The Sovereign Draw: How God Saves Sinners in John 6

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:03] I'd like you to open your Bible to our main scripture for today, John 6, John chapter 6.
[00:00:09] We'll return to that and read our quote for today. It's from a man named Stephen Charnock.
[00:00:14] He says, The drawing of the Father is an almighty attraction. It is not a moral swaytion that may be resisted, but a victorious power that makes dead souls live and the unwilling heart willing.
[00:00:28] According to Scripture, the fact that any of us have come to Jesus and have faith in Him is evidence that we have been drawn to Christ by our Father in Heaven.
[00:00:38] If we truly love Jesus, we should thank our Father in Heaven because He dragged us into the light when we could not walk there on our own.
[00:00:46] It's a supernatural work of our Creator that God grabbed a hold of us who were dead in our sins and trespasses and gave us life in Christ.
[00:00:55] It's not something we were capable of doing for ourselves.
[00:00:58] When we were spiritually dead in our sins, the Lord grabbed a hold of us and did something miraculous inside of us.
[00:01:06] He moved us.
[00:01:06] He drew us to Christ with what our quote today calls almighty traction.
[00:01:11] If you were saved, that was the effectual act of our omnipotent creator that saved you.
[00:01:18] The Lord does not try to do something and fail.
[00:01:20] He's not capable of failing at anything.
[00:01:22] If God wants to do something, he's going to make it happen.
[00:01:25] He is almighty, all-powerful.
[00:01:27] He has all the power to do exactly what he wants to do.
[00:01:31] If he wants to save us, he doesn't.
[00:01:34] He doesn't require us to do something to earn it.
[00:01:38] The only thing that we bring to the table in our salvation are the sins that God forgives.
[00:01:45] God is almighty.
[00:01:46] He is all powerful.
[00:01:47] There is not a thing that he cannot do.
[00:01:49] And when he decides to raise someone who is spiritually dead and unwilling, a sinner like we were, like we are, every one of us is a sinner.
[00:01:57] When he decides to save sinners like us to a willing faith in Christ, his grace and his will to save is irresistible.
[00:02:06] We don't have the power to tell the tide to stay out or to tell the moon to hold still in the sky.
[00:02:11] We don't have the power to tell God no to anything.
[00:02:14] He guarantees that the work that he began in us is perfected.
[00:02:19] Salvation is reliant on God.
[00:02:21] It's not reliant on us.
[00:02:23] He causes it and he facilitates it.
[00:02:25] When the Father draws you, that's an inward thing.
[00:02:29] There's the people who will tell you, they'll confess with their lips that they know Christ, but their hearts are far from him.
[00:02:35] If you are truly his, if his grace has changed your heart, it's because he has done a thing inside of you.
[00:02:41] It's an inward thing, an irresistible act that changes not just what you think and not just what you do, but who you are.
[00:02:49] He has brought dead people to life, and our life is in Christ alone.
[00:02:54] our creator does not convince us to follow christ he commands us to come to life and that life can only be found in his son jesus christ let's all stand as we read the word of god our main
[00:03:09] scripture for today is john chapter 6 verses 41 to 58 john 6 beginning in verse 41 therefore the jews were grumbling about him because he said i am the bread of life that came down out of heaven
[00:03:25] They were saying, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
[00:03:31] How does he now say, I have come down out of heaven?
[00:03:34] Jesus grumbled and said to them, Do not grumble among yourselves.
[00:03:38] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
[00:03:44] It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God.
[00:03:48] Everyone that has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
[00:03:53] Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God.
[00:03:57] He has seen the Father.
[00:03:58] Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
[00:04:03] I am the bread of life.
[00:04:05] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.
[00:04:08] This is the bread which comes down out of heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.
[00:04:13] I am the living bread that came down out of heaven.
[00:04:17] If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.
[00:04:20] And the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
[00:04:25] Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
[00:04:31] So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.
[00:04:40] He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
[00:04:46] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
[00:04:50] He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
[00:04:56] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me, he also will live because of me.
[00:05:04] This is the bread which came down out of heaven.
[00:05:08] Not as the fathers ate and died.
[00:05:10] He who eats this bread will live forever.
[00:05:14] Let's pray.
[00:05:14] our father in heaven lord god we praise you father we thank you for these bibles that you've put in our hands we thank you for the way that you've revealed the truth to us and given us eyes to see
[00:05:24] lord god if we misunderstand any of this we pray that you would correct us please make us bold and how we go out and share what we learned today with the people that we love please give us
[00:05:34] opportunities to share hope in christ with those people please god make us the people you would have us be bless the way that we would seek you in your word and help us in all the many ways that
[00:05:42] we need you. Lord, we thank you for this.
[00:05:45] We love you and we praise you.
[00:05:46] In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:05:49] On the surface, this concept of our Father in heaven drawing any of us to Christ is something that even the most fair-weather followers of Jesus love to hear.
