grasp and they know how this salvation can come about. And Jesus is about to provide a salvation that they've never considered before.
[00:08:31] I wonder if we don't fall for the same trap so often in our own lives, in our prayers even, we go before God and we say, God, I see this thing that I would like to have happen, and I know exactly how it can happen. And I will only consider my prayer answered if you check off steps four and five and six for me. And then I will have affirmation that you indeed are alive and that you love me.
[00:08:56] I see this salvation, and this is how I want it. And Jesus, so often in all of our circumstances and certainly in this one, is providing a route to salvation that we've never considered before.
[00:09:08] And so John, very intentionally because of this, wants you to hear the echoes of the culture that comes from the book of Exodus. Moses in the wilderness, manna from heaven, God forming a people, and not just freeing slaves. But Israel's wilderness story was never about like this speed or this spectacle. Instead, it was about trust. A group of people that, even after they had been freed from their slavery, had very difficult time trusting not only Moses, but God himself along the way. They grumbled and they got angry and they built idols and they walked down the wrong paths so many times because the wilderness exposes what we believe that God is actually for.
[00:09:51] Whenever we find ourselves in this dry and weary state and hungry, we begin to inform ourselves what we believe in our heart of hearts, what God is actually for. And so this crowd is saying, if Jesus can multiply bread, then he could probably multiply strength.
[00:10:08] And Jesus knows if you give strength before you offer up yourselves for surrender. You will do destroy yourselves.
[00:10:19] And so Jesus withdraws, not because, like, compassion isn't part of who he is, but instead because he refuses to become an idol. That props up their illusions of how this is all going to go.
[00:10:34] It says, the next day the crowd comes looking for Jesus again. So this is after Jesus has walked on water. So by the way, I told you, chapter six is a big story. I'm literally about to skip walking on water.
[00:10:48] For those of you who don't know, it's a big deal to walk on water and it's rarely happened ever. And that story is in here. So between these interactions that Jesus has with this crowd, he goes and he casually walks on water. And the disciples are amazed. And I'll make another reference to that here in just a moment, but we are virtually skipping that, so don't hurt me.
[00:11:12] And so now Jesus names this tension directly when he comes and he encounters these people again. And we'll read the scripture in a moment. He says, you're looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill. It's not an insult. But now he's beginning, and he does several times in this passage. You look for it. He's beginning to diagnose them what their sickness is and what their desire is and what they actually need, even though they don't know that they actually need it.
[00:11:37] They followed Jesus because he worked and because he helped and because he met this short term need. But they're missing out on this sign that he's really trying to point them to this far bigger thing.
[00:11:50] And so Jesus is not a means to a better life, but he's the source of life itself. And this crowd is about to begin to really, truly learn that from Him.
[00:12:00] But the trouble is that the distinction that he makes, and you watch it here in this passage of Scripture, actually breaks the crowd instead of endears them to Him.
[00:12:11] And so it says in verse 25, when they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, rabbi, when did you get here? And Jesus answered, very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw the signs I performed, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
[00:12:38] For on Him God the Father has placed his seal of approval. And when they asked him, what must we do to do these works that God requires? Jesus answered, the work of God is This to believe in the one that he has sent. And so they asked him, what sign then will you give us that we may see it and believe you? First of all, if I'm Jesus, I'm going, hey, 5,000 meals yesterday, relax, walked on water.
[00:13:07] Jesus is so much better than me. Don't get it twisted that I think that this was Jesus. This is me being hurt for Jesus, because he won't be hurt about it.
[00:13:16] Well, what will you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, as it is written, and he gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus said to them, very truly, I tell you, it's not Moses who's given you the bread from heaven, but is my father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
[00:13:31] For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, sir. They said, always give us this bread.
[00:13:39] There's a little bit of a dancing around the subject matter here. And Jesus is almost trying to coax them in to this understanding, until finally he says it a little bit more on the nose and Jesus declared, I'm the bread of life.
[00:13:52] All these conversations about bread and how you want to eat, Moses had, okay, I am the bread.
[00:13:57] I've been sent from heaven.
[00:14:00] All these other things that you think give you sustenance, this is the real sustenance and salvation that we're talking about. Look at me.
[00:14:06] Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you've seen me and you still don't believe. And so bread is not a bonus item. It's not a dessert. It's not a supplement to what you already want and think you need. But instead, bread is what we build our diet and our day around.
[00:14:28] And so Jesus says, I am the bread of life.
[00:14:31] I love that he mentions in this.
[00:14:34] He talks about, don't invest or gather food that simply spoils, but instead, find something that endures.
[00:14:41] I think about when I was a kid, my dad would take me to the Texaco gas station across Interstate 5 from the Little church that we went to that was between Azalea and Glendale, Oregon, in southern Oregon. And so we would drive across after services in our 1994 Toyota Corolla hatchback that we had named the White Knight because it was very stately, as you might imagine.
