John 6 (4)
Are you a true follower of Jesus
(Katie Shepherd April 1, 2020 at 5:26 a.m. EDT; Washington Post)
As stores and offices closed throughout March, many people watched with anger as thousands of college students poured into tropical locales, crowding beaches and bars to party during their regularly scheduled spring breaks. Now, as the pandemic has spread further, many people’s fears have been realized as college students by the dozen have tested positive for the coronavirus.
About 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin, all in their 20s, chartered a plane to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in late March. They took the trip despite public health advice to avoid crowding as well as nonessential air travel.
This past Thursday, Austin public health officials announced 44 students, more than half of the young people who took the trip, had returned and tested positive for the coronavirus. Many of the remaining students are under public health monitoring, according to officials.
They were warned. They were asked to stay home, and to stay away from others. But they were young. They were invincible. They didn’t want to miss out on their fun, and now they are sick.
3 groups came out of that decision. Those who are sick and show it. Those who are sick and don’t show it, and those who are waiting to see if they are sick.
In John chapter 6, we are also introduced to 3 groups of people; those who want nothing to do with Jesus, those who serve Him with all their hearts, and those who pretend to follow Him but really don’t.
Open your Bibles this morning and turn with me please to the book of John. John chapter 6 and verse 22, as this morning we ask the question, “Are you a true follower of Jesus?” John chapter 6 and beginning in verse 22.
- Read John 6:22-42, 53-71
As we have recently seen, In the early part of John 6, Jesus taught a crowd of people, more than 5,000 folks from 5 loaves and 2 fish, because He cares and can handle big things.. Later we saw a group of people who did not know their Bibles as well as they should have, who tried to make Jesus into a kind of king they wanted. Last week we saw Jesus walk on water and realized that Jesus only comes in by invitation. In the passage before us this morning we find the scripture asking the question, “Are you a true follower of Jesus?”
The crowd Jesus fed on the other side of the lake have followed Jesus and His disciples around the lake. They knew there was only 1 boat on the other side of the lake and knew Jesus had not entered the boat with the disciples, they asked Him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” They were wondering how in the world He had crossed the lake. Our Father often works in ways and at times we don’t understand and in ways we don’t see. But, Jesus ignored their question. He went right to the heart of the matter.
He told them, “You aren’t following me because of the miracle you saw. You aren’t following Me because of My teachings, all you was is for Me to fill your bellies. You were hungry yesterday and I fed you, now it’s time for breakfast so you come looking for Me again.
The only time and the only reason you are looking for me is because of what you can get form Me. Don’t struggle for and worry about the daily stuff, focus on the stuff that lasts forever.
I. THE WAY OF SALVATION
Pay special attention to the question the folks ask next. Look there in verse 28, “What can we do to perform the works of God?” What they are asking is, “What can we do to get to heaven? What can we do to have eternal life? What works do we have to do in order to be saved?”
Isn’t that the question all religions in the world attempt to answer? What must I do, what can I do, to be saved?
Hinduism - In Hinduism, there are 4 ways to reach Moksha, or the state where you reach enlightenment and quit the endless cycle of reincarnation and become 1 with God. You can do it through the way of action, performing certain religious ceremonies. You can do it through the way of knowledge, when you come to a complete understanding of the universe. There is the way of devotion, where you reach perfection through acts of worship, and there is the Royal Road, where you perform certain acts of yoga and meditation.
In Buddhism, you work toward Nirvana. You work toward a blissful nothingness, you become a Buddha.
In Islam, you will eventually get to paradise if your good deeds outweigh your bad, after you spend a certain amount of time in hell to pay for the bad; or if you die as a martyr for the faith.
In Mormonism, you will become a god and populate your own planet if you live a good Mormon life, are baptized in the Mormon church, and things like taking your 2-year mission trip as a young person helps as well.
All of these are works-based. All of these things depend on us working or striving or accomplishing something in order to reach the next life.
Every false religion in the world depends on us doing something. There is something in all of us that wants to find a way to do good stuff, to get God in our debt, so we can earn heaven.
Notice how Jesus answers. Look there in verse 29.
