This week Scott and Justin look at one word, unless, from John 6:53 and its importance for the church and our lives. 

Grace Community church exists to build spiritually healthy people for ministry in the world. One of the ways that we pursue this mission is by gathering each Sunday for corporate worship, prayer, and biblical teaching. The corporate nature of this gathering is both edifying to the believer and a witness of God’s grace to the world. Sermon speaker is Scott Patty unless otherwise noted. 

This week, Justin and Scott discuss how to fight the temptation to make Jesus fit our agendas, and the need for our desires to align with Bible.

Grace Community church exists to build spiritually healthy people for ministry in the world. One of the ways that we pursue this mission is by gathering each Sunday for corporate worship, prayer, and biblical teaching. The corporate nature of this gathering is both edifying to the believer and a witness of God’s grace to the world. Sermon speaker is Scott Patty unless otherwise noted.

Looking back at John chapter 6, Justin and Scott discuss our temptation to turn Jesus into a different type of King than the one he intended.

The feeding of a large crowd with one boy’s bread and fish is one of the most well-known miracles that Jesus ever performed. What is often overlooked about this miracle is that it was also a sign. A miracle is a display of power, but a sign means something. The miracle points to something greater than itself, which makes it a sign. As we consider the miracle of multiplying food, let’s keep in mind that it is a sign of the true Bread from heaven which gives and sustains eternal life. This Bread has a name, Jesus.

Long before Jesus told his church to be his witnesses, God the Father witnessed to the authority of God the Son to judge the world and to give life to all who believe. The Father testified to the authority of the Son through the witnesses of the Old Testament Scripture, the prophets and John the Baptist, and the works he gave the Son to do. In this passage we hear Jesus say, “These bear witness of me.” The voice of the Father through these witnesses is calling us to believe in Jesus the Son and in every word he spoke, every work he did, and every promise he made. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

In this passage, the Jewish leaders rightly understood that Jesus was claiming equality with God. Jesus took the opportunity to explain that his equality with God means the Father has given him the authority to judge and to give life. With this authority, Jesus came to bear our judgement for sin in his death on the cross, and to be raised from the dead to grant us life. For this purpose the Father sent him. Here, in this historic declaration on earth of the eternal reality of the nature and work of the Son of God, we are being called to hear his voice and believe. If we do, we will pass from death to life; we will live.