Heavenly Food (John 6:41-59)

John chapter 6, starting in verse 41.

John 6 · chapter mention

Therefore the Jews started complaining about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They were saying, Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How can he now say, I've come down from heaven?

Jesus answered them, Stop complaining among yourselves.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God.

Every one who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me.

Not anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God.

He has seen the Father.

Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that any one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

If any one eats of this bread, he will live forever.

The bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.

At that the Jews argued among themselves, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

So Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.

The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

It's not like the man who your ancestors ate and they died.

The one who eats this bread will live forever.

He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Lord, I thank you for this morning.

I thank you for your word, and I ask, Lord, that you would instruct us through your word, that you would fill me with your spirit to teach accurately and according to your will, that you would fill hearers with your spirit to rightly divide and discern what is of you.

I ask that we would draw closer to you as a result.

In your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

Can you imagine having no this is hard to hard to think about in our American context, but can you imagine having no context to Old or New Testament and hearing pass like walking in church for the first time and hearing passages like this where someone's like, you need to eat my body and drink my blood to have eternal life?

And it'd be like, right back out the door.

So there's a whole lot of contextualization we have to have in this.

We have been in chapter six of the Gospel of John for a little bit because it's really long.

And I have actually, one of my first teaching assignments was to have they're like John 6.

There you go.

And it's like it's like 83,000 verses.

I can't do that in one chunk.

So we're breaking it up so that we give it the due time that it deserves.

Having that said, there will be a little overlap from last week and probably next week.

That's a good sign.

So, with that in mind, what on earth is going on in this chapter?

Well, first, uh Jesus fed the 5,000.

He fed the multitude that came to him, he multiplied the food, the loaves, and the fish, and fed a whole crowd.

And then they chased after him.

And they found him, and he started teaching, and they really, really liked the food, didn't really like the entertainment.

And that was the issue was that the food they were good with, they were actually even going to make him king, we saw in verse 15 of this chapter.

But once he starts actually giving the meaning behind all of this, they're like, and that's where we're at at this point in time.

A little bit of context backing up of what is happening.

Let's start in verse 35 of John 6.

I am the bread of life, Jesus told them.

No one who comes to me will ever be hungry.

No one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.

But as I told you, you've seen me, and yet you don't believe.

Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.

For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

This is the will of him who sent me, so that I should lose none of those he's given me, but should raise them up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

That's the last little bit that he said before we jump into verse 41.

He was saying in verse 38, I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And again, we are kind of indoctrinated into this whole idea.

We're like, well, yeah, Jesus, that's how that works.

But when you're hearing that for the first time, how again, what would you, what would you say if somebody says, Hey, I came from heaven.

I came down from heaven.

You'd be like, Yeah, cool, okay.

And that is what the issue here is, verse 41.

The Jews started complaining about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

We have some context of what on earth is going on here, because this is not the first time we've seen this happen, just maybe in slightly different order.

Let's go all the way back mentally to Exodus because it plays into what's happening here.

Twice he talks about them eating bread in the wilderness, the manna, and die, their ancestors dying.

So, think about this.

Miraculously, the Lord delivers the Israelites from Egypt through the Red Sea into the wilderness, and everything's great for literally like a week.

And then the water they have runs out, and they go, We need water.

Where in the desert are you trying to kill us?

And God miraculously provides water, makes the uh bitter water potable in that sense.

And then we see and we pick it up in Exodus 16, the next problem.

Water's taken care of short-term?

Food.

And that's what we see here when we get to Exodus 16, starting in verse 2.

The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

What did they do?

They grumbled.

Why?

They said, if only we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted.

Slavery! Okay, uh, they're remembering this differently.

Instead, you brought us out into this wilderness to make the whole assembly die of hunger.

How does the Lord react?

Jumping ahead to verse 11 and 12, the Lord spoke to Moses, I've heard the complaints of the Israelites.

Tell them, at twilight you will eat meat.

In the morning you will eat bread until you are full.

Then you will know I am the Lord your God.

And then Exodus 16, 15, when the Israelites saw it, the bread that came down from heaven, they're like, What is it?

Because they didn't know what it was.

And Moses said, It's the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

So, deliverance, right?

And then need, grumbling, instant grumbling, and the Lord, who is more patient than any of us, brings bread from heaven to feed them.

