The ABC's of the Christian Life (1): Coming to Christ for Salvation (1)

First Baptist Church Leominster

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As we look to the remaining weeks before us, before autumn and all its activities, it's not that far off.

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This last Sunday in July, today, August, just a couple days away, we want to begin this new series this morning.

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And we're calling this subject the ABCs of the Christian life, not the Christian faith so much as the

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Christian life. And so it's our intention to address in coming weeks the most important truths of God's Word that concern the manner in which we are to live as Christians within our fallen world.

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And only the Lord knows how many weeks we'll be addressing this subject. I'm clueless. I've got through next

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Sunday planned, but I know this is going to take a while. There are actually a number of considerations that are going to influence our choice of topics as well as to the degree that we treat each one.

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Now, on the one hand, we desire to address only that which is basic and foundational. And I have to keep reminding myself of that, that which is basic and foundational.

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Those general matters that are essential for us to know and practice. On the other hand, if we're to explain these matters properly, there is need for some complexity in order to instruct and correct perhaps wrong thinking, wrong notions, things that we've been perhaps taught, things to which we've been exposed, and perhaps given my own propensity to perhaps be more detailed than what

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I ought to be, again, we might be here a while. I don't know. We'll see. I'm thinking ahead already.

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I think 1 Peter would be a good letter to address maybe later this fall. Now regarding the difficulty in balancing the presentation of the broad and general from the narrow and precise, our first topic that we want to address today reveals that dilemma.

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And our topic is, as you can see, coming to Christ for salvation. That's about as basic as you can get, isn't it, right at the outset.

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Now there is a simplicity in this matter that we want to preserve. There is a simplicity in coming to Christ for salvation.

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The Apostle Paul was concerned for the Christians at the church at Corinth when he wrote these words.

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But I fear, lest somehow, as a serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

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Some people make things too difficult. There's a simplicity in Christ. Come to Christ, and there's life, eternal life in Him.

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On our part, coming to Christ is not a great prize that may be successfully acquired through a tremendous effort.

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That is not the Christian faith. Now that's the way of every other religion in the world, but that's not biblical

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Christianity, acquiring this through great effort. Coming to Christ is simply to believe on Him alone to save us.

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That's as simple as it can be. Paul expressed it this way, and he's referring to Jews who refused or failed to believe on Jesus as their

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Savior. For they, that is Israel, being ignorant of God's righteousness, in other words ignorant that God gives the gift of righteousness, they were ignorant of this, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

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For Christ is the end of the law, and what's meant by the end there is the destination.

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If you follow the law of God, it will lead you to Christ, is what he's saying. It's the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.

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For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, this kind of righteousness does not save anybody, it condemns everybody.

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The man who does those things shall live by them. But the righteousness of faith, in other words the gift of righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ, speaks in this way.

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Do not say in your heart, who shall ascend to heaven. You know, it doesn't take some great feat to somehow clamber your way up into heaven itself, to gain your salvation of your soul, and to bring

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Christ down from above. Or we'll descend into the abyss, that is to bring

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Christ up from the dead, but what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith we preach.

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That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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I think that's talking about being saved on the day of judgment. You will be delivered, the one who believes on Christ.

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For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confessions made unto salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes on him will not be put to shame.

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And again, I think that's speaking about the future day of judgment. Those who have faith in Jesus as their

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Savior, only in Jesus, faith in Jesus, will not be put to shame on the day of judgment, but they will stand exonerated before a holy

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God because the gift of righteousness has been conferred to them through faith in Jesus alone.

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And so verses 6 and 7 of this passage, Romans 10, show the attaining of the righteousness through faith alone is an easy matter to be realized in your life.

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It's a simple thing. It does not require great effort, even fighting your way into heaven or struggling to escape death.

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As one rightly said, here too the truth to be emphasized is that the really difficult task is not for us to undertake.

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It has been accomplished for us by Christ, thankfully. It is He who came down from heaven, dwelt among us as in a tent, suffered the agonies of hell for us, died, was buried, rose again, ascended into heaven.

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The hard work was accomplished by Him. And therefore any attempt on our part to ascend to heaven, to bring

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Christ down, would amount to a most ungracious denial of the reality and the value of Christ's incarnation.

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And similarly, any attempt to descend into the realm of the dead in order to bring

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Christ up from the dead would be a disavowal of the genuine character and meaning of Christ's glorious resurrection from the dead and triumph over the grave.

