Hunger for Truth

Introduction/Scripture

John 6:25–35 NIV

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Pray

I love Blue Bell Ice Cream. There is nothing like it. When I was considering seminary, I visited Asbury Seminary in Wilmore Kentucky. The Lord was clear in many ways that I was supposed to be there but in his mysterious ways he confirmed it after I finished my visit and walked down the street from the campus to a little old school drug store and learned that they had blue bell.

During my time there we....

They had only ever had an imitation of the real thing. Pretenders. And watching them have blue bell for the first time was beautiful.

Background

Let’s set the scene here. Jesus and the disciples are deep into the ministry by now. Huge crowds are travelling to see him. They are around the sea of Galilee and as word travels of the miracles that are taking place around Jesus…people are intrigued and some desperate to experience these miracles.

In the beginning of John 6 the crowds begin to gather and here Jesus tests his disciples a little. (other gospels have Jesus having compassion on the masses of people that are hungry from travel, but here John’s gospel is more concerned with the interaction with the sign and the way everyone understands what is happening). So Jesus tests the disciples by asking Philip:

John 6:5 NIV

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”

Philip says it would take more that a year and half of wages to provide this meal.

So you know the story, Jesus has the disciples sit down and gather a small boy’s lunch pail and they are able to feed the thousands that are there.

Now fast forward a little bit to our text and they find Jesus on the other side of the lake (he literally walked across it)… and he picks up on the testing of the disciples...

You are looking for me for the wrong reasons.

Verse 27 gives the corrective push from Jesus:

John 6:27 NIV

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Then there response is immediately performance based. Which I love this because we can relate. Jesus corrects and they immediately say....oh, we did it wrong, what do we do?

Today everything is about doing. Something is stale. Let’s do something different. I need a new devotional, new bible study, need to pray in the morning.

Jesus is correcting a heart disposition.

John 6:29 NIV

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Then they still seem to miss it....ok, well how do we know we are doing it right. What sign will you give? Moses gave us bread what will you give to us?

This leads to Jesus’ first “I AM” statement and it is incredibly profound....

John 6:35 NIV

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

In typical Jesus fashion…he both does not answer their questions and yet he does at the same time.

Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life. He is the source of eternal life. More importantly, he is the what they are looking for even when they do not know they are searching or to what ends.

As Augustine puts it beautifully to begin his confessions: “For you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Two errors: faulty diet and misguided consumption

It seems to me that there are two errors the audience of Jesus is making in John 6: … the faulty diet and the misguided consumption.

Faulty diet: Spoiled food

Consuming the wrong things. Drink, sex, food, luxury, netflix benders, blue bell pints (or gallons). Political talk shows. We have a steady diet of the wrong thing and we are depleted.

I hit a point in January of this year where I knew I was really unhealthy. Not just because I gained some weight…because I had. But because I was sluggish and felt terrible. I couldn’t say no to the brownies that you so wonderfully drop off in the staff kitchen. I stayed up late to watch a meaningless tv show to escape reality for a little while. And it did not happen over night. It was years in the making. At the other end of it I was a mess.

Why? because I was eating spoiled food.

It may not be food or drink for you. If you have ever found yourself woefully desperate at the end of a political cycle, or election. If you are obsessively worried about things you cannot control. If you check your stock profile daily, but don’t know how to read the bible or pray

C. S. Lewis said it like this, “Our desires are not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

2. Working for God

John 6:28 NIV

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

The other error in the passage, are those looking to do the right thing. Consuming good things, but for the wrong reason. Treating the means as the end. If I can just consume enough of the bread, and consume it every day then I can be close to God.

This person’s addiction is more subtle and harder to point out. Chasing bible studies and daily devotionals to try and get something out of it.

A symptom; We want the choir and the preacher to make us feel something on Sunday morning. Here to consume.

Give us this day our daily bread, is the first line of the prayer and has overshadowed everything else.

I think COVID was a gift to the church and to us as individuals because when we were forced to stay home and to be a part from one another we realized we were depending on the church for our daily consumption of Jesus. We didnt know what to do without her. And the Church learned it had not been raising up disciples of Jesus but consumers. One of the temptations was just to produce more and more content and get it to you.

Both the faulty diet and the misguided one end in the same place. Emptiness.

John 6:29 NIV

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Believe in Me

Jesus says, believe in me. 99 times in this gospel he uses the greek verb pistevo that is translated to “believe in me.” 0 times is the noun, faith, in this gospel. 7 miracles and 7 discourses of teaching....and all of it is pointed beyond the miracles and the teaching to this one calling to believe in him. To trust in him. To obey, follow, walk.

Present tense of the verb: “active, continuous, and vital trust in Jesus.”

How do you know you have fallen into a faulty diet?

It is simple really....do you have life?

Truth is many of us came in here tired today. Hungover from over consumption of things that don’t do it. Relationships, extra curricular activities.

Tired because we have believed that if we meet the right person, if we live a certain life, if retirement looks a certain way, ....all mud pies.

Some of us feel spiritually sluggish today. We have been trying so hard to diet in the right way. and finding that it is empty. We are trying to whip ourselves intro shape by trying our spirituality like a new years resolution that we try out every few months.

Hunger and thirst are metaphors in the text to the human need to know God. To know the creator and the one we were made for. Those who come to Jesus, those who believe in him…they find God.

They find He is the truth. He is the bread of life. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the son of Man. The God-Man. The first and the last. The one who is before all things, in all things, and sustain all things.

He is the only one who satisfies. And listen, one last clarification. Lest this be misconstrued today. Jesus does not just make us feel copacetic. Some of us will encounter the holy and be shook to the core and challenged with much in our lives. But this is about healing and wholeness. Death comes before resurrection.

In the end, we start where we began: The feeding of the thousands. All of those that hungered. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Jesus fed them all. The masses. They were not too much for Him. He also fed each one plenty. And there is was still more left over. You are not too much for Him.

Jesus the bread of life is here today. Feast. But let the meal reveal to you the host of the meal.