What Is Your Life's Priority?

Several years ago I read about a young man graduating from high school in Oklahoma. Someone asked him what he was going to do with his life. The young man brashly said, "I am going to become the best catcher that baseball has ever seen." That young man's name was Johnny Bench. Arguably, he became the best catcher that has ever played the game of baseball. When Johnny Bench said he was going to become the best catcher in baseball, he was expressing the priority of his life. To reach this goal, he had to work hard, make sacrifices, and focus continually on this goal. He also had to have a large portion of God-given talent. Now your goal in life may not be the same as Johnny Bench's, but you probably have one. This is the point our Lord made here in John 6.

You remember Jesus fed the 5,000 just the day before. The crowd responded to this miracle by wanting to make Him King. Can you imagine having a king who could provide everything the subjects of the kingdom needed? Who would need taxes when the King could just call it into existence? We pick up the narrative here in John 6 where Jesus was sending the crowd away. He put His disciples in the one available boat and they have crossed the Sea of Galilee as Jesus went to a mountain apart to pray. He walked on the water to them in the middle of the night. When our text opens, it is the next day and some of the crowd returned to the spot they last saw Jesus. In this text, we will see three important divisions.
I. The Crowd's Commitment (v. 22-25)
II. The Crowd's Priority (v. 26-27)
III. The Lord's Challenge (v. 28-29)