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Colin Smith: How are you going to stand firm when vast numbers of other people are turning away? How are you going to have a faith that lasts? How are you going to move beyond drifting, away from defiance, and beyond doubting, and live as a disciple of Jesus?

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. Colin, throughout the message, you’re going to answer that question. But I want to take this back even maybe one step further and ask: why do you think it is that there are so many people walking away from a faith or walking away from Jesus?

Colin Smith: What Jesus says is so radically counter to the prevailing values in our culture. But the thing is, it has always been like that. We're going to look today at John in chapter 6, where you have a group of people who were miraculously fed in the multiplying of the loaves and the fish. So they experienced something of Jesus, enough to have an interest in hearing more.

But when they hear what he actually says, he speaks about his own incarnation and speaks about his own death and what that's going to involve, and therefore speaks about his own absolute uniqueness and how they are utterly dependent upon grace. None of that sits well with them. They listen to it and they say, "This is a hard saying," and "We're out of here."

So nothing has changed in 2,000 years. We’re still in the same place. When people really get to know what Jesus is saying, they will either give themselves to him completely, or else they will have to turn away. And sooner or later, that point of decision comes for us all. We’re going to see it in the Bible, and we’re going to see what the compelling reasons are to stay with Jesus even when it’s unpopular.

Steve Hiller: There’s one demographic of the population that I think might actually be wrestling through this, and that would be those in college. Maybe we have kids who grew up in a Christian home and now they have their first taste of freedom and they have to begin to wrestle through what they believe and why they believe the things that people grew up telling them were true. You actually had the opportunity to give this message to a bunch of college students.

Colin Smith: It was an unforgettable occasion and a great privilege for me to say to this gathered and wonderful student body, "Now, you in your generation are going to face this pressure. You're going to see more and more people moving away from faith, and you're going to have to know: how am I going to stand?" Here in the Bible in John chapter 6 is how you're going to stand.

Steve Hiller: Well, that group of college students were at Taylor University, and this message was a part of their spiritual renewal week. We’re in John chapter 6, as you just heard, so join us there. Here is Pastor Colin with the first part of the message called "Disciple."

Colin Smith: We've focused in on a theme that really matters: faith that lasts. A faith that lasts is really the only kind of faith that's ever worth having. No one is saved by a passing interest in Jesus Christ. So we have looked together at three characters: drifting, defiant, and doubting. I think that we have seen something of ourselves in these characters as we have listened to what God has to say to each of them from Hebrews chapter 6.

In this last session that we have together this morning, I want to introduce you to a fourth character, and my prayer from the heart is that each and every one of us will be increasingly like her. She is not drifting. The basic principles of the word of God are clearly established in her life. She knows that she is a sinner, and she knows that she needs a savior and that she has a savior in the Lord Jesus Christ.

She's not defiant. She's not among those who are saying no to the Lord Jesus Christ, not among those who refuse his lordship in her life. She's not crucifying again the Son of God to her own harm or holding him up to contempt. And she is not doubting. She believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and she knows that she belongs to him and she is thankful for it. So I'm going to call her today "Disciple."

My prayer for every one of you is that you will be a true lifelong disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Here's what I want to say to you from John chapter 6 in this last session. If you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you really follow after him, you will come under great pressure, and it will keep coming at you all of your life, I promise you. You need to know how to stand against it. Now, John chapter 6 tells the story. The whole chapter tells the story of the day that Jesus lost his crowd.

The story begins, in fact, the previous day. The beginning of John 6 is the story of when Jesus fed 5,000 people miraculously from five loaves and two fish. It was a stunning unveiling of the glory of the Lord. People were so impressed that John tells us in verse 15 of chapter 6 that they wanted at that moment, in the desert after the miracle, to take Jesus by force and make him king. They wanted to politicize Jesus. They wanted to capture Jesus for their own agenda, and Jesus will never be captured for anyone's agenda. So he slips away, and he goes to the other side of the lake on the boat.

The next morning, these people who have been miraculously fed come looking for him. They don't find him. John records how there's a little flotilla of boats that are there. It's a kind of aquatic Uber service from the first century. All these people get on the boats and they come across the other side of the lake and they come looking for Jesus. When they find him on the other side of the lake, Jesus begins to teach them. He says in verse 27, "Do not work for food that perishes, but work for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him God the Father has set his seal."

These people then had eaten the food that perishes, the bread and the fish. They'd eaten that the previous day. Jesus begins to speak to them about what lasts forever, what endures to eternal life. What happens next as you follow the story of the chapter is that the crowd that were so impressed by Jesus at first, so enthusiastic about Jesus at one point, take offense at what he then says to them.

