2020 04 13 Engage Podcast John 6 Holy Sould Food

In this episode of the Engage podcast, Chris and Hannah discuss John chapter six. They focus on Jesus feeding the crowd with a few loaves of bread and fish, and how Jesus emphasizes the importance of spiritual satisfaction over temporary needs. They also talk about the disciples' varying levels of faith and the confusion surrounding Jesus' statements about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. They encourage listeners to seek a deeper understanding of God's will and to focus on the eternal rather than the temporary. Alright, here it is with Chris and Hannah, engaged hosts of your Engage podcast. Episode number two, I have here with me my favorite guest and co-host, Chris Green. Say hi, Chris. Hi, Hannah. Okay, so we are going to jump right in. We're going to read John chapter six today, and apparently I am Hannah's, just her guest today. So this is the Hannah show, I guess. This is the Hannah show. So here we go, starting in verse one, John six, verse one. After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, where can we buy bread to feed all these people? He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them. Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, there's a young boy with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd? Tell everyone to sit down, Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. The men alone numbered about 5,000. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward, he did the same with the fish, and they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, now gather the leftovers so that nothing is wasted. So they picked up the pieces and filled 12 baskets with the scraps left by the people who had eaten them from the five barley loaves. When the people saw him, due to this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, surely he's the prophet we've been expecting. When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. Okay, so starting off on verse 22. The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the far shore saw that the disciples had taken the only boat, and they realized Jesus had not gone with them. Several boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the Lord had blessed the bread and the people had eaten. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him. They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, Rabbi, when did you get here? Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don't be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval. They replied, we want to perform God's works too. What should we do? Jesus told them, this is the only work God wants from you. Believe in the one he has sent. They answered, show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness. The scriptures say Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, Moses didn't give you bread from heaven. My father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Sir, they said, give us that bread every day. Jesus replied, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But you haven't believed in me even though you have seen me. However, those the Father has given me will come to me and I will never reject them. For I will come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. For it is my Father's will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day. Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say, I came down from heaven? But Jesus replied, stop complaining about what I said. For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me. And at the last day I will raise them up. As it is written in the scriptures, they will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has ever seen the Father. Only I, who was sent from God, have seen him. I tell you the truth. Anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever. And this bread which I will offer so the world may live is my flesh. Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant. How can this man give us his flesh to eat, they asked. Then Jesus said again, I tell you the truth. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise that person at the last day. Or, my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. I live because of the living Father who sent me. In the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did, even though they ate the manna, but will live forever. He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. So many of his disciples said, this is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it? Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining. So he said to him, does this offend you? Then what will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven again? The spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. In the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But some of you do not believe me. For Jesus knew from the beginning which ones didn't believe, and he knew who would betray him. Then he said, that is why I said that people can't come to me unless the Father gives them to me. At this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the twelve and asked, are you also going to leave? Simon Peter replied, Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe and we know you are the Holy One of God. And Jesus said, I chose the twelve of you, but one is a devil. He was speaking of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, one of the twelve, who would later betray him. All right. I've got a few thoughts that I can go for right out of the gate, but mostly based off of the passage that Hannah read, because I was writing my notes then. But one of the things is he's talked about how the food is temporal, right? He said you're concerning yourselves with food and all these things, things of this life that aren't going to last, right? You're concerned about that. And he's kind of like saying, my mission is not really about making sure you have full bellies. My mission is about making sure you have a full in your spirit, in your heart. Right. And so that was kind of his his focus there. So I think you see varying levels of faith in that story. So some of them that he was, or Jesus was talking to was people who had followed him and who believed who he was, who is the son of God. And in the first