The WORKS of GOD | John 6:28-29

The Apologetic Dog

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most Church of Christ, and this took me a while to figure out the lingo. Now, I told you earlier, when they see the word work of God, that's code for works of obedience that you do.

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And so this kind of stems from John chapter 6, because we see that phrase.

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And what's my pattern? We're going to define terms, we're going to look at context, and we're going to be consistent. Tell people that's what we're going to do every time.

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It'd be no different here. They really think this is a big defeater. And I'm going to say, let's just look at context.

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So you have this crowd that experienced the miracles of Jesus taking the fish, taking the bread, and man, it was an incredible experience.

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And so a lot happens. And then starting in verse 28, this crowd of people said to Jesus, what must we do to be doing the works of God?

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

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And they say, see, believing is a work that you do, and it's a work of God.

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And I'm like, time out. Because there's a lot of given assumptions on their side.

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Number one, I think the biggest assumption is that these people are sincerely seeking after Christ, wanting to know who he is, and sincerely asking what do they need to do in order to be made right with God.

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I actually push against that. I would say I don't think these people are sincerely seeking after Christ.

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Why do I think that? Literally the verse before says, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

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So thereafter, Jesus being the miracle worker, man, he fed us last time. We want some more of that.

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And so here's the point. These people are not sincerely seeking after him. And they earlier saw the works of God in Jesus by performing miracles.

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That's crucial to the context. The works of God are the miracles that God does. And we saw that in Jesus.

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And they are not sincerely asking Jesus these questions. They are saying, what must we do?

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And I pause and say, look, they are thinking in earthly categories, things that they can get up and accomplish, and they do.

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They want to do miracles like Jesus. What do we need to do in order to be doing these works of God? I tell people, look, we know already in the immediate context that they're not being sincere based on what

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Jesus rebuking them for wanting after the miracles. But if Nicodemus earlier in John, the ruler of Israel, if he wasn't understanding it, why do you think these people are going to get it and understand?

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And to even drive the wedge even deeper, these are the people when Jesus started talking about doctrine, looking to him in faith alone, later talking about believing in him and how he gives true bread from heaven.

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And then he starts talking about drink my blood and eat my body. Verse 66 says they walked with him no more.

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So the point is, you can't put these people in a positive light. And so when they ask, what are the works that we're doing?

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They're thinking earthly. They're thinking about the things that they can do and accomplish in order to perform these works of God, these miracles.

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And then what Jesus says, this is the work of God. This isn't code for just do commands in obedience, and then you'll be doing the works of God.

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No, the work of God, the miracle that must occur is believe in me.

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And so this is a beautiful passage or so that a miracle, the works of God need to happen in your heart to look upon Jesus in faith.

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And so it's like whatever in the context you want to talk about there, that's the position we're going to land in consistently.