August 12 Sermon: All That the Father Gives

Consider these questions as we look at John 6:35-51:

1. How does the concept of divine intervention and God's role in drawing people to faith challenge the notion that our salvation depends on our own actions and choices? How does this understanding influence your perspective on God's grace?

2. The passage emphasizes that Jesus is the bread of life, offering eternal salvation. How does this image of Jesus as the source of eternal life shape your understanding of faith and salvation?

3. Pastor Mark used an analogy of a mother protecting her child in a parking lot is used to illustrate God's active role in saving us. How does this analogy help clarify the nature of God's intervention in our lives, especially in the context of our rebellion and sinfulness? How does it impact your trust and reliance on God for salvation?

Transcript:

Recently I saw a dramatic presentation that was designed to convict the viewer of their sin and to help people see that their daily decisions often contradicted what they said they believed. It was effective in what it was trying to accomplish but the way that it ended concerned me. It leaves the viewer hanging with the idea that because of their sin somehow their status between God and Satan is somehow hanging in the balance. This was effective for convicting us of our sin but yet left us wondering whose we really are. If I choose to sin am I proving I’m really aligned with the devil? Is my salvation hanging in the balance because of the sin I commit every day?

‌This is an important question that we need to ask. Does my salvation depend upon me? Am I teetering on the precipice of hell and will one angry thought tip me over the edge so I need to be saved again? In our New Testament lesson today we get an answer to this question and what we find is that our salvation does not depend on us but that salvation is entirely of God.

‌As we come to the passage this morning you will likely remember our first verse from today was the last verse from our New Testament passage last week. Remember that this statement “I am the Bread of Life” is a significant statement. With the words I Am, Jesus is invoking the divine name. The name that Moses heard from the burning bush when he asked God his name. So Jesus is clearly claiming to be God. In other parts of the gospel of John Jesus uses this I am statement and people take up rocks to try and stone him for blasphemy. So this I am the bread of life statement is a loaded statement. Jesus also makes this statement in light of a discussion about Moses and the manna in the wilderness. When Jesus speaks about bread he isn’t just talking about the bread that he multiplied when he fed the 5000. He is saying that the manna in the desert is pointing to him and how he would be what saves his people.

‌This week’s passage begins with that I am the bread of life statement to remind us of all the richness that comes from it. Jesus is God and he is our bread. But Jesus continues by teaching us about who he is and how we are saved.

‌‌After the bread of life statement Jesus brings up an interesting topic. He has said that he is the bread of life and that he is the one who nourishes his people but what about these people that are standing right there in front of him and they have rejected him. They are filled with unbelief. Always questioning what he is doing and what he is saying. Jesus is pointing out the obvious here. You see me you still don’t believe. Honestly, we have to wonder why. Why in the world are these people who are looking right at a man who teaches with authority and can multiply a few loaves into a feast for thousands rejecting him? You would think that seeing that kind of thing would cause people to fall to their knees and worship him. You’d think that they would be shouting from the mountaintop that the messiah has finally come and here he is teaching in some backwater area of Israel. But that isn’t what we see. They not only reject him. They oppose him. In fact, we know where this story ends, right? They are going to have him crucified. This is more than just blowing Jesus off as some kind of kook guru. This is rebellion against his message to the point that many of them believe that it is their duty to put this man down.

‌Jesus tells them that if someone is going to have faith and come to him it will be because the Father has given them to him. What Jesus is telling them is that the reason they do not trust in him is because the Father has not given them to Jesus because if anyone comes to Jesus he will not drive them away. He will receive them. But the point that clearly comes across here is who will come to Jesus. No one comes to Jesus on their own. The Father gives them to him. Why is this? Is it because God has seen what great people they are? The reason that they must be given to Jesus is because not a one of us would come to God on our own. Our spiritual state of affairs apart from the grace of God is that we are dead. Not sick in need of healing and not unfulfilled looking for a better path to enlightenment. Our sin is our problem and so we need God to intervene and we need to be brought to life. This is how we come to Jesus and this is why he never drives us away. God is the one doing all the work here and we see that this is the reason that Jesus has come.

‌‌To do the will of the Father and the will of the Father is that one that are given to Jesus shall be lost and they will be raised on the last day. This is clear. Jesus came to accomplish salvation for his people. He came not to enlighten humanity with new ideas of peace and love but to defeat our greatest enemy, death. This is unbelievably comforting for us. Notice what it says here. He shall lose none of them given to him. Despite what we often think Jesus did not come to make you saveable. His goal here on earth was to make it so that perhaps, maybe you could be saved from sin, death, and hell. Jesus did not take on human flesh so that maybe one day those the Father gives him would come to him on their own. Instead we have a sure confidence that the gospel is enough. God the Son took on flesh, lived a perfect life, died to bear God’s wrath in your place, rose again, and ascended to the right hand of the Father to secure you. The salvation that we have in Jesus is enough. It isn’t dependent on you. You are not the linchpin in God’s plan to save you from death and hell. Jesus is. He has done it all and as it says here how we receive this gift is that we look to the Son. We stop looking to ourselves for our salvation and we put our trust in Christ alone to save us. We give up on everything else and look to him. And Jesus wants to be sure we understand the consequence of all of this. He will raise us up on the last day. That is what Jesus came to do. That is why we are brought to faith. So that we may have victory over our greatest enemy, death. This is all by grace alone, through faith alone, because of the work of Christ alone.

