Did the crowd want Jesus, or just His bread?

In John 6:1-15, Jesus feeds thousands from a boy’s small lunch of five loaves and two fish. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt shows that the miracle is a sign — and a test of what the crowd really wanted.

A huge crowd has followed Jesus for His healing miracles. He tests Philip — “Where shall we buy bread?” — then takes a boy’s five barley loaves and two fish, gives thanks, and feeds everyone with twelve baskets to spare. Dr. Holt points out that the way Jesus gives thanks and distributes the bread points ahead to the Lord’s Supper, and that Jesus is not just the baker but the Bread of Life. When the crowd tries to make Him king by force, He withdraws — they wanted what He could give, not Him.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why did the people follow Jesus? Mainly to see His miracles and receive His benefits, not yet to know Him as Lord.

2. What did the miracle point to? It was a sign that Jesus is the true Bread of Life, foreshadowing the abundance and the supper He would give His people.

3. Why did Jesus withdraw when they tried to crown Him? Because they wanted a king to meet their physical needs, not the Savior who came to give Himself. They wanted the bread, not the Baker.

“This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” — John 6:14 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the John Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

[gentle serene music] In John 6, the numbers didn't add up. Over 5,000 people had gathered to hear Jesus, but they only had five loaves and two fish to feed them with. It would take a miracle to feed that many people, and that's exactly what Jesus performed. A miracle. But other than feeding these hungry men and women, what did this miracle point to? That will be the focus of today's study.

As Jesus began his public ministry, why did people follow him? Why did they follow him by multitudes? Any one of us can go out here after church and say, "Follow me, boys," and the only people who are likely to follow you is your family, those dependent on you to get a ride home. The rest of us will say, "I'll see you later." Why did people follow Jesus, even to their own detriment, so to speak, taking them far from home without sufficient provisions even to eat? Why did they follow him? Now, was it because of the things he said? No. In fact, the exact opposite happened. You see, when Jesus did things, people loved that. When Jesus healed people, and there was miracles, and all this different stuff, they loved it. When he spoke, they often left. Later in chapter 6, that's going to happen. And in verse 65, which we'll see either next week or the following one, Jesus is going to say this. He's going to say, "No one can come to me unless it has been granted to them by my Father." You know what's going to happen as a result of that? The text goes on to say that from that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. No man can come to me unless he's called by my Father. No one can come to me unless he's drawn by my Father, and because of that, and other statements that he made about his body being the bread and his blood being something to dine upon and the like, because of this sort of stuff, people say, "No, thank you. We're taking our show on the road." So they left and followed him no more. With that said, when he healed people, they liked that. And when he fed people, they liked that even more. The Sea of Galilee, if you ever check it out, it's pretty large. I mean, it's not so large you can't walk around it, but it's pretty large. It takes a good amount of time. Jesus would cross the sea. He'd cross the sea just by walking across it, and the people, because they were hungry, and they knew he was the miracle man, they knew he could provide for them, they knew he did all this stuff, they would chase him and chase him around. He couldn't get any solitude almost anywhere he went because the moment people knew where he was, they followed him there. But they didn't follow him because they were desperate to hear the words coming out of his mouth. They followed him because of what he could do for them. You think anything has changed in modern-day Christendom? There's whole swaths of the visible body that do the same thing. There are those who desire what God has to offer them rather than God himself. Well, in today's text, we're going to see that Jesus is going to go to a place on the north side of Galilee. This is up near the Golan Heights, an area close to Bethsaida. He's going to go up to this area. People are going to follow him. They want to cash in on his miracles. And in providence, God would provide one of the greatest miracles they could ever desire or ever want at the exact moment that they needed it, and they were hungry. He's going to feed all of them. But he's not going to do it just to give them one meal on one particular day. He's going to do it to point to something greater. The question is, are they paying attention? And the question is, are we paying attention to what he's doing here and why he does it? All right. Let's look at verses one through nine of this text, and then we'll work our way through the balance. Verse one. "So after these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Then a great multitude followed him because they saw his signs." Listen to that. They followed him why? Because they saw his signs, which he performed on those who were diseased. It tells us right away, they followed him because of the things that he was doing, not because of who he was or because of what he said. Verse three, "And so Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near." This gives us some idea of when this took place in the calendar year. Verse five, "Then Jesus lifted up his eyes, and seeing the great multitude coming towards him, he said to Philip..." Philip was from the region near Bethsaida. He says to Philip, "Hey, where shall we buy the bread that these folks may eat?" Verse six, "But this he said to test him, for he himself knew exactly what he would do. And Philip answered and said, '200 denari worth of bread is not sufficient for them. That every one of them may have a little.'" That was about eight months of salary for one person. Philip was basically answering a little bit sarcastically. He said, "You go work for eight months, take your salary, buy all the bread you can with that, bring it back here, and still it wouldn't be enough to give people more than one bite. They're too many. There's too many. We can't do it." That was the answer that he gave them. And then verse eight, "But then one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 'There's a lad here, a lad who has five barley loaves and two small fish. But what are they among so many?'" All right. In verse one, we see that Jesus has traveled from Jerusalem to Galilee. He's most recently been in Jerusalem, which is to the south. He's now gone to the north. He went from the sagebrush and where it's dry and deserty and the like, and then he went up into the green land and up towards the north, Mount Hermon's up that way, the Golan Heights and the like. With that said, verse two says that a great multitude was following him. Just saying a multitude's a lot of people. If someone asks how many people they have in church, and I say, "It's a multitude," what am I saying? Well, there's a lot of people in church. Well, here it says a great multitude, which you can imagine 5,000 men, which again, does not encompass the entirety of the crowd. In all likelihood, this is 5,000 men, leaders of families, which meant there was close to 15,000 to 20,000 people, scholars believe, there on the hillside. But again, as we see that the reason they were following him is

