Steve Gentry
[0:00] I do want to say a happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers in the crowd here this morning. [0:06] I have a mother and my wife is a mother. [0:11] So happy Mother’s Day to them especially. [0:13] But I realize that today is a day of great joy for some, but there are others amongst [0:19] us that this is a day of, there is some pain of loss, maybe some pain of regret. [0:26] And what I want the mothers to do this morning is really the same call that I give to everyone
[0:32] every day. [0:34] And that is to find your identity first in Jesus. [0:38] Because for those of you that are experiencing some suffering today because of loss or maybe [0:42] some pain with regret, what I want you to know is that that is what Jesus went to the [0:47] cross to bear for you. [0:49] That anything you go through in life, anything that you experience in life, any decisions
[0:55] that you may have made that are causing you pain or someone that you have lost, a child [1:01] especially, that may be causing you pain. [1:03] What I want you to realize is that we have a God who lowered Himself into the deepest [1:08] depths of suffering for us. [1:11] We have a God that no matter what we are going through, our God understands our pain and [1:16] has taken our pain onto Himself so we know that we never suffer alone.
[1:22] We know that we do not have a God who doesn’t understand. [1:25] We have a God that does understand. [1:28] So this morning regardless of your situation, find your identity and find your wholeness [1:35] and find the meaning for your life in Jesus. [1:38] Because He heals all wounds by His work. [1:42] He makes all lives whole.
[1:45] And He is better than finding your identity as a mother, finding your identity as a father, [1:49] finding your identity in anything in this world because He is God and He has promised [1:54] us that He will be with us forever. [1:56] That He will never leave us, He will never forsake us and if we trust in Him, if we put [2:00] our hope in Him, if we find our identity in who He is, then we will be with Him for eternity [2:05] and heaven forever.
[2:07] And on that day I can think of no greater gift than to give my mother, my wife, my children, [2:14] than to be able to proclaim that our God is a God of salvation forever with them. [2:20] So this morning make that your prayer, make that the heart of your worship. [2:26] And so interestingly enough on Mother’s Day we are going to talk a lot about the wrath [2:31] of God, which I think is just very providential, I don’t know. [2:39] Maybe you are a child and you have experienced the wrath of Mom, so maybe we should talk
[2:44] about the wrath of God. [2:45] If you have your Bibles open them to Hebrews 10. [2:49] We are going to continue, we have spent the last couple of weeks in Hebrews 10 and we [2:53] continue to go down that text this morning and talk about the surrendered life. [3:02] Talk about what does it look like when forgiveness changes us for discipleship and the reality [3:10] that we understand that in discipleship a great call that Jesus makes for each and
[3:14] every one of us is that we surrender our lives to Him. [3:18] That we give our whole selves over to Him. [3:22] And I realize that last week when we talked about what it looks like to live the disciple [3:27] life that maybe you are in a situation in your life where you are coming up with all [3:33] these reasons as to why that is hard for you, why in your situation that is difficult, why [3:38] discipleship and entering these types of environments where we connect with others for the purpose
[3:45] of growing in our faith that is not necessarily very convenient for you in your life, why [3:50] that is not necessarily going to be very easy for where you are in your life and maybe [3:54] you had the thought process well in six months I will be in a different place or maybe in [3:59] a year I will be in a different place or maybe you are like well God has fashioned [4:02] discipleship to look totally different in my life than it does in someone else’s life. [4:07] So what we do is we come up with all these reasons each and every day sometimes where
[4:14] we struggle to surrender the meaning of life specifically the meaning of my life to Jesus [4:25] and we think that maybe there is something that we can grab a hold of and maybe there [4:32] are some things that we can figure out and then after that we will surrender to His will, [4:37] we will surrender to everything that He has told us that we should do but my question [4:41] is what if that day never comes? What if those reasons or maybe even a better word [4:48] for it that makes us a little uncomfortable what if those excuses continue to rise in
[4:53] our minds and they never go away and we attempt to in a life of our own making under our plan [5:02] to be in awe of this great forgiveness but we find that something keeps distracting [5:06] us from worshipping Jesus the way that He has called us to. [5:11] So instead what we are forced to do in that type of life is one of two things you either [5:17] say you know what Christianity is not for me or maybe number two you redefine the life [5:26] of faith to fit you rather than redefining you to fit the life of faith and I think
