John Chapter 6:22-31

Jesus never says, hey, come to me and then I'll follow you and see where you're going.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Now, at times in my life, I've talked Jesus into following me because he said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. I took Jesus to places Jesus probably didn't want to go.

He followed me. But man, that was not the best plan for my life. The best plan for the believer is to follow Jesus, not to kind of see how God can kind of fit into our lives, maybe do a little self-improvement, maybe make our lives a little smoother. That's not what Christianity is about. I've been bandering with the term safe Christianity. What a weird term.

I've heard that term. The problem with that, safe Christianity, is that it's neither. It's not safe and it's not Christianity. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. As David continues teaching through the Gospel of John, chapter six, we have a special guest in the studio, one of his associate pastors, D.A.

Brown. Welcome, brother. Hey, Bob. I'm excited to be here. I'm thankful for the word of God and what it's going to teach us today to Pastor David, take us some time to spend with us. It's important that remember, Bob, we are called to follow Jesus. Sometimes we try and get Jesus to follow us where we want to go, but that's no way to be blessed. Today, we're going to be reminded we are called to follow Jesus. Now here's David McGee with his teaching, God is Your Source. We are in John, chapter six, verse 22.

We've talked about the feeding of the 5,000. We talked about Jesus walking out on the water and how awesome that was. And we pick it up in verse 22. On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except that one which his disciples had entered and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone. However, other boats came from Tiberius near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks.

And when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they also got in the boats and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus. Now, what's interesting is understand this book is an awesome book. The Bible is accurate. It's accurate when it comes to science. Isaiah talked 3,000 years ago about how the earth was a circle. Long before we came to that conclusion or had satellite photos, it's also accurate historically. So many things have been uncovered and archeological finds and stuff that verify the Word of God. And all the things that have been found, not one has ever been able to dispute the Word of God. That's an incredible testimony. And also, geographically, this book is correct. This is a real book with a real way to live. Verse 25, and when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Rabbi meaning teacher. And verse 26, Jesus answered them and said, most assuredly, I say to you, seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

That's interesting. If you look back at verse 24, it says they were seeking Jesus. But then Jesus says, you know what?

You're not coming for the right reasons. Now, I am so, so appreciative of God's mercy because I have to admit to you, and if you're honest, you'll admit to me that, you know, when we first came to the Lord, man, some of us didn't exactly come out of pure motives. You know, maybe you came to the Lord and, you know, with the beginning prayer of God help me get out of this, you know, and that kind of started the ball rolling in your relationship or here's another familiar one. Lord, if you get me out of this, I'll never do this again.

I promise I'll never fill in the blank, drink this much or whatever your situation was. And then that starts your relationship with your Lord. That's hardly taken like a real noble pure step to begin with. But somehow God honors that. We come with mixed motives. We come with all sorts of issues and reasons and motivations, and the Lord receives us.

That's amazing. But the Lord begins to correct those motivations. He begins to adjust those reasons, and we need to understand that at some point as we mature in believers, as believers, we need to be coming to Him not because of selfish reasons or motives to discover who we are, but to discover who He is. To come to Him because He's God. He's worthy to be coming to. He's so worthy to be praised.

And see, this is the thing, guys. We need to be maturing from the place that we think it's all about us to the place that we realize it's all about Him. And we should be careful when we're talking about spiritual things and we start the sentence with me, mine, I, but begin to really experience Jesus in His fullness. The life lesson here is Jesus said, follow me. He didn't say not I will follow you. Jesus never says, hey, come to me, and then I'll follow you and see where you're going.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Now, at times in my life, I've talked Jesus into following me because He said, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I took Jesus to places Jesus probably didn't want to go.

He followed me. But man, that was not the best plan for my life. The best plan for the believer is to follow Jesus, not to kind of see how God can kind of fit into our lives, maybe do a little self-improvement, maybe make our lives a little smoother. That's not what Christianity is about. I've been banding with the term safe Christianity or what a weird term.

I've heard that term. A problem with that safe Christianity is that it's neither. It's not safe and it's not Christianity. See, Jesus came that we might alter from the world's way of thinking and living and live a different life as we follow Him. And somehow the whole thing's got watered down where we're trying to see how God can fit into our lives and not rock the boat or make us put us through so many changes.

