Welcome to Day 2147 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

The Gospel of John – 15 – Bread Delivered From Heaven – Daily Wisdom

The Gospel of John – Part 3 Authentication of the Word – Bread Delivered from Heaven

Today we continue our Good News series according to John the Apostle.  Last week Jesus fed over 10,000 people with five small barley loaves and two small fishes. He then miraculously walked on water and transported his disciples to Capernaum. In today’s message, the people chase them across the sea and have their hands out again for more food. Our scripture is John 6:22-59, on page 1656 in the Pew Bibles. I am reading from the NLT because it flows so well, and I will read it in segments of the passage throughout the message today, as we did last week, so keep your Bibles open to follow along. Roughly twenty to twenty-five times each week, people are compelled to engage in a particular activity and sacrifice almost anything for the opportunity. For most, it is a top priority. Chances are, you have already done it once today, and you will likely do it again right after church and before the end of the day. We do this activity alone, but prefer to share it with company. We include this activity in almost every festive occasion we plan; sometimes, it is the festive occasion! By now, you’ve probably guessed that I’m referring to eating. Not only do we depend on food for survival; we celebrate it as art, savor it as a luxury, share it as communion, and even abuse it as therapy. I have never seen a travel brochure or cruise advertisement that didn’t highlight the importance of what you would be eating and how often. In addition, food is the primary subject of countless magazines, books, websites, and television shows. We even have entire channels—more than one!—dedicated to preparing and consuming nourishment, twenty-four hours each day, seven days each week, all year round. Those who benefit from twenty-first-century abundance cannot fully appreciate the perspective of people struggling to survive in first-century Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. Spending time in developing countries, where one’s next meal is never guaranteed, would help us appreciate the significance of Jesus’ miraculous provision of food in the wilderness. John emphasizes that each person received as much as they desired and that food exceeded their eating capacity. This was the first time they had gone to bed on a full stomach in a long time for many of them. Finally, God sent a Savior after so much suffering under the iron rule of Rome, so much deprivation at the hands of unjust aristocrats, and so much corruption in the temple. Jesus, the healer, the provider, the reformer, the King! Indeed, His arrival signaled the beginning of a revolution that would end poverty, restore justice, and usher the kingdom of God into another golden era. This was, after all, the promise of God (Deut. 30:9–10; Isa. 9:7; Jer. 29:14; 30:3, 18; 32:44; Ezek. 37:24–26). Finally! The Messiah had come, and He brought with Him abundance! Perhaps as many as ten thousand men, women, and children wondered where Christ would lead them next and how He would go about claiming His throne. We cannot be too critical of that multitude in the wilderness. They woke up hungry the following morning, just like we will tomorrow. While most had returned home, many searched the hill country on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee for their newfound provider and leader. But they were disappointed to discover their meal ticket had departed.  6:22–25 The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the far shore saw that the disciples had taken the only boat, and they realized Jesus had not gone with them.  Several boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the Lord had blessed the bread, and the people had eaten. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him. They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Matthew and Mark tell us that the Lord sent the disciples ahead to Capernaum while He dispersed the crowd. However, we know from last week that the disciples waited until night and then took off without Jesus when he did not show up. As a side lesson, when we don’t wait on the Lord, the storms of life will buffet us. Most of the crowd dispersed after the meal, perhaps for their homes, but a contingent remained behind seeking Jesus. They had seen the Twelve put out to sea without the Lord, and no other boat remained, so they assumed He was still enjoying solitude in the surrounding hill country. Eventually, they realized He had left, so they boarded small boats moored nearby. The boats had come from Tiberias, a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, founded by Herod Antipas and named for Emperor Tiberius, the heir of Caesar Augustus’ titles and power. Tiberias had been built on the site of Jewish burial grounds. Religious Jews refused to live there, leaving it open to Hellenized Jews and Herod’s political allies. The people either heard the Lord’s instructions to the disciples or presumed He would go to Capernaum next. The synagogue there was a center of Jewish teaching for the region. The people were surprised to find Jesus so far from where He was last seen in so short a time, but their question suggests more than a desire to know when He had arrived or how. Based on Jesus’ response, they wanted to know why He was there (and not, perhaps, where they thought He should be) and why He had deliberately eluded them. The Jewish synagogue fulfilled many of the same functions in the local community as the modern-day Christian church: worship, instruction, and fellowship. Jesus, as an exceptionally popular rabbi, taught at the synagogue in Capernaum. Today, a white limestone synagogue from the fourth century rests on the foundation of the black basalt synagogue Jesus knew in His day. 6:26–27 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.” Jesus responded to the spokesperson of the multitude with an indictment, one resonating with the words of Moses (Deut. 8:2–3). God’s covenant people wandered the desert because they failed to trust Him. They shrank back from the Promised Land because the physical challenges loomed like giants before them. During their forty years in the wilderness, the Lord sustained them with manna, “bread from heaven” (Exod. 16:4; Ps. 105:40), while teaching them that true sustenance is the Word of God. Matthew 4:4 says, “But Jesus told him, ‘No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’’”  Where the Israelites failed, Jesus triumphed, and He deeply desired them to learn from His victory. Jesus contrasted physical food, which results from work and perishes quickly, with spiritual food, which comes by grace and lasts forever. Both are necessary, for they fulfill two legitimate human needs; life cannot continue without either. However, our fallen, fleshly nature craves one to the exclusion of the other. The distinction between “food which perishes” and “food which endures to eternal life” is symbolic. Physical food satisfies legitimate bodily desires: nourishment, clothing, shelter, medicine, sex, exercise, and rest. On the other hand, spiritual food represents the human soul's need to be sustained by its Maker. Jesus challenged the crowd to stop focusing on working for food that perishes and devote equal passion to fulfilling the hunger of their souls. He said, “Just as God physically sustained the Hebrews in the wilderness and called them to be filled with His Word, so I met your physical need yesterday and now call you to receive spiritual nourishment.” Note the irony of the Lord’s invitation: “Work … for food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” This paradox echoes the invitation of God in Isaiah 55:1, “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk it’s all free!” 6:28–29 They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?” Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” These people’s first response to Jesus’ offer of grace is especially amusing in Greek. The NLT structure of the Greek sentence: “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”  They completely missed His point. They ignored verse 27, “eternal life that the Son of Man can give you” and seized on “work.” They were so consumed by physical concerns they couldn’t comprehend Jesus’ figurative language. John uses this breakdown in communication to illustrate the nature of spiritual blindness caused by one’s stubborn fixation on physical, earthly matters. When the world fell into darkness, it ceased comprehending the light in John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” Those who choose to serve the fallen world system become increasingly self-absorbed, proud, shortsighted, and unable to look up long enough to comprehend spiritual hunger and God’s grace. As the conversation continues, the tension between Jesus’s figurative language and the spokespersons’ literal interpretation strains the breaking point. They are proven to be absurdly thickheaded. Jesus extended His earlier paradox. The only “work” is to believe in the one he has sent, which involves no work. 6:30–33 They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” On the surface, this demand for a “sign” is a bizarre shift in attitude from the day before when these same people had exclaimed, “When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” (6:14). But it’s an extension of their earlier perspective. Note their emphasis on “do” and “work.” Note also their requirement for belief: “if you want us to believe in you.” Their “belief” in the wilderness was no less temporal and earthbound than their hunger. No sooner had the image of Jesus’ “sign” faded from their corneas than the need to see again returned. Ironically, they cited the provision of manna through Moses as a precedent for their request! Jesus responded with a double “amen” (it is true, it is true) to emphasize the following statement. He then corrected their faulty memory of Hebrew history. Moses did not provide anything; God provided the manna. The plural pronoun “you (all)” links the identity of his listeners with that of their “fathers,” the ancient Hebrews who received the manna and still failed to trust their God. Jesus again associated the provision of manna with God’s grace, the greater portion of which was the provision of His Word (Deut. 8:2–3). This is also an allusion to the Father’s provision of His Word in human flesh, the Son of God Himself. 6:34–35 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.” Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.  The people’s request is similar to that of the Samaritan woman by the well. When offered living water that permanently quenches thirst, she replied, “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water,” John 4:15. While her response was coy, she nonetheless comprehended Jesus’ spiritual language. By contrast, “every day” in the response suggests that these people did not. Therefore, Jesus made Himself unmistakably clear. In a single sentence, He linked the concepts of belief, bread, eternal life, and Himself. 6:36–40 But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me.  However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.” The people said earlier that seeing is believing. After they had been given a sign, they asked for a sign. Having seen Jesus, they refused to believe. Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief and presented a different perspective on the relationship between “signs” and belief. These people claimed that a miraculous sign would allow them to believe. According to Jesus, faith responds to God when He reveals Himself. The presence of God, then, becomes a sort of litmus test. Those who are His respond in belief and are attracted to Him. Those who respond in disbelief reject Him. Jesus, God in human flesh, came to earth to gather His own, though their belief can identify in Him. 6:41–42 Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” The “grumbling” of the disbelieving Jews resembled the grumbling of their ancestors in the wilderness. First, they complained about having no food, so the Lord provided bread from heaven. Then they complained about having only manna, so the Lord provided quail (Exodus 16). The manna was His provision of grace, and a test (Exod. 16:4; Deut. 8:16). How they received the manna and whether they followed the Lord’s instructions revealed the genuineness of their faith. While Jesus spoke of His miraculous conception and natural birth—the means by which God became flesh—these people did not accept the truth of His coming from heaven. Jesus’ family had probably visited Capernaum often. What is more, His brothers apparently made the city their home (John 2:12). These people had seen Jesus during His boyhood and thought they knew all about His roots. To them, the phrase “came down out of heaven” suggested that something suddenly and mysteriously materialized out of thin air, which clearly hadn’t happened. 6:43–51 But Jesus replied, “Stop complaining about what I said. For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.  (Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only I, who was sent from God, have seen him.) “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.” “Eating” is the image He used to illustrate a spiritual truth: people must appropriate His sacrifice through belief. As the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, He would become the sacrifice of atonement, which would pay the penalty of sin on behalf of the whole world. However, only those who believe in Him, receive this gift, and then apply it to their sins will benefit. This truth was illustrated in the first Passover. The Israelites had been instructed to sacrifice a lamb on behalf of the whole household, apply its blood to the doorposts and lintel of the house, prepare the meat for consumption, and remain inside as the death angel descended upon Egypt. Those who did not apply the blood mourned the death of their firstborn sons. Those who appropriated this symbol of atonement to their homes were spared. As they ate the flesh of the paschal lamb, the death angel passed over their homes (Exodus 12:3–49). At some point in His ministry, Jesus began teaching through parables—symbolic stories using familiar images to teach spiritual truths. He explained to His disciples the reason for this change in Mathew 13:13, “That is why I use these parables, for they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.” Parables allowed the observer to see what their heart chose to see, guided by their belief in Jesus. Sometimes preachers are guilty of overextending their illustrations. If a speaker is not careful, they can allow a metaphor to take over the lesson and unintentionally teach error. This is not the case with Jesus, however. He intentionally pressed his metaphor to extremes to achieve two objectives. First, He left any reasonable person without excuse for adopting a physical interpretation of His teaching. How absurd to think He had cannibalism in mind! Second, He winnowed the wheat from the chaff, allowing the nonbelievers’ bias to carry them away with the wind. 6:52 Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked. This is the sound of chaff: “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 6:53–58—59 So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my...