Gentle & Lowly: "I Will Never Cast You Out"

Introduction

A friend of mine heard that a friend of his, who was a fellow minister, had passed away. So looked up the arrangements in the newspaper to make sure he make it to pay his last respects and to comfort the family. You probably know how calling hours go. You show up, wait in line, connect with people you may know as you wait, or awkwardly look around to see if there is anyone you know. As you wait, you think about the person who has passed and what you’re going to say to the family. So my friend gets to the front of the line to speak to the deceased minister’s widow, and before he say what he had planned to, she says, “I hope he made it.” This poor woman had spent a lifetime in ministry with her husband, but after his passing, she didn’t know whether or not he had made it to heaven. Have you wrestled with the question, “am I saved?” Or what about, “will I ultimately be accepted by Christ?” These are common questions, common concerns, but fortunately the Bible gives not only direction on them but explicit answers to them. When we experience rejection by people, employers, you name it, we can bring this rejection over into our faith. What about the rejection of Christ? What if we finally reached point where we have sinned too much or strayed too far to be accepted by him any longer. Our status with Christ relates to the heart of Christ, which is at the core of our sermon series.

Dane Ortland writes, “We need a Bible...(because) our natural intuition can only give us a God like us.” The Bible is God’s revelation of himself to us. One of the reasons that we need the Bible is that fallen humanity cannot fully conceive of our God. So God has given us his Word, and in it we learn about who God is, what he has done, and how he can touch and transform our weary souls. Today is part two in our series called, Gentle & Lowly, which is named after a book by the same name. Gentle and Lowly was written by Dane Ortland. The introduction says “this book is written for the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator. Those of us who find ourselves thinking: “How could I mess up that bad—again?” It is for that increasing suspicion that God’s patience with us is wearing thin.” One person has put it this way, “only as we drink down the kindness of the heart of Christ will we leave in our wake, everywhere we go, the aroma of heaven, and die one day having startled the world with glimpses of a divine kindness too great to be boxed in by what we deserve.”

Our passage today includes one of the seven “I am” statements of Jesus. “I am” as in, Jesus is teaching about who he is. In John 6, Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life,” and this is the only one of the seven “I am” statements of John that is repeated. As we learn about the bread of life, we also learn that will never cast out his sheep. So what does Christ offer us as the bread of life? He offers us four promises.

We shall never grow spiritually hungry or thirsty.

In verse 35 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” If Christ is the Bread of Life, what does that look like today? One simple way that Christ is the bread of life through what we call the ordinary means of grace. The ordinary means of grace are the ways that we experience and grow in the grace of God. One of the most concrete might be communion. When we drink of the cup and eat the bread, we are not simply consuming physical nourishment, but also spiritual. Christ is spiritually present within the elements, and we receive grace in that moment. We proclaim the gospel in that moment. We grow in grace each time we take communion.

The Puritan pastor and author, Richard Baxter puts it this way, “Nowhere is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ, and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us as in this holy sacrament. Here we are called to sit with him at his table, as his invited welcome guests; to commemorate his sacrifice, to feed upon his very flesh and blood; that is, with our mouths upon his representative flesh and blood, and with our applying faith upon his real flesh and blood, by such a feeding as belongs to faith.” As we consume the elements, the bread and juice in some small way nourish our bodies, but even more so, Christ as the bread of life nourishes our souls. The first promise Christ offers us in this passage is that by Christ, because of Christ, we shall never grow spiritually hungry or thirsty. For the bread of life is there to be feasted on.

The Father works within us to draw us to Christ.

Jesus then says in verse 37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” The second promise is given to us in the first half of the verse. Richard Phillips says that, "hopeless sinners will believe and come to Christ because of the irresistible, effectual working of God’s grace that brings them to spiritual life." When we profess our faith in Jesus, in the moment it feels as though it’s us doing it. We can talk with someone about how to do it. We make the decision. We pray the prayer. But the Jesus teaches here that the Father leads us into it. It’s a concept called Effectual Calling. Effectual Calling is God the Father sending the Holy Spirit to work within our hearts to lead us to Christ. We get some help with this concept from our Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapter 10 says, "This effectual call is freely made by God and is entirely an act of his special grace. It does not depend on anything God foreknew or foresaw about the person called, who is completely passive. God himself gives life and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He thereby enables each person to answer his call and to accept the grace he offers and actually gives."

