but just as a reminder, last
week in John chapter 5, we saw four witnesses to the ability
of Jesus Christ to save his people to the uttermost. Four witnesses. Why do we believe that this man,
this ordinary looking man, is able to save me from my sins,
to give me eternal life? And we saw four witnesses. First
of all, and this isn't necessarily the order they appear in the
chapter, but there are preachers symbolized by John the Baptist.
And what did John the Baptist say? Behold the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. And that's what preachers say.
You can tell a true preacher if his message is behold the
Lamb of God. There's no other message. I don't
have any other message. I've got no message to tell you
how to live or how to behave or what to do or what not to
do. Not at all. You'll be taught of God those
things. I have one message. John the Baptist's message. Behold
the Lamb of God. And that's what preachers do.
But they don't do it in isolation because they use the second witness.
They themselves are the first and they use the second witness
which is the Scriptures. Search the Scriptures, said Jesus,
for in them you think you have eternal life and they are they
which testify of me. What's this book about? Oh, it's
about David and it's about Abraham. No, Jesus says this book's about
me. it's all about me and beginning at Moses and the prophets those
disciples on the road to Emmaus he preached to them he expounded
to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself
because that's what this book is about a wonderful book this
book is unique this book is timeless this book is absolutely in a
league of its own compared with every other bit of human literature. It's in a league of its own.
I love the works of Shakespeare. I love the poems of Wordsworth.
But I'm telling you, this book is a pinnacle on its own that
the others don't even come close to. They don't come close. This
book is unique, for it testifies, it's a witness, to Him, to Jesus
Christ. And then thirdly, what does it
tell us? It testifies of His works, of His miracles. And so
what? Is this just telling us that
there was a good conjurer? doing tricks around Palestine
in those days. No. It's telling us who he was.
The Son of God. God come in the flesh. The God-Man. That's who it was. It authenticated
his words. Because who could do these things,
they said. When Messiah comes, the blind will see. The deaf
will hear. The lame will walk. All of those
things happened and he said to that man at the pool of Bethesda,
take up your bed and walk and immediately He walked. The works,
but not just the works of miracles, but the works of redemption.
Christ came to earth to work redemption for His people. It
says, for God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, on behalf of His people, walked this earth and where they
could never earn righteousness, He earned perfect righteousness.
And then In the garden of Gethsemane he was loaded with the sins of
his people and he sweat as it were drops of blood and he bore
those sins to the cross of Calvary and he suffered the wrath and
justice of God and he paid the sin debt for his people entirely. For every one of those people
whom the father gave to the son from before the beginning of
time that great multitude which no man can number but of which
the scriptures are absolutely clear. He finished that work.
He cried on the cross it is finished and God vindicated it. because
he raised him from the dead so that he was delivered for our
transgressions and raised for our justification. And then fourthly,
this book testifies to the fact that this was no ordinary man,
that this was God in human flesh. We saw all of those witnesses
to the Godhood that he shared with his father. This is the
infinite God and thence, because of that, he is able to save to
the uttermost. What a perfect man could never
do He did because He's the infinite God in a perfect man. And many
saw. Many saw what He did. Many saw
the miracles. But few truly believed. Very few. And we come to John
chapter 6. And we'll probably spend some time here. I know
it's a chapter that we're familiar with. But there's so many riches
in this chapter. This is coming up to the third
Passover of the ministry of Jesus. We've seen two of them already
and here in chapter 6 verse 4 and the Passover a feast of the Jews
was nigh it was probably about a month so probably some 10 or
11 months after the events of John chapter 5 and in John chapter
6 it's the third Passover of his ministry that's about to
happen now John chapter 6 is 71 verses you say well that's
artificial because It was a monk that divided the Bible up into
verses. Well, so it was. Generally speaking, his divisions
are very, very useful and they help us to find things. I can
say, turn to John 6, 29 and we all end up looking at the same
few words. So that's a good thing. That's excellent that the Bible's
been divided up into chapters and verses. But as chapters go,
John 6 is a very long chapter. 71 verses. It's profound. It's deep. It's awesome. Who can plumb the depths of this
chapter? It's full of the power of God in Jesus Christ. It's
full of the glorious, gracious person of Jesus Christ. And it's
full of the doctrine of Christ and of salvation. In the first
few verses, the first 14 verses, He feeds 5,000. That was the
hymn that we were singing. Break down the bread of life
as you broke the loaves by Galilee. There it is, the feeding of the
5,000 in the first few verses. And then from verses 15 to 21,
He walks on the sea, on the stormy sea of Galilee. And we have a
cut down version of the much more detail that Matthew gives
us about Peter walking on the water to Jesus until he started
looking at the waves. So he walks on the water and
then he talks about the bread of life. And he talks about his
gospel and his doctrine of sovereign grace. And we see man's reaction
to it. That's what this chapter is about.
