Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us today. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, turn in your Bibles to John chapter 6. This
is the Gospel of John chapter 6. And this is the third message
on a series I've been preaching called Christ the Bread of Life. Christ the Bread of Life, that's
part three. This has been a series that I've
enjoyed preaching, and I hope if you've kept up with it, you've
enjoyed hearing it, before I preached a few messages on Christ the
Water of Life. and then now Christ the bread
of life. And I love that because it represents
Christ as being all that the believer, a sinner saved by grace,
needs for salvation. The water of life, that's salvation.
The bread of life is salvation and sustenance. And you know,
back over in the book of Matthew, chapter five and verse six, one
of the Beatitudes, The Lord said in that beatitude, he said, blessed
are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they
shall be filled. And that hunger and that thirst,
the thirst is quenched, it's a spiritual thirst that man does
not naturally have, because it's brought about by the Holy Spirit
in conversion, in the new birth, whereby he gives man a thirst
for righteousness, And what is righteousness? It's perfect satisfaction
to God's law and justice. And the Holy Spirit gives man
a thirst for righteousness, a thirst that can only be quenched as
they come to Christ and rest in Him for all righteousness.
That's the righteousness of God, the righteousness that Christ
worked out in his obedience unto death as the surety, the substitute,
the redeemer of his people. And in the same way, the Holy
Spirit gives sinners a hunger for righteousness that can only
be satisfied in the person and work of Christ. If you have a
hunger and thirst after righteousness, But that hunger and thirst can
be fulfilled, satisfied, quenched in any other way other than the
glorious person and the finished work of Christ for all righteousness. It's not a work of the Spirit.
And that's why Christ, if you look at verse 37, I've dealt
with these verses, but I just want to emphasize this. This
is so important for salvation. Christ said here, all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me. and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. Now, when did the Father give
these to the Son? Well, the Bible says before the
foundation of the world and we read in Ephesians chapter one,
we read in John 17, he talks about as many as the Father had
given him. That's the elect of God. The
Bible speaks of election. And election is not a negative
doctrine, it's a glorious doctrine. Election is unto salvation. And before the foundation of
the world, God chose a people to save. Now, it's not our job,
our business, to sit around and wonder if we are one of God's
elect or not. It's our business to bow to the
revealed commandments of God in the gospel. The Bible says
in Deuteronomy 29, 29 that the secret things belong unto the
Lord, but the revealed things belong to us. What has God told
us? He's told us that He has an elect
people, and He's told us those people shall, without fail, by
the power of God's grace and goodness, they shall come to
Christ. That's what he says here. All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And somebody might
reason, and this is sinful reasoning, this is human rationalization.
They might say, well, it doesn't matter if I come to him. If I'm
not one of his elect, he won't receive me. Oh no, the other
side of that is this. Not only all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, but him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Christ has never and will never
turn away any sinner, every sinner who truly comes to Him for righteousness,
for salvation, for forgiveness. Now the problem that men and
women have is that by nature we don't want salvation God's
way, the way that glorifies God and exalts Christ and leaves
us with no room to glory. by nature, as we're naturally
born. And this is why we have to be
born again. By nature, we want salvation in a way that gives
us some bragging rights. And that's why false gospels
pervade over this world of salvation conditioned on sinners. And whatever
condition it is that you meet, that gives you room to boast.
whether it's just accepting Jesus as your personal Savior, or whether
it's doing good works, or whatever. You see, salvation is not conditioned
on the sinner. It's all conditioned on Christ.
He fulfilled that condition, all those conditions. He is the
Lord our righteousness, and all for whom He died will be brought
by the power of the Spirit to bow to His way and come to Him,
pleading nothing but His blood. What can wash away my sins? nothing
but the blood of Jesus. And so he says in verse 38, I
came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will
of him that sent me. That's showing the subservience
of the Son to the Father. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
they're all one God in three persons, co-equal in every attribute
of deity, but for the purpose of saving sinners like us, Christ
made himself of no reputation and came in the form of a servant,
submitting to the will of the Father. The Father's will, now
think about this, the Father's will and the Son's will and the
Spirit's will are all the same. But in the covenant of grace,
which is the covenant of salvation, the Father represents the sovereign
rule of the Godhead. The Son served the Father and
serves His people. Philippians 2 said He made Himself
a servant. He's the servant of the covenant.