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And William Hendrickson wrote rightly on that. And so the matter is easy and attainable as expressing faith in Christ Jesus with one's mouth and Jesus as Lord and believing in one's heart that God the

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Father raised Him from the dead. And salvation is granted as a wonderful gift, a gift of righteousness, forgiveness of sins.

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And so the righteousness based on faith says the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. And so again we read in verse 8, what does it say?

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The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

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Lord, He's the risen Lord, He's the King, and believe in your heart God raised from the dead, you will be saved.

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For with the heart one believes and is justified and is pardoned of sin and declared to be righteous in the sight of God.

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And with the mouth one confesses and is saved. The antecedent of the pronoun it in verse 8 is the righteousness based on faith.

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It says that faith is manifested in a public confession which speaks forth from a heart with the conviction of what

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God has done in Jesus Christ. I remember first confessing

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Christ to a lady, a middle aged lady whom I worked with and she was the mother of a friend and I told her

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I was a Christian and she just broke down. I was surprised but it was my first confession and when she expressed joy,

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I felt joy because of that confession. The faith that justifies the guilty sinner is of the heart, a deep settled conviction of the truth of what

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God has done in Christ. It's a reality here, true saving faith is manifest in the believer's open confession of faith in Jesus Christ.

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We might argue at a later time that confession is to be manifest and demonstrated through the believer's baptism, but we'll address that at a later time.

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The believer is thereby saved by God's grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. It's what he did, not what we do.

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And so if a sinner, even the greatest of sinners, comes to the Lord Jesus in faith, through faith alone, he will be saved.

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And so there is a simplicity of Christ in the gospel and we want to preserve that simplicity in the gospel we proclaim and believe.

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However, there is also to be considered the problem of being too simplistic. This is a problem.

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There is a shallowness of understanding that may easily result in errant thinking and does, and I fear there are multitudes in this state.

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They have been given a gospel and in some ways it's too simplistic. There is a terrible shallowness regarding the nature of salvation and what it is to truly come to Jesus Christ for salvation.

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There is error respecting what it is to come to Christ, and again that's our subject, coming to Christ for salvation.

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Many believe that they've come to Christ, but their coming does not reflect what the word of God says about coming to Christ.

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They would tell you they've come to Christ, but have they, according to the Bible? And so there is much error regarding the nature of true biblical salvation that coming to Christ obtains.

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And we as a church, and I certainly am as a preacher, as a pastor, am called to call people to correct their errant thinking about this, to call people back to the truth who have maybe been led into this kind of error.

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James wrote, Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

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Our coming to Jesus Christ for salvation should be an informed faith. If we truly come to Christ, it will lead us into a life of holy obedience, even a life of righteousness before the

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Lord. And so true salvation not only bestows a gift of imputed righteousness, that is the righteousness of Christ is given as a gift regarded as the believer's righteousness, but as Christ's righteousness that he worked out in his life and his death.

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But not only does salvation bring imputed righteousness of God to the believer through faith, but salvation brings to the believer the desire and means to experience the imparted righteousness of God as well.

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And that's a changed life, transformed life, to become more and more like Christ over time. Paul admonished the

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Gentile Christian to the emphasis of the importance of being taught rightly of the Lord so that it directs the way that they walked.

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And it's all important how you walk. Paul wrote this, I say, therefore, testifying the

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Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. He's primarily writing to Gentile Christian.

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He says, don't you walk like those non -Christian people do in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

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But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him, have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

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And so we are to live righteously even as we enjoy the gift of righteousness through faith alone.

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Now in order for us to consider what the Bible teaches about coming to Christ for salvation,

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I thought it would be good to look at John chapter 6 because the

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Lord Jesus in this teaching session spoke about coming to him, coming to Christ, in a number of places.

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This is a longer passage but let's look at John chapter 6 beginning with verse 22.

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And in your notes I've printed it out, I've emboldened, italicized certain phrases and verses for us to give particular attention to.

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And this is right after, the day after our Lord had fed the 5 ,000 on the northern shores of the

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Sea of Galilee and now they had come to Capernaum. On the following day, when the people were standing on the other side of the sea, he saw that there was no other boat there except that one which his disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone.

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However, other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they ate bread after their

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Lord had given thanks. When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum seeking

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Jesus. And when they 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 and said, Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

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Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to life everlasting, or rather everlasting life,

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I am thinking King James, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set a seal on him.

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And then they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them,

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This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. Therefore they said to him,

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What sign will you perform, then, that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Our fathers ate the man in the desert, and as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

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And Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my

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Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

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And they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them,

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I am the bread of life, he who comes to me, here you have the phrase, he who comes to me shall never hunger, he who believes in me shall never thirst.

