Awesome. Hey, let's, let's pray.
Well, we thank you for the power of your word to change lives and
eternities. And Louie, thank you for the
patellas. Thank you for what they're
doing, you know, living in such a difficult place and, and
trying to get your word out to people there.
And we thank you for that. We just pray you'll bless that
ministry and continue to bless it as you you have been.
Thank you in Jesus name, Amen. Hey, so today we are wrapping up
our series. We've been slowly getting a
sense of who Jesus is, and we've been looking at these these I am
statements that Jesus made. And we saw back in the
introduction that I am was a title of God right from way back
when Jesus used this title for himself, showing that he was
God. In John's account of Jesus life,
as he's telling about these times where Jesus said things
like, you know, before Abraham was I am.
John also details 7 times where Jesus said I am and then expands
on that, gives some more information to expand on on what
that means. And we've been looking at that
and we've looked at I am the light of the world.
I am the resurrection and the life.
I am the Good Shepherd. I am the door.
Some translations have I am the gate, right?
I'm the door, I'm the gate, I'm the vine.
I am the way the truth and the life amazing.
We're building this picture up of what Jesus is and what that
means right today is is the last one and it is actually pretty
shocking. It's a little bit shocking,
right? But actually a lot of things
that Jesus said were shocking, especially at the time that he
said him. And, and you probably know this
if you are a, a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus, it
makes it very difficult to follow Jesus sometimes because
some of the things he said were so extreme, right?
And it's hard to get your head around them, right.
He said things like love your enemies, pray for your enemies,
right? Most of the time we don't even
pray for our friends, right? Pray for your enemies.
Who? Who, who does that?
He said if somebody wants your coat, give me a shirt, right?
Somebody needs something, give it to them.
You know they are. How many times should I forgive
someone? He said.
Doesn't matter. Forgive them every time.
Why? We thought, what do you mean
like 100 times? Yeah, every time.
Forgive them, he said. Pay your taxes.
They hated the Romans. They hated paying taxes.
You said pay your taxing taxes. His teaching on marriage and
divorce was so shocking and so radical that that when he
finished speaking, his disciples said, you know, it would almost
be better if men didn't get married, right?
You expect Jesus to go? No, no, no, no, you know, that's
not what I meant. He just kind of shrugs and walks
off, right. And so it was it was kind of
shocking, right? His teachings were, were so
extreme that often people go, well, what he really meant was
right and, and, and go somewhere else with it, right?
And, and you know this yourself, you know, you go and you read
something and he says something and go, wow, did he really say
that? He kind of, there must be a
footnote here somewhere, right? And you go through looking for
something. The fact that they are so
shocking and the fact that they are so extreme is one of the
reasons, though, that we can believe that he really said
these things, right? Because if you were just trying
to make them up, you were trying to make it make somebody up.
If he was just a figment of our imagination or, or he was, you
know, some kind of historical figure, but you were trying to
attribute things to him to make him sound good.
These are not the sort of things that you would make up.
These are not the sort of statements you'd make up.
Are you trying to start a new religion or a new movement?
You don't say this kind of thing, right?
If you, if you're trying to get a group of people to follow you,
you don't say love your enemies. You said, hey, let's defeat our
enemies, right? And you repeat that over and
over and over and until people start following you, you don't
get a group of people to follow you by saying, pay your taxes.
You say, don't pay your taxes. These are unjust taxes.
They're spending our money on stuff that that is wrong.
Don't fund the regime. Don't pay, pay your taxes,
right? You know, Caesar is not the king
here. You know he's not, he's not the
rifle king. Don't fund his regime, right?
If you if you want followers, you don't say the kind of things
that Jesus said, these kind of extreme things.
And so, you know, his statements were so kind of out there and so
shocking and so radical that we could be sure that he must have
said them because no one in the world would make this stuff up.
But in these statements that he makes are these incredible
Nuggets of truth, really cool stuff that has practical
application. And through the years, even as
his followers started to realise and begin to understand that he
was trying to get them to see the world in a completely
different way from a perspective that none of us have unless we
kind of pride away from our normal way of seeing things or
the normal way that everybody around us sees the world.
