Abiding in Christ | John 6:52-59

If you have your Bibles with you, please turn in them to John chapter six.

John chapter six. This morning we’re going to be in verses 52 through 59. Let me read those verses to you now. Jesus is in the middle of what’s commonly referred to as the bread of life discourse here in Capernaum. John six, verse 52 through 59.

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So 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. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true. Drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so whoever feeds on me, he also lives because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread that the father’s age and died.

Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. In 1551, 475 years ago, the Council of Trent convened under Pope Julius the Third, and this council represented Rome’s forceful and formal answer to the Protestant Reformation. The Council of the Roman Catholic Church meeting to address the challenge of the Protestant Reformation.

And it was there in this council that Rome codified its doctrine on the Lord’s Supper. The question before them was not minor. The question was this what did Jesus mean when he said, this is my body? What did he mean when he said, this is my blood poured out for you? In particular, what happened when people partook of the bread and wine at communion?

In other words, what was the meaning of the mass? The question mattered because the mass stood fiercely contested across Europe by 1551. It had been years since Martin Luther in Germany criticized this element of the church, and Martin Luther asserted the mass is an abomination, is an abomination, the like of which has never been seen in Christendom since the time of the apostles.

Across the channel, John Knox declared that the mass was blasphemous to the death of Jesus Christ. John Calvin of Geneva had thoughts and a chapter warmly and elegantly titled How the Popish Mass Profaned and Annihilates the Lord’s Supper. Just don’t write chapters like that anymore. He wrote that the chief of all the abominations set up in opposition to the Lord’s Supper is the Papal Mass.

It offers the greatest insult to Christ’s, suppresses and buries his cross, consigns his death to oblivion. The mass from reach it up swarms with every sort of impiety, blasphemy, idolatry, and sacrilege. Thus, friends, it was no small matter when the Council of Trent pronounced its final word on the subject. In fact, trench dogma remains binding in Rome to this day.

If you’re a Roman Catholic or you were a Roman Catholic, or if you know Roman Catholics, they still hold to what the Council of Trent said in 1551. And they said this about the Lord’s Supper. If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, that’s the Lord’s Supper. If anyone denies that in the Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really, and substantially the Body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If anyone denies this, but says that he is in it only as a sign or figure or force, let him be anathema. Let it be accursed by God. He can go to hell. Let him be damned if he doesn’t think the bread in the cup is the literal body of the Lord Jesus Christ, offered again for the people of God.

For Rome and her critics alike, the meaning of the mass carried eternal significance. Dissent over this doctrine ignited the 16th and 17th centuries. Men were burned over this doctrine. Kingdoms were divided. Monarchs were deposed. Nations went to war all over the meaning of bread. All over the meaning of the bread of life. Brothers and sisters, I’m trying to impress upon you.

I don’t think those people in the 16th and 17th centuries were crazy to take this issue so seriously, because the Lord takes it seriously. There is nothing more important in your life than what you believe about the Bread of Life, and there’s nothing more important in your life than what you understand it to mean. To partake of the Bread of Life.

And that is the topic of our text this morning. It is to abide in Christ. We need to understand who the bread of life is. We need to understand what does it mean to eat the body of Christ and to drink his blood? I have two points this morning. First, a truly radical claim. A truly radical claim. Secondly, a true relationship with Christ, a radical claim.

Secondly, a relationship with Christ. Before I dive into that first point, I need to just issue a few caveats related to the relationship between the Lord’s Supper and John six. This has been a fiercely contested issue throughout the history of the church. What is the relationship between this Bread of Life discourse in John six? I am the bread of life and the nature of the Lord’s Supper.

Three things. First, brethren, Jesus does not institute the Lord’s Supper. In John six, Jesus does not institute the Lord’s Supper. In John six he does so in the three other gospel accounts. All happens towards the end of his life, in the last week of his life, a couple of days before his death. We see this in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

It’s again recorded in the book of First Corinthians. John six Jesus says, actually nothing about the Lord’s Supper directly. And that leads me to the second caveat, which is when Jesus calls people to receive him as the bread of life. He is not teaching that eternal life comes through taking the Lord’s Supper like this. Get that out of your mind.

