How to Remain with Jesus Part 1: Reaction to the Bread of Life Discourse - John 6:60-66

0:55But we also need to know how to remain with Jesus. We're looking at a passage this morning as we wind down, come to an end, bring to a conclusion the bread of life discourse. There's a reaction that people have to this bread of life discourse. And from this reaction, we want to look at it over the next couple of days, next couple of weeks, I mean, primarily with the one interest: how do we remain with Jesus?

1:31We've looked at how to come to Jesus. We've looked at how to feed on Jesus. And now we need to know how to remain with Jesus. Let me just read these words to you, beginning in verse 60. Therefore, many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, conscious that his disciples grumbled at this, said to them, Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was that would betray him.

2:24And he was saying, For this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the Father. As a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. Looking back at verse 60, therefore, in light of everything that he has said, specifically those words in verse 57 and verse 58, the last thought, as the living Father sent me, and I live because the Father, so he who eats me. He also will live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever. So he's saying, Yes, I am the bread of life. I did come down from heaven. And unless you partake of me in such an intimate manner, unless you take in all that I say, unless you take in who I am, you have no life in you. Therefore, they got offended. Therefore, many of his disciples, verse 60, said, This is a difficult statement. Now, notice something here. The emphasis is now upon the disciples. If you remember, there has been a transition through this whole discourse. You remember at first there was the emphasis on the crowds. They ate of the bread that he brought, that he fed them with. The miracle, they took part of that. And so they followed him across the sea. They found him and they were all excited to follow him. And there's these great numbers were following him, excited. And then the emphasis in verse 41 shifts to the Jews in the synagogue. Therefore, the Jews were grumbling about him. And then in verse 52, the emphasis again is upon the Jews. They began to argue with one another about his sake. Now it's about the disciples. The emphasis. Is upon the disciples. See how John has gone from the crowd to the Jews who are in opposition to those who followed him. And it's important to understand the idea of a disciple in John's gospel. The idea of a disciple is one who learns and follows. We're not talking about somebody who's necessarily born again. We're talking about a learner, a follower, a one who attaches himself for a period of time to listen, to come beside, to, you know, I've heard about this Christ. I've heard about this individual.

5:05Now I'm coming to hear him for myself. And for a while, there may be some that are greatly excited about him. I mean, Jesus was very popular in these days, until this message, really, in Galilee. There were many who attached themselves to him for various reasons. Some attached themselves to them wholeheartedly. Some only attached themselves nominally. Some were in it for earthborn desires, some heaven-born desires, and some remained and some didn't. This is a difficult statement.

5:46Rough statement. This is a harsh word. Who can take it in? Who can sit here and keep listening to this guy? This is a hard term, hard word. And it's. Interesting to note that it's not so much that his words were hard to understand, it was that their hearts were too hard. It was that the demands of the gospel were brought to bear upon their soul. Yeah, I mean, in any doctrine of scripture, there is mystery, and I think that we can get over that. We can understand that, yeah, there's some mystery that we're not always going to get our mind around. We're talking about God, so following God, yeah, there's some things that we're not going to fully understand, but that isn't really the stumbling block sometimes, right? Really, it's when the demands of the gospel are brought to bear upon the soul of man that this is a difficult statement. I don't want to go with this anymore.

6:50Eating his flesh and drinking his blood, who does this guy think he is? God or something? This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it anymore? Who can sit here? And so, from that time, you get down to 666, the 666 of the Bible, as a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. So many did not remain. And there is an emphasis upon in John's gospel: who remains? He was very popular, but at the end of the day, who is the one who really abides with him? That's the question.

7:30That's a question for us today. I mean, have you ever known anyone who has abandoned the faith? If you don't, you probably haven't been around very long or kind of live in an island or something. But I know some people who have made great professions of faith, who walked from all appearances nobly with God. And yet I've seen them turn in a matter of a few years to not even want to have anything to do with him anymore. And the one that they once professed to love, they now hate with a passion.

8:09How does that happen? It really tie your head in knots because it really starts taking you down the road. Like, okay, well, what was it? Were they never his? Or were all these promises that they will never be hungry, that they that all of a sudden they grew hungry? Is there a problem? Did they fall away? Were they in and now out? Were they saved and now unsaved? Were they never his? I mean, no matter how you do this, it's hard to get your mind around.

