Jesus Through John's Eyes (3 of 5)

Well, we come here this Monday night to continue our journey through the Gospel of John, starting in chapter 6. So, let's ask God to give us a good time of listening to His Word, being encouraged by it, and pray that He would use His Word effectively. Paul, come minister the Word of God. Thank you, Tim. Thank you all for being here this evening. I know on a typical Monday night after a long day of work, you get home, you eat, you get into your stretchy pants, you just don't want to, you know, get back out.

I understand that and I appreciate your effort. I want you to open up to John chapter 6. Actually, let's start with chapter 7 and I want to tell you what I can't cover. I don't have time to talk about this, so let me tell you what I'm not going to talk about. How about that? Chapter 7 and chapter 8 is one long dialogue.

And when you read through the dialogue, again, I'm coming at the Gospel of John with the idea that I'm sitting down next to somebody who doesn't know much or doesn't know anything about Jesus, and I'm trying to anticipate the kinds of things they might see and questions about or things that I want to show them in the text that they might not see themselves. And in this long dialogue of chapter 7 and chapter 8, there's a number of things that are said concerning Jesus. And you'll notice through these dialogues that John puts together for us, he allows people to have, he doesn't allow them, he tells you that when people saw Jesus, they had all kinds of different thoughts about Jesus.

It wasn't in any way uniform that when somebody came to Jesus, they just thought this one thing. And when you talk to 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 people who don't know Jesus, they're going to have very different opinions about who He is. John 7, verse 12, Jesus is called a good man. Same verse, Jesus is leading people astray. Chapter 7, verse 20, Jesus has a demon. verse 40 Jesus is a prophet verse 41 Jesus is the Christ chapter 8 verse 28 Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man Chapter 8, verse 41, Jesus is accused of being born out of sexual immorality, and we have a name for that.

Verse 48, Jesus is a Samaritan, which is a derogatory term. He has a demon. And then in verse 58, at the end of chapter 8, Jesus says this before Abraham was, I am, meaning I am God. So just in those two chapters, Jesus is a good man, Jesus leads people astray, Jesus is a prophet, Jesus has a demon, Jesus is the son of man, Jesus is a bastard, Jesus is a Samaritan, Jesus is God.

And we could go on and on through the chapters, but I'm just helping you understand that when people actually physically encounter Jesus, they had different responses to them. And you can anticipate people having initially different responses. And so what has happened here is in the course of this long conversation up at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, many people are coming to hear Jesus teach and there's this whole crowd of people that seem to be hungry to hear him teach but at the end of his speech they're all looking for stones to kill him.

Again, that's a common response. People have a hunger, they have an interest, they have a curiosity and then when they really begin to hear Jesus at least a common response in the Gospels is we actually don't want Jesus. So if you want to talk to people who are only going to want to end up wanting Jesus, you're not going to talk to anybody. Because it's a very real possibility that the people you'd say, hey, let's sit down and talk to, they'll end up saying, yeah, I reject that.

I don't believe that. And you just have to be willing to step into that. And I want you to have the courage to do that because that's what Jesus is doing for us. That's what John is doing for us. John states the purpose of his letter like we talked about yesterday John chapter 20 verse 31 these things are written down so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ so he telling you what I hope you would believe but he understanding that there going to be a wide spectrum of opinion But I would suggest the one thing that I don have time to tell you tonight is that one of the impossible conclusions about Jesus is that he was just a good man.

I think there are other real possibilities that somebody might conclude, and of course I might take a different opinion, but I don't think anybody could conclude that he's just a good man. Several months ago, I was listening to Bill O'Reilly. You know Bill O'Reilly, Fox News? This is what he said. Either you believe Jesus is the Son of God or that he was simply a good man.

And with all due respect to Bill O'Reilly, I would suggest that the second half of his statement is impossible. It's not possible for Jesus to be a good man because if He's a good man, then He's massively egocentric. In Luke 4, Jesus in His first sermon opens up a scroll. He reads from Isaiah and He said, you know who He was talking about a thousand years ago?

That's Me. In John 5, verse 46, Jesus says, you know about Moses? Well, now I'm the real Moses. In John chapter 8, you know about Abraham. Well, before Abraham, I was. So it's hard to imagine that just a good man could be so massively self-centered.

And of course, a good man wouldn't claim to forgive sins if he couldn't actually forgive sins. A good man wouldn't claim to be God in the flesh. So one of the things that you can't conclude about Jesus, One of the things that I try to help my friends, because a lot of times the folks that I talk to want to conclude, well, I guess he was a good man, I just can't believe that he's really the Messiah or really God or something like that.

