The Necessity Of Jesus; The Bread Of Life - [John 6]

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Our text for this evening, as some of you may have guessed, is John chapter 6. I want to thank my brother
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Jack here for humoring me and reading as much of John 6 as he could, especially without the glasses.
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Thank you, Jack. And maybe I'll just take a minute here.
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One of the things we notice in our church family is there are some who have an extra measure of trial, as it would seem, and I know the earlier years are not unfamiliar with that.
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And it's always encouraging to see when a brother or sister in Christ, when they go through trials, that they would trust in the
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Lord and be faithful in the midst of their trials. So we learn from a lot of different ways, primarily from the
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Scripture, and we see how Christ works in the midst of our body through the lives of the saints.
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So that's always an encouragement. So John 6, we had 40 verses of John 6, and we have 71 verses there.
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If you just scan through the book, chapter 6, what would be one word that just comes to the top of your mind?
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I'm not supposed to wait this long. The answer is, yes, bread. Thank you. So there's one word that comes right from the beginning and goes all the way to the end, and that word is bread.
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You see the word bread repeated over and over again. And each of you should have a small outline just because of the volume of text that we're going to be covering this evening.
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And it kind of breaks down this passage by some events. There are three events that we will look at, and then there is a series of discourses.
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There are actually seven questions and answers that Jesus answers, and then finally we'll see a conclusion.
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And as we examine the events and the discourse and the conclusion, we will study and understand what this all -pervading theme of bread is.
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In fact, we will be focusing primarily on the discourse, although we will briefly cover the events and the conclusion.
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John 6 actually highlights Jesus as the bread of life.
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Jesus uses this title to describe himself. And as we see John 6, it will also showcase our utter, complete dependence and the need that we have for this bread of life.
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So it's going to contrast Jesus as the source, as the bread of life, and it's going to show how we are in need of him.
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Hence the title, The Necessity of Jesus, The Bread of Life. My purpose here this evening is twofold.
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Primarily that you would learn these truths about Jesus and that we would cherish them in our own salvation.
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I want us to be able to apply this to ourselves and enjoy the benefits of Jesus as the bread of life.
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And secondly, because that is the primary thrust of this message, we will also see how we can apply these truths in evangelism towards unbelievers.
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That's exactly what Jesus is doing. He's proclaiming the truth about himself to people who do not believe in him, and you will learn how you can be faithful in ministering the gospel to those who do not know him.
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And because the text itself is primarily geared towards unbelievers, one thing
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I do not want you to do while you're listening is start thinking about the people you're going to talk this message to.
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How do I start evangelizing? Because I think one of the best ways to evangelize is to first listen to the message as it applies to ourselves.
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Internalize it. Enjoy it. And when you have that joy of the Lord inside of you, that will go out and do its work.
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You will be unable to stop going out and evangelizing. So I hope that this will be a time where the awesome goodness that God has given each of us will just encourage you this evening.
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And out of that abundance, you will go out and preach the gospel to others. Okay, so let's dive right into the text.
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We're going to look first at the three events, the feeding of the 5 ,000. You see that in verses 1 through 15. And I'm not going to go through the events in too much detail, but I want to point certain things as they lead up to the discourses.
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The first thing you see in verses 1 through 5, I'm not going to read them again. You see that Jesus and his disciples are in a mountain, and you see a large crowd coming up to him.
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And the reason they're coming up, we are told, is because they've already seen some signs, and they're really enthralled with this person,
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Jesus. In fact, if you look at the other gospels, in fact, this is one of this and the crucifixion are the only events that are covered in all four gospels.
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And you'll find that Jesus has already taught them some truths. And here these people are coming here, it's late in the day, and Jesus asks a question in verse 5.
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He asks this to Philip, primarily looking at the large crowd. He says, where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?
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So the first thing I want to point out here is the compassion that Jesus has for these large multitudes who are in a distant, remote place, far away from possible sources of food.
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And one thing that is really remarkable, you will find as you go towards the end of this passage, is many of these people who are here coming after him, eagerly looking for him, will no longer be with him in the end of chapter 6.
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The majority of the people are going to go away. And even more fascinatingly, Jesus knows exactly what is going to happen.
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It is not that Jesus is going to be surprised that many of these people are going to go away. But here Jesus Christ, with full understanding that many of these people are not believers and not going to be believers, he here has compassion for those who are in a physical need.
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And what does he do? He sees people hungry and tired, and he chooses to feed them.
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They are in a remote place. One thing I think of is, many a time, aren't we glad that the
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Lord doesn't give us all the information about everything that is going on around us? If I were to know that somebody that I am very close with is going to turn away,
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I would wish I wouldn't be this way, but sinfully so, I don't think I would be acting out with full compassion as Jesus does here among this crowd.
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But Jesus here chooses willfully to help these people, many of whom are going to go away from him.
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So the first thing is compassion. The second one I want you to notice is the test that he gives for his inner twelve.