8:46But the question comes down to more on a personal level. What about you and me? Are we going to remain? And then you even, in this passage, you're seeing a Judas. He remained better than most on planet Earth would have. And yet, he was not his. And so the question becomes to us that's very important. The question that John moves from the crowds to those who oppose him to those who in their profession follow him. That's us, the learners and followers. Are you going to continue to be a learner and follower of Christ? Or is there some point going to come when he brings the demands of the gospel to bear on your soul that you're going to say, no more, who can listen to him?

9:44But we need to know how to remain, don't we? And I want you to know how to remain with Jesus so that you will do so. And that's what I want to talk about this week and next. Three points this morning. In order to remain with Jesus, you're going to need to do three things. Three things out of this text. First of all, you cannot be offended by his teaching. Look back at verse 61. But Jesus, conscious that his disciples grumbled at this, said to him, Does this, said to them, does this cause you to stumble? And notice they're starting to grumble now.

10:28And he knows about it. So the tension is now upon the disciples. During the first part of his ministry, Jesus is very popular. Some attach themselves to Christ for various reasons, some sincerely, some lightly. But there comes a testing time for every follower of Christ. There comes a testing that will reveal whether your following Christ is one of a heavenly desire or one of an earthly desire. It separates the true from the false, the sincere from the nominal. And the number in this passage is staggering. The number of defectors.

11:21So I want to make a couple of observations from verse 61 and then 62. First of all, I want you to notice that Jesus is aware of the impact of his teaching. His words are intended to separate humanity. He is conscience. This is why he sends his teaching out. He is aware, knowing, literally knowing in himself, they were grumbling. Now the disciples are doing what? They're doing exactly what the Jews were doing. They were grumbling in verse 41. And now the disciples are going down this same process.

12:08Second thing to observe, Jesus knows that his words are going to offend some. A word for offend is scandalize, to scandal. It's the idea of a bait stick on a trap, what sets a trap off. I had this, I was trying to catch this raccoon. I was getting my chickens. It was a noble thing, right? To try to catch a raccoon that's catching my chickens. So I set up this raccoon trap and put this little sock or a little piece of cloth and dipped it all in peanut butter and set it on this little spring. And so when the raccoon came in, it would spring the whole trap. Caught my raccoon. And then we carried him away several miles and dropped him off. And then he made his way back to my house and kept eating all my chickens.

12:59But that's the idea here. The idea is his words set them off. And they gave up believing on him. That was the trigger point. And it triggered a defection. They didn't like those words. Yes, I have come down. Yes, you must eat and drink of me, or you have no life in yourself. Yes, I am life. Scandal, right? Scandal. Scandal. You know, today we see a lot of scandals today. In fact, the media love scandal, right? Especially during an election season.

13:38We love to find some scandal that will turn people away from a candidate, right? So the media focuses on, loves to blow out a proportion, an issue, make it scandalized so that people will leave that candidate and come over here. Well, that's basically what's happened here. Jesus said some words. These Jews strongly oppose them. This is scandalous. And the question we have to ask ourselves today: is there anything Jesus could possibly say that would offend us? More personally, is there anything Jesus could possibly say that would offend me?

14:17Listen, you can't stay with him if you're going to be growing in your offense of his words. You're going to have to be going the other way. You're going to have to be going in the direction of embracing his words more fully. Well, is there anything that, do you think, right now, just ask yourself, is there anything Jesus could possibly say that would offend me? Get ready because it's probably coming in this text. Jesus, first of all, just do not be offended by his teaching. We want to make three observations. He's aware of the impact of his teaching. He knows that his words are going to offend some.

15:00But listen, we can embrace his teaching because Jesus' teaching is authoritative and it is glorious. And there's no reason to be offended by his words. Look at verse 62. What then, if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? You see, Jesus is the Son of Man, so his teaching is with authority. The whole idea of the Son of Man, he is the revealer from heaven, he is the one coming with authority, one with the seal in verse 27 of God's approval upon him. He descends with authority. You think of Daniel 7. You think of even verse 53 in this passage. He is the one descending, the one who knows, the one who reveals.

