This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. Father, we pray that as You teach
us this morning, that Your Word would be life to us, for it is
life. Father, I pray that it would
be ultimately our joy our guide, our hope. Lord, this life that we live,
we do so, as Paul would say, by faith in the One who loves
us and gave Himself for us. But Father, that's not always
easy. And if we were left to ourselves to come to terms with
how that should look and what we should do, we would fail.
Thankfully, the same Spirit that gives us life It's the same spirit
that sustains us in it. And I pray that through the teaching
of your word today that we would be encouraged. Father, that some
who have not come to here with true ears would be given life. Lord, I continue to pray for
us as an assembly, as a family, that you would continue to guard
us. It would help us not to be shaken when frustration comes
or relationship strife knocks at our door, when illness taps
our shoulder, but that we would have the resolve to forever rejoice
in the finished work of Christ our Lord. And we pray these things
in His name. Amen. Last week I did not get through
the particular portion of the text there, So if you, as you've
heard the word of the Lord this morning in verse 60, many disciples
heard it and they said, this is a hard saying, who can listen
to it? We'll be in that same theme this morning. Now I want
you to understand that this is dealing with the gospel. They
could not stomach and they could not hear the gospel. They could
not come to the place where their minds could wrap itself around
the truth of who Christ was and what Christ has done and what
Christ was going to do. But sometimes even as believers,
and I'll say this in the beginning so we can move on to the text,
even as believers, it's hard for us to hear the truth of Christ.
Because though we are born of the Spirit, though we are saved
by grace alone, all of God, all of grace, we often can become
victims of our own flesh. in that when we want counsel,
when we want advice, when we want wisdom, we want resolution
to the issues of life, and we come to the table and say, oh,
well, what must I do? And some loving brother or sister
comes to us with the word of God, and then we go, yeah, but
I need something else. That is sort of like, I can't
hear this. As I've said over and over again,
the gospel is foolishness. The gospel is from a logical
and wisdom standpoint, ridiculous. Especially when we start to say
that Christ is everything. The old Sunday school answer
that, you know, how many animals did Noah put on the ark and somebody's
not paying attention? Jesus. Because you've been told
that Jesus is the answer to everything. But that won't work in your math
class. But even in math, Jesus is the answer to everything.
Because whether you're good at it or not so good at it, no matter
how well you do or what you're going to do with anything, if
it is not all for Christ, it is all for nothing. Christ is
everything. The gospel of grace is the power
of God unto salvation. Christ, Christ, Christ. Who can listen? See, the mind
and the heart, the knowledge of men, the will of man, as we've
already established in John's writing from the very beginning
of chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, is worthless. Without regeneration,
man cannot listen to Christ. Without being born again, he
cannot hear. There is nothing inside our human
condition that permits us or enables us to hear the truth
of Christ. Nothing. So when our flesh is
alive in some sense, it seems to want to rise up. We know that
what the scripture says is that we have been crucified with Christ.
We are no longer alive, but he lives within us so that the word
of God dwells richly in us and is our power, you see. Peter
would say that his divine power is all that we need for life
and godliness. Jesus is taught very explicitly
in this text of John 6 that the gospel is that God has saved
His people through the work of the Son who came from heaven,
who has the words of life. People think, well, I can't listen
to this message, it's difficult. We talked about what that message
was in detail last week. But there were some there that
were following Him, these disciples that are soon to part ways with
Jesus. These aren't just the multitudes
that we saw on the hillside of Capernaum. These are those who
are in the tabernacle, who are listening to the teaching of
Christ, those who have been following Him around. for some time. Those who would say from a public
point of view before this actual sermon, Oh, I'm a follower of
Jesus. Look, see, I'm walking around.
I'm not going home. I'm listening and I'm learning.
I'm walking in the ways of Christ. I'm a follower of Christ, much
like our culture today. I've yet to meet anyone sort
of in the South who rejected the truth of the gospel in its
totality in that they said that Jesus does not exist. Now, I've
met them all over the country, don't get me wrong, but in this
community, it's almost taboo to say you don't believe that
Jesus is the Christ. So many of his followers would
even concede and say, oh yeah, he is Messiah. He is Messiah. But yet many of them could not
stomach the idea that he was from above and now he was saying
that he was the bread of life. It pushes the envelope with our
faith when we come to this dichotomy of hearing theological truths
that take a work of God the Spirit in order to understand, and our
own cognitive ability, when we look at it and we go, wow, I
don't really get this, or worse, as these disciples would say,
yes, we get you, Jesus. And then when he teaches this
high Christology, when he teaches this particular redemption, when
he teaches this sovereign grace, People don't like that word.
