The Gospel of John: The Reward of What's Hard (John 6 59-71) Myles Holmes | May 25, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, you can open them up to John chapter 6, verses 59 to 71.

John 6:59–71

And if you don't have a Bible, our ushers are making their way down the aisles, you can flag them down, and they would love to get a copy into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

I don't know if I was ever prouder of an accomplishment of my hands than I was this past week when, with some help, I built a massive playset for my kids.

It had everything.

It had a climbing wall, it has monkey bars, it has a tube slide, even has the little tree house.

It was a full-on backyard kingdom, and I found myself looking at this, just so proud.

Flash forward, I kid you not, three hours later, and every one of my kids had injured themselves on it.

My oldest had gouged her back on the slide.

My middle was booted at the bottom of the slide into a pile of wood.

So the story goes and has a giant scrape.

And my youngest was suffering a slightly bruised elbow, which, if in youngest terms, means it was equivalent to amputation at that point.

I looked in my living room, pride still welling in my heart, and it was like the beginning of a disaster movie.

People were holding on to random limbs, walking around without purpose, having survived the backyard apocalypse of 2025.

We had just cut the ribbon, and I found myself hours later turning to my wife and asking, did we make a giant mistake?

Did I create a torture device in the backyard?

She looked at me and smiled and said, These profoundly wise words, kids need risky play, to which we can say, Amen.

Let's bring that back, right?

Let's bring that back.

Risky play.

If you are my age or older, you know this.

By the time you were seven, you had broken bones, you had eaten dirt, you had flown off your bike.

The fact that you're even alive today can be explained with nothing else other than divine intervention.

God had your back.

Research shows it too.

Growing body of evidence shows that play that involves a safe level of risk, whether it's climbing or falling, or just children pushing limits actually helps them grow.

So that one developmental psychologist, Dr.

Mariana Brussoni, she says this children who engage in age-appropriate, risky play are more likely to develop confidence, motor skills, and emotional resilience.

In other words, if you never face what is risky or uncomfortable, you will not be strong enough for what's ahead.

We need what's hard.

We grow through what's hard.

And in John chapter 6 this morning, Jesus is telling us that needing what's hard is not only true for kids, it's all the more true for Christians.

John 6 · chapter mention

And so we're going to read it this morning together.

Why don't you stand with me?

John chapter 6, verses 59 to 71.

John 6:59–71

And as we find ourselves in front of God's word, I'd love to just ask you in this moment, what's filling your heart right now?

Often it's distraction, often it's thinking about that thing we have this coming week.

And I would just ask you what your heart should be filled with as you stand before the word of God who created the world.

It's his word we turn to now, it's his word we read beginning in verse 59.

Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?

But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this?

Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

It is the Spirit who gives life.

The flesh is no help at all.

The words that I have spoken to you are flesh and life, but there are some of you who do not believe.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, who it was who would betray him.

And he said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.

After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?

Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.

Jesus answered them.

And yet one of you is the devil.

He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he was one of the twelve.

He, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

You can grab your seat.

This passage that we just read is perhaps one of the most sobering moments in Jesus' ministry.

He had just finished a long conversation about being the bread of life, and during his time in Capernaum, he had amassed thousands and thousands of followers.

People who, even the writer, the Apostle John, is willing to call these people disciples in verse 60.

They had followed Jesus, but they were about to conclude their time with Jesus, not with something that was light and easy.

Jesus wouldn't take this conversation that they had and neatly tie a ribbon on it.

Instead, he would press them deeper with words that would become to these people deeply unsettling.

He had already spoken about in previous verses of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

But here he presses in deeper, and as a result, we'll find in verse 66 that thousands turn their back to Jesus.

Thousands walk away, but twelve stay.

That many hear of Jesus, many hear the gospel hope of Jesus Christ crucified and raised for our life, but more turn away than will stay.

And our question this morning is what causes those who stay, what causes the twelve out of thousands to endure?

I want you to know it's not because it would get easier, in fact, it would get harder.

It's not because these twelve were anything particularly special, they weren't particularly strong in and of themselves.

In fact, it's quite the opposite in many ways.

It's because these twelve would learn to embrace what is hard.

