So they said to him, then what
sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do
you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in
the wilderness, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven
to eat. And Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to
you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but
my father gives you true bread from heaven. The bread of God
is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
They said to him, sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus
said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me
shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall
never thirst. But I said to you that you have
seen me and yet you do not believe. Let's pray. God, how intricate this simple
text is. How powerful, Lord, that through
these words alone, you could save generations. Billions of people. Father, as we hear this word
today, let us not take lightly the reality that it is through
the Word of Christ that you save at your will, at the pleasure
of your will, out of the decree before all of time. Father, this
is the gospel that you've taught us. We are not splitting hairs
with in-house debates, Lord. We are proclaiming life to the
nations. Just as Jesus said these words
to the multitudes before him, following after all of the religion
that they had always known. Father, you are speaking these
words to the nations today as we herald this good news before
them. And I pray, Lord, that as I teach
this and as I look into these words, that they would not just
be words, but we would actually be able to, by your grace, say,
as Peter will soon say, you have the words of eternal life. Where
shall we go? We thank you, God, that you sovereignly
save us. We thank you, God, that you powerfully
sustain us. We thank you, Lord, that you
have satisfied your wrath through Jesus Christ, your Son, the righteous
one. For there is none of us who could
stand before you with any measure of hope or confidence and say
we are the example of righteousness. So we thank you in the name of
our righteousness, Jesus the Christ, amen. Last week we sort of started
this text and we got through verse 32 and ran out of time
because I talked about not chasing rabbits and then I got on one.
So by the Lord's grace we will finish that trail today. I know there's a lot in these verses
that seem to be in our reading. easy to just go through, just
say, okay, we get it. Jesus is the bread of life. We
know what he's saying. Let's just move on and get down
to when he rebukes them all and they leave. Let's get on to chapter
seven. But if you think about it now, maybe you don't feel
that way, but I know it can be that way that sometimes I've
actually been told by people in the years through the last
few years, actually, that, you know, we get this, let's move
on to something else. And it troubles my spirit. Because
the very nature of what Jesus says when He said that, My Father
gives you bread from heaven. When they say, Our Fathers gave
us bread. And Jesus says, No, My Father
gives you bread. You see, just in the English,
just in the grammar, one is a past tense and one is a present active
tense. God is giving the bread. He gives
bread. He gives bread. And bread is
synonymous with life, you see. This isn't for us to be, we don't
have to be philosophers and wise men to understand what Jesus
teaches. He teaches things in such a simple manner that children
can grasp it. Now, of course, we don't have
bread as the staple of our life. Well, maybe we do. But I mean,
without bread, the people of antiquity would perish quickly. Without bread, all the Israelites
would have died immediately, within just a matter of weeks
in the wilderness. Without bread, this day, many
people in third world nations would perish before the sun went
down. We think, what type of bread
shall we eat? Where shall we get it from? Do
we make it at home? Do we grind our own wheat? Do
we just get the bag of flour and do it that way? Do we buy
it in a bag or do we just eat it at the premise of the bakery?
Or maybe this, we'll just go pick up the day old bread for
a buck. I'm tired of plain bread, I'll
get the cinnamon bread. That's my favorite. It's even good on a turkey sandwich.
Cinnamon turkey sandwich. That's like a Monte Cristo, y'all
don't frown. Y'all know what those are. And so we have all sorts of flavors,
all sorts of types. Do we want sliced bread? Do we
want loaf bread? Do we want French bread? Do we
want English muffins? Do we want bagels? Croutons? You see the point? We're so far
beyond the necessity of understanding
bread is important that we can't even think like the people of
the first century. These people were so overjoyed that they had
more food than they had eaten in a lifetime in one meal, ever,
when Jesus divided that bread and fish among them. That all
they could consider is that if this man were our King, what
would it be like? And they had faith in Jesus Christ,
but not Divinely. Not for the sense that they needed
Him. We see the Jews argue with Jesus,
and we'll see some of this as we move on in this gospel, where
in John 8, when Jesus is talking to the Jews, and He says to them
that the slave lives in the house, but not forever. But if the Son
sets you free because the Son lives in the house forever, you
are free indeed. And what the Jews said to Jesus
is, how do we, how is it that we need to be free when we're
not slaves? What are you talking about? In
the same way Jesus is saying the exact same thing in the relationship
to their bread. You come after me because you
were full yesterday, not because of myself. Not because of me. You're not coming for me. You're
coming for what I give you. You see that? And these people
are about to show us, look, they've already shown us. This is like
the third week we've talked about the multitudes. They've already
shown us their condition. Selfish and materialistic. Nationalistic. Legalistic. Religious. All the
good things that really in our culture people would love. These
are outstanding citizens. That makes an outstanding citizen,
doesn't it? But yet, all they wanted was something that Jesus
could give them. And in the same way as he's just
about to say the bread that endures to eternal life, that's what's
on the table, right? Pun intended. Do not labor for
that perishing food. Do not labor for the world that's
passing away. Do not labor to come after me
to get something. Do not labor, labor for the bread
that lasts forever, but not just that lasts, that's what it means
endures, endures unto eternal life. Just like the woman in
Sychar, John 4. The water that I would give you would well up
to eternal life. So just as bread is necessary
for physical life, the true bread, that is the bread of God that
comes from heaven, that is given by the Father, is necessary for
spiritual life. And the cool thing about it is,
the glorious thing about it is, is that it's not a temporary
fix. It's not something that we eat upon and then are starving.
