Eat as the Lord bids You to Do

Eat as the Lord Bids You To

John 6:1-15 T Lent 4

INI

Why do folks come to church? What is it that we seek from God?

Surely, there are specific things that we seek from the Lord – usually they’re based in the physical realm. For example, in the Lord’s prayer, we pray for daily bread. This daily bread isn’t just bread, or any other food we eat. But in this prayer, bread means any physical need of our bodies – including food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like. God gives some of these things even without our asking. This shows the generosity of God that’s put on full display this morning – for He gives us more than we ask.

But as is the case with sinful man, when complacency sets in with our undeserved gifts, we grumble. Look at the Old Testament Israelites from the text. Surely, they had lack out in the wilderness. They had nothing to eat! And so, they grumbled against the Lord. Even though He delivered them from Egypt, they didn’t trust God out in the wilderness.

Yet, the Lord heard them in their time of need, and provided them with manna and quail! And it was in their eating when their trust in God was renewed. As Exodus 16:12 puts it, “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

However, in the Israelites’ eating of what God provided, they proved their faith to be lacking. They took the bread, but not according to the command of the Lord. God told them to eat all that they gathered, yet, they didn’t. They let some remain uneaten, and it bred worms and stank. This showed that when the food was eaten apart from God’s command, it wasn’t beneficial. It led to decay.

The same thing happened in the Gospel reading. The Lord fed 5,000 men, not including women and children, with only 5 loaves and 2 fish. Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish to be plenty for everyone to eat, and there was still 12 baskets left over. This feeding was the same as the one in the Old Testament – that is, it was a miraculous feeding from heaven. It was provided by God, as they had a real need for food. However, the same problem happened: the people didn’t listen to God’s Word.

The Gospel ends by saying that some came to make Jesus some sort of “bread king.” That is, the only good they saw in Jesus was that He could give the same sort of “daily bread” stuff mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer. He could fill their PHYSICAL needs. But Jesus’ rebuked them, because they clearly didn’t understand the feeding that Jesus desires to give to them.

Unfortunately our text ends at verse 15, but Jesus teaches later in John 6:31, “”Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread 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 and gives life to the world.” Jesus indicated the source of feeding – that it was God the Father in Heaven who gave it! But they failed to see what these miraculous feedings were to do for faith! For Jesus says later in verse 35, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” He says, ‘this feeding you just ate is to show the true feeding I seek to give you – which is that you eat my flesh! And if you do this, I will give you life.”

What was the crowd’s response? It was the same response of the Israelites in the wilderness, when they received God’s provisions: they GRUMBLED! They didn’t like this whole Jesus claiming to be bread, and that we should eat of his flesh and drink of his blood to have life with God. But by ignoring this and walking away from Jesus, these people only sought to fill their stomachs, but not their souls. They wanted the physical, material thing, but not the promise. They failed to realize that God had more to give them than just the material eating: He came to give Himself, His flesh, for the life of the world. He came to be the living sacrifice that’s to be eaten by His people.

And that was Israel’s problem, the crowds problem, and our problem: sinful man only wants the physical feeding. Because that’s what we can know and touch and feel. And thanks be to God, He doesn’t leave us without the physical feeding! But He seeks to give us something much more – a spiritual eating and drinking of Christ that can only be received in faith. This is THE TRUE FEEDING. THIS is the food that Christ wants for You!

God seeks to give you more than just the material things you seek – like health, food, security, money, or family. He seeks to give you the TRUE daily bread which nourishes not only the body, but the soul. The Israelites and the crowds grumbled against this feeding because their faith was weak. And we would lie if we said we never grumbled against God too. Because receiving the spiritual bread of life which replenishes the soul is harder than receiving the physical bread. It requires not only faith, but discipline. Because faith disciplines itself in the habits of God, seeking to be fed by this bread from heaven ALWAYS. Faith seeks to get up at 8:00 AM on Sunday to make it to 9:00 AM Sunday School. It seeks to ignore the fatigue at the end of the day and spend some time in prayer. It seeks to spend that 10 minutes of free time off the phone to read Scripture, or a religious devotional book to deepen your understanding of how Jesus feeds you. It seeks to be like the apostles in the epistle lesson, who centered themselves DAILY on the things Jesus gave them to do: like prayer, the Lord’s Supper, church, preaching, sharing in each other’s burdens as a BODY of Christ.

When in faith you do these things, and you listen to God’s command combined with this spiritual eating, the Lord fills you abundantly. Better than you could ever ask! You’re like Peter who says in John 6:63, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!” Because you don’t see the physical blessings of food that the Lord gives as merely beneficial to the body. Rather, you see the spiritual blessings that undergird this feeding as beneficial to the everlasting state of your soul.

God gives this kind of feeding to you here in Word and Sacrament. With this bread and wine combined with God’s command and promise, you partake of something truly miraculous and lifesaving. When you come to feast at this table, you come to Jesus, who forever quenches your hunger and thirst. Though you come empty, you leave filled.

That’s what the Lord has instituted this meal for: to fill the empty. To bind up the brokenhearted. To heal the sick. But if all you want is full stomachs, comforted hearts, and health, you’re missing out on the greatest gift of all; which is, the bread of heaven which comes in the person and work of Jesus. He gives Himself, sacrificially on the cross. And now, distributed to you, through bread and wine, through body and blood, to FILL you with forgiveness and righteousness! In this way, He seeks to give you more than you could ever imagine.

So don’t grumble at what the Lord bids you to do at this meal. Eat and drink as He commands you here at His Supper. For He gives His body and blood to fill you with everlasting life. For His Word and command, combined with these physical elements, are more than what meets the eye. And in this meal is more than we could ever imagine asking. So why do folks come to church? To be filled with the righteousness of God. And whatever lot may be given in this physical life, we are content.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston