The Shortsighted

Today on Summit Life, J.D.

Greer reminds us of the one thing we need more than anything. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. The bread that he is offering is reunion with God because that is what the human soul is missing. That is what it is craving.

They're missing the best thing because they're fixated on a good thing. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. You know, these days it seems like everyone is always up in arms about something or another. And the fact is that there are so many good causes out there to fight for that it kind of gets overwhelming sometimes. But today Pastor J.D. is helping us refocus on the most important mission. It's the mission that actually gives everything else meaning.

He titled this message The Short-Sided and it's part of our series called Can't Believe. We're looking at the different barriers that can hold us back from really giving ourselves completely to Jesus. So let's get started in John chapter 11. I know that as we've gotten into this series some of you might have been saying subtly, well I'm just not really sure how this series applies to me because I already believe in Jesus.

But you got to understand that really what Christian growth is is learning to really believe in Jesus, to re-believe in Jesus, to take your belief from something that you acknowledge in your creed to something you lean the weight of your soul upon. To believe means to lean your weight upon something. Think of it as the difference between being in an airplane and believing that the parachute would actually, you know, guide you safely to the ground and then jumping out of that airplane.

Those are two fundamentally different things. That latter thing, that jumping out of the airplane is what John would mean when he says believe. It is belief in action.

It is belief that has leaned the weight of its soul upon this thing. So whether you're a believer or not I think there's a lot in here for you. You might be learning to believe in Jesus for the first time. There's a large number of you also that are re-learning what it means to trust and to believe in Jesus.

So there's something in here for everybody. So John chapter 6. In John chapter 6 we're going to encounter a group who can't believe for two reasons.

First, they don't understand their real problem. And because they don't understand their real problem they are so focused on quick fixes that they miss the real Jesus. And the real gospel when it's right in front of them. Francis Schaeffer said that if he had an hour to explain the gospel to somebody that had never heard it before, a 21st century man who had never heard it before, he would spend the first 45 or 50 minutes of that hour on the negative trying to show this guy that he really was in a hopeless dilemma. That he really was spiritually dead. That there was no possible way he could save himself.

He said and after 45 or 50 minutes of that I would spend the last 10 minutes, only the last 10 minutes, explaining to him the good news of the gospel. He said that a lot of our evangelistic outreach work fails today simply because we're so anxious to get to the answer that we never have people understand the problem. Well this group in John 6 is a perfect example of that. They don't understand the problem so they're blind to the solution when it's right in front of them. Now I think this group today would include a lot of Republicans who believe that if societies were just free and they were all democratically governed and the government would just get out of the way then everybody could thrive. I think that group would today include a lot of Democrats who believe that if the rich would just pay their fair share and help the poor then there'd be enough prosperity to go around. This group would include a lot of well-intentioned social activists. I think it would include a lot of educational reformers and public school teachers and college professors and those who are working to end world hunger and those trying to stop the sex slave trade. Good people. Many of them working on very worthy projects. Many of them even thinking of themselves as Christians.

But the mission and the message of Jesus is secondary to them because they don't understand the real problem. Here's how you know you're in this group by the way. You're kind of bored with Jesus. You don't hate him.

You don't hate him. Again you probably even call yourself a Christian. But you're just not filled with love and passion for him. You see the sign that you have encountered the real Jesus is that you are consumed with one of those two emotional extremes. Either fierce hatred or consuming love. Lukewarm feelings about Jesus. Apathetic feelings about Jesus.

Even positive apathetic feelings about Jesus are a sure proof that you've never encountered the real guy. This same group in John 6 at the end of the chapter is going to stumble over belief for a second reason and that is because Jesus is going to drop some really hard things. Things that offend them. Things that cut against the grain.

Things that shatter their world views. But because they are only looking for a prophet who teaches a new philosophy of life or a life coach who can give them better tips for living or a new social activist who can give them a better agenda to go out and pursue politically in the world because that's all they're looking for. They're not prepared for a gospel that rocks their world and a glorious savior who will blow their minds. And they're going to look back at Jesus and they're going to say we don't really like this part of you. We like this other part over here.

We think that's awesome but this part right here this is offensive. Today we'll see a lot of people who like to appropriate various parts of Jesus' message into their own. Especially the parts that work with their pre-existing world views. Jesus is not a salad bar where you take the parts you like and leave the parts you don't. And what he is going to tell these people at the end of this chapter is you either understand that I am the Holy One from heaven and you receive everything that I'm saying or you reject me altogether.

