Taught By God | John 6:41-51

If you have your Bibles with you, please let me encourage you to turn in them to John chapter six. We’re continuing in our series through the Gospel of John. This morning we’re going to be in verses 41 through 51. Listen now as I read those verses.

“So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves. 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.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one 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. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’”

Let us pray.

God, we ask now that you would make your word a swift word, passing from here to the heart and from the heart to the lips and conversation, that as the rain returns not empty, so neither may your word, but accomplish that for which it was given. Speak to us now, O Lord. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For many people in the modern West, the great struggle in life is not survival, but boredom. The war they wage is a fight against the familiar. As the old adage goes, familiarity breeds contempt. When everything in life feels ordinary, expected, and unimpressive, souls begin to drift as people find nothing remarkable about life. And so familiarity breeds boredom. Boredom produces emptiness, and emptiness leads to despair.

Roger Waters of the English group Pink Floyd put it well when he describes such men and women as “hanging on in quiet desperation.” But as Americans, we know that the English don’t have a monopoly on misery. Although it may seem like that at times, as one American voice once said, “We are the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war. We have no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war, and our great depression is our lives.” Fight Club.

Part of the nature of the phenomenon I’m describing is not a lack of wonders themselves. It’s not a fact that there are wonderful things in the world, but it is our blindness—human blindness—to them. Glory and wonder permeate everything all around us, all the time. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech.” Friends, the universe doesn’t whisper. It shouts glory, majesty, wonder. Yet we don’t see it. Our familiarity has bred blindness to the glory of God. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”

It is not ignorance that keeps many from following Christ, but rather it is familiarity. And I think a similar casual acquaintance with Christ—even to this day, even in this room—blinds so many from turning to him today.

I’m going to have three points from our text this morning.

**Consider with me point number one: the grumbling crowd.**

Look at verse 41: “The Jews grumbled about him, because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’”

In the bread of life discourse, if John 6 is a symphony, one of the main themes is the shifting posture of the crowd. They turn on Jesus. You remember how John 6 begins? Jesus feeds the 5,000. It begins with grand excitement, and the crowd feverishly seeks to make Jesus their king. But as soon as he tells them of eternal bread, eternal food that endures to eternal life, their excitement turns into consternation. Brows begin to furrow. Suspicion begins to rise. And in our text we see that consternation turns into grumbling.

Again we see the irony of John 6, the irony of the Gospel of John. When Jesus withdrew the first day from the crowd, they sought him all the more, all around the wilderness, all around the sea. But now, as soon as Jesus freely offers them life through faith—his own body sacrificed for them, he is the bread of life, his blood poured forth for sinners—well, then they begin to turn away from him.

The horror of sin is that it blinds people to the only thing they actually need as they pursue the things they think they want. Now, there are many reasons that people reject Jesus Christ, and today we see one of those reasons in our text.

The text says in verse 42, “They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’” They think they know Jesus. They think they know this guy’s family. They think they know his origin. They think they know what this Jesus is about. Surely he’s not from heaven.

In the parallel text of Matthew 13, the crowd said, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? We know this Jesus.” They think, “We play ball with this guy’s brothers. His mom used to organize the neighborhood carpool. His father remodeled my kitchen. I know this Jesus. He’s not from heaven. He’s not who he says he is. He’s not that special. He cannot fulfill our needs. How does he say ‘I came down from heaven’? We know this Jesus.”

Brethren, again we see the familiarity that blinds—what we’ve seen as the sin of familiarity. And I say we must fear the familiarity that blinds.

We’ve seen this before, and I say this familiarity comes in two modes. It comes in an unbelieving mode, and it comes in a believing mode.

We saw the unbelieving mode before. This is the type of unbelief we saw last time Jesus was in Galilee. In John 4, Jesus said, “A prophet has no honor in his hometown.”

You see, friends, there’s a kind of acquaintance with Christ that blinds people to who he truly is. This type of experience or knowledge of Jesus, Christianity, and the church, I say, is absolutely deadly. Sometimes it looks like fake Christianity: a little dab of religion will do you. Smells and bells. Put on a coat and tie. Sit in pews. Hear a good sermon. Stories for your life. Knowledge for the journey. Go home, live however you want. But at least you got to church on time.

Other forms come in a person who quietly rejects Jesus because they find in him nothing impressive, because they think they’re familiar with him. They like Jesus, but he’s not worth staking their life upon. This is a casual nearness that never comes to faith. This person lingers around Jesus and Christian people and Christian things, but never actually rests upon him.

