All right, we've looked at the
faithfulness of God being enduring and God's mercy is being enduring.
And we just left off with God's word being enduring. Turn with
me if you would, over to John chapter six. John chapter 6. You know, Jesus said, and of
course you know this, This is one of the great chapters of
John, John six. And we kind of, of course, all
the chapters of scripture are great, but you know what I mean,
hope. That this is one of those that
is just chock full of theology that Jesus teaches. Not only
about himself, but also about the doctrine of grace is in there. But this is a great chapter that
the Lord has given us. This Jesus being the bread of
life, being the bread of heaven, is so many passages here and
so many messages that could be preached about this from several
different vantage points. But one thing we learn here is
Jesus teaches us that he himself is the nourishment for his people. not in a physical flesh eating
flesh and drinking real blood like the catholics believe in
their mass whenever they take that wafer and they put it in
their mouth they believe it actually becomes the flesh of christ and
whenever they drink the wine they believe it actually becomes
the blood of christ uh you know not only is that just nasty but
it's unscriptural um But we see here that Jesus himself and what
he did in his flesh for us becomes our nourishment, what we feed
on, what we look to. The scripture is always admonishing
to look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith,
that we are to look to Christ, that we are to think on these
things about Christ and what he has done. As a matter of fact,
Christ gave us two ordinances within the church to remember
this work that he did in the flesh, and that is his death,
his burial, and his resurrection. And so those are to be put forth
before the church on a constant basis. And so we find here in
the 27th verse, Jesus says, labor not for the meat which perisheth,
but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which
the Son of Man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father
sealed. So here we see that the spiritual
nourishment or the meat of Christ is given to us and it endures
unto everlasting life. Christ has given us himself And
we are nourished by that. Now, whenever he talks about
meat, he's given an illustration or a symbol of, a metaphor for
sustenance, something to eat. Whenever you eat meat or eat
bread, that's for nourishment. And he's saying, my flesh is
the bread that came out of heaven or is the nourishment for my
people that came out of heaven. This is what they're going to
feed on. What does that mean? What does it mean to feed on
Christ? What does it mean to eat of His flesh and to drink
of His blood? Well, that means that we look
to those things as our encouragement, as our edifying. The building
up of our faith is to always look at what Christ done. We
don't look at the works of man, they fall. We don't look at our
own works because they're sketchy. What do we look at? We look at
the finished work of Jesus Christ that was perfect, that did exactly
what the law demanded, that did exactly what God required, that
fulfilled everything of the prophetic promises and looked to everything
that God demanded for salvation of His people to take place.
Jesus was the embodiment of all of that. And whenever he gave
his blood, whenever he sacrificed his life for his people, that
is what we look to. We look away from ourselves and
we look to Christ and we look to him. And so whenever he uses
this, and I'm always mixed up on whether it's an analogy or
a metaphor. I think it's an analogy here. He uses the analogy of
bread and meat here. He is referring to the fact that
he himself and his finished work that he came and did is the nourishment
that we receive. One thing whenever I begin to
look at myself and my performance, spiritually speaking, I can be
very depressed looking at that because I fail often. I still
see sin in my life and I struggle with things spiritually speaking. and if I look to that and especially
if I have in my mind that those works or those things are what
keeps me in fellowship with God or if I look at that's what gets
me A place with God keeps me to the end or any of those things,
even gets me into the kingdom of God. If I look at that and
I'm honest with myself, when I lay down at night and I have
all the events of the day going through my mind, I know, if I'm
honest with myself, I know I've not kept it all. And the Bible
says if you don't keep them all, you're guilty of all. If you
transgress in one, you've transgressed in all of them. And so whenever
I lay down in the bed at night, I know I've not kept them all.
I've not sought after them all. I've missed the mark. Brethren,
that is the nature of Adam. Sin is the nature of the natural
man. We missed the mark. We cannot
keep God's law. We cannot keep his holiness,
his righteousness. We cannot keep that in our Adamic
state. We cannot do that. That's why
the spiritual man, the spiritual life, that which is born from
above has been given to us and a outside righteousness has been
imputed to us. That's why we need that. And
so we look to Christ. So whenever I'm laying down at
night and I'm seeing how much I have failed through the day,
What do I do? I find nourishment whenever I
look and see there was one who did it for me. He didn't fail.
