Take Two Miracles & Call Me in the Morning
Tom Shrader examines the miracle of feeding 5,000 people and Jesus walking on water, showing how Christ uses these signs to point to deeper spiritual truths. The teaching moves from the physical miracle to Christ's declaration that He is the bread of life, culminating in the difficult doctrine that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws them. Shrader emphasizes that salvation is entirely God's work, not human effort or decision.
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and that word draw is used to describe the rich who drag the poor into court - to compel.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 43 min
Themes: salvation, faith, grace, miracles, provision, trust, belief, surrender, questioning faith, new believer, struggling with doubt, seeking salvation, spiritual seeker, confused about doctrine, pastor teaching, bible study leader
Scripture: John 6:1-71, John 20:31, 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, Romans 9, Mark 4, 1 Samuel 1:5-6, James 2
Theological Themes: soteriology, divine sovereignty, election, predestination, biblical signs, christology, salvation by grace, divine calling
Full Transcript
John chapter 6. We are studying the gospel of John. We could spend a ton of time in there, but we will not. What we're trying to do is maybe even allow God to compel you to study the book a bit more in depth.
Let me remind you, we'll do it every week I'm sure, a purpose statement for this book. John does this very straightforward. At the end of the book, chapter 20, verse 31, he said these things. So he's told us Jesus has done other signs, but he says these signs, these were written to you that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is that He's the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you may have life in His name.
So what John is saying is that in the life of Christ there were many signs and wonders that He's done. Some of them are recorded here, but certainly not all of them, and these were hand-selected with one specific purpose, and that is that you would read them, that the Spirit of God would apply them to your heart and mind, and you would come to a conclusion, and then there'd be the result. The conclusion was that Jesus was the Messiah. The result would be that you would have life.
Life Here and Now
So when we titled this series, The Essence of Life, we were saying to you what I think is absolutely true, and that is not just eternal life, because my fear is so often we talk about Jesus Christ, come to Him, you have eternal life, we start thinking heaven, and I'm all for that, but I'm just telling you life here is sweeter. Life here is better. Life here is now understood. There is, if you will, a worldview that begins to make sense.
There's a fundamental problem with man, and that is we have looked at God and rejected Him, and we are in exile. We're running from Him. So I'll try to illustrate it this way. Just take my Bible and take basically two pages. That right there is the story of creation and of man saying no to God. This rest is the story of God fixing it, and that's basically the story.
The story is we're in exile from God. We're running from God. We hate God, and you hate to hear that you hate God, because that really drives you nuts, and you're saying no, no, no, no, no, I'm okay with God. No, no, no, no, you're not. You're okay with a God you made up.
Living in a Pagan Country
That's why it's very interesting right now, because somebody the other day said we live in this atheistic country. You do not live in an atheistic country. You live in a pagan country. There's a very big difference. Atheism would say there's no God at all. Paganism says, oh, there's a God. It's that one, or that one, or that one, or any of them that you choose and you're comfortable with.
So that's why spirituality sells. We're spiritual. We're putting our faith and trust in something. It's just that by and large it's in a false God. I'm even comfortable saying it's in a wrong God, because there's one true God.
The Focus on Miracles
Here we go. The operative word today is miracle. We're going to look at one miracle, then an incident where Christ walks on water, which seems to be like a big thing to me, and then we're going to see some different responses.
Let me tell you up front. Here's what's going to happen today. The first 15 minutes are great. You're going to go, boy, that's really good. I had Tom. He's pretty incredible. The next 15 minutes you're going to go, nah, he seems to be losing his touch. And the last 15 minutes, let me just tell you what's going to happen. Some of you are going to go, yes. Some of you are going to go, hell no. And some of you are going to go, I don't even have a clue what just happened. And that's okay. Wherever you are in that. And it's almost unfair, but it's there in the text, so I want to make a point. And I'm probably going to go a little quicker over the middle than I did yesterday, because I didn't feel like I had enough time at the end.
