Watch as Ray David unpacks John 6:40.
The Scripture
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 6:40
In the Face of Death
John 6:40 brings hope even in the face of hope, loss and death. Christians are unflappable because their hope and trust is in Jesus. Christian belief leads to hope and confidence.
When a loved one passes away we are faced with our own mortality. One day we too will die. Each and every one of us. We are born with a countdown timer and we don’t know how long it is. Not a single person leaves this planet a minute early. In God’s sovereignty, in happens at exactly the right time.
Why do we trust in Jesus?
Christians know that Jesus alone has the words of life. Belief in Him speaks to your life and speaks to your death. Why do we trust in Jesus? We trust in Him because He has come to do the will of His Father. There is a Father God and He has a will. Life is not just random or subject to the fates, God has a plan and purpose and Jesus has come to accomplish it.
Jesus is the only one uniquely qualified to speak to our life and death, because He is the only one who has died and risen again.
What do you need to Believe?
If salvation is found through belief, then what is it that you need to believe about Jesus? You have to believe that He is who He says He is and that He has accomplished what He came to do. To look to the Son and believe, means to look to Jesus and see God in human form who has come to pay the price and grant us new life and transformed lives.
To look to the Son and believe means looking to the biblical story. The Bible is not just the story of how to live our lives, it is the story of all of us going astray and God coming, in the person of Jesus, to rescue us. It is the story of Christ on the cross paying the price of the sin we committed, so that death in no longer our final word.
You Need a Saviour
You cannot look to Jesus as your Saviour until you are aware of the fact that you need a Saviour. You have fallen short. When you come to grips with your need for a Saviour, you will find joy. You will be delivered from any sense of trying. All of your trying to earn God’s favour is lifted off your shoulders and placed on the shoulders of your Saviour. This is the beginning of the good news.
God has been so gracious to you, be gracious to others. Let grace become the new norm. This same grace means that you will be raised up on the last day. Your salvation is no longer subject to your frailty, it is subject to Jesus, who is our sure and unshakable hope. Grace and belief in grace changes our day-to-day life and our upcoming death.
How much belief is necessary?
How much belief is necessary? Isaiah 42:3 says that, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” A flickering, smouldering flame of belief is enough. Because when you come to him He will never cast you out. Even the littlest flicker of belief is enough. And when you come to Him you will find out that it was Him calling and choosing you all along. When we come to faith it feels like it is us making the choice, but not long afterwards we realize it is all because He called us first. If we are saved by the constancy of our own choosing, then we are all beat. When you choose to come to God, it is because He chose you first. When you choose to love God it is only possible because He first loved you. This means that your belief in Jesus isn’t what transacts your eternal life, it is instead the evidence that God has already placed his calling and love on you. It is the evidence that you belong to God.
A Firm Foundation
It is not ultimately about our faith, but about the object of our faith. Jesus said that He will lose none of what the Father has given Him. If you have even a flicker of belief, that is because before the foundation of the world the Father set you apart for love. That’s good news. That is a solid hope and a firm foundation. God the Father has given you to the Son. You will come to Him. He will never turn you away. He will never let you go. And He, the only one who has ever conquered death, will raise you up.
The heart of Christianity is good news. It is about God seeking after His people, not us seeking after Him. The story of Christianity is about the God who sets His sights on you and seeks you out in Jesus. And so all of the verbs change – it goes from ‘do’ to ‘done’. He has come to you and for you. The saving and sustaining grace is all His work. Jesus came to do what we could never do, so we look to the Son and believe.