And all of the conditions of the salvation of God's people,
whom He gave to the Son before the world began, were put upon
Christ. And He was made our surety. That
means the debt of sin that His people would run up was put upon
Him, charged to Him. And the Spirit submits to the
Father and the Son to be the great applier of that salvation
in the new birth. He gives spiritual life from
the Father and the Son to God's people. And so Christ said, I
came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. I'm not here on my own, He says. This
is the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, whose will
is together. And then he says in verse 39,
I love this verse. I could preach on this a thousand
times. He says, and this is the Father's will which hath sent
me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the last day. What does that
tell us? Christ is telling us that all
whom the Father gave Him shall come to Him, they will not be
turned away, and they will never forsake Christ. They will never
lose that salvation. He will lose nothing, but He's
going to raise it up again at the last day. That's the final
days of glorification when Christ comes again. There's no such
thing in the Bible of a true salvation that can be gained
by what we do or choose and then can be lost again or afterward
by sinning. That is a false gospel. Hear what I'm saying to you.
Anybody who believes that you can be saved one day and then
lost the next day or some other day does not know the truth. They do not know the truth of
the true gospel. Because the gospel says that
Christ fulfilled all conditions to ensure the eternal salvation
and final glory of all for whom he died and was buried and arose
again. He'll lose nothing. And that's
why I tell you that if you're born again by the Spirit, and
you've truly come to Christ for salvation, you cannot ignore
it, you cannot deny it, and you cannot leave it. Now that doesn't
mean we cannot sin, we still sin. We are sinners saved by
grace. But we cannot totally forsake
Christ in the way of what the Bible calls apostasy. Apostasy
is a person who had a profession of faith, an apostate is a person
who had a profession of faith, but it wasn't real. It wasn't
Holy Spirit worked faith. It was just a sham profession. And later on, because of persecution,
or love of the world, or whatever, they leave it. They forsake it. But John the Apostle made it
clear in his first letter, in 1 John chapter 2, that those
who leave it, forsake it, apostatize from it, they never were of us. He says that in 1 John 2 and
verse 19. Look at that. He said they were not of us.
He says, had they been of us, they would no doubt have remained
with us. But they went out that it might
be made manifest or known that they were not of us. So if you
profess the true gospel and then later on turn against it and
forsake it, you never believed it to begin with. You claimed
you did. But Christ says here in John
6 in verse 39, He says, all that He gave me and that of all which
He had given me, I should lose nothing. And it's all dependent
upon Him. It's not dependent upon us. He
says in verse 40, And this is the will of Him that sent me,
that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may
have everlasting life, and I'll raise him up at the last day."
Again, the certain assurance of eternal life and glory for
those whom God chose, who are justified in God's sight. You
know, what is it to be justified? I tell you that all the time
on this program. It's to be forgiven of all of our sins on one ground,
the blood of Jesus Christ. It's to be declared righteous
in the sight of God, based upon Christ's righteousness, which
God has imputed, charged, accounted to us. And that cannot be taken
away. The Bible says, Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies.
