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If you have a Bible with you, we are back in our John series, John chapter 6, verses 51 through 69. And guys, this is an album cut if there ever was one. These are the least famous words of Jesus, perhaps. Let's pray before you again. God, we we come to your word right now hoping to encounter you. I pray that by your Spirit, the words that I say, the words that we read, our experience of you from this text would be alive. That you would use it to transform and challenge us and to bring us to a new understanding, that we would stand up more in love with Jesus than when we sat down. Amen. You know, um, before you could watch any movie at any time, I know some of you are old enough to remember this, you have to wait till that came on TV. Or you had to go to the video store. But if you were cheap, you waited until it came on TV. You know, no joke, network TV would be showing, you know, movies that were, whatever, you know, Tom Hanks was in it. And and, you know, when it was a Tom Hanks movie, they only had to edit it a little bit, but sometimes they'd show like a really, a really sort of R-rated movie, like Goodfellas or something like that on TV, and and they would have to edit this thing like in order to take out everything offensive from casino or something like that. You know, the Scarface. I saw Scarface on TV once. And it's like, forget you! Forget everyone you know, you know. Like that sort of thing, or they blur things out. Or do you remember this trick? They would, if something dodgy was happening on the screen, they would like cut the screen in half and zoom in so that you're really only seeing half. It was kind of this awkward transition. Or sometimes they'd just cut an entire scene. Like I remember um there's that old movie uh starring Bruce Willis and Unbreakable. Is that what it's called? I was watching it, I was all into it, I was watching it on TV, and then literally at the end, I I don't know what happened, but it just like there was text at the end, and then they got the bad guy. Sharon was watching it with me, she's like, that's not how that ends. I still have no idea how it ends. Haven't actually seen the movie because when you take out all the offensive parts, sometimes you come up with something completely different.

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Right?

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Have you ever gone back, like seen it on TV or on the plane, and then gone back and and uh and watched the original, you're like, this is a completely different thing, right? Sometimes, when you remove the offense, it completely changes the character of it, right? Completely changes the point. Now, anyone who's more than vaguely familiar with the gospel, the Bible, all those sorts of things, you know, sooner or later you come across some hair-raising offensive things, don't you? I mean, there's certain episodes. I don't know anyone who really loves the whole killing of the firstborn in Exodus, you know. That's a tough one. Or there's certain teachings that that offend certain sensibilities depending on your culture. Right? Jesus says, no one comes to the Father but through me. I said, really? What about that really good person I know who doesn't believe in Jesus? Not them, no, right? That's offensive. I get it. Now, we can respond a couple of ways. When we come across something offensive, we could reserve the right to edit. We could just do like, you know, good fellas on NBC. We just take out all the offensive things and uh or ignore it or exclude it or whatever. Now, I want to I want to be clear here. There are brothers and sisters who come to more, uh, for lack of a better term, liberal view, liberal theological views, and they come by it honestly. I'm not saying that everyone who ends up in that camp does so dishonestly, but for a lot of us, for a lot, a lot of what motivates that sort of thing is just, well, that's too hard to believe. I don't like it, it's gotta go. We could accept it, but be kind of scared that if anybody knew what we believed, you know, they would think we were terrible. And then there's, you know, sort of the PR approach. Yeah, we affirm that that's true, but let's just shove that in a back closet somewhere. We don't put that in the living room, so to speak. The problem is, of course, is that you you can you can end up with with the good fellas TV version of the gospel. You remove the offensive parts, you can lose the whole thing, right? Like, think of this. Because we we only we maybe only think of our own culture. Uh for Thomas Jefferson, right, he he he believed, you know, uh he had he was offended by miracles or God doing anything inside of creation. He thought that was impossible, ridiculous. He made the Jefferson Bible where he cut it, he cut out every miracle or anything that says that Jesus came, right? Like you end up with a very different Bible, don't you? Or uh or everyone anyone ever hear of the slave Bible? They call it the slave Bible, but what it was was it was uh it was um published for slaves in the Caribbean, so they could read the Bible, but they took out everything about like you know, human dignity and that sort of thing. So they just chopped out 80% of the Old Testament