He did live perfect in obedience every day before the father. He did pay the wrath that was
due in my place. So I wouldn't have to. And so
whenever I look to Christ, I do that. And so here he says, don't
look to meet that perisheth. See, if I look at the meat of
my works, it perisheth. Matter of fact, it perisheth
really quickly. If I put any stock in a preacher,
it goes away pretty quickly. I've been let down by a lot of
preachers. Some of them close friends, some of them acquaintances,
some of them men I've just heard of. I've been let down by preachers. I've been let down by churches.
But if we put our, If we put our thoughts and our labor into
the meat that doesn't perish, then we're going to be nourished.
See, I can love you guys as much as I can love you guys, and you
can be as helpful and thoughtful and loving and reciprocating
all that stuff and everything, but at the end of the day, we
fail each other, don't we? I don't perform and live up to
the standards that you would like to see, and sometimes you
don't for me. And so those things, and so if
we look to that, If we look to hierarchy, if we look to all
these things, we're going to find that we're going to be malnourished
because that's not the nourishment that God intended. What did God
intend for us? The gospel to be our nourishment.
That's our food. Remember, I'll always remember,
uh, Jesus, whenever he went to the
woman at Samaria, and he said, I must have needs to go to Samaria. And he went, and whenever he
went there, he had his disciples to go, and he was gonna go talk
to this woman, and they were gonna go get some food, find
some food, and they came back, and they told Jesus and said,
you know, hey, why don't you come and eat? You know, you haven't
had anything, to eat. And Jesus said, I have meat that
you have no knowledge of. He said, I have a nourishment
that is more than just this actual food. The Bible also says that
man may not live by bread alone, but by what? Every word that
proceeded from the mouth of God. And God, as Larry read earlier,
has given a testimony of His Son in His Word. And the testimony
of His Son is the meat that we eat, the bread that we eat that
nourishes us, and it does not go away. It endureth unto everlasting
life. But also notice, if you would,
which the Son of Man shall give unto you. See, God give us this nourishment. He nourishes us. It isn't the
preacher that nourishes you by his preaching. Now, he may edify
you with the gift that God has given him, but the nourishment,
the internal spiritual working of that and how it comes to your
heart and your mind and it relieves you, revives you, whatever the
case might be, that's the work of the Spirit alone, of Christ
coming and doing that among you. Matter of fact, just to reiterate
that, you'll see in verse 28, it said, then said they unto
him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Isn't it funny that Jesus said,
labor not for the meat which pears? So their mind goes to
work. So there's that word labor. And
Jesus said, this is the work of God that ye believe on him
whom he hath sent. See, the work isn't even of ourselves,
the work is of God. And the work of God that he brings
forth out of the child of grace isn't labors on the outside,
but is a trust and a belief and a faith of what Christ did. It's something that happens on
the inside. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We're trusting in the
work of Christ. This is the work of God that
ye believe on him. Who's him? The one up in the
verse 27, the meat that endureth. Of course, Jesus will go on to
illustrate that and to make that out more clearly in the following
verses. Jesus says, verily, verily, I
say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, But
my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. See, even
Moses, while he may have known and understood the coming of
the Messiah, what he's comparing here is the law. The scribes,
the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all the religious leaders, all
they were giving them was the law. The law, the law, the law. But they weren't pointing to
a righteousness outside of the law, which was Christ, who would
keep the law. And so Jesus said, verily, verily,
I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but
my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread
of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto
the world. And they said unto him, Lord
evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Why? Because I'm the one who
causes you to come. I'm the one who causes you to
believe. You're a child of grace. You believe because you're my
sheep. And what does the good shepherd do? He feeds his sheep,
right? What did he instruct the pastors
to do? Feed the sheep. What's he always looking after?
His sheep. He's the good shepherd. He knows
what his sheep needs. And right here, he's telling
us the greatest need that these sheep have is Him. See, we don't need reformed.
