Lars Larson Live Stream

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I've been attempting to whittle down the number of pages of my notes, a little bit too much at times, and so I've managed to get today's down to ten pages.
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But I question whether we'll have enough time to cover these adequately. We're entering into,
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I think, a glorious passage before us here in John chapter 6, in which we read of Jesus being the bread of life.
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Now, of course, in this fourth gospel, in John's gospel, the miracles that are recorded are set forth as signs.
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And that word is used specifically, directly. Signs that point beyond the miracle itself to something else.
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And so the signs in John's gospel testify to the identity of Jesus as God incarnate.
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Most of the time, the miracles set forth Jesus as God, as the Son of God.
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But then following these signs recorded in John's gospel, we have discourses of Jesus, rather long speeches or teaching sessions of Jesus.
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And it would seem that a miracle would set up the context and the subject for the teaching session.
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And so he fed the 5 ,000, and now he presents himself as the bread of life. One flows toward the other.
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The miracle sets the stage for the discourse of Jesus. John 6 contains the fourth discourse that we've considered so far.
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The first three included his discussion of the new birth with Nicodemus in John 3, and the nature of true worship in John chapter 4.
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And then the third discourse is when he set himself forth as the one who gives life and who will judge the world, and that was in John chapter 5.
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Now here before us in John chapter 6 is his fourth discourse in which he shows himself to be the true bread from heaven who gives eternal life to those who believe on him.
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That is the major theme. This rather prolonged section, by the way, it begins roughly with verse 25 and continues all the way to the end of the chapter with verse 71.
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So we're going to be here a few weeks. And so Jesus, the bread of life.
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And so this discourse of Jesus follows the sign that Jesus had given through the miracle he had already performed, and that, of course, being the feeding of the 5 ,000.
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He is the bread of life. Actually, however, there were two miracles that preceded this discourse.
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They were both in the opening verses of John chapter 6. First, we had
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Jesus feeding the 5 ,000, and then secondly, last week, we considered Jesus walking upon the water of the
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Sea of Galilee. Many commentators identify the feeding of the 5 ,000 as the fourth sign of Jesus in John's gospel, which gives a context for this discourse on the bread of life.
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But others would say that Jesus walking on the water should be regarded as the fifth sign.
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And so among commentators, there's a difference in numbering the signs of John's gospel.
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Some only see the fourth miracle, feeding the 5 ,000, then we have the discourse. Others say, no, we have two signs here, the feeding of the 5 ,000, and then secondly, the walking on the water, and these set the stage for this discourse.
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And I think walking on the water should be regarded as the fifth sign, by the way, of this gospel record.
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Now, again, we've described these recorded teaching sessions of Jesus as discourses. When we think of a discourse, we might simply envision one standing before a crowd and giving a speech, kind of like the
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Sermon on the Mount. There was no interchange between Jesus and his listeners.
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But actually, the discourse before us is not in the form of a formal speech. But rather, this discourse is actually a dialogue in which
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Jesus engages his listeners. He makes a statement, teaches, and then they ask a question or pose some objection, and then he responds or further enhances his instruction.
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And so really, it's a dialogue that is recorded for us here. And if your
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Bible happens to be a red -letter edition, you can see clearly that John 6 contains a verbal exchange between Jesus and those who are before him.
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And as I'm attempting to break it down for us to be able to digest it a little easier,
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I'm looking for these little narrative clues where he finishes making a statement of doctrine and then you get a response or reaction of his hearers.
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And I kind of take that as a division right at that point. And that's how we'll work through this discourse over the next few weeks.
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Since we're just beginning to consider this discourse today, we want to take this occasion to read the entire passage in order to understand the context.
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And we have recorded actually in my notes the text with a red -letter edition.
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Now, when Mary made copies of the notes, that obviously didn't come over into your copy. It's all black font.
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But my copy that I printed at home has the red -letter edition, the red letters speaking of Jesus.
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And by looking at that, you can clearly see that it's a give -and -take between Jesus and his listeners.
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I'm going to read through it. And although you don't have the red letters in front of you, please give attention to the back -and -forth discussion between Jesus and those listening to him.
