Greg Robinson - Now We Believe- John’s Guide to Growing Our Faith - Class 5 - The Work of God

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Deep love for God’s people in spite of their rebellion and their hard heartedness. He definitely had the spirit of Christ. Here’s one that you might not remember. Who this is Jehoshaphat. She’s the one that took Joash, the King’s son, and hid him from Athaliah. That was when Athaliah was trying to kill all the heirs. And the comments from the sister was it doesn’t matter who you are, great or small, you can quietly do the right thing and have an important place in God’s great design. That that was a a really cool, cool one had Daniel, he prayed even though the law prohibited it. That was his faith.

2. 0:43

   David, when Shimiai threw the rocks at him, it showed the incredible grace that David showed Jonah, his reluctance to do what needed to be done when God told him to do it, and God’s grace in working with him. And then Mark’s record of when Jesus cleanse the temple. Jesus went to the temple and inspected it, and then he went back the next day, we’re told, and turned over the tables of the money changers.

3. 1:14

   Sometimes we need to think about our actions for a while before we act. If we have an e-mail or a plan to have a conversation with someone that might be a hard conversation, it’s a good idea sometimes to write it down, to look at it the next day before we actually make those comments.

4. 1:30

   So those are the ones that I received. Thank you for for all of those this week. I still am accepting more even though we won’t have a time to share those, but love to hear those as well. So just a quick recap of yesterday’s class, the lessons we learned. Real belief motivates us to make changes in our lives. Belief based on man made rituals and traditions is weak and hesitant to combat sin.

5. 1:55

   Worship based on faith is life changing and filled with passion. And then the last one, the word of God has the power to show us what we’re really like and to inspire change in US. And that brings us to to our our final class. And the title for today is the work of God. So we’ve been looking this week about, about the fact that John wrote in his gospel in order to show people, in order to help people to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing that they might have life in his, in Christ’s name.

6. 2:35

   So the course of this work, the work that he was doing was actually the work that was being done by the Lord Jesus Christ. So John goes and writes these things down. That was John’s work to help people believe Jesus was doing these things to help people believe. That was the work that Jesus was doing.

7. 2:56

   And then in John chapter 6, we see that not only was it the work of of Jesus in doing these things, but that it was also the work of God. So in John 6:00 we we come to the feeding of the 5000, we come to Jesus walking on the water. And then some of the people that had eaten with the 5000, they came to Jesus and they asked him what must we do to be doing the works of God? And then in verse 29 Jesus answered them, This is the work of God that you believe in whom he has sent. And so Jesus was telling them that the work of helping to people believe was not only his work, but it was the work of God himself.

8. 3:49

   It was the lurk, the work that God was looking for people to do as well. So we’re going to look at that this morning. We’re going to look at this idea of people coming to believe, and we’re going to look at God’s role in that. So John 6 begins with Jesus being very very popular with thousands and thousands of people following him. But by the time we get to the end of chapter 699% of them, probably more have stopped following Jesus and the chapter ends with most of Jesus disciples leaving him and he is alone with the 12.

9. 4:32

   Now John six bridges 2 important segments in Christ’s ministry. It forms like a transition chapter between Jesus ministry in Galilee and the specialized training of the disciples. And I think you could see that with with him going from many, many people following him at the beginning of the chapter to just the 12. And Jesus at that point is going to begin to focus on specialized training for them.

10. 4:58

    And chapter 6 kind of is this crossover chapter where Jesus moves from the one to the other. And I think that makes total sense. And we have two iconic, iconic miracles. We have the feeding of the 5000, which one of is one of the few events found in all four of the Gospels that gives us a bit of an idea of its importance.

11. 5:20

    And then we have Jesus walking on the water, a miracle that I think almost everybody knows, whether you know the Bible at all, you have heard of Jesus walking on the water. And so we have these two miracles that are so well known and they come right back-to-back in John Chapter 6. And I’ll tell you at 1st, when I, when I started to fit these two, started to try to fit these two events together, I really struggled to, to find the continuity between the two of them. Each miracle seemed to have its own lesson. And more than that, I think each miracle seems to have multiple lessons in it.

