The Will of the Father - Joh..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Gospel according to John chapter 6 and our reading will be from verse 25 through 40. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, What must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him who he has sent.

So they said to him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

And they said to him, sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36, but I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever 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. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, That everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life and I will raise Him up on the last day. Amen. This is the Word.

of our Lord. What a wonderful passage of scripture we have before us this evening. It's a continuation of the Bread of Life discourse in the synagogue in Capernaum on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. As I've said before, the majority of this, the longest chapter in John, is a dialogue between our Lord and the Galileans, and soon the Jews, on the critical point that Jesus himself is the bread from heaven, who has come down to give eternal life. He alone provides the all-satisfying food for the soul.

But as we've seen in previous weeks, his fellow countrymen lack faith. And so their pursuits after Christ are carnal, they're physical, they're sinful. In their view, Jesus is good for filling their bellies, but not more. So last week we established that although it seems Jesus is staring at a sea of unbelief, and seeing with very little fruit with these Galileans, he yet had a settled confidence because of verse 37. And that's the verse we considered last week.

That verse reads, all that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Beloved, the bottom line is this. The Father has destined the Son to succeed because the Father has given His Son a people and that people He will receive. And so that brings us to the verses that we will be considering this evening, verses 38 through 40. And so we'll start with verse 38, and it reads, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.

Now this verse begins with a for and we know whenever or every time we see the word for or because we need to consider what precedes it. Or in other words, what comes before the fall? In other words, something our Lord has just said is true and can be trusted because of what He's about to say. So what has our Lord just said? Well, all that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

You see, Jesus is saying to these Galileans, whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Why? For, or because, 38, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me." There's so much in these few words of our Lord that we need to just really slow down this evening and think them through as a congregation. And we need to begin by reminding ourselves who this audience is.

You've got to remember that these people have followed Jesus over land and sea because they were attracted and allured by the fact that Jesus is able to satisfy their physical, material desires. Namely, he's able to supernaturally produce food for their bellies. That's why they're there. Jesus knew this and that's why he rebuked them back in verse 26. And then he exhorted them, do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you.

But the words of our Lord went straight over their heads back then. Jesus back then was speaking in illusions. He was referring to himself in the third person as the Son of Man, verse 27, and referring to the bread of God as the source of eternal life. So maybe, just maybe, that's why these people didn't quite join the dots together. Okay?

But in verse 35, There's no excuse because Jesus straight out tells these people that he himself is the bread of life. Come to me, he says, believe in me. Now, do they believe? Well, put your eyes down in verse 36. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe.

You see, these people were able to believe something. They believe that this man that was standing before them is able to provide them supernaturally with great tasting bread. They witnessed this and they ate of this bread only a day earlier. But this eternal life Jesus is claiming to give, that's another story altogether. Even after Jesus teaches this point over and over and over again in the rest of this chapter, they will still refuse to believe that Jesus can do what he claims to do.

You see, in their eyes, Jesus is a mere man. They say that in verse 52. But what they fail to see is that He is no mere man, but the divine incarnate Son of God. And I believe that's a point that Jesus wishes to establish before He explains the veracity of verse 37 in verses 38 through 40. Because, beloved, no mere man is able to do what Jesus is claiming he will do.

So he begins, I have come down from heaven. I know I've mentioned this point about three weeks ago in a previous sermon, because Jesus himself, he made this exact point back in verse 33 when he said, for the bread of God is he, he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. But the people's responses immediately back then was this, so give us this bread always. They didn't understand that Jesus was speaking of himself. The fact that Jesus was using a personal pronoun, he, he who comes down from heaven, completely went over their heads.

It went unnoticed. Because now these people ask to receive this bread to eat daily, it seems. Still thinking maybe this bread is like the manna that their fathers ate in the wilderness. Or perhaps this is the great tasting Mediterranean flatbread that they ate only a day earlier on the eastern shore. But now that Jesus has cleared any fog or any misconceptions that they may have had by declaring that he himself is indeed that bread of life, now he will once again reiterate that he is sent from heaven and therefore is no mere man.

Indeed, if he were a mere man, then these people have all the right to reject him. What man can make these claims? But if his claim is indeed that he is from a heavenly origin, then that's another story altogether. The Jews were well aware of the heaven that Jesus speaks of. They knew full well that heaven is Yahweh's abode.

