Drawn by the Father

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles with me and turn to John chapter 6 and hold your place at verse 41.

The title of today's message is Drawn by the

Father. But yesterday, as I was considering the fact that today is a, was going to be such a record low temperature and that it was going to be out of the norm for many of us

Floridians who don't live with this type of weather often, I thought I might change the name to the

Frozen Chosen. So that's our, so that's our, that'll be our working title as we go through today.

As this text is, you know, if you don't, if you don't know the history of that phrase, that oftentimes reform folks can be accused of maybe being a little stuffy in their worship and maybe a little, a little unwilling to maybe raise a hand or say amen out loud, things like that.

And they kind of still in their worship. And so that's where the joke Frozen Chosen comes from, because of course we believe in the doctrine of election.

So, so I was thinking this text that we're teaching on today actually is one of the texts that is very important in this conversation about the doctrine of election.

Because this text that we're going to look at in the midst of verses 41 to 51, we're going to see verse 44.

And in verse 44, we have the explanation of the Lord Jesus Christ about man's inability, about man's inability.

And if you've never heard this, and looking out, I know many of you are church members. This again is a, is a smaller week.

And so many of you have heard much of what I'm going to say today, but if you've never heard this, or if you're new to this, or if you haven't understood it,

I hope today there's some clarification for you. Because if you don't understand man's inability, if you don't understand that we have, because of sin, a lack of desire to come to Christ, that God by His Spirit overcomes.

If you don't understand that we are born dead in trespasses and sins, and it is a miracle of God that brings about our spiritual resurrection, that gives us the ability to come, then hopefully by the end of today you will.

Because this is foundational to understanding how

God saves us. The last few weeks in the academy, we have been going over this doctrine.

In theological terms, the doctrine is sometimes referred to as total depravity. I prefer the term either radical fallenness or radical corruption, but really the, at the end of the day, the doctrine is the inability of man to come to Christ apart from the grace of God that draws him.

So really this sermon is all about not what we are able to do, but what we are unable to do apart from the grace of God.

So let's stand together and we'll read verses 41 to 51, and by God's grace we'll be able to get through it today.

I'll have the English Standard Version up on the screen. And so it says,

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They said, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say,

I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves.

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, and they will all be taught by God. 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. He has seen the father.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate manna 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.

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

And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We come to you in Jesus name,

Lord, because there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

And Lord, as we come asking you to be with us during our time of study,

I pray that you would keep me from error. I pray that you would fill me with your spirit, and I pray that you would open the hearts of every person here for the believer, that they would hear the word and receive it.

And for the one who is not yet a believer, Lord, that he would be converted. That he would be changed.

That his heart would be given life. And Lord, that he would repent of his unbelief, that he would turn to the

Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And Father, as we consider what it means to turn, what it means to be drawn by the

Father, I pray, Lord, that we would consider that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, unable to do anything good toward you, and yet by grace we have been saved.

Lord, let us be encouraged by that truth today, in Jesus name, amen.

We're continuing this morning in the Bread of Life discourse, which we have been in now for several weeks, and we're in the heart of the discourse, where Jesus is speaking to those who have come to him after he has fed them.

This is the day after the feeding of the 5 ,000. Jesus has gone across the sea.

You remember he walked on the water, and now he is in Capernaum. And all of these people have traveled to hear him, to see him, to experience the blessings and the benefits of being in his presence.

But Jesus has challenged them by saying that even though they follow him, they do not believe.

Verse 36, as I have said in several of the previous sermons,

I said verse 36 is the key to the whole discourse, as far as I'm concerned.

Because verse 36 is when Jesus said, I say to you, you've seen me and yet do not believe.

You've seen me, you've come, and you do not believe. And over the last two weeks, we've addressed a series of questions regarding salvation that come up out of this discourse.

The first question is, can a person follow Jesus for a season and not be a genuine believer?

Not be genuinely saved? The answer is, yes. A person can follow

Jesus for a season and not be genuinely saved. We see this in many places in scripture, not the least of which is the parable of the soils.