12. 6:01

    And the lessons didn’t seem to really connect for me for for really a long time as I was as I was studying this. And I would go over it and I would go over it and go over it. But then I found a divine comment about this in Mark chapter 6 that I think really helps us to bring the 2 events together. And the event comes after the feeding of the 5000. It’s actually a comment that’s made just after Jesus came walking on the water and then he gets into the boat with the disciples.

13. 6:32

    So if you’ll open your Bibles to Mark chapter 6, we’re going to look that, look at that. We’re going to look at what happens here. We’re also going to look at Mark chapter 8. So in Mark chapter 6, and we’re going to look at verse 50, it says for they all saw, they saw him. They saw Jesus walking on the water. So this is the disciples, they’re in the boat. They saw Jesus walking on the water and they were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and he said, take heart. It is.

14. 7:04

    I do not be afraid. The disciples were terrified when they saw Jesus walking on the water because they didn’t know what they were seeing. And when they realized that it was Jesus, we’re told that they wondered what kind of man was this, that that could do this, that that had control of nature like like Jesus did. And then it says in verse 51.

15. 7:26

    And Jesus got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded. They were utterly astounded that Jesus could control the wind and the sea. And then Mark says, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. So Mark’s telling us that the disciples did not understand the lesson of the feeding of the 5000. And he’s telling us that if they had understood the, the, the, the lesson of the feeding of the 5000, they would not have been so terrified or utterly astounded that Jesus was able to walk on the water.

16. 8:05

    And then John adds, and this is back in John chapter 6, verse 20. John tells us that they were immediately at their destination. So Jesus gets into the boat and they’re immediately at their destination. Now they’ve been rowing and rowing and rowing and getting nowhere. Jesus gets into the boat and they’re immediately at their destination. I could picture them getting out of the boat when they they land at Ganeserit and I, they’re just bewildered at what has just happened.

17. 8:36

    Their heads must have been spinning. And Mark tells us that they were utterly astounded because they haven’t learned the lesson of the feeding of the 5000. But that’s not the end of it. As we said, come over to Mark chapter 8. The disciples are still struggling with this same lesson and there has been a lot that happens. Jesus goes up and, and does a miracle with a Sierra Phoenician woman.

18. 9:00

    They, they have the feeding of the 4000 and then they come back. But there’s, there’s, there’s much that happens here. You remember the time that Jesus and the disciples are in the boat and the disciples have forgotten to bring bread on the trip across the Sea of Galilee. And the disciples are really concerned about forgetting the bread. And Jesus sits them down and he, he, he doesn’t care that they’ve forgotten the bread.

19. 9:25

    That’s not on his mind at all. He sits them down and he wants to teach them. He wants to, to share with them an important lesson. And he says to them, watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And then in Mark 8, verse 16, the disciples began discussing with each other the fact that they had no bread.

20. 9:49

    And then in in Mark 8, verse 17, it says, and Jesus aware of this said to them, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? He says, that’s not what I’m talking about. That’s not what we’re here to discuss. Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?

21. 10:11

    It’s the same comments as as as back in chapter 6, isn’t it with with the feeding of the 5000 and the and The Walking on the water. Jesus is saying why aren’t you getting this? Verse 18 he says having eyes, do you not see, having ears, do you not hear and do you not remember Jesus is is actually quoting from Isaiah 6 here about how Israel would have such a hard time in understanding verse 19.

22. 10:37

    He says when I broke the five loaves for the 5000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said 12 and the seven for the 4000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said seven. And Jesus finishes with, do you not yet understand? Do you still not understand the message of the loaves? Now I have to say that when I got this far, I still didn’t understand either thinking about the disciples that I felt like I’m in the same, the same position as the disciples. So what was the lesson then of the feeding of the 5000 that was then given again in the feeding of the 4000? And what was the meaning of Jesus walking on the sea? We have Jesus sitting down wanting to talk to the disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees, an important lesson for them.

23. 11:34

    But all the disciples can think about is that the fact that they’ve forgotten to bring bread. Now what’s that like? So just to give you an idea of what that must have been like for Jesus, let me give you a scenario that’s maybe a, a more up to So the, the, the, the boss at Apple, he called a meeting of his senior staff about a, a strategic challenge that the company was facing.