That is going to play into what we see here because Jesus gives them bread, miraculously, and then teaches them that he is the bread of life, and that he has come down from heaven.

He is the bread that came from heaven.

And what's the first thing they do?

They start grumbling.

So nothing has changed, and spoiler alert, nothing has changed inside our own hearts as well.

This is not just a Jewish problem.

Why does he it directly call them the Jews in verse 41, and then later down uh he does it again?

Well, that very last verse in the passage we're doing today, 59, says, He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Copernac.

So he's no longer on a hill where he fed the Israelites.

He's not over here.

He's in the synagogue teaching them.

And that's what the scene that we have here.

And they don't like that he said he's the bread that came down from heaven.

The Israelites in the wilderness do not have, they have more problems than we do.

Because if I'm hungry, I can go to one of the 86,000 grocery stores in this town and get food.

If for some reason I'm short on cash, I could probably borrow food from a friend if we need to, you know, get a cup of sugar or whatever.

They can't do that in the desert.

They are completely at God's mercy.

They are completely, and they have there, even when the bread comes down from heaven, there is no lever they can pull to make the bread come down.

They can't sit there and go, okay, it's bread time.

I do this, God gives bread.

All they do is they wake up, the bread's there, and they gather it.

So they were daily dependent upon God for survival.

And their obedience was required in just gathering and receiving the bread that was given to them.

This will all come into play later.

So, this is not the last time they're going to grumble.

In Exodus 15, 24, they run out of water.

God provides water from a rock.

Not easy to do.

In Exodus 16, which we just read, it's food.

Exodus 17, water again.

Numbers 14, 2 and 14, 36, it's when they go to the promised land that they're going to, and they see it, and the scouts bring back a bad report, and then they grumble because they don't want to go in.

And then in 16, Numbers 16, 11 and 41, they grumble against Moses and against the priesthood and say, I don't like this, why can't we do this?

And then when God decides to open the earth and swallow the grumblers, they grumble again about that and say to Moses, You killed the Lord's anointed.

Whole lot of grumbling going on.

And that is continuing here.

And the reason why I'm bringing that up is there is something within us that likes to grumble.

Am I wrong?

I don't think I'm wrong about that.

There is something inside of us that loves to grumble, and that's why we're addicted to the noobs.

So, with that in mind, the Lord gives this statement, he is the bread that came down from heaven.

And they're like, mmm, that's weird.

And they're like, wait a minute.

We know his mom and dad.

Capernaum, not all that far from Nazareth.

Capernaum, we saw his whole family went through earlier in Cana, at least his mom and his siblings.

And so they're like, we know Joseph, we know Mary.

How can he say he's from heaven?

That doesn't make any sense.

And the reason why that's important is it shows us there's something bigger going on here.

So, Jesus in John 6.43 gives us our youth ministry life verse.

Stop complaining among yourselves.

I got the youth leader support.

This is good.

So, stop complaining among yourselves.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

So, his first statement: no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

Right off the bat here, you know, those of you uh, depending on your church background, starting to get a little twitchy at that verse of saying, wait a minute, no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him.

Does this mean this?

Does this mean this?

What does this mean?

What does this imply?

What's the other thing?

How does all that work?

Okay.

Number one, Jesus doesn't lie.

Right?

So that's good.

We can trust that when Jesus said something, it's true, and then we need to understand.

What does he say?

No one comes to Jesus unless the father who sent Jesus draws him.

Okay.

Did the Father send Jesus?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, side note, it's interesting that he goes straight to the Father when they're like, Moses, I mean, uh, aren't isn't Joseph and Mary, aren't those your parents?

And then he goes, Well, God's my father, by the way.

And he sent me from heaven, which I know you're mad about.

And no one can come to Jesus unless the Father sent me to draws him.

Here is something safe.

Ready?

100% of the people who repent and believe in Jesus were drawn by the Father.

Because they're there.

Because it happened.

What does this mean for those who weren't?

That's not what we're talking about here.

That's not what he says, and that's not what we're going over.

What we can see here is that anybody who is saved was drawn by the Father.

Does that imply that the Father doesn't draw others?

Well, it doesn't say that.

Does it imply that people can desire to come to Jesus but be prohibited by the Father?

It doesn't say that.

