The images coming out of Ukraine are heart-wrenching. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, there has been great receptivity to the gospel. A number of missions and churches have been thriving there. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like… To pack up your car, and leave everything you ever knew behind… To pack a tiny suitcase and fight with strangers over the few remaining seats on a bus or train… To hide in an underground subway or bunker with your family, uncertain of your future.
Because of the prevalence of smartphones, CCTV, they’re saying this will be the most documented war of modern times. Social media is being flooded with photos and videos. Everything is uncovered. Every atrocity exposed. We don’t really have to “imagine” anything, we can sort of “see” it for ourselves, people are sharing their stories as they’re unfolding.
If you were in such a circumstance, it wouldn’t be long. You’d quickly realize there are few absolute necessities in life. “If I have bread for today, and water, I might be content… if I could just have security… if I could just preserve my life… if my family could live another day.”
When I think of the Ukrainians, I think of the Israelites fleeing Egypt, fleeing the wrath of Pharaoh, his mighty horses and chariots, his lethal war machine. But I also think of the Israelites in Jesus’ day, harassed and helpless, their land occupied by the mighty Roman war machine. Rampant poverty, hunger, and distress.
In the Exodus, the Israelites were encouraged to know that the Living God was active and powerful. For God raised up Moses to be their redeemer. Moses worked signs and wonders that inspired faith. He parted the mighty waters of the Red Sea and opened up a way to salvation. When the people were afflicted with hunger, God provided bread (manna from heaven). When they were thirsty God provided streams of water in the desert.
I listen deeply to people’s stories. When you call upon the name of the Lord, he acts. He makes a way. He sustains us with bread and water. He clothes his people, shelters us, delivers us.
Ironically in our text this morning, John 5, the Jewish leaders are trying to kill Jesus. It’s all in John 5:18. First of all, like Moses of old, he’s performed a number of signs (including on the Sabbath) that couldn’t be done if God weren’t in him. But secondly, unlike Moses, Jesus was claiming that the Living God was his “Father.” And by “Father” they understood Jesus to be implying that he was God’s Son… that he himself was equal (of the same divine and spiritual nature as) God!
But what Jesus says is so encouraging. He says in John 5:17, “My Father is still working and I am working also.” Think about that. God hasn’t stopped working. He is still working—and as his Son I am also working! In John 5:19-20 Jesus elaborates. He says (and I paraphrase), “I can’t do anything on my own.” “I can only do what I see the Father doing.” “Whatever the Father does, likewise the Son does the exact same thing.” “The Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing… and you know what? The best is yet to come! The Father is going to show the Son even greater things and you will be even more amazed!”
And then Jesus explicitly declares in John 5:21, “And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wants.” John 5:24, “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgement but has passed from death to life.”
Listen to some of these statements Jesus makes: John 5:25, “Truly I tell you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” John 5:26, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself.” John 5:28, “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
God is working. He didn’t abandon you in slavery in Egypt. He didn’t abandon you on the run, before Pharaoh's mighty war machine. He didn’t abandon you in at the Red Sea but opened up a way. He didn’t abandon you in hunger and thirst in the wilderness. And you know what? He is still working. Indeed, the Father and Son are one. As you find life in the Father, you find life in me. You will witness this very great thing. Neither will God abandon you in the grave but will raise you up!
Now here is the issue. Do you believe Jesus’ testimony? In John 5:31-35 Jesus talks about John the Baptist’s testimony. John was like a burning, shining lamp. The Israelites had no problem receiving John the Baptist’s testimony.
But in John 5:36-40 Jesus claims something quite profound. He claims that it doesn’t matter what men say about him, because the Father in Heaven has testified about Jesus. No one has ever heard his voice nor seen his form, but God has sent for his Word, and the Holy Scriptures are the Father’s testimony about receiving eternal life in the Son! John 5:39, “You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me!”
Jesus complaint about them is this: John 5:40, “You are not willing to come to me that you may have life.” And it’s John 5:45-46… “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father, your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would also believe me, because he wrote about me. But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe my words?”