It makes no sense of the meaning of words in John six. It makes no sense to the nature of faith. We’re not saved through munching a piece of bread in our mouths, or drinking things in little plastic cups. I take the Lord’s Supper extremely seriously. I’m probably the Baptist under heaven that takes supports that are more serious than anyone else in the world.

Just a little bit of hyperbole is a big deal. I’m going to make a big deal about it in this message, but it just needs to be said. Jesus is not teaching in this text that we are saved through the rite of the Lord’s Supper. That leads me to the third caveat. And that is, while John six does not introduce the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Supper has everything to do with the truths taught in John six.

Does that make sense? Like when we take the Lord’s Supper, as we will a little bit later on in the service? It has everything to do with the type of faith, and the type of life, and the type of communion with Christ that every Christian is to have. The Lord’s Supper is to feed that faith. So yes, John six doesn’t teach directly about the Lord’s Supper, but the Lord’s Supper has everything to do with John six.

We’re taught in our text, brethren, that through faith in Christ we don’t merely find a Savior, but we find the only one who can satisfy our souls.

With all this in mind, let’s consider point number one a truly radical claim. Truly radical claim.

Three things I want us to see. First, notice the claim Jesus says in verse 51, I didn’t read this a moment ago. I’ll read it now look at verse 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. We’ve meditated on this for many weeks now.

Jesus calls himself bread because he is to the soul what food is to the body. Bread gives us one of the most vivid pictures of Christian faith and experience. And as I’ve noted before, the logic of the discourse is not simply that Jesus is bread, but that he becomes bread and offers himself as bread through his death on the cross.

Jesus is the bread of life because he offers his body in death. That is why Jesus says that the bread that I will give for this life of the world is my flesh. That’s sacrifice talk. That’s Jesus in my place. Language that’s on the cross.

As Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. Real wrath deserved by me was transferred to the Lord’s son, and he paid for it on the cross. My sins are forgiven through the death of Christ. That’s what he means when he says, I offer my flesh for the world to the world.

We can have our sins pardoned through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross.

We can have our sins pardoned through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross. Jesus says, I am. I satisfy souls because my soul makes an offering for guilt. That’s what the prophets say. Who he refers to in John six. He says, I see the same life because I pour myself out in death. The bread that I am forever fills all who partake.

If anyone eats of this bread, he’s going to live forever. That’s the claim that Jesus makes.

Notice secondly, the confusion. Verse 52. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

I don’t think it’s obvious the exact reason for the confusion of the Jews, but I think it stemmed from at least a couple reasons.

First, the Jews’ confusion was probably because they were taking him literally. I don’t understand. What does this mean? Talking about what an incendiary and provocative thing to say. You got to eat my flesh. You got to drink my blood. What does this man want us to do? How are we going to eat this guy?

What was he doing? He’s offering his body in death.

And we see this sort of confusion already again and again throughout John’s Gospel. So often Jesus is saying things that are on its surface opaque and difficult to understand, and people take him literally.

We saw this in John three when Jesus spoke of the new birth. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, Nicodemus, you must be born again. And what does Nicodemus ask? How do I do that? How do I enter my mother’s womb again? What are you talking about? I can’t be born again.

And Jesus says that’s not what he’s talking about. And he goes on to talk about the wind blows where it wills. You need to have new life, Nicodemus. The Son of Man has to be lifted up. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so everyone who looks at the Son of Man lifted up and believes on him will be saved.

And Nicodemus says, how can these things be?

It’s a similar confusion to what we see in John six.

We see it also in John four with the woman at the well. She takes the water that Jesus offers that satisfies as physical water. He says, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

And the woman said to him, sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

I think the Jews in Capernaum, as they listened to Jesus talking about the Bread of Life and saying you need to have this bread, they’re wondering how can he literally offer his body in death? How can he literally offer his body to eat?

