Complete in thee, no work of
mine could take, dear Lord, the place of thine. Thy blood hath
pardoned, bought for me, and I shall stand complete in thee. Yea, justify, O blessed thought,
And sanctify, salvation wrought. Thy blood hath pardoned, bought
for me, And glorified my God shall be. Complete in thee No
more shall sin Be all I do And am within Thy grace hath set
This prisoner free And I shall stand Complete in thee Yea, justified
O blessed thought And sanctified Salvation wrought Thy blood hath
pardoned Bought for me And glorified My God shall be Complete in Thee
Each need supplied And no good thing to me denied Since Thou
my portion, Lord, wilt be I need none else Complete in Thee Yea,
justify, O blessed thought And sanctify, salvation wrought Thy
blood hath pardoned, bought for me And glorified my God shall
be Dear Savior, when before Thy bar All tribes and tongues assembled
are Among Thy chosen will I be At Thy right hand completing
Thee Yea, justified O blessed thought And sanctified Salvation
wrought Thy blood hath pardoned Bought for me And glorified I
too shall be Thank you, Adam. That was sweet,
and it's sweet to be here again. It's lovely. It's been nearly
four years since I've been here, so it's just lovely to see some
old faces, lovely to see some new faces, particularly lovely
to see Miss Daisy. I set an emissary ahead of me
this time around, so I'm expecting a warm welcome everywhere I go.
It's just a delight to be here, but most of the greatest delight
is that we're here because the Lord has gathered us, and we're
here because the Lord has done a work in us, and where the Lord
does a work, it always has the fingerprints of our God on it,
and it always leads us back to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
a verse in Acts chapter 14 that I've been really taken by. It
says, after Paul had gone on his first missionary journey,
he came back to the church in Antioch, because he was sent
from a church and he came back to a church, and God will always
have his work honoured in his church. And he said, and when
they were come together, we've come together, and had gathered
the church together, the church is gathered by the Lord Jesus
Christ, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how
he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. That's what we're doing, aren't
we? That's what I'm here for. I'm here to rehearse I'm here
to rehearse and we rehearse and we practise and practise and
we say the same old things again and again and they never lose
their sweetness and we sing the gospel and we pray the gospel
and we're here because of a great and glorious God who lives and
has gathered us this morning. So it's a delight to be here.
I thank you for your welcome. I thank you for your hospitality. I am thankful for you. And I
pray that you would have in mind the scattered brethren throughout
the world, but particularly our little group down there in Australia.
Daisy will be going home and we pray for travelling mercies
with her. I want us, as we rehearse what
God has done with us, to turn in our Bibles to John chapter
6. And let's read some of these
remarkable verses. And I want you to take note of
the promises that are here and the remarkable way those promises
are fulfilled in the hearts of God's people. These words in
verse 63, before I come to my text, it's the spirit that quickeneth,
John 6, 63, it's the spirit that quickeneth, it's the spirit that
gives life, the flesh profiteth nothing. If God would lay that
on our hearts, brothers and sisters. we would walk with so much more
peace through this world and look to him. The flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. I'm gonna read some words
of spirit and life. And I wanted to start in verse
44. It speaks of the depravity of
man, but it speaks of the glory of our God. No man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me, draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day. And this is one of the most comforting
verses for everyone who dares ever and is privileged to speak
on God's behalf. It is written in the prophets. They shall all be taught of God. All of God's children shall be
taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me. They'll all come when God teaches. We'll get the lesson, brothers
and sisters in Christ. I want us to go down to verse
48, that the Lord Jesus Christ declares his deity. He says,
I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and are dead. And these are the verses I'd
like to speak from a bit more specifically this morning. It
says, the Lord Jesus says, this is the bread which cometh down
from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. As I read this, add up and contemplate
the promises that are embedded in this remarkable passage scripture.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
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. Whosoever eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the Living Father
has set me, I live by the Father, so that 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. I simply want us to consider
the remarkable promises that are contained here, these are
the words of God, aren't they? These are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. If you go over to chapter seven, verse one,
the result of these words and the result of the actions of
the Lord Jesus Christ, it says, after these things, Jesus walked
in Galilee for he would not walk in Jewry because the Jews sought
to kill him. These words and these actions
of the Lord Jesus Christ were what? inspired and enraged the