We don't need, you know, more application classes. You know,
we don't need all these things. What we need is more of Christ.
We need Him. That's what we need. So we see that the spiritual
nourishment will endure forever, and that would be Christ. Look
with me, if you would, at 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I'm gonna start reading in verse
one. It said, and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye
were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. for ye are
yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife
and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For while one
saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul and who is Apollos,
but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every
man? I have planted, Apollos watered,
but God gave the increase. So that's why he was saying a
while ago, God's the one who causes it to work within the
heart. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither
he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that
planteth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall
receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are
laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's
building, according to the grace of God which is given unto me
as a wise master builder. I have laid the foundation, and
another buildeth thereon, but let every man take heed how he
buildeth thereon. For other foundations can no
man lay that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." So here again,
the comparison is not to bread or to meat, but as a foundation. Jesus Christ is our foundation.
Everything has to be laid upon him. So that's why we say, if
you lay your foundation upon church, you're missing the mark. Now that doesn't mean that church
isn't important. Church is very important. The gathering of the
assembly together and the preaching and the teaching and the gifts
that God has given within the assembly, the ministry of that
assembly, and the ordinances that they keep are very important. And God has laid out how that
to be administered and to be done. But that is not the foundation. The ordinances themselves, baptism
is not the foundation. The Lord's Supper is not the
foundation. The pastor is not the foundation. The apostle was
not even a foundation. He laid the foundation. Ain't
that what he said? He said, I have laid the foundation.
Meaning I have given you the foundational works that all the
church should be built upon. Every church, every New Testament
church that will ever come that is a true church, the foundation
is going to be Christ. You know what that means? That
means that they're going to love Christ. They're going to exalt
Christ. Christ is going to be recognized
as their head. They're going to preach Christ.
They're going to find Christ in everything that they talk
about in the scriptures. Christ is all in all to that
people. But yet we find churches that
Christ is a secondary thing, or they say he's the primary
thing, but yet so many other things find preeminence within
the meeting of the church, where the foundation of coming is Christ,
and the subject of coming is Christ. And the work that goes
out from here is by the work of Christ in us, by the enabling
of Christ. We find Christ in all that we
do. And so he says here, for other foundation can no man lay
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build
upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,
every man's work shall be made manifest For the day shall declare
it because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try
every man's work of what sort it is, whether it's of God's
or whether it's of man's. If any man's work abide which
he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's
work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall
be saved, yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man
defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple
of God is holy, which temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seem to
be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be
wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
For it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise that they are vain. Therefore, let no man
glory in men. What a great place of scripture
for us to look at and see that let's not look to men and glorify
men. We are such men glorifiers. Whether
it's of ourselves or with others, we are glorifiers of men. It
says, therefore, let no man glory in men, for all things are yours.
Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death
or all things, or things present or things to come, all are yours
and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's. Now that right there
has so much depth, I don't even think most of us understand that.
I know I don't fully understand that. But one thing we see back here
that does endure, one thing that continues on is that the work
of God through us endures. There are spiritual rewards that
will last. Those are the works of God in
us, and those will last. The fires of judgment, what are
they gonna be burned up? Those works that we did in the
flesh. Those works that we did out of our own accord and our
own craftiness for our own glory, the glorying of man. You know,
Paul said a lot of times, he said, you know, that we're not
to look to the arm of flesh for things, but we're to trust that
God is working in us to will him to do his good pleasure.
And those are the works that are going to work or that are
going to last. The reward will be that they
will last. They will be shown to be the works of God in us.
