We're going to turn to the book
of John, chapter 6, please. I've entitled today's message,
This is really the Lord Jesus speaking, this title. The title
is My Life for the Life of the World. My Life for the Life of
the World. And I take that title from John
chapter 6 and verse 51. If you want to look at that verse
before we read through The other verses in John 6 verse 51, Jesus
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. Recently I heard or read, I can't
remember which, someone say that because Christ died, we live,
or said differently, we live because Christ died. And when
I hear things like that, a couple of things happen. First, I always
want to think, where does it say that in Scripture? Do you
ever have that reaction when someone, in a sermon you hear,
where does it say that in Scripture? Or is that really what Scripture
is teaching? I remember years ago, when I
was teaching Sunday school or preaching in the Bay Area, and
I thought one day, where does it say in the Bible that Christ
is our substitute? And so, of course, when you think
those kinds of things, to get the answer from Scripture, you
start pulling in, in your memory, or reading, or looking, or listening,
or whatever you do, in order to see if that question can be
answered from Scripture. And it's always a blessing when
the Lord gives us that. And so this phrase, that Christ
gave his life for the life of the world, is, is right from scripture here
in verse 51, and it shows us that for us to live, he had to
die. And that this is our life. Not
only did he have to die, but of course he had to rise again.
But that's the title of today's message, My Life, Jesus Said,
for the Life of the World. Now I want to begin reading in
verse 27. of John 6, and we'll read through verse 51. And this
is perhaps one of the clearest and most comprehensive teachings
of Christ on the subject that we're all very much interested
in, salvation and eternal life. And that Jesus would spend so
much time preparing this sermon as he did in this chapter, and
that the apostle John at the end of the book would say, now
these things were written that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might
have life through his name. So we learn not only in this
text of scripture we're about to read, but also by the conclusion
that John made, who was given by the Holy Spirit from Christ
to write these things, that this is the purpose of the book, that
we might believe. And in believing Christ as the
Son of God, as the Christ of God, we might have life through
His name. What a blessing that is. So in John chapter 6 and
verse 27, Jesus tells the Jews who had followed him over the
sea in order to find out where he was and to corner him up.
They thought they would make him a king, but he departed away
from them because their idea of a king was a king in this
world, like they made Saul king, but he wouldn't have that. That
was not why he came. His kingdom is not of this world.
And so he left them and went across the sea, and they followed
him across the sea. And he tells them in verse 27,
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." Now, here
he's telling these men, don't work for nourishment that doesn't
give you eternal life. Don't work for that, for meat
that perishes. It doesn't last, the meat doesn't
last. And after you eat it, you also
don't live forever. And so he says, don't labor for
that. So what is that that we're not
supposed to labor for? Well, because he tells you that
he's, in the verses that follow, that this bread or this meat
that he's going to give gives everlasting life and that this
is he himself. Therefore, we know that everything
else but Christ is the meat that perishes. Everything that is
not Christ and His body broken, His blood poured out for our
life is perishing meat, and we're not supposed to seek after that,
okay? But we are supposed to labor
for that meat which is from Him. All right? But he quickly tells
us, which the Son of Man shall give you. So this is obviously
not something that we can earn, but it's given because he only
gives out of grace. And then he says, for him hath
God the Father sealed. Now, what this means, that God
the Father has sealed him, is that he has openly made known
and manifested that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one he has
commissioned and given the task to save his people, which is
his will. God the Father sealed his son
by openly making him known as the one, the only one God has
given and anointed to fulfill his will to save his people from
their sins. And this is clear. I mean, he's
openly done this, not only through the words that he's now speaking,
because he speaks the words of eternal life, but also because
he was anointed by the Holy Spirit, remember, at his baptism. The
Spirit of God descended from heaven like a dove and abode
upon him, and he had the Spirit without measure. So God the Father
sealed him with his spirit, openly making him known as the only
way, truth, and the life for the salvation of his people.