Jews so much that they sought to kill him. You know the context that we're
speaking of. I'm sure some of you know it well, and I think
Greg's going to speak on it soon. But the context in John 6 is
that the Lord Jesus Christ has gathered a people to him. It's a great picture of him gathering
his people together, isn't it? He's gathered to himself a crowd
of 5,000 men on that bank on the West North East side of the
Sea of Galilee. And there he's gathered them,
and there he's miraculously fed a crowd of possibly seven and
a half or 8,000 people, we don't know, but it's at least 5,000
men, the scriptures tell us. It's a glorious picture, isn't
it, of the Lord Jesus Christ gathering his people and the
Lord Jesus Christ feeding his people and the Lord Jesus Christ
feeding them with an abundance of food. He likens it to this
manner This manna, this manna is that glorious food that sustained
the children of God for 40 years in the wilderness. He took them
and he fed these people with abundance at 5,000. But he fed
the people with manna in the wilderness. That manna is the
only food that didn't come from this earth. It was a food that
sustained life and it came from heaven. It's a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ and him coming and feeding his people. It's
a food that sustained, manna was a food that sustained the
body and not the soul. And it was only eaten, truly
eaten, when God gave spiritual faith to those who ate. The manna
was available for a time, a time of the day, and it was available
for a season. Just those 40 years when they
crossed over into the promised land, the manna ceased. But the true bread that comes
from heaven lasts forever. The true bread is available continually. The true bread is available everywhere
the Lord feeds his people. See that food, that 5,008 that
day, those loaves and that fish, just a few, a couple of sardines
and a few cakes, and they fed 5,000 people, but where did they
get their food from that day? It was just the lunch of a little
boy. It came from the hands, it was
multiplied in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was given
to the people through his apostles, through those he sent. And everyone
that ate was completely satisfied. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
did something remarkable when you have made so much food. He
said, you gather up all the fragments and don't you leave a single
crumb there. The food of God is given in the
place where God is. And the food of God is given
to the children of God in the place where God is. And it comes
directly from the hand of God. And my prayer this morning is
for us that we might feast. We've just had a feast of looking
at Samson, our great type of the Lord Jesus Christ, coming
to where we are and feeding us. and rescuing us and saving us,
but here we have a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ coming
to his people and feeding them. And he uses the simplest language
possible, doesn't he? And the simplest thing that we
do every day, just eating and drinking, the essentials of life. It speaks, of course, of the
simplicity of the gospel. People say, you are what you
eat. And God's people feed on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and we continually feed on him. See, what you eat
becomes a part of you. And what you eat can't be taken
from you. And you must eat for yourself. No one can do it for you. And
people eat because we have a need. And we drink because we have
a need. And so in the context here, eating
and drinking, synonyms. Synonyms for believing, for coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ, for seeing him, for trusting him,
for living on his life. See, to live, you must take something
from outside of yourself to sustain your lives. It's remarkable,
98% of our bodies are newly created every year. I was here four years
ago, I'm a brand new, four times over. Minus a little bit. But eating involves taking something
from outside of us. The provision of the Lord is
glorious. The Lord says, I am that bread of life. He is declaring
himself as he does throughout all of the gospel accounts. He
says, I am God. Don't you love hearing that?
Don't you love saying that? Jesus Christ is God. In him dwells the fullness of
the deity in a body. These are the words of God. The
Jews knew that that was exactly what he's saying. These verses
speak of this bread coming. In verse 41, the Jews murmured
at him. I don't want to look at the murmuring
of the Jews for a moment. We'll look at it later on. But
I want us to look, I want us to look at the bread and I want
us to look at this drink. And I want us to look at the
gracious way the Lord speaks to his people. Listen to what
he says in verse 50. This is the bread which came
down from heaven. And I love the next phrase, brothers
and sisters, that a man may eat thereof and not die. That's grace, brothers and sisters,
isn't it? We may eat and not die. The declaration of the gospel
excludes none. They exclude themselves by the
unbelief. It's proclaimed to all and it's
believed by a few. And people are offended at the
gospel now as they were offended at the Lord Jesus Christ all
those years ago, and particularly religious people are offended
at him. They will not, as he says, they
will not come to me and have life. They saw, they saw the
food and not the miracle. They saw God being God. and it filled their bellies and
left their hearts empty. You must be born again. Man naturally,
as John 3, 18 says, naturally love the darkness more than the
light, and they will not come to the light because their deeds
of evil. You will not come to me that you might have life.
