Discipleship Tested By Doctrine

[Music] Open your Bibles with me to the Gospel of John at chapter 6. The Gospel record of John at chapter number six, commencing in verse number 60. And in your hearing, the word reads, "Many therefore of his disciples, when they 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 ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth 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. All right. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, "Will ye also go away?" Then Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Verse 69 reads, "And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." Thank you. You may be seated. The grass withers, and the flower thereof fadeth away, where the word of our God shall stand forever.

I want to talk this morning about discipleship tested by doctrine. All right. Discipleship tested by doctrine. When you read this entire sixth chapter of John's gospel account, Jesus has been teaching in a place, and crowds of people have joined in on him, and many in the crowd are his disciples. Not just the twelve, but there have been many people following Jesus as disciples. And then the scripture says, when it was evening time, there was no food. There was nowhere to buy any bread. And they took this little lunch and gave it to Jesus. And Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves. And the Bible says everybody had eaten and was satisfied. And there were twelve baskets of fragments left over. And when everybody was full, Jesus shot at them a hard saying. He said, "Unless you eat my flesh, and drink my blood, you have no part with me in the kingdom." That's a hard saying because Jesus knew that many in the crowd was following him for their appetite.

[Music] They were carnal and fleshly in their following him. And and to winnow away the true from the false disciples, Jesus said something that would separate the authentic from the counterfeit. [Applause] He said, "No more fish sandwiches. No more happy meals. No more fish and loaves. You are following me for bread, but I am, I wish I had a Bible reader, I am the bread of life. And and and if you're going to get full, you have to feed on my flesh. You've got to drink my blood. In other words, you've got to ingest me rather than what I provide." [Applause]

And that was a hard saying. It's a hard saying because it's, it's difficult for us to unpack theologically what Jesus really meant by that. Whether he was talking about transubstantiation or consubstantiation. Whether or not he is present physically in the eating of the partaking of the Lord's supper, or whether or not Jesus was talking about spiritual food, is hard for us to unpack that theologically. So, it's a hard saying, but it's also hard to hear because to hear Jesus say, "I'm not feeding you anymore." "Because I know you're just following me to eat. You're just following me for what you can get out of it. And if that's all you came here for, I'm cutting you off from this welfare program." Somebody ought to help me preach it. No more miracles. No more bread and fish being multiplied because for this crowd, next week, the show got to get bigger. The miracle has to get more spectacular because they kept on saying to Jesus, "If you are Christ, show us." And Jesus said, "I'm showing you all I'm going to show you. The Red Sea's not going to open up again. There's not going to be another breaking of the water at the Jordan. I'm not giving you any more fish. I'm not giving you any more bread. No more free stuff for you." And the scripture says, "From that day, many of his disciples walked with him no more, no more."

Now, brothers and sisters, before I get into this text, I want you to see this. The scripture says, "After that day, many of his disciples walk with him no more." Get this. Jesus did not chase them. He did not go after them to tell them to come back. He did not send the disciples to bring them back. He did not call out for them to return. Because if you don't want to follow me for who I am, keep walking. [Applause] We run after people to get them in the church for the wrong reasons, and they end up getting baptized before they get saved. I wish I had my 7:30 cry because they want what Jesus gives without making any commitment. [Applause]

Uh, walk with me around the text. Uh, not everybody, number one, can handle the truth. When truth is revealed, there are only two possible responses. Truth can either be received or rejected. Right. Now, many people reject Jesus because they misunderstand him. Uh, Nicodemus thought Jesus was talking about gynecology. "You got to go back in your mother's womb to be born again." Jesus said, "No, that's not what I'm talking about. That which is of the flesh, come on, help me preach, is flesh, and that which is of the spirit is spirit. You must be born again, not get back in your mother's womb, you got to change your nature." Yeah. The woman at the well misunderstood. Yeah. She said, "Sir, this well is deep, and you ain't got nothing to draw with. Are you greater than our father Jacob?" Jesus said, "Whoever drinks this water is going to get thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I will give him will never thirst." Yeah. The man at the pool of Bethesda misunderstood. Jesus said, "Do you want to be healed?" He said, "Every time I get ready to step in the water, somebody steps in before me." He misunderstood that the healing was not in the water.

