He Will Keep You - John 6:35-40 - The Heart of Jesus

Praise the Lord. What's going on Mercy Hill?

I hope you're doing well. My name is Tanner and I am the student director here and the Lord has just been doing some cool stuff. About 200 students each month come and hang out with us at M.H. students and we would love to have your student there. And my favorite thing recently is this thing called Next Conference for 10th, 11th, and 12th graders and just seeing some students wrestle not only what the Lord is doing in their life right now, but what he might do long term.

It was just awesome, man. And in our dream here at M.H. students, we say students. are the movement. What we mean by that is we want there to be no baseball team, no dance club, no home school, whatever, no private school, no charter school, no school in Guilford, Forsyth, anywhere where you can't find an M.H.

student loving you in word and deed and living the gospel out right in front of your eyes. That's our dream. That's what we want to see.

But the only way that's going to happen is if we got an army of leaders, which we already do. And we would love to see more people come in. We have over 50 adult leaders pouring into your students every single week and giving them their time.

And just really invested in going the distance. And we're praying for more. And I'm going to put up some information for you. If you have ever wanted to lead with students, you have background, even if you don't.

If you're a teacher, a parent, we got so many parents who are invested. Please email us. We need you.

We want you. We'll train you. You don't got to be qualified. God qualifies those he calls.

He doesn't call the qualified. Amen, somebody. So what I'm gonna do is I'm invite my man A.G. Austin Griffin up here to read our scripture for this weekend. After he does that, which is on page 18 of the heart of Jesus book there in front of you. After he does that, we're going to pray for you parents, the students, and then we'll get into our sermon for this weekend. All right.

Let's read. We're going to be in John six, verse 35. The father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me. But raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day.

You pray with me, bro. Father, we love you. We love our parents. We love our students. We know being a teenager ain't easy.

Being a parent of a teenager isn't easy. I just pray for a lot of grace in our households, for one another, for every parent here to know that there's nothing they're going through that somebody else isn't. We would love to connect them. We would love to get to know them.

God, we love our students. We pray just big things over their lives that you would just have your way in them, Lord. And we just pray for our time now as we shift our attention to hearing your word. That would be a blessing. Lord, you would accomplish your purposes. God, you are the greatest. God, apart from you, we could do nothing.

Would you move in power? We pray in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Love you, bro.

Hey, can y'all give it up for Austin real quick? Hey, so if you're joining us this weekend, we're in week three of our Heart of Jesus series. OK, and this week I'm going to start with the Mr. Rogers intro. So here we go. Basically, what the heart of Jesus means is this. It means what is Jesus really like at his core? Like, who is this dude? I've heard what he did, but I don't know who he is necessarily. And so what we want to do is spend some time all these weeks are diving into what he's like at his core. And the reason I brought up Mr. Rogers is there's been a resurgence in these last few years of people trying to figure out was what that dude did and who he is the same.

That's what people were trying to get to the bottom of. He made some shows for kids, seemed like a good guy, and then he was resurrected in a character called Daniel the Tiger. OK, I don't know how many y'all got kids, but we are Daniel the Tiger fans of my household.

OK, and he teaches my kids some great stuff. If you're feeling mad and you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four. And in my household, we don't say that when we're angry to prevent anger. We are about to be receiving a consequence for acting out our anger. They're like, but Daddy, when you're feeling mad, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's that's not what Daniel meant.

No backup backup. OK, but y'all, what's really cool, there's movies out there, there's books, there's all kind of research right now. And it really is. Is this guy the real deal?

Or when the camera went off, did Mr. Rogers chew out the person for not having ice in his sprite? You know what I mean? Like that's kind of like it's almost like journalists at that time were trying to find the crack. Like he can't be the real deal, you know, and I think sometimes with Jesus, we hear he died on the cross, but we don't know who he is. Like, what is he like?

Is what he did and who he is the same or different? So that's what we're doing is spending some time. And this weekend, this is the heart of Jesus we want you to see. Jesus desires to be our source of satisfaction and confidence.

That's what he desires to be for us. And I would invite you to buckle up because I might be half of Andrew's size, but I can talk just as fast as him. Okay. So here we go. What you need to know for this week's passage that Austin just read is that Jesus had like a lot of hype building up at this time.

Okay. He had just performed a miracle, the feeding of the five thousand. He did it with five loaves and two fish. So bread is starting to multiply, making it rain a little bit.

It's just coming out of nowhere. And and the Jews were like, man, this is tying into some things from the Old Testament. And the hype was high and they were starting to gather more and more crowds like there's free bread, you know, so the hype was high.

