John 6:52-70 – Sensation Chasers or Jesus Chasers
Let’s say for a moment you are responsible for hiring and firing your church pastor
• The church is doing great. You have more than 5000 people attending
• The senior pastor is a great guy, people like him, he’s a captivating speaker, and has even been know to perform the occasional miracle
• Then one day he gets up and says something so offensive in his sermon that there is an uproar in the congregation and 4,988 people leave the church
• The church drops from 5000 to 13 in one day
• This actually happened by the way
• What would you do to the senior pastor for losing all those good tithe paying people? Fire him?
• If you said fire him, you would have just fired Jesus Christ
We pick up the story in John 6
• Just the day before Jesus had fed the 5000
• You’ve heard of “Ambulance chasers”, well these people were “Sensation chasers”
• The crowds are still following Jesus hoping to see another amazing miracle
• They wanted the spectacular, they wanted excitement, they wanted impressive miracles
• But Jesus has other plans for His true followers
• So he pulls them up and tells them instead of being “Sensation Chasers” he wants them to become “Jesus Chasers”
In the gospel of John, Jesus uses the term “I am” seven times
• John’s gospel is written to prove that Jesus was indeed the Son of God
• So when Jesus uses these “I am” phrases they are really claims to His deity
• No man can make any of these claims
• It is in this section of scripture that Jesus makes the first “I am” claim when he says, “I am the bread of life” John 6:35
• The other six claims Jesus makes are:
o “I am the light of the world.” (8:12, 9:5)
o “I am the gate.” (10:7)
o “I am the good shepherd.” (10:11,14)
o “I am the resurrection and the life.” (11:25)
o “I am the way, the truth and the life. (14:6)
o “I am the true vine.” (15:1)
• With all of these “I am’s” what does it tells us about where our focus should be?
o If we want “True Bread” to whom do we go? Jesus
o If we want “Light” to whom do we go? Jesus
o If we want to find “the gate” to whom do we go? Jesus
o If we want to meet “the good shepherd” to whom do we go? Jesus
o If we want “resurrection and life ” to whom do we go? Jesus
o If we want to find the “Way, Truth, and Life” to whom do we go? Jesus
o If we want to be attached to the “True Vine” to whom do we go? Jesus
• So what kind of “chasers” do we want to be? Do we crave excitement, the spectacular, impressive miracles
• Or do we crave a relationship with the One who will give us true life
Pick up the story in John 6:52
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
• Why was this so offensive to the Jews? V.59 Gives us a clue
• Here right in the Jewish synagogue, Jesus talks about eating unclean human flesh and drinking blood, both forbidden under the Mosaic Law
53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
• This is one of several passages in the Book of John where Jesus is speaking on another level to his audience
• I used to say that about my math teacher
• In John 2 Jesus about his Body as the new “temple”
• In John 3 Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about a “new birth”
• In John 4 He spoke to the Samaritan woman about “living water”
• Now here in John 6 he speaks to this great crowd of followers about the “true bread” from heaven
• The audience however is operating on another level
• They are totally absorbed with the physical, that’s why they are chasing the sensational, they want miracles, excitement, and a better physical life
• Jesus however is speaking at a much higher level. He is effectively saying, you hang onto and think this physical is real life, but if you are willing to partake of me, I will show you what real life is
• I want you to make a paradigm shift from viewing life from a physical perspective to a spiritual perspective
57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
• Do we grasp what Jesus is saying to us? He wants to share His life with us
• Its very much like a marriage proposal. A marriage proposal is about sharing a life together
• Jesus is proposing that we spend our life with Him
• In a way this is the spiritual equivalent to a husband and wife becoming one flesh
• Jesus is saying, He wants you and me to become one spirit with Him 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
• Jesus repeats this proposal to have this intimate relationship with Him on the night of the Last Supper
• John 14:20 “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
• Doesn’t mean we lose our identity any more than a husband or a wife loses their identity in a proper marriage relationship
58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
• Notice again the contrast between the physical and the spiritual
• Focusing on the physical may make your physical life more enjoyable, but in the end you will simply die and that will be it
• However if your focus is on the life I am offering you, you may die physically, but you will live spiritually forevermore
59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"
• They were disappointed. The Messiah didn’t live up to there expectations
• Sooner or later, if we’re operating on the physical we are going to be offended by the spiritual
• Why? Because spiritual life and what it represents is so diametrically opposed to our physical existence and what it represents
61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
• You may change your mind if you were able to see what I have in store for you
• You’ve got to think beyond the physical in order to be a Jesus Chaser
63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.
