How to Leave Jesus...or Not

[53] So Jesus said to them, 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you....

[60] When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 

"This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" ...

[66] After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 

[67] So Jesus said to the Twelve, 

"Do you want to go away as well?" 

[68] Simon Peter answered him, 

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, [69] and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."  

[Jhn 6:53-69 ESV]

If we had the time this morning to read the entire context of these verses, we would see that in the course of a few verses, Jesus goes from being followed by multitudes to being followed by only a few.

In verses 1-4 we find that the setting is near the Sea of Galilee. The timing is early spring as the Passover feast nears. Jesus feed 5000 men with five loaves and 2 fish with such abundance that 12 baskets full were picked up afterward. The people were so impressed with this that they were ready to coronate him as king on the spot. Jesus gave them the slip. That night, Jesus walks on water across the sea. The next day the crowds find him again and come asking for more bread. The deal they try to make sounded like this:

"Feed us bread like Moses did and we will believe you."

In other words,

"We will follow you as long as it satisfies our flesh."

This is the "deal" that they want Jesus to take. They assume that a man with this kind of power must have political ambition. They make a political calculation that he is so desperate for followers that he will purchase their loyalty with favors. They even quote scripture.  Jesus isn't interested in their offer.

Instead, he makes a spiritual application to a physical event.

When we drop into this passage like we just did in verse 53 it sounds rather gruesome to be honest, but in the context of the Passover feast, Jesus is pointing out to them that his purpose is not merely to sustain them in the wilderness, but to deliver them from a curse of death.

You see, sometimes we lose track of where we are in our walk with God. These people thought they were "okay" spiritually and were in search of the physical blessings of God. What they really needed was to be delivered from the spirit of "Egypt" if you will, from a spirit of carnality, from the bondage of sin.

It was not God's original intention for the Israelites to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. His original plan was for them to escape Egypt, go to Horeb and receive the Law, and then enter the Promised Land. It was because of disbelief that they failed to enter. As a result they spent 40 years in the wilderness simply existing, waiting for the doubters to die.

It is not God’s will for us to wander aimlessly in our walk with him either. Too often believers get stuck somewhere between being “delivered from Egypt” and entering a victorious Christian life.

For several verses Jesus tries to correct their theology. Then, when it becomes apparent that Jesus isn't going to feed them loaves and fish again, they start to complain.

• They complained.
•  They doubted.
•  They left.

The Crowd Left when Jesus' message did not align with their desire for carnal fulfillment. The crowd left because Jesus turned their attention from the temporal to the eternal. Up until this time Jesus has healed them and fed them. The crowd is happy to follow Jesus and enjoy the benefits that accompany him, but when the hard truths are revealed, they leave.

Many of the disciples left when the crowd left.

Just this week I heard someone say, “people follow people.” There is a difference in loving Jesus and loving the idea of Jesus. There is something appealing about rallying around a unifying force. When the crowd left, it stopped being fun. The entertainment value dropped. The prestige diminished. The disciples first grumbled, then they left.

Then Jesus looked at the Twelve and asked if they would leave also. The answer of the inner circle is instructive. Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go?...” Now in all fairness, there are plenty of places to go.

• These men could return to sea.
• They could join a political movement.
• They could go join the Essenes in the wilderness.
• They could go join the Roman Army for that matter.

But they didn't. The problem with all of these options is that they had already been close to Jesus and they knew that Jesus had “the words of eternal life.”  The difference between the crowd, the casual disciples and the twelve is that the twelve had spent time alone with Jesus. They ate with him. Slept outside in the dark with him. In short, the way they knew him is because they spent time with him.

You see, it is possible to “kinda, sorta” follow Jesus without ever really getting close to him. You are inside the fence of the Tabernacle, so to speak, but you get stuck somewhere between the brazen altar and the laver. You never move on into the Holy Place. You never gain access to the deep things of God. When you are out here it is still easy to be enticed by the things of the world, but when you enter the holy place you can see yourself in the reflection of his glory.

In the Holy Place you:

• Smell the sweetness of prayer.
• You are enticed by the showbread of his word.
• You are illuminated by the light of his Spirit.

And then, once you enter the Holy of Holies, you learn to rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

The question today is are you:

• a member of the crowd
• a casual disciple
• one of those close to Jesus

You may not really know right now, but when the hard time comes, you will know. Here is a little grain of wisdom: don’t wait until the hard time arrives to prepare for the hard time. You prepare beforehand. You prepare alone with Jesus.

God Bless.

Why. Worship. Matters.

God is not a narcissist. He is not seeking adulation simply because he want to hear people say his name.

God wants me to worship, because worship makes a difference in my life.

In John chapter 4 Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman whose life is messed up six ways to Sunday. She had made a series of bad choices. She is a social outcast. She is, it seems, ashamed of her life.

And she has questions about how to worship God. That's good.