Fallen man has to be brought down to feed on another. We have by nature, too high an
opinion of ourselves, and therefore we have far too low an opinion
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot raise the Lord Jesus
Christ too high, and we cannot put man down too much, and it's
the work of God. But ultimately, people don't
eat because it's not precious. It's not precious because You
believe you have something else to pay God with, don't you? This is speaking of people who
are hungry. If you have something of yourself that you believe
you can offer God, you're not hungry and you're not thirsty.
This is may. You may eat thereof. There's
hope here, isn't there? I love that word whosoever in
the scriptures. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. I can fit into that. I can fit into that demographic. Whosoever shall call. May. You may. You may eat thereof. You may eat thereof and not die. And not die. We, in our fallen state, invert
all of the realities of this world, and we invert the reality
of what we are. You and I are eternal souls. We have a body, and that body's
going back to where it came from. but we really are eternal souls. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking to us of food for our souls. He's precious to us. Let's go back to our text, verse
51. He said, I am the living bread
which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. If any man ate this bread, the
Lord Jesus Christ by faith to live upon him. He shall live
forever. So it's not just an absence of
death that the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about, it's an entrance
into life, a life that is sustained, a life that comes from him, a
life that is sustained by him. It's all of grace. Listen to
what he says. I will give, I will give of my
flesh, I will give for the life of the world. Salvation is all
of a gift. All spiritual life comes from
Him as a gift. All spiritual life is sustained
by Him as a gift. We are kept by the power of God
through faith, brothers and sisters, until that great day. We're kept
by Him. Natural life, as Greg said earlier
about our birth, our natural life and all the pictures of
our natural life are pictures ultimately for those who are
children of God. They're pictures of a spiritual
life, aren't they? We are born from something outside
of ourselves and created in remarkable ways, and so is our new creation. All spiritual life must come
from him, and it comes as a gift. It doesn't come as something
that we earn. All natural life comes from him, and all spiritual
life comes from him. Adam was made from the dust of
the earth in Genesis chapter two, and then God breathed into
him. And he became a living soul. A living soul. A gift you may eat. And it's a
gift. It's getting better. I like the
fact it's a gift. When God's giving out gifts,
I want to be there, brothers and sisters. One of my favourite
verses in the scriptures has become John chapter four, verse
10. If you knew the gift of God,
if you knew who he was and who it is, if you knew the gift and
you knew who, it's the same, isn't it? And who it is that
saith unto you, give me to drink, you would have asked. you would
ask. That's what eating and drinking
is. If you're hungry and thirsty, this is a place to drink. And
the gift is priceless, isn't it? The gift is his flesh. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh. God feeds his people on his son
through his word. And the word of God becomes to
us, as I read earlier out of John chapter six, it becomes
spirit and they are life. When the spirit reveals to us
what we are, We're made to be mercy beggars. We're made to
be mercy beggars. One of my favourite stories in
all the Bibles, that Canaanite woman in Matthew chapter 15,
you remember the story? She came with a demon-possessed
daughter and she came and she was, the disciples tried to send
her away and the Lord Jesus Christ ignored her and then owned her
as a dog. And then she said, if I can just
receive a crumb. The dogs get the crumbs. You
see, the issue is where does it come from? Where did the crumb
come from that she was asking for? From the master's table. If it comes from the hand of
God, mercy beggars will find these are sweet words. The price, the gift is priceless. The bread that I will give is
my flesh. The bread that I give is my flesh. What a great gift. What a great
price. What great, great sinners. We are when we fell in Adam,
and we are when we came from our mother's womb, and we are
in our flesh, isn't it? You see, sin is measured by the
one sinned against. Our sins are infinite because
they're against a holy God. So we're great sinners because it's a great sin. and
we need a great saviour, and we need a great salvation, and
we need great grace. Just a crumb. Craig went to Romans
