This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to daily drive time devotions. This is day four of our
look together through John chapter six. In this chapter, we've seen that after
the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus had something to teach his disciples as he
walked to them on the water.

And now in these verses, we're going to look at today, beginning in verse 22, he
has something to teach the crowds. The crowds are looking for the next big show,
but Jesus, he instead preaches to them a message that's difficult to hear. We're
going to look at a number of verses today as we look at this long teaching
passage from the life of Jesus.

As we look at these, we're going to see how Jesus is attempting to take a
miracle-seeking crowd to faith, to a faith-experiencing, a faith-seeking people,
and he does it by talking to them about motivation, about focus, about
perspective. Look at what happens beginning in verse 22 and then reading down to
verse 26 where Jesus talks to them about their motivation. The next day, the
Bible says in verse 22, the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the
lake realized that only one boat had been there and that Jesus had not entered
it with his disciples, but they'd gone away alone.

Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten
the bread after the Lord had given thanks. And once the crowd realized that
neither Jesus nor his disciples was there, they got into the boat. They went to
Capernaum in search of Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when
did you get here? " Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth. You're looking for me
not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and you had
your fill.

" You see how Jesus immediately challenges their motivation. You're here just
because of the loaves, not even the miracle. Just the loaves is all you care
about, and he's saying to them, is your motivation, here's the key, is it
physical, just physical, or is it spiritual?

When Jesus says they ate and were filled, he uses a word that would have made
them think of animals eating out in the field. And he's saying to them, instead
of looking for another miracle, I want you to begin to look for why I did that
miracle. Verse 27, Jesus says, "Do not work for the food that spoils, but for
food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval. " Simple things here.
Jesus says there's two basic human appetites, physical, food that perishes, or
spiritual, food that endures.

And yes, I've got to be fed physically, but if that's my sole motivation in
life, I'm just working for that which is going to perish, spiritual, the soul,
that which endures. Jesus says, "Don't miss that or you've missed everything. "
Jesus also talks here about two methods of filling our appetite, work or gift.

Work is by my effort or gift, which is by God's grace, by God's choice. You
can't work your way by your effort into spiritual fulfillment. It's impossible.

Jesus says you're working for the bread that perishes. That's the majority view
in the world. We work for things that aren't going to last.

We give all of our lives to things that just aren't going to last. So I can get
a little bit more of those things than the neighbor that's next to me? Jesus
says it's going to perish in the end.

Anyway, work for the things that are going to last forever. In verse 28, "He
caused them to begin to think. " They say, "What must we do to do the work that
God requires?

" Jesus has said, "Look for what God gives. " They're still stuck on working.
And so Jesus answered, "The work of God is this, to believe, to believe in the
one that he sent.

" What can we do to do the works of God? And they're really asking is, "What do
I have to do to make God happy with me? " And Jesus' answer is, "It's the work
of belief.

" You don't do anything to make God happy with you. You trust God because God
loves you. You remember last week we talked about those who've done good and
that when Jesus talks about doing good or work, oftentimes he's talking about
belief.

It's good to believe. You've done good by believing. And here he talks about the
work of belief, the choice to believe.

This belief is not a single act. It's a constant attitude of life. The word
that's used here in the Greek language is in the present tense.

It expresses a continuing life of faith. And it's obvious here that it's not how
we trust that's important. It is who we trust.

That is the question of motivation. Am I motivated just on things that will not
last or am I motivated by the spiritual part of me, my soul, that which will
last? And now Jesus, as he continues to teach, talks about the second part of
this test, the focus part.

Are you focusing on man or are you focusing on God? On Moses or Jesus, manna or
the Father, bread or the bread of life? Listen to what happens beginning in
verse 30 and reading all the way down to verse 40.

So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give us that we may see
it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the
desert.

As it's written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus said to them, I
tell you the truth. It is not Moses who's giving you the bread from heaven, but
it is my Father who 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. Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread. " Then Jesus declared,
"I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me will never go hungry. He who believes in me will never be
thirsty. But as I told you, you've seen me and still you do not believe.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will
never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do
the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I
shall lose none of all that he's given me, but raise them up at the last day.

For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him
shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. " Now, first,
that last phrase when he talks about raising him up on the last day brings
questions for a lot of us. Remember, we talked about this last week, that when
we die as believers while our spirits go immediately to be with the Lord, our
bodies remain on this earth and they are raised on the last day.

