Jan 26, 2025"What Are You Hungry for?" (John 6:41-59)

 

What are You Hungry for? 

John 6:41-59 

 

You are what you eat. What you consume will influence you and change you. Healthy food will make you healthy whereas junk food will sicken and weaken you. 

 

John 6:44 ESV 

[44] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.  

 

Jesus says it clearly that salvation is grace and given as a gift. We are called to Jesus. Unless we respond in faith to this calling we cannot be saved. Grace is given to all, but we need to make the choice to accept it. 

 

Do you believe that you are a sinner who has been saved by Jesus. God poured out his grace on Jews and Gentiles.  

 

When we have genuine faith and belief that God gave up His Son, we can respond genuinely. That response is a joyful expression of our faith. It is a natural response to God's salvation 

 

The practice of attending church, giving offerings, going on outreaches and fasting are good practices to strengthen our faith, but it will never be enough to save you. You will never be able enough to save yourself 

 

Our worship and service will flow naturally from us when we really and truly understand God's grace and Jesus' sacrifice 

 

Jesus knew people did not understand the sacrifice needed, so he used the metaphor of bread.   

 

John 6:48-50 ESV 

[48] I am the bread of life. [49] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [50] This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  

 

When the Israelites were without food they begged for food and God gave them bread from Heaven. Yet, the Israelites never asked for spiritual salvation or to become closer to God. The Israelites wanted their physical needs met and God wanted to give them more to bring them closer to him. 

 

Patents want to give their children healthy food so their children can become healthy. Parents also want their children's minds to grow, so they educate them with good books and lessons. Yes, parents will give their children rewards, but none of these things will give eternal life. 

 

We can pray for many things that make our lives easier, more enjoyable and healthier, but we need Jesus to have eternal life. We can desire things of this world that are temporary and empty whereas what Jesus offers will give us nourishment for our souls' forever.

Are you truly hungry for Jesus? Is the world still a contender for what Jesus offers. Why pursue those things that do last when we can pursue the Bread of Life which truly satisfies?

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Jan 19, 2025 "True Rest and the Essence of Faith"(John 5:1-18)

John 5:1-18 New International Version 

The Healing at the Pool 

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.  

2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.  

3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b]  

5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 

7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 

8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  

9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. 

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,  

10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” 

11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” 

12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” 

13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 

14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”  

15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. 

The Authority of the Son 

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.  

17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”  

18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 

 

Footnotes 

1. John 5:2 Some manuscripts Bethzatha; other manuscripts Bethsaida 

2. John 5:4 Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters.  

 

4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had. 

True Rest and the Essence of Faith 

John 5:1-18 

 

The man who wanted to be healed did not know Jesus. He wanted to be healed, but did not know that Jesus was the ultimate source of healing. He wanted to be healed by a superstition, or tradition. He did not realize that the true and complete healing would come from Jesus only.  

 

John 5:6 ESV 

[6] When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?" 

 

It is a straightforward yes or no question? The man's response shows he did not know Jesus is. 

 

John 5:7 ESV 

[7] The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”  

 

The man has put his hope in a superstition. He does not go to the creator for healing. Jesus does heal him, but this was done on the day of rest. 

 

The sabbath is day of rest, and the Jewish leaders turned the sabbath into a day of special rules which undermined the true rest that comes from God. When our own interests take precedence over God's interests, we end up with the same problem. 

 

The people waiting by the pool anxiously for the water to be stirred by the angel were not experiencing rest. The people following all the sabbath rules were not experiencing rest because they followed those rules for themselves. 

 

We attend church to remember what Jesus has done for us and worshipping God. 

 

We need to remember that true rest comes from Jesus and not from our worldly achievements. We need to put our faith in Jesus and nothing else 

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