WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.759 What do we really need to live? What do we really need? It's a kind of biology question, 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:13.960 ! We need air, we need oxygen, we need water, we need three days without water, then we're 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:19.080 ! We need food. If we've got those three things, we can actually live. They're the three things 00:00:19.080 --> 00:00:25.240 we definitely need. These have always been the most basic needs for every human being, 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:30.539 aren't they? Air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat. And what's the most basic food 00:00:30.539 --> 00:00:34.960 substance? Well, in the Jewish culture of the first century, and to a certain extent in 00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:41.219 our culture today, it's bread, isn't it? Bread is the basic staple of life in various cultures 00:00:41.219 --> 00:00:45.739 anyway. In fact, I had no bread at lunch today, so I was condemned to eating Ravita biscuits 00:00:45.739 --> 00:00:49.599 instead, because it wasn't the same. Truth is to tell, we had the carbohydrates I needed 00:00:49.599 --> 00:00:54.119 to at least get me through this far through the day. Now, as we look at this story, remember 00:00:54.119 --> 00:01:00.339 we're back in an agriculture, an agrarian economy, where people didn't have bank accounts, they 00:01:00.339 --> 00:01:06.179 didn't have savings plans, they didn't have investments or pensions. They would work each 00:01:06.179 --> 00:01:13.319 day, and if they earned enough, they'd have bread to eat. So what these people have just 00:01:13.319 --> 00:01:17.219 experienced was, if I can mix my metaphors for a moment, it was like, all their Christmases 00:01:17.219 --> 00:01:22.259 coming together. Jesus, the day before, had fed them all they could eat. And so they wanted 00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:26.340 to make him king. Here is someone who can actually provide what we need. Wouldn't we love it if 00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:30.780 the government could actually provide for our basic needs like that, and food banks on every 00:01:30.780 --> 00:01:33.780 corner for anyone who needed them. It would be great, wouldn't it? That's what these people 00:01:33.780 --> 00:01:38.840 had seen in Jesus. They're like, yes, we can have food to eat. No more hunger. No more worries 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:44.660 about where the next meal will come from. No more crisis if the crops fail. We're sorted. 00:01:44.659 --> 00:01:51.399 Jesus has satisfied our physical needs. Let's make him king. And of course, Jesus would have 00:01:51.399 --> 00:01:56.479 avoided them. He'd run away. Chapter 6, verse 15. So they come to find him, still wanting 00:01:56.479 --> 00:02:02.819 him to provide day by day, to keep them going, to give them their food. They came with a material, 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:10.900 physical need. We're missing out on spiritual reality entirely. And yet how often do we come 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:17.800 to Jesus with our physical, our material needs? We want him to sort out a new job for us. 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:23.460 We want him to sort out problems in our families. We want him to make life that bit easier. 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:28.020 We come with all sorts of things we want him to sort out, believing he's able to sort them 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:33.420 out, and no doubt he is. But we need to pay attention to this conversation Jesus has with 00:02:33.420 --> 00:02:39.719 these people. Because in it, he confronts their priorities, but also our priorities. Their 00:02:39.719 --> 00:02:46.199 preconceptions, perhaps our preconceptions. And their pride, and also our pride. So let's 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:51.360 first of all see how he exposes their priorities. Look at verse 26. They come to him, they ask 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:56.860 him a question about when he came there, which is really a bizarre question. He's just trying 00:02:56.860 --> 00:03:00.120 to start a conversation, I think. Jesus cuts straight to the traces. He really says to them, 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:06.060 verse 26. Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:11.920 you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. In other words, Jesus said, 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:17.000 what you saw yesterday was a sign. It was a sign, it pointed something. Signs point to 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:21.800 things, don't they? You see a sign saying Ealing Borough, as I drive up from Hounslow 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:26.500 Borough, I know it's a sign pointed to the reality that this area is Ealing. It doesn't 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:29.900 mean the sign itself is Ealing Borough, that would be a very stupid, literalistic way of 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:34.300 thinking, wouldn't it? And yet these people have done just that. They see the sign that's 00:03:34.300 --> 00:03:40.719 pointing to who Jesus really is. But instead of grasping the meaning of that sign, grasping 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:46.620 the meaning of the miracle that Jesus had done, instead they're just looking at the physical 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:52.460 thing they see, the bread they've experienced. Jesus says, you're not seeking me because you 00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:57.540 see the sign pointing to who I am. You're not seeking me, you're seeking what I can do for 00:03:57.540 --> 00:04:04.240 you. You're seeking what I can do for you, not me. I think Jesus is a great bread machine. 00:04:04.939 --> 00:04:09.820 Just go keep feeding them. They're missing out on the significance of who Jesus is and 00:04:09.820 --> 00:04:13.900 what he's actually doing. But notice Jesus doesn't just leave them there, he urges them 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:19.699 to get their priorities right. To move beyond the physical and the material to what they really 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:25.420 need. So look at verse 27. Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that endures 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:30.699 to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set 00:04:30.699 --> 00:04:36.120 his seal. You see their problem? They're just focused on the material, on satisfying their 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:41.639 physical needs here and now. They completely neglect that there are bigger issues. There 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:46.420 is a bigger thing that Jesus has come to put right for them than just their physical material 00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:53.620 needs. And that is eternal life. Eternal life is not just a quantity of life, life that goes 00:04:53.620 --> 00:04:58.599 on forever. It's also a quality of life. It's the life we were made for. The life we were 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:02.860 made for in relationship with God. Yet we live in a world that's marked by death, don't 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:08.220 we? We all face death. Death is something we all have to deal with. We tend not to think 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:13.520 about it because it's a taboo subject in our culture, isn't it? Yet death is the ultimate 00:05:13.520 --> 00:05:18.560 thing we all have to face. Tolstoy, the great Russian author, realized this. It depressed 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:23.360 him greatly. So he once wrote, is there any meaning to my life which the inevitable death 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:29.300 awaiting me does not destroy? He saw that nothing he did would really last forever, even writing 00:05:29.300 --> 00:05:36.580 War and Peace doesn't last forever. And he certainly wouldn't last forever. That's why Jesus is saying 00:05:36.580 --> 00:05:42.040 there's something more important to work for than bread, than your physical appetite, than 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:48.060 the eternal life. We all know in our hearts, don't we, that actually material things do not 00:05:48.060 --> 00:05:54.420 fully satisfy. They do not fill the gaps in our hearts and our lives. Now 50 years, 50 00:05:54.420 --> 00:06:00.100 years last May, I think it was, when Keith Richards dozing off to sleep in his hotel room in Hyde 00:06:00.100 --> 00:06:05.240 Park, started strumming on his guitar, playing a few riffs with a tape recorder next to him, 00:06:05.660 --> 00:06:10.720 and singing the words that were in his mind, I guess. I can't get no satisfaction. I can't 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:15.779 get no satisfaction. Ended up being the Rolling Stones' first number one hit in the US and the UK. 00:06:15.779 --> 00:06:24.759 I can't get no satisfaction. It's true. I try and I try and I try, they're saying. And 00:06:24.759 --> 00:06:30.159 they still can't, they still say that. In Nick Hornby's book, A Long Way Down, it's a book 00:06:30.159 --> 00:06:33.719 about four people who meet, because they're all on the roof of a multi-storey car park on 00:06:33.719 --> 00:06:38.799 New Year's Eve, attempting to commit suicide. And none of them do, in the end they come down 00:06:38.799 --> 00:06:44.599 and hence the novel goes on. One of the characters is a TV presenter, who has had a great fall from 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:49.879 grace. He's been exposed in a sex scandal, and so he's lost his family, lost his career. 00:06:50.340 --> 00:06:54.840 And at one point his character says this, if you're a DIY enthusiast, then you'll know that 00:06:54.840 --> 00:06:59.100 occasionally you come across holes that are just too big for filler, especially in the 00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:04.740 bathroom. The guy who did a lot of work on my house previously, obviously, took this approach. 00:07:05.439 --> 00:07:09.420 When that happens, the sloppy way to do it is just bung the holes up with anything you can 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:15.100 find. Broken matches, bits of sponge, whatever you can find. Maybe that is what we all need 00:07:15.100 --> 00:07:20.840 in life, whether we're suicidal or not. Maybe life is just too big a gap to be plugged with 00:07:20.840 --> 00:07:27.000 filler. So we need anything we can get our hands on to fill it up. Some people do try to fill 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:31.500 it up with all sorts of things, don't they? Well, the whole novel resounds with emptiness 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:38.339 and doesn't answer the question it poses. We're only looking at material things, just like 00:07:38.339 --> 00:07:42.819 matchsticks and junk to fill up the holes. We are made for something bigger. See, Jesus 00:07:42.819 --> 00:07:48.439 is exposing our priorities. So don't get fixated with just material things. There are bigger 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:54.160 questions. There is something bigger. Be busy with what lasts for eternity. Do not work for 00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:57.899 the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man 00:07:57.899 --> 00:08:08.819 will gift you. Now, that's not a piece of advice. It's a command. Work for, seek the things 00:08:08.819 --> 00:08:18.379 which endure for eternal life. Don't spend your life flittering away on material stuff, because 00:08:18.379 --> 00:08:24.439 there is something beyond this world. But notice the promise there as well. Food that endures 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:30.259 to eternal life, which the Son of Man will gift you. That's Jesus himself. For on him, God 00:08:30.259 --> 00:08:35.820 the Father has set his seal. Why is the priorities exposed? Then Jesus gets to their preconceptions. 00:08:36.779 --> 00:08:42.559 Because what Jesus has just said opens up another assumption, the preconceptions this crowd has. 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:48.799 Look at verse 28. They miss the fact that Jesus had talked about giving them what endures to 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:52.979 eternal life. Instead, they pick up on the thing about working for it. Look at verse 28. 00:08:53.379 --> 00:08:59.699 Then the crowd said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? That's a great 00:08:59.699 --> 00:09:03.799 question, isn't it? What is the work of God? What is it that God requires of us? What is 00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:09.099 it that God wants from us? People give us all sorts of different answers to that. Some people 00:09:09.099 --> 00:09:15.179 think it's going to church. It's being there regularly. It's giving money. Or it's being 00:09:15.179 --> 00:09:20.939 kind to the environment. It's doing nice things. Being a nice person. Being tolerant. Not being 00:09:20.939 --> 00:09:29.539 too extreme. But what does Jesus say? How does Jesus answer this question? Verse 29. Jesus 00:09:29.539 --> 00:09:37.259 answered, this is the work of God, that you believe in him who he has sent. That's the work. 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:44.019 That's what God requires. He has sent his Son as a rescuer to give us life, to restore us 00:09:44.019 --> 00:09:50.559 to himself, to save us from our sin. The work he requires. It's not to change ourselves. 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:59.059 It's not to pull our socks up and be better. It's to believe. It's to believe. The Father 00:09:59.059 --> 00:10:03.659 has endorsed his Son. Jesus' baptism, the voice came from heaven. This is my beloved Son with 00:10:03.659 --> 00:10:09.460 whom I am well pleased. All Jesus' life is marked out as having the Father's approval until he 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:15.280 died on the cross. So Jesus is saying, believe in me. And you get this gift of life. And 00:10:15.280 --> 00:10:19.480 do you notice, this is not just a general spiritual belief. It's not just a belief there is a God 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:25.340 out there. It's not just a belief in goodness or niceness. It's a very specific belief. 