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And so here's John 6, 26 through verse 71, and it's in the New King James Version.
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Jesus answered them and said, Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
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Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the
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Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Then they said to him,
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What shall we do that we may work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said to them,
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This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. Therefore they said to him,
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What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do?
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Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.
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And Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my
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Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
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And then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them,
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I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst.
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But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe. All that the
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Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out.
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For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the
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Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
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And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
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The Jews then complained about him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said,
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Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it, then, that he says,
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I have come down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said to them,
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Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him at the last day. It is written in the prophets,
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And they shall all be taught of God. And therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the
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Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God.
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He has seen the Father. Most assuredly I say to you, He who believes in me has everlasting life.
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I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.
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This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
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If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which
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I shall give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying,
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How can this man give us his flesh to eat? And then Jesus said to them,
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Most assuredly I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
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Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
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For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
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As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.
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This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.
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These things he said in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum. And therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said,
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This is a hard saying. Who can understand it? And when Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, he said to them,
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Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before?
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It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing.
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The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.
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For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would betray him. And he said,
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Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my
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Father. And from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.
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And then Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away? But Simon Peter answered him,
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Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And also we have come to believe and know that you are the
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Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you?
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The twelve and one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray him being one of the twelve.
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So quite a lengthy discourse before us. It's very rich. There are some themes that seem to reoccur, and it's going to be somewhat of a challenge to be able to present these in an orderly fashion.
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However, in order to understand this passage in smaller units, I'm going to follow this outline.
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Doing the Work of God, verses 26 -29, and that's all we're going to cover today, those few verses.
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Secondly, God the Father sent Jesus to give eternal life to His elect. Third, the
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Father gives eternal life to the one who believes on His Son. Four, no one has eternal life except through feeding upon Jesus Christ.
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And fifth, only those enabled by God's sovereign grace will believe on Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
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This passage is one of the clearest passages in the Bible about the sovereignty of God and His dispensing of saving grace to His people.
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So let's consider these first few verses, 26 -29, on doing the work of God.
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The discourse begins with Jesus confronting the crowd before Him for seeking Him with wrong motives.
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He had fed the 5 ,000 the day before, and those were just 5 ,000 men, not including women and children.
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And this, of course, resulted in the crowd becoming quite excited, quite enthused.
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They became followers of Him. They were trying to follow Him. As He went across the sea, they walked around.
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They were following Him, seeking Him. The next morning, they would have forced
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Him to become their king. They were that much enamored with His ability to provide for them and for their cause.
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He multiplied bread. He can give us bread. Let's make Him king. But Jesus rebuked them for their faulty reason for seeking
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Him. We read in verse 26, Most assuredly I say to you, you seek
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Me not because you saw the signs, that should have been the reason why they sought Him, but rather because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
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And so we see from our Lord's response to them that first, they were seeking Him for the wrong reason. Verse 26, it's important that we seek
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Jesus for the right reason. The miracles were signs which pointed to His identity as God incarnate, that He, Jesus of Nazareth, was both man and God.
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These miracles were signs pointing beyond the miracle to this reality, to this truth.
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But these people did not see the miracle of the multiplying of the loaves and fish as a sign which revealed to them the true identity and nature of Jesus.
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They were impressed regarding the miracle itself and for what benefit that it brought to them and might bring further benefit to them if He became their king.
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They weren't concerned about Him, they were concerned about themselves. That's the bottom line. They were enamored with the loaves they ate, not with the true identity of the person who had the power to multiply the loaves.
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In short, rather than the sign leading them to know and believe Him and to serve Him, they desired that He would serve them and continually serve them by providing for them bread, an unlimited supply, supplying bread for them.
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He would become an easy and ready source for what they needed and wanted. They would make
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Him king. I wonder if much of modern church ministry philosophy, which claims to know how we may reach the world for Jesus, would have us present
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Jesus in terms that would have really satisfied this crowd. Come to Jesus and look at all the benefits that you will be able to obtain from Him.
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And that's often the appeal that is made to people to come and believe on Jesus.
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A crowd would have readily responded to that kind of appeal. Why, if you believe on Jesus, you'll be forever provided for.