A sobering thing is, I know I’m describing many who are here this morning. My friend, if that’s you, you need to realize your nearness to Christ in Christian things has obscured the beauty and worthiness of Christ, and you are living in toxic proximity to Jesus. If you don’t turn to the Lord, that proximity will only condemn you further, and it will only compound the judgment of God reserved for you on the last day.

I fear some of you young people are living this right now. You hear Christian sermons. You receive a Christian education. You eat Christian breakfast cereal every day. All of that’s wonderful. But you have not experienced the only reality that truly matters. You have no relationship with Christ as Redeemer. Your great sin problem has never been solved. You’ve not been rescued from your great danger. You’re like a bleeding, dying man who’s wandering through a hospital, and you think because you’re near medicine, you’re going to be okay. But you never see the physician. You never actually go into the operating room. You never actually have the surgery. You never actually have the procedure, but you think you’re fine because you’re in the building.

That’s not how Christianity works. That’s not how the gospel works. That’s not how Jesus works. You think, “Oh, I know this Jesus. This is the carpenter’s son. I know the songs. I can sing all of them. I remember the parts.” But your soul is not changed. You need a new heart. You need the blood of Jesus shed for your sins. You need to repent of them. And you need to turn to Jesus Christ in faith.

I fear many of you will hear on the last day, “You saw so much. He was right there. You heard so much truth and you didn’t turn to me. You saw so much fruit in the lives of all who were around you. You saw such light, and it did nothing in your life.”

Friends, no one within the sound of my voice has failed to place their faith in Christ because they found him all too familiar. There’s an unbelieving mode of this sin of familiarity.

There’s also a believing mode. This is the type of Christian who grows little because he finds Christ too near, too familiar, too same old, same old. There’s a type of Christian that is so deeply bored by the bread of life. They think that’s a message you need so that you can come to Christ, but it’s not a message you need all of your life.

I see this in Christians who will do anything to improve their lives besides read their Bible and pray. “I think I’ve got to just get up earlier and meditate. I need to change my diet. If only I start exercising and be a little bit more of a disciplined person. You know, the seed oils—they’re horrible. I need to cut them out of my diet.” What you need is the Bible. You need the bread of life. You need the word that comes from the mouth of the Father more than anything else. Only that will change your life.

I see this in Christians who are far more passionate about the cultural and political issues of the day than the saving message of the cross. I am deeply passionate about the cultural and political issues of the day, and they’re not disconnected from the saving message of the cross. But there’s a type of Christian whose mind is just consumed by things that are passing every day, and they do not think upon the cross.

I see this in Christians who care much more about what the church can do and what the church must do. I see this in Christians who show little acknowledgment of the breathtaking miracles all around us. Actually, I brought this up in the Equip class this morning. Every Lord’s Day, every time we take the Lord’s Supper, right before we pass those elements, I say pretty much the same thing every time: Think not only of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you—his blood poured forth for you—but what he has done for every child of God in this room.

Do you realize the miracles sitting around you? I’ve baptized a lot of you. I’ve lived decades with some of you. I’ve lived a lot of life with you, and I’ve seen so many of you pass from death to life. Only God can do that. Only the word of Christ at work in your life can do that. There are miracles all around.

There for us good churchgoing people is just white noise. And we can be blinded by that light to the glory of the gospel. We must grasp the grandeur of what Christ has done in countless lives, even here in this very room. Do not despise the miracles of God that he’s performed in our lives, brethren. God’s grace surrounds us and is constantly at work.

We need to fear such a familiarity that blinds us to the richness of Christ. This is the grumbling crowd.

**Consider secondly: the Father’s school.**

Look at verse 43: Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 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.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Then verse 46 is something of a parenthetical statement; I’m not going to dwell on it. Jesus says, “Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” Then verse 47: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”

Two things that the Father does that we see in these verses.

First, brethren, the Father draws. Jesus says in verse 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Now that’s something of a corollary of what we considered last week. What did Jesus say in John 6:37? “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” The Father elects his people. Those people come to Christ.