and half the New Testament, the entire book of Exodus is excluded, right? Because we can't have that in there. You end up with a completely different version, don't you? So we kind of feel like we're in a dilemma, right? So is it really just hold your nose and believe it? Hold your nose and affirm the parts that you don't like, or is accepting the offensive part actually redemptive? In John chapter 6, Jesus gets offensive. Let's take a look, starting in verse 51 for a little context. He says, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves. Jews, that means the Jewish leaders, uh, then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Now, they knew that he was be he was using an illustration of cannibalism, right? And this dispute, it's not arguing amongst themselves, they're just violently agreeing that this guy's dumb, right? Like this is ridiculous. What's he even talking about? Okay? Because when we look at what he says, it's really clashing with their beliefs. Look at verse 53. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Now, uh, when John uses the word life and the and the Greek word is zoe there, John is referring to eternal life, not biological life, meaning the resurrection. And for these ancient Jews, their understanding was the way that they're gonna experience resurrection, be part of the resurrection, is by being Jewish. And Jesus is like, no, it's me. You have to eat me. Okay? So he's saying something absurd to them in a really offensive way. Do I need to tell you that cannibalism was not considered kosher? So does Jesus back off? No, he goes further. Look what he says next in verse 54. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. I will raise him up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. Now, the word for feed there, before he was using the garden variety word for eat. This is much more like chow down, munch. Okay? He's like manja. He's he's turning the screws, right? Making it more offensive. Like if cannibalism wasn't bad enough as an illustration, he's like, no, really get into it, guys. You gotta really eat my flesh. Chow down, chomp, chomp. And if you're like, if you think that's weird, you're getting it. He says, as the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so whoever feeds on me, same word, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. Now, how many times did Jesus say that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you don't have eternal life? Like four, five times perhaps? He said it again and again, didn't he? He hammered the point home. He hammered home something they thought was absurd, offensive, in the most offensive language he could come up with at the time, I'm sure. Okay? So accepting the offense of the gospel is actually part of accepting salvation. The gospel itself is offensive and hard to hear. Um, and and sometimes, you know, the thing that you need to hear most is the most offensive thing. I was once um part of uh, this was back some years ago, but there was a high school in our in our neighborhood that was had a new principal who was doing like a turnaround of the high school because they had this was a school that had lost its accreditation on several occasions, it had been shut down for a number of years, couldn't get students, couldn't get parents to send students there. And so they got a bunch of parents, and my kids were little at the time, so they're like, well, eventually you'll be a high school parent. So and they they did they had us do like a focus group all weekend, and so I was like, sure, I'll help out however I can. I really like this new principle. And um, and they had us break up into small groups at one point, it was just me and like four other parents, and answer the question. They said, we want you to be brutally honest. Answer the question, what would make you hesitant about sending your kid to our school? And we were going around, and I said, Okay, guys, I'm just gonna be honest here. I fear for their safety, and I feel like it's not a good education. And every all the other parents of all backgrounds were like, Yeah, I feel the same way. I was like, okay, so let's let's write that down. They're like, no, no, write that down. We don't want to say that to them. I said, Well, how come? I said, Well, that might hurt someone's feelings. I was like, but they want to know why we written at the center of the kids here, right? You see sometimes the offensive thing is what we need to hear the most. You can't believe the gospel without accepting something offensive. Try this on for size. Left to yourself, left to myself, we're damned. Unless God intercedes on our behalf, we have no place in the kingdom. How about this? If that didn't do it. My best deeds, the best things you've ever done are as offensive to God as a pile of filth. Fill in the blank on what filth means. It's not flattery, is it? How about this? My sin is so vile that the only cure for it is for God to die a torturous death in my place. How about this? Us having eternal life is because we are pitiable charity cases, not worthy recipients. That's offensive, but that's the gospel. We can't believe the gospel without accepting offensive things. So we need to need to accept the offense of the gospel. It's essential to