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Your greatest longings will be realized. He will meet all your needs. And oftentimes that is really at the heart of evangelical church philosophy of ministry.
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This is how you are to shape your church ministry to appeal to people to come to Jesus.
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But we see that these people came to Jesus on those terms and He wanted no part of them. They were completely out of sync with the proper way to come to Jesus in repentance and faith.
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These miracles in John's gospel are signs which reveal Jesus to be the Son of God, whom the
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Father has appointed to be Lord over heaven and earth. That should have led them to respond to Him in faith.
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And we are responsible to see this truth and respond to it by repentance from our sinful independence, our self -indulgence, self -ordered existence, and to believe and submit unto
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Him as Lord. Yes, all those who do so shall be blessed eternally, but we are to seek
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Him and to know Him for who He is, not merely for the things that He might give us.
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That is not the kind of motivation that we should have for seeking Jesus, but rather it is right that we do so because of who
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He is. He's the Lord, and He deserves and warrants our faith and our praise and our submission to Him as King.
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He doesn't buy our loyalty because He gives us the things that we want, but that was the motivation of this 5 ,000 crowd apparently.
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And so Jesus rebuked them, saying, Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
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They came to Him. They were enamored by Him. They believed on Jesus. You could have asked them.
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Of course, we saw Him multiply the bread, but their coming to Jesus had a serious problem.
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It was not bringing salvation to them in any way. And I fear again the way that Jesus is presented as Savior today in so many ministries.
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It gathers these kinds of crowds, but you wonder about the reality of it when you stand back and watch it.
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You see what seems to be motivating these people and the kinds of appeals that are made to these people to supposedly come to Jesus.
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I wonder how much is truly biblical, how much is gospel. Our Lord revealed these followers to be insincere and corrupt in seeking
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Him. In essence, they were hypocrites. Richard Sibbes, a
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Puritan, wrote of them and then drew a lesson for all people everywhere. Jesus convinced them of their fault and their hypocrisy, of their wicked and carnal aims to holy business.
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They come flattering of Christ, but as He was too holy to flatter, so He was too wise to be flattered.
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He deals therefore directly with them, thoroughly convinces them of their hypocrisy and corrupt aims in following after Him.
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We are all naturally prone to these carnal ends and holy actions. We must take heed with what minds, with what hearts we come before God whose eyes are brighter than the sun, who regards not so much what we do as with the minds we do it.
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He's concerned why and how we are coming to Him. Now granted, we would grant that as Christians we grow in our understanding and our recognition of why it is we are to seek
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Him. And the Lord will often use difficulties in our lives and great physical needs in order to initially get our attention and we come to Him.
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But hopefully before long we grow beyond this in our understanding.
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We seek Him for who He is, not because of the perks that He gives us. Even the disciples themselves didn't always recognize the importance and relevance of the signs.
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We read in the Synoptic Gospels that the disciples themselves failed to recognize the meaning of the loaves.
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As one wrote, F .F. Bruce, according to the synoptic narrative, that would be
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, even the twelve did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
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And so it's not surprising that the crowd failed to grasp the message. But while the synoptic narrative simply leaves us with the feeling that beneath the surface of the miraculous feeding there was more than met the eye,
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John proceeds to bring that hidden meaning to light by recording Jesus' discourse about the bread of life delivered in the synagogues of Capernaum.
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Now what F .F. Bruce was saying there, the synoptics acknowledge the disciples didn't see the relevance of the sign, but John's gospel explained why.
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And that's the nature of the discourse that we have here in John chapter 6.
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And so we're to believe on Jesus, and we are to obey him as our Lord and Savior, even if we receive nothing from his hand in this life.
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Are you willing to do that? Even though we may know that only trial and trouble lie before us for following the
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Lord, we are resolved that those things will not deter us. We're going to follow the Lord and believe on the
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Lord because of who he is. And he deserves our faith and our loyalty.
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Whether or not we get any personal benefit from it in this life is immaterial, at least if we're thinking rightly and clearly.
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That should be our attitude, our opinion. Because oftentimes, again, if Christianity is presented, come to Jesus, have
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Jesus as your Savior, and life is going to go better for you in this world. You're going to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.