part of the chapter, it talks about the miracle where Jesus turned a couple of loaves of bread and fish into a huge amount to feed over 5,000 people. And he talks to a couple of his disciples at the beginning and asks them, you know, what are we going to do to feed these people? And I think there was two different individuals that spoke up. So one of them just outright said, well, it's totally impossible. And then the other one, he thought it was impossible too, but he somehow mentioned the fact that this little boy had a couple of loaves and a couple of fishes. So in a sense, he couldn't see himself of how it would be enough, but he wanted to bring whatever he had to the table. Yeah. Yeah, I like that thought. Yeah. Because in verse 8, sorry, in verse 7, Philip says even if we worked for months, we couldn't have enough money. It's like we could work the whole time, use all our wages for that. It still wouldn't be enough for these people. And Peter's like, well, there's a kid with some fish and bread. I'm not sure. He goes on saying, you know, what good is that, this huge crowd? He's like, he's not really sure, but he's still bringing that up to Jesus. Like you say, he doesn't know what to do with it, but maybe Jesus knows something to do with it, you know? You know, here's a thought. I wrote down a few thoughts almost like more as questions, you know. What did it mean to never be thirsty or hungry again? You know, Jesus says that, you know, if you like, he says like, he says a really sort of weird statement that kind of freaks people out, like saying you've got to eat my flesh and you've got to drink my blood, and then you're never going to be thirsty or hungry again. And they're just like, huh? Even his disciples are like, they're like, this is a really hard teaching to understand. And Jesus is like, well, do you want to tap out and get out of here then? You want to peace out on me because you don't, you don't understand? They're like, well, you have the hope. So even if we don't understand it all, you still have the best answer. And so, but it's interesting because in John earlier, when we read John chapter four with the woman at the well, right? And he tells her that about living water and about how, if she knew about this living water, she wouldn't have to keep coming to the well kind of thing. And she's thinking like, what are you talking about? Like, I don't want to drink from this well. Give me this living water. But he was talking about something spiritual in both cases, right? A spiritual satisfaction where we have a spiritual hunger and thirst for God, you know, a desire for Him. Most people instinctively have an instinct towards things like justice and things like grace. Like we instinctively understand that justice needs to be present. People have to make up for the wrong things. We can't let wrongs go. You just carry on in the world. You know, we care about justice. We believe in those kinds of things. We also believe in grace and mercy and those kinds of things. We're not perfect, but we often have a desire towards, even if we don't want to do them ourselves, we know those things are right. You know? And I think that's because we have this desire, this hunger, this thirst for God. You know? And that's what he's talking about. They didn't get it, though, because they just couldn't get their minds off the temporal thing, off of the temporary hunger in their bellies. You know? They said, oh, well, Moses gave manna. Well, context, manna was this bread. In the Old Testament, the Israelites didn't have any food, and so Moses prayed to God, and God gave them this bread, basically. So basically they're too fixated on like, oh, wow, this guy is like this holy fast food thing that we can go to. Like, give us some more holy fast food. And God's like, I want to give you holy soul food, holy real food that is going to last and make you healthy, not just a quick fix. You know? I think that's the big thing there. I think it's also a good reminder because, you know, I'm guilty of it. I'm sure that other people can empathize with me, too. That whenever we do pray to God, it's much easier to, you know, treat God like a fast food restaurant. Like, this is what I want, and, you know, please give me these things. But like Chris was saying about how the people in this story didn't, they were fixated on the temporal, and they didn't look at what was to come. Us in the modern world, we can, you know, sometimes fix our eyes on things that are temporary or things that, you know, are immediate in our lives, and we don't think about the vision of the future, of the bigger picture, so to speak. So, yeah, I think it's also referencing back to, Chris, you can tell me where in the Bible this is from. But the Lord's Prayer, if you look through that prayer, and you read through it, and Jesus says, you know, this is the way that you should pray, and when you read through it, a lot of it is, you know, taking your eyes off you, of your situation, and it's pointing towards, you know, God, and pointing towards what the bigger picture is. And I think that that's, you know, just a good reminder for us. I know it's hard, but to, you know, fix our eyes on Jesus, and all of these things will come. In fact, I think even in this passage here, there is one part where Jesus is mentioning about, like, why do you just think of bread and food? Like, all these will come. Yeah, the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, this version is found in Matthew 6, verses 9 through 13. It says, pray like this. Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. So, it's interesting. He's acknowledging the earthly temporal needs. Like, give us today the bread we need. But it also could be more of a spiritual thing as well. Like, give us today the spiritual filling that we need. Yeah, I think that's a well-thought point. Yeah, no, I think that's all the thoughts that I have for today. Great thoughts, though. We'd love to hear you guys' thoughts. Think about those things. If you have some cool thoughts about that, write that down so you don't forget. And we'd love to chat about that. Go ahead and read the passage for yourself. Don't just take our word for it. And see if you notice anything different, too. Anyways, we're praying for you all. See you soon. God bless. Bye.