John chapter 6, verse 22.
The Lord Jesus is in the region of
the Galilee, northern Israel.
He is specifically in the city of Capernaum.
And we pick things up early in the
morning of a particular day.
And quite a bit has happened in the
ministry of Jesus the day prior.
The day prior, he has fed 5,000
men, we don't know how many women and
children, with five loaves and two fish.
And he has fed them as much as
they wanted to eat.
It was just Thanksgiving, it was sickening.
They just glutted themselves.
Just kidding, it was wonderful.
And then following that feeding, these Jewish people
decided that he seemed like a pretty good
candidate for king.
But Jesus didn't come into the world just
to be a king.
He's much more than that.
He's the King of kings and the Lord
of lords.
And Jesus knew that the reason that they
wanted to make him king was they wanted
a king that could fill their belly.
They wanted a king that would fill their
fleshly appetites.
And Jesus never becomes anybody's king on that
level.
He becomes our king on his terms.
And that's not only best for him, it's
best for us.
It's a loving thing that he does.
And so they come and they want to
make him king.
And Jesus, of course, doesn't allow that to
take place at all.
And he dismisses the crowd and he takes
the disciples down, we know from the other
Gospels, to the Sea of Galilee.
And he tells them to go cross over
to the region of Capernaum.
And they get in the boat and they're
making their way to Capernaum and there's a
great storm that arises on the Sea of
Galilee.
Jesus is up on the mountain praying.
And the people all see Jesus send the
disciples away in the boat, the 5,000
men, however many women and children, and they
see Jesus not going with them.
And the boat goes off.
And of course, Jesus, as they're making their
way across, a great storm comes up.
These men, many of them experienced fishermen, they
hit this storm and they're rowing for eight
hours.
And they just made it four or five
miles, about halfway to where they needed to
get.
And they're never outside of Jesus's attention.
And he comes to them walking on the
water, scared them at first.
It would scare me.
I don't see myself as any greater than
them.
Jesus comes to them and he pronounces peace
upon them.
And then he identifies himself.
And they eagerly or willingly brought him into
the boat.
And then instantly they're at the shore of
Capernaum.
And then the people wake up the next
day.
We're told in verse 22, the following day
when the people, so they got there late
in the early, early mornings.
And yet Jesus and the disciples are, you
know, kind of at work early the next
day.
And then the people, and these are the
people, these people are the people who were
fed to the point of being blood of
the five loaves and the two fishes.
And they were standing on the other side
of the sea.
And they saw that there was no other
boat there except that one, which his disciples
had entered.
And that Jesus had not entered the boat
with his disciples, but his disciples had gone
away alone.
However, other boats came from Tiberias near the
place where they ate bread after the Lord
had given thanks.
And when the people therefore saw that Jesus
was not there nor his disciples, they also
got into boats and they came to Capernaum
seeking Jesus.
So they wake up in the morning and
they realize that Jesus is gone, but they
don't know how he's left because there was
only one boat there, the boat that the
disciples got in and left on.
And yet Jesus is gone.
And they're not so alarmed that Jesus, the
Messiah, the Son of God has left their
presence.
They're concerned that their meal ticket is gone.
Funny thing about even Thanksgiving.
You have a nice feast about two in
the afternoon, you know, and you find yourself
in that dumb refrigerator picking away at about
eight o'clock at night, don't you?
There's just that fleshly appetite.
It's never satisfied permanently.
And so here they have, they spend the
night, they sleep and they're in just as
desolate a place as ever in terms of
food for that number of people.
And they say, well, where's Jesus in order
that, you know, that he might feed us
again.
And so they follow him now getting other
boats that had in the meantime come from
Tiberias to that place.
And they evidently kind of hired them or
talked them into going over to Capernaum.
They come to Capernaum and they find Jesus
there and they don't know how Jesus got
there because Jesus had walked on the water
to get there.
And when they found him on the other
side of the sea, this is what they
said to him.
They said, rabbi, when did you come here?
And that's the question that they ask of
them.
They, of him, they saw the disciples leave
without Jesus.
And they wondered about his ability to get
over to Capernaum.
And then Jesus's response, of course, is interesting.
In verse 26, he answered them and said,
most assuredly, I say to you, you seek
me not because you saw the signs, but
because you ate of the loaves and were
filled.
He said, you're not coming to me for
the reason that you ought to have come
to me on the basis of the miracle.
