FBCWest 571 | To Whom Shall We Go
Recorded On: 09/10/2023
Bulletin
Hymn # 437 “Tell Me the Story of Jesus”
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalm 146
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“House of the Lord”
“How Great Is Your Love”
“At the Cross”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“To Whom Shall We Go?”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“The Stand”
Benediction “There Is Freedom”
Sermon Notes
John 6:59 & 60 Those following Jesus said it was a har/difficult statement that Jesus said about His flesh and blood
John 6:61 Jesus asks His disciples does the statement cause you to stumble?
John 6:62 Jesus asks “What if they see Him ascending to heaven?
John 6:63 Jesus says it is the Spirit Who gives life
John 664 & 65 Jesus knows the one who will betray Him and again states no one can come to Him unless the Father granted it
John 6:66 Many of the followers of Jesus stopped following Him
John 6:67 Jesus asks the 12 do they want to leave Also?
John 6:68 & 69 Peter response where else are they to go, it is Jesus who has the words of eternal life
John 6:70 & 71 Jesus says He chose them, but one is a devil
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
We've been studying the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, Jesus has been teaching, but he's been concentrating his teaching on who he is, not what he does and what we should do. In response to that teaching, there are three major responses. One, you reject it and walk away. Two, you want to change who he is. Or three, by faith, you accept who he is by his statements.
We're going to take a look this week at two of those three responses as his disciples choose to believe or not. Come and see.
This is a great day.
You know why it's a great day?
Because we're gonna talk about Jesus.
We've been taking a look at the Gospel of John.
The reason that we were taking a look at the Gospel of John through this study is that we are searching for and finding and strengthening faith.
The Gospel of John, Jesus' teaching has primarily been about who he is.
In the other Gospels, they teach about who he is, but they teach a lot of other things, like for instance, Matthew early on talks about the Sermon on the Mount and how we should live our lives in those types of things. Mark was very much about Jesus in action and moving and doing and miracles. And in Luke, trying to convince the Gentiles who Jesus is and talking about both his teaching and his actions and his miracles.
The Gospel of John has concentrated initially up to this point and on about faith, not in faith, but faith in Jesus, who Jesus is.
And so Jesus has been talking and teaching that he is the bread of life,
that he is the living water, that he is all of these things, that he is the I am, that he has been sent by the Father and that he is equal to the Father. So he concentrates on that teaching because it is important for us to first know who he is and who we are to place our faith in.
And there are about three major ways to respond to that teaching.
One of those responses is to reject it,
to walk away from it.
And we're gonna see that even his, many of his disciples will take that option.
We see pretty much the world has adopted that option of rejecting who he has taught himself as.
The other option is to change his teaching and who he is. And unfortunately, we find that in many churches.
They'd rather talk about his lowliness or his unacceptance or all these other things that they wanna talk about
and how whatever he talked about wasn't really what he said was something else. And we try to change who he is.
And the third option is to by faith accept that.
Teaching of who he is. Of those three, we're going to see in John chapter six, starting with verse 59,
the two responses that many of his disciples choose.
And so in verse 59 of chapter six, it says, "These things he said in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum." So what we've been hearing him teach isn't something he's been out and feeling. He's teaching in a synagogue. He's teaching where the Jews are because he said, "Salvation come from the Jews and the is into the Jews first and then to the Gentiles." So he's teaching who he is in the synagogue.
And therefore, many of his disciples,
when they heard this said, "This is a difficult," or others would translate it, a hard statement, "Who can listen to it?" Now this response is because Jesus said, and that we took a lot last week, is that you must eat his flesh and drink his blood. And we heard them talk between themselves what he meant rather than asking the source what he meant. And so they grumbled and they said,
"This is a really difficult statement. This is really hard." Well, we basically can't accept this.
But Jesus conscious that a number,
I'm sorry, conscious that his disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble?" So he asked them the question, gives them the opportunity to say, to respond, "Yes, we don't understand what you mean. Please fill it out. Give us more explanation so that we can understand what you mean."
So he gives them the option, but they don't take it. As a matter of fact, he does something
that Jesus does that I wouldn't have done.
As he then says, "What then if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?"
So he's going, "Okay, you're having a difficult time accepting my teaching."
The crowds were asking, "Well, what sign do you do to show who you are, that you are the bread of life and all these things?" And he's going, "Okay, here's a sign. What if you actually see me rising up to heaven again?"
He offers them a sign. Now the disciples who will follow him later after his crucifixion and resurrection will see this very thing.