And I say, please don't conclude that he's just a good man. That's not an option open to you. A good man wouldn't lead this many people astray. And you probably heard the C.S. Lewis quote saying, you must make your choice. either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse you can shut him up for a fool you can spin on him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher He has not left that open to us, and he did not intend to.

So one of the things that you want to help somebody with when you're helping them see who Jesus is, is that he just can't be a good man, he's something different than that altogether. And so what I want to turn to this evening and spend all of our time in is chapter 6, where Jesus says, I am the bread of life. And this is a very important point, not only in this gospel, but in all the gospels, because this is the only miracle that's recorded in all four gospels.

So it gives you a sense of the importance of this particular miracle. Every gospel writer felt it necessary to put this down. And as you read through the chapter, the chapter is so dense, it's so rich with Old Testament illustrations, Old Testament allusions, that if the Old Testament isn't sort of coursing through your mind, when you read through the text, you miss quite a bit.

So let me just read a few verses here, and then we'll try to skip around a bit and pick up some of the other ones as well. chapter 6 verse 1 after this Jesus went away to the other side of the sea of Galilee which is the sea of Tiberias and a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the 6th they saw signs they're following after Jesus and then Jesus went up on a mountain and there he sat down with his disciples now the Passover the feast of the Jews was at hand lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him jesus said to philip where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat he said this to test him for he knew that he what he would do and philip answered 200 denarii would not buy enough bread for each man to get a little one of his disciples andrew simon peter's brother said there's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? And Jesus said, have them sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, about 5,000 in number.

So they're counting men only, so it could have been as many as 15 or more thousand people there. Jesus then He took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated, and also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told the disciples, gather up the leftovers so that nothing would be lost.

And so they gathered them up, and like a little object lesson for each disciple, there's 12 baskets left over. And when the people saw the sign, this miraculous sign of the food being multiplied, they said, this was their conclusion, I see the sign and I look to the person who created this miracle. This indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world.

Which is true. And then verse 15, Jesus perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. So a very interesting little passage here. And we'll walk through that and hopefully a number of the other verses in the chapter. If you don't see the Old Testament coursing through the New Testament, the way I think about that is, if you're at Thanksgiving, and you have, let's say you have your Thanksgiving dinner at four o'clock in the afternoon maybe and you decide, hey, I'm not going to eat until four because, you know, we're going to eat enough for like five days and a half an hour and so I'll wait and you just get so hungry and you start smelling the turkey and the stuffing and the sweet potato casserole and whatever your favorite, you know, maybe like the green bean casserole with the onion little crunchies on the top or you like the pumpkin pie or whatever. you just start salivating, you know, to that moment.

But what if you didn't have taste buds? I mean, that'd be a bummer, wouldn't it? I mean, that'd be a bummer. You'd still be hungry, but then everything would taste the same. The green bean casserole would take like the turkey. So you would come to the dinner table and you would eat because you would be hungry, but it just wouldn't have any punch.

It wouldn't have any flavor. And if you come to the New Testament not understanding the Old Testament, it's like you don't have the taste buds. You can still be filled, you can still see some things, but all the flavor is coming out of the Old Testament. And John wants to help us see that as we walk through this text as well as the rest of his gospel So when you read through the Bible it important to have these biblical taste buds And if you look at the end of John chapter 5, verse 46 and 47, Jesus is in this temple area and he unloads this statement on them.

If you believed Moses, then you would believe in me. Jesus is speaking to people who knew all about Moses. And he says, hey, you guys know Moses. You remember what Moses did. You remember his actions. You remember what he said.

And he talked 1,500 years ago. But when Moses was writing, he was telegraphing. And he was saying, something's going to come. And I am that something. So if you understand who Moses is and what he was saying, you would really understand and you would know me. And so part of these taste buds, John 1, verse 45, Philip found Nathanael and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law.

John 3, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. You know that picture where there's a snake on a pole? Where do you see that? You see it at a hospital or you see it on an ambulance or you see it at a medic or something like that. It means it's a sign of healing. So in the Old Testament, when the people had this poisonous snake bite, God instructed Moses to put a snake on a pole.

Isn't that interesting? A snake on a pole. And you still see it in our culture today. A snake on a pole. And if you look at that, when that is lifted up, the poison will be drained out of your body. And Jesus said, when the Son of Man is lifted up, the poison of sin will be drained out of your body.