The one who springs up for a season, but withers away, why? Because he has no root.

The second question we asked was our question for the sermon last week.

Can a genuine believer, notice I'm using the word genuine as a modifier for believer because there is false faith.

Can a genuine believer ever be lost? And as I said in my message last week, I do not believe so.

Jesus said it is the will of my father that all that he should give to me, that I would lose none of them. So I believe that Jesus is the one who saves us and I believe that he is the one who keeps us saved by the power of the spirit through the will of the father, he loses none.

So that's where we are so far. Can a person follow Jesus for a season and not be a genuine believer?

Yes. Can a person who is a genuine believer ever be saved? My answer is no.

But that leads us to the question for today and that is the question, can a person come to Jesus without the drawing of the father?

And maybe I should have put the word genuinely, I was smart enough to put it on the other two questions and so just know that that should be up there.

Can a person genuinely come to Jesus without the drawing of the father?

And my purpose in today's message is to show you that the answer to that is also no.

No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.

And when we get to verse 44, we're going to talk about why I believe that is not limited only to the audience

Jesus is speaking to, that's one argument that's sometimes made that this is only referring to the people of that day and that audience.

I believe this is a universal statement about man's condition and we'll talk about that when we get there.

But this is the question of the day. Can a person come to Jesus without the drawing of the father?

Now, knowing that's where we're going and going to be the thesis and focus of our message, we do want to begin at verse 41 because that is where we began reading.

So let's go back up to verse 41 and start walking through the text.

It says in verse 41, so the Jews grumbled about him because he said,

I am the bread that came down from heaven. The word grumbled here is interesting.

In the King James it is translated as murmured. And in the

Greek it is the word gungutso. Now I don't always tell you what the

Greek is, but in this case I'm telling you because this is a word like in the

English murmured is what is known as an onomatopoeia. Now if you don't remember from grammar school what an onomatopoeia is, an onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like what it's saying.

So if you hear the word bang, that's what it sounds like. It sounds like pow or bang, right?

When you hear an animal meow or moo, that's an onomatopoeia.

It's making the sound of what it's describing. Swish is an onomatopoeia.

We hear that swish, that's the sound. Or splash. We use the

Greek word barbarian. You know when Paul talks about the barbarians, the word barbarian actually comes from the idea of having an unintelligent sounding speech because a barbarian was one who when they talked it just heard, it sounded like bar, bar, bar, bar, bar.

It sounded unintelligent. So that's an example of an onomatopoeia. They're saying what it sounds like.

Well in English we have the word murmur because when you have a group of people who are beginning to display their discontent, often times it sounds like murmur, murmur, it sounds like a low roar.

It sounds like that low, and you know that. You've been in, well maybe you haven't, but I've been in plenty of groups that were not happy with what

I was saying. And at times they begin to whisper to one another and they begin to talk to one another and you can hear the roar begin to get louder and it sounds like that.

Well gungut, gungut, gungut, that sound in Greek was the idea of gungutso, gungutso. It's that sound of the low roar.

So that's this idea of this word is when Jesus is preaching, and you remember in last week we were looking at this, when

Jesus is preaching in verse 40, he said it is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.

That's what Jesus says in verse 40, basically saying you are to believe in me and I'm going to raise you from the dead.

And from there the people began to gungutso, they began to murmur, they began to complain, they began to grumble.

This is the same word in the Septuagint that is used for when the people of Israel in Exodus chapter 3 were grumbling,

I'm sorry, Exodus 16, I'm sorry, Exodus 16, it says the whole congregation of the people of Israel gungutso, they grumbled against Moses and against Aaron.

Isn't it interesting that the man of God throughout the pages of scripture often finds himself in this very place, where when he's preaching

God's truth, instead of the people saying oh praise the Lord, tell us more oh man of God, no, instead what do they do?

They murmur, they complain, they begin to find things to fault him about, they begin to divide over him and they begin to argue against him.