I don't know where we got that. He's not going to leave you. He's not going to forsake you.

But friend, your life will be a lot better if you follow Him rather than trying to talk Him into following you. I mean, for one good reason, He knows where He's going. Sometimes we don't. Amen or omi. So the question is not where are you taking Jesus, but where's Jesus taking you? That's the real question for the believer. Verse 27, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set His seal on Him. I like the way the New Living Translation reads in this.

It says, but you shouldn't be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has sent me for that very purpose.

Now, let's get one thing real clear. I love food. I love a meal that's prepared well. That's awesome. And I'm so thankful because, you know, God could have, He could have given us some weird feeding tube spiritual thing, you know, where you just, you know, you go hold a tube for 30 seconds and you're fed for the week or something. I'm so glad He didn't do that because it's such a blessing to sit down with other people and to share a good meal.

That's a blessing. But what the Lord's speaking to us here about is the fact that there's an order of priorities that we should have in our life. We should seek the Lord's way above our own. We should seek the Lord's will above our own. We should seek the Lord's priorities above our own. How do you know His priorities?

You ask for them. You ask, Lord, what are your priorities for my life? What would you have me to do? What would you have me to be? How would you have me to act? Now, I got to warn you, when you start praying that stuff, changes can happen.

Good changes. The Lord may give you a burden for the lost. Do you have a burden for the lost?

Let me help you with that burden for a moment. Take your hand and place it over either your chest or your wrist, if you know how to find your heartbeat there, and feel your heartbeat. Realize something as you're feeling your heartbeat. With every beat of your heart, a lost person is dying and going to an eternity without Jesus Christ, 24-7.

60, 70 times a minute. Are we telling people? Are we sharing? God gave us, as one of His priorities, to share the good news.

What an awesome thing to get to do. He never says, you know, go around and condemn everybody to hell, but He says, tell them the good news. Share the good news. Share the good news. What an awesome thing to be able to do, to share the good news, to let people know God loves them, there's a better way to live. You don't have to be ensnared and in bondage and in chains.

What an awesome opportunity to do that. This is the Lord's priorities, and they should be our priorities. This verse is actually sort of a quote or paraphrase from Isaiah, chapter 55, verse 2. It says, why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen, and I will tell you where to get food that is good for the soul. Now, again, you know, don't get, don't think, well, God doesn't want me to eat anymore.

That's not the point. It's that there's priorities here. Now, where to get food that's good for the soul, what's He talking about? Is He talking about like homemade soul food? No, He's talking about the word of God. And isn't it amazing that God has to remind us to be fed spiritually?

That amazes me. Nobody has to remind me to eat on a daily basis. Nobody has to go, hey, did you eat today? Oh, my goodness, you know, I forgot. You know, I don't know what I was thinking.

That never happens to me. You know, as a matter of fact, several times a day, I'm like, what are we eating? I'm hungry again. But what if we treated the spiritual food like we treated the physical food?

What would our lives look like? People come in and go, oh, you know, I'm real weak. I just don't have any spiritual energy. I'm just real spiritually. I'm just weak.

Yeah. One of the first questions out of my mouth. Well, when, you know, when's the last time you ate? Oh, pastor, you know, I eat once a week. I mean, whether I need it or not, I eat once a week, you know. Well, then why would you be weak? Because you can't live on eating once a week.

And you know what? Spiritually, you can't live on once a week eating. You need to be in the word of God.

You need to have a time, whether it's one minute or 15 minutes of spending the time with the Lord each day in prayer and get a devotional and open the word of God. Now I've heard people go, well, you know, we're like, we're like cars. You know, we got to get gas and we get filled up and then we can go, you know what? We're not like cars.

Let me help you with this. We're more like monorails. Monorails when they're in contact with that electrical system, they're moving. As soon as they leave contact with that electrical well, they don't move.

That's us. When we're in contact with the Lord, we're moving. But don't begin to think, well, I'm stored up. I'm good for a week. Praise God. Don't think that. There's, I can't do it.

Don't think of this gas tank analogy, cause I'm not sure that it, I'm not sure that it works. And notice something here. It says the son of man will give you, will give you. The Lord desires to give you his words. He desires for you to be in the Bible.