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You see this in verses 6 -9. Jesus has asked Philip, and you wonder why he asked
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Philip, because if you think of the geography of where Jesus is, this is right up in the Sea of Galilee, as you know that is in the
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Galilean area, northern Israel. You have the Dead Sea down in the south, and this is on the northern tip of the
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Sea of Galilee. So Jesus is right up in northern Israel, and there is a city there called
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Bethsaida, and Philip is from that area, so he is a local. So Jesus asks Philip. It's almost like Jesus was in the
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West Boilson Reservoir, I assume 50 years back, when we had, what fields did we have here?
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Peanuts, I think? Mr. DiPietro was telling me we had mushrooms. Thank you.
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There were mushroom fields 50 years back. So, you know, no fields, no AJ's Pizza, but here you have a huge crowd of people out here, and you are the one from West Boilson, so Jesus looks to you and asks, and you say, well, let's fast forward 50 years, because I don't know what was there then.
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You think of AJ's Pizza, and you say, oh, yeah, I know a place nearby. One pizza cut up into eight, maybe five people can eat it.
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One pizza, $10? Roughly, my math is not that good. So if one pizza feeds five people, and we have 5 ,000 men, then
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I need 1 ,000 pizzas, and 1 ,000 times $10 is $10 ,000.
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Oh, Jesus, I have 50 bucks in my pocket, and if I had 500, 10 times the money,
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I would still not be able to feed a piece for all the people here, and of course, we have men and women over the 5 ,000 that are there.
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So that's the dilemma Philip has, and he throws up his hand and says, Uncle, you know, impossible to solve,
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Jesus. I'm from the area, but I don't know how you can fix this. I love your heart for these people, but no solution.
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And we see Andrew, on the other hand, he's the guy who always keeps bringing people to Jesus, and he gets this boy with five loaves of barley bread, barley loaves and two fish, and he again says, yeah, this is there, but can't do much with it.
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And again, the purpose that Jesus asked the question, John explains for us, was to actually test them.
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It's not that he didn't have a solution. He wanted them to learn to grow in their faith. In fact, they will grow by the end of this passage.
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And that brings us to the miracle itself. We see that in verses 10 through 13, where Jesus says, okay, the time has come for me to act.
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He has the people sit down. It's interesting, the disciples don't know what the answer is yet, but they go ahead and let them sit.
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The people probably don't know what the answer is yet, but they go ahead and sit in an orderly manner, and Jesus does his miracle.
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He takes these five barley loaves and two fish, small fish, and he multiplies the food.
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And in fact, we read in verse 12, that they had eaten their fill. It wasn't a small piece that everybody had.
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Everybody ate and were satisfied, so much so that they had 12 basketfuls of food left over, and Christ has them gathered once they are done eating.
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Here you see, and this is important for us to understand, the crowd here came here because they had seen Jesus doing a lot of healing before.
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If you see through John 1 through 5, you see the various healings that has happened. In John 5, he heals a paralytic man.
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In John 4, he heals a nobleman's son. In John 2, you have other healings that people looked and were amazed.
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So here are people who know that Jesus is some kind of miracle person, something special about him. And here he does another miracle that totally blows their mind away.
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Never seen anything like this in their lifetimes, and they are starting to see something that maybe
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Jesus is something more than what they had thought before. And that leads them to try to make him king.
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And Jesus here in verses 14 and 15 has to escape a coronation ceremony right there in the wilderness.
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If you think about coronation and what that means, here they are under Roman rule, and people see
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Jesus doing all these things. And in fact, if you look at verse 14, they say, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
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What prophet were they referring to? If you remember Moses, when he had finished his ministry and he was going to move on, he says, the
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Lord is going to bring another prophet like me. And him you will hear and obey. And that was one of the messianic signs that people were looking forward to.
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Someone like Moses. And here Jesus, similar to Moses in the desert, has done something miraculous.
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Just like how God provided manna, here Jesus has done something special. And it builds on top of everything else that Jesus has done before.
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And so they say, this is the Messiah. Of course, the Messiah has kingly overtones. We know he is the son of David.
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And so the people say, okay, let's go make him king. But of course, they want to make him king by force of an earthly kingdom.
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And Jesus, again here, knows their heart. And he will reject the false glory that they are going to try to give him.
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And he's not only going to reject their earthly favor that they're going to give him by making him king, but eventually you'll find that he will distance himself even from their personal favor in trying to get to the bottom of the truth.
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It has nothing to do with kingship. It has nothing to do with rejecting Rome. It is about a spiritual kingdom that Christ has come to declare.
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And that truth will not be compromised for his own glory in time and space.
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One quick comment again before we move on. And that is, chapter 6 is actually the peak of Jesus' popularity in the
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Gospel of John. Gospel of John, you can easily divide 1 to 12. That is his public ministry. 13 to end is his ministry to his disciples.
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And in 1 to 12, you will find that the first six chapters, as Jesus does and teaches things, all the people are getting excited about him.
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They want to come and follow him. And chapter 6 is a decisive moment because right here everybody's going to start falling off.
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And then when it goes to chapter 11 and 12, you will see with Lazarus, right there is where people want to start killing him because they feel that he is not genuine.