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Notice that is in parallel, to come to Jesus is to believe on Jesus. He has repeated the same thing, that is poetic parallelism.

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He who comes to me shall never hunger, he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

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All that the Father gives me will come to me, there is that expression. And the one who comes to me

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I will by no means 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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This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day.

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This is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

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The Jews then complained about him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said,

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Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then, he says,

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I have come down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said to them,

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Do not murmur among yourselves, No one can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets,

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And they shall all be taught by God. Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the

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Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God, he has seen the

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Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.

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Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.

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I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

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And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.

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And so the Lord spoke to these crowds about coming to him for eternal life, everlasting life.

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By the way, I probably should have put this in my notes, I failed to do so. In John's Gospel, when eternal life is mentioned, everlasting life, there is an emphasis on the quality of life.

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It's a present possession. We have life in him. In contrast to John's Gospel, in the

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Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when everlasting life is taught, emphasized, what's commonly being emphasized is future eternity.

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It's temporal in idea. John is quality, the quality of life. I came to give you life and life more abundantly.

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And that's important to understand. Now these people of Galilee sought the

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Lord Jesus. They wanted to come to him, so to speak. They desired to come unto him wherever he was.

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And Jesus had greatly impressed these crowds on the previous day. A great multitude had followed him because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.

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Now that's at the beginning of John 6. This is before he fed them. They were impressed by his miracles.

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Well our Lord then became concerned about the crowds. They were some distance away from home and from any village.

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And so he asked about their well -being. He said to Philip, where shall we buy bread that these may eat?

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And Jesus said this in order to test Philip. For the

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Lord knew what he himself was about to do, but he asked Philip to test Philip. The Lord knew he was going to feed these people in this miraculous way.

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Philip basically told Jesus it would be impossible for them to feed this crowd. And so Philip said to the

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Lord, two hundred denarii. One denarii would be a day's wage. Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may have a little.

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It would seem that Philip failed the test, I would think. Well Andrew appears to have had a little more spiritual sense, but not more faith than Philip.

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He said to Jesus, there is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?

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You know what occurred. We read it in verse 10 of John chapter 6.

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Then Jesus said, make the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down in number about five thousand.

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Jesus took the loaves. When he had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples. From the disciples to those sitting down and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.

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So when they were filled, he said to the disciples, gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost.

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Therefore they gathered them up, filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.

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A great miracle performed. Of course the multitude of people were greatly impressed by this miracle.

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They were fed bread. And so this miracle convinced them that this

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Jesus was the anticipated end time prophet that Moses had foretold was coming.

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And so we read in John 6 .14. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world.

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And so upon this miraculous feeding of the five thousand, the people would have made Jesus their king right on the spot.

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Had he not departed from them, they would have forced him to become their king. They wanted to come to Jesus.

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They wanted to make him king. We read of this in John 6 .15. Therefore when

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Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he departed again to the mountain by himself alone.

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And later that night our Lord traveled in a boat some distance across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum. Now it was the following day that the

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Lord taught the people the words that we read earlier from John 6 .22 -51, that long passage that we read.

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He actually taught them in the synagogue there in Capernaum. In the morning they had looked for Jesus.

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The people had looked for Jesus where he had been the previous day, but seeing he was no longer there, they traveled to Capernaum to find him.

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For they desired to come to him. The people wanted to come to him. They wanted to make him their king.

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But when they came to him, he rebuked them, for their desire to come to him was not in accordance with the salvation that he was bestowing through faith.

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They would have Jesus become their king, but Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

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They came to Jesus because they had worldly needs that they had received he would provide for them.

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That was their motivation. They were not spiritually minded. They thought about today, my needs, and here's a man, he's able to fill them, let's make him our king.

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Many of them had illnesses and he had healed them. Many of them had been hungry, he had fed them.

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They would make him their king, for he could provide for their needs and desires that were the focus of their daily interests and concerns.

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How did our Lord respond to them? We read in verse 27 of John 6, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to life everlasting, which the

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Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal, stamped his approval, upon him.

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So they were coming to Jesus, or so they thought they were, but actually they were seeking him for things that the

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Father had not primarily sent him to bestow upon them. They were seeking him for what they perceived they needed to get them through their lives day by day.

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They wanted food, they wanted healing. Well we would argue that from this passage we may see illustrated the error,

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I think, of many professing Christians in today's world. Coming to Christ for salvation does not occur when people only come to Jesus Christ in order for him to heal them or to provide for their daily needs.

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Isn't that what's being taught here? That's not coming to Christ for salvation. That's what these people wanted.

