John 6:25-40 The Bread of Life

From the Pulpit

Commentary

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Realizing Jesus didn’t board the disciples’ boat, the crowd searches both shores and eventually finds Him teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum (John 6:59). They may not fully understand what Jesus is trying to teach them, but there’s no doubt as to their zeal! They’ve come a long way to find Jesus.

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

“Rabbi, when did you get here?”

1. Jesus doesn’t answer the question with any of the expected data (what, when, where, why). He gives an answer that’s entirely different from the question they asked!
2. Sometimes, God leaves questions unanswered, even as He reveals himself to us. There are always details that we won’t quite understand on this side of eternity, no matter how hard we search for them.
3. When he was on his deathbed passing away, Thomas Aquinas, one of the most famed theologians in Christian history, said, “Everything I have written is but straw!” If one of the deepest thinkers of God knew he knew nothing compared to the fullness of God’s revelation, how much can we claim to truly know the depths of God?
4. We can’t understand everything, but we can be humble enough to accept what we’ve been given and trust it given its source.
“Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”
1. Jesus explains their motive to them: they seek Him because his miracle gave them full bellies, not because they grasped the miracle’s meaning. They’re stopping so far short of what they could get!
2. The problem isn’t wanting too much but too little. They avoided hunger for an evening and are excited about that, when they could avoid death for an eternity.
3. “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
4. “Not that he forbids his followers to labor that they may procure daily food; but he shows that the heavenly life ought to be preferred to this earthly life, because the godly have no other reason for living here than that, being sojourners in the world, they may travel rapidly towards their heavenly country.” -John Calvin, Commentary on John, 6.

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

“What must we do…

1. 1. [T]hey said this, not that they might learn, and do them, but to obtain from Him another exhibition of His bounty. -Chrysostom, Homlily xIv. 1.
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent”

1. The belief that Jesus is talking about isn’t just an acknowledgement that he exists or any other sort of intellectual affirmation of the facts. It’s trust. This kind of belief is the kind that we mean when we tell someone we love, “I believe in you.”
2. Laws are important, but they aren’t the core of the Christian life. You don’t become a member of God’s family because you followed the rules well enough. We’re adopted into the family of God through Christ. We follow the law because we love our Father and trust him, not because it earns us our spot in his family..

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?”
1. Even after they witnessed one of Christ’s miracles firsthand, they insist that they should get to see an even greater miracle so that Jesus can earn their trust. Their ancestors saw this miracle! It’s too old! What’s something better that Jesus can offer up?
2. They want to stay in control, rather than yield to Jesus. Belief is less about evidence than most people think. The inclination of the heart is more influential than any amount of evidence.
3. Romans 1:20 explains that we’ve all seen enough evidence of God’s existence just by looking around creation: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Even with more miracles, a resistant heart reinterprets signs as coincidence and asks for more.
“it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven,”
1. Jesus corrects an important detail: Moses didn’t give anyone bread from heaven. God gave them bread from heaven, and he’s offering it to them again right now.
2. “Therefore, both that manna signified this meat, and all those signs were signs of me. You have longed for signs of me; do ye despise Him that was signified? Not Moses then gave bread from heaven: God gives bread. But what bread? Manna, perhaps? No, but the bread which manna signified, namely, the Lord Jesus Himself. My Father gives you the true bread.” – Augustine, Tractate 25, 13.
3. “‘But was it not true bread that their ancestors had in the desert?’
  I answer: If we define the true as defined against the false, then that bread was true, for the miracle of the manna was not false; but if we define the true as defined against the symbolic, then that bread was not true, but a symbol pointing to the spiritual bread, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the manna signified, as the Apostle says, 1 Cor. c. 10, 3: ‘all ate the same spiritual food.’” -Aquinas, Commentary on John, Lecture 4, 908

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 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 them up at the last day.”

“I am the bread of life.”

1. “He does not say, I am the bread of nourishment, but of life, for, whereas all things brought death, Christ hath quickened us by Himself. But the life here is not our common life, but that which is not cut short by death: He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and He that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” -Theophylact, Commentary on John, Ch. 6
“I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”
1. Jesus isn’t there to do the crowd’s will or even his own will! He lives to do the Father’s will. And what is that will? Giving eternal life to those given to him.
2. God’s number one objective is solving the biggest problems: sin and death. Daily issues matter, but they’re not nearly as big and don’t matter nearly as much as we think they do.
“I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”

1. “They therefore who by God’s unerring providence are foreknown, and predestined, called, justified, glorified, even before their new birth, or before they are born at all, are already the sons of God, and cannot possibly perish; these are they who truly come to Christ. By Him there is given also perseverance in good unto the end; which is given only to those who will not perish. Those who do not persevere will perish.” -Augustine, de Cor. et Gratia, c. ix.
Life constantly throws new problems at us. Even today’s solutions lead to tomorrow’s problems! Bread today requires bread tomorrow. Most problems and solutions are temporary. Only God endures.