We see this not only with Moses, we see this with Samuel, we see this with David, we see this,

Mike read from Jeremiah this morning, Jeremiah is full of this idea of the people not wanting to hear what the prophet has to say.

And we see that with the other prophets as well. And we'll see it later with the apostles, when we get into, when they go into towns and preach, the people murmur and argue and grumble against them.

This unfortunately is such a common thing among people, that when

God's man speaks, their unbelief is demonstrated, often not in loud hostility, but in quiet discontent that comes across rather than shouting, but as murmuring.

As they retreat back to their groups and begin to complain against God's man.

I mean, have we not seen this before? Maybe you've never, maybe you've always been in perfect churches.

Well, you're not in one now. I mean, we've been through a lot here at Sovereign Grace.

We talked about this some on Wednesday night. We got a long history here. We got a long time of dealing with different issues and there have been times where there has been grumbling and murmuring here.

By God's grace, I'm thankful that right now we're, let me say this, I don't even want to get it out of my mouth because we're doing good because just as soon as you say it, you're tempting the possibility of it not, but I'm thankful that we are in a place where many of you are encouraging with your words and I'm thankful for that.

But there have been times and seasons of just pure grumbling, private meetings in homes, people who won't look at you when they walk by because they don't want to hear what you have to say when you preach

God's word. This is very common, unfortunately, and Jesus is experiencing this grumbling among the people.

And notice what they're grumbling about. Verse 42, they said, Is this not

Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say,

I have come down from heaven? Notice the complaint they're making. Jesus said,

I am the bread that comes down from heaven. If you believe in me, then you will have eternal life and I'll raise you up on the last day.

That's the message of the bread of life discourse. I am the living bread. I'm the bread of life. That's what Jesus is saying.

And they're saying, how can this man say, I came down from heaven? I know his mama.

I know his daddy. And I know that he grew up in that little podunk town of Nazareth.

How can he say that he has descended from on high?

He didn't descend from on high. He worked in his daddy's carpenter's shop.

And I've seen him go in and out. He ain't nothing special. Now, the idea behind these words,

I think, is an over -literalization of what Jesus has said.

And we're going to see that again in just a little while. Actually, I believe, and I'm going to talk about this more next week.

I believe Jesus actually presses into their misunderstanding and forces them even further into this over -literalizing that they're doing.

Because Jesus says, I came down from heaven. They're like, we didn't see you. You didn't beam down like Star Trek. You didn't fly down on angels' wings.

We saw you. We saw your mama. We saw your daddy. We've seen you grow up. What does

Jesus mean when he says, I came down from heaven? He means, I preexisted my birth, and I've always existed as the

Son of God. I have always existed as creator of this world. I am the divine

Son of God made flesh. That's what he means. But what they take him to mean is that he descended from heaven like an angel or like some other type of divine figure coming down out of the clouds.

They're misinterpreting him and over -literalizing what he says. Later, he's going to say, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

Guess what? They're going to over -literalize that too. But I actually think Jesus presses into that. I actually think he's actually causing them, not causing them to disbelieve, but causing them to have to face their unbelief.

Because he faces them with a pretty hard state. Next week, we're going to see it's pretty hard. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no place with me.

That's a pretty bold statement. But what does he mean? He means to believe in him the same way he told the woman at the well.

Unless you drink the water that I give you, you will not have eternal life. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have eternal life.

It's a statement of receiving him, believing in him, trusting in him, having faith in him is what he is referring to.

But they are taking him in a literal sense. In a sense that I would say is not only overly literally, but ridiculously literally.

And let me tell you something. When people ask you the question, do you take the Bible literally? Let me back up.

When people ask me, do you take the Bible literally? I've come to the point to where I don't answer with a yes or no.

I say, what do you mean when you say literally? I take the

Bible literarily. Which means I seek to understand what the text is saying in its literary genre, context, and grammar.

That's what I mean when I read the Bible literarily. Therefore, when the book of Psalms says the trees clap their hands,

I don't have to assume that that means that trees somehow become human figures.