This truth is found multiple times in the Old Testament, and in particular in the Psalms, where many occasions it's written that Yahweh, that's the Lord all caps, looks down from heaven upon the children of man. So at the very least, this Jesus, and this is how they understood, who stands before them, who is not yet 40 years of age, is claiming to have been with Yahweh before he was born a child in Bethlehem. This itself is a massive, massive claim. And certainly this heads to Jesus' claim not only to be a man, but to be God. Because his claim here is that he was indeed with Yahweh before his advent on earth.

But his claim is also that those who dwell with Yahweh in the heavens before he dwelt on earth, it would have to make him divine. There's only a few chapters back. In chapter 3 verse 31 it is written, He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all.

Who, I ask, is above all? God himself. Furthermore, as we are back in John 6, the work in verse 37-40 our Lord declares the Father has given him to accomplish, beloved, that work categorically cannot be accomplished unless he is indeed God. Because as we'll soon see, Jesus will claim to have the power to raise people from the dead. Beloved, the original audience knew that that was only God's prerogative.

Jesus is claiming deity. So it's fitting that he begins his reasoning of how and why he will perfectly preserve and protect all those who come to him with firstly declaring that he has the ability to do it. So Jesus declares in no uncertain terms he has come down from his heavenly abode. Now, that's not going to go well with these people. Clearly, that's the case by their response in verse 42.

Because these people have Torah, the first five books of the Bible in particular, and the rest of Scripture, but they knew the first five really, really well. And so they knew full well that God is one. In fact, a devout Jew would recite the Shema every morning and every evening. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And now if these Galileans, this audience of Jesus, are putting two and two together, just like the Jews did in Jerusalem only a chapter earlier, they're going to have some serious questions about this Jesus and who he's claiming to be.

You see, in chapter 5, it wasn't pretty. They resolved to kill Christ. You know why? Well, we're told there, because this Jesus is making himself equal with God. But they allow Jesus to continue and speak and explain why exactly he came down from heaven.

So he says in verse 38b, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. What an incredible statement. Do you see what our Lord is saying here? The whole purpose for the incarnation of the Son of God, the very reason He came to this earth, is to accomplish the will of the Father. That's what He's saying.

And this is to say that He's not a rival or competing deity. These Jews were very familiar with that sort of thinking. They were living very much in a time that was influenced by Hellenistic mythology. No, Jesus is not claiming that at all, because Jesus is not claiming to act independently of the Father. It's actually the opposite.

He's in perfect harmony with Him. The Father's desire is Christ's desire. The Father's work is Christ's work. The Father's will is Christ's will. They are in perfect agreement, both Father and Son.

And that agreement, beloved, is rooted in their eternal love. The Father loves the Son from eternity past, that's in John 17, 24, and from the lips of our Lord Himself, only about four pages over, He says, I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. John 14 verse 31. The obedience of Christ to the Father's will is rooted in a reciprocated, two-way love that spans out to all eternity. And of course, as the divine Son of God, His divine will is simultaneously the Father's will, because God is one.

But in the incarnation, he also has a human will, human desires. He makes human choices. And in his humanity, he finds full satisfaction in obedience to his father. Now, there's an interesting point here. Jesus has been and will continue to teach these people from 35 onwards that I am the bread of life and whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

This message pertains salvation and to eternal life. That's what's on offer. But also Christ is pronouncing how to quench the deepest longings and yearnings of the soul. The hunger and thirst he speaks of is satisfied only in him, because he's saying that he is the true bread from heaven. You see, only the child of God understands these words.

But that's what Jesus is saying. And I cannot but think that Jesus already knows exactly what that satisfaction tastes like. Because I know our Lord has experienced, as the God-man, the joy that comes when deepest longings of the soul are truly satisfied. You see, as I was meditating upon the words of our Lord in verse 38, I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me, I was reminded once again that our Lord in His earthly ministry, the eternal Son of God, the incarnate Son of God, does not obey because He's compelled to obey. but he obeys because of his love for the Father and he finds fulfillment in his obedience to the Father's will.

You see, full satisfaction for what he hungers and thirsts for is in or found in that obedience to the Father's will. Did you remember back in chapter four when Jesus entered into Samaria and near a town called Sychar? That's the place he met with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Well, we know that Jesus was clearly hungry, and we also know that he was thirsty. The disciples had gone to the town nearby to buy some food.

At the well, our Lord asked this woman, this Samaritan woman, to draw him some water because he was thirsty. He wanted his thirst to be quenched. But instead of our Lord's thirst being quenched, He quenches her thirst, her spiritual thirst with living water for her soul. And now she rushes back to the nearby town of Sychar, pleading with the townspeople to come and to meet this Jesus. You remember?