And the reason that this was so shocking is is because it is
kind of otherworldly, right? He's bringing something into the
world that was brand new and and so abnormal because for
intensive purposes, he's saying, look, I, I don't want you to
think normally. I don't want you to think about
things the way everybody around you thinks about them.
I want you to see the world in a completely different way, which
is why over and over again he says the Kingdom of heaven is
like this in God's economy and God's way of thinking, this is
how things are. This is how how we should see
things, right. So let's have a look at one of
these shocking statements as we wrap wrap up our I M series
today. We'll be in the book of John,
right, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
And if you have your Bible turned to John chapter 6, and
we're going to start off in verse 47.
But I just need to give us a bit of background about what's gone
on here. So we are just gonna be hitting
the highlights today. So I do suggest that you read
this chapter later, read through the whole chapter in your own
time and get the whole, the feel for the whole thing.
So the context here is that Jesus has just fed the 5000.
And again, you know, if you read that account, it's 5000 men plus
the woman, plus the children. They had a lot of kids in those
days. So this is a, this is a massive,
a massive crowd and much bigger miracle than than we imagine it
to be. Because for us, we can move
food. We have big trucks and
refrigerated trucks and refrigeration systems.
You can go to, you know, field days of festival one or
something like that. It's not a big deal for us to
move huge amounts of food to another place and feed people.
But in those days they couldn't do that, right?
So this is this massive miracle has just taken place.
And then he sends the disciples across the lake.
And so they would sort of on the western shore towards the bottom
on on the western side there. And he sends them across the
lake up towards Capernaum. Calpurnia put a little Red Star
on it, you can see. So they hitting on the boats and
Jesus is there by himself. And I'm thinking he's going to
walk around the top right. It's quite a long walk.
So they head off and then of course, he walks out to meet
them on the on the lake, walking on the water.
So, you know, proving again that he was God.
And so from there they go to, to Capernaum at the top, and John
says a bunch of these people who who had got fed by Jesus the day
before, right? They, they turn up, they see the
boats are gone, that Jesus isn't there.
And they hear that he's round imperium.
And so they go free food. Let's, let's go find him, right?
And so they start wandering around the, the top of the lake.
And when they find him, he's in the synagogue.
So they kind of taunt him and they try to get him to do
another miracle, you know, you know, kind of what dinner was
good, anything for dessert, you know?
And so they kind of go to him, right?
Do another sign. Do another sign.
Hey, remember that thing you did yesterday?
You know, how about some more of that, you know, You know, Moses,
remember that time everybody was in the desert and Moses gave
them some deed, you know, like, you know, maybe, maybe could do
something like that. And they're sort of trying to
trick him into giving them some food.
And Jesus sees this and he turns it into a teaching opportunity.
And he says, if you, if you go through it, he says, now I gave
you bread to eat, but now you're hungry again already, right?
I'd like to give you something better than physical bread.
I'd like to give you bread from which you'll never get over,
You'll never be hungry again, right?
And he's trying to make this, this leap from desires that
never go away and are never fully and finally satisfied.
There's something better, something bigger, something
nourishing that gives people hope and life.
So he's trying to get this this idea across.
And he makes this statement and he says I am the bread of life.
Alright, that sounds good, right?
I gave you bread that went away. I'm bitter bread.
I'm. I'm the bread of life that comes
down from heaven. And they look and they start
muttering to each other and they go, no, he's not.
We know his parents. He didn't come from heaven.
We, we know his parents and and Jesus tells him to stop
murmuring amongst themselves and he's trying to take the to teach
them. And he takes it another step.
And as we're gonna see, for most people, this was a step too far.
Because there's this kind of Edward Cullen moment in here,
right? And so let's, let's pick it up.
The verse #47 John 647. He says most assuredly.
I say to you, He who believes in me has everlasting life.
I am the bread of life, your Father's ate manner in the
wildness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes
down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give
for the life of the world. The Jews therefore quarrelled
amongst themselves, saying, How can this man give us his?
Give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them, Most
assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
And you're thinking, ohh, that's kind of gross, right?
