This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Owlinson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part two in a series called The Hard Sayings of Jesus. This message is taken from John, chapter 6, verses 1 through 12, and is titled Stake and the Ale Commitment. Now here's Pete for today's message. Nothing. It can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is in his power alone that we stand. Thank you for reminding us of that truth, laying the foundation for the reality that all we are is Christ. All we do that anything that happens that's good is because of Jesus. And that happens to be the central thrust of our text today. As we continue in a series that we've been doing, entitled The Hard Sayings of Jesus, The Hard Sayings, we just started it last week, as we look at the troubling things that Jesus says. And frankly, most of the things that Jesus says are troubling. If you have read the Bible and said, Oh, how nice you haven't read the Bible. If you have read Jesus and said, What a nice guy. You haven't read Jesus. You haven't heard him. I don't know what your image of Jesus is. Many of us were raised with a Sunday school image of Jesus. Let me show you some paintings that reflect the Sunday school image of Jesus that we were raised with. Jesus and the child isn't that nice. I like that. And some of you some of you've seen this one before. And that's really not that one. Now Jesus with the lamb general Jesus holding a lamb sweet. Isn't it? I like that. Yeah. Do you? And all of us have seen this one probably used oil of a lay before he put that was modeling for that one. That's a wonderful picture. I like the hair now. I like the hood. Do you like the hood guys? Isn't that a sweet picture of the hood and the crook in the nice little hands? And there it is. There it is. Jesus loves me. This I know red and yellow black and white is precious in their site. There is Jesus in the park with all of the kids. Now some of you general Jesus. Meek and mile you were raised with some of those pictures of Jesus. And if that's all you got, that's not enough because that's only a partial picture. Of Jesus and it's not the part you need to get as we study the hard sayings of Jesus. The medieval artists didn't do any better. Did they? Jesus is a willowy, wistory, sickly, thin character who's on a cross. He's not anything that would draw a guy. He's a freaky failure of a guy, a caricature of a man. I thought I thought Jesus was a carpenter without in a day where there were no power tools. I thought Jesus was a carpenter whose hands would have been thick and callous like an iron worker or a roofer or a carpenter today with cuts and bruises all over his bodies and various, various stages of healing. I thought Jesus looked a little bit different. These pretty Jesus pictures that we have are not the real Jesus. Isaiah 53 tells us that Jesus could not have been on the cover of GQ or Maxim magazine. He was not handsome. He was not pretty. He was not nice. I'm going to commission some new paintings and here they are. Number one, how about painting a picture of Jesus as he comes out of 40 days in the wilderness fighting Satan starving to death and never taking a bath in 40 days? I want a picture of that. What do you look like? I want a picture about Jesus teaching in the servant of the mount, Matthew 5 through 7 after all day into the hot sun preaching and teaching. I know what I'm like. What about under the, I know what I'm like on Sunday afternoon. What does he like after a whole day out in front of everybody in the hot sun preaching? I want a picture of that. Give me a portrait of Jesus going toe to toe with the Pharisees with his finger in their chest. I'd love to have a picture of that. Clearing out the temple. Now that's a portrait we need to see. Where is it? Where's the portrait of Jesus cleaning out the temple? Getting the money changers out of there, kicking the animals, throwing coins, flipping tables. That's a portrait that we need to have. How about a shot of Peter and Jesus just after Peter is called by Jesus? After Jesus calls his best friend, Satan, and men, I want a portrait of that. How about when the disciples woke up Jesus while he was taking a nap in the boat? Why? Ever woke up your husband at the wrong time? What did Jesus do? He calmed the storm and turned into disciples and he said, where's your faith? You guys have no faith, your faith is the size of a peanut. He wasn't happy then. I want a portrait of that. I'm not drawn to the Jesus. I'm not drawn to the Jesus of those Sunday school pictures, the pretty Jesus. And you want not to be as well because it's not the whole picture. You ought to be drawn to the Jesus of the scriptures. The Jesus who said tough things. And today we're going to talk about the original hard saying of Jesus. The Jesus, the Jesus who really was and is, is the Jesus that we need. And today, as we set the stage for the hard sayings of Jesus, I want to remind you that within every hard saying of Jesus is a truth, is a blessing that we desperately need to have. We need the hard sayings of Jesus. I'm going to set it up by reading John 6, 1 through 15. This is God's Word and it is the foundation for the hard saying of Jesus that is to come. It's the feeding of the 5,000. Sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the sea of Galilee, that is, the sea of Tiberius, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up to the mountainside, sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover feast was near. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, well, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, eight months wages could not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. Another of his disciples, Andrew Simon Peter's brother spoke up. Here's a boy with five small barley loaves, two small fish, but how far will they go among so many? Jesus said, have the people sit down. There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down about 5,000 of them. Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish, when they all had enough to eat. He said to his disciples, gather the pieces that are left over, let nothing be wasted. So they gathered them filled 12 baskets, but the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. After the people saw the miraculous signs that Jesus did, they began to say, surely this is a prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. The first point is the feeding of the 5,000. There it is. Many of you have heard that before. You've seen that before, and it's an old teaching. It's a powerful statement of what Jesus literally did. Now I want you to notice something here that he did see the needs of his people. He did see them. Jesus drew crowds, and he saw the masses of people. He knew the needs, and in the midst of the masses, he saw the individual needs. He is here right now, and he sees the needs. He sees your needs. He knows what's going on up on the Gulf Coast. He knows your needs. He sees the masses, and he sees the individual. He always does, and he always sets out to meet needs. He's a man of action. Notice how he goes about meeting those needs. I love this. When God meets needs typically, he meets needs through his people for other people. So he's sitting around with Philip. I don't know how Philip got into this. Have you ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time? You know, they say never sit across from the moderator in a business meeting because you'll probably ask you to do something to solve the problem. You know, seating location is pretty strategic. Philip was nearby. He's filling. What are we going to do? Let all those people. They're starving. What are you going to do? I love that. What am I going to do? No, no, no. What are you going to do, Jesus? No, no. What are you going to do, Philip? See, we want God. We want a relationship with God. He makes us comfortable. God, you be my cosmic genie. He says, listen, I'm not about being your cosmic genie. He says, I want you to join me in changing the world. And I want to make you holy. So I'm going to make you a part of the solutions to the problems that are out there. And so while we want easy, he wants to make us holy. And so that's why he tests us. He does test us. You and I are going to get better. We're not going to get more mature. We're not going to get more holy. We're not going to get stronger when everything goes well. Success does not breed success. Failure does. Weakness does. And so he takes us. And he says, what are you going to do about it? He wants the disciples to say, how are you going to use me? Not what can I get out of this? And this is just a phenomenal situation. But he sees the need and desires to work through his people. But here's the deal. He's a sovereign king of the universe. So he already knows what he's going to do. He calls us in, but he's always got a plan. And the plan is the miracle. He created the world, X-N-E-H-L-O, for youth theologians. It's Criatio X-N-E-H-L-O, creation out of nothing. When God created the world in the universe and you and me, he created it all out of nothing that previously existed. It came into existence. And so if he could do Criatio X-N-E-H-L-O, he could do Criatio from something. I don't know what the Latin is on that. And that's what he did. He just kept multiplying, kept multiplying, kept multiplying. And I want to know how he did that. I want to see, I wish I could have been there. You know, was it when he broke it and put it down? When he touched it, I want to know. I want to know. I get home. I'm going to ask him. Could you do that again for us? That'd be kind of fun. We'll get a group together. And he did a miracle. And it was a powerful miracle. I don't know who gave this to me, but I love this. Sister Mary who worked for a home health agency was out making her rounds visiting homebound patients and she ran out of gas. As luck would have it, she wasn't a Presbyterian. As luck would have it, a gas station was just a block away. She walked to the station to borrow a gas can. And by some gas, the attendant told her the only gas can that he owned had been loaned out. Could she wait until it was returned? But she was on, she was a nun on a way to see a patient in a home she had a bed pan. So she walked back to her car, got the bed pan as resourceful as she is. She went to the station, filled it up with gas, went back to her car. As she was putting it into the tank, two guys drove by. One of them turned the other and said, if that car starts, I'm becoming a Catholic. I want to know. Oh, I love that. Miracles ought to create faith. That's why Jesus did this. But I want you to understand that the feeding of the 5,000 was only the beginning. It was not the end of the whole deal. It was the beginning. So secondly, I want you to note the interpretation of the feeding of the 5,000. All of that leads up to this, the rest of John chapter 6, which is one of the most profound chapters in the entire Bible. And you need to know what's in John chapter 6. So I'm going to tell you. In John chapter 6, we see the interpretation of the feeding of the 5,000 versus 26,000, 27. Jesus answered, I tell you the truth. You guys are looking to me because he went away when they tried to make him the king. Wouldn't you want a leader who could provide you with breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Take away everything. You know, just right there. Yeah, I go to heaven and you can feed me breakfast. So he went away from them, showed up the next day. They wanted breakfast and Bible. And Jesus says, listen. I tell you the truth. You're all looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you. On him, God the Father has placed