afternoon. My name is Ryan. I'm from San Antonio. I've come to be with y'all today. I was here about a couple months ago, but I don't think I got to meet everyone. But it's certainly good to be with y'all today. Thank you, Kenzie, for leading us in that worship. God is good. Well, let's open up with a prayer. Our Father and our God, we come before you and we bless your holy name. Lord, we thank you that you haven't dealt with us according to our sins, but you've shown us so much mercy and kindness. You've bestowed such a blessing on us in Christ, Lord. What an inheritance we have. The fact that our sins haven't been counted against us, Lord, that your Son, he bore them all on the cross, and we have a perfect standing with you. Father, we thank you for your Son, and we pray this in his blessed name. Amen. Well, turn in your Bibles to John, chapter 6. John, chapter 6. Last time I was here, I preached a message from one of his epistles, and now we're looking at his gospel account. As I was thinking about what message to bring, I was asking myself, what do I want for this church here? What do I want for the individuals? in this church, and it's one of the things I came to is I want each and every one of you to press on in the faith. We're living in a day and age, in the past couple years it seems, that there's been a growing movement of what's called exvangelicalism, people falling away from the faith, some high-profile people, a matter of fact. And, you know, as the culture continues to grow more hostile towards Christianity, we can expect to see, you know, the falsehood being exposed, false Christians falling away. But it's important that we press on in the faith. And so I thought it would be beneficial to look at an account in Jesus' life where we see both realities on full display, both realities of apostasy and perseverance. So the main verses I want to focus on are verses 66 through 71, but before I read them, I just want to kind of summarize what's going on in this chapter. Jesus and his disciples have just landed on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee in a small town called Capernaum. And the previous day, we read that he was on the other side. He was on the other side, and that is in verse two, it says, So he's amassing a large following. And it was there that he performed this famous miracle of multiplying five loaves and two fish to feed thousands of people. What a miracle that was to have witnessed. And that evening comes and Jesus tells his disciples to get in the boat to sail to the other side, to Capernaum. And while on the sea, there's a violent storm that arises and Jesus walks out on the water to them and meets them in the boat. When he gets into the boat, the water's calm and they arrive to the shore. And when they arrive to Capernaum, The folks who were previously with him on the other side who ate the bread and saw the miracle of the multiplying of the loaves and the fishes, they want to find him. They say, where is Jesus? So they get in their own boats, they follow him. And we see thousands of people flocking to Jesus asking him, when did you get here? When they come to Capernaum, they ask him when he came. Now, one of the things that's so interesting about Jesus is he's always saying and doing things you just do not expect. I mean, if we're one of the disciples, this whole past couple days is so unexpected that the miracle of the multiplying of the fishes and the bread, just unexpected. Him walking out to you on the water, that's so unexpected. And then this is also very unexpected. Because, you know, I'm thinking if I'm one of the disciples at this point, if I'm seeing thousands of people walk from miles away to come and ask questions about Jesus, I don't know about you, but I'm probably thinking some mighty work of the Spirit's going on, some revival's broken out. And yet, Jesus does not have the same perception as we do. He's got a deeper perception of spiritual truth. And anyways, so they ask him, when did you come here? We didn't see you get into the boats with your disciples, but here you are. And in the most Jesus-like fashion, you know what he does? He doesn't even answer that question. He ignores it completely, and instead he answers another question that he deemed more important. Not the question of when he got there, but why they came. Why they came. And he cuts through all the fluff and he calls them out. He says, you didn't come for me. He says, you came because you had your fill of the loaves and the fishes and you wanted more. And so he launches into this sermon in John chapter 6 that is very challenging. He says, what's expected? The Jews expected a Messiah who would come and deliver them politically. Here they are under the oppression of Rome. They're also weighed down and burdened by the religion of the Pharisees, of their own people. And they're waiting for a Messiah to come free them from all that and restore the kingdom. He says, no, no, I'm the bread from heaven. I'm like the manna, and you've got to eat me. And they're saying, come again, Jesus? What are you saying? Are you suggesting we turn to cannibalism? What are you saying? This is a hard saying. We read that the Jews who were listening complained, saying this was a hard saying. And what makes it harder was mixed in this teaching was two streams of truth. He's saying, unless if you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you. So they're commanded to do something. And yet in the same sermon, he's telling them that they don't have the ability to do that. He says, no one can come to me unless the Father draws him. And so