He really commissioned him. He authenticated him by what
he said, by what he did, and the miracles he performed. But
the way, now think about this, the way in which God the Father
most prominently sealed him was when he laid down his life for
the life of the world. And that's what this is telling
us, is that he not only identified him, authenticated him, made him known
to be the one he anointed with his spirit and gave to save his
people from their sins, which was his eternal will, but that
he did that in the way that Jesus speaks of here in laying down
his life. That's the sealing. That's the
open manifestation of Him as the authenticated, anointed One
to save His people from their sins. In ancient times, people
would apply a seal to a document in order to authenticate that
document, or that they would identify it as a special thing,
setting it apart in that way, and that's what God the Father
has done. He set apart Christ by His Spirit to be our Savior. and he openly made him known
to be that, and that's why in this verse he's saying, don't
labor for meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures
to everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give you, for
him has God the Father sealed. That's the reason he did this. He didn't do this, Christ didn't
do this of his own independent will, as if he could have an
independent will, but he did it by the will of his Father
and the seal that God the Father put upon him. and the work he
gave him to do by his Spirit." Okay. Then in verse 28 he says,
"'Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work
the works of God?' So Jesus said, Don't labor for that meat that
perishes, but for the meat which endures to everlasting life.
And the Jews understood him to say, that there is a work of
God, which if we could do, would allow us to have this everlasting
life. Something that we can do in order
to have everlasting life. But Jesus said, in verse 29,
Jesus answered and said to them, this is constantly happening,
when Christ speaks, he often first corrects, and then he gives
the truth. And this is what he does here.
This is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has
sent. What a pivotal verse that is.
In Habakkuk 2 verse 4 it says, the just, or the righteous, live
by faith. So it's not what we do. but the
one we believe that is our life. We have life from God, not by
what we do, but by the one we believe. That's what he's saying
here, that you believe on him. whom he has sent. So now what
we see here is that they wanted to do something to get the food
that would give them everlasting life, the reward from the son
of man, but he gives it. He doesn't give it in reward
for something we do. But the work of God that he has
given us to do is not to work, but to believe Christ who did
the work. And so in this we also see not
only does the Son of Man give us this bread, that is eternal
life, but the way that God gives it to us is in believing on Christ. So the food that we receive,
that brings eternal life, that gives
us eternal life, that food is Christ, which we're going to
find out here in a minute, and Him crucified, and the way we
receive that food unto eternal life is in believing Him. All right, so it's not by working
in order to earn, but by believing Christ who by Himself has done
all. And that's a constant thing we
need to hold in our understanding and in our heart. It's Christ,
not me. That's what faith says. And so
we could spend right now a good bit of time on what faith is
and how God has spoken of faith. And perhaps I'll direct you to
just a couple of cases in scripture in order to get that so that
you see this from scripture. Now, first of all, I want you
to see in Philippians 1, verse 29. This is a very important
verse with regards to faith. Look at Philippians 1. I'll give
you a second to turn there. He says in Philippians 1, verse
29, notice the words very carefully. For unto you it is given in the
behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer
for His sake. So first, in the first case,
God gives us to believe, and the reason He does is on the
behalf of Christ. It's because of Christ in his
name for his sake that God gives us to believe on him. That's
the teaching here. And not only to believe on him,
but also to suffer for his sake. He's teaching us that our ability
to believe on Christ is a grace from God. It's not something
that we can produce. And also, so is our ability to
endure suffering. It's a grace from God. And this
teaches us the truth that we delight in, which is everything
God would have His people do, He gives to us by grace. And
He does all of that because of Christ, not because of us. So
that's Philippians 1, verse 29. To you, it is given in the behalf
of Christ to believe on Him and also to endure suffering for
His sake. And then we could also turn,
since we're talking about this aspect of the gift of God, to
Hebrews chapter 12. And in Hebrews chapter 12, in
verse 1, it says this. He's summing up everything he
said in chapter 11 about those who believed in faith. He says,
wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, Old Testament, scripture, testimony of these
people, which were expounded in chapter 11. He said, then
therefore, let us lay aside every weight everything that would
hinder us. You don't run with weights, do
