[0:00] How is everyone this morning? All right, that didn't get better than Chris's response, so I'm sure some of you guys in the depths of your heart were planning that.
[0:13] Please turn with me to the Gospel according to John, Gospel according to John, specifically John chapter 6. As you all know, we are in the Life of Christ series, and there are certain elements about this series that I feel that I need to talk to you a little bit about today.
[0:34] One, we're in the month of April, right? I know some of you guys are excited as I am that Major League Baseball season starts this week. All right, it's April is the day.
[0:47] A couple things about April. Easter is coming. Yes, it's our time of glorious celebration about our death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
[0:59] And without him, without Easter, there is no Christianity. There is no faith. We are in a doomed and lost world. So April, Easter falls on the 17th of this year, so just so you know, on Good Friday, we will have an evening service that tends to fit most people's work schedule.
[1:20] And of course, we will celebrate. But as you know, we're kind of in this Passion Week, and we're kind of coming up on the Passion Week. And the Passion Week, in case you haven't heard, it's just the Passion, the Life of Christ during that eight day, last eight days before the cross.
[1:39] And I wish I could say this would have been perfectly timed to land on that day when we get to Easter, but it's not. And so after Easter, we're going to talk more about Easter after, right?
[1:53] So there's going to be some more learning, and I pray more blessings upon you, because that is an incredibly loaded week as it fits into, I don't know, eternity.
[2:03] But I want you guys to see just the power, understand the drama that surrounds. I want you to even see the type of evil and the way people are willing to compromise in order to get their own way that would lead to the death of a perfectly sinless man, that they would crucify him, treat him as the most vile and guilty man who lived.
[2:39] And I think it's important for us to understand that. So just to let you know, beyond Easter, we're going to continue in this Life of Christ series. There's two reasons why I'm doing this series.
[2:52] And I've said it before, I'm going to say it again. One is that you may know Jesus better, and through that knowledge of Jesus, you would come to love him deeper and have an incredible, deeper worship for him.
[3:07] The other reason I'm teaching this series is I'm hoping as I bring to you these key chapters, I'm giving to you a framework in order to read your Bibles and understand where these stories fit in and the importance of why these stories fit into the Gospels the way that they do.
[3:30] If you remember, we look at our Bibles, we have got four Gospels, four eyewitnesses, eyewitness accounts to the life of Christ.
[3:41] And the first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the Synoptic Gospels. These were written with very specific purposes in mind.
[3:52] Matthew, written from a Jewish bent. So when the apostles would have a Gospel, when they went into some of the synagogues to share about the life of Christ.
[4:02] Mark, primarily written to the church in Rome, very action-oriented Gospel. And just in case you're wondering, Mark, out of all the Gospels, tends to be the most chronological.
[4:16] So if you're looking for a flow of the life of Christ, Mark is the best one to use. Because we're going to see Matthew, Luke, they kind of flip-flop. They put like certain amounts of teachings in one bundled area.
[4:29] But when you're looking at Mark, it kind of gives you a chronology. And I'm going to share with you later on why that's important. And then the Gospel of John stands alone on its own.
[4:40] I think 92% of the material that we find in John differs from the material that is found in the first three Gospels. And not only that, John spends a lot of time post-Galilee in ministry that we've been talking about.
[4:58] If you remember, we've kind of divided Jesus' life into three phases. The first phase was his first year where he quits being a carpenter, comes to John the Baptist, gets baptized, and then he ministers down in Jerusalem.
[5:12] But he's drawing a crowd, right? He's teaching. And he's proving, hey, guys, I'm the guy John the Baptist has been heralding all that time about I'm the king that's coming. A lot of John the Baptist, hey, you know, they're with John the Baptist.
[5:26] That's the guy you should be following. All right, thank you. And they started drawing a crowd. And that moved to the second phase of the life of Christ, which is this one-and-a-half-year period in Galilee where he's teaching, teaching, teaching.
[5:39] He does three tours. He's healing. He's doing all these incredible events. And as he experienced, and we're going to look at that a little bit today, this rejection, first from the religious establishment.
[5:53] And we need to understand the religious establishment, which is made up of Pharisees and Sadducees. And we're going to talk about that. Right now, it's just the Pharisees he's been dealing with.