You're thinking that. But they were there expecting
them to give them something to eat, not having to see this this
miracle. They have no concept of what
he's talking about later. This is gonna make perfect sense
later. His disciples gonna go ohh, They
think you were talking about that vampire deal.
Yeah, no, I now I get it right. I understand what you were
talking about. I understand what you what you
meant. But right now they don't really
have have a lot of context for this.
And so this is like, eat your flesh and drink your blood,
right? And we'll get a turnal life, one
in the world, are you talking about right?
And the whole crowd is cringing, that cringing.
Try this out on your friends, Right.
You know, if they say, well, how do I know that I'm going to
heaven? Well, have you eaten his flesh
and drink his blood? Yeah, do what now?
You're right. It this was shocking, right?
He's in the middle of assuming he's he's teaching them
something. He's saying I, I gave you
physical bread, but there wasn't enough.
I want you to have quality of life here and perspective of
life later. And the way you get that.
And here's his point. The way you get that is through
me, right? Goes back to last week's round,
right? I am the way, the truth and the
life, right? I am the bread of life.
I'm, I'm, I'm what you need. But it uses a strange language,
right? Have a look at verse 54.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and
I'll raise them up at the last day, right?
That's kind of weird language too, right?
And he goes on, There's 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my
blood is drink indeed. Right, Right.
My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
We think, OK, like I said, I'm just giving you a snapshot.
You need to read through this later.
But he carries on talking in this kind of language, right?
And the more he talks about this stuff, I'm the bread of life
that came down from heaven. You need to eat my flesh and
drink my blood. And I'll raise you up on the
last day. The more the crowd gets edgy,
they start to, yeah, get very nervous and you can feel it.
In fact, after he'd finished, look at what it says, verse 60
says. Therefore, many of us disciples,
when they heard this, they said this is a hard saying.
Who can understand it? The the Greek word there
translated understand can mean who can embrace this, right?
Who, who? Who can get on board with this?
Who can go with this? Who can work with this because
it's difficult. It's so difficult, right?
This is a hard sign. This is a difficult saying.
Who can, who can get on board with this is Jesus wraps up,
you've got his, his. The 12 disciples, the closest
followers of Jesus, are kind of looking at this and they're
watching the crowd. And the crowd is starting to
disperse, right? They just start leaving.
Now here's what we need to understand.
To those 12 guys, the crowd was everything.
And, and here's why, right to, to those guys following Jesus,
right, Matthew, Mark and, and, and John Bartholomew and James
and, you know, and, and, and the rest of them, the crowd was
important because the crowd was the buffer between them and the
Pharisees and other, you know, religious leaders.
As long as they had the crowd, they had protection from the
Jewish authorities and by extension, protection from Rome
to a certain extent. About two days before Jesus was
arrested, there was a secret meeting at the home of the high
priest. And this meeting was about
trying to apprehend Jesus, right?
We want to arrest him. How do we, how do we get hold of
him? And the problem was that they
needed to do it when there was no crowds around, right?
Because if they just came in and arrested Jesus while there was a
big crowd, right, the crowd might riot.
Why? And if the crowd's riot, the
Romans are gonna come down hard, right?
They'd already been a riot previously and Governor Pilot
was in no, no mood to be trifled with.
And they kind of knew this, right, that the crowds, crowds
would revolt if they came and arrested Jesus.
So they needed to get Jesus when he was away from the crowds,
which is why they came at night, which was actually against the
law, right? They broke about 17 different
laws and in in coming to to arrest them.
So they're having this meeting in Judas turned up to that
meeting and says how much will you give me if I can organise
that? Back to John 6.
The disciples are watching, the crowd is dispersing, and that's
not a good thing. The day before, they were
heroes, right? In fact, it says that after
Jesus fed the multitudes, a whole bunch of people wanted to
get him and forcibly make him king, right?
Seriously, right. And so these were the guys that
were the closest, right? They were the inner circle of of
the guy that everybody wanted to make king.
And now the the followers of a crazy man and the crowd are
starting to leave. You know, I think they didn't do
this, but it must have been very tempting for them to kind of
sort of say to the crowd, hey, just just talk amongst
yourselves for a minute, alright?