Who can condemn us? It's Christ that died and risen
again, seated at the right hand of the Father. Look at in verse
41, the Jews murmured, we talked about that, because he said,
I am the bread. Now that's what we're talking
about. Christ the bread of life. Christ the water of life to quench
our spiritual thirst. Christ the bread of life to satisfy
our spiritual hunger, meeting all the needs. And he said this,
he said, I'm the bread of life. He told them earlier, he said,
that manna that came down from heaven. He said, Moses didn't
give that to you, God did. But he's the manna, Christ is
the true manna. That manna that came down from
heaven in the wilderness to give them sustenance, nourishment,
that was a type. a type of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the bread of life. And he said, I'm the manna, I'm
the bread that came down from heaven. And they said, aren't
you Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know your father, we know
your mother, Mary. Now we know that Joseph was not
his physical father, but he was his adoptive father. Because
Christ had no physical father, He's the Son of God. The Son
came from the Father in heaven. But he had a physical mother
that's Mary, the mother of the human body of Christ, the humanity
of Christ. And he says, how is it, they
said, how is it that you say you came down from heaven? And
look at verse 43. Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, No man can come to
me, except the Father which has sent me draw him, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. Now I've dealt with that verse
too, because that's showing man's natural inability to believe
the gospel. Now, natural inability, and it's
a spiritual inability, but what happens when a person hears the
gospel, And they believe it. What happened there? Well, God
has done a work of grace. He's a new creation. That person
who believes is a new creation. That's the work of God. That's
not your work or my work. We can't attribute that to ourselves
as if we were the source of it or the power of it or the goodness
of it. So we preach the gospel to everybody. God has some sheep
out there. Christ said, my sheep will hear
my voice and I know them and they'll follow me. The Bible
says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved. Any of you who call upon his name, the name is what
identifies him and distinguishes him as the God of glory in Christ. It's not just a label. It's not
just saying Jesus or praise the Lord. It has a whole descriptive
doctrinal system behind it. Who is Jesus Christ? God, manifest
in the flesh. What did He accomplish when He
died on the cross? He brought forth everlasting
righteousness that enables the Father to be just and justify
the ungodly, to ensure the salvation of His people. So if you hear
the gospel and you believe it, Who do we attribute that to?
You? No. Attribute that to God. For by
grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. So he says, no man can come to me except the Father
which has sent me. Draw him. If you believe the
gospel, the Father has drawn you. And I will raise him up
at the last day." There again, he's emphasizing, there's no
possibility of losing this. Verse 45, he says, it's written
in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard. Now to hear, you gotta have ears,
don't you? Gotta have a hearing ear. Remember Christ told his
disciples in Matthew 13 when they asked him the question,
why do you preach in parables? And he said it's a judgment against
those who refuse to hear because they don't have ears to hear.
Now they had ears and they could hear what he's saying, but they
didn't believe it. They didn't love it. They didn't
have spiritual ears. They didn't have spiritual eyes to see what
they needed to see. But Christ looked at His disciples
and He said, Blessed are your ears for they hear. Blessed are
your eyes for they see. If you believe the gospel, you've
been given spiritual ears and eyes. You've been blessed. And
you've learned of the Father and come to Him. He says in verse
46, Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is
of God, he hath seen the Father. There is no perception of the
high and holy God apart from a saving revelation of Jesus
Christ. This is why those who deny Christ
deny the Father. Any person who says he can come
to the Father on his own, without Christ, without a mediator, they're
lying. God is a spirit. God is high
and holy. Man could not stand in the bright
effulgence of the glory of God. We have to have a mediator. We
have to have an intercessor. We have to have an advocate.
And there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. It's not Mary. It's not one of
the saints. It's not anyone but Christ. And
so he says in verse 47, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that
believeth on me have everlasting life. I am that bread of life. He says in verse 49, your fathers
did eat manna in the wilderness and they're dead. They had that
manna that came from heaven, it was still physical bread.
But they died. Verse 50, he says, this is the
bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof
and not die. This bread, Christ, the bread
of life, is everlasting life. You'll never die. And he says
in verse 51, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
Christ is not, you know that manna that came down from heaven,
they were told to go out and gather each day just enough for
each day. And he said, if you gather more
than what you need, it'll rot, it'll be dead. Just like food
here on earth, if you don't preserve it, it's gonna rot, if you get
too much. Well Christ said, he is the living
bread and he is everlasting life. There's no death in him. And
if any man eat of this bread, verse 51, he shall live forever,
and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world. Now he's talking about the giving
of himself, his body, as a sacrifice for sins. He's not talking about
his physical body, that they can eat that body. You know,
the Catholic Church has a very bad doctrine called transubstantiation,
where they talk about when they give the wafer that it actually
turns into the body of Christ. That's not true. We're not cannibals.