None of that says that, so we don't need to make it more complicated than it is.

What we can say is that ultimately, what Jesus is trying to tell us is that the Father draws people to Jesus as the source of salvation.

Safe?

Fair enough?

Cool.

That's good.

It's hard because we've become sufficiently fluent in the words of the Bible to be freaked out by different topics that don't have anything to do with the passage.

And so, and a lot of times that comes in when we want to inject ourselves into the passage and we want to say, well, what does this mean for me?

What about me?

And it's like, come to Jesus.

Good?

Good.

Okay.

So, and then, as it is written in the prophets, they will all be taught by God.

And what on earth does that mean?

Well, it's a quote from Isaiah 54, 13.

Then all your children will be taught by the Lord, and your process their prosperity will be greater.

Let's take it a little bit further.

If we take that into Jeremiah 31, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, the Lord's declaration.

I will put my teaching within them, and I will write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people.

So then when Jesus says here, it's written by the prophets, they will all be taught by God, and everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me.

What he is saying is that the Father is their tutor to salvation and draws them to Jesus as this author and finisher of salvation.

So, what does the father do?

The father points to Jesus as the one who provides salvation.

And we're all good churchgoers and we go, yo, yeah, don't, but that's actually a big deal.

That's really, really important, especially with the time that we're in in the Gospel of John, is that yes, they're looking ahead to the Messiah, but they're looking ahead to a king.

They want someone who can take on Rome, they want someone who can establish their kingdom, they want someone who can make life good for them, and they want to set up their theocracy.

And instead they get Jesus, who is the Messiah, but isn't what they were looking for.

And that's why we have this friction and this grumbling here.

And he is saying from the beginning, the Father was teaching people to come to Jesus for eternal life.

So he continues on.

So, with that in verse 46, not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God, he has seen the Father.

He said this a few times throughout this gospel that the Father cannot be seen by fallen humans, can be seen by the Son of God, who is Jesus.

But the irony in that statement is if they're looking at Jesus, they're looking at God.

So they can see God, but they haven't seen the Father.

So in order to see the Father, they have to go through Jesus.

This is one of those passages where the Sunday school answer is great and a safe thing to say whenever I ask a question, because the answer would be Jesus! Yes.

Verse 47 Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life.

That's a big statement.

It's a very, very big statement that we have become accustomed to because we're good church growers and we know that the way to salvation is Jesus.

He is telling people who have a cultural system built based on works, based on their interpretation of the law, who are looking for an earthly kingdom to be established, and he is saying, if you believe in me, you have eternal life.

That is a really big statement.

There is only one person in human history who has made that statement and is not a liar.

That's a big deal.

And here it is.

And then he says, I am the bread of life.

This is one of the first of the seven I am statements in the Gospel of John.

You may have heard that statement.

There are seven things that he says, I am this.

Why is it important that it's a seven I am statements?

Because church people love lists, basically.

But it is cool to see that he is saying, I am this.

And what is he saying?

I am the bread of life.

They didn't like that he said he came down from heaven, and so he says, I am the better bread that came down from heaven, that gives life, not temporarily to get you through a wilderness, but eternally to get you to the Father.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

If anyone eats of the bread, he will live forever.

The bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

So his big statement here is that he is the better manna, the better bread, the bread of life.

Just like when we were back with the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4, and he is saying, If you uh drink of this water, you will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I give will have will never thirst again.

John 4 · chapter mention

Here, he's saying, I am the bread for eternal life.

Eating the bread here is tied to belief.

If you believe, you have eternal life.

And the bread of life, I'm the bread that came down from heaven, if you eat of it, you won't die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

They don't like that he said, I am from heaven, and so he like quadruples down on it.

And again says, I am the bread of life, I have come down from heaven, I'm the manna, I came down from heaven, I am the bread of life from heaven, manna, heaven, life, come.

Good.

And he is not shying away from that point because this is his message and purpose.

His message was not just, you look hungry, here's some bread.

Although he did that.

He did that to people, which, spoiler alert for next week, most of them will walk away from him.

He still fed them.

He didn't say, hold on, I'm gonna teach you, and if you get through that and don't walk away, I will give you bread.

He still fed people who did that.

And even more than that, one of his disciples is Judas.

So, with that in mind, he is still taking care of them, still feeding them, still teaching them, but he's not shying away from the message that is the core of his purpose on earth.

