All right, we'll be, we should
get started. All right, brethren, good morning. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter
three. Sorry, let's turn to John chapter
six. We're gonna go to John chapter
six first this morning. And we're gonna pick up in verse
45 and make our way down to verse 51. Now the presence of our Lord
here in the flesh, it declares that man is not simply in bad
shape, it's much, much worse. He's described, he can be described
as the earth is described in Genesis chapter one, verse two,
that he's without form. Void and darkness is upon him. He lies in darkness. He has a soul, but he's spiritually
dead. Spiritually dead in trespasses
and sins, He has no life in Him and He cannot create life for
Himself. If He is to be saved, if that
man is to be saved, it's got to be by the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him alone. Only Christ can save a sinner.
Now in this passage, our Lord does what He's been doing throughout
the Gospel of John. Every time the flesh of man raises
itself up to justify itself, our Lord points it out, and He
reveals the truth. He speaks truth. He destroys
man's comfort, his refuge, as a vain confidence that cannot
save. And they hear it. They hear His
words, but it's for you, His people. It's for you so that
you would see that's a vain false hope. There's no hope. There's
no salvation in the refuges of man and where man runs to and
flees to in his flesh. It's so that we would hear and
believe this man is the Christ. This is the God man. This is
the one whom the father has sent to save his people and put away
their sins. He alone is all our salvation. I've titled this message, They
Ate Manna and Are Dead. They Ate Manna and Are Dead. And we'll first begin looking
at the destruction that our Lord does in destroying the false
vain hope of man, in destroying that vain refuge that he flees
to. And then we'll see Him, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our life. We'll see that He is salvation. Here, Christ is speaking to those
that are described as disciples and those that are Jews. And
largely in that crowd, they're very favorable toward Christ. They think favorably upon him. They recognized him as a prophet. They were ready to make him a
king, to go up against Rome. And so they were thinking of
him favorably until he began to teach them, until he began
to describe salvation and to reveal the Father to them. And what he's doing there is
he's showing himself to be the mediator between God and men,
that he is the revealer of God to his people. And what did they
do? They immediately retreated. They
went back to their safe place. They went back to what their
hope is in their lineage, and in Moses, and in the law, and
seeing Moses as their mediator who gave them the law for their
righteousness. And it says in verse 31, John
6, 31, They said to Christ, our fathers
did eat manna in the desert. As it is written, he, Moses,
gave them bread from heaven to eat. That's how they understood
it. Now skip over to verse 45. John 6, 45. Our Lord says, it
is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. And Christ is saying, he's pointing
out, this is the generation that Isaiah wrote of. This is the
generation that Isaiah was speaking of when he said, all thy children
shall be taught of the Lord. Isaiah 54, verse 13. And our
Lord continues, saying, every man, therefore, that hath heard
and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Our Lord is saying right there,
I am the mediator whom God has sent. I'm revealing who the Father
is to my people. I speak and my people hear me."