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And it's a sad reality that there are many preachers who claim to be Bible preachers, who proclaim

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Jesus to be this kind of King, this kind of Savior to needy people. And this is the message they proclaim.

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But just like these thousands did on this occasion, so it is that many people everywhere are willing to make

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Jesus their King, but it is the crown of a king that our Lord refused to wear in this passage.

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Is that not right? People have problems. They are ill and injured and they need healing.

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They are hungry and destitute and need to be fed. They are weak and oppressed and they need deliverance.

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And this is true all over the world. They feel guilty or lonely and they want to feel forgiven and accepted.

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They have little to make them happy or comfortable. They're not like many of us in this land, but people all over the world, they have very little day by day.

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And when someone stands up and declares to them that Jesus Christ can heal them and Jesus Christ can feed and clothe them and that he will comfort them and he can restore to them that which they have lost, they will respond to that preacher.

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That's what we want to hear. And that's the kind of gospel so -called message that's being proclaimed throughout the world.

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You go down to South Africa and there's a wonderful reform movement taking place and there are a number of churches, guys leaving, you know, nominal and superficial churches, they're becoming reformed in their theology and they get fired from their churches.

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They end up having a church of a couple dozen in small churches here and there. I've seen them in Durban and Johannesburg.

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And meanwhile, the health and wealth churches, Benny Hinn came into Durban and he was going to preach in the evening.

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This was probably a handful of years ago and the traffic was gridlocked from morning until that night.

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There were 100 ,000 people showed up for Benny Hinn. That's the kind of message he's proclaiming.

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Alright, needy people, hungry people, they've got problems and they want help today and they think that Jesus is going to be that kind of king and they're willing to crown him as their king for their daily concerns, their immediate worldly needs.

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And Jesus would have nothing to do with that kind of kingdom. And so these crowds would come to Jesus, not because they saw the signs and what those signs testified as to who he was and what he was really offering them.

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They came to Jesus, as Jesus said, you've come to me because you've eaten the loaves and were filled.

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That's why you've come to me. And the fact is, unconverted people will crown the one whom they perceive will serve them in these various ways.

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And they will also exalt the one who claims that he can put them in contact with such a king. Hey, I'm offering you

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Jesus and he is going to make your life quite easy and you'll never be hungry again.

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You'll never be in financial need again. You're going to be strong and healthy and your wife and kids are going to love you.

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And here is Jesus. And people respond to that. And then these people are being told that they have salvation.

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Jesus did not tell these people they had salvation when they were wanting to make him this kind of king. And so throughout the world, this so -called health and wealth gospel is very popular.

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But in reality, they are not proclaiming the true gospel of Jesus Christ. If you examine it closely.

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The Lord Jesus refused to allow himself to be made the kind of Savior and Lord that these false teachers offer needy people.

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Because salvation is a spiritual matter, not a physical one. The Lord made that clear.

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The Lord rebuked these people, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the

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Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Now please don't misunderstand what we're saying here.

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The Lord will often use the immediate physical and emotional needs of individuals in order to initiate in a person movement toward him.

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And you find that all over in scripture. In the Old Testament, God caused, you know, that leprosy to come upon the

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Syrian general Naaman in order to bring him to the God of Israel. And God may be praised.

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The Lord answers prayer and he will heal the sick. He will feed the hungry and deliver the needy.

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But do not confuse this kind of coming to him with coming to him for salvation, because it's not the same.

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To come to Jesus Christ in the manner that he taught here in John chapter 6 is in an entirely different realm.

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The true desire for him, the result in coming to him for salvation arises from other, more important concerns than,

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I'm hungry, I need fed, I'm naked, I need clothed, I'm needy, I need provided for.

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Namely, coming to Jesus as the Lord presented here is out of one's concern for his eternal destiny, for being found on the day of judgment to be righteous in his sight on the last day to be delivered from death and from damnation.

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But again, when God first begins to deal with a person with his intention to bring him to salvation, bring him to the

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Savior, he will often cause that person to experience affliction or tribulation, and that gets that person unsettled and begins to seek out the

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Lord. But it can't stop there. It's got to go farther than that. Remember that there were ten lepers that came to Jesus to be healed, but only one came back.

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Didn't I heal ten? Where are the other nine? Afflictions are often used by the

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Lord to begin to draw people to himself. He gets our attention by them.

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David wrote, Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. He declared to the

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Lord, It's good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. And so the

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Lord will cause us to be in these places of need, maybe physical health issues or financial problems or relational problems within our families or whatever, in order to initially get us to awaken to our need and begin to come to him.