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We are misrepresenting the Lord Jesus, and we are misrepresenting the life of a
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Christian. It was Os Guinness who wrote about 20 years ago, he predicted, he's a
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Christian sociologist, that it wouldn't be long where all these megachurches that offer this kind of message are going to be vast carpet showrooms.
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And what he meant by that is that people before long realized that what these people are promising isn't being delivered.
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That all of a sudden you become a Christian, your spouse doesn't automatically love you, and your kids don't automatically become obedient to you, and all of a sudden your business becomes successful, and you're healed of cancer, and everything goes well.
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That's not the Christian message of the Bible. But that would have appealed to this 5 ,000, and it appeals to people in the world today.
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And there are many that think that they are truly Christians, because they're followers of Jesus, but if the
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Lord Jesus turned and spoke to them, he would rebuke them as fully and clearly as he rebuked these 5 ,000 on this occasion in John chapter 6.
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Again, we're to be faithful to the Lord Jesus regardless. Now there's lots of benefits, wonderful benefits of course, but we shouldn't be following him because of those.
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We should be following him for who he is. And so our Lord was faithful to these crowds.
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He opened up the chapter with 5 ,000 followers. He ends the chapter with 12, and they had their doubts.
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And it's because he faithfully taught them. And the principal message is he taught them sovereign grace.
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The only way you're going to be saved is if God, in his sovereign grace, moves to save you.
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And these people didn't want to hear that. And even many who claimed to be his disciples wouldn't hear that.
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They would go elsewhere. And so the Lord was always faithful to confront his would -be followers with the reality that life may not be rosy for followers of Jesus.
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In fact, it may be quite tough. And so we read, for example, in Luke's Gospel, as he journeyed on the road, someone said to him,
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Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. Put your name down. We've got a new follower here. Jesus said to him, no.
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Foxes have holes and birds in the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. You follow me?
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Fine, but don't think that it's going to go easy for you by doing so. Charles Spurgeon wrote of our
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Lord's dealings with crowds in a sermon he entitled Fickle Followers. I love the title of that sermon,
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Fickle Followers. He wrote this. Our Savior never refused anybody who came to him who ought to have been accepted by him.
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His own words were, him that comes to me I will in no way cast out. That is a true description of his dealing with men at all times.
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If they do but come sincerely and truly, he always welcomes them. Thank the
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Lord. On the other hand, he did not shovel them in indiscriminately. He did not gather them to himself wholesale.
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He did not go about, as it were, soliciting their patronage, willing to take in anybody so long as he could swell the number of his followers.
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Oh no, we have good evidence here that he knew how to shut the door as well as to open it.
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He knew as well how to warn the pretentious as to accept the penitent, that is the repentant.
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He was ready for the sincere with open heart and open hand, but he was faithful to those who were self -deceived or those who through ignorance professed what was really not true.
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Now we ought to be the same, dear friends. We should always be anxious to receive all who will come to Christ.
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At the same time, we must exercise judgment and not put down everybody as converted simply because he says that he is.
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But we must judge and watch and try and test, lest we help self -deception and come to be servants of Satan by bolstering up the delusions of mistaken men and women.
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And I fear there's a lot of mistaken men and women today, and many of them are in churches, sadly.
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Well, we see in verse 27, our chief concern and aim in life should be to obtain eternal life.
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After rebuking them, Jesus instructed them, verse 27, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the
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Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal upon him.
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And so we see the people were laboring. They were right to be laboring. The problem, however, was that these people were laboring for the wrong kind of food.
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Jesus said, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life.
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What did our Lord mean by laboring for the food that perishes? He was speaking of all earthly things for which fallen man lives for, rather than for God.
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And so again, to quote Richard Sibbes on this, all earthly and outward things are the food that the natural man feeds upon.
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The soul of the covetous man feeds upon his money. Applauding himself, he's worth so much and so much.
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The ambitious man, chameleon -like, feeds upon the air, upon the airy applause of the people.
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The sensual man feeds upon base and sensual pleasures. In a word, all carnal men, natural men, that would be non -Christians, are condemned to that sentence of the serpent to eat dust, to feed upon outward, earthly, perishing things, so that everything that is not grace and glory, or the means that lead to it, is a perishing thing.