00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:33.980 Believe in him whom he has sent. So this is a Christian belief, a Trinitarian belief. It's 00:10:33.980 --> 00:10:39.700 belief in God the Father who has sent Jesus Christ the Son into the world. And the Holy 00:10:39.700 --> 00:10:46.120 Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. This is what we're, this is God's work. It's 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:51.279 what God demands of us. To believe what he has done in Christ. So the big question for 00:10:51.279 --> 00:11:00.879 you and me here today is not, are we nice people? Are we feeling fulfilled in our lives? Are 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:05.960 we going to church? Are we coming to lunchtime? That's not the question. The question is, do 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:14.379 we believe that God the Father sent the Son? Do we believe that? A few years ago, a very 00:11:14.379 --> 00:11:19.080 good friend of mine came to a Christianity Explored course. We worked through this basic Christian 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:25.059 teaching. At the end of the course, Thomas asked me a question and kind of summed up for 00:11:25.059 --> 00:11:30.860 him the Christian message. That we're all separated from God by our rebellion against him. That God 00:11:30.860 --> 00:11:35.940 sent his own Son to pay the punishment for that rebellion. Raise him to life so that 00:11:35.940 --> 00:11:41.360 we can have new life if we will trust in him. And Thomas looked at me and said, it can't 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:49.480 be that simple. It can't be that simple. Why did he say that? He was a very smart man. 00:11:49.580 --> 00:11:55.639 He was a very successful man. He did very well in his career. But for him, I think part of it 00:11:55.639 --> 00:12:02.039 is the idea that he simply had to believe this message and trust this message just sounded 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:05.980 too easy. It sounded like he ought to be able to do something more than that for himself. 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:12.000 But actually, he couldn't. He couldn't. I can't. And you can't. And neither could this 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:15.919 crown. We see why, as we go on to the next part of the conversation, as Jesus exposes their 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:22.299 pride. Look at verse 30. They said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and 00:12:22.299 --> 00:12:27.099 believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As 00:12:27.099 --> 00:12:30.620 it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. And again, back to the Old Testament, 00:12:31.019 --> 00:12:35.360 where God had rescued Israel from Egypt. And during their 40 years in the desert, being 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:39.740 led by Moses, he'd fed them every day with manna from heaven. They said, come on, Jesus, 00:12:39.839 --> 00:12:45.039 we'll see you something like that. Show us that we can believe in you. Now, this would 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:48.699 be comical if it wasn't so tragic, wouldn't it? I mean, after all, what had happened 24 00:12:48.699 --> 00:12:54.159 hours before? Jesus had taken five loaves and two fish and fed 5,000 of them. But they 00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:59.459 have seen everything they need to see. Except with their blindness, they didn't really see 00:12:59.459 --> 00:13:05.759 what had happened. You see their problem here? They want Jesus to bow to their pressure and 00:13:05.759 --> 00:13:12.360 perform, instead of them bowing to his power and worshipping. They want to set the agenda 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:19.259 for Jesus, instead of letting him set the agenda for them. They might have said we're just being 00:13:19.259 --> 00:13:22.180 rational people. We're not going to commit ourselves to something we don't have evidence 00:13:22.180 --> 00:13:28.560 for. The truth is not a lack of evidence. The truth is their pride and spiritual blindness. 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:33.440 You can see that more clearly if you look down to verse 42. They, the crowd, said, is not 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:38.000 this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I've 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:42.440 come down from heaven? No, it's Jesus. You're just like us. Don't try and make yourself bigger 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:50.659 than you are. We don't believe you. The problem, really, is pride. The problem is pride. Because 00:13:50.659 --> 00:13:54.519 there are many people today who will say similar things. I would believe in God if only there 00:13:54.519 --> 00:14:00.580 was evidence. I believe if Jesus had answered my prayers, I would believe by now. And what 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:06.679 do they do? They're wanting Jesus to meet their agenda, instead of submitting to his agenda. 