It's just good to be back with my church family. I feel like it's been uh forever uh since we've been together. I was in social circle the week before the ice, and so it's been three weeks. And so uh if you're here for the first or second time, we're so excited you're here. I want to say a big welcome to all of you that are with us. And we concluded a series online. We we preached at you for four weeks to tell you get off your screens, get off your screens, get off your screens. But join us this Sunday online. But get off your screens. I mean I I I felt like there was a little bit of irony in that whole dilemma. Well, today is a new day, new series titled Onward, um, really about just the heartbeat of the gospel, our mission, what God's called us to. The year was 1914, and there was a ship named Endurance, and it was sailing into the most unforgiving place on the earth, the Antarctic. And Sir Ernest Shackleton was leading a crew of 27 men on what was supposed to be a historic expedition. The first attempt to cross Antarctica on foot. It was bold, ambitious, but also dangerous. Before they ever reached land, everything went wrong. The ship became trapped in packed ice, and for months the ice tightened around the ship and began to crush it. Until finally the ship slowly and relentlessly just sank into the frozen sea. And so the plan was done. No ship, no rescue, no communication. 1914. Just like that, the plan is gone. Hundreds of miles from civilization, surrounded by ice, facing temperatures well below zero. At that moment, everything they believed about their mission had changed. Everything they believed, and emphasize that word, believed. Shackleton gathered the men and made a declaration that would define the next two years of their lives. It took them two years to get out of Antarctica. And so, in essence, he said the goal is no longer exploration. The goal now is survival, and we are going home together, is what Shackleton told his men. It's from that moment on, Shackleton held to one belief, and that belief was the foundation, was the anchor. We are going home, and we're going home alive. And so that belief began to shape every decision. They shifted from exploration now to survival. It shaped every decision. What would they take with them off the ship? What would they leave behind when they moved? It would shape how they traveled and moved and how they would camp and wait. And it would determine how they would risk everything, how they would hold their ground. And the conditions didn't improve. Rescue didn't come quickly. Hope had to be chosen every day, day by day. And against all odds, every one of those men survived. Not because the circumstances got easier, but because their leader refused to abandon belief. Belief. And that belief is what mattered most to them. And so Shackleton, and I vividly remember reading this book probably 30 years ago approximately. Titled Endurance, and it's the story of Shackleton, and his leadership has been studied since this event happened. But what saved those men wasn't just strategy, it was a deeply held belief that they could not let go of. And to move onward, to take new ground, to move forward with the mission God has given us, it requires belief. Not belief intellectual, but belief in how we are going to live in light of the truth of Jesus. And so here's something I've learned about belief. Some beliefs are flexible, some beliefs are preferences, some beliefs can be convenient, but some beliefs, if you let go of them, they don't just lose direction, they will cost you your life. And here's my fear in light of where we are in our culture today, we are seeing the reality of how our beliefs can change with the wind. Beliefs can change with the wind. We can look at circumstances, we can look at the politics, we can look at all the mess, all the chaos in our world, and there's got to be something that anchors us. And there's our belief. But our belief has to have a correct object. What we are placing our belief in. We all have moments where we've been tested, moments where the plan falls apart, things don't go the way we want. The temptation is so great. Our belief isn't popular, it's not accepted by others. And when certain beliefs are released, the way of life disappears with them. And belief is central to our faith as Jesus followers. Matter of fact, the writer of Hebrews, we're not sure who it was. It's not clearly stated. Some believe it was Paul, but here's what he says. He says, without faith, and so faith and belief go together, without faith, it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and he rewards those who seek him. So as we as we look at an exciting time in the life of our church, and we also look outside and we see chaos, we need to, as we move forward into this exciting season, the life of our church, we need to look back and make sure we're anchored. We're anchored in belief. And so when we established, when we planted Church of the Grove almost 20 years ago, we didn't necessarily have a collection of values that we had that we could look back on that we had lived by. So we did what a lot of churches do. We look at how others have articulated mission and values, and so we borrowed some things, but it's taken us about 20 years to kind of rest and settle on values that we believe articulates our mission and what really matters and what is most important in the life of our church. So mission doesn't change. The mission is always tied to the Great Commission. Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have taught you, and I will be with you until the end of the age. And out of that, we we said we exist to reach people far from God and to lead them to become followers of Jesus. That's our mission. And so over the course of this series, we're going to look at these building blocks, these values that hopefully help us stay on the path, that stay between the guardrails, so to speak. And over the course of the series, we're looking at believe. And believe, we're saying this, that we trust Jesus and take him at his word. We trust Jesus and take him at his word. And then to belong, belong, it gives us an idea of, hey, we're together in this. We walk together as a spiritual family. We'll address that next week. And then become, we grow to become more or to look like Jesus every day of our lives. And then finally build. We advance the kingdom. We build through the building blocks of people and lives and relationships. We advance the kingdom of God. We take new ground. And so today we're going to center on the word and the value, believe. Believe. We trust Jesus and we take him at his word. So would you pray with me? Let's pray together and we'll dive into John chapter 6. Father, would you speak to us? And maybe more importantly, Father, would you give us hearts that have fallow ground that can be that can be taken and be made pliable, movable. God, give us a heart of dependence and trust and belief. God help us to look at the life of Jesus, what he says, what he points to. And may we believe. Believe in his word. Take him at his word. God speak in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we're in John chapter 6 for today. And this is a familiar story for many of us. In John chapter 6, there's something so interesting about Jesus. When the crowds begin to follow him, he doesn't always embrace the crowds. Part of Jesus' ministry was to minister to crowds and then take concentric circles down to the 12 disciples. Even beyond that, there are three that he invested in more deeply. And if you go by what John said about himself, he's the disciple that Jesus truly loved. And so Jesus was in this process where he would teach crowds and miracles would happen, but he would pull away with his disciples to invest intentionally in them. So he wanted to not just show ministry to the masses, but discipleship that led to deep communion with the Heavenly Father. And so, in essence, what he's saying is small is not always bad, big is not always good. It's not mentality of Jesus, but he dives in. Look at John chapter 6, verses 1 through 6. After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee or Tiberius. A huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was performing by healing the sick. Jesus went up on a mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near. So when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, Where will we buy bread so these people can eat? He asked this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. So the crowds keep coming, the crowds keep coming. Jesus has compassion over the crowds. We see this in multiple places in the gospel. And he decides to perform one of the greatest miracles that I think he performs in Scripture. And he feeds thousands with a few loaves and two fish. So Jesus shows up here, compassion over the crowds, but he's very tuned in to what their needs are. He knows that their greatest need right now in this setting, they can't run around to the corner grocery store and go buy some bread and milk. How are they going to feed this massive crowd? And so Jesus is not indifferent to our basic needs. He genuinely loves and desires to meet our needs and all the needs that we have in life, but but it wasn't just meeting basic needs. He feeds everybody in this miracle until they're full, which is a significant thing. We live in a buffet kind of culture where, man, we can get a hold of stuff and all the food we want. I mean, pretty much most of us. May not always be healthy, but but but they're living in a culture there where they don't know where their next meal's coming from. And all of a sudden they get a buffet, and that not only do they eat their full, there are 12 baskets of leftovers taking food home. As you would think, everybody is amazed. Who would not be drawn? Who would not want to see this? Who would not be drawn to something they're curious about? They're amazed. These disciples are overwhelmed to see Jesus do so much with so little. And the crowds are amazed at his power as well. And so as a result, they want Jesus to assume the throne. He is potentially going to be our leader. But they're thinking through the this lens of earthly leadership. And so they're thinking, we now have someone who can overthrow the Roman Empire, the Roman government. Destroy those who have oppressed them. But look at verse 14. It says, when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, Truly, this is the prophet who's coming to the world. Therefore, when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. At first glance, this looks like faith. They're acknowledging that Jesus is the prophet. They want him as king. They're enthusiastic and unified in their belief. But here's the dangerous place that we often find ourselves. We want, rather than wanting and desiring Jesus for who he is, we want Jesus for what he can do in our life. And here's some insights I want to share with you. The first insight is this is that faith, false belief, false belief, not true belief, with our object being Jesus, false belief follows Jesus for what he provides, what he can give me, how he can meet my needs. And so that's what the crowd wanted him. A king who would feed them, a king who would who would uh quell and fix the Roman oppression, a king who could solve their problems. They want, in other words, they want the benefits of a kingdom without the authority that a king would bring. See, signs and miracles aren't bad, they're, but, but they're not the end in themselves. They are a means by something else. And they were always meant to point to something better, something greater. The miracle was never the point. The miracle was a sign pointing to who Jesus is. And that's what belief is, is transitioning from this genie in a bottle to, yes, he is my Savior and He is my Lord, and He is my King. But He's a good King. We live in a culture where that's hard to, it's hard to even comprehend that someone can be a good king, but when that someone is the Son of God, God in human flesh, we can bank on it. We can put our faith in that. We can believe. We can believe. And so signs and miracles aren't bad, but they meant to point to something else. The second insight is this. Jesus confronts in this passage what we would call, what I would call consumeristic faith. Jesus and the disciples cross over to the other side of the sea or the Sea of Galilee, this huge lake. And when the people discovered that Jesus and his disciples had left, they followed him to the other side. Again, they're pursuing Jesus, but they're pursuing for the wrong reasons. Verse 26, Jesus answered, Truly I tell you, you were 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. So they're not pursuing Jesus for the right reasons. They're