And then take Jesus aside and say, hey, how about you preach
something about prayer, right? That'd be nice.
Or maybe feed them again, right? That that would illustrate your
point really well. You don't want them to think
you're crazy, right? Your family already thinks
you're crazy. They didn't do any of that.
They just watched the crowd leave.
But Jesus sort of picks up on this vibe that's coming from the
disciples. Look what it says.
Very 61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples
complained about this, he said to them, Does this offend you?
This make you stumble? This causes you to doubt.
This does make you begin to reconsider whether you've made
the right decision being so closely associated with me now.
John looked back on this event and and he wrote about it.
He makes the point of noting that this was a defining moment
in Jesus ministry. Things changed at this point,
right? Look at verse 66.
She says from that time many of his disciples went back and
walked with them. No more disciples isn't talking
about the 12. This is talking about the
hundreds of people that were following him and listening to
his teaching in in, you know, following from place to place.
This was the end of the crowd. This was the end of his
popularity in the Gospel of John.
And suddenly those 12 disciples, those 12 close followers knew,
hey, we're moving into a different stage and a different
season of followership now, right?
Things have changed. And as they watched the crowd
thin out and thin out and thin out, I'm sure it would have been
really tempting just to go and just gonna step behind a pillar,
you know, and just kind of wander out with the crowd.
Yeah, out of the synagogue and just kind of disappear.
The message is over. This is long pause and then
Jesus says that's where 67 and Jesus said to the 12 you also
want to go away, you don't want to leave too, do you?
Who so busted, he knew what they were thinking.
He knew what they were thinking, right.
And suddenly, you know, you ever seen those?
It's an optical illusion picture, you know, and, and the
picture looks at you and it doesn't matter where you go in
the room. The picture is always, always
looking at you. I can just imagine Jesus kind of
becomes like that. No matter where you go, like he,
he, he's looking at you. And they knew that from this
point on, following Jesus was going to be difficult.
Following Jesus was going to cost them something.
From this time forward, they understood there was going to be
some tough times. It wasn't always going to be to
their advantage serving him. It wasn't always gonna serve
them well, right? At times, amazing how the
everything went this morning was Gavin speaking and then and then
Matt talking about the difference between joy and
happiness, right? Happiness is about events,
right? It's it's related to the word
happen. So happiness comes and goes, but
joy is this sort of underlying thing.
And there are going to be times where it wasn't going to be very
happy, right? The joy is going to be there.
But it was it was going to cost, right.
I remember having this moment this the same kind of thought, I
guess where they were when I go to tech.
So when, when I was going through high school and my dad
was a soldier and we used to move about every two years, we
moved when we would move to a new place, my mum and my
brothers and I would go to a church.
The first thing we would do is find a church and, and I would
plug into a youth group, right? And so I can very quickly make
new friends in a new place a lot quicker than I could have if I
just, you know, gone to school and, and whatever, I would plug
into youth group. And so I had fun things to do
and I was learning and, you know, having these fun things to
do kept me out of trouble mostly.
And so my Christianity was of quite a big advantage to me
through particularly my later years in high school.
But I remember when I got to, to tech, right?
And so now I'm I'm, I'm living. Away from my parents and you
know, you, you, you got all this autonomy and making your own
decisions. And I remember just sort of
hitting this moment and thinking, if I'm serious about
being a follower of Jesus Christ, it's gonna be tough.
It's gonna be tough because I'm not going to be making the same
decisions as most of my friends around me.
I'm not gonna be living the same way.
I'm not gonna be viewing life the way they're viewing it.
And I remember having, you know, that that realisation one night.
And if you've been a, a follower of Christ for any length of
time, you've probably hit that at some point.
In fact, you probably had multiple moments like that kind
of these not really a crisis of faith, but you know, a junction
where you, you, you're thinking about your face.
Suddenly it's going to cost you to serve God, right?
It's not gonna be serving you right now, right?
It's it's gonna be hard if you, if you're talking about being a
genuine, all in, you know, heartfelt follower of Jesus
Christ, it's gonna cost in all of our Christian journeys.