But it would have also been provocative and offensive to the Jews because of what the Law of Moses says. The Law of Moses prohibits the drinking of blood. And Jesus is saying you have to drink my blood.

The Law of Moses was so strident on this you couldn’t even eat cooked meat that still had the residue of blood within it. No, it all had to be gone. And here Jesus is saying if you don’t drink my blood you’re going to die. You have nothing. But if you do, you live forever.

How can these things be? How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

We see the claim. We see the confusion.

Now thirdly, the confirmation.

Jesus says in verse 53, 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. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

We’ve seen this theme in the ministry of Jesus and we see it here again. Jesus, unmoved by his hearers’ confusion, doesn’t alter the message. Rather, he doubles down on the claim. In fact, he makes it even clearer and more contentious.

Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.

So how do we respond to this, brothers and sisters?

Well, I need to say, if you’re not a Christian, you need to hear his warning and you need to hear his offer.

Either Jesus Christ is a lunatic or everything he’s saying is true. And it matters for your life. And you have to grapple with what does it mean that he is the Bread of Life? What does it mean that he offers himself to you?

And what does it mean to truly eat the Lord Jesus Christ? What does it mean to drink the blood of Christ?

According to Jesus, if you don’t receive the Bread of Life, you are dead and condemned. According to Jesus, there’s this thing called eating his body and drinking his blood. There’s this bountiful feast that’s offered to you. And if you refuse this feast, you will face the furious judgment of God.

My friend, I assure you, nothing exceeds the monstrous denial of the body and blood of Christ.

But in that warning there is an invitation.

And this warning is a warm-blooded, sincere, unshakable offer.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. I will raise him up on the last day.

I find John six personally to be very sobering.

Jesus begins with a crowd of five thousand ready to follow him, ready to join the synagogue of Capernaum, and by the end he just has eleven disciples. That’s it. It’s sobering. He’s rejected.

But all the while we see this sincere, warm-blooded offer of Jesus constantly being extended to all those who are outside of Christ.

Come to me. Come to me.

Come to me all you who are heavy laden.

If you look to me, you understand who I am, you understand what you need, you understand what I provide, I will give you life.

These things are written so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will not perish but have eternal life.

He provides a joy that surpasses all understanding.

Jesus offers himself to you, my friend.

If you repent of your sins and trust in him, you need to be asking right now: what does it mean to feast on Christ? What does it mean to partake of this Bread of Life?

Because if you do not partake, you have no life in you.

This is a truly radical claim.

Consider secondly a true relationship with Christ.

A true relationship with Christ. Here I’m asking and answering the question, what does it mean to eat the bread of life? And there’s two things I’m going to highlight first. Eating the bread of life is believing in Christ. And if that’s not obvious to you, based on everywhere we’ve been in John six, I want to make this just so clear to you right now.

It’s in what Jesus says in verse 54, the combination of words that he uses and how he has employed those same phrases in verse 40, where we see that eating the bread of life is to have faith in Jesus Christ. Look at verse 54. He says, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

If I’m reading my Bible, I say, I’ve heard that already. Where else is Jesus said that? Where else? In John six as he said that, he just said it in John six, verse 40. Look at verse 40. It’s here we see that feeding and drinking is a figurative expression for faith in Christ. For 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, looking to his Son, believing in him. The Bible’s word for faith, belief, trust all the same. It’s different words with all expressing the same idea. And Jesus, when he’s describing, what is this like in an expression that people can understand? It’s eating my flesh and it’s drinking. It’s partaking and sustaining yourself with me.

Satisfying yourself with me. Having me be your daily need. That’s what Jesus saying. It’s an expression for faith in Christ. So I say, eating the bread of life is to have faith in Jesus Christ. To trust him with all your being. To believe on him. So now you need to ask, what does it mean to have faith in Christ?

Now, if you’re a member of Trinity Church, we believe that you have faith in Christ and we only receive people in this church that have faith in Jesus Christ. But it’s often the case that Christians in explaining the gospel are very deficient in how they explain faith. It’s why we emphasize there’s so much around here at Trinity. What is faith?

