Every so often the U.S. economy will have a recession, or a depression — or even what they call a “Crash,” like what happened in 1929. One of the worst in our history was in 1873, when banks and businesses were closing left and right. Theodore Roosevelt’s father wrote to his wife, and told her that he felt especially sorry for a Mr. Clews, the owner of Clews and Company. He said, poor Mr. Clews made business his whole life. He had told Roosevelt not long before that he never even took a vacation. Now, Roosevelt told his wife, everything this man spent his whole life on, has been “swept away … in a day.” 

Is it possible that this could happen to you? Could everything that you have spent your whole life on, be swept away in a day? It matters what you’re working for, doesn’t it? Are you working for things that can be swept away? Or are you working for things that will last for eternity? 

In John 6:27 Jesus tells the crowd: “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” Each of us should evaluate our lives today by Jesus’ words. What are you investing your time, your money, your life in — things that will perish and soon be gone? Or things that will last for eternity? Will YOUR work “perish,” or “endure”?

I. The Choice: temporal or eternal?

The context here is thatJesus had just miraculously multiplied the little boy’s 5 loaves and 2 fish, and fed the 5000. Afterwards He left the crowd, but they came after Him. But Jesus said they were seeking Him for wrong motives: He said in :26, “Truly, truly, I say say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” It was in THIS context that Jesus spoke the words of our text in :27, “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” 

Jesus was telling the crowd that day, that they had a choice: You can either spend your life working for things that perish, or you can spend your life working for things that will last. The word “perish” here is the same word James uses in James 1, of the flower that withers in the scorching sun, and its beauty “perishes.” It refers to something temporary; something that will not last. He said this is what the crowd wanted; they were just seeking more loaves and fish; just temporary things. 

Bread and fish are temporary, aren’t they; VERY temporary. I LOVE the bread that Cheryl and her classes have been making, but bread doesn’t last very long, does it? Just a day or two, even in the bread dome, and it starts to get old. We’ve actually sliced and frozen several loaves, because it doesn’t last long out. And don’t even talk about how long FISH lasts, right? When I was a boy growing up in Oklahoma, we took a “big vacation” down the Gulf of Mexico! And there was a shark washed up on the shore, and I thought it was the neatest thing. So I sliced off a bit of his fin, and put in the camper we were traveling in. It didn’t take long in the heat, and my mom was going, “What is that smell?!” Fish doesn’t last long! Bread doesn’t last long. Jesus was telling the people, you’re all concerned about things that don’t last long; that will perish. He was saying to them: don’t spend your whole life on things that are temporary; that will perish.

Instead, He said, work for what will last. The Bible word here (“meno”) means “abide, dwell, stay, remain.” And He is not just referring to things here on earth, like houses and cars, that’ll last a little longer than fish & bread; He was saying, work for the food which endures to “eternal life” — in other words, that will last forever. 

Jesus told the multitude that day, you have a choice: you can either spend your life working for things that will perish — OR you can spend your life working for things that will last for eternity. And we need to realize that He is saying the same thing to US today too. Will YOUR work perish, or last?

I want us to spend a few minutes applying this idea, first of all, to the overall direction of your life, and then to some specific decisions in your life. 

II. Will Your LIFE perish or last?

Jesus said you can either work for “the food that perishes,” or for “the food which endures to eternal life.” This can apply, first of all, to the direction of your life as a whole. Are you going to “perish,” or will you have “eternal life.” Those are the two choices Jesus set before us in John 3:16, aren’t they: “shall not perish, but have eternal life.” THE single most important question about any person’s life is: will they perish, or will they have eternal life? We often look at a person and size them up: are they a “city person” or a “country person”? Are they rich or poor? Are they attractive or unattractive? But by far, NONE of those things is the most important. All those things will one day pass away. But eternity is forever. Nothing is more important.

Years ago, President Eisenhower was on his death bed, and as he had many times throughout his life, he called for the famous evangelist Billy Graham to come and visit him. So Graham came to the President’s bedside and Eisenhower said to him, “Billy, tell me again how I can know that I have eternal life; nothing else matters now.” On his death bed, nothing mattered to Dwight Eisenhower more than knowing for sure that he had eternal life. It didn’t matter now how big his farm was, or what condition his buildings were in. It didn’t matter now what kind of clothes he had, or what kind of awards or rank he’d achieved as a General or President. The only thing that mattered was whether he knew that he was not going to perish, but have eternal life.