Just like with any word, there are many definitions that can
be ascribed to it. But when I say sovereign grace,
I mean that salvation is all of God alone. And that if God's
grace is given to any human being, that human being is born again
without fail. They begin to see this. Jesus
even asked the question there, well, you think this offends
you? What's gonna happen when you see me ascending? Now, let's
stop there for a second. Is that really offensive to say
someone would ascend into heaven? No. Enoch, Elisha, these people
just ascended into heaven. But Jesus didn't say, I'm just
gonna go to heaven. He says, I'm going to heaven. I've come down from heaven. I
am God. I have come down from heaven and I'm going back. See,
this is where the offense started to rub. How dare he say he came
down from heaven? Remember I gave those phrases
last week. Who do you think you are? Jesus? He came from heaven
for He is the One who is from heaven. He who sits at the Father's
side. The God who is at the Father's
side makes God known. What if they were to see Him
ascend? What if they were to see Him
ascend as the witnesses saw Him ascend into heaven? But worse,
if they thought He was Messiah, what if they saw Him die on the
cross? Even Peter, who was about to give some great profession,
for you have the words of eternal life, will say later in the 10th
chapter, what? You are the Christ, the Son of
God. And then not some time after that, he will say, you do not
have to die. Because surely in our mind, our
Messiah must live. Our Savior must never leave our
side. There must be something wrong
with a Savior who must give His body and His blood for our salvation
as a sacrifice that makes no sense to the unregenerate man.
Not only does it make no sense, the Bible teaches, Paul explicitly
teaches, that those truths in the mind of humanity make us
hostile to God. We hate Him. We hate Him. No one will consider Messiah
as one who is able to die But Jesus will do what He came to
do. He will seek and save the lost. He will save all those
that the Father gives to Him. He will atone for the sins of
all the elect. He will satisfy the judgment of God. And as we
just sang in that song, He will substitute Himself on our behalf.
Friends, do you know that there is a large majority of so-called
evangelicals, so-called Protestants, so-called Christians who deny
the substitutionary atonement of Christ? And it's not that
they just don't grasp it or know the terms from an academic point
of view. When you explain it in clear,
simple detail, you're guilty and you deserve to die, but God
in His mercy gave His Son to die in your place. So therefore,
Jesus paid your penalty so that you could live. And they'll go,
well, I'm a believer, but I don't believe that. Then you're not
a believer. We don't get to pick and choose
what we believe about who Christ is and what Christ has done.
The gospel is the whole work and the whole message of Christ,
including the work of the Father to give those to the Son, including
the work of the Spirit to bring life through the words, including
the work of the Son to satisfy the justice of God. Sometimes I think that people
look at salvation this way, and they'll say, quote, oh, I came
to Christ on my terms and in my own way, and I'm fine. Don't
tell me who Jesus is. I know my Jesus. My faith is
my business. I've had somebody tell me that
recently, to which I responded, absolutely. But you can dream
all the dreams you want to dream, and if you do not know the true
Christ of the Bible, you are condemned already, and the wrath
of God remains on you. You know what happened? They
got angry. They got angry with me. Because
I dared question that the Jesus they were explaining to me, how
they knew it was the Christ of the Bible. Isaiah 53, we know that text
very well, church. It talks about the crucifixion
of Messiah. It talks about the crushing for our iniquities,
for our transgressions, the stripes that would heal the people of
God. But there's something else there that we often forget that
in verse 13 of Isaiah 52. It says, Behold, my servant shall
act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up
and shall be exalted. See, when we see in Colossians
1, we see who Christ is, the visible image of the invisible
God. We see in John 1 that He is the God who is the Word who
created all things. We see in Hebrews 1 that He is
the only means through which God will speak to us today, and
that He makes God fully known, and that He is the only one who
can teach us how to worship John 4. He's the only one who can
show us the Father, period. And so we cannot come to the
table of saying, well, I can see God in my own way. I can
come to Christ in my own way. I can believe what I want to
believe about Jesus. Don't tell me what I'm supposed
to believe. But beloved, we're not telling
anyone what they're supposed to believe. Christ is telling
everyone what they must believe. And we live in a world today
when it's offensive to speak the truth. Mainly because so
many people speak the truth like, Bullies. We should speak the truth in
tears. We should speak the truth with trepidation. We should speak
the truth with humility. We should speak the truth in
such a way that people wonder what's wrong with us. Why are
we so broken? Why are we so joyful? Why are
we so moved by the power of God's grace? Because if it were not
for the finished work of Christ, all of us would die and perish
and be justly condemned by the Father. That's why we should have that
type of attitude. We'll see here, the disciples,
you know, to whom shall we go, Peter says. I'll talk about that
in a minute. To me, that gives a sense of a little bit of an
arrogance. I mean, we're your disciples, man. We're not going anywhere.
As if they had a choice. Well, that's not the God I know.
Friends, you do not know the God of truth if you do not know
that God. Christ will be exalted. He must
die and therefore He is exalted. the name of all names, the name
of Yahweh saves, the Christ, the Holy, Anointed One of God,
who is the Lord of heaven and the Lord of earth, the Lord of
the elect and the Lord of the reprobate, the Lord of the humans
and the Lord of the angels and the Lord of the demons. He's the Lord over all things.