We said yesterday on the road to Emmaus, Jesus said everything that Moses talked about. I'm scooping it all up. I'm telling it about myself. Luke 9, verse 30. two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor talking with Jesus. This is the Mount of Transfiguration Remember the three disciples are there and this bright light comes down Moses and Elijah come in and they speaking to Jesus and this is what it says They spoke about His departure.

And that Greek word means Exodus. So Moses is talking about Jesus and saying, let's talk about your Exodus. Let's talk about the Exodus that you're about ready to usher in, that you're going to bring people out of darkness into the light. And so you see Moses, and if you see Moses there, you can see Moses in many other places in this chapter, chapter 6, verse 2.

These people witnessed many miraculous signs, so they followed after Jesus. The Israelites saw many miraculous signs, and they followed after Moses. Jesus goes up on a mountain. Moses goes up on a mountain, verse 3. Verse 4, it's the Passover feast was at hand, both for Moses and for Jesus. Verse 11 in chapter 6, out in the wilderness, Jesus miraculously provides bread.

Out in the wilderness, as Tim read, God miraculously provides bread. Verse 14, when the people saw the sign, and they said this is indeed the prophet. They're quoting an Old Testament passage out of the Pentateuch. The writings of Moses. Deuteronomy 18.15 which says this, the Lord your God, this is Moses speaking to the Israelites, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me.

Somebody's coming that's like me. And if you have those taste buds and you begin to see Him and you'll say he's a lot like Moses and so is this the Christ? Is this the person who is coming? And of course they conclude that he is in verse 14. Now, if you stopped reading in verse 15 and you sort of closed your Bible and that was sort of the end of the text for the day, you might conclude, wow, awesome.

Finally, you know, It's kind of been an uphill battle for Jesus. And here, He comes in. He does the sign. The people see the sign. They have the right conclusion He must be the prophet And you say it seems like the lights are coming on for these people except that the story doesn end in chapter in verse 15 it ends in the end of the chapter verse 71 where people are trying to kill jesus so what what happened somehow jesus was able to take a crowd of 15,000 and dwell them down to 12.

Imagine going to a large religious event. You're at an arena maybe that holds 15,000. You've traveled some distance. You've anticipated hearing this person speak. And it starts out pretty well because when you get there, they're handing out free food. You're like, awesome, this is awesome.

Free food to start and I got a t-shirt and I've got a good seat and the guy starts speaking and he sounds good in the beginning and but then you begin to hear him speak and you can tell maybe you're getting agitated it's not quite coming out the way you thought other people are starting to get agitated and then so agitated a few people start trickling out and the trickle just becomes a roar and then it's just 12 people are left so now you've got the man still speaking an arena that holds 15,000 but only 12 men are left. That's what's happening in this particular passage. Nobody's disappointed when the session begins.

In fact, some of the people are saying, He's the king, He's the king, He's the king. It's like a chant that begins to rise up. But then as Jesus begins to talk, the people begin to dwindle away. And I want to talk to you briefly about three reasons that people have to turn away from Jesus? These may be reasons that you might have. I don't know where you are in your own walk, spiritual walk.

But it's helpful to know. It's helpful to know for yourself. It's helpful to know for the person you're sitting next to. What are reasons people turn away? You see them here in the text. Number one, Jesus is not the kind of king you intended to follow, so you turn away. the main problem for the people in this particular story was that they were enthusiastic for the wrong Jesus.

They had a designer Jesus. And when their designer Jesus didn't fit up to the real Jesus, they decided they'd like to walk away. Verse 14, then the people saw the sign that he had done and they said, this is the prophet, he is the one who's coming to the world. And Jesus has a sense that they don't have the right idea, even though they got the right passage, they don't have the right idea because they're trying to make him king.

And it sounds like a good start, but Jesus understands they want to make him the king so that the king would get rid of the Romans. The king would keep feeding the people. The king would reestablish Israel as the dominant community. The king would do whatever they wanted. And who doesn't want a king like that? Everybody wants that kind of king.

I'm happy to follow any king who does exactly what I want. And you know what that makes me? The king. The king. and jesus could sense that what they were seeing they were saying yes is the this is the prophet and he's gonna he's gonna use his power to help us create some power for ourselves and and that's not exactly what jesus was after and so they they had designed jesus in their own mind and when they met the real jesus uh he didn't live up to their design so they began to to get disgruntled and you can see it in chapter 6 verse 25 the sea of galilee if you've ever been to israel the sea of galilee is about seven miles across and 12 miles 12 miles across and seven miles wide so when you stand at the edge you can see the whole thing and so jesus has gone to the other side he created this miracle get this sign he gets in the boat and comes back it says here later in John chapter 6 and the people get up and go hey where did he go and they come around the lake to the other side to meet Jesus the next day and when they meet Jesus they say this when they found him verse 25 chapter 6 when they found the found when they found him on the other side of the sea they said rabbi or teacher when did you when did you come here?

And Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw a sign and you wanted me See I did a sign and what does the sign do It points to a destination The sign itself is not the destination But he says, you saw a sign, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. You came because you were full over there, and now you'd like another meal. You've gotten hungry.

And you didn't really come for me, you came for another sign. and I think especially in the church it's so easy to get caught up in signs I just need one more sign to make sure that God loves me I just need one more sign that I'm saved I just need one more sign some sign, some sign the signs are over, Jesus has come and we can take complete confidence in his arrival and so they're disgruntled because Jesus doesn't give them another sign and they begin to realize hey our designer Jesus isn't fitting well so we begin to get disgruntled. And in case you might have a sense that, gosh, I can't believe these people acted this way. Why couldn't they just go for Jesus instead of the signs?

Why couldn't they just go for Jesus instead of power? Why couldn't they just go for Jesus instead of wanting always to fill themselves or to be first? In case you might have a tendency because you've been in a church for a long time to start looking down at people. Let's remember the disciples. Jesus asked His disciples, hey, which one of you guys would like to be first?

Oh, every hand. I see every hand. Do I not? His disciples were basically like a group of middle school kids trying to say, shotgun. You ever had this fight in your house? I don't know.

I don't really think it happens so much for girls. Do girls say shotgun? I mean, middle school, high school guys, they live for shotgun. And, you know, there's a whole thing for guys that if I'm at like a ball game with my buddies and I see it's fourth quarter or, you know, time's getting down, you know, I'll just say shotgun. And that's like a law. You can't break that once I've said it. unless you're in the car and you say oh no when I got in the car I said shotgun oh when I was got up this morning I said shotgun so and that how guys work when I was born I came out saying shotgun So wherever I went I got the first seat I mean that how middle school and high school guys operate I'm sorry to say that.

I was one of those. And that's basically what the disciples are like. They're always wanting to ride shotgun. And He says to the disciples, who would like to be first? Me, me, I'd like to be first. Great.

Then you have to be last. and I just imagine Peter saying John I saw your hand raised why don't you go for it on another occasion there's at the dinner table Jesus says who'd like to be the greatest oh I would okay then you have to be a slave to everybody not as interesting you see before you begin to look down on these people help understand yourself that you're still driven in those directions. You still understand that hunger for being first, that hunger for a designer Jesus. But I think one of the things that drives people away from God or especially away from Jesus is when He doesn't operate in the way you would anticipate in moments of pain.

You have a painful moment or season, or maybe you feel like you've had a painful life, and you come and you hear about Jesus, and He just doesn't seem to operate the way you would want. Job chapter 2. Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. And then Job took a piece of broken pottery and he began to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes.

And then Job's wife, imagine being Job's wife. You've lost everything. You've lost your family. It's not just Job who's lost everything. His wife's lost everything. Now it looks like she's losing her husband.

And she comes in and says to Job, curse God and die. Meaning, he just doesn't operate the way I would anticipate. He's not doing it like I want him to do it. And I'm sympathetic to Job's wife. Why would he want this kind of pain Why doesn he do something different And so you might find yourself in Job wife situation at some point cursing God and wanting to walk away That a real reason people walk away from Jesus.

Adniram Judson, I don't know if you know that name, famous missionary to India and then to Burma. It's called Myanmar now. he goes there in 1813 and he moves to Burma which is a very hostile society all the missionaries that had been to Burma before that had all died or they had left Judson moves there when he's 24 he moves with his 23 year old wife he works there for 38 years until his own death at 61 and estimates maybe these numbers are a bit dated now, estimates are now that there are 3,700 churches planted in Burma today that would trace themselves back to Adoniram Judson's beginning. Incredible.

It's amazing. And that sounds great, except for when you hear the story and the pain. Judson loses several wives, children. and he's beaten. And at one point he was beaten so severely and then just let out before his death. And when he's let out, his wife and his child die. I mean, they've been hanging on and then he gets out and his wife and his child dies.

And he goes out into the jungle. He lives in some kind of tent or hut. He digs his own grave and he just sits in a chair next to it day after day. And he says this, God is to me the great unknown. I believe in Him, but I find Him not. See, it's very possible you could have felt this way in your life somewhere.

C.S. Lewis writes this, Where is God? When you're happy, so happy that you'd have no sense of needing Him, if you remember and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be, or so it feels, welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain. What do you find? A door slammed in your face. sound of a bolt or a double bolting on the inside.