24. 12:05

    Maybe Apple has just discovered that it might be important for them to put AI in some of their, their devices and some of their technology or something like that. But Tim Cook gathers his, his, his staff together, his senior staff, and he brings them into the boardroom and he puts the slides up and he starts to talk to them.

25. 12:23

    And all his staff can think about is what all they can think about is what they’re going to eat for lunch. That’s all they’re talking about is what they’re going to eat for lunch. So they have no interest really in what their boss is is saying to them. That’s the disciples. That’s what the disciples were doing here. You know, if I think if you think about that happening at Apple, there would be some new senior staff at Apple in a very short order, right?

26. 12:52

    Well, Jesus wants to talk to the Pharisees. He wants to talk to the talk to the disciples about the Pharisees and about Herod and all the disciples can think about is that they forgot to bring bread. So why does Jesus then keep taking them back to the lesson of the feeding of the 5000? Let’s go back to John 6 then and let’s see if we can figure this out.

27. 13:15

    And I think the context of John six really, really helps us to begin to understand. So Jesus had sent out, just before this, he had sent out the 12 disciples to perform miracles and to teach, and they returned to him. Now you, you remember him sending out the 12 and then later sending out the 70. So that’s what we’re talking about. He sends out the 12 disciples and they come back. And Luke tells us that Jesus took the 12 after they had come back and they went aside privately into a desert place belonging to a city called Bethsaida. And it seems like they’ve gotten together. Then Jesus has called them together to talk about the work he’s about to begin, the specialized training of the disciples.

28. 13:58

    So he brings them together, they’re going to talk about that, that work that they’ve come back from doing, and he’s going to talk about what they’re going to be doing next. But there was another big issue that had just come up, and that was the death of John the Baptist. Now, that would have been just just an incredibly difficult thing for Jesus and a really difficult thing for the disciples. The the leader of the team that was doing the same work that the disciples were doing had just been killed by Herod. How could that have happened?

29. 14:33

    Had God deserted John? Were they going to be next? So we can imagine Jesus hoping to spend time with the disciples to reassure them about the work that they’re doing, to reassure them that Herod wasn’t going to come after them and to remind them of the importance of the work that they were doing, To remind them that it was God that they were working for and that it was God’s work that they were doing.

30. 15:09

    Now we remember what happened next, don’t we? So Jesus sat down with the disciples. He’s, he’s about to, to begin reassuring them about these things. And soon there was a large crowd of people that were coming to to Jesus. And Jesus stops the conversation. He has compassion on the people because there’s this huge opportunity that he has to speak to the people about the Kingdom of God and to heal their sick. And so that reassurance about the importance of their work was going to have to wait, wasn’t it? Or was it When the day began to wear away, the disciples came to Jesus and they said we need to send people away so that they can buy food for the people.

31. 16:01

    John 6, verse 6 tells us that Jesus asked Philip where should we buy food so that these people can eat. And verse 6 also tells us that Jesus had asked this. He’d asked this to test Philip, for he himself knew what he would do. So Jesus already knew that he was going to ask God to help him by multiplying the bread.

32. 16:30

    He already knew what he was going to do here. He already knew that he was going to show the disciples that they were not on their own in the work that they were doing. And of course, in verse 7, Philip says to Jesus, 200 denarii worth of food would not be enough for each of them to get a little. Philip says this is a much, much bigger problem than we can handle.

33. 16:55

    And then Andrew says, there’s a boy here with five loaves and two fish, but that’s not really going to help us solve the problem. And Jesus is thinking, that’s what I thought you guys would say. OK, watch this first verse 10. Jesus says have the people sit down and there just happens to be this grassy area that’s big enough for 5000 men plus plus their their families to sit down, huge grassy area. When they sat down, they find out that there are 5000 men plus women and children and they know the number. They know that’s how many there there are. The disciples are fully aware of this because they’ve got them sitting now in groups of 50 and the disciples see the magnitude of the situation.

34. 17:52

    And then Jesus tells us and then verse 11 tells us that Jesus took the loaves and all eyes would have been on him. Everybody would have been looking at Jesus. There was no semi truck full of food Outback. There was no food really at all. And Jesus gives thanks to God, and everyone is watching him. And at that moment it became clear to the disciples and probably to many others that God was going to be the one that was solving the problem.