There's not going to be a middle category. So I'm going to call this group with these two problems I'm going to call them the short-sighted. Because they don't understand the real problem they don't recognize the real Jesus.

Their problem goes back to a shortness of sight. So all right let's get into it. We're going to begin reading in verse 14 so let me summarize verse 13 verses for you. John chapter 6 opens up with a problem and that problem is that the people that are listening to Jesus are hungry. Not metaphorically hungry but actually physically hungry. You see Jesus had a lot to say and because he had a lot to say his sermons would often go on for a long time.

Not 45 or 50 minutes like you people complain about all right but all day. And in this case Jesus started his sermon sometime after breakfast taught straight through lunch and all the way through dinner. He takes a little break after dinner and he turns to his disciples and he says to them man it looks like these people are getting hungry they're starting to get kind of cranky what do you think I should do? Now verse 6 tells you that this was a test question because he already knew what he was going to do so this was like a faith pop quiz.

So the first disciple to respond to him this is found in the Gospel of Luke is Peter and Peter responds to him and says that's a dumb question Jesus. There's like 20,000 people here. I know your bible says 5,000 but they only counted heads of household when they counted crowds so you got to throw in a wife and a couple friends and you know kids or whatever so so you got about 20,000 people here Jesus that's not a real question we are we don't have the capacity to feed 20,000 people all right this is kooky talk you got to you got to send them home we can't do it. Fail. Peter gets a big F. All right second person to speak is Philip you'll see that there in verse I think seven and or you know yeah Philip says well 200 denarii Jesus is not enough to buy food for these people even for each of them to have just a little.

Now you got to read that with the sarcasm that is intended in it. 200 denarii is eight months wages so what he's essentially saying is oh yeah Jesus that's a great idea we could all go get jobs right now we could all work for eight months we could save all of our money and then pull it together and then go out and buy each of these people like a snow cone or something and I'm sure that's going to help the fact that they're hungry right now. Fail. Right? Finally one of the disciples Andrew says well I found a little boy whose mama packed him a lunch and he says that he's willing to share it with you Jesus if you're hungry so you could just duck backstage real quick and eat his lunch we'll like you know distract everybody we'll lead everybody in a song Jesus loves me or something like that you know and then and then when you'll come back up and you can eat it started off so well didn't it?