There are times, there are going to be times where it seems like
it costs us more than we're getting.
It seems like we're giving more than than than we're taking.
And it seems like it's more of a hassle to be a follower of Jesus
Christ than a help, right? You'll, you'll get into these,
these times like the disciples did then.
And what happens when you get into those moments?
You know, sometimes that story from way back when, when, when
you finally surrendered to Christ or that story with that
great thing happened where, where God really just came
through for you and, and, and rescued you from something that
just sort of seems so long ago, right.
And the emotion of that has long since worn off And and it's just
putting 1 foot in front of the other and saying I'm doing this
because God told me to. I'm doing this because Jesus
said to. I'm doing this because I'm a
Christian and I'm not really enjoying it much right now,
right? You have times where where that
happens, right? This is our moment.
This is where we live, right? It's one of those mini moments
which Jesus is, you know, thinking of leaving too.
Are you? This is why I love the Bible.
Alright? Can you imagine the awkwardness
of that moment? It's just the 12 guys and a few
women who are who are always there following too.
And and they're all left there in the synagogue and nobody's
making eye contact with Jesus. And it's too late to sneak out
because they'll hear your footsteps clip clopping on the
marble floor of the synagogue. And everyone, including Jesus,
is going to be looking at you if you do that.
And then Peter of all people, has this flash of insight that
is absolutely brilliant and one of the most extraordinarily
helpful statements in all of Scripture.
Because in this moment, Peter realises something that I think
most of us miss in amongst these moments of trial and temptation
and hard slog, In this moment he sees things in a way that I
don't think any of the other. Because they saw it, and Peter
asked the question that we all need to learn to ask.
Because we're all gonna be in a position at some point where it
needs to be said, and this is it.
Simon Peter answered him. Lord, to whom shall we go?
Whom should we go? You know, he's again, yes.
I mean, yes, we're tempted to leave.
Yes, it occurred to me that now would be a good time to blend in
with the crowd and disappear. But Jesus had also occurred to
me that to walk away from you would be to walk towards someone
else or something else. It's focused as, as as I am on
my questions when I consider my options.
To whom shall we go? To follow you means to opt to
refuse. To follow you means to to opt to
follow someone or something else.
And we've been around long enough to know well, to whom
shall we go, right? Say it with me, right. 321 To
whom shall we go? Because that's the question.
The question in that moment of trial and temptation when it's
not serving you and and it it just be easier to walk away.
That's the question. The question isn't all of the
other questions, right? Cause you get in these things
and you say, well, Jesus, if you just sort this out or you just
sit this, sit me down and explain this to me and you just
show me, tell me how this is gonna work out or what this is
going to lead to. You just show me where this is
going to lead. If you describe to me what the
whole point of this is, you know, let me find.
But no, that's not the question, right?
The question is, if not Jesus, who?
If not Jesus, what? Because I'm crazy to think that
I can back away from Jesus without backing into another who
or another what. Because at the end of the day,
to whom shall we go? And Peter fills us in it, feels
the rest of us thought in here. He says this, but somebody
answered him. Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
Yeah, this is tough. Yeah, this is confusing.
You know, I really wish you hadn't preached that message.
I don't understand it. I don't get it.
I'm. I'm struggling to comprehend it.
But at the end of the day, to whom shall we go?
You're the only person who's promised eternal life.
You're the only person who who bought a his bought a sense of
purpose and meaning through this life.
You're the only one who can talk about what's afterlife, because
you're the one who's come from heaven and can talk about it
with any authority you know, and can talk about what's beyond
what what we can see. You've convinced us there's more
to this life than this life. Anyone else we go to, you know,
it might be easier, they might appear smarter, they might seem
to offer more, they may even feed us everyday of our lives,
right? But nobody else can talk about
eternal life. Who in the world could we turn
to? You're the only person on the
planet who has the words of eternal life.
Yeah, this is hard, but come on, to whom should we go?
Then Peter finishes it out like this in verse 69.
Also, we have come to believe and know, right, and that there
would know is if you can just go to to know through experience,
right? We've experienced this right?
