What Is In It For Me?

INTRODUCTION

• What is it going to cost? What will this do for me? Why do I need this? These are some questions most of us have whenever someone is trying to get us to buy into something.

• We watch the television infomercials. I stayed up late when we were on our trip to Wyoming watching the Jack Lalain juicer infomercial. They were telling me all the reasons I needed to purchase that juicer. They were trying to make me think that all my health problems would be solved for just 4 easy payments of $39.99 or something like that.

• The real question people want answered is, “What is in it for me?” This is the question people want answered whenever we are trying to get them to consider giving their lives to Jesus.

• Jesus has shared some insights with the crowd during this lengthy sermon that was very hard for them to grasp or accept.

• Jesus has told them a couple of times He was the bread of heaven which came out of heaven.

• Jesus is trying to get the people to make Him their Lord and Savior. As Jesus’ sermon continues, He is now about to answer the question, “What is in it for me?”

• Whenever we share our faith with other people with an eye towards trying to get them to become Christians, we must be able to answer the same question Jesus answers in this section of His sermon.

• When you talk to people about Jesus, they are going to want to know the benefits of accepting Jesus. Today we are going to look at four benefits of belonging giving our loves to Christ that Jesus shares with us.

SERMON

BACKGROUND

• READ JOHN 6:51-58

• Before we get into the benefits Jesus shares with us, we need to take a look at what Jesus was saying when He told the crowd that unless they drank His blood and ate His flesh they would not receive any benefit from Him.

• You have to put Jesus statement about eating flesh and drinking blood in its’ proper context.

• Some would say that Jesus is literally speaking of people eating His flesh and drinking His blood. They appeal to the Lord’s Supper which was instituted a year after this sermon was given. When Jesus says take, eat, this is my body and drink, this is MY blood for the covenant.

• Some churches teach that during communion the loaf and the cup turn into the actual body and blood of Jesus. Some will say that will only happen during a Latin mass. This phenomenon is called Transubstantiation.

• Without knowing the historical context of what Jesus was saying, you could conclude Jesus was being literal when He spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

• In the days of old it was thought when an animal was sacrificed that the god whom they were sacrificing to entered into the animal, therefore; when a person ate some of the sacrificed meat, they were eating the god.

• To the Jew “blood” was life. When the blood flowed from something so did the life. It was further believed the blood belonged to God. Jesus is saying we are to take on His life as ours.

• Now see what Jesus is saying-"You must drink my blood-you must take my life into the very center of your being-and that life of mine is the life which belongs to God." When Jesus said we must drink his blood he meant that we must take his life into the very core of our hearts.

• The Passover was approaching which would have added more meaning to what Jesus was saying.

• During the Lord’s Supper Jesus said that He was being sacrificed for the sins of many in Matthew 26:26-ff.

• The loaf and the cup represent the sacrifice Jesus made for us and so when we partake communion in a figurative sense Jesus enters the loaf and the cup and when we partake we are taking Jesus into us.

• Now let us look at the benefits Jesus gives to us!

I. ETERNAL LIFE (53-54, 58)

• In verse 53 Jesus says that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. The word for “eat” and “drink” denote a one time past act with continual results. He is speaking of the time that we accept Him as our Lord and Savior.

• In verse 54 Jesus uses a different word for “eat” and “drink”. The words here are ones that mean to continually eat and drink and to do it eagerly. Jesus here is saying that if you are feeding on Him continually you will be raised up on the last day.