It's about Jesus. He who came down from heaven
to give us the authentic message of eternal life. It's about him
telling us what that message really is. And if you look at
it, and you really do study it with an open mind, you'll see
how different it is from that message which is proclaimed as
the gospel of Christianity in these days, which is not a gospel.
As Paul says in Galatians, which is not a gospel, it's another
gospel. It's a futile, weak gospel. It doesn't save anybody because
it's full of man's works. We see human nature here in relation
to religion. If we see nothing else, it's
a very good study in that. We see at the start of the chapter,
oh, wouldn't you like there to be crowds? Wouldn't you like
there to be enthusiastic crowds in Nedworth coming to the sound
of the gospel? I'd love it. I would love it. We all would
love it. Be honest, we'd love it. But listen, this is how fickle
the human heart is. And it's just the same today
in 2010 as it was then. A multitude enthusiastically
ran after Jesus. Wouldn't we love to see that?
Do you know how many were left at the end of the chapter in
verse 71? There were 12 of them and Jesus
said, and one of you is a devil, speaking of Judas Iscariot. A
multitude. Wouldn't you say, this man should
have gone to a modern Bible school. This man, Jesus, should have
gone to a modern college to be taught how to preach to sinners.
because look what he's done he started with a multitude and
he drove them all away and he's only got 11 that are any good
at the end of it what a pathetic ministry isn't that what we would
say that's what we see here the fickleness of the human heart
and I'm telling you it's the fickleness of the human natural
heart that's all around us in this world today it's absolutely
no different well what I want to do and as I said we'll spend
more time than just this week in this chapter but I want to
pick out some verses that lead us up to verse 29 which is the
focus of this message this morning. Verse 2, look at verse 2. A great
multitude followed Him. Jesus went over the Sea of Tiberias,
over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a
great multitude followed Him. Why did they follow Him? Because
they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased. He healed some people, miraculously,
marvelously. A man who'd been lame 38 years
at the Pool of Bethesda, he said, rise up, take up your bed and
walk. And immediately, not with some physiotherapy, not with
some medication, immediately he walked. They'd seen, the disciples
of John the Baptist sent to Jesus and they said this, are you the
one? Are you the Christ? Or do we
look for another? Are we looking? And Jesus said
to them, tell John this. Go and tell John this. The lame
walk. the blind see, the poor have
the gospel preached to them, and blessed is he who is not
offended because of me." That's what he said. All those things
that were prophesied of the Messiah were being manifested in the
ministry of Jesus Christ. They were impressed. They'd seen
this man, this ordinary looking man. He didn't walk around in
a white robe with a halo around his head. I keep telling you
this, Isaiah 53 says, there is no comeliness in him when we
see him. that we should desire him. He's
not a Hollywood film star. He hasn't got this glowing halo
around. He's an ordinary man. He's called, in Isaiah 53, a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Men of sorrows who
are acquainted with grief are not very popular, are they? He
was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but they've seen
that this man could heal disease. Isn't that the answer to all
our problems, they said? Isn't that what we think these
days? If only modern medicine could do, if it could give the
cure of cancer, if it could do all of these things. Oh, isn't
that everything that we would need? We wouldn't want anything
else, would we? We'd all live forever, disease-free.