you? You take them off every weight. Let us lay aside every
weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us
run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." So
the Lord Jesus Christ is the beginner and the completer, the
author and the finisher, the source of our faith. And faith
is looking to Him, not considering ourselves, but considering only
Him, and His merit, His acceptance before God, and that He is given
to us for our life, and that our acceptance with God is because
of Him. That's what faith is, looking
to Christ, considering only Him, and trusting only Him, and coming
to God through that, through Him. and knowing that that faith
itself is from him who is the author of it and the finisher
of it. Here again we have that faith comes to us by the gift
and grace of God. And then of course, where Brad
read to us in Ephesians chapter 2, let me just state these again
from scripture. He says that we were dead in
trespasses and sins, we walked according to this to this world,
the course of this world, according to Satan, the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience,
and we all, without exception, had our behavior, our conversation,
our manner of life in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. Then what happened? When
we were like that, Yes, when we were like that, when we were
living according to Satan and according to our own lust, fulfilling,
not only having thoughts, but fulfilling those thoughts of
lust that were in our mind, then God interposed, but God. And when He did that, it was
because He is rich in mercy, And for His great love wherewith
He loved us. When we were like that, obviously
His love didn't depend on our performance. Even when we were
dead in sins, He quickened us, made us alive together with Christ,
for by grace you are saved. And He underscores it. It's of
God, of His mercy, of His love, of His grace. He made us alive
with Christ when we were in this condition in order to prove to
us with convincing power that our salvation is all of grace,
apart from our works in any way, and therefore it comes to us
freely because of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, He has raised
us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus, that in the ages... To come, and this is what God's
going to do while we're in heaven for eternal ages, He will show
the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness towards us through
Christ Jesus. It's always God's grace, His
loving kindness, and all through Christ, you see. And then He
goes on now to sum it up, for by grace you are saved. So you might ask, when we were
like this, living this way, we know something, we have some
sense of our sinfulness. It horrifies us to think back
or even to think of the present, the way our mind works and how
we're motivated to constantly doing things that bother us and
give us great trouble and cause us to cry out. What was the big
change? And people, I remember when I
was a kid, they'd stand up, well, I used to drink, and then I stole,
and I ended up in jail. And on the way there, I murdered
a few people, blah, blah, blah. And now, I got out of jail, I
came to church, I walked forward, and I'm telling you, I've given
you my testimony of how I've accepted Jesus Christ. And I'm
different now, I'm all different now. The trouble is, is I never
felt like I had such an experience of such horrible wickedness and
such a radical change that I could say, yeah, that's me. Because
it seemed like my life was kind of like, you know, just blase,
unimportant, insignificant. But then the Lord began to show
us that we were sinners. And then we wonder, what is this
big change? Now that's what he's getting
to here in verse eight. For by grace, by what God, the motivation
from God Himself, all that God did are you saved by His grace
through faith. This is not, faith is not something
that comes from us. It's not something that we use
as a lever to put it under God and get Him to move in His attitude
towards us and motivate Him to bless us and give us life. That's
not the way faith works. It's not that God does something
different because we believe. No, we have to understand that
faith is God's gift to us to enable us to see and receive
with a persuasion that applies what He said to us personally. So we receive the benefits. of
what Christ has done by looking to Christ as all of our salvation. That's what faith is. A persuasion
from God that what He had promised, He performed, and He is able. It's all on Him, right? That's
what faith does. empties itself of every merit
and comes empty to God, knowing that I am a sinner and yet seeing
that in Christ all of my salvation is accomplished and therefore
certain and sure and with assurance I come looking to Him, knowing
that I was a wretch and God in His great mercy and love interposed
and did what? What did God do? He saved me. And what was the result? Faith. You see, you are saved by grace
through faith, and that faith is not of yourselves. It is the
gift of God. Now, I read commentaries by expositors,
people who are much more knowledgeable than I am. But I am amazed at
how the more it seems that people have in education and intellectual
ability, how they will complicate things so that I can't get anything
out of it. And this particular text of scripture
