If you will, open your Bibles to John chapter six. We will be in verse 60. This is an exciting opportunity for this morning. First of all, I think outside of the preschool chapel, I've never been called Pastor Brian, so that's very exciting stuff. But this morning, we will read the Lord's Word, we'll pray, and then we'll see what he has to say to us. So John 6, verse 60, we'll read to the end of the chapter. This is the Word of the Lord. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said, do you take offense at this? What if you were to see the son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him. And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the father. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. Jesus answered him, did I not choose you, the 12, and yet one of you is a devil? He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the 12, was going to betray him. Let's pray. Father, we come to you, and as we approach this text today, I pray that we would ask ourselves many of the same questions. What is it that you have to say to us this morning? Where else would we go? Father, I pray that as we come together as your body, that you would speak as only you can speak through your word. This morning, Lord, truly all of us need to hear a sharp word of conviction as your sword pierces our hearts but brings us to life. And so I pray that you would do that. Father, as well, all of us need to hear of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the great things that you and you alone have done on our behalf. And so I pray that you too would do that here But Lord, we pray this not for our own sake, but for your name's sake, and that your glory would be greater because of our time together. And I pray all this in your name. Amen. If you will, think with me for just a moment about your time in school. For some of you, that may be now. For some of you, that may have been a little while ago. But I want you to think about taking a test in school. What was your favorite type of question? For me, it was the multiple choice question. The reason I, I know that doesn't suit well with everybody, but for me, the reason I loved multiple choice is because the teacher, in effect, gave me all the answers. Sure, I had to pick out the right one, but I had a test, and I had all of the correct answers on it. It was awesome. However, in college, that changed. A certain psychology teacher with a certain cruel way of doing the test decided that A through B, or A, or excuse me, nobody has A through B, A through D, or even A through E wasn't enough. So his tests were normally A through L, or A through M. It was awful. Because of that individual and because I realized something about essay tests, I began to like essays a lot more. You see, because the trick about essay tests and essay questions, which some of you may like a lot more, is this. You don't necessarily have to know the answer to the question. You just have to know something about something that he's asking you. And you can write about that. For instance, in seminary, I don't know a lot about the life and ministry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I know he was from Germany, so I talked a lot about German history. I don't know a lot about the Crusades, but I can tell you about the rise of Islam. Let's talk about that. There's one question, though, that I've always loved and hated. I have a disdainful respect for it, and that's the true-false. You can't get around a true or false. It's either true or false. It's either false. You got it. It cannot be both. It's totally one or it's totally the other. Even if an answer or a statement is full of truths and any part of it is false, the answer is... False. We're good. For instance, George Washington, revolutionary war general, married to Martha, lived at Mount Vernon, and second president of the United States. History majors out there would say, false. Why? Even though three-fourths of that was true, part of it was false. And that rendered the whole false. That's a helpful concept for us today as we approach this text, because I think the same principle is very much at play. Being a disciple or a true follower of the Lord is in very plain terms a true or false statement. It's black or white, it's either or. Today we're gonna see people, or we have read about people who are mostly true in their beliefs, but one false renders their belief false. We're gonna see people, and have seen people, and maybe even see people in our lives now who appear true, but actually are totally false. And we will see that only by being fully true Can we be true followers of the Lord? Because you see, in the kingdom of God, there is no multiple choice. The world may tell us there is, but there is not. And there's no essay where if we talk to God long enough about certain things we do know, that we'll get partial credit. It's true or false. We either are believers in the Lord or we are not. We are truly saved or we are not. We rely on the works of Christ or we don't. It really is that simple, that black and white. Our faith is true or it is false. To give you a little context of the passage that we're approaching today, because I happen to choose the longest chapter in the New Testament and we're at the end of it, just so you know what's happened. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus has fed the 5,000, one of the most remarkable and well-known miracles that you can think of. Right after that, he walks on water. Tremendous. He is just doing all kinds of signs and wonders that have enthralled thousands. But that only gets us through about 20 verses of the chapter. And we started at verse 60. So what happens before this? Well, in bulk, it's a conversation. And to summarize, for the sake of time, the conversation goes like this. Disciples, not necessarily the 12 disciples, but just these crowds of thousands that have been following Jesus around, continually are coming to him, day after day. Jesus, we want more miracles. Jesus, we need more signs. Jesus, we want food. They're very specifically asking for food in a lot of these places. But Jesus, in very specific yet seemingly more and more cryptic ways, says, I know what you need. It's not what you want. I know very well what you want, but I'm gonna tell you what you need. And so over the course of these 40 verses leading up to our passage today, he tells them, you need food that will never perish. You need one who comes from heaven that will give life to the world. You need me, which blew their minds. You need the bread of heaven. I am the bread of heaven, and no one comes to the Father except through me. In fact, you must go so far as to eat my body and drink my blood. That, as you would imagine, ruffled some feathers. And so that's where we find ourselves here in verse 60. The disciples, the followers, not necessarily the 12 again, but the followers of Jesus, these crowds, said, whoa, that's a really hard saying. And so what we see here that has developed, and I think we'll see in ourselves so often as we go through this text, is that the crowds have come to Jesus with very certain and specific expectations. Jesus, we want you to be our king. Not in the sense of we want you to rule us, but we want you to give us stuff. Jesus, we want food. We want you to keep doing cool things and show us cool experiences. But I think it's fair to say that underneath that, we can see that these crowds have a deeper agenda. They have plans that they want Jesus to meet. They want him to provide, so they don't have to. They want satisfaction, but in a very temporary and material sense. They're fine with Jesus doing helpful and cool things so long as it is on their terms and for their benefit. But in the midst of this conversation, as we have just read, I think it becomes obvious that this is not just some rabbi they're following around. Jesus not only says, I hear your expectations, but he says, rather, here are my expectations. Here's what I am asking of you. He is claiming to be God, or at least from God. He is claiming to be a fulfillment of Moses and the Old Testament signs. He's claiming that if he's right, this requires an all-embracing and all-encompassing lifestyle. Jesus is refusing to water down or accommodate his message. He's saying that only he can satisfy, and the way that he satisfies is by them simply believing, which for us, that's common, but for them, that's a radical departure from the things they've been doing. Just to believe, that's it. Surely it can't be that simple. He claims that he has eternal life and that he grants it to them and them alone. They do not claim it. And that the way that he grants it is that they would eat of him, his body, and drink of his blood. And so rather than accommodating their expectations, Jesus very plainly delivers his own. And they must believe these things. For a crowd that just wanted food, sights, and experiences, that's a tough one to swallow. They didn't want an authority. They didn't wake up that day asking to be submissive or obedient. And so what this brings out is the true problem. If you will, look with me in verses 61 through 65. But Jesus, knowing himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, you take offense at this? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. And he goes on to say that only those who the Father grants can come to him. So, in effect, the crowd is completely offended. They're blown away. The word in the text is actually scandalizo. So, in a very literal way, they're scandalized. They're completely offended. How could Jesus have said anything like this? They think themselves victimized. Woe is us for believing this lunatic guy who's now asking us to go off the deep end. They've been taken advantage of, they think. They think they've been bait and switched. You know, Jesus drew us in, he did all these cool things, he had us follow him, but now we're seeing his real motives. He's just some crazy guy, and we're not okay with that. But Jesus, right here in this text, comes back at him and says, no, no, no. He wastes no time and minces no words, saying that, guys, I'm not the problem. And in fact, the things that I've said to you are not the problem. You're the problem. The crowd claims that he has leveled hard sayings against them. But if you have the NIV, it actually explains this better. They're not saying, Jesus, this is really hard to understand, you're speaking in puzzles. What they're saying is, Jesus, this is really hard to accept. We know exactly what you're saying, and we don't like it. In other words, what bothered the crowd was not what they did not understand, but what they did understand. Famously commenting on this passage, John Calvin says, it was not the saying that was hard, but their hearts. The problem in this passage is that the people have hard hearts. And appropriately, then, Jesus goes straight to the heart of the matter. In verse 64, he puts it in very plain terms, saying, the problem is you do not believe me. That's a question we need to ask ourselves. Do we just believe Jesus? Boil it all down in all the church and stuff that we do, in its simplicity, do we believe what Jesus says? Because he goes on to say, you guys are offended at this? I mean, I'm just rolling up my sleeves. I'm just getting started. If you stay around long enough, you're gonna see me ascending back into heaven. This is what's offending you? And what we see is that Jesus is not speaking difficult words. He's not even speaking