35. 18:28

    It was clear to them that God was helping them with this work. And so Jesus broke the loaves, He gave the bread to the disciples, and all the people ate their fill. And there were 12 baskets leftover. And the baskets that they had leftover that that that this is talking about were the kind of basket that a person would carry their food, their provisions with them when they would travel, the the kind of basket that you carry your luncheon.

36. 18:59

    And so there was enough, there were 12. There were enough for each of the disciples to have a basket of their own to take with them. And Jesus had to be thinking, now can you see that God is behind this work? He is so with us that He just fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish. And not only that, He is so with us that He has literally showed us how He is going to help us do the work of helping people believe.

37. 19:39

    He’s going to give the spiritual bread to His Son. His Son is going to give it to his disciples and they are going to give it to the people to help the people believe so that they can be in His Kingdom. And it becomes clear that the reason he is so with us, it’s clear the reason is that God is so with us is that we are actually doing the work of God.

38. 20:07

    It’s been God’s work really, from the beginning. You see, God created the earth so that potential believers could have a place to live. He provides us with food and shelter so that they can be sustained while they go through the process of believing. He sends His angels to help people believe. He gave His Son so that they can learn faith from the example of Jesus.

39. 20:35

    Everything He does, He does ultimately to help people believe. This is God’s work. And, and this is an amazing thing. Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles exists so that people like you and I, many of us, can be a part of his ecclesia. California, America, the world exists so that there is a place for potential believers. So when the disciples needed assurance, God showed the disciples that he was committed to the work of helping people believe.

40. 21:08

    And he does this on this this massive scale with probably the, the most massive miracle that’s been done so far. He feeds 5000 people. And there were many, many people then that were affected by this miracle. But when all those people were fed, they didn’t think, wow, isn’t it amazing how committed God is to the work of helping us believe? No, that’s definitely not what they were thinking. Instead, they were hard hearted.

41. 21:40

    They were thinking about themselves. Look at verse 14. When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they said, hey, this is indeed the prophet who’s come into the world, right? That’s Deuteronomy 18. This is the prophet like Moses. They said they thought he’s fed us just like Moses fed fed Israel. And then he says, and they were about to come and take Jesus by force to make him king.

42. 22:11

    They completely forgot about the work of God and the disciples, they got caught up in that too, didn’t they? And so Jesus decided to get the disciples out of there. If you look at Matthew chapter 14, verse 22, it says immediately he made Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side.

43. 22:35

    Well, he dismissed the crowds. The disciples had completely misunderstood the message of the feeding of the 5000. And after he dismissed the crowds, verse 23 of Matthew 14 says he went up into the mountain by himself to pray and when evening came, he was there alone. We can see what Jesus was talking about, can’t we?

44. 22:58

    They didn’t understand at all. This was the disconnect that Mark was talking about. Remember Mark’s words for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. They didn’t understand the lesson of the loaves. Their take away was very different than what it should have been. The disciples had been given this absolutely solid assurance that God was with them in the work.

45. 23:23

    The miracles show them that they didn’t need to worry about Herod or the Pharisees. God was was much greater than either of them and and Jesus had shown them in the distribution of the food, the work that he was expecting them to do that even though all they had was 5 loaves and two fish, God would make up for what they lacked. But that wasn’t the take away of the people not to take away the disciples.

46. 23:49

    They saw an opportunity to make Jesus King because their hearts were hardened and so they didn’t understand what God was doing by feeding the 5000. And so is the disciples set off in their boat on their own, no doubt still thinking about how they could convince Jesus to be king. Thinking about the fact that there were 5000 men ready to go, how they could easily fix all of Israel’s problems, how they could get and, and, and wondering how they could get Jesus to be on their side. And as they were out there on the lake on their own without Jesus.

47. 24:32

    John 6 verse 18 says the sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. And the picture you see on the screen there is probably pretty accurate of what it was actually like. There’s been waves over 10 feet high on the Sea of Galilee. And verse 19 says and when they had rode about 3 or 4 miles, Matthew tells us it was the the 4th watch of the night. So they’ve been rowing almost all night and they’ve made very little progress that they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat and they were frightened. They were absolutely in awe.

