Message by Pastor John Culp : July 27, 2008
“Rocky – Part 8”
Text – John 6:60-71
Problem: It’s late at night, shortly before bedtime, and you are famished. It feels as if a horde from the infernal realms is jumping up and down in your stomach, trying to remove it through your esophagus.
Solution: One option is to steel yourself, resolve to wait till breakfast, and go to bed hungry. Now we might note in passing that for many in the world, that’s the only option before them, faced with such hunger.
But we live in a land of options! When we confront such a problem, one choice is to go to the cupboard and/or the ‘fridge and see what is to be had. Another is to hop into the car and head out into the night. You know that the drive-in window at Wendy’s™ is open late; County Market is open 24 hours a day. Or you can always call one of many pizza places in the phone book featuring free delivery. In any case, it’s comforting to know that the scourge of the late-night hungries will not defeat us!
Problem (and this is surely more serious, since it affects every one of us in some way): After rising steadily over the last few years, gasoline prices in the last couple of months have just gone through the roof – to (and in some cases past) the $4 per gallon mark. Painful as the problem is, here too, we have several responses at our disposal. Those inclined toward political action can contact the President or their representatives in Congress, and demand some sort of relief. Some, deciding that “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” plow every spare dollar into buying oil company stocks. Others (and this would probably be most of us) seek to reduce personal consumption, by changing driving habits, or maybe even buying a smaller, more fuel efficient car. Part of the response for almost all of us is to put up. But we don’t have to shut up! Most of us will complain to every available ear.
Problem (and all of the others fade into insignificance against this one): Just by dint of our membership in the human race, every last one of us inherits from conception a nature that is in active, open rebellion against God. We need to note that it is a rebellion with absolutely zero chance of success: God will have the last word. Exhibit A when it comes to God’s response to our rebellion is this: Even as we sit here quietly in church, these marvelous bodies of ours are slowly but surely running down, and will one day give out completely. Unless Jesus comes back first, each of us has an absolutely unavoidable appointment with death. Even worse than that, precisely because of our rebellion, after death we face the certainty of final judgment and eternal condemnation before a just and all-knowing God.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you: That is bad news to beat all bad news!
We have been looking together through this summer at the life of that great friend and follower of Jesus, Simon Peter – the one his Master gave the nickname ‘Rocky.’ Today’s powerful words from the Gospel of John show us that Rocky ‘got it.’ He realized that in his friend Jesus, he had found the only solution to that most pressing of all problems, the only Good News to defeat the worst of all bad news.
We need to look closely at today’s text because it gives us important insight into this great man of faith. But even more crucially, we need to study this story from John closely because our very lives depend on the momentous truth Rocky discovered:
If, like Peter we cast our lot with Jesus,
we will know both abundant life now
and unending joy with the only One who has the words of eternal life.
Let’s look together at what Rocky found.
Think with me first about Peter’s life-changing response to his Master’s burning question.
We really need to remember that he most definitely had other options! By this time we should be starting to get to know Rocky pretty well. Maybe you already had in your mind a pretty clear picture of Simon Peter. After all, as we noted last week, he is the disciple who’s painted in the greatest detail in the Gospels. So when Jesus asks Peter and His other closest followers if they too might join the crowds who are going away, we know that good old Rocky would never think of such a thing – right?
But the fact is that at that moment Peter did a very have serious choice to make. And there’s no question that he would have had sound reasons to turn away from Jesus.
His Master’s teaching was becoming increasingly hard. A prime example are these troubling words about eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man (John 6:35-58). True, there had been that glorious moment when Peter had grasped that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One of God (Matthew 16:13-20). But that realization only opened out to a two-pronged dilemma for the Galilean fisherman.
If Jesus was indeed the sort of Messiah Peter likely expected – and probably wanted – Peter had to know that any political/military campaign against the might of Rome was almost guaranteed to fail. Crosses lined the roads of the empire bearing the rotting corpses of those who had tried before as ample evidence of that grim reality.
On the other hand, by this time Peter was likely starting to figure out that Jesus was a radically different kind of king. But he probably didn’t want to hear that, and he certainly couldn’t yet understand it all. I can’t imagine that he must not have at least considered chucking it all, joining the crowds turning away, and heading home to Capernaum, to go back to the respectable fishing life he’d known so well.
But Rocky ‘got it’ about Jesus!
As a faithful Jew, he surely must have known well the Song of Moses, part of which we read as today’s Old Testament lesson (Deuteronomy 32:1-9, 44-47). On some level he must have remembered Moses’ own commentary on the song: “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you – they are your life…” (32:46-47 NIV)
We can hear an echo of that ancient text when Peter declares to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life…” (John 6:68).