Full Transcript

We’ve been going through John chapter 6 here. The big question we’ve had on our minds as we go through is: if God is all-powerful, why doesn’t he give us what we want? Why doesn’t he give us health and wealth? We’ve thought of some different ways that people today answer that question.

The first week, we thought about prosperity gospel preachers—the people who say, “Why doesn’t God give you everything you want? He wants to! He wants to give you a million dollars. He wants to give you a new car. The problem is you. You don’t have enough faith. If you had more faith, God would be able to give you everything he wants to give you.” But when we look in John chapter 6, sometimes Jesus does say no. Sometimes Jesus puts people through difficult trials. Jesus doesn’t always give us an easy life. Not only that, but as we look through Christian history, there have been a lot of Christians who were very good, devout, and faithful, but were neither particularly healthy nor particularly wealthy. God doesn’t always give us everything we want.

Then we looked at another way people might try to answer that question, one that falls short of Christian orthodoxy. We thought about the people who kind of spiritualize it. They say, “Why doesn’t God give us everything we want? Because that’s not really what He does. That’s not what God’s interested in. God is not a god of earthly things; He’s a god of heavenly things. Go to Him with problems that are on your heart, problems that you know are on your mind, and problems that are about salvation, courage, and the things you can’t see and touch. That’s what God deals with. He doesn’t deal with stuff like food or money; that’s too earthly. It’s not good to go to him with things like that.”

But again, looking at John chapter 6, God does work that way. God works in ways that definitely impact the earth and earthly things. He multiplies food for hungry people. When his disciples are struggling to get across the Sea of Galilee, he helps them get to the other side. Not only does he repeatedly find ways to change the world, but he uses things that people actually do. He takes this offering of bread and fish from a boy and multiplies it. He takes the hard work that the disciples have put in and gets them all the way across. God does care not only about the physical world, but about what we do in it. He wants to see our work and magnify it. God’s not just a God of the heart; he’s the God over everything.

Today I want to introduce one more kind of answer to that question. The two we’ve looked at at least have a Christian framework. Today we’re going to look at one that does not: “Why doesn’t God give me everything I want if he’s all-powerful?” Some people respond, “Because he’s not real. If God were a person, we would not suffer the way we do.” People who have this answer very often have a wound they’re dealing with—some personal frustration or some hurt that is real. They ask things like, “If God’s real, why did my mom get sick? If God is all-powerful, why did my child die? If God is real, why did I suffer the way that I did while He didn’t lift a finger to help me? If God is all-powerful, He’s not good. Frankly, I don’t even think He’s real.”

That alone, I think, makes some of us hesitate. We see the woundedness and we don’t want to be insensitive, but I think we still need to acknowledge that that’s a wrong way of thinking. It’s easier to identify it when it’s in the positive. It’s easier to say, “God isn’t going to give you a million dollars just because you want it,” than it is to say, “God won’t always make your life easy, even when important things are on the line—even when you’re asking for someone you deeply care about to be healed, or even when you’re dealing with basic household economics and things aren’t coming out in the positive.” God doesn’t guarantee that everything is always going to go your way. Even when you aren’t just trying to get something actively positive, but are enduring something negative, there’s not always a miracle that comes in and sweeps you off your feet, hard as that is to acknowledge.

But it’s not that God doesn’t care. God cares. His plans are often hard for us to understand, but he cares. Do we trust him? That’s what’s at stake, and that’s what we’re going to be engaging with throughout these passages: trusting God even when we don’t get the things that seem like an obvious good, things that He knows are good.

Let’s engage here in chapter 6, starting at verse 22. Remember, we started at the beginning of the chapter. Thousands of people go around the Sea of Galilee to listen to Jesus speak and to have Him heal people for them. Jesus turns to Philip and says, “How are we going to feed all these people?” This is a test; he knows what he’s going to do. Philip says, “We can’t. Too many people. Can’t afford it.” Then the boy offers up his bread and fish. Jesus starts handing it out and just keeps handing it out. He just keeps going and going, handing out more than enough from this tiny little meal of a kid. The crowd sees that, and they get to thinking, “All right, if this guy can make bread and fish, what else can he do? I want this guy solving all my problems. Let’s get him working for us. Let’s make him the king. I don’t care what he thinks, I want him to be working for me.”