[00:06:01] On the surface, it's something that they're like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. But what Jesus says here in verse 44 of scripture today reveals that that drawing is the only way that someone can
[00:06:13] come to christ and that's the thing that many of those fairweather followers don't like about what jesus is saying here i had a really good friend of mine once tell me that being drawn to the son
[00:06:24] by the father was a doctrine straight out of hell he was so mad when i came up in a bible study so i opened up a bible and i just i showed him what it actually says i showed him the scripture
[00:06:35] that we just got to read here today i showed him what jesus said about this concept and his response to that was i know he says that but i don't think he really means that you've ever heard
[00:06:46] that before when you share something in the bible somebody like yeah i know it says it but there's no way it means that it's got to be this thing that i heard years ago that has nothing to do
[00:06:54] with that scripture there a lot of people that's their response and when i showed my friend what jesus says here he didn't like what it said it went very contrary to what he thought it should
[00:07:05] say. So he just disregarded it as if it wasn't in the scripture at all, as if that wasn't in our Bibles. He didn't like what Jesus said. There's a lot of people that don't like what he says,
[00:07:15] but let God be true and men be liars. If God says it, we believe it. Grace has given us a new heart, new eyes to see, new ears that can hear the truth. And when we are confronted with the truth,
[00:07:26] we respond with belief. If God says it, we know it is true. That response that my friend had about the scripture today, it's nothing new. We see it in that crowd that's in our scripture
[00:07:38] today as well. Some people love the concept of grace, but they only want that grace on their own terms. But that's not how grace works. It's not about what we want or what we decide to allow.
[00:07:49] It's about what God gives us that we don't deserve. Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. He said, all that the father gives me will come to me and
[00:08:01] that we can't come to him unless the father who sent us draws him. Those three verses there are some of the more challenging verses in scripture, especially when you're a new Christian, when you're a baby in Christ, you really have to ask the more mature Christian brothers and sisters around you
[00:08:18] to help you understand those hard parts. Will you talk to me about these things? Can we chew on these things together? Can you give me some other parts of the Bible I can use to qualify these
[00:08:27] things. You, if you're the more mature Christian in your friend group, they're going to lean heavy on you to point at the Bible. That's why it's so important that you read it every day because
[00:08:37] you're that person that God has put into multiple people's lives to share the truth with them and to help them qualify what these harder parts mean by using other parts of scripture to show this is what it says. This is the overarching meta-narrative of the Bible. This is the big
[00:08:51] story, all that points to Christ. Let me show you what it looks like and all these other parts of the bible when you get these hard parts you have to go to the easier parts to kind of qualify it
[00:09:00] for your baby christian friends what he means here when he says no one can come to me unless the father draws me and we can't come to him unless god gives us to the son what that means
[00:09:12] is that grace is this irresistible force we don't get the floor we might run from it like jonah did when he didn't want to go to neville we might say i don't want to do that and go in the opposite
[00:09:22] direction but you're going whether god whether you want to go there or not if god wants you to something it's going to happen amen his yoke is easy you ever see two oxen that are yoked together
[00:09:31] and one's usually bigger than the other where the big one wants to go that's where the plow is going well you're yoked to christ the creator of all things if he wants you to go somewhere
[00:09:39] you're going to go either willingly or he's going to drag you there kicking and screaming but you're going to go there because god is in control that's really the the essence of what jesus is talking
[00:09:49] here if the father gives you to the son you're going oftentimes we're going kicking and screaming at first until we realize what it is and then we're grateful for it we praise him for it lord
[00:09:59] thank you for your great mercy i had no idea what i was doing please forgive me for how stubborn and stupid i oftentimes am for people that think that they can contribute or allow god to give them
[00:10:12] salvation what jesus says about it here i think it's very contrary to what they've been taught or how they feel about this and that's why what jesus says here is really offensive to certain people. You'll oftentimes hear people frame it as a high view of God or a high view of
[00:10:28] man. For people that have a high view of God, every word in this Bible, I didn't know that.
[00:10:33] If you come across it for the first time, well, it must be truth in this Bible. But for people with a high view of man, they'll try and tell you why these things aren't right
[00:10:41] or, well, my grandma told me this or, oh, my pastor told me this when I was at VBS when I was a kid. It's different than this. They'll try and give you an excuse for why they don't
[00:10:50] want to accept what it says our view is that god is above all things he's the creator of all of this he's all powerful all-knowing he deserves all the glory and all the praise it's not about what we do
[00:11:02] it's about what god does so when we read the scripture today that's the lens that we're looking at the truth to god goes of all the glory this scripture here in john 6 it has a way of
[00:11:13] sifting and separating the true disciples from the false ones and one of the ways that it does them is by forcing us, as we read it, to consider our role in salvation. Obviously, we're saved by
[00:11:25] grace through faith, but people will take that and they'll try and describe it in multiple different ways to dance around the way that God saves us. What he says here confronts us with our own views
[00:11:38] about what we really think salvation is. And the way that we respond to what Jesus says here, it's going to show us where we are in that regard. Sometimes we just don't know better.