And after that silence, you may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the window. It might be an empty house. You might ask yourself, was that house ever inhabited? See, you have to really understand that kind of pain. because if you sit down with another people, they're going to have that kind of pain.

And that kind of pain, you have to be sympathetic to say, I at least understand why you might turn away. I'm at least sympathetic to that. Because if you don't have that sort of sympathetic or empathetic heart, you're going to drive that person away. And so these are people who are strong believers, who wouldn't want to have the kind of faith as C.S. Lewis or Adoniram Judson or Job.

We're talking about people who are in the top tier of faithful men. So somebody who doesn't know Jesus has that kind of experience. You need to tenderly walk in and understand that that's a real moment of disappointment. I said this last night in my own testimony. Here I was, sort of a floundering Christian, and my mom, my hope, you know really what turned out to be an idol was dying and and i'm pounding my fist on the backyard of a fence post at 150 staffordshire court basically saying things like job's wife i'm cursing god i'm saying i can't believe if you really exist this is what you're like maybe you're not a king or if you are you're not the kind of king i would want to follow and If you live long enough, you're going to experience this kind of emotion.

And at that moment, it's a terrible temptation to turn away. Jesus is completely upside down to our way of thinking, so it's easy to look at him and turn him into somebody he's not. and I wouldn't want you to present a designer Jesus to somebody else. That's one of the worst things you can do. I think that one of the great tragedies of the prosperity gospel It has a designer Jesus that if you just get in the right spot man it all goes right for you There no indication of that from the scriptures And so we want to be very careful.

The kind of Jesus you're presenting, it's going to be some difficult roads to follow if you're going to follow after Christ. Why would you think any different if the cross is the symbol that we wear around our neck or we turn to? So you might ask ourselves first when we think about Jesus, if you're here especially as somebody who's searching or thinking about God, when you think about Jesus, what is it you're thinking about?

When some people say, well, I don't believe in Jesus, I say, well, what Jesus don't you believe in? I might not believe in that one too. So it's helpful to understand where they are, to be empathetic, to understand that when Jesus starts talking, it's offensive. and it might drive you away. He doesn't operate the way you would think. He's not moving according to your will.

I think I said that the first day. He's the main thing on the stage, and everybody else operates around Him. You're not the main thing on the stage, and everybody operates around you. And you have to get that right orientation. And it takes real effort. It takes a tenderness.

It takes feeling the pain of the other person. The second reason that people can turn away from Jesus is they say if he's a real human being, then, I mean, he can't be God. And that's what we see here in the text, John chapter 6, verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

I have come down from heaven. And then the Jews, they're grumbling and they say, verse 42, what do you mean you came down from heaven? You're Jesus. You're the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know. I mean, we know your parents. we don't think you came down from heaven you might be something else but you not some divine being and a lot of people understandably they look at Jesus and think well he could be some kind of great person but he can be divine And you at least have to understand that point of view.

You have to be sympathetic to it. I'm not saying you have to agree to it when I'm saying sympathetic. I'm just saying you have to understand that people are going to come from that direction. and I think there's two points of disagreement in this particular piece one is it's intellectual and I think that's the main point in this verse is that they think of Jesus and they think of Jesus being God in the flesh and it just doesn't compute that maybe he could be a teacher maybe he could be a prophet maybe he could be a miracle worker maybe he could even be a great king but he can't be God and I just can't seem to get Jesus and his humanity and deity inside my own brain and at that point there's a collision with my own mind and so I just throw Jesus out.

He exceeds my capacity for understanding. I can't understand so I can't follow. Just think about that. I'm sitting down with a friend, I just can't understand, I can't understand, if I can't understand, I can't follow. What's wrong with that? Even though I'm trying to be sympathetic, just what's wrong with that?

So whatever God you have, if you have to completely understand first before you can follow, what is that going to make you? God. You see that? you can't have anybody above your own thinking you can't have anybody who's bigger or have a different perspective or or something and and if you're if you're limiting your belief system in just the things you can understand man your belief system's real tiny real tiny because there are lots of things that you understand that happen here but you don't really get how they work, but you believe in them.

So just understanding that, and when you're walking alongside of people and they wrestling with these kinds of issues it so helpful to have a posture of trying to help them see what it is they think and sort of the conclusions to their own thinking Let me give you a couple examples I went on a trip down the Grand Canyon in a raft, a big raft, with a guide. It wasn't just me on the Colorado River. and so we had we picked up this passenger and i was on a trip that was led by a guy who believed in seven day creation young earth you probably know some of these folks and he was pointing out things about the grand canyon that he thought matched up with that and everybody was was at least interested if not sympathetic to that point of view on the trip and we picked up a new york Times reporter. And she was going to take half the trip with us.