So you would think because of these people and these people who've been following him, the crowds who've been seeing the miracles and seeing the things that say, "Yeah, show us that."
And then we can believe.
But Jesus says, "It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh, prophet's nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."
The reality is, miracles do not produce faith.
Faith and then miracles may create a confidence in faith.
But people who have no faith after seeing a miracle will still have no faith.
And that's what bothers me about a number of things that are not producing faith. It's not producing faith. It's producing a power of churches who will do all these miracle services and whatever.
They're not producing faith. They're producing a show, producing doubt, which people will never really grasp as faith because they saw a miracle of a healing or whatever.
It's exactly who he said he was in his, was the resurrection.
The rest is icing on the cake.
But he's saying unless the Spirit, because the Spirit is the one who gives life and the flesh prophets nothing, but people want to live on in the flesh. They want a good life. They want an easy life. And Jesus says, no, no, listen to the Spirit because I have spoken to you, our spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe
for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him. You see, Jesus was fully aware of those who follow in faith and those who follow to see the signs and the miracles and those who are going to betray him.
But he doesn't even reject them during that period of time.
He allows them to continue following him, but he doesn't change his teaching. He doesn't change who is, as a matter of fact, he doubles down. He says, I am the bread of life. I am this, I am that. And he continues on not changing his (mumbles) The Romans, if you will, his statement and his witness of who he is because the crowd does or does not accept.
And churches need to learn that as well. Whether there's a large crowd or a small crowd, the point is Jesus is the son of God and we're to teach that and preach that whether the world likes it or not. And as he was saying, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the Father.
Jesus again makes the same statement.
Those who come to me come to me because the Father has granted it. Those who don't come to me, don't come to me because the Father hasn't granted it.
Now, that's Jesus's understanding. If that's Jesus's acceptance of success or unsuccessful
in ministry, maybe we should do the same thing.
We should be true to his teachings regardless of the response.
Because it's his teachings, not our.
Because his teaching is about who he is.
And unfortunately, in our culture today, no one wants to know about who Jesus is. It's how Jesus relates to me.
How I'm such a wonderful person that Jesus couldn't, he had to have me in heaven and therefore he died for me because I'm so wonderful. And is it, and after I stop telling you how I'm so wonderful, I want you to tell me how I'm wonderful. We're so narcissistic in this society.
We can't stop looking at our phones and making selfies of our dinner.
I don't care what you ate for dinner.
I don't care if it was prime rib or broccoli.
Don't care.
And I see, I see when I look on the various things, how many celebrities, especially with people who will take pictures of themselves looking at their cell phone. They're so narcissistic that they can't stop looking at themselves while they're having pictures of themselves.
We don't change because they're narcissistic.
We say Jesus is the son of God. Jesus came to save us. Jesus came to die for us and to raise from the dead. He is the son of God. It's about him. And it's the fact is that God so loved me and you, that he brought us to Jesus
as a result of this,
many of his disciples withdrew and we're not walking with him anymore.
You see, Jesus up to this point was very popular
as he was performing miracles. He was healing people. He was providing bread and fish to proud. He was doing awesome things. He was teaching things. And all of a sudden, because of his hard statements
and difficult teachings,
they decided many of them to walk away.
You see, they failed to understand who he is.
And because they didn't like his teaching,
they walked away from him.
And there are a lot of people today
who don't like his teaching
and therefore walk away from him,
which is so sad.
Now up to this point, he's been teaching about who he is.
Now there are a lot of teachings, not about who he is, but how we're supposed to live that I'm not thrilled with.
One of the things is he taught us that,
even into prayer,
"Father, forgive me of my sins and trespasses "as I have forgiven others."
No, no, I don't like that. I don't like that. Just forgive me.
My forgiveness should not be dependent upon how I forgive you.
Because God knows you shouldn't be forgiven, but I should.
And I don't like the aspect that he said that I'm supposed to love you as he loved you. I don't even like the fact that I'm supposed to love you as I love myself.
Because I'm almost narcissistic there. I think I'm a wonderful person. I'm funny, I laugh at my jokes. I think God will listen to what I have to say. I think I'm brilliant.
I have a hard time thinking of you that way.
There are a lot of teachings that he teaches.
But ultimately his teachings are irrelevant
if he's not who he teaches about who he is.
And if he is the Son of God, then he is. Then we ought to pay attention to what he says and what he does and what he say we ought to do and say.
So they walked away.