I use pretty much the same definition. I think I say this nearly every single week. Faith, brethren, is whole souled reliance upon Jesus Christ as our refuge from sin and all of its consequences. Faith is whole souled reliance upon Jesus Christ from sin as a refuge from sin and all of its consequences. It’s not a paper thin perception of truth.

It’s not a passing religious sentiment. Faith engages the whole man. It engages the mind. What I think and engages the will, what I choose to do and engages the trust of my heart. What I love and what I commit myself to. Faith has all of those things. So I say faith is a matter of the mind. Faith understands the claims of the gospel.

If you get the multiple choice question right, it understands why I need Jesus to die for my sins. It understands what Christian people believe. It understands why Jesus died on the cross, understands why he rose from the dead. But more than just knowing what Christians believe, it actually a sense to two those truths. It believes them to be true.

That’s why I say mind and will. Mind might just know something. A Buddhist or Muslim can know what Christians believe sometimes better than Christians do, but they don’t believe it’s true. Know to have faith. You also actually have to believe it’s true. This, friends, is why when we do membership interviews at Trinity Church, so often, I’ll ask a person how they became a Christian.

And I’ll ask. I’ll often ask people, hey, can you just explain to me what is the gospel? And by that I mean, how is a person saved? How does a person pass from death to life? And it’s often the case where people have no idea how to articulate those things. Now praise God, we are not saved by our ability to articulate the gospel, and this is not the case.

However, we need to get a sense that this person understands the message that saves them, because that’s the same message that keeps them. It’s the same message that’s going to bring them home. We need to understand the gospel. But it’s more than understanding. It’s more than believing it to be true. The demons believe.

It’s one of the most sobering truths in the Scripture. James says even the demons believe and they tremble. They just hate it. They don’t love that truth. So the question is, not only do I know what Christians believe in, what the gospel is, and what is the nature of faith, it’s not only do I believe this is true, that Jesus actually died and there is an empty tomb.

It’s do I trust with my whole being? Am I committed to this? Do I believe that Jesus has died for me? That’s the nature of faith. You need to understand if Jesus is your Savior. You see, rubber stamping, right? Doctrine is not the whole of faith. Faith is trust. It is the entrusting of oneself to Christ. It is the sinner casting himself upon the mercy of the Savior.

And as a result, that type of faith, the sinner turns away from sin. That’s why we talk about repentance, and faith is going hand in hand. He believes upon the Lord Jesus Christ and follows him wherever he leads. I’m with Jesus. I was going east. Now I’m going west. I’m following him. He’s my heart’s desire, I treasure him.

I don’t just look at him as a get out of jail free card. Fire insurance. Deliverance from harm? No. He is the desire of my very soul. I love him, and I’m going to follow him. That’s what faith does. It’s feeble. It’s weak, it falters. It fails all the time. But it’s real. It’s an actual trust and commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ with the whole soul.

We rely upon him and turn away from our sin. So eating the bread of life is believing in Christ. And secondly, eating the bread of life to Jesus. In our text we see is abiding. That’s such an important word in the Christian life. The women’s Bible study around here is called abide, and it’s called that because abiding in Christ is what is a prevailing description of what does it mean to walk with the Lord?

Look at verse 55. Jesus says, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true. Drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him, as the living father sent me. And I live because of the father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the father’s ate and died.

Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. So I’m saying eating the bread of life entails and involves abiding in Christ. So we need to wonder and think and ask, what does it mean to abide in Christ? I’m going to offer this definition. What does it mean to abide in Christ? Abiding in Christ. Is a life united to God through faith?

Where in a believer, warmly and repentant, follows Jesus in all things. There’s a day by day ness to this abiding. We’re talking about a life with Christ, a life that is indwelt by God, and a life that walks with God. Abiding in Christ is a life united to God through faith. We’re in a believer, warmly and repentant, follows Jesus in all things.

And brethren, it’s here we tread on hallowed ground. This is the beauty of the Christian life. This is the real stuff. Because Jesus died. And through faith in him, real people have access to God not merely as beggars that can just come up to his throne and ask for things. But we’re actually in God. We participate him in him and God, mysteriously and miraculously, somehow in dwells within each of us.

