Sermon Tone Analysis

Exegetical Point: Many of the disciples reject Jesus because of His hard teaching, but the chosen will recognize Jesus as the Holy One of God.

Homiletic Point: Jesus is the true Holy One of God, but many will reject Him because they do not have the Spirit.

Intro

After a short diversion last week, we’re back in John! We’re working our way through John, section by section seeing the unfolding picture of Jesus Christ.

The author, who was the Apostle John, wrote down this curated selection of what Jesus said & taught so that we can believe in Jesus and have eternal life!

We’re at the tail end of John 6 today.

John 6 is all one unit, revolving around the miracle of feeding over 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish in the wilderness.

The people who were there rightly recognized that Jesus was a great prophet in the style of Moses, but they were very narrow minded about what they wanted from Him.

Jesus ducked away from them before they could kidnap him and make him king.

Then he and the disciples went to the other side of the lake.

The crowds tracked Jesus down and started asking for more miraculous bread.

What happened next is that Jesus explained to the crowd that he himself was the real heavenly bread.

The miracle was nice, but it was meant to reveal who Jesus was - the Son of Man & Son of God.

Jesus said that he was the bread of life, and that if they want eternal life, they had to eat him.

It was the only way:

The Jews there were having a hard time hearing what Jesus was saying, not least because they were caught up in the literal meaning.

They were confused and didn’t understand what Jesus was getting at.

They were probably hearing Jesus promote cannibalism!

Jesus was actually talking about feeding on him by faith, but, only those who God the Father had chosen and drawn would be able to feed on Jesus by Faith.

Now, it’s worth remembering: who’s been listening to Jesus teaching?

The Jews, a subset of which are Jesus disciples, a subset of which are “the 12”.

So, of all the Jewish people there, there are those who are there because of the signs and intrigue, there are those who just happened came to synagogue that day, there are those who follow Jesus seriously as disciples, and there are the 12 closest Disciples, set apart for a special purpose.

Later on they are called the 12 Apostles.

So, many of Jesus disciples have been sitting around hearing all this stuff about bread and eating and flesh, and they’re struggling with it:

Which part of the teaching specifically was the hardest?

We don’t know, but there are a bunch of things that are hard to take...

The idea that they had to eat flash and drink blood to gain eternal life...

Jesus will only give eternal life to those the Father has drawn to himself...

That Jesus was from God and more than a mere man...

All of it together was a hard pill to swallow.

We’re going to see two reactions to this hard teaching.

Two options appear open to Jesus disciples, some chose to call it quits and walk away from Jesus.

Some will stay, not because the teaching is any easier, but because there’s no other source of Life to go to!

I’ve broken the text into 4 portions that we will look at in turn as we see these two different responses to Jesus unfold.

Jesus’ Glory Sets the Record Straight (v61-62)

Jesus essentially asks a rhetorical question to probe their failing faith, lets have a look:

Jesus asks, does this hard teaching offend you?

Another sense of this word translated offend is “entrap”, or “ensnare”.

Jesus is asking, does this teaching trip you up?

Does it cause you to fall into sin?

If they were to be offended, they would be sinning, they would be putting themselves in opposition to the Word of God!

In opposition to the one who will Judge the world!

Jesus follows up with “What if you saw me lifted up, how would that offend you?

Or would it set the record straight?”

Jesus was already alluded to the fact that he is the Son of Man mentioned in the Book of Daniel.

This Son of Man is god-like, with great authority and power and glory.

Jesus had put aside this glory and honor so that he could roam the streets of earth as an ordinary man.

But, one day soon he would go back to where he was before, at the right hand of God the Father!

Would that be enough to make those disciples believe he was legitimate?

Would that be enough proof that what he said was true?

Yet before Jesus is lifted up to take once more his rightful place in glory, he must be lifted up on an inglorious cross.

He must be lifted up, like the bronze snake in the wilderness so that all who look and believe on Him would be saved from death.

Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man would be crucified.

He would be tortured and executed.

That is where is body was broken.

His blood was poured out.

That is

Let us for a moment consider if we take up the same prideful spirit as these disciples.

Are you ever offended by God’s word?

There is some hard teaching in here!

Is there parts of God’s word that you shy away from?

There are parts in here that I don’t want to teach on because of the difficulty it will cause you.

People inevitably kick up a fuss and leave churches when they start hearing stuff they don’t like from the Bible.

But you know what is more important than not offending people?

Seeing the real Jesus.

Preaching a full and faithful Gospel.

It is much more important that you meet Jesus as he is, than to try and placate everybody and leave the hard teaching alone.

Aslan is not a tame lion.

We don’t get to construct a nice soft easy-going Jesus in our mind to suit our own desires.

G.k. Chesterton talks about what he found when he looked for Jesus in the NT: “There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an angry god— and always like a god.”

When you say “I can’t believe in a god who...” you are pridefully setting yourself up as someone who is offended by God’s word and character.

It is not up to you or I to set the conditions of who God is.

He is who he is, the one who says “I am who I am”

We must die to self and get on his programme.

We must change to suit Him, not the other way around.

Our beliefs must change to suit what God says about himself.

If you find yourself saying “I can’t believe in a God who...” then stop yourself and search the scripture to see who God is.

What has he said about Himself?

What must I believe?

What must I receive?

He has disclosed himself to us, so that we may know something of who He is.

The Life, death, resurrection and Ascension of Christ has made it pretty clear that Jesus is who he says he is, and that we really must come to him for eternal life.

Yet, there are still a great many people, even those who call themselves Christians, who are offended, ashamed and ensnared by what he says.

One day Jesus glory will be fully revealed and there will be no more doubts left as to the authenticity of his claims!

Nevertheless, back to our story before the ascension.

Next we see:

The Words of Jesus bring Spirit and Life (v63-66)

Jesus has basically said this troubling teaching would be no issue if you saw me in my glory.

But now he doubles down on the hard teaching and returns to a theme that he was speaking about earlier: their inability to receive His words despite the fact they are life giving.

These disciples won’t believe because the Father has not enabled them.

Jesus has been talking earlier about how his flesh is the bread of Life, but here he reverts to the more common way the bible talks about flesh, as something worldly.

We are made to inhabit flesh, but this flesh is corrupted and now represents a life apart from God.

Jesus says that the flesh is useless in trying to receive and believe in Him.

Our bodies and minds in this world are so messed up, we cannot understand what Jesus is saying.

And that's the case here, these folks here are offended at what Jesus has to say despite the fact that he is speaking to them a message imbued with the Holy Spirit that brings eternal life!

They are coming from a place of flesh, and the need an outside force to bring them to God.

They would need to be reborn by the Spirit!

Jesus has spoken about the already in the chapter, and he reiterates it here: “no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them" Jn 6:65.

When the father enables them, then the words of Jesus can have the effect of bringing life by the Spirit.

This is a hard truth that some of us try to explain away, but it is plain here.