that's a hard truth to accept, but both realities are true. And so I think it'd be helpful to just spend a minute and talk about one thing that Jesus does not mean when he says, you must eat my body and drink my blood. He's not talking literally about the Lord's Supper, which we're going to be doing here in a little bit. You know, Roman Catholicism teaches that this is a reference to the Eucharist, right? And I would say that's not what's going on in John chapter 6. I know I'm not speaking to a bunch of Roman Catholics today, so I won't labor the point too much, but Jesus is using a metaphor here, calling himself the bread of heaven and the living bread, and that to eat of him, to eat his flesh and to drink his blood, is a shorthand of saying you must believe in me. And just real quickly, I'll kind of prove that to you using a logical argument. It kind of goes like this. If A equals B and B equals C, then A is C. And so it goes like this. If eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood, if that's the only way to have eternal life, And believing in Jesus is the only way to have eternal life, then eating the flesh of Jesus is believing in him. You see, it's a metaphor. So it's a perfect metaphor because it's honest if you take Jesus in, not in the physical, literal sense, but you must have Christ inside of you. And that is what he's teaching here. The Jews are complaining about this being a hard teaching. A lot of preachers today, when they get challenged on a hard teaching, they back down. But Jesus doubles down. He says, this is why I said to you, no one can come to me unless it's been granted to them. So that brings me to my text this morning. Let's start at verse 66. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? And Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the 12, was going to betray him. Amen. Well, the first observation about this text that I have is the reality of apostasy. that there is a real reality of apostasy and we see it right here in verse 66 and 67. It says, after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Many. They said his teaching was hard and it wasn't hard because it was too complicated for them. It was hard because it was offensive, right? But one may ask, didn't Jesus in this sermon, didn't he just teach that all who come to him he won't cast out, that he won't lose any of his people? And yet this is the result that was produced by his preaching. It says many turned back and followed him no more. So the question is, how do we make sense of this? How do we make sense when someone falls away from the faith, apostatizes? You know, maybe you know somebody who's done just that. How do we make sense of that? It can be very disturbing and it can throw people into a crisis of faith when that happens. Well, I think there's two main ways that people go wrong in understanding that reality of apostasy. I think the first way someone can go wrong, the first ditch they can fall into is they can look at an example like this and they think that, well, these people had the gift of salvation and they lost it. And we might call that the Arminian position of salvation. Now, I believe Arminians are brothers, but I do think they're wrong in that position. I think that's a mistake. It's not biblical to say that someone can have the gift of eternal life one day and the next day they lose that gift. I would say if that did happen, then was it ever eternal? No. In fact, I would go so far as to say is if that was true that even one person had the gift of eternal life and then they lost it, that would make Jesus a failure at doing His Father's will. Because you know, He says in John chapter 6 that He came to do His Father's will and this was the will of Him who sent Him. That all He's given Him, He would lose none. And even more than that, if he was a failure, think of the implications of that. Because Jesus also said he always does his Father's will. He always does those things that are pleasing to his Father. But if he failed, then that wouldn't be true and he'd be a liar. And if Jesus was a liar, then he was a sinner and not God and he couldn't save anyone. See, it's pretty serious, but praise God, Jesus is not a liar. He is not a failure and he will save his people 100% of the time. Just like the angel told Mary, he will save his people from their sins. You know, another way, though, that people can misunderstand this reality of apostasy is they can look at these folks in John chapter 6 and they think they were still saved. we might call that the free grace position, easy believism. There are theologians out there who say all you have to do to have eternal life is make a one-time decision for Christ, a mental assent, and you're saved. And you know, I used to know someone who actually taught that if someone made a profession of faith in Jesus and the next day became an atheist and renounced that profession, they would still go to heaven. That is not what the Bible teaches. That's a very dangerous mistake. And it tells people, peace, peace, when there is no peace. But the Bible, how does it speak? It says, you know, in Hebrews, it says, take care lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. For we have come to share in Christ if indeed if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. So there it is, if indeed we hold our confidence firm to the end. So if you turn away and apostatize, this is not a matter of simply losing out on heavenly rewards that you otherwise would have received. No, if you fall away, you're not making it in, period. So this is very serious. And just praise God that he's given