Jesus, The Committed One
John 6:34-40
While studying through this sixth chapter of John,
We are seeing the second sermon of Jesus.
After feeding the 5,000 and walking on water, Jesus-Mania set in.
The crowds were literally flocking to Him,
But Jesus knew their heart
And was not about to get caught up in the emotion of the moment.
The sermon progresses as this crowd
Asks a question or makes a statement to Jesus.
The first point of the sermon was summarized by the word FOCUS
Vs. 25, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
To that Jesus responded.
Vs. 26-27, “Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”
Jesus wanted them to focus on the eternal things,
Not just getting food in their belly. Life is more than food.
But the fact that Jesus used the word “work”
Allowed them to completely miss the point.
And that led to the second point of Jesus sermon: FAITH
Vs. 28, “Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”
Jesus responded.
Vs. 29, “Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
God wants them to believe in Jesus. It is not about works.
The crowd understood the claims that Jesus was making.
He was claiming to be the Messiah.
However, they were not willing to just fall in and believe Him,
So that brought on the third point question.
Vs. 30-31, “So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.'”
Here we see Jesus respond with the third point. FIGURE
Vs. 32-33, “Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”
They needed to seek the true bread, and not seek the picture.
Again, I wish I could say that the people understood and accepted Jesus sermon, repented, and placed their faith in them.
BUT AGAIN, YOU AND I KNOW BETTER.
Vs. 33, “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”
When the people hear that, they loose their mind again.
Vs. 34, “Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”
Their fourth statement reveals that they still do not get it.
It is very similar to the initial response of the woman at the well.
John 4:15 “The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”
As Jesus speaks of Himself as the true bread from heaven
They do not understand it.
So they once again make an ill advised statement.
They say, “Always give us…”
CAN THEY NOT SEE THAT THE BREAD IS BEFORE THEM?
This sounds much like my 2 yr. old. He can have a mouth full of food that he will not swallow, and be crying telling us he is hungry.
They can’t see what is right in front of them.
And that promotes the fourth point of Jesus sermon.
A point we will summarize with the word FAMISHED
Of course famished means hungry.
They were starving spiritually
And could not see the answer that was before them.
This blindness causes Jesus to give them an answer.
Vs. 35-36, “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.”
This answer is well worth our study this evening.
It is the first of seven famous “I Am” statements in the book of John.
This crowd was thick headed, so Jesus gets to the point.
I am the One who can satisfy your soul.
I am the One who can save you forever.
I am the One who can fill the void in your life.
I am what you need to be seeking.
We have talked about this continually throughout this chapter.
Jesus being the only One who can satisfy your soul and give you life.
“he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”
BUT THEN JESUS DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
Instead of opening the door for another question or statement,
Jesus proceeds a little further.
Vs. 36, “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.”
Jesus pronounced their judgment. He pronounced their blindness.
Matthew 13:14-15 “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.”
The problem wasn’t Jesus, the problem was the people.
The seed was fine, the soil was barren.
Despite their excitement,
Despite their enthusiasm,
Despite their willingness to follow Him around a lake,
Jesus knew that there would be no true disciples here.
What a tragedy!
They would not look past themselves.
All they wanted was another meal,
And they missed the true bread of God.
And we could take this opportunity and talk about the dangers
Of this happening in our lives.
We could talk about how when we don’t receive the truth before us we run the danger of never having it offered again.
We could talk about the dangers of being hardened to the truth.
But there is more in this text that I want you to see tonight,
For the purpose of our study is not to focus on obstinate man, BUT TO FOCUS ON JESUS.
For the realization that this crowd is fraudulent
Puts Jesus in a real discouraging situation.
Imagine if you were Jesus.
One day you are healing the sick, preaching the gospel and feeding the multitudes and they all want to make you King,
Then the next day you learned that it was seemingly all for not.
They didn’t hear a word you said.
Your ministry was in vain.
Your preaching fell on deaf ears.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
Do you comb the crowd again and see if perhaps there is just one who gets it?
Do you lower your standard to help this crowd look acceptable?
