The Word's of Eternal Life.
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 18 viewsNotes
Transcript
If you have your bibles this morning please open up to John 6:60. I have titled this message this morning, “The Word’s of Eternal life.” The text today is a response of the text we have been in the last 2 weeks. And there is really two reactions from the disciples,One turning there backs, and the other believing, and these reactions are the same reactions we see today from either true followers of Christ or false followers of Christ.
So before we get into the text this morning. Let us pray!
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 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. 64 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.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
If you are taking notes this morning the main Idea I want you to get from the text today is this…
True disciples of Jesus believe that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.
I mentioned at the beginning two types of disciples, true and false. As we have seen so far in the book of John, many people followed Jesus because of various things, not because they thought he had the words of eternal life. I have two points I want you to take note of today. The first is this.
False disciples leave Jesus
False disciples leave Jesus
The text says many of his disciples heard it, they said This is a hard saying who can listen?
Things were getting real in Jesus ministry on earth, and false disciples were truly beginning to realize the cost of following him, and who he truly is.
If you remember they were coming to him, because of many things, very few of which where coming to him for the right things.
So when Jesus said these things they grumbled and said this was hard, and they didn’t understand.
Several things in the text offended them about Jesus, because Jesus was not who they wanted him to be.
We have already talked about this in detail, but we need to revisit them, because as Paul Winslow says we need to be reminded what the Word says..
Last week I gave 6 reasons for unbelief, and all the reasons I gave would be a reason they said it was hard saying, who could listen to it?
Reason 1. Not believing in Jesus works.. Jesus had given them plenty of evidence that he was the Christ, that he was the bread of life, but it wasn’t enough for them to believe.
Reason 2 Not believing in Jesus nature. They could not wrap there head around the fact that Jesus is God, and that he had the ability to do all these miracles things.
Reason 3 Not believing because they have never seen God. God has never been revealed to them, they thought if they seen God they would die, yet Jesus was standing right in front of them.
Reason 4 Not believing because they have faith in something else. They elevated Moses to an improper place, they trusted him over God, and over Christ.
Reason 5 Not believing in Jesus, because they only think in physical ways. Time and Time again they thought physically and not Spiritually, they could not get past the miraculous that Jesus could do.
Reason #6 Not believing in Jesus, because they have not been called. They ultimately did not believe because the Holy Spirit did not come make them alive.
All these reasons made it hard for them to listen to Jesus, and Jesus knew in there heart this was the case.
So Jesus says do you take offense at this? Listen to what Jesus said..
So Jesus says to them in John 6:62
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
One man helps us think about verse 62 better… In other words, “What if you see Me clothed in glory, rising up to heaven, surrounded by the angels, going in My glory. Will that offend you?” The answer, of course, is that they would not be offended by the sight of His ascension but delighted. Jesus told them that there might be many things He would say that would offend them, but those “offenses” would all be forgotten when they saw His perfection made manifest before their eyes. In short, Jesus sought to restore their perspective.
Being people who thought in physical ways seeing Jesus in this way would have helped them understand who he really was. They would have seen him for how they should have seen him on earth, but in their heart they could not see him in that way.
Jesus would change peoples perspective but only after he went to the cross, and died for his children. And after the work of the Holy Spirit would give life to his people. When he would in fact Ascend on the Cross, and would one day ascend to heaven.
The Jews believed that the best teachers would ascend to heaven when they died.
Listen to one man, Other religious leaders were said to have ascended to heaven at the end of their life, but Jesus the Son of Man (the title especially connected with his function as the revealer from heaven) first descended (v. 38; cf. notes on 1:51; 6:27, 53), and so in ascending is merely returning to where he was before (cf. 17:5). This not only affirms Jesus’ pre-existence, but places him in a class quite different from antecedent Jewish religious heroes.
Jesus ascends to a place he is from, but notice what he says as he continues talking to them…
63 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.
The biggest problem with them is the Spirit has not revealed himself to many the people Jesus is interacting with.
Jesus himself say’s its the Spirit who gives life.
Just as a reminded let us visit the scriptures again. In John 3:3
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
and John 3:5-6
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
and John 3:8
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
They had not been changed by Spirit they were living in the flesh. And the flesh as Jesus says to them is no help at all.
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
You have to be born again through the power of the Holy Spirit to see God for who he truly is. I love what one man said, If you are resting on the strength of your righteousness, you’ve missed what our Lord taught here. In your flesh dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18a); your flesh cannot get you into the kingdom of God. It is the Spirit who brings life, who raises us from spiritual death.”
Yet many of them did not believe… And Jesus knew who would not believe, knew because all the Father had given him would come, would come to know Jesus Christ, and believe in him. That was reason 6 last week why they did not believe because they were not called.
If was tough for these disciples to hear all that Jesus said, because after Jesus said all he said many of them no longer walked with him. If you are a believer what we have read should not be offensive to us, it isn’t causing us to not walk with him anymore. But for these false disciples it was enough for them to leave Jesus. This language isn’t they no longer walked with him that day, or came back later, but they stoped following him.. Its clear these so called disciples of Jesus were really just false disciples of Jesus. Not true followers of him. There will always be false disciples..
Other places describe this will happen… 1 Peter 2:6-8
6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 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,”
8 and
“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
and 1 John 2:19
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
False disciples leave Jesus, for a multitude of reasons because they are not true disciples of him.