It's because they understood that even though the path of discipleship that Jesus was calling them to was hard, they had nowhere else to go.

Jesus has the words of eternal life.

Now, here then is what I want you to take away for your own life this morning.

That Christianity that endures embraces what is hard.

Christianity that endures embraces what is hard.

We know this to be true: that following Jesus is not a smooth path.

It's not a padded hallway.

The life of discipleship with Jesus has no bumpers.

His words unsettle us.

His truth constantly presses up against us and convicts us to change.

His words confront us.

They confront the things that we love.

They confront the way that we live.

If we're gonna follow Jesus, it requires that we become comfortable in what is uncomfortable.

Now, at the very outset, I want you to understand that you and I are, we're in rough waters here.

We live in a culture that is more obsessed with comfort than ever.

We're addicted to comfort.

We're drawn to ease.

We expect things to be frictionless, we expect things to be fast.

You ever looked at your phone?

You know, and you don't you're not on LTE or 5G or whichever one's the fastest.

I've locked track over time, but whatever I look at, I'm just not happy with it.

It's not fast enough.

We want things faster, we want things easier, and I want you to understand this is what terrifies me about our mission as a church to not only abide in Christ, not only connect into the church, but reach the lost.

I found myself weeks ago driving through Newmarket, just hit with this reality of how hard it will be to reach this city with the gospel for this reason.

The gospel is not easy, and we are a culture that loves easy.

Because everything's so easy, the call will be all the more hard.

It's not only out there though.

I mean, I look at my own life, and if we can just be honest for a moment, we don't like hard.

We don't.

We love comfort.

And yet every time we look at the areas of our lives in which we have grown the most, can't we say that it was at a time where we were pressed to lean into something that was uncomfortable?

So, loved ones, this morning, we don't have to dress up the call that Christ gives us.

We don't have to pretend that it's something it's not.

We want to stand face to face with the reality that Jesus here is talking to a group of 12 disciples that he has already told some immensely hard things.

He said to these disciples, leave your nets, leave your careers, leave your home, leave your comforts.

He said to them, take up your cross, take up your instrument of torturous death.

He said to them, forgive those who wrong you, love your enemies, rejoice in suffering.

And if you and I come here and we think that the the founder of our faith, Jesus Christ himself, would say this to this group of disciples, and not us, you and I are delusional.

We have made Christianity something that isn't it is not.

From the very outset, it was hard and uncomfortable.

And this morning, Jesus draws us in with these very same words.

He calls us to confront bitterness in our lives, to confess sin when it feels like the right thing to do is just to protect our image, to speak truth, even though it might cost job security, to stay in the difficult marriage, to walk through grief and not around it.

Jesus is calling us this morning to difficult things, to hard things, but to things that lead to life.

I want you to see that this morning, which brings us to our first point.

I want you to notice first in this text that Christianity doesn't thrive on what's easy but on what's uncomfortable.

Christianity doesn't thrive on what's easy, but on what's uncomfortable.

Here in this passage, Jesus is confronting us with truth, and he wants us to understand that the truth he confronts us with is hard truth.

Notice what this truth does.

Notice in verse 60, put your eyes on the text with me.

Notice here that John tells us many of his disciples heard it, they heard it with their ears, and they said, This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?

The listening part is easy.

The disciples that John's talking about here came to understand that the responding part is hard.

Embracing the core tenets of Christianity is difficult.

I want you to notice that these are, though, though they are called disciples, these are not the twelve.

John is making a distinction here.

He's telling us this: there are disciples, and then there are disciples.

There are the crowds, and then there are the 12 disciples closest to Jesus' side.

Which tells us this that you and I, listen, this is scary.

You and I, at the most surface-level sense, can be disciples.

We can associate with the crowd that is following Jesus.

We can be here this morning hearing his teaching, even being engaged by his teaching, even being interested or inspired by the word of God, but that doesn't mean that you have embraced him.

The question is, what do you do with the truth when you leave?

Not just that you've heard it, do you listen to it?

Do you respond to it?

These disciples, having followed Jesus for so many days, having listened to the teaching at the synagogue, came to understand this that you cannot cherry-pick how you follow him.