This is not true of all people. This is absolutely true of Christians, and each person of the Trinity plays a different part in that Christ is in us. In a way, the spirit is in us. In a way. The father is in us in a way. If you comprehend that, that will change everything about your life. God is within me.

I am bound to him.

Husbands, that changes how you speak to your wife. Wives, it changes how you honor your husband. I’m a child of God. I mean life to him. I’m walking with him. I have his Holy Spirit. I can I can treat people differently. It changes how you love your neighbors. It changes your priorities. It changes what you do on your weekends.

It changes how you militate in war and mortify your sin. It changes every aspect of life. I am united to God and I’m walking with him and I’m abiding in him. That’s the promise. And that is the picture that is at work when we talk about eating the bread and drinking the cup. I’m one with God, alive in him.

My living hand fast bound to him. I can approach the throne of grace now, knowing that I am a child of God. And this changes everything.

This is a totalizing truth that informs every dimension of Christian experience. The story of Christianity unfolds a drama of friendship between sinners and the Triune God. We’re told in our text, we cannot live without abiding in Christ. We’re told in our text, we cannot grow without abiding in Christ. We’re told in our text, we cannot do anything without abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This abiding has, has, has two important elements, two important elements that I want to highlight. It involves communion. Turn over to first John four, the letter of John, same author. His epistle to what is likely the church in Ephesus. First John four I want you to see how abiding relates to each person of the Trinity. Here, and how it happens through faith and all the rest.

First John four.

Verse 13 John says, by this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us His Spirit. Spirit resides in my heart and that’s why we talk about spiritual fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, those things that do abound in my life because I have God’s Spirit within my breast changes my life.

Verse 14. And we have seen and testify that the father has sent his son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, that faith God abides in him and He and God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Meaning when I, through faith confess that Jesus is the Lord and the Son of God, that he is in fact my Savior, God abides in me, and I abide in God. There’s a communion. There’s a fellowship. There’s a relationship I have with the Trinity, not. It’s not just communion. It also involves conformance to the image of God. Abiding in Christ necessitates great likeness to him.

So John 15, Jesus in the upper room, he brings up this notion of abiding in him again. He says, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him.

He it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If I’m connected to the vine of Jesus Christ, fast bound and united to him. Well, I bear the fruit of Christ. If I have the spirit of the true and living God within my soul, I bear the fruit of the spirit. It always involves some species of conformity to Christ.

This happens with all those who communion with God. This happens to all those who abide in Christ. First John three. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. By this we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. So abiding in Christ involves communion with him, fellowship with him, friendship with God, and also involves conformance.

I’m going to close with a large implication from this lesson. From this and then three applications. I want to give a lot of time to application. This morning. The implication is this feasting on Christ entails a dynamic faith that perseveres. This can be a challenge for evangelicals in our understanding of faith, because we have come up in a landscape where we say things like once saved, always saved, which I think is totally true.

We really are committed to the doctrine of what we call perseverance of the saints. All the people of God, those who are united to him through faith. If you’re saved, you stay saved and you make it on the last day. But one of the things, if that doctrine is unbalanced, that we can forget, is it involves a faith that is living and active and dynamic and that abides in Christ.

So what am I getting at here? In relation to the Christian life, faith has both fixed and dynamic natures. It is fixed in the sense that a person either believes in Christ or not. So I’ll often meet someone, whether it’s a person in my hair or whether it’s a visitor after church. And I’ll just ask them, are you a Christian?

Is you or is you not a Christian? You either are one or you’re not. There’s no such thing as an almost Christian. You understand that? Like there’s not like a kind of Christian. Like I put on a skin, and then I take it off and, you know, he loves me. He loves me not clown nose on, clown nose off.

That’s not how being a Christian works. There was a time where you were dead in your trespasses and sins, and you’re either still in that state, or you are now a child of God, transferred into the kingdom of his marvelous light, in the kingdom of his beloved son. You either pass from death or in death, or you have passed from life.