15:52So don't be offended by any of Jesus' teaching because they reveal something true. They're right. They're authoritative. But second, they are glorious. Look at the back at the words of verse 62, and they are challenging to interpret. What then, if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? What is he saying here? I believe they speak of the most glorious ascension to a throne ever in the history of humanity, ever, of any throne anywhere for all time.

16:30I believe he's speaking of something very glorious here. But just to follow this line here, it's clear that he's already in verse 38 spoken of his coming down from heaven. And now he is speaking of what is your reaction going to be when I ascend to heaven? And the direction of thought appears to be that Jesus' ascension is going to be more offensive than his teaching. Now, how is that going to be? But that's the direction of thought. If you are offended, if you are stumbling at the fact that I say you must eat my flesh and drink my blood, speaking of violent sacrifice, he says, if that offends you, then what if you see me actually ascend back to glory via the cross?

17:30You see, Jesus has to go from where he was back to where he came from. He had to go through the cross to the grave and out of the grave and into glory where he now sits. Look, and it's like he's saying here: if you think my language is offensive, wait till you see a crucified. Messiah on his way back to glory. That is scandalous. If you think eating his flesh and drinking his blood, that teaching is scandalous, wait till you see a crucified Messiah. That is offensive.

18:18And that is foolishness. It is offensive to the Jews. The Jews would never let their Messiah be publicly humiliated and murdered in such a way. It goes against, number one, who Messiah is, and number two, we would never do that to our Messiah. So that is outrageous. But it's also foolishness to the Gentile. Oh, so you got this king and their people crucified him? Charge! You crucified your king. That didn't make any sense, right? But you see, the glorious Messiah, he went up to Jerusalem on a donkey. This is his ascension. And it's the point of the cross that we understand who this king is. He is in control of himself.

19:18And he is in control. And he directs that control for the love and the good of his people. Yes, my sin was party to putting my Messiah up on the cross. And he went into the grave. He took my sins. He separated my sins from God. I mean, from me. And he separated him permanently from God and from the view of God. And then he came out of the grave and he rose and he forgave me. I belong to him. I belong to him.

19:56It's a glorious Messiah. Yes, the Jews have a glorious Messiah, though they crucified him. He will lovingly forgive them. And I believe in time they will lovingly embrace him. And you will see a glory on the face of this earth that has never been. But I love what D.A. Carson says here. The moment of Jesus' greatest degradation and shame is the moment of his glorification. The path of his return to the glory he had with the Father before the world began, the hour when the servant of the Lord is despised and rejected by men, when he is pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, is the very portal to the time when he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Listen, no king. Has ever ascended to power like this.

21:05And yet, this is who he is. Well, this is scandalous. And how you respond to this scandal will determine your destiny. You see, we have no reason to be scandalized by any of Jesus' teaching, because it comes with great authority and with great glory. But if you are offended by Jesus' teaching, you're not going to remain with him. You're not going to remain. So, in order to remain with Jesus, you cannot be offended by his teaching. Second, you cannot reduce your relationship with him to mere ritual. You cannot reduce your relationship to mere ritual. And what is a ritual? You know, Merriam-Webster says it like this: a ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects performed in a sequestered place and performed according to a set sequence.

22:12You know, I haven't taken time to really speak on this issue, but I would be amiss if I didn't. I don't like to spend time in a polemic, if you will. But it's very clear: if ever there has been a passage that has been hijacked by a counterfeit gospel, it is this passage. Some of the most distorted words in the Bible are those of John chapter 6. And I'm speaking specifically about the Roman Catholic style of communion that has taken these words, ripped them out of their context, and has created a ritual that cloaks the actual meaning of what's happening in this text and blinds people to the truth therein, and puts a false assurance, a false hope of salvation, and totally eclipses the truth that is necessary for salvation.