the seal of his approval. This is the whack on the side of their heads. This is the interpretation of the feeding of the 5,000. This is what Jesus intended by that miracle to say this. You guys focus. You Jews focus so much on stuff on the material. You're working for food. You're working for your houses. You're working for stuff. You're so focused on the material. And you've neglected the eternal. You have neglected the reality that there is a life after this life that this life is only to begin. And the foundation of the life to come that this isn't all there is. You guys keep trying to make heaven here. It's not here. The interpretation of the feeding of the 5,000 is, I am the one that can give you what you really need for eternal life. I can give you the food that you need for eternal life. I am that food. That's what you need. I am what you need for eternal life. You know, the tragedies that we see around us and the tragedy of this hurricane. We've been through hurricanes. We know. We know the fear. Some of you lost your homes. Some of you lost a lot. Not like up there. The benefit of these tragedies is they speak not only to the people there but to us to tell us this is all temporary. Students build your life. Build your careers. But this is temporary. And what you might spend your whole life building could be gone like that. Oh, other people get cancer. Other people have heart attacks. Other people lose their houses and hurricanes. No, we do. You do. You might. Oh, good. Thanks. That's hope for future. Thanks. Thanks for the hope for life. Yeah, your marriage might fall apart. This is a broken world. Really, really awful things happen. Jesus said, I'm the food that you need for return. I love that lady. I love that lady who was interviewed in New Orleans or Nolens. It's a way to say it's not New Orleans. It's Nolens. She was interviewed. She said, I am so disappointed that I didn't follow. I didn't follow the instructions of our authorities who took us to leave. Told us to leave. Told us to get out of here. Finally, somebody taken responsibility for your own life. That's great. I love that. Jesus says, take responsibility for your life. I'm here to give you the bread that you need for eternal life. I'm here. Don't pass this by. You're going to be disappointed big time. Take responsibility for your life. And take my food. Well, they ask you in verse 28, 29, what must we do to do the works that God requires? And Jesus says, the work that God requires for you is to believe in me. He says, I am your hope. Now, if I said that to you, you would laugh and get up and walk out and ask for your money back. But if Jesus says it, he who just fed 5,000 who has healed people, who's done all kinds of stuff, who's got a track record already approving that he has got in the flesh, then you begin to take him seriously. And they said, well, what miraculous signs then will you give that we may see and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the man in the desert as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat. What signs will you show? And I bet Jesus wanted to say something like, what are you guys idiots? He would never do that. But I would. Where were you the other day? We had some boy scouts lunch and we made it multiply for 5,000 men. That wasn't the ladies. The guys. Where were you? I constantly wanted more and it continued to miss the power of God. Jesus says, listen, I tell you the truth, John 632. I tell you the truth. It's not Moses who has given you bread from heaven. It wasn't Moses that gave you mana. It's my father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. God's the one that gives true life and they said, sir, give us this bread from it forever. Give us this bread and it's so crucial what Jesus says next. He says, I am the bread of life. They're thinking of some magical bread that would keep them from ever getting hungry. I would love that, frankly, because I get hungry all the time. Would that be nice? Never have to experience hunger pangs. I am the bread of life, Jesus says. He who comes to me will never go hungry. He who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you've seen me and you still do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me. Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away for I have come down from heaven. Not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of what the Father has given me but raise him up on the last day. For my Father's will is that anyone who looks to the Son and believes in him, look at this, shall have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. At this, the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is this not little Jesus? Meek and mild? That holds shepherd's sheep and has a little crook. Did you grew up running around here? Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How can he say, I came down from heaven? Now, if you ever thought Jesus was nice, I'm going to disabuse you of your ideas. He says, stop grumbling among yourselves. Parents, have you ever said, would you guys stop whining? You're in the car, going someplace in these 25,000 kids in the back seat. You're whining. And you just had it. You want one of them to go home and be with Jesus right then and there. Stop, you're whining. It's not nice, but you've said it, I've said it. We're all on the same level here. Jesus is crumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up at the last day. I am what you need, but there is no way you can understand that I am what you need unless God's working in your life. The gospel, the gospel is a supernatural message that says, I am the way and the truth in the life and no man comes to the father but by me. But you can't accept that. You will never accept that unless God is working in your life. And if you accept that, then God's been working in your life. It's