But we need to realize, that this is always true! There is never, at any point in your life, anything more important than knowing that you will not perish, but have eternal life! As Jesus points out here, one or the other of these two fates awaits you: you will either perish, separated from God in hell, or you will have eternal life forever with Him in glory. It will be one or the other: perish, or eternal life. 

So how can you know which you will have? The Bible says God created us to experience eternal life with Him; it’s what He designed us for. It’s what we all long for in our hearts. But the problem is, we have all sinned against God; and our sins cause us to “perish,” to be separated from God in hell. This is the problem Jesus came to solve. This is what John 3:16, is all about: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” NOT “perish,” but have “eternal life.” And what makes the difference? It’s Jesus! He died on the cross, to pay for our sins, so that if we believe in Him, He will give us eternal life. He says here in John 6:27 that eternal life is something “which the Son of Man will GIVE to you.” You don’t “earn” it by going to church or giving money or doing good things; Jesus GIVES it to you, when you admit your sins and ask Him to save you. He GIVES you eternal life. Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

THE most important question of your life is: have you ever done that? Have you put your faith in Jesus’ death on the cross to forgive your sins, make you right with God, and give you eternal life? We’ve had a number of people in our church in recent months who have come forward, saying, I was baptized when I was young, but I am just now truly trusting Jesus as my Savior. This is wonderful; this is what we need to do. There is nothing more important in life than knowing that you will not perish, but have eternal life. Your whole life will be characterized by the fact that you will either “perish”, or have “eternal life.” 

Tuesday many of the pastors from our community came to ACS, and we had a prayer time for all the teachers. A pastor friend of mine there was telling me about how in college, there was this guy, who was 6’4”, 220 pounds, a great athlete, but he was an atheist. But he liked this girl at college (in fact it was this pastor’s former girlfriend, but that is another story!), and so this atheist guy came to a Christian event just to see her. At the event, they sang the old hymn, “Blessed Assurance.” Many of you know the chorus to that song: “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.” Well later this guy said that as he heard that song, he thought to himself, “What’s MY story? What’s MY song?” And he said, “I don’t have one.” And he realized the emptiness of his life without the Lord; and it led to him giving his life to Jesus as his Savior! 

But SO many people are like that: they don’t have a “story;” they don’t have a “song” to carry them through the ups and downs of life; they don’t have anything more than the “bread and loaves,” the temporary things of this life. They don’t have anything for eternity.   The question is: DO YOU?! Do you have a story; do you have a song? Do you have eternal life? If you don’t know it, you can. Ask Jesus to save you today!

But I also want us to understand that “eternal life” does not only refer to “duration”; it also refers to a quality of life; a life that has an eternal dimension to it; it is focused on eternity. If you have eternal life, you should invest your life in eternal things. Your eternal life should influence specific choices that you make every day. This is where I want us to focus the rest of our application of this message today:

III. Will Your WORKS Perish or Last?

In 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, Paul wrote: “Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; be he himself will be saved – Yet so as through fire.” 

Paul is saying that if you are a Christian, and have the foundation of Jesus Christ in your life, that on the foundation of Christ you can either build with “gold, silver and precious stones” — things that will last, OR with “wood, hay and straw” — things that will perish. You can choose to invest your time, your work, your life – even as a Christian — in things that will perish or in things that will earn an eternal reward. He says some people — even Christians — will be like a man who ran out of a burning house and lost everything. They themselves will be saved -“yet so as through fire.” They won’t have anything with them, to show for their life, because they spent their whole life working for things that did not last.

I remember a youth in our church one time lamenting over how they had worked all summer, but didn’t have anything left to show for it. They’d spent everything they earned as they went along! It’s sad to have worked a whole summer, as a young person, and to have nothing to show for it. But how much worse to have spent your whole LIFE working for “the gold which perishes” – and have nothing left to show at the end of it! If we are going to avoid that, we need to consciously invest our lives in things that will last, that will matter for eternity, and bring us an eternal reward. So let’s think specifically about the choices we make in three particular areas of our lives: our careers, our money, and our time.