I want you to notice particularly the three things that Jesus says that really offended these people. The first is the uniqueness of the incarnation. Verse 41: "The Jews grumbled about him, about Jesus." Why? Because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." That's something that no one else in the history of the world could ever have said. That puts Jesus in a category of his own with no peers and no rivals. Who else in all of the history of the world could ever have said such a thing? That makes Jesus unique, and they don't like that.

They say, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" So the uniqueness of the incarnation, that Jesus is unlike any other person who has ever lived, offended them. Second, they were offended by the necessity of the atonement. Jesus says to them in verse 56, "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him."

The flesh and the blood of Jesus, of course, are a clear reference to the sacrifice of Jesus when he stood in our place and bore our sins and died for us on the cross. It is by believing in or feeding on, as Jesus puts it here, on him that we become his and the life that is in him comes to be in us. Verse 60: "When many of the disciples heard it," that's what he said about the atonement, "they said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?'" They did not like the necessity and the centrality of the atonement, of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. That offended them.

The third thing that offended these folks who initially were very impressed with Jesus was dependence upon grace. It's very clear in verse 65. Jesus said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

Friends, the world seems to be always changing, but in the most profound ways, the world never changes. In the most profound ways, the world is always the same. Today in the 21st century, in your generation and in mine, the world is still offended by the same three things that caused offense right back there in the first century. We live in a culture that boldly proclaims that we are all able to be our own savior and therefore our own lord, and therefore we don't need the unique one who comes down from heaven. In fact, we deny his uniqueness at all. That's what the culture does.

The culture loudly proclaims that in our hearts we are all essentially good. If you dig down deep enough, you'll always find good at the bottom of the heart. Therefore, why in the world would we need an atonement for sin? Our culture loudly proclaims that we all have our own truth, that it all lies within us, and therefore essentially life is a journey. Why would anyone need therefore to depend upon God if the truth already lies inherently within you?

So this vast crowd of people who have experienced a miracle, remember, just the previous day, they've eaten the loaves and the fish, then they've come across on the little boats to seek Jesus. They're so interested in learning more, and he speaks to them. When it gets to what his message really is—the uniqueness of the incarnation, the necessity of the atonement, and our absolute dependence upon his grace—they say, "We are so out of here."

This vast crowd of people, thousands of people who have shown some interest in Jesus, now are offended. Verse 66: "After this, many, many of his disciples," notice that word, people who'd followed him, people you never would have expected this from, "they turned back and they no longer walked with him."

Friends, you really don't need me to tell you that we are living at a time when unprecedented numbers of people are abandoning a faith in Jesus that they once professed. The secularization of the culture in which we live is progressing at an astonishing pace. What that means is that your experience throughout your lifetime is that you will be shaken to the core by people who once professed faith and you thought were really the Lord's, and they walk away and they don't want anything else to do with it. It will shake you every time it happens to someone you know and someone that you love.

Remember, for the disciples, this was more than simply a cultural pressure. These events took place in Galilee, a rural area, Bethsaida, a very small town. We're talking about a very small population and many of the people who walked away would have been neighbors, extended family members of the disciples. It's one thing to talk about the drift of the culture. It's another thing when people you know and love walk away from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. How are you going to stand when that happens to you?

Steve Hiller: You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called "Disciple," from a series called Faith That Lasts. If you want to go back and listen to any broadcast in the series, you can do that at our website, openthebible.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. You can also listen through the Open the Bible app, which you'll find for free at your app store. Or you can order a copy of this entire series on CD. Ask about that when you call us at 1-877-OPEN-365, or you’ll find ordering information online at openthebible.org.

Whether you listen to Open the Bible on the radio, online, through the app, or you’ve connected with us in any other way, thank you for being here. I want you to know that we can't do what we do without you. It is your financial generosity that allows us to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching each day. You can give a gift online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Let's get back to the message. Again, here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: This scene—and I want you to try and picture it with me for a moment in your mind's eye—this scene of thousands of people walking away from Jesus by the shore of the lake speaks so powerfully to us today. The vast majority of people in our culture today are absolutely convinced that we can all be our own savior, absolutely convinced that we're all inherently good, and absolutely convinced that we all have our own truth.

Here are you, and you're going to take a stand believing in the uniqueness of Jesus, the uniqueness of the incarnation, the necessity of the atonement, and dependence upon grace. You can see you are going to be under enormous pressure, and it's going to last all of your life. Picture the scene of the thousands walking away. They're not walking away quietly. They're walking away in disgust, spitting in the ground as they go. They're outraged.

You're standing with the disciples and you're seeing thousands walk away and you say, "Wow, look at everyone who's no longer believing. How many of us are left?" You look around and how many are left? Twelve. You say, "How can so many people be so wrong and so few people be right?" You're going to feel that pressure in your life.