[6:05] These are the temple scribes, the leaders that functioned out of synagogues, which would have been kind of like a church. And a place that people gathered. Weekly they heard Scripture being read to them.
[6:19] And they were just influential people within the community. But one thing that doesn't get mentioned very much is that they're also political animals. The Judea, the Pharisee is also a political party.
[6:33] And they hold some of the levers of power over the people. And we're going to see later on, the Sadducees hold the other levers of power.
[6:43] That's why if you ever in Scripture, you see the word Hasmonean. That's from a line of the priests that overthrew the Greek Empire in 162, 64 BC.
[6:59] And it gave Israel a hundred-year time of independence. So this family line that came from the priests were revered in that group.
[7:10] And their family kept on leading. They were political power people as well. So there's just the dynamic. And we're going to see how that works through. And I started talking to you about there's this transition that's going on now.
[7:25] That transition is, remember I called it from a time of public proclamation to private presentation. So as we saw last week, and if you didn't get a chance to listen to last week's sermon, I would really encourage you to.
[7:40] I've heard a lot of really positive feedback from different people on how it fits in. But it's when Jesus began to teach in parables. And in one, if you understood the parables, which were about the kingdom of God, it means you got Jesus.
[7:55] You understood his message. But if you were perplexed by the message, it meant you didn't understand Jesus' message. And because of that non-understanding, that there would be judgment because of your rejection of that message.
[8:10] You with me on this? All right. So that's what we've been going over. So here's the transition point that we're going to. We're transitioning to Jesus adopting a different tactic.
[8:23] The people as a whole are not responding to his message. The leadership isn't. So he's now named these 12 men to become his apostles. And they're the ones.
[8:34] He's like, okay, I got to build into these. I got to make sure these guys understand the message that I have. Because he knows in one year's time, he's dying. He knows that time is coming.
[8:46] And just so you know, he's never mentioned that to anybody at this point. Nobody knows that he's dying. And this is going to be our next study, next couple of weeks, is how preciously Jesus just builds into these 12 men.
[9:03] And we're going to look at how they reject Jesus' message at the same time. You're going to see these people that love Jesus, have followed Jesus, and yet they're struggling with this element of belief that their Messiah, their God, has to die.
[9:20] And it's confusing, and it's hurtful, and we're going to get to that. So when I use that word, time of private preparation, some of you guys might be, well, I don't see that in my text anywhere.
[9:35] I don't see that in a heading. So is BK just sending me a false bill of goods here? Or you don't see the day Jesus Christ changed tactics.
[9:47] What I want to do, it's the next couple of weeks, I want to give you the arguments so that you may see how Jesus is doing things differently. And I want to point out in the text itself of why it's different.
[10:04] And I want you to see some verses or phrases that you might have read over without understanding the significance of those verses, all right? So that's where we're going.
[10:15] So we're in John 6. And John 6, in case you don't know, is the end of the private proclamation, and it's moving over into the private preparation.
[10:34] So we know at this point, like I said, the ruling party rejects him. And then there's these crowds. And some of you might be answering or thinking, how could the crowds miss Jesus?
[10:49] Or how could I say that Jesus is being rejected? And we know that we know they love Jesus, but they love Jesus for all the wrong reasons.
[11:04] You ever been in a relationship or ever hear of a relationship of someone being loved for all the wrong reasons? I was kind of thinking about what would be an illustration of this. And when I was in high school, I went to...
[11:16] Remember, I'm in high school at this point, all right? So you're going to hear about some pretty immature thinking. But I had a friend of mine who was a first-round NHL draft pick, okay?
[11:27] Like, that's it, man. Like, he's hitting the glory train of riches and being famous. And I used to play baseball with him. Great guy. And, you know, we were excited.
[11:41] He gets his signing bonus, of course. He's not driving a junker car. I can't remember what new car he's got, but it's a nice car. And he marries his high school sweetheart.
[11:53] And if I used that word, sweetheart, that probably wouldn't be the word. They fought all the time. There was up and downs to their relationship. And I just kind of went up to him. And not, you know, officially.
[12:05] I'm just like, you know, what's going on? Like, you're now wealthy. Like, you're finishing off. You finish it off high school. You're a first-round job choice. You've got this big signing bonus.
[12:16] You're going to be a big deal. Like, you fight with Elaine all the time, right? Like, she's not even that good looking. Remember, I'm in high school, right? Okay? I'm really shallow, okay?
