Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / John

John 6:41-71 08/21/05

Message: ‘Jesus: My All In All’ pt.3                                                                  Text: John 6:22-71
 

Introduction: Any baseball fans here this morning?
    In 1976 the  owners lockout the players for 17 days.
    In 1981 The players went out on strike for 50 days that caused the loss of 713 games.
    In 1990 the owners locked out the players for 32 days.
    In 1994-95 the players went out on strike for 232 days.

Many baseball fans were so disenchanted with baseball that many stopped going to the games. And it wasn’t just baseball.

Basketball
    In 1997-98 Basketball owners locked out the players for 464 games.

Hockey anyone
    Most recently in 2004 Hockey owners locked out the players…for the complete season. 1230 games lost.

Baseball and basketball lost attendance because people became disappointed with the game they loved. And the same will probably be true for hockey.

Explanation: Have you ever been disappointed with something or someone you loved? Ever felt like giving up on it or them? Then you know how the people who were following Jesus felt when they listened to what he said and didn’t like what they heard.

Transition: What happened that people who loved and followed Jesus, were now disappointed and disenchanted with him? Let’s find out. Turn in your bibles to John 6:41 (page 815 in the church bibles)

6. John 6:41-51    Grumbling, Disbelief: Not Called
Read: John 6:41-51

Jesus’ followers were angry that Jesus was saying he came from heaven. Why? Because they knew him.  Can you see them cynically and pridefully saying…
    I knew his parents, Mary and Joseph. Our kids used to play together.
    I know where he grew up. We used to live down the street from them.
How can Jesus say he is from heaven?

It seems Jesus suffered from much the same ailment we often suffer.
    Has anyone ever had a hard time believing you were a Christian because they knew you when you weren’t?
   They can’t believe you changed because they used to hang out with you.
When people don’t understand, they often resort to what they know…even if it was a long time ago in the past.

However, what the people thought they knew about Jesus and his birth, was flawed. They didn’t know about his mother Mary’s miraculous virgin birth. They didn’t know about the work of the Holy Spirit. But they should have, because it was prophesized in the Old Testament.  Truth is, they knew what the prophesies said, they just didn’t believe they were fulfilled in Jesus. It was not a lack of knowledge or understanding that caused them to grumble and argue. It was a lack of belief. And the same is true today. Most people know about Jesus; what he did, what he said, they just choose not to believe it.  But notice that Jesus doesn’t try to correct them this time. Instead, he begins to talk about what God does to bring people to believe in Jesus Christ. He brings the focus back on the spiritual, to how one receives eternal life.

What Jesus says next is perhaps the strongest example of what’s called election in the bible. Election is the first work of God in salvation. Let me see if I can explain it so that it makes sense and we don’t simply dismiss it because it is too difficult or discount it because we don’t ‘believe’ in election.

Read: John 6:44-45

    Ok. Both of these verses are important because vs 45 clarifies vs 44.
    No one come to God, no one is able to believe in Jesus unless God calls them, draws them, woos them, touches them. This is what ‘draws them’ means. Apart from this first work of God, we would never think to believe in Jesus…like the people in the crowd that day, we would make excuses and choose not to believe.

    How does God draw us to Jesus? How does he bring us to believe? By teaching us about who God is, who Jesus is and who we are. Not in an educational or intellectual sense, but in our heart of hearts, we just know the truth. That’s what Jesus means when he said ‘they will all be taught by God’.

    Unless, God does this first work in your heart, you will not believe in Jesus.

So does all this that mean you can just say ‘I don’t understand so God must not be calling me.’? Or ‘I will believe in Jesus when God makes me believe in Jesus.’? No, that’s not how it works. God touches our hearts in different ways:
    For some there are tears,
    For some there is quietness, a peace,
    For some it is a sense of relief,
    For others it is a feeling that there is more to life and God has something to do with it.
For everyone it’s like the proverbial light bulb that goes off in your head and you finally get it, you understand that Jesus died …for you.

Sometimes we just need to sit still long enough to sense his touch. And then believe it’s him reaching out to us, touching us from the inside and not blaming what we are feeling on something we had for dinner last night.

Transition: Speaking about food, Jesus uses the metaphor of bread to describe how we receive eternal life, inherit heaven. He tells them the bread he gives is his flesh. And the people, remember they are stuck on the physical, take it the wrong way…again.