You remember that story? And they do. They obliged that they begin to come out of that town and trickle towards the well, which is probably a 10 to 15 minute walk towards our Lord. But the disciples had come back and they brought some food and they urged Jesus to eat because they knew that Jesus was hungry and there is no evidence, absolutely no evidence, that he had anything to drink either. But do you remember what Jesus said when these disciples offered him food?

He refused to eat. And this is what he says, John 4.34 You see, Jesus knows what it is to have a fully satisfied soul. Beloved, our Lord fulfilled perfectly the will of the Father precisely because He desired to fulfill the will of the one He loves. The will of His Father in heaven.

This is what Jesus hungered for. This is what Jesus thirsted for. He found joy in obedience. And let's not think for a moment that the Father's will for Christ was a primrose path or a life of ease. We know too well that was not the case.

Because we know that the Father's will would lead this Jesus, his son, to that cross to bear the righteous fury of God himself, even still in the midst of the greatest anguish. Only hours before our Lord's brutal death upon that Roman cross, he cries out to the Father with these words. He said, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Here's the point. Nevertheless, he says, not my will, but yours be done.

What incredible love. Even in his greatest suffering, our Lord's soul hungered to please his father and to do his will. This is why the Galilean audience had no interest in Christ. They were hungry, alright, but they weren't hungry for Jesus-flavored bread. As far as they were concerned, as we'll see further into this chapter, this Jesus, this man who stands before them, he is not edible.

Their soul did not long for the true bread from heaven. Beloved, our Lord has shown us that it is indeed a joy to pursue what the soul yearns and longs for. Now this is not the point of our passage, but it does bring us to ask a very important question. What does your soul long for? What does my soul long for?

What is the yearning of our hearts? Do you hunger and thirst for Christ? Have you experienced the satisfaction of the soul that comes only from this bread of life? Beloved, if you can answer yes to that question, then you should be able to also answer and say that His will is not a burden. If you've tasted and seen that this true bread from heaven is indeed good, Then in love, you should be able to declare with our Lord that your food, your delight is to obey the will of the one you love.

Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my commands. John 14 5. This ought to be the desire of all our hearts, beloved, to love Jesus and to obey His word. As sinners, we know to our shame that we are not perfect in our obedience. Our brother this morning, he showed us that no man is perfect to the law of God.

But beloved, perfection is still the goal. Obedience to the law of Christ is still the goal. Because Jesus himself said, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Perfection is actually the goal. You know why?

Because Christ's likeness is the goal. And what Christ has accomplished in his obedience for our redemption, ultimately, is perfection to the Father's will. But also, but also as we look to Christ and His perfect obedience, we see in Him an example, an example for those who are trusting in Him, an example for those who have the Spirit of God dwelling in them because they believe upon Christ, because they've eaten of this bread of life, an example of how Christians ought to live a life in obedience to His will. But now moving on in our passage, our Lord gets more specific. The next verses, from verses 39 through 40, focus to define exactly what the will of the Father is that Jesus obeys.

Now listen to the verses, and if you want to follow with me, we're reading 39 through 40. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day. Now, brothers and sisters, I hope I hope you could see, you've been able to see the parallels between verse 39 and verse 40.

they're very, very similar. Actually, the structure is almost identical between these two verses, but there are some profound differences that, by God's grace, this evening we will consider. In particular, we will see that verse 39 speaks to the divine perspective in a corporate sense of the will of the Father. And in verse 40, it's more of a human perspective, the way we see things. It's individual.

Now, we said last week that salvation is of the Lord, and amen, it is. That Jesus was not at all concerned or worried that Galileans have rejected Him and not believed or placed their trust in Him. He wasn't worried. He wasn't anxious. Why?

Why wasn't our Lord anxious? Well, it's not because He was apathetic. No, that's not it. But rather because of what we recognized when we read and examined verse 37 a couple of weeks ago. And that is that our Lord is unconcerned because He has an unmoved confidence in the Father.

His Father has chosen or elected a people from eternity past that He will give to the Son as a love gift in real time. And Christ will welcome them and He will keep them. Therefore, Christ is guaranteed to be successful in the Incarnation. He's guaranteed to be successful in His mission, not because He depends upon man or man's ability to believe, because if that was the case, then there could be no guarantees. but because his success is fully dependent upon the Father's eternal decree.

However, in that same verse, verse 37, we're told that those the Father gives to the Son, they will come to the Son. And they do it willingly. They're not coming kicking and screaming, but genuinely and willingly. They see this Jesus as the true bread of life and they have a real hunger for Him. They experience a real thirst for Him.