because of what he had to offer them. Specifically, verse two says that he had been doing signs elsewhere that involved healing, that involved miracles being performed on the flesh, that if someone was sick, they just had to have an encounter with this one guy, this itinerant rabbi, this guy. Which guy? Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. He's where? Where is he? I've got Grandma here. Grandma needs a healing. Let's take Grandma to go see this Jesus fellow, and perhaps he'll do for her what he's done to other people. That sort of stuff spreadsI don't know if it's a shock to you, but medical treatment in that age was not that great. Not that great. And there was this one guy whose skills transcend even modern medicine to the degree he could just say a word and you could be cured. In an age where the life expectancy was rather low, there was a lot of incentive for an entire generation of people to go to find this Jesus, and so they did. Now, Jesus had ironically done what he often did. He went to go be alone, so to speak, or to be with his disciples. He tries that a lot throughout the Gospels. You'll see that Jesus would go off to a place to try to get some private time with his Father or with his disciples, or what have you. And it was not that he wanted to avoid people. He was all for being with people, but he got tired like we get tired. With that said, people followed him, but there was a problem. They had all followed him out of desperation. You're sitting there and grandma's sick, and I've got to help Grandma. What are you going to do? Load up Grandma in the cart. You take grandma to Jesus, and you don't think to pack. You don't make enough provisions. You don't say, "Boy, we got to bring everything we need for this journey." You don't know if you're coming back, when you're coming back, what have you. All you know is we've got to help Grandma, or we got to help me. Let's go. And so they went, but they went without provisions. They were racing through the countryside. Jesus, where? He's on the east side, west side, north side of Galilee. Where's he going? Let's go. They just left. And so what happens is Jesus is up there in verses one through nine. Jesus goes up on this mountainside, and the multitudes are ah, they're rabid, they're running towards him. They're rushing. They want these healings that he can provide. But immediately, everyone discerns the problem. The day is getting late and there's no food. The people, out of their desperation, have sought Christ's assistance, but they're hungry. There's no options. Again, most of us, we can't relate to the absence of food. We might be able to relate to not having the funds for food at times in our lives, but we probably can't relate to the lack of access to it. We live in an era where there's Taco Bells and Walmarts on every corner here. There was nothing, no Taco Bell, no Walmart here nearby, and Jesus knew that. And so he asked Philip a question. He's testing Philip. He asked Philip because Philip is from Bethsaida. It's like asking the local. If you know someone from Van Cleve, if you know someone from Bay St. Louis and you want to know about a restaurant, who do you ask? Well, you ask the person that you know from the area. He asked Philip. He says, "Hey, Philip, Philip, Philip, come here. You know the place. You tell me, where can we go to feed this amount?" Now, in all honesty, Jesus knew right out of the gate. Even Philip, everyone who heard that question knew there is no storefront there that had bread and fish for 20,000 just sitting on hand, right? There wasn't an immediate option. Everyone knew it. So why did Jesus ask?