When we eat the bread of life that is given to us, we live
forever. And we never need to go back
into the bread and find it again. We don't have to have a jug of water.
If you knew who it was who was asking you for a drink, you would
ask him for a drink and he would give you living water. Oh, give
me this water. But where's your bucket? I'd
love to have it. And now these people are going to say the same
thing about this bread. And Levi read the prologue of
John because it plays out in this text just as it has in all
the texts before it. And friends, there is a natural
sense in our mind. Listen to this for a second.
There is a natural sense in our humanity, our fleshliness, that
is corrupt. We are corrupt in the flesh. We are dying. in the flesh. When you see the scripture, when
you see Paul say we are being transformed from one degree of
glory to another. We are in the presence of God's
glory. We have seen it face to face
through the scripture because God has given us eyes to see
through regeneration which is salvation. We can see Jesus Christ. That is a state of glory that
we live in presently. But we are being transformed
from this state of glory to a new state of glory. This is not a
transmission of sequence of events. This is not a temporal thing
that is getting better and better. We're not like on an escalator
getting higher and higher. We're on a deathbed getting closer
and closer. So as Paul would say to Timothy,
Oh, come to me, Timothy, bring John Mark. He's important to
me in the ministry. Bring my cloak because I'm cold. Dr. Luke
is with me, tending to my wounds. Bring the parchment and the books
that we've written. Bring some more paper. He said,
for I am being poured out soon to receive the crown of
righteousness that I so awesomely labor for. It's why I breathe. It's why I eat. I am living because
the bread of life is mine. It is mine. This is my gospel. That's what Paul says. This is
my gospel. that God has given me, and His
name is Jesus. And if you believe in any other
way to Christ, except the divine gift of God to give bread, you
will perish in your sin, you see. This is not a debate of
academics. This is not a theological classroom
holler. This is life and death. And oh, our friends and family
who want to dialogue about all these religious things and these
awful things that they think is just this minutia of details
are fading into hell. as we sit with the gospel of
grace. Never, ever, ever think it's
wrong to share the gospel because it may cause strife. Jesus is the bread. And as we see this text unfold, They ask Him in verse 30. Well,
they've already asked Him. Let me repeat what we talked
about last week, verse 28. What do we do to satisfy the
requirements of God? What do we do to do the works
of God? Isn't that the natural response? Hey, we're all working,
and Jesus says, quit working for this. Work for this. And then we ask
the question. It's logical. We're not dumb. It's logical.
Okay, then what does that work look like? How do we work? You know what Jesus is saying?
Stop working. He says stop working. Because
it is not your work, it is God's work. Stop working. If you're
working for salvation, you are never going to find it. If you
are working to follow Christ, you never will. Why are you mad? I'm not. I'm desperate for you
to understand. And friends, some of you may sit here this day
working, working for your eternity. And you say you trust, but you're
working. Your day is met every morning
with a list, with a laundry list of things that must be right
in your life versus faith alone in Christ, who is right, righteous
before God. The natural man hates this message
because it is not measurable, it is not holding, you cannot
hold it, it is not material, you cannot see it, you cannot
touch it, you cannot look at it and watch it work. These people
could eat the bread, they could touch the bread, they could measure
how much was left over. And then Jesus says, stop working
for that. You're looking the wrong way. You're looking the
wrong thing. But without the Holy Spirit birthing you anew,
John 3, remember, you cannot see anything but those things. You cannot see anything but those
things. So in Jesus, when he says, don't labor, then what
do we do? How do we do? And he says, it's not what you do. You
stop doing anything and know that God has done everything.
See, that's what faith looks like. And then they say, our fathers
ate the man in the wilderness. He gave them bread from heaven
to eat. And Jesus says, here we are, I say it was not Moses. See, they're hanging their hat
on the traditions and the history of their people. For those of you who haven't
figured it out yet now, six years in, I tweet my thoughts as they
come to me, and then they end up in my sermons, you see? I
used to do napkins. And then, you know, Thursday
or Friday, I'm going, oh, where did that piece of gum wrapper
go? I really want that thing. And now recently I've been making
those public and they've really stirred the pot. People I didn't even know existed
are coming in like, what are you talking about? It's not Moses who gave you the
bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from
heaven. Now I want you to think about the audience. Let's look
at this for a minute. Let's play this out. The audience are these
people who are dressed up and cleaned up and ready for the
Passover. And they're following Jesus because of His teaching.
And then Jesus feeds them miraculous things to show them that they
are laboring for false hope. And to show them that when you
strive for the material world, you lose. You lose. And that the only hope you have
is that there is a divine work that God has done for you. And
so here it doesn't mean that God is saving all the people
of the world through Jesus Christ. Why? Why does that not mean that? Because number one, it doesn't
say that. It doesn't say that. Because
if Jesus saved every person, every person would stand in glory
with Christ. Jesus only saves the believing
ones. And as we'll see next week, the
believing ones are the ones that God gives the Son. I'll let that sit. But my Father
gives you the true bread from heaven. In other words, here
is Jesus in history standing before them saying, He's going
to say it. I am the true bread from heaven.
