Well, this morning we have the privilege of coming to the table of our Lord and communing together. What a wonderful opportunity after all these months of not being able to do such a thing, this blessed privilege that we have. Still in the midst of all this confusion to hear God's Word and to partake of the sacrament. What a blessing that the Lord has given us. I wonder, though, how comfortable we would be if Jesus were here right now standing and and administering the sacrament, how comfortable we would be with him. I wonder what he might say, and I wonder how he might press us and make us all very, very challenged and uncomfortable with the way that he presses us in probing things. The reason that I say that is because here in this particular passage, Jesus, if you'll notice by the end, has so offended people, he drives away thousands of people. I titled the sermon How to Shrink the Church. I thought, you know, this is another title would have been Jesus' Church Shrinkage Seminar. How to drive people away. This is the kind of stuff we would never have in the manuals on church growth, would we? He offends everyone in this passage. And it actually is that word. How many times have you thought, you know, Pastor Gordon's, you know, he's offending people or he's saying things that might offend the people that come in here who've never heard and we get very nervous and we're kind of nervous about inviting our friends because maybe Pastor Gordon will offend. I assure you Jesus would offend them because in this particular passage, Jesus really does get to the heart of matters. In fact, if you look down at verse 60, when many of his disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? We can't even listen to this guy. But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, do you take offense of this? Then what if? And then he turns it up quite a bit more. I said, I wonder how people could listen if they could to Jesus today. But Jesus has a specific goal in John chapter 6, and Jesus is getting to the heart of matters in life. He wouldn't let people play games with him. He wouldn't let people play fast and loose with him. He was not about having people follow him that were just dross and playing games. He's going to make them and drive them to the point of accepting his great claims or walking away from him. That's why the ministry would be uncomfortable for us today, because ministries that are user friendly never do that. They never press us to the issues of life. They never bear down and say, listen, this is the matter of life and death, and what you do with this matters. And that's essentially John chapter 6. Jesus didn't come to pet the sheep. He didn't come to give only consoling words all the time. He would push people to the issues. And I'm so thankful for that. I think it's the most loving thing he could do. He was so committed to the mission. He was so driven to go and die, to give his life. And he wanted people to understand what this was about. And as we looked that last week, the Father has set his seal on him. This is the only answer from God we're ever going to get. So that's why he's pressing. And that's what we need today. I'm so thankful he didn't fear man. I'm so thankful that he spoke unwaveringly the truth of the gospel in the face of great opposition. He didn't side with the prevailing narratives of the day. He didn't fall into everything the world was doing, he was driven by the work the Father gave him to do to save and to communicate the message that would pull people out of hell. He came to fight for your salvation and your children's. You understand that? That's what he came to do. And he is so pressing this here on this claim of who he is today that they would understand the true bread that has come down from God to give life to the world. And that's the most important issue in front of us here in John chapter 6. If you remember the scene, and you've been here for the past few weeks as we've been working through the gospel of John, everyone has missed what the sign of the feeding was all about, what it symbolized, what it signified, and what he was teaching them about the need for true food in life, true life. They loved being fed. They were just like Jonah. They loved to receive all the comforts that he could give. They wanted a great prophet like Moses who could feed them in the wilderness, but they didn't like hearing what it meant. They didn't like being pressed now to what these things signify. What did all of this blessing in life that we have enjoyed from God, what is all of it telling us? And that's when the barriers went up. They have rays that Moses fed them in the wilderness. And Jesus had already corrected them on that. No, Moses did not feed you in the wilderness. God fed you in the wilderness. And he did something to really set them off last time when he said, I am the bread that has come down from heaven. He's been making these claims the whole time that are absolutely shocking. And you can feel the rage as he's saying these things. Number verse 35. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. And he who believes in me shall never thirst. What a claim. Coming to Christ equates with being filled. And you'll notice here, believing equates with being satisfied. I am the bread. First great I am statement. God gave Israel. It's what it all meant. It's what it all was about. It was about me. I'm here now. I've actually gotten down and come down to you. Now, they were already angry in chapter 5 that he had claimed equality with God. Can you imagine hearing some of these statements that he made? That I see the works that my father does, and not only do I see them, I do the works that my father does. He is making statements that are absolutely shocking. But now he has just claimed to be the bread that has come down from heaven. And now we begin with their complaint. Verse 41, so the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, we know this guy, This guy, we know his parents. We know what block he grew up on. How in the world