I don't know what could, I mean, there's a lot of things that
you can think about that might be good, but besides eternal
life, I think that being able to stand before God and to see
that there were works of God that was done through me, what
a great reward that that is in and of itself. God worked in
me. God used me as a vessel. God
did his work through me. That's a reward in and of itself,
brethren, is to have the work of God done in you. So God's spiritual rewards will
last and they will stand the test of scrutiny and of the fire. Look with me, if you would, while
you're there at verse 13, we find, every man's work shall
be manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be
revealed by fire and the fire shall try every man's work of
what sort it is. Oh, I'm sorry, I read the wrong
verse. I got chapter three. It's chapter
13, three. It doesn't want me to read. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and
verse 13. I had a typo here on my note. 13, 13. And now abideth
faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is
love or charity. So here's some other things that
is going to endure is faith, hope, and love. In fact, we have that at our
house up on the wall. We have faith, hope, and love
up on there. Those are enduring. And by the
way, I would say I'd probably mark these as graces of God. These are graces of God that
he gives to us. He gives us faith. He gives us
hope. And he also gives us love. The
Bible says that He gives us this hope that lies within. He gives us the love. God's love
is shed abroad in our heart. And He gives us the faith. It's
the faith of Christ that He gives to us. So faith, hope, and love are
spiritual graces that He gives. And by the way, have you noticed
that these things aren't things that are on the outside? These things aren't works of
hands here. These are internal things that
God has given us. Now they can be seen outwardly
as they are being exercised and worked. You can see faith whenever
I'm trusting in Christ. You can see hope whenever my
hope is found in nothing less than Jesus Christ and righteousness.
And you can see love. But again, that isn't something
that no man can work up in and of themselves. These three graces
are spiritual graces that come from outside of us, that are
put on the inside of us, that are regulated and enabled and
strengthened by God himself. If I'm gonna love, God has to
give me that love. If my love's gonna be more, God's
gotta increase that love. He's got to increase that faith.
He's got to give me hope and strengthen that hope. Why? Because he is the meat that endureth
forever. So he's going to always point
back to himself. So we have these graces and these
graces themselves endure. Now, look, if you would, at 2
Corinthians chapter four. We'll look at this and one more
scripture, we'll be done. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Let's start reading in verse 11. For we which live are
always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also
of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then
death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit
of faith, according as it is written, I believed and therefore
I have spoken, we also believe and therefore speak. knowing
that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also
by Jesus and shall present us with you. For all things are
for your sakes that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving
of many rebound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint
not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is
renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. So we see here, brethren, that
we are to not look at the things which are seen, but the things
which are not seen. These things that are not seen,
they're the things that are eternal. So the unseen things, are also
enduring. And these would be, I would consider
these to be the real things. My grandpa used to always say,
the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. and mainly speaking of Christ.
But the real thing is not necessarily all the temporal stuff. Is it
important for men to have jobs and to provide for their families?
Yes, but that's not the main thing. Is it important for him
to be a good husband? Yes, but that's not the main
thing. Is it important for him to be a good husband? Not the
main thing, but yes, it's important. For a wife to be a good wife,
to be a good mother. It's good, but it's not the main
thing. See, all these things are temporal. I'm married to
my wife. One of these days when the Lord
comes or I pass away, whenever we get to eternity, that's not
gonna be. She won't be my wife anymore.
The thing that will last is she being my sister in Christ. You
being my brother in Christ, those things are gonna last. So we
see that there are eternal things and these are the things that
will endure forever. So if that's the case, shouldn't
our thoughts and our mind and our attempts at things be looking
to those things that are eternal, that are enduring? Looking to
those and place importance upon those things. You know, I could write a book
about fishing. I could write a book about x-ray machines. You know, I can write a book
about those things, but those things are temporal. If I would write a book, and
I don't know if I can, I just, I don't have the patience or
the organization sometimes to do so. Brother Larry is able
to do those kind of things, but to keep my thoughts in line takes
a lot of control, and I just don't have
a lot of that. You know, why waste my time writing
temporal books, when I can write one of spiritual lasting things
to encourage the saints, and pointing them to things that
are eternal. So we see that the things that are eternal, these
are the things that we should look at. While we look not at