us the Holy Spirit who works in us to both work in the will and to do as of his good pleasure. So I would put forth another interpretation of how to understand the reality of apostasy and it's this. A better way to understand it is that we can conclude these people did not lose their salvation in John chapter 6 when they turned away because they never had it. I think we have to conclude that, and that is what John says in his first epistle. You know, they went out from us, but none of them were of us because if they were of us, they would have remained. They would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become manifest or might be made plain that none of them were of us. You know what Jesus says in verse 70? Let's read it. Jesus answered them, did I not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil. And John goes on to provide his own commentary in verse 71 that he was speaking of Judas Iscariot. So notice here in Jesus' words, one of you is a devil. The explanation for Judas' future apostasy is found right here. Jesus says one of you is, present tense right there, is a devil. Jesus is not saying that one of you is going to fall into becoming a child of the devil. Jesus is rather saying that one of you currently is a devil, an adversary. One of you are not mine. And Jesus is telling them this, not to beat them over the head, but so that when it does come to pass, their faith would actually be strengthened. John chapter 13 verse 18 says what Jesus is speaking. He says, I'm not speaking of all of you. I know whom I've chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me. And he says this, I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place in the future, you may believe that I am he. So John certainly learned that lesson. And he must have thought about Judas when he was writing 1 John, that verse where he says that the people who turn away from Christ, that they weren't of Christ, right? So that is a more biblical way to understand the reality of apostasy. When someone falls away, it makes it evident that what they had, what they claimed to have, was not the genuine thing. When we realize this, it can cause us to do two things, right? ground us so we're not thrown into a crisis of faith moment when it does happen. In a way, we're not surprised. We're grieved, but we're not surprised. We know that this reality is in the world today. I told this story before, but I ran into a man a couple of years ago actually. who was at one time a professing Christian. He was very encouraging. He had a good testimony. He was baptized, added to the church, and then he kind of disappeared. And I ran into him after a number of years, and we started talking. And I asked, what happened? How are you doing spiritually? And he said, I'm not doing well, brother. Sadly, I've fallen back to my old ways. And his life was in all messy kind of way, sadly. And I asked, what happened? How'd you get there? And he said that there was another Christian that he looked up to that was like his role model who fell into sexual immorality, was disciplined out of the church, and he turned out to be false. And this person he looked up to so much, when he fell away, this young man's faith was just destroyed. And I was thinking, You know, how discouraging that would be if, I mean, imagine the most influential Christian in your life, perhaps the person who gave you the gospel for the first time, or discipled you, or if every preacher you've ever looked up to and benefited from, what if they all fell away? You know, it's scary to think how many people would follow them in falling away. But when we realize this, that this is a reality in the Christian life, or not in the Christian life, but a reality that there are false professors of faith. It ought to ground us so we're not thrown into that crisis of faith. You can have the strength to say, let God be true, but every man a liar. But another effect this realization should have on us is it should cause us to examine our own selves. It ought to be all of our duties to make sure that I'm not the next in line to fall away. So we ought to examine ourselves. That's what the Apostle Paul tells us to do, to examine ourselves to see whether or not we're in the faith. But here's a question for you. How would you know if it's you or not? How would I know if it's me? Because the tricky thing is, You know, people don't fall away just thinking they're going to be next. They might have an inaccurate perception of themselves. You know, I think of Peter who presumptuously said, Lord, all these might fall away, but I will never betray you. And it was that night. Peter denied him three times. So what would I look for in myself that would be an indication that I'm in danger? What would be the red flag I'm looking for? And that brings me to my second point. So we've already seen the reality of apostasy. And so now in our text, we have a sort of what I would call a spiritual diagnosis in verse 67. Let's read verse 67. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Do you want to go away as well? This question of Jesus posed to his disciples, it tells us something about those who turned away and followed him no more. It reveals something and I would just point your attention to two parts of that question. The word want. and the part where it says, as well. Do you want to go as well? What does that imply about the people who just fell away? It implies that they fell away because they wanted to. And I know that kind of sounds like a very simplistic statement, you know, they fell away because they wanted to, but But I think it is profound and I think there's some insightful truths in that question. Jesus, he's making a connection between our desires and our actions, the decisions we make. I asked some people this in the church down in San Antonio, so I'll ask it to you. Because, you know, sometimes when we talk about the topic of apostasy, falling away, and wants and desires, sometimes the topic of free will gets brought up. So I'll ask you, do you think mankind has free will? And you don't have to answer that. I would encourage you not to answer that just off the bat because, you know, it's a loaded question, meaning there's assumptions built in to the question itself. You know, what is free will? What is the will itself? And I'm going to kind of borrow from Jonathan Edwards here. Jonathan Edwards defines what the will is, and he describes it as the mind choosing. And he's got a book on this called Freedom of the Will. But it's a pretty long book. If you want a shorter, more concise summary of the book, I would recommend a book by R.C. Sproul called Chosen by God. And he's got a chapter in it where he summarizes Edward's position on the will. But it's the ability to choose what we want. It's defined as the ability to choose according to our desires. So our desires are the foundation of our choices. That's why we choose the things we want to. And he goes further and makes it like a law that we always choose according to our highest desire. So in that way, the will itself is not free. It's not independent of any cause. There is a cause for every decision we make. It's our desire. So the reason you do any given action is found in the explanation, because you wanted to. But let's test that, you know? Because you might be thinking right now in your mind, is there a scenario in which I can think where I choose something that I actually did not want to do? So here's an example. You might be thinking tomorrow's Monday. I don't really want to go to work tomorrow. So you have a choice. You can not show up to work. You could call in. It could just be a no call, no show. I would encourage you not to do that, but that's an option. You could do that. Or you could go to work. Now let's say you don't. You don't do that first option. You go into work tomorrow, even though you didn't want to. Did we just disprove Edward's position on the will? Because at first glance, it seems that we chose something that we did not want to do. But I would argue that actually you had competing desires and consequences for each choice you make. In one scenario, you were faced with the possibility of not going in and the repercussions that could have. You could get in trouble. You could even be fired if you just no-called, no-showed. So you go into work. If your desire to keep your job outweighs your desire to not go in, then guess what? You're going into work tomorrow. So we always choose according to our highest desire. The problem with fallen mankind, the unregenerate heart, is that they've got a heart that desires anything and everything except for God. So yes, they freely do what they want to do, but they cannot choose God. They cannot even come to Christ, and they cannot choose righteousness. The Bible tells us that the human heart is deceitful above everything else, and who can know it? So that is fallen mankind's problem right there. He's got a heart that hates God, so he cannot come to Him. So that would be an indication if someone's in spiritual danger of apostasy right there. Is there anything in your heart that you desire more than the Lord Jesus Christ? And so I think everyone needs to examine themselves on that point. These people in John chapter 6 who fell away, we know that they did not desire Jesus above everything else. Well, they wanted him, sure. but not above everything else. The real reason they came to him was they liked the idea that they had of what he would do. They liked a version of Jesus who would just give them bread and multiply fishes for them. But when push came to shove, they didn't want Jesus himself more than anything else. But we can contrast that with with the response of the regenerate heart. So we've seen already in verse 66 that there is a reality of apostasy. We looked at the spiritual diagnosis in verse 67 and connected that to the desires and the desires of the heart. That's the red flag right there. And that leads me to my third point, how we can contrast that with the regenerate heart. Look at the response of Peter in verse 68. So Peter responds back to Jesus with a rhetorical question. Implied answer is, there is nowhere else to go. There is no one else I can go to. You know, when you've been born again, when you've tasted and seen that Jesus is good, you can't help but love him. You say in your heart, there is nowhere else I can go. Jesus has the words of eternal life. He's the way, the truth, and the life. How can I go anywhere else? It's not a matter of if I want to, but how can I? I can't go anywhere else. He's my all. He's my everything. So how can I do this great wickedness against God and turn away? Jesus is the living bread. He came down from heaven to give life to my soul. He's my portion. He's got the words of eternal life. Where else can I go? In other words, give me Jesus or I die. That's it. That's really the only two options I have. So what do you mean do I want to go? How can I? And I really feel that's the response that every born-again heart has. If you're a Christian today, somewhere deep down you feel that reality. You feel that response. Where else can I go? You have the words of eternal life. If you know something of that, if you feel that same