salvation. You can't get very far in following Jesus without listening to and accepting offense. But it's also essential to relationship. I recently uh I like this, um, there's a debate show uh that's put out by NPR called Open to Debate, used to be called Intelligence Squared, where they'll get you know subject matter experts to debate a proposition, and and they had it they had a debate with two PhDs, and the the proposition was uh can being in a relationship with AI be better than with a human? And and you know, this this uh PhD from ASU, right? Um, I don't know what that says, but uh uh she was arguing yes, and her argument was this AIs are always emotionally supportive, they're never bored of what you're saying, they don't check out on you, and they don't judge you, right? They're never gonna like push back and disagree and say that you're wrong. Now, the guy on the other side was more interested in the uh evolutionary biology aspects of it, but you know, does anything strike you as odd about that argument? Being in relationship with a thing that can't disagree with you, just kind of always does what you want it to do? I don't know if you notice, but there's only one person in that relationship, therefore it is it's not a relationship if there's only one person. Can't be done. That's not a person on the other side of it. Look, if you're in a relationship with, let's say there's a a person there, but they're not allowed to disagree with you. What have you got? What is the nature of that relationship? You can't disagree, you can't push back, you're not allowed. What are they? There's they call that slavery, guys. That's who can't disagree. That's a master and a slave. All right? But the thing is, is people do this with God all of the time. You know, the Bible teaches something, say something about God, well, the God I believe in, blank, blank, blank. Right? The God I believe in would never such and such. God doesn't have permission to be Himself. You you feel free to edit God. What is the nature of that relationship? Either it's one that's completely inappropriate to God, or there's just one person there. The crowd we're gonna see, the people listening to Jesus, are offended by who Jesus says he is. In verse 60, it says, when many of his disciples, so so it goes from the synagogue to the people, you know, and he's he's he's talking with people who are not his followers, the Jewish leaders, and now we see how his disciples, people who are following him, uh, respond. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? Now, they were not taking issue with the cannibalism bit. Um, they they were probably used to Jesus at this point. The part that we're gonna see, the part that they they didn't like was all the way back in verse 51 when he says he's the bread that comes down from heaven. And we know that because look at how Jesus responds. Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? Right? So what they had issue with is him saying that he was something more than just human. Right? That he was descended from heaven because he's saying, Well, if that's hard for you, you can have a really hard time when I ascend. He says, uh, he says, It is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Right? He's saying, I'm not offending you for no reason. This is spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him. And he said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father. They wouldn't accept the claims about who he said he was. They could definitely believe, they were probably probably hoping that he was gonna be the uh military savior that they were expecting the Messiah to be, but but one descended from heaven, they were like, I don't know about this. And don't think, when it says disciples, don't think of the twelve. We're gonna see it's it's this is the large group, the the large people, the large group of people following him. But we need to accept the offense of the gospel for real and right relationship. If we want real relationship with Jesus, he has to be able to disagree with us. You know, if we come across something in the scriptures, God's word, God speaking to us, and it offends us, our first instinct should not be to try and explain it away. Now that's different from understanding it correctly, you know, reframing it in a way that it makes more sense, but sort of just pulling the teeth out, sort of just just just giving it a miss or something like that, or explaining it away by saying, you know, well, that's just the writer's opinion or some such thing or other move, right? Or I just can't believe in a God who. Like, we don't have the right to edit God. And if we do, then guess what? You don't have real relationship there, do you? If if we want, like when we think of right relationship, there's different rules for different relationships, correct? I mean, think about it. A peer relationship, there's one set of there's one way we relate to one another when you are on a peer relationship. It's very different if you have a mentor. A mentor can do and say things that a peer cannot, correct? Or a parent and a child. There's a whole different set of rules there, of things that are appropriate. If you treat a child the way you treat a peer, you should go to jail, probably. Right? Gosh, that