Now let's turn to John chapter six verses 37 through 44 this morning. This is where it starts to get interesting. No, it's been interesting all along, but it most certainly is interesting in the middle here of John chapter six. So let's stand together and hear the word of God. And I'm going to back up to verse 35 and read down through. verse 44 John 6 35 and Jesus said unto them I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst but I said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe not all that the father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. And everybody says, amen. Please be seated. These are weighty passages. They bear some degree of negativity. The word of God does bring out some of the negative elements of the world and the people that. that hear the gospel and interact with Jesus. In fact, so much of Jesus' ministry is filled with these instances of pushback, of rejection, of apostasy and arguments. I would say anywhere between 40 and 50 percent of the book of John is going to be examples of this kind of thing, so it shouldn't take you by surprise when you find it here, because these are pictures of man's condition in sin. And from time to time, brothers and sisters, we need to see ourselves. We need to see this as something of a mirror of ourselves. I know it's shocking to see the people of God who had been in the covenant over thousands of years finally come to the point at which the covenant is to be fulfilled in the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the son of God. And here at this key moment in time in which all of the promises are coming to fruition, The people of God, the church of God of the Old Testament, are rejecting Jesus in his ministry. He comes to his own, but his own receives him not. You remember, that's the way it was introduced to us in John 1, chapter 1, verse 11. But this is so very very relevant to us and as as we hear of this pushback and the rejection that come from the Jews Keep thinking of Romans 11 keep thinking of how the Apostle Paul interacted with this tremendous apostasy this Monumental apostasy that blew him away in chapters 9 10 and 11 and then he says he says at the very end of that verse 31 he says now God has concluded them all in unbelief, Jew and Gentile alike. It's the conclusive argument. In case there was any debate on the issue whatsoever here, God in His In His revelation to us and in the revelation of His providential outworkings in the people of God of the Old Testament and those around us as well in this day, we see that God is making His point. God is concluding the Word of God to be absolutely accurate. In Romans 3 and elsewhere throughout Scripture, that man indeed is hardened in sin. His heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And all of the descriptions that God gives us describing the state of natural man is brought out in example throughout our experience and certainly in John chapter six. So this passage, as I said last week, is so relevant, so very, very relevant to us today. It accentuates the problem of the Gentiles today. You're going to run into this in ministry over a period of years. You're going to see the hardness of men's hearts. You say, well, what does that do for us? Here's what it does. Here's the lesson today. And we want to move from the bad news to the good news. That's the way I'm going to frame this sermon. Although I'll start with the bad news in verses 40 and 41, I'll move backwards towards the end of the sermon because I've got some good news for you. I want to end the sermon on the good news on this particular segment, but it really establishes and accentuates the sovereignty of God in salvation. He proves how bad it is. And then he rescues us in the desperation of our condition. And this accentuates again the gloriousness of God's sovereignty and the power of God in salvation. So may this message be an encouragement to you. Let me pray that the Spirit of God would encourage our hearts this morning. Oh, Father, we pray your spirit would come. Spirit would work that your spirit would open our eyes to see the glory of your gospel the glory of your salvation and your grace and Your work and your drawing and your spirits regenerating enlightening work in us Oh Lord, we pray that we would have firsthand experience in seeing this today in Jesus name. Amen Well, let's begin again with the bad news verses 41 and 42. These guys are not on board with what Jesus is saying here in this passage. They are arguing against him at every point. In fact, they they change the subject. They're not going to interact with what Jesus has just said. It seems as if they may be talking past each other here. In this segment between verses 36 and 44, the Jews interrupt in verse 41 and say, murmur at Jesus and they say, here it is, they murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. They said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says, I came down from heaven? Now, two problems with the way that they respond. They're trying to explain why they are not believing in Jesus while Jesus is explaining why they are not believing in him. So you have two different perspectives going. It's not as if. there's two different subjects happening here. The one side is drawing in their explanation for their disbelief, and then Jesus comes back and explains, from his perspective, their unbelief. And two problems here that are illustrated in what the Jews are doing. One is their bad attitude when it comes to the teaching of Jesus. And this is the first expression of apostasy, the first indication of apostasy, wherever there is a discontentment and a grumbling when it comes to the feeding of the manna of the Word of God. This is a huge sign of unbelief. In fact, this word, murmur, is only used a couple of times in the Greek New Testament. You're going to find it again in 1 Corinthians 10. 