If you have your Bibles, go ahead and reach down and grab them and turn with me to John chapter 6. John chapter 6. And we'll be reading beginning in verse 27. So we've been looking at this larger narrative of Jesus talking with this crowd here in John six for a few weeks now. And today we're gonna examine a little more closely how Jesus answers his questioners here. And we're gonna focus mainly on verses 30 through 33, but we'll start our reading back in 27. John chapter six, beginning in verse 27, this is the word of the Lord. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Then they said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. Therefore they said to him, what sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them, most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this wonderful word. God, that you are the bread from heaven, that you, Jesus, are the one sent from God the Father to bring us everlasting life. God, I pray that unlike many in that crowd in Capernaum on that day, that we would today look at you and we would see you and we would live, Lord, that we would have everlasting life, that we would have fellowship with you, that we would believe on you, that we would eat the bread of life. God, I just pray for hearts to be opened during this time of looking at Your Word. God, I pray that You would open my mouth to declare Your truth. God, that if I begin to say anything false or incorrect or anything that distracts from You and Your glory and Your Word, God, I pray that You would just send me back on course, that You would correct my mind and my heart and my mouth. God, I pray for everyone here that they would not merely hear me speaking, but they would hear Your Spirit speaking to them through Your Word. God, open our hearts anew and bless us now in Christ's name. Amen. He may be seated. In verse 30 of our text today here in John chapter six, This crowd at Capernaum says to Jesus, what sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. This seems, if you've been following along with our sermons, or if you've read John 6 recently, or even if you just look up the page, this seems like a very odd question for this crowd to ask. and one which reveals that these people asking Jesus this really did not have true saving faith in Him. Jesus has taught them wonderful things about the kingdom of God already. He has even taken five small barley loaves and two fish and fed thousands upon thousands of people until they were full and had a great quantity left over. He has miraculously made it from one side of a sea to another. And he has clearly shown this curious crowd that they do not need to work for their salvation. All they have to do is to believe in the one whom God has sent. And up until Christ telling them that all they have to do to be saved is believe in him, up until that point, these people were enamored with Jesus. They even wanted to take him by force and make him king. But when Christ begins to speak about salvation by grace, through faith, apart from works, they begin to get a little suspicious. And they begin to demand that Jesus perform yet another sign so that they will actually believe, so that he can prove the truth of his message. If you want us to believe in you, Jesus, and if you want us to stop trying to earn our salvation by good works, then you just have to give us a miracle. But like I said, this is an odd demand. A strange line of questioning. Because Jesus had just performed two miraculous signs. Multiplying the food was one. This was a unique sign because it showed that Jesus was the creator of the heavens and the earth. Only God can create something out of nothing. And then that same crowd, they saw that particular sign and they marveled. They wondered, they knew someone special was here. And then the second sign that he performed was walking across the water. Now, no one except for the apostles actually saw him walking across the water with their eyes, but still the crowd saw the effect of the miracle because he was on one side of the sea and then he was on the other side. And they said, we know there was no boat there for you to use. So Jesus, how did you get from one side of the sea to the other? They don't know what exactly he did, but they know he must have performed some type of wonderful sign to do this. But even after such amazing displays of Christ's divine power, the crowd says, we need to see more before we're actually convinced. This whole salvation by grace through faith thing, I don't know, Jesus, I need to see some more miraculous power from you. This shows the utter folly of those who even today say, I need to see it with my own eyes before I'll believe. There are many people who are confronted with the truth of the gospel and refuse to believe it because they say, I need more proof. Even though Luke tells us that Christ has presented himself as resurrected Lord by many infallible proofs, many proofs that we can be certain about. The natural man's desire for proof is a desire that he never feels is met by Jesus Christ. Like the rich man begging Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his family of the wrath to come. And Abraham says to this rich man who's in torment, he says, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't even listen if someone comes back from the dead. An angel could descend from heaven and reveal all the mysteries of the gospel and all the untold