So I got two things I want to talk about with you this weekend. The first one is the bread. Somebody say the bread. Verse thirty five. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. So, you know, Jesus's response to the hype being high is to cut to the chase.

He didn't want to keep drawing the crowds. He wanted to cut right to it. So he says, I am the bread of life. He's like, let's get real.

So that's what we're about to do this weekend together. He's basically saying, I didn't come to give bread. I came to be bread. I didn't come to give you something.

I came to be that something. Jesus is offering himself to his audience. The initial reaction of the crowd is like, OK, so like, do I do I stand right here to get the bread? Like, do I come where you were yesterday when you handed out the five loaves?

How does this work? Is that what I got to do? And Jesus saying, no, no, no, I don't think you're getting it. I'm the bread. Whoever comes to me and whoever believes in me shall never hunger, shall never thirst.

He's talking some big words and somebody in the crowd is probably thinking, let me get this straight. I come to you and I believe in you. And that's better than you just giving me bread. And he's like, yep. That's basically what he's saying.

So we got to ask this question. What does it mean to come and believe? Luckily, the author of this book, the book of John, he gives a lot of clues all throughout his book. You could do a believe study through.

I highly encourage it. But here's a few verses that help us. In John, Chapter one, it says this.

He came to his own and his own people did not, somebody say, receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So we see that to believe in Jesus is to receive Jesus. Belief is not knowing he's the bread, but coming to him as he is the bread is to get your hunger satisfied, your thirst quenched. When you're hungry, you eat. When you're thirsty, you drink. It's an action of the hunger is to eat.

An action of your thirst is to drink. Jesus doesn't give something to satisfy. He himself is what satisfies. And he's saying, receive me in that way. It's a metaphor that he keeps taking deeper and deeper. He wants to be our satisfaction. To believe in Jesus is to be satisfied by Jesus. That's what he wants, man. That's what he wants.

That's his heart is to satisfy you. And I want to show you this. I'm gonna show you some other verses that are very similar to ours. Check this out from John Chapter four. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty.

You have to come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you've had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband.

What you have said is true. Did you notice the similarities between that text and our text this weekend? So this weekend we're looking at, he gives some bread and then he says, I am bread.

In that story, he is at a well with her. OK. And he says, I'm water. And she's like, OK, well, give me give me like what you're talking about. So I don't got to come back here. It's a long walk. It's hot.

I don't want to do it. She's kind of doing the same things like, no, no, no, I'm living water. Right. What he's trying to get her to see is this. And then he he does it by asking about the husband.

Right. You'll catch that. He gets a little. But what he's doing is he's saying your soul is trying to quench itself on something that is not me. And when you do that, that's not good because I want to be that to you.

So he brings up the thing she's running to be what only he can be. You tracking with that? I'm going to treat you like my students. We track it. So so what that means is tying it over to our passage. We need Jesus to be our bread. But my friends, when we don't go to Jesus to be our bread, we will ask something else to be it. That's what it means to be human.

That's what it means, because God made us in his image and we were made to be satisfied by him. And this changed my life when I was 18 years old, 11, 12 years ago. How old am I?

I'm 30, 12 years ago. This changed my life because I realize I'm not just chasing approval. I'm not just chasing sports. I'm not just chasing popularity. I'm looking to something to be my bread, to satisfy me, to give me something, to quench something. So my question to you here this weekend is, what are you chasing? What are you trying to feast on, like it's the bread of life?

Do you run to something like liking yourself? Is that your bread? Is chasing the fulfillment of your sexual appetite to our bread? Is making money your bread? Is being an expert your bread?

What is your bread? Your soul was made to feast on Jesus, to receive him, to trust him, to want him, to love him. But hear me today, friends, if we don't take him to be our bread of life. The exact opposite of what Jesus said will be true of us. We won't have our hunger and thirst quench.

They'll be endless. That's how that works. So that's what coming and believing is. But how can Jesus say you'll never hunger or never thirst? How can you say that, Jesus? And later in verse 40, I might have caught it.

I'm a read it one more time for you. He starts talking about eternal life. Those sound similar. Never hungry, never thirsty, eternal, like never ending.

Those words are very similar. Verse 40 said this. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life.

And I will raise him up on the last day. Somebody say eternal life. Y'all, eternal life is a really important biblical concept, particularly in John's book.

OK, and this is what we got to see. This is a really big verse you got to memorize. If you in Christ, just go ahead, memorize this.