Wouldn't that be wonderful in this life? Isn't that what we
want? Oh, how the crowds would go after that, and how this crowd
went after that. Then jump forward. Look at verse
15. You know, there's so much in
that miracle of feeding the 5,000, but a lot of the lessons are
very familiar to you. And I want to focus on verse
29 this morning. So I'm not going to spend time
looking at the details of the feeding of the 5,000, other than
to say that it was an incredibly impressive miracle. You know,
Jesus tested their faith. And they, having seen miracles
themselves, the disciples were kind of, well, this is hopeless.
Look, there's a little lad here, and he's, I don't know, I imagine
he was selling fish and bread. You know, the story that his
mum sent him off to hear Jesus with a picnic. I don't think
that's true at all. I think here was a little lad that was trying
to earn some money by selling bread and fish for the family
and off he'd gone and he got these two little fish that's
all he had and some five loaves which wouldn't be great big loaves
but what's that among so many five thousand they wouldn't even
get a crumb each that wouldn't feed them make them sit down
make them sit down Jesus said orderly make them sit down and
he gave thanks and he broke it and everybody had a full full
stomach everybody had a full nourishing meal. And at the end
of it, so that there would be no waste, He sent the disciples
with a basket each, twelve of them, go and pick up the remains,
not just five loaves and two fishes, but twelve baskets full
of the fragments that were left over, the crumbs of the bread,
the bits of bread, the bones of twelve baskets. Impressive
miracle, and they'd seen it, these people. And verse 15, when
Jesus therefore perceived that they, this crowd, would come
and take Him by force to make Him a king, He departed again
into a mountain himself alone. They were impressed. What did
they want to do? Let's make him king! We're coming up to an election
in this country. Who are people going to vote
for? Some people are really going to think about the issues and
use their vote wisely because it's a great privilege to have
a democratic right. Other countries don't have it.
There are places in the world where there is nothing other
than oppression. And it's a great privilege to have democracy.
But what do people want to vote for? I tell you, there'll be
an awful lot of people who would vote like this crowd. We'll vote
for the politician who will give us the easiest, freest meal ticket
we can have for the minimum of effort and cost on our part.
And they wanted to make him king. They wanted to vote him into
the position of authority in the land because this man can
give us our food without us having to get up in the morning. You
know, it's painful sometimes, isn't it? It's not too bad these days.
The mornings are light now that we're in spring. It's often an
awful lot easier getting up in late March than it is in early
January. You know, you go out of the door
and it's still dark at quarter to eight in the morning, whereas
now it's light at 5.30 in the morning. It's easy to get up,
but these people, they wanted an easy meal ticket. Free meal! Look what he did! We'll have
some more of that! That was fantastic! We love heroes. People naturally love heroes.
We love crowds, to go with the crowd. You know how many people
Which football team are you going to support? I know somebody who
supports Chelsea because they get quite a big crowd there.
And other people support Arsenal because they get quite a big
crowd there. And a lot of the time it's going along with it because
that's what the crowd wants to do. I've done it myself. I used
to avidly support Liverpool and go to all of their home games
when I lived there. That's what people do. People love crowds.
They love being with the people that are going, yes, we're all
together. And religion. So much religion these days. Not much danger of it here. Not
much danger at all here. But people love and are comforted
by crowds and by leaders, charismatic leaders, who lead the people
and whip them up into an excitement and get them going along with
them. That's what people are like. They wanted to make him
king. And oh, how the fickleness of human hearts would want the
same thing today. Not looking for the words of
eternal life, but the free meal. Verse 26, that takes us to the
next point. You see, then goes away and he
walks on the water and there's something illustrative in that
which we'll come to in a minute. They find him eventually in verse
26. Verse 25 they find him, sorry.
They find him and they say, how on earth did you get here? They're
puzzled. They're puzzled because they
see that there's no other boats. That was what verse 22 was about.