[12:28] I'm immature. Like, what gives, right? You know, like, there's a whole world. And he responded in this way. He just says, he goes, she's the only one I can trust that really loves me.
[12:44] Because she understood him, who he was before he was the big deal guy, right? Because his big thing is, how could I believe that anybody else would love me just because I'm a famous hockey player?
[12:56] I'm making millions, that sort of thing. And I kind of think it's that way with Jesus. It's not so much, how do you know the people love you for you?
[13:07] Not from them, from what you are giving them. Do you understand me? There's people getting healed from him. They're following him. They want to see greatness.
[13:18] But do they love him? So that's why we're looking at verse 6. John chapter 6. John gives us a very interesting picture into the life of Christ at this time.
[13:32] So today, like I said, I want you to see two things in this passage. One, I want you to see the heart of Christ. I want you to see how wonderfully consistent he is and how wonderful loving he is.
[13:49] But I also want you to see plainly the motivations I have for teaching you that this is a segue to a different ministry. So let's look at verse 1 of John chapter 6.
[14:04] Chris read for you the Matthew variation. This story is in all four of the Gospels. Preceding this, I wanted you to hear that he just lost his cousin, John the Baptist, who was beheaded.
[14:23] Who, in the words of Jesus, was the greatest man ever born of a woman. He's died because he spoke truth to the religious authorities. And through the selfishness of one woman, she had his head taken off.
[14:42] After this, Jesus went away to the other side of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And if you know your geography, the very northern part of the Sea of Galilee is where Capernaum is.
[14:57] And that has been his home base from the majority of this time. Notice, he said he went away. And what's happening? And a large crowd, remember it doesn't say a crowd.
[15:10] It's a large crowd, was following him. Because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.
[15:23] This is that love that I'm talking to you about. The false love. The fake love. But I want you to understand here, here's Jesus trying to get away. And what are they doing?
[15:34] They are following him. Jesus isn't going to the crowd. The crowds are coming to him. Verse 3. Then, Jesus went up to the mountain.
[15:48] And there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. So he's crossing over the sea. Crowds. And he's going out.
[15:58] And he's going out in the hills at that point. If you've ever heard of the Golan Heights in modern day Israeli news. This is the area northeasterly from the Sea of Galilee.
[16:10] It's about, I don't know, the hills start at about 5 kilometers. And they go up from the mountains to about 20. How high he went up, I don't know. But it's at least 5 clicks, 10 clicks away from the ocean.
[16:23] He's trying to put some distance between him and the crowd here. He's mourning. Lost John the Baptist. Wants to be able to teach. Guess what? They're there. Now one of the things that we're going to see at this point in the scriptures.
[16:35] Notice verse 4. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Because we're in the last year of the life of Christ, we're going to see these phrases which begin to landmark specific dates in history for us.
[16:52] Right now, this is the Passover. We're looking at 32 AD. Okay? So he's in the hills. And it's about a year away from his time of crucifixion.
[17:05] And he's going to spend some time with his disciples. Verse 5. Lifting up his eyes then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?
[17:25] Okay. He's near the water. There's large crowds. That's head of the mountains, right? It's like, I'm in Squamish. Large crowds. Let's get up in the hills. Let's go to Whistler. Large crowds. Right? They're just continually coming towards him.
[17:39] And then he recognizes, we know that there's been a lot of teaching during this time. It's the end of the day and people are hungry. And they're so isolated. It's not like you can say, Hey, there's a McDonald's down at the corner.
[17:51] If you want to brave the A&W or any other place, go to it. Right? There's nothing like that. They're in the middle of nowhere, know-how.
[18:01] How are we going to feed these pigs? And we see his heart in understanding, as the text in Matthew says, he had compassion on the people. Verse 6.
[18:13] And he said this to test him. So he's testing our brother Philip here, for he himself knew what he would do.
[18:25] Here we begin to see Jesus purposely preparing those who are with him. Philip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.
[18:43] Like he's still thinking in worldly terms here, right? Jesus has already fed a large crowd before. So here we are, another large crowd. What's going on?
[18:53] Verse 8. One of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they for so many?
[19:10] Jesus simply says, Have the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, So the men sat down about 5,000 in number.