[00:11:47] We're still new.
[00:11:48] We're still figuring things out and connecting the dots in Scripture.
[00:11:52] But as you mature in your faith, as you read God's Word, you're going to mature faster.
[00:11:55] So read it every day.
[00:11:56] Read as much as possible.
[00:11:58] But as you grow in your faith, as you read God's Word and see what he says in different parts of this Bible, these things start to click into place.
[00:12:05] They start to make a lot more sense as you go, as you walk with Christ.
[00:12:09] And it forces us.
[00:12:10] The Scripture here today is one of those places.
[00:12:12] There's a couple places in the Bible that will punch you right in the gut.
[00:12:15] You'll read it and you'll go, oh, I was so wrong about this.
[00:12:18] So this is one of those places that forces us to look at where we are in our walk with Christ and qualify that with Scripture.
[00:12:25] If you can prove what you believe by using this Bible, you're on the right path.
[00:12:29] It forces us to ask these questions.
[00:12:31] Do we, as disciples of Christ, have a high view of God as both our creator and the sustainer of everything in his creation?
[00:12:39] or do we have a high view of man as the only part of his creation whose will supersedes our creator in any way can we say no to god if he's decided to do something not just in our life but in our
[00:12:54] hearts in the life that we are living it seems like such an odd thing when we say it out loud like that does our will really supersede god's will as the creation it sounds weird when we say
[00:13:04] out loud. How could the will of the creation ever override the all-powerful will of our Creator?
[00:13:12] It doesn't. But there's a lot of very well-intentioned people in this world, a lot of people that are very loving, that do confess Christ as Lord and Savior, that don't know what this Bible actually says. They just don't read it. And they truly believe that their will as part of
[00:13:28] the creation is capable of superseding our creator's will when it comes to the way that he saves us it's your job as disciples of christ to read this bible as much as possible and then tell
[00:13:41] the people that you love the people in your life it might be somebody you work with somebody you see every once in a while at the bank or the grocery store it might be somebody you just
[00:13:48] made yesterday it's your job to tell those people what this bible actually says so that they might to know Christ and trust him the way that you do. There's a responsibility in being a Christian.
[00:14:02] To those that much is given, much is required. If he has saved you and opened up your eyes, you need to tell everybody. Tell every person that you know why you have this hope in Christ
[00:14:12] the way that you do. None of us are capable of convincing anybody in our life that this Bible is true. You're not going to be able to be so slick and so charming or so convincing that you
[00:14:25] going to be able to tell someone who doesn't believe or somebody who's in rebellion why it's true. You can tell them what it says and why you believe it, but you're not going to be able to
[00:14:33] convince them why it's true. But the Lord gives us as his people, this privilege of talking to each other and telling each other what this Bible actually says. We tell people what it says and why
[00:14:46] we believe it. We get to plant, we get to water those seeds, but it is God that gives the increase.
[00:14:52] It's God who's really in control.
[00:14:54] Think about that concept of us planting and watering and God giving the increase in the context of what Jesus is saying here in Scripture today.
[00:15:03] You and I, we get the privilege of being part of his great commission.
[00:15:07] We get to plant and water those seeds until we are blue in the face many times.
[00:15:11] but we cannot convince anyone to believe it because it takes a supernatural act of our creator to give the increase in the hearts of the people who are receiving the truth grace gives us ears
[00:15:24] to hear it so that when we're confirmed with the truth we respond to it with faith it's a supernatural thing that god is doing but we get the privilege of sharing our hope in christ with
[00:15:34] those people knowing that god is the one that gives them the ability to hear what we're saying as we point to the cross.
[00:15:41] God has to draw people to Christ and the good fruit of faith that he bears through each one of us is born out of his grace that gives the increase in each one of us.
[00:15:53] We do have free will.
[00:15:53] Don't let anybody tell you that you don't.
[00:15:56] We do have free will.
[00:15:57] Some people will argue, well, I'm not a robot.
[00:15:59] I'm not some kind of automaton that God can just say, now you believe.
[00:16:03] That's usually the argument you'll hear when people like to dance around the scripture we're reading here today.
[00:16:08] You do have free will, But the choices that you make in your life are based on your nature.
[00:16:14] Birds fly.
[00:16:14] It's their nature to fly.
[00:16:15] Fish swim.
[00:16:17] And sinners sin.
[00:16:18] We choose to sin because we are sinners.
[00:16:22] Before he saves us, our nature that we were born in is sinful.
[00:16:27] That's why we must be born again as a new creature with a new nature.
[00:16:31] Do we have free will?
[00:16:33] Yes.
[00:16:33] 100% yes.
[00:16:35] You decide what you're doing from one minute to the next.
[00:16:37] The thing that we have to understand is that our old nature, when we're in the flesh, when we're born in sin, chooses to sin.
[00:16:46] It chooses to be selfish because that's the way we were wired from birth.
