True Faith
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 28 viewsFollowing Christ is hard. We must have a sure faith founded upon the truth of who Jesus us in order to endure until the end.
Notes
Transcript
Therefore, when many of his disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is hard. Who can accept it?”
Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this offend you?
Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
But there are some among you who don’t believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe and the one who would betray him.)
He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.”
From that moment many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him.
So Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”
Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Introduction: Former atheist and journalist, Lee Strobel, shares the story of Charles Templeton in one of his books. Most people have no clue who Templeton is...
Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham in the 1940s. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag at him. He questioned the truth of Scripture and other core Christian beliefs. He finally abandoned his faith and made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Billy to do the same.
He felt sorry for Billy, saying, “He committed intellectual suicide by closing his mind.” Templeton resigned from the ministry and became a novelist and news commentator. He also wrote a critique of the Christian faith titled Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.
Interviewed when he was eighty-three and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Templeton talked about some of the reasons he left the faith: “I started considering the plagues that sweep across parts of the planet and indiscriminately kill — more often than not, painfully — all kinds of people, the ordinary, the decent, and the rotten. And it just became crystal clear to me that it is not possible for an intelligent person to believe that there is a deity who loves.”
When asked what he thought of Jesus Christ, Templeton would not acknowledge him as God. Rather, he responded: “He was the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my readings. He’s the most important thing in my life.
I know it may sound strange, but I have to say I adore him! Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus. He is the most important human being who has ever existed. And if I may put it this way, I miss him.”
Templeton’s eyes filled with tears and he wept freely. He refused to say more.
Perhaps you have know someone who at onetime professed faith in Jesus Christ, yet walked away from him for whatever reason.
Some trial came into their life and they wilted away. Some difficult question arose in their mind and their faith collapsed. Or they encountered some hard teaching from the Bible and they walked away.
This happened to some nameless disciples here in the gospel of John. We have no idea how many there were but I suspect there were a number.
This came on the heals of two of the greatest miracles recorded in the scripture - the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on the water. It goes to show that some people will not believe even in the face of the strongest evidence.
Jesus words remind us...
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
We see a sharp contrast here between the unbelief of the crowd and the profession of faith of Peter. It shows us the fact that true faith, must be...
Confronted with Truth (vv. 60-65)
Confronted with Truth (vv. 60-65)
Whenever the Bible talks about disciples of Christ, we must understand that not everyone who was called a disciple were true disciples.
It was said that a disciple should be covered in the dust of their Rabbi.
Rabbis would often have people who claimed to be followers that followed from a distance.
That happens today also. Some people will say that they are members of such-and-such church, but they have never actually joined or had their name added to the roll. They say that they are members simply because the like the church or the pastor or whatever.
Being a disciple meant that you would live as the Rabbi lived…you would eat what they ate, you would go where they went, you would you would try to imitate their lifestyle…you would assume that they were living according to their teachings.
Here we see a group of people who claimed that they were disciples of Christ. John distinguishes them from the inner circle of Jesus by referring to his closest disciples as the “twelve.” (And we know that even one of them was a devil. v. 70)
In verse 60, we read...
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
Jesus confronted their objection with this statement...
But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
He was asking, “Does this offend you?”
The word in the greek is the same word that we get our word, “Scandal” from. “Does this scandalize you.”
What was so scandalous?
Read v. 53-56
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. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
If taken literally, this certainly would be offensive to anyone with half a brain. But is Jesus referring to cannibalism?
NO! Absolutely not.
The language is figurative.
It’s like when Jesus told us to take up our cross…did he mean literal crucifixion?
He is speaking of how deeply we are to be committed to following Him. We take Christ into our lives as spiritual nourishment - much like physical nourishment.
But this was a hard truth for them. Why was it so hard? Because their motives for following Christ were wrong.
Look at the context...
Jesus fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fish.
In John 6:15 we read...
Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
They wanted Jesus to be their political leader, not their spiritual leader.
Then in John 6:26
Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
So they came looking for Jesus the next day because they wanted him to satisfy their physical hunger, not their spiritual hunger.
Finally, look at John 6:30-31
“What sign, then, are you going to do so that we may see and believe you?” they asked. “What are you going to perform? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
They wanted him to satisfy their fleshly curiosity and perform another miracle rather than their spiritual need for salvation.
Being confronted with this hard truth was necessary for them because it revealed the genuineness of their commitment as his disciples.
Illus. If you really long to save men's souls, you must tell them a great deal of disagreeable truth - C.H. Spurgeon
The basis for true faith is hard truth. The hardest truth for man to swallow is often the fact that he is a sinner, separated from God, in need of a Savior, and Jesus is the only one!
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Confirmed through Testing (vv. 66-67)
Confirmed through Testing (vv. 66-67)
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
Most pastors want to see the church that they pastor grow. Jesus saw the opposite!
This was a moment of weeding out the garden. The truth revealed the nature of the commitment of these disciples that walked away.
Now he turns to the twelve and asks them a critical question: Do you want to go away as well?
This was a moment of testing for the twelve. They were asked bluntly if they were going to follow the other people who turned their backs on Christ.
Would the Lord have allowed them to walk away from following Him? You betcha. The Lord never hold’s anyone against their will.
It reminds me of the challenge of Joshua in the OT:
But if it doesn’t please you to worship the Lord, choose for yourselves today: Which will you worship—the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living? As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.”
The choice here is simple - follow the crowd or follow Jesus.
“Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.
The crowds openly defected from following Jesus. They chose to broad road that leads to destruction. There will always be plenty of traffic on the broad road.
The inner circle was determined to follow Christ with one exception - Judas.
There is a third option that we need to consider. Judas chose deception. He probably felt sympathetic to the reasoning of the crowd. But he stayed with Jesus until the time of his betrayal.
We hear Jesus praying in the garden and he mentioned that Judas was not a true follower.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
By asking this question, Jesus was drawing a line in sand. He would not compromise his message. He refused to lower the expectations.
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Confessed by Testimony (vv. 68-69)
Confessed by Testimony (vv. 68-69)
Peter responds brilliantly to the question.
Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
By doing so, he recognized two things...
Jesus was the only source of truth
Jesus was the only Savior to trust
For many in our day, truth is flexible. It is determined by feelings. Truth is whatever is right in their own eyes.
Jesus said he is the truth!
Peter said that they (He and the other disciples minus Judas) have believed, and have come to know…That was a testimony.
The tenses of the original words here indicate an ongoing belief and an ongoing knowledge.
"We have come to believe and still believe"
"We have come to know and still know."
What did they believe and know? That Jesus was the Holy One of God.
This was a direct reference to Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah. Therefore, he was the only one worthy of their faith and trust. They had no reason to walk away like the others did.
Illus. In 1970, as NASA’s Apollo 13 mission approached a critical decision, one that placed the lives of the crew in even more jeopardy, Gene Kranz, the lead flight director for mission control uttered a now famous statement to the ground crew in Houston. He said, “Failure is not an option.” The difference in a disciple and a deserter lies in that very mindset. For the true disciple, walking away is simply not an option, because for the true disciple, Jesus is the only source of truth, and the only Savior to trust.