Because they're like, well, where is it? We want it. What's going
on? Remember last week, the theme that I was using is that people
are running nowhere. They're all in a hurry. They're
working really hard. They're running a race to nothing.
No finish line. No prize. No crown. No nothing.
And most of the people in our culture are running to a Christless
eternity by thinking that they have Jesus. They're running to
a false God, a caricature of some being that does not fit
with what is described and revealed in Scripture. They're running
to a false gospel, a hope in what they've done, a hope in
the work they've accomplished, a hope in the decision they've
made, a hope in the faith of their own faith. And they're
running nowhere. And we stopped last week by looking
at this, that Jesus has caused them to run into the meaning
of it all, the meaning of life, the meaning of everything He's
been teaching them. And He wants them to remember the wilderness. But what they're thinking is,
at least then we had food. But if you remember correctly,
God put the people in the wilderness because of what? Unbelief. Pharaoh's
army came after them, and they got across the Red Sea, and just
a few short days after that, they forgot. They're like, you
know what, we had nice houses to live in, we had nice food
to eat, we were not starving, we were not hot, we were not
cold. And then they said this to God, have you brought us out,
to Moses, has God brought us out here for us to die? And if
you know anything about a self-fulfilling prophecy, you said it. You said it, you grumbled. Even
when God showed them the promised land and sent 12 spies into the
promised land, Joshua comes back. Two spies come back out of 12. 10 say, these people are giants,
we'll never take this land. And the other two come back and
say, these people are giants, God's gonna give us this land. Watch
this. Unbelief. As we look with physical
eyes, we live in unbelief. We run into the meaning of it
all, and we see here, we want to remember. Jesus wanted them
to remember it was not done by Moses. It was God the Father.
It was God the Father that brought you out of Egypt. It was God
the Father that brought you through the wilderness. It was God the
Father that brought the bread to you in such a way that it
would perish once you'd eaten. Once it was picked up and everybody
had what they needed, the bread that was remaining would just
disintegrate. Just disintegrate. You can't
store up material hope. You can't store up eternal life
in a material context. You cannot have a bank account
in eternity of faith. It is either Christ or it is
nothing. It is Christ or it is nothing. And that what God did, number
one, by putting them in slavery to begin with, and then taking
them out of slavery in the end, was not for them, you see. It was the work of God for the
sake of God's glory, for the sake of God's name. Now people
who are unregenerate hate that. And then sometimes we, as the
church, really don't understand that. We trust in the Lord, but
we see how God works and operates in history with people, and we
think, why does he do these things? Is that fair? Well, let me show
you what I do to teach children in the preschool chapels of schools,
private schools, when I go. I take a piece of paper and I
take a crayon And I say, I am the artist, I have the crayon,
and I own the paper, and I'm going to draw a cat. And as I
start to draw the cat, a kite comes on the page. I throw the
paper away, and I start again. So I'm going to take my crayon,
I'm going to draw a cat, and I draw a... I'm trying to draw
a cat, and a kite draws on the page. And I'm like, what is going
on? This crayon will not draw what I want it to draw. And I
said, what should I do with this crayon, guys? And all of them,
break it! So I take it and I crumble it.
And I drop it. I said, now I'm gonna get a crayon
that's gonna do what I want it to do. Why? Because I own that
crayon. Well, you didn't make it. We
make our own crayons at my house. Sometimes we get frisky, we make
them out of bacon grease. So when they eat it, you know, I'm
just joking, I'm joking. Who are we to say to the potter and call into question the fairness
of what he does with the clay? If God wants to ruin me for His
glory, He will ruin me. You know, oftentimes when I see
the sins and the temptations that befall other men, I don't
just go, whew, I'm glad I didn't do that. But more intimately,
I shudder and pray that God would spare me that temptation. God,
please don't prune me through that. Please don't do that. For what it would do to the church,
what it would do to my family, what it would do to my future,
what it would do, but God, your will be done. If you want to
prune me that way, prune me that way. I don't want that, but your
will be done. God will do with us as He chooses
to do with us. It's often this idea that God
wants us all full and happy. That's not true. But it is true. God wants us full and happy as
His beloved. And He calls us to be full and
happy. And we're full in the sufficiency of His grace in Christ. And we're happy because the overwhelming
joy that is often inexpressible, 1 Peter 1, is unbelievably satisfying. And as long as we're looking,
listen to what I'm saying church, because this is for us. As long
as we are looking to see God work in this particular area
over here, so that we can have a little bit more peace. As long
as we think our peace is bound up in this being paved over and
straightened out, then we'll never see the joy of Christ.
You see that? And I'm not talking about salvation
here, I'm just talking about life. or if I could just get
this under control, if I could just have this health problem
fixed, if I could just deal with this financial issue, once I
get over this slump, once I find that great job, once this happens,
once my children start to listen, or this goes away, or once I
graduate college, or when, when I get that promotion, boy, if
I could just get a new set of tires. It's worthless. It's bread that
perishes. We just have to deal with this
stuff because that's life. The unbelievers have to deal
with it too, but never should that stuff be bound to our joy
and our fullness. That's what Christ is teaching
us here. God gives the true bread to you. He's displayed it to
them. We want it? We want it? What
are you talking about? Wow! You know, we're confused. And Jesus says that the bread
of God, verse 33, is the one that comes down from heaven and
gives life to the world. See, manna was just for Israel.