Jesus sees this happening. He sends the disciples across the Sea of Galilee, and he himself goes up on a mountain to pray. It’s a stormy day, and a storm kicks up over the sea. The disciples row all night, from evening until the dawn breaks, muscles aching and blisters forming on their hands, and they’re only halfway after all those hours. Jesus sees them, comes to them over the water, and they accept him onto their boat. Immediately, they’re where they need to be. I’m not saying that in an abstract way; they are at the other side. The second they take Jesus into their boat, they reach the other side.

Now we pick up, but we’re going to go back. We’re going to be with the crowd—the same crowd that saw Jesus do the loaves and fishes. They’re waking up the next morning and figuring things out. The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the opposite side of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had 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. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.

They wake up and they realize, after enduring this night of storms—I don’t know how they slept, if they brought tents, or what their sleeping arrangement was—but they wake up and wonder, “Where’d the disciples go?” Gone. They took a boat last night. “Where’s Jesus?” Nobody knows. Nobody saw him. Maybe they even went up that mountain. Maybe someone saw him going up there. They’re peeking around for him. This is thousands of people; you can imagine how chaotic it would be to figure out what’s going on! So they spend all morning trying to figure it out. They don’t find him, and they don’t find any of the disciples, so they go on a search for Jesus.

Here’s just a little detail. I don’t think it has any deep spiritual or symbolic meaning, but I just think it’s a good thing to remember. Did you notice that boats come? The disciples were the only ones with a boat last night. There were no other boats—thousands of people, no boats. Now there are boats landing to take them. Why were there no boats the night before? Because there was a storm coming! Everyone else had taken their boats in. The disciples were the only ones crazy enough to get in their boat and try to cross the sea when there was a storm of that magnitude, and even then, it was only because Jesus told them to. Little details like that are helpful. It reminds us that this is not Aesop’s fables. Boats don’t just appear and disappear at random. These are real people in the real world. There are reasons for things. When the boats weren’t there, it’s because conditions were bad and the storm might damage them. When they are there, there is a rationale to it.

Verse 25 says, “When they found him on the other side of the lake…” This is another moment where I think it would be easy to misimagine what’s going on. It’s helpful to skip ahead a little bit to get the setting. Verse 59 tells us where they find Jesus; it says Jesus was speaking to them while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. So, this does not unfold on the beach. We don’t just go hang out on the beach with the crowd while Jesus and his disciples sit quietly, waiting for everyone to catch up with them. They’ve got places to be. They’re trying to make it to Capernaum. They get there, Jesus goes to the synagogue, and he starts teaching. He doesn’t just sit there quietly while the crowd catches up. So, that’s where they are; you can keep that in your mind.

This crowd is so eager to see Jesus that they not only walk around the sea and then boat over it, but they search for him on one side and then search for him on the other side, all the way to the point where they find him teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum. As much as they don’t get Jesus, you can’t doubt that they want to. They’re trying. These are people who are really, genuinely attempting to get it—crossing the sea twice and searching for him on both sides.

When they found him on the other side, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Can you imagine if he answered that? “Oh yeah, I was up on the mountain praying, but then I saw down in the storm that my disciples were having a hard time. So I just kind of strolled down and walked across the water to help them out. Then I used a little bit of miraculous power to teleport them the rest of the way. We took a break that morning while you were searching, strolled into Capernaum, and I started teaching.” He doesn’t say that. You have to wonder if they would even believe it if they heard it. They’ve seen Him multiply loaves and fishes, but would they believe He can walk across water? Would they believe he can teleport boats? You have to wonder if they would be able to believe any of those things. They don’t even have a framework to think about it properly.

But we don’t get to find out because Jesus doesn’t tell them. They ask this question, and Jesus never answers it. They don’t need to know. He just moves on. God does that to us sometimes, doesn’t he? We have questions that are burning on our hearts, and we ask God, “Why, God?” And He doesn’t answer them—sometimes not for days, sometimes not for months, and sometimes we just never know. That’s not because God doesn’t want us to know Him. Scripture as a whole is a revelation of God telling us who He is, what He’s about, and what He’s doing. But there are still these things that we just don’t know.

That’s frustrating. I think it’s frustrating. I am someone who wants to know everything I possibly can, so to know that there are some things I will never know is deeply frustrating, and I know some of you have certainly endured that same frustration. But the question is: can we trust God even when we don’t know all the answers? Can we trust Him even when we lack the framework to understand them, even if He did give them to us?

Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest Christian theologians from the Middle Ages, wrote big commentaries on Scripture. He wrote giant, weighty tomes that are still read to this day, and he was one of the foremost Christian scholars of his era. When he was passing away, kind of drifting in and out of consciousness on his way to be with his Lord, his final words were, “Everything I have written is but straw.” His life’s work—some of the greatest Christian writings that we still look to—he called nothing. I don’t think he was saying that they are useless, but I do think that compared to eternity, compared to what we will know when that veil is lifted and everything is made clear to us, what we have now is so small in comparison. There are some things we just won’t know this side of eternity.

Can we trust God? Can we trust God even when He doesn’t give us the answer that we’re looking for? Jesus doesn’t give this crowd the answer they’re looking for. Instead, He says, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

First off, he immediately knows their hearts, right? Jesus knows why they’re there. There is no fooling him. He knew when they wanted to make him king, and now he knows exactly what got them there. He says, “Oh, I know why you’re here. You want more bread.” And they want more than that too, right? They want all kinds of things. They want the solution to every problem. They want to make him king so that he can execute their vision. But does Jesus scold them? Does he say, “Shame on you for wanting more bread”? Does he say, “Shame on you for wanting solutions to your problems?” Does he say, “It doesn’t really work like that. I’m kind of tired. I can only do so many miracles a day, so I’m kind of in my cool-down period. You’ve got to understand”? He doesn’t say any of that. Instead, Jesus says, “You’re not asking for enough. You are focusing on things that are too small. You want the solution to the problem right in front of you, but you know what’s going to happen after that? Another problem. And after that, there’s going to be another problem, because that’s the way life is. There’s always something, isn’t there? There’s always something new that draws your attention.”

Jesus tells them, “I don’t just want to give you the solution to one problem. I want to give you the solution for all of your problems—the biggest solution there is. Think bigger! You’re getting distracted by the bread. I want to solve death! That’s the problem I want to solve. You are going to die someday, and I want to solve that. I want eternal life for you. I want to take away the biggest thing that is stressing everything, the thing that causes every other problem. I want to address that.”

Think bigger! Address the biggest problem there is. I think C.S. Lewis said it really well: “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” Jesus offers them more than they asked for.

It is worth addressing because I think to many people, just reading that Jesus is offering them the bread of life—this eternal life thing—feels like, “Okay, but that’s a spiritual thing. That’s not something genuinely real that I can touch and have, and that’s not the kind of solution I’m interested in. That’s a luxury.” For people who already have food, money, and their whole lives figured out, then they can dabble in things like eternal life and these theoretical problems.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes to mind—this idea that you can’t really focus on self-actualization until you’ve addressed a million other things, and once you get those in place, then finally you can start to think about things like spirituality and eternal life. But here’s the thing: Jesus is addressing a concrete problem, which is death.

Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In many ways, it’s anti-poor. It assumes that if you don’t have the physical stuff you need, you will have no interest in addressing questions like, “Why do I exist? How do I live a good life?” There can be no bigger question than that. How are you going to live a good life if you don’t know what one is? How are you going to reach the end of your life and say, “I’m glad that I lived the way I did,” unless you know what the point was? Spirituality is not a trifle to be toyed with by people who already have life figured out. It’s the biggest question there is: why do you exist, and how do you live well? That’s what Jesus is addressing. He says, “Seek eternal life. Solve the death problem.”

Then they ask him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Verse 29: “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.'” Look at their question: “What must we do to do the works God requires?” They’re thinking quid pro quo. “What do I have to do? You won’t give me this stuff; I get it. Maybe I’m not good enough. What do I have to do to get to a place where you will give me the things that I am seeking?” And what does Jesus say? “Believe in me.”

When he says “believe,” he’s not saying to theoretically affirm his existence. He’s saying it in a way that means loving trust—the same way you might say, “I believe in you” to a friend that you love. If you turned to someone and said, “I believe in you,” you certainly wouldn’t be saying, “I affirm that you exist.” You’d be saying, “I trust you. I know you’ve got this.” That’s what Jesus is talking about. That’s what he’s looking for—not just adhering to a law, and not just behaving in a way that’s acceptable. Not that laws are bad; there are a lot of laws in the Bible. They are good things, and they are intended to get you on track, but that is not the core of our relationship with God. The core of our relationship with God is trusting Him, loving Him, and believing in Him.

