Please turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus chap 16, beginning at verse 21. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each, and when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.”
So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, there will be none.”
On the Sabbath, on the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
Now the house of Israel called its name Mana. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
From there, we turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 6, beginning at verse 22. On the next day, the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.
So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats, and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him God the Father has set his seal.”
Then they said to him, “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 whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray: My Father, you are the great provider. All that we have comes from you. Help us to see your hand over all things, to know and recognize what you have done and are doing for us now and always. Amen.
So following the brief intermission of Jesus’s fifth sign of his divinity — his walk upon the Galilean Waters during the late night and early morning, that private sign witnessed only by his disciples — and they beheld his glory and divine sovereignty over the created world, John the Evangelist continues his narrative related to the fourth sign: Jesus’s miraculous feeding of over 5,000 people.
On the next day, the crowds that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.
So just one day later, after much amazement had occurred, the great crowd that had been following Jesus around Galilee suddenly discovered that he was missing. Jesus disappeared, having quietly slipped away from under the watchful gaze of over 2,000 pairs of eyes. Now they, the crowd, were somewhere out in the wilderness, like near the town of Bethsaida, but that was further inland and there was no other nearby port town or fishing village. They were out in the middle of nowhere, stuck between some weeds.
They knew that there had only been one small boat pulled up on shore nearby; likely that was the same boat that the disciples had sailed from Capernaum to there, and they knew that the disciples had left the evening before, and they knew that Jesus did not go with them. So where could he be and how did he get there?
Meanwhile, the news that Jesus was out in the wilderness performing miraculous wonders had spread quickly and widely enough that other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Boats from all across the Sea of Galilee, including the district capital of Tiberias located to the south and west, came looking to see Jesus and to join this crowd.
Because over the past year, Jesus had become an attraction; he was now a crowd-drawing main event. So surely when the people heard about what was going on, it prompted them to suddenly travel to this remote spot in the wilderness. But yet, somehow, when they arrived, Jesus was gone. This popular superstar had managed to give them all the slip.
So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they got into the boats that had shown up and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus. Now we remember that this was a broad and diverse Galilean crowd that had gathered together for the common purpose of seeing Jesus.
Remember that they had originally gathered and were following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. And so now that this massive crowd had been the recipients of a Jesus miracle, where everybody was fed from his hand, now everybody was seeking Jesus.
But why? Why were they actually seeking Jesus? Were they earnestly seeking the Kingdom of God as people repentant of their sin, or was it simply because they wanted to get something from him? Were they seeking God’s glory, or were they simply looking out for number one by asking Jesus, “What’s in it for me?”
Fortunately, we don’t need to guess about their motives because John very plainly tells us what those were straight from Jesus’s mouth, writing, “When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’”
And Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” Ouch! I mean, really, do we want to hear that from Jesus?
And although that might sound or seem harsh to us based on some personal impressions and expectations that we tend to make about Jesus’s personality, once again, the Evangelist demonstrates or reminds us that Jesus was very real as a person. Jesus did not always speak with sweetness and light; he was plain spoken, honest, and straightforward.
Jesus was often bluntly honest, never sugarcoating hard truths just to make them seem more palatable. He always spoke the truth in love because he wanted people to turn away from everything that was false and wrong.
So again, John reminds us that when people began to follow Jesus after he performed the signs in Jerusalem, Jesus — he writes — “Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in men.”
Because Jesus knew, he knows what’s in the heart of man, what’s in our hearts. Jesus knows that at the core of sinful man, we are utterly selfish people who only worship ourselves, seeking self-gratification. So he knew and understood precisely why they were seeking him. They were seeking him for all the wrong reasons.
Jesus knew that they were following him and seeking him because they were just looking for a free meal. So he called them out on it. They sought him not because of who he is and who his signs demonstrated him to be, but because of what they believed he could give to them — their daily bread.
So he told them, “Don’t work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him God the Father has set his seal.”
Now this part of John’s Jesus discourse, if taken alone, could suggest a contradiction to our reformed understanding of sola gratia and sola fide, because Jesus seems to imply that eternal life can be received as the reward for or wages of some work that we might do. But upon closer examination and in connection with everything the Evangelist has previously said within this gospel, that suggestion does quickly fail.
I mean, anybody who’s ever been employed understands what Jesus means by working for food that perishes. He means our daily grind, all of the effort that we put into the things that are transient and temporary, even including those necessary things like food, water, shelter, and other survival-related stuff.
But also including other important things, like a nicer car, a nicer house, a bigger yard, more books, more yarn. Although each of those things are intrinsically good, and each one can be important for us, none of them are intended to be the most important thing to us. Unfortunately for many people, they tend to become idols, which we end up worshiping inadvertently, unintentionally, and unnaturally.
