Labor Not for Food That Perishes
Do Not Labor for things that Perishes
September 21, 2008
John 6:27-58
On June 11, in Experiencing God Day-by-Day, Henry Blackaby quoted Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law
and then commented, “ examination of the fruits of the Spirit can be intimidating. Working all nine of these traits into your life seems impossible, and indeed it is. But the moment you became a Christian, the Holy Spirit began a divine work to produce Christ's character in you. Regardless of who you are, the Spirit works from the same model, Jesus Christ. The Spirit looks to Christ in order to find the blueprint for your character. The Spirit will immediately begin helping you experience and practice the same love that Jesus had when He laid down His life for His friends. The same joy He experienced will now fill you. The identical peace that guarded the heart of Jesus, even as He was being beaten and mocked, will be the peace that the Spirit works to instill in you. The patience Jesus had for His most unteachable disciple will be the patience that the Spirit now develops in you. The kindness Jesus showed toward children and sinners will soften your heart toward others. There will be a goodness about you that is only explainable by the presence of the Spirit of God. The Spirit will build the same faithfulness into you that led Jesus to be entirely obedient to His Father. The Spirit will teach you self-control so that you will have strength to do what is right and to resist temptation.
All of this is as natural as the growth of fruit on a tree. You do not have to orchestrate it on your own. It automatically begins the moment you become a believer. How quickly it happens depends upon how completely you yield yourself to the Holy Spirit's activity.”
Labor Day has been a national holiday in Canada for many years. The purpose is to honor the working people of our land. In 1956 a commemorative Labor Day stamp was issued with a picture of a strong man holding a sledge hammer, a pick, a hoe, and an ax over his shoulder. His wife was seated by his side with a book in her lap showing a small child how to read. In the lower left hand corner was a large block with words of Carlyle carved into it: "Labor Is Life." The meaning was clear and I think it is true: without industrious labor there will be no life—no means to feed, clothe, house, and educate a family or oneself. And the concept of Labor is biblical. The Bible says a lot about labor and work. Proverbs 13:4 says that those who work hard will prosper. Proverbs 21:5 reaffirms this truth and adds good planning with hard work as a way to prosperity. Ecclesiastes 5:12 says people who work hard sleep well. Then in verse 19 of the same chapter, Solomon said we should enjoy our work. Romans 12:11 says never be lazy, work hard. Ephesians 4:28 emphasizes good hard work versus stealing. Then, the verse I remember best, 2 Thessalonians says, in essence: You want to eat? You better work!
But it is an amazing and disconcerting thing how a true statement (like "Labor Is Life") can mislead us and devastate generations when it is isolated from other truths. If you look at your life solely in terms of food, clothing, shelter, transportation, machines, books, and toys, then the statement, "Labor Is Life," will mean that you should work mainly with a view to providing those things. But in spite of the fact that it seems so natural to work for such things, Jesus said to the Jews in John 6:27, "Do not labor for the food which perishes." And of course Jesus didn't mean it is just food that's ruled out, but clothes and homes and cars as well. Anything that perishes, anything that wears out, anything of no eternal worth—all that is implied in "food that perishes. The Believer’s Bible Commentary adds: “So Jesus first advised them not to labor for the food which perishes. The Lord did not mean that they should not work for their daily living, but He did mean that this should not be the supreme aim in their lives. Satisfying one’s physical appetite is not the most important thing in life. Man consists not only of body, but of spirit and soul as well. We should labor for the food which endures to everlasting life. Man should not devote all his strength and talents to the feeding and clothing and entertaining of his body, which in a few short years will be eaten by worms. Rather, he should make sure that his soul is fed day by day with the Word of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” We should work tirelessly to acquire a better knowledge of the Word of God”, “to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior.” (2 Pet 3:18) The Living Bible states John 6:27 this way: “don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend you energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you.”