Manna was just for the Jews in the wilderness. Manna was just
the bread for the chosen of God. And Israel had gotten so myopic
in their understanding, they had added laws and added restrictions
and came straight forward with this worldly mindset to such
a degree that they had lost hope in Messiah at all and had all
their hope and everything they could touch and measure. And we are moving from one state
of glory to another. As we die, as beloved, we are in the state
of glory that we are in Christ. And when my body dies, I get
it all. I get it all. And the crazy thing is that my
body is dying because of sin, not my personal sin. I said that
sometimes. Somebody says, well, that's just
not right. God doesn't make us die because
we sin. No. We are all going to die because
of sin. And we are all going to die because
we all do sin. But even as believers, the curse
isn't lifted on this world. The curse isn't lifted on our
flesh. We will die in this flesh. Our
bodies will quit. Hallelujah. Praise Him. I don't know about you, but the
older you get, the worse it is. Unto Christ we live. No matter what the disease, no
matter what the disaster. No matter how the despair comes
upon us, we live because Christ is alive and we are alive in
Christ. Let our body be removed that we might see the fullness
of glory. And here's the great news is that Jesus, as the bread
of life, not only will sustain us through that transformation,
through that death, through this life, that He will also seal
us for that day of glory, that when we await face-to-face with
Him, to see Him as He is, and then we also will be given bodies
just like His. See, it's not about the spiritual
body of heaven. It's about the resurrection.
It's about intimacy forever. As Christ is raised, so shall
we be raised. As Christ's body is glorified,
so shall our bodies be glorified. We will be not only pure in our
DNA and in our bodies to never die, suffer, be sick, or frustrated,
or angry, or painful, or sad, or depressed, or anything else
ever again. Could you imagine? It's just,
I can't fathom that. But we will. We will never, ever
be tempted again. Ever. We will never be tempted
to hate one another. We will never be tempted to steal.
We will never be tempted to lie. We will never be tempted to just
be sorry and to be slovenly or to be overaggressive or to be
passive aggressive. We'll never be tempted to doubt. We'll never be tempted to be
in depression. Never. Praise Him. Your Father, the Father, the
Father, not necessarily their Father, here verse 33, comes
down from heaven. The Father gives true bread from
heaven, for the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world. Moses was just a vehicle through
which God worked. He is not to be praised. He is
not to be esteemed. Paul is just a mouth through
which God spoke. He is not to be esteemed. Peter,
a preacher through whom God worked, he is not to be esteemed. Stop
esteeming people who teach you about Christ. We live in an incredible
day of self-promotion. Moses did not promote himself,
but they promoted him to the standard that was really the
next best thing. Why do we do that? Why do we
skip God and go to the next best thing? Because we can touch it.
We can see it. We can measure it. We can see
where they walk. The Father gives you true bread
from heaven. He comes down. The Son of Man is the Son of
God. He is the bread of God who came down from heaven and He
does give life, not just to the Jews, but to all people. We sang
it this morning. By your blood you've ransomed,
what? The blood of all men. All types
of men, all nations, all races, all tribes, all tongues. This is not an individualistic
gospel in the sense that it is just for a specific race. The gospel is for the elect of
God, for the chosen, for the church, for the saints, for the
beloved, for the brethren, for the sister. The gospel is for
God's people and God's people are comprised of every nation,
tribe and tongue. Jesus wanted them to see and
believe. In verse 36, you have seen, but
you do not believe. Here we see Jesus saying, I'm
not going, I'm not skipping all that, but we see here that Jesus
tells them to see and they want to see it. Look at verse 34.
I want to see it. Give us the spread. He says,
give it to us always. How, how, how, Blind are you? Don't labor for that bread. What
bread? Labor for this bread. Well, what kind of work do we
do? You don't. God does the work. Well, what
kind of work do you do then, Jesus? You show us some work. That's what he's about to get
to. You show us some work. You show us some work. And then
we'll believe you. Remember the bread that Moses
had? We want you to do that. You've
got to be at least as good as Moses, so you do that. And we
see it, we'll believe it. And they were there for the Passover,
but Jesus is the true Passover. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus'
blood is the blood that matters. Jesus' blood is the blood that
satisfied the wrath of God, that keeps the death angel from us. See it and believe it. Jesus
is the bread. He is the manna. The provision
of God in a temporal sense is not guaranteed. The provision
of God in the earthly sense is not guaranteed. None of us are
guaranteed what we have today will be ours tomorrow. None of
us are guaranteed that those who are with us today will be
with us tomorrow. But Christ will never leave us. Christ is
the forever. Christ is the first and the last,
the beginning, the end. Christ is the one who sticks
closer than a brother. Christ is the one who redeems
and never throws away his people. We'll see all this in the weeks
to come. Christ is the only Redeemer.
Moses was not the Redeemer. Christ was the Redeemer. Moses
was a temporal shadow of the true Redeemer, and His redemption
was temporary. And they looked over God and
looked to Moses. And now they're not even looking
to Jesus, they call Him Teacher, but they're looking, they're
skipping over God trying to find something else, and they don't
even want to look to Jesus, they want to look to what comes from
His hands. See how wicked we are as human beings? See how
ridiculous, if God did not intervene on our behalf, we would be. How
silly and illogical we would argue. Jesus said it very clearly. The bread that comes down from
heaven is the one whom sent from heaven. I'm the one who has been
sent from heaven. Jesus is the true temple. He
is the place where people worship God. He is the way through which
people can know God. He is the face of God in all
the fullness. No one has ever seen Him. But
the God, in that verse that Levi wrote this morning, laos, it's
actually theos, the God who sits at his side has made him known. Jesus is the temple. Jesus is
the ark of the covenant, the mercy seat. He just like Jacob
with the ladder that was open and he saw angels ascending and
descending. We've already heard those very
words from the mouth of Christ. You think you've seen something?