[5:36] in our culture and in the world that we live in right now where we are I think number [5:43] two is more likely what we are going to do is see ourselves as the authority piece in [5:50] the life of discipleship so that we believe what I think is the greatest lie of the modern [5:56] era and that is we believe we can have it all. We believe that we can follow Jesus and [6:02] never sacrifice anything, never surrender anything and that my friends is going to [6:11] at best bar you from the discipleship that God has for you or at worst these next few
[6:20] verses are going to hit you in your life where you are. [6:24] So look in verse 26. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the [6:32] knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins but a fearful expectation [6:39] of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set [6:46] aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. [6:51] How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the
[7:01] blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace. For [7:07] we know him who said vengeance is mine I will repay and again the Lord will judge his people. [7:16] It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. When we talk about discipleship [7:26] and the wonderful grace of God that is for us rather than against us we don’t frequently [7:33] go into that territory because that territory is a little harder for us. This is not an [7:39] easy section of scripture for us to swallow because there are all sorts of words that
[7:43] we don’t want to hear about. There is judgment, there is sin, there is vengeance of God. So [7:53] these aren’t things that we typically focus on in the gospel but what the author of Hebrews [7:58] is laying out for us right here in this text is that if you understand that God has given [8:04] you this great pathway of forgiveness between verses 17 and 23 and then you are living this [8:10] discipleship between verses 24 and 25 where we are coming together to stir one another [8:15] up to what is love for the good works that God has marked out in the gospel for our lives
[8:21] the foundation of his word. If we are doing that then we do not have any fear of verses [8:27] 26-31 because our lives have been changed our lives have been transformed the debt [8:34] forgiven but he is quick to warn us in this section that if you experience the amazing [8:40] forgiveness of God you hear that message you say that is beautiful but there is no change [8:46] in your life there is no stirring up in your life for love there is no good works on the [8:53] horizon that change who you are then you are going to feel God’s judgment because he likens
[9:03] it to sinning deliberately. Number one this morning I want us to understand that we all [9:10] surrender our lives to something we all surrender our lives to something I think one misconception [9:18] of the gospel and the life of discipleship is that there is this great bridge in between [9:24] forgiveness and discipleship and you can camp out on that bridge in between the two for [9:30] most of your life and you are fine. There is an in between of the transformation that [9:37] gospel and faith in Jesus is going to bring into our lives and growing in his grace growing
[9:43] and following Jesus growing in obedience that there is an in between great area that you [9:49] can be in for a while in your life and you are perfectly fine you have nothing to fear [9:54] you have no judgment you have no wrath over your head there is no condemnation but this [9:59] morning I want you to understand that there is nowhere to be found in scripture. There [10:05] is only one of two possibilities you are either following Jesus or you are not following [10:10] Jesus. That is the reality that scripture poses to each and every one of us this morning
[10:17] that to walk through life with no discipleship is according to the author of Hebrews to [10:24] walk through life sinning deliberately because what we often do is we look at the section [10:31] of scripture and we say sinning deliberately. I am very moral so I am not sinning deliberately [10:38] and there is this huge list of don’ts that you will point to. I have avoided all of [10:44] these things I have been as moral as I possibly can but when you look at the context of this [10:50] passage he is not simply talking about that that is included don’t get me wrong but there
[10:57] is more to it there is the positive there is the what do you do with the gospel of [11:02] Jesus Christ in your life and if you are not entering into those types of environments [11:07] deliberately the author of Hebrews says you are sinning deliberately. So to avoid the [11:15] life of following Jesus intentionally forsaking other things sacrificing other things surrendering [11:26] your mission to his mission surrendering your identity to his identity if you are avoiding [11:33] that if you are not intentionally doing it the author of Hebrews looks to you and he
[11:38] says you are sinning deliberately because you know what to do note what he says in verse [11:46] 26 he says we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth he is [11:53] joining us directly back to verse 17 when he began this great passage of what Jesus [12:01] has done never more to be held over my head never more to be given to me as a weight [12:07] on my life this is when you look at that and it does nothing to you you just walk through [12:14] life like everyone else that hasn’t received this message you have not really had this