9 through 11 where the Apostle is bringing out the murmuring that was going on in the wilderness and he's applying the warning to the New Testament Church, he says if there is a Complaining and a grumbling and a murmuring going on in the church. That is a clear Replication of what was going on with the Jews in the Old Testament. He says neither. Let us tempt Christ and Some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. He says neither murmur ye It's the same word used in John 6 interesting John 6 first Corinthians 10 same word It's the same word cross-reference here neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer now all these things happen unto them for examples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world Come now again. Why were they they're murmuring because of the manna that come down from heaven. That was why they were grumbling They didn't like the manna. He didn't like what God has given to them now What were the Jews in John 6 murmuring about? Oh The murmuring in the Old Testament was the manna that came down from heaven and then here in John 6 we have the same word used Only used two or three or four times throughout the entire New Testament and we come back to the very same Word in John chapter 6 they're still murmuring over the manna You get it Still murmuring over the man and the man which manna manna that came down in the wilderness in the Old Testament No this time it's the manna that came down from heaven It's the teachings of Jesus. It's the words of Jesus. It's the person of Jesus. These are the things that are causing them to murmur in John chapter 6. And now the warning, of course, to us is, don't murmur. Don't murmur. Don't grumble. They murmur. They find excuses. They find tertiary problems with a message. They turn off their listening. They walk away. Upset they want to find another prophet some other scribe Somebody might tickle their ears At root, you know, the issue is an attitude attitude of murmuring an attitude of grumbling an attitude of ingratitude So they murmur that you know, God brings them what he brings them. He brings them the word he brings them the message of Jesus Jesus says I am the bread of life and I have come down from heaven." And they murmur. They say, not good enough. So this is a serious warning to us that Satan not tempt us when we hear the word of the message. Again, the tendency in the human heart is to resist, to find excuses, to turn it off, to reject it, to turn away from it. This is what's happening in John chapter 6. The root issue here is that they don't want to listen. They're not appreciative of the word that they're getting. The word of the gospel that Jesus is giving them here in John 6. So that's the warning to the New Testament church as well in 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 10. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. So Satan will take advantage of that and Satan will destroy where there is murmuring and where there is grumbling. Satan will take advantage of that. Satan will bring it down. God will turn it over to Satan. So there's the warning. The bad attitude is the first thing that is reflected in this argument against Jesus from the Jews in verses 41 and 42. But there's also not just a bad attitude, but a bad argument. When arguing with the word, they give way to irrational arguments, the nearest argument, and oftentimes the most irrational, certainly unbelieving, reprobate arguments. And this is the spirit of the age in the time of Christ, perhaps sometimes in our era as well, in which there is never any satisfaction, never any reception, never any gratitude. but always a problem. Jesus said, just like little children, we piped, you didn't dance. We danced, you didn't pipe. We did it this way, we wanted you to do it that way. Never any acceptance of the word itself, but always trying to find the problem with it. They weren't happy with John the Baptist, now they're not happy with Jesus. So they're always coming up with a problem. There's a problem with the music. The problem is not enough music, more music. More of this, less of that. More application, less application. A little more on the preaching of Jesus. A little more on the preaching of the Father. A little less of repentance, a little more of repentance. You know, it just goes this way, it goes that way. And friends, I'm here to tell you that any part of God's Word should be a great delight. At any point, we come in on Song of Songs, we take a little repentance from Acts 17, or we go to Acts 16 and find, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Or we see the kingship of Jesus as He rides on the horse in Revelation 19. We go, hallelujah, we're talking to the kingship of Jesus today. We hear Jesus as the prophet teaching us in John 6. He's the prophet today. We haven't talked a lot about His kingship and His lordship and His exaltation right now, but we're dealing in this humiliation or we're dealing with this aspect. You know, any aspect of God's Word ought to be a tremendous encouragement to our souls. We're talking about the one we love. We're talking about the God we love. We're talking about the revelation that comes down from above as manna from heaven to us. Any part of God's Word ought to be a wonderful delight to us. But they say, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? Now, their argument is they don't appreciate His human nature. They don't appreciate His divine nature. Either way, they're turned off by His human nature. They've expected the Messiah to be on a white horse. They expected Him to come in His exaltation. And here he is in an incarnation. He comes in human flesh. And that's the very thing that turns him off because he was raised in a cottage down there in Nazareth and they understood his poverty and they saw him as humiliation. It was no big deal. He wasn't very impressive to them and they didn't expect him to come in humiliation. So they turned him off in terms of his humiliation, but also they've turned him off in terms of his divinity as well. In John chapter 5, you remember, just flip back a few pages, it wasn't his human nature that was bothering them as much as the fact that he was making himself equal with God. The Jews sought the more to kill him, we read there in John 5, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God. So it was the divine nature, his divine element, and his human nature. So either way, they rejected both sides. throughout his ministry, his humiliation, and his exaltation as well. You remember, towards his trial, the priests, the Jews, were tearing their clothes because he was saying, he's the son of man, he's coming down, and he's coming on the clouds of heaven, and you're going to behold this, and you're going to see him in his judgment. And you see him in his exaltation, that was a turn off for them as well, a tear in their clothes. Oh, he's speaking of his exaltation now. They didn't like him as humiliation. They didn't like him as exaltation. They didn't like him as human nature, as divine nature. They just rejected him. Every aspect of Christ rejected by these people. And I think the reason they were rejecting him as humiliation here in this passage is because of what Isaiah says in chapter 53. This wasn't what they expected. He came in humiliation because He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He has no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, we esteemed Him not. Surely He had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we'd esteem Him stricken of God and afflicted. Why would they reject that though? Why would they