Jesus had said that the Spirit alone gives life; the flesh profits nothing (6:63). He had declared that no one can come to Him unless the Father grants that life-giving blessing (6:44, 65; cf. 6:37, 39). Peter clearly was one the Father had chosen to receive the gift of life from the Spirit.
So Rocky makes his choice. He throws his lot in with Jesus. And that makes all the difference in the world, in Peter’s life (in time and in eternity), and in the lives of all who have heard his story across the ages.
But of course John tells us that many choose otherwise. They turn away. This serves as a sobering reminder that while Jesus did come to bring a unity among His followers that is nothing short of miraculous, the same is not true when we consider all humanity, beyond the bounds of the church.
Jesus Himself said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword…” (Matthew 10:34 NRSV).
That sure truth is tragic! It should break our hearts to consider that any are outside the kingdom – especially those we know personally and care about. It should strengthen our resolve to share the Gospel with all the world.
But it is absolutely true that Jesus is the Great Divide. We see that nowhere more clearly than in the case of all those who turn away from Jesus. We can’t help but think of Judas, whom Jesus called “a devil” (John 6:70). One thing this story makes clear is that Jesus always presents us with a clear choice.
Maybe you heard the one about the two guys who are eating hot dogs at a baseball game when the one turns to his buddy and says, “Get a load of this. Last Tuesday night I kept dreaming about a horse and the number five. Five and a horse; this horse and a big five. So first thing Wednesday morning I got up and drove to the track. I put $500 on the fifth horse in the fifth race. And you won’t believe what happened.”
“Did he win?”
“Nah,” the guy said. “He came in fifth.” (“Laughter, the Best Medicine”® Reader’s Digest, March 2006, page 145.)
Jesus presented Peter; He presented Judas; He presented all who heard Him in person with a crystal clear choice. The stakes are infinitely higher than those in any horse race – real or imaginary. And things haven’t changed much in the last twenty centuries.
In fact Jesus really lays the very same choice before each of us. He asks each of us the same question. What about our responses? People are still people, and Jesus Christ is still the Great Divide. Just like those who first heard Him, we have options. When it comes to Jesus, in the end there are just two. But on way to that stark fork in the road, I’d suggest that there are three apparent choices.
Option 1 is clear rejection. As we’ve seen, there were those among Christ’s first hearers who, when the message got tougher, simply turned away. And the same is true to this day. For a hundred different reasons, when these folks hear the Gospel, they choose to decline its amazing offer of God’s life-giving grace. Now that should scare us on their behalf; it should break our hearts. The best we can do when we think about such people – especially ones we know personally – is to pray faithfully for them and to seek to be the best witnesses we can be to them, appealing to and trusting in the great mercy of our almighty, loving heavenly Father.
Option 2 is the one I call hedging your bet. To do this is to say: ‘Yes, Jesus, I believe You have the words of eternal life. And I want what You’re offering.’ But if you’re just hedging your bet, you never go any farther than that.
I really think such folks view the Gospel like most of us view life insurance. Do you have any of that? I do. If I were to die tomorrow or next week, Jennifer and our kids would get what seems to me like a lot of money. My trusted financial advisor tells me that I should get more, and he’s probably right. So until I get that resolved, I’m trying to be very careful. I don’t plan to start those skydiving lessons till I’ve paid the first premium on my new policy.
Actually, I’m glad I have life insurance. But (except when I’m grumbling while writing premium checks) I don’t really think about it very much. And I certainly would never imagine letting it run my life! Are you ever tempted to view your relationship with Jesus Christ a little like that? I hope not!
Hedging your bet looks something like this: You certainly tell yourself (and maybe even some others) that Jesus is your Savior. You may pray to Him regularly, and rejoice that He’s always there for you. You may even attend worship regularly. But that’s about it. Jesus is your insurance policy. But you never really think about the possibility that He’s Lord of all of your life: your relationships; your possessions; your finances; your time; your abilities.
Now we need to make something very clear! No one ever enters the kingdom of heaven because of the obedient life he or she lives in response to the Gospel! We can be saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We need to remember also that only God is in a position to judge eternal souls. In the end when it comes to Jesus Christ, there are really only two options. God will sort it all out. And He truly is the God of abundant mercy; I stand before you as a prime example of one who has known that blessed, totally unmerited love.
Suffice to say: you don’t want to be one who hedges your bet when it comes to Jesus!