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He is a false teacher. So chapter 6 is a decisive chapter in the
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Gospel of John. So let's quickly go through the other two events and then we'll get into the discourse. So the next event we see is the walking on water, verses 16 through 21.
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Again, another miracle, this one specifically for the disciples. They are going out there, rowing their boats, get stuck in the water once again.
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And Jesus comes. When they see him first, they think he's a ghost.
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They are scared. But Jesus comes in. The sea is calmed and they reach their destination. And Jesus demonstrates his power to his disciples in a very special way.
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And the third event we see is the search. Jesus is missing from the place where he did the miracle.
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And the people want to find out where he is. And that we see in verses 22 to 24 where the next day the crowd knows he's not here.
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They don't know where he has gone. They take a good guess. It might be Capernaum. And so they get some boats and row up to Capernaum.
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It's a very small town, so it's not easy to miss Jesus. Somebody as famous as Jesus in Capernaum, it will raise a crowd and it's easy to find him.
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They do find him. But the question that we want to ask as we get into the discourse is why exactly are they looking for Jesus?
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Here's a really special, spectacular, cool guy.
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He does things that we have never imagined. And he must be the Messiah. He's the next king who's come to liberate us from Rome.
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And more importantly, he feeds us. We don't have to do anything but just sit and listen to this person and we should be all set.
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So here you have people who are looking at Jesus for the wrong reasons. And these seven discourses that we're going to look at, you will find that they are in a question and answer format.
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The people will ask Jesus something and Jesus will not just answer them, but he will give them a specific truth that gets to the heart of the issue.
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And as you see the seven questions, Jesus will get further and further deeper into the truth and that will bring conviction.
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And more important than that, you will see that Jesus elaborates on what he starts to explain beginning with the first discourse.
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So the first question that you have is, why should you seek Jesus? We see this in verses 25 through 27 and let me read that for you again.
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When they, the crowd, found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?
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Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
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Do not labor for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the
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Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has set his seal. Seems like a very innocent question.
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You know, when did you get here? We were looking for you, we found you and we want to know when you got here.
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And, but Jesus doesn't even answer their question. It's very similar to the question that Nicodemus asked Jesus in John 3.
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Rabbi, we know you're a teacher sent from God and Jesus says, you know, truly, truly, unless you're born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
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That wasn't what I asked you, Jesus. But Jesus here knows the thoughts and intent of the people who are coming to him and he says, he gets right down to the issue and he says,
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I know your thoughts and I'm going to give you a verdict. The reason you've come here is not right.
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You're here for food that perishes and that's not the reason you should be looking for me. You need to come here looking for eternal life.
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And let's think about this for a minute. So the people here, they've been fed, they enjoyed the meal, even though it was barley loaves, which are not, you know, rich man's fare, but it was special and they were filled and so they come here to be filled some more with the food.
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And in fact, when we go out evangelizing, you know, when people come and ask to hear about Jesus, most of the time, why do people come to know about Jesus?
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You know, there are needs, there are perceived needs in the lives of people. It may be a trial, something is not going well and they heard that, you know,
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Jesus is capable of solving our problems so I want to come and find out if he can take care of my problem.
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Maybe they are very sad and discouraged and they want to know what kind of joy there is in a Christian life.
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Maybe, you know, there is an intellectual curiosity about Christianity. I want to know what this whole deal is about and I need to know.
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And so there are certain needs that people come with. And many a time, you will find that, you know, people come in circumstances of pain and suffering.
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You know, there is something that is going on and that needs to be taken away and I hear that this Jesus does something. I want to know what it is.
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So most people will come here for that reason. And in fact, pain is one of those interesting things that God brings in our lives, isn't it?
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I mean, if you think about your own salvation, I'm sure many of you can look back at those times when
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God was working through those circumstances of our lives when things didn't make sense and we started looking.
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In fact, at that time when we were looking, we were not looking for eternal life. We were just looking to get out of this problem.
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And in fact, when you go out evangelizing, when you are talking to somebody who is in the midst of pain, you need to have that same kind of compassion that Jesus had when he was looking at people in their need and trying to help them.
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But make sure you don't stop there because the people who are coming to ask you for help do not know better.
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They have their minds that are dark and they will be looking just to be helped at that level in which they are suffering.
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But you as a believer who knows the gospel need to go that extra mile. Be compassionate, be gentle, talk to them about their need but go the next step because God has brought them to that point in their life and to talk to you about the eternal life that they need, that they truly need.
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So let's move on to the second question. And before we do that, so Jesus here moves from the physical bread that they had come looking for and he starts talking about a spiritual bread.
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And you see throughout the Gospel of John how Jesus does that. He takes water and he talks about spiritual water.
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And he does the same thing here. He takes something that they understand and he's going to take its sense into the spiritual realm and he's going to talk about true life.
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The second question, so when you look at the first question, why should you seek Jesus, the answer is you need to look for eternal life and you as an evangelist need to be thinking of how to present that to the one who is looking.
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Second question, what work does God expect of you? And that we see in verses 28 to 29. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God?
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Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.