[00:16:50] We're sinful because we're sinners.
[00:16:53] We don't start out innocent and then we have that first sin and then we become a sinner.
[00:16:58] We sin because we are sinners.
[00:17:00] We're born that way by default.
[00:17:02] We're in Adam by default until we're saved and given grace, and now we're in Christ.
[00:17:08] This new nature that we're given in Christ, it's not rooted in us.
[00:17:12] It's not rooted in our flesh.
[00:17:13] It's rooted in the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:15] It's drawn to our Creator.
[00:17:17] We want to know Him.
[00:17:18] We want to say yes to Him.
[00:17:20] We want to be His because He has given us eyes to see the truth, and you don't want anything else once you know that.
[00:17:26] But we only do that.
[00:17:27] We only want to know Christ.
[00:17:29] We want to be his because our father in heaven has had mercy on us, because he has given us grace, because he is in a supernatural work in us.
[00:17:40] To God goes all the glory for this thing that each of us has chosen freely to do.
[00:17:45] And we chose to do this, to say yes, to call out to God and ask him to forgive us, to save us because he has had mercy on us, because he is at work in us.
[00:17:56] Jesus says your good works glorify your Father who is in heaven.
[00:18:00] And the greatest work that you will ever do in this life is to believe in Christ.
[00:18:05] Ephesians 2.10 says we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
[00:18:15] As Christians, we walk in faith.
[00:18:18] And the glory of God is revealed through the way that he takes people like us who are spiritually dead in our sins and trespasses, And he causes us to be born again so that we might be made alive in Christ.
[00:18:30] In verses 41 and 42 of John six, the Bible says, therefore, the Jews were grumbling about him because he said, I am the bread of life that came down out of heaven.
[00:18:42] They were saying, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
[00:18:48] How does he now say I have come down out of heaven?
[00:18:53] Remember, this is that big crowd of people that was seeking Jesus in such a way that they were willing to cross the Sea of Galilee, which was known for its terrible weather and its rough waters.
[00:19:03] It's not an easy thing to cross on a little boat.
[00:19:06] It's for skilled fishermen to cross that sea.
[00:19:09] And these people are seeking Jesus.
[00:19:11] They're willing to cross the Sea of Galilee to go and find him.
[00:19:14] And they're seeking him, but it's not for the right reasons.
[00:19:17] They want to see another miracle, and they want him to be the king that crushes their enemies.
[00:19:22] and they're not seeking God.
[00:19:24] They're seeking just a leader who would put them in charge over Rome.
[00:19:28] They're coming to Jesus for these selfish reasons.
[00:19:31] They're not coming to him because they want to be his.
[00:19:33] They're not coming to him so that they can draw near to the Messiah.
[00:19:36] They're coming to him because they want him to do something for them, and they hear what he says in our scripture that we were reading last week, and then here we see them grumbling about what Jesus says.
[00:19:46] They're like, we really want to seek Jesus, but not if he says these things.
[00:19:50] We don't want to hear what he's talking about here.
[00:19:52] They don't like what he just said, and that's really because they don't understand what he said.
[00:19:57] A lot of things in this Bible are going to go over our heads unless God gives us an understanding of his word.
[00:20:03] They're looking at Jesus' words from this really limited worldly perspective.
[00:20:07] But Jesus is talking about the eternal things of the Spirit.
[00:20:11] So what he's saying here, it really falls on deaf ears for so many of these people because these things are spiritually designed.
[00:20:18] It takes the Holy Spirit to give us an understanding of what we're reading here.
[00:20:22] He tells them that their works cannot save them, that belief in him alone is the source of eternal life, and that he is the true bread that has come down out of heaven.
[00:20:33] And none of that, none of these things, these ultimate truths that Jesus is pointing to here, none of that stirs something in those people.
[00:20:40] They just rumble to each other because they don't really understand what he's saying and what he's pointing to here.
[00:20:45] To them, Jesus is just a prophet.
[00:20:47] He's just a man.
[00:20:48] And they know his parents.
[00:20:49] They call out Joseph by name here.
[00:20:52] And they can't see past what their worldly perspective is of what they think he is or who they think he is.
[00:20:58] In verses 43 and 44, the Bible says, Jesus answered and said to them, Do not grumble among yourselves.
[00:21:05] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
[00:21:10] And I will raise him up on the last day.
[00:21:13] For us who see what this says, for those who have grace at work in us, this is really comforting. I've been in Bible studies where people got furious about these words. They got genuinely upset about this. So think about that. As you read this, why would
[00:21:29] this upset people? And why does it comfort me so much as I read these words? Jesus is saying that he saves everyone that the father gives to him and that none of us can go to him to be saved
[00:21:41] unless our father in heaven does the supernatural work in them. He's saying that God is the source of our salvation and he's the initiator of it god is the one who does all the work we're the
[00:21:53] participants but he's the one who does all of it to save us amen in verse 44 jesus says that the father draws us and the son saves us in the greek the word that we translate here as draw really
[00:22:08] means to drag the way that you would draw water out of a well you the water's inert the water You're not like, hey, water, come up here and get in my bucket.