What he's telling them is the miracle that
he did was not given supremely to satisfy
their fleshly appetite.
The miracle was done so that their appetite
might be satisfied, but they would, in seeing
the miracle, recognize that only God could do
this.
Only the Messiah could do this.
And that they would recognize him as the
Messiah and as the Son of God.
This goes completely over their heads.
They're only interested in food.
And Jesus, you know, confronts them concerning their
real reason for following after him.
So Jesus is saying, listen, their question is
why his, he says, you're asking how did
I get here?
The real question, the most important question is
why are you following me?
Why did you go through all that effort
to go from that place to follow me
into Capernaum?
What's your motivation in following me?
And the complete discourse that he gives now
is an answer to that question.
He is going to test the motives of
those who claim to be his disciples for
why they follow him and reveal the only
motive that will withstand over the long haul
what God has called us to do and
to be in following him.
And so Jesus tells them, listen, the only
reason that you followed me is you want
bread.
You want me to meet your physical need,
but you're not interested in spiritual things.
And that's what they wanted and that's what
a lot of people want today.
They want someone who feed them, keep them
physically supplied while they do exactly what they
want to do with their life.
That's not Christianity.
And the Lord Jesus will never let a
person be content in that kind of life
where he just supplies the physical needs.
And then we continue on doing precisely what
we want under our own Lordship.
He loves us enough not to do that.
One of the things that he's communicating here
is that a spiritual hunger can never be
satisfied by a purely physical anything.
The day before, as I said, they've been
stuffed.
The very next day they're hungry again.
Now notice what he says in verse 27,
do not labor for the food, which perishes,
that is temporal food, but for the food
which endures to everlasting life.
Now he exhorts them now to search for
the food that endures to everlasting life, to
search for, to seek out everlasting life with
the same zeal that they were searching out
temporal food.
Wouldn't it be something in this world if
people gave as much consideration to everlasting life
and the source of everlasting life that we
do to what we're going to eat in
a given day?
Can you imagine the number of hours on
one day alone on planet earth that is
given over to thinking about temporal food?
A few months ago, my oldest sister, who
is an attorney for a corporation in the
United States, and she lives in Colorado and
she came out to the Napa Valley, to
the wine country.
And one of my nieces and her husband,
they own a restaurant in Nashville and it's
very cutting edge or whatever the word is
for it.
So there's a, there's odd things on the
menu.
And in order to give them kind of
this culinary tour of California, they invited the
whole family to the French Laundry in Yonville.
It's one of the premier restaurants in the
entirety of the world.
I don't know how many courses it was.
The meal was thousands of dollars.
I didn't pay for it.
My sister paid for it.
I think the wine was about a thousand
or two.
Karen and I could hardly make our way
to the car after.
I'm just kidding.
You're going to come here.
You got to have a sense of humor,
but they're doing all of these things and
everything.
And, and, you know, and getting it just
to match Austrian wine, to match the, you
know, the caviar and then this thing and
all of that.
I'd never eaten caviar before.
I'll never eat it again.
I'll tell you that That's overrated to me,
but there were things they served us that
were all kinds of different things.
And, and, uh, and I didn't have any
problem moving them over to somebody who could
appreciate them, but then finish them off.
But it was a neat experience.
But I just, I sat there and I
watched that meal come forth.
Like, you know, an art is an amount
of time that's given to food, just in
an individual human life, corporately.
And Jesus is saying, you guys, if you
gave that kind of attention to everlasting life,
listen, you'd be successful in discovering the source
of everlasting life.
He said, do not labor for the food,
which perishes, but for the food, which endures
to everlasting life, which the son of man
will give you.
He guarantees that if they will give as
much consideration to everlasting life and the food
that leads to everlasting life, him, so to
speak, that they give to the natural food.
He said, I guarantee you you'll be successful.
I assure you of success in it because
God, the father has set his seal on
him.
Speaking of him, he said, I have the
father's authority to do this.
Then they said to him, what shall we
do?
And the word do is an important one
that we may work the works of God.
Now you notice in verse 27, that second
half, which the son of man will give.
Jesus says, give.
And what does man say?
Do.
And that is the prevailing attitude as it
relates to everlasting life today is that somehow
it is attained to by me doing something
to earn my salvation, but no one can
earn their salvation because none of us can
be righteous enough or right on enough or
right.
And the rightness that is the only rightness
that's accepted by heaven is perfect rightness.