reject Jesus in the ugliness of His humiliation and His affliction? But that, the reason why Jesus' humiliation is ugliness. Why did He take on the ugliness? Because He was taking on our sin for us. He was taking on our ugliness, and our ugliness taken on by Christ, seen in His sufferings, seen on Calvary. The picture of His agony and His suffering there on the cross is a reflection of our ugliness, and man has a hard time coming to grips with his own ugliness. He says, what? Jesus, a reflection of the ugliness of man? Are you calling me ugly? You calling me ugly? Man didn't expect a Savior to come to take upon Himself our sin, our ugliness, our wretchedness, our violence, in order that we might be the holy saints of the living God, the washed clean bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. Man just didn't expect that. They rejected Him. Alright, so that's the first explanation as to the disbelief of the Jews from their perspective. We reject you because we reject your message. We reject this point that you are the bread of heaven that's come down from above, that you had pre-existed some certain elements of the deity of Christ, they're rejecting as well. They reject both of it in this passage. They can't believe that he came down from the Father, that he pre-existed with the Father. They just can't believe that because, well, he grew up down there in Nazareth, in that impoverished little village, in that impoverished little home. With Joseph and Mary, these are the things they couldn't receive. That was their explanation. Now let's move on to the explanation our Lord gives for the reason why they did not believe. Jesus said, no, no, this is the reason you're not believing. And he speaks again of God's sovereign purposes in verses 43 and 44. Jesus therefore answered and said to them, murmur, not among yourselves. No man can come to me. except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day." This is again Jesus furthering the subject of God's sovereign purposes in election. He doesn't want to leave the subject. He brings it back to them. Remember, he brought it out in verses 36 and 37. We spoke of that last week, but now he's coming back to it. He says, no, no, this is the reason why you're leaving. This is what reason why you're rejecting the message. This is the reason why you're not coming to me. It's it's because she says in verse 44, no man can come to me except the father which has sent me draw him. Now, again, an example for us in our preaching, teaching and counseling, are evangelizing. Let's remember these words. Very important. Jesus is handling himself just the way that he would have us handle ourselves in these discussions in which we come face to face with hard hearts that just, for some reason, they're not receiving the gospel. They're just not receiving the word. Well, Jesus speaks the word to them. There's no question. He's offered himself to them throughout the passage. He says, I am the bread of life. Whosoever believes in me, whosoever comes to me. He says, well, I will in no wise cast out, but I will raise him up at the last day. Jesus is offering that gospel message to them. He's breaking the silence with the gospel message. He's pointing out their spiritual impoverishment, their hunger, their thirst. And he's saying, I am the solution. I am the eternal fulfillment for your souls. I am it. I am the gift from heaven. Just believe in me. Come after me. This is the message that Jesus presents to them. And yet they reject the message. And this is the way we ought to do it as well. We just present the message to them. We don't have to emotionally manipulate them. We don't have to pound it into them over and over and over again. Just speak the name of Jesus, present the living water and the words of Christ, and then step back and wait. Just step back and wait. Just present it and wait. You say, wait for what? Wait for the spirit to do his work. Wait for the Spirit to take those words and make them make sense in the minds of the people that are listening. And sometimes you're gonna have to wait for a few years. I think sometimes we have the impression that we just push a button, but just remember, friends, for God, a thousand years is a single day. That means that 20 years of waiting for your in-laws is what, four minutes? I haven't figured it out, but it's probably something like four minutes. It's four minutes for God. You know, he would have said, you just spoke the word to them four minutes ago. You just prayed for them over the last four minutes. You've only been praying for your in-laws for four minutes. You say, no, wait, I've been praying for 20 years. He says, no, it's been four minutes. So you present the word and you present it clearly and concisely and sincerely and lay it before them in as clear terms as you possibly can, and then you just step back and wait. We cannot browbeat people into the kingdom of God. We can't say just another 147 sessions of counseling will fix this problem. I'll just find some method, some methodology by which I can make it work. And this is such a trap. I myself have been caught up in this in the past. I encourage you, my brothers and sisters, not to get so wrapped up in methods and methodologies. As if you just do this, you just do that. This is what you have to do. Jesus didn't go that direction at all. He just laid out the truth. They walked away and he said, whoever the father is going to draw will come to me. What profound silliness there is of these ministries that are competing with themselves over how to reach the reprobates. Just read a story this week of one of the brothers sent to me, one of the largest, if not the largest mega church in America, the evangelical pastor was softening on inerrancy and homosexuality and other things. He's very popular. He's got 30, 40,000 people in his church. And as you read his testimony and his defense of his position, it came down to these words, that old preaching we used to do doesn't work anymore. And I don't think it ever worked. Now, what's the problem with that? I don't think the preaching worked. Two problems. First problem is my preaching doesn't work. It doesn't work. Unless the Spirit of God takes it and applies it. Now, it is the assigned means God has given to us. We plant the seeds, yes. But it's not as if some farmer is so expert at planting seeds. It's the flip of the hand. Check it out. Just really good at planting seeds. Wow, I wish I could do it that way. That's not what germinates seeds and produces fruit. Does that make sense? It's God who does the magic under the soil, where he takes a dead seed, turns it into a gigantic tree, and if you fast forward and stop action motion that event over a period of 20 years, it's magic, baby. A dead