So that people would come to him, would not uh just learn from him, would not just feed from him, would not uh be ruled by him, but would come to him for eternal life.

There's a contrast here between the man in the wilderness and him, between what happened to the ancestors and what happens if you partake of him.

The temporary bread could not sustain.

Because not only did the bread go bad after a certain amount of time, but the people went bad too after a certain amount of time, or give or take 40 years.

And so everyone in the wilderness, minus Joshua and Caleb, died, that first generation.

And here he is saying, I am the bread, you eat once for all, and then you live forever, rather than the bread you have to keep gathering, keep coming to, and the you're gonna you're gonna end up dying anyway.

And that's the big deal with that, is that just like the Israelites in the wilderness, what did they have to do with the bread?

They had to receive it.

They had to gather it and eat it.

And that's it.

They didn't have any other things.

It was like you actually have to do this amount of work and this amount of productivity, and then I will feed you.

It was wake up, walk outside, gather bread, prepare bread, eat bread.

Pretty good deal with that.

In the same way.

What they have to do here is to come to Jesus.

And that's it.

So, continuing down here.

If anyone, verse 51, eats of this bread, he will live forever.

And the bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Again, teaching in the synagogue.

They didn't like him saying he came down from heaven.

So he took it a little further.

Because in verse 52, they didn't necessarily appreciate that statement either.

They argued among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

So once again, he's like, How can he be from heaven?

We know his parents.

And here, how can he give us his flesh to eat that's gross?

And he's one, and we're, even though he just multiplied bread and cocoa, so clearly he could do that.

But ultimately, that's not this is that's why later they're gonna say, This is a tough saying.

I don't, I'm, I can't accept this.

You see a crowd that's willing, as was said really well last week.

They're willing to be fed, but not to come to him as their savior.

So they get a little upset about this.

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

And so Jesus reads the room, realizes he's offending people, and but and but backs off a little bit, right?

Not quite.

Uh he says in verse 53, truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don't have life in yourselves.

So little did they know that the bread that came down from heaven was like the warm-up act of the statement.

That was not actually the offensive part of the statement.

Because he continues on to unless you eat the flesh and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.

This is a really intense thing to say, period.

But also in a synagogue, that's a big deal.

So why is that a big deal?

If you look at, let's go even before the law.

Genesis 9.

Noah, Ark, flood, the rains came down and the floods came up, and boat lands, they come out, covenant, sign the heavens, and then he says, though, in Genesis 9 4, you will not eat anything with the lifeblood in it, before the law is even established.

Continuing forward, in Leviticus 26 through 27, here's the stakes.

Wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.

Whoever eats any blood is to be cut off from his people.

That's a big statement.

Uh the vast majority of us have lived a happily ignorant Gentile experience where medium rare steaks are a gift from God.

So, you go more rare than that.

I'm gonna side-eye you a little bit, but it's still okay, that's fine.

Uh with that in mind, the it's it's that we're not held to that standard.

However, here, they have in their culture, you don't do that.

So, is Jesus telling them to break the law?

No.

He's actually come to fulfill the law.

So there's something bigger happening here.

Something greater happening here.

It is bigger than the face value keeping of the law into the bigger imagery of what's happening.

They need to look beyond the law to see what that points to.

So, when he says, The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

Just as the bread, he's the bread that came down from heaven, so also the bread of heaven that came down, consuming that, and his body and his blood, consuming that results in what?

In eternal life.

What on earth does that mean?

Well, uh, some would point to looking at communion as the fulfillment of this.

And I would give a little eh to that.

So, because the communion, which we're going to celebrate in a bit, it's the easiest segue ever.

And the idea of the bread being symbolic of his body, the blood being, I mean the cup being symbolic of his blood, whatever.

But I would say, let's zoom in a little bit to there, to where that communion is a symbol of his death, sacrifice, resurrection on our behalf.

Just as this statement is pointing to his death and resurrection.

Why on earth am I making this distinction?

Because some people would look at this and they would go, well, clearly what he's pointing to is communion, and communion is what keeps you uh in the church.

Communion is what keeps you safe, communion is what keeps you um uh participating.

And I don't have that conviction.

Um there's a 450 years of argument over that that I'm not qualified to speak into.

