Sermon: “Pre-Revival: Do You Also Want to Leave Jesus” Pastor Hines August 22, 2021

 

Sermon: “Pre-Revival: Do You Also Want to Leave Jesus”

Pastor Hines

August 22, 2021

The August lectionary has a focus on the gospel of John and Jesus declaring that he is the bread of life.  He is the source of our spiritual nutrition that which our souls hunger for most, the reminder that we cannot live by physical bread alone, but abundant life is ours when we hear and heed the word of wisdom from scripture and as God directs us in our daily walk and conversation with God. Because Jesus is the bread of life, we will always have a feast, even during a famine and we will always have strength to love, even when we are plagued by hatred in our hearts or in the hearts of those around us.

We have no time in THIS world for hate. The second leading cause of death among Millennials (23-38) is suicide. And that is just one part of our global family. There is no room for hate. We should prayerfully  love on everybody because we don’t always know what someone is going through. We can turn our cares into prayers.

It is wonderful in this world that though there may be miles and decades between us, we are still able to find ways to be together and stay together as a nation, as a family, as a global community. At the same time most of us have watched with sadness as relationships turn sour, marriages unravel, and emotional distance keeps us apart, forming family feuds.

There is plenty of bad news. Nevertheless, we are to be the good news. We are to bring the good news. 

Ben Courson is the Founder of Hope Generation that works to bring hope in this world, just like we do in our churches.  He suggests that news broadcasters always give us the bad news first because bad news sticks to our brains like Velcro. However, he suggests, in order to keep good news in our life, we have to hold onto it consciously. If we do not hold onto Good News for at least 15 seconds, it becomes like water going through a sieve. That makes meditating on the scriptures even more important if we are going to survive as well as thrive.

This world is so very complicated that we’d be a fool not to put our faith in God. In the myriad of emotions, we can barely understand our own hearts, much less the hearts of our family, friends, and neighbors. As we pray, as we sit still before God, the host of Heaven and an army of angels, we gain insights and direction that can save our lives and save our relationships our families, our churches, our communities.  God gives us lightbulb moments, dreams, visions and people who love us enough and are skilled enough to speak the truth in love to us and others.

We live in a world with pockets of violence, fires gone wild, floods coming out of nowhere, epidemics of road rage, malicious-suspicious-invisible diseases, dire needs, great distresses, and hoarding of vaccines with some countries having stockpiles and others have none. We enjoy gasoline prices much lower than others while oil slicks wipe out small fishing villages. This world we live in is a mess. Thank God for Jesus.

Those who live without Jesus are missing out on the best thing that could ever happen to them.  For Jesus is light in our darkness, Jesus is creation in our chaos. How wonderful it is to have the comfort of God’s word in the bible, testimonies that lift our spirits, and the power of the Holy Spirit moving in us and around us thankfully, to bring God’s kin-dom on earth as it is in Heaven – even if for a moment, or a season. The peace filled, love filled kin-dom does indeed come on earth among us.

This world is not only a mess, it can be a lonely place at times, especially when situations are getting worse instead of better. People can scatter and lose their emotional and physical balance in times of turmoil. Many today are more isolated than ever, more lonely than ever, farther away from loved ones and friends than ever, and the older we get, the more our connections may change in a moment’s notice. Jesus tells his disciples the good news that he is with them in the most life sustaining and life changing ways.

He is the bread of life, the bread from Heaven. For that reason, bread is now the ultimate symbol of sacrifice, of love, of life – particularly life everlasting, life eternal. In order to have Jesus in our lives and in order to be in Jesus’ life as a disciple, we have to be all in, thoroughly consumed with who Christ is and can be in our lives. We must incorporate the sacrifice of his whole being and the love that drove him to let go of everything – even his very life, in order to hold on to us. We must digest the word of life in the scripture, in prayer, we must feast on the word and fellowship with God’s people, thoroughly enmeshed in God’s goodness, filled to overflowing in every pore of our being with who God the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit is and is to come. We can begin with Ben Corson’s advice, prayerfully hold onto Good News for at least 15 seconds and hopefully it will stick.