seed turning into this complex, amazing, Beautiful tree in the garden and then big hunk and red and orange In green pieces of fruit come off of a branch. It's magic It has nothing to do with the farmers ability to cast the seed on the soil Or me spitting the apple seed into the garden Do that from time to time thinking 25 years from now somebody's gonna be blessed. I It's not the spitting. It's God's work, not ours. Preaching doesn't work anymore. You got to use a little doubt. Play with doubt. Millennials are big on doubt. They're doubtful people. They lack the rooting. So they like preaching that's filled with sort of doubting and questions, and you end every one of your statements in a question mark because that's what millennials want to hear. I'm here to tell you it's the foolishness of preaching. It's the declaration of the Word of God with as much authority and as much conviction as the little two-year-olds on little stools in the basements can muster up in the preaching of the Word of God on a Sunday morning. It's the conviction, it's the truth that's presented as best as possible by the two-year-olds. that's going to be used by God to bring about some amazing things. But of course, it's God that brings forth the harvest. One of the most theologically accurate cliches that I've ever heard is this. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I like to use that in counseling. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Now, it applies to the will of the horse as much as it applies to the will of the human being. You can lead the horse to the waters. that come from above the living waters of Jesus, you can lead them all the way right there to the point at which you've offered the offer, you've laid it down, perhaps you've even got the invitation forward in which you're pressing on the wheels of men to do something, to raise a hand and get involved and to pray a prayer. You've done everything you possibly can, you've brought them right there. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. That is a theologically accurate cliché. Well, let's move on and really take apart here what Jesus says. He says to these folks that have rejected him, remember not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the father which hath sent me dry. Now, here's what's happening here. You've got to see this. What they're saying is we're not coming to you. We're not believing in you because you're just some guy from Nazareth. And Jesus is no. You're not coming to me because no man can come to me unless the father draws him. Now that's in your face. It's about as in your face with Calvinism that I have ever, ever seen. I don't know if I've seen many people do this kind of stuff, but Jesus is facing them. You're not coming to me anyway, unless the father draws you to me. Boy, that is an affirmation of the sovereignty of God. I think what's happening here is Jesus is faced with the will of man saying, you know what? I'm in sovereign control today of whether I am going to come to you. I'm going to believe in you. And Jesus has to say it. No, you're not. No, you're not. You're not sovereign. I'll tell you who's sovereign. God is sovereign. He's offended. I think he's offended by their attitude that they somehow are in control of what is going to happen in their lives. Now, this can be somewhat controversial as a doctrine, I understand that. But experientially, I think every honest Christian in this room We'll acknowledge the truth of this kind of thing. Why are you sitting here today? Why are you accepting the Word of God? Why do you say, oh, this is good? Oh, I hope he gets to verse 44. That's where it really heats up. Why did you come in this morning? You're leaning in. You're saying, oh, we got to hear a little bit more about the Lord Jesus. Why are you here this morning? Why are you listening? Why are you taking delight in the Word of God? Is it because you are? Can you say this? Can you say, Christian, listen to me, I don't care what theological background you've come from, but can you say the reason I'm here today is because I'm pretty smart? I have a better way of recognizing truth than everybody else I've ever run into. I'm just more humble. I'm just more worthy of the grace of God than anybody else. Is that the honest confession of any true blue Christian here or anywhere else in the world? I don't think so. I don't think you can say that. I can't say that. Can anybody say I'm just a better guy than the next guy, than most people out there, and that's why I'm here? It's got to be the grace of God. And you know the testimony. You've got a testimony. Everybody here's got a testimony. You have run into your piggishness, your pig-headedness, your hard hearts. Have you come face to face with your hard heart? Have you ever been at the point where you're just reading the words of Jesus and it's just not penetrating? It's just, man, your Rockwell hardness, 87.4 today. Have you ever come face to face with your own sin? Where sin has got a hand on you. That devil has got six hands on you. He's got a lot of hands because he's a dragon. So he's got all these legs and hands on your life and you're just going, I don't know what I can do to extricate myself from this position of doubt, of sin, of giving in to this temptation, that temptation. Have you ever been faced with your unlovingness? And you know, I think one of the reasons why some, maybe most, if not all, Reformed Calvinists go through a period of their life in which they once again, by the providential workings of God in their life, are subjected to this period of doubts, spiritual attack, sin, retrograde, almost apostasy. You see this? Among reformed churches, reformed people, they'd go through this period where you thought you were doing pretty good, you were cruising along, you were looking at all the poor slobs attending the other evangelical churches. Too bad for them. And then one day, boom, you hit that wall. And you realize your hard heart, you realize your sinful nature, it is so sharp, it's so bright in your eyes, you wonder if you're saved, you wonder if you've ever been saved. Has that ever happened to any of you? And God humbles you, and once again, why? Because He wants to be sure that you never, ever, ever, ever turn into a proud Calvinist. He does not want any of us, for a moment, to think somehow we are here because we deserved it. But for the grace of God, there go I. But for the grace of God, but for the grace of God, I would never be here. I would never be hearing this. I would never be receiving the word. I know my heart. By nature, I know my pig-headishness. I've seen my own blindness. I've felt my own coldness. And I have shuddered. On those cold days, I have felt it. When I have been