He asked to test him. "What do you think, Philip? Where are we going to get this food, all these hungry people? Where can we go? What storefront in town? What mom and pop's place, the canvas tent, is going to have all the food that we need to feed all these people? What do you think, Philip?" Well, as we see in this text, Philip responded in verses seven and said, even if he had eight months of salary, even if there was such a store, he'd have eight months of salary in order to go purchase it. You could bring that back here. Even if it existed, and even if he had the funds to purchase it, two things that they didn't have at that moment, the store with all the food and the funds to purchase it. He says, "Even if we had that, we'd bring it back here, and it would be enough for a taste." It wouldn't be enough to nourish them. Even if we marshaled our forces to try to go figure this out, this was a problem. And remember, this is in four of the different Gospels. In multiple of these Gospels, what we read is that Jesus had compassion on the folks. He sees them, and he knows why they're chasing him, and he knows that they're chasing him, in many cases, to their detriment. Again, they don't have food. So he knows that they made some decisions trying to get his attention, trying to get in contact with him, and what's his reaction to that? Well, it's empathy. Jesus had compassion on folks. I'm going to make the point in a few moments here that you shouldn't want Jesus only for the things he can do for you. But it is okay to desire Jesus' aid. And a lot of folks, their first impulse to even seek out God is because something is hard in their life. Something is broken. Something is fractured. There's some loss, some detriment, something they don't have, some hurt, some illness, some sickness, grandma or themselves, and God uses that to bring them to him. Initially, all of us start on some level by wanting the things that God has more than wanting him. But you need to graduate. That can't always be the way it works. With that said, here, Jesus has compassion on these folks. He has compassion on those who are hungry. But again, he didn't have any immediate options, or at least visible options, for how to address the hunger. So he asked Philip, "What are we going to do?" Philip doesn't know. No one knows. Then Andrew says, "Ah, ah. There's this lad, this one lad, and he's got the five barley loaves." I don't even know what that would look like. Five barley loaves and two fish. Actually, I do know. Some commentators were talking about the barley loaves, and they said, "This isn't like a giant loaf of bread." When we think of loaves, we think of Wonderbread, or I hope you don't think of that, but you think of something a good size. You think of something larger. This was more small. A barley loaf in this context, think of a Twinkie made of barley. That's what he had, five barley Twinkies. And when you think of fish, it's not like he has this giant filet. Hey, look at the two fish I've got here. This kid isn't walking around with five loaves of bread and two big fish. He had five cupcakes, five Twinkies made of barley, and he had two fish, and the fish were not huge, huge cuts of the salmon, the catfish, what have you. They were probably sardines or the equivalent thereof. So when you're thinking about what God multiplied, what he used, what did a small lad have? Again, he didn't have all this stuff. He had five Twinkies, so to speak, and two sardines. That's the equivalent of what was brought to Jesus at this time. Now, everyone had to look at that and go, "Oh, dear heavens. That wouldn't even tide any one of us grown men over until the next meal." And so they wonder, and they're questioning and talking and so forth. Well, Jesus wanted them to wonder and question and talk, and at some level, you would hope maybe one of these guys is going to go, "Hey, Jesus, didn't you do that thing with the wine? We had the water to start with, and then you made all the wine. Could you do that again? Only this time, instead of transformation, try multiplication."Right? Can you do that? You have a knack to do things that are miraculous, and you have done things with consumables. You created wine where there previously was no wine. Can you do it with the loaves and the fish? Can you multiply this? Can you make some provision? What can you do for us, oh, Jesus? Now, that would've been the right school of thought to have is to look at the recent history and say, "Look at what this guy is capable of. Look at what he has done. Look at the people who are now walking and dancing and carrying their beds aloft because God healed them. This guy came in, he said a word, 'Take up your bed and walk,' and so they walked. Maybe, just maybe, that guy is capable of feeding the lot of us. Maybe.