very complex puzzles. He's speaking spiritual words. And spiritual words are impossible for those of us in the flesh to understand. Spiritual words would say, you must have the eyes of faith to see, you must have the ears to hear, and you must have the minds to understand. The flesh is of no help at all. The only thing that can help you in this is the life-giving spirit, and he and he alone gives us eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds to understand. And so in doing this, Jesus cuts through all the arguments, he cuts through all the offense, and he very plainly just exposes their hearts as the chief evidence against them. They simply do not believe he is who he says he is. It is that simple. It is not an intellectual issue, but a heart issue. And so we see he is truly God or he is not. It's still a true or false statement. And so that brings us to a decision. The disciples, the 12, and the crowds have to make a decision. What are we gonna do about Jesus? He has leveled all these crazy claims against us. He has asked us to give us his whole life. and he's revealed our own hearts. What are we to do? Let's see what they do in verse 66. After this, many disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. The simple answer, they leave. Peace out, Jesus. If popularity was a measure of his success, Jesus is a failure. He had huge crowds and he preached a simple sermon that caused almost all of them to leave. Something I hope does not happen this morning. And after the dust settles, 12 people, 12 people of thousands, potentially, remain. The sad reality, though, I think, as we hear that, is that's not really surprising. I don't know about you guys, but when I read that, that never surprised me. Oh yeah, everybody left. Of course they left. It's not really unexpected. It brings to life, first of all, Jesus' claim that nobody can come to Him unless granted by the Father. Because we know that apart from a divine miracle, the Spirit's work in our individual hearts, we cannot come. But over the years, I think that we've seen this. The reason it's not expected is because we've seen this in our own church and in our own lives. I don't think, and I'm sad to say this, I don't think many of us have to think very long before we can think of somebody who's left the church, who has walked away. Over my time in the youth ministry as a student and a volunteer and a staff member, I've seen countless people my age, older, younger, leave and throw in the towel and walk away. And they've not yet come back. To be sure, I'm not talking about people who worship at another church now. I'm talking about people who altogether leave church. They walk away from the faith. Sometimes they seem to have good reasons, thoughtful reasons. Most of the time they don't, just to be honest. People say things like, the church has hurt me, I disagree with these people, I don't like your theology, I don't like your practices, I don't like the way your leadership leads, I don't like your style, and I don't like your preferences. Pastor John, in many sermons, has said, people have even told him it's the carpet color and the chandeliers. Kevin DeYoung, though, I think writes something very insightful about this when he says, at a heart level, people don't just leave the church. People don't leave religion. They don't just leave a building or a group of friends. They don't leave a bunch of hypocrites or a bunch of rules. People leave Jesus. Everybody has to make a choice. We, this morning, confronted with this text, have to make a choice. And the choice is Jesus. It's never His hard sayings and it never will be. So many times when people use these lines, what they're in effect doing is the classic breakup line of, you know, it's not you, it's me. Jesus, it's not you. You're super cool. You're doing these great things. I can really respect a lot of what you're doing, but it's me. I'm just not there right now. I'm just not feeling it. And I think what Jesus would say in response to this is actually no, it's very much me. You do not believe who I am. You do not believe the things that I say about me. You don't acknowledge my claim on your life. You have a problem because you're putting your faith in something else and it's not me. I am the problem. Leon Moore's comment on this passage says that Jesus' claims for himself and his followers are such that it is no longer possible for any crowd to follow him unreflectively or without committing themselves. Jesus forces us to decide. There's no such thing as casual Christianity. There's no such thing as being on the fence. You are in or you are out. He is your Lord or he is not. It is a true or false statement. By God's grace, though, I believe that many of us know that this morning, and we have agreed. Jesus, you are our Lord. We have reached a true conclusion. It's a conclusion much like the disciples reach here in verse 68. Let's actually read 67 through 69. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. There's a lot of ways to ask Jesus' question. If you look at the text, he says things like, do you wish to stay? Is it your will and your decision to be with me? Have you consciously made up your minds? A negative way to say it would be, have you noticed everybody else left? And the disciples, being well aware, like we've said, the problem is not that people don't understand, say, no, that this means if they stay, they're going to be giving up all of their lives, their livelihoods, their family, their time, their energy, their well-being, all of it. They can clearly see that Jesus is not interested in crowds, publicity, or ratings. He wants true followers. He wants people that will worship him. And so Peter answers in this colossal statement that I would really encourage all of you maybe even to memorize. Lord, to whom shall we go? Where else would we go? Who else is there to go to? Unlike the crowd, which has just asked Jesus, what are you gonna do next? When are we gonna eat? What are you gonna make for us next? What are you gonna do that's cool next? Peter is in a whole new realm of questioning when he says, Lord, where else will we go? You have the words of life. You are the Holy One of God. There's nowhere else to go. Everything else is smaller, lesser, and weaker. You are it. You are our only hope. When we approach the Lord, and I have to think about this for myself even in my prayer life, how do I come? How do we come? Do we come like the crowd with expectations and do this for me, God, do this for me, do this for me? Or do we come like Peter who says, Lord, there's nowhere else to go? You're my only hope. You are the only thing that can truly save. You have the words of eternal life. But I want this to be a reminder for us this morning, because I believe with all my heart that most of you know the words Peter is saying, not in your head, but in your heart. You may have forgotten it, it may have grown dull, it may be just your routine of the Christian life, but I think at one point, and hopefully now you will remember, exactly what Peter's saying. You know what he means when he says there's no other hope, there's nowhere else to go. You've felt the power of God's Word in your heart. You have seen the evidence of the Spirit at work in your life, the lives of your family or friends. You know that nothing else will save you or satisfy you. Some of you have experienced that in the hard way. You've tried it in a lot of ways. Some of you have just always come to know that. And in either case, I would remind you this morning to cling to that and return to that, that very simple question of, Lord, where else would I go? You also know, I think most of us know, that we did not get this faith in Christ by our own works. We didn't just conclude it one day, or memorize the right verse, or pray the right thing. It was very, very clearly given to us. I know in my own testimony, it would have been impossible for me to accept Jesus, aside from Him accepting me. And, you know, in reality, that would be a great place to end the passage. This great saying, where else will we go? You have the words of eternal life. You are the Holy One of God. And if I was writing it, I probably would have ended it there, because it makes it a nice, cleaner ending. But clearly that is not what the Lord has in mind. He shows us that one of these is not like the other, that there are some false appearances going on here. And you know who he's talking about. You knew before because we've read the story and we know. Jesus goes on to say, you know, I hate to end on a somber note, but you think 12 is bad. In fact, one of you is not what you appear. He's a devil. This is not over yet. And you know, Jesus is such a common whipping boy, he's so easy for us to scoff at and say, Judas, silly Judas, how could he have done that? I'm nothing like Judas. But Judas had every religious encounter, experience, and teaching of any man ever to live. And it did not change his heart. The man hung out with, talked with, was taught by, ate bread with, and saw all the miracles of Jesus, and it did not change his heart. In fact, the text gives us no clue that he even has an idea Jesus is talking about him here. Jesus says to the 12, I want to use the devil, and he's kind of like, man, that's terrible. I wonder who it is. That's the impression that it gives us here. In Psalm 36, it talks about the wicked man. It says that he flatters himself before his own eyes, and he cannot see his own iniquity. How hard Judas' heart must be. But I think there's an important point to be made here about Judas because he shows us how a lot of us do church. And what I mean by that is this. In 2017, we live in such an experience-driven culture. It's all about the spiritual experience and how you feel and what you get from it. As well, we live in a culture that's so easy to worship. If we're honest, we could almost walk to church. I would guess a lot of us could, because of how close churches are to our homes. It's so easy to worship. And so with those two factors combined, I think it makes us susceptible to a certain scheme of the devil. And that is this, an overvaluing of outward practice. Or in other words, saying what matters the most is what we do. Being present today at church, singing, listening, taking notes, fellowshipping, tithing, all the broader parts of the church, serving, going on missions, attending programs, even talking about our quiet times and our prayer times. So much emphasis is given to the outward. And what I'm not saying this morning in any way is to discount those things. They're tremendous and they're wonderful. But what I am saying is that Judas did those too, probably more than most of us. Judas is an easy person to scoff at, but I think in some ways he's the person we should be most terrified of being like. His example should drive us to our knees in prayer to seek repentance in the Holy Spirit. But the reality is this passage doesn't just end with a somber, hard note. There is some real true hope. There is some true hope that comes from this. There's three things I want to finish with as we think about this chapter. For one, I want to talk about how impossible it is for us to forsake Jesus. If you're afraid of being Judas, it's probably because Jesus has a hold on you. And one passage that I've mentioned several times is the passage in verse 65. I'll read it again, I don't want to elaborate a little. It says, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless granted to him by the