In our drive time devotion study of 1 Thessalonians, we talk about in chapter 4
the fact that our spirits come with the Lord and our bodies are raised up to
meet our spirits in the air, we rejoin at this great final resurrection. In
verse 39, Jesus talks about the fact that he will lose none that he has been
given. John records, we're going to see as we walk through the next several
chapters, many, many teachings about our security and our faith as believers.

We come to Christ, Jesus tells us here, because of the call of God. And God
promises that when we come to him, he will give us eternal life. So both in the
call of God, which draws us and causes us to respond, and in the gift of God
that comes to us when we respond, we have assurance that he will lose none of
those he's been given.

If salvation were only our choice, it could be lost, but it's God's choice of
us. It's his promise to us. And those cannot be lost, not God's call, not God's
choice, not God's promise.

They cannot be denied or lost or revoked. And in talking about God's call, Jesus
tells them that they're confusing the supply and the source. Are you trusting
man or God?

Are you focusing on man or God? Moses, he says, doesn't give the manna, God did.
They didn't need manna.

They didn't even need Moses. They needed the father. And the question I've got
to ask myself here when it comes to focus is, am I depending on the bread?

Am I depending on the baker or am I depending on the creator of the baker and
the bread? Now, God may use this baker or that baker to get bread into my life.
Bread may just show up in my life, but in the end, who am I depending on?

So, it's a matter of motivation. I'm not just going to be a shallow miracle
seeker. It's a matter of focus.

Is it man or God? And then it's a matter of perspective. Do I have a temporary
perspective or an eternal perspective?

In verse 41 down to 51, Jesus talks about that. Everyone who listens to the
father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the father except the
one who is from God.

Only he has seen the father. I tell you the truth. He who believes has
everlasting life.

I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they
died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and
not die.

I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this
bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world.

Jesus says, is your perspective temporary or eternal? Jesus says, don't get
stuck on the temporary. Don't forget to lift your eyes to the eternal.

I know how important that is in my own life. When I lift my eyes out of the
temporary and see the eternal of what God is doing, he gives me hope. Now, Jesus
has given them these challenges, but then he gives them the greatest challenge
of all.

He says something that had to shock even his closest disciples. Beginning in
verse 52 and down to 59, the Bible says, then the Jews began to argue sharply
among themselves. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

And Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth. Unless you eat the flesh of the
son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh
and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living father sent me
and I live because of the father, so the one who feeds on me will live because
of me.

This is the bread that's come down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and
died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever. He said this while
teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Eat my flesh and drink my blood. What is Jesus talking about here? In the early
church, these verses were used by the Roman government who wanted to make
Christians the scapegoats for their failures to accuse those Christians of being
cannibals.

Why would Jesus say this when he knew it could be so easily misunderstood or at
least misused? He's not talking about communion here. Some people confuse that.

That's something we've added in. He's talking about faith in him for salvation.
And he uses words that take faith to understand and faith to accept.

You have to understand he died for us on a cross. You have to understand he's
giving us a symbolic teaching here of what it means to trust in his salvation.
Why would Jesus teach in this kind of way?

His own disciples had to be standing there shaking their heads saying, "Oh,
Jesus, don't say that. It's going to chase some people away. " And that's
exactly what it did.

Some people stopped believing that day because of what he said. You see, Jesus
is challenging them in this moment to say, "Do you just want the simple answers?
Or are you willing to look into who I am?

" And so he says something that is shocking to cause them to not say, "Oh, this
is an easily accepted faith," but to realize, "I've got to look into who Jesus
really is if I'm going to trust him for who he really is in my life. " What he's
saying here is, "Do you trust me? Are you just looking for miracles from me?

Just looking for answers from me? A quick fix from me? Or do you trust me?

" In the Lord's Supper, the bread and the juice are symbolic of what really
happened. Jesus really died. His blood really was spilled.

So when he talks about his flesh and his blood here, he's talking about the fact
that he gave his life for you. That's the motivation. That's the focus.

That's the perspective that keeps things eternal, that keeps things on God, that
keeps things off of my selfishness. As we pray in this moment, I'd like to ask
you as you pray just to say, "Jesus Christ, I pray that my motivation would be
you and your love for me, that my focus would be on God and not just on the
things around me, and that my perspective would be eternal and not just
temporary. If I'm going to see things that way, I need you.

" These are difficult, challenging verses, but you challenge our faith because
you want to grow our faith. And the challenge in all of this, Jesus, is to look
to you and trust you as the Savior. And I accept that challenge today.

In your name, Amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to talk together about
developing a faith that lasts longer than the moment of the miracle.