A Crisis of Belief, John 6:60-71

Children’s Church

Read verses 53-71, to set context

John 6:60-71 - “A Crisis of Belief”

Illustration - ELLA, A child who didn’t understand, but obeyed.

When I was in elementary school, one of my children's church teachers told a story about her childhood. The teachers name was Ella.

-During the summer, she and a friend who were playing together in her front yard.

-Her friend lived straight across the street on a busy 2 lane road.

-The girls decided to go to the friends house across the street.

-The Ella went inside to let mom know while her friend when ahead to get snacks ready.

-Ella gets permission and runs out her front screen door to go across the street that she had crossed 100 times before.

-In her front yard was a large tall hedge row near the street.

-As she ran past it to cross the street...

-Mom bolts out the front door and screams, “Ella Stop!!!”

-Ella froze in place feet from being struck by a speeding car going by.

-Mom saved Ella’s life.

-Ella didn’t see the car. That tall hedge row blocked her view.

-In the moment, Ella didn’t know why mom said stop. In the moment, she didn’t understand.

-Her immediate obedience to her mom saved her life.

-What if she had ran into the street thinking she could just turn around and yell, “Hey mom what is it?”

-She’d be dead.

-Mom saw something and knew something Ella didn’t.

-Out of love mom yells out to her child.

-Ella’s trust and obedience saved her, even when she didn’t understand.

-That church teacher, lived to tell that story.

Transition - Here is our main thought for today.

Basic teaching - God calls me to fully follow Him, when 1) His teachings may not make sense, and 2) our culture rejects Him.

Transition - How do we see this in our passage today?

We first see this in verses 60-61.

Jesus’ confronts false cultural belief, vs. 60-61

The culture that Jesus was living in was very religious.

This culture was not 100% biblical. It had its own unbiblical rules.

These rules didn’t come from being too far left - actually the religious leaders were too conservative. (Hard for us to understand in our day.)

One cultural religious failure was that it - unbiblically looked to earn salvation and God’s approval through good works.

When Jesus said, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” He says some things that radically cut against the grain of Jewish culture. He is wildly offensive.

If you were with us last week you heard that the Jews would have taken this literally and been offended that blood would be part of a meal and that cannibalism was suggested. For some they would get a picture of demon possession.

What Jesus meant was just the opposite.

Jesus was speaking in a figure of speech - with symbolism.

Eating & drinking being faith, -believing, trusting, taking Jesus in.

His flesh being broken and his blood poured out was a foreshadowing of His work on the Cross.

He was saying, take me deeply in yourself - in faith and be saved.

Let you soul commune with me. Be spiritually intimate with me.

But the people saw it as cannibalistic, not a spiritual invitation.

They couldn’t receive it.

Their sinful deadness and their cultural religious beliefs held them back from the truth.

Pause

At this point in Jesus story He had many disciples.

There could have been 100 or more people who claimed to be Jesus disciples.

In our passage today, John uses the term disciples loosely.

There were many who called themselves disciples and followed Jesus. Most of them followed Jesus for the wrong reason.

-These were religious people.

-Looking for miracles and a political king

-They wanted Jesus to do miracles for them.

-They followed Jesus for what He could give them.

+Not because they believed He was God.

+Not because they had a sin problem for Him to fix.

+Not to be Lord of their life.

+Many were just religious groupies, following a very special man.

The many disciples are different than the 12 disciples that we are familiar with.

This large gathering of groupie disciples said this about Jesus teaching on eating his flesh.

Read verse 60

They said, This is a hard saying.

Jesus teaching is “hard” meaning harsh, offensive, or difficult.

This larger group of disciples could not accept it.

Jesus challenges these disciples thoughts.

In application - God out of His great love for you, is constantly challenging our unhealthy thoughts and false beliefs.

All of us at some level have to do battle with stinking thinking.

There are thoughts we have about God, church, family, relationships, ourselves that do not always line up with His Word.

-Many of these false beliefs we don’t even realize we have.

They are so normal to us. So natural. So comfortable.

-These false beliefs can deeply hurt our relationship with God and other people.

-As we think, so we act.

My personal illustration - Like an alcoholic is constantly in recovery. I am in life long recovery of being a people pleaser. I have to regularly fight and repent from the sin of allowing others opinion of me define my worth and value.

-Some of you in this room struggle with people pleasing. Allowing yourself to be controlled by what others think of you.

-It robs you of your ability to lead.

-...

For others in this room, there are other false beliefs you struggle with.

-Maybe you struggle with control.

-Maybe you struggle with unforgiveness or bitterness.

-Maybe you have an addiction that no one else knows about.

-God in His great love for you exposes and challenges our false beliefs.

2 Corinthians 10:5-5 say this about false beliefs.

-2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”

Transition, The Christ Follower sees spiritual truth because the spirit of God has given Him eyes to see.

Transition - Why could these culturally religious disciples not accept this offensive teaching?

Transition - Our next section tell us why they could not accept Jesus teaching.

The Spirit and The Word Give Life, vs. 63-65

Read, John 6:63-65

Why did these groupie religious disciples not trust that Jesus was God the Messiah?

Verse 63 tells us. -

vs. 63 - The Spirit of God had not given them spiritual life. They were spiritually blind.

They didn’t get it. They couldn’t get it.

Romans 3:9-12 “9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.””

These groupie religious disciples were not searching for the Son of God, but simply following a special man, who did miracles, and could be their next earthly king.

Jesus tells us the same in verse 61 through 64,

(end of 61) “Do you take offense at this?