[12:23] kind of faith. [12:26] There was a great preacher in the 1600s his name was John Bunyan he wrote this book that [12:32] has been a best seller for really centuries called Pilgrim’s Progress and he was imprisoned [12:37] for not having a license to preach in England and while he was in prison he would literally [12:44] preach to the other prisoners and then sometimes stand in the window and preach to crowds [12:47] outside of the prison and he would constantly have as his message forgiveness of God the
[12:54] grace of God is for you all Jesus is enough he has done enough live for that grace and [13:03] some of the people who are in prison with him who are also unlicensed pastors they [13:08] would come to him and they would say John if you keep preaching this forgiveness these [13:15] people are just going to walk through life doing whatever they want John looked to them [13:22] and he said I think you have a misunderstanding if people grasp what the forgiveness of God [13:28] is they will not walk through life doing what they want they will walk through life doing
[13:31] what he wants that is the great grace of God that is the great forgiveness of God it changes [13:40] my perception of everything it changes my understanding of who I am but if I walk through [13:47] life surrendering every day to other things does that say something about my faith there [13:54] are no gray areas here you are surrendering to something whether it be possessions whether [14:04] it be a significant other in a wife husband girlfriend boyfriend whether it be money whether [14:12] it be prestige whether it be this dream job that you have had forever so you just pour
[14:18] yourself into it day in and day out and say when I have it when I finally have this thing [14:24] that I want then God can have my all then I can be a disciple what the word means to [14:29] draw out of you this morning is that that dream is your God it is a false God it is [14:39] one that has no redemption for you it says you are sinning deliberately understand that [14:53] for Hebrews 10 22 to describe what Jesus does to our lives here is what it says over [15:01] this few weeks ago let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with
[15:06] our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water look [15:13] at this great declaration of faith and the command that is in it is drawn near to God [15:19] he has reconciled you to himself through what Jesus has done he has redeemed you from your [15:25] sins he has brought you to himself he has taken all of your guilt away and we say yes [15:30] that is what I want and then he says on the other side of this it will change you this [15:39] is all one train of thought for verse 22 to be applied to your life verse 26 must be
[15:48] the joy of your heart that you will not go on sinning deliberately you will not yield [15:56] your life to the power of another other than Jesus Christ so in all of your endeavoring [16:02] and all that you do and all that you chase after Jesus will be the forefront he will [16:09] be the purpose he will be the reason and what he is saying is that is the life of faith [16:15] and there is no other there is nothing that is why the prosperity gospel is such a dangerous [16:25] heresy because what it tells us is that if you follow Jesus he will give you what you
[16:31] want what they don’t tell you is that what you want without Jesus is a devil to you [16:39] and it will ruin you Jesus will give you whatever he wants for your life he is God
[16:52] and so when we put wealth and health and all of these worldly things we forsake the glory [16:58] of heaven we forsake the glory of God for these little pitiful gods of our own making
[17:09] it will all fail you but Jesus will never fail you that is why prosperity according [17:22] to Jesus is so much better it is better than any amount of money it is better than any [17:32] success story for your dream job it is better than anything because he is the one that gives [17:37] you what is God not what you want to be God because if you go through life chasing after [17:47] a false God and in the end that is all you have and you learn that it was a false God [17:52] how much would you have wanted to know the truth of what really is God God wanted us
[18:01] to be certain so he came stood among us preached to us lived for us died for us and then rose [18:10] again from the dead for us proclaiming I am God I am here worship me follow me so there [18:17] will be no doubt in our minds as to what we should do with our lives James 1 22 the half [18:24] brother of Jesus wrote so poignantly very simply he says but be doers of the word not [18:30] hearers only deceiving yourselves here is the great reality of verse that we never [18:35] focus on we are very quick to say be doers and not hearers but that last two word phrase
[18:41] deceiving yourselves is very important for us to understand when we are willfully giving [18:45] ourselves over to a life that is not of God’s making is not of God’s planning is not of [18:50] God’s mission we will deceive ourselves and we will lie about what the life of faith is [18:55] and we will get to the point where we will lie so much to ourselves that we will not [18:59] say well I have been sinning deliberately no we will say this is the life of faith [19:04] and so you will convince yourself you are a disciple not through the word not through