However, neither our daily grind nor even the good things in this world are the food and work, and the fullness of them, that God intends for his children. Then they said to him, “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 whom he has sent.” The work of God which must be done to receive the food that endures to eternal life is simply and truly to believe in the Son of Man, the one whom the Lord God has sent and on whom God the Father has set his seal.
Again, this dialogue is what drives the incorrect suggestion that our faith in Jesus Christ is the work that justifies or earns a Christian the wage or reward of eternal life. That faith itself, the act of believing, is a saving work, because it ignores the simple fact that a person cannot believe in — cannot have faith in — Jesus except that they are first born again, born from above.
Because faith in Jesus Christ is the gift of God given to sinful men, whereby, through that faith, all the adopted children of God will trust Jesus for their eternal salvation, as his worked righteousness is imputed to us, is counted as our own personally worked righteousness, thereby justifying us before the holy God and enabling us to stand in the Judgment so that we are passed from death to life.
So even though our faith in Jesus is ultimately the freely given gift of God, we are still responsible to actively engage in the work of believing as a consequence of receiving it. Our ability to believe is given; our desire to believe is given. So we must still be believing.
Because the regenerate elect, the repenting Christian, we cannot help but to believe in and trust Christ with our whole body, being, mind, and soul. And so by believing as God has given us to, we do the necessary work of God.
But unfortunately, those people who were chasing Jesus all around the Sea of Galilee, those who were seeking Jesus for their own benefit rather than God’s glory, they further proved that they just did not get it. They did not understand and that they were only seeking Jesus for what they believed he could give them when they said to him, “Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?”
I mean, our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” Now, I’m not sure whether they were suffering from prideful, selfish entitlement or just plain ignorance, but they certainly proved Jesus’s point. They proved what would become the Apostle Paul’s point: that those who remain enslaved to the elementary principles of the world and who surrender to the desires of the flesh — like sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these — that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Because everyone who belongs to the world will always chase after worldly things and worldly satisfactions while everyone belonging to Jesus Christ will constantly be striving for holiness, seeking God’s glory.
And all those Jews who were seeking Jesus, they asked him for a sign after he had just given them a sign — the very sign that they were now asking for. They proved by doing so that they were truly a wicked and adulterous generation, just like the generation of Israelites that died in the wilderness.
Although to their credit, they did recognize a connection between Jesus’s feeding of the crowd and the Israelites’ receipt of manna, but they failed to understand what the connection was or meant, which prompted Jesus to answer them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”
Both generations missed the point that the Lord God is our provider. He provides everyone with their daily bread and he provides the elect with their faith in Christ. Even when this divine truth was plain as day and staring them in the face, both generations failed to understand what God was actually doing, and they both failed to appropriately respond to God’s Providence.
When the manna first appeared, Moses explained to Israel, “This is what the Lord has commanded: Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath of the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till morning.”
And then Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath of the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”
So over the course of that whole first week, all of Israel saw and all of Israel received God’s blessing, this miracle of manna. But even after they received it, and they ate it, they failed to believe and trust God. They failed to have faith.
Since on the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. Moses, according to God’s instruction, had commanded them to gather as much of the manna as they could eat morning by morning, and on the sixth day, to gather twice as much in preparation for the Sabbath.
But meanwhile, there were some who tried to keep manna leftovers during the week, but they had found that it bred worms and it stank, it spoiled. And then they further demonstrated their personal failure to trust and obey God’s word, demonstrating their lack of faith by refusing to heed his simple command: “Gather twice as much on the sixth day.”
I mean, this may not seem like a big deal, but it was because even that transgression was sin. They weren’t believing God; they weren’t trusting him when he said he would do something. That’s cosmic treason!
And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?” But remember, the Ten Commandments had not yet been given to Moses. The Israelites were still living in a probationary period while they traveled between Egypt and Mount Sinai.
During this short season, they had very few restrictions or commands to follow — similar to Adam and Eve while they were in the garden. Because even then, Israel was being tested to see if they would be faithful and obedient, just as Adam and Eve were.
Adam and Eve were told, “Do not eat from that one tree,” but they did. And Israel was told, “Gather only what you need each day, except for the sixth and seventh when you’ll gather twice as much on the sixth and none on the seventh because the seventh is the Sabbath, a day of rest.”
But they didn’t do it. Both groups failed their test. I mean, it sounds simple enough, but since neither group could handle it, I expect that we also would have failed the test despite our earnest protestations.
But the point these two stories demonstrate for us is that although both the Israelites and the Jews that Jesus fed received and directly benefited from unqualified miracles performed by God Almighty himself, they did not believe the undeniable evidence.