They're thinking, well we saw the disciples get in that boat
and he went away. And he wasn't in that boat with
them. And there weren't any other boats for him to go in. And it's
so quick that he can't possibly have got here by himself. And
they say, how did you get here? How did you get here? Fascination.
Fascination with this man. This enigmatic man. They're trying
to find out about him. How did you get here? And he
says to them, in other words, they were seeking him. And Jesus
answered them, verse 26, and said, verily, verily, truly,
truly, I say unto you, you're seeking me not because you saw
the miracles and what they signified and what they said and what they
spoke to your sinful hearts but because you did eat of the loaves
and were filled. You're following me because you
want another free meal. That's what he says. How did he get
there? He got there miraculously but what were they seeking him
for? Not for the words of eternal life. if you get to the end of
the chapter when there's just twelve of them left and one of
them Judas Iscariot if you get right down to verse 68 Jesus
is saying to them in verse 67 what about you? everybody else
is gone what about you twelve? will you also go away? there's
only twelve of you left will you twelve also go away? and
Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go? you have
the words of eternal life nobody else does I don't care if the
whole world goes away. I don't care at all. I must have
those words of eternal life. I'm not able to face death without
those words of eternal life. I can't cope with this life without
the words of eternal life. To whom shall we go? You alone
have the words of eternal life. These people were not seeking
the words of eternal life. They were seeking another free
meal because they'd forgotten what their scriptures said. Deuteronomy
chapter 8 and verse 3. And Jesus quoted it to the devil
in the temptation. Man shall not live by bread alone. It doesn't say that man doesn't
need any bread to live. That's not what it says at all.
Of course you need bread to live. Of course you need the material
things of life to live. But man shall not live, not truly
live, by bread alone. Not by those material things.
They'll never satisfy you, but by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God. That's what man shall live by,
truly live. You'll just exist as a bag of
bones and flesh and blood. You'll exist by physical food,
but you live. Jesus said, I came that they
might have life and have it more abundantly. Abundant, abundant
eternal life. And in verse 27, he gives them
some spiritual counsel. He says, labor not for the meat
which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life which the Son of Man shall give unto you for him hath God
the Father sealed spiritual counsel spiritual advice Jesus is saying
to them labor work work not just for temporal physical food which
will satisfy for a while but work for eternally enduring spiritual
food he's echoing the words of the Sermon on the Mount you know
in the Sermon on the Mount he's talking about turn over to it
Matthew chapter six Matthew's gospel chapter six the sermon
on the mount where Jesus is talking about not worrying and not not
being anxious and striving for the things of this world verse
19 lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth moth and
rust will just cause them to decay thieves will break in and
steal lay up treasures in heaven and so he goes on about not worrying
about things, about the flowers of the field, don't do a hand
stir of work but your Heavenly Father, He clothes them. Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. The birds of
the air, they never dig a garden, they never sow seeds, but your
Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than
they are? Which of you by taking thought can add one inch to His
stature? You can't, you can't do it, it's
impossible. Rest in God. And he says, he
goes on down to the end, verse 33, but seek ye first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness and all these other things that
you need for life, your food, your clothing, your shelter all
of these other things will be added to you without you worrying
about them seek first the kingdom of God that's what Jesus' advice
was, seek first that spiritual food, labor not for that which
perishes, the meat which perishes but for that which endures to
eternal life Now in verse 28 they respond. The crowd says
to him, they said to him, okay then, you say labor, labor for
this which endures to everlasting life. So what is it? What shall
we do that we might work the works of God? In other words,
what shall we do that we might work the works of God in order
to please God and in order to be rewarded with eternal life?
What shall we do? That's the basis of every religion. Look at Romans chapter 10. and
the first few verses. Romans, the epistle to the Romans
and the 10th chapter and the first four verses. Paul is talking about Israelites,
the Jews. He says, Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved, for I bear them record that they have a zeal for God.
Oh, isn't that a good thing? Not if it's not according to
knowledge. You can have a zeal for all sorts of things that
are misplaced because it's not according to correct knowledge.
