Something For Nothing - Part Three

Posted 9/30/14 by Donald Barnhouse

SCRIPTURE

John 6:1-14

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him,  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and vwhen he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

Lesson
 
In my New York Bible class I was asked the question, "If God is all powerful, could He make a five-year-old tree grow old in ten minutes?" I said, "Why not?" Look at what He did in this case here.
 
In His fingers, the years and the seasons fell apart. He who was the God of eternity demonstrated that He was the Lord of the months and the growing seasons. The one who took the bread and put it in baskets was the one who had said, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22). While the seasons rolled on, the Lord of the harvest demonstrated that He was able to create, that He was the Creator. And He did the same with the fish. Creation happened in that moment, as His fingers broke the bread and the fish.
 
Jesus Christ is the Lord Jehovah of Hosts. He is the Creator. He can take not only bread and fish to feed your bodies, but He can also take you and break you and with you feed the world-if you're willing to be broken by Him, to be handed out day by-day so that those around you may feed. And just as He said, "I am the light of the world" and "you are the light of the world," so He says, "I am the bread of life and so are you." When we are broken we can go out to feed others. The feeding, of course, will not be anything of our doing. It will be the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone.
 
Notice how Jesus elaborated on this in verses 48 and following. "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
 
At this point, the Jews asked a very natural question. They said, "How can this man give us flesh to eat?" And we might ask the same question. But Jesus is not talking about cannibalism. When we say, "Feed on Christ," we mean that the life we receive from Him spiritually is that which makes us live spiritually. Jesus said it this way, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (See vv. 52-54.)
 
Let me give you an illustration about this. Suppose you are at a football game. You see a young fellow running out for a pass. All of a sudden he catches it and starts to run-broken field running ninety yards down the field for a touchdown. What caused him to run like that? Well, that was the steak he ate two days ago. A little while later, he kicks a field goal. That was the mashed potatoes and milk he ate yesterday. The food that he ate yesterday, two days ago, last week, has been transferred into energy. Everything you do physically is done as a result of this chemical exchange-food being eaten and becoming energy. If a man knocks a home run, that's his steak transmuted into power.
 
Or maybe you see a young man who could make fifty thousand dollars a year as a surgeon. But he says, "I'm going out to the heart of Africa and I'm going to bury myself there for Christ." What makes him do that? Well, just as the beef steak makes the football man run down the field, so feeding on Christ transforms the life and sends that man to Africa. And feeding on Christ, seven days a week, makes a person live for Christ right in his own hometown.
 
Those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, `'his is indeed the prophet who is to come unto the world!" That shows you how blind people can be. This was not a prophet. This was Jehovah God. Men look in the direction of Jesus, even today, and call Him, "the Master," "the Nazarene," "the Galilean," "the Older Brother." How blind can natural man be?
Oh, Christians, don't ever be guilty of calling the Lord Jesus Christ "the Nazarene," and "the Galilean," and "the Master." Call Him, as the Scripture through all of the epistles calls Him, "Lord Jesus Christ," "Jehovah," "Saviour," "Messiah." He is our Creator. He is our Saviour. He is our God. And thus, it was demonstrated in that hour.
 
The lessons are there very easy to see. There is the lesson of who He is. John said at the end of his Gospel, "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31). So I present it to you that you might believe who Jesus is, and that believing, you might have life. I am not talking only about eternal life. I want you to have life for now, life that will enable you to overcome sin, life that will enable you to say no to the things you desire of yourself, life that will enable you to be crucified with Jesus Christ, life that will enable you to comprehend the nothingness of yourself and your need for the creative touch. You need Christ to come and stand by the cipher of your being, the zero that can make you effective for Him. And when you comprehend this whole thing in relationship to this temporary, very temporary struggle between God and Satan, then you will know that you have been chosen to be on the side of eternity against time, on the side of God against Satan, on the side of supply over the demand of need. You and I have been called for His purpose.

STUDY QUESTIONS

  • Why does studying scripture help us to finish the race?
  • What benefits does reading scripture bring to the Christian in their walk with Christ?
  • Is reading scripture primarily concerned with the heart, mind or both? Explain.

PRAYER

  • Pray that you would have a deeper desire to study God's word and to teach others about the bread of life.