The Hard Truth
Chasing Jesus • Sermon • Submitted
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· 11 viewsJesus directs our hearts to the greatest obstacle that stands in the way of our belief, ourselves. To truly believe or place our faith in Christ requires us to respond to what He says as absolute truth. True faith is seen only as our dependence for everything shifts from ourselves to Christ. This is a hard truth for us to live out. We are so ingrained to trust first in ourselves that to truly depend on someone else is so difficult, but this is what believing in Christ is centered on. He cannot be an add-on to our current situation. He must become the center of our lives.
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We Are The Greatest Obstacle
We Are The Greatest Obstacle
At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
John 6:41-
Up to this point, the people were called the crowd, in this moment, John refers to them as the Jews. This is done to show the parallel between their response to Christ and the response of their ancestors in the wilderness to God.
The people grumbled. In the wilderness they grumbled because their trust in God only lasted until their next need arose. The people grumble to Jesus because their next need has arisen.
How can we trust Jesus when we know who He is? This is the question that we ask ourselves regularly. How can I trust Jesus with my finances when I know where my money comes from? How can I trust Jesus in my marriage when I know what has gotten us to this point? How can I trust Jesus with my kids when I know who it was that raised me? We have trouble seeing beyond our own circumstances so we cling to what we know. In this clinging, we remove the perspective of Christ from our lives. At the center of this all is what we sang about, Jesus is better.
All your children will be taught by the Lord,
and great will be their peace.
Jesus points them to the Old Testament
This promise was made to Israel concerning the blessing that would come after their captivity. They would be taught by God. While this was done in the time of Nehemiah as they found the law and rebuilt their faith upon its words, here Jesus points them to the further and more complete fulfillment of this promise in Him. Jesus would set them free from eternal captivity.
Jesus points them to the life that He is offering, a life of trust and dependence upon Him. This is the gospel. Christ has come to set us free from sin through dependence upon Him.
Jesus is Absolute
Jesus is Absolute
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
John 6:52-
Looking back to 6:40, we see that eating Jesus flesh and drinking his blood is a metaphor for believing/trusting in Him.
As the crowds hear this, they wrestle with what He says. No one in the crowd really thought that Jesus was saying to eat Him, but they struggled with believing that Jesus could actually meet their daily necessities. How could trusting in Jesus result in you not hunger or thirsting again?
This is the crutch of the gospel, placing our trust that Jesus is who he says he is and can do what he says that he can do even though we do not see or comprehend how that is possible.
Jesus stands in the chasm of our lives and offers true satisfaction because He is real food and real drink. Can we move from the temporary satisfaction of the physical production of our hands to the dependency upon the promise of Christ that is out of our control?
Jesus Is the Only Option
Jesus Is the Only Option
John 6:
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)
Yes the teaching of Jesus is hard. Turning from relying on ourselves to submitting to Jesus is difficult, possibly even terrifying. Submission is never easy, but it is necessary, Jesus can not and will not lead from behind.
Until we are willing to submit to Christ, we will miss what He has promised. Jesus will always let us down when we lead.
Peter responds as honestly as can be expected, from who else will we hear the truth of God? It is in Christ alone that we find life and truth. It is Christ alone that we come to truly know God. Apart from Christ, there is no relationship, but in Christ, we find a true and life giving relationship with the Father.