I bear them record, they have a zeal for God, but not according
to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, you see, they know nothing of it, and going
about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. Four. Key verse. Key verse of Scripture. Learn
it. Etch it in your heart, for Christ
is the end. of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. Oh, bless God for that. I need
to be righteous. Pursue righteousness, holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord. How am I, a sinner,
whose very best efforts are filthy rags, how am I going to be counted
righteous and accepted by God? Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. Christ is my righteousness. What
is his name? Jeremiah 23. Capital letters
in your Bible. The Lord our righteousness shall
be his name. The Lord our righteousness. He
is the righteousness I need before God. We must all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ and give an account. And what is
the account of the people of God going to be? My name is written
in the Lamb's book of life and he has stood in my place and
therefore my sin debt is blotted out and there's no trace of it.
For he has dealt with it and he has paid it. That's the gospel.
That's the gospel of grace. But every religion, every religion,
and the vast majority of what calls itself Christianity in
our days, the vast majority is works-based, laboring to please
God. You'll hear people say, oh, surely
you want to please God, don't you? Surely you do. Well, of
course the answer to that is yes, of course, but the implication
is that you can please God by the works that you do, by behaving
in a certain way and not behaving in other ways. That will never
please God. Never. What most Christianity
does is spends all of its time whipping its people to strive
to behave in a certain way, so that they become acceptable to
God. So they become pleasing to God. So that they become sanctified,
as they call it, in the sight of God. And then what do they
do with the gospel of Christ's redemption? Oh, well, he's like
the safety net. For where you failed, he makes
up for those bits that you failed. So they really do. They teach
They teach a religion, a gospel of works observation of laws. But don't worry if you're not
100% perfect, because we know you'll never be 100% perfect,
because Jesus Christ is the safety net that catches you when you
miss out on that other 10 or 20%. No, that is not the way
that Christ saves his people. He saves them, as Hebrews 7.25
says, to the uttermost. He does it. He does it. It's
none of my righteousness. It's all of his righteousness.
Every single bit of it. what does the hymn writers knew
something of this nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy
cross I cling naked come to thee for dress naked nothing in my
hands I don't bring a thing my sin oh the bliss of this glorious
thought my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to his cross
and I bear it no more praise the Lord praise the Lord oh my
soul so that's their response what must we do and Jesus says
this verse 28 sorry verse 29 Jesus answered and said unto
them this is the work of God that you believe on him whom
he hath sent what must I do to be pleasing to God that I might
earn his favor and the answer Jesus gives is this this is the
work of God that you believe on him whom he hath sent who
is it that he hath sent? Jesus Christ his Son the Son
of God the one on whom the Father has set his seal the one on whom
God has put his seal that he is the source of all truth and
life. Believe on him. Is that really
what he says? Is that really what he says that
will please God? We must believe. Yes, it is. Now in the minutes that remain,
belief, the belief in the Son of God is God's work. This is
the work of God. This is the work of God because
firstly, God requires it. He requires it of his people.
You know, we say, oh, it's all because of election, and it absolutely
is. But I tell you this, there's
not one of the elect will be saved until they believe the
Gospel of Grace. He requires it. And he brings
his people to that belief of the Gospel of His Grace. It's
the work of God. He requires it. Secondly, he
performs it. He, God, performs. This is the
work of God. What must we do? No, it's the
work of God. He performs it. And thirdly, He accepts it. God, there's a work that God
accepts and it's this work, this work. So firstly, He requires
it. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, look
at this, see what I like to do is for this not to be my opinion
as I stand up here, because you can accept or reject my opinion,
but if you're going to have an argument, don't have an argument,
well discuss it with me by all means, but don't have an argument
with me, have an argument with this book. Hebrews chapter 11
and verse 6. Without faith, how am I going
to please God? Oh, I'll do all of these things.