Here's the thing. God "seeks" worship, even from people whose lives are a mess. Granted, there are qualifiers on what makes a "true worshipper", but they are not the same qualifiers we often place on ourselves.

God's qualifiers are that we worship in "spirit" and in "truth".  True worship can only emanate from the heart of the redeemed, but the redeemed don't have to have it all together before they can worship.

God seeks sincere worship from honest, repentant messed up people. Look what happens then. This lady runs back into town bragging on Jesus. The bigger Jesus becomes to her, the less the problems of her past matter.

Do you have problems? Probably. Worship anyway.

Worship is not my response to a great life. Worship is my response to a great God.

If we only worship when life is great, we miss the point. Worship is our pre-game fight song. In worship I sing the praises of my Champion. Worship forces me to pause and see God in all his greatness, his might and his wisdom.

I serve an all-powerful, all-knowing God, and he chose to become my Father. Just how cool is that.

Spend time in worship. It matters.

Jesus strikes back.

I have simplified this as best I can. It may still be a bit tedious, but I think it will be worth it.

    The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all record the baptism and temptation of Jesus. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that he immediately left the Jordan River after his baptism to spend forty days fasting in the Judean Wilderness. At the end of those forty days Satan came to him to  tempt him.

    The first temptation overcome by Jesus was a challenge by Satan for Jesus to use his divine power to satisfy the desires of his own flesh; that is, to transform stones into bread to satisfy his hunger. In the second, Satan took him to the pinnacle of the temple and (using a misquotation of scripture) challenged Jesus to throw himself from the top of the Temple and land safely at the base. In the third temptation, Satan shows Jesus all of the Kingdoms of the World and offers to surrender them all to him in exchange for one thing that Satan wants above all else; that is, worship.

    The Gospel of John is the most unique of the four gospel accounts. We sometimes use chapter one as an account of Jesus baptism and anointing by the Holy Spirit. Technically it is not. It is a record of John the Baptist's dialogue with priests and Levites about his role in the kingdom of God. In this dialogue John the Baptist is recounting  the baptism of Jesus which had occurred a few weeks prior. The next day, after this dialogue, Jesus returns and John the Baptist makes a public proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah.

Here is what I find so interesting.

    In the wilderness Jesus repelled the temptations Satan brought to him, and upon his return Jesus begins a counter attack against Satan in the very same venues in which Satan had declared war.

 Counter attack #1: Transformation

   Three days after Jesus has returned from his wilderness experience he is at a marriage in Cana of Galilee. It is here that he performs his first miracle: he transforms water into wine...not privately for himself but publicly for the benefit of others. This act manifests his glory and causes his growing band of disciples to believe on him. There is no mention that he prayed over the water. There is no mention of the Father or the Spirit in this passage. This was an autonomous divine action by the Son of God.

Counter attack #2: The Temple

    A few days later he attends the Passover in Jerusalem. He enters the Temple and promptly throws the merchants and their livestock out. This marked his entrance into Jerusalem (and particularly the Temple).   His zeal for holiness is unmistakeable. His entrance is not self aggrandizing, rather, he openly chastises the merchants for polluting the house of the Father.

Counter attack #3: Nature of the Kingdom

    The third item of interest come from the next chapter, John chapter 3. While Jesus is in Jerusalem, a young ruler named Nicodemus comes to him by night to consult with him. Jesus immediately reads his heart and begins to discuss with him the nature of the Kingdom of God, and emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation.

1. Bread and wine are both symbols/types of the suffering of Christ. Satan tried to corrupt these symbols, Jesus reinforced them.

2. Satan tried to turn the Temple into a circus and Christ into a clown. Jesus cleansed the temple, and left the resurrection as his calling card.

3. Satan bargained with the kingdoms of the earth in an attempt to elevate himself. Jesus reveals the depth of the sacrifice of the Godhead so that he might give men the key to the Kingdom of God.

The wilderness temptations were not solely and attack on the Son of God, they were an attack by Satan on the Godhead as a whole. Notice the emphasis on each person of the Godhead in the progression of events. The Son, the Father and the Spirit are all emphasized in turn.

Additional thoughts...

...on throw yourself from the pinnacle

The challenge here was to make a spectacle of himself in the temple by doing something supernatural, and in essence trade his mission of salvation for a carnival act.

...on worship me and I'll give you the kingdoms.

Essentially Satan was offering Jesus a way around the cross. In exchange however Satan would be allowed to exalt his throne to the level of Godhood. by the very act of worship, Jesus would have been acknowledging Satan as a superior . [cf. Isaiah 14:12-14].

...on John 3.

 It is in this dialogue that the much quoted John 3:16 occurs (for God so loved the world...etc.), but we also see that in this passage the wilderness experience is still very fresh on his mind, for he says,

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." [John 3:14-16]

I, for one, have enjoyed this study. Hopefully it will inspire you as well. Blessings.