8th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 13
John 6:24-35
The Work of Faith
24 So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"
26 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal."
28 ¶ Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"
29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
30 So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform?
31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ’He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’"
32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world."
34 They said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always."
35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.RSV
Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
Far away in a lonely desert stands a water pump in the sand. You are a solitary traveler, and your canteen is empty and you come upon that pump. Tied to it is a hand written sign put there by some pilgrim. The sign reads "I have buried a bottle of water to prime the pump. don’t drink any of it."
"Pour in half of it to wet the leather. Wait, and then pour in the rest. Then pump. The well has never gone dry, but the pump must be primed to bring the water up. Have faith, believe. When you are through drawing water, fill the bottle and bury it in the sand for the next traveler.
Having come upon this pump in the desert with this sign and being out of water, what would you do???Will you dig the water bottle from the sand and drink from it??Or will you believe and believing dare to pour that water, trust to put water into pump every drop of it down into the old trusty pump?? Because you trust, you take a risk, both for yourself and for the next person who will pass that way.
What will you do???
That story possess an interesting question for all of us. Do we believe and trust in that written message by the water pump, or do we only worry about our own thirst and drink from the water bottle knowing that the water will give us enough strength to go on? What would you do???
Now in the same way think about the words in the Bible. They are our words of salvation in the desert of life. They are our source of life, life for eternity. Do you believe in them, or will you try your own way?
Think about Jesus in the same way as the note in the desert and the words of the Bible, He is our salvation in the desert of life, our source of life, life for eternity. Do you believe what Jesus says is true for Your life, or do you go your own way???
Our lesson this morning concerns faith. Someone in the crowd asked Jesus, "What must we do to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God that you believe in him who he has sent." Then Jesus goes on and says, "I am the bread of life; he who come to me shall not hunger, he who believes in me shall never thirst."
Faith can be defined as an obedient attitude to the will of God. And Jesus says faith is the work a follower of his should be about, having an obedient attitude in the will of God. Trusting and believing that the promises God has made for us through Jesus Christ are true.
Sometimes you and I get our work all mixed up. We think our work is salvation and so we try our hardest to save ourselves instead of trusting in God and being obedient to his will. It is as if we drank that bottle of water beside the pump instead of using it to prime the pump. We would be trusting in our own selfs, our own resources for living, instead of trusting and believing in God and his promises.
Jesus tells us in this passage that salvation is a gift that is Bread of Life.
In verse 27 Jesus says:" Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal."
Noitce especially these words, which the Son of man will give to you, give, as the dictionary defines that word, isays " To make a present of a gift, To place in the hands of so as Jesus is the Son of Man will give us food, or salvation.
It is a gift, a present,something that is handed over to us with no strings attached. Something that God through his Son wants us to have, salvation. Notice Jesus doesn’t say anything about us working for this gift, or earning this gift, or achieving this gift for ourselves, but Jesus says he will give it to us, it is ours, a free gift.
Salvation is a free gift from God. sometimes we want to try to earn that gift of salvation. But I ask you, when can you and I do enough for God to say to us that we are ready for salvation?? When would we be ready for God to say come?
I would dare say that none of us would ever be ready enough for God. None of us would be pure enough for god through our own efforts. But through Christ, God makes us ready for him.
Listen again to the words of Jesus: " But through Christ," God makes us ready for him. God is doing the work, God is doing the action, God is giving us salvation through the body and blood of Christ. It is God’s gift to the children that he loves.
Our work as Jesus says is to believe in him who he has sent . Our work is to have faith in Jesus Christ who will give us salvation.
We don’t need to worry about our salvation, we don’t need to try and obtain it for ourselves. Ourwork is to believe that this promise of salvation is true for us. It is God who is steering the ship of life, it is God who is in control of our salvatiion, it is God who will welcome us home to him when our pilgramige on this earth is ended. Jesus wants us to believe that our salvation is secure in the hands of God.
It is like a ship which was returning from an oversee voyage entering the St. Lawrence River. A heavy fog enveloped the ship on all side, completely concealing the shores and all objects from the view of the passengers. Much to their amazement, the ship continued at full speed. They became frighten considering such speed as extremely reckless on the part of the captain.
Finally, one of the passengers expressed concerns to the mate, demanding that the ship be slowed down. The mate listened, then replied with a smile: ’’O don’t be afraid, the passengers need not be uneasy in the least. The fog extends up only a short way above the water, and the captain is at the masthead, and is up above the fog and it is he who is directing the vessel."
In the same kind of way, Jesus is asking us to believe and trust in God as the captian of our ship directing us above all the foggy situations of life that we cannot understand. God is directing our ship of life because as captain God loves us and wants us to have a life that is abundant with all of his blessings.
Faith receives the gifts that God offers us. Faith believes in the promises of God, faith accepts God’s work of salvation as a gift.
It is like this pencil I am holding in my hand. Let us pretend this is God’s gift of salvation. God places it in our hearts. We can do several things with it. We can let it sit there, and ignore God’s gift for us, we can close our heart around it a little bit, or we can grab a hold of it for our salvation. Or we can reject God’s gift for us.
But notice the pencil doesn’t fall. That is because God never takes his gift away. We may reject it, we may ignore it, we may only slightly embrace it, but God’s gift remain true for us .
God’s gift remains in our hearts, because God is a loving God and God wants all people to be saved. As it says in Jh. 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should n ot perish but have eternal life." God wants us to accept this gift of salvation, God wants us to be his children, God has worked hard at convincing us of his good intentions for us. He showed us those good intention in the form of his son. He let the world kill his son so that he could show us his great love, by raising him up on the third day. God is a god of love and he wants us to trust in that love, to believe in that love, to live with that love while we walk our journey on this earth.
Jesus says, "Believe in him whom he has sent." Believe in Jesus and believe in God the Father who sent him.
Far away in a lonely desert stands a water pump in the sand. You are a solitary traveller, and your canteen is empty and you come upon that pump. Tied to it is a hand written sign put there by some pilgrim. The sign reads "I have buried a bottle of water to prime the pump. don’t drink any of it."
"Pour in half of it to wet the leather. Wait, and then pour in the rest. Then pump. The well has never gone dry, but the pump must be primed to bring the water up. Have faith, believe. When you are through drawing water, fill the bottle and bury it in the sand for the next traveller."
You are a traveler upon the planet earth. You come across a book, a book with 66 other books in it, as you read it you see that it can give you the assurance, the strength and the conviction to live life to the fullest. But it asks you to surrender yourself to someone else, to trust in the gifts this person is willing to give to you. What will you do?? Surrender, or rely on yourself.???
What will you do?????
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale July 28, 2003