23:25It's very clear that the whole idea of transubstantiation, this idea of the priesthood bringing Christ down and offering him again and again as a sacrifice in the elements, is certainly not on Jesus' mind here. It's not in John's mind either, by the way. And there are several reasons I say this. And I saved him till now just because I didn't want to make this passage all about this issue and just constantly be, but it's important to take time to just explain why this is true, why this is Thought isn't even on the radar of Jesus' mind. First of all, the Lord's Supper has not been established yet. So that's not even coming for another year. So we're talking at a time when historically it's not even, the audience there wouldn't have even associated it with something like this.

24:20And second reason, John uses the term flesh instead of the body to refer to Jesus' sacrifice. In every other instance that the Lord's Supper is referred to in the New Testament, it's the word body. This is my body, which is broken. This is my body, which is given for you. In this text here, he doesn't use that language. He's, this is my flesh. The bread is my flesh, given for the life of this world. And John, when he's writing this, certainly the practice of the Lord's Supper had been going on for quite a while. And if John certainly had intended to call to mind the Lord's Supper, a more appropriate term would have certainly been body. But John purposefully makes a distinction here.

25:17Third reason, the verb tenses argue against a repeated sacrifice. Let me explain this. I'll give you an example. Look at verse 15. The emphasis is upon the action of eating, not upon repeatedly coming down. Look at verse 58. This is the bread which came down, one action in time. It came down. We would appropriately pass tense verb, right? He who eats this bread will live forever. He who eats this bread, that is the one eating this bread, that's a present ongoing action. So the emphasis is, the verb tenses speak of the bread that has come down, and the ongoing action isn't the ongoing coming down and repeated sacrifice. The action is upon the repeated eating, the repeating taking in and believing, chewing, thinking through, believing meditation. So the verb tenses do not jive either. There's many others, but I want to draw your attention to verse 63. And this is really where I think Jesus Himself makes it clear that we're not talking about some kind of transubstantiation or idea or even the Lord's Supper as we would practice it. Look at verse 63. It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spiritual. Spirit and our life.

27:03Jesus would render everything he said ineffective if he was talking about literal bread here. Because he flat out says the flesh profits nothing. In fact, I'll be teaching a hermeneutics class this fall at the seminary here at the church. I hope you'll be able to join us for that. But in that, we look at principles of interpretation, and there's one of the principles that I like to talk about, and that's the principle of ineffectiveness. And I have this little icon of a man shooting himself in the foot. You know, if you go out and buy a gun, it's not wise to shoot your foot, right? That defeats the whole purpose. Well, Jesus would render everything ineffective that he just said if he's saying, yeah, you need to take this into your body in order to live forever. You see, what Jesus is basically saying is that bodily actions do not benefit the soul.

28:00What benefits the soul is the spiritual impressions made by the Spirit of God through the Word of God upon the soul of man. That's what we need. That's where the benefit. Anything that goes into the body profits nothing. What goes into your mouth cannot touch your soul. So if Jesus is saying you need to eat this bread in some kind of Condescending way that it's brought down, or even as we celebrate, if he is saying you need to take this in in order to live, he's totally contradicted himself because he says the flesh profits nothing, even his own. He's definitely talking metaphor here. You see, fallen religion seeks to put some kind of bodily act between the soul of man and salvation. That's what fallen religion does: it puts some sort of bodily routine, bodily action, bodily ritual, bodily something between the soul and God. And there's no precedent in Scripture for that.

29:18In fact, the only thing that's necessary is repentance and faith. Something between the soul and God. In fact, that's what John, when he talks about believing, really what John is talking about is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. That's in John's vernacular. He's not this easy beliefism. When John is talking about believing, he's talking about you need to be eating and drinking in the flesh and the blood of Christ. That's believing, and it involves death, his death, and all that implies. You know, listen, I absolutely love the thief on the. Cross. If somebody helps us, there's one instance that really helps us square all our theology on this, it's the thief on the cross. Listen, he is the example that no earthly ritual stands between the soul of man and God.

30:16Remember, there were two thieves, right? On the cross. Both wanted Jesus to do something for them. Only one was granted his request because one's request was born in heaven, the other request was born from earth. And so, in an instant, this thief on the cross was baptized with the water in the Spirit, as John 3, and he ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Son of Man, John 6, or else he couldn't have had eternal life given to him.