- Read verse 29
Did you see that? Jesus says, “You want works to do to get to heaven? You want something you can work at? Here’s the work you do, you believe in the One He sent.”
That’s always been the way of salvation. That’s always been our way to the Lord. We believe.
In the days of Noah, you believed the Lord enough to get into a boat. In the days of the first passover, you believed enough to put the blood on your door. In the days when the snakes were running among the people, they believed and looked on the bronze serpent God commanded them to make. And in John 3:16 we are told
> John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but hath everlasting life.
What is the condition for salvation? Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
What did the thief on the cross do? He believed in Jesus and cried, “Master, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
When the earthquake hit while Paul and Silas were in jail. The Phillippian jailer escorted them out and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” And they answered him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
When Jesus died on the cross, close to 2000 years ago this upcoming Friday, Jesus cried almost with His dying breath, Tetelisti, It is finished. Paid in full.
Jesus paid it all. There is nothing you can do to add to what Jesus has already done.
Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.
What can we do? Here is the work you can do, “Believe in the One He has sent.”
So the people tell Jesus in verse 30, perform a sign so we can know what you are saying is true.
Is that the way salvation works? Is that the way our relationship with the Lord works? We tell the Lord, the Creator of all things to do something, and then we’ll believe? Is that the relationship you have with God? God, you do this then I will believe.
As if the sign the day before was not enough. It is difficult to be patient with the superficial religion of these folks. They not only ignored the miracle from the day before, but they tried to set up a standard by which they would judge whether Christ was real.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a god I can dictate to. I don’t want a god who does everything I ask him to do, because I don’t always know everything that is going on behind the scenes and I don’t always know how everything works together. I don’t know that person’s true heart or his true motivations. I don’t know when a virus is going to shut down the world, when the government is going to close stores, and restaurants and schools, and people are going to lose their minds.
I don’t want an idle I can dictate to. I want a God Who is bigger than that. I want a God Who says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
They tell Jesus, Moses provided bread in the wilderness. How about you provide us with bread and then we’ll believe.
How arrogant. Didn’t He just feed them the day before? Didn’t He miraculously beat them across the lake, in a way they still didn’t understand, and yet they tell Him, “Feed us again, feed us regularly and then we’ll believe. Give us bread.
What did Jesus tell them?
- v 35 I Am the bread of Life.
II. THE WAY OF FULFILLMENT
- V 35 I am the Bread of Life
These folks pursued the emptiness of material things, and ignored the only source of the peace, joy and contentment they were looking for.
My first year in seminary, I spent 10 weeks one summer, working with a Praxis, church-planting team in Round Lake Illinois, working to try and help start a church. For 10 weeks, I and a student missionary went door-to-door trying to tell people about Jesus. We knocked on 1998 doors. As knocked on the doors, I would look into the peoples’ eyes.
These folks had tried everything in the world to find peace. They’d tried work. They’d tried hobbies and sports. They’s tried marriage. They’d tried sex. They’d tried everything in the world to find peace, to find contentment, to find joy; to fill that void in their lives.
Time and time again I’d asked them, Please let me tell you about Jesus. Let me tell you how you can find that peace, how you can find that joy. And time and time again, the door would be closed in my face.
Oh, I imagine that was how Jesus felt on this day when He told them, “I Am the bread that came down out of heaven. I’m what you’re looking for. I’m the only One, the only thing that can bring you peace, that can bring you joy. That can fill that void in your life and give you meaning and purpose.
Jesus says, “I Am the bread of Life.”
III. THE WAY OF TRANSFORMATION
- vvs 53-58
This is an unusual saying. Some might call it a difficult saying. Unless you eat My flesh and drink my blood you do not have life. What in the world does that mean?
Is Jesus in this passage talking about physically eating His flesh and drinking HIs blood? No, of course not, not any more than we actually eat His flesh and drink His blood when we share communion together.
You are familiar with the saying, “You are what you eat”?
To eat and drink Jesus is to take Jesus into yourself by a voluntary act, that which is outside yourself and then to assimilate it and make it part of yourself.
To eat His flesh and to drink His blood is to take Jesus into yourself, or as some describe it, to invite Jesus into your heart.
And the 2 are separate things. When we share in the Lord’s Supper, we share the bread, representing the broken Body of Jesus. The price has been paid.