[19:20] And you would have heard from Chris in the book of Matthew. They only counted the men. So he's not counting the women and children. So we could estimate that there's probably 15, possibly 20,000 people that are sitting here on this hillside.
[19:34] Notice they're not being rationed.
[19:47] And when they had eaten their fill, He told the disciples, Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who are eaten.
[20:06] And it's kind of an interesting detail, right? He's actually telling us about the stuff that was left over. There's a purpose to it. You guys have all heard of Awana. Awana, no.
[20:17] Brigades, Cub Scouts, that kind of thing. I remember being a Cub. It wasn't a Cub. It was a brigade. We went out in the bush. We're camping. And we're supposed to catch our own food.
[20:28] But of course, there's all this food we're supposed to eat. One of the kids, some accident happened. So they got to drive him back to the hospital, which is like 100 miles away from North Bay. And the guy who takes the kid takes the car with all the food.
[20:45] Okay? You guys know I hate fish. I almost ate fish that night. I came that close. But what someone had were these packets of oatmeal.
[20:58] And they're the worst. They were old. We ate it, and I thought it was the greatest meal that I ever ate. And in fact, I came home and I asked mom, this is my new favorite breakfast. Can we buy it? So mom buys it, and of course, the next day I have it.
[21:10] This is horrible. I can't believe this was great. Right? When you're starving, you'll eat everything. They left food. They ate their fill. It was good food.
[21:21] Right? Usually, I'm just going to eat a little bit of that stuff just to carry me over. But when Jesus does something, it's good. There's no holding back.
[21:32] And there's a whole bunch of spiritual principles we can drive from this. But I want you to see that even in this instance of mourning, of wanting to be with his disciples, there's this heart that he has for this crowd that still doesn't get him.
[21:48] Verse 14. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
[22:07] When we read, and every, you guys who've had kids, you have your books of the Bible that you've given to your child, there's always the feeding story in there, right? It's a great miracle.
[22:19] It's like it's a happy miracle. It's actually a sad miracle. And I'll tell you why it's a sad miracle. This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
[22:37] Has Jesus at any one time said he was a prophet? No. No. At no time has he ever said he was a prophet.
[22:53] Listen, we know some people get bent out of joint when we call their names wrong, right? You call Will William. No, it's Will.
[23:05] You know? You call Suzy. You know, you don't say that. Not pointing anybody out who's got that name. You know? Or you call BK Bryan, right? Like, you want to see someone really lose it?
[23:18] But anyway, we get offended when we, some people messes up our name a little bit. What is it when we mess up their title of who they really are?
[23:31] Prophet is a great thing. It was revered within the land. But Jesus said, I am the Messiah. I'm the Son of God.
[23:43] So this is just letting us know, this is a tragic story of here he is, again, showing love, showing compassion, bringing food to them.
[23:55] He's just a prophet. After everything that he is done. And just so you know, it's not as if he's been unclear on this.
[24:11] John 5.18 in the preceding chapter, verse 18 says, This was why the Jews, the Jewish leaders, were seeking all the more to kill Jesus.
[24:25] Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. It's not like he was giving code words and they didn't understand.
[24:41] He was so clear by this time that the leaders wanted to kill him. And yet the people, he's just a prophet.
[24:55] It's the same thing today, right? If you remember, I opened up the sermon series talking about the great story of liar, lunatic, or Lord. He can't be a revered rebel if he's not Lord, because that would have meant he lied and he was insane with the things that he did.
[25:14] The only answer that is plausible, that he is indeed God. Now the prophet, we believe that they are referring to, and I'm quite certain it's 99.7%, it's Moses.
[25:29] Moses, who was the one who delivered God's people out of the bondage of Egypt. Deuteronomy 18.15, Moses wrote, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.
[25:48] Now remember in the Old Testament, a prophet was one who spoke God's word. He spoke for God. That's why they often said, thus said the Lord. And these aren't my words, these are God's words.
[25:59] Okay? So in Jesus' day, they wanted not just a prophet, but they wanted a king. And why do they want a king?
[26:10] Because they wanted Rome to be overthrown. They wanted someone to overthrow the Roman occupation. Verse 15.
[26:22] Verse 15. Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Jesus by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
[26:42] So you've got these tens of thousands of people. They see the miracle. And what's their response? If he can make bread and do the things that Moses did, this is our king.