But I can accept that as a poetic statement and read it as a poetic statement. When the Bible says a beast rises up out of the sea,

I don't have to believe that's Godzilla coming out over Tokyo. I can read it and understand it in its context.

That's what's called prophetic literature. And when it's overly literalized, we come to the wrong conclusions.

And the same thing happens here with these people. They're hearing Jesus say, I came down from heaven. No you didn't.

I know your mama. That's their answer. How can you say you came down from heaven?

I saw you grow up. And so Jesus answers them, verse 43.

And he says, do not grumble among yourselves. This is a rebuke.

This is not simply, hey, hey, calm down. This is do not grumble.

Do not gungutso. Do not do what you are doing. Why? Because what you are doing is sinful.

Do you understand that grumbling against the Lord Jesus Christ is sinful? Now have we at times all given to discontent in life and sometimes grumble?

I mean, I'm not saying that any of us could say necessarily we're perfectly without having done this.

But when we consider this spirit of heart, what should we do? We should stop.

We should repent. And that's what Jesus is saying to these people. You're grumbling. And stop it.

Do not grumble. He's calling them to repentance. Their words were sinful.

Even if they didn't understand how sinful they were. Even if they didn't understand who Jesus really was.

They should have. They have followed Jesus long enough to see him feed thousands of people by creating bread and fish out of his own hands.

And the other gospels say not only did he feed the 5 ,000, but that same day he was healing people.

And he was preaching also. He was doing other things that day as well. They have seen him heal.

They have seen him feed. They have seen him preach. They maybe have even by this point seen him raise the dead or at least heard that he had risen the dead.

We know about Jairus' daughter and the son of Nain, the widow's son at Nain. We know Jesus had done miracle after miracle.

And yet they found it okay to grumble against him. Doesn't that just boggle the mind that they would think that's fine?

I go back to Exodus, man. I go back there and I read and I look at how the

Israelites treated Moses. These are the same people that saw him split the sea. How hard are our hearts that someone...

Because I can't say just their hearts. I say our hearts, right? But how hard can a heart be that it sees a sea split in half?

You walk through on dry land and only days later you're complaining because the bread

God has given you from heaven just ain't good enough. Jesus says, don't do this.

Do not grumble among yourselves. This is pride on display.

They are passing judgment on Jesus Christ. Like the Israelites passed judgment on Moses.

You brought us out here just so that we could die in the wilderness. I want to go back to Egypt where the leeks and the melons and the garlic, you know, they had perfect breath,

I'm sure. You remember that? We want to go back. Abandon you,

Moses, who led us out of bondage. And here these people are grumbling against Jesus.

And Jesus says, do not grumble. Do not grumble. I would say this.

Do not feel secure enough in yourself that you think it is your place to judge your Savior. Because that's what they were doing.

It's a heart problem. It is a heart problem and that's why we get to verse 44.

If you wonder why verse 44 comes after verse 43, it's because Jesus has just identified their heart problem and now

He's going to tell them what their real heart problem is. And their real heart problem is they're still dead in sin.

Notice what it says in verse 44. No one can come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

That verse may seem like it comes out of nowhere, but this is in response to their grumbling. This is in response.

They've demonstrated a hard heart. They've demonstrated a willingness to judge Jesus Christ. They've demonstrated a willingness to stand and murmur and not gossip, but grumble against Jesus.

Maybe gossip too. It might have been happening in the back rooms. But they're doing all this against Jesus and Jesus goes right to the heart of the matter.

And the heart of the matter is this. Unless the Father chooses to give you a heart of understanding, unless the

Father chooses to draw you in, unless the Father chooses to regenerate your dead soul, you will not come to me.

You will not come to me. Jesus is explaining their condition.

This is the condition. No one can come. That's the inability. Unless the Father draws.

That's the conditional statement. Unless the Father draws, you're not going to come. And if you do come, he will raise you up on the last day.

That's the result. Let's say this. When it says no one can come to me, that is in the construction, linguistic construction, of what is known as the universal negative.