You either were blind and are blind, or you see now and you need to know, am I right with God? Am I a Christian? I’m not asking you to tell me when that happened. We often can’t tell when that happened. Some of you have a story where I’ve always trusted in Christ. I still want you to be able to say there was a time I knew him not.

I don’t know when that was, but I know in sin my mother conceived me. I’m born in iniquity. It could have happened in infancy. It could have happened later in life, I don’t know. I know I’m trusting in him now. And I’ve passed from death to life. Faith is fixed. It’s fixed in the sense that there is an actual moment in time when everyone passes from death to life.

But faith is also dynamic. What I mean by that is this the same living faith that attached me and you to Christ when we first believed, is the same force that actively clings to Christ every day of our lives. That’s true. Faith can falter, and it can grow firm. It can weaken and it can strengthen. It can be malnourished or it can be fed.

And the project that the Christian life then, is not merely to possess faith, but to see it fed and fortified. As the believer deepens in his trust and affections for Christ, he will be brought to greater maturity. It’s a part of what I’m trying to get across here. Brothers and sisters, is that the Christian life is a soul embattled struggle for likeness to Christ.

It’s a battle. It’s a war. We wage a battle for likeness of Christ, for fullness from Christ, for greater joy and fellowship with Christ. Friends, I think it’s no exaggeration to say that this soul battle for holiness is manifest in every book of the Bible. I just need to read a few texts to you. Hebrews 12 verse 14.

Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. The author of Hebrews did not write that to non-Christians. He wrote that to believers and he’s saying, hey, y’all got to strive if you want to make it on the last day. If you want to see Jesus. Jesus could say, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I need to pursue purity in my life because I want to see God. On the last day. Second Peter one. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That sounds swell. I want that rich entrance into the eternal kingdom of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But I am told in order for that to happen, I need to be diligent to confirm my calling in election. This isn’t saying save yourself or any nonsense like that, but it is saying the character of the Christian life is striving, its diligence, its action, its pursuit of Jesus Christ.

Colossians one him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. Elders, this is what we do. We’re working hard to seek, to mature, to present the people of God here and one another mature in Jesus Christ on the last day. For this we toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within us.

Philippians two. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed. So now not only is in my presence, but much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. I’m so thankful for this verse, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. One more text. First Corinthians 15.

By the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is within me. I worked for the grace of God. I so worked. So, brethren, if at times abiding in Christ feels excruciating.

It’s because you’re living close to the scathing heat of Christ’s countenance. Christians don’t naturally drift towards holiness. They don’t grow in sanctification by osmosis or letting go and letting God. It takes a gospel grounded, grace driven, faith filled purpose to abide in Jesus Christ. Well, did Jesse rule right? He said a holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling are characteristic of the true Christian.

So that’s the implication. Feasting on Christ entails a dynamic faith that perseveres. I want to close with three applications. Application one. Abiding in Christ, brethren, makes diligent use of every means of grace. It makes diligent use of every means of grace. This is the part of the sermon where normally I would rag on all of us for not reading our Bibles enough.

You’re probably not reading your Bible enough work on reading your Bible more. I’m not going to give attention to that right now. I actually want to give attention to the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is one of those means of grace that God has given you in your life, that you can take passively and thoughtlessly, and it will not avail you much.

But if taken in faith and with purpose to communion with Christ, it can feed your soul, and it can help you with greater richness and fullness. Abide in Jesus Christ. This is why we do the Lord’s Supper weekly. Some of you may wonder about that. The Lord’s Supper is just crucial to Christian experience. There are biblical reasons we do it weekly and there are historical reasons why we do it weekly.

If you’re interested, I can send you my, an essay I’ve written for the elders on that topic of why Trinity Church. We do the Lord’s Supper weekly. One of the one of the objections that I sometimes hear, and I think it’s a it’s a fine objection to doing the Lord’s Supper weekly. Is there some people who come from perhaps, higher church backgrounds or Roman Catholic backgrounds where, hey, that elevates the Lord’s Supper too much, and I don’t want to, be an idol and idolize the bread and the cup, I understand that.

