The Warrior Rejected by Many Followers
John 6:66-68 From this time many of his
disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You
do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter
answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life.”
Every day,
somewhere, couples get divorced. We remember all the happy moments of that wedding
day when two people declared their love for each other and put rings on each
other’s fingers. They made so many promises: to take care of each other when they
were sick, when poor, when things were bad, as well as when things were better.
They said they would cherish each other right up until one of them died.
So what happened
to those happy days and that awesome commitment to each other? What does it
take to break up a wedded couple? How many disagreements and arguments? How
much disgust over such things as personal habits, too much alcohol, fits of
anger and rage, drugs, video games taking time away from relationships,
pornography, physical or mental abuse, child abuse, or unfaithfulness? What
causes the “Wow” to turn to “Ugh”? As a pastor, I’ve seen enough of these
problems to weep. It’s always a loss and rejection when someone deserts the
marriage.
Jesus inspired
excitement—the “Wow”—when he began his ministry. Yet the “Ugh” entered the
hearts of some.
1. His
own rejected him.
It was during his
last year of ministry. For two years, crowds regularly followed him, eagerly
watching and listening. Shortly after he had fed a college basketball
arena-sized crowd of five thousand men, plus women and children, with five
loaves of bread and two fish, the people began to think that they should make
Jesus their king. They were even going to take him by force, probably so they
could keep him there at the Sea of Galilee and get all that free food and maybe
also be free of disease. Keep in mind that all of these people were part of the
chosen nation that God had carefully protected for more than two thousand
years. They knew that God had promised a Savior, and they were looking at Jesus
as that Promised One.
It’s tragic that
their expectations were for a Savior who would give them food and health. Some
of their spiritual leaders had abandoned the beautiful promises of the Savior
from sin and the giver of eternal life. They had turned those promises into a
prediction of a king who would throw out the hated Roman rulers and establish a
kingdom on earth with unlimited bread and health. How could that have happened?
An enemy had been at work! He had attacked the Bible. Satan had convinced the
spiritual leaders with a lie to reject Jesus. Many others chose to do the same.
Jesus resisted
their efforts to make him a king and withdrew from them. The next day, the
crowd found Jesus and had many questions. The subject turned, naturally, to
bread. That’s when Jesus said, “I
am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).
Whoa! They had
bread on their mind, but the bread Jesus gave them was so different from what they
expected. He told them he had come from his Father in heaven. He was the bread
from heaven, and all who “ate” the bread from heaven, that is, who took him in
by faith, would live forever. He
would raise them up on the Last Day. But they seemed to stop listening. If you
had been there, I think you would have felt the enthusiasm go out of the huge crowd,
like when the visiting football team scores the winning field goal as the clock
runs out. Many turned around and headed home.
But it wasn’t just
the crowd of thousands who walked away. Jesus had a group of disciples whom he
was training to reach out with the gospel to the huge mission field in Galilee
and beyond. But the words of Jesus, the bread from heaven, were difficult to
understand. How could he claim to give them eternal life? “On
hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can
accept it?’” (John 6:60). And right after this we learn, “From this time many of his
disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66).
It’s hard to
accept that some of his disciples would desert him. They were people who had
walked all those miles with Jesus, had slept on the ground many nights, had
eaten with him, had seen his many miracles. Jesus is the most fascinating
person who has ever walked on the face of the earth. When he spoke, it was with
a kind of authority that no one had ever heard before!
This was the
Savior of the world who had come to offer his perfect life in exchange for our
sin at the battle on Calvary. He’s getting ready for that battle and has been
preparing the troops to carry on. And some of them leave. They did not believe
Jesus had the authority or power to grant eternal life. They reject him. They
divorce themselves from him. The “Wow” had turned to “Ugh.” This is just sad,
when his own reject him.
The enemy of Jesus
had gotten to the hearts and minds of the Jewish leaders and others. He had led
them to believe the lie that Jesus couldn’t be who he had said and showed he
was. The leaders were teaching false doctrine of the worst kind to their
people: that they could somehow get to heaven by trying to be good people and following
the law. Jesus was simply telling them what he had said at the beginning of his
ministry: “God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life” (John 3:16). They planned to kill him and reject his
message.
We begin to see
the huge forces Jesus was fighting against. How does the awe for Jesus go out
of someone who’s been that exposed to him? An enemy did this.
