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John

John 
Day 
Day 89

The will of God

Text: John 6:22-71

THE WILL OF GOD

How do you understand the concept of “The Will of God”? Not many people are able to articulate clearly what they mean when they speak of the Will of God. Some equate the Will of God as “fate”. This, without question, is a wrong comprehension of the Will of God.

1. The Will of God has to do with the life work of Jesus

On three separate occasions, Jesus mentioned the “Will of God”. In the first instance, Jesus made reference to the Will of God in the context of His ministry to the woman of Samaria. He said to His disciples,

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me,
and to finish His work.”
John 4:34

Jesus equated the Will of God as the work that He had been given to do. He knew that God had given Him work to do and He sought with all His might to faithfully accomplish all that the Father had entrusted to Him.

2. The Will of God has to do with the Word revealed to Jesus

In the second instance, Jesus was speaking to The Jews. They queried Him with reference to His word to the paralyzed man. Why did Jesus tell the man that he could take up his bed and walk on the Sabbath? They were furious with the man for “breaking” the Sabbath that way. They had ignored the fact that this man had been paralyzed for the last thirty-eight years and had now been wonderfully healed and restored to normal health! Jesus said to The Jews these words,

“I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge;
and My judgment is righteous, because I do not
seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.”
John 5:30

In this particular context, Jesus spoke of the Will of His Father in a different way. He spoke of hearing the Voice of God. He spoke of God speaking to Him. What God had spoken to Him was indeed His thoughts verbalized. The Will of God was in fact the Word spoken to Him by His Father.

3. The Will of God has to do with those who believe in Jesus for salvation

Jesus spoke about yet another aspect of the Will of God. He said quite simply,

“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will,
but the will of Him who sent me.
This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all
He has given Me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up at the last day.
And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone
who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life;
and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:38-40

In order to have an easier comprehension of this long statement, we may break up the thoughts into the following:-

a) There must be faith in Jesus as the One whom the Father had sent from Heaven.
b) In this faith, there is trust that no one whom the Father has sent to Jesus would be lost.
c) The believer may fully trust that Jesus had the authority and power to raise him up from the dead in the last day.
d) Whoever believes that Jesus is indeed the Son of God will have everlasting life.
e) Jesus made a commitment to the believer that He will indeed not fail to keep His promise to raise him up at the last day. The believer would of course spend eternity in heaven with Jesus the Saviour!

Jesus made these bold statements to jog the faith of the hearers. They would have to seriously ask themselves if they truly believed all that Jesus had said concerning the Will of God.

DID THE MULTITUDE BELIEVE IN JESUS?

John made an interesting switch in the use of terms. All this while, he had used the term, “Multitude” to describe the people who flocked to hear Jesus. Suddenly, John used the familiar term, “The Jews” in this dialogue. The Jews formed part of the Multitude. Typically they responded by grumbling.

“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?”‘”
John 6:41-42

Trust The Jews to appear among the Multitude. They had already resisted Jesus at least once before. They had in fact rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Now they deliberately sought to discourage people from believing in Jesus.

They refused to consider what Jesus had just declared. Instead they focused on the earthly family of Jesus, as if by pointing out the fact that Joseph and Mary were His earthly parents that would disqualify Jesus from being the Messiah!

The Jews were experts in casting aspersions on their enemies. They used “innocent and seemingly correct phrases” to deceive people. They themselves did not believe in Jesus, and they felt that what they were not inclined to believe wasn’t worth believing in. Did the multitude come to faith in Jesus easily? The answer is “Probably not”. The Jews had done much to hurt the ministry of Jesus. Instead of responding to the statements Jesus made, they chose to cast doubts instead. Many may have been stumbled.