wonders of the age to come to a natural man, to a man still in the bondage of sin. And if the Holy Spirit had not worked in that man's heart to grant him salvation, then he would not believe even the angel. The natural man will come up with the wildest and most absurd stories sometimes in an attempt to explain away the supernatural. He will tell you, no, no, no, I didn't really see an angel. I must have just had a vivid dream. I must have just experienced a hallucination or the crowd of 500 people that saw Christ must have had a mass hallucination, which so many studies have proven is impossible. Only one person can have a hallucination at once. There's no such thing as a group hallucination. But the natural man will do whatever it takes to avoid the supernatural answer. The famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell was once asked, this is a very influential man, he was asked what he would do if in the afterlife he met God face to face. He said something along the lines of, well, I would look at him and I would say, sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself? What an absurd and arrogant. and disrespectful question to ask God, why did you hide yourself, God? The whole creation shouts loudly every day that God is her maker. Even the most simple minded, uneducated man deep in the African bush can look at the world and realize that God is real, that God is powerful, and that God is eternal. But if a man is still in the bond of iniquity, then he will refuse to see the God that is so plainly there. And that's what is happening here to these people in Capernaum in John chapter 6. As soon as Jesus confronts them with the need that they have to obey the gospel, Believe on Christ and you shall be saved. As soon as he does that, that's when they begin to demand signs. When they thought it was workspace salvation, they could follow Jesus for a certain way. They kind of liked what he was doing. He's a powerful worker of miracles. Maybe I can do some powerful work too. But their desire for signs, it would never end. Without the Holy Spirit opening the eyes of their heart, they would never have had enough proof in their minds, enough proof to follow Jesus. Now, Christ had every single right at this moment to rebuke these people. He had every right to condemn them right then and there, but he doesn't do that. Instead, in our text today, Jesus gives a gentle, God-exalting, evangelistic, and clear answer to their questions. I'll say that one more time, because that's gonna kind of form the outline of the remainder of this sermon. Jesus gives a gentle, God-exalting, evangelistic and clear answer to his unbelieving questioners. Verse 30 once more, what sign will you perform then, the crowd says, that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Well, verse 32, Jesus says to them, most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you bread from heaven. but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Now, when I say Jesus's answer was gentle here, I don't mean he coddled these men. I don't mean he babied them. He did not refuse to correct them out of fear of offending them. He didn't soft pedal the truth. Jesus was not gentle according to our secular 21st century standards and sensibilities. but he was nevertheless biblically gentle. He was patient. The crowd demands a sign, and you have to read between the lines a little bit here, but it seems like what they're saying is, look, we're willing to follow Moses. We follow Moses, but we follow him because he gave us these wonderful signs. If you think you're the new Moses, Jesus, what signs will you show us that we might follow you also? Show us that you're really as great as Moses, and then we'll cast our lot with you. And Jesus doesn't say, you worthless and idolatrous sign seekers. You wouldn't believe even if God raised someone from the dead. He doesn't say that here. He says things that sharply at other times. He could have said that here. But also, on the other hand, he doesn't say, oh, you want a sign? Well, I'm happy to oblige. What type of sign would you like? You just name exactly what you want and I'll make sure you deliver. Whatever it takes to get you to believe in me today, that's what I'll do. No. Jesus gently and lovingly confronts him. He says, look, I hear that you want a sign and you think Moses provided you with a sign, but I want to make sure you understand something. Moses is not the one who gave you bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. My Father gives it to you. He's gentle. Also, Christ is God exalting with his answer. Although Jesus is God himself, the Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians that our Lord made himself of no reputation. He took the form of a bondservant and came in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and become obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Now, what does that have to do with Christ's God-exalting answer here? It's that Christ came not to be praised the first time when he came to earth as a little baby and grew into a man. He came not to exalt himself, but he came to direct all the glory to his Father who is in heaven. Christ's goal is to glorify the Father through the salvation of sinners. And here in John 6, it seems that the crowd has just misunderstood both the history of Israel's redemption and also the scriptures that they are quoting. Clearly someone