I want you to think about this for a moment. Jesus is saying that the Father, in Scripture, has been testifying all along about the Son. This is how we should learn to read the OT. Read it as revelation, testimony of the coming Jesus. Jesus is saying that Moses, also, testified all along about the Son, the Messiah. These Jewish people claimed to believe in God, claimed to believe in Scripture, they claimed to believe in Moses and his mighty works… the Red Sea, the manna in the desert, the water in the wilderness…
But now, of course, they are refusing to believe in Jesus! But Jesus keeps telling them… the Father is still working, he is still doing mighty signs and wonders… and now he’s doing them through me, just like he did them through Moses. And God is doing these signs that you will believe!
In John 6, Jesus leaves these Jews, crosses the Sea of Galilee, and continues his ministry of preaching, healing the sick. In John 6:5 Jesus looks up and notices a huge crowd coming toward him. The other gospel writers characterize this crowd as desperate, harassed, helpless, hungry, thirsty. It’s a humanitarian crisis of sorts and in John 6:5, Jesus asks Philip, “Where will be buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus knew what he was going to do, but he was testing Philip.
Philip does a quick financial calculation, and Peter does a quick inventory of the groceries. They don’t have enough money to buy food to feed this crowd, and the only groceries on hand are a lousy five barley loaves and two fish. But then Jesus distributes the little boy’s loaves and fish, everyone eats as much as they wanted, and then Jesus commanded his disciples to collect up all the leftovers into baskets. When people saw all the leftovers (the sign Jesus had done), they concluded Jesus was a prophet of God whose had come into the world! And being so satisfied they tried to take Jesus by force and make them their Bread King!
Now right after this, another miraculous sign occurs. Its sign #5. The disciples flee the crowd in their boat. Jesus disappears into the crowd. At night the wind begins to rise, the sea begins to churn, and 3 to 4 miles out to sea, what do they behold? Jesus comes walking on the sea! John 6:20, “It is I. Don’t be afraid”
Now the next day the crowd puts all this together. John 6:22, they knew there was just one boat that left, carrying the disciples. They knew Jesus had not boarded that boat. And in John 6:25, when they finally catch up to the disciple’s boat, they demand an explanation of when and how Jesus got to be with them in their boat on the other side of the sea!
So, you realize why these two signs are coupled together? Moses demonstrated to split the Red Sea; Jesus power to tame the sea and walk on water. Moses demonstrated power to provide bread or manna to a hungry nation and living water too. And right now, before their very eyes “the Father was still working...” as he always had! Jesus demonstrated power to multiply the bread and fish and feed the masses. These two signs are a replay of the Exodus, but now one greater than Moses is here---one the Father testified about, one Moses wrote about. Now they really had no excuse not to believe in Jesus.
Now the really hard thing Jesus has to do next is tell the crowd that as amazing as walking on water, and as amazing as the multiplication of the bread and fish was… the Father was going to do something even greater that would amaze them. John 6:26-27, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food that perishes but for food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.” John 6:29, “This is the word of God—that you believe in the one he has sent.”
In John 6:31 they have the audacity to ask Jesus for a sign! They explicitly mention of how Moses gave them manna or bread from heaven in the wilderness.” But Jesus rebuts their claim. And in John 6:32-33 says, “Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir give us this bread!” they respond, just like the woman at the well, “Sir give me living water.”
But what they don’t understand is that Jesus himself is their bread. John 6:35-36, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. But as I told you, you’ve seen me, and yet you do not believe.” I’ve come down from heaven to do the will of my Father! John 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
No matter what great signs and wonders Moses did, the people of Israel grumbled in unbelief. And here at the end of John 6, when confronted with the reality of Jesus’ identity, they grumble in unbelief.
In John 6:43 Jesus says, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:47-51, “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh..”
John 6:53-58, “Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one who eat my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. . . the one who feeds on me will live because of me. . .”
Listen carefully. How did the Israelites pass from death to life before Pharaoh? They believed in signs and followed Moses. How do we pass from death to life? John 5:24, “Anyone who hears my word and believes him who went me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.”
Many of Jesus disciples were offended and abandoned him. In John 6:62 Jesus asks, “What if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” If the miracle of bread coming from heaven, if the miracle on the sea doesn’t incite your faith… there only remains Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. There will be nothing greater, nothing more amazing than that. Believe!
John 6:68 Peter believes, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God”