What Makes a True Miracle
So when we talk about miracle, what we're talking about is a genuine, real reversal of the laws of nature, or suspension of the laws of nature, something real. So we would use the term miracle in a superficial way. So when I was growing up, it was the miracle of television. Well, there's no miracle to television. You put the waves and I don't know how it happens, but it's not a miracle. It's totally explainable.
We would talk about the Miracle Mets in 1969. In 1969, there was a guy from Lost Nation, Iowa, pitching for the Mets. And I'm kind of a Cub fan, always a Cub fan, but I really got into the Mets that year. So once school started, I felt free to go to Chicago to watch the guy. I didn't want to...summer vacation, I needed to work, but once school started, I felt like I had a lot of free time. So I went into Chicago with a friend and watched the Mets play the Cubs. Cubs had a six-game league going in September, blew it. Al Weiss hit three home runs his whole career. He had two of them in one game in Wrigley.
So I watched the Mets there and then went down to St. Louis and watched them there and came back and dropped those courses and reloaded and said, I'm coming in late. It was perfect. And they were...it's amazing how bad that team was. I ended up in Lawrence, Kansas one night in this bar playing this baseball game and I took the 69 Mets and I didn't realize to then that they really didn't have anybody that hit 300. It was an amazing...it may be the worst offensive team to ever win a World Series, but it had Seaver and Koosman, Nolan Ryan and Tuck McGraw, and I digress.
Anyway, they said the Miracle Mets...well, it's not a miracle in this sense. We're talking about this reversal, something supernatural. That's what you're going to look at today. And Jesus does a whole boatload of miracles and signs and wonders for a purpose. Remember the purpose? So that you would believe that He was the Son of God.
The Setting of John 6
Here you go. John chapter 6, after these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Now there's a gap between the end of chapter 5, the beginning of chapter 6. There's a time gap and we don't know what it is. It could be as long
A large crowd followed Him because they saw signs which He was performing on those who were sick. If you are indeed seeing people who are blind who can see and the lame who can walk, if you're infirm or have somebody that's infirm, you're trying to get them there. If you don't, there's something pretty energizing about just being there when it happens anyway. So there's a whole crowd and they're following Him.
Then Jesus went up on the side of the mountain and He sat down with His disciples. That term "sat down" could simply mean He's tired, He rests, He sits down for whatever reason, but most often it's a position of teaching. So He's having a small group study. Can you imagine if your small group leader was Jesus? You'd really feel guilty then complaining about not going, wouldn't you?
It's the Passover. So you've got all this energy that's going on. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem. 250,000 lambs that are being prepared to be slaughtered. You got all this and of course at that time they're thinking Messiah, Messiah, Messiah. Their mind would be really fresh on it.
Jesus Tests the Disciples
Therefore Jesus lifted up His eyes, seeing a large crowd was coming. He said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread so that these may eat?" And what I love about the next verse is it reveals Jesus' intention. He said this to test them, for He knew what He was going to do.
So here come all these people and He says to Philip, "We have a logistics problem. We've got all these people, we're going to find out it was 5,000 and in that day and age they didn't count women and children so it could be a group as large as 20,000. So here come all these people and Jesus said this is a predicament. What are we going to do? How are we going to feed them?"
And Philip said, verse 7, "200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone even to receive a little." He said listen, all we have is a little bit of money, even if we did there's not a store anywhere around. There's nothing we can do. I don't know what we're going to do.
And one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, "Here's what we got. We've got a lad who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many?" That's the background, that's the setting.
The Test Reveals Their Inadequacy
Jesus presents for them a true predicament. We've got to figure this out. What are we going to do with all these people coming? They start to scramble by way of a solution. Philip says we got a little bit of money but it's not going to make any difference. Andrew says I got a kid here, he's got five loaves and they would be small. It's not like this, it's five little loaves and two fishes, sardine kind of fishes. So it's not like we got big fish, we got little fish. Even if we had a whale we'd have a hard time here because we got 20,000 people to feed.