It will save you a lot of trouble in your life. John 17, verse three says this. And this is eternal life.

This is Jesus speaking that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. This is what Jesus is saying. Eternal life is knowing God. Y'all, eternal life is not about an endless amount of time. It's about a quality of life, not just a duration of life. It's not eternal existence only. It's eternal quality.

It's the quality of the thing, not just the quantity of it. Yeah, you'll be resurrected on the last day, he said. You could say it like this. Heaven is the culmination of eternal life, not the beginning of it. Y'all, eternal life starts when you know Jesus. It don't start when you die.

It's the culmination of a down payment you get. That's the good news is you can live the eternal life right now. Eternal life is one of those things. If you got it, you'll get it. If you don't got it, you won't get it. You won't get what you don't got. That's kind of how that works. But if we waiting to get what we don't got, we're not going to get what we're not getting right now. That's kind of how that works. You funny.

So it's about it's about your quality of life, not just the quantity of your life. Jesus desires to be your satisfaction today and forever. That's what he wants to be, man.

That's what he wants to be. But he doesn't stop there. Now, let's talk about how he promises to never let us go. Second thing I want to talk about is the keeper.

Somebody say the keeper. Verse thirty seven said this. All that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Not only does Jesus promise to always satisfy you, he promises to never let you go.

What he's saying is if you come to me, you ain't going nowhere. This ain't a one time meal. This is a never ending feast. And I got you.

Sometimes I'll force feed you if I got to. But you ain't going nowhere. Listen, friends, Jesus is the great keeper. Jesus doesn't keep us because we're keepable. He keeps us because he's the keeper. He does not keep us because we're keepable. He keeps us because he's the keeper. We hear Jesus died for our sins, but we struggle to believe if we're not good at living with him, he's going to cut us from the roster.

And this weekend is going to hit us a couple of different ways. And the way you're going to know how it's hitting you is you've got to start asking yourself the question, what is the source of my confidence in my walk with God? What is the source of why I'm confident or not confident in my walk with God? So, believer, during this time, you should be thinking about that question. And to the unbeliever, if you're sick of being the king of your own life, Jesus offers to satisfy you and be a better king to you than you are.

And guess what? You get to sit back and listen how if you choose to join this family, you don't keep yourself in. He keeps you in.

His word to you is not you better keep up. It's I'll keep you. And that's good news, man.

That's available to you today. So, believers, we fall into one of two categories. We either think I don't need a keeper.

I got me. Or we think he won't keep me. We're going to look at both of those. Some of us are very confident in our walk with God, if we're honest. And you need to hear if he didn't keep you, you'd be gone in two seconds. And we need to hear that. Others of us don't believe he will keep us. And we need to be assured that you don't keep you in.

He keeps you. Let's start with those of us who might be a little arrogant. I lean this way, by the way, just being honest with you. I need to be humbled. I have been humbled.

I will be humbled. Y'all, we don't earn our way with Jesus in and we don't earn our keep either. That's not how this works for this type of mindset.

We tend to think that our rhythms are what keep us. We tend to think that our efforts are what keeps us. Look, God is not opposed to effort, but he is opposed to earning.

You can't earn nothing in the kingdom. And what this typically looks like is, is when the going gets tough and you don't feel good in your walk with God, your effort is what makes you feel good, not the fact that he keeps you. It's you first that makes you confident. This person feels deep down like, I don't want to be kept.

I want to earn my keep. He keeps you, though. You don't keep yourself. Your rhythms don't keep you. He keeps you and his keeping you empowers your rhythms. Your rhythms don't impress him like, I got to keep them.

I promise you that is backwards. God opposes the proud and he gives grace to the humble. You know, you have that. I can keep myself proud when sermons always apply to other people. That's when you know you got that. You got it.

You keeping you. I need to think of somebody else who needs to be kept right. Pastors are notorious for this junk. I heard a story of a pastor who was on an airplane and he's, you know, traveling to go speak somewhere. OK. And he's posted up on the end of the aisle and this woman starts making eye contact with him down the lane. He's like, oh, you must be familiar with my ministry.

Amen. And he's just like thinking about it. And she's walking down the aisle. They keep making eye contact. And then she gets to him. She goes, hey, are you? And he's pulling his headphones off. Yeah.

Going to sit right there or like, are you going to eat those peanuts? You know, like she asked him that that type of question. He was just like, crush. Who do you think you are, dude? You know, we could be so prideful sometimes. Friends, if that's you today, God doesn't keep you because you're you. He keeps you because he's him. Allow that to just wash over you.