Even if we don't know how he's going to do it." How often is that the approach we should have with God? Maybe, just maybe, the creator of the universe has the means to solve the problem that you have, even if you don't know how he's going to do it. But so often we get practical, right? We say, "Ah, bah, yes, he could do anything, but he probably won't do it for me. Yes, he could do anything, but I don't know, this circumstance, we're probably just going to have to find our own way through it." If it was true of the disciples, if they did that here, and they did it over and over again throughout Christ's ministry, it can certainly be true of us.

We should think higher. We should expand our ideas of what he's capable of and recognize that God is the God of the miraculous. Now, he oftentimes ordains outcomes that we don't like, that are for his glory and for our benefit. But it's not to say he's incapable or unwilling to listen to our prayers and be responsive to our needs. Dear heavens, the fact you have breath in your lungs right now is proof that God is responsive to your needs. Maybe not every want you've ever had, but the fact there's breath in your lungs right now suggests he's done something to get you from there to here. Is it not possible that he has the means to do that tomorrow with whatever scary thing's on your radar? Whatever scary thing might be on your horizon this upcoming year, whatever diagnosis you don't want, is it not possible that the God who can take five cupcakes and some sardines and feed 5,000 can do something miraculous for you and I? Is it not possible? Of course it is. But sometimes he'll put us in that position like he did with Philip and Andrew and all the lot of them to test our faith and to say, "Hey, you all nod your head to this stuff in church. Do you believe it when the doctor calls? Do you believe it when some hardship or scary thing happens in your business, in your relationship, in your finances or what have you? Do you believe it?" God will test your faith because the test of the means are refining your faith, and that's okay. Well, that's what we see right here. However, again, even his own disciples didn't know better at the moment. They were like-- You remember Elisha in 2 Kings 6? Elisha's being pursued. Everyone hated him because everyone hated all the prophets. That was the lot in life for a prophet. And Elisha has the Syrians, I think, are against him at this point. 2 Kings 6. They know, the Syrians discover where Elisha is. He's in a place called Dothan, and so they say, "Well, we're going to come get you. We're going to come after you." And so one morning there, Elisha's got his servant, and they wake up, and Elisha's servant gets his newspaper, goes out and looks, and he sees a Syrian army out and camped around them. And he runs, and he says, "Elisha, Elisha, my master, we're done for. Elisha, my master, I have surveyed our reality. I have surveyed our circumstances, and the conclusion I've drawn is that based on the circumstances around us, we're doomed. Based on what I see and my assessment of these things, we have no hope. There's a lot of them, and there's two of us." And Elisha says the equivalent of this, "Young fella, come here.