The universal negative. The universal negative means that no one falls outside of this particular distinctive.

There are some statements that are universally positive. For all have sinned and fall short.

Now you say that's a negative. No, it's a positive because it says all have done this, right? All have sinned. All positively have sinned.

Can anyone say they've never sinned? No. The Scripture says all have sinned.

And so that's a universal positive. But that word all can be a little confusing at times.

Because there are times where the word all doesn't mean all without exception. Sometimes it means all without distinction.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago when it says all Judea went out and was baptized by John. That doesn't mean every single person.

That means a large group of people which represented each type of person went out and was baptized by John. There were rich and poor.

There were men and women. There were people of the noble, people of the peasant. All these people went out and were baptized by John. And in that sense the word all means all without distinction.

Not all without exception. So when Jesus here is choosing to be very specific with his words.

He chooses a universal negative rather than a universal positive. Earlier in the text he says all the

Father gives me will come. Now that's a limited all because it says all that the Father gives. It's only those that the

Father gives. That's the ones who are going to come. But now he is saying no one can come.

That is a universal negative. It's not referring only to the people in front of him.

He didn't say none of you can come unless the Father who sent me draws him.

Or no Israelite can come unless the Father draws him. Or no one in the first century can come unless the

Father draws him. He says no one can come unless the Father draws him. If I were to say no one can ride a bike.

How quick could I be proven wrong? Just one kid goes by ching ching.

And I'm a liar. Because I said no one can ride a bike. One person could prove me wrong.

If I said there's no gold in China. One, it would be real easy to prove me wrong.

But also I would have to know all about China. I'd have to know what was inside of every rock. I'd have to know what was inside of every stream.

I'd have to know what was inside of every Chinese person's mouth. Because they use gold for teeth and fillings and stuff.

I'd have to have all knowledge to be able to say there is no gold in China. And it would be quick to prove me wrong.

Somebody prove me wrong just like that. So here's what

I say to you today about this text. When Jesus says no one can come unless the Father who sent me draws him.

The burden of proof is you show me somebody that came without it. You show me somebody that has come to Jesus who wasn't drawn by the

Father. There ain't one. There ain't one. Because Jesus says no one comes to me.

No one in the 1st century. No one in the 21st century. No one comes to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him. So we move from the end.

Well, I could spend all day on this. I don't want to. But why is that the case?

Why are we unable to come? Because we are dead in our trespasses and sins and we have an unwilling heart.

That's why we can't come. It's not that God is holding us back and pushing us down or oppressing us.

And it's not that I don't have the physical ability to come or even the mental capacity to come.

I don't want to come until God changes my want.

Until God gives me a new want. My desire is for that which opposes him rather than that which pleases him.

And God is the one who changes my heart. That's where the inability is. It's not a physical, mental or intellectual inability.

It's a moral inability. I don't want to do it. This is why some people prefer, instead of total depravity, they prefer the term moral inability.

They don't want it. It's just like this. Oh, this is a bad example, but I'll use it anyway.

It's kind of funny. Jennifer will say, you want to go shoe shopping? I can't want to. I can't want to.

Now I'll go, but I can't want to. No one can come. He doesn't say no one may come unless they have permission.

He says no one can come unless the Father draws them. It's an inability.

Not just a lack of permission. It's a lack of ability. And I know most of you understand this and believe this.

And you say, why are you belaboring this? Because I don't want there to be any confusion. You will not come to the

Son unless you are drawn by the Father. Now here's the second part.

The condition. No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.

Well, guess what? That raises a whole other question. Because people will say, well, God draws everybody.

There's a Greek word for that. Baloney. It ain't so.

It ain't so. Number one,

I can prove it from this text. No one can come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. There's two times the word him is used there, and both of them are the same him.

And if the one that is drawn is raised up, if God draws everybody, everybody's raised up. It turns the verse on its head if God draws everybody.