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And he's telling them, don't labor for those things. In other words, don't make it your chief aim in life. And Sibbes went on to state how we may tell if we are guilty of laboring wrongly.
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Here's a good way to examine yourself. How shall we know when our labor is immoderate, unseasonable, inordinate, after earthly things?
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How may we know this? I answer in a word, when they either hinder us from or hinder us in holy things.
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When they keep us from holy duties, as from the sanctifying of the Lord's day, or from any other service of God, or when they hinder us in them, when they fill us with distractions, when they turn the soul from the business in hand, and thus, when they do either hinder us from or hinder us in better things, we may know we offend against the dissuasion of Christ.
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Labor not for the meat that perishes. That's a good analysis.
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And so, rather than laboring for food that perishes, we are to be laboring for the food which endures to everlasting life, is what
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Jesus declared. We give ourselves over to diligence and laboring for spiritual food, that which will nourish us in faith.
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Which will result in receiving grace from our Lord to help us in our journey, as we journey to our heavenly home.
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When people ask us why we give ourselves over to what they think are extreme efforts, even to extreme diligence to seek
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Christ and walk with Him in faith and obedience, we may tell them, I'm following my Lord's instructions to spend this life in labor for the food that endures to everlasting life.
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Again, Richard Sibbes put forth, this is how you respond to your family and friends who charge you, you're too severe, you're too intent, you're too zealous, everything in moderation, and you're becoming a religious freak, frankly.
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How do we respond to somebody like that? We get that from our family, don't we? I remember one of my brothers commented about a year after I was converted, so this was 45 years ago.
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Of course, he wasn't a Christian, so he didn't see the Lord changing my life, but his explanation is,
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Lars, Mary ruined you. He thought the change brought to me was due to Mary's influence.
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And as far as he was concerned, she ruined me. No, it was the Lord that transformed me. And thankfully, when too many years later, he is converted, and so he's a professing
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Christian today. And he thanks me for the witness we had for him back when my dad died.
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But here Richard Sibbes gives a challenge to his listeners in this matter. It's a strange thing that persons should persuade themselves that they are
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Christians and yet go day to day without refreshing themselves with Christ and with the meditation of the blessed estate they are in by Him, both in respect to this world and that which is to come, without getting strength from Christ against temptations, an old
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English word for temptations, and against corruptions. Christ is food, and the promises and prerogatives we have by Him are food.
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We should labor after it every day, feed on it every day. If a man should ask a man in his calling, that is his secular work, why do you take such pains, morning and evening, rising early, going to bed late?
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He would answer, It's good to get bread. It's good to get food to maintain my family.
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And so should it be our answer to any that would wonder why we take such pains for our souls, why we labor so after Christ.
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Oh remember, we take pains for life, to get and maintain life, and what is necessary for life as life, and if life be so necessary, food which preserves it must be necessary.
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We see the patriarchs, that would be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for food left their country, and the poor
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Egyptians sold themselves, and their cattle, and all to get food to keep life. We famish eternally except we feed on Christ, except we have so much faith as makes us one with Him, except by faith we digest
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Him, and get nourishment and strength from Him. It will be so when it's too late.
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Before long nothing in the world will relish us, and then if we have not Christ and the things of another life to relish us, what will become of us?
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I beseech you, consider what opinion and judgment we shall all have, we shall have before long of these earthly things, and of the better things of another world.
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At the hour of death our judgments will be convinced that the things of heaven are the best things, and if it be true that they will be so then, why is it not true that they are so now?
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Labor to have the same judgment now. We should be zealous for the things of Christ, and seek
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Him daily, to feed upon Him in faith. So the
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Lord was using the metaphor of physical food, to illustrate their need to seek and receive spiritual food.
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And this is consistent with the presentation of our Lord's interaction with people in the fourth gospel, by the way.
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You'll recall, when He spoke with Nicodemus, He compared physical birth to spiritual birth. When He spoke to the
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Samaritan woman, He compared literal water and Jacob's well, and the spiritual water that He was offering.