going out of their way to find him, but they're simply wanting to see what he can provide. See, and Jesus doesn't pull any punches, he calls them out. It's probably not a real gentle rebuke exposing their motives. And our motives matter because motive affects our belief. Jesus is not rebuking them for coming, but rebuking why they came. Not because of who Jesus is, but because he simply met a need in their life. And here's one thing I've learned is you can say you're going to pursue Jesus and you can still miss him completely. When belief is built solely on experience, it always demands another sign. This is really the definition of consumeristic belief. It's belief that is never satisfied. I always need more proof. I want more proof, more blessings, more assurance. That Jesus cares about our needs. He cares about every detail of your life. But the fallacy of the modern American church is this: we have an entire generation of people who can sit and fill the seats of our churches, but be content with a consumeristic faith. You know, if you do that, I'll preach harder, longer. I didn't preach for two weeks. The lie is if you just pray a prayer, repeat after me, just walk down to the front, check off that you're a member, and you're good to go. You got your ticket to eternal life in heaven, and hey God, I got it from here. That's a dangerous place to be. Now, salvation is a gift. It is a work that is completely a work of God through the Holy Spirit. It's by grace that we're saved so that no one can boast. However, our belief is just about, if your belief is just about what you get out of a relationship, we've missed the point. Verse 30 of John 6, he says, What sign then are you going to do so that we may see and believe you? See, they're looking for signs. Signs are going to point, you know, to encourage their belief, so to speak. Rather than focusing on the person of Jesus, he is the one that fuels my faith, fuels my belief. And so they says, What are you going to perform? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as written, and he gave them bread from heaven to eat. So they just saw the feeding of the 5,000. They're asking for more signs, more big things to happen so they can they can fuel that consumeristic faith. Verse 32. Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, Moses didn't give you bread from heaven, 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. Then they said, Sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus says this. What does he say? I am the bread. Say it with me. I am the bread of life. Jesus is the bread. Jesus is the bread. See, we don't have to go search for joy because Jesus is the joy. We have to go search for hope because Jesus is the hope. We don't have to go follow or search for peace because Jesus is our peace. It's all about Jesus. And so he goes on to say, Moses didn't give you bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. From the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. He says, I am the bread. I am the bread. And this idea of belief, listen, the word faith and the word believe come from the same root word in the New Testament. And the word for faith is pistis. Pistis. But there's a verb form that means to believe, and it's pistuo. And here's the difference. Here's what I want you to see. Is we kind of view faith as something that is non tangible. It's out there in this kind of cloud, I don't know. It's real kind of. Experience where in reality Jesus, the Bible, our Heavenly Father, points to belief as a verb. It's action-oriented. The difference is me saying, you know what, I believe that chair will hold me. But I remain over here. See, that's consumeristic belief. True biblical belief in the sense that I'm talking about today is saying, not only do I believe intellectually that chair can hold me, I'm actually going to walk over there and I'm going to place myself in the chair. That's the kind of belief. It's not saying, oh yeah, I believe it. No, it's saying I'm in. I'm all in. I'm all in. That's that's listen, that's when we see the good stuff. That's when we see God work and the power of the Holy Spirit. It's this idea of not some intellectual fault, but it is a personal trust and a relational dependence. Because a lot of us say, hey, I believe that chair can hold me, and we'll walk by and we'll actually lean on it. We'll walk by and maybe, maybe kind of halfway sit in it. But it's a different thing when you just release and allow the chair to hold my weight. That's the kind of belief that Jesus is talking about in this passage. And so Jesus, he can be a bit controversial. He can be a bit offensive sometimes, but he's trying to get down to the core of who we are. Verse 41. 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? And so this familiarity with Jesus being Jewish, being from that area, it breeds a level of contempt. How dare you tell us these things? How dare you think you know more than us? They know that, hey, Jesus was the child of Mary and Joseph. Jesus is the little baby that Mary gave birth to. A lot of them know him as that Jesus. But now he's a Jesus that has moved on, has has responded to the call that his father placed on his life, surrendered his life, and in his mind, I believe that he has already been resigned to the reality that his life will be taken. And he's like, I need to preach and I need to teach the truth, a true biblical understanding of belief. Verse 53, 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. Now just I want you to think about being in that setting when Jesus said this. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, how strange. Because of things like this, people outside the Christian faith thought that Christians practice cannibalism. How strange is this? That's why you have to read something like this in the context of all of Scripture. It's obvious he is referring to the communion, the Lord's Supper, where we would eat his flesh. The bread represents his broken body. The wine or the juice represents his spilled blood. And so at this point, I understand a bit of their confusion, but but you've got to take it all into context. My flesh, my blood. Here's what I'm learning is that Jesus isn't interested in being admired. He demands to be trusted. And third insight, when belief comes, when belief becomes offensive, many will walk away. Many will walk away. Look at verse 60 through 66. Therefore, when many of his disciples heard this, they said, This teaching is hard. Who can accept it? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by just the weight of living a moral life? It's hard. It's a heavy, heavy weight. Jesus, verse 61, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked him, Does this offend you? Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn't help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some among you who don't believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe and the one who would betray him. He said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father. Look at this next verse. From that moment, many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him. No longer followed. Was the idea of selling out, follow Jesus, was it just too much? See, that's where the consumeristic mindset comes in. Hey, I'm gonna, I'm in this as long as it benefits me. But as soon as it becomes hard, hey, wait a minute. Does God really love me? Does God really want to bless me? Some were offended, some turned and went the other way. He doesn't say the crowd walked away. He said many of his disciples walked away. Maybe not the original twelve, but these are people that had decided to follow him. And when the cost became too much, they walked away. Here's what I've learned: proximity to Jesus doesn't guarantee perseverance with Jesus. That is a daily dependence upon him. And really the true measure, listen, the true measure of our faith will be how we finish our race, how we finish this life. People walked away. False belief has a limit. False belief follows Jesus until obedience costs something, or until truth confronts desire, until truth requires surrender. False belief says, I'll follow you. As long as I agree with what you say. True belief says, I'll follow because I trust you. I trust you. How do we see this today? People walk away from Jesus all the time for all types of reasons. Not because they don't believe that he exists, but they don't want to trust him with their life. And what happens is when we think about morality and ethics, they move with the wind. To the point it can affect how we view things like forgiveness, generosity, submission to Jesus. When belief is built on preference, obedience becomes an option. When Jesus sees the disciples turning back, no longer following him, he doesn't chase after them. He doesn't soften his words, he doesn't reframe the message. Verses 67 through 69 says this. Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God. Man, just manful of faith. Now, do we know what happened to Peter? He he denied Christ. Then Christ restored him. Jesus restored him. So so I love how bold Peter is, and I'm with Peter right here. But I also know how things can happen. And so Peter says, what other options do we have? You are where we find true life. Jesus won't force you to believe, but he does bring you to a place where you are forced to make a decision. Which way are we going to go? And I would say that, hey, we need to believe, which means that we need to trust Jesus and take him at his word. Listen, last insight is this true belief clings to Jesus because there is no other place to go. That's what Peter's saying. He said, we don't have a backup plan. We don't have a backup plan, Jesus. We're putting all our eggs into this basket. And so I want to just close our time with a time of reflection. So would you, I'm just asking you to bow your heads for a second. Bow your heads, and as you're thinking through, I just want to kind of walk you through processing what we've heard. What does true belief look like today? It may be that you simply need to start with life seems so overwhelming, and I need, I need, I need an object of my faith that won't move. And so Jesus says, Hey, I am that. You can trust me with your future. You can trust me with your relationships. You can trust me with your identity. You can trust me with obedience. And so that first step in belief is to put your faith in what Jesus has provided. In his life, and his death, and his resurrection. And so I want you to imagine Jesus inviting you into relationship. You've heard and understood that there is a cost to following Jesus, and we need to measure that cost. We need to contemplate what that cost is, and regardless of what the cost is, we're all in with Jesus. All in. Because if you could take and open your hands and say yes to Jesus, it's like signing the bottom of a page that is blank and saying, hey, here is my commitment. You fill in the blanks, you fill in the blank page, Jesus. I'm all in, I'm with you. The Bible doesn't teach us that when we do that, that everything's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be perfect. No, what it teaches us is that that first step of faith is a step of belief. Where faith as a noun becomes belief as a verb. Let's just stop there for this morning. Imagine a church that was built on a deeply held belief that Jesus is real, Jesus cares, and what Jesus says about us is true. What Jesus says about what it means to follow him is true. And it will change our life, it will transform us. Next week we'll come back and we'll talk about what it means to belong to a family. So, Father, would you take this remaining time and would you help us to cement our response of belief in Jesus? Jesus is our object of faith. We trust you. We trust you, Jesus. If you're here this morning and maybe for the first time you're putting your faith in Jesus, can I ask you to slip up your hand? Nobody's looking around, but it's it's an encouragement to me. I think it's a it's a step for you to take. To raise your hand, say yes, I'm I'm with Jesus. Just flip your hand up if you want to take that first step and to put your faith in Jesus this morning. Anybody? Well, for those of us that are believers, let's ask, lean in and ask the Lord to work in our hearts and our lives as we go on this journey over the next few weeks. We see how belief, belonging, becoming, and building helps us lean into Jesus even more. See his kingdom become a reality on this earth. Jesus prayed, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So, Father, we love you, we thank you, we believe you and we trust you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. And everybody said together. Hey, would you stand with me as we