• Now there’s a challenge – the flesh counts for nothing! Yet what do we humans do to the flesh? We pamper it, we spoil it, we indulge it, we dress it up, we entertain it
The words I have spoken to you are spirit[1] and they are life.
• Don’t you understand what I am offering you? Get over the physical, lock into the spiritual
64Yet there are some of you who do not believe. (But some of you are resisting -Message) For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."
• Sometimes we think we are smarter than the world out there because we think we chose to come to Jesus as though it were our doing
• but Jesus himself said to his own disciples, "You did not choose me, I chose you," (John 15:16)
• We think our choices determine our destiny, but the truth is our choice is a result of God’s grace
• He has to draw us to him otherwise we would never come
• But once drawn, we must make that decision to believe in the One the Father sent
66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
• Some treat their walk with Christ like a buffet table, they pick and choose what we want to believe and accept
• But Jesus says it a package deal and there is only one bread of life
• There are not many ways to Salvation, only one, and I’m it!
Now we come to an interesting section - Jesus gives His own inner circle the opportunity to leave
67"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
• Imagine this. Jesus sees 4,988 people walking away from Him
• But He doesn’t go after the crowd begging them to stay, He doesn’t change the message to make it more palatable, he simply waits for them to decide
• Throughout scripture, we never see Jesus twisting anyone’s arm to accept His gift of salvation
• He holds out the gift, but we have to take it
• Yet we humans would have been horrified if the pastor of a church lost all those tithe paying members and we suddenly went from a church of 5000 to 13
• Jesus is not into numbers and miracles and excitement and the sensational
• All of those things belong to the physical realm
• Jesus is into those who see the spiritual vision he is offering to us through his Body and Blood
• He is into New birth and Living waters and Bread from Heaven
68Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
• Peter grasped what was at stake here. He may not have understood what Jesus was talking about, but He had no qualms about who Jesus was
• He was the Son of God and must know what he’s talking about
• This was the big difference between Peter and the crowd. Both parties didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about but one party believed Jesus was the Holy One of God
• Big lesson in faith. We may not understand the “Why’s” of life, but we better understand the “Who”
70Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!"
• In Judas we see an interesting reaction to Jesus’ words
• There are three groups here. All of them are faced with a decision, to accept or reject Jesus’ teachings
• Jesus will do that to you – He confronts all of us with a decision
• First we have one group who on hearing this hard saying, they up and leave, they reject it and move on
• They wanted the easy life, to be pampered, spoiled and to indulge themselves a bit, “We like our pornography, we like our pleasure, we like fame and fortune”
• Jesus was asking too much of them, the spiritual requires work and effort, carrying a cross, and perhaps even death
• The second group are the disciples like Peter, who don’t really understand what Jesus is talking about but they are willing to believe because of who Jesus is
• So they accept the teaching because of a commitment to a relationship – a relationship with the Son of God
• Then we have Judas
• Judas missed a great opportunity. He could have had churches named after him
• Unlike the others who reject and leave, Judas hangs around anyway
• He’s hanging out with Jesus to further his own ends
• He’s getting recognition, he’s getting fame and he enjoys basking in Jesus’ shadow
• A very dangerous position to be in
• Judas is like some in the church today who see Christianity as a means to an end
• The idea of living forever is captivating. The idea of receiving spiritual and physical blessings is appealing. The idea of not going to hell is attractive
• But if we are here just for these things, eventually like Judas our true motives will be exposed and we will betray our Lord in the process
• Jesus is interested in those who want to make the transition from the physical to the spiritual, whose Christianity has made the transition from the head to the heart
• During the Gulf War, one soldier who had been in the military for many years sued to get out of the army.