is one of those in Ephesians. They make it, they try to twist
it so that it says, I actually read this, I told Denise, one
commentator said, what it means is that God's gift of faith,
it wasn't faith that God gave us, it was salvation through
your faith. See how subtly Satan changes
things? It's not that faith is a gift
of God. It's that salvation through faith
that you bring is the gift of God. Man. I hope you hear the hiss there
in the serpent in that. It's not good. It's very, very
bad. It's very, very bad. Anything
that makes you think of faith as an operating principle in
you that makes God do things, that is a lie. But if you understand
faith to be the eyes, the sight given to the blind, allowing
you, like Abraham, to be fully persuaded on the hearing of God's
own testimony concerning Christ, that He gave His life for your
life, and that that's the end of it, what Christ did, and not
something found in you or to be found in you so that you take
in your hand of faith By the God-given grace of faith to the
throne of His grace, and you say, Lord, all I have is what
you offered. All I have is what Christ has
done. And that's it. I have nothing else. That's what
faith does. Just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me. And that's my only hope,
right? This is the work of God that
you believe on Him. Not on you, on Him. If we could just understand that
faith is forsaking and abandoning all hope in all that I am or
might be. It's divesting myself of everything
in all cause for possible glory or boasting and finding all reason
for boasting in Christ by the Word of God. Faith comes. We
don't bring faith. Faith comes to us. by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. All right, back in John chapter
six. So this is the work of God, not
your work, Christ's work. Believe on him whom God has sent
and sanctified and sealed to do what only he could do. In verse 30. They said, therefore,
to him, What sign showest thou then that we may see and believe
thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers
did eat manna in the desert, as it is written. He gave them
bread from heaven to eat." Now in those two verses, the Jews
that were unbelieving, they had followed Jesus across the sea
to get bread from Him. Think about it. Here He did a
miracle. There was no doubt about it.
Taking enough food for a little boy and feeding 5,000 men plus
women and children with 12 baskets left over, clearly that's a miracle,
right? Anyone with eyes in their head
or ears on their head could understand that's a complete miracle. That's
a creation of bread for thousands of people. And yet, they bypass
the miraculous work which would have taught them that this one
before them was sent from heaven. They bypassed that and they chase
him across the sea in order to eat more food. In fact, then
they go on in these two verses, in verse 30 and 31, saying, well,
yeah, in a sense, they're saying, yeah, you did provide one meal
for 5,000 men plus women and children. But what about Moses?
I mean, golly, he gave manna to a nation of 600,000 plus women
and children for 40 years. Come on, give us a sign that
we would relinquish Moses and trust you. Of course, they misunderstood
altogether what Moses was saying, and that's what he's gonna correct
them here. Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father
giveth you the true bread from heaven. And the emphasis here
is on the word true bread, not the bread that perishes, not
the bread that perishes and which those who ate it died, but bread
that doesn't perish. Bread from heaven, true bread,
the fulfillment of all that that bread signified. In fact, the
fulfillment of all that I did in the previous miracle that
signified that Christ would give Himself. That's what that miracle
is about. It was the object lesson set
up by the Master in order to convey to us more understandably
what he was about to say, the words of eternal life concerning
himself as the bread from heaven. And so he says this in verse
31. I mean, verse 32, that Moses
didn't give you that bread. That bread that gives life, that
everlasting life, that's the true bread, and only my Father
gives you that, and that is bread from heaven. Verse 33, for, now
he's being extremely clear, the bread of God is he which comes
down from heaven and gives life to the world. Life to the world. Now, I have some questions here
about this. And it's clear, no one would
disagree with this statement. Unless, of course, you're a complete
atheist. But if you believe scripture
at all, no one would disagree with this statement. that because
of what Jesus said here, that the bread of God is he which
comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Therefore,
or if you go on, let me read another text of scripture to
you here. He says in verse, let's see,
where did I find it here? In verse 53, Jesus said, verily,
verily, I say to you, except you eat, except you eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
No one, based on these two verses, that Christ came down from heaven
to give life to the world, no one, therefore, could say that
anyone can live except Christ died and gave his life for them. You can't deny that from these
scriptures. It doesn't matter what else you
might deny. One thing is clear, unless Christ
gave his life for your life, you cannot live. Right? Isn't that what he says here?