Prayer is the key for digesting our daily bread. Talking to God is the remedy that opens the floodgates of healing and hope. As we humble ourselves and pray, Jesus is in us and we are in him.

There is an intimacy in eating and drinking that envelops and consumes us in incomprehensible ways. Eating and drinking are a regular part of our fellowship for good reasons. There are exciting aromas and pleasant tastes we experience as we gather that are intermingled, indescribable and yet can bring a lifetime of joy and memories that sustain us year after year. That is why so often when we gather we tell stories of the past that give us joy in the present.

Stories of happy times that have occurred among family and friends, help patients in a coma recover faster according to Dr. Richard Becker. The joyful memories restore the brain. We have heard often that a person in a coma can hear, they just cannot respond. Sharing happy stories is a blessing in most any situation because it is a way of witnessing and showing how God has poured out blessings upon us. It is, as the scripture tells us a way to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Sharing happy stories at any time in our lives is a way to be positive and positivity “wakes” us up and encourages us when we might be discouraged, and invites us to be with one another in loving ways, even pushing back some pain and aborting a few bad dreams or nightmares we’ve had from time to time.

As we commune with Jesus and with one another, we feast, remembering the power and love that has sustained us. We remember Jesus is the bread of life, crushed and broken that we might live life abundantly. Jesus becomes a part of us. Jesus, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, ruler of everything is a part of us, is in us. He is in every beat of our hearts, he is in the words that come out of our mouths. Others can taste and see the essence of holiness by watching us and the way we treat each other, especially how we treat least, the last, the lost. The world watching us can see his light as we walk into a room. Jesus is in our lives. As disciples, we are in his life, too. If we know him as the bread of LIFE, as verse 56 says, we remain in him and he remains in us. 

Not everybody believes that Jesus is the bread of life, not everybody commits to that, not everybody who commits to that keeps their commitment. ⁶⁰ Many of his disciples who heard this said, “This message is harsh. Who can hear it?” Can you hear it? Can you commit to having Jesus be Lord in your life? Are you ready to remember every day that you cannot live by bread alone, but you must live by every word that comes from the mouth of God? Will you remember even when there is no bread on the table that we are taught to pray for God to grant us our daily bread and wait and wait and wait some more, knowing that God is faithful. Yes, we can commit and we will remember that it is the power of the Holy Spirit in us that helps us to keep our commitment.  For as Jesus says in verse 63 “It is the Spirit that gives life. The Christian life can be costly. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was willing to give up his life for what he believed was right, wrote the book entitled The Cost of Discipleship.

Some of those listening to Jesus were not willing to follow him because they did not believe. There was nothing in them that God could work with, so Jesus says in verse 65 He said, “For this reason I said to you that none can come to me unless the Father enables them to do so.”  How might God enable someone? God may have to do a work in them, perhaps to wrestle with them, to mold and shape them so that they could understand and become enabled to choose Jesus. Or it seems God weeps and works with us and waits as we wander in the wilderness far from the peaceful shores.

When they heard Jesus was the bread of life, they realized he was not guaranteeing them any “dough” as in money. He wasn’t offering them any food either. Even in our society when there are 40 grocery stores in many communities, there are still those who need food. We can imagine what it was like in the ancient developing world.

Without the guarantee for what they wanted most, verse 66 says, “…many of Jesus disciples turned away and no longer accompanied him.

⁶⁷ Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Peter was the spokesperson for the rest of the disciples⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered, “Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We believe and know that you are God’s holy one.”

There are days that we too may want to leave Jesus, but the Holy Spirit rises up in us, stirs up our gifts and helps us to use our unique gifts and by the grace and mercy of God, we yield, we surrender, we submit to God’s will above our own and say, “Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord to YOUR will and your way.” Let it be so for you today and forever.