30:56No bodily act was required of him. And you know what? The reason is because it would profit him nothing toward his salvation. Now, listen, rituals are good in the sense if they point us to the realities behind them, if they call to mind as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, it is for the life and health of the church that we remember Christ's sacrifice and that we constantly bring ourselves to a believing remembrance of these. Truths. But the moment the ritual becomes the main thing and the relationship becomes the second thing, you're not going to remain with Christ. At least, not the Christ of Scripture.

31:47J.C. Ryle says it like this. The plain truth is, there's a morbid anxiety in fallen man to put a carnal sense on scriptural expressions wherever he possibly can. He struggles hard to make religion a matter of forms and ceremonies, of doing and performing, of sacraments and ordinances, of sense and of sight. He secretly dislikes that system of Christianity which makes the state of the heart the principal thing and labors to keep the sacraments and ordinances in the second place.

32:24You know, I'm not talking to a bunch of Catholics in this room, am I? I'm not concerned to the degree that I'm concerned about us in here. We as Protestants can be just as guilty of reducing our relationship to mere ritual. You in this room, me up here, we are very susceptible to reducing our relationship to God just to ritual. Okay, I do this, I do this, I do that, and I do that, and totally bypass the relationship.

33:07And so, if you reduce your relationship with him to some outward form or outward expression or outward box to check, you're not going to remain with him. That kind of, when the testing comes, you won't remain. So, in order to remain with Jesus, you cannot be offended by his teaching, and you cannot reduce your relationship with him to mere ritual. And third, your desire for him must come from heaven, or your desire for him must come from above, must come from above. You notice in the next few verses, 64, 65, and 66, I want to talk to you about two kinds of desire. There is the kind of desire that comes from below, and there is the kind of desire that comes to Jesus from above.

34:11And those who were following Jesus, who had their desire to follow him that was of a human nature, of a earthly nature, that is, those who had a desire to follow him that was born from below, these are the ones who ended up. Affecting. Look at verse 64. But there are some of you who do not believe. And then you have John's parenthetical statement, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was that would betray him. So why did some follow Jesus only for a while? Jesus tells you right here, they do not truly believe.

34:58And for John, remember, believing is eating the flesh and drinking in the blood of Christ, metaphorically speaking, believing on his death, believing in his life, and all that that implies for God and your relationship with him and to constantly be feed. That is the source of strength, that God loves you with an everlasting love. And listen, when he took on the enterprise of you, he didn't just forgive your sins today, and hopefully you not sin tomorrow, and therefore, if you sin tomorrow, you're out again. No, he took on the entire enterprise of you. So your sin tomorrow has already been thought through.

35:45Your sin tomorrow or later this afternoon is a testament of how far you still have to go. Not that God doesn't love you or has committed himself to you. You must return yourself. That doesn't give you an excuse to sin. By all means, God forbid, right? But it is when you do sin, it's a testament. Go back to the cross in your mind. He thought through the whole enterprise of you and me. He knew what he was taking on. And when he went to the cross, and my sin was party to putting him there, he said, I took on the whole enterprise of Thomas Baber.

36:31And that's what he took on. But there's another kind of desire. There are those whose desire who come to Jesus with the desire that's born from above. You know, if you're going to approach the king, you better come to the king with the right desire. And you cannot come to him with an earth-born desire. You must come to him with a heaven-born desire. Those are the ones who remain. There's all kinds of reasons why people followed Christ for a while.

37:14Some were born from below. Some desires were born from heaven. And it is those who were born from heaven that remained. Look down now, and Jesus restated what he had said in verse 4. 44. And when Jesus says something more than once, it's very important, right? And this is how this ends with these nominal followers. Verse 65, and he was saying, for this reason, that is, because there are some of you who do not believe, for this reason I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him from the Father. And as a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore.

38:05Interesting language here. For this reason, I've said to you, no one can come to me. No one has the power. He is able. No one is possessing the power to come to me unless it has been perfectly given to him from the Father. And many of the disciples went back. They withdrew, literally, to the former. They went back to the former. They went back to the things they had left behind before they began to follow Jesus.