[26:55] Let's force him on. And Jesus ducks out. Now the rest of John 6 is very interesting. Notice verse 16.
[27:05] The disciples actually head out on a boat looking for Jesus. So he's taking off on his own. I'm going to guess some of those disciples are in on that discussion. Maybe now's the time to announce our political party, right?
[27:21] The Galilean party. We're coming out against the Pharisees, Sadducees. We've got a guy, a candidate who can do miracles and great things. We will win. People love him. And it's true.
[27:32] They do. And then we have this scene of Jesus walking on the water. Think about this for a second. When Jesus needs to get away from the crowds, where does he finally have to go?
[27:46] The place where no one can follow him, right? He can walk. He's just going, walking. But the crowd, verse 22, still wants to find him.
[27:59] Verse 22 says, on the next day, the crowd that remained on the other side, so he'd gone on to the east side, now on the west side of the sea, saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples.
[28:15] So they're spying. They're keeping track of Jesus, right? There's these details in the text that he's given to us. But that his disciples had gone away alone. So they're seeing the disciples jumping in the boat, going out in the ocean, and Jesus isn't with them.
[28:32] Where'd he go? Now it's starting to get more intense. Verse 23. Other boats from Tiberias, that's the Sea of Galilee, came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.
[28:45] So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into boats and went to Capernaum, what are they doing? Seeking Jesus.
[28:57] So there's this group of people that are constantly seeking him, seeking him, seeking him. And notice verse 25. When they find him, he's now with the synagogue in Capernaum, which is home base.
[29:10] And he begins to teach them. Verse 26. Jesus answered them.
[29:22] What is he answering? The question that he's answering is, why I'm not going to be the king that you think I should be? Truly, truly.
[29:34] When he says that in your Old Testament, remember King James, verily, verily, I say unto you, it's like I need you to listen to me right now. This is an important message. Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
[29:54] Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him God the Father has set his seal.
[30:13] You could preach a whole sermon on why politics can't save you right from this passage. Do you not get that? How much we read today of so many people in the church trying to put their hope in a political activist or a party or a person?
[30:32] But that's not what we're talking about here today. We're talking about Jesus. Verse 28, Then they said to him, What must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.
[30:50] Do you believe me to be the Messiah? Do you believe me to be the Son of God? So they said to him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you?
[31:05] What work do you perform? We've heard this before, right? Even in the midst of all this healing, all the miracles that Jesus has done, they're still wanting this sign.
[31:16] This is what we call determined disbelief. Verse 31, Our fathers ate the men in the wilderness.
[31:28] As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. And what he's talking about is during the Exodus out of Egypt, God provided the food that God's people could eat.
[31:42] And this is where God, Jesus Christ, corrects them. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I'm saying you pay attention. I say to you, It was not Moses who gave you life, who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
[32:07] It wasn't Moses who did that, it was God the Father, my Father who did that. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
[32:19] They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. And this is the punchline. It's him.
[32:31] He's the bread. It's not something I give you to take, but I'm at it. And here we're just going to, I'm just going to read these verses to you because it's a sermon.
[32:46] Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And remember, this is one and a half years they've been hearing this.
[32:58] But I said to you that you have seen yet and do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
[33:10] For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
[33:27] 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.
[33:41] Boom. You don't have to follow those laws. You don't have to follow those legalistic commands. You don't have to follow the rabbinical traditions.
[33:58] All you need to do right here, right now, no matter what religious way you have been following, is simply believe in me.
[34:09] Believe in me. Because the reality is you guys have been screwing it up the whole time. Let's be honest. You can't do the law. You can't.
[34:21] The law is designed for you to fail to make you realize that you need me. And if you get so in love with the law that you don't see me for who I am, you've missed the boat entirely.
[34:41] Their response, so the Jews grumbled. This is the leadership. Grumbled about him. Because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.
[34:56] They said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven?
[35:08] And if you're in case, you're wondering how ignorant they are, that is why Matthew and Luke give us the genealogies of Jesus to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is indeed of the right princely, kingly, and bloodline to be the Messiah.
[35:27] Verse 48, 43, sorry. Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.
[35:40] And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets. And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me.
[35:55] Not that anyone has seen the father except he who is from God. He has seen the father. We could preach a whole sermon series just on this text alone.