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But then it must go beyond that. And we must not suggest to people that they're

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Christians just because they're looking to the Lord Jesus for these daily temporal things.

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And so what may we conclude from this? And so let me begin to propose some,

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I believe, spiritual truths regarding the gospel that this passage reveals to us.

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And so number one here of several that we're going to mention, given the time. Coming to Christ for salvation occurs when people look to Jesus Christ alone to save them from their sins onto eternal life.

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And that's pretty simple, isn't it? Very plain. But not everybody sees it that way. They're not primarily concerned with the day of judgment and standing righteous in God's sight.

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They're not primarily concerned with being delivered from damnation and coming to know

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God truly and come to a right relationship with him. Jesus told these people, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life.

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And so they thought in terms of what they must do in order to achieve eternal life.

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They were still thinking in terms of works righteousness. What must we do, they asked Jesus. They still assumed they had to perform certain works.

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Jesus, what kind of works would you have us do? What shall we do that we may work the works of God, verse 28.

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They were still thinking in terms of laboring for this blessing that he was talking about.

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And by the way, this is always the response of religionists who know nothing of grace, who know nothing of the gospel.

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They believe that salvation is given to those who work for it, those who sacrifice and devote themselves and commit themselves and qualify themselves to receive

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God's grace. In short, they believe that they must keep some kind of law in order to obtain

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God's favor, which would one day qualify them for everlasting life.

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This is how fallen people think until the grace of God instructs them and informs them otherwise.

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They are as unbelieving as Israel, as Paul described in this way, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved, for I bear them witness, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

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This because people are zealous toward God or even zealous toward Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean that they're

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Christian necessarily, if it's not an informed faith, if it's not according to knowledge.

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And Paul says, they being ignorant of God's righteousness, that is, they're ignorant of the gift of righteousness that God freely bestows upon believers, and they seek to establish their own righteousness.

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In other words, the acquisition of righteousness through doing good things and obeying

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God's law, acquiring their own righteousness, they've not submitted to, they've not embraced and adopted the righteousness that God freely bestows upon true believers.

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Well Jesus responded to this crowd who asked, what kind of works should we do? This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.

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That's the work of God that results in salvation. And this is quite a rich statement.

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Now notice this, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent, whom

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God sent, whom God the Father sent. Our Lord spoke of the essential need to have faith, but true faith is always that which rests upon revealed truth.

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And here our Lord Jesus suggested to this crowd that God the Father had sent him on a mission to effect salvation for his people.

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And perhaps there's even a hint here, and this may not be so, but I think it is, where the

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Lord was betrayed to them his pre -existence. He was sent, well he was sent from somewhere, wasn't he?

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He was sent from heaven. D .A. Carson understands it this way.

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Jesus sets them straight, the work of God, in other words what God requires is faith, and this is not faith in the abstract, an existential trust without a coherent object.

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Rather, they must believe in the one God who has sent. Jesus is supremely the one who reveals

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God to us precisely because unlike any other person, he has been in the courts of heaven and has been sent here from there so that the world might be saved through him.

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And Jesus is basically telling them, here's the work of God that you believe in God the Father who sent him, that is himself, into the world on a mission to save his people.

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You have to believe that. You can't save yourself, God had to do it, and he sent his

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Son. One bit of evidence that the Lord was alluding to his pre -existence here is the eternal

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Son of God may be seen in that he overtly said this to his disciples toward the end of the passage after the

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Lord managed to scatter the crowds through his teaching. Only his disciples were left, and they were perplexed and troubled.

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And our Lord didn't deal lightly with them, trying to hang on to them, keep them from scattering.

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He confronted them. We read in verse 60, Therefore many of his disciples when they heard this saying that he gave them, this is a hard saying, who can understand it?

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And the Lord didn't try to mollify them, pacify them, oh don't be offended, this is what

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I really meant. He actually came at them a little more, in a little more difficult way, hard way.

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He said to them, What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? See there's pre -existence.

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The Son of God became, came into this world, assumed a human nature. It is the

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Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. People can't save themselves, flesh profits nothing.

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God had to do it. He sent his Son. Well from this

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I think we can discern a second gospel truth. Coming to Christ for salvation is when people look to Jesus Christ as the second person of the

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Holy Trinity, whom God sent into this world to assume a human nature in order to save his people from our sins, from their sins.

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You have to believe in the Holy Trinity or you cannot be a Christian. You have to understand that God, that the

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Son of God, Jesus Christ is both eternal God, the eternal Son of God, as well as he became a man.

