John 6:22-71 - Will You Listen To God?

Main Idea: Listen to God the Father as He calls His children to follow Jesus.

• Listening to God means looking for Jesus, not things.

  • When you’re looking for things, Jesus won’t follow your plan.

  • When you’re looking for things, Jesus will call you to leave them.

  • When you’re looking for things, Jesus will disappoint you.

• Listening to God means loving Jesus, not religion.

  • When you love religion, you’ll be offended by Jesus’ words.

  • When you love religion, you’ll not hear Jesus’ call to salvation.

  • When you love religion, you’ll go where Jesus doesn’t speak.

• Listening to God means living for Jesus, not yourself.

  • When you live for yourself, you miss Jesus’ new life.

  • When you live for yourself, you throw away His kindness.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

If you would turn over to John Chapter 6. Today is a little bit of a special service. This is a family service here at Tabernacle, and that means we've got our kids and our nursery age is with us.

And so that means that I've got a five-year-old and a two-year-old on the back row with my wife, which means if I go long today, it's not just maybe like some random person's disapproval I have to deal with, it's I have to deal with the wrath of mom.

So pray for me. I'm going to talk fast, hopefully. You guys can listen fast.

And if you're like, you talked too fast, Pastor, go back to the YouTube, go back to the live stream, and put it at like 0.5 speed, and we'll get there together.

But we're going to be today in John chapter 6 verses 22 through 71, John 6 and verses 22 through 71. Today, we're continuing our series Pick A Side in John 5 through 10, with a sermon entitled Will You Listen To God? Will You Listen To God?

There was a book that was written many years ago by Max Lucado, called The Song of the King. The Song of the King by Max Lucado. Does that ring a bell for any of you?

I know we've got a couple people in here that might be readers, a kid's book, all right, I see Dave's got it. So this was one of my favorite books actually growing up that I read through. My son's raising his hand, he's lying.

He's never seen this book in his life, but he should. It's a great book. The premise of The Song of the King was the king was going to marry off his daughter.

And there were three soldiers that three knights in the kingdom that he was going to marry off his daughter to one of these three knights.

And all you had to do in order to marry the king's daughter was you had to make it through this dangerous forest and you could bring one companion along with you.

And the king, every single day, he would play a song and you would listen and the king's song would guide you towards the castle and towards the reward that you were looking for.

And so these three knights, one was like really strong, one was really wise, I think the other one was really fast.

And so each of them had their strengths and so they each picked their companion and they went through this dangerous, dark and deadly forest.

And at the end of the book, you discover the knight that made it through was the knight that picked as his companion, the king's son, the prince, because every single day as the king would play his song, his son knew the song of the father and he

listened to it and he helped guide the knight to the castle. And so he was able to find, you know, marriage and riches and happiness and all of that. As a result of listening to the prince as he followed the song of the king.

Today, we are calling you to a similar task. Now, don't worry, you don't have to go through a dark and dangerous forest to go marry a princess.

Today, the call to us is that we would listen to the voice of the father as he calls his children to follow Jesus. And we're going to be challenged in this from John, chapter six.

If you'll remember, a few weeks ago, we read the story of the feeding of the 5,000, that Jesus, he's preaching on the opposite side of Galilee from Capernaum, where kind of his headquarters were.

And so he's preaching on the opposite side of the Sea of Galilee. And a large group of people had followed him. They'd seen some of the miracles that he was doing.

And as they listened to Jesus' preaching, they were out there for so long, for a couple of days, that all of their food supply had run out.

And so then the disciples got a little worried, and they're like, okay, what are we gonna do about all of this food? And Jesus, he works a miracle. He feeds everyone that was there.

5,000 men, besides women and children as well. And there were 12 baskets full of food that was left over. This was a supernatural act that took place.

This isn't just like normal in the Bible. This was a miracle. The people were so excited about this guy who could forever end world hunger that they were going to make him the king by force.

Jesus said, that's not the way that I have designed this thing to work. Jesus books it up a mountain. Now, he doesn't tell his disciples, his apostles, what he's doing.

And so it gets to the end of the day, and they're like, all right, well, Jesus isn't back. I guess we'll go across the shore, and we'll head back to home base, if you will, and maybe he's waiting for us there.