[00:15:05] And we would go to this Texaco across the way, and it had a hot case. All right, that hot case. For those of you who don't know what a hot case is, you're missing out.
[00:15:15] It's got pizza pockets and jalapeno poppers and potato wedges that some of you know as Jojo's. And it's got Sunny Delight.
[00:15:26] Yeah.
[00:15:27] Some of you are experiencing acid reflux right now.
[00:15:32] And we would go, this is like my favorite thing. My dad would take me over there and it was one of my favorite things.
[00:15:38] And so I take my kids to the Chevron right down this road at the roundabout here.
[00:15:44] And I love it. It's so fun. We haven't gone in a little while, but they ask me basically every time we leave the church if we can go. And so when I take them, I tell them, look, you can get a drink and then any snack you want a drink and any snack you want. My son does it right. He knows where the greatest value is in these snacks. And so he's looking at, like chicken strips, he's looking at bags of jerky. He's looking at kettle chips. He's making the right decisions. My daughter goes toward this stupid aisle where it's like this fake off brand candy that is in the shape of a toy.
[00:16:14] And she goes, I want this. I'm like, I know that product and it's gonna break in the truck on the way home. I'm not doing this.
[00:16:23] You know? And in this metaphor, the things that lead you to eternal life are tater tots and corn dogs and jalapeno poppers.
[00:16:35] Feast your eyes on the hot case, my child.
[00:16:39] Look at the promised land. I am offering you any snack in these great walls, and you fall before the Mentos toy.
[00:16:52] And she insists she wants these things so bad. It's so stupid. And I look at her, I'm like, this is just junk, you know, because kettle chips are not.
[00:17:02] And root beer, this is what you want. The metaphor broke down right when I said chevron.
[00:17:11] But I see Jesus in these situations. He's saying, look, I'm not here. And saying, I can give you what you need, or I can support your goals, or I can help you win. He's saying, reorganize your hunger around me. And the crowd begins to leave because he won't be weaponized or nationalized or turned into some kind of miracle dispenser.
[00:17:30] He's saying, you guys want junk so bad, even the well intended, you want the nation of Israel to come back and be this wonderful thing again. Look, I understand, and I get where you're coming from, and I know why you want that so much. But even Moses, when he delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. And they went into the wilderness, and God was with them, and they were following the cloud. They abandoned God on so many occasions.
[00:17:55] Which tells me that your independence and your desire to be this great nation again do not indeed lead you back to the heart of God.
[00:18:04] So I'm here to bring you something better than a king. I'm here to bring you something better than a captain that will lead you into war. I want you to have something that is eternal, that will exist inside of you, and then it will go far beyond you, throughout all of the generations that come after you. And by the way, it won't stop with the Jews. Instead, it'll go to the Samaritans and the Gentiles, and it will stretch all across the earth. And these words are the reason that we exist today. Because Jesus, in this situation, didn't simply muster himself an army to go overthrow the Romans. Instead, he knew that we would be here with our souls, seeking after something eternal that was lasting far beyond our country and its exploits and its understanding and these policies that we invest so much of our time in, which are good, but something far more eternal, that is, for every single soul on this planet.
[00:18:51] That's why he did what he did.
[00:18:55] Don't be Christians that fall in love with junk.
[00:19:02] Now, as we've said many, many times, we should be invested in politics. We should vote, we should debate. We should participate in democracy. These are good and holy things. And ultimately, the thing that undergirds each and every single one of us is this grace and this mercy of Jesus. It has to begin there, because that's the only thing that will last far beyond all of these others.
[00:19:25] Jesus won't settle for being received as anything other than life itself.
[00:19:32] And so he says. And John says this on purpose, right? There was so much grumbling in the desert among the Israelites when they were trying to find the promised land under the leadership of Moses.
[00:19:45] Jesus says this in John, chapter 6, verse 43.
[00:19:49] He says, Stop grumbling among yourselves.
[00:19:55] You're already doing it.
[00:19:58] You're already doing the thing that separated you from God before.
[00:20:05] He says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up the last day.
[00:20:10] It's written in the prophets that they will be taught by God. And everyone who has heard the Father has learned from him comes to me.
[00:20:17] No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. And only he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
[00:20:25] I'm the Bread of life.
[00:20:27] Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and yet they died. Temporary things.
[00:20:34] But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
[00:20:39] I'm the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. And the bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
[00:20:51] And so now here is the biggest tension for the crowd. Jesus begins to say something really difficult and he pushes it all over the edge right here, starting in verse 52 that says, when the Jews begin to argue sharply among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus says to them, very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
[00:21:17] He goes on, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise them up on the last day. For my flesh is the real food and my blood is the real drink. And whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. And just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
[00:21:46] Now, I try to put myself in the shoes of the disciples in these moments because, well, it makes more sense as you continue on in the story.
[00:21:53] But if I am Peter or James or John and I'm listening to Jesus say over and over again, eat my flesh and drink my blood, I'm going, there's a better way to say this.
