Will You Stay? [3-10-19]

Covenant Church of Tecumseh

In the 1968 Olympics, the marathon runner from Tanzania fell early in the race. He suffered a gash and internal damage to his knee and smashed his shoulder. Instead of going to the hospital, he had his knee stabilized and wrapped and the deep cuts treated. He finished the race more than an hour after the last runner crossed the finish line. When asked why, John Stephen Akhwari said, "My country did not send me 9,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 9,000 miles to finish the race."

Jesus Christ didn't call us to quit on him. Jesus didn't send us into the world to quit on our faith. Jesus Christ calls us to finish the race. But as most of us know, sometimes that's tough. We all have known people who appeared to be on solid footing in their walk with Christ but then dropped out of the race. Can that happen to me? Will that happen to me?

Or we've told ourselves, "That will never happen to me."

Today we're going to look at how we can finish well. John 6:60-71 is a reaction to Jesus' bread of life teaching. John 6:52-59 says: The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. Just because some had trouble with the teaching didn't mean the teaching was flawed. Jesus is very clear about being the bread of life. This is the first of seven "I am" teachings in John's gospel. Don't miss what Jesus is saying. "I am the bread of life." He's the "I am." And when Jesus Christ says "I am," he follows it with a statement about how he can meet the needs of your life. "I am" the One who can meet the basic needs you have.

Do you want to bring something meaningful to your little corner of the world? Jesus is the One who can lead and inspire you.

So how does Jesus satisfy our needs?

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