So they get in the boat, they go halfway across the Sea of Galilee. There's a giant storm that comes and really stops their progress. They're going as hard as they can, trying to make it back to land.

They see Jesus walking on the water. Again, a miracle. This isn't something that the Bible's like, oh yeah, this is just normal.

This really happens in normal life. No, this is supernatural act proving Jesus' divinity. He is God.

Normal people don't do this. God alone does this. So Jesus is walking across the Sea of Galilee.

Mark takes great pains to tell us in his gospel account that Jesus is like gonna pass them by, which has something to do with God and the story of Job, but you can look that up on your own later.

He's gonna pass them by and they're like, oh no, it's a ghost. And Jesus goes, guys, it's me.

John graciously leaves out the part where Peter is gonna get out of the boat and like walk to Jesus and then freaks out and starts thinking and Jesus saves him. John leaves that out.

I did not just because I want you guys to know, even Peter's not perfect. And so we shouldn't assume that we're perfect either. So they bring Jesus into the boat.

As soon as Jesus gets into the boat, they're right at dry land. They're no longer halfway across the sea. Miracles have taken place and they don't totally understand what just happened.

As you look at the various gospel accounts, in one, it actually says that the disciples hearts were hardened a little bit. They got a little bitter. They were a little bit jaded about, okay, what in the world is going on?

Like, why is Jesus being so... Like, we could be right now on our way to Jerusalem to crown Jesus as king. Why is he doing some of this?

That's where we find ourselves now today in John chapter 6. And we're going to be in verses 20. Oh, I did not change the verses on that side, so I apologize.

We're not in 15 through 21. That's what I just described to you. We're in verses 22 through 71.

So, here's the small portion of scripture that we're going to read together to start off, and then we're going to look at what we have for today and how to listen to God.

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there on the opposite side, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, teacher, when did you get here? Jesus answered, truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

He says, you're not looking for me because I showed you that I'm the Messiah. He says, you're looking for me because you got some free food.

He says, don't work for the food that parishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him. I mentioned it every time it comes up.

The Son of Man is a divine title. This is from Daniel 7. This is the divine and human ruler over all of the earth that God is setting up as the king of everything.

So don't read the Son of Man and go, well, Jesus says he's the Son of Man. Yes, that's a title that means he is the God-Man. And God has set his seal of approval on him.

So we're going to learn today what does it look like to listen to God's approval? What does it look like to pursue the food that lasts for eternity, not the food that lasts for a moment?

Today listen to God the Father as he calls his children to follow Jesus. Let's pray together. Dear Jesus, I ask that you would be glorified in your church this morning.

Lord, I ask that if there is someone here today that does not know you as their savior, that today would be the day that they choose you. Lord, for every person that does know Jesus, God, we're going to be confronted from your word.

Lord, it's going to step on our toes a little bit. God, I pray that each of us would have an openness to hear from you so that when we leave today, we are more like Jesus because, God, that's our aim. We don't want to be just more religious.

We don't just want to be, quote unquote, better people. We want to know you more and to be more like you because that's the difference that is made. That's the only lasting difference.

God, I pray that you would be with my words. Lord, help me to only say what you'd have me to. And I pray all of this in your name.

Amen.

I'm going to summarize the passage because it's verses 22 through 71, and then we're going to look at the three specific actions that we are called to as we listen to God and listen to the voice of Jesus.

So, this passage, the crowd, they hunt Jesus. Jesus clarifies their motives that they are looking not for God, they're not loving God, they are loving food, and he tells them to work for the eternal life food that God gives.

They misunderstand what he's saying. We went over this a lot in chapters 1 through 4. He's trying to explain to them spiritual things in earthly terms.

They don't get it. So then he just puts the cookies on the bottom shelf, and he says don't misunderstand me. I'm not giving you some actual like magic bread that will make it so that you're never hungry again.

He says the work of God, the eternal life, the eternal food is Jesus. He says I am what you truly need. The people get a little upset about that.

They're like, okay, well, we don't need you, we need food. So if you really are this like eternal life, eternal food that we need, why don't you do another miracle?

And just as, you know, a random thought, Moses gave us manna, unlimited manna for 40 years in the wilderness. If you give us manna, you know, for 40 years, then we'll believe that you really are this Messiah.

Jesus says this, stop looking for that bread. He says, I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life.