Fail. So Jesus takes the little boy's lunch of five loaves and two fish he prays over and he starts to distribute it well as the disciples are distributing it as it is in their hands it begins to multiply and as it multiplies they can't give it away fast enough and so after everybody has eaten everything they can possibly eat they take up what's left of this little boy's five loaves and two fish what I've called before a Hebrew happy meal and they take the leftovers of that Hebrew happy meal and they collect 12 bushel baskets full to overflowing. Verse 14. So when the people saw the sign that he had done they said this is indeed the prophet who has come into the world verse 15 perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king stop there for a second they're excited I mean look at what this guy just did and they're thinking imagine if this guy was the head of our nation I mean if this guy can do this with five loaves and two fish imagine what he can do with the stock market talk about healing the planet this guy walks on top of storms he wouldn't just fix medicare he could remove the need for it but notice what Jesus does verse 15 but Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself now that's a kind of strange reaction is it not because usually preachers like crowds take it from one because that lets you know that your message is connecting but just when the crowd is really getting into Jesus when it's taken off when he's trending all right when he's trending on twitter he hightails it and gets out of there this is not shyness on Jesus part by the way no he is avoiding disaster eternal disaster because you see they're missing the point he didn't come to end world hunger at least not at first as important as ending world hunger is he's got something even more important than that and they are missing it they're missing the best thing because they're fixated on a good thing so he goes up in the mountain and hides until nightfall and after nightfall he takes an evening stroll on the sea not by the sea mind you but on the sea and he walks over to the other side well somebody over there saw him and tweeted about seeing him so the crowd in verse 25 finally finds him on the other side of the sea and says rabbi how did you get over here verse 26 no explanation no explanation at all verse 26 he just answered them truly truly now remember i told you the gospel of john when jesus drops it truly truly that mean things are getting serious so he boom drops it truly truly on him he says truly truly i say to you you are seeking me not because you saw the signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life which the son of man will give to you he's got a different kind of bread that he's offering he knows that he could end world hunger and he could restore world peace and he could ensure life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people and still not have dealt with the real problem so jump down to verse 34 so they said to him sir give us this bread always they don't get that the physical bread he's talking about is just a picture of the real bread that he is offering from heaven verse 35 so they said to him jesus said to them i am the bread of life whoever comes to me shall not hunger whoever believes in me shall never thirst the bread that he is offering is reunion with god because that is what the human soul is missing that is what it is craving to a blaze pascal famously called the void in every human heart that whether you believe in god or not there is a vacuum there is a void he said that you don't exactly know why it's there or what it's hungering for but you spend the majority of your life trying to figure out what will settle that emptiness and so for a while when you're a teenager you try you try crazy stuff you try drugs and alcohol and sex and then you settle down you try marriage and then you try career success then you try retiring wealthy and he says none of it none of it ends up working because that hole is in the shape of god himself it was a hole that was created by god for god and until you get god back into the right place in your life nothing that you will do will satisfy not the best romance not the not the greatest amount of money that you could achieve jesus you see did not show up with merely external fixes because there was get this nothing external that anybody could give us not even jesus there was nothing external that anybody could give us not even jesus that would satisfy the starving condition of our souls it was god that we were missing it was god that his gospel would restore to us our soul craving you see is not for some thing our soul craving is for someone and until we've been reunited to that someone our souls will always be famished and corrupted this is a recurring theme throughout literature and movies if you study literature and movies for the last hundred years um as technology develops people start to postulate what's it like if somebody gains the ability to live forever and one of the recurring themes is pretty fascinating is it never ends up well somebody figures out how to live forever but they end up being miserable because we know we know there's a difference between merely existing and really living and merely existing forever is not really what we're after it's what it's what does it mean to live forever when the bible talks about eternal life it's not just talking about um existing forever by the way that's actually the definition of hell hell is you go on existing forever just apart from god in fact you might say that you have two options for eternity you can go to a place of eternal existence or you can go to a place of eternal life god offers eternal life not just eternity of existence he offers eternal life which is not a quantity of time it is a quality of existence so jesus or they say back to him verse 28 well then what do we got to do to be doing the works of god all right well tell us how do we obtain this heavenly bread how do we get this bread of god verse 29 jesus answered them this is the work of god for you that you believe in him whom he has sent it's not something you can do this is a bread that's got to be given to you as a gift you were powerless you see to restore what was lost so god himself did the work of restoring your salvation the bread here by the way is a great picture of the gospel in order for bread to do your body any good it has to be broken your teeth have to break it up into pieces and chew it up jesus would be broken for us so that he could feed us in order for water to do you any good it has to be poured out has to be poured out and into you jesus blood would be poured out so it could become the water of life to us the meal for our starving souls would be provided for entirely by god our part was simply to take and eat just like last week our part is simply to come and drink week before that our part is to look and live all the work of salvation god did and he gives you in john three different ways of saying the same thing the healing is there look at it and live the water is here take and drink come and drink the bread of life is here you don't manufacture it you don't produce it you don't work for it i do all the work for it i'm the one who's broken i make the bread i die i resurrect from the dead you just take and eat that's it which shows you by the way in those that little there's several set of verses there shows you the two things get this that distinguish the true gospel from every false gospel ever postulated whether that gosh false gospel sounds christian or not there are two things that distinguish the true gospel from the false gospel i'm gonna give you two words you ought to remember this will help you whenever you're talking to somebody even if