Now there's all sorts of places that you could go as you begin to apply this, but at least we can acknowledge this. Jesus' intention is to test them. The whole point of that test I think is for them to realize that they are absolutely totally inadequate for the task at hand, that they have no resources that can possibly achieve the job that needs to be done, they are up against it, there's no way out. I think that's what Jesus wants them to see.
And I will say to you that's what God demands that you see in your life. That's the beginning of a relationship with Christ. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The word means literally spiritually bankrupt. If you think that you come to God and you bring anything with you that has value towards salvation, you are wrong.
Spiritual Bankruptcy as the Starting Point
Somebody in here one of the guys came in and said I read that book that you recommended, it was incredible. Somebody else just asked can we order it and I'm trying to be nice about it. I don't make any money, I try to emphasize that, and we sold out so we had a little delay in a reorder. But that book, "The Prodigal God" by Tim Keller, and you can say I'll go get it at Borders. I know they just sold out too. Keller needs to send me a check is the point of this thing. But if you'll call the bookstore at East Valley Bible Church, get Brendan the bookstore and I'll bring it to you next week. We had a little confusion this week, somebody ordered a book and they must have dealt with it last night after I left because we were waiting for a shipment.
That book is wonderful at presenting this issue. It's the prodigal son. It's the son who went away who's lost and the son who stayed who was lost. The son who went away was pretty easy to see his lostness. The son who stayed and was lost, that's a little tougher to see because he's going to church, he's doing all the right things, but his heart's not right.
See the whole beginning of this relationship with Christ starts with you acknowledging that you are desperate, wicked, sinful. I'm working my way through first and second Samuel on Sunday and we start right up, right coming right out of the chute with Hannah who is barren, who's being ridiculed by her competitive rival wife for not having any children, and then God answering her cry for a child. There's a whole bunch of really interesting things in there in verse I think it's verse 5 and 6 of chapter 1. It says the Lord closed her womb.
God Uses Our Inability as His Starting Point
I love this because we know why she's not having a kid. God stopped it. Why would He do that? Well because He's going to demonstrate how He works. In preparing that, I came across one of the commentators who's talking about that specific incident but applying it to greater things in our life. He writes this: "God's tendency is to make our total inability His starting point. Our hopelessness, our helplessness are no barriers to His work. Indeed our utter incapacity is often the prop He delights to use."
When God Acts in Our Weakness
God loves to act when people are without strength, without resources, without hope, without human gimmicks. Then He loves to stretch forth His hand from heaven. Once we see where God often begins, we'll understand that we may be encouraged. So if you're sitting here today and going, "You know what, I don't know what to do," that's a great thing.
I'm spending a lot of time with a lot of business guys. Got a breakfast today with another one. A lot of business guys, and they're all saying the same thing to me: "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. We've always had a plan, and we had plan B, and we had plan C. We've run the Alpha to Omega of plans, A to Z of plans. We're out of plans. I don't know what to do. It's way beyond me. There's some little pinhead in Washington who's stopping this whole thing for me. I need this one loan approved, and I can't get it approved from the corporate office at LA. It isn't going to happen. I can't get the funds. This doesn't seem... I don't know what to do."
That's a great place to be. It's an uncomfortable place to be, I acknowledge that. It's a painful place to be, I acknowledge that. It's a great place to be because then whatever happens, you know it's God orchestrating it.
The Problem with Human Plans
If you've got a plan, I'm just telling you this. I know this. I know you. Why? Because I know myself. I'll tell you something. You know God doesn't change, right? He's immutable. But here's something else I've learned: neither does man. We're the same sinful guys with the same motives. We're the same people we were 5,000 years ago.