[36:06] But what he's driving out that prophet, it's going back to Ezekiel. Or Isaiah 31. It's Ezekiel 31. Where he says, no longer will you be on your own, but I will write a new law on your heart.
[36:20] And you will know me and you will know each other. Because God was the one who regenerated and put that new heart in. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
[36:36] I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.
[36:52] I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of the bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
[37:04] You know what? I could overthrow Rome. That's what he could say. I could. I've got the power. I can call down legions of angels that will wipe out Rome.
[37:17] But you want to know something? You're still going to be lost. The same problems that persist in your heart will still bear the same fruit whether Rome is in power or I am in power.
[37:36] Do you guys understand that? See, the Pharisees wanted to clean up the outside. If I could look so clean on the outside, then I would be acceptable to God. And that's why Jesus Christ called them whitewashed tombs.
[37:50] Tombs in that day. If you touched it, you were unclean. No matter how much you cleaned up that tomb and made it all sparkly and jeweled or whatever they did in that day to make a tomb look attractive, it still was unclean because what kills you is what side of the heart.
[38:10] And what they rejected from Jesus, and I've said this again, is that he was there to spiritually save them, but they argued, I don't need spiritual salvation.
[38:22] Don't you see I'm following all the laws and I'm doing all these legalistic things. This is my way to heaven. But what I can't do is I can't overthrow Rome.
[38:33] There's just too many of them. They're too strong. So Jesus, be my general. Another way of applying this is how many of us here have wished for different circumstances in our life.
[38:50] Whether it be relational, financial, geographic, things would be so much better for me, right? If I was married to a different spouse, I'd have someone that wouldn't annoy me as much.
[39:05] Right? The thing of the matter is, when you are your idol, everybody annoys you. You could have more money, but it's still not going to hide the fact that there is a poison death inside of your heart.
[39:25] And unless you accept Jesus, nothing is going to change. Then 52, we see that the religious people decide to mince the words.
[39:37] The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, hey, listen up. I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
[39:54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
[40:05] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he will also, will live because of me.
[40:21] This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
[40:33] Jesus said these things in the synagogue as He taught at Capernaum. When many of His disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?
[40:46] But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?
[41:01] What would you say if you saw Jesus Christ lifted up to go to the Father? You see, He's saying, it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.
[41:13] The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. We see in these brackets for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray Him.
[41:32] And He said, this is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted Him by the Father. Pay attention here to verse 66.
[41:49] After this, many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the twelve, do you want to go away as well?
[42:05] Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.
[42:20] the end of chapter 6, Mark's the beginning of chapter 7, which is where we begin His training of the twelve.
[42:37] When Jesus Christ is calling them to eat the bread and take the blood or the cup, what is He referring to?
[42:54] Himself. Today of all days, we get to live in light of this teaching with communion. This is what communion means.
[43:08] Jesus Christ came to be that sacrifice for us. He came to die in our place not to give us freedom from government corruption, but to free us from the corruption that exists within our own heart.
[43:28] The weight that draws us down into the deepest parts of the ocean. And it's later interesting in Matthew, it tells us of this wonderful scene the night before He's crucified.
[43:46] He rented up this room when they came in. He washed their feet, displaying an incredible display of humility.
[43:59] The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, would get down on His knees and clean His apostles' feet. And He had a meal prepared for them and they ate and He taught them many things during that time.
[44:11] But the one command that He would end up giving, which is to go on until He comes back, is to celebrate what we're celebrating here today.
[44:25] So this morning I'm going to invite you, if you are indeed a believer in Jesus Christ, a believer in Jesus Christ is the one who believes that Jesus' flesh was crucified on that cross for you.
[44:38] It's the one who believes that Jesus came to clean up my corruption. Jesus Christ is the one who opened the prison of my sin, my guilt, and my shame.
[44:49] I didn't get out of prison because I was smart enough. I didn't get out of prison because I was rich enough. I didn't get out of prison because I helped a lot of people. No, it's the admittance that you could not open your prison door and it was only the man, God, Jesus Christ who can open up that prison, which is, we use in our terminology, our heart, our inside being.
[45:19] In Matthew it says, now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, which was to represent him, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples.
[45:31] And he said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took a cup. When he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink, I bet all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many in the forgiveness of sins.
[45:49] I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
[45:59] Save that I need music torove on in the wave another problem