Can you imagine a family that functioned strictly based on rules? There was no affection at all, but all of the kids did exactly what they were told the whole time. The way that family functioned would be bizarre! It would be really weird. I know some of you who have kids are probably like, “I don’t know, I might be able to deal with that a little bit.” But that’s not what a family is about. It’s not about marching orders and strictly adhering to the rules. Love is the core of a family. The rules and laws are good; you hope your kids follow the rules because you love them and want what’s best for them, and you hope that they trust you enough to do what you ask. God wants us to be members of his family. He’s not just looking for us to take marching orders strictly. He says, “I want you to believe in me.” That’s the starting place, and we can go from there.

The crowd’s not thrilled with this answer. They respond, “What sign will you give us that we may see it and believe in you? What will you do? You want us to believe in you? What are you going to give us? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”

Our other passage touched on this: the Jews are seeking signs. Isn’t it interesting that they’re seeking signs even though they were already given one? They literally saw Jesus multiply bread and fish right in front of their eyes. But when Jesus says, “Trust me. You’re worrying about the little stuff. Trust me and stop worrying,” the first thing they say is, “Well, hold on. You haven’t given us enough evidence to trust you yet. You’re jumping the gun. Sure, you did the bread thing—that was interesting—but let’s be honest, the people in Moses’ day got bread from heaven. We’ve seen that one before. You’re going to have to do better than that if you want us to really trust in you.” They flip it around so that rather than putting their faith in Jesus, giving him agency, and following him, they want to be the ones in the driver’s seat. They say, “Jesus, you do what we say.” Jesus says, “Trust me,” and they say, “You haven’t given me reason to yet. Give me a little more evidence. Give me something bigger.”

That, again, I think is something many people wrestle with. I wrestled with that for a long time. Is there enough evidence? Has God given us sufficient evidence? This group had the advantage of literally seeing the multiplication of bread and fish, but even after that, did they think it was sufficient? No.

God gives us all the evidence we could possibly want. The book of Romans says that in chapter 1: all of the world has sufficient evidence to know that God exists and is good. Just by looking around, just by looking outside, we can see the universe is so intricately and carefully designed. The beauty around us alone is testimony to the fact that God exists and loves us. Who could look at the eclipse and say there’s no evidence? Who could look outside at a field and say there’s no evidence? There’s evidence all around us. God has given us evidence after evidence.

When we say there’s not enough evidence, very often God has already given it to us. But even when we get the evidence—even when God gives us a special revelation, or even when he does a miracle to show us that he’s there, he loves us, and he’s seeking us—if our heart is not in a place where we are able to trust him, there’s no amount of evidence that will be sufficient. God could give us more and more up until eternity, and it wouldn’t be enough. You get one thing and say, “God, if you give me this, I’ll believe in you.” Then you get it and say, “Eh, that’s just a coincidence. I’m going to need another one.” Then something else happens and you think, “I’m not sure. It would need to be bigger.” Being able to believe in Jesus is much less an evidence problem than some people make it out to be. It’s much less about evidence and much more about the heart. Can we trust that someone else is seeking what’s best for us, or are we unwilling to get out of the driver’s seat and trust someone else?

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

We’re back to bread talk. They like that—something physical, something they can wrap their minds around. “Give us that.”

Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come from heaven not to do my will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should not lose anything, 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 them up at the last day.”

“I’m not here to do your will. I’m not here to do my will. I’m here to do the Father’s will.” And he makes the Father’s will clear in no uncertain terms. What does God want? Eternal life for us. That’s what He is seeking. He wants to solve the biggest problem there is.

As we go through life, there are a million problems that catch our eye. We are not so very different from the people who kept chasing Jesus all over the place, trying to get more miracles out of him. We face problems about where we are going to get our meals, problems about governance, and problems about economics. There are a million and one problems constantly bearing down on us. Can we trust God? Can we trust God even when we don’t get what we want all the time? That’s the question we have to endure.

God recognizes that even in spite of the individual problems stacked up against us, there’s a bigger problem bearing down on us. All of these problems that we see are only problems for a day. They are problems for a day that we will endure, we will get past, and we will continue to work through. But everything we see is passing away. None of it is permanent. The little problems aren’t permanent, and the solutions aren’t permanent. We get a bag of bread, and then we need a new bag of bread. There’s only one permanent thing, and that permanent thing is God. He lives forever, he endures, and he wants us to endure too. Put your faith in me. He says, “I will not just solve the little problems; I’m going to solve all of them. I’ve got a plan. Do you trust me?”

Do you trust him?

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