unloving to my wife, I thought I am one of the most, perhaps the most unloving wretch in the world. how I need the love of God, how I need the drawing of God, how I need the wooing of the Spirit of God. It's the only way that we're going to be sitting here and hearing the Word of God, and loving God, and walking with God, and living in relationship with God. All right, two things, two aspects to this drawing. You'll see here in this verse, and I think it's very instructive. It says, again, verse 44, look at it. These words are crucial. No man can come to me, Jesus says, except the Father which has sent me draw him. Now, there's a drawing and the coming. I want you to see those two words, a drawing and a coming. Now, both are essential for salvation. The drawing is the sovereign aspect of God pulling on us. It's kind of the push-pull thing. But the pulling, the drawing, is the ultimate aspect. It's the ultimate cause that follows up with the pushing or the coming. The pull and the push happening here in the same verse. The drawing and the coming. But the one hinges on the other. Note this. Very, very important in this verse. The coming hinges on the drawing. There will be no coming if there was no drawing. That's what's being said here. And the reason for that, the reason why we can say this is because of a word that many of you may have missed because you tend to miss three-letter words. They just go right past you. You're reading too fast. But it's not a three-letter word in the Greek. It's like a seven-letter word. That's why it's important to know the Greek. For the Greek, it's a seven-letter. For us, it's a three-letter. It says, no man can come to me. That word can. is from the Greek dunatai. And the word dunatai is the word from which dynamite comes, the idea of power. So what he's saying is no man has the power to come to me. The word dunatai, nobody has the dunatai, nobody has the dynamite, nobody has the power, nobody has the ability to come to me, except the Father draw him. You see? It's really crucial. The one hinges on the other. Why is this important? Let's establish it. We're going to go back to the first three verses. I told you I was going to end on the good news. The first three verses of a passage we want to study this morning comes from verses 38 through 40. So I want you to take a look at that. But there is a certainty about our salvation, a certainty that comes with God's sovereignty in our salvation. And here's the argument. I'm going to say it as slowly as I can, because I want you to get it. The certainty that comes with God's sovereignty, where the coming hinges on the drawing, is better than the uncertainty that comes if the drawing hinges on the coming. Does that make sense? The certainty that comes with God's sovereignty is better than the uncertainty that comes with the will of man. The certainty that comes with the will of God is more comforting and better for us than the uncertainty that hangs upon our will in accomplishing it. So if the drawing is hinged on the coming, we lose certainty as Christians. If the coming hinges on the drawing, we got all kinds of certainty because it's rooted in the will of God. And this is the thrust of the verses 38 through 40. Jesus is speaking of the will of God in all of this. Jesus said, I will raise him up at the last day. Whoever comes to me, I will raise him up at the last day. And then in verse 20, 44, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. The one who is drawn The one who comes will be raised up at the last day, guaranteed. Absolutely, no question about it. That's the point that Jesus is making, and that's why in verses 38, 39, 40, and 44, that expression, I will raise him up at the last day, is repeated three times, not once, not twice, three times. I will raise him up at the last day. I will raise him up at the last day. Listen to me, I will raise him up at the last day. This expresses the will of God, and the basis for the certainty, therefore, is the will of the Father. It's the plan and the purpose and the desire and the intention of the Father. You've heard about the strong-willed person, the strong-willed leader, or the strong-willed child. Listen, you want to know who's strong-willed? God. God is strong-willed. This becomes a basis for our certainty a basis for our our faith. This establishes us this encourages us this builds us up In the faith and so take a look at some of the passages throughout scripture concerning the will of God. I The will of God. Study the will of God. Because Jesus is speaking of the will of God here. It's the will of God that. It's the will of God that. I came to do the will of my Father. So what about the will of God? What is the will of God? Well, take a look at some of the passages relating to the will of God. Isaiah 14, 24. The Lord of hosts has sworn. What does that mean? When someone says, I swear. Whenever you hear that, what are you thinking? Strong will, right? Commitment. Dedicated completely will not back down ever ever ever here. It is the Lord of hosts has sworn Saying surely as I have thought so shall it come to pass and As I have purposed so shall it stand That sounds strong will do you That's real strong willed that's big-time strong willed God is strong-willed. As I have willed it, it will come to pass. Now we can say that for ourselves. Sometimes we will something, we purpose something. We say, we're going to Disneyland last week. You're not going to Disneyland last week. Or Disney World, sorry. Disney World. Bit why because God is Providence bought it brought a gigantic hurricane and shut down the whole place So you're not going to Disney World last week. I'm sure there were probably 5,000 people saying honey We're going to Disney World turns out they worked Because God sent the hurricane God's will is always accomplished our will not so much as So see how important it is to base your faith in this concept of the sovereignty of God. It's rock solid. It's hard. It's a commitment. It's the will of God. Isaiah 46 verse 9, speaking of God's counsel to send Cyrus eventually to whack Babylon and bring Babylon down and punish Babylon for all the damage they did to his people. So we have this great prophecy in Isaiah 46, and it really has baffled the liberals. They say, well, then Isaiah could not have been written 600 years before Christ. No way, no way, no way, because Cyrus didn't exist till 400 BC. So the liberals are shocked that God would get his name, right Cyrus hundreds of years before Cyrus appeared That that's amazing. But here's what we read. This is the basis of it. Isaiah 46 9 Remember the former things of old for I am God and There is none else Means that God is altogether different Altogether different. I am God. There is none