48. 25:13

    They didn’t think that this was a man that was walking on the sea. Matthew says that they thought it was a spirit and that they cried out when they saw this. A good verse, I think for your margin is, is Job 9 verses 7 and eight. Job gives us help in understanding how amazing this miracle really was, the miracle of Jesus walking on the sea. And the verse Job 9 verses 7 and eight is talking about God, and I’m going to read it to you from the NLT talking about God. It says if He commands it, the sun won’t rise and the stars won’t shine.

49. 25:53

    He alone has spread out the heavens and marches on the waves of the sea. He alone marches on the waves of the sea, having the the waves under his control. It was it was an incredible, incredible sight. They had seen Jesus calm the water before, but they’ve never seen anything like this. What they thought was a spirit walking on the water fully under its control.

50. 26:20

    It was as if they were seeing God walking on the water. And Mark tells us that the Jesus would have passed right by them. They had two completely different goals. Jesus, the work of God and the disciples still focused on the trivial work of men. And the disciples had no idea that the man walking on the water was Jesus was their teacher. It had never dawned on them that God had given him such power. But it should have, shouldn’t it? Because this man had just fed 5000 people. It should have been clear to them they should have made that connection.

51. 27:02

    But the disciples had blocked that out of their minds. They weren’t thinking about the work of God. They were caught up in their own their own ambitions, leading Israel in it in some sort of an uprising, making Jesus the king of a of a little province in the Roman Empire. But the work of God, the work that Jesus was doing was far, far greater than that. Why would a man that could feed 5000, a man that could walk on the waves, a man that could control nature, why would that man be interested in leading a political uprising? His work was to save the whole world and God was with him. Now that takes us right back to Mark chapter 6 and Jesus walking on the water.

52. 27:55

    Mark 6 verse 50 says they all saw him and they were terrified, but he immediately he spoke to them and said take heart. It is I do not be afraid. And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded that this was Jesus, that this was their teacher.

53. 28:20

    For they did not understand about the lows, but their hearts were hardened. Somehow their minds were unable to see that they were doing the work of God. And if God is for us, who can be against us? They didn’t understand God’s goal. They didn’t understand that God was working to develop people, to be in His family, that that was what God cared about.

54. 28:46

    And everything that He’s done was for that development, the development of that family. And He can and He does control all of nature and He uses it to attain His purpose.

55. 29:00

    But what we care about is very different, isn’t it? Our hearts are naturally focused on ourselves. We mostly care about what we need right now and what we want right now. And that’s the hardness of our hearts. And the work of God is to breakthrough that hard heart. And breaking through that hard heart is hard to do. So what happened after Jesus and the disciples had come ashore? Let’s go back then to the location where Jesus had fed the 5000 to John chapter 6 with the crowd that had eaten of that that food, the five loaves and the two fishes. And John 6 verse 22 says on the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with the disciples, but that His disciples had gone away alone. The people were looking all over for Jesus. They wanted to find Jesus and they’re trying to figure out where he went and how he how he had left there. And then in verse 24, the the crowd finally figures out that Jesus has gone.

56. 30:12

    And it seems that some jump into boats and others go around on on the land to Capernaum in order to find Jesus. And John gives us these verses, these details to show us how much effort the people are willing to put into finding Jesus. And they come to Capernaum. And this is a a picture of of Capernaum today.

57. 30:34

    And when they found him on the other side of the sea in, in Capernaum, they said to him, Rabbi, when do you come? When did you come here? You didn’t know how he got there. And they wonder, was it also a miracle? And Jesus answers them, getting right to the heart of the matter.

58. 30:55

    He says, truly, truly. I say to you, you’re seeking me. You’re putting all this effort in, not because you saw the signs and Lt. says not because you understood the miraculous signs. They were just like the disciples. They didn’t understand what God was doing, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

59. 31:20

    So here’s the man that we’ve been looking at this week. Here’s the man with the living water, the man with the bread of life, and he’s ready to teach the people. He he’s ready to help them to understand, to help them believe so that they can live forever. And they’re really only interested in the physical food that Jesus had given them.

60. 31:43

    So what does Jesus say to them? He says do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. Now, those might be the most important words of the week that we have. These people had just gone to these great lengths to find Jesus because he’d given them physical food, the food that perishes.