I came down from heaven to give life to the world. I was sent
by my father and in verse 51, I will give, the bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. Therefore, no one lives unless Christ gave his life for
them, right? You can't have life unless Christ
gave his life for you. Well, there's many things that
that teaches us. Number one, it teaches us that
unless Christ gave his life for us, unless he's our bread, we
are not alive. We are not alive unless Christ
has given us himself as bread to eat. And we're actually eating
him. We're not alive. We're dead. And that's why when
Brad read from Ephesians 2, that's our condition. The gospel is,
it starts there. You were dead in trespasses and
sins. You did not have life. Christ
gave his life for your life, and that life is given to you
in believing him. So that's the first thing we
see here, is that unless Christ gives his life for us, we cannot
live. And it's undeniably clear from
the statements that he says here. But what is difficult is that,
well, how, to what extent, to what people did Christ, for whom
did Christ give his life? So no one can live except Christ
give his life for them. Therefore, how are we to know
for whom Christ gave his life? Well, he also answers that. He
says that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink
His blood, you have no life. So those who live are those who
eat His flesh and drink His blood. And that's just another way of
saying believing on Him, believing that His life laid down for our
sins is my life, you see. Why would God the Father send
His Son to give His life that we might live? Well, you say,
well, because we were dead in trespasses and sins. That would
be right. And we couldn't live unless He
gave His life. But why did giving His life fix
the problem of our deadness in trespasses and sins? Because
when He gave His life, He wasn't just dying. He was dying because
of our sins. He took our sins from us, and
He bore them Himself as His own sins before God, and bearing
them as His own, He suffered the penalty of them, and He made
satisfaction to God for them. That's what it means when He
gave His life. It wasn't just like, I'm going
to go out and die. Everyone dies. But he didn't
have a reason for dying. He didn't die because of his
own sin. He took the sins of his people and he died for their
sins. And that's why he gave his life,
to take away our sins. And when our sins are taken away,
then the penalty of our sins also being taken away, we are
given life. And so we see so many things
in this one statement here, but let's go on. For the bread of
God is he which comes down from heaven and gives life to the
world. The question then is, since no one lives unless Christ
gave his life for us, what is this world? How extensive is
Christ's death? Did he give his life for every
individual throughout all time, across the world over? Is that
possible? Well, we know a lot of people
never live spiritually. So if Christ gave his life for
them, then it would have to assume that his life given for them
didn't accomplish life in them. It didn't produce life. And the
reason he came to give his life was a complete waste for them.
Is that possible? No, of course not. God is never
frustrated. It says in Isaiah 14, 24, that
he will do all of his thoughts. In Daniel 4.35 it says, he rules
in the armies of heaven and no one can say to him, what are
you doing? What doest thou? He does his will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. He does everything
he wants to do. In Psalm 33.11, he does everything
he thinks. Everything God wants to do, He
does what pleases Him at all times. He works all things according
to Ephesians 111, according to the counsel of His own will.
Whatever God pleases, that's what God does. So there's no
frustration in God. He never exerts effort without
accomplishing the result of that effort. He doesn't speak and
nothing happens. He says in Isaiah 46, He says,
I have purposed it, I will also bring it to pass. So, whatever
God does, He accomplishes. And whatever Christ came to do
by giving His life, He accomplished. And He came to give His life
to the world. Therefore, He gave His life for all who live. And
He did not give His life for those who don't live because
that would say His giving of His life was a complete failure.
And in Galatians 2.21, if we're justified by our works, then
Christ died in vain, for nothing, useless. He died uselessly, didn't
accomplish anything, if we're justified by our works, which
cannot be, because His faith, His blood, His life poured out
did justify His people. And the argument of God Himself
for His people is, who is He that condemneth? It's Christ
that died. That was the end of it. If Christ
died, no one can condemn them. And also in Romans 8, verse 32,
he says, if God has delivered up and didn't spare his son for
us, he shall much more freely give us all things with him.
