many things Jesus taught after he fed over 5000 men and women by the Sea of Galilee aren t

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1 John 6:1-21 Miracles and Mercenary Faith Pentecost 10A July 28 th /29 th, 2018 Grace and peace to you all from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Last week in Mark 6:34 we heard these words:...[jesus] had compassion on [the great crowd] because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. The many things Jesus taught after he fed over 5000 men and women by the Sea of Galilee aren t recorded in Mark s gospel, but they are recorded in John s gospel. We ll look more at what Jesus taught in the weeks ahead. The focus for today you can see from the sermon title in the bulletin, Miracles and Mercenary Faith. This title came to me because of two reasons: (1) We see a couple of miracles in this week s reading: Jesus has compassion and feeds 5000 people with a young boy s bag lunch and soon after this, we hear about Jesus walking on water in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. And (2) the notion of a mercenary faith came to me through one of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis, in a sermon he wrote called The Weight of Glory. A mercenary, you all know, is someone who does something just for their own self-interests. A soldier who fights not to make the world a better place, but fights because he gets a good paycheck would be a mercenary soldier. A husband who cares for their wife only because they cook, clean, and make them happy in bed but doesn t actually care to talk to their wife, acknowledge their wife, take their wife on dates, and treat her like his queen would be mercenary husband he only cares about what he gets out of the relationship. So someone with a mercenary faith is someone who doesn t really care about God very much, doesn t really care about Jesus very much, doesn t care about the Church very much because they are only interested in what God and the church can do or provide for them. We see mercenary faith at work in the crowd Jesus just miraculously fed. They only care about Jesus because he can fill their bellies and because of this they want to make him king. They don t really care about who Jesus is, but only what Jesus can do for them mercenary faith. The crowd likes bread, but soon they ll abandon the one who gave it to them. 1

2 So today we re looking at Miracles and Mercenary Faith. First let s look at these two miracles. Jesus feeds over 5000 people with 5 loaves of barley and two little fish. Jesus also walks on water in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. These miracles are important not just because they happened but because these miracles witness to the power of Jesus, the power of God. Miracles happen because God makes them happen and only God can make them happen. They don t happen very often. If we start with Moses, who we can reliably date to the 1500 s BC (though a number of miracles happened before Moses), the Old Testament records about 60 miracles (counting the 10 plagues of Egypt as one) happening over a time span of 1000 years. That is 1 miracle ever 17 years. Actually, what we see in Scripture are flurries of miracles indicating another decisive step God is taking in redemptive history followed by decades, centuries of no miracles at all. We see this with Jesus. The gospels record around 40 miracles Jesus performed during 3 years of ministry (that s 1 every 28 days or so). So if you believe the Bible is true and reliable you believe in miracles. And to have true faith in Christ is to believe that miracles can and do happen too. Jesus birth that was a miracle a virgin conceiving human life in her womb by the supernatural power of God. The most important miracle is the resurrection of Jesus on Easter. Either it happened or it didn t. If it didn t happen, as Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15: your faith is in vain. We are...misrepresenting God...your faith is futile and you are still in your sins...those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished...we are of all people most to be pitied. So we must believe in miracles and the miraculous. We must believe in God s supernatural power. Miracles happened in this world, in human history. Feeding 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and basically, 2 sardines that s a miracle. Walking on water in the middle of the Sea of Galilee where it is about 140 feet deep that s a miracle. How exactly did those two miracles happen? I don t know; if I could explain it, it wouldn t be a miracle. But there 2

3 it is. Miracles happen. God s displays on occasion, not very often, his supernatural power. But why? Why does the Lord perform miracles from time to time? To give us a foretaste of heaven. Miracles happen so that we can get a foretaste of the kingdom to come, a foretaste of heaven. But there s something else to note too: Someone can be a recipient of a miracle like the 10 lepers that were healed by Jesus (Luke 17:11-19 ) and the 5000 people who were fed and yet be lost, damned forever because if that miracle does not lead them to saving faith in Christ, but leads them to having a mercenary faith, then that person has just wasted a foretaste of heaven. It s like giving someone a huge chunk of gold or diamond and they use it as a paperweight. Someone with a mercenary faith will never be content with the gifts of God whether they are ordinary, like bread and fish, or extraordinary, like seeing someone walk on water. For someone with a mercenary faith, God s gifts are never enough. The church isn t enough. Christ is never enough. His atoning sacrifice on the cross for our redemption isn t enough. His glorious resurrection which conquered the powers of death and hell aren t enough. The promise and fact that Jesus is right now at the right hand of the Father interceding for the people he bought with his blood, is not enough. To someone with a mercenary faith, enough will never be enough. Not only will they use something of enormous value, like the Bible, as a paperweight, but they will view God as someone who must do what I say and when I say and if God doesn t, then I ll stamp my feet, walk out on the Lord, walk out on his people, walk out on the source of eternal life. Miracles can prevent someone from having a mercenary faith and awaken a true longing for God and his eternal kingdom, for heaven, but miracles can also make someone expect them again and again. This is why the Lord doesn t perform miracles very often. Only when most necessary, only when actions will speak louder than words. But, and here s one of the offensive 3

4 things about John s gospel, what does Jesus do nearly every, time he performs a miracle? He teaches, he preaches, he speaks more and more about himself because that s what miracles are supposed to do, to drive us to Jesus, to drive us to saving faith in the Savior, to drive us away from mercenary faith a faith of our own imagination and design to having saving faith in who God truly is, saving faith in Jesus, faith that is line with the Scriptures. On one hand, it d be so nice to witness a miraculous healing, a miraculous feeding of 5000, a miraculous scene of Jesus walking on water. Who wouldn t love to see a loved one recover from stage 4 cancer, from Alzheimer s or dementia, from anything that ails our minds and bodies. And thanks be to God if or when those things happen, because they do indeed happen, but not often. The disciples witnessed them. Hundreds and thousands of people witnessed Jesus miracles and were on the receiving end of Jesus miracles. But not everyone believed in Jesus because of it. Not everyone loved Jesus after his miracles. Not everyone followed Jesus even though he displayed his divine, miraculous power from time to time during his earthly ministry. Not everyone made it a point to know more, understand better, and truly appreciate the Savior of the world. Some people, those with a mercenary faith only cared about Jesus because of what he can do to fill bellies, but other people, those who realize or who have begun to realize that there is much more to this life than meets the eye, because they know the depth of their sin and how lost they are, because they hope and yearn and crave and long for and desire a better world, God s kingdom, heaven those are the people who have saving faith, not a mercenary faith, but a truly saving faith in Christ, the Savior of the world. Mercenary faith can eventually lead into a true, saving faith but that is a topic we just don t have time for, something for another day. 4

5 For now may God help you to know the power and truth of miracles and the miraculous. But even more, may God direct your attention to the performer of those miracles Jesus, so that you would know more about who Jesus is, what Jesus says, what Jesus has done, and what Jesus will do on the final day, for you and for your salvation. You have the Scriptures which witness to the truth and power of Jesus and his words. You have the gift of God s own Spirit at work in a through you so you can understand, appreciate, and dwell on the eternal things of God, things that truly matter. Because when you do, that s a sign you ve a saving faith and not merely a mercenary faith. Amen. HOD: LBW # 409 Praise and Thanksgiving 5