Trusting in Him to forgive their sins and to give them eternal life. But at the same time, in verse 44, if you remember, we looked at that verse a couple of weeks ago, we're also told there that they cannot come unless the Father draws them to come. So what do you have here? Well, what we have here is very much a display of the sovereignty of God in salvation on the one hand, and human responsibility to obey the command to believe on the other. I said then, that means that if a person believes upon Christ and is indeed saved by him, it is because of the sovereign, unconditional, electing grace of God and his regenerating power.

And therefore man cannot boast. But hear this, if one rejects this Jesus in unbelief, then he or she is responsible for their sins. And their judgment is fitting, for their love was for their sins, and their hate was for God. There is those dual truths that we Christians must hold simultaneously. We might struggle with them, we might wrestle with them in our own human understanding, but beloved, we must believe them because they are taught in Scripture, and Scripture is the Word of God.

That was verse 37, and now we see something similar in verses 39 through 40. Let's put our eyes back there and have a look. Let's have a look at the will of the Father from Christ's perspective. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. That's verse 39.

And this is the will of Him who sent me. Jesus has been sent. Now he's mentioned this before, that he's on a mission, a mission sent by the Father. He has a work to do, a work of obedience to the Father's will. And that work, beloved, and that work is that I should, this is in His own words, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

Now I want us to see that what I said earlier was Jesus had a settled assurance that His mission would not fail because of His trust in the Father. His Father will give Him a people, those people will come. But here in verse 39, we see so clearly that Jesus also has a massive responsibility. He is to lose nothing of all that he has been given, but to raise it up on the last day. In other words, the Father will do his part.

And Jesus is required to do His part, to lose nothing of all He has been given. It's not a simple matter of Jesus placing the people that the Father has given, the people who have come, placing them in a vault and walking away. Now, they're safe there, right? No. No, that's not how this works out.

This is an active, continuing role on the behalf or on the part of Jesus Christ to lose none that the Father has given Him. Oh, if we just understood the profoundness of this statement. Beloved brothers and sisters, the reason this verse is stated in the negative, losing nothing that He has given, is precisely because, apart from His active preserving work, apart from the guarding and the safekeeping of our Lord, that would be our default. We would lose our way. Let's not kid ourselves.

We all know that we are prone to wander. On our own, we get lost. It's no wonder that Jesus refers to those that the Father has given Him as sheep in John chapter 10. are not very smart. And if you've ever seen a sheep in the wild, you would know that that sheep without a shepherd, well, it's only a matter of time before he falls prey to any number of lurking dangers, to any number of threats and predators out there.

Why is it, you think, why is it that shepherd's staff has a hook on its end? without the active, continual, nurturing care of a shepherd, a sheep in the wild will most certainly get lost and definitely be killed. But beloved, this is only a picture. The sheep and shepherd is a metaphor because it's not the physical things that are in view in our text. but the spiritual things that is the focus of our Lord.

And that's a whole new ballgame. Because our enemy is an invisible enemy. The system of the world, the flesh, and Satan. All whom desire to tear us apart. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

Ephesians 6, 12. Beloved brothers and sisters, think of your journey thus far. Think about your lives so far. Think of how many times you've been tempted to wander. No, think of how many times you have.

Beloved, these are both sins of commission and sins of omission. Both are wicked in the eyes of God. This is the unintentional sins, those unintentional sins that our brother taught us on this earlier this evening in Leviticus chapter 1. And also when we're eluded into various intentional sins, those Those sins that seem to grab hold and drag you further and further into darkness. It grieves your soul, but you fall over and over again.

We all know what sins we are tempted with, beloved. Those besetting sins that we struggle with. Whether it's pride, selfishness, love for money, greed, sexual immorality, laziness, maybe it's anxiety and worry, whatever that sin may be. Brothers and sisters, let's be honest, we all know that we are prone to wander. And if left to ourselves in the world, we will most definitely lose our way.

We will take the deceiver's bait and be devoured by the enemy who constantly seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. Remember the chilling words in 1 Peter 5.8, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. But of what chance does a sheep have before a cold-blooded, hungry lion? the inspired author of these words, of that verse, Peter himself, speaks from experience.

Because if it were up to him and him alone, he would have committed spiritual apostasy on the night Jesus was betrayed. Only hours, only hours earlier, hours before This happened, our Lord warns him. He says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demands to have you that he may sift you like wheat. Beloved, the first, I don't know if we're aware, but in the first century, sifting of wheat was a rapid shaking of the grain in a sieve or a strainer by the farmer. It was a violent action.