We're already too late in our lives for
that because we've sinned.
Our only hope for salvation is that God
will make it a free gift.
And those, and thus he uses words like
give, but they think, okay, what do we
got to do?
And it's one of the hardest things for
people to grasp is that they can hear
it a hundred times.
It's a gift.
It is everlasting life is a gift from
God.
It is no harder than receiving a gift
at Christmas time or on your birthday.
All you do is an act of your
will is to receive that gift.
It's that simple.
God's made it that simple.
Now what?
Our air conditioning is hope glory.
Go ahead.
Clap.
It's all right.
I thought I was going to have to
stop on another verse.
So some of you look pain, but there
is this idea that no matter how often
a person will hear it, it's a gift.
You just receive it that somehow, okay, I've
got to do something.
And somehow we think if we do something,
we'll make our salvation a little more secure
than it is, but there's nothing we can
do to, it's a free gift.
So they say, okay, what do we got
to do to do the works of God?
You're talking about everlasting life.
We do want everlasting life.
What do we got to do in order
to please God that we can have everlasting
life?
And Jesus answered and said to them, this
is the work of God.
If you want to call it a work
that you believe, and there's that great word
of John's gospel, believe it's going to be
repeated over and over again in this passage
that you believe or trust in him.
That is in Jesus whom him in him,
whom he sent, who the father sent.
So I salvation everlasting life is found in
simply trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of
my sins for everlasting life, trusting in him,
acknowledging the fact that he is the Messiah
and the savior that was promised all the
way from the beginning in Genesis chapter three.
And so salvation, the only work that is
involved is the equivalent of receiving a gift
and nobody could consider that work.
And so, so he corrects that.
And I want you to know, if you
don't know the Lord tonight, you can't work
your way into heaven.
God knows you.
He knows me.
So he's made it a free gift.
And when we receive Jesus as our savior,
we believe in him, trust in him for
salvation and honors the father because that's the
way he has chosen to save mankind.
And therefore they said to him, what sign
will you perform then that we may see
it and believe in you?
What work will you do now?
Wait a second.
That's the kind of thing that just makes
you say, that's all I can take.
I can't take no more.
They're asking him for a miracle to prove
himself in order that they might believe in
him.
Excuse me.
Were you not fed to the point of
stuffed yesterday with five loaves and two fishes?
Now see to me, and John seems to
keep bringing out this point, the weakness of
miracles as a basis for faith, because it's
always, what have you done for me lately?
And so here it is.
God's done this tremendous miracle the day before
they had all the proof that they needed.
And now they want them to do another
miracle of their own choosing, which they're going
to suggest a miracle in just a moment,
one that would be helpful to them.
And, and, uh, and so there's always that
kind of thing.
They had all of the proof that they
needed, that he was the Messiah from the
miracles.
And they said, well, listen, since we're talking
about you performing a miracle to prove yourself,
maybe we could suggest one.
Verse 31, our fathers ate the manna in
the desert.
As it is written, he gave them bread
from heaven to eat.
And what they're communicating here was, you know,
listen, we've had deliverers before in our history.
And we had one by the name of
Moses and Moses brought forth from heaven manna
for 40 years.
So Jesus, if you're open to suggestions in
terms of miracles to prove yourself, uh, we'd
like that to happen.
Would you feed us for 40 years?
What you did yesterday, that was night.
That was great.
But we we've had better in our history.
Moses did that for 40 years.
So maybe you could feed us for all
of our life.
And then we'd believe in you.
And Jesus said to them, and he begins
with a correction.
Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did
not give you the bread from heaven.
Moses never supplied that for you.
He said, but my father, his father, the
Lord, he's the one that provided that bread,
but he's also the one that provides the
bread that gives everlasting life.
He's the one that's provided the sun for
the world.
But my father gives you the true bread
from heaven.
And Jesus is saying, just as the father
provided physical bread for you through manna in
the old Testament.
So too, he has provided spiritual bread for
you under everlasting life, but it's found in
me.
And so they bring up the subject of
bread here now because of the miracle and
everything that's gone on.
And Jesus is now going to carry that
particular physical image of bread, a physical thing
that they understand, and then communicate to them
spiritual things through it.
And so he declares to them that the
father provided that in the old Testament, but
the father has provided now something greater.
And that is the true bread speaking of
Jesus where everlasting life is found for the
bread of God is he, it's not a
loaf of bread.