[19:10] Jesus but because you are the authority you are the captain of the ship not Jesus so
[19:19] what he means to do to us in James 1 22 is for us to understand that when we put ourselves [19:24] under the authority of scripture which is the way God reveals his son Jesus to us we [19:28] put ourselves under it and we mean to make our life about following it we have truth [19:35] but when we look to what the word tells us to do when we follow some other pursuit what [19:39] we are going to do is we are going to end up deceiving ourselves and that is what the [19:44] author wants us to be saved from the word deliberately is very important there will
[19:52] be struggle but there will also be responsibility we are called to respond in faith by pointing [20:01] our lives toward Jesus and the lives of others toward Jesus and it will take intentionality [20:08] it will take effort the gospel is opposed to earning we learned last week but is not [20:14] opposed to effort the truth is that you will struggle with sin and you will not be able [20:22] to live but the key is our motivation our focus our strategy is to fight sin and to [20:31] live for Jesus but you must take responsibility of exercising your faith so that it will impact
[20:37] your life number 2 this morning God warns us that surrender must change us God warns [20:46] us that surrender must change us the change of the gospel is not negotiable it is not [20:54] something you can reason your way out of but I think we often do and I think that is what [20:59] is so detrimental about our lives is that we speak messages into our lives every single [21:06] day your thoughts command your life because you are the longest winded preacher in your [21:16] life you can’t shut yourself up you are going to hear it over and over again you
[21:20] lay in bed at night hear yourself over and over again telling you what you should do [21:24] what you shouldn’t do what should go on in your life and what is going to happen in your [21:28] life when you are following Jesus is there is this turmoil as to what God will I follow [21:32] today what message will I obey today what will I surrender my life to today and when [21:41] God gives us the truth through Jesus he gives us the greatest message and the greatest [21:45] life we should ever live that is if we have faith in him if we note in verse beginning
[21:53] in verse 28 he begins to go a little over our heads in his reasoning because he starts [22:01] talking about the law of Moses he talks about the blood of the covenant and we start looking [22:05] at that and we are like somebody go get me a thesaurus I need a theologian I have no [22:10] idea what he is talking about but here is what he is saying here is how we can understand [22:14] this what he is saying is that in the old testament when the law was hanging over our [22:19] heads condemning us there were ways in which if we had two or three witnesses against us
[22:26] as to breaking certain laws that God had let out for us that was enough for us to be executed [22:32] that was enough for us to be killed what the author is saying is if you take that into [22:38] consideration how much more serious do you think God will take profaning his own son [22:47] how much more seriously do you think God takes it when we disobey his son and what [22:55] we are supposed to do in our minds is say wow that is more serious is that we disobey [23:01] God the son Jesus and what he has set out for us and what he has said faith is and
[23:06] what he has said we should follow and we begin to renegotiate that faith under our [23:11] own making under our own rules under what we want rather than what he wants how serious [23:16] do you think God will take that and his message is God will take it very seriously we are [23:23] to understand that if your faith doesn’t bring you to a place where you move to obey whatever [23:28] he calls you to do then you are redefining the gospel by your standards and that is what [23:37] the son of God is trying to make it meaningless you cannot redefine anything that God puts
[23:46] before you specifically through the son whom he loves so much and if you do that you are [23:52] doing a great injustice to the gospel and you are doing a great injustice to yourself [23:58] and he is saying is in verse 27 then in verse 29 and 28 he is saying that if you do that [24:05] then you are still under judgment you have not been redeemed by Jesus if you are following [24:16] lives faith sacrifices who we are for who Jesus is it is an outrage to God for us to [24:27] look at this magnificent work that he has done in the gospel and attempt to remake
[24:32] it because we have a lack of commitment to the things of God but we don’t want to admit [24:39] it so we just remake it but look in Luke 9 the words of Jesus he said to all if anyone [24:47] would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me for [24:53] whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save [24:59] it these are the words of Jesus himself the one who will save us the one who goes from [25:08] there to the cross the one who goes from there to rise from the dead to give us a new life