Now we are in a precarious place, because you believe in your heart it is legitimate and good to work in order to buy food. Yet you hear Jesus saying, "Do not labor for the food which perishes." I call experiences like this crises of spiritual discovery. You can discover two things in the next few minutes. First, you can discover the measure of your submission to Jesus as Lord. There are two very different attitudes you may be experiencing right now. One is resistance and hardness. You may be saying, "Well, I don't care what it means; I'm going to keep on working just the way I always have." Another is humble, open submission to Jesus. You may be saying, "Well, Lord, I never thought from your Word that it might be wrong to work for food and clothing. But, Lord, there is nothing I want more than to do what pleases you in the way that pleases you. I know how bent I am to sinning, so please help me understand your surprising command and make me willing to obey gladly." There is a quantitative and eternally significant difference between those two attitudes. The first one is not from the Spirit of God, but of the flesh. The second one is a gift of the Holy Spirit, fragrant with the fruit of humility and submissiveness to Jesus. It is not naïve, but is thoughtfully and soberly ready to say, "Anything, Jesus, anything, anything in my mind or in my behavior I am willing to change if you say the word."
The other thing you may discover in the next few minutes, if you are open to the voice of Jesus, is a new dimension of obedience in your work. Listen to the familiar passage of Scripture from Matthew chapter 6, verses 19-21 and 24-33: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Many of you have already made the discovery and simply enjoy hearing it reaffirmed from Scripture. Others of you may discover for the first time an aspect of Jesus' will for your life which you have neglected. "Therefore take heed how you hear," Jesus said, "for to him who has, will more be given, but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away" (Luke 8:18).
I think we should acknowledge from the outset that the point of John 6:27 is the positive statement, "Labor for the food which endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you." Jesus, on the day before, had performed the miracle of feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. When the people seek him out the next day, he accuses them in verse 26 of not coming because they had seen signs but because they ate their fill. In other words, they had no spiritual sensitivity that Jesus' miracle pointed beyond itself to the spiritual nourishment people need so badly and which Jesus came to give. To use the language of the apostle Paul, they set their minds on the things of the flesh, not the things of the Spirit.
So Jesus said, "Don't work for fleshly food that perishes, work for eternal food." They respond in verse 28 with complete misunderstanding, "'What works do you think God requires in order to give us the bread of eternal life?" Jesus answers in verse 29 that all the works you can do for the bread that endures are summed up in one work, which is no work at all: "Believe in him whom God has sent." Come to me, trust me, feed on me. Draw life from me, and you will have the food that endures to eternal life.
Then step-by-step in the rest of the chapter he unfolds the meaning. Verse 35: "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." Jesus is the bread that endures to eternal life. Coming to Jesus and trusting him is what it means to eat the true bread of heaven. Now did they believe? Look at verse 36: “But you haven’t believed in me even though you’ve seen me.” So Jesus explains again, from verses 37-40, God’s purpose for sending His Son to earth. This should give them more assurance! Now they should welcome Him. Right? Look at verses 41-42 with me. "The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Now do you see why He called them a stiff-necked people? So Jesus reiterates why He came, so no one needs to be lost. Some of the people grumbled in disagreement. They could not accept Jesus’ claim of divinity. They could not tolerate His message. They could not accept the demands Christ makes for their loyalty and obedience. The reject His message and they reject the messenger. So, patiently, Jesus tries one more time. Let’s look at verses 47-50: Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. The religious leaders frequently asked Jesus to prove he was better than the prophets. Jesus refers to the manna of Moses. They ate it and it sustained them one day. Jesus offers spiritual bread from heaven that satisfies completely forever. Then in verse 51 he gets very specific: "The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." So here it becomes clear that eating the true bread means nourishing our souls with benefits of Jesus' atoning death. We do not simply come and trust a loving man. We pin all our hopes on the forgiveness that he purchased for us in laying down his life. In verse 53 He goes so far as to say we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. This happens when the love that his death shows and the hope that it secures so delights and satisfies our soul hunger that we continue in his word forever. That spiritual feeding on Christ is what the Lord's Supper – Communion - symbolizes.