It's a person he's talking about himself is
he who comes down from heaven and gives
life to the world.
Now you notice that word life all the
way through.
There's going to be a reoccurrence of this
life, everlasting life, eternal life.
That's the theme, how to have everlasting life.
And so the bread of God is who
it's he who's come down from heaven and
gives life to the world.
And what Jesus is communicating to these people
is that I'm just not a miracle worker.
I've come from heaven.
That's my home.
I'm not just a great man.
I have come from heaven to do what
it is that I've come to do.
They're going to stumble with that over that,
but that's the truth.
And that's the thing that they ought to
have recognized from the miracle.
It wasn't like, Oh, you know, here we
got fed by five loaves and two fishes.
And, uh, you know, that was happening every
day in Israel.
Then they said to him, verse 34, Lord,
give us this bread.
Always give us this bread.
That doesn't just last 40 years, but it
lasts for everlasting life.
And Jesus said to them, I am the
bread of life.
And so this is the first of the
great, I am statements of Jesus in the
gospel.
According to John, I am the bread of
life.
And notice what he said, he who comes
to me shall never hunger.
And he who believes or trusts in me
shall never thirst.
And he's talking again about spiritual things in
the, uh, through physical things.
There is a spiritual thirst and the spiritual
hunger in every single human being born into
this world that can never be satisfied by
physical things.
Sometimes when I watch a person or sometimes,
you know, you're one of your loved ones
and we're praying for him or something like
that.
And I see them, they get into this
thing and then they get into that thing.
They don't know the Lord yet.
And then they get into this thing.
And then six months later, they're into this
thing and they've bought everything associated with it.
And, and then the next thing and all
of this, and I'm looking at a thirsty
person.
That's a person that's trying to find some
kind of satisfaction in the physical realm for
a spiritual thirst that they have.
And Jesus is saying, you'll never be satisfied
with the physical things.
Before I came to know the Lord, we
had bought a house in Napa.
It's an expensive place to live.
Great place to own a house.
Any place is a great place to own
a house.
We had fixed that thing up and we
had sold it and made a lot of
money off of it.
And then we bought a nicer one and
we fixed that whole thing up.
The whole outside, the whole inside.
I mean, we did the whole thing and
I got done with that thing.
And I thought to myself, and I remember
talking with my wife and I said, in
essence, if this hasn't satisfied me.
Upgrading beyond here isn't going to do it.
I'm going back to the Lord.
And I knew the Lord was the true
way.
I knew I'd been raised in it.
And I started to go back to the
Lord.
There was that recognition that light went on
for me, that this will never satisfy me.
And I think satisfied is one of the
most beautiful words.
I stand before you and I know it's
your testimony to a satisfied person.
I am so satisfied in my relationship with
him.
And then whatever the Lord brings into my
life or doesn't bring into my life or
any of these kinds of things, it's a
non-issue.
I am so satisfied.
There is no big search that's going on
in my life at all.
I'm not looking for anything because I've come
home.
I've come to what I was created for.
And if you're here tonight and you're searching
and you're moving from one thing to the
next and all this kind of stuff, you're
on a spiritual search, my friend, and no
physical thing is ever going to satisfy it.
But you come to the Lord and you'll
never thirst again.
And that's his promise.
And that's the truth.
And Jesus said, but I said to you
that you have seen me and yet do
not believe.
It's not that they would not believe, but
that they do not believe is an act
of their will.
They wouldn't believe in him.
They wanted a miracle.
What greater miracle could you have than to
have God, the son in your presence, the
very Messiah in your presence, the one of
whom the prophets wrote, the one of whom
these great prophets, Jeremiah prophesying for 40 years
without a single convert would have given his
right arm for one day in the Messiah's
presence.
Here they are in the Messiah's presence.
They've been an object of one of his
miracles and they still can't see it.
He's the miracle.
And again, the conclusions that they could have,
should have come to concerning him as a
result of the miracles.
And yet he said, you don't believe only
the Emmanuel God with us could have done
the things that he was doing.
And he said, all that the father gives
will come to me and he who comes
to me, I will by no means cast
out.
And so the promises that the Lord gives
concerning those that will come to Jesus, all
that the father gives verse 37 will come
to Jesus.
Jesus looks at their unbelief and he's not
discouraged by it.
Not one single bit, not discouraged by the
unbelief that's represented in that crowd.