[25:12] and what he is saying is that if you desire to follow me you have to understand what I [25:18] am here to do in the first place who would take up a cross Jesus who would ultimately [25:26] deny himself Jesus and he looks to us and he is saying apart from understanding what [25:34] the consequences of your sin life under your definition is sinful if you don’t grasp that [25:43] if you don’t understand the change that is needed in your life then the gospel is meaningless [25:48] to you it is hopeless hope is not salvation it is not salvation it is not salvation it
[25:56] is not salvation then you hope is salvation then Jesus for all of life if you are seeking [26:07] to save your standard of living you will lose your life but if you will give up if [26:14] you will surrender to Jesus you will save it it doesn’t get much clearer than that [26:26] but what you are tempted to do is to look at that and begin to say well that can’t [26:32] really mean what it seems to mean what else does it mean I think Jesus was probably intelligent [26:43] enough to get his point across without us being the filter through which it is interpreted
[26:50] it is literally exchanging our life for his life our hope for his hope my standard for [27:03] his standard my values for his values my sin for his righteousness that is the exchange [27:12] that takes place it is holistic it is all in it is all encompassing it is all about Jesus [27:19] that is the hope of salvation that is the definition of faith in Luke chapter 6 verse [27:25] 40 Jesus again warns us that when we do believe in him then discipleship is becoming like [27:35] him it is becoming who he is that means that we are pointing everything and everyone to
[27:44] him we must not deceive ourselves into thinking that love is simply attempting to be nice [27:51] like Jesus we can’t define discipleship as just walking through life being nice to ourselves [27:59] being nice to everyone feeling good about whatever situation I am in feeling good about [28:05] whatever situation everybody else is in because Jesus is the greatest motivational speaker [28:09] of all time no the definition that the gospel gives to love is that it moves us to change [28:19] everything to be with Jesus to be alongside him on mission in this world living to point
[28:26] everything and everyone towards Jesus and that will take a radical shifting in yourself [28:32] and an admittance within yourself that you don’t have all the answers that you weren’t [28:40] born good therefore you need change you need new hope you need a new standard of living [28:50] and Jesus means to give us that we point ourselves and everyone else towards him and without [28:57] that we do not have love we do not have the gospel we have nothing if we hope to just [29:05] have these small tokens of love throughout life of kindness and niceties without the
[29:13] gut wrenching truth that the gospel commands us to surrender to who God really is then [29:19] we have lost all the hope of the gospel and all that we have is what we have right now [29:25] which is no hope at all thirdly this morning I must grasp that it is a fearful thing to [29:36] have false faith it is a fearful thing look down in verses 29 through 31 how much worse [29:51] punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the son of God [29:58] has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the
[30:04] spirit of grace have you ever thought about grace in that light you can outrage the spirit [30:12] of grace it seems to somewhat begin to redefine what we think about grace in one sense one [30:19] of the attributes of grace is that if it is untrue it is not grace therefore the one [30:24] who possesses grace is outraged when you redefine it you do not have that authority you cannot [30:32] do that in verse 30 for we know him who said vengeance is mine I will repay and again the [30:41] Lord will judge his people then in verse 31 an important text for us to understand the
[30:49] wholeness and fullness of the gospel when we understand every facet that the gospel [30:54] has for us he gives us this phrase this warning he says it is a fearful thing to fall into [31:00] the hands of the living God fearful thing we tend to think about care bears my little [31:11] pony that is God chubby angels and the angel of the Lord the angel of the Lord the angel [31:19] and I say that in chess but I also say that in what a false faith we often have about [31:26] what it is and who it is that God is when this text tells us it is a fearful thing
[31:33] to fall into the hands of the living God he is talking about the God who is Jesus he [31:38] is talking about the one who died on the cross for us he is talking about the resurrected [31:42] savior who stands right now interceding for our behalf and he is saying if you trample [31:48] him under your feet if you profane his gospel if you do not fall under his lordship if [31:55] you do not surrender absolutely every facet of your life he will be terrifying to you
[32:10] this God sacrificed absolutely everything to forgive you of your sins he is still the
[32:22] God there are two senses as to where this is true for each and every one of us it is [32:26] a fearful thing to fall into his hands through faith I will explain to you why because I [32:31] think faith is frightening is it not is it not frightening to look at the life you have [32:37] been living and say I cannot do this anymore I need repentance I need change I need to [32:45] be obedient to this God he offers me forgiveness he offers me grace he offers me every advantage [32:52] that I could ever need not just for this world but for eternity and I look at that and I