Then he tells him this. He says, but you guys aren't listening to God and you don't believe me. He says, everyone that God calls, they will listen to the Father's voice and they will believe me.

He says, everyone that the Father gives to me will come to me. In essence, he says this, you guys aren't listening, you're not believing, and you're not believing because right now, God is not calling you.

Because if God was calling you, you would listen and you would be like, yes, we want to experience this bread of life. Well, they also get a little upset about this. They have some objections to it.

They get mad claiming that they need to believe in him. And they go, we know who this guy is. Like he's not the bread of life sent from heaven.

We know Joseph and Mary and we know the town that he's from. He's nothing special. And Jesus says that he will give eternal life through his flesh, which they must eat.

It's a intentionally jarring statement. Let me ask, I know we've got a couple of the kids in here today. Do you guys often eat human flesh?

Hopefully I'm hearing a resounding no from all of the kids in the room. Don't eat people. Here, Jesus is not endorsing cannibalism.

He's saying this, who I am, the life that is in me that was given from the father is the same life that I want to place in each and every one of you.

That you would not just experience life in the here and now, but you would experience eternal life, the life, if you will, that's on the other side of death.

Even as Jesus himself showed us in his death on the cross where he died in our place, he was buried in the grave, and three days later, he rose again to ever live and intercede for us. Jesus is calling them to that kind of life.

The people misunderstand again, and many disciples leave Jesus never to follow him again after he mentions again that they are not children of God and are not currently being drawn to him.

So Jesus goes through, if you will, a little bit of a church split in this moment where he's just flat out saying, you want stuff? I'm not giving you stuff. You need me.

They go, well, we don't want you. You're not that great. He's like, well, if you'd listen to God, you would know I am in fact that great.

They go, all right, well, we're gone. Jesus then turns to the 12 apostles, the 12 disciples, and he asks them, are you guys going to leave too? And Peter says, who are we going to go to?

You have the words of eternal life. And he tells them, we have come to believe and to know that you are the holy one of God, the Messiah.

So Peter gets it, and the disciples are there, and I'm sure all of them in that moment are like, oh yeah, Peter, you know, you don't always get it, but when you do, man, it's great.

Then Jesus says, great, like, love that from you guys, but I also know not even the 12 of you are all chosen by my father because one of you is a devil.

John, writing now decades later, is like, and he was talking about Judas because he was a thief and he betrayed Jesus and he stole the money bag.

John gets, as you read through John's gospel, he's still very bitter, like, decades later about everything that Judas did to Jesus. And so Jesus, in this passage, he says, you need to listen to the voice of God.

As I've been studying and working through this passage for a few weeks now, it is one that does not play nice with us just living like a good moral life. It's something that drastically affects how we live and how we interact with other people.

What I said earlier before I surrender all of like, hey, I'm not perfect. And the other person beside us goes, I know. It is so important that we not just know that mentally, but begin to put it into practice.

I don't care if you've been saved for like two weeks, or if you have known the Lord for 80 years, God still has work to do in and through you. There are ways in which we talk and we think and we behave that are not God honoring.

And so even as we come to Jesus' rebuke of these individuals and even some of the disciples that he has, that same call goes out to us to say, are we going to listen to what God has for us?

Or will we be like these that go, I don't want to hear it, and they go away? So let's look today at three things that listening to God means from us. If you will, it's looking for Jesus, not things.

It is loving Jesus, not religion. And it is, let me see, it's looking, living, and I forget what the third one is. You'll find it out.

It's on your paper, on your bulletin. We'll get there when we get there. First here, listening to God means looking for Jesus, not things.

This is what we see in the passage. The crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw there had been only one boat. They saw that Jesus had not boarded the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone off alone.

Some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats, went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you get here? Jesus answered, Truly I tell you, you're looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

Don't work for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him. What can we do to perform the works of God, they asked.

Jesus replied, this is the work of God that you believe in the one he has sent. Many people would ask, like, hey, how do I get to heaven? What do I do to gain eternal life?

What do I do to get in good standing with God? The answer, the work that God wants you to do, is believe in Jesus. Believe in the words of the old song that Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.

Sin, the things, the bad things that we've thought and said and done, had left a crimson stain, but he washed it white as snow. He died in our place on the cross, so that we would experience forgiveness forever.