Let me tell you something. Those that are with us are actually more than those who are with them. You think there's two of us? Dear heavens, my boy, there's a lot more than two." And so he prays at that moment. He prays that his servant could see what he himself saw through eyes of faith. He says, "Oh, God, let him see there's a lot more than two here." And so God responds to that prayer, which is kind of a bold prayer, to be honest. But God answers the prayer. The servant's eyes are opened, and he's able to see what? What does he see on the hills all around them? What does he see? Chariots. He sees chariots of fire. Chariots of fire have played a lot in Elijah and Elisha's ministry. But he sees chariots of fire. He sees the hosts of heavens. He sees a multitude that are arrayed. It's not just two against a Syrian army. It's a Syrian army against the kingdom of God. Guess who's going to win? That's what gave Elisha confidence in that moment. With that said, the amount of times God will put Elisha's servant or Philip or Andrew or you or I in positions to wonder what he's going to do next or what he's capable of doing next, he'll do that all the time. Now, the outcome, again, to be clear, the outcome is predetermined according to his sovereign will, and it might not be what you want. But never for a moment think that he's incapable or unwilling of answering even the most bold prayers you could offer. What are we going to do, guys? There's a lot of hungry people. They don't have the answer, but he does. Let's look at verses 10 through 13. Verse 10, "Then Jesus said, 'Make the people sit down.' Now there's much grass in this place, so the men sat down, in number about 5,000. And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those who were sitting down, and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, he said to his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments that remain.'" After they were filled, after they'd eaten, "Gather up the fragments. There's a lot left, isn't there? Gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost." Verse 13, "Therefore they gathered them up, and they filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten." All right. I want you to notice something that you may or may not have seen in this text before. In verse 11, we read this. Verse 11 said that Jesus took the loaves. He took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to his disciples. Now, where have you encountered that phraseology before, that Jesus took the loaves, after he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples? Where have you encountered that phraseology before? In the Lord's Supper. It's virtually the same pattern, and I think it's intentional, of exactly what happens at Communion, at the Lord's Supper, at the Last SupperHe would take the loaves after giving thanks, he would break the bread, and he would distribute it to his disciples. Well, he does the same thing here, only he does it to thousands upon thousands upon thousands. You see, the miracle of John 6, one of the takeaways, and we'll expand on this next week, but the miracle here in John 6, one of the things you're supposed to see is that this is a prototype or a foreshadowing of communion. What you see with manna way back in the Old Testament, there's a number of iterations by which manna ultimately points to the body, the person, work of Jesus Christ. This is another example on that road. There's a daisy chain of events that involve nourishment and bread specifically that all point to the bread of life. So we see it even here in the way it's phrased about what Jesus did and the order in which he did it. Just like the bread on the mountainside, Jesus came to provide nourishment for his people. Just like the bread on the mountainside, Jesus came to bring life abundantly. Notice it was overflowing baskets, even after they were filled. Even if they couldn't eat another bite, there was still more than they could possibly need. But unlike the bread on the mountainside, that they ate that moment, and then guess what? The next day, they went to go follow him again to chase down more bread. Unlike the type of bread they ate on the mountainside that they would want from him the very next day again. Unlike that kind of bread. Unlike Twinkies and barley and Wonder Bread and all the like. Unlike that bread, Jesus says, "I provide nourishment that lasts forever." It's the exact same thing he told to the Samaritan woman at the well. "You're thirsty. You're going to be thirsty tomorrow. I came to bring a source of life, a source of water, bubbling up in everlasting life. Let those who are thirsty come to me. Let those who are hungry come to me." There's a consistency to this narrative. Those who think the Bible's made up, dear heavens, there's a consistency to every detail. The phraseology in specific verses, the way in which Jesus did things, the unfolding of his plan of redemption. It all paints the same consistent message time and time and time and time again, going all the way back to manna, ultimately through here, the bread on the hillside to the breaking of bread at the Lord's table. All of this is a consistent message from one end to another. All right, let's look at our last verses, verses 14 and 15. "Then these men, when they had seen the signs that Jesus said, they said, 'Truly, this is the prophet who is to come into the world.' Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king," that's interesting, "he departed again to the mountain by himself alone." All right. People ate. They ate to their full, and they said among themselves, "We've never seen anyone like this. We're suffering under Rome down there in Jerusalem. In fact, we're suffering from cancers and illnesses and diseases and hardships, and there's a guy who just speaks a word and can feed the whole nation. If he can feed 20,000, certainly he can feed everybody. Maybe this is the one that Moses was talking about, the prophet in Deuteronomy. Maybe this is the one. Whoever this is, we know he can meet our needs. Don't let him get away." Right? "Don't let that guy get away." Because at other times, he would heal, right? We saw this last week with the healing of the guy for 38 years, he'd been lame and sick. Jesus heals him, and then he disappears into the crowd. So they go, "Where is he?" Right? Well, they're not going to let this happen. They say, "We're going to grab hold of him and we're going to make him by force. We're going to make him our king because we want the sort of things that he can do for us. If he could feed us, he could feed our whole nation. He can feed every enemy or obstacle that we ever might face." But then in verse 15, therefore, when Jesus perceived what was about to happen, whether this was divine perception or whether this is merely he just took one look at the crowd and what they were doing, whatever the case is, when he perceived that they were about to come and take him by force, he departed again to the mountain by himself alone. All right, so we have a sign and that which it signifies. The people were caught up in the sign itself, but they didn't necessarily want the destination that Jesus had used the sign to point them to. This morning when you drove to church, depending on which way you got here, there may have been signs, maybe one direction to Mobile, maybe one direction to New Orleans, right? There may have been different signs. Are you in Mobile or New Orleans this morning? No. There were signs that pointed the way. There were signs that told you what's there and what's here and so forth. However, you pursued that which you were most inclined to do, not necessarily that which the signs pointed you to. Well, that's a problem Jesus would find again and again and again. There's a story of a guy. This is in London. It's 100, 150 years ago. Guy very renowned for his pastries and his baking and the like. And what happened was that he had just the greatest pastries. He could bake, I don't know, the cookies or whatever they had, beignets. Whatever they had, whatever amazing stuff they had, he could cook it up. And one month, for 30 days, he went and he offered it all for free. He rolled up his cart down the streets there of London, and he offered free until it ran dry, free everything that he had. And what he found was that people would line up. They'd line up early. Once they knew what was going on, they would line up. They'd be around the block, down the block. No matter how much inventory he brought, it all got taken away. People were very into the free version of this wonderful stuff. And sometimes they'd talk and chit-chat with him, and he liked that. That was good. The encounters, they would say, "Oh, thank you. This is wonderful. So tasty. I love it. I'm going to give some to the neighbors and so forth. I'll tell them you're here." And he'd just nod and smile and so forth. Good interactions. But then, at the end of the month, what happens? Well, at the start of the next month, he gets up in the morning, he does the usual routine, only this time he doesn't bake anything. He just goes and stands on the corner. Now, initially, everyone comes up and greets him there, but he doesn't have anything for them. And what happens is as soon as they realize that he doesn't have anything for them, they disperse. The next day, he tries it again, and still, folks are hoping maybe this is the day. Maybe he just didn't have anything yesterday, but maybe today. And they go and say, "Wait a second. Again? Again, he doesn't have anything? Oh, I don't have time for this." And they disperse. And by the end of another 30 days, the second month, it was just a handful of folks who bothered to come and visit him in the corner, who enjoyed the interactions that they'd had with him in times past and wanted that to be the reason why they sought him out rather than that which he offeredThe vast majority though, they were there for the free goodies. In John 6,