That is the main emphasis in John 6:27. "Labor for the food which endures to eternal life." Labor to feast on Jesus. Satisfy yourself with his beauty and his hope-filled fellowship. A wise teacher once said that one of the best ways to find out what an author really thought was to watch for his "not . . . but" statements—statements where he says, "This is not the case, but that is," or, "I do not believe this, but I do believe that." You always have a clearer idea of what a person affirms if you know what he denies. Wishy-washy politicians and wishy-washy theologians are notorious for making broad affirmations while avoiding specific denials. For example, you simply can't know what J.A.T. Robinson means when he affirms the trustworthiness of the New Testament until you hear all the things he denies. Then you realize that he means something very different by "trustworthy" than what you mean by it. Therefore, we will increase our understanding greatly if in all our reading and listening we take heed to the "not . . . but" statements, the negatives as well as the affirmations.
Now the point of all this is simply to say that we must not ignore the negative half of Jesus' command. Without it we will not have as clear an idea of what our Lord wants from us. Part of what he wants is that we not labor for food that perishes. What does he mean?
I have already argued that the "food that perishes" implies all material things, not just food, and includes anything that has no eternal worth. The meaning is similar to Jesus' word in Matthew 6:19, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal." Anything temporal that the heart can treasure, even immaterial things like prestige and power and status—all this is "food that perishes." It will be worthless at death and useless on the judgment day. So Jesus says, "Do not work for it." What does he mean?
Nowhere does Jesus show contempt for work. He said of his own disciples, as he sent them out, "The laborer deserves his wages" (Luke 10:7). He intends people to work and to provide for their own and others' needs. St. Paul taught the same thing. "If anyone will not work, let him not eat," he says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10. In Ephesians 4:28 I read, "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those who are in need."
Evidently, then, Jesus does not mean stop working for a livelihood, but rather, in your work set your eyes on something other than the "food that perishes." The best parallel is Matthew 6:33, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, " Don't seek the "food that perishes." God will supply that. You seek the kingdom; seek the bread that endures to eternity. Don't expend the effort of your mind and your will and your body to try to satisfy yourself with things. Expend your effort instead with a view to finding Christ exalted and satisfying in all you do.
Consider 2 Corinthians 9:11: “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” Why does God bless us with riches? So we can share those riches generously with those in need and so we can bring thanksgiving to God. God does not prosper us so we can indulge our desire for more toys or to live an eve more self-indulgent self-serving lifestyle. God is not into self-indulgence; He is into sharing what we have with others so that they too will be blessed.
Let me try to apply this to two areas of our life: our religious life and our vocational life. First, our religious life. Notice the connection between verses 26 and 27—"You seek me . . . because you ate your fill . . . Do not labor for the food which perishes." The people were seeking Jesus. They saw and believed in his miracle-working power; but Jesus called this seeking "laboring for food that perishes" and commanded them not to do it. The lesson for us is this: it is possible to seek Jesus and believe in his power, but be totally worldly minded. You can be a very good and religious person and have many right doctrines, but not be born again. What is missing is a spiritual feeding on Christ, a heart delight in all that he stands for, and a lowly childlike submission to his Word. Jesus urges us to examine ourselves to see whether even in our church life we are laboring for the bread that perishes instead of really feasting spiritually on the Lord we love.
The second application is to our vocational life. How do you get up in the morning and go to work not for the bread that perishes? This is really a spiritual discovery attained through much prayer and longing; my words of explanation won't make it happen. But maybe the Holy Spirit will use the words of Paul to fire up your quest. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:30, 31 that since we live in a time of great urgency, "Those who buy should buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it." I think this is another way of saying, yes labor, but do not labor for the joy of the paycheck. Go ahead and purchase, but act as though they are not your goods. Do your business dealings, but stay free from them. Hold on lightly not tightly to all God allows you to own. Think of everything you own as His, not yours. They are on loan to you.