Every hair that falls from our head, every sparrow that falls
from the sky, every wise man that moves from the east, and
every bird that might fly from a faraway land. I might have
got the man and the bird mixed up, Isaiah 46. Either way, the
man flies, so be it. God can do that too. We must remember it's not just
the fact that Jesus is going to ascend, it is the fact that
He is returning where He was before. Jesus claims His divinity. He claims to be God. He claims
to be equal with the Father, speaking the Father, doing the
work of the Father, finishing the work of redemption for His
people. He came from the Father and He makes Him known. So verse
63, that's where we left off. It is the Spirit who gives life.
What are you going to do if you see me going to where I was before?
See, that really just pushed it in some more, didn't it? You
can't hear this teaching. You're grumbling about me. What
are you going to grumble when you see me returning to the Father?
I'm going to prove to you who I am. And you're still not going
to believe, you see. John 12, by the way. Jesus says
that specifically. It's an allusion to Isaiah 6. So here we have, in verse 63,
Jesus giving, and I could do a series of teachings on this
particular passage, and I'm praying about how I might finish out
chapter 6, whether today is the day or we might have a week or
two more dealing with some doctrinal things. But the Spirit, the Word
of God is the means through which the Spirit gives life. Have you
ever had someone tell you that they don't believe the Bible
is necessary for salvation? Isn't that the most absurd thing
you've ever heard? Because Jesus says right here, the words that
I speak to you are life and spirit. The words that I speak to you
are spirit and life. Because if he says, well, the spirit
gives life, his listeners say, I thought you just said you were
the bread to give life. I thought you said your body
and your blood were going to give life. So what is it? Well, you can't believe
because the spirit must give life. This is reiterated Here,
the totality of what Jesus talks to Nicodemus about in John chapter
3. You must be born, again, you must be born by the Spirit. You
must be born from above. What is he saying? You can't
trust in your senses. You can't trust in your heart.
You can't trust in your decisions. You can't trust in your knowledge
and your wisdom. You have to understand, he's
saying, that the Spirit is who gives life. He gives life. and
without Him giving life, there is no life. These words, he says,
these words that are here, they are the Spirit, and they are
life. What must we do to be born again?
We must hear the words of Christ that give hearing, that give
faith. Romans 10, 17. We must hear the
words of Christ. These words, the truth of who
I am, Jesus says, the truth of who the Father is, I am full
of grace and truth. These words are the winds through
which the Spirit brings your dead heart to life. These words
are life. Just as the Word of God spoke
and the cosmos began, so the Word, who is Christ, through
the Spirit, speaks and your new life begins. There is no other
way. There is no other approach to
Christ. There is no other option. Jesus
says in John 5 that He will raise up all people. By what? By His
Word. He will speak to them and they
will all come out. of the graves, sung to be judged
for everlasting punishment, and sung unto everlasting life. All
people will hear the words of Christ. And friends, when we
speak the truth of Scripture, the words and the mouth of God
are being spoken powerfully. Do not forget that Paul writes
in Hebrews 4 that the Word of God is living and breathing and
sharper than any two-edged sword and is able to what? Cut and
prune and poke and slice flesh and bone and marrow and soul. and that God Himself says that
His Word always accomplishes that for which it was sent and
it is going to either bring life or it is either going to continue
to bring righteousness and justice upon those who reject it. So when the Word of God falls
upon this mouth agape and this confused look, And people go, well, I just don't
want to believe that. We haven't spoken it wrongly if we've read
it rightly. But God in His mercy and His
timing, God in His sovereignty has chosen at that moment that
they do not see. It does not mean that they're
not elect. It does not mean that they're
reprobate. It just means at that moment they have not seen. And there's no sense for us to
continue chasing rabbits through all sorts of arguments in order
to help them grasp it a little bit differently. Jesus didn't
do that here. The words that I speak to you are spirit and
life. Our flesh has no power to see this. Our flesh has no power in this
fight to see Jesus, to eat of Jesus, to believe in Jesus, who
satisfies the wrath of God perfectly for all those who are given to
Him by the Father. These words are life. And just
as I give my flesh for you, Jesus says, so as I teach these things
to you, you will live. See, the elect aren't saved automatically
when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and everybody
just goes, poof, oh my goodness, I believe in Jesus all of a sudden. No, God gives life to the teaching
of Christ. It is a supernatural work. We must be given life by the
Spirit. If they, these here, are to see
and believe, this is the only way in which they will be unable
to do so. Not everyone believes, as I've already said, when they
hear. But why? Because the truth is that feeding
on the words of Christ means we cannot take Jesus without
His teaching. We can't look at the historical
narrative of Jesus and say, oh, look at what a wonderful man
he was. Look at what he taught about how to love one another.
Nothing wrong with that. That's part of it. But we cannot
take the actions of Jesus in an objective point of view and
say, oh, there's Jesus, and then we come to a place of deciding
what we like about who he is without taking his teaching,
which is difficult, which is direct, which is absolute. And verse 64, why could they
not? Jesus says, but there are some
of you who do not believe. And then the parenthetical, therefore
Jesus knew from the beginning of what? Everything. From the beginning. When we see
that phrase in the scripture in the New Testament, it is to
imply that in the beginning of all things there was God before
the beginning. God, Jesus, the Son of God, God
the Son eternally, knows who are His because He knows them
intimately. And it is for them that He does
perfectly. Jesus brings back the reality
of what they already know. Many do not believe. He knows they will not believe.