A. You can invest your VOCATION in eternity. 

How do you decide what you are going to do with your life? A lot of people ask: what can I do to make the most money? Some ask: what can I do that will “make a name for myself” or “leave my mark on the world” and make me famous. Some just look for what they feel “comfortable” doing. In contrast to that, the old Puritans would ask what can I do that would best glorify God and LAST for eternity?! I don’t know how many people think like that today, but we should. We all have to work; so why not work at something that will last for eternity?

This is one of the things God used to call me to ministry. I remember once a lawyer in my home church in Harrah, Oklahoma asking me why I was going into ministry. I told him I wanted to do something with my life that would last for eternity. I said if I were an architect, and spent my whole life creating houses, that one day all my work would burn up; but if I served the Lord in ministry, what I did would last forever. In the same way, God may be calling some of you today, to invest your life in ministry or missions, that will give me benefits that will last forever.

Now, today I would also balance what I said all those years ago, with a little more mature understanding that you can earn a great eternal reward by serving God in ANY sphere of life, if you do your best at it and seek to glorify Him through it, and use it as a witness for Him. It’s not that you “waste your life” if you do anything else besides ministry as a full-time vocation. Do everything you do with eternity in mind. Don’t just “go through the motions” on your job. Glorify God in it! Use it as a witness for Him. Make what you do at your job every day, last for eternity. 

B. You can invest your MONEY in eternity. 

Even if your job is what we’d call a “secular” career, you can still invest some of the money you make in eternity. Listen: when you earn money in exchange for the hours you give to your job, you have basically traded those hours of your life for the money you receive. So when you spend that money, you are in essence spending those hours of your life! (That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? It ought to affect the way we spend our money: you just traded X amount of your LIFE for that thing you just bought!)

So understanding that, you should evaluate: on WHAT are you spending your money? For what are you trading your life? We all have to spend some of our income on what Jesus calls here “food which perishes.” We all have to eat; and have a place to live, and buy clothing and the basic necessities of life. We have to spend some of our money on those things. But at the same time, are you also investing at least some of your money in “the food which endures to eternal life” — are you investing at least some of your income in eternity? 

Years ago I heard the story of a man in Texas who did very well in the oil business, and he gave a large sum of money to a Baptist ministry here. But not long afterwards, he lost everything he had in an “oil bust.” One of his friends said to him: “Now I bet you wished you didn’t give all that money to that ministry!” But this man said “Not at all. If I hadn’t given that gift, I would have lost all THAT money, too, along with everything else. As it turns out, (he said) the only money I kept is what I gave away.” But the thing is; that is not only true for HIM; it’s true for ALL of us. All the money we spend on all the worldly things we do, is spent and gone, and we’ll never see it again. But what we give to the Kingdom of God, isn’t “lost,” but is invested in God’s work, and we’ll get a reward in eternity for it! So just like that oil man, the only money we really “keep” is what we give away!

Jim Eliot is famous for his quote: “That man is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Are you doing that? Are you swapping the money you can’t keep for an eternal reward that you can’t lose? Are you at minimum tithing? And are you investing beyond that in missions and ministries for God’s Kingdom that will “endure to eternal life?” We have a great opportunity today, to invest our perishable money into ministry through this fellowship hall that will touch lives for eternity, and bring us a reward in heaven that Jesus said “moth and rust can’t destroy, and thieves can’t break in and steal”! If we really believe in heaven, and eternal rewards, then we should be investing our money in eternity. 

(C) You can invest Your TIME in eternity. 

Again, we all have things that we must do with our time: work, take care of our family, and other responsibilities. But what do you do with your discretionary time? How much of your time is spent on “food which perishes” and how much is spent on “food which endures”? 

Say you work each day from 8 to 5, and you get home at 6, and eat dinner. What do you do with the time you have left? Let me tell you what I hope you DON’T do: I hope you don’t get up from the dinner table and watch tv from 7-10:00, and go to bed and get up the next day and start it all over again. Is that how you really want to spend your life? What benefit is that, to you, to your family, to God’s kingdom, to anyone? Now, that doesn’t mean that there’s never a time to just rest and watch a good tv show (if you can find one!) but do you really want to spend your life, night after night, watching something that has no eternal value; and is actually hurting you more than helping you?