or maybe many people in this great and unbelieving crowd have memorized some of God's Word. We know that because one of them at least says to Jesus, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. This is probably either a quotation from one of the Psalms or from Nehemiah. We can't say for certain what this man had in mind because that phrase, he gave them bread from heaven, or very similar worded phrases, comes up a number of times in the Old Testament. So this man had heard and memorized his Bible. And he had some knowledge of the Scriptures and God's redemption of his people. But apparently he totally misunderstood the meaning of the Scripture he was quoting. He thought he knew what he was talking about, but he had the point completely wrong. Because in the original account of the Israelites receiving the manna from heaven, and in every single place in the Old Testament where that account is restated and retold, it is crystal clear that God is the one who sent it. God is the one who rained down manna for our fathers to eat in the wilderness. But based on Jesus' response to the crowd, it's also clear that they think, the crowd thinks, that it's Moses that did this. They think Moses was a magical miracle worker. They think Moses called down this manna from heaven himself. So Jesus corrects them. He says, Most assuredly, I say to you, verily, verily, I tell you, Moses did not give you that bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. Jesus does not want this crowd to misunderstand God's word or God's work of redemption. And he does not want to give any man, even a man as great as Moses, Jesus does not want to give any man the credit that is due only to God. He is constantly exalting and glorifying God the Father. The next thing I want us to know about Christ's response is that he gives an evangelistic answer to the crowd. So first we note that Jesus's answer was gentle. It was gentle. He was caring. He wasn't being harsh with a rod of iron. Then we look at how his answer was God exalting. And now we see how Jesus's answer was evangelistic. Evangelistic is a word that means he was sharing the good news with them. He was telling them the gospel. Beginning in verse 32, Jesus says this, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst. Jesus has already told this crowd that they should spend their lives laboring for the bread that leads to everlasting life. He's already told them that the work of God is simply to believe on him whom God has sent. So he's already been pointing them clearly down the road of salvation by faith through grace. But here he really gets down to brass tacks. He says, I want to make sure everyone gets this right and no one misunderstands me. Here our Lord is explicit. He says, believe on me and you shall be saved. I'm the one who God has sent. I'm the bread from heaven. I'm the way to everlasting life. The Israelites remember, they remember, they've been told by their fathers and grandfathers for generations, how that man miraculously came down from heaven six days a week, and how their fathers had all the food they needed for 40 straight years. And even though some of them may have been confused about who it was that was really behind this miracle, was it Moses? Was it God? Even though they were confused, they knew that if Jesus could do something like that, He must be the real deal. He must be the prophet that is to come if he could do that. And Jesus says, first of all, Moses did not give you that manna. And second, the bread that God sent to your fathers in the wilderness, it wasn't really the true bread from heaven. It was just a type. It was just a shadow. It was just a picture of the true bread that was to come. The Israelites had to gather the manna every day. And just a few hours after eating it, they got hungry again. And that manna was just food for the ethnic Israelites, the ones who had left Egypt. The real bread of God, Jesus says, is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the whole world. And when people eat this bread, they will never hunger again. The manna was temporary. The bread of God is eternal. The manna was just for two or three million people. The bread of God is for untold billions of people. The manna had to be gathered six days a week, 52 weeks a year. And even after all of that daily gathering and gathering and gathering, when it was gone, it was gone. They could not store it up. It would not last. And the Israelites were hungry for their next meal. The bread of God is an unending, unspoiling, never perishing source of life that will last for trillions upon trillions upon trillions of centuries. We can't even understand that, but we know by faith that it's true. After hearing this, the crowd says, that's it. That's what we want. Give us this bread always. How often when we are talking with unbelievers or maybe with those people that we're just not sure where their soul really is in relation to Jesus, how often do we offer them this bread of life? Jesus shows us here how to be an evangelist. Handing out gospel tracts is wonderful. Handing out Bibles is wonderful. Preaching in the open air, wonderful. As a church, we want to be doing all of these things. Very frequently, we want to be doing all of these things. But Jesus also shows us here that we want to be redeeming our ordinary, everyday conversations. Remember how this started several weeks ago. Jesus had a plan to go