things which are seen, but, and that would, suppose that we would
finish that out, but we look at the things that are seen,
or that are not seen, excuse me, which are the eternal things. Look at those things which are
eternal, because they are enduring. And then lastly, look with me,
if you would, at Hebrews chapter 12. If you find any other things
that's enduring, I'd be glad to hear about it. I may have
missed some things. There may be other places in
scripture that talks about things that are enduring or everlasting
or things like that. But these are some of the things
that I found. Hebrews chapter 12. And start with me at verse 27. And this word yet once more signifies
the removing of those things that are shaken as of things
that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is
a consuming fire." So here we see that the kingdom of God is
enduring. It's everlasting. It doesn't
move. And so matter of fact, the scriptures
say that there'll be a day whenever Christ offers up the kingdom
to the father, that kingdom is going to be everlasting. So it's
important for us then to see that we ought to invest ourselves. Why wouldn't people want to invest
ourselves in the works of the kingdom? in the ministry of the
kingdom and in the gospel of the kingdom. I mean, all those
things Christ has given us to minister and to share and to
work in. And so we have some things here
before us that we've seen that endures. Anything that I've missed,
brother? Anything else that you know of
that endures that I might've not thought of? Any questions
or any thoughts on it? There is a corresponding, and
I think you pointed this out in another message, and I just
made a notation of it, from John 6 in Psalm 65, verse 4 through 6, blessed is the man Amen. It's not a free will gospel. It is a sovereign electing causal If there's any causality or if
there's any conditionality, it's all on Him, not us. And blessed
is the man, meaning blessed, blessed is the man whom thou
choosest because the fact that he's been chosen. And blessed
is the man whom thou causest to approach unto thee. Blessed
because he's been caused to approach who would never approach. Amen,
those are beautiful words. Anybody have anything to add
to this? Alright. Let's bow and we'll
have a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, again
we come to You this morning. We're so thankful for Jesus and
we're so thankful for the Word of God that's been given to us.
Lord, we're thankful for these things that endure that You've
given to us in the testimony of Scripture. And Lord, I pray
that we might set our mind on these things, that we might think
on these things that are above and not necessarily on these
things that are below, that we might focus on the things that
are lasting and not the things that are temporal. Although we
have responsibilities that you've given us in temporal matters
and you've given us guidance to do these things in orderly
fashions, they are temporal, but we do look to that. I believe
that's also, Father, why you instruct us to worship in spirit
and in truth. But Father, Lord, I ask now that
you just help us to apply those things as we leave this place,
as we gather here, wherever we may be, Lord, that we might do
exactly as we've read in these scriptures. Lord, we're so grateful
for the one thing that we know that is everlasting, and that
is you. You've given yourself, you've
condescended to reveal yourself. You've sent Christ, the manifesting
of God in flesh to us. You've sent your spirit into
us that we might know that we are yours and that you might
testify of Christ, that you might reveal and teach us the things
of God. Father, we're so grateful that
you've brought us in fellowship with other brothers and sisters
in Christ. for their gifts to be used in
edifying the body of Christ, for the ministry of the gospel,
for the evangelizing of the disciples that are to be brought in, the
sheep that you have in many places, Father, to hear your word. And
so, Father, I pray for each one of these brothers and sisters.
I pray that you might use us, that you might minister through
us. Father, I pray that you might bring others to us. not only
for their edification and for their safety and for their fellowship,
Father, but so that we too might receive those spiritual things
from them as well, Lord. We just ask that you might help
all those brothers and sisters who are out there that don't
have others locally there to meet with, Father, that you might
raise up believers to meet together and so father lord we just commend
all these things into your hands we know that it's all by your
purpose and reason that we're here and father lord we just
thank you for this day we ask you to bless this food that we're
about to eat to the nourishment of our bodies we thank you for
these ladies who have taken the time to prepare these things
each week Father, I thank you for these brethren who also work
and minister in the word and they share and they contribute
to the teaching of the scriptures. Father, we do lift up the time
of fellowship in May. Lord, we just ask that you might
minister to all of us. We pray for those who will be
coming. Lord, that you just might speak to them as well, that they
might be built up in the faith, that we might have a great time
of fellowship, but it also might be exalting of Christ and honoring
to Him. And Lord, we do thank you again
for the blood of Christ that washes away all of our sin. And
as he stood before us on that tree, Lord, we thank you that
all wrath and that all sin has been taken away, never for us
to experience. And so Father, Lord, for that,
we are grateful for the grace and mercy of our God. We love
you and we praise you. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.