When things are moving along and you got a plan and the plan works, I don't care who you are, you may tip your hat to God, but ultimately you're thinking, "You know what? I'm pretty shrewd. I had that plan and it worked." But now you're going, "I don't have a plan." That's what God uses.
How God Works Differently
In the book of First Corinthians, Paul's writing to this church that's all screwed up, and he's saying to them you've got to understand how God works. He doesn't use—I'm going to put it in more language we might get—He doesn't use a lot of PhDs. He doesn't use a lot of really rich people, financially wealthy people. He doesn't use a lot of politicians. Now He may—I know that in this room there's some of you who are highly educated, very smart. Some of you have a lot of dough. I doubt we have any elected officials. Clark—he's not here, we could beat him up—but we don't have any elected officials.
Why wouldn't God use them? Because if we were going to—you know, think about it for a second—if you were going to go with some great big plan, those are the very people you go get. If you're trying to put together a ball to raise a bunch of money, you want a letterhead, and you go to him and say, "We don't even need you to do anything. We just want to use your name. That's all we want is your name." And you want as many rich people, smart people, and politically wired or powerful people as you can get on that letterhead. You're willing to run the names all over with a little space in the middle to write the letter, because that's how we would do it.
God says, "I don't work that way."
Paul's Example of Weakness
In fact, when Paul comes to Corinth, here's what he says autobiographically: "When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you"—now this is Paul, you had this view of Paul, right, like he'd be a commanding presence—here's his assessment: "I was with you in weakness, fear and trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the power of the Spirit, why? So that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of men, but on the power of God."
There's no weaker figure I've ever been around physically from the front than when Larry Wright would come into a room. And he would do this, and those of you over there, he would walk to that podium just like this. I watched him do it a thousand times. He'd walk right up, he'd belly up to it, he dropped that Bible to his hip, and then he'd get it up there like that. There was nothing physically compelling at all about Larry. When he began to teach, it was a little bit different, and his voice was strong.
But here's what I've noticed over the years: if you get a guy who's coiffed and he's got all the right stuff on and the shirt, the tie, this incredible booming voice that never says anything, when he's done, here's what everybody says: "He's really good. He's really powerful." When I'm done, they say, "God is good, and I'm going to go. He's really powerful." We had a lady one time—I boy, I digress here—but she said, "I cannot come to your study again," and I said, "Why is that?" and she said, "You dangle participles," and I said, "What's a participle?"
Jesus Gets Them Where He Wants Them
All that to say, in this story before you, you see where Jesus has them right where He wants them—right where He wants you. He doesn't want you thinking you're smart and sharp and bring a lot to the ball. How many times have you said, "Boy, if God would just save that guy, He could really use him"? Well, it's not the kind of guys God typically uses.
The story ends: He's got them all seated down. He said in verse 10, "Have the people sit down." There's much grass, so the men sit down in number there about 5,000. Mark tells us, by the way, this miracle is recorded in all four of the Gospels. Mark tells us in his account that they sat in groups of 50 and 100.
I say that just so your mind's eye perhaps can get a picture of what that had to be like. We just had our services spread out all day on Sunday, and what we try to do, we just did it as we went down to Mesa Amphitheater, got everybody in one place. To be on the platform was really cool that day because we're outside and there's blankets and there's baby strollers, and I think a couple of kids had beach gear.
The Miraculous Feeding and Its Aftermath
Jesus looked out over this massive crowd seated orderly in groups. It had to be a beautiful kind of rainbow of colors there. He gets them all seated and then Jesus took the loaves and He gave thanks and He distributed to those who were seated. Likewise also the fish as much as they wanted. Verse 12 says they were filled.
Now here's what that word means. It doesn't mean it took the edge off their appetite. Yesterday afternoon I was pretty hungry, wasn't quite time to eat, and I ate a bar. It didn't fill me but it kind of took the edge off. That's not this word. This is Thanksgiving full. They've eaten, they've eaten more, and they're now sitting on the side of the hill. They've loosened their toga.