What I can say is that we at Abide See Communion as a symbol of the body and blood of Jesus, as a reminder and a reflection, just like he's telling them here to look ahead to his body being broken, his blood being shed on the cross.

So, with that in mind, here's the symbolism, at least, that we see in 1 Corinthians 11, 13 through 26.

For I received from the Lord what I also passed to you on the night which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread.

In the same way he took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink in remembrance of me.

As often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So he's telling them here, looking ahead to his death, that is the way to eternal life.

Partaking in, believing in his sacrificial death on the cross is the way to eternal life, is the way to the Father.

Just like communion, when we take it today, is a reminder of what he has done on the cross, and therefore a great time to reflect and to celebrate what he has done.

So, having that said, the the key here is he's pointing to his he's pointing to the cross here.

There's nothing else that we're seeing with that except he's funneling them to the cross.

If he took just the bread, he's the bread that came from heaven, like the ancestors, manna, the gathered it, it could be construed as come to me, receive my teaching, and then you will find the way to eternal life.

Here, he is directly neon sign, pointing ahead to the cross, in a way that's immensely offensive to their law-abiding sensibilities in their own synagogue to tell them this is the way to salvation, not just my teaching, not just uh making me king, but rather my broken body, my shed blood is the only way to salvation.

It is buying into his sacrificial atonement because we also don't have the same culture.

Do not raise your hand because I don't want to have to report you.

How many of you have sacrificed an animal for your sins lately?

Thank you for not raising your hands.

So, someone just like brushed their hair back and they freaked out for a second.

But okay, that was not a raised hand.

This is a common occurrence in their culture, in their day and age, as set up by the sacrificial system of the Levitical law.

So they are used to seeing an animal whose body is broken, whose blood is shed on their behalf.

They do have context.

It's just connecting those dots for them as a substitutionary sacrifice for salvation, as opposed to being he's gonna be our king and make everything right.

That is the paradigm that he has to shift here is to take them beyond the you give us food, you're you have a crowd, you be our king, into you need to die on our behalf.

And that is a foreign concept that we are inoculated to to a certain extent, and go, yes, that's duh, that's true, but for them, that is a bit mind-blowing.

So, just as verse 57, or actually, let's go back, verse 56.

The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

It's not just a one and done, hey, you took the that pill and now you're cured.

It is a fellowship, a communion, a commingling in that sense.

That Jesus is promising not just I'll pay your bill.

It is I will remain in you, and you will remain in me as a body.

Pretty sure there's a lot of one-body metaphors in the epistles.

So that shouldn't surprise us, but ultimately the result in this is remaining in Jesus and us in him, because the goal is to come to him.

Come to him, not just to be our ruler, to be our king, to be our provider, as was said last week, to be our master card as opposed to our master.

That's the first time I heard that, I was like, oh, that's cool.

And uh rather to be with him, remain in him.

And so, in order to be made right with the Father, according to his passage here, according to what he is saying, you need to, just as the ancestors went out and gathered bread.

Couldn't make it rain, all they could do was gather it up, receive it, and eat it and take it.

They need to come to Jesus, receive, partake.

And it's not just of who he is as a figurehead, but rather of him being the atoning sacrifice, the horrific butchered sacrifice on behalf of their sins.

That's a big deal.

It's hard to teach these things sometimes because we are so used to that imagery.

But for uh these poor Galileans sitting in the synagogue in Capernaum, they're probably like, I'm out.

I'm out, I'm out, this freaks me out, we're good, because all I have to do is wait a week, and then there's another teacher who's gonna come along and tell me to fulfill the law, and I feel good about that because I can pull that lever and have my own righteousness.

So, with that in mind, what is this passage about?

The Jews in this passage thought that their heritage automatically gave them a seat at the bargaining table with God.

Because they were Abraham's children, if they followed the law, they automatically could haggle with God for their righteousness by doing good works, by making the sacrifices.

But in contrast, number one, Jesus is saying he's the only one who can mediate with the Father in that way.

Only his works are true and right.

He's the only one who even can see the Father to approach him.

But also, something that you may or may not have noticed, how many times in this passage he uses anyone or everyone verbiage that extends beyond just the Jews?

Which would be maddening in that sense.