else. There is none like me Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done See what he's saying is You guys everybody reading this thing after the time that Isaiah gave this prophecy It has blown your mind that I nailed the name of Cyrus 200 years before Cyrus appeared Your mind is blown you can't believe it. Well, let me tell you something. I'm not like everybody else. I'm God I And I can tell the end from the beginning. And he says this, my counsel shall stand and I will do my pleasure. Yea, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it and I will also do it. There's nothing God purposes. There's nothing God sets out to do. There's no part of His will that He plans out that is not accomplished. He brings it all to pass. He accomplishes it. He does everything on His day planner. Everything. We let it slip, don't we? We even let the A2s and A3s slip. Even occasional A1. Can't even accomplish that on a given day. But God accomplishes everything on His day planner. He keeps His promises. He keeps His covenants. He binds Himself with oaths. And now the New Testament, you'll find many passages throughout the New Testament that certified to God's faithfulness. And it's amazing that our brother exhorted on faithfulness this morning. And really, that's the essence of this path, this passage, and everything I'm bringing out this morning, except I'm not speaking to our faithfulness, I'm speaking to God's faithfulness. And by the way, any faithfulness we have is rooted in the faithfulness of God. That's the root of it. So only take the exhortation on top of this belief, this conviction that God's purposes are always fulfilled, and he works his will in us, both the will and to do of his good pleasure, so that we can be faithful ourselves and work out our salvation with fear and trembling. But Titus chapter one, at the very beginning of this epistle, Paul writes to Titus, introduces himself a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect. and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness in hope of eternal life. Now there it is in hope of eternal life. We are planning, we are hoping in eternal life. Jesus promised it three times here in John chapter six. And Paul and Titus one says, here we are. We're acknowledging the truth after godliness and hope of eternal life. And here it is, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. He promised it. He willed it. He purposed it from the point at which the world began all the way back into eternity. God purposed it. God planned it. God cannot lie. And this is effectively the same thing we get in Song of Songs. We read about Song of Songs 8, but do you get the sense of this? It has a wonderful spiritual application, and I know men attempt to use the Song of Songs to apply it to their own marriages, but friends, there is no marriage that is perfect. We do not experience the perfection of the relationship conveyed in this beautiful poem, in the Song of Songs, in the marriage relationship. Man is unfaithful. How unfaithful is man? Wow. Some of us don't completely break our covenants, but there are points at which we get pretty wobbly with it. But that's not the case with God. Listen, listen to this relationship between Jesus and the church. Set me as a seal upon your heart as a seal upon your arm for love is as strong as death. See again, this is God sealing himself. This is God committing himself, committing himself with an oath and a vow. He's swearing to himself. He's swearing to us that love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave. Its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised. Brothers and sisters, receive these words this morning from your Savior, speaking to you. Speaking these words, not just sort of empty, fluffy, romantic words. You don't get the feeling that's empty, fluffy, and romantic, do you? That's where he's cutting himself. pulling blood out of his veins and dipping his pen into the veins and signing the marriage contract. And that's more or less what he did at the cross. Jesus is serious about this covenant that he has with us, with the church. All right, verses 38 through 40. Let me go back again. We'll finish on this point. Verses 38 to 40, Jesus says, for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him which has sent me, that everyone which seeth the sign and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day. Again, three times, you catch it three times. And now we talked about God's will, God's purpose, the certainty of God's will, the strong nature of the will of God, the strongest will that ever existed, the will that accomplishes everything that it sets out to do. But here we have in verses 38 to 40, the implementer of God's will. Who's the one who implements? God tasks somebody to the implementation. of his purpose, of his will, and who is that? Well, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus says here that I am completely committed to doing the will of my Father. In fact, that's why I came here. And brothers and sisters, again, think about the incarnation. Think about Jesus coming down. Think about the journey. Think about the project. Think about the great experience, the endeavor. Think about what Jesus has done. There's nothing on earth that would compare to the mission that Jesus embarked himself upon. And Jesus presents himself here as a man on a mission. In fact, no, no. Jesus presents himself as the man on the mission. Because there is no other mission. There is no other man. There is nothing else worthy of talking about. compared to what Jesus did in taking upon himself human flesh, which by the way, he did eternally. That is forever and ever, Jesus will retain that human flesh. And he says, well, then why does he do this? Why does he embark on the mission, this amazing cosmic mission that will affect his own life for all eternity? Why does he do this? Well, he says here, I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. I've come to do the will of the Father. I've come to implement it. The will of the Father is to draw. The will of the Father is to give me these people. And it is my job to be sure that they are secured and they will be in heaven when we all get there. Well, what is the content of the will? And we'll end here. The content of the will is spoken of in verses 39 and 40, the first of which is he says, In verse 39, this is the Father's will, which hath sent to me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing. So there it is, that's the will of the Father. Now we know from the perspective of the Father that he always accomplishes his will. So we know, again, that's established, that he will lose nothing, but Jesus said, this is my job. I am the one to fulfill this. I'm the one to implement