Not one bit.
He knows that the father has given, has
chosen and elected some to be saved and
coming to Jesus.
And Jesus puts his attention on these.
It's one of the things that has saved
me over the years in the ministry is
that so often there's such, so much bad
news and people say, well, you know, this
is going bad and that's gone bad, and
this is going wrong and that's going wrong.
And so-and-so and this, and then
all this stuff.
And there was a while back just for
my own survival.
I'm talking about years ago where I have
as a purposely put my focus on the
folks that are doing well.
And so Jesus wasn't surprised by all of
this.
And Jesus said, and the one who comes
to me, I will by no means cast
out.
Jesus will not cast you out.
Those who come to him, he will by
no means cast you out.
No matter who you are, no matter what
you've done.
I see Tony in the back.
Be safe, Tony.
You're in by a mile.
No matter what our backgrounds, no matter what
our sin, no matter what they are.
If we come to the Lord as he
speaks to us right here, he will by
no means cast us out.
Come to him.
He won't reject you.
All of God's plans concerning salvation.
They're going to come to pass, but this
doesn't negate man's responsibility.
And here you have the great coin, both
sides of the coin in verse 37, all
that the father gives, he will come to
me.
You've got the father's side in salvation, the
election, but then you have, and the one
who comes to me, I will by no
means cast out.
You've got man's responsibility there.
And so a person says, well, how do
I know that God has elected me?
Come to him and you'll know he's elected
you.
That's how, you know, come to him and
give your life to him.
And then you'll know that he has elected
you.
And so there is, and this of course
is an object of tremendous discussion all through
the ages in all.
And when I teach through the Bible, those
passages that have to do with God's election,
I teach them careful of the context concerning
those things.
And then the scriptures that have to do
with, with man's responsibility to accept God's offer.
Then I teach man's responsibility.
One of the things with me is I
don't have a problem with mystery.
I love it when Paul writes in Romans
verses nine, chapters nine, 10 and 11, and
this great theme on God's election and his
sovereignty and all of this.
And you read through that.
And even as he's going through that whole
thing, he goes in one direction and then
he goes in another direction and he comes
to the end of the whole thing.
And he begins to talk about the great
mystery that it is.
And he just praises God and he closes
it out because you have the sense he
could write another hundred chapters on it and
not provide any clarity.
And so to me, when I'm dealing with
someone who doesn't know the Lord, I'm going
to talk to them about their responsibility to
receive God's salvation and to believe in him.
I notice in John chapter three, where Jesus
meets with Nicodemus with the woman at the
well in John chapter four, there's no mention
of election there.
And that discussion that goes on, though election
is all over the situation, but he doesn't
address them with that.
He talks to them about their responsibility and
what they need to do.
And so that's what I do.
A person needs to receive the Lord.
I talk to them about their responsibility, the
invitation of God to believe in him, to
trust in him.
Here's what you need to do.
Now do it.
Then once a person comes to know the
Lord, then the great focus of my attention
is on the security of the believer.
I'm not going to talk about the security
of the believer to an unbeliever, the security
of the believer.
I don't want anyone that knows the Lord
to doubt their salvation because Christianity is a
response to what God has first done for
us.
And I must be confident in his salvation
so that I respond to what he has
done for me.
And then Christianity becomes not an issue of
trying to obey this law and that law
and all these kinds of things.
Everything I do is in response to what
he's first done for me.
And then you've got joy in the Christian
life.
So here's this beautiful thing.
And all the way through, you can see
where he goes into election, he goes into
responsibility, the whole thing.
To me, there is like this line that
as it relates to the two truths that
when you stay within the two lines, it
all makes sense.
But if you go over the line in
either direction, then the whole thing becomes chaos
in your mind.
And so God, he elects and you come
to know the Lord.
And then when you come to know the
Lord, you look back and you realize he
was all over it.
We thought we did it.
We thought on all of that.
But then there's that responsibility to come to
him and heed his call.
And then in verse 38, for I have
come down, Jesus said, from heaven, not to
do my own will, but the will of
him who sent me.
And this is the will of the father
who sent me that of all he has
given me, I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up at the last day.
So here we have the promise of God's
election is calling to be saved.
And then here the opportunity for us to
believe in him.
And then here in verse 39 is that
that great assurance of the fact that when
we give our life to the Lord, he's
not going to lose us.
Isn't that nice?