[32:58] begin to turn my life and am I going to struggle with my sin absolutely am I going to struggle [33:03] with my allegiance absolutely but the forefront of my concerns is to fight that sin the forefront [33:07] of my concerns is to be united with him in faith and I fight it but when I turn from [33:12] what I have known my life to be all about what I have defined myself by the authority [33:17] that I have been under to live a new mission that is terrifying and I don’t want to take [33:21] that out of this no one wants to admit they have been doing it wrong for decades do you
[33:28] it is like you know you talk to somebody that is ten it is going to be a little different [33:32] than talking to someone that is sixty a ten year old is full of regret you can convince [33:37] them to do anything you have been doing it wrong how should I do it then and they will [33:43] do it but after a few decades you begin to have a few more false allegiances in your [33:50] life that you don’t want to let go of that you don’t want to admit you are wrong about [33:55] and so by the time you reach adulthood you have got such an ironclad grip on your definition
[34:01] of life that even the word of God confronting you is hard to make you let go and that is [34:09] fearful and so that faith that just lets go and says I will do whatever God wants it is [34:19] glorious but that moment that moment is terrifying as it is not but then secondly there is the [34:32] fear that rather than experiencing fear temporarily rather than embracing that fearful moment [34:43] of risk where you go all in on the truth of Jesus you embrace fear for eternity you never [34:53] experience the joy of Jesus you never experience the fruit of faith the fruit of what Jesus
[35:00] wants to do for your life but you will experience it forever because you will fall under his [35:06] red hot wrath his judgment his vengeance my fear is not necessarily in this culture I [35:23] do have a fear for those of you that will simply deny the gospel you will simply blaspheme [35:30] the name of Jesus and walk away I do have fear for you for the majority of people right [35:35] here right now in our day my fear is not simply to turn from the gospel and outright deny [35:39] it my fear is that you will come to this place of religion this place of the name of Jesus
[35:46] and you will exhibit just enough religious activity to comfort your guilty conscience [35:52] for a little while while surrendering your practical life to yourself as God doing whatever [36:00] you want and in that you will have the gods of comfort and leisure in this world and [36:06] be totally inoculated to the truth of the gospel forever you will hear the gospel it [36:11] will never have any effect on you maybe you will even sit in a crowd give me a nod every [36:17] once in a while I appreciate those it lets me know you are awake at least but my fear
[36:25] is that you will be able to do that and you will sit and you will hear the words of the [36:29] gospel you will hear the knowledge of the gospel but it will have so little impact [36:35] on your life that you will never have faith in the gospel you will have a false faith [36:40] that is the tragedy of the 21st century and the false gospels that we hear so often you [36:50] may be able to tell me all about Jesus and even the facts of the gospel but the question [36:59] this morning is how is it changing your life that is the tragedy so much information about
[37:11] him and so little worship of him I do not believe that the gospel is the only thing [37:20] you can lie to yourself or me God wants you to be honest about where you are so that [37:30] he can save you how is it shaping how is the truth of who Jesus is what he has done [37:37] for you is great forgiveness how is it shaping who you are this is where we often stumble [37:48] if you are honest enough this morning to ask yourself if it is shaping your life you [37:53] may find what real faith is there are times when you will I mean you can talk to a scholar
[38:04] of the bible you can say how is the gospel changed recently and they begin to stumble
[38:16] I do not want to stumble I want to be changed by the gospel faith is finding the God who [38:26] can be trusted enough to give him everything and live solely for what he wants and then [38:31] in the end finding great reward this is what we have in Jesus everything else is ultimately [38:39] trivial close this morning in John 6 there is an interesting story about Jesus and John [38:46] 6 we find him in a place where John records that he has far more than 12 disciples he [38:53] has dozens of people following some people think it was even hundreds of people following
[38:58] him because Jesus could command a crowd with his speaking with his wisdom and with his [39:04] knowledge of the book that he wrote the bible and in John 6 Jesus gives an analogy of living [39:13] life fully for him he says whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal [39:19] life and I will raise him up on the last day for my flesh is true food my blood is true [39:25] drink whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the [39:30] living father sent me and I live because of the father and so whoever feeds on me he also