61. 32:14

    But Jesus says that food is nothing compared to what I can give you. I can give you the bread of eternal life, but none of you seems to be interested in that. You’re following me because I healed you, because I fed you. You’re following me because you want to make me king. But I can give you life. God wants to give you eternal life. That’s the work of God.

62. 32:43

    Couldn’t you see that in the bread that God provided? Verse 28, John 628, they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? They say, OK, So what works do we need to do that? And Jesus answers them. This is the work of God that you believe in whom he has sent.

63. 33:09

    This is the work that you need to do. It’s the work that God is doing. It’s working to develop your belief, and it’s working to help other people to develop their belief. Your work is to labor to believe in the one that God has sent. It turns out, brothers and sisters, that the work of bringing people to believe is God’s work. And it’s our work too.

64. 33:41

    Developing our faith is the most important thing that we can do with our lives. It’s the most important thing we can do with our time. It’s the most important thing we can do. But doing that work is not easy because a saving faith calls on us to make changes in our lives. We don’t like to do that. We naturally love darkness.

65. 34:05

    Now I have a quote here from a brother, HP Mansfield, that I have, I have loved this quote for for many years and I’d like to share it with you, which kind of gives us a picture of the process that we’ve been talking about this week together. So HP Mansfield Mansfield says God’s purpose is not merely to save people, but to make them worth saving.

66. 34:31

    God’s not looking to fill the earth with sinners. He’s not looking for a family of people that don’t love him enough to do what he says. HP Mansfield continues continues. This can only be brought about by changing their outlook and characters to conform to his, and this can only be done by superimposing his mind on theirs. God desires to change the characters of individuals. Then we know that we need to be changed, don’t we? This change is motivated by faith, the faith that we’ve been talking about this week, He says. He is thus provided a book sufficiently profound as to cause us, its readers, to think in order to understand its message.

67. 35:23

    Now I had people for years and years in the seminars ask me why it’s so hard to understand the Scriptures. And I think this helps us to understand that it takes work because God is working with us. Our hearts are hard, and God is trying to penetrate that and to help us to develop faith in most of the rest. Then of John chapter 6, Jesus goes on to challenge his disciples to think in order to understand its message. But most of the many disciples of Jesus were not interested in doing that.

68. 36:00

    They were really only interested in the food that perishes, only interested in the physical things of this life. HP Mansfield’s quote finishes. Then he says as thoughts, bigot, ideas, actions, habit, character, this habit of thinking on God’s word can change men. This habit of thinking on God’s word can change men. I like the fact here that he uses the word habit because habits can really make a big difference.

69. 36:35

    In a, in a recent study that I was working on, I was looking at the life of Brother Robert Roberts and I stumbled on some habits that Brother Roberts implemented in his life to help him. And I’d like to share them with you now. And I think as, as we go through these, maybe you’ll, you’ll chuckle a little bit at these because they’re, they’re so familiar to us.

70. 36:55

    So this is a, a comment that Brother Roberts makes about getting up and giving his first address. He says. I got up in imitation of others, and I leaned forward with my hands helplessly outspread on the table before me. My brain got into a whirl. I managed to gasp out a few words and then I sat down.

71. 37:15

    So, so many of us brethren can probably relate somewhat to that. In itself the effort was a frightful failure, but it was of great importance as the breaking of the ice. The next time I was called on, the ordeal was not so severe, and gradually the embarrassment diminished with every occasion until I found facility of utterance taking place. That’s interesting.

72. 37:37

    But the interesting part to me, the real interesting part to me was what he tells us about why he was able to improve. He says this result was aided by the practices of trying to take down all the speeches delivered at the meeting of the brethren on Sundays. What was he suggesting? What did you decide that he was going to do?

73. 37:59

    He’s going to take notes right in the classes that he went to. This is a fantastic habit for us to get into by taking notes of, of an expectation of a Bible class, of a lecture, of a study day. Amazing results can happen. This can can definitely be us making a habit of the work of God. So how much time does it take for us to do that, to take notes in a Bible class or a, a, a meeting, an excitation? How long, how much time does it take us to do that? None, right?