Why? Because you cannot believe apart from the work of God the
Father and God the Spirit. Jesus having just taught them
that He would pay for the sins of all whom the Father gives
to Him is showing that the fullness of the Godhead is at work in
redemption. Now all of a sudden it's not just Jesus, but it's
the Father's work and now it's the Spirit's work, you see. I'm
the bread of life, I give you life, but you can't come to me
without the Father giving you to me, and you can't be given
by the Father if the Spirit hasn't given you life through the Word. God in His fullness, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, He, God, works salvation perfectly
within Himself. It is all of God. The Godhead is not at odds. But as long as people are still trying
to come to Christ on their own terms, they have not believed.
You know what that sounds like? Just to give you an idea when
you're witnessing to people. Well, I believe. You know, I can tell you what I believe.
How do you know that it's true? A better thing to say, well,
the Scripture teaches. Or even better, the Scripture
says. Or even when I like to quote
Paul and John and Peter and the others, I like to say, Jesus
says. Jesus says, and Jesus says, I
love quoting the book of James and saying, Jesus says. And people
will go, no, no, no, wait a minute, that's James. No, that's Jesus.
Because it is all the Word of God. In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen the fullness
of the glory of God face to face in Jesus Christ, who is the living
Word, through whose Word the Spirit gives life, and there
is no other way to salvation except that way. So I can say,
when John writes something, that Jesus said it. Because all Scripture
is breathed out by God. And Hebrews 1, in these days,
God only speaks through His Son. So if God's apostles write a
letter, then it is Jesus' words perfectly. We must proclaim the Word of
God, beloved, because people are continually trying to come
to Christ on their own. People will continue to try to
find a spiritual sense in their lives by themselves. They will
continue to find a way that God would just come to them in a
dream, or in a vision, or in a feeling, or in a sign. Maybe they see it on toast. Maybe
they see it in the sky. Maybe somebody comes to them
and says something, God told me to tell you this. Oh, I believe
now. Jesus sort of mocks that. Behold,
A Hebrew of Hebrews in whom there is no guile. Nathaniel goes,
Oh, you've heard of me. He says, Do not marvel. You believe
you believe because I said I saw you under the tree. He said,
Wait until you see heaven opened in the son of man, angels ascending
and descending on me. Oh, then you will see Nathaniel.
Oh, then then you will know me, Nathaniel. Because I didn't come
here to teach you things. I didn't come here to formulate
a morality for you. I didn't come here to get your
culture and check. I came here to show you God.
I came here to reveal to you heaven. I came here to open up
things that are not open to the natural men. And I'm going to
do it only through My Word. Only through My Word. Natural
words, natural voices, natural ears and eyes, supernatural work. And God gets the glory for it
all. Salvation is all about God's glory. There's a line we sang
earlier in one of the songs, you know, our sins kept Him on
the cross. And I thought, that is true.
But the ultimate end of all that is that God the Father will be
glorified in the redemption of His people. We must proclaim the Word of
God and teach the same thing over and over and over and over. Trusting in the sovereignty of
God alone for salvation. We cannot employ methods outside
of the written text in order to make one ready or willing
to receive and to see and to desire or to understand the Gospel
of Grace. It is not possible. And I have probably had more
hours of conversations in my lifetime on things of philosophy
related to the doctrine of Scripture than I have Scripture in itself.
It's just the nature of the beast. But not anymore. In the short season that I have
refused to do those things, I find people less and less want to
talk to me. But the Scripture says this,
I read that yesterday. Tell me something else," they
would say. Got nothing for you. This is not the case, but in
some sense I feel like maybe as Christians we ought to be
sort of programmed robotically, just like Jesus was in the wilderness.
Here's this idea, Satan says, you can turn these stones into
bread because you're hungry. Nothing wrong with food. Nothing
wrong with eating. You haven't eaten in 40 days.
You have the power to turn these stones to bread. Just do it.
And Jesus didn't argue with Satan. Jesus didn't argue with the enemy.
He didn't say, well, you know, if I do that, then my glory is
going to be revealed and I'm going to be talking to you and
submitting to your desires. This isn't my father's timing
for these types of things. You know, you got to understand
Satan. No, he said, man does not live on bread alone, but
on every word that comes from the mouth of God. What do you
say to that? If you're unregenerate, you just
go... That's how I feel sometimes.