He said to the disciples, "Gather up the leftovers." Remember we started with nothing - a couple of loaves, five loaves and two fish - but we started with not enough. Now He said go get the leftovers. So they gathered them up. When they had gathered them, verse 12 says they filled 12 baskets with fragments of the five loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.
The People's Response and Jesus' Withdrawal
Therefore when people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, "This is the prophet who's come into the world," and they're ready to take Him and make Him king. So in verse 15, He perceives that and He withdraws.
You can go absolutely overboard - you have to be so careful always in the middle of this stuff. You can read way too much into it. It just is kind of cool to me that John felt compelled to tell us that there were 12 baskets left. I don't know the significance of that, but it could be something as simple as, "Now how many disciples? Oh yeah, 12. Why don't you each take a basket home and put it on the wall and let it remind you of me?" Who knows?
But whatever the case, they realize there's something special and they want to make Him king, and He withdraws. Here's what happens: they now decide they're going to the other side of the sea. Jesus is not going with them. They row out. I want to move over this real quickly because I want to get to the stuff at the end.
Walking on Water and Divine Power
They move out. Jesus - they're three or four miles from the shore - Jesus is walking on water and they're afraid, and He says, "Don't be afraid," and He's in the boat with them. Immediately, they're on the other side.
Now there's a similar situation where Mark tells us in Mark chapter 4 where the disciples are in the boat. Jesus this time is in the boat, sound asleep. A storm comes. These rough, tough fishermen who experienced all sorts of storms are scared. Jesus is asleep and they wake Him up and they say, "Don't you even care about us at all?" And He said, "Why, oh you of little faith?" And then remember what happens. He says, "Be still."
Then really interesting reaction. When the waters were pouring all over, they were afraid. Now it's smooth as glass and Mark says now they were very much afraid. We were really afraid when it's rolling all over. Now we're really afraid because we got a guy in a boat that has the ability to say "still" and it's still - the power of God on display.
The Crowd's Pursuit and Jesus' Response
In the midst of this, now the crowd begins to come. They're trying to get at Jesus. They see Him on the other side and they find Him and they say in verse 25, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Now He's back over on the other side.
He says, "Truly, truly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate loaves and are filled." That is a weird verse to me. It's as though He's saying, "Seek me not because of the sign but because of the sign." "Seek me not because of these signs" - remember that's what they want to do. They want to make Him king. They're looking for a Messiah. It's Passover time. They had in their mind what a Messiah would do. A Messiah would throw off the shackles of Rome. A Messiah would really establish the nation of Israel again. A Messiah would come and wipe out the pain and the suffering, bail out the banks, make everything solid, that kind of thing.
He said, "Not that, but you're filled." Don't work for bread that perishes. Now here's what Jesus is going to do - what we saw last week - He's going to flip the physical into the spiritual. Don't work for bread that you're going to eat but it perishes, but for this bread that will feed you forever.
The Work of God
Verse 28: "What shall we do?" There's our instinct. Our flinch is religion. "What should I do? What should we do?" "This is the work of God, that you believe in me." That's what you need to do. Believe Jesus is who He said He was. Understand that He's the Son of God.
He said to them, verse 30: "What then do you do for a sign so that we see and believe? What works will you perform? Our fathers ate this manna from heaven." Here's what He's saying: "How are we going to know who you really are?" Now He's done all these things already. "How are we going to know? Our fathers were in the desert, no food, and God provided manna."
Jesus says to them, "Listen, truly, truly I say to you, it wasn't Moses who gave the bread of life from heaven, but my Father who's given you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life."
The Bread of Life Declaration
Then He said to them, verse 34: "Lord, always give us this bread." And He said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger. He who believes in me will never thirst." That should throw you right back to last week with the woman at the well.