Cause I said, I saw you under the tree. You've seen nothing. Wait until you see heaven opened
and the son of man ascending and descending upon the earth
and into heaven. I'm going to open heaven for
you. God the Father has opened heaven to you. And the only ladder
that matters is me because I'm the only ladder that goes there.
Somebody told Nicodemus, the reason you cannot understand
what I'm saying, Nicodemus, though you've got the PhD of PhDs in
theology, the reason you can't understand what I'm saying, Nicodemus,
is because you've not been born of the Spirit. You're still living
in your physical flesh without a rebirth, without a new birth,
without regeneration, without conversion, without salvation.
All that is the exact same word. And you're living in that because
the flesh can only understand the things of the flesh. But
you can't even understand the things of the flesh. When I talk
about water and birth and all this, you're like, what? I don't
get it. How does that work? How are you going to understand
spiritual things? The only one who understands spiritual things
is the one who comes from spiritual places. The one who comes from
heaven knows heavenly things. The one who comes from the Father
has the mind and the will and the mouth of the Father. The
one that does the work of the Father is the one who is doing
the right work. And I, the Son of Man and the One whom God has
sent, I am the true bread of God that has come down from heaven
to show you I'm the latter. We get it. John 3, Deuteronomy,
I'm the snake. Four years ago, at First Baptist
Church here in Claxton, I preached the Good Friday Sermon with a
week of celebration for Easter, and I preached a message from
John 3 to that title, Jesus is a Snake. My father goes, son,
I don't think I'd say that. And I preached it. And people
were in awe. Because I only had like 28 minutes.
I took 34, 35. So I didn't have any time to
introduce anything. I just opened it up and said,
open your Bibles to John 3. And I read it and I talked like
I was auctioning off the Micro Machine Man stuff. I mean, you
know, I dated myself on that one. You know that guy, the rapid
talker. And when I got through, I mean,
there was just an overwhelming, oh my gosh, that was just the
most powerful thing I've ever heard. And all I did was just talk about the
scripture. Just exposit it very quickly.
I said, yeah, Jesus is a snake, and some people are looking at
me, and oh, this is, you just got right into it, and it was
just so overwhelming, it was like a floodgate, like somebody had
drowned us. Things like this, like water was just being poured
in my soul, I just, that was the things that I heard, and
these same people this week, some of the same people this
week, are fighting against the gospel of grace. Publicly. Jesus is the snake that was lifted
up. That what if you believe and
you look upon him and believe in him alone, you live. Jesus is the bread that fills
and stays filling and gives life and never fails. And he gives
this to his children who are all people groups of the world. And he tells them this. And He
says in verse 34, they say in verse 34, give us this bread,
please give us this bread. Okay, we hear what you're saying
now, now give it to us. And so to make it clearer in
verse 35, He says, I am the bread. Here I am. Believe in me. I am the bread of life. Whoever
comes to me. If you have an old English or
a new King James, it might say whosoever. Same word, whoever,
whosoever. Whoever comes to Me shall not
hunger. Whoever believes in Me shall
never thirst. But I say to you that you've
seen Me, yet you do not believe." Look at this. They desire to
have this bread. People come to Christ all the
time, don't they? I mean, walk around, leave service
today, and go out into this community, and go to a restaurant, and walk
in, and everybody at the restaurants, even Taco Bell, will have come
from church. Because those who don't go to
church, they sleep late, they're gonna eat about 1.30 or 2 o'clock,
or they got up and ate brunch at 10 or 11. You'll find church
people, you'll see them dressed up, you'll see them dressed like
us, you'll see them in all shapes, sizes, color, all sorts of things. You can go up to any of them
and you can ask this question, ask it like this, it's not necessarily
a good question to ask, but do you believe in Jesus Christ?
All of them, absolutely. And you might get a resounding,
God is good, and all the time, God is good. And back to it,
if you get that started in a public place, it's like the wave of
the Braves game. Would you just sit down? You're
like the one guy sitting there like this. And everybody's hopping
up, going, oh gosh. Thinking my Bonnie lies over
the ocean at a youth camp or something. Up and down and up
and down. What's the point? The point is
everybody that I know with short exception in proximity of my
house, believes in Jesus Christ by their own mouth. But yet none
of them, none of them that I talk to in an evangelistic way every
week, none of them ever give me the right answer to the gospel. None of them hold fast to the
divine work of God through Jesus Christ as their hope. Jesus saved the people of God
and satisfied the wrath of God for them. And he did so through
his obedience and the incarnation as a human being. And he did
so through his sacrifice on the cross. And he did so through
the resurrection of his body from the dead. But what people do is they say,
well, I believe in what Jesus gives me. because I can touch
that. See, Jesus didn't, through His
life, death, and resurrection, create this substance called
salvation. I want you to hear what I'm saying
here. Jesus didn't create salvation
and He's got it out here going, here's salvation, anybody? Oh,
here's some for you and some for you. Oh, anybody else? Like
a parade and throwing candy. Jesus is salvation. Salvation
is not a substance. It's a person. His name is Christ.