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He assumed a human nature and he is the God -Man. And you can't have salvation unless you believe this truth, this gospel truth.

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You must believe in the Holy Trinity. Jesus Christ alone saved sinners from their sins and he must be believed and understood to be eternal

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God who is also man. I was talking to Flo Pierce yesterday.

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She knows she's just at the gate of heaven and has to pass through that river of death.

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And she kept quoting John 14 .6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the

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Father but by me. She must have quoted a half a dozen times while I was there with the family standing around.

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And so she understood and was confessing that Jesus Christ himself was the only way of salvation and that no one would be accepted except to him.

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But on the other hand, anyone will be accepted because of him and in him. Thank the

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Lord. We believe in the exclusive truth of Christianity.

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We know it's unpopular in a multicultural world but we advocate that Christianity is the only true religion and that Jesus Christ is the only

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Savior and salvation is only in him. Now in response to our

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Lord's words to the crowds, they desired to know more. They wanted to have his claims demonstrated before them.

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And so we read of this in verses 30 and 31. Therefore they said to him, What sign will you perform then, that we may see it and believe you?

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What work will you do? Our fathers ate the man in the desert, as it's written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

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Now Jesus had given them the sum of their duty, they were to believe on him. And so what was their response? Well, it's as though they said, well, this is fine and well, but you're going to have to give us some kind of sign that we know that this is true.

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What sign will you give us? In effect, they said, you've given us bread from the earth and then on one occasion, and we believed in Moses when we were in the desert because he fed us daily from heaven.

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What are you going to do for us? They were still thinking in terms of what are you going to do for us today and every day for that matter.

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They were thinking in terms of their physical needs in this fallen world. They were really not thinking spiritually as of yet were they.

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Our Lord had fed them on the day before they were filled and satisfied at least for a time. But now they wanted to have this miracle of food provision repeated, even repeatedly bestowed upon them.

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And they would make him king if he would provide for their daily needs.

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But again, he reveals that in spite, but again, it reveals that in spite of what our

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Lord Jesus had taught them, they could not get past this. They could only think of the here and now.

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They could not think about their souls and eternity and the day of judgment. Our Lord took the occasion to again compare and contrast that which is temporal and worldly and that which is spiritual and eternal.

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Jesus said to them, most assuredly say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven, gives life to the world.

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They weren't even thinking on the same plane in the same realm that he was talking about.

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They were clueless. Moses or rather God through Moses had sustained the children of Israel for 40 years by supplying them every morning with manna, which they regarded as bread from heaven, bread from God.

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But our Lord contrasts what the father gives to faith in him with what Moses had given to Israel.

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Moses gave them physical bread to sustain their physical life, but he gives them himself spiritual bread, true bread that gives them eternal life, everlasting life.

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And what is the essence of eternal life itself? Of course, knowing Jesus Christ, knowing God through him.

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The people's reaction was understandable, but still flawed. Verse 34, they said to him, Lord give us this bread always.

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And so what was their response when he said, well, give us some of that so we'll never be hungry, so we'll never be thirsty.

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It would seem that the essence of their desire had not changed. They still wanted that which God could physically give them rather than desiring

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God himself. And I think that's an important principle. They were still looking for that which would satisfy their temporal physical needs.

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But this is what unregenerate people do. Our Lord said it this way to Nicodemus, that which is born of flesh is flesh.

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You can't help but be a worldly person when you're a sinner. But that which is born of spirit is spirit.

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Two different realms. These people were clueless. An unregenerate man, that is one who is not born again, will not, cannot rise above that which is sensual, physical, self -satisfying.

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This is his world. He wants what God can give him. He does not want

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God himself. And that's an important truth. That's what idolatry is, basically.

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You want and rejoice in what God gives rather than want and rejoice in God himself.

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Lord responded by saying Moses hadn't given them the bread from heaven, man had come down from the sky, but the only true bread that God the

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Father has given is Jesus Christ himself, who came down from heaven to give life to the world.

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And so we read of our Lord's instruction once again, he sets forth the spiritual nature of the life that he brings to his people.

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We read in verse 35, 36, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall never hunger, he who believes in me shall never thirst.

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And our Lord's response in verses 35 through 40 should, we should give particular attention.

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He made the statement, I am the bread of life. Here's another claim to deity, by the way. It may not be apparent in our

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English translation, I am the bread of life. But this is actually one of seven

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I am sayings of Jesus in John's Gospel. And I've listed them for us.

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I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door of the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life.

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I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine. And although each of these give some additional information about the

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Lord Jesus, in each one really the emphasis is on the subject and the verb,

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I am. And in Greek, ego and me is the

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Greek words. And they were the words used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, that God spoke to Moses at the burning bush.