That brings us to Option 3: to side with Peter; to trust that Jesus alone does have the words of eternal life, and fully commit to Him. What do you suppose that would look like? Let’s consider briefly just a couple of points.
First, since Jesus has the words of eternal life, we all need to wrestle daily with the Word of God. That implies a commitment to Scripture on two levels. First it involves a lifelong study of the Bible – not so you can memorize a bunch of facts! We study the Word so that the life-changing truth of Scripture will sink deeply into our spirits. But challenging as all that surely is, I’m thinking here of an even more fundamental commitment. It’s the commitment to submit your whole self to the authority of Scripture. Trust me: if you study the Bible faithfully and honestly, God will regularly hold the measuring rod of His Word up to your life, and show you where you come up short. When Jesus speaks those words of eternal life to us in His written Word of Scripture, we need to submit to its authority, humbly asking God the Holy Spirit to change us.
Second, there’s the whole notion of mission. One can’t attend a tremendous event like the New Wilmington Mission Conference, as I did last week, without remembering that if we really believe that Jesus has the words of eternal life, we need to grapple daily with His mission to the world. Now I will grant you that mission can be a complex – even a scary – concept. It should come as no surprise to us that the risen Christ best (and very simply!) sums up the whole idea of mission: “As the Father has sent Me, so I send you” (John 20:21).
True, it’s possible that He may send you to Argentina or Angola or Afghanistan. But it is certainly true that He will regularly send you across room and across the street to carry out His mission. The question is this: Will you and I ask selves daily, ‘What is Jesus sending me to do today?’
Here’s the bottom line: Because Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, you and I need to not only value Him as our life insurance policy, clinging to Him as Savior. With Peter we must truly allow Him to be Lord of nothing less than every area of our lives!
You may know that, during his service as a Navy pilot in the Vietnam War, Arizona Senator John McCain was held in North Vietnam as a prisoner-of-war for five and a half years.
During the final years of his imprisonment, the North Vietnamese moved him and his comrades from small cells with one or two prisoners to large rooms with as many as 30-40 men to a room. The men much preferred this situation for the companionship and strength they could draw from being with their fellow prisoners. In addition to moving the prisoners to new quarters, their captors also began to let them receive packages and letters from home. Many men received word from their families for the first time in several years.
One of McCain’s cellmates was a Navy officer, Lt. Commander Mike Christian. McCain recalls that over a period of time, Mike had gathered bits and pieces of red and white cloth from various packages. Using a piece of bamboo he had fashioned into a needle, Mike sewed a crude American flag on the inside of his shirt, one of the blue pajama tops the prisoners all wore.
Every night in the cell, Mike would put his shirt up on the wall, and the men would recite together the Pledge of Allegiance.
I suspect that most of us can recall mindlessly repeating the words of that pledge more than once across the years of our lives. But according to McCain, for those soldiers in such desperate circumstances – many of them wounded as was he, most of them subject to repeated torture by their captors – “I can tell you that at the time [reciting the Pledge] was the most important aspect of our lives.”
He remembers that this had been going on for some time until one night one of the guards came in as the men were reciting their pledge. The guard ripped the flag off the wall and dragged Mike out. He was beaten for several hours and then thrown back into the cell.
Later that night, as the prisoners were settling down to sleep on the concrete slabs that were their beds, McCain looked over to the spot where the guards had thrown Christian. There, under the solitary light bulb hanging from the ceiling, he saw Mike.
Still bloody and his face swollen beyond recognition, Mike was gathering bits and pieces of cloth together. He was sewing a new American flag. (told in Leadership.)
The breathtaking courage of that young aviator is nothing short of inspiring! Single-minded devotion to something greater than ourselves can accomplish amazing things.
Even greater is what Peter and countless other followers of Jesus Christ have accomplished as a result of their single-minded devotion to Someone greater than themselves. It can be so in your life and in mine.
Peter ‘got it’! Because, by God’s grace, he realized that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, he committed his whole life to his Master. As a result, God used Peter to change the world.
Go and do the same.
Let us pray. On one level, Lord Jesus, we surely do know what Peter knew: that You alone do have the words of eternal life! Thank You for revealing that truth to him, and to us. But You know how often we fail to live with the same commitment that he showed. Please forgive us, Lord! And please send Your Holy Spirit daily into our hearts, to guide and strengthen us, that as we commit ourselves more and more fully to Your kingdom, we might accomplish greater and greater things for it – all to the praise of Your glory. We ask it in Your conquering name. Amen.