5 earlier, God commendeth his love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Christ died for us. We were without strength, we
were ungodly, we were unworshipping is what that word can mean. We
were yet sinners, as yet sinners. Verse nine of Romans five, and
the wrath of God was over us and we were enemies. Christ died
for us. The little words of God become
very precious sometimes. That word for, means to hover
over, to shield and defend. What a glorious picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ in what he did over us. Over us was all of the infinite
wrath of God against all of our sins and the Lord Jesus Christ
interposes himself as a hen does to her chicken and he's over
us. That's what that word means,
over to shield and defend and to protect and to cover. He died
for us. Verse 52, the Jews therefore
strove among themselves saying, how can this man give us his
flesh to eat? They began earlier in this text
by murmuring. They murmured at the Lord Jesus
Christ. That word murmuring in verse
41, if you go back there, they murmured at him. So where did
their enmity and their desire to kill the Lord Jesus Christ
begin. It began with a murmuring. You know what murmuring is in
the original? It's the sound of doves gathering
together. We have a lot of doves on our
lawn at home, and they're beautiful, beautiful birds, and they're
lovely and soft, and they get together, and they make these
little cooing noises. That's murmuring. That's murmuring. You've done it, brothers and
sisters, and so have I. You think you see where it goes
in the lives of these people. Murmuring, murmuring becomes
striving. You've seen this, haven't you,
brothers and sisters? I've seen it, and I've been a part of it,
and I'm ashamed of it, and it ought not be. But they become,
murmuring becomes striving. It means to fight, or to wrangle,
to quarrel, or dispute, and then eventually, They say, this is
a hard saying. This is a harsh saying. This is an offensive saying. Verse 60, this is an offensive,
this is an intolerable saying. So they start, just a little
group, murmuring, cooing to each other. And the next thing you
have them striving and arguing, and the next thing you have people,
so sad, isn't it? May the Lord cause us to see
what our murmuring leads to. Eventually they want to kill
him. One thing that you can't do when you're murmuring is eat
or drink. One thing that you can't do when
you're murmuring is to live by faith. One thing that you can't
do when you're murmuring is look to the Lord Jesus Christ to live
upon him. I love the way the Lord responded
to these people in all of their disputations. It's almost as
if he completely ignored them and said, I must preach, and
I must preach on. And why is that? Ultimately,
his people will hear. This was a crowd of 5,000. We
don't know how many were back at the synagogue in Capernaum
that he was preaching to, he just kept on preaching, and they
go, and they go, and they go. And eventually, he just has 12
of them, and he says, there's the door. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is not here to win a popularity contest, brothers and sisters.
He's not up for election. He comes as a sovereign reigning
king. He comes to feed his people and
his people will feed upon him. Listen to what he says in verse
53 in response to their murmuring. Then Jesus said unto them, verily,
verily, truly, truly, solemnly, solemnly, I say unto you, except
you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you. Except you eat. See, this is
a gift, we may. The gift is priceless. It is him in the totality of
his being. And the gift is critically essential
to have life with God. It's the flesh, not just any
old flesh, and drink his blood. If you don't have those, except
you eat, you have no life in you. And verse 54. He raises it again and speaks
another promise. He ignored the murmuring, brothers
and sisters, and you do well to ignore the murmuring and preach
on and look to him again. Whoso eateth my flesh, verse
54, and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise
him up at the last day. The longer I go on in Christian
life, every time I find the wills and shalls of God, I find a bit
of rest. Every time you see them, it's
a promise, isn't it, from our God. It's a promise from our
God. I will raise him up at the last
day. If you raised up, Those who eat
and those who drink, those who come, those who come and keep
coming, those who believe and keep on believing, those who
ask and keep on asking, they'll be raised up. They won't be cast
out. He will in no wise cast out any
of his own. It's impossible for him to cast
them out. He has absolutely no reason to
cast them out. He cannot be a just and sovereign
and holy God and cast out those for whom he died. It's impossible,
brother. He'll in no wise cast you out.