That's why so many men have died and suffered that we might have the book that's sitting on our laps this morning. That is a present from Jesus. That is a love letter from him to you. Proclaiming his love for you, his faithfulness to you.

And that's an awesome thing. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob, we're excited about God's word going forth with Pastor David. And we want to pray for some people in these cities where we're broadcasting today. In California, we have Yucca Valley.

And in Colorado, we have Burlington, Fort Morgan, Grand Junction, Lamar, Lyman, and Montrose. God, we thank you for the people listening today in these areas. We pray that they would be encouraged in your word. They would realize that you want to bless them.

Lord, you have a good plan for them. God, we pray for those who are sick in the area that you would please heal them. And Lord, we pray for the pastors and the churches that they would be ignited and all the good plans you have for them and sharing your word throughout their city. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 28. Then they said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God? What a human question.

What must we do? It's been said, and I think probably accurately, that in the garden, one of the things that happened is we went from being human beings to human doings. And I see a lot of people in a lot of places doing what I would consider noble things. But sometimes they're being so busy doing things so they don't sit alone with God.

And what happens is, I think sometimes this carries on and carries over into our salvation. Verse 29. Jesus answered and said to them, and he gave them a long list of stuff to do. No, that's not what he said. He said, this is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent.

Wow, that's got to be a misprint. This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent. Guys, don't miss this.

They ask, what can we do? And Jesus didn't give them anything to do. Jesus said, believe. Believe. That might rock some of your boats.

If so, good. Jesus is in the habit of rocking our boats, isn't He? See, because sometimes we think that we can actually earn this thing called salvation.

We think we can actually earn our way into heaven. Guys, if we could earn our way into heaven, if anyone in here could live that holy of a life that they could earn their way to heaven, do you realize that you would change human history? See, because Jesus never would have came. He never would have died.

Why? Because He wouldn't have needed to. He'd have looked down and said, well, you know, Bob, he's pulling it off. He's doing great. He's living a sinless life, always has, always will. This guy's got it down.

Maybe he can tell some other people about it. That's not what happened. Jesus looked down on us and are lost in our sinful condition and bondage, and He said, there's no other way. There's no other way. It's not by their goodness. It's not by their good works. I have to go die for them and give my life for them. Now, am I saying that we don't need to do works?

I'm not saying that at all. That would be unbiblical, but we're talking about salvation. Now, salvation should lead to works. When you get saved, you should begin to function in the kingdom of God in the body of Christ. And we should allow our faith to lead us to works, but our works will not lead us to faith. Our faith should lead us to works, but our works will not lead us to faith. There's a lot of people that really believe that they are earning their salvation in this world today. If you doubt that, ask some of your friends.

Ask them. It's a great opener. Hey, you think you're going to heaven?

Oh yeah, yeah. And then ask them, well, why do you think that? You'll be shocked. What you'll get is a lot of, well, I am basically a good person. Or I go to church, or I've kept most of the 10 commandments. Because these are actual answers I've received from people. Or, because I believe in God. Problem with those answers is according to the Bible, none of those things will get you into heaven. I got your attention now, don't I? Well, you believe in God?

What do you mean? The book of James tells us that even the demons believe in tremble. They believe in God. Are demons going to heaven?

No. No, they're not. But they believe in God, right.

But they don't believe in Jesus and His atoning power and asking Him and seeking Him for the forgiveness of their sins. That's the only right answer about how to get into heaven, guys. There's only one way to get in.

I'm just thankful there's one way. I'm not going to barter with God or say, God, why can't you widen the door a little bit or, you know, make another door? That's not up to me.

That's not up to you. I'm just thankful there's a way in. Jesus didn't say, I'm one of the doors. He didn't say, I am one of the truths, one of the ways. He said, I'm the way. He said, I'm the door. I said, I'm the door.

And I'm just glad there's one there. Now, Jesus said, this is the work of God. What's He talking about? He's talking about everything that happens in our life. He's obviously talking about salvation. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9, great verses to memorize. For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. That's how we're saved. We're saved through grace. What is grace? Grace is the unmerited favor of God.