And the good news is you're going to be a lot more fun to be around and full of joy and just liberated and loose. When you entrust yourself to the keeper instead of trying to be your own keeper. So I want you to to fight to entrust yourself to the keeper and repent of trying to keep yourself. Now, I want to talk to those of us who need to be assured today. If we are honest, some of us have zero confidence in our walk with God. We believe we've come to him. We love him. We want to love him. Or maybe even in the times we don't desire God, we desire to want to desire God. And that's that's evidence that that God is moving in your life.

Because if you want him, he's done something or you wouldn't because it's not normal to want him. So now I'm talking to the one who has come to God and believes and and, you know, just has no confidence. I think there's two obstacles to our confidence that he will keep us. There's two really big ones that keep us like knowing Jesus died for me, but functionally, I'm not walking in that because I'm not confident.

I'm worthy to walk in that. So there's two types of ways that we get messed up here, two categories. The first one's guilt and the second one's shame. Let's talk about guilt for a second. Guilt is what we experience when we do wrong. So in a lot of ways, we should feel guilt. I don't know about you, I do a lot of wrong. I get angry.

I'm proud. I think about things I shouldn't. I'm just my motives aren't great. All that. My words, my actions, what's in me, what's out of me, my thoughts.

All of it is messed up. And for that, we feel guilt. Somebody say guilt. When we feel guilt, we've got to ask the question, how does Jesus keeping me applied to my guilt? Check this out from first John chapter two. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, somebody say anyone.

We have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. This verse is so good because the goal of the Christian life is to make you the type of person who doesn't just have some ticket that says I don't get the penalty of sin. It's also to be removed to remove the power of sin in your life. So you cannot sin like that sounds awesome. I want to not like hate people. I want to not be jealous of my best friends. I want to love people. I want to not be proud.

I want to not be tempted to gossip. I want to just be like Jesus. And God wants to do that in your life. But when you sin, you have an advocate when your conscious condemns you. Y'all know the song right here when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within. Upward I look and see him there who made it into all my sin because the sinless savior died. My sinful soul is counted free for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me, to look on him and pardon me. And in case you're wondering, the worship team knows anytime somebody just ain't feeling it, I got them. I'll step in.

Y'all don't want that, though. That's why you've never seen me before. Listen, this is what those kind of songs get after. Jesus doesn't see who you are apart from him. Once you come to him, he sees who you are in him. You're not removed from him. It's almost like you're a branch in a vine.

Where does the vine start and the branch stop? It's almost like you're in him. Believer, Jesus will keep you because you're in him. In some sense, the Bible gets after you've been brought into the very life of God himself. You are one with the Father, the Son, the Spirit. Go read John 17.

That's what he wants. You're not you're not like given some pass and separate from him. You are brought into him. That's the Christian life. If you struggle to believe, God will keep you because of your past sin.

Jesus' word to you, believer, isn't keep up is I will keep you. That's guilt. Now let's talk about shame. If guilt is the feeling because we did wrong, shame is the feeling that just somehow I just am wrong.

I'm just I'm just wrong. Guilt comes from wrongdoing. Shame comes from wrong being. That's what you feel.

I'm just busted. I'm glad he takes away my sin. But in some kind of way, it gets into us that my sin ain't the problem. I'm just a problem. Even if I was sinless, I don't like me.

I hate me. And we shame cycle. And the Lord never intended for us to do that. And in sometimes the shame piggybacks on the guilt, which is true, you should feel the guilt. And then you're trying to apply the gospel and that's a good battle. And then and then the shame piggybacks on that.

And it gets convoluted in a hurry. And depending on what you've been through in your life or what's been done to you, this can get really complicated in your subconscious, the neurology of your brain physiologically. Through abandonment, through whatever it is, you begin to believe that is just true, that I'm nothing. I've heard it said that Jesus may live in your heart, but grandpa still lives in your bones. What that's getting after is like trauma is a thing. It just it just it is in the goal. What God intends to do is take what we know in our head, move it to our heart and soon get our bodies to where they obey it and believe it, too.

Like physiologically, we we can be reshaped into the image of God. Roman six. That stuff's so good. Present your members. Consider yourself dead to sin. And then don't present your members like it's moving head to heart, to hands, and God's grace massages that. And sometimes, you know, it's OK to need a trauma informed Bible, so full of the spirit, God loving counselor who's going to speak into your life. I do that every month.