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And here He addressed the crowds regarding physical bread, in order to illustrate their need for spiritual bread, which was, of course,
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He Himself. And so one wrote, The contrast here between perishable and spiritual food is similar to the contrast between material water and spiritual water in Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well.
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As the water in Jacob's well could not provide the sole refreshment which living water provided, so food which perishes with the using might sustain physical life, but could not impart life eternal.
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As Jesus in chapter 4 is the giver of that water which bubbles up to eternal life in those who receive it, so here
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He is the giver of the food whose properties are such that those who eat of it will never hunger again.
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So the same method of conveying spiritual truth is being employed by Jesus.
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It's simply a different setting. In verse 27, after the
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Lord Jesus told these many people that they were to labor for the food which endures unto everlasting life, He declared to them that He would give them this food as the
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Son of Man. Again, verse 27, Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the
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Son of Man will give you. And so even though Jesus spoke in terms of their labor, which would result in eternal life, the
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Lord makes it clear that eternal life would be granted to them as a gift. And so there's laboring, and yet in the end, ultimately it's a gift of God, not because you earned it by what you did.
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That's certainly being conveyed. How could these people be sure that He's able to grant them eternal life, that He will be true to His promise to them?
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Well, the rest of verse 27 states why He can be believed. Jesus said,
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Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you.
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Why? And here's the reason. Because God the Father has set His seal upon Him.
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Now that is a validation that everything Jesus has promised you and me will be realized.
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Because God the Father has authorized Him, has established
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Him, has set His seal upon His Son. In other words, God had authenticated the identity and the works of His Son.
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And this is what the signs of the miracles signify. In this Gospel, the signs that Jesus did was that God the
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Father was setting His seal upon His Son. And so, as one wrote, this is
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Herman Ritterbos, the cause for on Him as God the Father set His seal speaks of the exclusive appointment and authorization of the
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Son of Man as a bringer of salvation. The idea that this sealing refers to a specific event in Jesus' life, specifically
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His baptism, as some think, is not likely. This Gospel never mentions
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Jesus' baptism. The reference is rather to the divine authorization of the
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Son of Man as such. It's for that reason that one should zealously labor for the food that He gives and not labor merely for earthly bread, because the
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Father has set His seal upon the Son. And believe what He says, and what
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He's promised will be realized. The Puritan, John Flavel, I've got a lot of complete works of Puritans.
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This is one I don't have. It's actually out of print right now. Six volumes of works of John Flavel. I saw it on eBay last night for 149 bucks.
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I almost pulled the trigger. But I thought, no, no, I'm going to wait.
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We hope to go to the Banner of Truth conference, Jason and me, in May. And Banner of Truth has sales on books, and I hope it will be back in print.
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I don't know. But John Flavel, he's wonderful. He gave a sermon on this last clause of verse 27, because God the
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Father has set His seal on Him. And when Flavel began to address this statement, he gave a good summary, really, of the verses that we've already considered.
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This scripture is a part of Christ's excellent reply to a self -ended generation who followed
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Him, not for any spiritual excellencies that they saw in Him or soul advantages they expected by Him, but for bread.
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Instead of making His service their treat and drink, they only served Him that they might eat and drink.
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Self is a thing that may creep into the best hearts and actions, but it only predominates in the hypocrite.
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In other words, we all have this problem to a degree, but the professing Christian who's not a true Christian, this characterizes them.
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These people who sought Christ from place to place, having at last found Him, they salute Him with an impertinent compliment,
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Rabbi, whence camest thou hither? Verse 25. Christ's reply is partly dissuasive and partly directive.
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He dissuades them from putting the secondary and subordinate in the place of the principal and ultimate end, not to prefer their bodies to their souls, their fleshly accommodations to the glory of God.
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Labor not for the meat that perisheth. Wherein He does not take them off from their lawful labors and callings, but He dissuades them first from minding those things too intently.
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And secondly, He dissuades them from that odious sin of making religion but a pretense for the belly.
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And it's partly directive in the main end and business of life, but labor for that meat which endures to eternal life, to get bread for your souls, to live eternally by.