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It's very interesting. You can put yourself in their situation and you'll very easily get this.
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They came here looking for food. Jesus says, spiritual food. Okay, they say, let me change my thinking hats a bit.
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Let's talk religion. Alright, you want to talk about spiritual food. So tell me what we need to do. I know
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God is there. We need to do certain things to make him happy. What are the works? What things do
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I need to do in order to please God? And in fact, Jesus had kind of set them up for this in verse 27.
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He says, do not labor for food that perishes, but for food that endures.
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So what labor do we need to do? So Jesus now here is going to change the word.
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If you look at it in verse 29, instead of labor, he is now going to use the verb believe.
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And in fact, he will change the works that they are talking about into one work. There is only one thing that God expects of people and that is faith.
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And so he says, nothing you can do can bring you salvation. It can bring you pleasure in God's eyes.
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But what you need to do is believe. And when you think of evangelism, again, when you look at people who want to somehow be right with God, they would use the same mechanism that is common in the world.
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You need to earn some money, you go work. Otherwise nobody is going to pay you. And you come, you want to be right with God, you try to do what
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God likes and hopefully he will do what you want. And that's the thinking of an unbeliever.
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And that was our thinking, my thinking. When I was an unbeliever, I tried to do that bootstrap thing.
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Pull myself up, try hard, do something, somehow I will be right before him, till you realize that that's not what cuts it.
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It's only God's work and what he expects of us is belief. So the work that God expects of us is faith.
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And what a joy when we realize that that was all that was needed and that is the greatest gift that God can give us for salvation.
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Third question, what proves that Jesus is authentic? And that's in verses 30 through 33.
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So Jesus has just talked about belief and so here's the question they asked. So they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see you and believe you?
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What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness as it is written.
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He gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus in verse 32 said, truly, truly
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I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.
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For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Their question again is easy to understand.
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They moved from physical bread to the works that they needed to do and now finally to believe.
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And they say, okay Jesus, you know as well as I do, there are lots of false messiahs out there and if I need to believe,
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I need something tangible. You don't expect me to jump out of the building, right? I need something to see and believe.
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But it is ridiculous when we think of their question to Jesus because they've been following him all this time for the signs that he has performed and he has just done the greatest sign that they have ever seen and that's the nature of the unbelieving mind.
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When I was a young believer I used to think, Lord, this person needs to come to faith in Christ.
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Just do this miracle once for them. Take away that physical illness they have and they will believe.
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I will tell them you will do it and you do it and they will become Christians. I know it. No, it doesn't work that way.
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They will want more. Okay, this got away. Now let's work on this. An unbelieving heart is never satisfied by miracles.
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The miracles point to something but ultimately it is something else that will cause faith. We will look at that in a minute.
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But what they do here is actually very insulting. What they say is, alright, you did a miracle for one evening and gave us bread and we think you are possibly
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Messiah like Moses. Moses fed us for 40 years and oh, by the way, in Egypt you know what he did.
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He took out the whole Egyptians before we really believed in him and even him, they still had problems with Moses.
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But here they are saying, okay, now let's get to business. What are you going to do that we can truly, truly, truly believe in you?
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And they bring this sign of manna. And again, this bread theme continues here. They give this bread from heaven as they call it.
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And Jesus here is going to talk about what that bread really is. But before that,
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I want you to just flip back to the previous chapter in John 5, 46 to 47.
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He has already talked about Moses quite a bit in John 5. But he concludes that with saying, if you believed
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Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me, verse 46. And in 47, if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?
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In fact, he will again go back later in this chapter. He is going to talk about how you get genuine faith.
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You actually have this faith by believing the scriptures that point to Jesus Christ.
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But ultimately, the question comes down to this. On what basis do you believe in Jesus? Do I need bigger and greater miracles?
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And Jesus basically doesn't even answer that. He just gives a contrast between the bread that they are talking about and the bread that he is offering.
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He says, the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
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And he couches it in a beautiful language. In fact, we will look at that as we look at the next question.
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But he says, this is the kind of bread that Moses had, and he will explain why it is distinct in the next passage.
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But he says, this is the bread that you are to be looking for. The bread that gives life, that comes down from heaven.
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And with that very brief statement, he is pretty much telling them, just like he tells the Samaritan woman, don't you want the kind of water that you would not have to come and draw anymore?
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And the natural question should be what we see in verse 34, which is what exactly does
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Jesus offer? They say to him, Sir, give us this bread always. He has just said, the bread that comes down and gives life, give us this bread.
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In fact, there may be a touch of irony here. I don't think they believe that Jesus is capable of giving them this bread, attractive though it might be.
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But they say, okay, at face value, we'll take what you have to say, give us this bread. And that launches
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Jesus into this passage, which explains what it means to be the bread of life. So in verse 35 to 40, we read,
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Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
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But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me
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I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
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For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life.
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And I will raise him up on the last day. In fact, you could probably preach a couple of sermons just on that one passage, and I'm sure it's been done before.
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But we will go very quickly in terms of understanding the big picture here. In fact, you want a little blurb on this,
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I think Pastor Mike's book on page 52 has a little section talking about this very passage. So you can read it when you go home.
