08-12-18
Sunday
Evening Service (Dig Deeper)
John 6:22-59
Once
again, getting a running start at our Scripture for today, let’s begin by
looking at John 6:22-59
6:22 -
What do
you gather from this verse?
·
That others went home before morning and used
all but one boat.
·
The disciples took the last boat.
6:22 -
What can
we understand from the Words
“AND THEY REALIZED JESUS HAD
NOT GONE WITH THEM.”
What occurred in
Verse 23 & 24?
·
After the boats came over from Tiberias, they
set out for Capernaum.
6:25 -
After finding Him, the confused crowd inquired when Jesus had arrived.
·
Why would it matter to them?
·
Why didn’t Jesus answer them?
·
What other reason could there be for this type of questioning?
o Do you think
that their real question was perhaps wondering HOW He had escaped them?
o
Remember they wanted to make Him a human King.
6:26
Jesus didn’t answer them but He did zero in on their misplaced zeal.
What did Jesus
mean by:
“NOT BECAUSE YOU UNDERSTOOD THE MIRACULOUS SIGNS.”
·
Did Jesus feel that they missed seeing the miracle?
·
What does Jesus mean that they ‘missed the signs’?
·
If they had they grasped and accepted its
deeper meaning, they would have offered Jesus far more than earthly bread.
·
Their zeal for merely earthly bread was
apparent: they had relentlessly pursued Jesus across the lake to have more of
it.
Within our
church, can we fall into the same situation where we have the same attitude,
the same outlook, the same frame of mind as these people who were falling
Jesus?
·
If so, how and in what?
·
If no, why not?
6:27 – In what
way is Jesus asking for them to redirect their zeal from Him?
·
But they must redirect this same zeal of
theirs, as Jesus challenged them, toward the bread which gives eternal life.
(6:27) They must work for food that is altogether different.
6:28 -
Jesus had captured the interest of the crowd by this FOOD THAT ENDURES TO ETERNAL LIFE.
Naturally
they followed the lead that Jesus had offered them, and they inquired, WHAT MUST WE DO
TO DO THE WORKS GOD REQUIRES?
6:29 - What efforts are required to obtain this bread?
·
There were/are no works (note the plural), but rather a work (singular) to be done – TO BELIEVE IN THE ONE [GOD] HAS SENT
6:30 –
Does this
strike you as being off center? A question of ‘No Respect’? WHAT MIRACULOUS
SIGN THEN WILL YOU GIVE THAT WE MAY SEE IT AND BELIEVE IN YOU?
·
Such a demand had strong practice in the
history of Israel, particularly in the story of manna, would God not validate
Jesus through some visible miracle?
·
Let’s look at Exodus 16.
Jesus
did not entirely dismiss their request.
1st, He
clarified yet again the particular differences between the bread offered
through Moses and the bread offered by God.
6:32-33
How did Jesus do
this?
·
Was manna real bread?
·
If not real bread, what was it?
·
Where did the people think it came from?
·
Where did it come from?
While
the manna offered through Moses had no doubt served the Israelites well, it was
not the TRUE Bread.
TRUE
Bread GIVES LIFE in the fullest sense TO THE WORLD.
2ND
Jesus directly identified HIMSELF as the Bread God had sent down from heaven:
6:35 “I am the Bread of Life.
He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never
be thirsty.”
In a
sense, Jesus had in fact supplied the crowd with an answer to their demand of
PROOF.
·
Jesus pointed to himself and showed them the
very bread they sought.
·
They now saw this bread from heaven, but
contrary to their own promise, they did not believe.
Is unbelief a
problem and why or why not?
The
problem of unbelief cannot be brushed aside so easily.
·
When you read about Jesus being rejected, how does that make you
feel?
·
What comes to mind?
·
Any reader of the Gospels struggles to make
sense of the widespread rejection of Jesus by His own countrymen, especially in
light of His miraculous deeds throughout the lands.
(Now
remember that we ask with the advantage of having centuries of hindsight)
How could anyone
not recognize Jesus as God’s unique, sole, impressive agent of salvation?
One
indication of the importance of the problem of (Jewish) unbelief in the
earliest stages of the church is the amount of attention given to it even in
the Scripture.
How could
Christian preachers offer a Messiah to the world (let alone to Jews) who had
not been received by His own people?
·
Do we have the same problems today?
·
And if so why and if not, why not?
·
Is UNBELIEF still a problem today?
·
Is Your unbelief my fault? Or is another’s unbelief our fault?
6:38 No
one should imagine that a person’s refusal to believe in Jesus is because:
·
The Jews do not recognize Him
·
Nor should it be because Jesus was or is
blocking their approach
·
Or because Jesus was selecting who He would
receive,
·
And rejecting those He judged unfit.
Rather
Jesus exercises no such independent judgment.
·
For He accomplished the total of His mission
according to the specific requirements of THE WILL OF HIM WHO SENT JESUS.
6:44
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
·
What could this be applying?
·
What does this mean to you?
Without
careful examination of this statement and its context, one might easily
conclude that faith and unbelief result directly from the action of the Father,
who, according to His own mysterious will, chooses on one hand to draw some
persons to faith in Jesus, but chooses on the other hand to abandon others to
their own unbelief.
·
This impression seems be reinforced by Jesus’
words, “All that the Father gives me will come to me
(6:37)”
·
The conclusion seems almost unavoidable that
belief and unbelief are directly determined by divine decree.
·
So, then the question becomes: ‘Does it
matter in what we do if it is up to what God wants?’
Let’s
talk about this:
Rather
than getting in the entire question of predestination here, we will focus upon
the meaning of this passage alone.
·
Over time, the verse 45 has led massive
confusion over Jesus’ teaching.
·
In that verse, Jesus was quoting Isaiah’s
prophecy. (Isaiah 54:13-14)
·
“They will all be taught by God”, is implying
that the scope of the Father’s teaching extends to “ALL”!
·
To put it in a negatively way, ‘NO ONE IS
EXLUDED FROM THE FATHER’S EFFORT TO INSTRUCT.’
(6:45b)
But then Jesus added the key to the puzzle by declaring that “everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him
comes to me.”
So what is Jesus
/ God saying to us here?
·
God’s instruction must be accomplished by the
human response of:
o
Listening
o
And Learning in order for that instruction to
be effective.
Then
those who respond properly to the Father’s teaching through listening and
learning from Him
·
Will naturally come to Jesus.
·
And they will certainly be received by Him.
Why did Jesus
make the claim as He did in Verse 6:46?
It was
to help those who thought that they can directly encounter God the Father
through God’s teachings.
·
In this statement, Jesus is reemphasizing the
foundational Truth to the Gospel.
·
This brings us to the heart of the question:
o
How can one come to know God and to be saved?
§ The
Answer points directly to Jesus.
§ The
Eternal Son as the ONLY One through whom saving knowledge of God is mediated.
Verse
47-51
Here
we hear a repeat of what Jesus said before however in this restatement, it contained
a specific advance in Jesus’ teaching, an advance which deeply divided His
audience.
6:51 “This Bread, is my Flesh.”
6:52 “How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?”
6:53
Jesus took it to the next level, requiring them that they would have to “Drink his blood”
And
refusal would guarantee that you would “Have no life in
you.”
·
What does this mean to you?
·
Is Jesus talking about cannibalism?
·
Is this a symbolic action of drinking the wine and eating of the
Eucharist?
John
60:71 tells all.