As we listen to God and we look for Jesus, not things, we can recognize from the passage that when you're looking for things, Jesus won't follow your plan. When you're looking for things, Jesus won't follow your plan.

The people wanted endless food, miracles, and ancient blessings of manna, but Jesus didn't come to give them those things.

Today, if you're only following Jesus, so that he will give you a spouse, a seven-figure job, or endless health, you are going to be disappointed.

If you're following Jesus, so that you can know him, obey him, and tell others about him, you will experience joy and fulfillment in that every day. When you look for Jesus, you will always find him.

As scripture tells us, you will find me if you search with all your heart. One really easy way for you and I to see what we're looking for in our relationship with God is to look at what we pray for.

Are our prayers filled with things that we want God to do or to give us? Or are they filled with asking for what Jesus asked us to pray for? You can look even at the Sermon on the Mounts and the Lord's Prayer.

Are we praying for God's kingdom to be done, for His will to be done, for our sins to be forgiven, and for us to be delivered from Satan's hold?

Certainly, we can also add in there the, give us this day our daily bread, and it is good to pray for our needs as well. But are our prayer lists just filled with needs that we have or wants that we have?

Or are they focused on praying for what Jesus has called us to pray for? Is it focused on His kingdom or on our own? Secondly, today, when you're looking for things, Jesus will call you to leave them.

Verse number 30 through 40, Jesus looks at this with the people. They say, what sign then are you going to do so that we may see and believe you?

Even though you fed 5,000, bless all the women and children, we don't believe that that actually proves you are who you say you are. We want even more stuff from you.

Our ancestors ate man in the wilderness, just as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus said to them, truly, I tell you, Moses didn't give you the bread from heaven. Who did give Israel the bread from heaven?

It was God. He says, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Okay, when you look at this, there's one name, one thing that should jump out.

Who is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world? Everyone say it together. Yeah, God.

Jesus is this one. Then they said, sir, give us this bread always. I am the bread of life, Jesus told them.

No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. Now, any of you that have gotten saved, you know what this verse is saying and what it's not saying. Do some of you still get hungry at lunchtime?

Yes. Do some of you still need a drink of water at night? Yes.

This is not talking about physical hunger and thirst. This is saying the longing of your soul that you are created for a relationship with God, that can only be filled with Jesus. It cannot be filled with stuff.

It cannot be filled with bread or with drink. It comes through Jesus alone. It says, but as I've told you, you've seen me and yet you do not believe.

Everyone the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who 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.

This is the will of him who sent me. This is the will of God. That Jesus should lose none of those that God has given him, but should raise them up on the last day.

For this is the will of my father, that everyone who sees the son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. It's not the point of the sermon today that we're looking at, but what a joy, what a comfort.

If you have turned in faith to Jesus, you will never experience the condemnation of God. As we read in Romans 8 and chapter 1, Romans chapter 8 verse number 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we have become a child of God, you cannot unbecome a child of God. And I love the song before the throne of God above.

When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin, because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.

For God, the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.

What a joy.

When we are looking for things, Jesus will call us to leave them. Jesus called the crowd to abandon their search for daily manna like Israel received in the Exodus.

And instead, he called them to search for him, that they would look for Jesus, not for the bread. Whatever in your life keeps you from searching for Jesus, God will call you to abandon that pursuit.

Jesus isn't against you having things, but he is against things having you. In my life, this has sometimes meant friendships that had to be left behind because they were dragging me away from Jesus.

This has meant sometimes hobbies or books or games that were too consuming of my time and attention needed to be left behind.

For some of you, this could even mean leaving a job that requires you to constantly disobey God's command for you to gather with his people in his church. It might require you to give up alcohol.

It might require you to give up something that is dragging you away from the Savior in your life. Why in the world would a person make that kind of choice?

Because if we're pursuing Jesus, and if we profess to be a Christian, then we're not in charge of our life anymore. And whatever God is telling you in your life through the Holy Spirit, this has a hold on you that it shouldn't have on you.

This is dragging you away from obedience. We have to obey the voice of God because he's the Lord, he's the master, and we're not. Next today, when you are looking for things, Jesus will disappoint you.

We can see this beginning in verse number 41 and 42. Therefore the Jews started grumbling about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They were saying, isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How can he now say, I have come down from heaven?

