5. I Believe into Jesus
Audio Only:John Chapter 6 begins with the feeding of the five thousand, an incident recorded by the other gospel writers, because it was outwardly momentous. Nonetheless, only John recorded the dialogue between Jesus and the “believing” Galileans the next day and the subsequent abandonment of Jesus by most everyone.
And so John is giving us this picture of the abundance of an open heaven as his backdrop for the more important truth inside this question of LIFE. In fact, at this point it is clear that what LIFE is and how we live in it is John’s primary focus all the way through.
A Little Boy. John did not just mention the tree of life in the first part of his vision. Rather, LIFE was his entire topic from the first chapter of his gospel on. More than that, it is John who wrote 1 John 3:16 – And we also, and it is John’s account of Jesus on the cross that we find most fitting to set together with Psalm 22 in the setting forth of Jesus’ soul.
The statements of faith, then, that I draw from this particular story show us that the emphasis is actually on the little boy. And then we realize that Jesus would not have brushed him off as so many “big” preachers do, but would have connected His faith with the boy and his gift.
I Give All. The question coming up is “What must we do, that we might be working the works of God?” Notice that this question is very close to the fakery of the Israelites on Mt. Sinai – “All that the Lord says, we will do.” God has set this little boy against all this fakery.
Here are the statements of faith:
- I give all that I have to Jesus. He makes it always enough.
- Jesus blesses my little bit and multiplies it that it might become a blessing for many.
- I gather the abundance of Jesus; it is always more than enough.
We see, then, that there are four approaches to “doing the works of God.” The first is a loud proclamation, “I will do,” without any thought regarding the fact that I don’t and never will. The second is trying really hard to do what other people expect in order to be “right with God” in their eyes.
Jesus with Me. The third is more focused on “God,” but is an effort to connect with God through human doing. This is the most hostile to the Lord Jesus. But the fourth is the doing of the little boy. And this is why his story is so important to the remainder of the chapter.
All these people, and only one had the foresight to bring his own food, or maybe his mother packed it for him, knowing that he would be hungry. In offering his lunch to Jesus, the boy is acknowledging “Jesus with me.” And as such, he participates in the blessing over the food and its breaking.
Sharing with Jesus. Andrew gave voice to the typical “religious” response in the boy’s hearing. – “But what are these for so many?” I don’t believe this question was in the boy’s mind, that is, such a thought was not his. All the boy did was give himself and his little bit to the Lord Jesus and then shared with Jesus in the blessing and outpoured abundance.
This is ALL God wants. He wants to be part of our lives. He wants us to acknowledge Him in all the little things. When a people walk in this simple way, what abundance will flow?
Do Not Be Afraid. John mentioned the night in the boat at sea, but he did not enlarge the incident like the other gospel writers. For a statement of faith, I brought in this. – I do not fear; Jesus is always with me. I receive Him where I am.
This is the flip side of the same thing. The boy’s receiving of Jesus was in abundance and blessing, the disciples receiving Him into their boat was in danger and despair. This is one of the many places Jesus spoke the second most frequent commandment of the New Testament, “Do not be afraid,” which I have placed into the larger bracket of “Give thanks inside of and for the sake of all things.”
More than Enough. Here is the enflowing of the statements of faith from the first part of our reading.
~ I give all that I have to Jesus; it is always enough for Him. Jesus blesses my little bit and multiplies it that it might become a blessing for many. Out from the overflow that my little bit has now become, I gather the abundance of Jesus; it is always more than enough.
~ In the midst of all danger, confusion, and turbulence, I do not fear. I am not afraid. Jesus comes to me; I receive Him into wherever I find myself. Jesus is always with me.
From these we draw a box titled “The Abundance of Blessing.”
The Abundance of Blessing. All that I am in my humanity is enough for Jesus as I give myself to Him. Jesus blesses what I am and what I have even as I bless Him inside of me. As I share with Him, so I become an abundance of blessing for many. Jesus and I give, together, and as we give, my small humanity is made available and multiplied and many, many partake of our abundance together. I am more than enough for everyone I meet; this is the doing of Jesus.
Then Jesus challenged the crowds who finally caught up with Him, “You seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were satisfied.”
Work for Your Food. Hunger and eating, thirst and drinking, these are the largest drives of human need designed in us by God. Jesus is connecting with their hunger. In Chapter 7, He will connect with their thirst. Jesus then said, “Do not work for the food that is perishing, but for the food remaining into age-unfolding life, which the Son of man will give to you.”
– Work for your food. –
Earlier, Jesus had said, “My food is to do the desire of the Father and to complete His work.” Jesus is speaking of a different kind of food.
I Work. Then comes the question and Jesus’ response. They said to Him, “What must we do, that we might be working the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you should believe into Him whom He sent.”
“I believe into Jesus,” – “I work for the food that remains,” – “I work the works of God” – all the same thing.