He'll raise you up at the last day. We are justified, we are
accepted. He says, come ye blessed of my
father, inherit the kingdom prepared from you from the foundation
of the world. Come, come and eat. We'll be raised up at the
last day. We must be raised up. What about
our sins? What about our sins? I do love
how our beloved apostle speaks to us. He says in 1 John 2, verse
1, my little children, these things write I unto you that
ye sin not. And if any man sin, and it can
be very well translated, and when any man sin, what's happened? We have an advocate with the
Father. When we sin, And we're not excusing
sin, and we're not encouraging sin in any way at all. My little
children, we write that you might not sin, we speak that you might
not sin, but we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. We have an advocate. When we
are most aware of our need of him, we have a promise from God
that we have him. Isn't it glorious? The gospel
is glorious, isn't it? We are the recipients of his
work on the cross. We are the recipients of his
propitiation. He has appeased God and every
reason for wrath and anger and separation is gone. Sin brings separation, that's
what it did in the garden. It brings separation and it brings
shame. And it brings a hiding and a
running from God. And he comes, he comes to his
own. And he comes and reveals himself
to his own. Separation and shame. And the Lord Jesus Christ gives of
his flesh, whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood. You can't eat flesh unless it's
killed. You can't drink blood unless
there's a death. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
die? The wages of sin. What we earn,
the wages of sin, is death. All the sin, all the sins of
God's own were laid on him And he owned them as he's owned throughout
the scriptures. As a husband owns full responsibility
for his wife, so the Lord Jesus Christ takes full responsibility
for his wife's debts. He's the surety of that eternal
covenant. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. We believe and we eat and drink
and live by believing. I'm so pleased that we don't
eat and drink and live because of what we understand. We eat
and drink and live because of what we believe. We believe things
that are so extraordinarily remarkable. You try and do the physics of
what it is to raise us up on the last day. You can't figure
that out, but I believe it. You can't figure out how resurrection
happened in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we see through the eyes of
faith and we believe it and we feast upon it, isn't it? God
the Father made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. That's why he died. When he was
raised up from the ground and was hung upon that tree, he became
a curse. And he bore the curse, he became
a curse for us. And brothers and sisters, sin
can only be in one place at one time. And if it's on him, it
can't be on me. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
said to those Pharisees, you shall die in your sins, it's
one of the most horrifying words in all of the scripture, isn't
it? I can't conceive of what it must be like for those who
are there now to die and be surrounded by the reason for you being there. Sin can only be in one place
at one time, and if it was on him, it can't be on me. And if sin has been punished
by a just and holy God, It cannot be punished again for him to
be just and holy and true and faithful. Every single character
of God revealed in the scriptures is tied up with the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ died particularly for his people. And I pray that
we will be kept faithful, brother, brothers and sisters, that we
be kept faithful and just keep proclaiming that this world is
going to continue to deny it. Satan, according to Colossians
2, verse 13, was made a mockery of. The most proud being that
ever existed was made a mockery of on the cross. No wonder the
cross is where all of the attacks of the enemy will ultimately
fall. You trace You trace his poison and you'll trace it back
to there. We have, we have a glorious gospel. And he was raised, he was raised,
he died for those sins, he died hovering over his whole flock
as one We died in Him, but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't just cover my sins in some sense as if they're really
there and God is playing some game of make-believe. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't just cover my sins, but they really exist in his mind
and in his sight. They're gone, brothers and sisters,
gone. He remembers them no more because
they are no more. Having forgiven us all our sins,
there is now, therefore, No condemnation, no condemnation, no separation. God has no just and righteous
reason not to welcome you into his arms. He must love that which
is holy, and he does. He's loved us everlastingly,
therefore with loving kindness as he'd drawn us to himself.