The people were disappointed because they weren't getting free food anymore, and they started changing their tune from, we're going to make him king of all Israel by force to, isn't this our local carpenter's kid?

We know his parents, he's not special, and he's lying about being from heaven. When they were looking for things, Jesus and who Jesus really was disappointed them.

I've said it several times over the past couple of months, but the truth is that Jesus does not owe us anything. He is the creator. He is the sustainer of life.

He is the one that gives us everything we have in our lives, and our response has to be gratitude and worship, not demanding more.

We've all seen the America's Funniest Home videos where a kid who enjoys a wonderful life of riches, he gets a brand new gaming console, and he immediately throws a giant fit and like smashes it because he wanted the other brand new gaming console,

not the one that was given to him. How many times in your life and mine have we done that to God?

In the living body that he's given us, with his breath in our lungs, wearing the clothes that he has provided in the home or car or shelter he has placed us in, we've told him that he doesn't care or he isn't being good or he has to do what we want

or we're giving up on him. May we repent of that entitled mindset. We are the servants, we're the creation. He's the Lord and Master.

We're here to do what he wants, not the other way around. I'm going to bring this one step further.

If Jesus can disappoint us and still be perfectly good and right in everything that he does, then that means that our disappointments are not the standard of truth or right conduct by which to judge others.

If Jesus will disappoint you at times when you want things that he does not want for you or for others, then those that are following Jesus will disappoint you as well sometimes when they're following Jesus. Now, that's not every time.

Sometimes people disappoint you because they are human, they're imperfect, they're not God himself. But it does mean that just because sometimes we get disappointed in another person, doesn't mean that they're wrong.

That may sometimes look like someone telling you that you're wrong or that you're sinning.

And instead of getting angry and defensive with that person, you can listen to them and realize that maybe God is kindly leading you to become more like Jesus through their words.

Sometimes others disappointing you might look like when you want to do something or you want others to do something, but God isn't actually leading them that way.

Here's a silly for instance that I almost made with AI, but I chose not to, mainly because I was helping with the BCMD stuff yesterday and did not have time to do so.

You might think, this is a silly example, you might think that our church or me as the pastor or our elders need to start a Monday morning clown ministry at CCBC Essex.

You could mention the thousands of needy students at CCBC that need to know Jesus.

You could mention the joy that comes from seeing a clown and the inestimable value of a smile on a depressing Monday morning from receiving a giraffe balloon from Myron with a rainbow wig and a face full of makeup.

And you can be really energetic about our Monday morning CCBC clown outreach. And you can want to see people saved and you can have a fully thought out plan. It doesn't mean that the clown ministry has to happen.

And that's okay. We will all be disappointed sometimes, but disappointments don't mean that the other person is always in the wrong. Secondly, today, loving, sorry, listening to God means loving Jesus, not religion.

Loving Jesus, not religion. This is what we see then in verses 43, 59. Jesus answered them, stop grumbling among yourselves.

He says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God.

He says, everyone who has listened to and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen, that is physically the father, except the one who is from God. He has seen the father.

That is Jesus, as we read in John chapter one. No one has seen God at any time. The one and only son of God, who is himself God, and in the bosom of the father, he has declared him, as John 1.18 says.

It says, truly, I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life. I gotta step here again, just one more time.

So good.

Religion, I'm gonna go over this in one second. Religion says, do, do, do. It says, give more and you can have eternal life.

It says, pray towards this certain location, however many times a day, and you can experience salvation. It says, jump into that pool and you can get eternal life. The gospel of Jesus is totally contrary to that.

It says, no matter whether you have material means or not, whether you have physical means or not, whether or not you are able to be like the most self-controlled, disciplined, most perfect person on this earth, or whether you're just the biggest

scumbag the world has ever seen. Scripture says anyone who believes has eternal life. For you today, you might be sitting here and you're sitting here under duress because someone else brought you.

I want you to know that God loves you and he wants you to experience his salvation by calling on Jesus that you would repent from your own way, being the master and lord of your own life, and you would turn to Jesus as Lord, accepting his gift of

forgiveness. Anyone who believes has eternal life because Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus says your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh, that in his own body, Jesus died for us on the cross, and as a result of his death, we experience redemption and eternal life.