a miracle that you believe that. If you believe the gospel, it's proof positive that a totally depraved sinner has been transformed. You can't believe this, but if you believe it, it's because God is at work. And he, Jesus, is the stake and ale we need for eternal life. The true food that we need for eternal life, for eternal life, verse 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. The bread is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Jesus, why did you have to say eating of the flesh? Why did you say that? I would have stopped right then and there. I would have walked away from the confrontation. And Jesus steps right into it. Don't you love Jesus? Verse 52, the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves. How can this man give us this flesh to eat? Because in the Old Testament, to touch a dead body meant that you were ceremonially unclean. For at least a week, you couldn't go to church. You couldn't be around other Christians. You had to go out Jews. You had to go outside the camp. You had to stay away. You were unclean. They treated you like a leper. And Jesus says you got to eat my flesh. Now, it gets worse. You say you've been reading a lot of scripture. I know. We're almost done here. Here we go. Verse 51. Jesus said, I tell you the truth. See, they're grumbling again. He says, I'll tell you the truth. It's like this. It's like he says, you guys are upset that I said you've got to eat my flesh. I want to make it worse. Jesus is not always sweet and nice. He's gentle Jesus making mild. I tell you the truth. Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And Peter, this time he's going, oh lord. And Andrew and Matthew are saying the offerings are going to go down.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. I'll raise him up on the last day for my flesh is real food. My blood is real drink. Whoever, I wish Jesus would just say, let me say something here that's metaphorical. Let me give you an analogy. None of that. Verse 56. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I and him. Just as the living father sent me and I lived 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. Your forefathers ate manna and died. He who feeds on this bread will live forever. He said this while teaching in a synagogue in Copernum on hearing it, many of his disciples said this is a hard saying. The original hard saying, this is a hard saying, who can accept it? His disciples were saying this is a hard saying. Not the Jews that went. His own people were saying, let me bring some clarity. He is not inviting them to a cannibal casserole. He's not doing that. He is inviting them to receive him as Savior and Lord. That's what he's doing. He's saying, I am the food that you need. He's not calling them to religion. He's not calling them to be nice or be good-ism. He's not calling them to just walk an aisle. He's not calling them to make a general confession of faith. Sure, I'd like to be a Christian. I'd like to go to heaven who wouldn't. He's calling people to see that he is the only way they will get to heaven, that he is the food they need, and that their acceptance of him must be a real, deep, and full acceptance. You can't play around with God. Jesus is not calling people to do the religious thing. He's calling people to accept him as the only way they'll ever get into heaven. The only way they'll have eternal life and a life here on earth. Receive me into your soul, he's saying. Receive me deeply, just like you eat a meal, and it goes into your body and it activates you, and it motivates you, gives you the ability to go on. He says, you've got to so receive me, intensely receive me, that it animates your whole life. This is not Christianity. It's not just a part of your life. It is your life. A year ago today, I was up on Sangregonia in Southern California, 11,502 feet, highest mountain in Southern California with a bunch of boy scouts. We used to do this as kids, and I went back as an adult advisor last year, and we were up at the top of this mountain significantly above the timber line, hot, dry, no humidity. It was a great achievement. We did it. Didn't know if I'd be able to do it after 30 years, but my buddy Jim and I did it. We were up there with a bunch of these scouts, and one of the nut scouts opens his backpack and he takes out two bottles of sparkling cider that he had lugged to the top of the highest mountain in Southern. Two bottles. Listen, we barely brought anything. I left everything back here because you never carry anything heavy. Two bottles of sparkling cider. I said, you're an idiot. And then I said, give me some of that. It was so good. And so we're at there eating our lunches and just taking the stuff that we're physically depleted, and the sparkling cider was like the nectar of the gods. And all of this stuff, this food, just going to our bodies, just animating us. I said, I'm ready. Let's go climb another mountain. Let's get another one. Jesus is saying, what you need is me. I am the meal you need for life. Because if you take me in through faith, I will permeate your body, and you'll be able to deal with the horrible things that life brings. With the hope of eternal life, I will be your bread. That's what this text is about. This text is about receiving Christ. It's not about communion. It's not about a view of communion. It's a view of receiving Him. Now, there is an application to communion because when we embrace Christ, a bond is created between us and Christ that is absolutely... Well, Galatians 2.20, Paul said, I'm in Christ and Christ is in Me. When you take Him by faith, He comes to live in you, permeate your being. And there's a bond that's created that will enable us to live forever, to deal with whatever we go through. It creates a bond that enables us as women to become real women of God, to face the challenges of