it. I will fulfill this mission That is of everyone the G that God has given me. The father has given me I will lose not a Single one and that's why Jesus has come back again and again and impresses upon us. He has come not to lose a single sheep Not a single sheep, even if one wanders One of the 99 wonders he's gonna go to get that sheep. You could bring that sheep in and He will not lose a single sheep. He will do his utmost in order to accomplish the task. He has committed himself to the task and he will not fail at the task. He will go to the umpteenth degree in order to be sure that not a single one of those the father has given him will be lost. Not one, not one, not one will be lost. Jesus will make sure of that. He's swearing himself to it. He's bowing to it. He's committing himself to it Use whatever word you want Jesus is committed to be sure that not one will be lost of those that the father has given him and Then secondly the last part of the verse and then repeated in 40 and 44 but that I should raise it up again and At the last day again repeated three times and I will raise it up again. I will raise him up I will raise him up. I will raise him up at the last day He will Not fail. He is God. He's sworn it to himself and to us that he will not fail I think of the the pilot the other pilot the Sullenberger a pilot who landed the the plane down in the Hudson River in New York and And if you read the story, you find out a little bit about how this man land in that plane. His number one concern was not a soul to be lost, not a soul to be lost. And as he exited the lifeboats, he was talking to all the rescuers. Be sure to get a count. Be sure to get a count. I need 155. I need all 155, not one to be lost, not one to be lost. He was utterly committed to that. And you see Him, you read of Him walking up and down that plain in that water, trying to find, make sure that every last soul made it into those lifeboats, that not one be lost. Now, if the commitment of a pilot of a plane that lands in the Hudson River is that not one be lost, let me ask you this, is Jesus' commitment to us anything less? No, no, no, no, no. He will be sure. He is the captain of this plane. He's the captain of this ship. He will be sure that not one be lost, but that all of us be raised at the last day. So Christians, let me encourage you with these words. Your resurrection is absolutely certain. Glory for you and for me is inevitable There is if that be the case again the implications of this That Jesus has sworn to himself that he will raise you up at the last you believe in Jesus. You've come to Jesus You've been drawn, you know, you've been drawn and Jesus says here. I will raise you up at the last day guaranteed. He's telling you that resurrection absolutely Inevitable for you you will be resurrected if this is the vow the commitment of the king of kings and lord of lords the Savior who is incarnated for this purpose that he would lose not one but raise you up at the last day is he gonna fail and If your faith is in this Savior and in these words this morning, then the implications, brothers and sisters, is that you have no need to fear death. In fact, you are the master over death. My daughter reminded me of that this morning at breakfast. She came out of her room, said, I just heard this great sermon, Dad. She hears great sermons. She listens to them online. She came out and said, I just heard this, that we have already achieved the victory in Jesus Christ and his resurrection, and we have the mastery over death. So you have no need to fear death, no need to fear illness, no need to fear the bodily threats, the spiritual threats, And you know what this is like. I'm sure the devil has breathed his threats, his doubts, his words, his attacks upon you. And you've heard his language. And if you've wondered perhaps at points, is it possible that I might be lost? Well, friends, don't listen to the devil. Listen to Jesus here. Jesus is telling you right here and right now that He will not lose you, but He will raise you up at the last day. He will do it. He has sworn that He will do it. So, you know, as I was reading this, I don't know, maybe some of you are thinking this as well right now, but I kept asking myself, is this really true? Could this be true for me? If this is true, then I have every reason in the world to feel that security, to live in that security, to understand the preserving grace of God every single day, to act upon it, and to know it, and to live with hope and joy unlike anything I've ever experienced before. These are the great implications. I trust you'll receive it this morning. And it doesn't matter how bad things get. And you know, things can get so bad in these spiritual battles. It doesn't matter how many times you're killed in one day. The Word of God, Romans 8 says, we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. How many times were you killed last week? How many times were you in the battle? And it was as if you were killed again and again and again and again. And you were under affliction and in the state of humiliation, the battle was getting messy, appeared to be out of control. You were on your last thread and all of the armies of hell seemed to be surrounding you. And yet you know that in him we are more than conquerors. Because he loves us. We are more than conquerors. You know what's interesting there? It's not the future tense. It's the present tense. I wish we could say that more often. In the present tense. Say, oh yes, we're gonna win. I've read the last page. It's not enough. We are winning. We are conquerors, present tense. May God give us the faith to believe that. Why? Why does he say that? Because the certainty of the will of God and the purpose of God is so strong in that man's mind that he confuses the future and the present tense. I love it. We are more than conquerors. We are more than conquerors. You blew the tense on that, Paul. No, I didn't. We are more than conquerors, because neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And why can't they separate us? Because He purposed to love us. He has cut his veins on that cross of Calvary and dipped his pen into his own blood and signed the covenant. And he did it because he willed it and purposed it to be so from all eternity. Nothing can thwart the love of God because nothing can thwart the will of God. Father, grand truce, grand truce. Father, thank you, we bless you that you love us, that you purpose to love us from all eternity. Oh, the love of God that transcends all loves, the love of God that is bigger, stronger, greater, lasts as longer, lasts for eternity, that transcends all loves. Oh, the purpose of God in that love to look forward and plan on the salvation, the