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And that He might engage their diligence in seeking it to purpose, He shows them not only where they may have it, which the
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Son of Man will give you, but also how they may be fully satisfied that He has it for them.
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And the clause I've pitched on, for Him has God the Father sealed. And so everything leads up to that last statement.
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You know, this is what authenticates Him. This is why we can know what He says is true.
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We don't have time to go through Flavel's description of the nature of the sealing of Jesus by God as Father.
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And by the way, the implications and the fact that God has sealed us as well.
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I hope you take the time to read that, however. But the fact is, now
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I'm in the middle of page 8, and we're going to finish here in about 3 minutes. The fact is, the
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Father sealed the Son of Man for these glorious ends to bring us eternal life.
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And we are to seek Him for who He is. He is the Son of God. All these miracles of John's Gospel are signs that point to this reality.
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And therefore, we are to believe on Him. This sealing speaks of His complete qualification and endorsement by God the
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Father. And therefore, everything Jesus did, His Father was doing through Him.
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Everything He taught, His Father was teaching through Him. Everything He promised His disciples,
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His Father was validating. He would fulfill this. Because God the Father set His seal upon His Son.
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And therefore, lastly, at the top of page 9, what is the true work of God? The true work of God is to believe in Jesus Christ as the
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One whom God the Father sent to bring salvation to sinners. Again, they react.
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They said to Him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them,
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This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent. They spoke of works as plural, works of God, and that expression of God, that's a genitive form, and what's implied by that are the commands of God.
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What are the commands that God has given us that we might do? What are the works that we might do? And Jesus reduces that from plural works to a single work, you believe on the
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Son. This is the work of God. And I just want to close with this word.
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I never saw it before until examining this verse in particular.
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I think he does more than just say, rather than the works of God, you do this work that God requires, believe on Him.
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But in the first part, he says, he talks about the works that God requires, or that's what they wanted to know, but instead
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Jesus came back, no, rather, I'm going to tell you the work that God does, and that is enable you to believe on His Son.
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And that's the emphasis that Jesus gives here. I'll tell you about the work of God, not the work that He requires you to do,
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I'm going to tell you about the work that He does, and that is He has prescribed and determined, and He will produce in you to cause you to be a believer and inherit eternal life.
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And so He's really setting the stage of this matter of sovereign grace that He continues throughout this entire passage.
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I hope you take time to read the notes and some of the comments of Matthew Henry that enhance this, and Richard Linsky who commented about it.
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It's quite an amazing thing. It's not so much the work of God that you do, it's the work of God that God does in you.
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And He proceeds to tell about how it's the ones that He calls, it's the ones for whom the
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Father sent Him that He would raise them up. And so He's getting into the area of sovereign grace and that only
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God can bring salvation, and He will bring salvation to those that the Father gave Him from eternity.
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And so we're going to see much here in this passage on election, election of sinners from eternity to be saved, of effectual calling,
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God calling sinners to salvation, of definite atonement of the Lord Jesus dying for the sins of His people.
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There's a setting forth of sovereign grace here in John chapter 6 that just upset everybody, and they didn't like it, and they were offended, and they walked away.
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But the true disciples, they remained. And it's not like He begged them to stay.
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He challenged them, now's your chance to go away. You know, you're going to go away also? And Peter rightly responded, where are we going to go,
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Lord? You've got the words of eternal life. You know, we might be ignorant, confused, and troubled, really troubled by what we just saw you do.
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We had a kingdom here, you know, a couple hours ago, and now there's nothing. But where are we going to go?
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We're going to cleave to you. And that's what we're to do because of who
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He is. Amen? He's the Son of God. Let's pray. Thank you,
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Father, for Your Word. Help us to be true to our Lord Jesus because,
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Father, You have set Your seal upon Him. You authenticated Him and His ministry and His person.
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We thank You for the glorious promises we have in Him. And we pray, our
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God, that You would help us to be very diligent followers of Him and feeding upon Him continuously, reading
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Your Word and talking about Him with one another as we walk in the way.
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And we pray that our hearts would be stirred, inflamed with zeal and love for the cause of Christ, for the furtherance of Your kingdom.
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For we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. For more information, visit www .fema