Suppose you are a Christian stockbroker and have watched the market tumble these past weeks. What it means to you not to labor for the food which perishes is that your true life is not jeopardized, your peace and joy are not destroyed. You were not working for the bread that perishes. Your goal is to enjoy Christ being exalted in the way you work. Jesus said in John 4:32, 34, "I have food to eat that you do not know . . . My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." Our food should be to do the will of the Father. None of us in our vocations should aim at the food which perishes—leave that to the Lord. We should aim instead to do the will of him who sent us. That, too, is a kind of feeding on Christ. The Christian stockbroker will say in the face of a falling market: "The main food I want from this job is still there. I am hungry above all to pass this test of faith and have a deep restfulness in the goodness and power of Christ. And I am hungry to enjoy his name being esteemed as others see my demeanor and my integrity and give Christ glory." And to that end he labors for the food which endures to eternal life. He labors, rising early for prayer and meditation, and holding Christ near to his heart all day.
Barclays Daily Study Bible comments: Jesus put his command in one sentence. "Don't work for the food which perishes but for that which lasts for ever and gives eternal life." Long ago a prophet called Isaiah had asked: "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" (Isa 55:2). There are two kinds of hunger. There is physical hunger which physical food can satisfy; but there is a spiritual hunger which that food can never satisfy. A man may be as rich as Croesus and still have an incompleteness in his life.
In the years just after A.D. 60 the luxury of Roman society was unparalleled. It was at this time that they served feasts of peacocks' brains and nightingales' tongues; that they cultivated the odd habit of taking emetics between courses so that the next might taste better; that meals costing thousands of dollars were commonplace. It was at this time that Pliny tells of a Roman lady who was married in a robe so richly jeweled and gilded that it cost the equivalent of a million Canadian dollars. There was a reason for all this, and the reason was a deep dissatisfaction with life, a hunger that nothing could satisfy. People today will try anything for a new thrill; many are appallingly rich yet appallingly hungry.
Jesus' point was that all that these Jews were interested in was physical satisfaction. They had received an unexpectedly free and lavish meal; and they wanted more. But there are other hungers which can be satisfied only by him. There is the hunger for truth--in him alone is the truth of God. There is the hunger for life--in him alone is life more abundant. There is the hunger for love--in him alone is the love that outlasts sin and death. Christ alone can satisfy the hunger of the human heart and soul.
Why is this so? There is a wealth of meaning in the phrase: "God has set his seal upon him." H. B. Tristram in Eastern Customs in Bible Lands has a most interesting section on seals in the ancient world. It was not the signature, but the seal that authenticated. In commercial and political documents it was the seal, imprinted with the signet ring, which made the document valid; it was the seal which authenticated a will; it was the seal on the mouth of a sack or a crate that guaranteed the contents. The Rabbis had a saying: "The seal of God is truth." "One day," says the Talmud, "the great synagogue (the assembly of the Jewish experts in the law) were weeping, praying and fasting together, when a little scroll fell from the sky among them. They opened it and on it was only one word, Emeth, which means truth. 'That,' said the Rabbi, 'is the seal of God.'" Emeth is spelled with three Hebrew letters: aleph, which is the first letter of the alphabet; min, the middle letter, and tau, the last. The truth of God is the beginning, the middle and the end of life.
Jeremiah 2:2 says: “Go and announce directly to Jerusalem that this is what the Lord says: I remember the loyalty of your youth, your love as a bride how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.”
Even when our hearts grow cold toward God and our devotion to Him weakens, His love remains steadfast. We may forget God, but He remembers us.
God was concerned because the people of Judah had allowed their hearts to drift far from Him. In a powerful moment, God shared His heart with His people, recalling what it was like when they first began loving Him. He remembered how they had loved Him, as a new bride loves her husband, with excitement and enthusiasm for the future. He recalled the kindness they had expressed as they willingly followed Him wherever He led them. God reminded them of the love they had once had for Him, so that the memory might rekindle feelings of devotion and their hearts might return to Him.
If you do not guard our heart, you will grow cold in your love for Christ. A time may come when He approaches you and reminds you what your relationship was once like. Do you recollect the joy that permeated your life when you first became a Christian? Do you recall the youthful commitments you made to Him, pledging to do anything He told you to do? Do you remember the thrill you experienced each time you came to understand a new dimension of His nature? Spiritual memory is important. You may not realize how far you have drifted from God until you contrast the love you are expressing to Him now with that of earlier days.
