John Piper - John 6:41-51"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" 2of5

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2009/4404_Skeptical... John 6:41-51 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. 42 They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? 43 Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

One of the reasons that we preach straight through books of the Bible as our main way of hearing from God in corporate worship at Bethlehem, with occasional topical series thrown in along the way, is that it encourages us to consider all that God has to say in a book of the Bible, rather than just the parts we especially like or the parts that are easier to understand. Which means that we inevitably come upon passages that are controversial. That is certainly true about todays text.

I try not to go out of my way to look for trouble. But when it comes—as it does when this text is quoted—there are reasons for it, and we should face it and learn from it. The controversial verse is John 6:44, and we will spend most of our time trying to understand what Jesus says here and why he says it and what benefit it has for us.
Whats Not Controversial (Among Christians)

In this verse Jesus says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44). The non-controversial part among Christians is the promise that Jesus will raise from the dead all who come to him. We talked about that last week because it is mentioned in verses 39 and 40. Jesus is reminding them: What is at stake in your coming to me is infinitely important—your future resurrection from the dead.

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