Here's what's going on: they're thinking physical, He's speaking eternal. He's talking about bread here. He was talking about water there. Here's what He said: "You're not going to thirst anymore. You're not going to hunger anymore." He's not talking physically. Everybody that I know that's come to Christ still eats. In fact, the people that I know who come to Christ eat more, it seems.
There's donuts and cake everywhere. They go every time they gather. What He's saying is there's this internal hunger, this internal thirst that will never be filled with a cupcake or a cup of coffee or a steak or a roll or a vitamin or a vegetable. I can't even say it. I don't want to eat it.
I said to my grandson the other day, "What's your favorite food, Brian? What's your favorite thing to eat?" And he said, "Carrots." I said, "Oh my gosh, they're just screwing this kid up!" Carrots, cucumbers, and hummus—that's what this kid eats. No wonder he likes to see me when he comes.
Jesus Reveals God's Sovereign Plan
Jesus now begins to just lay it out for them. Look at verse 37: "All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I certainly will not cast out." Verse 38: "For I've 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 all that He's given me I will lose nothing, but I will raise it up on the last day. This is the will of the Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day."
He begins to teach about God now. This is that last 15-minute segment. This is the part that becomes very difficult. This is the part where some of you are going to say "amen" and some of you are going to say "hell no" and some of you are going to say "I'm really confused."
Who Believes and Why
What Jesus starts to teach here—and this is totally unfair to even go into it, but I do want to at least present it to you—is not just that if you believe you have eternal life. No question about that. What He does now is tell us who believes and why. We've got this figured out: if you believe, you have eternal life. The question is, who believes?
And He tells you the answer in verse 37: "All that the Father gives me will come to me." Who are those who believe? The ones the Father gives.
The Growing Opposition
Now it's interesting. Let me take you really quick here. Verse 41: "Therefore the Jews grumbled against Him because He said 'I am the bread of life and came down from heaven.'" So you got the Jews going, "Wait a minute. He says He's God." They're grumbling.
Verse 52: "The Jews began to argue with one another saying, 'How can this man give us His flesh to eat?'" He's just talked about the idea of eating Him, dwelling in Him. "Let me dwell in you."
Verse 60: "Therefore many of the disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it?'" What's the difficult statement? We'll come back to it.
Verse 66: "As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore."
So whatever's going on in here, it's running on two planes. The Jews are saying, "I don't think so." And even the ones who are His disciples are saying, "This is way too tough for me. I'm out of here." What's He teaching?
The Key Verse About Divine Drawing
I want to take you to one verse tucked in the middle of this, and that'll begin to generate the discussion. It's verse 44: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day."
If you hang around church for a while, it will not be long before you are in some argument—not a discussion, argument—about things like election and predestination, usually with people who have no idea what the words mean but want to solve the discussion. So I'll give you a book to read that's helpful on it if you're going, "This interests me." There's a book called *Chosen by God* by R.C. Sproul that's going to be really helpful to you. And at the risk of sounding arrogant, I did a series, six or seven weeks, called "God's Plan for Salvation." If you go on the church website, ebbc.org, eastvalleybiblechurch.org, go to messages, and go to "God's Plan for Salvation," we talk about it.
Understanding "No One Can Come"
Here is what Jesus is saying in verse 44. First of all, you see the word "unless." So that tells us that there has to be a pre-existing condition for something to take place. So He's saying, nobody's going to come to me. Let me make this really clear, because there's a key word in there: "No one can come." No one has the ability to come.
We learn at a very early age the difference between permission and ability. So in my third grade class, I raise my hand. I say, "Mrs. Gadiant, can I sharpen my pencil?" And she says, "I don't know. I don't know if you have the dexterity and ability to take that little stick, put it in that hole, and crank this thing. You may. I'll give you a shot. You got permission. I don't know if you can do it or not. We'll all watch, see how it turns out." So the difference between ability and permission.
Here's what—now get this, this is absolutely key—"No one can." No one has the ability to come to me unless, now, something's got to happen for you to come to Christ, unless the Father, what? Draws them.