Do you question your calling, your methods, your abilities?
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN IT APPEARS IT ISN’T WORKING?
Every preacher is sure of his calling
When people are flocking down the aisles.
But what about when the pews are empty?
What about when the pews are sleeping?
What about when the followers are phony?
WHAT DO YOU DO THEN?
Here we have opportunity to see Jesus
At what should have been a very discouraging moment
And here we get to see His heart.
We get to see what He really believes.
Jesus here preaches a sermon for Himself.
I am convinced that the crowd had no clue what He was talking about in these next four verses. They don’t even comment on it.
These next four verses weren’t for them.
They show us the heart of a Savior who should have been discouraged.
Here we see three attributes of Jesus in a sermon entitled,
“JESUS: THE COMMITTED ONE”
#1 JESUS WAS CONFIDENT: He Trusted The Father’s Power
John 6:37
Did you catch the confidence in His statement?
So the crowds were too small…
So the crowds didn’t get it…
So the crowds were confused…
Jesus could have easily questioned His approach.
Jesus never wavered, He was confident.
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me”
JESUS KNEW GOD IS SOVEREIGN.
Sovereign is defined as: “Above all others, chief, supreme in power”
That is exactly what God is.
Many times we think of salvation
Only so far as it depends upon man to be saved.
To do that causes salvation to be a matter of persuasion.
If we can just persuade men to be saved, then we are successful.
But we find Jesus here doing no such thing.
We find Jesus trusting in the sovereignty of God.
Many think that a person’s salvation depends upon convincing a man of his lostness and persuading him to come to Jesus.
But there is a problem with that at it’s very core.
Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
HOW IS A DEAD MAN GOING TO HEAR?
We answer, well I’ll just preach the word to him.
That is a noble approach, but what about the verse Ken quoted this morning?
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
The Bible says that man is incapable of hearing God or His truth,
So how do you plan on saving him?
Some then say, well this man must seek God.
Romans 3:11 “THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;”
And so we come to a much needed understanding here
That while man is commanded to seek for God,
He is incapable of doing so,
Unless God first makes him able to seek.
Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),”
So that’s it we think.
God must make us alive enough to hear, and then it is up to us.
God makes those we preach to alive enough to hear then it is up to us.
It is our pleading with God and crying out to Him that causes Him to save us. He does it because we ask Him to.
ARE YOU SURE?
Romans 9:14-18 “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
Man is completely incapable of salvation. He is dead.
He can’t hear God, nor can he seek God, nor can he call upon God.
And even if he could, the Bible says he wouldn’t.
Romans 3:12 “ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”
So salvation very much becomes a work of grace, and divine election.
Ephesians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
These passages don’t leave us with the “Warm Fuzzies”
These passages confront us with predestination,
And the curse of being blind and deaf to the things of God.
But there is a beautiful side to election, and sovereignty.
And that is that God is able to save His elect.
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me,”
Jesus was supremely confident in God’s saving power.
He was not tempted to change His methods.
He was not tempted to change His message.
He did not allow Himself to get discouraged,
He knew that nothing could thwart God’s plan.
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
God’s chosen will come, and God’s Savior will accept them.
Take a page from the confidence of Jesus.
We things got tough, Jesus didn’t quit believing,
He remained confident.
We must be as well.
CONFIDENCE IS VERY POWERFUL
#2 JESUS WAS COMPLIANT: He Trusted The Father’s Plan
John 6:38
Our first temptation is to lose confidence.
But that is not where Satan wants to stop.
Satan’s main objective is to get you to doubt God.
Remember how he tempted Jesus in the wilderness.
Matthew 4:1-10 “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'” Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'” Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'”
Satan wants you to doubt God’s methods.
And he has had marvelous success.
God has an ordained plan for redeeming the lost to Himself.
Send His Son as a sacrifice for sin.
Conquer death by raising Him from the dead.
Send the Holy Spirit to inhabit those who believe in Jesus.
Send these Spirit filled believers throughout the world to preach the gospel.