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When Moses said, who's, what's your name, who am I going to tell

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Israel you are? And God responded to Moses, I am. And when

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Jesus said, I am the bread of life, he was making a claim to deity. And those that were there, if they had any spiritual sense, they would have recognized this.

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I am, of course, means that God is self -existent. He's the everlasting one, the ever -present one.

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God is spirit. He transcends time. And here in John 6 .35 and other places where he made these

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I am statements, he was claiming to be eternal God. Now, the manna that Moses gave was a temporal thing.

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It only gave physical life, and it only gave one day's life at a time.

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Manna would rot if kept overnight, except on Friday, of course, it would last two days.

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In contrast, Jesus Christ himself is the true bread that is eternal, and he gives eternal life to all who feed upon him.

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Now, the old Puritan commentator Matthew Henry wrote of this verse.

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He was clever. He is the bread of life, that bread of life alluding to the tree of life in the midst of the garden of Eden, which was to Adam, the seal of that part of the covenant, do this and live, of which he might eat and live.

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Christ is the bread of life, for he is the fruit of the tree of life. I wish

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I could think like that. Well, our Lord then declared to the people, he who comes to me shall never hunger, he who believes on me shall never thirst.

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True life, the life that God intended for human beings to experience and enjoy is to be found in God alone, not in the things that he gives us.

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And until you're converted to Christ, until the Spirit calls you to be born again, you can't see that. Life is not in the things that God gives, but life is in God himself.

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And so true life comes through Jesus Christ alone. Again Jesus said elsewhere,

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I am the life, and when the things of this life, the things of this life are sought for meaning and purpose, dissatisfaction will result.

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We read through Ecclesiastes recently, if you're following our Bible chart, all is vanity. And what's meant by vanity is not fulfilling, it's empty.

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Life is in God. And this dissatisfaction with life cannot be remedied apart from God himself.

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It's not the things that he's created, although he gives us all things richly to enjoy, they're only enjoyable, as God intended, when they're seen to be from him.

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When they're seen to be things apart from him, they become deadening and corrupting, just like the manna.

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It doesn't last if those things are not seen as gifts from God.

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And this is how most people in the world live, don't they? And again, there are a lot of professing

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Christians, this is how they view the things of this world too. I love God because of the things he gives me, or the things that I hope to get from him.

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That is not Christianity, is it? That is the heart of an unspiritual, if not an unregenerate person.

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We might assert Gospel truth number three, and we're running out of time quickly here, but I want to get through this.

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Coming to Christ for salvation is when one understands and embraces that Jesus Christ is the true source and true meaning of all of life.

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It's in him, not in the things that he gives. To come to Jesus Christ is to desire him, and knowing him and being in him brings to the believer everything true and good and important.

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So much so, is that when a person truly has Christ, you know, what does the Proverbs say? Even a morsel of bread is a thing of blessedness and happiness, it comes with contentment.

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When a person has Jesus Christ, he has everything. But even after our

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Lord affirmed once again to these people that he is the source of all life from God, even life more abundant in this world, and life everlasting, he acknowledges that the people did not believe him.

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So he stated in verse 36, but I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe.

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People cannot believe on the Lord Jesus Christ apart from God's work of grace in their souls. In spite of all the miracles, all the evidence, all the arguments, that which is born of flesh is flesh.

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Isn't that right? They cannot be raised out of their spiritual dead condition. Our Lord was not surprised that they did not understand and receive him.

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Perhaps a supreme evidence of the sinful nature of mankind is the refusal to come to God who alone freely offers and freely bestows true and eternal happiness.

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There is a natural aversion to the true God when he reveals himself and it indicates that sin exists and is deeply set.

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People might deny sin or they may regard sin to be a trifle thing, but it's the refusal of people to come to Jesus Christ that their sin will be shown for what it really is.

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Why wouldn't you come to Jesus Christ, come freely, receive from him that which is without price?

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In other words, you can't buy it, but he's willing to bestow it freely. Life in him, believing on him for who he is, now he's revealed himself.

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But the fact that people don't and refuse reveals that they are Christ haters,

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God haters. And things have not changed. If Jesus came today in the similar way that he came the first time through the incarnation,

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I don't know that he'd last 33 years before he was crucified. Now one might respond, well, if what you say is so, then how is it that not all reject him because aren't all sinners?

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Well we read that those who do come to Jesus Christ do so because of the grace of God working through them and in them.