Father. And that passage, Jesus is paraphrasing verse 44, which says, That word draws there is a really fascinating word. Probably didn't draw you in, but it is a really interesting word. Because what Jesus is not saying is, you know, whenever God draws us to himself, he's not saying, come on little Brian, you can get there. You know, wooing me and drawing me in. It's a word that's used most often in two places. It's used, one, in the context of fishing, in the sense of fishermen of the Old Testament times who have these huge, nasty nets that are loaded down with fish, waterlogged, and they're doing everything they can, pulling with all their might, to pull them back into the boat. That's the word draw there. All of your might, straining, trying to get this burden accomplished. Another place that the word drawn is used is often when people are, quote, dragged to prison. Now, I don't know about you guys, but not many people, especially in those days, are just like, sure, take me, this is great. They are kicking and screaming and fighting and resisting, and it's kind of the old cartoons with the nails going down the dirt as they're drawn and taken to prison. And that really, I think, is a picture of our salvation. Our salvation is not this nice, pleasant, spiritual transformation. It is God hunting us down. Any parent in here knows, I think, exactly what I'm talking about, particularly if you have a two-year-old. There are times when I am trying to feed my children, I'm trying to clean them, I'm trying to help them because I love them. And what do they do? What does any child do? What did I do? You kick, you scream, you tantrum, you flail, you do the death roll thing where you try to rip out of the arms. Everything they can to escape and do what they want. But the thing is, in those moments, and I think most of you parents, I hope most of you parents will agree with me, you don't give up. You don't say, fine, just do your thing, I'm give up. No, what do you do? You keep at it, you're persistent. You chase them down and you force it upon them because you know it's best and you love them. I think that's really a picture of what the Lord is telling us here in this passage. If you are his, he is not giving up. And you're his for one reason, because he didn't give up. He chased you down relentlessly and drew you to himself. You can't forsake somebody who's already captured you in this way. Another thing to think about in this passage is that Jesus is not deceived. One thing I didn't draw attention to either is that if you've noticed, there's three times where we see Jesus knew something in his mind that nobody else knew. Nobody is deceiving Jesus in this passage. The crowds did not deceive him. Judas did not deceive him. His disciples did not deceive him. And that throws a really incredible light on something I think is important for us to mention as we finish up this morning. The incredible patience and mercy that the Lord has. Because you see, here in this passage, what that means is that Jesus knew these thousands of people would abandon him. He knew that Judas would betray him. He knows that Peter will deny him. But what does he do? Does He throw in the towel and say, you guys just wait? I'm not hanging out with y'all right now. He endures. He feeds them. He cares for them. He serves them. He teaches them. He shepherds them. He washes their feet. He endures. Another way to say it is that He endures to be betrayed. He hangs out with them in order to be betrayed, to be crucified, so that He might redeem us. He patiently endures sinners such as us so that he can redeem sinners such as us. He endures for Peter and the disciples and he endures for you and me. We cannot deceive Christ, but Christians in the room this morning, take comfort because he who is not deceived by the hearts of unbelievers is no more ignorant of the hearts of his children. He knows you who are his children. Psalm 1 says he knows the way of the righteous. He knows you. And He has not forgotten you. The last thing I want to mention here is that Jesus is never what people have been looking for. The crowds are all disappointed because He's not what they wanted. The disciples even, Judas and some of them, He's not what they ever expected. So often we, like the crowds, approach Jesus with, what am I going to get? What am I going to get? What are you going to give me right now? But the reality is Jesus is not what they're looking for. He's better. He's not the simple, small, temporary satisfaction that they want and crave. He's far greater, long-lasting, and caring. Jesus doesn't just speak of a Messiah. He is the Messiah. He doesn't just give them bread. He is the bread. He doesn't just become an earthly king for a period. He becomes and is the eternal king. He doesn't have powers from God. He is God. And he doesn't just give his people life. He is that very life. He is the only truth in a world of false. And so we must ask ourselves this morning, is this true or false for us? May the Lord be glorified by this time. Let's pray. Father, we pray and ask that as we consider these things, the great truths and the hard realities of life here under the sun, that you would work mightily among us, your people. Father, we know that you are not deceived by us. And so I pray this morning for any of us who are playing the silly games of Christianity, Lord, that you would force us to decide. And Father, I pray that you would encourage the saints this morning by your grace, that you would spur us on mightily to the great things that you have done for us and that you will do in us. And Father, I pray that because of our time in the word this morning, we would commit to you more and glorify you all the more. And I pray this in your name. Amen.