was rude. Wasn't that bad? Not the phone thing, but the crickets. The actual cricket is crickets, the minor thing. What is the right way to relate to someone who is God and Lord? Right? Do you do you get to define that person, or do they tell you who they are? We need to accept the offense of the gospel. Not only is it essential to receiving eternal life, but it's also essential for real and right relationship. But another important reasoning, it kind of speaks to what I think is a good instinct in a lot of ways, but can go too far. And that's like um those of us who want people to come to know Jesus, and I do, count me among them, we could we could kind of we can kind of slide a little too much into the sales thing. Have you ever gone to a car lot with a real high, high energy salesperson? You know? They're like, no, you're checking out the whatever, tier cell. Do they sell tier cells anymore? They don't do that. That's discontinued. You can tell that I it's been a while. Yeah, man, this thing's sweet. It's got it wheels or whatever, whatever thing they're trying to point out. And uh, you know, and they they start trying to wheel and deal, like, because their their idea is that they want to, you know, I'm more of a I just want to see what's out there, I want to touch it, I want to sit in it, and then I'll go to another place and shop around for a while, and they're like, don't let that person walk out of here without signing on the dot of light, right? That's kind of I know that that not all salespeople are like that, but there are some. And uh, and you know, they're just like, what do I have to do to get you into this car today? You know, to change the price or throw in a little a little uh you know$20 worth of incentives or something like that. Here's a net that fits over the trunk, or something like that. Would that make you more apt to spend 40 grand? You know, and and and kind of they they try and minimize any issues you bring up, right? Anything you say, they're like, oh, don't worry about that because da-da-da-da-da-da-da. We've all had the experience, correct? Some of you are good at it. Um but sometimes we think of kingdom growth in the same way, we think of sharing the gospel in the same way. And and and something that I've heard a lot in ministry and through my years of walking with Jesus, and this is from people who, you know, it's a good impulse. We want people to hear the gospel. And we don't want people to unnecessarily stumble over things they don't need to worry about. And so, you know, if we could kind of like edit out the offensive parts. People may be more likely to, you know, sign on the dotted line and say yes to Jesus. So, for example, right, there was uh in the 1920s and 30s, there was something called the modernist controversy. And what the modernists were doing is they were saying, well, you know, we're learning a lot, like science is coming into its own, and the culture is gonna be completely transformed to where, you know, if we say anything about miracles, no one's gonna listen to us anymore. And so they they sought to sort of just say, hey, could we have a version of the gospel with no miracles? That was their idea, is that make it easier to say yes. Remove the offensive things. Or like uh when I was in seminary, um there was a uh a pastor named Rob Bell who came out with a book called Love Wins, where he was saying, you know, uh he was trying to say we don't need to talk about hell. And I get it, that's a hard one, it really is. Um but he was just saying, in the book, I had to read it for for a class, and he was saying, you know, that this teaching, it's an albatross to evangelism. It prevents people from from accepting the good news, and that's what we really care about. So let's just let's get rid of it. It's offensive. And and the idea is I think that we could sometimes think quantity is job one. As long as you're getting more, more people saying yes, signing on the dotted line, as long as, you know, what do I have to do to get you in this to sell today? Like if like that's kind of the approach. And if if getting rid of some offensive things is all you have to do, then do it, right? I wonder what Jesus would say about that. Let's look at verses 66 and following. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Now, this is not the twelve, this is the big crowd. Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go his way as well? 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. Winner winner chicken dinner there, Peter. Good job. Right? So just imagine the scene. Jesus, you know, like like he's teaching in the synagogue, eat it! And then and then he's offending all these other people until they leave. And then he turns to the 12, his most hardcore follow. You guys want to go? My question is, does he seem particularly bugged that all these people left? No, he's like Willy Wonka, don't, stop, come back. You know? Not super worried about it. And then and then he he right he he turns to the 12. Like, really, uh the way the scene is told, those are the only ones left. And he's like, go on, you want to go with them? Peter gives the right answer. That you alone have the words of life. Where would we go? We need to accept the offense of the gospel. It reveals the genuine faith. Jesus was perfectly happy to lose a bunch of counterfeit followers to find the genuine. Quantity is not job one for Jesus. And really think about this. Let's say Jesus really was like, hey, you know what? If it helps people say yes, believe whatever you want about me. Yeah, anything offensive to any culture at any time, just take it out. Just give it a miss. What like what kind of spineless, just Bambi Legs God is that? You know, Bambi legs, like, just no, just not solid. Like, that's not a God to worship, is it? That's a plaything. That's not something worthless, that's not someone worthy of reverence and worship. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying. Am I saying that we should not struggle with the offensive parts of Scripture or the gospel? No, no. No, if you're not offended, if you're not struggling, I think maybe you don't understand it. Right? And also if you're in a place where it's like, well, I don't know, I'm just kind of at the front end of figuring this stuff out. Like, no, you don't, you don't have to, you don't have to say yes to everything immediately, but the big difference is knowing that walking with Jesus does mean accepting offense at some point. You don't have to work through it all immediately, you don't have to say yes to everything all immediately, it doesn't mean we don't struggle. But we are not free to simply recast Jesus into whoever we want him to be. That's not genuine faith. If all it takes is a little offense for us to leave, then he's perfectly willing to let that person go. It's like uh the the uh pastor and civil rights leader John Perkins, who recently went to be with Jesus, he's a great guy. Um he would have people coming to him all the time. Hey, could you disciple me? Could you disciple me? And he'd say, All right, young man. My group meets at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. And the reason he did that is because he wanted to find out who was really serious. He didn't want to disciple someone who was not serious about it. A lot of the time we think that we're in a position where we've got to sell. And we don't. You know, we're that that's not our job. Quantity is not job one for the kingdom. And also, does this mean like I know I know we're how like there in our day, there's like shock jock Christian influencers, I'm sure, are there? Who are like just being offensive online, being like, Jesus was offensive? Right? And so they're like, so I'm gonna offend you, like and follow. If you want more content like this, or whatever. Does that kind of give us a permission to be as mean, as offensive? No, no, not at all. Um and also I want to point out that they are they are being offensive to gain a following, Jesus was doing it to lose one. Um the gospel's hard enough without us being like rude people on top of it. That's not what I'm talking about. But we need to accept the offense of the gospel because it's essential for receiving eternal life, it's essential for real relationship with God, and it displays genuine faith. Think of the gospel, it's it's offensive, but as Jesus says, it's redemptive. Right? His point is not to offend, he says, My words are truth and life. Through this offense, he brings redemption. I don't know uh if if it's been um a lot of the time, I know everybody knows the book Cat in the Hat, right? I have parts of it memorized because I read it to my kids uh so often. But uh, you know, it starts off the sun, sun did not shine, it was too late to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. Remember this? They didn't have screens. I sat there with Sally, we sat there we two, and I wish I said how I wish we had something to do too late to go out, hold a play ball. We sat in the house, we did nothing at all. I could keep going. All we could do was to sit, sit, sit, sit. We did not like it all a little bit. Something went bump. How that butt made us jump. We looked and we saw him step in on the mat. We looked and we saw him. The cat in the hat, that's right. And what is the cat in the hat? He he enters this boring, you know, sort of sort of very uh dull existence. And what does he do? He says, hey, I'm gonna make things fun and interesting around here, and he proceeds to rip apart the house. He throws everything everywhere, he brings in thing one and thing two, and they go nuts, right? And then he puts it all back together. A lot more interesting day than they were gonna have, right? That's how I think of it. Is yes, it's offensive, it's disruptive, it throws everything everywhere, it challenges us, it stretches us. The gospel does not leave us as we are, sitting in a chair looking at the rain, like those kids. Right? And and and this is what we need. This is part of redemption. We need to be challenged. We can't have a challengeless God, a challengeless gospel. We need to receive the offense of the gospel. Please pray with me. God, I pray that as your people, those of us who are even just considering it, would see the beauty of your redemptive disruption. That you are not content to leave us as we are, that the way that you work in us, the way that you transform us and redeem us, can be painful, can be difficult, can be hard for us to accept, and yet when we do, we find blessing in it. In Jesus' name.