the people wanted Jesus the baker,

not Jesus the bread.

In John 6, the people wanted the guy who could feed their rumbly tummies. They wanted that guy, but they did not want Him Himself. They wanted the baker. They did not want the bread. And He knew it. He knew it. He knew it because it happened all the time. Remember the story of the 10 lepers He heals? He goes to this village. 10 lepers meet Him on the outside. They cried, and they screamed, and they want Him, "Come over here! Come over here! Come over here!" He comes over there. He heals them. They depart. They go to depart to show people what has happened. What happened thereafter? Well, we see that one guy, one guy, one of the 10, 10% returns. 10%, one guy returns to Jesus to give Him glory, and Jesus asked that guy,

"Where are the other nine?" He knew the answer. They wanted the baker, not the bread. The amount of people in the history of Christendom, including modern Christendom, who want the baker and not the bread is probably a majority. There's a whole host of individuals in modern Christendom, a whole host of denominations that want the baker and not necessarily the bread, who want the miracles, the prosperity, the things. Why do you think televangelists make a living? Why do you think they're on at 2:00 in the morning hawking prayer cloths that they themselves have touched, that if you touch it, too, you'll be healed? Why does anyone send their money? Why are these people in business? Why are they dominant on the airwaves? At least they used to be in the middle of the night. Because that's the sort of God so many want. The God who can fix their problems, who can solve their problem, who can pump up the car tires, who can fix their cancer, their illness, their relationships, their finances, what have you, who can do all that sort of stuff. But the moment He's standing on the street corner saying, "Here I am. Do you want me?" Not so much. And it was the sad narrative time and time and time again. And if you don't think that's true, then you will never understand why they cheered the triumphal entry when they cheered Him when they were coming in because they had an expectation of who He would be and what He would do for them. And when He didn't do it and when He didn't live up to their claims, when He was identified as the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, they shouted, "Crucify Him. Crucify Him." The people radically misunderstood who He was. The question is, do you?