We don't eat the physical body of Christ. but we partake of
the bread of life when we believe on him. And this is what he says
here. Look on, he says, the bread that I will give, verse 51, is
my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Now the
world there doesn't mean everybody without exception. If it did,
everybody without exception would live forever in glory. He's talking about the world
of those whom the Father gave to Him out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation. God has a people all over this
world out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. There's no
physical, social, economic, racial barrier. It's all sinners, saved
by grace, Jew, and Gentile all over this world. And John emphasizes
that in his gospel because the Jews, the unbelieving Jews, thought
that salvation was only for them, and that for any Gentile to enter
into that salvation, he had to, by confession and by circumcision,
become a Jew first. And even then, he was a second-class
citizen. But that's not true. Listen,
any sinner saved by grace is an equal member of the household
and family of God based upon the blood of Christ. Based upon
His righteousness imputed. So in verse 52 it says, The Jews
therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give
us his flesh to eat? You see, they had their mind
on physical flesh. And then Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the
Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and
I will raise him up at the last day. And then verse 55, he says,
for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Verse 56, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth
in me, and I in him. Now, is he talking about cannibalism
here? Is he talking about some miraculous
way in which when you take the Lord's Supper, for example, and
you eat the bread, it turns into His body and you drink the wine,
or many people use grape juice, which is wrong, but if you drink
the wine, it turns into His blood? No, not at all. He's already
made it clear. To eat His body and to drink
His blood is to believe in Him. It is to partake of Him by faith. resting in Him for all salvation,
for all forgiveness, all eternal life, all righteousness. Christ is my all in all. And
I feed upon Him spiritually. I'm thirsty for righteousness. Well, He is my righteousness.
I'm hungry for righteousness. He is my righteousness. And so
verse 57, the Lord said to them, and the living Father hath sent
me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. Now
that's clear. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
living bread, the bread of life. And we partake of that bread
in faith, believing in Him, resting in Him, spiritually feeding upon
Him, His word. Remember, He told Satan on the
Mount of Temptation, He said, man does not live by bread alone,
physical bread, but by every word that comes from God. That's
the bread of life, He's the bread of life. Well, as he goes along
here in chapter six, verse 59 says, these things said he in
the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of
his disciples, when they heard this, said, this is an hard saying,
who can hear it? They recognized that these were
hard sayings because it went against their grain. The gospel
goes against the natural desire and bent and grain of man. You
see, we all by nature, we think salvation in some way, at some
stage, in some part, is the product of something we do, something
we choose. And when we hear the gospel,
that it's all conditioned on Christ, and all fulfilled in
Him and that all for whom He died and was buried and arose
again shall be saved and shall be raised up again based upon
His righteousness imputed. That just goes against our natural
way of thinking. And that's why our natural way
of thinking has to be changed by God in the new birth. That's
the light, you know. Several months ago, in John chapter
one and two and three, I dealt with Christ who is the light.
Christ, the light of life. He's the light of life. He's
the water of life, the bread of life. Well, that light, the
Bible says in John 3, 19, that he is the light that came down
from heaven that men hate because their deeds were evil. You see,
the gospel exposes that every effort of man to make himself
saved, to make himself righteous is evil because it does not glorify
God and it denies Christ and it exalts the sinner. So it's
a hard say. So that tells us if we believe
it, We're miracles of God's grace and power in Christ. We've partaken
of the bread of life. Christ, the bread of life, the
water of life, the light of life, and what a joy it is to feed
upon him in his word, to grow in grace and in knowledge. Hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.