John 6:63-64 “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.” ...

Jesus is saying, You do not believe because salvation comes through God’s Spirit, when The Spirit draws you. (vs. 64-65)

-He is the one who gives you the gift of faith and enables you to believe in HIm.

This is what makes salvation so God Glorifying. It makes salvation about God’s mighty work, not your mighty work.

Salvation is about God trasforming the heart, not man efforting and working himself into salvation.

We can point to God and say, Look what He did. He saved me! He has transformed me.

And He can transform you too.

And we can pray for our friends who do not know Jesus knowing that He is the one who changes the heart. His Spirit can overcome and change the hardest heart.

This large group of “disciples” rejected the TRUE SAVIOR because, He offended their religiously informed cultural beliefs.

1) They were more interested in His miracles and food. (What they could get). I’ll follow Jesus if He gives me what I want.

2) Refused to surrender themselves and their religion to Jesus

-They wanted control over their lives

3) They didn’t believe Jesus was God’s Son who could give new life.

4) The eating flesh talk was offensive to their religious culture

*** I Need a better connection between blue and this application. I’m missing something.

Application

We see this in our culture today:

Jesus’ teaching offends the unbeliever.

The unbeliever rejects what Jesus says.

Jesus teaching don’t make sense to our culture.

More then that ...

Jesus teaching is offend our cultural.

Let’s be clear about something. Just like God is not afraid to challenge our own personal stinking thinking, God is not afraid to challenge the stinking thinking of our culture.

What does Jesus teach that offends & challenges our culture?

Our culture teaches that:

-Pornography is good.

-Jesus teaches that pornography is evil.

-if you lust, you commit adultery in your heart.

-Purity in the mind and heart is to be valued.

-People are made in God’s image and should not be used as objects of pleasure, but loved and valued for who they are.

Our Culture teaches that sex outside of marriage is 100% normal and that a heterosexual couple living together before marriage is perfectly ok.

Jesus teaches that

-Sex and sexual touch outside of marriage is sinful.

-Sex is a gift that is to be enjoyed only by those who have made a marriage covenant.

Culture teaches that

-If you fall out of love with your husband or wife it’s ok to abandon them.

If your spouse doesn’t make you happy, just leave.

Jesus teaches that marriage vows are to be kept. That the marriage covenant is to be honored. That challenges in marriage grow us in holiness.

Both Conservatives and liberals in our culture say.

”My body my choice.”

Jesus says, Your body is God’s. He has made you and created you.

Your soul and your body were bought with a price.

Jesus is Lord over all the earth, including your body.

Culture says -That abortion of convenience is perfectly OK.

Jesus says, I put you together cell by cell in your mother’s womb and every day was planned out for you before you were born.

The unborn child is precious to God.

The Culture Says -That homosexuality should be embraced & celebrated.

Jesus tells us that homosexuality is not at all God’s design. It is to be rejected, and is sinful.

The Culture Says - You should be able to choose your gender.

Jesus says, I blessed the earth with both man and woman. I chose your gender and anatomy for you. I made you a man or a woman because I have a specific purpose for you.

The voices in our culture are getting louder and louder.

In many cases they are getting angrier and angrier.

BUT - Isaiah 5:20 “20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

My friend, You must choose who is going to be the voice of authority in your life. Will Culture dictate to you what is right and wrong, or will your creator - the creator of the universe dictate what is right and wrong?

Let me remind of what I Corinthians 1:25 says, “25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Jesus will challenge the beliefs of our culture.

But only those who have the Spirit of God will be able to receive it.

The Spirit (God) gives Spiritual Life (salvation)

Jesus Words = Spirit (God empowered) and give Spiritual life.

Only if you are saved can you believe Jesus difficult Words.

Transition - Among the many groupie disciples and among the 12 disciples there was a was a decision made. It was a ...

A Critical Decision, vs, 66-71

What did the groupie disciples do when Jesus teaching got hard and cut against their religious culture?

-They abandoned Jesus. Why? Their God was not Jesus, but their religious culture.

My friend, As you and I see greater divide between the teachings of our culture and the teachings of God - you see more and more people not only abandoning Jesus, but outwardly becoming an outspoken enemy of Jesus.

But what about the 12 disciples? The ones that Jesus hand picked. The ones He chose?

What made them different?

Jesus asked, Don’t you want to leave too?

Read John 6:68-69

I’ll be honest - I do not think that the 12 disciples understood what Jesus was talking about. This “...eat my flesh and drink my blood.” I believe this left them confused as well.

There was 1 thing they were clear on in verse 68-69

They were clear that Jesus was “the holy one of God” and that they could trust Jesus and follow Him.

They BELIEVED, fully trusted, that Jesus was Messiah - EVEN WHEN HIS TEACHING DIDN’T MAKE SENSE.

They knew that Jesus was Savior God even if they didn’t understand everything He taught, or if He said strange things.

Later it became very clear to them what Jesus was teaching.

-That He was foreshadowing his death and payment for sin on the Cross.

-He was foreshadowing the faith He calls you to for forgiveness.

Close -

Can I ask you a question my friend.

Have you trusted Jesus with your sin? Have your trusted Jesus as your savior and Lord? If not, right now will you trust Him. Will you say in your heart to God.

“Forgive me of my sin. I give all of myself to you.”

-If you have done that, would you take the card in front of you place your name on it and check that you received Jesus today.

-IF you are already a Christ follower, Will you do what the disciples did?

-Will you follow Jesus’ even when the culture is leading you away from Him.

-Why? Because Jesus is worth it.

-Pray