The Work of GodJohn 6:22-29

The Work of GodWe Have a Great Hunger (Need)

Vv. 22-25

The Work of GodOur Motive is Corrupt

Vv. 26-27a

Mark 6:52…for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

ParaphraseJesus said, "You're really not seeking me because of the spiritual understanding that you desire concerning the things that really count. What you are seeking me for is because I fed the fifteen thousand people that were there, and you ate of the bread, of the fish and you were filled." Johnson

1 Corinthians 2:14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

James 4:2-4You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

SimeonWe may labour for the meat which perisheth, and be disappointed; as thousands are, who, after years of incessant toil, have either acquired little, or perhaps been reduced to the lowest ebb of want and misery. But this shall never be experienced by those who labour for that better meat which endureth unto everlasting life.

The Work of GodWe Must Work for Food that Endures

V. 27

BoiceI am convinced that one of the major steps to achieving good spiritual mental health is getting your mind off yourself entirely and on the Lord instead.

Psalm 27:8You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”

SimeonOne thing only must be observed by all: whatever they receive, they must receive it as a gift, “a reward, not of debt, but of grace.” Roman 4:4 This is indispensably necessary for them all. Not one is to look upon the meat as earned by him; because there is no proportion whatever between the work and the reward, so far as merit is concerned.

SimeonThe labour of ten thousand years would not merit the smallest portion in heaven: the best of men are but “unprofitable servants:” but, if men will labour, “they shall never labour in vain, or run in vain.”

John 4:14…but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The Work of GodThere is an Answer

to Our NeedVv. 28-29

SimeonIt is not a mere assent to the truth of his Messiahship, but an humble affiance in him as the Savior of the world. We must feel our need of him. We must see the suitableness and sufficiency of his salvation. We must actually go to him as the appointed Saviour, and seek acceptance with God through Him alone. We must renounce every other hope and make him “all our salvation and all our desire.”

Galatians 2:16…yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

SimeonIt is impossible for one who believes in Christ to perish. Whatever he may have been, whatever he may have done…through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he may find acceptance with God: “though his sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool; though they have been red like crimson, they shall be made white as snow.”

Arise, my soul, arise! Shake off thy guilty fears;

The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:

Before the throne my Surety stands—

My name is written on his hands.

Philippians 3:13-14Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.