So there's no possibility. It's an unbroken chain. If God
the Father gave us to Christ and Christ died for us, the Holy
Spirit will give us life and we will be saved with an everlasting
salvation. And the way we know that is that
we eat and drink of Christ. His body broken, His blood poured
out for our sins, offered to God, approved and accepted by
God, and we are justified by that. All right. And then he
says, so that's the world. The world he gave his life to
give life to is the world of God's elect. Now, in this text
of scripture in John 6, he also shows us that the work of God
is not just the work of the Son, but it's the will of the Father
that preceded his work, and it's the work of the Spirit which
resulted from his work on the cross. Look at this with me. He goes on, they say in verse
34, they said, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Of course,
they didn't understand because Jesus corrects them again. He
said, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. So that faith in Christ, crucified,
risen again, is eating and drinking. And when we once trust Christ,
then we cannot be satisfied with anything but Christ. That's what
this is saying. Once having trusted Christ, there's
no other food that satisfies. There's no other drink that satisfies. But the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
because more and more as the gift of God to us, that gift
of faith is that faith is increased. then what we find is that more
and more I need, I have to have, and I'm not satisfied with anything
but knowing Christ and that He is all of my salvation. In fact, he goes on. He says,
I'm the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. He's gonna
go on and show us that this coming to him and this believing on
him is not like something we did in the past, just one time. But it goes on, it continues,
and we abide in this. He says in verse 36, but I said
unto you that you also have seen me and believe not. So these
were clearly unbelievers. All, notice, what makes the difference
between those who didn't believe and those who do? That's a question. What's the difference between
me and someone who doesn't believe? Why do I believe anyway? Verse
37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. It's not a question about this.
There's no failure. The Father gives, they shall
come. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Can Christ refuse one given to
him by the Father? Not possible. He is not going
to cast out any who were given to Him by the Father. And the
way we know that we were given is we come to Christ. Look at
verse 38. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.
This is why Jesus came, to do the will of His Father. And what
is that will? And this is the Father's will,
which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."
Doesn't that tell us who the world is? He's not going to lose
one that the Father has given to him. Now, is it possible that
God gives some to Christ that he doesn't save? Not according
to this verse. He's going to raise them up at
the last day. Well, then is it possible that some come to Christ
who the Father didn't give to him? Not according to verse 37. No man can come to me except
except all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. So no one
comes to Christ except the ones the Father has given to him.
And all who do come to Christ, none of those are cast out."
So we see that it's the work of God the Father in His will
to give us to Christ, and this is all part of God's eternal
work. God's eternal work is to give
us to his Son to save. His gift of his people to Christ
is something that was done in electing grace. And going on,
he says in verse 40, Jesus adds to that. He says, 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 will
raise him up at the last day. So coming And believing and seeing
all of this is the work of God giving us to come and to see
and to believe on Christ and they have everlasting life. Everlasting life. I used to think
as a kid, that just meant that you lived without dying. and that that would be great.
I can still go out and play with my toys and my brothers and do
whatever I was doing for the rest of my life. Everything's
going to just go on like it always has. I'm always going to have
food, a place to sleep, and everything's going to be great. That's not
it at all. That is not life. That's not
everlasting life. It's physical life. It's temporal.
It's passing. Think about this, everlasting,
what does it mean anyway? I thought about this, I think
I said this on Thursday night. What does it mean, eternal? What
is eternal? We say, well, there's no time,
it just goes back as far as, well, there's no beginning, and
it goes on, and there's no end, so that's eternal. That's not
eternal. Eternal life is, Jesus Christ
himself is eternal life. We can't define eternity as some
abstract concept that mathematicians can quantify. No, Christ is eternal
life. You see, so we can only define
eternity in terms of God. It's like when we say justice,
and we think, well, justice is something, and God is just, so
he conforms to whatever justice is. No, God is justice. Justice is the way God thinks,
it's what he does. And so it is with eternal life.