At that, the Jews argued among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.

The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

The Apostle John loved this phrasing of Jesus. He brings it up again during the last supper and Jesus' last discourse with his disciples. He also brings it up in 1st and 2nd and 3rd John.

This phrase remains in him. It's to set up a person's home.

He says, the person that has made his home, his life, his center around Jesus, that person experiences eternal life, not the person that revolves his life just around maybe church or just around religious activity.

The person revolving their life around Jesus experiences new life. Today, right after the message, we're going to be observing the Lord's Table together.

And as we do so, we recognize, okay, this little cracker and this juice, this is not what Jesus was talking about when he said, this is my body and this is my blood in the literal sense. This possesses no magical powers.

What this does, though, is it reminds us Jesus' body was crushed and brutalized and whipped and nailed to the cross. And I remember that it's because of his stripes, his wounds that I am healed.

And I remember that he was the one that shed his blood on my behalf so that I would never experience condemnation, but that I would experience forgiveness and eternal life through him.

And the person that makes their home in that gospel truth, that is the person that has everlasting life. They live in Jesus and Jesus lives in them.

Verse number 57, Just as the living father sent me and I live because of the father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. It's not like the man of your ancestors ate and they died.

The one who eats this bread will live forever. He said these things while teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. First, here, love Jesus, not religion.

When you love religion, you're going to be offended by Jesus' words just as these individuals were.

Religion, in the sense of man's attempt to find meaning or connection with God or the divine, will always hate the Jesus way because Jesus completely dismantles religion.

Religion says this list of rules or prohibitions or actions or words or clothing is how you get to God or how you have a good status in the afterlife. Jesus says, I am how you get to God, and I am the only status that matters.

But this goes beyond just salvation for you and I. This might be where I get, it steps on my toes a little bit. I assume it might step on some of yours as well.

When we love religion, when we love setting ourselves up, Jesus' words and his call to obedience will offend us. Gonna do two things here. First, gonna give a personal anecdote.

The times in my life and in my parenting, when I get frustrated with the kids, and I snap and I bark back, and my wife Samantha goes, hey, was that kind? Does it really call for that? Was that gentle?

And when I go, oh, well, listen, I'm the dad, and I, there's this, there's this.

Okay.

In that moment, am I loving religion, status, I am the spiritual whatever, or am I loving Jesus' words? In that moment, do I love religion or Jesus' words? Religion.

Okay, that's true for every single one of us. Because of us observing the Lord's table as a church body today, I do have a pastoral obligation to give a warning to our church family.

Stick with me. Everyone say, uh-oh. Okay, everyone say, it's okay.

Okay.

Over the last, I told you guys, this is going to get practical.

Over the last three months at Tabernacle, there's been an incredible amount of gossip and slander in our church body, and a consistent spirit of complaining and arguing about me, about specific volunteers who give of their Sundays to serve, about the

elders and their leading, among many other topics. I bring this up not because I know who the individuals are who are participating in this, but because I've had no less than six different people mention it to me on different occasions.

The people that brought this to my attention had enough of a love for their brothers and our sisters in the Lord, not to mention by name who was doing the slandering, but I do want you to know based on the Word of God that this behavior has to stop.

For the sake of your own soul, for the sake of your relationships with other people in your church body and in your friendships, for your family, for the sake of Tabernacle's future, you have to stop complaining and gossiping.

It is not glorifying Jesus. It is not submitting to your spiritual leaders. It's not winning people to Jesus.

And it is not helping your fellow Christians at Tabernacle become more like Jesus. It accomplishes nothing that God wants to do in or through you. And Satan in this area is having free reign through your speech.

God commands us in Philippians 2 14 to do everything without complaining and arguing. And in Ephesians 4, he tells us to let all bitterness and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you along with all malice.

And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. Here's the truth. I know my nature.

I know human nature. Some people might hear those verses and that command from scripture. And right now, your only thought is, how dare he?

I'm going to talk with so and so about this afterwards. To you, I want you to know that that is a massive warning sign for your soul. I am not asking you to love every decision that every person makes.

That's crazy. I'm not asking you to become best friends with every person at this church.

I'm just telling you that complaining and gossip and slander are sins, and they will destroy you, and they will continue to destroy this church that Jesus died for.

