Well, good evening. Our text is John 6, verses 35 through 71. When I arrived here, Glenn rushed out to meet me and said, did you just get here? We're already done setting things up for VBS. And I said, well, I'm not here for that. I'm here to preach. And he said, well, if you're here to preach, then you're going to be here a long time. So, buckle up. Well, our text is John 6, beginning at verse 35 to the end of the chapter. This is the word of the Lord. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him, because he had said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the father, except he who is from God. He has seen the father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him, as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. 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 to them, do you take offense at this? Then 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. 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 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 them, 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 bow our heads for another moment in prayer. Our God and Father in heaven, we thank you for this word which you have given us. We thank you for the witness which Jesus bore of himself, that he is the true bread. We ask that you would bless this reading of your word and that you would bless me as I bring your word here this night, that you would strengthen me to speak your word in spirit and in truth. and that we would all be encouraged and edified by your word and worship you in the splendor of your majesty. This we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well in this text there are what we could call some hard words from Jesus. Now a hard word does not mean that it is unkind or ungracious and certainly not untrue. But the Jews thought it was a hard word. His disciples thought it was a hard word. And we, too, find this a hard word. Even our best theologians squabble over what it means to drink the blood of Jesus and eat of his flesh here. There's no clear, decisive answer to that part of the text. But it is hard to grasp. It's hard to understand. And yet we are called to affirm this truth and to believe it. Well, just a reminder of the setting. Jesus had just previously fed the 5,000, taking those few loaves and those few fish and fed an enormous amount of people, possibly 10 to 15,000, if you include the women and the children. It was an astounding miracle. And after crossing over the sea, He discussed the meaning of that, and this is the last part of that meaning. And of course, the crowds misunderstood, as they are wont to do. Well, what does Jesus offer us here in this text tonight? What He offers is full satisfaction in Him. Whoever comes to me will never hunger. Whoever comes to me will never thirst. He says that all who look on the sun will be raised up on the last day. Everlasting life is what Jesus offers. He says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And the question before us this evening is, of course, how do we partake of this bread of life? This is the question that the crowds asked him in the previous part of the chapter. They asked, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And you find that they are actually asking the question, incorrectly, they misunderstand, because we all have this tendency oftentimes, even in the Reformed world, to have a sort of semi-Pelagian view. There's a tendency to view salvation as accomplished in some part, however small or great, by us, by our will, or by our exertion. which is exactly what the people asked Him. What must we do? Notice what they didn't do after seeing this astonishing miracle. They didn't fall down on their knees before Jesus and say, Lord, forgive me. I am a sinner. We think of the man who went into the temple and beat his breast. Lord, forgive me, a sinner. And it asked, who went away justified? The man who cried out for mercy, not the man who said, look at my good deeds, look how good I am. Well, there's this tendency to read the text in this way. All who come to me, the Father will give to me. as though God foresaw your future faith in Jesus, and then based on that future faith in Jesus, He then declared to love you. He then declared to save you. We often work ourselves into the scheme of salvation so that in some way or another we are responsible to some degree for our salvation. This is one of the distinctions that the Reformed have against Roman Catholicism, which argues that salvation is of Christ, but it's also by our works. By the power of the Spirit working within us, we reach a point where we are then justifiable. This is what Calvin and Luther and others fought so hard against. And so the question is, how then do we look on the Son and believe in Him? Look at verse 44. What does this tell us? It says, no one, this is a universal negative, no one, not a single person in creation, There is no one excluded outside of this universally. No one can, can. It denotes possibility or ability. No one is able to come to me unless, unless there is a condition. No one can come unless. So what is the condition which must be met for us to draw near to the Son? The Father. We're not in here. We're not in this text. We're excluded. No one can come to me unless the Father draws him to me. The question should have been passive, for us to be drawn to the Son. And this is what the Reformation has affirmed, Scripture alone, grace alone, by faith alone, through Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. We always want to add that, what should I do though? What should I do? What effort can I put into my salvation? We always want to read ourselves into scripture in places where we don't belong. It's our will, our exertion, alongside grace alone. But grace alone means alone. We are excluded from that. Salvation is of the Father. It is of God. It is of the Son, and it is of the Spirit. Yes, of course, we work out our salvation. We work it out with fear and trembling before God, but we are not the arbiter of our salvation. This is why even when we say you must have faith in God, faith in Christ in order to be saved, even that faith is a gift from God. You must be drawn first by the Father to see the Son. The Father draws us, the Father compels us unto Christ and He is the one who inculcates in us a saving faith. Salvation is the work of God and the work of God alone. It's an affirmation maybe? Well, what else does this text say of those who come to Christ, who are given to Christ by the Father? He says, whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. This is one of the most comforting texts in scripture. In the Greek, this is the most emphatic negative that you can have. By no means, I will never cast you out. Well, there are those who deny the perseverance or the preservation of the saints. They assert that a person who is united to the living, resurrected, ascended Christ, who is washed by His blood, who has been justified by the grace of God, sanctified by the power of the Spirit, adopted into the royal family of God, one who is a new living creature in Christ, can then be cast out and die again. I assert that we can lose our salvation. that we can move from an estate of life in Christ back into that estate