could he come along and say, we know Joseph. We know his mom. Who is this guy saying, I've come down from heaven? Now, that's an interesting moment because I don't think I would have said anything different. Would you? If you had heard that? If I had said today, Pastor Gordon has come down from heaven, what do you think you'd say about me? wouldn't go well, would it? So this is a really shocking claim he has just made to really sense the sense of it. You know he's claimed equality with God and this comes their complaint. And now we have an interesting statement. We see how John has been raiding Exodus, the book of Exodus in John chapter six and seven. In John chapter six, you remember, he does in verse four, he mentions the Passover and then Jesus feeds and John has rated Exodus 12 and 13 and said that Passover is Jesus. He is our Passover. And then they had in Exodus 14 and 15 the crossing of the Red Sea event and in John 6 beginning of verse 16 Jesus treads on the water and crosses his disciples over to the sea to the other side telling them he is the I am and everyone recognizes it. And then we have Exodus 16, the bread event, where Jesus is now explaining the true bread from heaven. And now we come to this besetting sin of Israel in the wilderness. What was it? Grumbling. They grumbled against the Lord. And by the way, you just follow it even more. Some are going to turn around in this section and walk away. Yeah, Israel had a long history of wanting to go back to Egypt. Chapter 7, you have the law. Chapter 18 and 19 of Exodus, 19 and 20, the law. And Jesus gives the grand indictment, you haven't kept any of it. Chapter 17, you've got the water event at the rock, striking the water. Jesus says, come to me and drink. You see what John's doing here? He's using all of it. So here we are in this particular section, and this is exactly what they do now. John grabs the issue of complaining, and now they are complaining. about him. Because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Is this not Jesus? You remember in Exodus 16, 2, in the midst of the bread event, and the whole congregation of the people grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And remember what happened, and it goes on in 7 and 8, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard you're grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you grumble against us? And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling and you grumble against him, what are we? Your grumbling is not against us, it's against the Lord. Who's the Lord? Jesus. Here he is. And they grumble against him. Same in the Septuagint. Fast forward here, Jesus has come down from heaven. God incarnate is standing in front of them. What is the complaint? What is the complaint? Who does this guy think he is? When he said he's come down from heaven? See, this is the big issue that the gospel of John is constantly challenging us with. This is the remarkable claim of Christianity that the eternal Son of God, equal with the Father, power, majesty, glory, the eternal Son of God has come down and taken to himself a human nature and come among us. And as John said in chapter 1, we beheld that glory. We know that glory. The glory of the one who tabernacled among us. He's raiding Exodus again. And when Jesus said, the Father has set his seal on me, what Jesus was saying is, I'm the only answer given, and this is a matter of life and death for you. And that's the big issue in the Gospel of John, and that's the big issue for Christianity today. You're either going to write off Jesus as a narcissistic madman, as people do, or a great teacher, or you're going to recognize, as Thomas did, my Lord and my God has come to us. This is why Lewis would say, liar, lunatic, or Lord, there's your choice. So here we are. This is exactly what's happened here. And to make it to heaven, you'll notice here, the only way to make it to heaven, the only way to be saved, is to receive the one that's come down from heaven. The only way salvation comes to us is God coming to us in human flesh, human nature, taking on one. But I was reflecting on this this week. I thought, do you see the absolute impossibility of faith here? It's absolutely impossible, humanly speaking. I mean, if Jesus were taken seriously, and people really believed that they have to reckon not just with some mere man, not just some great teacher, but that the one who has come to us is the one through whom everything was made is the eternal Son of God, equal with the Father, don't you think there would be great fear of Him? Don't you think people would fall and say, my Lord and my God, without, with fear and trembling? And this is our great challenge here. I would have been standing there with them. You don't just accept claims like this. And here's the thing. If they didn't accept him, standing there and actually watching the signs that he did and actually raising the dead. We're in quite a predicament here, not even being able to see, aren't we? We all so casually treat Jesus, don't we? We walk away from his worship and we do the same thing. We complain because he doesn't do for us what we think he should do for us. He doesn't fix things the way that we think he should fix things. This is what Dr. Godfrey said last Sunday night. He doesn't work fast enough for us on our terms. We are these people. We are these people. Never read about the Jews and say they're just those kind of people. This is us. This is a giant mirror that is put in front of us and that's why I emphasize the impossibility of faith to have the bread of God come down from heaven, standing there in front of you, looking at him, seeing him, seeing the signs and not believing. And what is Jesus' clarification in the midst of this? This is where it gets really fascinating. Jesus answers them, doesn't he? When he knows this and he sees this and he hears this. And he begins to say a few very important things here that help us to understand the heart of this passage this morning. When he first says, stop your grumbling, and that's exactly the translation, stop it. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I'll raise him up on the last day. So a rough translation of that is, stop it. You have no ability to come unless the Father drags you to me. That's the word there, drags. Fascinating, isn't it? You have no ability to come to me unless you are dragged by the Father to the Son. Now, I'm really thankful for this. I never really just accepted God, as we commonly hear, and as people say. But I'm also thankful because if I am a joyful, happy person secured in the knowledge of the Son, the Father has done something wonderful for me. The Father has drawn me and dragged me to the Son, changing my heart, sure. But what Jesus is doing here for us is showing us this struggle through the lens of everything that we've studied in the struggle of Israel. How impossible salvation is apart from an entire work of divine grace in your life. Salvation, that impossible. And that's why in the church today, you might as well just step it up with everything you need to step it up with. because if you lower the bar and you lower the message and people don't get it, you think about the importance of Jesus giving it in full to them, realizing they won't get it. Nobody's going to get it apart from divine grace. So Jesus then does something powerful here. I think this is the heart of this, actually. It's the thing in John 6 you read right over and don't spend the time on. But it's Jesus' quotation of Scripture here I couldn't get away from this week. They had thrown scripture at him and got it all wrong, that Moses didn't give the bread. Jesus corrected them. Now Jesus throws one back at them. Isaiah 54. You'll notice here it says, as it is written, they shall all be taught by God. Whenever the rule is you have a statement like that that sits in somewhat isolation and is thrown in the midst of something, you're never going to understand it until you go back to where it comes from and look at what surrounds it. That's what the author's telling you to do. And Jesus was doing that. And this is exactly what it says in Isaiah 54. Listen carefully. For your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name. And the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer. The God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you, my steadfast love shall not depart from you. And my covenant of peace shall not be removed. All your children, here it is, shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children. Now that's an amazing statement. The father will teach you and the result will be what? Peace. Peace with regard to who Jesus is. This is what he's saying. You can look at the whole problem of humanity and the human heart right here in this little section. You see, what the Lord is doing right now is, and this is what I think even in the world right now, if you look at what he's exposing, as he's taken away all the comforts and everything seems to be falling apart and everything seems to be in dire straits, everything seems to be going wrong. As the Lord has broken this all open, what is he exposing right now? Where hearts are. The world has no peace, first off. And how can anyone not see that right now? You know, you can run around saying no justice, no peace, all you want, but you'll never get that until you have Jesus. Well, really, the sermon title should have been, No Jesus, No Peace. Everyone's frustrated. Everyone's angry. Everyone's angry. Everyone's divided up. No forgiveness, no atonement, no ability to talk to anyone. We are ripped apart right now in the worst sort of ways. What about the church? We're anxious. We're worried. We're distressed over the state of things. Worry. Where's peace? Do you see in the midst of this what Jesus is doing? It's me. It's me. I am peace. I am the bread. I am what satisfies. This is the first of the I am's. I am everything to you. Drink me. Eat me. This is all the life you'll ever get. This is the only peace you'll ever know. You see, Jesus is confronting them saying, the result of the Father's work is to bring peace in your lives as he teaches you regarding me. You know, and this is what I see in you. I think in the midst of all of this turmoil right now and all this hardship and all the things that are happening when everything's falling apart the real peace you enjoy that you have a savior, that you have a home, that you have forgiveness of sins, that nothing can separate you from his love think of the real peace that abides in your hearts as evidence in the midst of all of this of what the Father has done for you what a beautiful thing this is what the world attacks every day and you see this is the issue here apart from the father's work of teaching you about the son and bringing you to the son you have no answer and i think this is such a beautiful passage to help us with that as jesus now grabs that great truth and gives the call as he says here truly truly i say to you whoever believes in me has eternal life i am the bread of life your father ate the man in the wilderness and they're dead. I came down. If you eat this bread, if you eat of this bread, you will not die. The bread you are asking for, everything that you're searching for is me, says Jesus. And I've given myself for the life of the world. I came down to do the work. I came down to save. I came down to fulfill. I came down to do it all. And I think this is at the point where Jesus brings this to a conclusion. There has to be a conclusion with regard to Jesus, who he is and whether you've believed him. People cannot go on continuing to be at war with him indefinitely because if they're at war with him, they're at war with God. And so the conclusion now happens and is drawn by both. If you have Jesus, you'll have peace. If the Father has brought you to the Son, you have peace. You enjoy happiness, forgiveness, love. And then you come to verse 52. Therefore, the Jews quarreled. He's raiding Exodus again. That's chapter 17, the word. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? They heard him say he's the bread come down from heaven. And they said, that's crazy. That's cannibalism. He's a madman. Now, if this were me today and I were preaching and I thought you heard me say, I offer you bread and that bread is me, you would have a real problem, wouldn't you? The elders would meet this week and they would call me aside and they'd say, listen, you need to go make things really clear. Because you weren't very clear last week. you just said, you're the bread that everyone needs to eat. I might not even get back in the pulpit after that, right? Imagine this moment if this had happened, and there would be a huge controversy, and of course, knowing me, I would cower, and I would retract, and I, ah, you heard me all wrong. You heard me all wrong. I'm not the bread. Come down from heaven. Don't eat me. Jesus sees them fighting, and what does he do? Steps it up. He steps it up on them. Now this is where I said, if you've ever been worried about me causing offense when your family member comes in here or a Mormon comes in here or a Jehovah's Witness or somebody who's not believing the gospel or somebody who's living a terrible life and they just want to hear sweet stuff, you wouldn't do well with Jesus. And that's not a good thing. Imagine this. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. Wait a minute. Stop, stop, stop. Drink what? Drink the blood of Jesus? I mean, the world already thinks we're crazy. You don't want me telling you to drink blood today, do you? Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no lie. life. Whoa. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll 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. What did you just say? You better eat me. You better drink me. He didn't just say that. Yeah, he did. You must feed on me my flesh and my blood to live. This is an amazing moment in the Gospel of John. He just called them to faith in the most powerful way in the Scriptures. You have to be absolutely joined to me. You have to participate in my life. If you don't participate in my life, you have no life. You need to eat me. You need to drink me. aren't you seeing what belief is we have digested into the soul the very body and blood of Christ it's so filling it's like water to satisfy satisfy the thirst of the soul he is bred to the inner life with satisfaction and and and the Bible is what it's showing us here is a contrast of those who eat him and drink him and those who don't. My joy is complete because I know him and he knows me. He loves me and I love him. But the response here is what is highlighted. Two responses. And you'll notice here, and I'll come back to the end one here in a second, The Jews hear this, and they say, huh, that's it. We're done. Who can understand that? The guy's crazy. That's a hard saying. And from that time on, many of his own disciples, notice that he captures disciples, went back, drew back, and followed him no more. You know, I thought about this whole coronavirus event. it might have a huge exposure on the church. Those who have not eaten him, those who have never had a drink from him, we might not see him again. I've talked to pastor after pastor after pastor who has said they're so concerned that what this has done is the people who were never there to begin with, who were holding on for all the wrong reasons, who were the dross in the kingdom, they're all worried. I'm afraid the church is going to shrink quite a bit through this. I hope not. But we have to understand Jesus is not about letting people follow without eating him. Peter turns around to Peter after this. You want to go too? You want to leave, disciples? And Peter says something so beautiful. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Isn't that what John's been pressing us to? Who it is who's come to us. When you have come to Christ and you believe the gospel, you see who has been given for you. and that overtakes and overcomes your life. You have everything at that point. I come back to the question of the text. Are we unsatisfied, miserable, complaining, unfilled, drifters, grumbling and complaining? Have we had the gospel of peace fill our hearts? Well, Jesus has an answer for you. Come today and eat me. Drink me. Feed on me. Participate in my life. I went to the cross. I lived a perfect life for you. I've died. I'm risen. And all who come to me, I'll never cast out. This is the life we need. This is the peace we need. But to enjoy that peace, you must know who the Father has sent to you. The supper is given for those who understand there's no way to live apart from him. Did you know that? That's why the Supper announces this is what the Supper's all about. This is why the Reformers took John 6 and applied it this way and said it's not just remembering today what Jesus did for you. When you come and you eat by faith, you are participating in the life of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit who resides in heaven for you. I need that today more than ever. I need that strengthening today more than ever, and so do you. But be joyful, because if you have Jesus, you have the peace that matters, and nothing the world could ever do to you could take any of this. So come today believing. Think of Isaiah. Eat this food. Drink this drink. You don't even have to pay for it. It's free to you, and if you eat this by faith, you will live. That's the promise. Believe in the word. Believe in the gospel, and receive the food and drink of eternal life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for instructing us in these words and helping us to understand the incredible gift that has been given to us. We need this. We can't hold our own even for a minute, And we ask that you would nourish our souls to eternal life. We trust you, Lord, in a world that has no peace. Thank you for the gift, as Peter said, that we have the Holy One of God who has come down from heaven and who has given us the words of eternal life. We receive them today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you.