When we drink the cup, we are reminded of the forgiveness of Jesus. We are reminded of the blood that cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
In a similar way, in this passage I believe Jesus is referring to 2 different things.
- It was through His flesh that Jesus lived out a holy life of obedience. In eating His flesh we share in His life of surrender and begin to live Christ in all the worldly places we go. We carry Him to sales conventions, in used car lots, we live Him out while washing our clothes, rearing our children, watching TV and going to church. We carry Him everywhere. We live surrendered, Christ-filled, and Spirit directed lives.
To drink His blood means we accept His sacrifice for us. We are reconciled to God and live as forgiven sinners.
Now, when Jesus told them this, what did they do? Did they ask Him to explain it? No. They began to talk among themselves. They asked each other, how can we do this.
Then they said in verse 60
> John 6:60 This is hard.
My goodness, who in the world ever said being a Christian and living the Christian life was easy? Who in the world ever said it was going to be sunshine and rainbows from here to heaven?
This is hard. Anything worth anything is hard.
> Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Does that sound easy?
The way of obedience, the way of the Christian life is not easy, and He never promised it would be.
This is hard.
When the people understood that Jesus wasn’t going to give them everything they wanted, and when they realized that being a follower of His was going to be difficult, the folks broke into 3 camps. The people made individual choices.
IV. THE TIME OF DECISION
1. There was open defection -
- v66
Just an interesting note. Notice what this verse is. It’s chapter 6 and verse 66. 666. Notice who this verse describes. It describes people who defect.
When the folks realized there was more to this Christian thing than just being given everything in the world you want, and that Jesus wasn’t going to be some holy Santa Claus for them, most of the people left.
Most of the crowds of people left. They said, “This is hard. This isn’t at all what I was looking for. I wanted someone to provide everything for me. I wanted a king who was going to make life easy for me. Someone who would give me all of the material things I wanted. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to sacrifice. I don’t want to have to focus on bringing Christ into myself and becoming more and more like Him each day. I don’t want to study to show myself approved. I don’t want to spend time seeking and serving the Lord. I just want someone who will make me happy, and healthy and wealthy. I want someone who will bless my family, and make everything work out, and who will be there in an emergency. If something’s required of me, I’m out of here. This is hard.
There was an open defection.
2. There was a firm determination -
- 6:67-69
Jesus asks the 12, you’re not going to leave also are you? Peter says, “Where would we go. You’re the only One with the words of life.
Did Peter understand all that being a follower of Jesu meant? No. Did he know what was going to be required of Him in the future? No. Did he know he was going to die as a martyr?
No. There was a lot Peter and the others didn’t know, but there was a firm determination. We don’t know everything that’s going to be required of us if we follow You, but there is no other place to find eternal life and we are here for the long haul.
Years ago, a young African pastor posted a sign on his wall that said,
“I’m part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I’m a disciple of His. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be stilled.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I’m finished and done wit low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living and dwarfed goals.
I no longer need prominence, property, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, or deayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversisty, negotiate at the table of the enemy. ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won’t give up, shut up, let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up, for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go til He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me - my banner will be clear.
A firm determination.
Sadly, there was a 3 group represent there as well.
- Read 6:70-71
3. Subtle Deception
There was one there, who had the appearance of a follower of Jesus, but he wasn’t. He was kidding others and perhaps fooling himself as well.
Judas was there. He was so good at playing the part that on the night Jesus said one would betray Him, the other disciples began to question themselves and their salvation. Is it me? Is it me?
Judas played to part of being a follower of Jesus, but it was a subtle deception.
What a scary thing it is to realize that there are pretenders in our midst. Oh, I’m not afraid of them. I’m afraid for them. People who play the part of a Christian. People talk like Christians and act like Christians, but for who Christianioty is all an act. It’s all outside.
There is a subtle deception.
Let me ask you my, what group do you fall into this morning? Are you a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ? Have you said, “Lord, where else can we go. You have the words of life. I’m your man. I’m your woman”?
Are you here this morning, perhaps playing the game. You are subtitling pretending to be a follower, but you’ve never really made Jesus the Lord of your life. . . .