‌That is what it means that Jesus is the bread of life. He is the one who gives us all that we need. Like the people in the wilderness we need God to come and save us. That is part of what the manna story is about. Functionally speaking the people were dead. They weren’t going to get enough food to feed the masses there in the middle of nowhere. They needed divine rescue. God feeding them with manna points to the fact that Jesus will raise us up on the last day. The manna in the wilderness is a resurrection story.

‌Really that is the theme that we see the Old Testament point to. Let me draw this point out with some of the biggest stories. Noah. He is as good as dead without the intervention of God because his wrath is coming to judge mankind. God saves him through the ark. Noah is a resurrection story. Abraham and Sarah. Here womb is barren. The line to the promised messiah is stopped with her. The promise of God ends there with her dead womb. But God intervenes and Isaac is born. Abraham and Sarah is a resurrection story. Abraham is seconds from ending the life of his promised son but instead God provides a substitute, a ram in the thicket, to spare Isaac from death. The sacrifice of Isaac is a resurrection story. The Red Sea. The people are as good as dead because an army with hardened hearts is behind them but what does God do. He brings them through what would normally be certain death. Water in which they would normally drown instead spares their lives. The Red Sea is a resurrection story.

‌You can see how holy scripture points to what Jesus is saying here. God is going to do all the work and the end result is the sure and certain promise that on the last day he will raise us up.

‌This is unbelievably good news but those whose hearts are hard take objection to it. They don’t believe. They have missed the whole point. They don’t see that they need this divine rescue and so Jesus drives home the point once again.

‌‌Those who come to Jesus are there because the Father is involved. As the prophets said they will all be taught by God. In other words, God will be the one who gives them the knowledge of himself. The Holy Spirit is the one who works in us by the will of the Father and through the work of Jesus.

‌You might be thinking that all of this is interesting. But what does it ultimately matter to me. Jesus helps us to really understand this in verses 47-50

‌‌As we saw last week Jesus rebuked these people for their wanting to get their bellies filled with the bread he provided. Here he finishes it. He is saying to them. Look, you want your bellies filled. Your forefathers had their bellies filled and they still died eventually. Yes, it is important that your physical needs be met but there is a deeper problem that you so quickly forget about. The curse is coming for you and you need something more than breakfast, dinner, and supper every day. You need salvation from sin, death, and hell. Right now, you have it in front of you and it is sure to save you. In fact it is the only way that you can be sure of having eternal life, to feast on the bread of life.

‌‌And Jesus tells them how it will happen he is going to give his body for their salvation. This is how we know that we are saved that we have faith in the one who gave of himself for his people.

‌As we bring this home for today this topic of God’s drawing his own to himself can raise a lot of questions for us but we can’t forget what the purpose of all of this is. Assurance. This doctrine of God divine saving of us is usually seen as arrogance. That the people who trust in this believe that they were somehow better or good and their are God’s elect and they don’t have to do anything but this is not how the Bible views this.

‌God’s choice has to do with the fact that we are completely helpless to save ourselves. This should not make us feel special or elite but instead humbled. Humbled that despite my rebellion and unbelief, God came to me and gave me the gift of faith. I wasn’t going to do it without him and so I needed his divine intervention. Jesus is our savior. As I spoke in the beginning about the dramatic presentation we are not teetering on the precipice of hell with God waiting for us to make our choice. If you have faith it is because God in his mercy has brought you to himself and because of this we don’t need to fear that our sinful struggles are removing us from his grasp. Instead we can be assured that we are his and he is ours and he isn’t going to let us go.

‌A few days prior to our youth trip to Ohio in June I had two visits to make in Sioux Falls but I had a few hours between when I could visit. To kill some time, I did some work at a coffee shop and then I went to the mall to see if I could find a deal on some clothes I needed to purchase before we left. While I was in the mall, I noticed how many less people were in there compared to when I was younger. It just wasn’t the happening place it used to be. This was made visible to me as I walked to the car with my JC Penney bag in my hand. There was a young mother with a 2 or 3 year old child walking to their car which was parked near mine. There weren’t very many cars moving around and you could see for 100 plus feet and so the mother was letting the child run free and softly saying “Stay close to me, don’t run too far away” but she never really did anything about it and the child was never really in any danger even though if a car came by she wouldn’t have been anywhere near close enough to rescue him. Regardless, they both got to the car and everything was fine.

‌I got in the car and reflected on how busy that parking lot was in the past and how busy it would be in a few months when Christmas shopping ramped up. If that mother and child were in that parking lot the Friday after Thanksgiving she would have laid hold of him and no matter how much he squirmed she would have gotten him safely in the car seat to take him home.

‌Immediately, I thought about this idea of God saving us and preserving us. If we believe that our sin is no big deal. If we think that we need to choose God’s best plan for us then we are going to think of him as someone who is trying to softly lead us to our destination and it is up to us to ultimately get ourselves to safety.

‌But, if we see sin as causing us to be spiritually dead and unable to save ourselves we would see God as the Bible portrays him. He lays hold of us and he grabs his child because we are going to rebel and squirm because we want to run where we want to run. But God takes hold of you and doesn’t let you go. He brings you home because if it were up to you the last thing you would ever choose is him. Our rebel hearts do not want the things of God so we need him to come to us and give us this living bread so that we have faith and trust in him alone for our salvation. You see, the story of our salvation is a resurrection story too.

‌When we close our service today, we will be singing hymn 781. My Only Comfort. It is Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer number one set to music. Let the words remind you of the good news of the gospel. What is my only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own and belong, body and soul, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.

‌Trust in this good news knowing that you are Christ’s own. You are his and he is yours.