God has not changed. He is the same Person you gave your heart to when you became a Christian (Mal. 3:6–7). If your love for God is not as intense as it once was, return to Him. He will restore the intimate fellowship you once shared with Him
That is why Jesus can satisfy the eternal hunger. He is sealed by God, he is God's truth incarnate and it is God alone who can truly satisfy the hunger of the soul which he created.
In Matthew 28:19 we read: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. . .
Henry Blackaby comments, “Our Master commands us to “go.” We need permission to stay! The gospel is the account of Jesus' leaving His Father's right hand to go to Calvary. Jesus instructed those who wanted to be His disciples to leave their homes and their comforts and follow Him. Some insisted that they could not go yet because they still had to care for elderly parents (Luke 9:59–60). Others wanted to make sure everything was in order first (Luke 9:61–62). Still others expressed willingness to follow but wanted to know the details of what they would be doing (Luke 9:57–58). Jesus never excused those who struggled to follow Him. He made it clear that to follow Him meant He set the direction and they were to follow.
We can convince ourselves that Jesus does not really want us to adjust our lives, pointing to the success we are enjoying right where we are. Yet Jesus often told His disciples to go elsewhere in spite of the success they were experiencing. Peter had just pulled in the greatest catch of fish of his entire career when Jesus invited him to leave everything (Luke 5:1–11). Philip was enjoying astounding success as an evangelist when the Holy Spirit instructed him to go to the desert (Acts 8:25–40). Success where we are can be our greatest hindrance to going where Jesus wants us to be.
If you become too comfortable where you are, you may resist Christ's invitation to go elsewhere. Don't assume that God does not want you to go in service to Him. He may lead you across the street to share the gospel with your neighbor or to the other side of the world. Wherever He leads, be prepared to go.”
A.W. Tozer writes: It still is a solid Bible doctrine that tremendous spiritual forces are present in the world, and man, because of his spiritual nature, is caught in the middle. The evil powers are bent upon destroying him, while Christ is present to save him through the power of the gospel. To obtain deliverance he must come out on God's side in faith and obedience. That in brief is what our fathers thought; and that, we believe, is what the Bible teaches.
How different today. The fact remains the same but the interpretation has changed completely. Men think of the world, not as a battleground but as a playground. We are not here to fight, we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land, we are at home. We are not getting ready to live, we are already living, and the best we can do is to rid ourselves of our inhibitions and our frustrations and live this life to the full.
This changed attitude toward the world has had and is having its effect upon Christians, even gospel believing Christians who profess the faith of the Bible. By a curious juggling of the figures, they manage to add up the column wrong and yet claim to have the right answer. It sounds fantastic but it is true.
That this world is a playground instead of a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of evangelical Christians. They might hedge around the question if they were asked bluntly to declare their position, but their conduct gives them away. They are facing both ways, enjoying Christ and the world too.
The "worship" growing out of such a view of life is as far off center as the view itself, a sort of sanctified nightclubbing without the champagne and the dressed-up drunks.
This whole thing has grown to be so serious that it now becomes the duty of every Christian to reexamine his spiritual beliefs in the light of the Bible, and commit to following the teachings of the Bible, even if it means we must separate ourselves from much that we formerly accepted as real but which now, in the light of biblical truth, we see to be false.
A right view of God and the world to come requires that we have also a right view of the world in which we live and our relation to it. So much depends upon this that we cannot afford to be careless about it.
Jesus calls us to be aliens and exiles in the world. Not by taking us out of the world, but by changing at the root how we view the world and do our work in it. I'm sure I have barely skimmed the significance of Jesus' word to us in John 6:27. So I urge you to on this command: "Do not labor for the food which perishes." Instead, meditate on these immortal words of Jim Elliot written shortly before he was killed by the Aucas, the South American tribe he was trying to reach with the gospel. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain that which he cannot lose.” He gave up his own life, which he had surrendered to Jesus. All of the men who participated in killing him eventually received Christ. He labored not for food which perishes – neither should we!