To Whom Will We Go?
When Crystal and I were dating, our church held a “lunch on the grounds” after Sunday School. Each class ate together… and people I had never seen in my life showed up to our class. It was packed that day… at least for lunch. People love free food.
The best-attended event in Jesus’ entire ministry was a fish fry (John 6). John does not call it that… but bread and fish in Louisiana means fried fish and hushpuppies. Jesus fed thousands from a boy’s sack lunch, and the crowd loved it so much they moved to make him king on the spot (John 6:15). But Jesus would not take a crown that bypassed the cross… so he withdrew.
The next day they hunted him down… and the sermon that followed cleared the room (John 6:66). One sermon… and the crowd is gone. Twelve men remain.
Was that sermon a success?
The longer that question sits, the more it turns around back to us… because it is not finally Jesus who is being tested by it. We are.
We do not stay because we hold on to Christ… we stay because Christ holds on to us.
The next day the crowd finds Jesus, and the first thing he does is name what actually drew them. “Not because you saw the signs… but because you ate the loaves and were filled” (John 6:26). His generosity had become an expectation.
You have taken the free sample at the store… the bite on the toothpick. Nobody thinks the sample is the meal. The sample has one job… to point you to the product. When Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish he was not performing a show. That is the difference between a show and a sign. A show ends with itself… a sign points somewhere beyond itself. The loaves were the sample. But the crowd stopped at the bread… and what was meant to point them to the Holy One of God became the reason they came to him.
Consider this question: What did you come to him for? A settled life, a perfect marriage, or healing. Maybe you came today for a church service. You can come to church and never come to Christ. The danger is that whatever we come to him for is what we stay for.
Jesus is not blind to our hungers. But our hungers do not get to define him. He tells the crowd exactly who he is:
> “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.” (John 6:35)
That is both his name and the chief reason to come to him.
Let me ask you plainly… is that why you came to church today?
“Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). In the middle of a crowd coming to Jesus for lunch, he tells them that the people who truly come to him are given by the Father… and once given, eternally secure. That flies in the face of “make a decision for Jesus.” Decisions come and go, but the will of the Father is that all who believe are secure forever (John 6:39).
Jesus is not a doorman to God. He is the shepherd whose grip never loses a single sheep. He is saying… I will drive none away, and I will lose none (John 6:37, 39). And he tells us how it happens: the Father draws, and he draws by teaching (John 6:44-45). Those taught by God do not become religious… they come to Jesus.
So watch what Jesus does with a crowd that is starting to leave. He does not go get more bread and preach while everyone eats. He preaches more Christ. He knows that whatever draws a person is the same door that person walks out through. The one who came purely for bread will leave when the bread runs out… because he has not been taught by God. He has not received the gospel.
The gospel is news, not advice. It is accomplished, not assisted. It is received, not co-signed. It is Father-drawn, not bread-recruited. Jesus Christ lived the life you owed, died the death you earned, and walked out of a tomb on the third day alive. That is not a plan for arranging your life… it is a report of something already finished.
What happens when someone hears the gospel and walks? Look again at the crowd in John 6: “This teaching is hard. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60). That is not confusion… that is offense. And remember who is talking. These are not casual observers… they are Moses-affirming, scripture-quoting “disciples” (John 6:31, 60). Jesus had told them what the product was… himself. And they put the toothpick down and walked.
A person can hear Jesus, be fed by Jesus, and still walk away. Scripture does not hide that. And coming to church is not necessarily coming to Christ. Judas stayed, and Jesus called him “a devil” (John 6:70). Being counted in the crowd is no assurance. Jesus was not indifferent to that crowd… but he was unwilling to keep them with the thing that gathered them. Walking can reveal unbelief… and remaining can conceal it.
So the masses depart (John 6:66). And Jesus turns to the twelve… “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” (John 6:67)
Imagine the twelve… they watched Jesus feed a multitude from a sack lunch, heard him teach the crowd what true believing looks like, and then watched that crowd walk away. It must have been shocking to them. But Jesus was not shocked. He did not chase anybody down. He did not wish he had preached a different sermon.
And Peter does not say… we will stay and see how it goes. He says something much better.
> Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)
The crowd spent the whole chapter asking what… what work, what sign, what bread (John 6:28, 30). Peter answers with a who. The crowd knew the name… Peter knew the man: the Holy One of God.
In Genesis 15:8, Abram asked God… how can I know? Here is a fisherman standing in the wreckage of a cleared-out crowd, holding the full answer to Abram’s question. Believing has become knowing.
The crowd came because of what was in his hands. Peter stayed because of the words in his mouth.
So how do you know you will not be one of them someday? Do not answer too quickly. That crowd would have sworn they were immune… they had boats in the water at dawn to prove their devotion. You do not answer that question by checking your grip. The ones who are safe are the ones who are held… drawn by the Father, kept by the Son, raised on the last day.
We do not stay because we hold on to Christ… we stay because Christ holds on to us.
So if you came for the loaves, do not despair. That is not a reason to stay away from him… that is the reason he is speaking to you. He never turned a blind eye to the hungers of the crowd. He simply turned their gaze to himself.
You do not have to work up the strength to hold on to him. The invitation is to eat (John 6:53)… and eating earns nothing and receives everything. Empty hands… and a meal made for empty hands.
Jesus makes two promises. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry (John 6:35). He said that. And the one who comes to me I will never cast out (John 6:37). He said that too. Four times in this chapter he adds a third… I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54). Held now… raised then.
Then he died. And then he got up. He is alive to keep every word of it.
One day your loaf will run short… the settled life will wobble, the healing will wait. And his question will find you the way it found that room: you do not want to go away too, do you? When it comes… answer it with Peter. Lord, to whom else would we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Come to him.