Second point this morning is this..
True disciples follow Jesus
True disciples follow Jesus
In verse 67.. Jesus is asked a question…
So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?
Who knows the amount of disciples who had departed from Jesus? and this is first time in the gospel where the twelve are mentioned. If you dont know Jesus had many disciples but 12 of them were the apostles the closest people to Jesus on earth.
And Simon Peter who becomes kinda the leader of this group says, the right answer…
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
I absolutely love the statement from Peter. Because true disciples recognize what Peter just said to be the truth. Believers, disciples of Christ have this mindset
I want to breakdown this statement a little bit.
The false disciples went along there way… Went back home, went to find the next thing believe in, but the disciple's said where else can we go.
After God saves us there becomes a reality that no-one else has the words of eternal life. No body… In a world full of misinformation, the Word of God is true information.
And this is so important in a world that can’t even define what a women is. WE have a God who has the words of eternal life, and truth, and
True disciples of Jesus believe that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.
There is a song I love that an old worship pastor use to sing.. and Bill if you want to learn this I would be ok with it, called Show us Christ, and in the Lyrics it says something I hope happens to us every single week, I wont read you all the lyrics at the moment, but here are a few…
Where else can we go, Lord
Where else can we go
You have the words of eternal life
Show us Christ, show us Christ
Show us Christ O God, show us Christ
O God, reveal Your glory
Through the preaching of Your Word
Until every heart confesses Christ is Lord
Hearing the Word of God preached taught, and read should led us to have the same answer Peter had, Where else can we go Lord, you have the word of Eternal life.
The disciples acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord, as the Holy One of God. Which in Isaiah this is proclaimed of God 25 times…
But they acknowledged him, because Jesus has choose them, transformed, changed them, given them new hearts, and would give them the Holy Spirit one day…
but notice he said one of them was a devil. Judas who Jesus has chosen would be the man who betrayed him, and yet God used even him to carry out his mission.
God is in control of everything.
I read this this week, and I thought it was interesting. That every-time Judas is first mentioned in a gospel he is marked by similar words as in verse 71. That he would be a betrayer.. In happens in Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:19, Luke 6:16.
I mentioned Judas because the reality is that no evil can conquer the plans of God…and no evil can ever remove you from being a disciple of Christ.
The biggest injustice that ever happened was that Jesus Christ was killed for me.. Think about that if you are believer you can plug your name in there.
And the greatest act of grace is he ascended on the cross after he had been beaten and bruised, mocked, cursed, and he took the wrath of God for his children to the point of death, dying on the cross. And rising on the third day proving dominion over sin and death, and he is still working to this day, and so is the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Father is still calling people to his Son who died for his people, and his Spirit is giving life to his people, and that is extremely good news for us, and because of that good news we can have the same answer as Peter in this text has.
Let us think about the main point today.
True disciples of Jesus believe that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.
For us looking back at this exchange we see that God is in charge, but for us we must learn that God alone has the words of eternal life.
There is nowhere else for us to go, no other hope, no other way. I read you part of the song Show us Christ this morning, but I want to read you the rest…
Prepare our hearts, O God
Help us to receive
Break the hard and stony ground
Help our unbelief
Plant Your Word down deep in us
Cause it to bear fruit
Open up our ears to hear
Lead us in Your truth
Show us Christ, show us Christ
O God, reveal Your glory
Through the preaching of Your Word
Until every heart confesses Christ is Lord
Your Word is living light
Upon our darkened eyes
Guards us through temptations
Makes the simple wise
Your Word is food for famished ones
Freedom for the slave
Riches for the needy soul
Come speak to us today
Show us Christ, show us Christ
O God, reveal Your glory
Through the preaching of Your Word
Until every heart confesses Christ is Lord
Where else can we go, Lord
Where else can we go
You have the words of eternal life
There are so many places we can go today. In this day we have a potluck of religions we can choose from… A potluck of ideas we can run to. But I am exhorting you, which means I am strongly encouraging you to see that Jesus and Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. True disciples of Jesus believe that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.
The words in this book are not just some empty words, they are not just some historical facts, they are not just good teachings, they are in fact the words that point us to the one who can give us eternal life.
You want to know how powerful scripture is. Hebrews 4:12
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Think about that. The word of God is not dead, its active if you are a believer the Holy Spirit makes it come alive. It cuts you to the depths and the souls of your spirit. To your joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
So that means if you read a text like this today, and you are in Christ your natural response is going to be. Jesus! I have no desire to follow anything else than to follow you. My Lord you have opened my heart to see the goodness of your grace, you have changed me from the inside out, you made me see that there is no other path, there is no other truth that is greater than you, You are my God! Where else can I go. You have the Words of Eternal life!
Let me say IF you don’t know about the one who gives eternal life today, today is the day of salvation for you. Repeat and believe. Repentance is turning from sin, and running to Christ. I can’t think of a better response than that of Peter. Believe like Peter say to the Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and come to know that you are Holy One of God. If you have made that decision today come talk with me.
If you have any other decision today like being baptized, or joining this church, or just need prayer I would love to talk with you…
Words still matter, and When the world diminishes the power of words focus on God's word. Which is always true, which is always without error, and which produces eternal life.
Let us be a church who responds!