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But one thing I want to point out, because this passage causes confusion to people, because Jesus is talking about bread, and he talks about eating his bread further down, and people get confused about, is this talking about the
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Lord's Supper? And in fact, there are Catholics who take this to mean that.
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And I want to just take a moment just to explain what it is and what it is not. If you look at the beginning of the passage, it's talking about the time of the
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Passover. That's when this is happening in Galilee. In the timeline,
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Jesus spent a year in Judea, the first year of his ministry. The next two years was in Galilee, and then the last six months was back in Judea before he goes on the cross.
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And as you know, the cross, his crucifixion happened on a Passover, and this is one
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Passover before that. It's just a year before he's going to be crucified. And when you look at the Passover, or you look at manna, these are all symbols that are pointing to something that is going to happen.
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The lamb that was sacrificed is pointing to a lamb that is going to come. And the sacrament is after the fact.
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Now you're going to look back at something that has happened, and you're going to say, you know, Jesus gives us the elements of bread and the cup to look back at what has happened on the cross.
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And here, when Jesus talks about the bread of life, the bread is a metaphor. It is something that a language that Jesus is using to explain the life -giving nature that he is.
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And in fact, we will see that he will expand that with the flesh and the blood symbol a little later. But this, here in John 6,
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Jesus is talking about the reality of who Jesus Christ is. He's saying, I am the source of life.
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You have to believe in me in order to have salvation. In fact, two of the verses you probably want to look at and jot down, we won't cover this in detail, is in verse 35 and verse 40.
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In 35, he says, he who comes to me shall not hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst.
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Verse 40, he says, who looks on the sun and believes in him will have eternal life. It has nothing to do with eating here at all.
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He is just using a metaphor to explain what happens when you believe. And in fact, he...
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So, just a point aside that I want to make sure that you're not thinking of the
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Lord's table here. So again, here Jesus says, he who comes to me will not hunger. He who comes to me will not thirst.
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And actually, Jesus here gives the full explanation of who he is and what he means by the bread of life.
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So the bread, again, very simple. Physical bread, you need it for sustenance. Without eating food, you're going to die physically.
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And he says here, I am that source of life in the spiritual sense. Without me, you have no life.
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And in fact, that analogy is not fully complete in the sense that physical bread sustains you. It doesn't give you life.
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You don't give bread to a dead body and expect it to live. But here Jesus is saying, I am the source of life.
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I am the one who gives you life and will sustain it for all eternity. He talks about the source. He talks about what the nature of life is.
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He's not talking about physical life necessarily. He's talking about eternal life. In fact, he then explains how you even get it.
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He says, you can't get it unless God draws you. You know, it is the Father's will that some of you need to be saved.
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And he also talks about preservation. He says, those of you who are saved, I'm not going to let go.
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You're going to be saved till the end. I'm going to keep you and preserve you till the end of time. So the life that you give, that you get, will remain for eternity.
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In fact, when he says those language, you shall not hunger, you shall never thirst, he's basically saying this is a one -time thing.
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You believe in me and you are satisfied. Your soul reaches its rest.
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Let's now step back to our own century and look at how you apply this today.
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So there are people who claim to want to know Jesus. And the question you want to really ask is why exactly do they want to know?
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Many a time there is a physical affliction, a mental distress, there is a relational problem.
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And I would urge you, because you have gone through this before, especially if you got saved through such circumstances, that you would be, that you would minister to them in their need.
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But remember that Jesus Christ here is a source of eternal life.
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Your temporal problem, your temporal pain is going to be there for a while and it is going to disappear. In fact,
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I was talking to someone who is pretty close about some of their problems that they were going through.
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And I am looking at that person and say, you know, this person needs the Lord. And I could say something right here to the effect that all your problems are fine but you need
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Jesus and nothing more can be done, which would be fine.
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I think that would be still good to do because it shocks that person up and says, you know, this is more important than that.
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But as I was praying and thinking about how to minister to this person,
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I realized that one thing you need to still show is compassion to this person. This person is blind and deaf and cannot see what the eternal matters are.
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And you need to talk to that person, show them A, that you care for them and B, that you care for them not just for their current problem but there is a bigger issue at hand underlying this.
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And you need to apply yourself to help them to see what this is. And if you were to help them at the first step and then not go any further, you are actually cheating that person of the truth.
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And that should never be on our blood. As Ezekiel says, we will be as men on the watchtower and we will never stop short of proclaiming the salvation that comes from the
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Lord. And again here, when these men are asking about this bread,
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Jesus goes all the way and explains what this bread is. And you and I should not stop short of talking about that life that Jesus is as a bread of life.
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In verses, in questions 5 through 7, we are now going to go deeper into this text. So let's go to that in question number 5.
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Question number 4 we saw, what does Jesus offer? It is eternal life and the nature of the life we have seen. And now the question is coming, how can
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I believe in Jesus? And that's what the Jews are going to ask him in verses 41 through 51.
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So the Jews start grumbling. In fact, the word Jews there talks about the Jewish leaders.