[00:22:08] Why don't we talk about these statements before? Like we just give them, you know, everybody's going, ew. And the disciples are like, I get it, cannibalism is hard.
[00:22:25] But what Jesus is trying to do is not just like, he's not trying to be edgy, he's trying to help them understand that this consumption of this faith that has come to them needs to be completely internalized in us.
[00:22:42] That we need to make this way of Jesus, this gospel that so often wants to be co opted by so many people and ways of this world, he's saying, man, all these things are distractions and they're temporary. But me, when you make me, and who I am and how I have lived and who I serve, when you make me the centerpiece of your life, that is when true eternal life happens. That's how we bring heaven into earth.
[00:23:11] And so many disciples turn back and the momentum fades and the crowd thins and the buzz goes away.
[00:23:21] And as a side note, this is why we don't really believe in church growth here, but we do believe in deep formation in each and every single one of us.
[00:23:31] And so while crowds can grow and go away, that doesn't mean much in comparison to, are we trying to grab a hold of Jesus at a very foundational level and be built and formed by him.
[00:23:42] That's the task of the church.
[00:23:46] And then Jesus turns the twelve disciples and he asks, do you also want to go away?
[00:23:54] What a question.
[00:23:58] And again, putting myself in the place of the disciples, who were probably much better men than me, I hear Jesus question of, do you want to go away? And I think.
[00:24:08] I think I would like to.
[00:24:10] This is getting weird, And it's getting hard and difficult. Like, this was okay.
[00:24:20] You know, we made the sacrifice and we did so much. We left our parents and we left our jobs and we left our ways of living to come and follow after you. But then, like, we've seen some cool things happening, and there's a development, and the religious leaders were mad at us.
[00:24:34] But we kind of had this huge group of people that all of a sudden began to follow us because they felt disenfranchised by that group. And we, like, found our people.
[00:24:43] And this is fun. It's good, it's powerful, it's interesting. It's.
[00:24:47] And now they're all gone.
[00:24:50] Now we're alone.
[00:24:54] And so Peter responds to him. He says, lord, to whom shall we go?
[00:25:01] A question that someone would ask who has actually considered, is there anywhere else for me to go?
[00:25:09] And he follows it up with, you have the words of eternal life. He doesn't say, look, we get it and we understand you, or we like all of this, or, this is working out great.
[00:25:20] He says, there's nowhere else for us to live.
[00:25:25] And so Peter finds himself at this place that exists in this faith that's, like, stripped of leverage.
[00:25:34] This is the moment where Peter doesn't keep Jesus and who he is at arm's length anymore. Where it's like, look, this is good for me and it's good for you. So we'll keep this relationship going because this is all right right now.
[00:25:46] And now Peter's saying, I just don't have any.
[00:25:49] I don't have any way to, like, fight against this anymore. I'm with you no matter what, because you have the words of eternal life. I wonder if we would allow ourselves in the times of difficult strife in our nation of difficult strife for you personally, individually, in your own family, I wonder if you might find yourself at a place where your faith is stripped of all leverage. And now it becomes this intimate, close faith of I have nowhere else to go and I'll remain with you, Jesus. Even in my frustration and disappointment and confusion at why you do things the way that you do or why you don't do things, I am with you.
[00:26:33] And so we must be careful today. And I'll leave you with this. As we close, we must be careful that we don't become what the crowd in this story wanted.
[00:26:47] What they wanted was liberation, but without real transformation.
[00:26:55] What they wanted was victory without surrender.
[00:27:00] What they really wanted was a kingdom that didn't have a cross.
[00:27:08] And I've sensed this even in our nation. And I don't want to make massive, broad, sweeping generalizations, but I've experienced people with this where there's this kind of idea, as I'm going to paraphrase a guy named Rich Velodas who says, we have this great desire for Christ to permeate our nation. Without Christ being the center of our being, that is where the whole thing must begin and end.
[00:27:42] That we would be transformed in this cruciform way by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and his defeating of death and the resurrection.
[00:27:53] That way of living more often than not will not generate these massive crowds that want to follow and pursue after the difficult thing. But it will so often create this moment that Jesus and the disciples have where they look around and find following after Jesus and walking after this true gospel in all of its difficulty leads to some loneliness and silence.
[00:28:15] May we be people that want to follow Jesus through the crowd and through the awkward silences.
[00:28:23] And so Jesus offers something deeper and more costly to us today.
[00:28:28] And he disappoints them and frustrates them, not because he fails, but because he refuses to lie about what life actually requires.
[00:28:40] So I'll leave you with this question today. Do you want Jesus to change your circumstances? Which would be nice.
[00:28:46] Lord Jesus, help me with my finances. Lord Jesus, help me with my relationship. Lord Jesus, help me get a girlfriend. Lord Jesus, help me find the right place to live. Lord Jesus, help me get a job. All beautiful, wonderful prayers. You should continue to pray.
[00:28:58] But do you really want Jesus to become your sustenance and not just one that changes your circumstance?
