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Reading John 6:63-64 where Jesus says that it is only by faith in His words that a person is forgiven and receives eternal life. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Jesus said, these words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. When a person tries to share the words of Christ with other worldly philosophies or religions, they're claiming that they don't believe Christ when we understand the text.
You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .tt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the Gospel of John, chapter 6, and I'll begin reading again in verse 60 to the end of the chapter, as with yesterday. The Apostle John wrote, When many of Jesus' disciples heard what he had said, they replied, This is a hard saying.
Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.
And he said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?
Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve?
And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. So Jesus, in replying to his disciples, had said that it is the Spirit who gives life.
The flesh is no help at all. And the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life, understanding that it is only by the word of Christ and his alone that we are saved. And in the Ten Commandments, God said that he will not share his glory with another.
Do not bow down to any false gods, raise up any graven images. You will have no other gods before me. So it's not about, you know, making sure that we're at least worshiping Jesus, but we can also have these other things.
God is not going to share his glory. And if you put your trust in other things or you think that Jesus is not enough and therefore you need something else in order to be satisfied, then you don't actually trust Christ.
And that will be to your detriment, to your judgment on Judgment Day. If Jesus was merely a part of whatever religious system that you had, but he was not the whole, he was not your full commitment, heart, soul, mind, and strength, as God has commanded of us.
You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You know, whenever we end up talking about those two commandments, the ones that that Jesus said was the summation of all the law and the prophets, you will love the Lord your God and you will love your neighbor as yourself.
It's kind of like we just throw that out there is just a Sunday school answer to give. But we don't really understand the imperative that Jesus was saying, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, committing all of your thoughts unto God and all of your strength, that there is nothing in your flesh that is relying upon anything else for salvation, not your own good works, not anyone else's teaching, but the word of Christ alone, faith in his finished work on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, the fact that he is reigning now at the right hand of the throne of God.
It is belief and faith and trust in Christ that saves you and nothing else. You put faith in anything else, you give 99 to Christ and 1 to something else, you 100 don't trust Christ because you don't think that he has enough to give you all.
And so you have to pick and choose from some other things in order to kind of fulfill yourself. Our culture in our society today is such a mix of all kinds of syncretism, people believing in multiple different things, saying of themselves, they're spiritual people, or they'll even say they're religious people, but their religion is probably a hodgepodge of a bunch of different beliefs and philosophies.
But it's not devoting themselves fully to Christ. I encounter this all the time. Any of my evangelistic efforts that I do, whether it's going out and talking with a person on our community college campus or the university campus is 20 miles down the road from us, or talking with somebody in the community, just stopping them on the sidewalk four times out of five, you know, I'm encountering folks that are saying, yeah, I believe in Jesus.
Sure, I go to church and four out of those five people that will say they go to church, I find out they probably haven't attended a church in the last year or two or longer. So and they'll say that, but they're there.
It's not actually part of their spiritual discipline that they would go to church on any regular basis. But you dig down deep into the claims that these people will make when I encounter them. And I have these conversations like this, and you find that their religion is just a mix of a lot of different things.
So they have enough Jesus to be able to say, yeah, I believe in Jesus. Like when I say they have enough Jesus, I mean, they they have enough belief in Jesus to be able to say that when when you ask them, do you are you a Christian?
Do you believe in Jesus? They can say, yeah, sure. And justify themselves with that answer, because part of them somewhere does believe, yeah, there was this guy named Jesus. He performed miracles. And I go to church at Christmas and Easter.
So therefore, you know, I've got my bases covered in case that happens to be the true God and I die and have to go stand before him as judge in judgment. But it's syncretism, even if they're not Buddhists on the side or, you know, dabble in some sort of new age philosophy or something like that, even if they're not dabbling in some of those things, other named religions, it's still syncretism because they are sharing their faith, belief, the glory that is supposed to belong entirely to God.
They're sharing that among these other religions and philosophical ideas, even if it's stuff that they've just made up in their own mind is the most common kind of religious system in our culture today.