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You will find now that the scene has shifted possibly from the lakeshore into the synagogue.
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And so here the people are starting to grumble, the leaders. And they say, they are grumbling because he said,
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I am the bread that came down from heaven. And they said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
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How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Verse 43, Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves.
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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, they will all be taught by God.
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Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the father, except he who is from God.
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He has seen the father. Verse 47, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life,
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I am the bread of life. He goes back in contrast with the manna that they had pointed earlier.
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He says, your fathers ate the manna in the desert, in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
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I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
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And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. If you go back up to verse 41, it is very surprising.
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These people are starting to grumble. Those of you familiar with the wilderness passage, you will realize that is exactly what people did with Moses.
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When Moses was leading them, they would start grumbling and complaining and God brings judgment down on the people then.
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And very similarly here again, the people start grumbling. But they have a logical reason why they are doing this.
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Jesus, you say you come down from heaven, but we know your ancestry. We know Mary and Joseph.
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How can you say? These two things don't match up. And how can you, Jesus, be that big bread?
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I like that idea, but how about you? Why are you that person? And in fact, this is very interesting because Jesus could have just stopped there and given them a lecture on his genealogy about everything that happened, but he doesn't do that.
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He goes right on with the teaching. What he has started in verse 35, he continues to teach. And what does he teach?
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He talks about God's drawing. He says, you know, unless the Father draws you, you cannot even come to me.
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And he talks about how you know God. It is through the scriptures. And he also contrasts this manna and the bread.
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He says, well, manna, manna, manna, you know, a thousand years after Moses, 1 ,500 years or so afterwards, you know, the manna takes on epic proportions.
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It's like this magical bread. You know, hey, that's just physical food. You know, what you are having here is heavenly bread.
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It's a totally different dimension altogether, and that is me. Period. You don't need to know anything more.
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I have a truth to claim that I make. You either believe it or not, and you will believe it if you are drawn by God and you are taught by God.
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That's it. And in fact, he's going to close with a very provocative language in verse 51 when he now takes that metaphor of bread and takes it to another metaphor called flesh, and we will look at that in a minute in the next question.
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So, you know, today the people might ask, okay, you know, all this eternal life, all that is nice, but why
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Jesus? You know, I might want this God or that guy or that cult or this thing.
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Why Jesus? You have nothing to defend against. You don't go telling them, okay, let me give you 20 reasons why, you know,
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Jesus is better than X, Y, and Z. All you have is the word. You proclaim the truth.
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In fact, when I talked earlier about, you know, ministering to somebody who is in pain, you want to understand, you want to be sympathetic, you want to encourage the person, but you don't go there explaining all the logical reasons why
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Jesus is God. You declare and you say this is what the Bible says, and this is what you need to believe.
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And it's God's work to do everything else, the drawing and the teaching and everything else. But you are faithful when you proclaim the truth directly before other people.
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And actually, what the question that you want to really ask is what really happens before that person can believe? And if you look back at your own salvation, you know that you made a conscious decision.
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You know, you rejected sin and you accepted the goodness and the greatness of Jesus Christ. But looking back, you can always see that how
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God has been enabling you to do that because on our own, we would have continued to love the pleasures of sin and not chosen
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Christ as our salvation. Okay, we need to keep moving. So question number six, we've seen how
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I can believe in Jesus. Now the question comes how must I eat and drink Jesus? And that's set up by that verse 51 where Jesus says, my flesh.
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And that raises up a firestorm. In fact, if they were grumbling in verse 41 about Jesus being the bread, now that picks up another notch here.
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Verse 52, the Jews then disputed among themselves and that is actually interesting because it looks like some actually did agree with what
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Jesus said and others didn't. So they are fighting among themselves and they say, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
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And Jesus answered them truly, truly, again, solemn utterances.
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I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
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Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
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For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks on my blood abides in me and I in him as a living father sent me and I live because of the father.
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So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. And this is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the father ate and died.
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Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. You see, again, he switches the flesh and the bread and the blood in using this language to explain what it means to truly believe in him.
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Now, the question that we all really want to get answered is, what did Jews think of this flesh?
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You know, when they heard flesh, you know it must have shocked them because, you know,
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A, in the Old Testament it doesn't talk about eating people's flesh or drinking people's blood and so what exactly did they think?
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I mean, the very thought is abhorrent to the Jewish people and most commentators are pretty much silent on that.
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I mean, there's one person who thinks that they might have connected Jesus' language with the
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Passover and the symbolism that comes with the flesh of the sacrifice but it was just one person
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I could find. All we know is these people are just disgusted with what Jesus is saying, at least many of them.
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And here, again, Jesus you just wish, you know, Jesus would just stand up and say, alright guys time out.
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Flesh and blood here is what it is. I'm going to die on the cross one year from now and you will understand exactly what
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I'm talking about. You don't see that. Jesus here is now saying, okay, I am the source of life.
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I mean, when we can understand this as believers, here is God in the flesh himself right before people and he demands obedience.
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God doesn't need to prove himself or explain himself. He says, worship me, you worship him.