redemption of His people from all eternity. And that purpose that most certainly does accomplish the things that it will accomplish, but more than that, the Son of God who is set out with that love, with that commitment to that will to accomplish that great redemption, and He will lose not one, not one, Not one, but raise it all up at the last day. Father, we pray an increase in faith this day as we hear the Word of God. Oh, that we would hear the promises of God and hear it from the voice of God by the Spirit of God, impressing it upon us now. In Jesus' name, Amen. It was as if they took those words out of John 6 and verse 44. Well, let's come to the Lord's table now as God's people, and we come here and we remember, again, the death of Jesus. It's appropriate to do so because the death of Christ is the great event of all of history in which our redemption was won for us. Let me read a little bit from Luke 22, verse 41. I have referred to this a number of times in the past, but I want to read from it now. This is such an important element of Jesus passion, Jesus death, suffering and death for us on the cross. And I start in the garden, the garden of Gethsemane, Luke chapter 22 in verse 41, we read, and he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw. That is from his disciples about a stone's throw, maybe about 100 yards. And he knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly than his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Now again, I can't bring words to describe what's going on here, except what is being said here. And that is the thing that is keeping Jesus going is the mission itself. the thing that presses him onwards, the thing he's committed to. Now, we don't even read of his love for us now. I think that's important for us to realize that at this point. It is the will of his Father that he pursues at this point. His eyes are focused on the Father. He's praying to the Father. He's saying, if it's possible, if it's your will, Father, may this cup pass from me because He's facing this gigantic challenge of our redemptive sacrifice on that cross. And I, again, this, this, the premonition of what's going to happen in the attacks upon his, his body, the tax upon his spirit throughout this entire experience is something that I don't think we'll ever fully understand. But here we have the pressure upon him, the agony he's feeling in the garden. Here we have a picture of it here. Brothers and sisters will receive it. Think about it for a moment. Get serious and get sober for a moment with this passage. Jesus is facing this gigantic challenge of bringing about this cosmic sacrifice, this redemption for us. And finally he says, and this is the ultimate point, this is ultimate consideration in his mind, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Not my will, but yours be done. And the father, of course, turns back to him. We don't know how he communicates, but it's clear that Jesus must continue with the mission that he set out to do. The will of his father continues in the direction of Calvary at this moment. purpose of the Father. He, I'm sure, has communicated to his Son, it's my will that you suffer and die. This is my will. It is my will you take up that cross and drag it towards Calvary. It's my will that you be tortured and it's my will that the nails be driven into your hands and your feet. It's my will that you suffer on that cross. It's my will that I turn away from you and you cry out those words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's my purpose that you must die. for these people whom I love, for these people whom you love. We must not lose a single one of them. It is your blood that will cleanse them. It's your blood that will save them. We cannot possibly lose them. So you must continue on. You must continue on with the death and the suffering. You must continue on. You must give them your life that they might live. You must shed your blood for them because it is by the blood of the Lamb that they will overcome Against the wiles of the devil, the temptations and the attacks of the devil, the way in which they will be redeemed, the way in which they will be preserved will be the shed blood of you, my son, upon that cross. This is my will. Pursue it. This is the response of the father to the son as the son cries out in the garden. Oh, father, take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours be done. May I suggest that the obedience of Christ in this garden was more excruciatingly difficult than what Adam and Eve faced in their garden. Christ, our representative, versus the federal head of the human race in the other garden, when they gave way to the wiles of the devil. Christ facing the ultimate challenge, the ultimate mission. And that was to submit to His Father through the most agonizingly difficult challenge that anybody, any person has ever faced in all of history. And may I say also in all of eternity, past to future, the Son, what He has accomplished. And this, this plays into what we're doing here at the table. Hebrews 10, 9 and 10, Jesus refers, these words referred to Jesus from the Old Testament Psalms, I've come to do your will, O God. This again is what Jesus is doing through his ministry and through his suffering, his passion. I've come to do your will, God. And here's what verse 10 says. Listen carefully. This explains our own redemption in this way. By the which will, by the which will, by the which submission to the will of the Father, by the which obedience, by the which will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. It was by that obedience, by that submission to the will of the Father that our redemption was purchased at the cross. Something to consider as we approach the table now and remember this death for us, this obedience for us, and the passion of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we are overwhelmed by this great sacrifice, but also this great obedience, this following through, this doing the will, this becoming the great head of the Christian church of all of us who are in Christ today. Jesus following through something Adam and Eve did not do. But Jesus, our head following through on the obedience all the way through the suffering in the garden into the suffering on Calvary. Until those final words, it is finished. Father, we are so grateful this morning for the blood of Jesus Christ that preserves us, that atones for us, that redeems us, that cleanses us, that cleans us. It is the blood of Jesus Christ by which we overcome the evil one. We thank you. We praise you for the blood of the lamb. Now, as we take this cup, we remember the blood. And as we take this bread, we remember the body that was broken, that was torn for us. In Jesus name.