And I so badly want to teach people the truth. I want to just
get in their brain and, like, drill this, you know, hole in
there and go, pour, pour, pour, and plug it up with some glue
and a cork. I want people to understand. But if they're to understand,
it must be through the Spirit. Yes, and there's a place for
good hermeneutics, that's interpreting the Bible. There's a good place
for application, applied theology. There's a good place for all
of that, and we learn that together as we go. But the root and the
foundation and everything that holds it together is the Word
alone, is Christ. We must proclaim it. We cannot
employ all these philosophical and apologetical means to try
to convince people to see. We don't win debates when we
don't just teach the scripture. We know that Jesus died for the
same number that the Father gives. Who are the same people that
the Spirit gives life. And these will come. They will
see. They will believe. They will
eat. They will drink. They will partake. And they will,
let me remind you of the context here, be raised up in the last
day. So we keep proclaiming. And we keep praying. And we keep
praying. And we keep praying. And then He said, this is why
I told you, verse 65, that no one can come to Me unless it
is granted him by the Father. So see, Jesus actually reiterates
what He's already said. You can't come. The Father hasn't
granted you to come. Now I'm going to say this again,
and I've already said it about four weeks ago, or four sermons
back. But many people will argue that
our type of soteriology, what we believe about salvation and
Jesus as a Savior, our theology, the knowledge of God, the study
of God through the doctrine, the teaching of Scripture. People
will argue, these are good, these are academic things, these are
for the intellectual or for those who want to grow a little bit
deeper. No, this is an answer to the commands of Christ. who
says to grow continually in our understanding and knowledge and
wisdom of grace. Why? Because the praise of God
is at the end of it all. This is the point. As we see
the work of Christ, as we see the work of God the Father, as
we see the work of God the Spirit, we are rejoicing all the more
with a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness to God for saving
us, who has snatched us out of the domain of darkness and transferred
us into the light of the kingdom of His Son. So we are no longer
dead and hopeless. We are alive because God has
rescued us. in spite of us, apart from our
desire to be rescued. Because believe it or not, a
lot of us would like to escape penalty, but none of us are desiring
to be rescued in the terms that God is willing
to rescue. So God rescues. The gospel rescues. And the faith of all who come
is due to the granting of the Father. The point I was making
there is that we must teach this truth. It is part of the gospel. You cannot take the fact that
God grants repentance and gives faith out of the gospel message.
When you do, there is no gospel. It's an artificial or imperfect
gospel. When you do, And people come
to Christ in their own way, or in their own mind, or imperfectly.
Friends, let me tell you what they've done. They've decided
in their mind to believe in a certain sense of an imperfect Savior. and they hold fast to that. And
then when the time comes where their faith is tested to show
its genuineness, guess what happens when our faith is tested to see
if it's genuine and it doesn't go back to the effectual work
of God completely? It's a false faith. When our faith is tested and
we find security in our works, when our faith is tested and
we find security in our salvation experience, When our faith is
tested and we find security in our decision for Jesus, we are
not trusting in the work of Christ, so the testing of our faith proves
it untrue. The object of our faith is not
in Christ alone, it's in all these peripheral things. Jesus teaches very clearly, the
Father must grant repentance. The Father must give you to me.
You can't believe because God the Father has not given you
to me. You're not mine. I haven't died
for you. You don't belong to me. That's
what Jesus is saying. And you might think, well, that's
not a message that'll draw anybody. You're right. For the natural
mind is hostile to God. It does not seek after God. It
hates Him. But the regenerate mind hears that, realizes the
truth of the Gospel, is gifted faith, and all of a sudden rejoices
in the great and glorious work of God who saves us in spite
of our deserved judgment. That's why it's so easy to be
sort of Pelagian. And to explain that term, Pelagius
was a heretic. Literally. who believed that
every human being was good until they chose to be bad, in a nutshell. All the academics are going,
oh, that's an incorrect... No, it's just a broad stroke. And that everybody gets a little
bit of grace, and then Arminius took that same idea and said,
well, that doesn't totally sound doctrinally sound, so let's say
that God gives grace to all people, and then they get to choose of
their own free will. That's heresy also. Friends, do we love people enough
to tell them the truth of the gospel? And we don't have to
argue those terms because the terms are so convoluted. There's
so many ignorant people in the world who think they know what
those terms mean. They don't even know the historicity
behind it, nor have they read the source documents or the letters
between these people. They've read Dort, and that's
about the end of it, and they think themselves, I know what
I'm talking about. No, they don't. Do you know what
I'd rather know besides all the confessions and the articles
and the letters? I'd rather know Christ from Scripture.
Because we don't have to go to these historical things to know
the truth of the Gospel. We can see it right here. You
have not believed, for the Father has not given you to Me. It has
not been granted to you by the Father. Are you trusting in Christ today?
It's because you've been granted that by the Father. Worship Him
because of that. There is no other thing that
this life could offer, no other prize that the world could put
on our table, no other opportunity in which we could walk and say,
wow, what a glorious thing that I've chosen this day. There is
nothing greater than the giving of the people of God to the Son
of God. And when we see it, we're overwhelmed with His glory and
His grace. This is why I told you, Jesus
says, This proves my point, Jesus is saying. Remember, I've already
said this. God must will it. God must grant it. God must have
had decreed it. He must have decreed it. Or you
cannot come. All are commanded to believe.