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:14.439 They're wanting Jesus to perform, rather than for themselves to bow before his power and 00:14:14.439 --> 00:14:22.859 authority. It's not a lack of evidence that keeps people away from Christ. It's pride. It's 00:14:22.859 --> 00:14:29.319 pride. But having exposed their priorities, their preconception, that they need to do something 00:14:29.319 --> 00:14:33.639 to impress God, and now their pride, Jesus then gives them this great promise. And it's 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:40.879 a promise for us as well. Verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. I am the 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:45.740 bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 00:14:47.799 --> 00:14:52.580 This is the great promise. You can have life, says Jesus. You need to come to me. You need 00:14:52.580 --> 00:14:57.679 to take me as I am. You need to accept me as the one sent from the Father. You need to believe 00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:05.139 in this great promise. And do you notice who exactly Jesus thinks he is? He is the bread 00:15:05.139 --> 00:15:13.959 of life. He's not the ice cream of life. He's not the canapes of life. He's not the champagne 00:15:13.959 --> 00:15:24.319 of life. He's the bread. He's the thing you and I need for real life. Not for a bit of glitz 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:28.800 on the top, not for a bit of fun around the corner. Not to make our dreams come true, but 00:15:28.800 --> 00:15:36.560 to give us real life. Bread is a fundamental thing, isn't it? There is no life now, no 00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:42.460 eternal life without Jesus. Look at how he goes on, verse 36. I said, but I said to you 00:15:42.460 --> 00:15:46.700 that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. But all the Father gives me who will come to 00:15:46.700 --> 00:15:55.200 me, who ever comes to me, I will never cast out. If we will humble ourselves and believe, 00:15:56.340 --> 00:16:02.180 he will never cast us out. We will have this rescue, we will have this life and be satisfied. 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:08.020 Now maybe a couple of questions in your mind at this point before I close. Some of us might 00:16:08.020 --> 00:16:13.700 say, well, hang on, I still feel spiritually hungry sometimes. I have come to Christ, yet 00:16:13.700 --> 00:16:20.720 I don't yet seem to have everything I want. It doesn't seem to be quite right. Well, it 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:27.200 could be, it could be that you haven't really trusted in Jesus and come to him on his terms, 00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:33.640 but like this crowd, you're expecting him to meet you on your terms. Or it could be that 00:16:33.640 --> 00:16:39.280 actually there is some thing in your life, some sin in your life or my life, where we're 00:16:39.280 --> 00:16:43.500 actually ending up looking for fulfilment in one of the world's ways, rather than in Christ. 00:16:43.700 --> 00:16:50.140 And he will not let us find fulfilment in those things. He loves us too much. So dissatisfaction 00:16:50.140 --> 00:16:54.860 now may be something that the Lord is using to turn us back wholeheartedly to himself. 00:16:56.600 --> 00:17:04.340 And also it's important to say the full satisfaction, the full riches of sharing in a meal served by 00:17:04.339 --> 00:17:10.459 Jesus. We get tastes now that will not come until he comes back, until he raises us up on that last day. 00:17:10.460 --> 00:17:17.440 So if you feel like you too, remember that song, I still haven't found what I'm looking for? 00:17:18.500 --> 00:17:22.120 And keep looking at Jesus. He is the bread of life. 00:17:23.500 --> 00:17:27.900 But maybe you're reading verse 37 and panicking. All the Father gives me will come to me. 00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:31.140 Maybe you're sitting there thinking, well, how do I know I've been given by the Father? 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:34.420 Maybe I'm not. Maybe I've not been chosen. Maybe I've not been called. 00:17:34.420 --> 00:17:38.300 Well, focus on the second half of the verse instead. 00:17:39.019 --> 00:17:41.420 Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:49.860 If you will call out to Jesus and come to him as the bread of life, he will never cast you out. 00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:52.420 What will he do? Verse 40. 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:57.820 This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. 00:17:58.220 --> 00:18:00.560 And I will raise him up on the last day. 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:03.060 That's the promise. That is true. 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:07.660 So the question for us, questions for us are, what are we really looking for? 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:10.519 And what do we really believe? 00:18:12.820 --> 00:18:13.420 Let's pray.