This verse by itself disproves the argument that God draws everybody. No one can come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Unless you want to argue linguistically that the first him is different than the second him, and that God draws some that he does not raise up, which is not according to the language of this verse, then you find yourself in a problem arguing that God draws all men.

Now, before you have a need to raise your hand, you'll say, but what about John 12?

Because Jesus does say, if I be raised up, I will draw all men unto myself. There it is, Keith. You're wrong.

Jesus says, if I be raised up, I will draw all men unto myself. Three reasons why that does not contradict what

I just said. Number one, it is an entirely different context. It's six chapters later, and Jesus is talking about something else.

So if you think the people who are listening to Jesus now have to interpret what he's saying by something he's going to say a year later, that doesn't make sense.

By the way, that's the same problem that we have when people want to interpret the rest of this about the Lord's Supper. When he starts talking about eating my flesh and drinking my blood, and they say, oh, that's the

Lord's Supper. Jesus hasn't instituted the Supper yet. It wouldn't have made sense to them if he was talking about the

Lord's Supper. In the same way, if you want to argue that you have to interpret John 6 by interpreting

John 12, what you have to say is the people in John 6 could not have understood what he meant. So that's the first thing.

Second, when Jesus says, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself, this is in the context of Greeks coming to Jesus.

The Greeks were coming and listening to Jesus, and Jesus is making the point that not only is he bringing in Jewish people, but he is bringing people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, including the

Greeks. Therefore, all men, people of all kinds, will come to me when

I am lifted up. That's the context of John 12. All kinds of men. Not all without exception, but all without distinction.

And thirdly, when Jesus says, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men, who's doing the drawing there?

Who's doing the drawing in John 6? The Father. Now, I'm not going to divide the Trinity and say if the one draws, the other's not, but I am saying it's an entirely different linguistic construction.

It's an entirely different context. And it's an entirely different point that Jesus is making.

John 6, 44 says, no one can come to me unless the

Father draws him. And the word draw does not just mean beg, or woo, or plead.

It means to drag. The same word is used for the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts, where it says he was drawn into prison, or excuse me, drawn before the magistrates by the

Jewish people. And guess what? They didn't do that nicely. It's the same word for drawing water out of a well.

And you know what you don't do at the top of a well? You don't stand at the top of the well and say, here, water, water, water. Come on, water.

No, you reach down with the bucket and you drag it out. It's the same idea as the parable where Jesus said that the king was throwing a feast for his son and no one would come.

Remember? He went out and sent out invitations and the people said, oh, I got a job to do, or oh,

I got to go on a trip, or oh, I got business to attend to. And he said, you send my servants into the highways and the hedges and you compel them to come in so that my son's banquet will be filled.

All the Father gives me will come to me, and no one will come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. And that's the result.

You will not come unless you are drawn by the Father. If you are drawn by the Father, you will not only come, but you will also be saved and be raised up.

Now, verse 45, Jesus reiterates this by quoting an Old Testament prophecy. He says, it is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Now, the passage he's quoting here, there are actually two possibilities.

I believe it's Isaiah 54, where it says, all your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.

But there's also another passage in Jeremiah 31, which says that they shall all know me from the least to the greatest.

So there's two possibilities, but I think it's the Isaiah passage. But again, it could be either or. In both sense, it says they'll all be taught by God.

They'll all know God, right? But the point that Jesus is making here is that all of the ones who come are the ones who have been taught by God, who has heard the word of God, and God has taught them in their heart to believe.

They will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father. Who is that? Who is the one who has heard and learned from the

Father? The one who has been given eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. That is the one who has heard and learned from the

Father. The one who has been given eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. And then just to clarify,

Jesus adds this. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God. He has seen the

Father. See, we don't see God with our eyes. We don't see

God physically. There are people who claim to see God. I was listening to a preacherette on TV the other day.

Said that she was in the throne room of God. She saw Charlie Kirk and a few other people and God. And saw his face.