Somebody who’s still skeptical can say, “Well, yes, that’s true of the people that the Lord selects from before the foundations of the world. But surely there are others that are drawn to the Lord.” Well, then Jesus makes it so clear in verse 44: No one—no one—can come unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Jesus has already made this point in John 6. He makes this point in verse 37. He makes this point in verse 40. Look at verse 44: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Now, brethren, I want to make a point out of the Lord’s commitment to making this point. He wants people to know: those who receive him, those who reject him—they only come by the means of the Father drawing them. He’s been speaking of God’s unshakable, sovereign will to save sinners. Those who come to Christ do not come by accident. They come because the Father has given them to the Son from all eternity. Their faith is not the product of chance or mere human decision. It is the outworking of a sovereign and careful design.

Notice the flow of thought. Jesus says salvation rests on the sovereign, effectual keeping grace of God. That’s what we considered last week: “All that the Father gives me will come to me… I will never cast [him] out.” How does the crowd respond? They begin to grumble. “Who does this Jesus think he is? Surely he did not come down from heaven.” How does Jesus respond? He says salvation rests on the sovereign, effectual keeping grace of God. Not a molecule of his message changes. He says the exact same thing.

You see, brethren, faithful proclamation never waters down the truth, regardless of the circumstances. Jesus doesn’t course-correct. He doesn’t change the subject. He doesn’t soften the message to make it something more palatable. “Oh, you’re not really liking me talking about the sovereignty of God. Let me talk to you about something else.” He doesn’t do that. No. He says the exact same thing. He stays precisely on message.

And I don’t think that’s what we tend to do. Now, as we experience rejection of the truth, as we experience resistance to those inconvenient parts about our faith, we tend to water them down. We tend to sand off the sharp corners of our religion. We tend to obscure those things that are inconvenient about our faith that might call people to discipleship, that might be sort of touchy and sensitive in that person’s life. That’s what we do. It’s not what Jesus does.

For most Christians, when people spurn some aspect of our message, we turn the volume down. And, you know, we’re like the Wizard of Oz: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Pay no attention to what the Bible speaks about hell. Pay no attention to the exclusivity of Christ. Pay no attention to the Bible’s sexual ethics. Pay no attention to the fruit of the Spirit, or the urgency of repentance or holiness or anything like this.

But, brethren, in the face of furious rejection, Jesus sings a different tune. Jesus turns the volume up on the unvarnished truth when we tend to want to turn the volume down. And surely we must be like Christ in this way.

I think of what Paul instructs Timothy in 2 Timothy 4. It’s a very familiar text, at the end of 2 Timothy 3. That’s that text where Paul says that all Scripture is breathed out by God. It’s profitable. It’s good for people. And then Paul says to Timothy, “Hey, in the authority of Christ, who’s going to come to judge the living and the dead, I tell you, you must preach the word: preach the word in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”

Preach the word, Timothy. Christ commands you. Preach the word, Timothy. And then he says, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

You get the flow of thought. People don’t like my word. People don’t like what the Lord says. People often reject the Scriptures, and it is precisely because of that fact that you preach the word. The solution to the rejection of people is not diminishing the importance of the word, of the truth of the word, or the power of the word. No, it is to preach all the more powerfully, all the more faithfully—to turn the volume up on the truth.

Now, brethren, the Bible has a category for right words at the wrong time being the wrong words. True words spoken at the wrong time can do harm. Don’t hear me saying something that I’m not saying. The Bible speaks of the importance of having the right tone. I appreciate that I have elders in my life and the flock here that will challenge me on my tone. Tone matters. Tone can be important in the Christian life. The Bible speaks of meat that can choke infants. So I’m not saying that the whole truth all at once, all the time, is always the best policy.

But I am saying you will rarely depart from the will of God when you’re being honest about the Word of God. So, brethren, let us never move a millimeter from the truth of the Scriptures and the demands of the gospel.

In Jesus’ case in John 6, according to him, God effectually draws sinners. If God’s irresistible will is always accomplished, and he wills people to be saved and kept by Christ, then the saving and keeping of every Christian will surely come to pass. Scripture calls this effectual grace. Brethren, every true conversion is the result of the decisive intrusion of God. The Father draws. The Spirit awakens, gives a new heart, breathes new life, and the will is changed. And the sinner comes freely and gladly to the Savior.

Jesus says, “The Father draws.” No one comes to the Son unless they are drawn by the Father.

Now how does the Father do this? Well, this is the second thing we see that the Father does in our text: the Father teaches.