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End of story. So Jesus is saying, you need to trust me as the bread of life and I'm going to push the language further to explain the extent to which you need to go to believe in me.
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So, you know, did the word flesh offend you? Here's some more. And he just takes that language.
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In fact, Leon Morris, one of the commentators, explains what this language is.
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It's called a synecdoche where the flesh is like a metaphor, but it covers the whole.
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It's the whole person of Jesus Christ. And when you say, you know, eat my flesh, it is like, it is me.
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You need to eat me. You need to have me. You need to, I should be all there is about you.
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And that is the sense that Jesus is kind of going to use our frail and feeble language to expand the understanding of trust and obedience.
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Jesus says, alright, here's what it is. You need to eat me. You need to drink my blood. Period. And that's how you have eternal life.
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Of course, he has already told them up front that this eating and drinking is symbolic of seeing and believing.
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That is how you truly, in a literal sense, would actually believe. But here is the symbolic language taken to its extent.
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And he says, so the question that we want to ask ourselves is, what is the extent of my believing in Jesus?
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Because, you know, when you say believe, most people would say, oh, sure. You know, he died on the cross. That's fine by me.
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I can get that. And in fact, if you go to certain countries like India, you know, they would say, oh, sure, I can believe him, and I can believe a million other things, and we are all cool.
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And so here, Jesus would not allow for any such wiggle room.
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You know, you need to believe in me and me fully and completely. And the question that really comes to my mind,
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I mean, I've been studying this text for two months now, and really, I say, Jesus, can you please make it a little easier?
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No. I mean, this is the central thrust of what salvation is about. And Jesus here, what you naturally want to ask is, why is
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Jesus pushing this? I mean, these guys are struggling with understanding this thing. Can't you make it easier?
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Absolutely not. And one application for you and me that we have to be very, very careful when you're in evangelism circumstances, you're going to have questions that people are going to ask which are tough.
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They're going to ask you, you know, if I am going to believe this and I have to give up my family, you know, that's too much.
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I can't do it. There are still unbelievers when they're talking to you. And you want to sympathize and empathize with them and say, you know, let's try to work something out.
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You would be sinning. Let's talk about Lordship evangelism.
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So, you know, I'm going to, if I become a believer and, you know, this is what it is, then I need to give up my job.
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I'm going to get thrown out on the street that you haven't understood what believing is until you come to that point.
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And if you feel that there are some things that you know is true in the Bible but you have to hide it because that person is not going to accept
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Christ when you share the gospel, be very careful because you may be doing something that you're not supposed to.
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Do you need to go and explain Trinitarianism and election and everything for the people to believe? Absolutely not. But if that question were to come up and you say, you know what, you're not ready for that yet.
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I can't really talk to you. Or, you know, Lordship salvation and that's, we'll figure it out as we go along and I don't want to tell you.
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Examine your motives because it is the truth and the word of God that saves, not our packaging of the gospel in a way that people can understand it.
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So there is no easy believism. And you and I as proclaimers of the gospel should not resort to that.
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Because the people who are coming to hear will be looking for it because that's what will make it easier for them. In fact, I'm so glad that when
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I was an unbeliever and someone was preaching the gospel that they actually preached the clean and unadulterated word.
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It wasn't easy to hear. I didn't want to hear it. I wanted to run away from it. I wanted to close my ears. But when the spirit of God brings conviction it is the truth that saves.
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It is not, you know, okay, we agreed and negotiated settlement. And that's what Jesus does here. He pushes the truth to its full extent and you and I should do the same.
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We should never stop short of preaching the gospel. Bring us to the final question.
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How will anyone believe Jesus? Yeah, if you go all this extent, we are just pretty much saying, hey guys, you don't need to be
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Christians, right? Absolutely not. Verses 59 through 65. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.
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When many of his disciples heard it they said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?
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In fact, until now, the people who were questioning were the Jewish leaders. And here you see the disciples, people who were following him.
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Not the twelve, but everybody else. But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, do you take offense at this?
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Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the
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Spirit who gives life. The flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are
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Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.
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And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the
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Father. Hard saying, absolutely. On face value, people take it and they say,
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Jesus, it was nice knowing you until this time. Now either we are not sure if you are one of those crazy people, but this is something that we cannot do.
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When it says, do not walk with him anymore, here were people who were actually walking after him. That is the terminology.
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They were physically following him and they stopped doing that. They went back to what they used to do before. And Jesus again here questions the offense and he actually provides some clarification.
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Just like how in the passage begins with the physical bread, moves into the spiritual bread, that Jesus is the bread of life, not just a bread that you eat.
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Here again now he has explained all that is about him, about the source of life, spiritual life, election, perseverance.
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And now he says, all right, think carefully about what you have just heard. The flesh profits nothing.
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It is the spirit that gives life. And he again contrasts. And then he ends with a statement which is a little perplexing.
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Some commentators look at it one way versus the other. When he talks about ascending into heaven, we are looking at the ascension after the resurrection where Jesus goes back into heaven and you see that and you are you have no other questions.