7. John 6:52-59    You Are What You Eat
Read: John 6:52-59

Wow. Scholars go all over the place trying to interpret and understand what Jesus is saying here. No wonder the people were confused. But there are two major ideas.
    First, Jesus is talking about the Lord’s Supper. His flesh and blood are symbols of the bread and the wine (juice) we take during communion.
        Catholics take this more literally in that the bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of  Jesus when it is consecrated by the priest.
        Protestants, see Jesus being more symbolic than literal. The bread and juice represent Jesus’ body and blood.
   Second, Jesus is talking about salvation. He is beginning to use the terms flesh, body, blood to prepare his followers for how he will die.
        In the OT, while there was a law that the Jews couldn’t drink the blood of an animal, it was also true that without the shedding of blood, there can be
       no forgiveness of sin. To shed blood means breaking through the flesh…flesh and blood…death and forgiveness.

Personally, since Jesus has been talking about eternal life, and his institution of the Lord’s Supper is a year or so away, I tend to believe he is referring to salvation.
But, that aside, what is Jesus implying about eating his flesh and drinking his blood? What does this have to do with going to heaven and eternal life? Basically, Jesus is saying that heaven, eternal life, can be summed up in one phrase ‘You are what you eat’.

    Just as food and drink sustain physical life, Jesus, sustains the spiritual life of his followers. His flesh and blood give eternal life to those who believe and receive him as their savior.
    Jesus wasn’t being literal. He was being spiritual. No different than when he told Nicodemus that he had to be born again or when he told the woman at the well that if she drank his living water she would never thirst again.
    Jesus is conveying to them that to see heaven, to have eternal life you must consume him, let him be what nourishes you…spiritually. He is saying that Jesus has to be as real in your life, as important to your life as the very food you eat.
    Jesus is implying that just as physical food is indispensable to physical life, so is spiritual food (Jesus) is indispensable to spiritual life, to eternal life.
    The psalmist says ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good.’ Jesus is saying the same thing. Don’t just know me in your head by what you read. Know me in your heart, in your stomach by what you absorb into your life…know me experientially.

Transition: We’ve had 2000 years to study what Jesus said. Do you think the people in the crodw got it? Let’s see.

8. John 6: 60-71        Leave or Cleave?
Read: John 6:60-71

Many that day were disappointed, disenchanted by what Jesus said. And like many sports fans who had enough with professional athletes and owners, they said goodbye to the one they once followed and loved.

When Jesus was no longer what they wanted him to be or when he didn’t do what they thought he should be doing for them, or when he asks more of them than they are willing to give, they left him, they stopped following him.

    Sound familiar? When people feel God has disappointed them, when he no longer is doing what they think he should be doing for them, they often look elsewhere…to new age, to meditation, or to some other altar to give their hopes to. Only to be disappointed time and time again.

Bottom line…yes, what Jesus says here is heard. But understand he is speaking of commitment to him. And we, like the crown that day, don’t like commitment.

    We have about 105 people who call CBC their home church…but only 75-80 on a good Sunday.
    The Jersey Devil Chapter of the Vulcan Riders and Owners Club, the great group I ride with, has about 50 members, but only 10 or so that ride regularly.

Whether it’s church or a motorcycle club,
    many people want the benefits of membership without the responsibility,
    they want the good feelings of connectedness without the burden of commitment.

That’s what keeps many people from truly believing in Jesus. They want the benefits of Christianity: eternal life in heaven, a place to go on Sundays when there is nothing better to do…but they don’t want Jesus, or Christianity to cramp their style or encroach upon their comfort zone.

Well, it’s cruncg time. Jesus speaks to the 12 men who were closest to him. He asked if they wanted to leave him too. Jesus wasn’t saying this because he didn’t know their hearts. He was saying it as a means to encourage them, to cause them to think about their commitment to him. How did they respond?

Peter said ‘To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God’

Those closest to Jesus
    believed in him, even though they didn’t fully understand.
    They trusted him even though everything didn’t make complete sense.
    They believed he was the way to eternal life. And that was enough…and it still is.

Conclusion

If you have not come to the place where you look to God and say ‘To whom shall I go?’ you have not come close enough to Jesus.
    You may have read a lot about him, gone to church, even prayed…but have you truly believed that God sent Jesus to die…for you. To give his flesh and blood so that you can be forgiven, so that you can obtain eternal life.
    Have you ever told God you believed in Jesus his son?
    Have you ever asked him to forgive your sins
    Have you ever really tasted and seen that the Lord is good?

When all is said and done…‘to whom shall you go?’