[00:22:16] You're not asking the water to come.
[00:22:18] You put that bucket in there.
[00:22:19] You lower that rope or that chain.
[00:22:21] You scoop it out of the bucket and you pull it to where you want it to be so that you can drink that water and you can use it for whatever you're going to use it for.
[00:22:28] That's what God has done to us.
[00:22:30] He draws us to Christ.
[00:22:33] He drags us into the light.
[00:22:35] It sounds so gentle when you read it in the English translation, but the original language implies so much more about the effectual grace of God that is at work in us as his people.
[00:22:46] We were dead in our sins.
[00:22:48] We were blind to the truth.
[00:22:50] We were wandering lost in the wrong direction for so much of our life until we saw it as it really is.
[00:22:55] It wasn't until God our Father had mercy on us when he grabbed a hold of us and, as Jesus says here, dragged us to Christ that we really saw what this life was all about.
[00:23:04] and who it was really for.
[00:23:06] Think about who you thought this life was for before he saved you.
[00:23:10] He thought it was about you.
[00:23:11] Every one of us thought we were the main character in this story that we're living out in this life.
[00:23:15] But once your eyes were open, you meant, oh, this is not about me at all.
[00:23:18] I'm a character in his story.
[00:23:20] I'm his creation.
[00:23:21] My life is meant for his glory.
[00:23:24] Suddenly it humbled you.
[00:23:25] You saw it for what it really was.
[00:23:27] We were lost in the dark.
[00:23:29] We had no idea what we were doing.
[00:23:30] We thought we did sometimes, but not really.
[00:23:32] and God grabbed a hold of us and he dragged us into the light kicking and screaming in a lot of cases and through his grace he gives us eyes that can even see the light, that know what it is
[00:23:44] he gives us a new heart with a new nature that wants to know our creator and we want to be his he does that so that we can know the truth and seek eternal life
[00:23:54] in Christ 1 Peter 1 says that God our father has caused us to be born again our father gave us to his son He dragged us into life, and we were incapable of going to it on our own.
[00:24:06] When you're dead in sins, you're not seeking the truth.
[00:24:09] You're seeking pleasure.
[00:24:10] You're looking for something that's going to make you feel good and tickle your ears.
[00:24:13] You want somebody to tell you that you're the main character of this story, that you were – I had a teacher in seventh, eighth grade that told me in an infinite universe, no matter where you stand, you're in the very center of it.
[00:24:24] That really appealed to my ego when I was a little kid.
[00:24:26] And it wasn't until the grace of God opened up my eyes that I felt back on that and went, man, that was ridiculous.
[00:24:33] I had no idea what this life was about.
[00:24:35] It took an act of God to open up my eyes because I was blind and lost.
[00:24:40] Our Father does something in us.
[00:24:43] It changes us.
[00:24:44] It brings us to life when we were dead.
[00:24:47] And Jesus is explaining this to this big crowd in our scripture today.
[00:24:52] But most of these people, they can hear his words, but the meaning of it is lost on them because it's a supernatural thing.
[00:25:00] And Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
[00:25:05] Well, we're blessed.
[00:25:06] We've been blessed beyond measure because we heard his voice and we get to follow him.
[00:25:13] The sheep are drawn to him because we hear his voice in that way.
[00:25:16] He knows us because our father in heaven has given us to him.
[00:25:20] And we follow him because all that the Father gives to the Son will come to him.
[00:25:25] Nobody slips through the cracks.
[00:25:27] If he's given you grace, God bless you.
[00:25:30] If he's began a good thing in you, he's going to perfect it.
[00:25:33] When the Father draws someone to Christ, it's not just this casual invitation.
[00:25:38] It's an effectual calling that has a purpose to it.
[00:25:41] Where those who are given to Christ are always brought to him.
[00:25:44] Our good shepherd ensures that we are lifted up on that final day.
[00:25:49] for many we are called outwardly that the call to repentance is given to the world but few are chosen inwardly by the irresistible pull of god's divine love the grace of god will always accomplish
[00:26:03] what he intends for to accomplish our creator it is in charge of sovereign over his creation he shapes it according to his perfect divine will in romans 10 the bible says faith comes by hearing
[00:26:16] and hearing by the word of God.
[00:26:19] In Isaiah 55, the Lord says, my word which goes forth from my mouth will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
[00:26:31] It is because of his grace that we have been able to receive his word in the way that he has given it.
[00:26:38] Through grace, we hear the good news of Jesus Christ and we get to respond to it with faith.
[00:26:44] It never goes out without accomplishing exactly what God intends for it to accomplish.
[00:26:49] His word will always do that.
[00:26:51] It will always do what he desires for it to accomplish.
[00:26:54] It was our father's will to give you, Christian, to his son.