And he says, all that love the Father and believe the Father,
they come unto me. They come to hear my words. They come to me because I am
the mediator whom the Father has sent to save his people,
to teach and reveal the Father to his people. And so, we're
going to be taught, if we're going to know the Lord, if we're
going to know our God, it's going to be in looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's going to be by His power,
His glory, His honor, His salvation. And so your Lord still teaches
His people to this day. Just as he taught that generation,
he still teaches all of God's children to this day. How does
he do that teaching? How does the Lord teach his people? Well, first he gives his Holy
Spirit. He regenerates His people and
His Holy Spirit dwells within His people so that He reveals
to them Christ. He reveals to them the words
of Christ and instructs them, reminding them, showing them
Christ in this word. And then secondly, in this word,
your Lord blesses this word so that as you turn each page, read
each verse, look at each word, you see the blood and righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ in every word, testifying to you that
this is the Christ and he is my salvation. I need him. I need him. I cannot be saved
apart from him. And he also does this through
his preachers. He sends preachers and pastors
to preach and declare his gospel, his salvation, and he blesses
that word to your hearts. So your Savior, the mediator
between God and men, still to this day is the one teaching
and revealing the Father to us. Now, after declaring that he's
our teacher and that he's our life, he says something that
these men here needed to hear. And again, it's for us. It's
for our instruction. It's for our learning that we
should know the truth, that the precious from the vile would
be separated before our eyes, that we would understand that
Christ is all. Christ is our salvation. And
he does this by showing that what they were hoping, that where
their confidence was looking, where they were fixed and where
they were looking, it's death. It's death, it cannot save. Look
at verse 49, John 6, 49. He says, your fathers did eat
manna in the wilderness and are dead. They're dead. That place where you're retreating
to It's death. You're hoping in something that
cannot save. And the Lord's showing that what
man hopes in and what he places his confidence in in the flesh,
this trust that we have of our abilities and our understanding
and our knowledge of God and of things in religion, it cannot
save. It's death. It's going to fail
us. It does not last. It's not eternal. And what man does, whether he
confesses to believe in God or not, he's laying up for himself
things that he thinks are going to speak well for him in the
day of judgment. He thinks this is what's going
to be a help for him in that judgment to come. And the Lord
is saying, all that you're trusting in in this flesh is going to
fail you. It's not going to appear for
your good and your help in the day of judgment. If you take
first, the natural man. The natural man, the one who
isn't even necessarily very religious, the natural man, he trusts in
the things that he can see and feel. He looks at his education,
his knowledge of things, and what he's trained in to do and
thinks, this has gotten me a good job. This has gotten me a good
career path. I have opportunity and options
now with these things that I know. And he gets himself a good wife,
a nice wife, and she's productive. And he trusts him and his friends,
his family, his neighbors, his house, his cars. And he thinks,
I've got expendable income now. And what delights him, what intrigues
him or interests him, he can go out and purchase that until
he tires of it. And he has more expendable income.
And he goes out and buys the next thing to entertain himself. But he never stops to think,
when I die, who shall these things be? Who shall these things be? They're not going to be his.
They don't translate to the eternal. They won't go with him. He returns
back to the dust from whence he came, and those things become
someone else's, and it moves on. So it's not eternal. They're
not yours. They're not eternal. Then take
the religious man. the one who is religious, the
one who does study and seek to know the Lord. Because these
Jews here, they were speaking about religious things. They
were trusting in religious things. They said, our fathers did eat
manna in the desert. Our fathers, they saw Moses,
the mediator, who gave them the law for their righteousness. They saw, our fathers saw the
Lord appear for his people and destroy the Egyptian army. And our fathers saw many miracles,
the Lord performing many miracles to protect them, to sustain them,
and provide for them in the desert, all performed by the hands of
Moses. And our Lord said, yep, but they're
all dead. They're all dead. It didn't do
anything for them. They all perished in the way,
not having reached the promised land. They died in the wilderness
and did not reach the promised land under the law. And so our
Lord saying to us, where's your trust? What are you hoping in? Is it your religion? Are you
trusting in your religion and your religious experience to
testify to God that you're worthy of his salvation? Are we trusting
in that one time when we had a mighty prayer and we cried
sincerely for our sin and confessed to the Lord, I'm a sinner, I'm
a sinner. Is that our salvation? Is that
our hope, that experience? or were our eyes turned to Him
who is our experience, the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we hoping that
God is looking at my sincerity, my good works, my service in
the church? Is that where we're hoping, that
the Lord sees that and that it will speak well for me in the
day of judgment? Where's our hope? And that's
what the Lord is speaking of here. Because these Jews, they
were trusting in Moses. They were trusting in the law
for their righteousness. They were trusting in their father's
experience. They looked to their birth and
lineage. They trusted in the fact that they were circumcised.