And many folk join the church with a misunderstanding. "If you come here, you get your rent paid." Yeah. See how quiet you got right there? "If you come here, everybody going to give you stuff." The church is not for what you get out of it, but what it can get out of you. [Applause] I, I don't, everything the church growth experts say about how to grow a church, Lily Grove is doing the exact opposite. Let me run that by you again. Everything church growth experts say is needed to make a church grow, Lily Grove is doing the exact opposite. The church growth experts say you got to get away from traditional worship. People don't want to hear a man standing in the pulpit preaching on Sunday morning. The church growth experts say they want to see video presentations. They want praise teams skipping across the front of the church. You got to have a band making a whole lot of noise. You got to have strobe lights going because people's attention has got to be grabbed. And we don't do that here. But you come every week to hear me tell you what I told you last week. He died. Didn't he die? But bright early Sunday morning, he rose from the grave. The church, the church experts say people don't like all that shouting and jumping and and carrying on because that's intimidating for people who are seeking a church. Your church has to be more user-friendly. Lily Grove ain't studying about being user-friendly. We, we, we don't care if you know the Bible, if you don't know the Bible. We want to hear deacons pray. We want to hear the choir sing. I want church to sound like church ought to sound. And if that intimidates you, if that frustrates you, you got a misunderstanding of what church really is.

Many of you were raised like I was raised. Our parents didn't bring juice cups and crackers and and color books to church. They said, "Sit down." I wish I had a witness here. And if your mama was in the choir stand and you were sitting in the back of the church, all she had to do was look at you, and if she did like this, you knew that meant to meet her outside, and you'd get back in church and sit down until it was over. Have I got a witness here? But now people want to meet with you and find out if you got a nursery, and they want to check and see if you got greeters, and they want to make sure you got everything they want in a church. Well, what you got? What do you bring? I wish I had somebody to help me preach it. I got a Hallelujah. Somebody over here got to thank you, Jesus. Somebody back there want to say, "Praise the Lord." If you bring yours and I bring mine, and we give God the praise, oh, [Applause] get this. Some people want experience without expectation. The churches that are growing the fastest today, the churches that are on what they call the cutting edge are those churches that minimize doctrine and the requirements of discipleship to entertain and give people a new experience. Yeah. But what's the use of entertaining them if they're not going to follow Jesus? Jesus is not looking for fans. He's looking for followers. Too many folk are fans of Jesus, but not followers of Jesus. Since the Lord led me to that, look at the way a lot of churches now are being built. They look like stadiums with stadium seating. Pews are being taken out for stadium seating because what's filling the stadium seats are fans. [Applause] Fans show up when the sun is shining. Yeah. Followers come no matter what's going on. Fans show up if Reverend Anderson is preaching. Followers come, no matter who's standing in the pulpit. Fans come because they want their felt needs met. Followers come to hear Jesus' name called. Yes, sir.

Now listen, when Jesus start talking about eating his flesh and and drinking his blood, they walked with him no more. Right? And Jesus said, "Does this offend you?" Get this, brothers and sisters. There is an important distinction in Christian ethics that differentiates between offense given and offense taken. Uh, Jesus said, "Does this offend you?" Now, Jesus is not speaking these words to offend them, but they took offense. There's a difference between offense given and offense taken. You are offended not because of what the person said, but because you don't want to hear it. I wish I had a witness here. And when you don't want to hear what's being said, you excuse yourself by taking offense. Wow. But I want you to hear this. Jesus never apologized. Jesus never softened the message. Jesus did not give out another happy meal. He said, "If you going to follow me, you got to be my disciple. You got to deny yourself, take up a cross, follow me. No more miracles for you. Because if it takes a miracle for you to believe, you going to need a bigger mira, a bigger miracle tomorrow. And the day after that, you going to need a miracle. And the day after that, you go, that is a sign of immaturity. Because following Jesus may mean that you fall out with your family. Following Jesus may mean that you lose some friends. Have I got a witness here? Following Jesus may mean that you got to stand all by yourself. Following Jesus may mean that people will take offense even when you don't mean offense because they don't want to hear what you have to say."

Brothers and sisters, that's a way that that we ought to do church that got nothing to do with how we do church. See how quiet you got right there? Yes, sir. Nothing is wrong with us going back to the basics of the Bible because true disciples are not offended by the Bible. True Christians are not offended by the truth. That, that, it, it's almost at the point now where the only church I'm comfortable preaching in is Lily Grove. That's, that's almost where I am. I'm almost to the place where I'm turning down invitations to go to preach because I, I, I told you about this church I went to, and I didn't recognize one song they were singing. But now church is getting just sound like a juke joint. I was, I was sitting down, and I was bouncing, and and I wasn't even trying to bounce. That bass was bouncing, and I was, and when I got up to preach, I was drunk, like I was smoking weed or something, because it was just a lot of back and forth, and this and that, and you, and then you had to high-five two people, and you had to tell your neighbor this, and then you had to grab six people. I ain't grabbing nobody. I'm not high-fiving nobody. The truth is enough to get me excited. If you talking about Jesus, that's enough to make me stand on my feet. That's enough to make me shout and praise God. Because if you got to add something to Jesus, it's not the gospel. [Music] [Applause]

Hear me. Everybody can't handle hard truth. They'll leave here because they want to go to another level. And what they're really saying is, "I want to get out from under that hard teaching, 'cause I want to live the way I want to live. I want to do what I want to do." Everybody can't handle truth. And Jesus never apologized. Come on, sir. Stay with it. Stay with it.