Turn to Isaiah 54, please—if you can—in your Bibles. I want you to see this. And as you turn there, I’m going to read verse 45 again. Jesus says, “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Verse 47: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”

There are three things I want us to see about the teaching of God, about the teaching of the Father.

First, the teaching of God is the affectionate instruction of his people. This is how God loves: he teaches. It is the affectionate instruction of his people. We sing in Psalm 23, “Thy rod and staff my comfort still, thy cross before to guide me.”

Isaiah 54:10—this is the verse that Jesus is referring to when he refers to the prophets, and I think more broadly he has the major prophets in mind: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. This is what Isaiah 54:10 says. This is after Isaiah 53—you have that prophecy of the suffering servant who is going to be bruised for our transgressions, substitutionary atonement. There’s going to be a great sacrifice that will deal with God’s people’s sin problem. And then we get these wonderful assurances in chapter 54, verse 10: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. “O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your walls of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.”

I’m going to make two notes on the side—this is the main point of the message, but two notes. This is one of the reasons, reason 1001, why I’m a Baptist. The Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, is prophesying the new covenant here. I know it’s the new covenant and not the old covenant because he talks about these children as being taught by God. And then Jesus is quoting it for people who have true faith in John 6. Do you get that? So he’s talking about the people of God. He’s talking about real people who are real sons of Abraham that have faith in Jesus Christ.

And this is one difference between Baptists and Presbyterians and other paedobaptists. Paedobaptists teach that the children of believers are a part of the new covenant. That’s not true if John 6 is true, because Jesus says that all the people who are these types of children—they come to faith. And Baptists don’t live with that conviction. They hope. They have a better shot. They’re children of the promise. If they receive Christ just like anybody, they can come to faith in Christ. But there’s no guarantee. This is a guarantee. No, these types of covenant children—which are people who actually have true faith in Christ—they come to Christ.

I want you to appreciate the affection. He says, “O afflicted one, storm-tossed, not comforted, behold, I will set your stones…” All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. This teaching of God is affectionate instruction of his people.

Secondly, the teaching of God is the type of teaching that performs a heart transplant. It bequeaths something. It gives new life and removes a heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. It imprints something on the heart of people.

You can turn or listen to this from Jeremiah 31: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts… And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest… For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

And the prophet Ezekiel prophesies and comments on this same covenant. He says in Ezekiel 36, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses… And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

This teaching is a type of teaching that performs a heart transplant.

Third thing this teaching does: this teaching of God produces heartfelt faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus says in our text, “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” The Father teaches people to come to Jesus. The Father has given his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The Father leads and draws people to his Son. He teaches them how to believe. He teaches them how to follow. He teaches them how to feast upon the bread of life.

Those who sit at the feet of the Father are taught to come to Jesus. At the feet of the Father he reveals to me his majesty. At the feet of the Father I’m told of my moral bankruptcy and my sin-sick soul. At the feet of the Father I’m told of the story of a perfect Savior who bears the wrath of God. At the feet of the Father I learn of the resurrection and the sure return of grace. It is the grace of God that trains us to renounce ungodliness. It’s the grace of God that trains us to live righteously. It’s the grace of God that trains us to wait for the blessed hope.

This is a grace that teaches. It’s a grace that trains us. It’s the grace that grounds us in dependence upon Christ. The Father, brethren, is pleased to prepare us for paradise by leading us to his beloved Son. The Father, as a friend and physician, teaching us to love the Lord Jesus and obey all of his commandments—we see that the Father draws and we see that he teaches us. Most importantly, he teaches us to come to Christ.

**Consider our third and final point: the bread broken.**

Look at verse 48: Jesus says once more, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one 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. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

We’ve seen this bread already in this bread of life discourse. Why does Jesus refer to himself as bread? Jesus refers to himself as bread because he is to the soul what food is to the body. And this is the most powerful, penetrating metaphor and picture for what saving faith in Christ actually is.

You might have remembered from a few weeks ago—we considered why Jesus says he’s the bread of life. I highlighted three things. First, this bread sustains. Food matters because life matters. Jesus is the source of true life. As the bread of God, he supplies and sustains life. And just like you don’t eat once for life—you eat every day of your life—the same Christ given to my starving soul at the moment of faith’s first breath is the same Christ that keeps me until the end. We need him no less. We’re not getting any less dependent in the Christian life. We need Christ to help us get from one foot in front of the other, just like we did when we first believed. It’s the same grace that saves us, keeps us, and is going to bring us home. That’s the Christ we feast upon. He’s the bread of life that sustains us.