All men, women, and children are commanded to believe. Jesus
never asked anyone to believe. He commands it. But not all can
believe. And when they can't believe,
they're still guilty and responsible for it. Because we're guilty
before the gospel even comes to our ears. We can't rob a bank 20 years
ago and say that we're not a thief. though we've never robbed again.
We can't lie when we're three years old and say we're not a
liar. Because you can't undo the wickedness. You can't be
born under the race of Adam and say you're not a sinner. We're guilty and God is just
in that condemnation. And He's just in the forgiveness
of His people because He killed His Son instead. Verse 66-71. After this, many of His disciples
turned back. You see what happens? After Jesus reiterated this truth,
many turned back and no longer walked with Him. See? Hearing they could not hear. They could not stand to listen
to the truth that Jesus was repeating. And Jesus had a chance here to
do what a lot of people do, right? He teaches the truth of who He
is. He teaches the truth of the work of the Father. He teaches
the truth of the gospel of redemption. He teaches the truth of all the
workings of God for the sake of His people and says this is
where salvation comes and how it comes. There's nothing you
can do about it because God has done everything that needs to
be done for it. Salvation is complete. It's a work that is
already in place before the foundations of the world and it's going to
be completed perfectly. And then they're grumbling. Now
what would we do? Oh, there's grumbling. Oh no. Let me rephrase that for
you. Wait a minute, I don't want you
to grumble. Oh, please don't hate me. Hey, don't leave. Hey,
catch them. Don't let them run. I'll put
it in a different way. Let me give an example. Let me
try to explain it in softer terms. Let me not teach that anymore.
Let me just teach this. Matter of fact, let's talk about
how awesome life could be, and let's just use Jesus as a role
model. Oh, let's put the Bible up. See, Jesus didn't do that. And people will argue and say,
well, if you care about people, you will stop this hard, dogmatic,
theological proclamation, a.k.a. stop preaching the gospel and
the Bible. Because people aren't wanting
to hear this message. No kidding! But only in this message that
they do not want to hear can they find eternal life in Christ. Only in this message will they
find eternal life. Jesus did not back up and say,
okay, let me rework this for you all so that you can stay
with me just a little bit. Follow me for a couple of more
months and I'll help you understand this. No, He just proclaimed
it very simply, very dogmatically, and very authoritatively. He did not placate to their ears.
He did not cater to their unbelief. He did not cater to their frustration
or their murmuring. He did not cater to them. He did not offer an evidential
apologetic to their frustration. He made no movement to encourage
them to no longer be offended. He could have said, hey, hey,
wait, wait, I don't think you're hearing me. Let me explain it
again. If you just believe in my work,
you know, I'm trying to tell you it's my work, you'll have
eternal life. He's already said that. I'm trying to show you
He. No, He didn't say that. He just
repeats the gospel completely again and again and again and
again. He completes, He completely teaches the gospel. He completely
teaches total depravity. He completely teaches limited
atonement. He completely teaches sovereign, unconditional election.
over and over and over and over again, all the time, throughout
the entirety of his ministry, he teaches this over and over
and over, in response to people who get frustrated with his teaching.
They go, well, I just don't get it. You can't get it, he says. And then he teaches again, so that they may have life, so
that God the Father would call the sheep home. When we get to
John 10, a lot of this, the light bulb's going to go off. The sheep
know the voice of their Savior. They hear it and they feast on
it. People leave. Christ has fulfilled
the work of the Father. He has done all that He was sent
to do. He has saved His people and they will believe. Praise
Him, for that was done for you, beloved. These disciples have
been following Jesus, seemingly dedicated. You know, in our day,
we see people in church, we see people here, we see people there.
We hear the words about how good Jesus is and how good God is
and how much prayer He answers and all of these things, but
we see people continually leaving the faith, leaving the church,
refusing sound teaching. And what causes that? It's not
when things are good, right? It's not when we're teaching
something that's a little bit, and I say benign in the contrast.
of this. We're teaching something historically
or maybe a theological thing. Nobody was offended by John 1,
though you should be if you're offended by John 6. It says the
same thing. Oh, the Lord is so good. He restored my eyes. He restored
my faith. He restored my marriage. He restored
my health. He restored this. He restored that. He's doing
so much for me. And then the Word of God comes and conflict
comes and the Word of God comes. I'm not going to submit to this
because I want to be offended. I'm not going to submit to this,
I want to be hurt. I'm not going to submit to this, I want my
own way. Does that old hymn, Have Thy Own Way? I think most
people sang that when I was a kid thinking of themselves. For thou art the potter and I
am the clay, right? I don't even know if it's theologically sound,
the rest of it, I just remembered that, it popped in my head. Well, God molds us through the
teaching of His Word, and we are subject to it as His sheep.