life, to become an Amy Carmichael, or Sarah Edwards, or a mom here and now facing the challenges that you face. It is only Jesus that can make you into the true woman that you want to be. The men, it is only Jesus that can lead you to a manhood that is real, and that goes beyond what our culture gives us. It takes us beyond Sunday School Christianity. We need that as boys, but we've got to go beyond that. Listen, what is the purpose of Christianity anyway? Is it to find a happy relationship with a wonderful man, i.e. Jesus? Or is it to change the world against impossible odds? How many of you guys are looking for a wonderful relationship with a really nice guy? Put that way, and that's the way we put the gospel so much. So often, that's the way we talk about it. Man, if you come to Christ, you can have a wonderful relationship with a really nice guy. You come to Jesus, He'll make you into the man that God's called you to be, so that you'll stand against the culture. You become dangerous in a way that will enable you to change the world and fight for your family and be there for your family and not go along with what the world says. Oh yeah, it's always looking for leisure, always looking for a way out. We are the softest culture on the face of this earth. We're soft, pornography, stuff. We run away so much. Jesus is not into just being our cosmic bellhawk to give us whatever we want. He's calling us to a true manhood. He is our bread, he is our steak and ale meal that we need to go into our bodies in our lives, to permanence and make us into what he wants us to be. I'm going to give some of you an opportunity to receive him for the first time in just a minute, to not just make a casual commitment, but a real commitment, but I want to call all of us to remember that in communion, it's our opportunity to remember what we have in Jesus. To remember that when he came, he came, he's a real man, lived a real life, died on a real cross so that our sins would be taken away so that we could have real life. And he calls us to real commitment. And in communion, it's not just a nice little religious sacrament. Communion is not just a time where we're trying to have some mystical experience. It's a time where we rejuvenate our bond with Christ who is in us and who wants to transform us and make us into real people. As we pass the bread, as we pass the cup, it's a time for us to say, I am deeply grateful for what you have done. You've started the process and there's so much more to carry on inside me to make me into a real woman, a real man. Carry on that promise. Carry on that process. Make me what you want to be. Help me get through what I'm going through. Be my bread. Be everything. Help me fight my addiction. Help me get there. Thank you for your grace. Communion is light to war buddies who meet every month for a burger and a beer. Forgive me, the analogy. And every time they get together the same meal, same meal, same talk. And what they do is they talk about what they went through. They talk about how they helped each other. They talk about their relationship. They talk about how... They iron sharpens iron. It's a time where they remember. And they walk away from that meal, feel... Feeling stronger because they spent time with that person who's saying, You can make it. You can do it. We went through the war. We can make it. Life is tough, but we're going to get through. Communion is a time when we meet the early church. Met and they met bread and wine. We use juice but it's the same deal. It's a meal. It's part of the meal. But we remember that Jesus is the meal. And that as we look for other things, other places, there's no substitute. There's no substitute for him. When you take communion today, you're remembering what you've gone through with him. What he went through for you. You're cementing the bond, take him by faith. Invite him in in a fresh way, renew your commitment to him. Because when he went to the cross he did it for you. Because he has plans for you.
In a wild world that never turns out the way we think it's going to. Jesus is the stake for the battle. He is the food to permeate your life. And there is no other. Take it to heart. As the usherers, the elders come forward, let's pray. If you have been around Christianity that shows a soft Jesus I invite you today, into a relationship with the strong Jesus. And if you're even interested and if you're willing to be in a relationship with the real Jesus, it's because God is working in your heart. And eventually you can't run away from that. If he is opening your heart to have a relationship with someone, the God of the universe who can forgive you of your sins, can redirect your life and lead you into a true life. And today is a day to receive him. Not the kind of commitment that is an add on, but the kind of commitment that says, you are the bread of my life. If you're ready for that, pray like this. I'm ready for strength. I'm ready for cleansing. I'm ready for your grace. I'm not good enough, but apparently I don't have to be. Today, living God, I ask that the Savior come into my life to be my bread, to fill me, to forgive me, to be my master and Savior. I really am looking for strength. And I embrace you today, Lord Jesus. If you are His as the bread is past, take it and eat it and pray. As this bread is filling my body, you fill me. Lord Jesus, for you are the only bread that has come down from heaven. Lord Jesus, meet us now through faith. Fill us now with yourself. That our bond with you would be renewed. That we would be strengthened to face whatever challenges we must face. That as your children, we would together change the world. Thank you for going to the cross for us, for my congregation, for these people that I love, but that you love more. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for bringing them into your family.