John 6 verse 67, at that moment Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" Now this is the question. How are you going to stand firm when vast numbers of other people are turning away? How are you going to have a faith that lasts? How are you going to move beyond drifting, away from defiance, and beyond doubting, and live as a disciple of Jesus? I want in this last session to leave with you very simply the marvelous answer that Peter gave to Jesus' question: "Do you want to go away as well?"

Notice three things very simply here. The first is, here's how you'll stand for a lifetime with Jesus. You stand because you know the richness of life with Jesus. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." When I was in high school in Scotland, we had a math teacher, delightfully eccentric, who would give us an equation to work on and a certain amount of time for us to work on this thing and to resolve it.

He would always say the same thing after he'd finished doing his thing up front and then got us to do an exercise together. He'd say, "You're going to have to get going on this because you're short on time." He said that every day. So of course we helped him out as a class. As soon as he said the first part of the tagline, "You're going to have to get going on this," we'd all shout out, "Because we’re short on time!" That phrase is embedded in my mind forever.

Without eternal life, we would be short on time. Put yourself for one minute in the shoes of a person who doesn't have eternal life. If you don't have eternal life, I feel sorry for you. Your life is so short, and you will always feel that it is slipping away. If the only good you're ever going to enjoy is the good that you get hold of now, you are going to live with the fear of what you might miss. FOMO will be written all over you, fear of missing out, because you've only got this very, very little life.

With so little life, if something should happen to you that harms or spoils your life, you will feel ultimate loss. This life is all that I have and now it's been spoiled. Without eternal life, you will inevitably be drawn to one of two alternatives. One would be to throw yourself into a life of indulgence. Try everything. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. I've only got a little life, so I've just got to try everything.

Or, if you don't do that, you go the other way. You will live with fear, caution, grasping onto this little life that you have, desperately trying to make sure that you don't let it slip through your fingers. Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, think about the reality of your position in Christ. You have eternal life. You have life stored up, inexhaustible, never-ending. Pleasures greater by far than all the joys of life and love that you can experience here lie ahead of you.

When you live your life here knowing that this is your position, you will be in an entirely different place. If you know that you have eternal life, you will feel that you can give the life that you have now freely to the one who gave his life for you. You will be freed from this terrible fear, the haunting fear that somehow you might be missing out.

If something should come into your life that spoils or harms or hurts or wounds, and you no longer have the life that you thought that you would have in this world, well, you will grieve. But you will grieve knowing that you have an inheritance that can never spoil or fade and it's kept in heaven for you. When you feel that your years are slipping away, you will say, "I am getting nearer to incomparable joy."

I'm saying to you, when you know that you have eternal life, you will be free then to pour out your life in service for Jesus Christ. That's the key. You've got to know how rich you are in Jesus Christ if you're going to pour out your life in service. You've got to be able to know and say, as it says in the New Testament, "All things are yours: life, death, the present, the future, all things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God."

You are rich in life. When you know that you are more rich in life even than you can fathom, you will be free to go out and to give yourself in serving the Lord Jesus Christ for a lifetime irrespective of what it costs.

Steve Hiller: What a challenging place for us to have to pause today's teaching here on Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. You’re listening to a message entitled "Disciple." It's part of a larger series where we're taking a look at a faith that will last. If you missed any part of today's broadcast or any previous program in this series, you can come and listen online. Our website is openthebible.org.

You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Another way to listen is to get the Open the Bible app. It's a great way to listen to Pastor Colin's teaching on demand whenever it fits your schedule. In addition to this daily radio program, we also have our weekend broadcast, our daily devotional, and much more available on the app or the website at openthebible.org.

I know we've got a lot of podcast listeners out there, and so we're excited to let you know about a new podcast. It is a companion to Pastor Colin's book called *Hike Through the Bible*.

Colin Smith: Each week I'll read a chapter from the book and then I get to discuss it with some friends. If you join us on the podcast in 50 weeks, we'll cover 50 chapters of the Bible together and in a year, you'll have hiked through the entire Bible story. If you think hiking sounds like hard work, don't worry, I promise you, this hike will be an easy, gentle pace and it's not too late for you to get started. Join me. You can subscribe to the Hike Through the Bible podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts, and you'll find more information at openthebible.org/hike.

Steve Hiller: We do hope that you will check out that podcast and that you'll subscribe not just on the audio podcast but also the YouTube channel as well. Thanks for listening today. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: Hi, this is Pastor Colin again and I want you to know about *Watch Your Life*. *Watch Your Life* is a six-session course that is geared for leaders but accessible to every believer. The six sessions will show you how to grow in godliness, how to feed on Christ, how to pray in the Spirit, how to battle temptation, exercise faith, and discern God's will. There are questions at the end of each session and you can use them on your own or you can discuss them with a friend. For more information, visit openthebible.org/courses.