They looked at their synagogues and their temple and the sacrifices
that they made unto the father. They trusted in the fact that
collectively they had a contempt for the Roman government and
they despised sinners. And they thought, this is what
sets me apart. This is the testimony that I'm
the Lord's and that he loves me. It's these things right here. But the one whom the father sent,
one whom the Father sent is testifying to them, this hope, this hope
you have is death and that he himself is life. He's the life
that the Father sent. Our salvation is not in these
works of righteousness, not in the things that we do, it's in
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. These things that man does to
try and please God and earn God's favor, We're told our filthy
rag righteousness. That's this filthy rag righteousness
that defiles the hand, that corrupts us even further than we already
are. And it cannot save us. It cannot save us. So our Lord,
Jesus Christ, the mediator, he teaches his people who our life
is. He points us, he directs our
hearts to him, to look to the Lord Jesus Christ alone, to know
that's all my hope, that's all my safety, that's all the provision
that the Father has provided for his people, to deliver them
from their sins, to restore them in fellowship and reconciliation
with their God. So salvation, it's not in something
that we do or don't do, It's not in our morality nor is it
in our doctrines or in our creeds and catechisms and knowledge
of these things. It's in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. It's a person. Believe on him
and you shall have everlasting life. And that brings us to our
second point where the Lord teaches us four important truths about
our life, about our salvation, four important truths. And you'll
notice it's all about him. It's all speaking of Christ who
is the salvation of his people. First, he shows us that he is
our teacher, that he is the revealer of the Father to his people.
Look at verse 46, John 6, 46. Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Why do we look to Christ? Why
do we look to him? that we might know our God, that
we might know the Father. We look to Him to know our God. We don't learn who God is through
our religious activities and our religious studies. The Lord
may make use of some of those things, but we learn them in
looking to Christ. He's the one revealing to us.
our Father, our salvation, the love that the Father has for
his people. What the Lord is doing is he
brings it in such a way so that everything is being stripped
down from us. We're being brought down in this
flesh and everything's just getting taken away till we're brought
to a very narrow place where all we have before us is the
face of our Savior. that we might look Him face to
face and see that He's all my hope, all my salvation, everything
that I need. All that the Father requires
of me is found in Him, is found in Him. And that's what He's
showing us. He's bringing us to learn that and to know that,
to believe that He really is my salvation. Turn over to John
14. John 14. And we'll pick up in verse 6.
This is our Lord speaking to his disciples
before he goes to the cross. He's about to go into the garden.
and begin bearing the weight of their sin, and really bearing
what they are that he might put away the sin, and put away that
which separates us from our God. And our Lord, speaking to Thomas,
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father, but by me. He goes on, if you had known
me, ye should have known my father also. And from henceforth, here
forward, ye know him, you know the father, and have seen the
father. You that behold your Savior,
your hope, lay down His life for you in love and grace and
mercy, requiring nothing from us. You that behold your Savior
do that. You see the love of the Father
given for you, spared not to save you and to make you his
own beloved child to bring you into the beloved family of God. You've seen Christ lay down his
life on the cross for you. You've seen the love of the father. You've seen the heart of God
the father in his son given for your life. Philip said unto him,
Lord, show us the father and it's a fight that sufficeth us.
And Jesus saith unto him, have I been so long time with you?
And yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father. And so the Father sent his Son
that we should know the Father through his Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's our teacher. He's the one
who reveals to us our God. Second, by Christ, we have everlasting
life. He declares that by Him we have
everlasting life. Look at John 6, verse 47. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. In other words, eternal life
is not something that we earn from our God. We don't earn eternal
life. It's not something that we obtain
for ourselves. Eternal life is what Christ our
Lord and Savior obtained for us. It's what he gives to us. And this gift of eternal life
is received also in grace by the faith that the Father reveals
to us. Christ is the one that earned
our life and we enter into an understanding of what he accomplished
through the gift of faith. That's how we see and behold,
this is what our Lord has done for us. This is what I needed.