The second thing I want you to see in this text, that everybody who comes to church lives in a glass house because the text says he knew everybody's heart in the crowd. And everybody in this crowd today, your heart is not right, and you don't think Jesus knows that. It's easy to high-five when the worship leader tells you to high-five. It's easy. It's easy to say Hallelujah if somebody tells you to say Hallelujah. But if you really have it in your heart, you don't need to be pumped and primed and motivated to praise God. It's just in you because the truth excites you. [Applause] I wish I had somebody here who just get happy reading the Bible. Who just get excited reading the scripture? Who just open the Bible and hear it say, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." That ought to make you happy. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" Jesus is the dayspring of Israel. He's the lion from the tribe of Judah. Just reading that ought to make you happy. If somebody got to get you excited about Jesus, that's not the gospel.

Now listen. When I say everybody here lives in a glass house, everybody here got something wrong with them. You did enough last week where you ought to be in prison. And if not in prison, on parole. If not on parole, on probation. Somebody ought to help me here. Even if you thought it and didn't do it, you still sin. Have I got a witness here? Everybody in here got some secret fault, some secret sin, some problem that you're dealing with that nobody knows anything about but you and the Lord. So that's why you can't sit next to anybody acting like you are up here and they are down there. Because if you're living in a glass house, [Music] there are some decisions I wish I hadn't made. There are some roads I wish I hadn't traveled. [Applause] There are some things I wish I could undo. There are some words I wish I could take back. Have I got a witness? But thank God for mercy. Thank God for showering us with his mercy. Thank God for being longsuffering, slow to get angry, and plenty us always in mercy. Thank God for his amazing grace. Thank God for his tender mercy, for his loving kindness. Thank God for running after me when I was running away from him. Thank God for coming to find me when I wouldn't even have him on my mind. Thank God he looked beyond my faults. [Applause]

Some of y'all are too proud to admit that you're living in a glass house. Some of you too proud to admit that you got some struggles that's deep down in the very recesses of your soul. But if you cover your sins, you can't prosper. I wish I had a Bible reader. But if you forsake them, then God will have mercy. Have I got a witness here? That's why you ought to put it all out there and just, just, just lay it all out. When you telling your testimony, don't leave any of it out. Tell them, "I was on my way to hell. I was a crook. I was a liar. I would get drunk on Friday night. I was a gambler. I was a whoremonger." Lay it all out there. So when the devil tries to accuse you, it's already been published. When the devil goes before God to accuse you, Jesus will stand up at the right hand of power and say, "I paid for that." That's why I shout the way I do. That's why I clap my hands the way I do. That's why I give God the glory the way I do. Because everything he knows about me, and he still uses me. [Applause]

Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't ever come to the place in your walk with God where you think you have arrived. Paul says, "Not that I have already obtained or that I have already been made perfect, but I press, I press toward the mark, forgetting those things that are behind me, and reaching forth under those things that are before. I press toward the mark for the prize that's in Christ Jesus." I haven't arrived yet. I said, I haven't arrived yet. Uh, I'm still struggling. I'm still making it one step at a time. I'm still making it one day at a time. Have I got a witness here? But Jesus knows every one of our hearts in here today. And he knows there are those who are in here just for what you get out of it. That's discipleship that has not been tested by doctrine. Preach. Because if you are a real disciple, you're not offended by the truth. If you're a real disciple, you are not put off by the truth. If you're a real disciple, you don't get mad when you hear the truth. When you hear the truth, if you're not doing right, it'll shame you into doing what you know you ought to be doing. It'll draw you, a drive here. You going to help me close this, won't you? Not everybody can handle the truth. And then everybody in that crowd that was following Jesus, and in this crowd today, lives in a glass house.

But finally, genuine faith cannot walk away. I said, genuine faith, see it, say it, cannot walk away. Uh, because the Bible says they started walking away. Now, I want you to get this. Jesus started with a crowd of 5,000 men, not counting the women and the children. It was an estimated crowd of almost 30,000. And Jesus didn't stop until it dropped down to twelve, and one of them wasn't saved. Yeah. [Applause] The problem with us is we want to start with twelve and get 5,000 who ain't following Jesus. But Jesus gets rid of 5,000 to get twelve, and one of them not even born again. And they were walking away so fast that Jesus turned to the twelve and said, "Will you also go away?" But then genuine faith spoke up. I wish I had somebody to help me close. A genuine disciple spoke up. A genuine disciple who was messing up sometimes, but today he got it right. You going to help me close this, won't you? I like old Peter because sometimes Peter put his foot in his mouth, but every once in a while he says something that makes sense. I wish I had two or three more witnesses. I like Peter because Peter is rough around the edges. I, I like Peter because he got a quick spirit. He's quick to speak. He has a quick temper. Sometimes Peter really blows it, but today he's on his lesson. Yeah. And there ought to be some other folk in here today who can admit to yourself, if to nobody else, that there are times when I don't get it right. There are times when I mess up big time, but I can't walk away. I said, I can't walk away 'cause he's done too much for me. He's opened too many doors for me. He's made too many ways for me. I don't care what the world is doing. I don't care what this new preacher is talking about around the corner. I'm staying with Jesus because he's been with me through some tough spots in my life. Have I got a witness here?

Peter said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Because you have the words of eternal life." Here it is. "We believe." That's faith. Yeah. "And we are sure." That's certainty. "That you are that Christ." Which means it must have been some false Christs running around there. But Jesus said, "We know you are that Christ 'cause we've seen you do some things." Come on, help me testify about who Jesus is. Go ahead. In the Gospel of John, he went to a wedding feast in Canaa of Galilee. Have I got a witness here? And they had run out of wine. His mother told him about the situation. Jesus told him, "Fill some water pots with water." I need two or three more Bible readers. Yes, sir. And the Bible says after they filled those water pots with water, Jesus looked down in the water, and the water looked back at its maker and blushed red in the wine. And when they poured that water out of those pots, the governor said, "You've saved the best wine for last." Jesus knows how to take the ordinary water of your life and turn it into an extraordinary situation. I wish I had a witness here.

There was a woman caught in the act of adultery. And the Bible said they brought some stones to stone her, but Jesus said, "He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone." Yeah. And he told that woman, "Where are your accusers?" She said, "Nobody here to accuse me." Jesus said, "Neither do I accuse you. Go and sin no more." I'm glad Jesus said that 'cause I got a lot of sins to repent for. But when I come to Jesus, he doesn't judge me like you judge me here at the church. He doesn't talk about me like you talk about me at the church. He says, "Go and sin no more." Lazarus was dead. Mary and Martha said, "If you had have been here, my brother would not have died." Jesus said, "Show me where you buried him." They brought him to the grave of Lazarus. And Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth." And Lazarus came walking out of the grave 'cause Jesus can take your dead situation and give it brand new life. Is there anybody here can't walk away? I don't care what the Republicans are doing. I don't care what the president is doing. I'm staying with Jesus. I'm not going to walk away from Jesus 'cause he's done so much for me. He's made so many ways for me. I got a testimony this morning that the Lord's been good to me. I said, "The Lord's been good to me." And I'm not going to walk away from him. I'm going to stay with Jesus if I got to praise him by myself. I'm going to lift my hands in the sanctuary 'cause God's been so good to me. Is there anybody here willing to walk with Jesus? Is there anybody here going all the way with Jesus? No matter what they say about you, keep on praising God. No matter what the world tries to put in your path, keep on praising God because when praises go up, I need a witness. When praises go up, blessings will come down. And the reason I got to stay with Jesus, 'cause I ain't got nobody else who knows how to save me. I have nobody else who knows how to cheer me. I have nobody else who knows how to rock me when I'm weary. I have nobody else who knows how to cheer me when I'm lonely. Won't he show up in your midnight hour? Won't he open doors that will close in your faith? If the Lord made a way for you, and you're not ashamed to testify. If the Lord brought you from a mighty long way, and you don't care who's looking at you. If the Lord snatched you like brand from afar, and you don't mind testifying, now is the time to tell Jesus, "Walk with me. Walk with me while I'm on this Christian journey. I want Jesus to walk with me. Hold my hand. Guide my feet while I'm on this Christian journey." Is there anybody here glad God saved you? Glad God kept you? Glad God made a way for you? Why don't you grab somebody? "I'm going to walk with Jesus." Tell them, "I'm staying with Jesus. I'm staying with Jesus. I'm staying with Jesus. I'm staying with Jesus. I'm staying with Jesus. I'm staying with Jesus." [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

I don't, I don't have, I don't have anybody else. When my mother and my father forsake me, then the Lord will take me out. I'm going to stay with Jesus 'cause I don't know anybody else. Why not? Who can lift up a bow down here? Nobody. I don't know anybody else who can rescue me from all my distress. I don't know anybody else who will stay with me when everybody else walks out on me. To whom shall we go? [Music] [Applause] [Music]