sunday sermon snippet 23 August 2026
Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life…
~ John 6:27a, CSB
This week’s posting of the Sunday Sermon Snippet comes from this past Sunday’s sermon on John 6:22-34. A small group of those folks who were part of the feast for 20,000 have tracked Jesus down the next day in a synagogue, and a back and forth dialogue ensues. Is the conversation about bread, or life? Well, it’s about both, but as is often the case with Jesus, there is far more here than meets the eye...
…and if you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
What Is LIFE?
When our two oldest children were in high school a number of years ago, there was a common phrase all the kids were using: “What is life?” Ok, now, in order to know what they meant by that, let me say it how they said it, and I think you’ll catch on, “Whaaat iiiisss liiiifffee???” Now you’re getting the picture, aren’t you? This wasn’t a question, well, I guess it was, but it’s a bit of a rhetorical one. It’s making a statement more than asking something. It’s a complaint, that life isn’t all that they wanted it to be. In other words, “Why is my life like this?”
Let me put it to you straight now: What is life? If you had the mic this morning, how would you answer?
I was reading a story this week, this is not me, this is someone else now, they’re telling a story:
“It wasn’t that long ago that one of my sons went flying with me, because we had one of these things where I had to go on a business trip and I could take along somebody free. So I took one of my sons with me. Boy, he loved it. He liked the fact that the stewardesses would bring him soft drinks. At one point he asked for a soft drink, she brought him a soft drink, he put his chair back, he kicked his legs up, he looked down on the clouds, he sipped his soft drink, and he turned to me, leaning back in his chair — he’s 7 years old—and he says,
“Dad, this is living.”
Ok, so here’s the thing. Here’s the question. Was his son dead 30 seconds before he said that? Was his heart not pumping, lungs not taking in air, he’s not living? Of course not. He was living, but then, something changed, and he was living. And this is really important to know the difference, right? That there are actually two kinds of living. There’s a kind of living that is just existence, and there is a kind of living that is, well, I mean, living. That’s what his boy was on about. A quality of life, a kind of meaning and energy and vibrancy and joy of life. “Dad, this is living.”
What is life? Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Life is short. You know, something has happened to me in my later 50s. I’ve been looking back on my life, and its got me thinking quite a bit about looking forward in my life. I mean, I could get hit by a car or have a massive heart attack and be dead this afternoon, but let’s say that doesn’t happen. What I know now is I have less life to live than I’ve already lived. And that’s had Susan and I thinking on how we want to finish, and that we want to finish well. And I’ve looked back in this time of my life, on my life, and I’ve had some regrets. And I think that’s because of how I answered the question, “What is life?” in parts of my life, that sometimes I answered it wrongly. And when I think about how the Bible describes what life is—that every human being stands as a vapor (Ps. 39:5), that we are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes (James 4:14)—well, before I vanish, I want to get it right. I want to get the answer to this question absolutely correct. I want to know that I am truly living.
Because I’m not an adolescent anymore, whining “What is life?” I’m an older man, who has come to learn with increasing clarity the water-like reality of my life. As I just read someone talking about this week, they asked the question,
“How long can you hold water in your hands? You know when you cup water in your hands under a hose to drink it? How long can you hold it? Not very. It drains through your fingers.”
That’s my life, and that’s your life, in this age. It’s seeping through your fingers. So really understanding life, and living, and death, and what the future holds after death, I mean, is there anything more important you could be thinking about this morning? Is there anything more important that Jesus could address to those seeking him out? Nope.
Which is why he turns his attention to that which is truly life, it’s why he’s talking about eternal life, with people asking the question, in a synagogue….
If you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