I'll give up chocolate and alcohol for Lent. I'll do all sorts of
good things that will make me pleasing to God. Sorry. Hebrews
11 verse 6. To the law and the testimony,
if they speak not according to this word, Isaiah 8.20 says this,
there is no light, no truth in them. Without faith, it is impossible
to please Him. Do you hear that? Without faith,
it is impossible to please God. Without faith in the object of
one's faith, it is impossible to please God. He requires it. What is belief? Belief is not
a work that you do, but belief is evidence of a work of God
within. It's evidence that you are in
Christ. It's evidence that your righteousness
is His righteousness. That your sin debt clearance
is that which He's accomplished on your behalf. It's the command
of God that we believe Him, His people. Look at 1 John chapter
3, the first epistle of John in chapter 3. It doesn't matter
if you can't turn over quickly, but I'll read it out for the
sake of time. This is His commandment, right? John is speaking to believers.
This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name
of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave His
commandment. This is His commandment, that
we should believe on Jesus Christ it is what must be done it's
what must be done what did Jesus say to Nicodemus in John 3 and
verse 7 don't be amazed if I say to you he said you must be born
again you must be born again but listen what is it to be born
again do you notice I mean we're not very good at grammar in English
these days I can tell you from the stripes on certain parts
of my body that we used to be very very rigorous about grammar
those days. I used to have five 45-minute
periods of English grammar for five years at school until every
single correct and incorrect thing was drummed into me. It's
passive. You must be born again. It's
not something you go and do. A baby is passively born. You
know? The whole process takes place.
You think back. You had nothing to do with your
being born. You just happened to turn up, didn't you? You just
came. You were born. You must be born
again. It's the work of God. It's the
work of God and belief is the evidence that that work has gone
on inside. In Acts 16.31 there's been an
earthquake in a jail and Paul and Silas are in that jail and
they've been released and the jailer fears for his life because
he's going to be executed because he's allowed the prisoners to
escape and he's terrified. And in that moment somehow his
perilous condition as a sinner before a holy God He's dangled
before Him. You know, He knows that He's
going to lose His life because of what's just happened. What
must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? And
what's the answer that's given? Believe. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And anybody else in your
household likewise, they shall be saved too by believing. It's
what God requires. Secondly, it's what God performs. It's a work that God, this is
the work of God. This is the work. What is the
work of God that we must do? This is the work of God. Yes,
you must do it, but it's the work of God that he must do.
It's God who performs this work of regeneration. It's God who
gives understanding to the natural man, who by himself, 1 Corinthians
2.14, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit
of God, neither can he know them, for they are foolishness to him.
But for a work of the Spirit of God, that's how we all stay.
But He comes. He comes and shines that light.
He gives understanding. He moves the emotions and the
affections to not only grasp mentally the truth of the salvation
that is in Jesus Christ, but to emotionally launch ourselves
on Him, commit ourselves to Him, absolutely trusting in Him. So
we commit to Him. So Paul said to Timothy, I know,
we're going to sing this at the end, I know whom I have believed.
And I'm persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him against that day of judgment I've committed
my immortal sinful soul to Him and He has cleansed it by His
works and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which
I've committed unto Him against that day it's a commitment I
know but it's the work of God look down in John chapter 6 at
verse 39 verse 39 Jesus says in verse 38 He came down from
heaven not to do His own will as a man but the will of Him
that sent me the will of God and verse 39 and this is the
Father's will which hath sent me that of all which He hath
given me of all the people because the Scriptures are quite clear
that God the Father chose in Christ an innumerable multitude
of sinners fixed and known to Him but from our perspective
an innumerable multitude before the beginning of time it says
in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 9 before the beginning of time
He did this all that he has given me I should lose nothing that
Christ came to save Jesus Jesus call his name Jesus for he shall
save his people from their sins he should lose nothing but raise
it up at the last day and this is the will of him that sent
me that of everyone that seeth the son and believeth on him
may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last
day that's his will that's his will verses 44 and 45 So how are you going to come?