Other people actually think kind of the opposite, that they prefer to take the Lord’s Supper less often because they think if they do it weekly, it’s going to diminish the significance of the Lord’s Supper. I think that’s a worthy objection as well. My pushback on that is I would encourage you to view the Lord’s Supper with Christ, as you would the warm embrace of your spouse.

So I hope if you’re a husband, you hug your wife all the time. And I hope you if you’re your wife, you hug your husband all the time, and that embraces something that’s special to you. I want to elevate that type of intimacy and marital experience. I don’t want to diminish it at all. None of you would say, well, because I don’t want to, I don’t want to diminish in an important I’m going to only hug my wife once a month or by yearly or something like that.

No, that would be silly. So when we take the Lord’s Supper weekly, one of the things we’re trying to do is both to elevate it and normalize it in Christian experience as to accentuate and bless our own communion with the Lord. At the table, brethren, we participate in Christ. That really happens. And if, as perhaps evangelicals or even Baptists, that makes us uncomfortable.

That’s exactly what the Bible says. First Corinthians ten the cup of blessing that we bless. Is it not the participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break? Is it not participation in the body of Christ? The bread and the cup. Fuel a faith filled feast with the Lord. This is not mere recollection or mere memorial, but covenantal communion.

It is for friendship. He invites us to the feast. The aim of the Lord’s Table is to encounter him and more fully grasp with him with the eyes of faith.

As the Puritans put it in the Lord’s Supper, we don’t get a different Christ or a better Christ, but we do get the same Christ, better. God, wisely, in the sacrament of communion, accommodates himself to our grasp. This is to say, he provides embodied people with physical signs of spiritual realities, and those are to feed our faith.

No, we don’t receive special, special grace through the sheer ritual of communion going through the motions. Grace is not mechanically infused into Christians when they take the Lord’s Supper. Yet at the table, those who partake in faith experience fuller communion with God. Think about that as we take the supper. In a few moments. I’m communing with the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life for me, died for me, bled for me, rose for my justification.

It’s to feed our faith in him. Second application. Abiding in Christ necessitates a close walk with the people of God. It necessitates a close walk with the church. People of God. The scriptures command believers to gather with local churches, and the scriptures have no category for a Christian who isn’t vitally connected to a local body of believers, that just needs to be like screamed from the top of every building in the United States.

There is no category in the Bible for a Christian who is not vitally connected to a local church. The New Testament is lined with dozens of one another, commands, privileges, and duties that have no meaningful context outside of the membership of a local church. Here’s one. Hebrews ten. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

God designed the Christian life to require other believers. We need the church. We need the encouragement of brothers and sisters in Christ. We need the accountability that comes from walking with others who love the Lord Jesus. Abiding in Christ is not something that happens in isolation. It happens in the life of the church.

We gather together. We sing together. We pray together. We hear the word of God together. We take the Lord’s Supper together. And through these things Christ nourishes our faith and strengthens our walk with him.

Third and finally, abiding in Christ produces boldness in the face of death.

The Reformers understood this well. When men like Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer refused to recant the truth of the gospel, they did so because they were convinced that Christ alone saves. They would not bow to the doctrine that the mass was a repeated sacrifice of Christ.

Latimer’s words to Ridley as they were about to be burned at the stake have echoed through the centuries. He said, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust shall never be put out.”

That courage did not come from human strength. It came from abiding in Christ. It came from feasting on Christ by faith. When a believer knows that his life is hidden with Christ in God, even death loses its terror.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life. He offers himself to us. And the call of the gospel is that we would come to him, believe in him, feed upon him by faith, and abide in him all the days of our lives.

Let us pray.

Father, we ask that you would so fill us with your Spirit that we would respond rightly to the word that was preached. We ask that each of us would have greater trust in your promises, that each of us would have greater purpose to abide in you.

Bless us. Keep us. Rouse within us a greater hatred for sin, a greater love for your beloved Son, and bring many sinners to repentance and faith.

We ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.