38:44But an important question comes in verse 66. As a result of this, Daniel Blake did a great job last night of showing the importance of a pronoun, right? If you were here, it can change the whole meaning of a text, right? What is the this? There in verse 66, referring to. Well, you really have two options. Because of this, and it's important to look carefully, because this is the cause of the great defection. What is the cause of the great defection? As a result of this, you've got two options. It is either the statement that he has just made, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to the Father, from him, granted him from the Father, or it can be a reference to the whole discourse, which not only states this one point, but states it again. So you start, you come to the end. They are offended on two levels. Yes, you cannot come, or you must eat my flesh and drink my blood, or there is no life. That's offensive, right? And you know what? You're not going to eat my flesh and drink my blood unless it has been granted to you to believe from my Father.

40:16Staggering. Scandalous. I'm going to tell you something about my personal struggle with the doctrine of election. I did not grow up in a Conservative Presbyterian home. I did not grow up in a Reformed Baptist home. I thought election was, and this drawing power of God was something offensive because I thought it somehow it challenged the justice of God. And I was offended by this doctrine. In fact, I would say it's the longest sustained doctrine I've had a struggle with in my life, trying to get my mind around it.

41:14But it keeps coming up everywhere. And as I keep trying to be taught by Christ, I must take his words seriously. I must let them inform me and not me inform him. Even in our circles, right? Remember, I asked you a question a minute ago? Is there anything that Jesus could possibly say that could offend you, scandalize you to the point to say, no, I don't want to follow a Christ like that? I think even today, this just as it was then, this was an offensive doctrine then, it's an offensive doctrine now. But it doesn't need to be. Listen.

42:03If I had done things, if I were God, I would have done things totally different. Okay? I would have probably had a little more human involvement, right? I would have given it a little more, a little works-oriented, right? I would have given it at least to those who desired it the most or something. I would have had a different way. I would have done so many things differently. I would certainly not have put a devil on the 12. You know, I wouldn't have had in my inner circle, right?

42:39And I wouldn't have had the crucifixion as a means to ascend. No, I might have had him run a four-minute mile or do something really great, you know, on that kind of suffering, but not the absolute humiliation of going to the cross for his people. That would not have been in my mind at all of how the king would have ascended. And so, as you come to this, it's here. And what Jesus is saying is: if you want to come and remain, you're going to have to come with a clean desire, which he will give you if you want it.

43:21He's not shutting people out. The doctrine of election doesn't shut people out, it shows us the way we must come. You cannot come to him unless he gives you the right desire to come to him, and he is willing to give that to you if you will ask him. This doctrine, which once perplexed my soul, has become one of the greatest comforts in all of Scripture that God set his love on me before I even came into being. And this brings a steadiness to the soul.

43:55And it isn't to keep people out, it's to show you the way. Even then, he was showing them the way. So, let's be honest with the scripture. Jesus is telling us how to come, how to feed, and how to remain. Say, God, give me the right desire. Forgive me for my earthbound desires, for my fleshly desires to come and have you have me reign over you and tell you what to do. Lord, help me to change that. Forgive me and let me come to you as the Father wants me to come to you. Friends, this should shape the way we pray. This should shape the character of all of our ministries, proclaiming the truth of God.

45:00Calling people to come and praying that God would draw. Please don't be offended by this. I've gone a long, long journey through this doctrine, and it will become one of the most comforting to your souls. And it doesn't set aside human responsibility. There's nothing unjust about God loving you. Something glorious about it. So just believe it. Don't be scandalized. And let this take root in how you are to come. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, let us never be of people who are scandalized by your teaching.

45:52Father, I honestly would never have thought to teach this doctrine that you taught and seems to show up over and over again, especially in the Gospel of John. I wouldn't have come up with this at all. But in your wisdom, in your beauty, in your perfections, this is the way you rule. And it is beautiful, and it is glorious, and it is right, and it is good. Father, and if I can't fully understand it, I confess the problems with me.

46:28But I come. Father, here today, Father, we recognize that it is the sinful heart that doesn't want to come to you. Father, that you are far more willing to receive than we are to come. Father, and yet we recognize that we are not, you don't come for us. You don't believe for us, but you give us cause faith. So, Father, we ask you to cause true faith, help our unbelief, help us come to you in every sense of the word. Thank you in Christ's name. Amen.