My salvation is sure it's a secure salvation.
I never spent a single day of my
life wondering whether I'm going to be in
heaven.
I know I'm going to be in heaven.
I don't agonize over that at all because
my life has been given into the Lord's
hands.
He knows how to keep what he is
given to him.
And you notice at the end of verse
39, but should raise it up in the
last day.
I know that in my future is a
future resurrection into heaven's glory because Jesus has
promised it here.
And this is the will of him who
sent me that everyone who sees the son
and believes that his trusts in him may
have, have it now everlasting life.
And I will raise him up on the
last day.
And the Jews then complained against him because
he said, I am the bread, which come
came down from heaven.
And so what they're, they're troubled with here
is the fact that Jesus is saying that
he's come down from heaven and they recognize
that, you know, this is a claim to
deity or something supernatural.
They didn't like his claim, this heavenly origin,
but they shouldn't have been surprised about it
because no one could claim to be the
Messiah without having that heavenly origin and be
the Messiah.
According to the scriptures, God declared through Isaiah,
the prophet Isaiah nine, six four unto us,
a child is born unto us.
A son is given.
You have salvation.
You have the Christmas message from earth's vantage
point, a son given or, or, or, or
a child born.
And then from heaven's vantage point, a son
given for unto us, a child is born
unto us.
A son is given and the government will
be upon his shoulder and his name will
be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father,
the prince of peace.
And so this beautiful testimony of the fact
that he was, he said, I'm from heaven,
whether that ought to, instead of this confusing
them, it should have bolstered their faith in
him.
And then they said, is this not, it
is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know.
How is it then that he says, I've
come down from heaven.
So they think to themselves, listen, they're up
in the north.
They're near, they're near Nazareth where Jesus was
raised.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he was
raised in Nazareth and said, wait a second.
We know Joseph and we know Mary and
that's his parents.
And how is he saying that he comes
from heaven?
And they're rejecting Jesus on the basis of
wrong information.
And I think about how many people do.
They don't know the truth about him.
Joseph is not his father.
The Lord is his father.
Mary is his mother.
And so they look and they think they
know everything about him and they're going to
reject him.
They didn't know anything about him.
When I was in college, when I was
a kid, I was raised up in a
lot of different churches and in no church.
And I got into college age and I
attended college and I didn't, you know, I
certainly wasn't walking with the Lord.
I wasn't the heathen Tony Willett was.
We'll be sure we get Tony a free
tape tonight.
But I wasn't walking with the Lord.
And I remember listening to, but I knew
enough about the Bible.
And then that college environment, all of these
people speaking like authorities on the Bible.
And I'd sit there and say to myself,
and sometimes I'd speak up just because it
would aggravate me.
I wasn't ready to live for the Lord,
but I was, I was willing to argue
for him.
It's a gift.
A lot of times I would just keep
silent and people would say the most inane
things that you would never believe if you
ever read through the Bible just even once.
And they were rejecting him, the source of
everlasting life on the basis of fables.
They didn't know what they were doing.
That's what's happening here.
They know nothing about him at all, but
they think they're an authority on them.
I hope nobody's in that category tonight.
Therefore, Jesus, therefore answered and said to them,
don't murmur among yourselves.
Kind of a rebuke, isn't it?
He said, no one can come to me
unless the father who sent me draws him.
And I will raise him up at the
last day.
It is written in the prophets and they
shall know all and they shall all be
taught by God.
Therefore, everyone who has heard and learned from
the father comes to me.
Now, this is interesting because Jesus says he
commands them to stop their, their murmuring.
He then begins to speak to them about
the fact that not only did they not
know very much about him, but they didn't
know much about the father, though they considered
themselves experts on the father.
What Jesus is saying there in, in verse
44 and in verse 45 is that they
thought that their rejection of Jesus was because
of such a great zeal and intimacy with
God, the father.
And Jesus is saying, if you had true
zeal for God and true intimacy with God,
you would not be rejecting his son.
So he's, he's kind of given them a
wake-up call to the fact that they're
not nearly as spiritual as they thought.
They thought their big problem was their relationship
with Jesus.
Jesus says, that's not your big problem.
There wouldn't be a problem in your relationship
with me.
If you didn't have the problem that you
do in your relationship with the father, and
that is that you don't know what he's
doing.
You don't know what he has said, but
you don't know that.
Now these are religious leaders.