A true disciple is confronted by the full weight of Jesus' words.

This is why whenever I sit down with someone who is considering Christianity and they're trying to figure out what it would look like if they were to follow Jesus.

And you know, they start asking questions like this.

Well, listen, if you know, if I'm if I'm gonna follow Jesus and I do I then need to leave my boyfriend, you know, am I not able to live with him?

I know immediately at that point that they have not got it.

Why?

Because if you are ready to respond to Jesus, you're saying, here's all of my life, Lord, for all of life.

Whatever you bring up, I'm gonna deal with because I'm no longer the Lord of my life, you are.

You are now listening that is hard.

That is hard.

If in this moment right now you're saying, yeah, no, it's easy, it's so easy for me.

I want you to understand that there is probably some spiritual ignorance in your life where you just don't hear the things that God is calling you to.

Because following Jesus is hard.

His word constantly confronts us, it constantly conflicts with our own ideas, the desires of our heart.

That is why, in such honesty, we could relate to these so-called disciples in verse 60 who say this this is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it?

Now, John is giving us a massive clue to what's going on here.

The Greek word here for a saying in the original language is the word lagos.

And it's really the word that all of the gospel of John was founded on.

I love it.

I got one fan in the room who's just cheering, like, get into it, pastor, preach, preach, preach.

I love it.

I know all of you are saying it on the inside, and I thank that baby for saying it on the outside.

The Greek word here is logos, the same that John opened the whole gospel, founded the whole gospel on in John 1, when he said, in the beginning was the word, the Lagos, and the Lagos was God, and the log, the Lagos was with God, and the Lagos was God.

And what John wants us to understand here is that when God's word confronts us and it is difficult, it's not just a line from a sermon that we are disagreeing with.

It's not just a metaphor that we aren't understanding, it is Jesus Christ Himself.

The one, the Lagos, who can give life.

And so understand here the context of what's happening.

These disciples in verse 60 are not just like having trouble understanding a line from the sermon, having trouble understanding the metaphor of eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood.

They are outrightly rejecting Jesus himself.

They are offended by the word, by the Lagos, the one who was with God, the one who is God.

Now, this is what I love about Jesus, and if you followed Jesus for some time, you know this about him that when things get difficult, he doesn't often let his foot off the gas.

He presses into it deeper, knowing that that's where true transformation lies.

And so look at verse 61.

Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this?

He knows they're grumbling.

He hears their pushback and instead of explaining it away, I mean, that is 100%, you know.

Any of you guys love conflict?

I mean, if you love conflict, you lean into a moment like this, but don't most of us were like, okay, sorry I said that, let me back, let me just rephrase this a little bit, you know, oh, the weather looks nice outside today.

That is not what Jesus does.

Jesus hears them grumbling and he presses his finger right into the heart of the things that confront us.

Says in verse 62, then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

In other words, what Jesus is saying is this if you're offended now, just wait.

Jesus looks to this crowd and says, Listen, you haven't seen anything yet.

And it is going to be a lot more convenient for me if you will just turn your back and leave now than it will be when I am lifted up on the cross and you realize that my ascension will come through suffering, that I will receive a crown, not by being coronated as your king, but as but by dying on a cross and being crucified.

Jesus here is not just talking about his return to heaven.

He's pointing forward to the cross.

He's pointing forward to the point where he will be lifted up in shame.

And you know what you and I just sang the last song before I got up to preach, I was thinking about this.

The bridge were singing, Jesus crucified, raised to life.

Jesus, lift him high, lift him high.

I want you to understand that a first century Jew would be so uncomfortable with those words.

Lift him high.

These were the people that just wanted to put a crown on Jesus.

They wanted him to be a political ruler.

They had an idea of who they wanted Jesus to be, and crucified was not it.

If they couldn't stomach his words now, how will they handle watching their Messiah bleed and die?

And this is really the heart of the gospel.

This is the heart of what unites us together even this morning.

Is that eternal life comes not through the strength of Jesus Christ, but through his sacrifice, that the Son of God would be broken and pierced by man so that sinners could be made whole.

Jesus is saying this.