But ultimately, he's going to say, everyone who does this, anyone who does this, no one who doesn't do this, it is extending beyond and above just the context of this to any person who comes to Jesus can receive eternal life.

Praise the Lord for that.

The Jews also thought that their obedience to the letter of the law would give them righteousness.

If they do the thing, they get the righteousness.

If they follow the law, they get the righteousness.

And it was the whole imagery of the law was to indicate that we cannot, in a fallen state, fulfill it and have our own righteousness, and therefore we need to come to Jesus.

All that's required, the only obedience that's required is coming to Jesus.

I've said that a couple of times, but it is really, really, really important because this is not a Jew problem, this is a human problem.

And that's the issue that we see here is that we can, as believers, followers of Jesus, get to a certain point where we get really excited about things that have nothing to do with Jesus as our righteousness.

And we can get to that point of well, I don't do this and I don't do that, and I don't do all these secondary and tertiary issues that are important but not ways to hit salvation.

And we go, well, because I have these, I am a Christian.

Because I live here, because I vote here this way, because I do this, because I don't do that, that's what a Christian is, and uh it's following Jesus, going to Jesus.

That's what is important.

And so, what in what ways are we finding our righteousness in other things than Jesus?

Because just as the Jews here are looking for a king to make their life easy, to punch the bad guy in the mouth, how how much of that is our Christian culture today at the same time?

Has little to do with the gospel and everything to do with asserting and maintaining our own advantage and rights.

And if I can just say this just gently, when you look at the Old Testament, you look at the entire meta-narrative of the Old Testament.

The whole thing is pointing to the glaring message that a theocracy is not possible with fallen human beings.

It is a contrast, it is not a playbook.

So, having that said, we look to the Old Testament as wow, nobody can rightly rule and reign in God's kingdom except Jesus, except God.

And instead, we like to turn, you know, David, Saul, Solomon, into heroes when reality they are glaring neon signs demonstrating that the tall good-looking guy in Saul, the kingly guy, or the epic warrior, rock star, whatever you want to call David, or the wisest man in the world, all are dismal failures at taking the place of God.

Bless you! And with that in mind, too often we can go, oh well, if we just had the right circumstances, it would all be fine.

If we had our advantages, everything would be fine.

If we could just this Jesus is the crux of all of this, and with that in mind, we can very easily fall into the same trap with the Jews are being like.

What do you mean come to him?

What do you mean do that?

What do you mean do these things?

What do you mean sacrifice?

What do you mean give up our lives?

What do you mean endure?

What do you mean be long-suffering?

What do you mean sacrifice and love one another with all the different things?

What are you talking about?

This is a hard understanding.

I don't know about that.

But Jesus calls us, just as he did, to offer up our lives for him and for one another.

Not as an extra to the patriot, but rather as somebody who loves their neighbor, who actually takes care of their neighbor, and who gives up their own rights and privileges and preferences for their neighbor.

So having that said, this is why the reason why I'm actually harping on this is because we can look at this and go, oh, those Jews.

They got it wrong again.

This lives in us and lives in all of us and is pervasive.

And so having that said, come to Jesus.

If you have a doubt about where that means, then come to Jesus.

If you're going, wait a minute, am I called by the Father?

Are you coming to Jesus?

Then yeah, you are, and that's awesome.

If the only uh litmus test in all of this to recall is come to Jesus.

If I am not coming to Jesus, that's a concern.

If I am coming to Jesus, praise the Lord, I'm his kid.

And so just a reminder eternal life, being made right with the Father, all come through confession and belief in Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins.

And there is nothing else that can take that place.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for this morning.

I thank you for your word.

I thank you for your goodness.

I thank you for the blessing of being yours not because of our own righteousness, of being yours not because we have adequately followed the law, but rather being yours because you offered and we received.

And I ask, Lord, that anybody who hears this who has not made that confession, I ask that you would be by your Holy Spirit quickening hearts to come to you, that you, that you would be working on hearts to want to receive that goodness, not based on anything else except your goodness, your righteousness, your salvation.

I ask, Lord, that we would receive the bread from heaven, that we would receive your body and your blood figuratively and rejoice in the sacrifice that you gave.

That we would not be prone to grumbling as the Israelites in the wilderness were when you had provided so great a salvation.

Lord, just please guide us and lead us and be glorified in your name.

Amen.