And though it is difficult, we still hold fast to it. We are
not those who would spit in the face of God, even though we may
want to dance a little fit in the process. God brings us back
to this place of knowing Him through Christ alone. In verse 67, so Jesus said to
the twelve, after all these leave, Jesus says, well, do you want
to go away? So we're going to ask that same question of ourselves
this morning. Do we want to leave? See, sometimes people seem to
decide they're dedicated, but then they turn back when things
get difficult. The parable of the sower, Jesus spells this
out very clearly. There's these soils, the rocky
and the weedy, and the birds. And these people look
like believers, but they never will be. And they may receive
in their human condition the Word of God, and they get excited
about it, they get excited about Jesus. You know, isn't it always
the most zealous people that blow our minds when they walk
away so quickly? Street preaching and sharing
the gospel, going to seminary, studying to be in ministry. Next
thing you know, what, they just don't care, they're not living
for the Lord at all. They don't care, they don't want
to hear it. And you try to talk to them later,
and they come back with this idea and all this weird doctrinal
thing, all this weird thing. They've gone out and found teachers
to scratch their itching ears, and they'll find them. They are
out there. According to 2 Thessalonians,
God purposes them to be in the world, and He does so with all
power and wonder and signs so that the reprobate can be deceived,
even when they think they are following Christ. That's hard. That's hard teaching. We've already done that. If you
haven't heard that series in Thessalonians, go listen to it. People slide sideways sometimes.
They're like, well, I'm not leaving the faith. I'm just stepping
out of the way a little bit. I'm going to step over here in this
stream. People tell me, well, I'm not leaving the church. I'm
not leaving the faith. I'm just looking for something
a little different. And then they end up in a church
that doesn't believe what they say they believe. I know the
term doesn't mean a whole lot to everybody anymore, but some
people say, well, I'm looking for a reformed church. I'm looking
for a Calvinistic church. I'm looking for this or that.
I'm looking for a sovereign grace church. And then they visit a
couple and they go, no, that's not what I'm looking for. And that's the problem anyway.
We think that visiting is engaging and understanding. I mean, we
gotta be here a while so we get to know each other just a little
bit. We've got to be here a while
so that we can have the Word of God grow us together. We've got to come to the place
of realizing that even though many people will leave the Gospel,
they'll leave their confession, they'll find another route, they'll
find another sense in which to find their, quote, Messiah, which is a caricature of God
that only condemns, an idol that's made in the image of our culture,
not the true Word of God. When this happens, we cannot
We cannot think we've failed. We haven't failed. And maybe
this hasn't happened to you. Maybe you haven't experienced
this, but you will. You'll think that there's fruit in the life
of some person, the fruit of faith, the obedience of faith.
You'll think there's regeneration. The next thing you know, as you
begin to teach and grow in the Word of God together, these people
will become a little bit hostile, a little bit confused, a little
bit frustrated. And one thing leads to another, and then all
of a sudden, they're nowhere to be found in your life. You know, I thought they were
believers. You know, the worst thing that we could do is to
say, hey, these are believers. Because when you've got a family
member who won't be subject to the Gospel, no matter what they
say with their mouth, if they refuse the truth of Scripture,
they're not a believer. Is it hard? Yes, it's hard. But it's true. Do you want to go away as well?
See, the gospel seals the elect. The gospel keeps the elect. Even
when we forget it was not our will to begin with, as Peter
will do in just a second, he says, then where should we go? The gospel calls and seals and
keeps. Peter answered, Lord, to whom
shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life, and we have believed. and have come to know that you
are the Holy One of God." Now I'm going to close with that
verse. So I'm going to talk about verses 7 to 71, then I'm going
to go back to verse 68, 69. And Jesus answered them, did
I not choose you, the twelve? You see? Peter's like speaking
for everybody like he always does, you know. I bet you Andrew
or somebody was going to speak up, Peter just jumps in there,
we're not going anywhere, who are we going to go to? And they're
going, gosh, we can't get a word in edgewise with this guy. He's
always piping up. He's always speaking for everybody.
And Judas Iscariot is going, I'm glad he spoke up. What was
I supposed to say? Did I not choose you, the twelve,
and yet one of you is a devil? Wow. What's that do there? You know, people have actually
said to me in conversations about this text before in years past,
see Pastor, that shows that God can choose us and we can still
be lost. Jesus chose them to be his disciples
and Jesus chose Judas to be the devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of
Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray
Him." See, service to the Lord did not give these disciples
a place of honor or power. So Jesus goes and says, y'all
want to leave? They're not some special clique.
They're just like everybody else, was following after Jesus in
the same manner, walking in the same path, listening to the same
teaching. You want to stay or you want to go too? Why did He
record that for us? We know why He said it, to challenge
their faith, to help them see that, wow, this is not a failure
in ministry even. Look, I'm going to tell you something,
folks. When you're in ministry and when
things get rough and you lose people, when you're discipling
someone who you think is coming to faith and then they reject
it and they just walk away, this is difficult. When you're on a mission and
you're doing work and you see people with a hunger for the
Word of God and then months later they're just like, oh gosh, here
comes the preacher again. Would you stop with the Bible
stuff? It breaks your heart. And in some sense you take it
personally and you go, what did I do wrong? Nothing. I didn't
do anything wrong. As long as we were true to the
text. As long as we had a love and
concern that is Christ-powered. The people will turn away. People
will leave the faith. And there's nothing we can do
about it except to continually teach the Word of God. When someone
seems to walk away and the Word of God comes as a matter of correction,
the Lord's people correct. The Lord's people come back to
the center. We preserve. We persevere. So the Gospel reminds us that
it's not our bidding that saves us. You want to leave? See, if I were Jesus and I said, you
know what? You can't leave if you want to. Because the Father's
decreed that you all will be My disciples, and even this one's
going to betray Me, the devil. It's not our bidding to stay
with Christ. Though it do have the desire.
It's the bidding of Christ. It's the bidding of God the Father.
It's the bidding of God the Holy Spirit. Service to the Lord did
not give these guys honor or power that the other people didn't
have. They didn't have any extra sense
of spirituality that anybody else would have. They were just
regenerate, all but one. And had Jesus not chosen them,
they too would be utterly destroyed. Jesus in His choosing chose Judas
Iscariot to be the betrayer, the devil, the son of perdition.
We must remember that the gospel is all of grace, all of God,
all of Christ, without which we remain in our condemnation. And as we close this out, let's
go back. Lord, to whom shall we go? To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. Isn't that what Jesus just said? The words that I say to
you are spirit and life. The Spirit must bring you a life.
Life is found here in my words. So, Peter is saying, we know
that you are speaking life to us. What you've said is life.
The only way we find life is in what you've taught us. It's in the place where you've
taught us life is found. Do you see that? So it's always good to push every
evangelistic conversation back to Christ. This is what the Bible
says. Read it. Christ is salvation. Christ is hope. Christ gives
salvation. God the Father grants repentance,
gives them to Jesus, gifts faith. The Spirit gives life. This is
the gospel of grace, you see. And he says, we shall not go
anywhere. But he'd forgotten. That's why
Jesus says after this, did I not choose you? Oh, we're not going
anywhere, and Jesus is reminding him, did I not choose you? Remember
that. You didn't come to me, I came to you. That's why I want to do this
a little backwards. You didn't come to me, I came to you. And
don't forget it. We are affixed in Christ, Peter
is saying. We are sealed in Christ. He has
grasped us. He has paid for us. He has redeemed
us in that He has forgiven us. He has sealed us. And we've been
given to Him. We belong to Him. He will not
throw us out. We have been given the words
of eternal life. and they have been seared into
our hearts and into our minds, and we are cinched in Christ,
we are covered in Christ, we are baptized into Christ, so
we see Him. We hear Him. We eat of Him. We drink of Him. We are satisfied
in Him. We rejoice in Him. Our affection is for Him. We understand Him. We hold fast
to Him. We have believed in Him. We have
come to Him. We have tasted of His goodness
because the Father has granted it so. The Father has given us
a great salvation, a wonderful repentance, A mighty faith. And because of that, we have
come to know. You see? Look at this church. You have the words of eternal
life and we have believed. That's what I was talking about
there. Coming, seeing, drinking, tasting, knowing. And have come
to know that you are the Holy One of God. There is only one
Holy One of God, Jesus the Christ who is Lord. The word Christ,
Holy, Anointed One. And all throughout the New Testament,
and even the prophecy of the Old Testament, we see that it
is God's Anointed and Holy One, the One who has been set apart
by God the Father for a particular and divine purpose, and Jesus'
only purpose in His earthly ministry is to seek and save the lost
of the elect of God. To save His church. To save His
bride. To pay for the sins of His people.
Is that not what the messengers of Luke tell us? You will have a son, Mary. And He will save His people from
their sins. Do you believe in that Christ
who saves His people from their sins? Do you believe in that
Christ who calls a people for Himself? I pray that you do. And if you don't, the only way
you will is to hear the words of Christ, to hear the truth
of the Scripture, that the Spirit of God may grant you repentance
and give you life in Christ alone. Let's pray. We labor, Lord, but we do not
labor in vain. We labor in many ways, and sometimes with so much burden,
we don't know that physically we can stand. But Father, help us to remember
that the battle is not ours, and that even with the burden,
we can stand. because you carry it. The burden
of salvation is on the shoulders of Christ. The burden of joy is on the shoulders
of Christ. The burden of maturity and equipping
and unity and intimacy is on the shoulders of Christ. Father,
I pray for us that we may see intimacy supernaturally beyond
the world's wildest dreams. And that nothing could separate
us from each other because nothing can separate us from Your love
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I pray that those who are
together today, that we who are together would be encouraged
by this truth, would be empowered by Your divine Word through Your
Scripture. And Father, that as we leave
our assembly today, that we would carry the Gospel in our hearts
and minds, and most of all, in our mouths, that we may proclaim
it to the praise of Your glorious grace for the salvation of Your
people. And we pray these things in Jesus'
name. Thank you for listening. We hope that this message has
encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to these messages and
other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.