He also satisfies us. He’s not just a means of deliverance from harm. He is the treasure of our souls. For Christ to be the bread of life doesn’t merely mean he delivers us, but that he’s our heart’s greatest desire.

And we considered how this bread is our daily need. There’s never a day, Christian, where you don’t need food. There’s never a day where you don’t need Christ.

Now here’s the question I want to ask: Jesus is the bread of life—how? In what way is he the bread of life? You see the logic of this discourse, this sermon on bread, is not simply that Jesus is bread just because he is bread, but that he becomes bread for us through his death.

Look at verse 51: “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.”

You see, friends, that’s Jesus-in-my-place language. That’s Christ’s language. Jesus is the bread, and for him to be the bread of life, it is so because he offers his body in death.

You see, when Jesus died on a Roman cross, he as a perfect heavenly sacrifice satisfied the judgment of God deserved by sinners. John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God because he fulfilled every Jewish sacrificial rite. Each drop of blood poured from the veins of every spotless lamb was a graphic picture of the perfect lamb to come. Every slaughtered bull, every slaughtered goat was a dramatic portrayal of a greater future offering. Every cup of blessing, every Passover piece of bread broken was for the shattered, battered body and flowing blood of the Son of God.

So when Jesus offers himself as bread of life, he’s saying, “I’m able to do all of these things. I’m able to sustain you. I’m able to satisfy you. I’m able to bring you on the last day. I’m able to raise you from the dead. I’m able to be your very need every single day—because I’m going to die. Because your sins are going to be laid upon my shoulders and my body broken and my blood flowing will be as a sacrifice offered for the life of the world. And all those who come to me in faith, all those who repent of their sins and turn to me in faith, will have their sins forgiven. And I will be to you food for your souls.”

Moses was your prophet, but I’m the greater prophet. Moses gave you manna. I give you my body. Moses lifted a serpent in the wilderness. I say to you, in this wilderness my body will be lifted, and all who look upon me in faith will live forever.

So the point is this: the foundation of life in Christ is founded upon a bloody cross. Everything we’re doing here, everything you’re going to do tomorrow, your whole present and future hope—all of it is grounded upon, promised, and kept secure by the blood of Jesus, because he is the bread of life offered to the world.

So the question for us is, do we behold this Savior slain for us today? How do we behold him today?

In the book of Acts we see so many people behold the Christ for the first time—they turn to Jesus in faith. In Acts we see the Apostle Paul—scales removed from his eyes. We see Stephen behold Christ in the moment of his martyrdom. In Acts 8, Philip is led by the Holy Spirit to the wilderness to find a wealthy Ethiopian official. And this African man is reading the prophets, and he asks Philip, “I don’t understand what I’m reading. Would you help me?” Do you know what he’s reading? He’s reading Isaiah 53, the bedrock of the new covenant, which says:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”

Jesus didn’t open his mouth when he was suffering. And Acts 8 says that Philip opened his mouth. And beginning with this Scripture, he told this Ethiopian eunuch the good news about Jesus. And this experience led to life change in that man. It led him to repentance, led him to faith, and led him to bring the gospel back to his homeland. It led him to be baptized.

I don’t know who in this room needs to hear this, but there are probably many of you that actually are following Jesus Christ that you’ve not been baptized. It is disobedience to Christ, and it’s actually a flagrant rejection of his call in your life. If you’ve not been baptized, now you need to pursue the Lord in repentance and faith at the waters of baptism.

For Christians, God calls us to remember his body together. Luke 22: “He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

As we prepare to take the Lord’s Supper in just a few short moments, I want every one of you who takes that supper to think about that. Jesus is here telling you, “This is my body.” He’s here telling you, “This is my blood.” The Father has taught you this; now you know it. And now you are to live this in light of this glorious sacrifice that he has made for you. We are to feast upon him. The Lord welcomes us this morning to feast on him and experience the full assurance of faith.

And as we shall sing in just a moment: “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but thou art mighty. Hold me with thy powerful hand.”

Let’s pray.

Father, we confess that so many of us are blinded to your glory because so much of what we hear is so familiar to us. Lord, we pray that you would break us from that blindness and that we would behold Christ afresh today, such that we sense our need of him, and that we follow him with all of our might. Please help us now to cling to Christ and behold him for all that he is. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.