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Jesus declared in verse 37, all that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me

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I will in no wise cast out. They would have all rejected him had not the father been at work, had the father not chosen some that they will be saved.

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He would seek to it. All that the father gives me, that speaks of God's election in eternity pass, chose certain ones out of fallen humanity, not because they were better than anybody, more lovely than anybody, wise or less sinful.

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In fact, he chose many times the worst of us in order to glorify himself. This is a confronting verse.

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We're not going to have time to read some of the Arthur Pink quotations that are on the bottom of page nine and page 10,

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Charles Spurgeon quotes, but there's an, there's an aversion to this. People want to be the determiners of their own destiny.

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They want to be the final arbiters as to the condition and wellbeing of their soul. They wrongly think that they have the ability, they've given the opportunity to come to Jesus.

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But the Lord Jesus wasn't surprised. You don't believe on me. It takes grace.

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But he says, in spite of that, all that the father gives me will come to me. He declares they will come.

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And one day, by the way, Hebrews one tells us when the Lord Jesus gathers us all and we're all standing before the throne of God, he's going to sing in our presence and he's going to declare, here am

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I and the children whom God has given me. And we'll hear those words from our Lord Jesus on, on that day.

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The father promised these ones to his son. And so God being true to himself, they will come to Christ.

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And that gives us assurance, even in this dark fallen world that we proclaim the gospel, the

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Lord is going to call his people. We don't go around trying to find seekers because we know that none actually seek after God.

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And if we do find someone seeking the Lord, it's because we know that the work of God's grace has been operative in them.

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He's caused them to hunger and thirst after God because they wouldn't do so otherwise. And so gospel truth number four, we would assert from this passage and we could substantiate it in numerous ways from John six, those who come to Christ for salvation do so due to the sovereign grace of God, effectually drawing them and enabling them.

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Now that's a truth. Now you don't have to believe that to be a Christian. Many Christians don't believe it, but this is what the scriptures teach.

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And this is clearly what John, the Lord Jesus taught here in John chapter six, is that the only reason people are saved and because they're saved by God's sovereign grace.

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These people were ignorant. They were blind. They wanted Jesus, but they wanted a Jesus that was not being offered to them.

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He was offering them spiritual life, everlasting life, a relationship with the father through him.

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Spurgeon wrote about this, I have to give this quote because it's comical. He had a wit about him and he talked about how many popular pulpits don't proclaim this message there like they're ashamed of it or they deny it.

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And Spurgeon once said, I heard a man once say he knew the gospel is true because it survived so many pulpits.

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I thought, well, that's probably a truism. And so the

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Lord himself teaches sovereign grace here that people will indeed come. And then lastly, we'll close with this verse 37,

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I wish we had time to go into more detail, but he makes the declaration that the ones given to him by the father who truly come to him will remain with him.

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There's security here. And so he says, all that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me,

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I will in no wise cast out. Imagine that a guilty, wretched, vile sinner comes to faith in Jesus for who he is, a savior.

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And Jesus embraces him and he'll never cast him out.

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There's security there. And much of assurance of salvation is bound up in knowing you're one of the elect of God.

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Peter argued, brethren, you know, give all diligence to make your calling and election certain to yourself is basically what he was saying.

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And there are evidences of election, one, recognizing who

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Jesus truly is as we've set forth here, that understanding that truly the life that God intends for, you know, his world is bound up in him himself and it's mediated to us through his son,

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Jesus Christ. And that we can have this life if we sincerely, truly come to him.

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We're going to have to talk, we're going to have to address maybe next week, I don't know, about this matter of coming to him.

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You come to him as a sinner. He saves the ungodly. And some people wrongly think, well,

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I've got too many things in my life that disqualify me from coming. No, the only thing will disqualify you from coming is self -righteousness or ignorance.

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God doesn't save ungodly people who are cleaning up their lives. He saves sinners.

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And so the greatest, egregious rebel that's coming off the street this morning can come to Christ if you come to him as we've described here.

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And he will impart and infuse this glorious eternal life upon you, the quality of life and the eternal nature of this life if you trust him as your king, the true king, the king that God the

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Father sent him to be. Amen. May we believe on him. Thank you, our

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Father, for your word. And we pray that you would help us, our Lord, not to be diverted, Lord, from the call of the world or even the leanings of our own flesh, but help us, our

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Lord, to see and desire Jesus Christ and him solely and only, for we know,

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Lord, that life is in Christ. He said to us, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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And we acknowledge that and come to him afresh, our Lord. And may this wonderful, abundant life be made manifest to each of us who believe more clearly and fully, our