Jeremiah 50 says they'll be searched for, the sins of the children
of God will be searched for, Jeremiah 50 verse 20, and they
will not be found. We'll be raised up, brothers
and sisters in Christ. Is this glorious Saviour sweet
food for your soul? I've been feasting here for a
long time now. and it never, never, ever fades
away. I've been drinking at this fountain
that's been open for sin and uncleanness and you just keep
on drinking. You can drink this down and you
can still long to drink. You're thirsty and you're hungry. The Lord, our God is saying,
come, come and believe and rest and eat and drink and keep coming
and eating You come to this banqueting house, as he calls it in Song
of Solomon, chapter two, and the banner over me is love in
the banqueting house of our great God. Don't you love that what
is best for us spiritually, best for our eternal souls, is a command
from God? My warrant for coming My warrant
for eating and drinking is he says come. He says come. How often do I need to eat and
drink? How often do I come? I come continually. That's why Peter says, to whom
coming? If you've come, you'll keep coming. How can I know that I've truly
come? Can you drink down this glorious
gospel of this successful, sovereign, substitutionary saviour and his
glorious salvation by grace and it be nourishment to your souls?
Can you be let loose from a gathering of the Lord's people when you
hear the gospel preached and you can skip and dance like cars
let loose from a stall? It's food, isn't it? It's food
for my soul. How do I know that I've been
drawn? How do you know that I've eaten and drunk and drunk well? Well, I'm satisfied, brothers
and sisters. When you've eaten well, you're
satisfied and I'm hungry no more. What is it to eat and drink?
It's to come now. To whom coming? You come now. There's nothing
in the scriptures that tells us to rest on something that
happened a long time ago in our experience. We rest on him. And
we come, don't we? I'm coming now. And I'm eating
now. And I'm drinking this gospel
into my soul now. The son of God loved me. and gave himself for me. I was crucified with Christ.
I was crucified with Christ, justified freely by his blood. That means I'm just looking.
How do I know I've come? I'm just looking to him. I just
love how Hebrews 12 says he's the author and the finisher. He's the author, he wrote it
all. Now he's a finisher, he's the
perfecter of faith. How do I know I'm coming? I'm
only looking in one place. And I'm only looking for one
source of spiritual nourishment. I've got nothing in myself that
I can look for. You must live, you must take
something from outside of yourself. I have nothing in here, nothing
in my flesh. In my flesh dwells no good thing.
I need food from outside, just as you do, to live. Let's go to verse 55. For my
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. This is real food, isn't it?
That's what he's saying. This is real food, is meat indeed.
His flesh speaks of his incarnation in John chapter one, verse 14. The word, that word, the word
who was with God and the word who was God, the word who lived
in communion with his father in all eternity. In those days,
if you will not call them that, where that covenant of grace
was signed and sealed and he became the surety and a bride
was given to the son, a glorious bride, and the son took responsibility
at that point before the foundation of the world. That word, in the
beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word
was God. And the word, verse 14 of John,
John 1, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. What
a remarkable thing the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is.
And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full, full of grace and full of truth. His flesh, what did he do in
the flesh? What did he do in the flesh? He was circumcised on the eighth
day. He became one who lived bound to the law of God and he
kept the law of God absolutely perfectly in heart and soul and
mind and strength. He loved God. He loved God fully
and completely. and he loved his neighbor as
himself, and he perfectly kept the law of God. That's what he
did in his flesh. He performed the righteousness
of God. God's law must be honoured. He
honoured, he kept the law and he honoured the law of God. And
he performed that righteousness of God. And except you eat this
flesh and it becomes part of you, it becomes your life, you
live on his righteousness. It's a reliance on his obedience. His obedience and his righteousness
and his work is all my standing before God. I live by the faithfulness
of the Son of God. What extraordinary faithfulness.
Faithfulness in everything he ever thought or did. Never, never
a sinful thought. Never a murmuring. Never a moment
without God being God before him. He had no other gods before
him. and his blood. Life is in the blood. My flesh
is meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed. The blood speaks of his death. His blood speaks of that death
on Calvary's tree when his lifeblood was shed. and it was shed for
us. His blood actually cleanses me. They're singing the songs in
heaven, aren't they? We're washed in his blood and
robed in his righteousness. He says this is true drink. This is true meat. It does all
that's required to feed the souls of all of God's people, and I
don't have to look to anything else. And I'm just resting in
what here is done. Here's food and drink. His life
and his death is all of my salvation before God. His flesh is real
food, real spiritual food, and his blood is real spiritual drink.
It's not just a wish, and it's not just imaginary, it's not
just visionary. There's a real substance. Faith
is a substance. Isn't that a remarkable statement
from our God? Faith is a substance of things not seen. The evidence. It's the substance and the evidence.
