That You May Believe

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

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Story 1

Have any of you ever totally misunderstood the point of something?

Middle school test where we were suppose to read all the directions

The crowd claiming to follow Jesus finds themselves in a similar circumstances

Application 1

What the text is NOT saying

Cannibalism is the way to salvation

I don't really feel most hold this position, but just incase

Walking dead joke

Matthew 15:11

Communion is the way to salvation

Many biblical scholars through the ages have thought that Jesus was giving a discourse on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and was saying that unless a person partakes of the real body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion, he cannot be redeemed.

I don’t agree with that position.

Matthew 15:11

This is one of the few occasions when the majority of scholars hold the position that I hold. I believe that Jesus is speaking here not about the Lord’s Supper but about the same subject He addressed in my last sermon His conversation with the Samaritan woman (John 4:1–26), when He talked about the living water that He would give.

In short, I believe Jesus was making the point that He is the giver of supernatural life, the living Redeemer who had been sent by the living God to impart eternal life to all who put their trust in Him.

Furthermore, He was calling for a deep commitment. He told His disciples: “You have to come into Me, be united to Me, feast upon Me—not just have a casual relationship to Me.” He was calling His followers to a wholehearted pursuit of union with Him—a union without which there is no spiritual life.

What the text is saying

God is sovereign in Salvation

Jesus is the only way to salvation

Abiding in christ (John 15:1-4)

Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The gospel is offensive

Seeker Sensitive

“The same sun which melts wax hardens clay. And the same Gospel which melts some persons to repentance hardens others in their sins”

– Spurgeon

The same crowd which was so quick to pledge loyalty to jesus and want to make him King, Prophet or Teacher are now quick to abandon

John 6:36-40

Calvinism freed me from the heavy burden of charismatic evangelism

How quick are we to praise God when He does what we want, but when we disagree we are quick to leave?

Incredibly Offensive Language

But what does eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking the blood of Jesus mean? This was incredibly offensive language. It sounded like cannibalism. And it was especially offensive for Jesus’s Jewish contemporaries because the Mosaic law prohibited eating any flesh with the blood in it, let alone drinking blood itself (Leviticus 19:26).

The answer is the same thing we saw in John 6:35. There Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

Coming to Jesus as the bread of life to still the hunger of your soul is the same as believing in him. That’s what believing is. It is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus.

Now see the same thing with the more graphic language of flesh and blood. Notice the very close parallel between verse 40 and verse 54.

Verse 54: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Verse 40: “Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

This parallel (just like the parallel in the first and second half of John 6:35) shows that, in Jesus’s mind, eating his flesh and drinking his blood are a figurative way of saying: Believe in me, trust me, receive me, get your nourishment from me. Get life from me.

St. Augustine said, “Believe and you have eaten”

So the pervasive offer of this chapter from beginning to end is: Anyone may have eternal life if they will receive Jesus and trust in Jesus and treasure Jesus and be satisfied with all that God is for them in Jesus. Whoever feeds on my flesh — that is, whoever believes in me — has eternal life. I abide in you and my life becomes your life — forever.

Story 2

Me and my dad’s differing on Beavers vs Ducks

Supporting Scripture

1 Peter 2:7-8 ESV

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Application 2

The gospel is dividing

Believer vs unbeliever

Sheep vs goat

Luke 12:49-53

True conversion vs religion and moral deism

To put it another way, Jesus declared that religion won’t do it. Church attendance won’t do it. Good works in and of themselves won’t do it. The only thing that gets us into the kingdom of God, by which we participate in the gift of eternal life, is union with Christ Jesus. To emphasize this, our Lord said, “You have to take all of Me, as if you were ingesting Me.”

Verse 59

Engaging them in a place of religion

John 3:16-18

Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone

Question

Are you believing in Christ alone for salvation?

Pray

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