[00:26:59] And when you heard the gospel, when you knew that it was true, it's, I describe it like the Wizard of Oz where you're watching it in black and white and color.
[00:27:07] You're looking at the same thing, but now you can see it the way it really is.
[00:27:09] When you suddenly saw it for what it really is, the lights came on.
[00:27:13] That was the grace of God in action.
[00:27:15] He was at work in your heart as he gave you eyes to see the truth.
[00:27:18] So when you heard it, when you heard the good news of Jesus Christ, you were like, obviously, you might have heard it a thousand times before and not know it was true.
[00:27:26] But when grace grabbed ahold of you and dragged you into the light so that you could see it, suddenly you saw it.
[00:27:32] And there was no denying it.
[00:27:33] You know it's true.
[00:27:34] And just like Peter says, where else are we going to go?
[00:27:36] We know you have the words of truth.
[00:27:38] You knew it and you wanted nothing else but to praise God, to seek him, to call out to him and ask him to save you because you know you cannot save yourself.
[00:27:48] When we responded to the truth with faith in Christ, that was the word of God succeeding in what he intended for it to do in your heart. That's what God wanted to do. And he did it
[00:27:59] because he's God. He's almighty, all powerful, and there's nothing he cannot do. Faith comes by hearing the word of God and his word always accomplishes what he intends for it to accomplish.
[00:28:10] So the question that this forces us to ask, there's one of those hard parts.
[00:28:15] Why doesn't everyone respond to God's word with faith when they hear it?
[00:28:20] That's the obvious question.
[00:28:22] When we read through this, we're like, wait a minute.
[00:28:24] I know people much kinder and more generous, more loving and gentle than I am.
[00:28:28] Why doesn't everyone respond to the word of God the way that I get to respond to it?
[00:28:33] They're way better than me.
[00:28:35] Why do I get this privilege?
[00:28:36] Why has he done this supernatural work in my heart?
[00:28:39] The Lord God grabbed a hold of us, and he dragged us, kicking and screaming early on, into the light.
[00:28:44] That's what Jesus is saying here.
[00:28:46] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me drags them, and I will raise them up on the last day.
[00:28:53] The people that hear Jesus say these things, they're grumbling and complaining because they're like, I don't like this.
[00:28:59] I don't like what he's saying, but they really are grumbling and complaining because they don't understand the deeper things that Jesus is saying here, and they don't understand because they're spiritually disarmed.
[00:29:10] The one reason that any of us understand these words that we're reading in the scripture today is because God has given us an understanding.
[00:29:17] It's the Holy Spirit that gives us an understanding.
[00:29:21] In verse 45, the Bible says, it is written, God bless you, it is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God.
[00:29:30] Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
[00:29:34] Jesus uses the plural prophets here because the promise of the Lord's divine teaching appears in multiple prophetic Old Testament books.
[00:29:42] It's not just in one place.
[00:29:44] It's all throughout the Old Testament.
[00:29:46] He's pointing us to the promise of the new covenant that is fulfilled in Christ.
[00:29:51] That promise is that God will personally instruct his people in this new covenant that we get to be a part of.
[00:29:57] The Father's drawing is fulfilled through his direct teaching.
[00:30:01] So what Jesus is saying to this crowd here is really a prophecy fulfilled and a promise kept.
[00:30:07] In verse 46, the Bible says, Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from God.
[00:30:14] He has seen the Father.
[00:30:16] He's talking about himself here.
[00:30:17] He's already told them that he came down out of heaven.
[00:30:21] He's elaborating on that concept here.
[00:30:23] Jesus knows things that only he is capable of knowing.
[00:30:27] There are certain things that only the Son of God is capable of explaining.
[00:30:32] Because he's the creator and sustainer of everything in his creation.
[00:30:36] He's the only one that is able to say these things that he's saying here with authority.
[00:30:40] So if Jesus says it, there's no higher authority.
[00:30:43] If he says it, that's what it is.
[00:30:44] That's the ultimate truth that's being revealed through our creator.
[00:30:48] There's no part of his creation that has experienced the things that the Son of God has experienced.
[00:30:54] No part of his creation is holy like the Holy One is.
[00:30:57] And in that, there's no part of the creation that has yet stood in the presence of God our Father and been witness to him in the way that Jesus has been witness to our Father in heaven.
[00:31:07] Because of this, Jesus is the ultimate authority for the truth.
[00:31:11] And what he says to these people is given with that authority.
[00:31:15] There's no one else that can say, well, actually.
[00:31:17] This is God himself telling us this really important, hard truth that we have a hard time wrapping our heads around at first.
[00:31:26] In verses 47 and 51, Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
[00:31:34] I am the bread of life.
[00:31:36] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
[00:31:39] This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
[00:31:44] I am the bread, the living bread that came down out of heaven.
[00:31:49] If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.
[00:31:53] And the bread also, which I will give for the life of the world, is my flesh.
[00:31:58] Jesus is that living heavenly bread of life whose flesh is given to us.