What chance does Peter have in the hands of Satan, I ask? On his own, he has absolutely no chance. But the very next verse is a glorious one, because the very next verse is when Jesus warns Peter, he says, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. You can almost hear the loving words of Jesus saying, Peter, you're a gift to me by my father. You are one of my sheep.

You are weak, Peter, but take heart. I have vowed never to lose you. In fact, I will not lose nothing of all the Father has given me. It is my job to defend them. It is my job to guard them, to keep them safe.

Not one will be lost, not on my watch. protect them from the evil one, to guide them in my word, and to empower them to holiness and purity by my Spirit, and to one day present them, my bride, my church, holy without spot, without wrinkle, and without blemish. Beloved, We must know and believe that this Jesus is faithful to do it. If you are his sheep, you will not be lost. This is the will of His Father.

This is the purpose of His incarnation. This is the delight of His heart. His perfect preservation of His own was evident during His earthly ministry. But His intercessory role continues from heaven until He raises them up on the last day. You see, much of the New Testament speaks to this.

Much of the New Testament gives us assurance of this. But there is a passive that speaks so clearly to it. So let's open our Bibles together to John. The Gospel according to John chapter 17 and we'll be reading from verses 6 through 19. John chapter 17 verses 6 through 19.

This passage is known as the high priestly prayer of our Saviour on the night that He was betrayed. Let's read from verse 6. I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I have come from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. all mine are yours and yours are mine and i am glorified in them 11 and i am no longer in the world but they are in the world and i am coming to you holy father keep them in your name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one 12 while i was with them i kept them in your name which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction." that the Scripture may or might be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have the joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth.

Your word is truth as you sent me into the world so I have sent them into the world as and for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. Now, beloved brothers and sisters, are these words and these truths that we just read about the preserving intercessory role of our Lord and Savior, are they only for the 11 disciples or the 11 true disciples who are focused on in this prayer? No, no, because the prayer continues, verse 20, but I do not ask for these only, that's the 11, but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." Oh, what a glorious truth. He intercedes for all the Father has given him.

in all generations and he will lose none. I love the way Jude says it in his doxology in verse 24. He says, Amen. Now brothers and sisters, I hope you took notice of who our Lord intercedes for when we read through John 17. Who are indeed the recipients of His preservation and the eternal life that is found in Him?

Who are they? Verse 9. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom You have given Me. And those whom the Father gives the Son, it is His will, that is the Father's will, that they believe in the Son. So back now in John chapter 6 in verse 40 we read, For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life.

You see, verse 39 is from a divine perspective, as I said earlier. Now verse 40 is from a human perspective. And it's encumbered upon all who come to believe on the Son. They shall be given eternal life. It's so incredible when you pull yourself back and look at all the parts involved in the Father giving a people to His Son.

They are chosen from before the foundation of the world. They're given to the Son in real time. They will come to the Son, and the Son will keep them and guard them, and He will lose none. Every step of the way to bring His people to the final consummation, the final consummated rest, is covered by the eternal will of the Father. A will, beloved, that cannot be broken.

and will not be broken. Because God the Father is all powerful and no one can stay His hand. No one can thwart His will. As Jesus says in John 10, My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one. Therefore, all, all that the Father gives the Son, His sovereign will guarantees they will believe upon the Son. This bride gift, the church gift, will be complete. Not one will be lost. It's a concerted effort in the Godhead.

It's a guaranteed, guaranteed beloved. And from the human point of view, we cannot peer into the eternal decree of God to view the corporate all mentioned in verse 39. But rather, we ought to ask ourselves the critical question, do I believe? That's the most important question anyone can ask. Do I believe?

Have I looked upon the sun and believed, not simply acknowledged to some degree, some facts about this Jesus. Many people do that, but they don't have eternal life. Even the Galileans, this audience before our Lord believed to some degree about Jesus. They believed he was from God. They believed and confessed him to be the prophet like Moses.

They were even seeking to be his disciples. Furthermore, how can we forget that they were so convinced of His good character and His authority that they sought to make Him king, remember? But that's not the faith that Jesus speaks of. Instead, he gazes at them and says the devastating words in verse 36, But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe. You've seen my work.

You've heard my teaching. You're impressed with my power, yet you do not believe. Why? Why is that, beloved? Well, A clear and concise answer to that question is found in John chapter 10.