Jesus is salvation. It's not a provision of God.
It is God. It's not bread you eat. He is
the bread. He is what you eat. That's why
He goes to the absurdity to say later, even me, take a chunk
of my flesh and drink the blood out of my veins. And they're
like, man, He has lost His mind. We, by the grace of God, because
we've been converted, understand that. It's not mystical. It's
not mysterious. It's very simple. He's hardlining
the reality that if you're looking for something from me, you're
missing me. You see? They wanted something rather
than someone. They could not see Jesus was
speaking of Himself. Even later, He makes the meaning
of this abundantly clear, and they what? They refuse Him. Give
us a spread. See, that's the cultural Christianity
of our day, friends. These aren't pagans who are worshipping
false gods and multiple gods and all sorts of crazy stuff.
Those people believed in Christ. These are people who have been
given the Old Testament that pointed to Christ completely.
And they could not see. I'm the bread of life. Quit looking
for imperishable physical food. No, we want the magic physical
food. See, that's what they wanted, the magic physical food. Like
the woman in the sidecar wanted the magic, magical physical water. I want the real water that I
can put in my mouth and quench my thirst. I want to feel water.
I want to feel bread in my stomach. I don't want to feel the hunger
pains. I want to know. So give us the magic bread that
never stops and give us the magic water that never stops. And Jesus
says, I'm both. I admit, you're looking at him.
Ta-da! And everybody's thinking, man,
I want a refund on these tickets. Glad we didn't pay. At least
they fed us. See, that's what most people
do in the economy of our spiritual lives in this world. At least
they feed us. I had to sit in there listening
to about Jesus for 25 minutes. At least they fed my kids. My
wife and I could take a nap. Go to Taco Bell without them.
This is the life of most church people. At least I didn't have
to deal with that. At least I didn't have to deal
with this. At least I got that free book. That was nice. Oh,
we got that free photo session for the directory. That was nice. Man, is he done yet? I really
want to go clip my toenails. I hate to be so cavalier, but
that's exactly how these people are. I'm the bread of life. Okay,
give it to us then. Oh, you're the bread of life?
Jesus, you're not hearing us. See, this is sort of what they're
saying. You're not listening, Jesus. Hey, hey, Jesus, shh, simmer
down now. We want what you're talking about.
And you keep saying, it's me, it's me, it's me. No, no, no,
we know you've got it. Give it to us. It's me. We got it. Jesus, you came from
God and he sent you a bag of bread and we want that bread.
Why are you belaboring that? Because that's what the text
does. It's over and over again. It's back and forth. It's back
and forth. It's back and forth. Why is it recorded that way so
that it would be taught that way? So that you would sit here
like a ping pong match. Where's the punchline? There's
no punchline. That's the point. Where's the resolution? It never
resolves. That third never comes down.
That fourth never comes down. That second never goes up for
the musicians in the room. It never resolves. It's always
intense. It's always dissonance. It's always conflicting. It's
always a rub. There's never a... Oh, wow, finally
got what we were looking for. No, Christ is what we're looking
for. Christ is what we need. Christ is our only hope. We must
not feed on the world. We must not feed on religion.
We must not feed on practice. We must not feed on good living. We must not feed on morality.
We must not feed on traditions. We must not feed on experiences.
But we must feed on Christ. And the question, of course,
like they ask, what must we do to feed on Christ? What must we
do? We cannot do. Yes, practically we feed on Christ
through the Word of God. Practically, when we obey the Lord through
the teaching of Scripture that says, do not forsake together
the gathering, together as some are accustomed to doing. We feed
on Christ when we come together. We feed on Christ when we are
intimate in prayer. We feed on Christ when we're
learning through the Word and we're singing the Word in song.
We feed on Christ in those ways. But there's really nothing we
can do except trust that Christ is enough. He did the work. When we're born of God, it causes
us to be able to know that Jesus started and continues our life.
Whoever comes, this is where we are, whoever, I am the bread of life, whoever
comes to me, whoever believes in me shall never hunger or thirst. But I say that you have seen
me and yet you do not believe. Imagine how frustrating this
was. Because you know what these people
were? Hungry and thirsty. They were hungry in their bodies
and they were thirsty in their bodies. And they thought, wow,
we could follow Jesus to Capernaum and He could do this again for
us. And maybe we could make Him king,
as we saw on the other side. Maybe we could get what we really
need. We're hungry and thirsty. And
these people were amazed at what Jesus did, and they were frustrated
at what Jesus would not do. Do you hear that? They were amazed
at what He had done, and they were frustrated that He would
not do it again. He wouldn't do it again. You
ask for the bread, and you've taught us that you are. We've
asked you for the bread, Jesus. You've taught us that you are
the bread. Now we want it, and then you say, I'm the bread,
and we want it again, and we say, give it to us, and then
you keep saying you're not believing in me. Aren't we telling you
we know that you have bread of life? Are you seeing the correlation
of where I'm going? Were so many professing Christians,
well, I know Jesus alone is salvation. I know Jesus alone has eternal
life. I know it's all the work of Christ. I know it's faith
alone. I know it's grace alone. I know it's Christ alone. I know
that Jesus is the only way. It's what I call the yeah-but
heresy. Yeah, I believe that, but you
see, where is that? Where is that in Scripture? What
heresy? The yeah, but heresy. Christ
alone, and then somebody responds to me, yeah, but what about this? Yeah, but what about this? Yeah,
but what about this? What about doing this? What about
believing that? What about all that? What about this? Yeah,
but you're lost. That's what I tell them. And
then they think I'm rude because I'm telling the truth. And the
only way that they'll be saved is if I speak the truth to them.