It wasn’t just
back then.
The enemy still
hates Jesus and, as much as he can, still fights hard against him. The enemy
has encouraged lost people to grow deeper in their separation from God by
establishing numerous false religions such as Islam, Hinduism, atheism,
materialism, and many more—all of them offering some sort of path to God or a
substitute for God, a path that leads only to hell.
He has also made
inroads into the Christian church, spreading false doctrine, attacking the
Bible, and using critics of Christianity in the media, in universities, and in politics
to damage and destroy saving faith. You know about the growing numbers of “dones”—people
who have left the church and say they won’t come back. And the “nones”—people
who claim they have no religious affiliation. Satan is a terrorist who is cornered
and knows he’s going to die—but he wants to take as many as he possibly can
with him.
Even here in our
own church we have some members who once enthusiastically promised right here
at the front of this church that they would remain faithful to Jesus and his Word,
even if they had to die to do that. Those confirmation vows have been broken. Something
has happened to take away their joy of being in God’s house.
Maybe you have
someone close who is slipping or has lost his or her faith. We all sometimes
struggle with a personal doubt about something God says. Our doubts and
questions keep buzzing in our brain. So you can understand Jesus when he turns
to the smaller group of disciples with a question. Listen carefully to this
question: (Read it slowly.)
“‘You
do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve” (John 6:67).
Jesus gives them the opportunity to make
a clear answer. Was there emotion in his voice? Did they hesitate? Did they
want time to see how many others were staying first, before they gave their own
answer? We don’t know, but this we do know:
2. His gracious
words of life draw us ever closer to him.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we
go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). I
love Peter here because he is so right on: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
When God created
the world, he simply spoke, “Let there be . . . ,” and there was light and dirt
and stars and galaxies and lions and butterflies—a universe beyond
understanding. He just spoke! What power God has in his words!
I’m holding in my
hands (or: on my tablet) (lifting the Bible or tablet) and you are holding on
your phone God’s own love story toward us—his words of life, forgiveness, and
salvation. These words have terrific power. You know the passage in Romans
where Paul tells us, “Faith comes
from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ”
(Romans 10:17).
Only God knows how
many believing Christians there are in the world. This I do know: Every single
one of them did absolutely nothing to create saving faith in their hearts. Everyone—you
and I too—came by only one very powerful means, one agency, one path. It doesn’t
matter if it is spoken, read, or received in a tactile, visible fashion called
Baptism. It’s the single most powerful force for good in our world: GOD’S WORD!
That’s what brought you and me to trust that the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ has purchased and won for us the forgiveness of all our sins! He
did it all and paid it all for us! He loves us enough to die so we might live
with him forever. So can you see why Jesus fought false teachers so hard?
He said, “Watch
out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly
they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). They continue to oppose
Jesus and lure you to abandon your Savior. They have a lot of opinions and
theories, but they do not have the words of eternal life. There is only one
source for that, and Peter had it right: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
Peter and the
others were blessed and did not want to lose what Jesus had given them. We are also
blessed. You and I stand (sit) here washed in the blood of the Lamb of God! We
are forgiven and we have eternal life.
Jesus becomes our
guest preacher here every time we come to listen. He promises to take us
through the door marked “Death.” He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It was
Martin Luther who said, “If you were to ask a Christian what his task is and by what he is
worthy of the name of Christian, there could be no other response than hearing
the Word of God, that is, faith. Ears are the only organs of the Christian.”[1]
(Repeat the last sentence.)
We are just
two-and-a-half weeks away from Easter. It’s spring. Baseball teams are almost
done with their spring training. Let this Lent be time for us to grow more
deeply in the Word—our own spiritual spring training. My prayer is that by
Easter our congregation will be renewed in our zeal to make better use of the
Word. Start your own personal reading program or home devotions. I suggest each
of us start tonight or tomorrow by reading chapter 12 of John’s gospel, and
then a chapter each day to the end of John’s gospel. It is the story of our
Savior’s last week on earth, and it’s riveting reading.
We are
challenged every day to hold on tightly to God’s Word when we see and hear all
the stuff the world, our sinful flesh, and Satan throws at us. It’s a pretty
steady flood. So if Jesus were to ask us right now, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” will you join me in
answering (prompt them as little as possible, but coach them), “Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (spoken
by congregation).
Amen.
Endnotes
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