Feeding the 5000
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The Work is to Believe/Do you feel the call?
The Work is to Believe/Do you feel the call?
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my 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.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
Eating food:
Enables us to live: Eternal Life
Absolves our Hunger: We all have hungers in our soul only Jesus can answer
What does it mean then to feed on the flesh of Christ? He answers this question above.
It is to believe, the work of our faith is to believe.
I see two senses in which this resonates.
We must believe in the name of the Lord Jesus to be saved
But also the ongoing work of our faith is to believe
Judaism was a faith that required the right works to gain God’s approval whereas the Christianity
Judaism: Humans do the work
Christianity: Christ has done the work
SO they are asking Jesus what is the work what must we do, and Jesus is saying believe.
How many of us struggle with this today? We aren’t Jews and most of us would acknowledge that the Jewish way of thinking is not what Christ came to the earth to proclaim, yet if I am honest I still often find myself in a position where get on my knees to pray before the Lord subconciously believing he is mad at me because I haven’t done enough or because I did this or because I did that.
Listen this is what this passage says, set you eyes upon this:
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
If you are a Christian it is because the Father has called you, He has given you to Jesus and said this Child will be mine. In fact ephesians and romans tell us that it was before time, before Creation that God looked into time and, if you believe in the Lord Jesus, He saw you and He loved you so much He said send my son to die so that you can be in my eternal family. That is the kind of love we are talking about here. There is nothing that can cast you from his love. Jesus says he will lost nothing of what was given to Him.
It reminds me of Romans 8:38-39
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is nothing that can separate you. Nothing. The work is to believe that. Listen belief is not a one time moment. You don’t believe in Jesus one time for salvation. The work of believing is an everyday endeavor.
At your point of salvation you believed Jesus was enough for you, and when you wake up tomorrow you will need to know that Jesus is enough for you, that you cannot earn it, that you have done nothing to be worthy of it, but the undeserved favor of God rests upon you because you are so dearly Loved.
And Jesus is calling out to you today saying come to me! Come to me! All you who are hungry and thirsty, let me give you eternal life and satisfy the hungers only I can. The work is to believe!
To believe that what God says about you is true, to believe that the work of Christ was complete on the cross.
The Jews here had there minds so focused on the earth that they were blinded to hear what Jesus was really saying.
This happens to us we look at this world and we start trying to see and explain God through the lens of this world.
Could it really be there is a love that is perfect and complete and whole like the love of God the father?