Syncretism, people believing in Jesus, but also believing in something else. My own works will save me something to that effect, which ultimately, when it comes down to it, when a person does not have trust in Christ and his finished work, they believe in their own works.
And that's everybody. You either have faith in the finished work of Christ or you believe that you can buy your own works in some way, shape or form, merit your own salvation. And no one will be saved in such a way.
Anyone who thinks such does not believe the word of Christ. And Jesus has said, the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. We come to salvation because we have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ as proclaimed by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, throughout his ministry, given to his apostles, his disciples to now go out into the world, speaking the gospel of repentance, as he called it in Luke chapter 24.
The words of Jesus are spirit. They give life to our dead spirits. We have the living spirit of God inside of us when we receive the words of Christ and we believe them and therefore we live. The dead man or woman that we once were has been raised to life in Christ and it's his words that give us life, that forgive us of sins and give eternal life.
Remember the story of Jesus healing the paralytic in Matthew chapter nine and getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city and behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed.
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven. And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, this man is blaspheming, but Jesus, knowing their thoughts, just like we're reading about here in John six, Jesus, knowing that the disciples were grumbling here, Jesus, knowing their thoughts said to them, why do you think evil in your hearts for which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say rise and walk, but that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
He then said to the paralytic, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and went home. And when the crowd saw it, they were afraid and they glorified God who had given such authority to men. Jesus showing that he had the authority to forgive sins when he said to the paralytic, rise, pick up your bed and go home for who, but God could have performed such a miracle in their midst.
And as Jesus words in that moment had the power to heal this man of literally a paralyzing handicap. So the words of Christ have the ability to heal us of the sinful disease that exists in our hearts.
Jesus, by his words, gives us the forgiveness of sins. When we listen to the words of Christ and we turn from our sin and we believe in him and we follow him, then we are cleansed from all unrighteousness.
Jesus has the authority to forgive sins as he had the authority to heal that man's disease right there on that spot. So it is the word of Christ that gives us life. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Jesus goes on in John 6, 64 to say, but there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him. So remember, John is distinguishing here between those who are referred to as merely disciples and those who John refers to as the 12.
So later we get to verse 67. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well after many disciples turned and no longer follow Jesus, then Jesus specifically addresses the 12. So we're distinguishing between those whom Christ has chosen and those who were indeed followers of Jesus.
The word disciple means a learner. So they were following him to learn from him, but they were thinking with the mind of man. They did not have the spirit of God. Therefore, they could not understand the spiritual things that he was talking about, why they were so incredibly confused by this.
Jesus is the one who searches mind and heart. We read about it there in Matthew chapter nine with the healing of the paralytic. It's talking about that here in John chapter six, as Jesus knows in himself that his disciples were doubting the words that he was saying.
And so Jesus knows who it is that believes in him and who it is that does not believe they're following Jesus because, again, they want their fill of the loaves. They saw Jesus break five loaves and two fish to feed 5000 people, 5000 men and maybe as many women and children.
So they're coming after him again to have something satisfied and filled in their flesh, which is why Jesus has to say to them. The flesh is no help at all. You want your flesh to be satisfied by something that you think that I can give you.
But if that's all you're coming after me for just to have something in your flesh satisfied, then you're not truly going to get from me what you really need. You don't need the bread that I can break up into baskets and have all these baskets left over because you're just going to find yourself hungry again.
You need more than that. You must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. In other words, you must fill yourself up with all of Christ. Your study of the word of Christ has to be a regular thing. It has to be daily.
If you don't understand that you are starving spiritually and only Christ can satisfy what it is that that is craving in your soul and in your spirit, if you don't understand that only Christ can satisfy that.
And it takes regular feeding on his word, just like you have to eat every day. So you need the word of Christ every day. And if you don't do that, if you don't feed on Jesus words, then you will starve to death spiritually.
Jesus says that he has true food and he is true food, and those who feed upon him will be satisfied. We will have eternal life. We will have the forgiveness of sins. We will have a relationship with God.
The question when it comes down to following Jesus is not, do you want to go to heaven? The question when it comes to becoming a follower of Jesus is, do you want God? Because if all you want is to go to heaven, then you don't truly have God.
