John 6- Sovereignty

John 6

One could write books and books on all of the treasures found in John, chapter six.  It opens with Jesus feeding the five thousand, next scene is Jesus walking on water, and it ends with Christ’s riveting teaching on the bread of life which leads to the turning away of many of his disciples.  This chapter of John continuously echoes the sovereignty of God.

Sovereignty is something that many struggle with and has recently become a ‘hot topic’ in the church today.  The truth of it is this word makes people uncomfortable because we try to fit infinite, omniscient God into a pretty little box with a bow on it.  Make no mistake, He cannot be contained.  

In the portion of scripture where Jesus feeds the five thousand, Jesus asked Philip “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”  Verse 6 says “He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.”  I love this scene!  I am so thankful that our King has a sense of humor.  Just like Jesus knew how he was going to feed five thousand men, he also knew that Philip was going to look at him like he was crazy when he asked him this question.  I’m sure Jesus got a little chuckle and had somewhat of a winking “watch this” look about him when he then told his disciples to have the people sit down.   You see, it did not catch Jesus by surprise when he had five thousand extra mouths to feed that day.  After all, he was the same God who rained manna from heaven all those years before.  He is the same God who had provided food for those folks every other day of their lives.  Just as this did not catch Christ by surprise, nor do any of the trials that we face.  They may catch us by surprise, but God knows every single hiccup or catastrophe that we have faced and will face.  The book of Job shows us that as His children, all of those attacks have to go through him first and beloved, know that if He allows it, you better believe He will show himself faithful to carry you through it for His glory!

After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus withdrew to the mountain by himself.  It says that evening, his disciples got into a boat and started across the sea to Capernaum.  Now, reading this I thought ‘’Why did his disciples leave him? That wasn’t very nice!  These are supposed to be his ‘boys’’’ In Matthews account it says that Jesus made the disciples go before him in the boat (Matt 14:22).  Okay, this made more sense to me now.  Once again, He had this planned all along.  Later that night Jesus comes walking up to them on the water to show He is in fact God’s Son.  I can just imagine those disciple’s faces.  In all the time they had spent in a boat, never had they had something like this happen!  I love how every single detail and instance of the miracles in Jesus’ ministry were planned before time.  The sovereignty of God is so cool yet so overwhelming to try to grasp.

The next portion of scripture we see Jesus teaching the crowds that He is the Bread of Life. Jesus speaks of the sovereignty of God when He says “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst…. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” 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”.  And again when He says “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”.  Verse 64 says “There are some of you who do not believe. (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)  And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’”  The truth is that we cannot even desire God on our own.  That desire, that draw alone comes from the Father because He knows those who are His before the creation of the world.  We cannot boast in anything but Christ alone.  This makes many uncomfortable when you look at the flip side of this truth and think ‘Why did God make those who are not his?’ you can also ask the question ‘Why did God create Judas?’  Judas still had a purpose, but Judas didn’t belong to God.   We cannot try to understand the mind of God with the mind of man and when we seek to do so is when we get in trouble.  We should seek after His heart and seek to be transformed into His hearts likeness but we have to understand that God will never fit into our box.  He is omniscient and loving, gracious and merciful, He is God alone. Amen.