Boy, Am I Full! Keith McFarren September 7, 2025 John 6:23-35 What prompted you to get out of bed and come to church at 9:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning? You could have stayed at home and been lazing around, taking it easy and doing something else. This is the type of question Jesus could have asked the crowd who followed him across the lake in our scripture reading this morning. Now here’s what I can picture happening. Here are all these boats filled with people who are determined not to lose contact with Jesus coming into shore from the other side of the Sea of Galilee and here’s Jesus standing up on the shore waiting for them. “What brings you out here so early in the morning? “Oh teacher, we were worried about you. We didn’t know where you went, so we all woke up early and hopped into our boats because we wanted to be with you. We love the way you heal people, and the way you make it so that the blind can see and the lame can walk. We want nothing more than to hear and be near the word of God.” Now for me to ask you why you’re here this morning is one thing because the most I can do is believe you when you give me your reason. But if you’re talking to Jesus and Jesus asks you a question, don’t you think he’s going to know whether or not you’re telling him the truth? Don’t you think he knows if you’re just paying him lip service? He knows what words come from your mouth but he also knows what’s in your heart. Jesus knew that what was coming from their mouths was not really what was in their hearts. He knew what they wanted from him. Knowing what he knew, it would have been easy for him to stand there and listen to all of them and then simply say, “Don’t give me all that boloney. Or in modern terms he might have said, “Don’t give me that crap!” “The truth is you want to be with me because I fed all of you yesterday and you’re hungry this morning and you want me to do it again for you today.” Deep down inside, they didn’t want Jesus for who he was…they wanted him because of what he did and could do again and again and again. They were interested in him for one reason…and that was so that he would give them what they wanted…so they could fulfill their own selfish desires. It is easy to become interested in the by-products of Christianity and overlook the totality of Christianity when we’re only interested in ourselves. We want to use God to be the judge…a judge that sees things our way and rewards us with what we want. So we pay him lip service and we worship him to get our way. ·If only he would give us a bigger and better house. ·If only he would give me a better job with better wages. ·If only he would somehow find a way to allow me to have a better car. ·If only he would allow me to have more money in the bank so that I can have more stuff and go out to eat more often and go on more vacations…then I could really enjoy life. These are just some of the by-products of Christianity and they are all things that are important to us. Answer my prayers Jesus, answer my prayers and then I’ll be glad to say that yes, I too am one of your dedicated disciples. Maybe that’s why you’re here this morning…because you want God to do something for you. Maybe you’re here because you’re focused solely on the physical by-products of Christianity and you’re hoping that if you come to church enough and pray hard enough and give enough money to the church God will give you what you want. We are so interested in all the things that we want Jesus to do for us that we fail to understand what it is he really offers to us. Did you know that he offers: ·the power to overcome our own self-centeredness and our own arrogance ·the power to overcome our pride and our hatred and our anger. ·the power for us to no longer be a puppet to all the temptations that the world offers us. ·the power to be the masters of our own lives ·the power to love not only ourselves but all people ·and he offers the opportunity to spend eternity with him All these things he offers us but we fail to take notice because we’re so wrapped up in what we want for ourselves. In his autobiographical book Confessions St. Augustine describes how most of us never really grow up. Instead, we continue to play childish games all through life just like we did when we were little kids…except that now the stakes are bigger and we no longer play with little toys and expect little rewards. Instead of playing with sand castles like we did when we were little, St. Augustine points out that we are now concerned with bigger things…things like our homes and our cars and our fancy clothes and bank accounts and our big vacations. Instead of collecting marbles and baseball cards, we are now concerned with collecting valuables like money and jewelry. But in all reality, he points out, nothing really changes because with the new games, just like the old, all that really matters is whether we win or we lose; all that really matters is how much we have accumulated. (Henry Chadwick; St. Augustine: Confessions, (Oxford University Press, 2008) Author John Ortberg wrote a book called, When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box. It’s a book that tells us that no matter how hard you have worked, and no matter to what extent you have gone to accumulate all the stuff and all the materialistic things that are so very important to you today, you can’t take any of it with you when you leave this world. Everything that we have worked so hard for, all the stuff that was so important to us throughout our lifetime goes back in the box---all the money that we’ve hoarded and never shared with others, the fancy car, the home, the clothes, whatever it is you idolize, whatever it is you covet. All your winnings and, all the prizes are left behind when you walk away from the table. After an entire lifetime of accumulating stuff for ourselves the only real 'winnings' you can claim and keep…are your own soul and the love you have for Jesus and for other people. All this stuff you think you have to have…all this stuff you’ve begged Jesus for and come here on Sunday to worship him for, all this stuff that you think is necessary to satisfy your earthly appetite…all these things that you worked so hard for and skimped and saved, and maybe hurt others along the way for, aren’t going to be worth two cents. You are going to find that you wasted a whole lot of your time and a whole lot of your money on things that in God’s eyes are going to end up worthless. “[Don’t] labor for the things that perish [and rot and rust], but for the things that endure to eternal life.” John’s Gospel is difficult to read and understand but that’s exactly how he intended it to be. This is one of the characteristics of his gospel. When John writes he writes as though there are two levels of communication going on. He writes with a message that is on the surface…and a message that is just below the surface…a message for a deeper level of the Spirit. Take for instance the “bread of life.” We know that this is a message meant for the deeper part of our Spirit. We know he’s not talking about Wonder Bread or Bunny Bread or French bread or Italian bread or wheat bread. He’s talking about a different type of bread, a bread that deep down inside satisfies the hunger of the soul. A type of bread that will do so much more for us than our money, and our homes and all the other materialistic things we think we need to be happy. Isn’t that why you got up early to be here this morning…not to ask God for more materialistic goods but because there is a gnawing hunger deep down inside of you…and that insatiable hunger can only be fulfilled by one person and that person is Jesus…the bread of life. Jesus will take away our hunger pains. He will take away our hunger pains with the food he provides for us and he will enable us to meet life head on, both physically and spiritually. In Jesus, there is a food that feeds us. In Jesus, there is a food that sustains us. In Jesus, there is a food that restores our vigor and all our exhausted energies. In Jesus, we find our soul is at rest. In Jesus our hungry hearts, with all its wants and needs, will be satisfied. As you come forward for communion this morning, I want you to remember what Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry” (v. 32-35). The bread that we are about to eat this morning represents the body of Jesus – the bread of life. ·It represents freedom from all the hassles and chaos of our daily lives. · It provides nourishment when we find ourselves out in the wilderness. ·It is security in the uncertainty of life. ·It nourishes and satisfies the soul. ·It provides forgiveness and eternal life to all who allow him into their lives. ·This bread, the bread of life, is some powerful stuff. Jesus knew that all that the crowd around him was interested in was physical satisfaction. They had received an unexpected free meal, and they wanted more from him. But there is another type of hunger that we all have…a hunger that only Jesus can satisfy…and that is spiritual hunger. We hunger for trust; only in Jesus can we find the truth of God. We hunger for life; in Jesus we can find abundant life…life for today and life eternal. And of course, we hunger for love; in Jesus we find love, a love that outlasts and overcomes both sin and death. It’s all about Jesus. He’s the only one who can satisfy what we so desperately need. Only Jesus can satisfy the hunger of the heart and the hunger of the soul. |