She was going to get out at the halfway point and then she was going to get on a trip with a scientist who was totally secular and he was going to explain it from a totally different point of view. Does that make sense? She gets back and then she writes the article for the New York Times. So it was a very interesting trip. That would be a very interesting trip to take to see how they would see it from two totally different world views. and so I got to know her on the trip she was with us for I guess three days and found out that she was Jewish or she had been raised Jewish I don't think she was practicing too much at that particular time and I said well I think you know towards the end I could tell that she appreciated that I tried to care for her because you had to carry a bunch of stuff and you know when you get off the And I was like, hey, I'll take care of yours.

And I think she sensed that at least this guy, he's kind. And so at the very end when she was packing up, she said, hey, Paul, can you help me roll up something? And I went and rolled it up. And I said, hey, do you mind if I just ask you a question? Yeah, okay, great. I said, now, you know, we've had these discussions back and forth about your article and that sort of thing.

And I've tried to tell you best I can what I believe and what I think. but I think because of your Jewish background, you do believe in one God. Yeah, I do. And so I think we have the same general view on that, and when we die, we're going to have to sort of face this God, right? Yeah, I believe that. And I said, and you understand as a Christian, I believe in the atonement of Christ. that He atoned for my sins.

He took my sins on Himself so I don't have to take them on Him. She understood that. And I said, okay, so when you stand there, who's going to atone for your sin? I mean, you think you've got problems, right? Oh, I've got problems. So I'm telling you, you can disagree with mine, but what do you believe?

And she said, I guess I'll atone for myself. and then I just walked away helped her get her stuff in there see I don't have to give every answer I can just let that hang there you really want to atone for yourself I don't man I don't but it helps to walk alongside somebody and say well I'm trying to tell you what I think now let's walk out what you think and where that sort of ends with you. I was talking to another young man who's a high school friend who I thought made a profession to Christ at some point, but I don't know if it really was true. I couldn't tell.

And then he grew up, and he really became very distant from the Lord. And I had lunch with him one time at a little restaurant downtown Wilmington, and I said, Jay, it doesn't look like you have really any interest in God. No, really, Paul, I'm an atheist. And I said, okay, and we kind of talked a little bit about that, and somewhere along the way he mentioned prayer.

I was like, hold on, I thought you were an atheist. Well, yeah, I'm an atheist, but I still pray. I said, well, who do you pray to? And he said, well, I guess I pray to myself. I said, so when you get down and you can't figure stuff out, you pray, yeah. and you pray to the person who can't figure it out. See, I didn't have to go through the Gospel of John.

I just had to let that hang there. I mean, let the Holy Spirit do the work. Let Him start thinking, does that make sense? Can I understand that? Can I get my mind wrapped around that? Because there really are going to be some difficult parts about Christ, but when you get into a different worldview, there are going to be some difficult parts about that worldview as well. and you might as well let them know hey there some difficult parts about that Have you really thought through that And so it okay that people have some intellectual disagreements And as you become a student of these people because you love them not because you're trying to hammer them, then you walk them through their own worldview and it can be helpful.

Another component of this second reason why people turn away from Jesus because he can't be both God and man is a moral component. John chapter 3 verse 19 Jesus says this, this is the verdict light has come into the world but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil and so many times people will see Jesus, they'll say something like he's the light yet they turn away not because of intellectual arguments but because of moral ones. I love my idols.

I just don't want anybody to disrupt my idols. And so I can't have Jesus be God because then I'd have to follow after him. And if I follow after him, I'm going to have to let go of some of these things. And I just don't want that. So they have sort of a moral argument. Third reason people turn away. is because you can't allow God's sovereignty to be bigger than your freedom.

You can't allow God's sovereignty to be bigger than your freedom. Verse 43 and 44, Jesus says this, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who has sent me draws him. and then in verse 65 and he said to them this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by God by him, granted him by the Father and so in the Greek the word no one means well it means no one that's what it means it means nobody nobody can come unless God the Father is doing something already there's no way to just get there on your own you can't somehow just arrive and so Jesus is saying this over and over and it not the first time in John 1 verse 12 John says this Yet to all who receive Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

And then He qualifies that. Children not born of natural descent. In other words, you can't just be born into Christianity. Nor of a human decision. In other words, you can't just decide. Nor of a husband's will.

In other words, somebody else can't decide for you. You have to be born of God. And so God's sovereignty extends over salvation. And when the people begin to hear just how big His sovereignty is in verse 65, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. After this, verse 66, many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. this idea of self-sovereignty, of autonomy, of individual freedom is so powerful that people begin to exit the stadium when they hear it.

Well, those are real reasons people get dismayed, get disgruntled, get agitated, whatever it may be, and they walk away from Jesus. And then I want to just mention a couple of things here in closing and how you stay with Jesus. Verse 28. Someone in the crowd asked Jesus a very important question. Okay, Jesus, we hear what you're telling us, so this is the question they asked, verse 28.

What must we do to be doing the works of God? See, most people instinctively know that they've not lived the kind of lives they should in order to have eternal life so they know that there's something they must do many of the people that i sit down and talk with they instinctively know hey there's something messed up i haven't done it all right and so paul can you just give me the formula so i know what i should do and then jesus responds and notice the plural in verse 28 what are the works of god and Jesus responds in verse 29, this is the work of God. It's singular.

So it not a bunch of stuff to do It not a list of rules and regulations it it not keeping the old testament law it it no it no no it one thing and then jesus says what the one thing is the one thing is is you must believe in jesus that's the one thing it's not a bunch of things that you got to do you can't come to church and say gosh i've messed everything up and paul gave me the list of 10 things to do and if i mostly keep that list, I'm going to be okay. No, you're not going to be okay. Because you can't do it.

There's a work that gets done, and that's the work of Jesus on the cross for you, that He pays a penalty for you, and He gives you His righteousness, and that's a work. And you believe in that work. So I want to use an illustration here. most of you won't be able to see it but you'll get the idea if i use a bench or a chair if if you're hearing me say this and you say okay let me try to put this in other words paul let me make sure i get this right when i when i stand before god instead of turning in my works i'm not going to be turning in my works and hoping for a good report i know that doesn't work I'm going to stand before God and I'm going to turn in my faith.

Because faith is what counts. Is that right? No, because faith doesn't get you into heaven. Jesus gets you into heaven. And so what happens, and although that seems to sound right, what happens is we're basing our entrance into heaven based on the measure of our faith. Not the object of our faith.

And that's such a huge, huge difference. You and I get into heaven not based on the measure of your faith. You get into heaven based on the object of your faith. And for instance, let's just say this piano bench it seems really sturdy but golly I just finished eating dinner over the Pazma's house and man they had two pizzas and they had this big cheese roll and soda, or I'm sorry, pop.

And, you know, they had all kinds of stuff there. And so I'm a little nervous. I mean, before the dinner, I think the piano bench is going to hold me up, but I've got less faith now. And so I start circling the piano bench and I go, golly, I don't know. And then I start calculating, well, how many desserts did I have last night at that great dessert thing?

That pie with the chocolate chips in it? Oh my gosh. And the cookies, I mean, I thought I was sure it was going to hold me up, but now I'm even less sure that it's going to hold me up. And then I remember, gosh, after they picked me up at the airport, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and we had those fried pickle chips, and I had a lot of those, and golly, now I have even less faith that the piano bench is going to hold me up.

So is the piano bench going to hold me up, or is it not? And does it matter if my, does it matter my faith? in the bench? Is my faith going to hold me up? No. The object is holding me up. Does that make sense?

So when I sit down, I can sit down with great confidence. I won't try that again. I'm going to fall over. I can say, yes, it's going to hold me up. Or I can come in biting my nails and I don't know. But it holds me up because what matters is not my faith praise the lord it's the object of my faith and you can have a tiny bit of faith or you can have a lot of faith but jesus is what gets you into heaven not your faith and the reason why that's so critical especially if you're young here is you can spend your whole life nervously biting your nails thinking have i done enough have do i have enough faith and jesus wants to say your faith doesn't matter what matters is what you're put your faith faith into and you're putting your faith into me and you can trust that I'm going to bring you all the way home when it feels like you have no faith at all and so so many people spend their time coming into to Christ and then they think I'm leaving Christ because I've done something wrong or I don't feel like I have faith and so their life is like a revolving door they they never make any real progress in sanctification because they always at the salvation i in oh no i i walked oh no i back in and they just live in this revolving door And that not the gospel That not good news The good news is I've trusted in Jesus.

And He is the author and the perfecter of my faith. He is the object of my faith. And whether I have a little bit or a lot, it's not up to me in any way if I get into heaven. It's up to Jesus. And that is great, great news. And when you really understand that, man, that just frees you up to live in so many different ways.