of sin and misery and death. Once again, dead in our trespasses and our sins. And they nullify the work of Christ on the cross. because salvation in their minds is not of God alone. Well, we saw a moment ago how salvation is of God, that it is the Father who first draws us, who compels us to Christ, and we see now that salvation being of God alone the end of salvation, he keeps us, preserves us. He will never cast out those who believe in him. He preserves us for this is the will of him who sent me, he says, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. Brothers and sisters, if salvation were founded even in part on our will or our exertion, if there was no assurance of salvation and life in Christ, then none would be saved. Almost from the moment of creation, Mankind, Adam, who walked with God in the garden, who conversed with God, who was in a state of original righteousness, said, I prefer this fruit, I prefer to be like God rather than love God. Almost from the moment of creation, mankind has denied God. Because the forbidden fruit always appears sweeter. God said this, but what if? What if I take the fruit? What will Jesus say when men come and knock on his door crying out, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not do many mighty works in your name? What will Jesus say? Will he say, be gone from me? Those who were once my brothers and sisters, but you following the passions of the flesh have denied me. Be gone from me. I cast you out. That's not what he says. He says, be gone from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. You were never of my fold. You were never my sheep. You were always wolves in sheep's clothing. You may have deceived yourselves into thinking that you were sheep of my pasture. You may have tasted of that heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the Word of God. But that's all it was. It was a taste, and it was only because of proximity to my church, to my sheep. You may have been in the midst of the congregation, but as it's written in 1 John, they went out from us because they were not of us. This is a fearful thing. to believe that you are right with God when you are sitting under His judgment. Well, the point, then, is this. Salvation is of God alone, beginning and end. The Father compels us and we are preserved unto glory. And the great word of comfort to you and me is whoever comes to me, I will never by no means cast out. There is no conceivable reality for those who are truly saved to be cast out of God's hand. Because that's the point. We're not in our hands. We're in God's hand. We're in God's hand. And He has promised by this sure reality that God is true. That He cannot lie. He has said, I will never cast you out. there are no circumstances, even your sin, no matter how great your sin may be, even in your moments of faithlessness, there is no reality which would ever make me take you from my hand and cast you out. Life forever in Christ. This brings a whole new understanding to those wonderful words in Colossians, that our life is hidden with Christ in God. It is safe. It is secure to the uttermost. Hallelujah. What a gracious God. that He looked at our sinful estate and said, I will save you and I will keep you to the end for that is my will. And there is none who can stay the will of God. So salvation is of God alone, and salvation is accomplished in Christ alone. Our last point here this evening. What does Jesus mean by saying, I am the bread of life? This is one of the great I am statements of the book of John. Every time that Jesus uses this phrase, I am, the bread of life, or I am the true vine, and on. He is referring to the divine name, Yahweh, I am, I am. Well, what else does this mean except that there is no other loaf? There's no other loaf that we can partake of and never hunger. There's no other blood which we may drink and never thirst. There is an exclusivity to this claim of Jesus. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Jesus. affirms this when he reads, here we'll read these verses again, verses 60 through 65. 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 to them, do you take offense at this? then 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, 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 him by the Father. A brief tangent from this point is you'll notice that Jesus asks a question, do you take offense at this? R.C. Sproul had an excellent point on offense given versus offense taken. Jesus' words, were they truly offensive? The answer is no. The words of Jesus are the most gracious, amazing words of grace. They give life by the power of His Spirit and the power of His resurrection. But we, in our sinful nature, all too often take offense. even when we should not. And this is the response of his disciples. They flee from him. They flee in dramatic numbers. They leave him. Were his words truly that offensive? No. And Jesus was left with only eleven true disciples. The twelfth, being a devil. What Jesus is saying is there is no other. There is no other way unto the Father. There is no other way to have everlasting life. There is no other way that judgment will pass over you except in me, in Christ, the bread of life. There's no other bread. No matter what the world will say, that there are many religions, there are many roads, many ways to God. Jesus' words stand in defiance of that. There is one way. to be right with God, and that is to partake of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone. Well, after he says this words, he asks his remaining disciples, do you want to go away as well? And it's when Peter gives that astonishing attestation of faith. Lord, to whom shall we go? 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. To whom shall we go? There is life in none other. There is no manner of living that is so excellent that we can work our way into God's good graces. There is no other faith, no other religion. It is only through Christ. And we, instead of being like those who fled from Christ, ought to bend the knee before him and cry out, forgive me. I am a sinner. Have mercy upon me according to your steadfast love. There is Christ, and there is Christ alone. Truly, truly, whoever believes in the Son has Now, present tense, eternal life. Let us praise God for that. Let's bow our heads. Our God and Father in heaven, truly there is no gracious act more wonderful, more amazing than the salvation which you have offered in Christ Jesus. that you have given your own Son to take on human flesh, to live in perfect righteousness for us, to die on the cross suffering not only the scorn of man, but your wrath for the sins which we have committed, for your wrath which rightfully should be on our own heads. And you have given us your Christ who rose again unto everlasting life, that we would be united to him and have life in him. We thank you for this gracious act, for your mercy, which is astonishing. Lord, help us to live in light of that glorious truth. to live according to that calling in Christ. By your Spirit, empower us to live holy lives. Strengthen us to meet the trials of every day this coming week, that we would serve you well, and we would do all to the praise of your glory. In this we ask, in the name of Christ, amen.