These are all Galileans who wanted to make Jesus their king. Now they bring Moses into the picture. “Fourteen hundred years ago, Moses this and Moses that.” Jesus is edging them towards offence.
Outward Signs. Then Jesus mentions “bread from heaven,” similar to the manna in Moses’ time, and they respond with, “Lord, give us always this bread.” But they are looking for a sign, an outward demonstration of “proof.” Fourteen hundred years ago, it was clearly God, but today, in human flesh, we’re not so sure. What Jesus had done in feeding them, however, was equal to the manna from heaven.
This, then, is where I divide the chapter, for the very next thing Jesus said was the entering of dangerous and stormy waters. – “I am the bread of life.”
The Offensiveness of Jesus. And the word that I hear right now is – “Piercing through, piercing through, piercing through.” For the Word of God is living and energeoing and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating through as far as the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is capable of judging the pondering and purposes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
As they had ‘deified’ Moses, so they will ‘deify’ Jesus.
In the next lesson we will look at “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” In fact, I included a large box with the JSV text titled “The Offensiveness of Jesus.”
To “Deify.” Before we look at what it means to “believe into Jesus,” I want to look at the reasons for the wicked practice of ‘deifying’ anything that has to do with God, including Jesus.
Seeing God through the image of the serpent is universal to all humans. It is the lust for ‘superiority,’ a superiority that gives way to the greatest of human perversions, holding other humans in contempt. The goal of this perversity is always one thing only, to drive Jesus far away from us in every conceivable manner. In the end, contempt is more important to humans than superiority. – You are too low to “know” “God the Son.”
Contempt as Food. When we studied Ezekiel and the departure of God from His temple in Jerusalem, I was struck by a different way of understanding that whole thing. God did not leave in “righteous indignation.” He left as one deeply hurt, “They don’t want Me to be with them.” They preferred an image of self-exaltation.
Nonetheless, self-exaltation is illusory; it is not the real FOOD for the perverse human soul. The “real food” is contempt for others. When I find it so very hard to forgive, it is the contempt that I feel, and feeding HUNGER describes that contempt best.
Escaping Contempt. The Catholics deified the bread and wine of “the Mass,” out from the theology of deifying everything that has to do with God, because it enabled them to despise these lowly humans on their knees hardly daring to touch “God.” “Jesus” is too holy and too superior for you.
I have been seeking to know God for over forty-five years, and contempt is still hard for me to depart out from. One thing alone allows me to escape out from the iron prison of contempt inside of which ALL humans and ALL Christians remain. That one thing is – “I believe INTO Jesus.”
Blasphemy to Most. Yet this action is Jesus with me, part of me, and that, dear reader, is “blasphemy.” “You are a human, just like us, someone we hold in contempt. You cannot claim that Jesus is part of you.”
To ‘deify’ Jesus is to make it impossible for Him to be part of our everyday lives, to be part of us and we part of Him. It is to keep God from being known. “Knowing God” is blasphemy to most. But John very deliberately and very powerfully places our entrance into Christ as an ESCAPE out from the darkness of a Jesus far away.
Run into Life. Jesus could not say, “Believe into Me whom God sends” without then driving His hearers into running from the awfulness of the greatest “blasphemy” they had ever heard spoken. Yet that moment is found in the next lesson.
In order to enable us to consider the full meaning of “I believe into Jesus,” let’s bring in the strongest expression of the place of LIFE in the Bible. – KNOW that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you. This could be the least known verse in the gospel. It carries no meaning to most, for Jesus is far away and high above.
Into Jesus Comes First. First Jesus assures us that entering into Him is entering into the Father. Then, just as Jesus is inside of the Father, so we are inside of Him. Yet we are not inside of Him in our knowing apart from the deliberate action of faith, an action we engage in every moment. Faith is WORK, the work of God.
Our existence inside of Jesus must come first in our knowing before we can then know Jesus inside of us. This entrance into Jesus is Gethsemane. I have said it this way. – We must know Him as our human weakness before we can know Him as His power.
Gethsemane. Gethsemane for us means taking ALL of our human wickedness and our awful feelings, our bitter selfishness and our contempt for others INTO Jesus with us. We have to give it to Him. We have to place it upon Him. There is no other way out from the hell in which we live. Jesus must become our sin, and we must allow Him to be.
At this point in my life, I can bear with most any nonsense my fellow Christians are capable of towards me. But I still have a hard time with religious dishonesty, and the contempt I feel towards lying is no easy thing to escape. Gethsemane alone is my way out, Jesus receiving me into Himself.
The Path Out. You see, Jesus makes it very clear that it’s not us “entering into” Him. But He receiving us into Himself. And it is our faith that He receives all our awfulness that allows us to depart from our own self-inflicted enjoyment of hell.
The primary reason I left the move of God fellowship was that I had come to understand that the contempt for others held in that sect was systemic and would never change. I knew that I could never know my Father except I find a path that took me out from such contempt. That path I now know is Gethsemane.
It Is Easy to Walk with God. Gethsemane is Jesus drinking the Father’s cup, drinking all of its dregs, drinking into Himself all of my awfulness. I believe into Jesus. With all my heart and with all my strength, I believe into Jesus.
But then I look back at the little boy giving all he had to Jesus in simple faith, and then sharing with Jesus in the blessing of that food that it might be abundance for many, and I see again how easy it is to walk inside of God. And then I hear Jesus again say to me, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” And I receive Him into me wherever I am.
The Bread of God. Here we weave together the remaining statements of faith.
My Father gives me the true bread out from heaven. This bread out from God gives me life and through me, gives life into my world. It is Jesus who gives me this food, for He is my bread from heaven. I work hard for this food, that is, I do God’s work of always believing into Jesus, always placing myself inside of Him as part of Him. I work for the food that remains into age-unfolding life. Therefore I also am the bread of God; when others receive from me, they know my Father.
This is an extraordinary thought, that we are, in fact, to “work hard” for our food, that is, eating of Jesus.
Ask and Believe. We want to always respond to Word with a firm affirmation that God is telling us the truth, that His word is fulfilled in our lives.
Lord Jesus, You say that You are my food, my bread from God, and that I am to work hard to have You as my bread. And Lord Jesus, You say that my work is to believe into You, to place myself in all that I am, including my sin and contempt for others, completely into You. Lord Jesus, with all my strength, I place myself and all my humanity utterly into You every moment. Lord Jesus, I eat of You. You are my bread and my life.
I Believe into Jesus. Jesus wants me to be with Him inside of Himself, with great desire. It was in Gethsemane that He drank His Father’s cup, all the dregs of my humanity, all my sin and contempt for others. It was in Gethsemane that Jesus received me into Himself that I might live inside of Him. I believe into Jesus, with all my heart and soul; I place myself in all that I am inside of Him.
I work hard to keep every aspect of my humanity, past and present, inside of Jesus through faith, through believing even against all outward appearance and all human emotions and judgment. This is my work, to believe into Jesus, and this is my food, here inside of Him, to eat of Him, to make every word Jesus is all that I am, through my confidence that He is.
I Work for Food. I work hard to place myself into Jesus that I might partake of Him as my life. I exert myself physically and mentally for the nutrition of Jesus. I operate and act effectively in obtaining Jesus as the maintenance of my human functions.
I am engaged regularly in the occupation of obtaining the complexity of every Word Jesus speaks as my life. I fashion myself inside of Jesus as I partake of all that He is. I cause, effect, and accomplish faith that Jesus is sufficient for me.
I set and keep myself in motion to know that I am sustained by Him every moment. I labor to place myself into Jesus; He is all the nourishment I need.
Simplicity and Difficulty. And so we see that John is weaving these two things all the way through all that he writes, the simplicity AND the difficulty of believing into Jesus. The simplicity is that Jesus has already received me utterly into Himself. I am already there, welcomed with wide-open arms. The difficulty is that I must bring my brother with me and thus leave contempt far behind forever.
It is interesting that we looked at all these things in our study of the Tabernacle, yet we are seeing them again, woven so powerfully by John all through his gospel.
Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is the second half of John Chapter 6 titled “I Eat His Flesh; I Drink His Blood.” (Read Chapter 6 again.) As you see, I left it graphic, couched in the words of Jesus’ horrifying blasphemy.
“If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and do not drink His blood, you do not have life inside yourselves.” – “The one eating My flesh and drinking My blood abides inside of Me and I inside of him.”
Yet that is not the purpose for the “blasphemy.” Rather, its purpose is to cement in our minds these words. – “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life.”
Let’s Pray Together. As we pray together, I want you to think of one person whom you hold in contempt, or have held in contempt recently. As we pray into Jesus, we will do so stepping out from contempt, that is, taking this person with us.
“Lord Jesus, we are overwhelmed with the enormous desire You have towards us, that we will live only inside of you, and that we will bring all of our humanity, the good and the evil, into You, to give all to you. And Lord Jesus, we accept that we must step out of our contempt for others in order to be a part of You, that is, we must give our contempt and our dishonesty utterly to You and to the finality of Your Cross.
“Lord Jesus, I think of a particular person who has hurt me recently and for whom I harbor contempt. As I step into You through faith, I carry this person with me, that they also might be free to partake utterly of You.”
“Lord Jesus, as I give an account of every moment of my life, I place all of myself into You entirely through faith. And here, inside of You, I receive every Word You speak to be all that I am. Lord Jesus, I eat of You as my food and as my life. I weave Your words into every aspect of my self-story. I call myself by You in every moment. You are my nourishment, Jesus; You sustain me. In all things, I come out from You.
“Lord Jesus, my whole life is the unfolding of Your glory.”