And of course, this is among the disciples
and they're going to pipe up to, and
they're, and this isn't going to sit that
well.
What's the evidence that someone has heard God
and been taught by God.
He'll come to Jesus.
She'll come to Jesus.
It's as simple as that.
That's the person that's heard the father.
And then he says in verse 46, not
that anyone has seen the father, except he
who is from God.
He has seen the father.
Jesus is declaring.
You claim to have intimacy with God, but
no one has had greater intimacy than I've
had.
I come from heaven.
I come from that throne.
I come from that reign.
You're never going to have a closer relationship
with a father than the one that I
have.
And you ought to listen to me and
most assuredly, or verily, verily in the King
James, which I like better.
I say to you, he who believes, and
again, that great word in me has present
tense everlasting life comes by trusting in him.
I am the bread of life.
Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and
are dead.
You want me to do a manna thing
again?
That's the best you can come up with.
You're still going to die.
And Jesus is telling them you're willing to
settle for such pathetic evidences, miracles that will
make you think that I be convinced of
who I am.
But the great miracle that's needed in your
life is the one that I'm willing to
do.
And the one that I'm willing to do
is not just to feed you physically or
materially, but I'm willing to give you everlasting
life to meet your spiritual needs.
And you're turning it down.
They thought they needed a physical miracle.
Jesus knew they needed a spiritual miracle.
And this is the bread which comes down
from heaven that one may eat of it
and not die.
And again, not die.
So the everlasting life all the way through.
I am the living bread which came down
from heaven.
They didn't like the fact that he came
down from heaven, but Jesus isn't going to
back off from that.
He's going to say I came down from
heaven and about every other verse the rest
of the way, they're going to yield the
point.
A lot of people, you know, when we
come to the Lord, it's like, all right,
some people, they come and they say, all
right, I'm going to come to the Lord,
but he's got to be like this for
me.
This is what he's got to be.
Otherwise I'm out.
I'm telling you, God, one more, you know,
thing like that.
And I'm out of here.
And you know what?
That'll cost you in terms of popularity.
And I don't like this thing today where
you guys are the customers and everybody, you
got to be told how wonderful and how
great, or I need to be.
If I walked into a church and they
told me that I couldn't wait to get
out of that place.
We're a room full of wretches.
Saved.
It is an honor to be saved.
It is astonishing that you and I are
saved.
I don't come into this relationship as the
Lord.
He didn't do a little tap dance for
me.
He's God.
And if a person comes in that relationship
in that way, it's funny how the Lord
has some very early trials to establish things
in that life.
I'm the living bread, which came down from
heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will
live forever.
And the bread that I give that I
shall give is my flesh, which I shall
give for the life of the world.
And so he identifies himself as the living
bread that's come down from heaven.
Anyone eats of that bread partakes of that
bread.
How, as he speaks there in verse 47,
by believing in him to believe is to
partake in him.
And then the result and believing in him
in what context that I shall give.
And what that I shall give is my
flesh, which I shall give for the life
of the world, the cross.
And the Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying,
how can this man give us his flesh
to eat?
Now, they're stewing at this point.
All they had to do at the very
beginning, God had given them all of the
evidence they needed to believe in him.
But the longer they refuse to do it,
the harder it gets.
Because with every revelation that Jesus gives of
himself to them in the rejecting of that
revelation, they must harden their heart to do
it.
And so what Jesus is forced to do
in that kind of life then is to
kind of raise not the DBs, but the
kind of spiritual DBs.
He says even harder things to them in
order that they'll either get in or get
out on things.
And so it's the great evidence.
And this is the danger of a person
attending church forever and never settling the issue
of Jesus's lordship in their life.
They become a sermon listening machine, and they
don't know that every time that opportunity is
given to accept the Lord and they reject
it, that they have to harden their heart.
There is a hardness of heart that occurs
in doing that.
And it makes it that much harder to
do it the next time.
And so their heart has gotten very, very
hard.
And so now here they say, how can
this man give us his flesh to eat?
Jesus is now using images that are even
harder for them to understand in terms of
everlasting life.
And I lift him up at the last
day, for my flesh is food indeed, and
my blood is drink indeed.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my
blood abides in me, and I in him.
As the living father sent me, and I
live because of the father, so he who
feeds on me will live because of me.
And this is the bread which came down
from heaven, not as your fathers ate the
manna and are dead.
He who eats this bread will live forever.