[00:32:04] It's his people on the cross.
[00:32:06] And we receive it by faith alone.
[00:32:10] There's people who misunderstand this part.
[00:32:12] They're like, well, you know, these people in the crowd here, they're like, oh, we have to eat him.
[00:32:16] Well, they're misunderstanding the illustration.
[00:32:18] There's people in our time that think they're supposed to eat them, too, when they share the Lord's table.
[00:32:23] They've misunderstood what this is actually saying here.
[00:32:26] Jesus is the bread of life, but we receive that bread by our faith in him so that we might escape death, the death that we deserve and receive eternal life in Christ.
[00:32:38] God himself is that proverbial bread that sustains each of us to eternal life.
[00:32:43] And our faith in him is the way that we receive it.
[00:32:46] In verse 52, the Jews began to argue with one another saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
[00:32:53] They missed the point of what Jesus is illustrating here.
[00:32:56] This is why.
[00:32:57] In Mark 4, Jesus' disciples ask him why he talks in parables to some people like this.
[00:33:04] and he says to them to you that has been given the mystery of the kingdom of god but those who are outside get everything in parables so that while seeing they may see and not perceive and
[00:33:18] while hearing they may hear and not understand otherwise they might return and be forgiven that's a hard part of the bible why would jesus speak in parables so that some people would not understand there's some big questions we're raising in this message today that we're using the scripture to
[00:33:38] force us to confront what we think about what god does in us when he saves us it took me so long to wrap my heart around that scripture that we just read from mark there but our creator gives
[00:33:50] us an understanding of what he's saying and because of this not everything that he says is meant to be understood by everyone that hears it he has to give us as his people an understanding
[00:34:03] of these harder parts of the Scripture.
[00:34:05] He says, to you who have been drawn by the Father and saved by the Son, Jesus says to you it has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God.
[00:34:15] Those things that we have a hard time looking at from the flesh will only make sense if we're in the Spirit, if we're looking at it as Christians, if we're looking at it and asking God
[00:34:26] to give us an understanding of these things.
[00:34:29] These things are not meant to be understood by people who don't walk with Christ.
[00:34:33] It's only that the Holy Spirit gives us an understanding of Him.
[00:34:36] He has given you, Christians, disciples of Christ, an understanding of what He means here.
[00:34:43] Not because you're smarter or any better than anybody else, but because God has had mercy on you.
[00:34:49] Praise the Lord for His great mercy.
[00:34:52] In verse 53, He says, Truly, truly, I say to you, Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves he's talking about faith here unless we have faith in the son of man
[00:35:08] and are washed clean by his blood we have no life we're spiritually dead in our sins and trespasses until he gives us life and he does that by the way he gave himself on the cross so that we might have
[00:35:22] life so that we might be washed in his perfect divine blood washed clean of our sins jesus says He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on that
[00:35:34] last day. Remember back in verse 44, he says that our Father draws us to Jesus, and those who God draws to Christ, Jesus will raise us up on that last day. This verse here in 54 is talking about
[00:35:47] those same people that he was speaking about in 44. Those who are drawn are also those who eat his flesh and drink his blood. He means those who are drawn to Christ will have faith in him.
[00:35:58] We will trust in him for our salvation, not in ourselves, not in our works, not in our circumstances, but in Christ alone to save us.
[00:36:06] If our father draws you or gives you to his son, you will have faith.
[00:36:11] He says, all that the father gives to me will come to me.
[00:36:14] So when the father gives you to his son, you will eat his flesh.
[00:36:18] You will drink his blood.
[00:36:19] His words are illustrating the way that we trust in him to save us.
[00:36:23] We're not looking to any other way.
[00:36:25] There's no secondary path to salvation.
[00:36:26] those who the father gives to the son will have faith in him alone to save them amen jesus says for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink faith in christ alone truly sustains us
[00:36:41] to eternal life he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and i in him romans 8 1 tells us it's one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible that there is no condemnation
[00:36:52] for us who are in Christ.
[00:36:55] You don't get the wages that you've earned.
[00:36:57] You get eternal life in Christ.
[00:36:59] If we have faith, if we eat his flesh and we drink his blood, then we are in Christ.
[00:37:04] Through faith, we get to abide in him and him in us.
[00:37:08] In verse 57, he says, as the living father sent me and I live because of the father, so he who eats me, he also will live because of me.
[00:37:19] What he's saying there is that God, our father, sent His Son. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
[00:37:26] He sent Him to us.
[00:37:28] And Jesus lives because of our Father. And in turn, all of us who have faith in Christ, who are in Christ, will live because we abide in Him.
[00:37:38] Jesus is the Lord God.
