This sermon was delivered Gordon McCulloch to the congregation at Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 5th August 2018; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
Exodus 16:2-4,9-15 Psalm 78:23-29 Ephesians 4:1-16 John 6:24-35
“Please join me in my prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
1. Introduction
How many times have we missed God’s blessings because they are not packaged the way we expect? … And how many times have we rejected a gift because we do not understand how exactly it helps us? Well today’s sermon looks at the gift of eternal salvation, and discusses why many reject it, even though it is free to everyone.
2. The gift is offered to the crowd
So we will start with John 6: 25 & 26 which says, “When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here? … and Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill”.
I found this to be a very strange reply, I also find it very rude, because this verse suggest that we have people desperately seeking Jesus, and when they find him he dismisses them, with a nasty put down, bluntly replying … "You are only are looking for me for more food”.
So we have to ask, “Where did this come from”? … Well to give the story a wee bit of background, we read at the beginning of Chapter 6 the account of when Jesus fed the 5000 … and after this we read of him withdrawing from that crowd to be alone, and pray … later we read that during the night Jesus walked on the water, and later we find that he had crossed the lake. … Then, the very next morning, the crowd that had been fed by Jesus the night before, went in search of Him … and that is when says … “You are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill”.
However Jesus in verse 27 qualifies this reply by saying … “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval." … In other words he telling them not to seek or work for food that spoils or rots … but to look for those things “that endures to eternal life”, those things that are spiritual … and in particular, their eternal salvation.
And it is easy for us to see this in the bible, with hindsight, but to put this into context or perspective … if we assume we as a church, were to go into the middle of the High Street here in Ayr, and miraculously conjure up free food and drink, and then invite whoever is passing by to help themselves, I am sure they will indulge, particularly if the food is good. … Now, if we were then to say to them while eating, “come to our church, Holy Trinity, tomorrow and hear about the Lord”, I am sure many would come … but … how many of them would be there for more free food and more drink? … I thought about that for that myself for a while, and I am sorry to say … I would be looking for more food also. … That’s terrible … but you can see where Jesus is coming from, can you see what he is getting at?
He was saying that all of us at times, struggle in life to find a meaning … to find purpose and value … but that is because God created us to be like that, to seek for a meaning, and to seek a relationship with Him … but we all miss that relationship in the beginning because of Sin … not our present sins, but the Sin of mankind descended from Adam, which we inherited at birth.
And it was Saint Augustine away back in the 5th century who highlighted this … that every single person has within them a god-shaped vacuum in their soul that is impossible to fill … but everyone, and I mean everyone has tried to fill this vacuum one way or another … with a whole host of things. … But we all know, they only work for us for a while.
So we can see what Jesus was trying to tell them … to stop thinking about the temporal, and start thinking about the eternal. … Stop thinking about food that satisfies an empty stomach, and start thinking about spiritual food that satisfies an empty soul.
3. The gift is fairly or unfairly questioned
To move on … have you ever given a gift to someone that they didn’t fully appreciate? … I mean, a gift that you have went to great lengths or trouble to procure … only to see them throw it aside and say, “I will look at that later”.
That is exactly what is happening here … Jesus is offering eternal life, eternal salvation to the crowds and instead of receiving it joyfully and gratefully, they respond with two doubting questions:
a. The first reaction was – “what must we do, what will it cost us”?
And the first question is asked in verse 28 … “Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires”?
And this is a typical legalistic question asked by the Jews and no doubt ourselves, “what do we have to do, (on top of what we are already doing), to earn this gift of salvation as nothing in this world is free”? …
And we cannot blame them because we are all brought up this way; I mean we believe that if we do this this and then this, then we will get ... (something) … and when we have received that (something) that we have earned, we feel satisfied. That is the normal way of thinking. … So if somebody says to us, “here is gift for free”, our first reactions are to say … “what is the catch …what are you after”? … And worse, if we don’t ask these questions, well we are setting ourselves up to be taken advantage off. …
An example, are those bothersome emails from a Nigerian general, you know the ones we speak off, offering to give us vast sums of money if we deposit their money in our bank accounts, and I kid you not; … and if we proceed without asking those doubting questions, all of our bank details will are been given away to some crook, possible in Nigeria.
So it this was not an unreasonable question for the Jews to ask, but here Jesus is saying, “I am giving you eternal salvation for nothing, only that you believe in me as your Lord, … you have nothing to do to earn it … you have nothing to work for … just accept it, and let the love of God flow.
That is exactly what we have been asked to do, and many people find this impossible to understand. There are no if or buts about it, there are no, if I will do this this and this … then I will receive … or, which many people descend to say, if I am bad, I will not receive … because I am not worthy to receive. … …. No, we are simply to believe in Jesus and then receive; that is the whole concept of grace. … In fact, that is the definition of Grace, where we receive something that we do not deserve, and we need to get used to this.