not love on them, not coddle them, not make some magic bread
and give it to them for just a little while. Let's just keep
them on the hook just a little while longer. You know what happens to people
you keep on the hook? They run away when you stop hooking. Why? Because they're not born of God. It is faith alone. It is plainly
believing. Now here's the problem. These people could see His true
essence from a distance. They knew that He was divine.
They knew He fulfilled the prophecies. They knew that He had come from
God, but they could not trust in Him. Therefore, they could
not eat of Him. So eating of Jesus is having
faith in Jesus. Eating of Jesus is trusting in
Jesus as the sufficient bread. They wanted their stomachs full.
They wanted their mouths quenched. They wanted their thirst to go
away. And they were willing to get
it from Christ. Just like many people are willing to get their
eternal ticket punched out of hell. Okay, I don't want to go
to hell. Let me believe in Jesus. What must I do? Nothing. Nothing. You just believe that Jesus did
it. And I know it may seem to you that I'm splitting hairs,
but I'm not the one splitting hairs. Jesus is the one splitting
hairs. And a while mentor of mine told
me, don't ever use Jesus as the example because they won't hate
him, they'll hate you. Use Paul or James or somebody.
I'm like, well, they're still going to hate me. You don't hate
me, but most people do. Because the message of the cross
in its context is a hated message. It's easy to say there's a God,
and He created everything, and He loves everybody, and there's
Jesus who died and suffered because He loved you so much. Would you
come? Who doesn't come to that? Everybody comes to that. Everybody. That's just an issue of pride. The only thing keeping you from
that is to stand up and be counted. That's just an issue of pride,
not wanting to look foolish. But if one of your buddies stands
up, you'll stand up with him. And that is almost the totality of
evangelism in our world, in our country, since the late 1800s. And it is demonic. See, it's statements like that,
James, that get you in trouble. No, it's statements like that that
cause the sheep to shudder when they're goaty. When they're being tempted, like
the Galatians, to trust in something else. And if I were to share with you
my email inbox and my Facebook inbox and my Google voice text
message inbox, it would blow your mind. It would blow your
mind at the thousands of messages a month I get. And out of, let's just say a
hundred, five will be sincere. The rest of them are just either
trying to get us to support them in their orphanage somewhere
on Mars, or, I'm serious, or something crazy like that. I
had a universalist reach out to me yesterday, I don't know
what that was, hello brother, I'm a universalist, here's my
website, let's connect. You have not looked at my website. But most of the others that are
sincere are people who are stuck. People who are stuck in other
parts of the country, in other parts of the world. Spoke to a woman
from Nigeria online this week who has been excommunicated from
her church because she wore trousers last week. Done. People who have been starving
to death in this church, and that church, and this church,
and what's crazy about it is I talked to another man this week who's in
San Antonio and come to find out he's been in a church that has really caused him great
grief because he believes in the sovereign grace of God and
salvation and this church is considered reformed and Calvinist. Because he will not concede that
the proof and the assurance of our salvation is our personal
holiness. He won't concede to that. So
they've made it hard on him. He's left the church. Do you know
of any churches in San Antonio, he says. I said, yeah, I do.
Let me send you some places. Oh, that's where I just left. Man from Missouri last night,
please pray that God would plant a church here. Please. Australia, Clarksville, Tennessee,
just this week. Are y'all planting churches here?
What are we going to do? We're just going to continue
and God will raise people up. And maybe some of you will leave
and go into those places and plant churches. We love you and
I'd rather lock the doors and we'd all be happy, but we're
about the Lord's business, not our own. What's the point? You've got
to trust in Christ alone. You've seen me and yet you do
not believe. You've rejected life because you do not believe.
You've rejected the satisfaction of life because you have not
believed. You've rejected salvation because you have not believed.
You reject grace because you have not believed. You are dead
already and you remain dead because you do not believe. People want
all sorts of things from Jesus. And I find the direct application,
I've already said it, I find the direct application in our
culture that people are looking for a salvation that they can
have rather than a Savior. They want to escape judgment.
They don't want to be satisfied in Jesus. Why could they not
believe? All you got to do is believe.
Well, the question is, how does a man believe in Christ by faith?
How does a man accept Christ by love? How does he trust in
Him and hope in Him? All of this is the work of God. And I used to believe, 12 years
ago, I used to believe very strongly, I almost said hard-hearted, a
little bit hard-headed, that I didn't need to say stuff like
that. But you know what that means? That I wouldn't preach
the full counsel of the Word of God. That I would go through the Bible,
and where those strong passages are so numerous that if they
were taxed in the floor, you'd be screaming. Like rat traps,
you know? because I thought that the gospel
was just something to be offered and received that Christ accomplished,
which is not totally false. But the gospel includes that
it's a divine work of God. Because what that does is it
takes all the boasting away. Well, how are people going to
come to Christ and believe and have salvation if you tell them
that it's a work of God alone? Hallelujah! That's what the Bible
teaches about it. Because if there's anything we
can do to believe, then we will hold on to that thing that we've
done to believe. If we're still trying to figure
out what we can do with the knowledge of the gospel, and how we can
make it effectual for us, we're still lost, without hope, or
confused, and immature. And I pray that through the teaching
here, you're not staying immature. I don't know how you could. That's
not a boast, I'm just saying the Bible, God teaches His people.