There's a real substance in it. And I want to come to this verse
before we close. Verse 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. This obviously speaks of
the glorious union of the Lord Jesus Christ with his bride. There's only one way he can be
in me and I can be in him, and that's by union. He is my life. His life is my life. His obedience
to the law of God is my obedience to the law of God. His death
is my death. His crucifixion is my crucifixion. His burial is my burial. His
resurrection is my resurrection. His ascension is my ascension.
Such is the union of the Lord Jesus Christ from his bride.
He cannot be separated for. And don't you love what Malachi
said? God hates divorce. God hates putting away. He hates putting away. He'll never put away his bride. And we're seated, we're seated
now with him, brothers and sisters in Christ. I can't see that. But I love it. And I can live
on it. He doesn't say that in your eating
and your drinking, you will get eternal life. We get eternal
life, it's just a revelation. What comes first, life or faith? Salvation is almost universally
presented as us doing something and then you receive something
from God as if God's put some offer out on the table and if
you can pick yourself up somehow and come to the table, you'll
eat and drink. So you have life before you have
faith. Well, in our experience, they
come at the same time, but God really gives life. You must be
born again, he says to Nicodemus. You must be born again to see.
You must have a new life to see to the kingdom of God. You must
have a new life to enter the kingdom of God. See, this eating
and drinking and this continual eating and drinking. He that
eateth, eateth. Eats and continues to eat. He
that drinketh, drinks and continues to drink. This, this, expresses
and confirms our need, our hunger and thirst for Christ. Christ
in you, the hope of glory. He in me and I in him. You know, he prayed, I would
cause you to drink and rejoice if you go to John
chapter 17 sometime and write in the margin or just make a
careful note of all the petitions in John chapter 17. He makes
these remarkable petitions. Just listen to how he prays for
us in John 17, 20. Neither I pray for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word,
that they all may be one. As thou, Father, art in me, and
I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world
may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which thou
gavest me. I have given them that they may
be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one. and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will. This was his
prayer before the cross, brothers and sisters. Did God answer his
prayer? course he did. He raised him
from the dead and sat him and he's now on the throne of glory. He's not only answered the prayer
but he's put him in a place of power where he can make sure
all of his prayers and all of his petitions are fulfilled.
They must come to pass. Father I will that they also
whom thou hast given me Be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou hast loved
me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the
world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these
have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto
them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. How can a holy God dwell in sinners
like us? because we have no sin. And if we have no sin, there's
no reason for separation, and there's no reason for shame. We have a glorious union, a union
of place, a union of position before God, a union of company. That's why I'm here. That's why
we come. and come together, don't we?
We come to encourage each other. We come to remind each other
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. We have a union of place
where he is, I am. I love John 12, 26. If any man
serve me, let him follow me. That's so far so good, isn't
it? And what we think is that we
go off in the world and wander down a little path and the Lord
Jesus Christ comes along and picks up the pieces. That's not
how Christian life is, brothers and sisters. Listen to what he
says. We have a place that's in him. We have a position, whatever
he did, I did, because I'm in him as the head is in the body
and the vine and the branches and the shepherds and the sheep. Can you feast? Have you feasted? If you have, if you feasted on
the delightful food of the gospel and drunk the delightful drink
of the gospel, You'll be like me. I like to
go back and enjoy something again that I've really enjoyed before.
We just keep coming, don't we, brothers and sisters? We come.
We come and we're gathered together by God and we're gathered together
for that purpose, that God might reveal his son in us and reveal
his son to us, that we might find our rest in him. Let's close with that glorious
promise. Every man, they'll all be taught
of God, if God is your teacher, if God has taught you this morning.
If God continues to teach you, every man therefore that hath
heard and learned of the Father cometh to me. You come to him
for life here. You come to him for life eternally. You come to him for sins to be
given. And if you've come, you'll never
stop coming. And if you come, you'll come
because he draws you. And you'll come, you'll keep
coming. because in all of his people,
he finds a ready welcome by his cleansing blood and his
broken body. Thank you. Let's stand together for this
closing hymn. and then we'll sing a hymn for the Lord's table.
Number 176 in your hardback teminal, 176.