Sometimes we think that God would love us more if we could only pray a little bit more … or study more of the Bible … or be involved more within the church or a charity or something noble … or even just behave better to those whom we love … or just generally, just become a better human beings.
No … no that is not what the bible is saying, the bible is saying, believe and receive first, and those things will follow. … Then, when we truly believe … we then will read the Bible more because we will want to learn more … we will pray more because we want to commune with God … we will be involved more with the church or a charity because we want to give of our time and abilities … we will behave better because we want to become better human beings. We simply therefore need to believe first and then receive, or … as they say … “doubt and go without”.
So how did Jesus answer the question of , “what do we have to do earn this gift”; verse 29 “Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" … simply, to believe in Him.
b. The second reaction was – “Let us see something miraculous”
To move on, the crowd asks in verse 30 "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it, and believe you? What will you do? … Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: `He gave them bread from heaven to eat."
The other extreme to legalism is sensationalism, or astonishment, which means we will want to see something amazing in return for that belief. … The crowd are bluntly saying, “Show us a miracle so we can believe you”. … But Jesus’s answer is again a simple one; verse 35 “Then Jesus declared, “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.”
Jesus basically said to them “you want to see a miracle, here I am. I am the miracle”. … And we can understand the crowd again here because they did not know that Jesus was the son of God, it was not obvious to them that he renounced his deity … that he had laid aside His majesty … and became human so that he could die on a cross for our sins, which was yet to happen; … no, the crowd did not know that, and how could he have explained that to them at that time? …
However … the crowd had watched him doing a mighty miracle in by feeding by 5000, creating food from nowhere, changing the laws of physics by creating matter, by creating food … so they must have seen that he had that something special. Today, we too often ask God do some kind of miracle to validate our belief, forgetting that He already has … because Jesus never wanted too to be known as Jesus the miracle man; he wanted to be known as Jesus the saviour of mankind.
The greatest miracle that Jesus will ever perform is the miracle of salvation that happens when we accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord. … The greatest miracle we will ever see is the miracle of a changed life in him, a life turning away from sin unto righteousness. … Yes it does not happen overnight, but it happens, as many of us know.
4. The gift is rejected by many
And finally, how did the crowds react to this free gift of salvation? … Well to digress slightly, in the years I have been preaching, the one thing that has stood out more than anything for me, is the fact that Jesus was very human, he was just the same as you and I, and a case in point is his answer to the crowds in verse 41 which says … “At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." … They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
Wow, that is a rejection from the crowd who are bluntly saying … “who are you to tell us anything … “son of God is it” … “yer mither and faither stie jist doon the road”. … … And it wasn’t just the crowds that turned away from him, verse 60 tells that “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" and verse 66 is worse because it says, “from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him”. … Disciple of his, not just the crowd … and that is bad … that is a lot of unbelief … and that is a lot of rejection.
They certainly missed the free gift that was on offer that day. … Ok, perhaps Jesus did not fit their image of the Messiah, the conquering King, but honestly, it is difficult to understand, and it is also difficult to accept something that is free.
And I will give you a sort of example of that, most churches, in most denominations in our area advertise a special service every now and again, and they all usually say something like “everyone is made welcome” … and to be fair to them, they do mean it. … And yet there is something in our psyche that says, if it is free and we are welcome, then it is either not worth much, or … they are after something … and many miss the point that it is free to encourage everyone … so they can share what they have.
So salvation is free to those who believe, and yes we are the product, a product to be used of God himself … God wants us whether we can afford him or not … God wants us despite our faults and frailties … but most of all it is free so that we have no excuses for not receiving or accepting that salvation … that salvation that Jesus died in agony on the cross for us to receive … and accept this with gratitude which we rarely do.
5. Conclusion
Our text and this sermon this morning is another way of looking at our salvation, and it is intended that we embrace the love that has been poured on us … that we embrace the gifts of the spirit that we are now allowed to use … and we are to embrace that relationship with the Lord himself to guide us through our earthly lives … that relationship with the Holy Spirit that even Jesus needed in order to survive on this earth.
And if Jesus needed the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then so must we. … And this brings us onto verse 33 which says “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world". … from which we can take comfort and relate to verses 34 & 35 which goes onto say, "Sir … give us this bread" …from which Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. … Anyone who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
Obviously we are talking about spiritual bread here; the bread and the wine of our communion table … (whatever way that we take it), but communion with him, and with him alone … him Jesus who will guide and guard us through this life and the life beyond.
And so we finish with verse 40, “For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." … We have come full circle again, and it all ties up nicely, Amen.
Let us pray,
Father, we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he died in agony all those years ago to break the barrier of Sin and death, and restore our relationship with you.
Father this morning we ask that you help us to accept and embrace our salvation … help us understand the whole concept of grace, accepting your favour despite our faults and weaknesses … in that we can ask you whatever we will, and you will answer.
Father we ask in Jesus name. Amen.