And I said, no you didn't. No you didn't. Jesus said, no one has seen the

Father except the Son. And here again, he reiterates. Not that anyone has seen the

Father except he who is from God. See, verses 45 and 46 is actually

Jesus' commentary on verse 44. 45 is Jesus saying that everyone who has heard and learned from the

Father. That's the drawing. That's how the drawing works. And how does it work? And it works because God is the one working on our heart.

Not through our eyes or through our ears, but through our spirit. We can't see the Father. But he teaches us in our heart.

And he opens our heart to believe the Son. And then we come to verse 47.

Truly I say to you. Actually, truly, truly. Jesus says, amen, amen. It is the truth.

I say to you. Whoever believes has eternal life. Understand this. In the final analysis, the case is this.

We've talked a lot about inability. We've talked a lot about God having to draw us. We've talked a lot about those things.

And all those things are true. And in the weeks prior, we've talked about whether you can lose your salvation or not. And all those things we can debate and talk about.

But in the final analysis, this is the most important thing to understand.

If you believe, you will have eternal life. If you believe, you will have eternal life. How can you believe? God the

Father has to draw you. God the Father has to open your heart. But if you believe, you will have eternal life. If you do not, you will not.

And therefore, we can go out and we can preach the gospel. And we can tell people that Jesus is the bread of life.

That's what he says in verse 48. He says, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate man 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. I am the living bread.

Notice he changes the construction. Rather than saying, I'm the bread of life now, he says, I'm the living bread. I'm the living bread that came down from heaven.

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of this world is my flesh.

He's talking there about his crucifixion. He says, if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

And the bread that I give is my flesh. When Christ went and died on the cross, he gave his flesh.

He broke his body and shed his blood for us. And he says, if you receive that, you will live forever.

If you receive that, you will, in fact, be saved. The fathers ate man in the wilderness and they died.

But if you feast upon Jesus Christ, you will live. And he's making that distinction.

He's saying, that manna had a temporary value, but my value is eternal.

That manna gave them life in the sense of day -to -day sustenance. But I am offering you life forever that will never go bad.

It will never spoil. It will never rot. It will always be fresh and new.

It will always be life for the world. For the life of the world is my flesh.

On Wednesday night, Carson, one of our little fellas, asked the question about the

Lord's Supper. And I mentioned that I was going to be talking in the next couple weeks about what

Jesus says when he talks about eating my flesh and drinking my blood. And I said this, and I'll say it again today.

The most important thing to understand of that is not to overly literalize it, but to understand that Jesus is calling us to trust in what he did on the cross.

Calling us to trust in his broken body and in his shed blood. He has given us the table as a memorial of that.

He's given us a table to remind us of that, because every time we come together, we need to be reminded of this.

The thing that brings us our salvation, the thing that the Father draws us to, is to the finished work of the

Son. The finished work of the Son. Jesus Christ's sacrifice does not need to be added to.

It merely needs to be believed. It does not need your contribution.

It needs your reception. He came unto his own, and his own received him not, but to as many as received him.

He gave them the power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, means it didn't come through your family, not of the will of the flesh, meaning it didn't come even through your own decision making, your own rational mind, or the will of man.

No one else caused you to come, but of God. That's how you were born again, and that's how you know, when the work of Christ has saved you.

That you have believed on him, and received him. So my question to you today, have you received the flesh of the

Son of Man, and drank his blood, by trusting in him? You may not like that language, but that's the language he gave us.

And that's the language that is symbolized in what we do. Have you received the

Lord Jesus Christ? If you have, know this, God has been gracious to you.

And if you have not yet, we pray, that God would be gracious to you, and open your heart.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word.

I pray even now Lord that, the teaching of the word would be used by you, to draw men and women to yourself, for believers to give them, the grace to, grow in their knowledge and understanding.

And for those who do not yet believe Lord, that you would draw them to yourself, and give them life, which only you can do.

As our confession says, O Lord, faith is a gift from God, wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God. Lord, do what only you can do.

Bring faith into the hearts of unbelievers. And give believers continued faith, as we participate in the table, to be reminded of what you've done.