As long as we stick to this, you should grow. The reason that
they could not believe is because they had not been born again.
They had not been born again. And
beloved, there's not a whole lot we can do outside of that. but teach people
the truth and that through that truth, through that truth, God
would save His people. And that through Christ, the
church would be in unity. The church, listen to this, would
be in unity. Not in anything but Christ. There's a lot of differences
among us. A lot. I mean, just look around. A lot
of differences in every aspect of life. There's a lot of differences
in the nuances about what we believe in some things that the
Bible teaches. There's a lot of things that we're ignorant
of and a lot of things that we're just clouded by. But we cannot
be ignorant and foggy with the gospel. And either what we believe
is the gospel or the Word of God is not reliable. has satisfied the wrath of God.
And as Paul was teaching Romans, turn with me to Romans chapter
8, and I'll say this and then we'll close. I was told some five years ago,
yeah, that's y'all's verses. I'm like, what? That's you, you
sovereign grace guys, that's y'all's verses, Romans 8. I'm
like, don't you read Romans 10? 9? 3, 2, 1, John, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
we got the whole Bible buddy, you better back up, I don't know
what you're reading. Romans 8, verse 28, this grand golden chain
that we all like to go to, let me show you how this correlates
to what we've learned in John thus far. that for those who love God,
all things work together for good. For those who are called
according to His purpose. Those who are called according
to the purpose of God, God calls us all things to work together
for good. For, the calls, that's what that means, Because this
is why this is true. Because those whom He foreknew,
the Greek word there means choose. Those He chose. There is no such
thing as a knowledge of what man will do in his own volition.
And I'm not going to get too dogmatic on that this morning
because I have friends who I'd like to be continually ministering
to until they reject it. Foreknowledge is a choice of
God. It's an intimate choosing of
a relationship. God chose, for those whom He
foreknew, He also predestined, this is a plan of God, it's a
destiny that He has established and planned out. So God chose
some people and then He planned for them to be conformed to the
image of His Son. Why? So that the Son would be
glorified. Jesus prays in John 17, glorify
me now as I have glorified you. Return to me the glory that I
had before. And Jesus is glorified in order
that He, the Son, might be the firstborn among many brothers.
He's the standard. He's the Savior. He is over all
the church. It's a statute of preeminence.
The firstborn is the man who gets it all. They're 75 sons. The firstborn is the ruler of
them all. That's what that means. So God chose His people and planned
for them to be conformed to the image of His Son in order to
glorify the Son in His preeminence as the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined,
He also called. And those whom He called, He
also justified. And those whom He justified,
He also, here it is, glorified. God planned to glorify His people
in order to give glory to the Son by making them like the Son. It has nothing to do with our life
today. It has everything to do with what we've been promised
by God for eternity. Glorified. We will be glorified. Friends, if God knows you, He
will call you. And if He has called you, I'm
getting ahead of myself in John 6. Those of you who are reading
it, you know where I'm at. The very next verse. Look at it. Verse 37, All that the Father
gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never
cast out. Your hope of eternal life is
not in you running after Jesus. Your hope of eternal life is
not in you figuring out how to apply all the knowledge of the
gospel. Your hope of eternal life is that Jesus Christ alone
is your hope of eternal life. And faith is not come from answering
the question, what must I do? But faith reveals that we should
do nothing because God has done it all. God has done it all. Trust in that. More than that, trust in Him.
Let's pray. We love you. We praise you. We
look forward to the day when we will see glory just as you
have promised. And Father, now as we look at
your word and as we have it in our hearts and in our minds,
let your glory shine through in such a way that We would be
stopped in our tracks. We would be in awe. We would worship. Lord, help
us to be gentle and patient and kind and loving. Lord, willing
to teach others and endure evil. Sometimes people come after us
and they're so hateful. Lord, let us be willing to endure
evil as we instruct those who are willing to learn. Help us
to have the wisdom to know when we should stop. But God, to never
stop praying that you would save the lost. Lord, we thank you, God, for
just the freedom. God, we thank you for your sovereignty in assembling
us together today. Lord, I pray for those who were
here last week, some of which you have asked about the gospel. Lord, I pray that you would burden
them to be back in fellowship with us. I pray that you would
keep us all together, that you would draw those stray sheep
of our fold into the fold, Lord, that you would draw them back
into fellowship with us, Father. That you would give them a peace,
that you would help them see that they're loved, not just
by us, but God, most of all, by you. Lord, that you would
help us to speak the truth in the world. In every way possible,
Father, to exclaim and proclaim the gospel, the good news that
you have satisfied, you are satisfied through the death of Jesus Christ.
And that we have no condemnation awaiting us as your people. But
Father, we have life everlasting. Let us sing of this amazing grace.
In Jesus' name, amen.