• Know what his defense was? “I signed up for the army during peace time. No one told me I might have to go and fight”
• The same thing happens in church. “I signed up to be a church member. No one told me I would have to be Christian!”
• Christianity is about a commitment to Jesus Christ, a commitment that is made at the heart level
• If we are in it to feather our own bed we will end up betraying ourselves and our Lord
Our Personal Transition
• I said earlier that sooner or later, if we’re operating on the physical we are going to be offended by the spiritual
• About 8 years ago, we too were confronted with a few hard sayings
• Jesus was effectively asking us to make a paradigm shift from viewing our Christianity from a physical perspective to a spiritual perspective
• Like the Jews of Jesus time we were asked to raise our sights and see past the physical to the spiritual reality
• The Jews had to make the transition from a physical temple of stone to the spiritual temple Jesus
• Nicodemus had to make the transition from a physical birth to a spiritual birth
• The woman at the well had to make the transition from physical water to living water
• The disciples had to make the transition from chasing physical bread to the Bread of Life
• Jesus used the physical merely as a shadow to teach a higher spiritual reality
• We were asked to make the same transition
• We had to grasp that the physical Sabbath Day was merely a shadow of the true Spiritual rest brought about by the Lord of the Sabbath. “Come to me and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28)
• Cleaning our homes of leaven during ULB was a shadow of making way for the “True unleavened Bread from heaven to come share his life with us
• The Feast of Tabernacles was a shadow of Jesus coming to take us residence or “tabernacling” in our body
• Food laws were a shadow of God’s people becoming Holy and separate from an sinful unclean world through the blood of Jesus Christ
And isn’t transition exactly what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well
• John 4:23-24 “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
• There is no longer a need to go to Jerusalem to worship. Worship is no longer structured around the physical dimension of time and space
• Its now happens in the spiritual dimension. This is what it means to worship in “Spirit and in Truth”
• And it only makes sense that if we have experienced a spiritual birth as Jesus told Nicodemus that we now also worship in that dimension
• We approach the new temple, Jesus Christ, in worship, and fall down before Him and allow Him to feed us “living waters” and “the bread of life”
• Which confronts us with the question, How do you and I want to worship, do we want to stay in the physical? Or do we want to transition to the spiritual in the way Jesus put it to the Samaritan woman
• Can we see the need to make the transition from chasing physical shadows to chasing spiritual realities? (Col 2:17)
• We are no longer a church that focuses on the physical, we are a church that focuses on the true gateway to the spiritual dimension, Jesus Christ
• That’s one of His later “I am” statements, “I am the gate”, “I am the way”
• There is no other way, physical rituals are not the way, Mosaic rituals are not the way, Jesus is the way
• the Father is seeking such to worship Him.24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
• We must make that transition or sooner or later we will walk away just like these disciples who were absorbed with the physical
• These were hard saying for all of us to accept
• And we had a similar range of reactions to these hard sayings as we find in this passage of scripture didn’t we
• People drew lines in the sand, and we have slowly had to step over them or move somewhere else
• we aren’t going back, we can’t go back, we’re moving forward into worship that is in Spirit and in Truth
• The thing is the more we focus on Christ, the more we come to see these other things as being unnecessary
• The reality is so much better than the shadows, why chase shadows
• I guess the question comes back to Peter’s response, we either believe Jesus is who He says He is, the Holy One from God who is the Bread of Life
• Be a “Jesus Chaser” and worship him in Spirit and in Truth