The second option that is not brought up
is instead of walking away, people change what he teaches.
And we see that unfortunately in many churches today.
So Jesus said to the 12,
you do not want to go away also, do you?
So the 12, who we ultimately will call the disciples,
who we ultimately call the apostles minus one,
he says, you wanna go.
Why are you still here?
Point to question.
You wanna leave too.
Simon Peter answered him, Lord, whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
I'm not too sure how Peter says this,
but I think it's more passionate than I just read it.
Because Peter makes a statement that says,
if you're not it, there's nowhere else to go.
Oh, phrases a little different than it says,
if Jesus isn't who he said he was, of all men, of all people, we are most miserable. Because we live this life in sacrificial living,
because he said so.
Because we believe that our sins are forgiven. And if he's not who he said he was,
then we are still in our sin and we've gained nothing.
But Peter says, there is no other option. When I think of this phrase, and this is why I said, I think it's passionate.
There's a movie, and most of you probably don't remember it, because you're not that old.
I didn't care that much for the movie overall, but there was a scene in it that has always impacted me. And the movie was an officer and a gentleman.
Wasn't that thrilled with the movie? I didn't like some of the details.
I didn't like some of the decisions. But in the scene that is the main character, and I think his name is Mayo or something, I don't remember.
He was basically a loser and he quit everything.
But he joined the military because he wanted to fly and whatever. And his master sergeant believed he was a loser and whatever and didn't want him in the military and tried everything that he could to get him to walk out, to quit.
And he did extra physical things or whatever. And there's a scene where he's doing these things and it's right.
And while he's doing it, he goes and keeps saying, you need to walk, quit, walk out, quit. And he goes, and his statement was, I can't, because I have nowhere else to go.
And that should be our feelings about who Jesus is.
No, no, he's our wonderful Savior. He's like, no, no, we have nowhere else to go if Jesus isn't who he said he was.
Because he has eternal words of life.
You see, we don't just live this life passively.
Should this live this life passionately because of who he is. And so Jesus, Peter says to Jesus,
we have nowhere else to go because you have the words of eternal life. But then he makes another great statement. We have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.
You see, Peter comes to true faith because he's not believing just what Jesus says, but he believes in who Jesus is.
And we will not have true faith, wrong faith, lasting faith, until we have come to the conclusion of exactly who Jesus is.
And that's why it frustrates me so much to hear churches and to see advertisements all talking about who Jesus is. And they're not talking about who Jesus is.
They're not talking about that he is the holy one of God.
They just want you to feel good.
They want you to think that he relates to you. He relates to you because he took your sin and your shame upon himself
so that you might have the righteousness of God.
Not because you're a warm fuzzy,
not because you deserve it, but because our God is that awesome.
Jesus answered them that I not,
myself not choose you, the 12 and yet one of you is a devil.
Jesus says, the reason that you have come to faith is the father chose you and I chose you because the father chose you. Except one.
And Jesus again, never backed down from the fact,
Jesus not just on the night that he was betrayed,
has told them that there was one who would betray him.
So, could we be surprised when we
are in a church collectively or in the church universally
of people who betray him?
Because he walked with them as well.
As Jesus will teach, we wait
because we don't necessarily know who the wheat and who the tares are. But when it becomes abundantly understandable during the harvest,
that's when the tares and the wheat will be separate.
Now we met Judas, the son of Simon Scariot for he, one of the 12 was going to betray him.
So today,
in every day,
we have a choice.
We can follow the crowd,
the many,
not understanding who he is and not liking what he teaches to walk away.
But frankly, I prefer that to the ones who try to change who he is in his teaching.
Or we can be like Peter and say, I have nowhere else.
But if you're not who you say you are,
then I'm doing it.
I have no hope, I have no chance.
But I know that you are the Holy One of God, that the Father sent you.
And therefore, I will take my stand for you. The world can say no, I will say yes.
Our families may say no, I will say yes.
The church may say no, and I will say yes.
Because I, and I hope you understand, we have nowhere else to go. Because he's the Holy One. He's the son of God. He was there in existence when creation was started, and he will be the one who comes back with those who have faith in him and who are no longer with us. And those who are with us when he returns will join him because he is who he said he was and is, and he will do what he said he's going to do. And we will take a stand and answering that question that we first saw back early.
When I return, will I find faith on the earth? And I pray at least this one. And I pray that you as well who are here and you who are seeing me on the various ministry will say yes, you will find at least me taking a stand. And all God's people said.
(gentle music)
(static buzzing)