So let's open our Bibles together once again to John chapter 10 and we'll be reading from verses 22 through 30. John chapter 10 from verse 22 through 30. At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Twenty-five. And Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father's name bear witness about Me, but you do not believe. Why?

Listen to what comes next. Because you are not among My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one." Beloved brothers and sisters, did you get it? Did you see the answer to our question? The recipients of Christ's preserving and guarding benefits and the eternal life that He gives are His sheep. They're the recipients of those blessings.

They are the ones who believe in this Jesus. And they believe in who He claims to be. That He is indeed the eternal Son of God, sent by the Father to fulfill the will of the Father in perfection. through His sinless life, His substitutionary death, and His victorious resurrection from the dead. To believe in Him is to lay hold of this Jesus and to trust that His work was done on my behalf.

This is to believe that He is my Savior, that He has forgiven my sins. that He is my Lord and my God. It is to trust that He will keep me and guard me till the end. And in believing in this way is to have the Spirit wrought assurance that I have been given to Christ by the Father according to the will of the Father. And the same eternal will assures that in Christ I have eternal life.

A life that is not only never-ending, beloved, but a quality of life that begins in real time when one believes. A life in Christ that enjoys intimate fellowship with God, as our Lord says, and this is eternal life, that they know you, speaking of the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. And as the perfect Savior, He will bring our salvation to completion. And our salvation is not complete, beloved, until the resurrection of our bodies. Both verse 39 and verse 40 end with that truth.

Verse 39 speaks corporately, as I said earlier, where he says, raise it up on the last day, that it is the church, it is the bride collectively. And verse 40 speaks of the individual child of God, the one who believes, raise him up on the last day, he says. The last day is a term only used in the Gospel of John, and every time it speaks of the resurrection and the day of judgment. Both of which we were told in the previous chapter, in chapter 5, if you remember, that Jesus himself will execute. He will raise every single person from the dead, some to the glorious resurrection of life.

and others to the devastating resurrection of judgment. Indeed, in doing so, he demonstrates that he is divine God in flesh. The point in these causes is that Jesus is a perfect saviour. His salvation is not partial. It's complete.

And He won't lose anyone on the way. He will bring them safely into the consummated glory. As the Apostle Paul says, He who began a good work in you will bring it to, what? Completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Beloved, these few verses we've considered over the last few weeks are very much the original chain, golden chain of redemption.

The truths in the chain that we know so well from the Apostle Paul's writings in the book of Romans are found right here before us in John chapter 6. and the raising up on the last day, the consummation is the glorification in the resurrected, here it is, physical bodies of the people of God in Christ, which is, as I said before, 100% guaranteed, because full and final salvation is of the Lord, and that is the will of the Father. Brothers and sisters, I'll end on this point. We need to recognise that Jesus taught these truths, looking forward to what still lies ahead. You see, at the time, this time in John chapter 6 in his earthly ministry, he still had the horrific cross to endure, the excruciating pain upon that tree, and the unimaginable agony of bearing in full the brunt of the Father's fury upon unrighteousness deserving of the full number of those who will believe upon The Son was still to come.

That suffering was the will of the Father. All the benefits that were meditated upon with us here this evening are fully dependent upon His perfect obedience. will. You see, anything short of perfection would be unacceptable. And the fact that Jesus was resurrected, beloved, from the dead is evidence that His work was indeed accepted by the Father.

Because in His resurrection, He was vindicated. The resurrection was a declaration by the Father. That Jesus, His eternal beloved Son, God in flesh, obeyed His will faultlessly. And that He never, not once, not a single time, committed a single sin. For if He had, if Jesus had committed a single sin, He would have remained in the grave.

You see, He never told a lie. So that means everything, beloved, everything he claimed to be, everything he ever taught is perfect and flawlessly true. He is trustworthy and true. So when he says to the Father on the night he was betrayed, I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do, He must be believed.

Also, when He hung upon the cross and He cried out, it is finished, the same root word as accomplished. Beloved brothers and sisters, in Christ, it means it was finished. It was accomplished. The will of the Father was perfectly obeyed by the Son, by Jesus. Satan has been defeated with a fatal blow to his head.

And this Jesus Christ has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, crowned to be the King of kings and Lord of lords. So beloved brothers and sisters, take heart. Because no matter what our future holds in this age, We can have an unshakable assurance that this perfect Saviour will lose none of us. But He will raise us up on that last day to dwell with Him forevermore. And God's people said, Amen and Amen.

Let's pray.