I don't plan on stopping. And that's a part of my rhythm to get the head to the heart, to the hands. OK. And if you reach out to our pastoral team, whether it's me and Pastor Pastor Ronald on our student team or any of our pastors, we're not looking to fix you. We want to walk with you. And if we need to find somebody else to help you, we're going to do that because this stuff gets deep.

So when shame hits, we need to remember we have a keeper. Sometimes it's easier to believe that God loves you than that. He likes you. His love feels general. His liking me feels like.

I don't know, T. I don't know about that. And that speaks to what shame is a little bit. He doesn't just tolerate us. He loves us. He keeps us. And that doesn't make the past go away.

The rejection, the abandonment, the fear, the feelings of loneliness and being expendable. None of that goes away. But what the grace of God does is it transforms it. One of my favorite things about when Jesus was raised from the dead, I don't know if you know this, but one of the disciples was struggling and he comes to him when he resurrects and comes and sees his boys. He's like, hey, man, feel my hands right here.

Touch my side. You know what's so cool about a resurrected savior who's got some scars? His resurrected body didn't wipe away what he went through. It redeemed what he went through. He had a redeemed body. The grace of God heals our wounds.

It doesn't wipe them away. He wants to massage you with his grace. And it takes time and that's OK. And that's part of what being a part of a church is all about. Notice I said being a part of a church, not just going to a church. What we're doing is, is we are committing to continually hearing God's word, continually confessing sin, continually praying and asking for help, continually singing, continually serving, continually struggling together. And what God is doing to our collective subconscious is I will keep all y'all. I'll keep you and I'll keep all y'all.

I got you. And we need the ordinary means of God's grace over and over and over and over to believe what's actually true is true down to the very fingertips of how we function. Y'all, the reality is, if we believe he keeps us, we will keep going to him as our bread for satisfaction.

They're reciprocal. Y'all see that? Because he keeps me, I can keep going back. I don't go to him once, get hype and then feel the same rejection and never go back. He got me. Now let's go back. He got me. Now let's go back. That's the good news of the gospel.

It makes me confident. And for some of us, we're just disconnected to one of the main ways here at Mercy Hill. We believe discipleship happens in community and groups just started up. If you weren't able to jump in one or maybe you just jumped in with us recently, Discovery Groups is your next step.

Discovery Groups are a great way. The next seven weeks, on Wednesdays, we got childcare. Just come on. Come get in a group. It's going to be awesome. There's a spot for you. Come check it out.

They start this week. Y'all, the irony for both the person who needed to be humble like me today and the person who needs to be assured like me today is funny. Some days I need to be humble and some days I'm like, OK, I need to be assured. You know, that's kind of how that works.

The irony is that both of those individuals are looking inward for confidence. I am enough. I feel good about me and God.

I don't feel enough. I don't feel good about me and God. And what God wants to do is take your eyes from doing this and just just just just just look up. And just just get get outside of yourself.

Extra notes like that. That's a Latin way of saying it's outside of you. The whole Christian faith is something that came to you. But what we do is, is we take that and then we start making it into something about us.

That's good day, bad day thinking. We've got to avoid that. Our good deeds don't get us in the kingdom and they won't keep us in once we are in. And our bad deeds don't disqualify us from the kingdom. And once we're in, they don't kick us out. That's kind of how that works. Stop looking inward for confidence.

Look outward. God doesn't keep you because you're capable. He keeps you because he is the keeper. That's what he is, man. Maybe you're here today and you're like, I just I just see if I'm honest, I don't believe it. If I'm honest, I'm not so sure.

How can you know this? God wants to be satisfied. Wants me to be satisfied in him. How can I know he won't let me go? Why would he do that?

That don't make no sense to me. What do I bring to the table? If he's all keeper, what what part do I play? Y'all, that's what the cross is all about. Jesus dying on the cross isn't just something Jesus did as an extension of who he is.

He went all the way to show us he's the real deal and what he did and who he is. At the cross, Jesus was emptied so you could be filled and he was lost so you could be kept. That's the good news of the gospel, man. I don't know about y'all.

This is good news today. I got a keeper. I don't know about you. I need a keeper.

When that anger hits and then I get reminded, oh, one of your kids might have your anger problem. I need the keeper. I can't buy into that. I need the keeper right now because the more I buy into that, the more I'm going to shame cycle and then guess what I may end up doing? More anger. You need the keeper. I don't know what it is in your life. But maybe knowing Jesus died for your sins, maybe you just need to see his heart this weekend. See how much he wants to satisfy you and he promises to keep you.