If you think this teaching is hard, what will you do when you see how far I'm willing to go for your salvation?

So notice then, loved one.

When Jesus works in your life, he is unwilling to lower the bar of truth.

He will not do that.

Instead, he will press you to not only what is uncomfortable, he will press you to what often feels impossible in the flesh, so that you will depend entirely on the Holy Spirit who makes it possible.

And that is exactly what he gets at in verse 63.

I love verse 63.

You and I should want to do verse 63 things.

Look at verse 63 with me.

Get your eyes on the text here.

It is the Spirit who gives life.

The flesh is no help at all.

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit in life.

That's why if the first step in your discipleship, or what maybe you're a you know, you've been a Christian for many years now, maybe it's the next step in your discipleship.

If the first step or the next step is hard, if it feels like an impossible mountain to climb, maybe God is calling you to confront something in your own heart that is just hard to deal with.

You don't know if you can overcome this sin.

Maybe he's calling you to serve in a ministry position where you just feel like maybe you're too busy, you don't know how you'll balance everything.

I want you to understand that you are in a good spot.

If it feels like you have an impossible mountain to climb that is the path of your discipleship, then you will turn to no one else.

Other than the one who has been up the mountain and came back to help you up.

It is at that moment that you will depend on Jesus.

And what the problem is, is that so many of us only want to deal in the comfortable.

We only want to deal with what we can really handle.

So I loved it then when I met with a man in our church who many you all know, you you and you respect him.

I won't say who he is, but I asked him to consider leading a small group, and his first immediate response was, absolutely not.

I'm never gonna do that.

You picked the wrong guy, I don't know what you're thinking.

And I said, Okay, well, let's sit down and talk about it, let's think about this for a while.

And when I sat down to him, he said to me these words, something like this.

He said, I know this is hard, I know it's uncomfortable, which is exactly why I need to do it.

And I want to tell you that that man and his wife are in a position where they are primed for growth because they are willing to embrace what is going to be hard.

They are willing to position themselves in a place where they just say, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, I don't know how, if I have the resources, but I've got enough faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to say that if I can just cling on to them, maybe this will go okay.

And my question for you, loved one, is this Are you putting yourself in that position?

It's verse 63 in action.

Are you in a position right now when where if you look at your flesh, you are like, there is absolutely no way?

Listen, you can make Christianity really manageable.

You can make it a form of it livable so that you can do it in your own flesh.

But man, Christ will always call you deeper.

Christ will call you to the next step to embrace what is uncomfortable, to embrace what is hard, so that you are in a spot where Christianity thrives.

Now I want to clarify this here.

Verse 63 isn't saying grit through it.

In fact, it's saying quite the opposite.

It's saying, it's talking about grace.

It's saying that you can't do it in your flesh.

I love what Jesus says.

Your flesh is no help at all.

It's like he could have just said no help.

He really wanted to grind us in the mud.

It's no help at all.

You think you can do this?

It's laughable.

But the spirit gives life.

The spirit awakens your heart and carries you to a place and a position where you don't have the strength to face what you must face.

Jesus calls us to what's uncomfortable.

He calls us to what's impossible.

Constantly, you and I, if we are really honest with ourselves this morning, we find ourselves asking Jesus just to lower the bar a little bit, don't we?

Like, Jesus, would you make this a little bit easier?

You're in a fight with your spouse.

Is this gonna land for you guys, or you guys maybe never get in fights?

I don't know.

So maybe I'll just say you know, say I was in a fight with my spouse.

You feel the Holy Spirit convicting you.

Apologize.

Be the first to apologize.

What do you do?

Well, you know, you sugarcoat it in maturity.

Well, you know, you know, God, I gotta let them grow too.

So maybe I should give them the, you know, the experience.

And you want Jesus to say, you know, you know what, you're right, let's just give them a week to cool off, this will settle down, and then we'll deal it.

But instead, he says, forgive, be the first to love, do not let the sun go down on your anger.

He's unwilling to lower the bar.

What about when you see someone post something infuriating online?

And you feel this like Holy Spirit conviction, I am gonna be the first one to change someone's mind with this passive aggressive comment I'm about to post.

Right?

