What Are You Looking For?

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One of the most popular music groups over the past 25 years has been a band called U2. The lead singer of U2 is a man named Bono. It seems like every couple of years it gets reported that Bono is a professing Christian. I don’t know whether he is or not. I do know that several years ago, he wrote a song that is still one of their most popular songs. It’s called “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Throughout the song, he tells of all the experiences he’s had in life, but still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. He’s climbed the highest mountains. He’s scaled city walls. He’s had physical relationships. He says that he’s even spoken with the tongue of angels. But he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Then he says something even more interesting. He says that he believes in the Kingdom Come. And then he says, “You broke the bonds and you loosed my chains. Carried the cross of my shame. You know I believe it.” But what does he follow that with? “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” Isn’t that sad? To have a head knowledge that Jesus died on the cross to break bonds and loose chains and bear shame… to have that head knowledge and still say, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” That’s sad, but how many people do we know who are like that? People who have an understanding of Jesus. They know the Bible stories. They know the basics of the Gospel. But that’s not really what they’re looking for. They’re looking for something else. Just like Bono, they still haven’t found what they’re looking for. We’ve come to a place in our text this morning where we see a group of people who are like that. This great crowd of people had chased Jesus to the Eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee for one reason. Verse 2 says that they followed Jesus there because of the signs that He performed. He had done lots of miracles and they wanted to see more. And when they got there, Jesus had compassion on them and performed another miracle. He fed them. He took five small barley cakes and two small fish and re-created them into enough food to feed 15-20 thousand people. Now the people had their bellies filled. Now they had their needs met. And they liked the feeling. That’s what takes us to our passage this morning. Once the people had their bellies stuffed, they liked that feeling so much that they tried to take Jesus by force and make Him their king. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? We talk all the time about making Jesus our King. So why did Jesus react the way that He did in verse 15? Verse 15 says that when Jesus saw that they were going to make Him their king, “He departed again into a mountain Himself alone.” The word that’s translated “departed” can carry the idea of “fleeing”. In other words, Jesus got outta there in a hurry. They wanted to make Jesus king, but He wasn’t going to have anything to do with the idea. Now, why was that? Because the people wanted to make Jesus the wrong kind of king. They thought they had found what they were looking for. But they were wrong. Because they were looking for the wrong thing. They were looking for a king. But they were looking for the wrong kind of king. So what kind of king were the people in the crowd looking for?

First, they were looking for a king who would fill their stomach. I heard one person describing the crowd as looking for ... next page »