Your desire is not God. There are all kinds of people that want to go to heaven. They just don't want God to be there when they get there. They don't want the judgment of God. They don't want to behold his holiness.
They fear his holiness, which is why they have to come up with a God of their own design and their own making a Jesus that they find a little bit more palatable to their flesh because the holy God is too much and they don't want it.
They're like the Israelites who heard the voice of God from Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 20, and it terrified them. And they said to Moses, hey, we can't do this. So let's go back to the arrangement where you go talk to God and then you come tell us what it is that God has said to you.
There are so many people in this world who respond to Jesus the exact same way, and they're not even standing at the base of Mount Sinai. You're just talking about sharing the word that Christ said in the Bible.
They don't want to hear any of that. They might say they want to love Jesus, but the version of Jesus that they come up with is a Jesus of their own design, which is not the Jesus of the Bible. And that for them is easier to believe in.
And because this Jesus is cool and he gives me all the stuff that I want, he wants me to be happy, which means I get all these things that in my flesh I have appetites for. I get my sexual immorality.
I get to hold on to my grudges. I get to have anger toward this person and that person. I get to continue to gossip. I get to continue to put these people down so that I might elevate myself. I don't have to sacrifice for anybody else.
I don't have to love someone. All I have to do is look out for me and believe in myself and chase my own hopes and dreams and trust in myself. And on and on it goes. And so what they end up coming up with is a Jesus of their own design and not the Jesus Christ of the Bible.
But what did Jesus say? Luke 9, 23. And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him, will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the father and of the holy angels?
My friends, you cannot separate Christ from his word any more than you can separate your spouse from their word. You might say, hey, I love my wife, but I can't stand it when she talks. Drives me crazy.
Then do you really believe the person who says that they love their wife, but they don't like talking to their wife? Do you believe that, man? Of course you don't. You would say, I don't think you love your wife.
In fact, if you don't like talking to her, I know you don't love your wife. And the same goes for our relationship with Jesus. You cannot say that you love Jesus and do not love his words. You say you love God, do you follow him?
There was the big controversy that happened. Was it last month? Yeah, I guess it was in December with Lauren Daigle, who, when she was asked on a radio program, if she believed that homosexuality was a sin, she said that she didn't know and she's still searching.
So if you find out the answer, well, then let me know because I'm learning to. It was basically her non answer. But of course, her non answer really was an answer. But Jesus said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?
Well, honestly, what Lauren was admitting in her answer is that she doesn't really know Jesus, for Jesus has said in his word what he expects of us, what true holiness is. And if we are truly in love with Christ, then we will fill ourselves up with more of his word.
If we are ashamed of his word, if we don't think his word is important, all we need is to believe in some guy who died on a cross and rose from the grave and his name was Jesus. And that's enough. All we need to do is have faith in that.
If that's as far as your Christianity goes, I tell you, you are still dead in your sins and you are not saved because you don't know the true Christ if you're not feeding upon his word. For Jesus said, my word that I have spoken to you is spirit and life.
We come to the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life when we believe the words that Jesus said and we do them. Let's conclude with prayer. Our wonderful God, we thank you again for this message that we've read today in your word, being reminded once again that the power of the word of Christ is the power to forgive sins and give eternal life.
So let us not take that for granted. Let us not just believe in empty words. Well, I believe in this person named Jesus, or I believe that the Bible is a book full of words that God said. And I can give my Sunday school answers, but we truly don't feed upon these words.
We don't have them fill us up from the inside out. We become a reflection of the things that have been said here in the Bible. If that transformation doesn't happen in our lives, then we don't truly believe what it is that Jesus has said.
So convict our hearts of this and may our paths be illuminated by the word of Christ that we may know exactly the way that you mean for us to walk and therefore walk in paths of righteousness for your namesake, doing that which is pleasing unto our God.
And we may know with confidence the road that we are on is the road that leads to heaven because it is the road that is marked by his word. Let us meditate on these things as we go today and help us to reflect even more on deep spiritual truths that you give us from your word.
We pray and ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
This is when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours, but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.
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