Faith in Jesus, The Great Work Of God

We're asking what it means to do greater works than Jesus did. The final sentence of my last blog was this:

You can ask for no greater work than to bring a soul to Jesus.

I promised to take a deeper look at questions raised by our Lord's promise given to his disciples in the upper room, the very night he was betrayed:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. - John 14:12-14 ESV 

You will recall that Jesus himself said our primary work is to believe in him, as he said to the crowds who followed him after he gave them a sign of who he really was by feeding thousands in the wilderness with a little boy's lunch.

Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." - John 6:28-29 ESV

How is it that faith in Jesus can be called the work of God? The answer is found by listening carefully to Jesus' comments about the story of the Exodus, also in John 6. The Jews who chased after Jesus when he had fed them referred to the manna their ancestors received during their forty years in the wilderness:

When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. ... The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. - Exod 16:1-35 ESV

 

The wilderness of the Sinai peninsula is a most uninhabitable place. The only way they survived out there—the only way—was because of the inexplicable gift of manna. I say inexplicable because they never did figure out what that bread was. That's why they called it manna (man hu in their language means, "What is it?"). And yet it came day after day. And it kept them alive.

Keep that in mind as you hear Jesus say about himself, 

". . . my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." John 6:32-35 ESV

In other words, all your needs for this life and for that age to come are and forever will be met by Jesus. Come to him in your need both for food and for forgiveness and he will provide it.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." - John 6:39-40 ESV 

And again,

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." - Jhn 6:47-51 ESV

Yesterday at worship I ate that bread of life. As the pastor placed the wafer of bread into my mouth I heard him say, "Take and eat. This is the true body of Christ." This is the flesh that Jesus gave for me—and for all—upon the cross (1 Cor. 10:16-17). This is what we Christians celebrate. This is what we proclaim. This is what we will sing about and shout out on Easter Sunday. Christ is risen! Christ who died rose again. And because he lives we also live. And we who believe in him will never die. And it is all a completely undeserved and inexplicable gift (manna),  given to us in this wilderness as we make our way to the land of promise. To believe this, to put your entire trust and faith in this Good News is the work of God. The power to believe it is all God's work in me—not my work, but his! It is all grace, free and undeserved.

"This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

 

Give Us Tomorrow's Bread

For a variety of reasons I have been anxious and troubled of late. Perhaps it has to do with age. It has nothing to do with health, for the Lord continues to grant me good health. Yet I find myself projecting into the future with such thoughts like, How long have I yet to live? Will I grow ill one day and die from the illness? Will someone have to care for me as my strength ebbs? And other nonsense such as this.

So I return each day to the Lord's Prayer and pray again, "Give us this day our daily bread." Yet as I do so I wonder if I really understand what I am saying. What is this daily bread for which I am asking?

I am quite content with Martin Luther's explanation of daily bread. It is everything that belongs to the needs of the body, such as food, clothing, good weather, health, home, wife, children, good government and so forth. So it was that Joseph invited his brothers to his home to eat bread with him long after they had sold him into slavery and he had become chancellor of Egypt (Genesis 43:24). Bread is all that we need to care for us. My concern is not with what the word bread refers to, but with the fact that I and others find ourselves being anxious and troubled about tomorrow's bread and the bread we'll need years far into the future.

Jesus addressed this in His Sermon when he said,

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (Matthew 6:27-34).

As I read this admonition I thought about the Manna that the Israelites were provided during the 40 years of their wanderings in the wilderness and Paul reminding us that this history was written for our instruction (I Cor. 10:11). One of the things that struck me was that they were forbidden to search for Manna on the seventh day, the Sabbath, the day of rest. Then I recalled that Jesus died on Friday, the sixth day, as He said, "It is finished." He rested from His labor on the seventh day, the Sabbath. From His completed work we have received the bread we need for our journeys. Jesus is our living bread of God come down from heaven (John 6:51).

On the night Jesus was betrayed, as the sixth day began with the setting of the sun, He took bread and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take eat. This is my body"(Matthew 26:26). In turn, John invites us to reflect on how Jesus fed thousands in the wilderness with a boy's lunch. Later Jesus rebuked the crowds that followed as He said,

"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal" (John 6:27). 

In this faith and with this Word, I return to the prayer and the phrase daily bread. The word daily must refer to the most immediate day before us, the day we are about to come upon. So Luke, using the same Greek phrase, wrote in Acts

"So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis" (Acts 16:11). 

So we may pray to our Father to give us the following day's bread and know with certainty that He will, because we are His children in Christ, the true Bread of life. We are children of the Kingdom. He will take care of tomorrow. On the day before us our Father will provide. We are free to focus upon the troubles and challenges of today. That is all we need to concern ourselves with. Knowing this, anxiety melts away.