And again, in verse 48, he's already revealed
himself to be the bread of life.
He's talking about partaking of him.
And that's the thing that they needed to
do.
And so now he continues to use something
physical that they do understand, eating, drinking, to
illustrate a physical reality.
They flip out over the fact, you eat
my flesh and drink my blood, and what
do we get into here?
The eating of the bread.
What happens when you eat something?
When you take a piece of bread and
you eat it, what happens to that bread?
It becomes a part of you.
You can't change that.
Once you eat that bread, that bread does
two things.
Number one, it goes into the deepest part
of your life.
And number two, it goes into every part
of your life.
And what Jesus is talking about here is
it relates to these things.
He's using a physical thing to describe a
spiritual thing.
And that same thing happens spiritually when one
believes in Jesus for their salvation.
To believe in him is to have him
come into my life by the Holy Spirit.
It's called a spiritual birth.
And when he comes into my life, he
does the same two things that food does.
He goes into the deepest part of my
life and he goes into every part of
my life.
And to that, I say, hip, hip, hooray.
There's no shallow work that he does or
an incomplete work that he does in our
lives.
And so he's using these images.
And so when Jesus comes into a life,
just like the bread and the body, they
become united, they become one.
When Jesus comes into a human life, we
become one all the way through the book
of Ephesians in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus.
We're in him.
And then by the Holy Spirit, he's in
us.
These things he said, verse 59, in the
synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.
And therefore, many of his disciples, when they
heard this teaching, they said, this is hard.
Who can understand it?
And they're offended by it.
It isn't that they couldn't understand it.
It wasn't that it was like impossible to
understand.
It was hard for them to hear this.
I mean, Jesus is calling them to lose
their identity in him, to believe in him,
who he is.
I mean, he's talking about the two becoming
one and the mystical, the body of Christ.
They look at that and they said, this
is, this is, we're offended by this kind
of speech.
And, and so Jesus, when he knew in
himself that his disciples complained about this, he
said to them, does this offend you?
I'm so sorry.
I didn't mean to offend the customer.
He said, would you please just, I can
change the message and all because you know,
no, that's not what he did.
He said, what then, if you should see
the son of man ascend where he was
before.
One of the things about the Ascension, it
wasn't just that 40 days, you know, later
or 50 days later that Jesus went to
the Mount of Olives and then he ascended
up into heaven to kind of do some
kind of final supernatural thing.
What the Ascension into heaven communicated about was
that heaven was pleased with all that he
had done.
And what Jesus is declaring here is I
offend you.
But when I ascend into heaven, you will
see that what I have said to you
and what I have done in this world
does not offend heaven.
It is the truth of heaven.
And so here they are, is there offended?
And Jesus said, listen, I don't know where
you're going to go with this whole thing
or, or all, but I know that heaven
is, is, is pleased.
What it is with what I've done.
He said, it is the spirit who gives
life, the Holy spirit, the flesh profits, nothing.
The words that I speak to you are
spirit and they are life.
Now here, Jesus in verse 63, here, he
plainly tells them that he's not calling them
to a physical eating of his body or
the drinking of his blood, but that he's
speaking of a life that the Holy spirit
gives by believing in him.
There's a life that the Holy spirit gives
by believing in him.
But there are some of you who do
not believe not that they, you know, cannot,
or whether they refuse to believe for Jesus
knew from the beginning who they were, who
did not believe and who would betray him.
And he said, therefore, I have said to
you that no one can come to me
unless it has been granted to him by
my father.
And so here they are, they're following Jesus
because of what they want to get from
him.
They think they can get from him.
They want them to supply for the physical
needs, but they, they want to still be
the Lord of their life and Jesus here.
And they're kind of, again, they've got this
idea that Jesus is the lame one here
in Israel.
They're the one with a real intimate relationship
with the father.
And so Jesus, again, verse 65 speaks of
the father's involvement in one coming to him.
And Jesus is revealing that the father wasn't
a part of their motivation to follow him,
or they would have continued to follow him.
They were following him for purely fleshly reasons.
And from that time, verse 66, many it's
amazing.
We don't know how many made it by
boat over of the 5,000 or 10
,000 or 15,000.
However, many men, women, and children made it
over by the way of boat to Capernaum
to hear the speech, but maybe there were
thousands of people here as Jesus is making
this declaration to them.
And we're told that many of his disciples
went back and they walked with him no
more.