A great picture of this would be in Luke 15, which is called the parable of the Prodigal Son. The son of a wealthy man decides that he’s ready to set out on his own, so he asks his dad for his inheritance. The father agrees, so the young man goes and blows it. He ends up so poor that the food that he is feeding pigs looks appetizing to him. Finally, he decides to go back to his father to ask to become a paid servant. Luke 15:20 tells that the young man “arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” In the moment, it can feel like we are the one who made the decision and turned to Christ. But scripture shows us that the Father ran to rescue us by sending the Holy Spirit to work within us and to turn our heart toward him. Therefore, this should lead us to be thankful for the Father’s rescue, for him sending the Holy Spirit, and for God’s work within our soul. The second promise believers are given is for the Father to work in our hearts to turn us toward Christ.

We will never be cast out by Christ.

Jesus completes verse 37 with, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” In Saratoga, N.Y., there is an unusual monument. The monument is a sculpture of a boot and an inscription praising someone who is never mentions by name. The reason for this is because the monument is in honor of the famous Benedict Arnold, the Revolutionary War general who fought bravely for the Americans before he turned and sided with the British. His actions helped avoid disaster at the battle of Saratoga. When Arnold tried to sell out the fort at West Point, he became a traitor. He later commanded a redcoat army against the colonists. He then went to England where a few praised him, but most also reviled him. He was given land in Canada, but that did not help him find any security or comfort in his latter days. Someone thought Arnold deserved some kind recognition for his early bravery, but because he was reviled for siding with the British, his name is not mentioned on the inscription. Instead, only his boot was memorialized because he had been wounded in the leg in battle. Jesus also experienced deep betrayal. One of his closest followers, Judas, would betray him to the Jewish leaders.

You’ve probably experienced betrayal at some time in your life. A friend who you were close to suddenly ghosts you. Or a seeming stable workplace suddenly lays you off. Or maybe a family member or, dare I say, a church member betrayed you and hurt you deeply. If this is you, Christ knows what you’ve been there. Not only does he know what you’ve been through, but he died on the Cross in light of the betrayal of Judas. Christ not only understands betrayal, but he has given us a promise. Paul writes in Romans 8:38-39, “for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us, and the third promise of Christ here is that he will “never cast us out.”

We can know that we have eternal life.

The fourth and final promise of Christ is from verse 40 where Jesus says, “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.” The widow said to my friend, “I hope he made it.” For us, we don’t have to hope we make it, nor do we have to hope that our family members and friends who believe will make it. Instead, 1 John 5:13 says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” There can be certainty about our eternal destination. It’s not guesswork or a roll of the dice. When we feel like we’ve messed up too many times for Christ to continue to love us, he continues to seek out his children who stray from him.

J. Wilbur Chapman was studying for the ministry when he heard D. L. Moody preach in Chicago. Chapman recalls their conversation afterward. Chapman writes, “to my great joy Mr. Moody came and sat beside me. I confessed that I was not quite sure that I was saved. He handed me his opened Bible and asked me to read John 5:24; and trembling with emotion I read: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” He said to me, “Do you believe this?” I answered, “Certainly.” He said, “Are you a Christian?” I replied, “Sometimes I think I am, and again I am fearful.” “Read it again,” he said. Then he repeated his two questions, and I had to answer as before. Then Mr. Moody seemed to lose patience and he spoke sharply, “Whom are you doubting?” and then it all came to me with startling suddenness. “Read it again,” said Moody, and for the third time he asked. “Do you believe it?” I said, ‘Yes, indeed I do.” “Well, are you a Christian?’ and I answered, “Yes, Mr. Moody, I am.” From that day to this I have never questioned my acceptance with God.

What about you? Do you ever wonder about your eternal destiny? Well, have you professed your faith in Christ? Have you not only confessed of your sin, but turned from your sin? If the answers to these questions are yes, then you can embrace what Christ says here, “I will not cast you out.” We can also cling to those precious words of 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”

Conclusion

Jesus gives us four promises. First, in following him we will never grow spiritually hungry or thirsty. Second, the Father will work within us to draw us to Christ. Third, we will never be cast out by Christ. Finally, we can Know that we have eternal life.

Personally, this has been one of the more difficult questions I wrestled with. When I was in my teenage years, I had never read John 6 or 1 John 5, and I had little to no knowledge as to whether or not I would be accepted by Christ in the end. Fortunately, I read my Bible and learned more about the heart of Jesus Christ, and the heart of Jesus is that when his sheep wonder he will seek out the lost sheep. He sought me out, and he provided me assurance through his Word. Christ will never cast out those who truly believe in him, and we can know without the shadow of a doubt that he loves us and has rescued us for eternal life with him.