Other people's passive aggressive comments don't work, but if we can be honest, yours does, right?

You want Jesus to say, go ahead, fire it off in my name.

But instead, he says, Bless those who curse you, turn the other cheek, let no unwholesome talk come from your mouth.

You're budgeting.

It's tax season, the tax return has just come in.

And you feel that nudge towards generosity, you feel that nudge towards trusting God with your money, you feel that nudge towards sacrificial giving, that you feel the strength almost to embrace the belief that it's more blessed to give than it is receive, but you're also seeing the economy.

And so you're with Jesus and you pull up your PowerPoint.

And you say, Jesus, have you seen inflation this year?

Have you seen the price of groceries this year?

And you want Jesus to sort of look at your PowerPoint that's so beautiful and say, you know what, yeah, you're right.

Let's just take a year off sacrificial giving.

That was a great value, you know, for 2,000 years in the church.

Let's just take this year off, okay?

It's 2025.

Instead, he says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And so what I want you to understand here is that when Jesus works in your life, he does not adjust truth and lower the bar to meet your preferences and to make you comfortable.

He calls you to lift your eyes and to trust his words that are spirit and life, even when it's hard.

And so, listen, at some level, everybody can do something that's hard.

We can all do it.

But here, Jesus in verse 64 oppresses deeper to the real question behind doing what is hard.

We can do what's hard.

The question is, do you believe that the hard thing you're doing is worth it?

And so notice what Jesus looks at this crowd, and as he assesses their problem, he says, But there are some of you who do not believe.

The issue isn't willpower.

The issue isn't grit.

The issue in our lives is belief.

These disciples, in other words, didn't walk away because they ran out of strength.

They walked away because they didn't believe that what Jesus was telling them was true.

It brings us to our second point, that Christianity doesn't feed on what's popular, but on what is true.

Not only is the truth that Jesus hands us when we come to him in faith hard truth, I want you to understand that it's an unpopular truth.

Jesus here is moving from what is hard to why it is hard.

He looks at the crowd, many of them who have been following him for some time now, and he names the real issue.

There are some of you who do not believe.

He tells them exactly why they won't endure.

Exactly why in two verses in verse 66, they're gonna turn their back on him.

The root problem is not just that they're tired.

It's not that the message is too confusing.

At the very heart, their problem is that they do not believe.

The root problem is always unbelief.

We can come up with all kinds of reasons why we won't do the things that Jesus is calling us to do.

I'm too tired, I don't have the time right now, I'm not qualified, it just doesn't feel like me.

But Jesus looks deeper and says, it's not about time, it's not about your ability, it's not about your personality.

The reason is right here, you do not believe.

That's why many turn back.

Because the offer that the world makes, it seems safer, it seems easier, it seems more immediate, but it just isn't true.

And the ones who endure will be the ones who see that beyond the hard call of Jesus Christ lies life.

That there is an easy path, a wide path that leads to destruction, but there is a narrow path, a hard path that leads to life.

And so we stop here to be confronted by a helpful quote by J.D.

Greer.

Look what he says.

He says, Christianity makes for a terrible hobby.

It's inconvenient, costly, and cumbersome.

If you are going to walk with God, the only enjoyable way is to go all the way.

It's a terrible hobby.

He's right, isn't it?

Because at its core, Christianity will cost your life.

And if it is just something that is sprinkled into your life, if it's just sort of something that you kind of try to plan around, it's always going to be annoying every time you show up to church on Sunday, and we're asking you to give your time to serve the kingdom of Christ.

It's always asking you to take a step deeper, to tighten up the commitment to his kingdom.

And if you're trying to keep it as a hobby in your life, I just want you to understand it will be an annoying, expensive, time-consuming hobby.

Because Jesus will keep getting in your way.

Jesus will call you over and over and over again to things that if this is just a piece of your life will be incredibly annoying.

If you're not all in, Christianity won't just be hard.

It's gonna be exhausting.

Now, Jesus, knowing all of this, he doesn't chase the crowd.

I love this about Jesus.

He does not pivot the message to try to like keep them.

There's nothing seeker-sensitive about Jesus right now.

It's quite the opposite.

Instead, he turns to the twelve.

