True Discipleship

John 6:60-69
Length: 15:58

This is a message given on August 23, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

As we finish up John chapter 6 this morning, it should be clear now that there are really three groups of people that are forming. The one group of course is the Twelve Apostles. This is a definite group and they are Christ’s closest followers.

Now we see the crowd starts to split into the other two groups. There are the members of the crowd that follow Christ and there are members of the crowd that are antagonistic toward Christ.

If you remember from our scripture last week, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. I came from Heaven and I am going back there. This is where the believers and unbelievers start to separate. No doubt this was difficult for the crowd to comprehend.

That is where the belief comes in to play. If the people could not believe that Christ came from Heaven and will return to Heaven, then how would they be able to believe in and comprehend other topics like Jesus’ sacrificial and subsitutionary death, or His resurrection and ascension to Heaven, or His sending of the Holy Spirit?

If it bothers the crowd that Jesus said He is the bread of life, then they will never believe in all of the stuff that is about to happen. People in the crowd admitted it is a difficult statement to listen to.

Jesus saw the crowd was not believing Him. He knew they were grumbling. This is the point where many teachers would maybe slow down, soften their message, or even change their methods a little bit to get the crowd back on board and in tune with each other.

But not Jesus. Jesus knew the hearts of men. He knew they did not and would not believe that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. These false followers were simply attracted to Him for His physical miracles, His healing and His feeding.

They enjoyed listening to His teaching up to this point, but now their hearts were made known. They failed to understand the true significance of Jesus.

Jesus was on a Heavenly time schedule and He would not compromise it. So He simply summarizes His teachings in three verses that we see this morning.

He calls the people from their fleshy ways and their fleshly thinking to spiritual ways and spiritual thinking. He calls the people to faith by challenging their unbelief. Jesus reminds the crowd of God’s presence in their life. God is the One who opens our eyes to see Him and His ways.

As a result of this sermon, many of the followers left. They went back to their old ways, their old habits, their old jobs and so on. Not only did they give up following Jesus, but they gave up on Jesus. They gave up what he represents and teaches. They are not fit for God’s Kingdom.

I figure I have preached close to 100 sermons in the past few years and I am not aware of anyone ever walking away from Jesus because of my message. Maybe I am doing something wrong. We see Jesus preaching to literally thousands of people and by the end of the day most of them are gone.

I am not sure if this is the most successful or unsuccessful sermon every preached by Jesus. It defiantly separated the believers from the non-believers. This is a significant turning point in Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus starts to reveal more and more about Himself and what He must do, but He also shifts from the public ministry to a more private training of the Twelve.

Jesus asks the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away also, do you?” Of course, Peter answers, “Lord, to who shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

Right here we see the key to discipleship. Many people skip over it and don’t even realize it is in this verse. But here it is. Two things that make a true disciple.

Faith, Peter says, "Lord, we believe." Peter is saying "We are sure who You are, and we believe.'

You know what the other one is? Faithfulness. "Lord, where would we go." See. "Not only do I believe You, but I stay where You are. I want to be with you and follow you."

Jesus said, "If you continue in My Word then are you disciples truly." In other words, faith is the birth of the true disciple. Faithfulness is the character of the true disciple.

And so Peter says in that little statement the whole of the Christian life in one thought. Faith and faithfulness. This is just living with the awareness of Christ's presence in your life, isn't it?

Peter couldn't stand to be away from Jesus. He always wanted to be where Christ was. This is illustrated so many times throughout the Gospels. Here he says, "Lord, I'm not going anywhere, You couldn't get rid of me."

That's the kind of Christian life that's the real life of the disciples, just constantly practicing the presence of Jesus Christ knowing He's right there beside you. "Lord, share my life, share my trials, share my joys, share my decisions, share my temptations." Constant involvement with Jesus Christ. That's discipleship. Lord, I have faith. Lord, I have faithfulness. That's what you want. I believe in You and I'm staying where You are. There's the whole Christian life right there.

Now Peter and the Twelve probably didn’t completely understand everything Jesus was teaching, but they got the main point correct. That is of course, life comes through Christ.

That is the question this morning. Do you know where life, eternal life, abundant life comes from? And not just know it, but believe it! Are you a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

As we follow Christ and grow in our faith we too may be tempted to turn away because of situations that occur or difficulty with understanding what God tells us. Some people like the majority of the crowd in our scripture this morning will simply give up.

Others will skip over those biblical teachings they don’t like or agree with. But the true follower of Christ will ask God for guidance. They will ask God to show them what the Scripture means and how they can apply it to their lives. They ask God to give them the strength and courage to act on God’s truth each and every day in all situations and circumstances of their lives.

What about you? What do you do? I agree with Peter. There is no other way. Jesus alone is the way to Heaven and eternal life. Either you accept it or you don’t. There is no in between.

1 John 5:20 says “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23)

Closing Prayer

Lord, we thank you for our time in your word this morning. Help us to be true and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Help us to realize and enjoy the bread of life that has been given for us. Help us to be discerning of those around us so we are not led down the path of the crowd, the way of destruction. Take our lives and lead us to eternal life. AMEN.