The Meaning of "Draws"
And that word "draw" is used a couple other times in Scripture. It's used in the book of James to describe the rich who drag the poor into court. To compel. You will never come to Christ. You'll never believe unless God changes your heart. It is never going to happen.
That's why you can—you've had the experience, haven't you? So you're sitting at Starbucks with somebody who you really love and care about. And you're pouring your heart out to them. And they're answering. And then you've got this verse. You've got this verse, this argument, this definitive answer to their question. And you lay it out. You drive it out there. Here it is. This moment. And they look you right in the eye and say, "Want some more coffee? Want me to warm that up?"
And you're thinking, "You idiot. How can you not get it?" Well, they're not an idiot. They're not stupid. God just hasn't opened their eyes.
Now that raises a whole boatload of questions, right? You need a valet to unpack the baggage that comes with this. But you see the truth of it. Whoever believes—I want to make sure we separate this—whoever believes has eternal life. That's not what—
Why Does Someone Believe?
We're talking about why does somebody believe? Why does somebody come? Why do you sit down with two people you love desperately and you lay out the truth the same way to two people and one gets it and one doesn't? How come you're in a family? You've been going to the same church all these years. And you get it and your brothers and sisters didn't. How come?
One reason. God opened your eyes and didn't open theirs.
Now you may go, that's not fair. Now the problem with that is you're not looking at God and saying, "God, you're not fair." I'm going to let you move to the other side of the room as you utter those words. When the lightning strikes you, I don't want to be anywhere around. That's not fair. That's not right. That's not just.
The Argument from Romans 9
And that's all the argument, if you want to go deeper in this, that's all the argument in Romans 9 where you've got two boys in the womb, same mom, same dad, and God says, "Jacob I love, Esau I hate." And Paul anticipates the response and says, "Now we're not going to say that's not fair, are we? There's no injustice with God, is there?"
That's what I'm saying, this is really, this is unfair for me to just drop this in the middle of the room and say, now I've got to go. But let me tell you what happens, because I dealt with it just yesterday. It's the same stuff. Somebody comes up and tries to explain this away to me as mystery. "Well God does this thing and we're never going to really understand it. And then there's human responsibility and then there's this and it's just all mystery."
I'm all right with mystery, by the way, but you went there just too fast. Don't dismiss this. A.W. Tozer said, "Here's the problem with our theology, it does not ascend high enough or descend low enough." By "descend low enough," He's saying we have too high a view of man. By "not ascend high enough," He's saying we have too low a view of God.
This Changes Your View of God
So if you're kind of going, "You know what, I just, going to church is kind of a drag. Worship, oh my gosh, worship is just painful. I just can't worship." I can jumpstart your worship. If you understand that you're separated from God and exiled from Him, you hate Him even though you can't, you hate Him so much you can't even bring yourself to say that you hate Him. You've created God in your own image. God you like, God you understand, God you're comfortable with.
And even in the midst of that, God comes in because you'd never believe, right? You wouldn't come to Him if He didn't take this step and open your eyes and open your heart. That changes your view of God.
The Purpose of Miracles
Is it a hard saying? Some of the disciples said, "Ah, I don't think I'll be around for the next meeting." Some of the Jews are going, "This doesn't seem right." He does these miracles. Why? So you look at Him and go, "Oh, this is God. That's who this is. That's who this Jesus is." So that's what we try to do.
Like on Easter, I was just in a meeting yesterday to talk about Good Friday and Easter. And it seemed so weird. And I was in a meeting before that. I called a meeting for next Tuesday to deal with Christmas for next year because I got a couple of ideas, which I never have. But every year at Easter, I kind of try to go down this road. The tomb is empty. Jesus rose from the dead. And that is a big deal. If Jesus rose from the dead, it ought to at least capture our minds long enough to go, "I wonder what else He said and did."
