Sometimes being a hard worker isn't a good thing.
John 6:25-40 (NIV)
CONTEXT: After spending days teaching people, during which He had fed the 5,000, Jesus had crossed the lake, partly because He sensed the crowd wanted to make Him their political leader. But the crowd came looking for Him. We pick up the conversation after they'd found Jesus again.
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 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. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
We'll finish this passage tomorrow.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 35: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
We believe and confess
that our Savior Jesus Christ
has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper
to nourish and sustain those
who are already born again and ingrafted
into his family:
his church.
Now those who are born again have two lives in them.
The one is physical and temporal—
they have it from the moment of their first birth,
and it is common to all.
The other is spiritual and heavenly,
and is given them in their second birth;
it comes through the Word of the gospel
in the communion of the body of Christ;
and this life is common to God’s elect only.
Thus, to support the physical and earthly life
God has prescribed for us
an appropriate earthly and material bread,
which is as common to all
as life itself also is.
But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life
that belongs to believers
he has sent a living bread
that came down from heaven:
namely Jesus Christ,
who nourishes and maintains
the spiritual life of believers
when eaten—that is, when appropriated
and received spiritually
by faith.
To represent to us
this spiritual and heavenly bread
Christ has instituted
an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body
and wine as the sacrament of his blood.
He did this to testify to us that
just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands
and eat and drink it in our mouths,
by which our life is then sustained,
so truly we receive into our souls,
for our spiritual life,
the true body and true blood of Christ,
our only Savior.
We receive these by faith,
which is the hand and mouth of our souls.
Now it is certain
that Jesus Christ did not prescribe
his sacraments for us in vain,
since he works in us all he represents
by these holy signs,
although the manner in which he does it
goes beyond our understanding
and is incomprehensible to us,
just as the operation of God’s Spirit
is hidden and incomprehensible.
Summary
Jesus doesn't seem happy that the crowd He had slipped away from had found Him. He immediately lays into them, pointing out that the only reason they came looking for Him was because they had eaten the loaves and had their fill [when Jesus fed the 5,000]. In other words, they only saw Jesus as a solution to their ongoing physical need to eat.
Instead of working for food that spoils, Jesus tells them they ought to be working for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. After all, Jesus tells them, God the Father has placed His seal on Him.
These were hungry people who'd been miracuously fed by Jesus, and they wanted more. They had demonstrated that they were willing to do almost anything to get more of this miracle food, as evidenced by the fact that they traveled a significant distance to track Jesus down, and they expressed their willingness to do even more by asking Him what must we do to work the works God requires (literal translation) in order to get this food that endures to eternal life?
Dig Deeper
These first century Jews were hard working people, just like us. Certainly their work differed from ours - their lives centered around the work of baking bread and commercial fishing - but like us, they knew that having food on table their depended upon them working hard to make it happen.
So they fell into the same trap we often fall into. When you're a hard worker, it seems to make sense that getting more of God's grace and blessing comes down to working the works that God requires. But Jesus stuns them and us with the simplicity of the work that God requires: Simply believe in the One God has sent. This doesn't lead to bread that spoils, like the manna provided in the wilderness, but to bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
The people demanded that Jesus always give them this bread. The real miracle is that Jesus gives them exactly what they want here! He says I AM this bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry.
But tragically, these people whom Jesus gives this amazing answer to end up rejecting the bread of life. They missed that Jesus came to work the will of God in our place so that we could be given the food that endures to eternal life.
This is what we celebrate each time we come to the Lord's Table. Make sure that you take and eat of it!
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who gives us the true bread from heaven;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you always remember that Christ came to work the works God requires on your behalf.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: 1 Thessalonians 3