And with one of the most piercing questions in all scripture, he says this in verse 67 Do you want to go away as well?

Can you imagine in that moment?

Like can you just imagine what the scene looks like as Jesus is facing his twelve disciples?

And the backdrop of this question is thousands of people leaving Jesus, scoffing at him, jeering at the idea that they would give their life, that they would consume the bread of life that is Jesus Christ.

Jesus looks at his disciples.

He looks at us this morning.

He says, This, you've heard the hard teaching, you've seen the others leave.

Now you have a decision to make.

And Peter, with one of the most honest and beautiful confessions in all the gospel, shows us the only power that will cause us to stay.

Look what he says in verse 68 and 69.

Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.

The very same thing that caused these so-called disciples to leave the only source of eternal life that is Jesus Christ, is the thing that causes Peter and the 12 to press in.

There is nowhere else to go.

And loved one, in a moment of clarity, can I just ask you?

Where else can you go for life?

Where else can you turn to for the forgiveness of sins?

Where else can you turn to to be made whole?

The paradox of our lives is that we spend so much time trying to find life.

We spend so much of our time drinking from wells that just hold no water.

We we scroll TikTok and Instagram hoping for a distraction from the hardness, the suffering of life.

We pour ourselves into our careers hoping that if we just climb the ladder and squeeze them for just a bit more money, a little bit more status, maybe we'll get something out of it.

We chase after a better body, a better house, a better family, a better reputation.

And we get these things, but we just find every time we get there, they're dry.

And we believe still, even this past week, if we're honest, we can look back on our life and say that we've believed that there is life found somewhere other than in the name of Jesus Christ.

And so we ask ourselves, who else do we have?

Where else can we run to for eternal life?

Now listen, until deep inside of our hearts we are convinced that there is no other source, that Jesus alone has what we're looking for us.

Christianity just won't work.

It won't work in your life.

Until you can say with Peter, Jesus, I am here every morning falling flat on your face, saying, Jesus, I am here because there's nowhere else to go.

I'm not here just for a helpful motivation for the day.

I'm not here so that you can give me something I want.

I'm here because I want you, and there is nothing else.

Until that is the cry of our hearts.

Christianity just will not work for us.

It will only be a duty, it will only be a religion, it will only be something that we add to our lives that makes it more inconvenient.

This is what Christianity is.

It is total surrender.

It is the confession that I need a savior, that I cannot do it myself, that Jesus needs to do all of it.

It is this total surrender, it is the adrenaline of dependence surging through your veins, causing you to hold on daily, hourly, minute, minute by minute to Jesus Christ, saying, I have nowhere else to go.

Have you held on to Christ like that?

Have you trusted in him like that before?

If you've done that before, does your life reflect that?

Does your life reflect this spiritual adrenaline that surges through you that causes you to hold on to Jesus with everything that is within you?

And I cannot help but to think that the reason why Christianity is so weak in our nation, the reason why we have so much trouble reaching the lost is because we have made Christianity so manageable.

And we have poured out our time and effort pursuing things that, as the world watches us, says, you're just like us.

You you believe that your career is going to satisfy you.

Even though you go to church on Sunday, there's nothing more there.

There's more, no depth.

You believe your marriage will fulfill, you believe that comfort is king.

And I just cannot help but imagine what would happen in a church when it's captivated with what seems like this impossible task, where the task it's faced against day after day is a reality that it this church understands it just cannot accomplish.

What would happen if we ran up against a mission that we didn't feel was manageable?

We would fall on our knees.

I look at my own life and I think I haven't come yet to this place to say with Peter with such boldness, not just in words, but in the marrow of our bones, Lord, to whom else would we go?

You alone have the words of eternal life.

This is so practical for us this morning.

You know, it's it's the time for you to, you know, for us to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, like, what is the things that motive, what's the thing that motivates us to do the things we do as a Christian?

When you wake up in the morning and you get into the word, are you doing this because you know there's nowhere else to go?

You believe that in your core, you believe what the psalmist says, that as the deer pants for water, so your soul pants for the Lord.

I need this Lord, I won't find this anywhere else.

When you came in this morning, was there this sense of like, I was created to do this?