[00:37:40] He made everything in all of creation. But verse 57 here hints at the nature of God in a way that we, as part of His creation, don't fully grasp yet. As we grow in our faith, our understanding also grows. So as we walk with Christ through
[00:37:56] this life and all into eternity, our understanding of what it is that he's revealed to us and what he's called us to, it's going to make a lot more sense as we go. If you don't get
[00:38:04] it now, just trust him and it will come to you. The more you say yes to him, the more he will give you that understanding. But what he says here is revealing a big truth about
[00:38:15] his nature that we don't yet understand fully we understand a little bit we trust him but we don't understand all the nuances of it yet jesus says i live because of the father well wait jesus is
[00:38:29] eternal he's not a created being so how does jesus rely on anything to live what does he mean when he says that here well there's context to what he's saying in john 5 26 he says for just as the
[00:38:41] father his life in himself even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself and psalm 90 tells us that from everlasting to everlasting jesus is god he is our creator so when jesus
[00:38:55] says that he lives because of our father and we live because of him he's not telling us that he's a creative being that's not what that means what he means here is that he is rooted in the father
[00:39:05] He abides in the Father, just as we are rooted in him and we abide in Christ.
[00:39:11] He's talking about the unity of God as the Godhead, as what we call the Trinity.
[00:39:17] And Jesus is using that to illustrate the unity that we are given in him as his bride.
[00:39:24] We are grafted into that vine.
[00:39:27] Our belief in Christ is the thing that God has given us to unite us with him.
[00:39:33] We abide in him through the faith, through the trust that we have in our Messiah.
[00:39:39] In verse 58, Jesus says, this is the bread which came down out of heaven.
[00:39:43] Not as the fathers ate and died.
[00:39:45] He who eats this bread will live forever.
[00:39:48] He's already explained this contrast between that manna in the wilderness and the true bread that gives life that comes down out of heaven.
[00:39:55] And like so many other things in the Bible, that manna was what we call a type and shadow that pointed to Christ.
[00:40:02] There's so many real things that you'll read about in the Old Testament that only makes sense when you realize they're meant to point to Jesus, to illustrate who he is and what he's come to accomplish.
[00:40:11] Jesus is the true heavenly bread that sustains all of his people for eternity.
[00:40:17] That manna sustained those Israelites in the wilderness physically, but the people who ate it, they still died eventually.
[00:40:24] But whoever eats the bread of life through faith in Christ, the one that that manna points to, Whoever eats that bread by faith will be sustained forever.
[00:40:35] That manna was a real thing, but its ultimate purpose wasn't just about sustaining those Israelites physically.
[00:40:40] It was pointing to Jesus as the ultimate bread that will sustain us as his people for eternity as we walk into it with Christ.
[00:40:48] What we see in our scripture today, the point to it is meant to humble us.
[00:40:53] It's a big truth that we have a hard time chewing on early on.
[00:40:56] But as you grow in your faith, it makes more and more sense as you read how he talks about it in other places in Scripture.
[00:41:04] As we read it, it stirs something in us.
[00:41:07] It forces us to look at the way that we see God.
[00:41:11] And it challenges us to think about what we think our role in salvation is.
[00:41:17] It is Christ alone that saves us.
[00:41:19] There's no secondary path to salvation.
[00:41:22] There's that one road.
[00:41:23] I've heard preachers, what they call a dual covenant theology.
[00:41:25] But we're like, oh, here's this covenant, here's that covenant.
[00:41:27] I'm like, no.
[00:41:28] It is Christ alone.
[00:41:30] It is the grace of God alone that can save you.
[00:41:32] There's no other way to live.
[00:41:34] It's through Christ that we receive life.
[00:41:37] The Lord God is both the facilitator and the initiator of our salvation.
[00:41:42] To God goes the glory.
[00:41:43] We don't get to claim how good we are or that we deserve it.
[00:41:46] God gets the glory for our salvation.
[00:41:48] And the book of Hebrews calls Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
[00:41:53] the truth of that will either humble us and move us to praise his name with the life that we live or it's going to cause us to grumble and explain these things away come up with excuses for why we don't think he means that
[00:42:06] as we read these things just like that crowd affair with the followers does that we read about in our scriptures back think about the way that you receive what Jesus is saying in this text
[00:42:16] and praise him for giving you eyes to see the truth if you have any questions about today's message Please come and see me after service And we'll go deeper into the text And see what the word of God says about us
[00:42:26] Let's pray Our Father in heaven, Lord God we praise you Father we thank you for this amazing miraculous thing That you've done in us We thank you for your grace We thank you for the way that you've changed our hearts
[00:42:39] And opened up our eyes Father we thank you for your great mercy That has drawn us to Christ We thank you for everything that you have done for us For the way that you've revealed yourself
[00:42:49] And shared yourself with us and we thank you for this life that you've given us in christ lord we pray that we would live every moment of it for your glory we pray that you would guide our steps that you would work on us in such
[00:42:59] a way that we would share this hope that we have for the people that we love that you would help us in the ways that we sin and fall short father please forgive us from as many sins please grow
[00:43:08] us and shape us into the people that you would want us to be lord we thank you for this we love you and we praise you in jesus's name amen