Do you? Is Jesus the baker? Is Jesus the bread?

Is it a transaction that you want with God? I'll do this. I'll come to church. I'll tithe. I'll be in community groups or Sunday school, what have you. But on some level, you're doing it because you expect Him to honor His side of the deal because you want something from Him. Is it transactional? I'm telling you, for a whole lot of folks, it's exactly the case. And if you doubt it, you won't know what to make of Matthew 7. Matthew 7 says, "Many will come to me on that day and say, 'Hey, didn't I do this? Didn't I do that? Didn't I was in church? Didn't I do all these different things for you?'" And He'll say the hardest words in all of scripture. He'll say, "Depart from me.

I never knew you. You wanted the stuff I had to offer. You wanted the pastries and the crumpets and the beignets and all that stuff. But meanwhile, I was standing here when it was just me. Where were you? Depart from me. I never knew you. I never had that relationship with you. You had a relationship with the things you thought I could do for you. But you and I, we never connected.

Depart from me. I never knew you."

There were so many, so many, the majority, you would say, in the time that He was alive who rejected Him for who He was, but wanted what He could do for them. Don't think it's that different on the globe today. Don't think we're somehow more biblically enlightened. In fact, you could argue that we're not. Across the globe today, there are vast quantities of individuals who want the baker and not the bread. But like I said before, and as I close this morning, the question is, do you? Do you want Him? Do you want Him? Is He the object why you came in? Why did you come in this morning? There might be a lot of motivations, but principally, why?

I'll give you this thought as I wrap up. Have you ever heard those stories where you have a couple who's been married 50 plus years, some lengthy amount of time, and then one spouse dies?

And then you read the story of what happens to the heartbroken spouse who remains. And in many cases, especially some of the more sensationalized stories, but in many cases, what you read is that the second spouse couldn't go on and passed shortly thereafter. Now, what do we draw from that sort of relationship? Well, we come to this conclusion that when the one spouse departed, when the one spouse passed, that they were that important to the spouse who remained, that their passing carved out a hole in their heart and in their life, and the other one couldn't continue. Their very life, on some level, was dependent on being nourished by the one that they loved. With that said, you know on some level what it means that if someone in your life was taken from you, the hole that would open up. If you've experienced that, then just imagine that the dynamic existed between you and God. Imagine that if God was taken from your life or that He stepped out of your life or that Jesus was no part of your life. Imagine if that were to happen. Would you feel the void if Jesus was not there for you and you were not there for Him? If that relationship did not abide, did not continue, wasn't sustained, you received no nourishment from a spiritual source, would you wake up tomorrow with the same vigor and enthusiasm as you did today?

If the answer's no, I think I'd rather be alone in a jail cell or down in a well, but have Jesus than to live in a mansion without Him. If you can get to that point in your thinking, then you're in a far more healthy place. For many, they can't. They say, "I'd take the mansion and all that other stuff, and if Jesus is part of that, if there's Jesus seasoning on the things I want in my life, that I'm okay with. But you put me in a hole, you put me in a well, you put me in a circumstance where it's either Him or that stuff, I'll take that stuff." But for you and I as Christians, we need Him. If you live long enough, I say this multiple times because I've seen it happen multiple times. If you live long enough, you'll be in a bed. If God doesn't take you home first or He doesn't come back first, if you live long enough, you'll be in a bed. Almost everything will be taken from you, your mobility, so many of your relationships, maybe even your memory. At some point, all you'll have is Jesus. Will that be enough? Is He enough? Let's pray.

[gentle instrumental music] To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us at fpcgolfport.org, or you can look us up at sermonaudio.com. [music fades]