they're saying a super christian right these two words have to be the dominant things in the gospel number one god i know that sounds like crazy but that i would need to say that but i do god the true gospel's primary focus is reconciliation with god jesus would not let his ministry in john six become primarily about an end world hunger or prosperity for all campaign even though those things are both worthy and super important in fact when it looked like it was about to become that he ran away from it because our problem runs much deeper than anything that could be fixed by food in our stomachs or clothes on our backs education in our brains or even justice in our governments you see the way you can tell a true gospel from a false gospel is that the real gospel has as its primary focus the restoration of god to us and the changing of the human hearts so that it loves and adores god because it is fundamentally flawed the true gospel is about god it has as its primary focus reconciliation with god the locus of its hope is god the focus of its affections is god john piper says it this way the gospel is not a way to get people to heaven that's what most of us think right isn't that how most of us first like came to receive jesus somebody asked us if we died tonight do we know for sure where we go i don't know why we always think we'll die at night but for whatever reason that's always how it's phrased if you died tonight do you know that you go to heaven i don't so i better ask because i want to go up to heaven the gospel is not a way to get people to heaven it's a way to get people to god the primary gift of the gospel is god himself indeed until you feast on the bread of jesus himself all the other things that you're seeking all the other kinds of lesser kind of breads are just going to leave you hungrier john piper again indeed there are 10 000 gifts that flow from the love of god but none of these gifts will lead to final joy if they've not first led to god there's some of you come back to church because you're looking for some secondary gift for god to give you oh i didn't really need god my family i got kids now and i don't know how to figure out how to raise them i need god to work in my marriage because my wife and i don't think we're going to make it i need god to add balance to my life i'd really like to go to heaven when i die i need purpose and peace and legacy you know that stuff great 10 000 gifts await for you when you come to god but until they have led you to god himself and until you have possessed god who is better than all those gifts every one of those gifts no matter how good and how sweet will leave you hungry cs lewis had a great statement on this i love this cs lewis said it seems 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 to us in other words we're messing around with temporary bread when what god offers us is infinite bread and we're so fixated on whether or not our lives are filled with this kind of bread that we miss the fact that infinitely satisfying bread is offered to 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 and that's our problem what a great statement that means by the way church listen that means politics and all these activist causes are secondary hear me correctly on this i'm not saying they're not important the bible commands us to love and bless and take care of our neighbors but as important as all those political and secondary agendas are they can never displace the centrality of the gospel message and our mission you see our generation is a i say our generation to college students i know that i'm 19 years older than most of you i'm 39 years old but you know what our generation our generation is a very cause-driven generation isn't it everybody companies are all into giving back that's how you tell the company is good or not do they give back i call it the bono factor everybody's got a cause everybody's got bracelets with different initiatives and a pair of those wretched tom shoes on their feet right that's just that's just who we are and that's all well and good it really is but we can never lose the focus that jesus died for tom's soul and jesus provided bread for of life for tom's soul because people don't just need shoes on their feet they need forgiveness of their sins they need the bread of god's presence so we don't want well-clothed well-fed people who die and go to hell with free shoes on their feet yeah we want to alleviate suffering of course we do that's a christian's duty but the most significant suffering of all is eternal suffering the suffering of the soul that is starving from being separated from god so yes we want to put bread in their stomachs we will always do that but more importantly we want to point them to the bread that is given to them from heaven when we love our neighbor we're caring for them in active ways but we can't forget that jesus is the bread of life the only thing that can truly satisfy their soul you're listening to summit life with pastor jd greer to listen to this message again or to catch up on previous messages in this series visit jdgrier.com pastor jd sometimes we think of the gospel as a one-time event that occurs at your conversion but that's a pretty shallow view isn't it yeah molly this is a theme we talk about a lot here at summit life the gospel is not just our ticket to heaven the gospel is an entirely new basis for how we relate to god to ourselves and to others you experience the power of the gospel in your life not just by learning a bunch of new things about christianity widening the circumference of your knowledge but by going deep into the knowledge of who god is and what he's actually offered to you in this incredible grace that he's shown in the gospel the love that he demonstrated we want you on this program we want you to not just know gospel doctrine we want you to taste the sweetness of the gospel jonathan edwards the great theologian of the 18th century and he always talked about how it's one thing to know with your head that honey is sweet but then another to have the taste of honey for the first time and so one of the things we've we've produced to help you with that is a new 20-day devotional and i've attempted to make it clear in that devotional in a day-by-day format what god has done for us and just the wonder of who he is that that will take you deeper into the wonder of the gospel the devotional book is called simply what is the gospel and you can get yours today at jdgrier.com i would love to be able to give you this as an assistance to helping you rediscover the wonder of the gospel thank you jd this brand new 20-day devotional written by pastor jd comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry at the suggested level of 25 dollars or more we also have a special bonus gift this month for you for a small additional gift of ten dollars we'll send you the book of john scripture notebook the scripture notebook combines the text of the gospel of john with wide margins and a lined page for notes beside each page of text this ample space for note-taking is perfect to record reading insights reflections and responses and note-taking during the messages if you've never joined us in our mission to go deeper into the gospel of jesus christ or if it's been a while since you've given let me invite you to jump on board today and when you give remember to ask for your copy of the what is the gospel 20-day devotional call 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or it might be easier to give online at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich i'm so glad that you joined us and be sure to listen again wednesday as we continue our series called can't believe on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries