Why do disciples go back

Pastor Mike Sanders preaching on “Why do disciples go back”
He will in the John 6:60-71

I got some great stories that will shake you to your core, but they will not save your soul. They will not root you in the faith. Jesus said what and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before.

What if you saw me ascend up into heaven? What if you saw another one of my miracles? Would that convince you to stay? Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church and it’s great to have you with our Hope Worth Having broadcast.

Today we’re beginning a new study on why do disciples go back? I want you to look with me today in the Gospel of John chapter 6 verse 60 through 71 and so as we study together I want you to learn this has always been a puzzling question to me.

It’s always been something that is so interesting to me that people would respond to God but then within weeks or even months they would turn back to the world and followed the world. Why do disciples go back?

That’s a great study. This is Pastor Mike we’re so glad that you’re with us and we’re so glad that you’re studying the Bible with us. Thank you for tuning in to Hope Worth Having and I hope today that as we look into the Word of God that your faith will be enriched and that you’ll be encouraged and that you’ll be strengthened and have the perspective in the mind of Jesus Christ.

So let’s get right into our study as we learn why do disciples go back. Now I want you to turn to John chapter 6 this morning. We’re gonna continue our study in John chapter 6 in verse 60 through 71 and I know that you’ve already stood a little bit more maybe than what you’re used to but those of you that are able and physically I just want to read this passage.

And I want us to stand together and read this passage together as great respect and honor to our Lord and His word this morning. And if you’re physically unable and you’ve already stood too much, I understand.

We do not take it disrespectfully this morning. We just want to be able to honor the Lord this morning as we share His truth. John chapter 6, verse 60 through 71, whether you have a physical Bible or it’s on your device, I want you to follow with me.

The Bible says, many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard this, said, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, does this offend you?

What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh. propheteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life but there are some of you that believe not for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him and he said therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my father from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him then said Jesus unto the twelve will you also go away and Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ the Son of the living God Jesus answered them have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil he spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon for he it was that should betray him being one of the twelve would you pray with me bother in heaven this is a very sobering text that stands before us this morning we pray that you would bless the reading of your word to the hearts of your people I pray that the Spirit of God would be manifested and quickening to our hearts I pray Lord that you would help us to examine ourselves this morning in light of your word we pray that you would encourage and strengthen your people that you would root us in the faith and I pray father that we would not be among those who would go back help us to be reassured of our walk with you that no matter how difficult or hard your word is that we would not turn away from you Lord but we would draw to you and we would come to you I pray father that if there is anyone that does not know you I pray that their hearts would be opened their eyes would see that they would know the truth and that that truth you Jesus would set them free they would receive you as Lord and Savior we pray this in the name of Jesus amen you may be seated thank you so much here’s a group of disciples whose name we do not know we do not know these disciples that went back and we do not know much about them except that Jesus exposes their true hearts.

The truth is that many people who claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ go back. They still go back. We have all met them. Sometimes they have sat right next to us in Bible study. We know people in our minds and our hearts who have made a profession of faith, who have said that they were disciples of Christ, but yet today they do not follow Him.

They do not obey Him. They do not believe. Some of them leave because they return to the world. The allurements of the world have drawn them away and their heart has manifested that their love for the world supersedes any love that they had for Jesus.

Others leave because their faith was shallow and they were like just as Jesus said in the parable that the seed was planted but it did not really take root in hearts. It did not take root in their life and their faith was just temporary.

It was shallow. They’re like a weed that quickly sprouted up but as soon as the sun beat down upon them they withered away. Some when they heard that Jesus said to follow Me, to be My disciple, you must be willing to deny self.

Take up the cross. follow Me. It was too much. It was more than what they had bargained for, for the life in the world was much easier than the life of following Jesus. The life of living for self is better in their eyes than denying self.

The life of ease and comfort is better than sacrifice and suffering and certainly taking up a cross. John told us in 1st John 2 .19 that they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us they would have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us and the point that John is making to us this morning is that yes there will be many that claim to know Jesus and there will be many who claim to follow Christ but there will be a crossroads in their life and that crossroads will lead them to have to make a true choice and they will have to determine are they willing to follow Jesus at all costs or are they going to go back and shrink back and go back to the world are they going to leave and the Bible tells us this in first John 2 19 they were among us but they were never one of us they may have grown up in the church but they were never one of us they were never a part of the family of God they may profess but they never truly possess the Spirit of God in their life and they never truly were they a follower of Jesus they were never a new creation in Christ they just went through the motions they talked to good gain they were among us but they were never of us for had they been of us and here is the evidence had they been of us they would have remained with us and the evidence of your faith is the perseverance of your faith faith is not manifested in simply a one -month run for Jesus I’m impressed with many of you for years you have followed Christ for years you have walked through valleys and you have walked through hardships and you have walked through struggles in your life and you have even wrestled with doubts in your life but you continue to follow Jesus.

You are the true examples of a follower of Christ before this church family. Thank you. You’ve seen this church go through great times and bad times and okay times and you’ve walked with all the seasons of this church and you didn’t run.

Thank you. I’m impressed with you. Not impressed with people who hop around or people who come and go and people who are here and there, all that. None of that is manifestation of what is real. But I want us to dig a little deeper this morning into this understanding of why disciples go back.

Because I think it’s important for our theology. I think it impacts our parenting. I think it impacts our evangelism. I believe and am convinced. that it impacts how we disciple others. But most importantly, it should cause all of us to pause.

And I want you to jump down a little bit to verse 70 in chapter 6, because the Bible says that Jesus answered them, have not I chosen you, twelve, and one of you is a devil? And he spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for he it was that would betray him, and being one of the twelve.

There is a natural tendency in Christianity to think, man, if we would just be this, Mike, if we would just be that, Mike, and the list is long, because I hear it all the time. Then we would have more people get saved.

And I often think about Judas, was there ever a man that was exposed to a better teacher and preacher than Judas? Was there ever a man who witnessed more ministry and more miracles than Judas? Was there ever a man who was a part of a greater movement and momentum than Judas?

Was there ever a man who was able to sit at the feet of Jesus Christ and just reflect upon his precious words that he spoke to his disciples? Was there ever a man who witnessed more of the life of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus than Judas?

And yet he did not believe. We sometimes think it’s our methods that make the difference and I’m here to tell you it’s not the method. It’s the heart and You got to remember that and the reason I always say that is that in my ministry of over 20 plus years of Teaching and preaching God’s Word many a parent has been discouraged and felt so much guilt because their child is not following Christ and Yet they have raised their child,

right? They have taught them the Word of God They have prayed with their children They’ve had them engaged and involved in all the church programs and ministries that you could think of and rightly so But their child made a decision not to follow Jesus Mom and dad it’s not your fault It’s not your fault Everybody has to respond Everybody has to make a decision.

So why do disciples people who claim to be disciples? Why do they go back? If you’re taking notes, write this down. Number one, the message offends them. The message of Christ offends them. Now, I want you to go to verse 60.

And right at the top of what we’re studying our section today, it says, many therefore of his disciples, when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it? Now, how about that? You know, it’s not enough that Jesus would have to take critique from the Jews, the religious, the unbelievers, but his own disciples, people who claim to follow him, people claim to love him, people claim to believe in him,

they began to criticize what Jesus was teaching and preaching. And they struggled with the message of Christ. The Bible uses the word hard. They said, this is hard for us. It means that it was hard for them to accept.

It wasn’t hard for them to understand. It was hard for them to accept it. They understood what Jesus said. That’s what made it so hard. It wasn’t that they were ignoramuses and they could not comprehend, that Jesus somehow taught at a level that was above what they could comprehend or wrap their brain around, but rather it was just the opposite.

Jesus spoke right directly into their life. He used great illustrations. He used great metaphors and analogies and he spoke right into their hearts and he spoke into their lives. And yet they said, this is hard for us to accept.

The Bible not only says that it was hard, but they said, we can’t hear this. Who can hear this? It means, how can we hear this with appreciation? We can’t stand to hear what Jesus is saying is what is really going on here in this text.

that we so detest what Jesus is saying that we do not even appreciate Him nor the message that He is giving. What was this message? If you were with us last week, if you’ve been with us through this study, if you know your Bible, here is the message that Jesus is saying is that He is going to save all believers through His sacrificial death.

That was the message they did not like. They did not like the preaching of the cross. They did not like Jesus saying to them that this is my body and I’m gonna give my body for you. This is my blood.

And I’m gonna give my life for you because blood is symbolic of life and life is in the blood. And Jesus was speaking in metaphoric terms to the crowd that was before Him. And when they heard that, that was not the message.

the message they wanted to hear. They wanted to hear a message that inspired them, that motivated them. They didn’t wanna hear a message about someone going to a cross and dying for their sins. That wasn’t positive.

That wasn’t something that was gonna make them happy. They did not like the idea that Jesus would teach them that salvation would come through his sacrifice. We’re familiar with that because the Apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians chapter one and verse 18, that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, what?

Foolishness. But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. Unbelievers cannot stand the message of the cross. Unbelievers do not embrace the message of the cross. They do not embrace the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection.

They’re like, can’t you come up with something better than that? As a matter of fact, I wanna take time and I want you to flip over to 1 Corinthians because Paul is warning the church, don’t get away from this message.

That is the temptation of every church to get away from the wonderful message of salvation by grace, the message that Christ went to the cross on my behalf and that he endured the punishment. He took the punishment for my sins and that on that cross, he finished the complete work of salvation and then he was buried and he rose again, affirming that God was pleased with the sacrifice that Christ had offered himself up for you and for me.

And Paul is warning the church, don’t buy into the wisdom of the world and don’t buy into the philosophy of the world and I want you to go to 1 Corinthians Corinthians chapter 1, and I want you to note what he says in verse 23 and 24, because I think these are powerful verses that tie into why the disciples went back.

They were offended by the message. Look at verse 23. He says, we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

See what I want you to know is that the preaching of the cross is offensive. It is a stumbling block to many. It does cause people to go back and say, I don’t want any of that. That is what has happened in many churches effort to say look we want to fill our buildings up Or we want to build bigger buildings They have abandoned the preaching of Christ and the cross and they have abandoned the message of sacrifice That Christ gave his life for us that we might have eternal life because that’s not a palatable message And that’s not an affirming message enough for them.

That is a message that is offensive As a pastor, I’m constantly reading I’m constantly reading books books that I might agree with or books that I may not agree with and I read this book one time And it was telling pastors how to build the church and they said one of the first things you got to do is get rid of the cross in your church Get rid of all the symbols that point to the cross because that is offensive and immediately my mind went back to first Corinthians and immediately my mind went to the gospel of John chapter 6 and immediately I thought how horrible it is That we want to get away from the cross.

We want to get away from Christ and Yes, you may attract great crowds, but you’re not truly making authentic disciples True disciples are Sifted from false disciples by their response to the message of Jesus.

I Want to give you just a little bit of a hint to help you because some of you I know that through the years you’re gonna Be relocated by your job or some of you are gonna retire and you’re gonna go hang out with your grandkids or your Children you’re gonna move closer to them wherever that might be and you’re gonna be asking me.

Hey, what kind of a church? Where can I find a good church? pastor Here’s what I want to tell you It’s not the website. I know most of you go to the website first and I’m not saying that it’s wrong or evil But I’m telling you a website site does not determine whether a church is true and a church is truly preaching the gospel.

It’s not even their doctrines of faith because I know many churches that have the right beliefs and they have the right doctrines of faith, but here’s where it is church. It’s the pulpit. What is coming out of the preacher’s mouth?

Is he preaching Christ and is he preaching Christ crucified? And if he is not preaching Christ and he is not preaching Christ crucified, I’m telling you, get out of that church, run as far as you can and you say, well, it’s the biggest one in town.

It doesn’t matter because you don’t measure a church by its seating capacity. What is the message? Now, listen, I’m going to give you another hint here and I’m going to give you something that a good preacher has been trained in.

And that is that when you go hear a preacher preach and all they do is tell you stories. that I’m telling you that you need to get away. Because let me tell you what all preachers, a good preacher is trained, is that they understand that a story, an illustration, is like a window when you’re building a house.

It is to shed light, but how many people build their house all glass? How many people build their house all windows? Who does that? Nobody does. And so when you get a preacher that all they do is tell one story after another story after another story after another story and they just depart from the Bible, can I tell you something?

Run from those preachers. What you need is not another personal story. Okay, you’ve heard all my stories. Most of you can recite them back to me. Don’t worry, pastor, we’ll tell you. And you forgot something, pastor, that you told us last time.

You’re like my kids. They’ve heard all my stories at the dinner table. They just stop me in the middle and say, let us tell it, dad. We can tell it better than you. I get it. The sermon needs to be built on the Word of God.

It needs to come from the Word of God. Will there be stories? Will there be illustrations? Absolutely, I have some for you this morning, but they are just windows to shed light on the truth of what Christ is already teaching.

Let me tell you what happens. When you have a preacher who just tells stories, you’re either a church heading towards liberalism or you’re a church heading towards legalism because you will build your faith upon the preferences of the preacher or the theology of the preacher that is simply that they don’t believe the Bible and they will tell you they believe the Bible, but they don’t believe the Bible because they don’t teach the Bible.

And so I don’t want to hear what you say. I want to see how you teach and if you depart from the Bible that’s why we’re verse by verse chapter by chapter at the open door church because we believe there’s power in the Word of God we believe that Mike could tell you the best stories they could be psychologically manipulative to you and I could convince all of you to come down here and have a good cry at this altar I can do that I got some great stories that’ll shake you to your core but they will not save your soul they will not root you in the faith it is the power of God’s Word as we’ll learn here very shortly number two why do disciples go back we said number one because the message offends them that’s right there Jesus said does this offends you number two the miraculous attracts them why do disciples go back they don’t like the message but they were attracted for the wrong reason.

Look at verse 16, 62, I’m sorry. Jesus said, what and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before? What if you saw me ascend up into heaven? What if you saw another one of my miracles?

Would that convince you to stay? Well, the Bible teaches us that they were among us, that they were not of us. For had they been of us, they would have remained with us. And I know it’s hard to understand this sometimes, but not everybody who prays believes.

And not everybody who shows an interest is really a true disciple of Christ. Sometimes people do it on the outside, but never on the inside. And this is one of the reasons it’s important for us to examine ourselves to see if we’re in the faith.

But not only that, even think about parents making sure that you’re children. This is one of the big priorities of my wife and I, is our children were growing up is just constantly teaching them how to examine their faith to make sure that they were genuine, that they really meant business with God.

And the reason the disciples go back is not because somehow the church has done them wrong, or sometimes maybe you feel like God has failed you. But the reason is we really don’t have an authentic faith in Christ.

And that yes, we start out with great interests, but we fizzle. And as the great preacher once said, the faith that fizzles in the end was flawed from the beginning. So it’s important for you to take time to make sure you’re living right for the Lord and that this is truly, truly a faith that is trusting in Jesus Christ.

Hey, I wanna remind you that we have a YouTube channel, Hope Worth Having, just go to YouTube, type in Hope Worth Having, you’ll see our channel. It’s got so many great videos, videos of questions and answers, videos of interviews, and videos of me teaching the Bible.

There’s even some devotions in there. that are very succinct and you don’t have to worry about it taking a long time, but it’s all designed to help you in your faith to equip you and we answer some great questions about people having relating to life and different things in the Bible, things that are controversial.

I know you’ll be blessed by it. Make sure you go to our YouTube channel. Make sure you let us know how God is working. We wanna hear from you on how this broadcast is making an impact upon your life.

So please reach out to us by going to our website, hopeworthhaving .com and then hit the contact button and let us know God’s great work in your life. In addition, you can write us and you can share with us your testimony of faith and how the Lord is working and you have this broadcast is helping you to grow and you can do that by writing to us at Hope Worth Having, 600 Miller Street, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 17201 or you can call us at 717 -264 -3266, extension 123. zero. Please reach out to us and let us know that God is at work in your life. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth happening.