Because you're going to make some terrible mistakes as a Christian. But that doesn't kick you out of the kingdom. Because your good works didn't get you in in the beginning. What got you in? Jesus got you in. And He never changes.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so that is just, let's just say amen to that. Amen. That is such great, great news. And it makes such a big difference as how you live your life out. One more point here.

One reason to stay. It's not the only reason. It may not be the greatest reason. But I think it will be a reason you use. at some point in your life. It's the reason Peter gives in the passage. Just imagine, you're in the stadium, 15,000 people.

You're down 14,988. They've all gone and it's just 12. what pressure on these guys at this moment to walk away imagine that it was going so well when you handed out the pizza Jesus you had them in your hands but now you started talking and talking about who you are you're losing them and man some of my friends are leaving imagine the pressure for these guys to leave and Jesus understands the pressure so he turns to his own disciples and he looks at them and he says, verse 67, do you want to go away I mean it looks like I can see the wheels turning It looks like maybe you're making some calculations. It looks like you're kind of looking over your shoulder.

Do you have an interest in going away? And Peter has such a great response. And again, it's a response you'll use. Simon said, you know, Lord where else is there to go? I have made the calculations it does look terrible right now but you're the only one that has eternal life and so maybe right now I could turn to something else and it would seem immediately fulfilling but I know it's not ultimately fulfilling.

And you know, when you walk alongside somebody, it's helpful to know what they think might be immediately fulfilling and just say, but is that ultimately fulfilling? No, it's not ultimately fulfilling. No, only Jesus is ultimately fulfilling. And so sometimes you'll get frustrated. You'll become fearful. You'll get into some pain and you'll want to walk away.

I know when I was wrestling with God in the summer of 1986, I really thought I was going to walk away, and really I had no other place to go. I said, God, I don't like where you're taking me, but I don't like any other road a lot worse. So I'm just going to stay on your road. Why? Because there is hope for eternal life. And maybe it's not going to work out all like I want it to here and now. but you can take the worst event in human history the cross and make it the greatest event in human history so i might be living through a terrible event but you can bring it into good in some ways that maybe i can't imagine well i don't know where you might be here this evening you might be tempted to turn away you might say you know i've been following jesus but it's just not working out the way I thought and I understand that.

Maybe you were like a friend I sat down with He said you know I used to believe in Jesus but then I went to college and took some biology classes and I don think so anymore And just intellectually you wrestling with some concepts I understand that It a temptation to turn away Maybe just morally, you believe in Jesus, but you don't want to give up your habits that you know are bad, so you just distance yourself from the church. Maybe you just can't allow God to be really sovereign. Makes you squirm so you move away.

I understand all these are real temptations to turn away. But Peter has wrestled with those things. People through all Christianity, including myself, have wrestled with those things and concluded he's the only one that has eternal life. So we stay. And so whether I have a little bit of faith in that or tonight I have a lot of faith in that, that's not what gets me home. what gets me home is Jesus let's pray Lord there isn't anyone in this room without faith it's part of the human design everybody here is sitting in some chair might be a job might be a boyfriend a child their looks the Ohio State University football team I mean there's a thousand idols we sit and we just trust it can take us home but they all collapse like a house of cards because they don't last.

Your mother dies, you grow old. Things are lost or broken. And so I pray for the person who has spent their life trying to find that object that they would see tonight. It's Jesus. I pray for the people here that may have lived their whole life in a revolving door relationship with you. Because they thought their salvation was based on their measure of faith and not in Jesus, the object of their faith.

Would you rescue them from that misguided thinking? and see that Jesus is the author and the perfecter of their faith and their salvation. And would this passage give courage to somebody here to step into the life of a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a co-worker, and just walk alongside with what they think. Listen, be empathetic to the kinds of questions they have about Jesus, not to be afraid to stay engaged, to say, hey, would you like to read through the Gospel of John and see how many people have asked Jesus the same question you're asking?

That from this little tiny gathering group in March of 2013, an eternal ripple would run through all of eternity because we were faithful to trust in you for our salvation and the salvation of many many people because of your great work. Bless these people who've given so much of their time and attention. that they've gotten themselves away from the busyness of their mind or the busyness of their schedule or the tiredness that they have and the early rise that they have to have tomorrow, would you divinely bless them in ways seen and unseen today? Would you bless this church in the many ways it's trying to reach out to people who desperately need the hope of Christ?

Give them the patience and the perseverance of perseverance to walk alongside people who are cursing God, who are questioning God, who are seeking God. Stay with those people until the end. Thank you for what you've done in all of our lives. Pray in Jesus' great name. Amen. Thank you.