[39:37] will live because of me and we look at that and we say I understand why people could have [39:43] been confused by some of what Jesus said that is weird but I don’t think that the [39:50] people that were following him that day would have been confused by what he said because [39:53] he sums up a great deal of what the book of Ezekiel said about him then in verse 60 those [40:03] same disciples that were following him says that when the disciples heard it they said [40:08] this is a hard teaching who can listen to it see what they are stumbling over is that
[40:17] he is saying he is God what they are stumbling over is the reality that what he is saying [40:23] is that you have to find all of your life in me feed on me and another place in John [40:29] 15 he says abide in me and I will abide in you he says you find your source of existence [40:35] your identity your authority you find everything in who Jesus is that is what he is commanding [40:40] them to and then Jesus responds in verse 63 he says it is the spirit who gives life the [40:47] flesh is no help at all the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life but there
[40:52] are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who [40:59] did not believe and who it was who would betray him and he said this is why I told you that [41:03] no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the father he is saying it is going [41:08] to take supernatural faith for you to believe me it changes everything and I do not want [41:18] the next verse to be true of any of you but it will be if you do not surrender your life [41:27] to Jesus after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him
[41:41] here is what I want you to grasp some of them were called disciples they had been [41:53] physically following the God who created the universe they had been close enough to [41:58] hear his voice they had been close enough to shake his hand they had been close enough [42:03] to sleep near him they had been close enough they are in the presence of the almighty [42:08] God he is there he is loving them he is preaching to them and when he confronts them with his [42:14] identity and what it is going to cause in their life they walk away they are not going
[42:23] to be able to hear him I do not want you to hear the gospel thousands of times in your [42:29] life and never really have faith in Jesus turns around and he said to the twelve do [42:44] you want to go away as well Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go I do not want [42:53] you to go away you have the words of eternal life and we have believed I have come to [42:59] know you that you are the holy one of God here is a beautiful thing about that statement [43:05] Peter does not look to Jesus and say I have all the answers Peter does not look to Jesus
[43:13] and say it all makes sense to me you find out later little of it makes sense to that [43:17] guy he does not look to Jesus and say here is what everything you just said means specifically [43:29] he looks to him and says Jesus I do not know where else to go because none of it is as [43:39] good as you none of it gives me what you give me so I am staying because you are God and
[43:51] you are God Peter had lived without Jesus but now he had lived with Jesus and what [43:59] it caused in his life was real faith caused him to believe God looks to you this morning [44:08] and says find your life in me find your hope in me surrender your life to me and you will [44:17] find your hope in me you have two options you can walk away or you can look at him [44:26] and say where else would I go but in your presence is your faith real have you surrendered [44:36] your life those who have nowhere else to go surrender all as the band comes up this morning
[44:48] I want us to spend time reflecting on Jesus spend time reflecting on what he has done [44:56] for us who he is for us because he gives us great analogy he says that my flesh needs [45:02] to be consumed by you need to feed off of me my blood is your drink and then he goes [45:07] to the cross and he shows them what that really means it means that he wants us to take his [45:13] life into our own and then give our life over to him and that is why communion is [45:19] such a great analogy for the gospel because it represents in the cup the shed blood of
[45:24] Jesus and the plate represents the broken body of Jesus and when we take it into ourselves [45:29] what we are doing is we are saying Jesus I need you Jesus changed me Jesus continue [45:38] to give me that type of faith that you said only comes from the father and I will give [45:44] you my all this morning as you come I invite all followers of Jesus if you trusted in him [45:51] if you had faith in him there are six tables in this room that are wide open for you in [45:56] just a moment and I want you to come proclaiming the gospel of Jesus that you believe if you
[46:07] have been in the word this morning it has hit you pretty hard I understand that it [46:12] is a hard word Jesus never said it was not what I want to do is I want to invite you [46:21] to what is real faith I want to invite you to trust in Jesus I literally want to invite [46:28] you to surrender your life to him surrender means to yield your life to something else
[46:39] there is only one that is worth it Jesus this morning trust him and he will say when [46:50] you are ready he will come