John Piper wrote a great little book on this topic called “Don’t Waste Your Life.” And that’s what Jesus is saying here: “Don’t waste your life” by spending it all on “food which perishes.” Instead, “work for the food which endures to eternal life.” Invest your time in things that will last: read godly books that will enrich Your mind and help others in ministry. Spend your time studying to teach a Bible study class, or in serving at church; or visiting and ministering to the elderly/homebound. Are you doing some things like that? How much of your time are you investing in eternity? 

Last week, every single one of us had the exact same amount of time: 168 hours. Rich or poor, young or old, popular or unpopular, every single one of us had 168 hours to spend last week. On what did you spend them? How many of those 168 hours were spent on “food which perishes”— stuff that won’t matter for eternity, and how many hours were spent on “food which endures” – things that will matter for eternity, and bring an eternal reward? 

Picture in your mind, a paper page showing the 7 calendar days of last week, and all of your activities from the week listed on it, hour by hour.  Now imagine the “fire of God’s judgment” that I Cor. 3 talks about, burning that calendar page up. And the only things that will survive that fire are the “gold,” the “silver,” and the “precious stones” — the things you did for God that week, that had eternal value. How many hours would you have left from last week that would survive that fire, and give you an eternal reward?  

— Can you look and see: “Ah, there was an hour of prayer” — that was a golden hour that will last for eternity!

— “There was a Sunday school class I taught” — that hour is invested into eternity” (My sister got a note on Facebook from a Sunday School class member who said she is still benefitting from the verses she had her memorize in class almost 30 years ago! Those hours she spent teaching Sunday School are not lost; they are “golden hours” invested in eternity!) 

Are you investing hours like that? How many “golden hours” did you save last week, that weren’t wasted, but which were invested in eternity?

See, now we’re looking at another week, aren’t we? If the Lord wills, and we all live, as James says, each one of us here will have another 168 hours this week. How many hours will you spend this week on “the food which perishes” — and how many will you spend on “the food which endures”? What will you do this week, that will not be wasted, but will last for eternity? 

CONCLUSION:
During my first pastorate in Oklahoma City, I visited Arthur & Blanche Shingleton, a delightful senior adult couple who were probably close to 90 years old. During our visit, Blanche told me about a woman she knew years ago, who was herself very advanced in years then. One day this woman’s home caught on fire. And like sometimes happens in crisis situations, she just panicked when she saw the fire, and she began running back and forth through her house, trying to decide what she should save. She was so distraught, that in her panic, she grabbed a huge block of ice she had bought for her ice box (this was in the days before refrigerators) and with a tremendous deal of effort, this frail little lady dragged this block of ice out to the front yard, to rescue it from the fire. Because it took her so much time and effort, it was the only thing she was able to bring out of her house, before it burned to the ground. Then she stood there, watching her house burn, while the only thing she “saved,” was a block of ice — which quickly melted and was gone.

To me, that’s such a pathetic story: she put all that effort and work into “saving” something that just melted away, and now she had nothing. But do you realize, that what that woman did, is a picture of what many of US are doing with OUR lives right now? Most people are spending their whole life on things that will not last, but like that block of ice will just melt away into nothing, for all eternity. Jesus is calling us to something better than that today. He’s calling us to examine our lives, our habits, our money, and our commitments. And He says: “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.”

INVITATION:

How do Jesus’ words here challenge YOU today? What does it mean for the choice of your career; for the way you spend your money, or your time? (Some of us need to use this invitation time to write your tithe, and invest that chunk of your income into eternity, where it will never be lost; or prepare a special gift for the fellowship hall — or whatever God has spoken to you about today.) But each of us need to ask God: “What specifically do I need to do differently THIS WEEK because of what Jesus said?” Ask God to show you — and DO it!

— And most importantly, do you know that you yourself do have eternal life? It’s not all about your money or your time; will YOU be in heaven? You can know that, if you will trust Him to be your Lord & Savior today!