But so often today, when that plan doesn’t produce the results
Men quickly doubt God’s plan and run the other way.
Today we have churches who have minimized the sacrifice of Jesus.
They add human works to the equation.
They promote a theology of morality in which all good people are saved.
Today we have churches who minimize the resurrection of Jesus.
They see no need to have power over sin
They are content to stay in sin and call it inevitable.
Today we have churches who minimize the presence of the Holy Spirit
We promote programs with the slogan, “Anyone can”
We teach people to train themselves and trust their training (seminary)
Today we have churches who minimize the need to go.
We fashion attractive churches
We call the multitudes to come to us
Today we have churches who minimize the gospel.
Repentance is out, encouragement is in.
Conviction is out, tolerance is in.
Truth is out, enlightenment is in.
And this happens for one reason.
Men have doubted the plan of God.
I don’t know where they first learned it, but it was not from Jesus.
JESUS WAS COMPLIANT, HE TRUSTED GOD’S PLAN
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”
It doesn’t matter if only one gets saved.
It doesn’t matter if no on gets saved.
He was sent by God to follow God’s orders, so that is what He does.
We get mixed up when we look ahead
To what we think God is trying to accomplish.
Then we try to improve upon His plan
So we can achieve the result
We assume He wants to achieve
In a more efficient fashion.
We read in the Bible some very beautiful passages.
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?”
We then put 2 and 2 together, but we come up with 22.
If people aren’t being saved we act as though God’s plan doesn’t line up with God’s desire, and so we improve upon it.
What if it is not God’s intention to double the size of our church?
What if it is not God’s intention to increase the budget of our church?
What if it is not God’s intention to make me a famous pastor?
What if it is not God’s intention to even keep this church around?
We can’t simply be concerned with our goals,
We can only be concerned with obedience.
Jesus was confident Jesus was compliant
#3 JESUS WAS COMMITTED: He Trusted The Father’s Passion
John 6:39-40
HERE IS PIT SOME FALL IN WHEN MINISTRY ISN’T BOOMING
If they do what God says, and it doesn’t work.
We lose confidence in the fact that God really wants men saved.
Jeremiah 15:18 “Why has my pain been perpetual And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will You indeed be to me like a deceptive stream With water that is unreliable?”
Many have followed this path.
Without saying so, they lose confidence in the fact that God truly wants men saved and so they abandon His word.
Some lose confidence in the love of God.
Why did He allow this to happen?
Why did He allow this…
THEY QUESTION GOD’S DESIRES.
But you see, Jesus never did.
Even if it didn’t seem so, Jesus knew God truly wanted men saved.
“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
If you allow yourself to get discouraged
Because it doesn’t seem ministry is going like it should,
It is only because or one of 3 reasons.
You have quit trusting God’s power to save.
You have quit trusting God’s plan to save.
You have quit trusting God’s passion to save.
But if you truly remain confident, compliant, and committed,
You are walking like Jesus, He never allowed Himself to be shaken.
TONIGHT IT IS THIS VERY THING THAT I AM ASKING OF YOU.
I AM ASKING YOU TO GET COMMITTED TO JESUS.
If you have never committed your life to Him,
That is where you must start.
If you are chosen of God, you will come.
DO YOU WANT TO BE CHOSEN?
Then come on.
And if you are, you will.
Maybe tonight you have committed your life to Christ,
But you need to recommit to His power, His plan, & His passion.
You have become discouraged and you need to re-focus on Him and pick your cross back up and continue down the road.
“As Jesus here deals with the skin-deep Jesus-Mania, He reminds of the solemn truth that man is not saved by works, not even by will. Man is saved by grace, only through the calling, drawing, and saving of God. Let us learn as Jesus teaches and gives example, not to become consumed with our persuasion of men and the requirements to them, but that salvation is of God, a miracle of grace, divinely offered, humbly accepted, powerfully secured, and all because of God. Let us learn from Jesus not to be deceived by an emotional crowd but to also be committed to doing the will of Him who sends us, and confident that it will work.”
Jesus was committed to you, will you be committed to Him?
Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