Even Miracles Don't Convince Everyone
And even in the midst of it, because this is very helpful to me, even in the midst of all this, feeding 5,000, "Lazarus, come forth," he comes out. Even then, what's it say? Many believed, not all. Some believed.
Is it because they're smarter than everybody else? No. Is it because they were fortunate to have a better teacher or a better explanation? No. Is it because it was a perfect storm and the problems in their life dovetailed with the message of the Gospels? No. It was because God opened their eyes to see the truth at that moment.
And you've sat there, some of you, and said, "How did I never understand this?" Because God, in His divine timing, at that particular point, opened your eyes to see this truth.
Why Should We Evangelize?
Oh, but doesn't that kill? And then you go down the road. "Why would I evangelize? Why would I pray? Why would I?" I'll give you one simple reason, because He told you to. He told you to pray. He told you to evangelize.
God has ordained who He's going to save in this world. And the deal is, you don't know who it is. And it's likely many that you would never save.
I told the story before when there were a group of guys in our office going to a Bible study. And I finally went to one of the guys and said, "Can I go with you?" And he said to me, "It's for anybody." And with the bar that high, I was able to get into the group. That's the truth. And then I got in there, and within six days, God saved me.
Grace Isn't Limited
And I went back to three of the guys, and I said, "Why did you never invite me to this study before?" And every one of them said the same thing. "It never occurred to us that God would save a guy like you." It's like God's got a lot of grace, but I don't think He's just going to throw it away. I don't think He's going to waste it all. He wants to say, like, if He took all the grace it would take to save you, then there's like 10 others He couldn't get to. It's like He's almost saying it's in limited supply.
It takes no more grace to save you than it took or would take to save Jeffrey Dahmer or anyone else. We're all lost. You can't get any more lost. Let me tell you another thing, then you got to go. And you can't get any more saved.
God's Unchanging Love
I said this to you a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who are Christians, you're followers of Christ, this next statement, this is huge. God is never going to love you any more than He loves you right now. And He's never going to love you any less. That is a big, big statement. Because some of you are out there working your chubby little cheeks off thinking you're gonna...
Make God love you more? He ain't gonna love you anymore. Or saying, "Oh my gosh, He must know what I did last night. I'll bet He doesn't love me." He's not gonna love you any less. He loves you. He knows you. He extends grace and mercy to you. You're His kid, and there's nothing you can do to break that relationship. There's nothing you can do to deepen His love for you. You're His kid.
God Speaks Salvation Into Existence
Why? Because He spoke this just as He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. He spoke your salvation into existence. He saved you through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit comes and applies that to your life.
You see it in verse 37: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the ones who come to me certainly I won't cast out." You know what that says? And then you do have to go—those of you who are Christians—you go, "Can I lose my salvation?" Let's say today you're a follower of Christ. Is there anything you can do to lose that relationship? No.
The Eternal Security of Salvation
God started it. God will sustain it. God continues it to the end. You can break the vibe. You can break and hinder the vibrancy of the relationship. You can hinder the communion of the relationship, but you can never break the union and the relationship.
Pick up right there next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, this is big stuff. We're starting to understand not only that if we believe You we have eternal life, but we're starting to see why. And we confess—and we confess—we're a lot like these people. We want to do something, and there's nothing we can do to earn Your approval. We have it in Christ. Now I pray that we would live like it.
For those last 15 minutes, to someone in the room who really do understand and subscribe to and believe those doctrines of grace, and it's an amen moment—we always rejoice when we can be with people who would encourage each other in that truth. For those that would say, "Oh no way, no, no, no, no," God, I pray that You would soften their heart and open eyes to see the truth. And those who are saying, "I'm not even sure what the heck we just talked about"—that God, You would quiet their heart and focus us on this: that if we believe in You, we have eternal life.
But it does matter to us to understand that You're the one who started that relationship, that we would see that truth. We pray to You in Christ's name. Amen.