Searching for a Savior

Have you ever met someone who wants something for nothing? Handouts, cheats sheets, undue assistance, all of these are things that many people spend their lives trying to get. In many cases people will spend more time, energy, and effort trying to receive a handout than they would trying to earn something fairly or on their own.

In today’s story we continue on Jesus’ journey around the Sea of Galilee, as he is being pursued by the crowd he has just fed. It is now the next day, and the crowd is perplexed as they awaken and cannot find Jesus- realizing that he has left they get in their boats and make their way to Capernaum on the other side of the Sea.

The problem is they are seeking a bread-maker---not a Savior. Their motivation is based in their physical need, not their spiritual condition. As we will see, and as many of you experience, it not only matters WHO you seek after, but WHY you seek after them as well.

Many times in church we talk about all the things we can seek instead of Jesus- power, money, satisfaction- all of those things. But there is also a moment when we must also examine why we seek after Jesus. After all, there are many people who seek Jesus as a vehicle to still chase after power, money, and satisfaction.

As a pastor I can tell you that this attitude is very much still alive and prevalent. If every person who said to me “Jon, if God heals me I will come back to church” or every person who I have heard in the midst of a crisis made a promise to follow Jesus, or every person who I have stood at a wedding altar or casket with who made a promise to follow Jesus because of that current circumstance were to come to this church- we would need to build another addition to our Sanctuary.

Why? Because while they were looking to the right person, their searching was not rooted in the right thing- they were seeking Jesus based on what they wanted or what they thought he could do for them.

In the midst of Jesus’ rebuke of their behavior he gives them a command- do not labor after the food that perishes, but the food that leads to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. Let’s think about this for a moment.

The people are searching for bread, substance, sustaining food. I gotta tell you today, I think most of us, myself including me, will never fully grasp some of the ideas related to bread in the Bible, simply because most of us in this room will never be hungry- I mean REALLY hungry. If we were honest, we would confess that most of us can eat our fill everyday- and more! However, it seems that Jesus is speaking about something deeper, don’t you think?

So many times we spend so much energy chasing the perishable things that we lack the energy to focus on the eternal things. We fill our days with a flurry of activity that all points us to temporary things, and we make little to no time to concern ourselves with the eternal things of God.

So, the people ask Jesus a very important question- what must we be doing to be doing the work of God? Can you imagine showing up for a new job you were just hired to do and receive no training, no direction, no information on how to do your task? You walk into the facility and someone just says “go do some work!” Could you really expect to do your job well? Could your boss really expect a lot out of you? Probably not, so praise be to God that is not how our God operates.

Jesus gives a simple, yet very complex answer- This is the word of God, that you believe in whom he has sent.

Jesus’ answer is not a checklist, a to-do list, or a honey-do list- he does not provide an itemized inventory of the kinds of activities has asks his followers to be involved in. Instead, Jesus provides for us a methodology and a model.

We could sit here today and make a list of all the things Jesus did throughout his public ministry- he fed the hungry, healed the sick, raised the dead, he taught the Gospel, transformed hearts, and comforted the restless. But Jesus did all of these things for a reason. He did not heal for no reason, or just so the person could get back to work or begin walking again. He did not teach the Gospel just so people could be wiser or defend their faith more- everything Jesus did was undergirded with one goal in mind, to reveal himself as God’s Son and point people to salvation. We can watch a 3.5 year pattern of life that Jesus left for us in his Bible that tells us this story- Jesus points people to God.

Jesus even says that this is his goal just hours before his death to Pilate. When confronted about his reason for doing the things he did in John 18 he tells Pilate “the reason I was born and came into this world is to testify to the truth”

So, if we want to be about the business of God then we need to adopt the same method and model of Jesus- that the things we do are done to point people to Jesus.

For many years now people have recited a quote that is said to come from St Francis of Asisi- “Preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words.” Well, in the past 5-10 years there has been major scrutiny about whether or not St Francis ever said these words; as well as scrutiny over the message of the words- one that I agree with.

Saying “Preach the Gospel and if necessary use words” is like saying to a cook “Make a gourmet meal and if necessary use ingredients” to a painter “paint a beautiful piece of art and if necessary use paint” or to a firefight “extinguish the fire, and if necessary use water” Jesus himself used a TON of words in his living out the Gospel- if Jesus had to use words trust and believe you will have too also.

I think what the author of this phrase- Francis or otherwise- was trying to say was build a foundation for your words with your actions. Let everything you do serve as an element for the Gospel.

Paul put it this way in Colossians 3:17

English Standard Version Chapter 3

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him

H A Ironside once told a story about this kind of labor:

There was a boy named Harry who worked for a Scottish shoemaker named Dan. It was his chief responsibility to pound out and dry leather for shoe soles. It seemed an endless operation to him, and he wearied of it many times. "What made my task worse was the fact that, a block away, there was another cobbler shop that he passed and as I looked in the window, he often noticed that this cobbler never pounded the soles at all, but took them from the water, nailed them on, damp as they were."

One day he ventured inside and timidly asked, “I notice you put the soles on while still wet. Are they just as good as if they were pounded?” He gave the boy a wicked leer as he answered, “They come back all the quicker this way, my boy!” The boy related the instance to his employer and suggested that he was perhaps wasting time in drying out the leather so carefully. The honest cobbler stopped his work and opened his Bible to the passage that reads, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the Glory of God.”

“Harry,” he said, “I do not cobble shoes just for the four bits and six bits that I get from my customers. I am doing this for the glory of God. I expect to see every shoe I have ever repaired in a big pile at the judgment seat of Christ, and I do not want the Lord to say to me in that day, ‘Dan, this was a poor job. You did not do your best here.’ I want Him to be able to say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

I heard someone put it this way once-

When I do anything, I want to do it with God. I do not want to do it for God- but I want to be so connected to the heart of God that it is God doing it through me...