on the side of the mountain with his disciples and prepare for the Passover quietly and by themselves. And the crowd came to him. And he redeemed that opportunity. He took that as a teachable moment. Whether it's a conversation about the Lord, or a conversation about church, or maybe it's a conversation about going to the grocery store. That's how this started. Where can we buy bread for these people to eat, Jesus? Whatever it is. you can use any topic in your life to plow a trough straight to the gospel, because the gospel affects every area of life. One of the wonderful things about this interaction here in John 6 is that in just a couple of verses, Jesus gets crystal clear on the doctrine of sovereign election, that God has already chosen from the foundation of the world who will be saved and who will be left to perish in their sins. And yet Jesus here also says so clearly to the unbelieving crowd, he says that God gives you, my father gives you the bread from heaven. He says that to people who will remain in their sins. He says this bread gives life to the world, the whole world. What does this mean? How does God give the bread from heaven to unbelievers and yet they remain unbelieving? How does this free offer of the gospel work alongside the doctrine of unconditional election? This has been a point of confusion for many in the church and out of the church. Many misunderstand this. When I was seeking a pastoral call, I can remember speaking with many churches whose first interview question to me was, are you a Calvinist? And I got to the point where I just stopped answering that question directly at all. I wouldn't hide my convictions. I wouldn't lie. But when I was asked that, I would say, well, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by the word Calvinism? I don't like to use jargon too often anyway, to use specialized terms. I feel like it's unhelpful. But I'd say, what do you mean to that? And there were a variety of answers that different pastor search committees would give, usually involving the doctrine of election. But the most frustrating answer and one of the most common answers I received to that question when I said, well, what does Calvinism mean to you? The most common answer was, well, Calvinists don't believe in evangelism. I would say, nope, I guess I'm not that. That's not me. Call me whatever else you want. But that doesn't describe me. Now, the reason those people thought that Calvinists didn't believe in evangelism is because they didn't understand the doctrine of election. The biblical doctrine of election is not that God has chosen a set number of people to be saved regardless of their faith in Christ Jesus. It's also not that God has chosen a set number to be saved because he foresees them having faith in Jesus. Rather, the biblical doctrine of election is that God has chosen a set number of people to come to faith in Christ Jesus and be saved. Faith in Christ is not just the means of salvation. Faith in Christ is not just the way that God gets us to salvation, heaven being the ultimate goal. No, union with Christ through faith is salvation itself. That is the core of salvation, that we be united to our triune God through faith in the work of Christ Jesus. And this is eternal life, Jesus says, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Or as John says here in John 6, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up on the last day. everlasting life is seeing and believing in Jesus Christ. All that the Father has given to Jesus will come to Jesus. The doctrine of election and faith in Christ are not two separate unrelated channels running down through the history of the world. The certainty of election is that all the elect will know and believe and love Jesus. God gave a people to Jesus. And these people that God gave to Jesus will come to him by faith. Coming to Jesus means believing in Jesus. And what is the God-ordained means by which sinners come to and believe in Jesus? God's work in saving individual sinners does not end with election and eternity past. God didn't just make a decision and then snap, everyone automatically is saved. He ordained not only the ends, but the means. He ordained how this salvation would work out. This salvation doesn't even end with the cross. Jesus didn't die on the cross and then everything was done. Of course, paying for our sins was finished. Redemption was accomplished on the cross, but redemption was not applied to all of God's children on the cross. That would take the working out of time through the means that God has ordained. Listen to the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 10. Romans 10, beginning in verse 13. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without someone preaching? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. but they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Here in Romans 10, just one chapter after unpacking the doctrine of election with all its weighty and sobering truth, Paul clearly explains how those who are elect will be saved. All those whom God has appointed to eternal life will hear the gospel and come to faith in Jesus as Lord. The Holy Spirit works faith into their hearts through the preaching of the word. So if you are a Calvinist, you better believe in evangelism. Calvinists should have more confidence and encouragement than anyone else to share the gospel with unbelievers. Because we believe that through the preaching of the gospel, the elect will actually be saved and we can't mess it up. If we share Christ with people, we're not powerful enough to thwart the Holy Spirit working through his word to save lost sinners. John Alexander, a previous president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, once said this in a sermon to a group of college students. He said, at the beginning of my missionary career, I said that if predestination were true, I could not be a missionary. Now, after 20 some years of struggling with the hardness of the human heart, I say I could never be a missionary unless I believed in the doctrine of predestination. It was Alexander's confidence, absolute confidence, that God would save his people that drove him to continue to share the good news of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection, even as he struggled with people who hated him and hated the Lord. But some might say at this point, yes, but if God is only elected to save some people, why should we preach the gospel to all? Why not only preach the gospel to the elect? This is often leveled against people that believe in election. People will say something like this, well, why are you wasting your breath? God's already set down his sovereign purpose. Why are you trying to do this other thing? Sadly, this type of thinking is not only found outside of our theological circles, but even some professed Calvinists believe this way. that we should only share the plan of salvation with those who express an interest in the Lord, or with those who are already part of His visible church, such as our children. But to restrict the message of salvation to a certain group of people is absolutely unbiblical. The same Christ who preached so clearly on predestination also said this, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Every creature. Jesus does not say, hey, go into all the world and just preach the gospel to the elect. He says, preach the gospel to every single person you can find. Our gospel is a gospel for the whole world. God is currently right now redeeming the whole world. God is transforming and will transform the whole world. And we are to preach the gospel to the whole world. In his book, Calvinism Pure and Unmixed, A Defense of the Westminster Standards, W.G.T. Shedd writes this, that the offer of mercy in Christ is universal goes without saying. It is impossible to offer the atonement of Christ only to the elect. No man knows who are the elect and therefore the ambassador of Christ must offer salvation to everybody. So one of the reasons that Shedd, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist, says that we must share Christ with everyone and not only with the elect, is that we cannot know infallibly who the elect are. We cannot go right into heaven and look into the Lamb's book of life. We are not given that information. So we must preach to all, knowing that the Word will do its work to save those whom God has chosen. But it's not only our lack of knowledge that leads us to preach to everyone. It's not just because we can't see into the Lamb's book of life. It is also because of the design of God. Like we just read, Jesus himself commands us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But also here in John six, Christ says that my father gives you the true bread from heaven. My father gives it to you. Christ has been offered to the whole world. This is, as Shed writes, a universal offer. Jesus and Paul and Isaiah, many people tell us that the offer of salvation through Christ will be rejected by many, but he's nevertheless offered freely to all. We're going through on Wednesdays the Westminster Confession of Faith. That's just one of the five Westminster Standards and one of several documents that the Westminster Divines wrote at this assembly. And they put all these documents together and they gave them to Parliament. They said, take these and distribute them to the churches and to the heads of households. One of those documents that you can find when you get a copy of the Westminster Standards is called the Sum of Saving Knowledge. And this is what those divines wrote in the Sum of Saving Knowledge. Said, in the Word of God preached by sent messengers, the Lord makes offer of grace to all sinners upon condition of faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord Himself. Who is it that makes the offer of salvation? It's not the preacher. I am not offering salvation to you when I stand up here at the pulpit. It is Christ Himself who offers salvation to lost sinners. As the mediator between God and man, He is the one who is authorized to extend His gracious offer of salvation to you and to me. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, now then, we as ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Paul says that we are not begging you to come to Christ on our own. We are doing it on Jesus's behalf, at Jesus's command. And when God's appointed messenger shares the gospel with someone who is still dead in their sins, it is as if God himself were pleading with that man. Christ is sincerely and freely offered to all, elect and non-elect. And if you reject the offer of salvation in Jesus, it will be to your eternal shame and dismay. Rejecting the offer of salvation in Christ is a grave sin. But the crowd says to Jesus in verse 34, they say, Lord, give us this bread always. Sounds like maybe they're accepting this offer. But Jesus responds to them in verse 36. You have seen me and yet do not believe. Jesus knows that even though they're saying they want this bread, he can see into their hearts and he realizes, no, you just want me for what you think I can get you. You don't really believe in me as Lord and Savior. So Jesus's response to the crowd is gentle. It is God exalting. It is evangelistic. And final point, it is clear. It is clear Jesus does not leave his questioners in any doubt about the state of their soul. He is not rude. He does not go for shock value here with his language, but he is clear and he is frank. You have seen me and you do not believe. These people want to have everlasting life, but they don't believe in Jesus. And that is not God's fault for not electing them. It is their fault for persisting in their sin and not submitting to and trusting in Jesus. Salvation is all of God, but damnation is all of our sin. Everyone wants to live forever. Look at all the billions of dollars that are being spent by private companies and by governments and universities to try to figure out how can we live forever? When it's free, living forever is free for us because Christ paid the price. Everyone wants to live forever, but only the elect want to go to Jesus Christ. He is salvation. He, the scripture tells us, is everlasting life. And you can't get everlasting life without Jesus Christ. Christ is offered freely to the world. But as Paul reminds us in Romans 10, who has believed our report? Sometimes you will preach and evangelize and witness and pray for salvation to come to the lost. And it just feels like no one is answering the call to come to Jesus. Many, many, many people will reject this free offer. Christ is given to the world, and the world has in many respects cast out Jesus. Though the nations will eventually be discipled, yes, though the world will be brought to the obedience of faith, for now, most people have cast out Jesus. They said, we don't want him, we're not interested. Eternal life, sure, we'll take that, but submission to Christ as Lord, no thank you. And yet it is impossible to have one without the other. In him was life, John tells us, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it. These people in this crowd in Capernaum, like so many others throughout history, they stayed in the darkness of their sins. They did not step into the everlasting light and life of Jesus Christ. But I don't want to end on a depressing note here on our last Sunday of Advent as we prepare for Christmas. Rather, I want us to end with a foretaste of the totally sufficient and perfect work of Christ as Savior. As we'll see the next time we're here in John 6, although Jesus has been rejected by the world to whom he was given, he will not reject a single sinner that God has given to him. God gave Jesus to the world. God gave Jesus to the world and the world did not want him. But God also gave the elect to Jesus. And Jesus wanted every single one of his elect children. He was not willing that a single one should perish. He made sure every single one of his sheep was safe in the pasture. All that the Father gives me, Jesus says, will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. It may seem from an earthly perspective that Jesus failed in his mission. You came to save the world, Jesus, and look, lost people are everywhere and the nations are disobedient. But from God's perspective, which is really the only perspective that matters, Christ fully and completely accomplished the mission He was sent for. He fully paid for the sins of each and every one of His children, and He is, through His church, by the power of His Spirit, even today, bringing the whole world into submission to Him. Although sometimes it seems dark and hopeless, we can believe the promise that we sang of earlier. that Jesus has in fact come to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. Let's pray. God, we thank you that you are the true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ. We thank you that you promise us that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Lord, we thank you for your promise that all who come to you, not a single one of them will be cast out. Lord, even though we in our flesh and in our sins rejected you, God, we thank you that at the right time you sent Jesus Christ to die for us. Even while we were sinners, you sent Jesus Christ to die for us and that Jesus, you loved us, even though we caused your death. God, this wonderful grace is difficult for us to understand, that you could love a people that did not love you. Lord, but we thank you that by your love, by your work through your spirit, you have caused us to believe you, to trust in you and to love you back. Lord, we thank you for that wonderful grace. We thank you that even though we can't go into heaven and look into the Lamb's book of life, that we can believe your ironclad promises in your word. that you will save all those who come to you in faith. God, if there's any here right now that do not know you as Lord and Savior, that have not come to you in true faith, looking to you as Lord and Savior, I pray even right now you would open up their hearts and fill them with your Spirit and give them the new birth. Lord, thank you for your wonderful work of grace and offering up your Son freely to the world that you created. In Christ's name, amen.