response, then you know what? That means you're a Christian. And praise God. And Christ will not let you go. You will endure. You will persevere. Christ will not lose you. He will raise you up on the last day. Well, I do want to look at the last two verses and make some comments because something I realize is there could be someone, there's many people with this problem where they have a very sensitive conscience. They're given to maybe overanalyze their own life and their own performance. And they might be reasoning like this, you know, if Jesus was really my everything, then why would I ever sin? You know, wouldn't it be true that I would never sin? You know, and I've talked with many people on the college campus, people who are sinless perfectionists, and they actually claim that. that they don't sin. But we know what 1 John tells us about that. If we say we have no sin, we're deceived and the truth is not in us. But then what do we make of our sin as a Christian? Why are we falling short still? And I want to be careful. I don't want to be misunderstood. The Christian is someone who will gradually put to death more and more the deeds of the flesh and be sanctified and be made into more of the image of Jesus Christ. There will be a growing there. There will be growth. There will be sanctification, we call it. But I would be quick to point out, it's not the total absence of sin that defines the Christian life, necessarily. And I think that's worth repeating. It's not the total absence of sin that defines the Christian life. I want to point your attention to to the fact that there's two individuals that John names out in these passages set before us. I'll just read it. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. So look at Judas and consider his life, but then also look at Peter and look at his life. The interesting thing is Judas, we read, was going on to betray him. We know the story. Judas sold him out for 30 pieces of silver. But the interesting thing is Peter also sinned in a very similar fashion. It wasn't the exact same, but he denied even knowing him three times out of fear of a little servant girl. right after boasting that he would never do such a thing. I mean, is that not a form of betrayal? I would say it is. So here you have two men sinned in the very similar way, betrayal of some sorts, and yet one of them finds forgiveness, one of them is restored, and yet one of them was not forgiven. One of them is in hell to this day. Judas, he's called the son of perdition. That's damnation. But what was the difference between them? Again, I'll say what I said before, it's not the total absence of sin that defines the Christian life. I mean, you may have been living in sin, you may have done something this past week that you're ashamed of, you wish you could take it back, you feel guilty, but the truth is you can't take it back, it's in the past. And so I say this with reverence. There's no use crying over spilt milk. The question is, what are you going to do about your sin? That is what defines a Christian. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to try and defend it or minimize it? Or do what Judas did? What did Judas do to take care of the guilt of his sin? Judas attempted to do what every other world religion will try to do, pay it back. You know, he took the 30 pieces of silver, went and tried to pay back for his crime because he felt guilty. But did it work? No. It didn't alleviate any of his guilty conscience. And so then what did he do? He wallowed in self-pity and he went out and hung himself. And a tragic end. But I really think that if Judas had that same perspective as Peter did, if Judas would have just waited those three days for Jesus to rise, and if he would have just gone to him in faith, knowing the character of Christ, that he will receive all who come to him in faith, if Judas would have just done that, he would have been forgiven. But he didn't do that. And now you look at Peter, and what did he do with his sin, his very similar sin? Just like Judas, he wept bitterly, and he went back to fishing. And you know, when Jesus appeared to them on that shore, and they were fishing, he said, cast your nets down in that side of the boat. And then the other disciple tells Peter that it's the Lord. What does Peter do? Does he run away? No. No, he says, there he is, there's the Christ. I have to get to him. Peter couldn't even wait to bring that boat into shore. He plunged into the water and swam to Jesus. And what did he find? He found forgiveness for his sin. What grace and what mercy Jesus is full of. So again, it's not the total absence of sin that defines the Christian life, but what do you do with your sin? The Christian is one who takes their sin and their guilty conscience to Jesus Christ for the forgiving of that. And so I would just exhort everyone to continue to do that, to go to Jesus and he will have mercy. That's all I have for you. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for sending your blessed son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that we can go to him in faith no matter what our conscience tells us, no matter what we've done, that he will receive us and that he is the bread of life, that all who take him in by faith will have eternal life and find forgiveness for their sins. Lord, we I pray that you would cause us all to continue on in the faith and that no one here would fall away, Lord, but help us, Lord, strengthen our faith and make us more like Christ. And Father, I pray that you'd bless the fellowship, the food, and bless our time together remaining today. Amen.