74. 38:29

    It takes none. It’s just changing a habit to what we can do. I’ll share a little bit with that with our experience with our children with this. If, if when we were raising our children and trying to get them to take notes in Bible classes and, and things, we bought our kids these filing cabinets. So you wouldn’t need to do this today, but we bought them these filing cabinets and they had folders from A-Z in them and then books of the Bible.

75. 38:57

    And what they would do is they would take, they were required to take notes in the classes. And if they didn’t take notes in the class, we’d ask him at the end of the class, hey, can we see your notes? They didn’t take notes. Then they would have to go to Uncle Chuck, who’s the guy that did the recording. And he would give them one of those silver things that James was showing us the other night, right? One of those discs.

76. 39:20

    He would give them one of those with the class on it and they would go home and they would take notes at home of the class. But what they did then is they would take those notes and they would put them into that filing cabinet, you know, by alphabet or by by subject, and they would have those notes available to them in the future as a great benefit to them.

77. 39:38

    If we think about it for ourselves today, we can take notes with digital tools, with our iPads, our phones, our computers. And if we would take the time to do that, we will have an immense library of classes and notes at our disposal with us all the time in a very short period of time. So I started doing that 14 years ago. And I wish I had started 20 or 30 years ago, but that was not technology permitting, I think, at that point. So what other things did that Robert, Brother Robert Roberts do?

78. 40:10

    He says about this time I commenced the systematic reading of the Scriptures, which is now a general practice with the aid of the Bible Companion. Anybody know how old Brother Roberts was when he put together the Bible Companion? I had 14, but probably the same thing. Yeah. So 14 years of age, he noticed that his Bible knowledges was, was developing in some parts of the Bible, but not others. And so we decided, you know what, I need to get familiar with the whole Bible.

79. 40:38

    And he starts to go through this process then of doing the daily Bible readings, doing that. So he started to to take notes in people’s classes. He started doing the Bible readings every day to great habits. Does anybody want to guess what the third thing that he decided he was going to do? It’s maybe not totally so he says reading led to marking special passages with ink arising from the need to for ready quotation and conversation with those opposed to the truth. What what do we call that today?

80. 41:11

    Bible marking isn’t that interesting. So he adopted these habits and Brother Roberts was, was able to go on and to, to really be helpful for many people in the work of God, which is helping them to believe. So there’s just so much then that that we can do with our technology today. There’s there’s many classes that we can listen to. If you’re not doing that or, or or haven’t heard how you could do that, you might check with somebody because I think a lot of people are really taking that opportunity. So just some final remarks.

81. 41:43

    Then as we read through the rest of John 6, we see Jesus trying to explain to them that God has always been there trying to save them. It was God that had provided them manna in the wilderness. That manna represented Jesus, the bread of life that had come down from heaven, that was provided by God. The manna that they needed to eat, they needed to put into their minds every day.

82. 42:09

    And when they heard that Jesus when they heard him say, when Jesus say that he had come down from heaven and they needed to his flesh to eat his flesh, they said this is a hard saying, who can listen to it? And they were like Israel in the wilderness. Many of Jesus disciples then murmured because they had no desire for the man.

83. 42:36

    They preferred the food that perishes. And then in verse 66 we read after this, many of his disciples turned back no longer and no longer walked with him. Many of them weren’t willing to follow Jesus and to get the meat that perishes because they they wanted the meat that perished. I’m sorry. As we as we bring our thoughts to close, I’d like us to just kind of review the people that we’ve considered this week. What if the blind man hadn’t washed his eyes in the waters of Siloam in the words of Jesus sent to him from God so that he could see?

84. 43:17

    What if Nathaniel hadn’t gotten around to looking into what Micah said about the Messiah? What if Nicodemus hadn’t kept listening to Jesus? What if he hadn’t allowed Jesus to show him the cross and his need to be born again? What if the woman at the well had gone home with her water jug and just continued on with the water from Jacob’s hole in the ground? And what if the people of Shechem hadn’t gone out to the well to hear the words of Jesus themselves? Well, if the people hadn’t done these things, none of them would have tasted the living water of faith. None of them would have eaten the bread of life. None of them would have believed. But John 6 doesn’t end in failure. Look at verse 67.

85. 44:10

    It says so. Jesus said to the 12 Do you want to go away as well? And I’d like to end with end with Simon Peters words. He says, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.