Important Decisions

Most important decision you have ever made?

This may be big or small, but often can have ramifications on your whole life moving forward.

Sometimes we do not see, and that is ok, but sometimes they seem small, yet they impact us for the rest of our lives

Montana

Have you made a decision for the wrong reasons?

John 6:32–34 ESV

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

This was right after Jesus had fed the 5,000 and walked on water, so He has done a lot, and He actually points out that the people really do not follow Him for Him, but rather what they can do for them. The miracles that He can perform, the fact that He gave them bread.

Jesus points out that the bread that they should be searching for is not the bread of this world, but rather the bread of Heaven which is Jesus.

Jesus is about to give a hard word here.

John 6:35–40 ESV

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. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Why do you think Jesus speaks of bread here?

He is trying to draw the connection to what the Lord did for the Israelites in the desert to what He is doing now.

Providing the bread to give them life

Exodus 16:11–12 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”

The Lord provided the bread of life to the Israelite people because He knew their grumbling.

I can only imagine that the Lord knew the grumbling of the people every time they had to make a sacrifice to Him for their sins. He also knew that He did not want the separation that there was between man and Him, and He knew that at the right time, there would have to be Jesus, and here is that right time.

Jesus is challenging here the way that they have been thinking this whole time. They have looked at it as though it was Moses who provided the bread for them. They have looked at it as though they needed to do something in order to get to heaven and get to God, but Jesus says something different. Jesus says that He is the way. That it is through Him that we are given eternal life. That it is through Him and Him alone that we may walk in right relationship with God.

What we see next is the people grumbling among themselves, fighting over what Jesus is saying. They really just wanted someone to give them what they wanted, they did not want the things that He was saying.

Jesus specifically spoke like this as He was not shy about the fact that following the Lord is hard, but He was not shy in the fact that following the Lord was good.

John 6:60–64 ESV

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)

The way is hard though. When Jesus talks about eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, He is not talking physically, but rather talking about the sacrifice that He is making, that we need to make it too.

This is why this was hard for them to hear, because they knew that this meant sacrifice. They remembered the story of their fathers having to sacrifice their time to gather food in the desert to live. They knew what He was saying

Jesus then looked at those who were still there and asked them ultimately what their choice was.

John 6:66–67 ESV

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”

How do you handle split decisions?

Often when we hear hard things, we are tempted to run from the hard and go straight to the easy where it is comfortable. We like to run straight to where we will not be challenged. Jesus’ words here are challenging, but true. Only through Him can there be eternal life.

The thing is though, that what Jesus is promising is life, and not just regular life, but abundant life.

John 10:10 ESV

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Peace

John 14:27 ESV

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Hope

Romans 15:13 ESV

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Eternal life with Him

John 10:27–28 ESV

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

These are the promises of Jesus. These are what He means when He comes and says that He has come to give life. Yet, many walked away because of the fact that it was a hard word, and they knew that they were going to have to sacrifice something, and they did not want to.

We get to see something incredible though, and really where we should land with our choice about Jesus.

John 6:68–69 ESV

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Peter nails it here. Peter absolutely gets it right. He hears the hard word, he knows that it is going to cause sacrifice, and yet he still calls him Lord.

We are all brought to the same choice in reality when it comes to Jesus.

C.S. Lewis says this

“i am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that peo- ple often say about Him: "i'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but i don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the devil of Hell. 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 spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?

This is the question and decision that the Jewish people at this time were facing when it came to Jesus, and this is the same question and decision that you are facing now. Who is Jesus to you? Who do you believe that He is.

The truth is that we all have to make this decision at some point in time, but I can tell you right now the Lord is calling you.

ABC of Christianity