I mean, the miracles were both obviously miraculous; the miracles were tangible, and their effect was measurable. The miracles left evidence of their performance afterwards so that others could see and know their truth.
The Israelites filled a jar with an omer of manna, which is about two quarts, and eventually they kept it and put it with the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments and Aaron’s staff. Meanwhile, the disciples diligently gathered together all the leftovers and filled up 12 baskets. Lots of evidence that this happened.
The most astonishing part of these two stories is that while both the Israelites and the Jews of Galilee ate — they ate it — the clear product of a divine miracle, they failed to believe the source of the miracle.
The Israelites did not believe that the Lord would provide for them according to the means and schedule that he promised, while the Jews did not believe that Jesus could or would provide for them according to the example of Moses — something that Jesus had already done once before upon their selfish demand or their whim of command.
Both groups ate, but neither believed. They lacked the understanding of faith because they did not understand what true bread is. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world — the Lord’s blessed, life-giving, and life-sustaining provision and the regenerating work of his Holy Spirit.
The eyes of their hearts were closed to the truth; therefore, they failed to obey their Creator and the ultimate Provider, the one to whom we all owe our complete allegiance. They had all the evidence necessary to encourage their faith and prove their faith true.
They had the opportunity to move beyond the simplicity of mere faith into a fullness of confidence and assurance, and yet they still did not believe. Today we possess far less tangible or physical evidence to support our faith than they did, but because of the Holy Spirit’s working within the elect, now as then, we don’t require physical evidence to believe in or to have faith.
Regardless, we do possess a variety of evidences. We have the testimony of the martyrs and all the saints who’ve gone before us. We have the evidences of scripture and the evidence that is provided by archaeology and even secular, extra-biblical sources that confirm the Bible’s veracity.
Those things do strengthen and encourage our faith, but our faith is not ultimately dependent on them. We know that our faith is true, and we would continue to believe it even without all the extra evidence and proof because our God is true.
Because faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. We have an assurance and a conviction that both the Israelites and these first-century Jews lacked because we have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit inside of every elect believer.
And although we, each of us, might be secure and confident within our trust of Jesus Christ, we each also need to consider this part of the story as a warning or potential chastisement to us because it does describe an all-too-common inappropriate response to Jesus: looking to Jesus for what he can do for you or what you wish he would do for you rather than looking to him simply because of who he is.
How often might we turn to Jesus Christ because of what we wish or hope that he would do? We do it every time we get into trouble, every time we have a problem that we cannot solve on our own, every time we feel afraid and are helpless.
Then we might find it easier to turn to Jesus as a last-ditch chance, as a final hope beyond reason. Then we might pray for what we want, forgetting about and ignoring God’s purposes and plan in favor of our own wants and desires, our felt needs.
Then we might try to bargain with God, saying, “I will do XYZ if God would only do ABC.” But then after our attempts at deal-making fail and our wishes do not come true, if that were the only reason — if that were the only reason for why we turn to Christ — then our faith would be proven false as it was shattered by our self-centeredness.
If that were the only reason for us to turn to Jesus, the sad fact is many professing Christians treat God as if he were some kind of all-benevolent Sky Daddy, some kind of Santa Claus or genie that we keep bottled up and hidden until we need him. When we pull him out, our wish becomes his command.
But that is not God; that is not who God is. And if we are honest with one another, nobody would want to worship a so-called God like that — something that’s a controlled magical creature enslaved to our will and fed by our devotion.
It’s true: faith, truly god-given faith, is strong enough to endure our disappointment and discouragement at not getting what we want. True faith perseveres and preserves us because it looks beyond the veil; it looks past this present life and rests its gaze upon the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God, and considers all of God’s many promises of provision without having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, acknowledging that we are strangers and exiles on the earth.
That is the critical difference between the regenerate elect and worldly people like the Israelites and Jews. Worldly people are most concerned about that which is fleeting and temporary, seeking instantaneous self-gratification, satisfying all of their wants and desires.
Whereas the elect children of God are most concerned with things that are eternal and lasting, believing and knowing that Jesus Christ will provide for all of your needs and satisfy all of our good desires.
The final lesson and question for us concerning our own quest seeking Christ is this: Do we seek him for our own sake, looking for the manna that he will provide us — enough food to last us for one day? Or do we seek him for his own sake, for his glory — looking for the food that he will give us, his beloved brothers and sisters, that we may enjoy with him forever and ever?
So why are you seeking Jesus? Is it because you’ve seen the signs that declare who he is and believe? Or is it because you have eaten your fill of his provision and you would simply prefer to continue doing so? Amen.