And so he says here, he that believeth on me may have everlasting
life. Eternally, our life, think about
this. In the world today, all the heat
that we enjoy comes from the sun, doesn't it? And you think
about how massive And you wonder, how is this going to continue
going? Because that fire's got to run out sometime, right? Scientists
worry about this. Yeah, a couple billion years,
it's going to flame out. And we got troubles. We better
start saving money and charging taxes or something to fix the
sun. It's going to faint. Yeah, the sun will run out. Eternal life never ends because
the S-O-N, the Son Himself, is eternal life. And think about
the merit of His blood and His righteousness that that one act
of offering Himself to God with our sins and fully satisfying
God's infinite justice for our sins and fulfilling His perfect
righteousness, that that merits for us eternal life, ongoing,
never ending life that keeps on giving and giving and giving
and never diminishes and never runs out. And that life is believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ, taking from him and living upon him
and and knowing God in him. All right. Verse 41, then the
Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which
came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it
then that he said, I came down from heaven? They understood
what he meant, didn't they? He came down from heaven. Jesus
therefore answered and said to them, murmur not amongst yourselves. No man can come to me except
the Father, which has sent me, draw him. And this is a strong
draw. It's the way that the disciples
would pull the net in to get the fish. It's really drawing. The fish weren't able to resist
and bring it in. This is irresistible grace. This
is dragging. The Father drags us to Christ. That's what he's saying here.
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. It is written
in the prophets. Notice, this is universal. This is universal, he says, and
they shall all be taught of God. Now, what does that all mean?
Well, it means all who are taught of God, doesn't it? In Isaiah
54, verse 13, it says, all thy children shall be taught of the
Lord. He's talking about God's children.
All of God's children are taught by the Father. And what are they
taught? Every man therefore that hath
heard and learned of the Father comes to me. If we are God's
children, if He has taught us, then we learn the lesson. And
the lesson is this, come to Christ. You see? You see how God the
Father is at the origin of our salvation, and that that salvation
is in His Son because He tells us, come to Christ. Not that
any man has seen the Father, save he which is of God. He has
seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say to you,
he that believeth on me hath, has present possession, everlasting
life, and I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna
in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes
down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.
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 life of the world. They all live. All for whom Christ
gave his life live. That's the message here. My life
for the world. And unless He gives us that life,
we don't live. And believeth means not just
a past believing. It means that this life that
He gives to us is ever flowing and producing in us faith in
Christ. Our life consists in believing
on Christ, taking from Him, just like every day we eat food in
order to live. So we pray, Lord, give us this
day our daily bread. Give me Christ. Give me Christ
and Him crucified so that I can know God and hear the words of
eternal life about how He Himself is eternal life and that He obtained
my eternal redemption when He offered Himself to God for my
sins. He took away my sins. He removed
the cause of offense that I produced in God. He took away the wrath
of God and He fulfilled God's righteousness and gives me everlasting
life. And He gives me this through
the faith that he gives. We're taught of God to look to
Christ. And that lesson is something
we learn because God himself will not fail. Let's pray. Lord, evermore give us this bread. Don't leave us to ourselves.
Don't leave us without the bread of life. We know that you came.
and gave your life to take away our sins by the offering of yourself
to God, answering God with yourself for our sins. We know that this
is true. We know that he accepted you
when he raised you from the dead, Lord Jesus. And we know that
you, having given your life for all of our life, that our life
is your life, that we have no life apart from you, that you
are the life. And we pray, Lord, that you would
give us this life even today and tomorrow. and throughout
every day of our life, that we would grow in faith, coming to
you. This is the work of God, ever
coming to you, the one who was crucified and rose again and
exalted to heaven's throne to give us this life, knowing God
in what you've done, knowing God in what you said. Lord, help
us to draw from you, to be drawn to you and draw from you this
life that we have to have. according to your grace, according
to your purpose, according to your own work, according to your
goodness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.