The fact that He loves you and while you were yet sinners, He died for you. It's by grace. It's not by works. Now, and the interesting thing, this concept, those verses separate Christianity from every other world religion, every one of them, because all the other religions are tied to works.

If you do something for long enough, you might get in. That's not Christianity. All these other religions are based upon, well, you know, show me your works and God may forgive you. What does Jesus say? Jesus, come.

Just come to me. It's so radically different from everything else. Now, I believe something should change in your life when you come to Him, but you can't start to change your life. And so many people think, well, I got to change my life and then I'll come to God. You can't change your life. Many of us have tried to change our lives in our own power and we were fairly frustrated, but still we come back to that knowing, well, I think I can change my life. And I talk to people. Yeah, I've talked to people who say, you know what? I want to come to church, but you know, I'm still struggling. I still drink or I still smoke dope or I still have lust or whatever their situation. I probably shouldn't come to church.

Oh man, you're the guy or the girl that needs to be here. If you're waiting to get perfect before you come to church, when are you going to go? You're never going to be perfect. And the other side of that is if you're looking for the perfect church, it doesn't exist. It's a bunch of people like us who are sinners and you come to Jesus and in the coming, you believe Him. And then the believing you come to Him. You can't believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world and truly believe it not come to Him. And you won't come to Him unless you really believe that He is who He said He is. And there's no other way to start the relationship than to just come to Him and believe.

That's the life lesson. Salvation is a work of God. It's not the work of man. Salvation is a work of God. It is not the work of man. Nobody in here can add anything to salvation.

Now, individually, we have to make decisions. Let me be clear about that. But you don't need to come up with a list of rules and regulations about what being saved is and what being saved is not. Don't add to the book. It's real plain that that's not a good thing to do in the book of Revelation. And realize there's only going to be one man-made thing in heaven. It's going to be the scars on Jesus. That will be our contribution to heaven. So it's by grace. Praise God. Verse 30. Therefore, they said to Him, What sign will You perform then that we may see it and believe You?

What work will You do? Godly. Can you believe this? Jesus, do us a trick and we'll follow You. That's pretty sad, isn't it?

Some people still do that. Jesus, do some kind of trick. Do some kind of miracle and we'll believe You exist. How sad. And these people have just seen the feeding of the 5,000.

This kind of reveals how hardhearted we can be. Oh, and I've thought the same thing. And maybe you're sitting there thinking the same thing. I thought in the past, well, you know, if I could see a miracle, I mean, you know, like a miracle, miracle. And if I could see one on a regular basis, you know, people, you know, rising from the dead and stuff, boy, that would really build my faith. Would it?

We think it would, but wait a minute. One of the people groups in the Bible that saw more miracles than anybody else was the children of Israel. Did it build their faith up? Apparently not.

Apparently not because they struggled, they murmured, they complained. Don't get me wrong. God still does miracles.

I've got no doubt about that. He does miracles. He's a supernatural God.

But don't, He's not a cosmic magician that you can have Him do a command performance at your whim. Verse 31, our fathers ate the manna in the desert. It is written, He gave them bread, from heaven to eat. You know what they're saying is they're saying, you know what? We've seen the thing with the bread before, do something else.

We saw the trick with the manna. And so they're hungry and physically. Why are they hungry and physically? Because they weren't satisfied physically. Why weren't they satisfied physically?

Here's our next life lesson. Because until a person is spiritually satisfied, they will never be physically satisfied. If you think this morning that if you get enough money that you'll be satisfied one day, that much money does not exist in the world. They asked John D Rockefeller, who was by today's standards, multi-multi billionaire with a B. They asked him how much, because he was still being aggressive in business. They asked him how much money was enough. And he said a little bit more, a little bit more. And interestingly enough, somebody asked the accountant, how much John D Rockefeller left when he died?

And the accountant very wisely said, all of it. You can't drink enough to make you physically satisfied. You can't do enough drugs to make you physically satisfied. Can't have enough sex to be physically satisfied because there's a spiritual hunger that has to be dealt with in our lives. And until you deal with that, you're going to be unhappy with all those other things. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our first steps package, with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee.

That sounds good, Pastor D.A., and again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge, in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.