We've come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son
of the living God, right? He's kind of saying, look,
Jesus, you've ruined us, really. Because we've seen too much.
We know too much. If we were to leave today with
the crowd, we would eventually be back because we've believed
that we've come to know that you are from God and you are God.
You are the great I am. It's not what we predicted.
It's not what we expected. It doesn't really feel like it's
working out for us right now. But Jesus, to whom are we gonna
go? Let's convince this just a just
a couple of statements, right? First one is don't focus
exclusively on your questions, right?
And I'm not saying don't ask questions.
It's it's great to ask questions.
I was all about that. But you know, I've, I've, I
never met someone who said I became a follower of Jesus
Christ once I got all my questions answered, right?
That that just doesn't happen. And in the same way, I've never
met a Christian who said once I became a follower of Jesus
Christ I got all my questions answered.
Ohh. I think in times of trial and in
times of transition and in times of temptation, the questions get
so big that we can kind of question ourselves out of a
closer relationship with Christ. At the end of the day, if
Christianity is too hard, if it's too demanding, if it's too
restricting, if it's too confining, then before you opt
out, before you bail out, who are you going to follow?
What are you going to follow? What worldview are you going to
embrace? Don't allow your questions about
following Jesus to blind you to the fact that when you walk away
from Jesus, you embrace someone else or something else.
When you consider your options, I think most of us come to
Peterson conclusion, OK, it's hard.
I don't. I don't always like it, I don't
always understand it. But to whom shall we go?
Because you're the ones with. You're the one with the words of
eternal life. Besides that, we believe and
we've come to know that you are the son of the living God,
right? This is especially true in times
of transition, right? Going from high school to uni
and moving to a new city, starting a new job, times of
transition, right? Also during times of trial,
right? Marriage is going through a
tough season. Parenting is going through a
rough time. Right in the middle of it all,
you thinking, man, it doesn't feel like it's working.
And, and God's not answering my prayers and he's not coming
through for me. And, and my non Christian
friends seem to be able to deal with this much better.
They just kind of mitigate themselves through this and, and
don't feel guilty about any of that.
And maybe I, you know, I could just abandon this stuff and I
could go through all kinds of things and all kinds of people
and, and not feel guilty about that.
It's always there, right? But here's the thing.
To whom will you go? To what will you go?
And all those things that you think about chasing, Do any of
them know anything about eternal life?
And if you're not going through some stuff and you, you're
thinking, yeah, I'm not so sure about this, you know, Ohh, no,
sorry if you are going through this stuff, right?
So you're going through things and you going, yeah, I'm not
sure about this Christianity thing.
It's really tough, right? Guess what?
You're not the first one. You're not the first one.
The guys who followed the actual Jesus, right, were tempted to
walk away from him. So you're not the first one.
But the question that made them stick was to who shall we go?
Because in the end, he is the bread of life, right?
No one and nothing else can bring the fulfilment that he
brings over the long term, right?
The difference again, between joy and happiness.
Next week, we're gonna start a new series looking in the book
of Luke, and we're gonna look through Luke's gospel at the
life of Jesus and what happened. And we're gonna see that we're
gonna say, man, is it worth it? Yeah, it's worth it.
It's amazing. But it's not unusual.
And in fact, it's normal to have these times where you go, man,
this is really tough. I don't understand this.
I don't understand this, Jesus said.
I am the bread of life. There's nothing that satisfies
like Jesus does. Let's pray, Father, we are so
thankful for these these stories that these true events that that
really reflects things that happen to us all the time.
And we thank you for the fact that the Bible doesn't pull
punches. The fact that your word is here
covers all the hard stuff. We thank you for that, Louie.
Thank you that you are the great I am.
We thank you that Jesus was and his that I am and is the bread
of life and that nothing satisfies like Him.
Will we thank you for your love and your grace to us when we
when we struggle, when we we don't get it, when we can't
grasp what's going on. But we know that you are an
infinite God and infinitely more powerful and more knowledgeable
than than us. And we thank you that you are.
We thank you that you're a God who's faithful that we can trust
you again. Lord, thank you for being the
great I am. Thank you in Jesus name.