I was created to worship God.

I need to be there because at the very core of my being, this is who I am, a worshiper.

There's nowhere else to go.

This belief, it creates a daily compass for our actions, doesn't it?

There's only one place for life, we turn to Jesus.

That brings us to point three.

I want you to see that Christianity is not something we can do in our own strength, but only through Christ's choosing.

It's not about our strength.

We cannot do this.

You know, when Peter makes this confession in verse 70, Jesus looks at them and says and says this, Did I not choose you?

Did I not choose you?

In verse 65, as the crowd is about to turn their back, he looks at them and says, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.

What is Jesus saying?

He's saying that the foundation of enduring faith is not your willpower, it is divine grace surging through your life.

The twelve didn't stay because they were smarter, more faithful.

We are not here this morning because we are anything particularly amazing.

I'm sorry to say it.

If you're redeemed, the reason that you are here is none other than the divine grace of God that chose you before the foundation of the world.

It's not by your righteous works, it's not because you're an amazing person, it's quite the opposite.

So that God, in saving rebels like us, would get all the glory at the end of the day.

It had nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him.

Now, this is the heart of the paradox of Christianity, that the people who make it to the end are the ones who know they never could.

They've come to an end of themselves.

They've stopped trying to manage their lives, they've stopped relying on their own ability to follow Jesus Christ, and they've started clinging to the one who can hold them.

Have you come to the end of your own strength yet?

If your life feels manageable, if your walk with Jesus is tidy and safe, then it's possible that you're this morning still standing with the crowd.

But when you see your sin for what it is, when you feel the weight of Jesus' call confronting you, there is this shift that happens where you stop trying to impress Jesus and start throwing yourself at his feet.

You say, Lord, I cannot do this, not without you.

Often, this is the heart of the gospel.

The heart of the gospel is not that you need to climb an impossibly difficult mountain to climb.

The heart of the gospel is that Jesus has come, descended from heaven, descended from the top of that mountain, and through his crucifixion and resurrection has defeated that mountain.

And now through his Holy Spirit, he is with you to bring you there.

It's that when you couldn't reach the bar, Jesus died for you.

This is what happened at the cross.

At the cross, there was this transaction where you brought your weakness, you brought your failure, you brought your guilt, you brought your shame, and what you received in return was the mercy of God, the strength of God, the power of God, the Holy Spirit of God.

And so, loved one, when everything feels too hard, too heavy, when you feel like you are too far gone, where do you turn?

To nothing other than the gospel.

That you aren't too far gone, that you aren't disqualified.

Real Christianity starts here when you recognize that you cannot do it, but Christ is with you and he can.

And so you cling to him.

You trust him to hold you, you trust that he will never cast out the one who comes to him in weakness and brokenness.

That's the Christian that endures.

Not the strong, not the impressive.

The ones who turn to Jesus like we do right now and say, I have nowhere else to go.

Jesus, if you don't, if you do not carry me, I will not make it.

And the good news is that Jesus does it every time.

And so we turn to him now in prayer as we respond to him.

God, thank you.

Lord, thank you that despite our weakness, despite our lack of strength, despite our inability to do it.

God, you have made that the prerequisite for true discipleship.

Lord, I pray now in this moment, as your Holy Spirit presses this truth even deeper into our hearts, that if there is any ounce within us of this feeling, Lord, that maybe there's somewhere else to run to, if there is any part of us that is like the crowd that believes that life can be found, turning their back on Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God.

Pray, Lord, that you would confront us with the reality of that truth.

Help us to look in the mirror and to see how we are living, Lord.

God, with the foundation of grace that you have promised to the weak, with the strength that you have promised to those who have none, we turn to you now, Lord, and respond with Peter to say these words.

There's nowhere else we can go.

You, Lord, have the words of eternal life.

And so our heart is yours, our worship is yours, our time is yours, our talents, our treasures.

God, they're yours.

Take them.

And in return, Lord, give us what you have promised us in the gospel your strength, your power, your mercy.

God, it is all about you.

As we respond to you, we give you all the praise and all the glory.

It's in the name of your Son we pray.

Amen.

Would you stand with me and respond in worship?