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And especially a few of his disciples who see that do it. But the tone in which it is said is, you are going to see more problematic things.
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You are going to see me on the cross and will you still believe? There is going to be other things that are going to make it even harder for you to believe.
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But whatever it is, Jesus is pointing to the end when he will one day return back to Christ. And when you think of hard saying, is the gospel hard to believe?
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You and I as people on this side of the relationship with Christ may say, no, the gospel is so sweet.
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But before it was impossible. Why would I give up my pleasures in order to believe in something that is painful to me?
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I don't want righteousness. I like sin. And there is so much more about the gospel that the natural mind hates.
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And yes, it is going to be hard to believe. And I have a provocative question before we close.
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Think about this for a minute. Was Jesus Calvinistic or Evangelical?
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Thank you. Obviously anachronistic language and probably the wrong question in terms of the terminology.
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But the answer is right. The right way to say it is Calvin was Jesusistic because Calvin preached what
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Jesus said. And Jesus doesn't shy away from talking about predestination and what
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God's role is in salvation. And when you talk about Evangelical, one thing that you want to be careful about is we have
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Evangelicalism which resorts to methods in order to get people to be saved.
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And what you need to remember is it is the truth that saves. Jesus boldly proclaims the truth and it is the proclamation of the truth that will bring people to Christ when
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God does his work. It's not how nicely we package it. One thing before we conclude,
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I want to just assert and I've kind of mentioned this throughout. Jesus knows the thought and intent of people.
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So when Jesus here looks at all the people and says, hey you guys are not believers, he knows what's going on inside. You and I don't.
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You and I don't know what people are thinking. You and I don't know which people are elect. And so that's why we proclaim the gospel to those who are lost praying that God would indeed save them.
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And we do it with gentleness and with humility because you and I do not know the intent. People can reject it and ten years later come back to salvation.
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And may they never put you as the cause of the one who caused offense. The gospel should cause offense but not you and I.
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And we need to be gentle and loving in sharing this truth that God has given to us. In fact in the conclusion in verses 66 through 71 you see what happens.
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In modern Evangelical terms the greatest failure but in God's terms exactly the will of God.
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Verse 66, after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. And so Jesus said to the twelve, do you want to go away as well?
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And Simon Peter answered him, Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
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And we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. And Jesus answered them, did
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I not choose you the twelve and yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he one of the twelve was going to betray him.
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And we have the contrast of true faith and false faith in this passage where verses 67 through 69 you have the true believers who are drawn by God and that is the same thing that happens even today.
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It is God's work that brings the people here and Peter's confession once again is remarkable.
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You know he has seen all these great miracles. It's not the miracles that have convinced Peter about Jesus Christ.
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He says you have the words of eternal life. Jesus is the word and he is God himself who has come down. And he says his knowledge, he has believed in this bread that Jesus has been talking about and it is a settled belief.
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He has come to know and there is no question in Peter's faith. And on the other hand you have the false professors who will fall.
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In verse 66 you see some fall away immediately. And that happens today. You go preach the gospel to someone, majority of the unbelievers will say well no thank you.
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Or you are foolish. And there is a rejection of Jesus Christ. But then there are others who will fall away later.
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And in fact talking about Judas after more than three years with Jesus here is one who is an apostate.
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An apostate is one who was never a believer to begin with. Just like these disciples followed for a season he followed for a little longer but ultimately fell away.
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We have seen John 6 highlight Jesus as the bread of life. And Jesus' powerful words showcase our utter, complete absolute need for this bread.
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You know you and I as believers who have tasted this bread, who have had our hunger filled, who have had our thirst quenched forever, we can rejoice in what
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God has done for us. So I want you to think through this week and as you remember we heard this morning of how
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God has taken us from the ash heap and seated us with the princess and that's exactly what this passage is talking about.
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That life comes through Jesus Christ. We have been drawn praise God and we are able to enjoy that abundant life which is eternal beginning now.
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But also as you start thinking of how you are going to witness to those whom you know, see how you remember that they seek not the truth, they seek for spiritual
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Tylenol. And you need to be looking at presenting the gospel presented in a way that conforms to the truth of scripture and do not be ashamed of the gospel.
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And there will be some who will be offended and others who will come to faith in Christ but that is God's work not ours.
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You and I must proclaim Jesus as the source of life and as the sustenance of our life today.
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And I just want us as we close to remember that we came into the fold of God by believing in Jesus and we continue to walk today because of this bread of life who is our sustenance day by day by day until one day we will be feasting with him in heaven.
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Let's pray. Dear God our
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Heavenly Father we thank you Lord for this word that you have recorded for us in scripture.
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Lord we tremble at the impudence of these people who questioned you
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God in the flesh two thousand years ago. And even now Lord help us to remember you the high and exalted one has condescended to look down through the heavens down to earth into our ash heaps and that you have saved each and every one of us who believes in you today.
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Help us oh Father to proclaim your excellence and your majesty to a lost and dying world.
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A world that has no understanding of the terrors that await for the future and who do not know that they are rebels.
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Help us by your spirit to use your word to proclaim the gospel.