No man can come to me. This is radical scripture. You
think of it. You put this up against the message
that's preached in most places that call themselves Christian
churches. No man can come to me except the Father which hath
sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. It is
written in the prophets and they shall all be taught of God. This
is the work of God in them. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me that's
who comes he brings his people to Christ verse 51 I am the living
bread which came down from heaven if any man eat of this bread
Jesus Christ and everything that he's done in his work of salvation
he shall live forever and the bread that I will give is my
flesh which I give for the life of the world there's more scriptures
that we could look at Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 You are saved
by grace through faith. Faith is the means by which you
apprehend that which God has done through faith and that not
of yourselves. Where do you get your faith from?
Oh, I whipped it up. No, that not of yourselves says Paul.
It is the gift of God. Faith is the gift of God. Repentance
is the gift of God. In the Acts of the Apostles it
says God has granted to the Gentiles repentance unto faith. It's the
gift of God. The gift of God. 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 verse 13. for we are bound to give thanks
to God always for you brethren. Beloved of God, elect of God,
chosen of God because God hath from the beginning chosen you
unto salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. Belief, it's the work of God.
Thirdly, it's the work that he accepts. How can he accept something
as passive as belief? Do you know when I first heard
of Christianity, I used to keep mulling this over, I used to
say So there's going to be a great division and there's going to
be those on the one side that all said, yeah, I'll vote for
him and all those on the other side who are going to go to hell
will say, no, I can't be bothered to vote for him. And so therefore
you went to heaven or you went to hell based on who you voted
for. If you voted for Jesus, you believed in him, then you
went to heaven. That's not the gospel of grace. It's not that
sort of thing, isn't belief. This is it. How can he accept
something as passive as belief. It's what he accepts is the object
of that belief. It's the object of faith. It's
why it's the faith of Jesus Christ that saves. Remember what I told
you about Abraham. Abraham believed God and it was
accounted unto him for righteousness. And I told you this, it's not
Abraham's believing that justified him, but it's what Abraham believed
in that justified him. He believed in a Messiah. He
believed in a substitutionary Lamb who would come and stand
in his place. It's the finished work of Christ
for his elect is what he accepts. In Galatians 2, it was on the
back of the bulletin, verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law but by the faith, the faithful works
of Jesus Christ, his works of earning righteousness, his works
of paying the sin debt, even we have believed in Jesus Christ
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not
by the things we do by the works of the law, for by the works
of the law no flesh shall be justified." Do you see how radical
it is? Do you see how different it is to the gospel that is preached?
What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn't that exactly what he tells this crowd? Isn't it exactly
what he told Nicodemus? That salvation is of the sovereign
grace of God. It's the work that he must do.
Did he work in most of this crowd? It would seem not. It would seem
not. Having seen what they saw and
having conversed with the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ
in the flesh, having been there, you'd say, oh, if only I'd been
there, I'd believe, I'd believe. No, you wouldn't. You'd be just
like this crowd. Having seen everything that they saw, having
seen it all, look what they do. Look at verse 30. Having had
such gracious words, they're not looking for the words of
eternal life like Peter and the the eleven they said therefore
unto him what sign showest thou then what miracle are you going
to do that we may see and believe you what do you work can you
believe the can you believe these people given what they had just
seen that feeding of the five thousand and yet they still say
not enough we need to see more what else are you going to do
for us What else are you going to give us to see? What about
you? What about me? Is He calling
you? Is He working in your heart?
Is He working His work, the work of God, in your heart? Well,
I'm telling you. Do you want Him to? Well, seek
Him with all your heart. He says, seek and you shall find. He says, come unto me, all you
who labour and are heavy laden. will give you rest. Seek Him.
Come to Him. And what can you plead? Not your
works. There's one thing alone that
you can plead. Our God is merciful. So plead for His mercy. Like that hymn. While on others
thou art calling. This is what the sinner cries
to God. While on others thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Be merciful to me. Like that
publican at the temple. where the Pharisee is praying
how good he is and thanking God for how good he is and that poor
man stands there and says God be merciful to me