I didn't know it. I didn't know how wicked and
evil and dark I am by nature, how corrupt my works are. Yet
the Lord, while I was still his enemy, laid down his life and
put away my sin and has called me by his gospel in grace and
given me an ear of faith to hear it, and drew me to himself, and
gave me this faith to believe him, to look to him, and trust
him." And so we see it's Christ. He's the one that obtained this
eternal life that we now have. In Romans 4, you can turn there. Romans 4, verses 5 through 7, Paul writes, to him, to the believer,
that worketh not, but believeth, verse 5, but believeth on him
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness,
even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto
whom God imputeth righteousness without works. Verse 7, saying,
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins
are covered. Now understand, our faith doesn't
cover our sins. The blood of Jesus Christ covers
our sins. It's His blood and that's how
our sins are covered and our faith believes that Christ's
blood covers all my sins. That He is sufficient and my
God is not looking to me for righteousness of my own hand
and my works and my doing, he's looking to my Savior who provided
everything for me and has obtained for me everlasting life. we see that Christ himself is
our life. Christ himself is our life. Verse 48 and 50. He said back
in John 6, I am that bread of life. Verse 50, this is the bread
which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and
not die. So first we've seen that Christ
is the revealer of the Father. He reveals God to us. Second,
we see that he obtained our everlasting life. And third, we see that
he himself is our life. He's all our life, brethren. Christ is God incarnate, God
in the flesh. And when he said, I am that bread
of life. He's saying, I am the I am. I am your God in the flesh, and
I am life, and I give you life. I am your very life. So he's the giver of this life
in the flesh, and he's the giver of our spiritual life, whereby
we are delivered from eternal death unto eternal life in him. Look at John 5. John 5, verse
25. And verse 26 there. John 5, 25 and
26. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God. They that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in
himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. And so Christ is our very life. We, looking to Him, trusting
Him, believing Him, receiving from Him, by His glorious grace
and power, have life in Him, in Christ who is our life. And
then fourth, we feed upon Christ's flesh and blood because he is
that spiritual sustenance. He is our sustainer of our life,
which he's given to us. Look at verse 49. Our Lord said
to those standing there, he said, your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and are dead. Look at verse 51, 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 or
his people scattered throughout the world. You know, we eat healthy. Most of you, I know most of you
try to eat relatively healthy. because you've experienced and
learned that when I don't eat so healthy, my body doesn't feel
good and I break down in my health and I get sick. And so we've
learned through that process to eat healthy. Well, the Lord
is revealing to you that we need him. We need His sustenance. We need His flesh, His blood. That's the true meat. That's
the life-giving, cleansing blood is in our Savior. We need Him. We feed upon Him. Just as we eat bread and drink
water to sustain these physical bodies, so we eat of the flesh
of Christ and drink His blood. That is through the Gospel. looking
to Him, believing Him, trusting Him, desiring Him, because He's
the one that sustains us and keeps us and delivers us continually
from death. Their fathers ate manna in the
wilderness and are dead. We need much more than a fleshly
form of religion. We need much more than just a
form, an outward form, of religion and good works. We need life,
and that life is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. He's shown
us that we cannot earn spiritual life by our works of religion,
but he himself is the very bread of life. And he's given himself
for us, that we would feed upon him all the days of our life
and trust him. So we need him, brethren. You
know, he's like a, you ever hear of those conjoined twins where
there's two children born at birth and they're stuck together
on their head or something like that? Well, it's a rough similarity,
but the reality is with Christ, he's got everything. He's the
one with everything. He's got the brains, he's got
the heart, he's got every vital organ. All we are is just flesh
and veins and arteries drawing from his blood. That's what's
keeping us alive. You sever us from Christ and
there is no life. We cannot live on our own and
be anything. We die. We're dead. But in Christ,
fixed to him who is our savior, divine, we have life and we have
everything necessary that our God requires And so, man, he
rises up and he likes to boast of what he's done and does for
the Lord and has done, but our Savior faithfully destroys those
things. He brings those works down and
shows us Christ. He shows us that He is our life
and our salvation, and He fixes us resting right in Him. All
right, brethren, let's close in prayer. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for your gracious salvation, for giving
your Son, who is everything that we need and is perfect. Lord, we thank you for our Savior,
our Lord, our God, our all, who reveals to us who you are. who gives us life, who is our
life, and who sustains our life. Lord, we thank you for this and
ask that you would bless your people, keep your people ever
looking to you. Feed us this day and bless our
hearts in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks. Amen. All right, we'll take a 15-minute
break and then come back.