Repent, turn away from this sin, and listen to the voice of Jesus as He calls you to love, forgive, and be kind in your words about others. If Jesus' commands and words offend you, then that's showing you what you love right now.

Turn away from a love of religion and a love of yourself, and turn back to the love of Jesus.

Okay, everyone go, oh, okay.

I say that because I love you, and I want to be here for like 30 more years, and if I love you, it means that I have to tell you the word of God.

And I hope that over the last like six months, you guys remember, there's been times where I've stood up in front of you guys and been like, hey, I screwed up. I said something that I shouldn't have. I messed up in this way.

I want to model that for you guys to say like, it's okay, none of us have to be perfect. There is no hatred there. When we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So all together as a church body, let's make that our pursuit. Let's love and pursue Jesus and love his words, not just love religion.

Because here's the important part. When you love religion, you'll not hear Jesus' call to salvation.

Because of these people's love for the law and Moses, the people in the passage, without actually listening to Moses or the law, because as Jesus said, if you listen to them, they're talking about me.

These people would not hear God's call to salvation and eternal life offered by Jesus. He says, you're not listening to God.

Religion teaches the false gospel that Jesus starts you off, but your weekly communion, your baptism as an infant, or your good works will get you into heaven or into a purgatory from which you'll eventually get into heaven.

The message of the true gospel is drastically different. That is, Jesus paid the price in full for our sins by dying on the cross in our place as our substitute.

He was buried and he rose again, and only by accepting what Jesus has done as sufficient can we be saved.

So we can't love religion and hear Jesus is called to salvation, so we have to give up trying to make our own way to God and instead rely on Jesus. Then when you love religion, you'll go where Jesus doesn't speak.

Religion says, here, the people, they leave after Jesus says something that they don't like. For you and I, this can look like in our life, religion saying, does this church have music I enjoy?

Does this church have enough activities I want to be a part of so I don't get bored? Do I like all of the decorations in this church? If not, I'll find a new place.

That's a religious mindset. A relationship with Jesus says is the Bible preached at this church? Do the people want to follow Jesus and love each other?

Because that's where I will be. If you're still deciding on which church you'd like to become a committed part of, a member of a church, can I encourage you to take Jesus' words, the Bible, as the criteria by which you choose a church?

You can have the best music, the most incredible community events, the most gifted communicators. But if a church doesn't tell you what the Bible says, none of the rest of it ultimately matters because we need to hear from God himself.

Last of the day, listening to God means living for Jesus, not yourself. Living for God, not yourself. When you live for yourself, you miss Jesus' new life.

The disciples that abandoned Jesus and then eventually Judas and his betrayal, they missed out on the amazing life with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God's church that God wanted them to have.

For you, if you live for one more dollar, one more raise, one more family function, but you're not living for Jesus, you will miss out on what God wants to do in you and through you, through your finances, through your job, through your family.

God's not calling you to be like a monk on a mountainside somewhere. He wants to use you in the places he has placed you so that you would experience the full life of death to self and surrender to Christ.

Then lastly, when you live for Jesus, sorry, when you live for yourself, you throw away his kindness.

Despite Jesus' love, his provision, his words of life and his empowerment of Judas Iscariot, that he gave him a place with the 12 apostles and that he sent him out to preach, and he gave him the money bag that he was in charge of the finances for, if

you will, the first Baptist Church of Jesus. Judas betrayed and abandoned Jesus, even after receiving all of that kindness from the Lord. Jesus was only ever good to Judas, and Judas threw it all away.

God has been immeasurably good to you and to I, particularly in dying in our place and resurrecting so that we could have a relationship with him and have eternal life.

And he's now calling us not just to make a one-time decision to accept his gift of salvation, but to live every day with him as our Lord and our master. He has proven that he can be trusted, and he has proven that he loves you.

So will you yield to him today? Today, we are called to listen to God the Father as he calls his children to follow Jesus. Jesus is the point of it all.

Not getting stuff from him, not merely doing religious actions, not just living with him on prayer speed dial when something happens that we don't enjoy, but actually knowing and loving and walking with him, to know him, to adopt his mindset and

character, to live every day knowing he wants to love and reach people through you personally. That is the new, abundant, incredible life that he made you for. You were made for a relationship, not a religion. Today, will you choose to listen to God?