John 6: 27-40
Refreshment Sunday 
 
The whole of Holy Scripture testifies to the supremely inherent dignity and lofty status of the Lord Jesus Christ both in his divinity and his humanity.  It is sheer delight to the believer to recognize and ponder the inexpressible excellence of the One we adore and trust as Saviour.  As earthly Messiah or heavenly Monarch we are captivated by him in his two perfect natures, human and divine, and the splendor of his Person and his salvific achievement on our behalf win the gratitude, reverence, and affection of our deepest hearts.  
 
The highest accolades are paid to our Redeemer in his offices as Prophet, Priest, and King.  His appointed vocation is comprehensive and executed to completion.  The sufficiency and success of the restorative assignment of the Son of God is entirely assured in the Lord’s great manual of heavenly Promise - the Bible!  The range of provisions that Jesus brings us, and variety of privileges he has won for us are beyond both description and calculation.  They will endlessly unfold throughout the unceasing aeons of eternity.  Jesus’ mercy toward us is infinite in terms of sufficiency and certainty.  The intentions and actions of the Lord Jesus cannot fail for he comes to us with the Father’s seal of approval. 
 
Sufficiency:  I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35).  
Jesus is the eternal and effective satisfaction of the human soul.  Human nature is hungry for a sense of inner repletion, fullness, and contentment.  Nothing physical, experiential, emotional, aesthetic, or intellectual can meet that constant yearning.  The world has no answer to our fundamental human desire.  Even our fondest desires meet with disappointment and our dearest pursuits, once gained, cloy; our best attainments either corrode somewhat through honest assessment or analysis, escape our consciousness with loss of memory, and mean nothing to us at the point of demise.  All our appetites are fed with the bread that eventually spoils.  How often the great ones of the earth recoil at the last from their successes and the empty praises of the people.  Without the sustenance and satisfaction that comes from heaven, embodied in Jesus Christ, the world itself becomes a veritable desert and existence a wilderness.  
 
The only truly rewarding work in this life is to believe in the One God has sent (John 6:29).  Since our first parents ate the fruit of temptation and fall we have never been able to assuage hunger or quench thirst.  Only the Maker of souls can truly nourish souls.  Life in its abundance can only be derived from his abundant grace in all its delicious forms. 
 
Certainty:  (John 6:37-40).  
The certainties of the gospel are myriad.  Yet we sometimes live below our privileges (Thomas Chalmers) by doubting them, and many more even dare to dispute them.  How well Charles Spurgeon advises us to believe and rest in God’s “wills and shalls”.  The Lord Jesus came to secure eternal life for his people (a gift) and in this undertaking he will not, cannot fail.  Every believer is picked out by God’s eternal love and entrusted to the Son for safekeeping.  “The Father gives them to me,” says Jesus; “they will come to me” (the wooing effectual call).  “I shall lose none of all that he has given me”… and then comes the fullest possible commitment on which his reputation hangs, “but raise them up at the last day”.  First, Jesus satisfies us.  Finally, he will have kept us. 

RJS

Peter is typical of us all.  He was a slow learner in the understanding of the divine mind.  This impediment ran counter to the confidence that was seemingly his by nature.  There was a boldness and brashness about Peter.  He was not slow in coming forward either by speech or action.  Hesitancy was not his way.  He was a born leader decisive and opinionated with strong reliance upon his instant judgment.  These qualities brought him success in his career as a competent fisherman well able to seek out a profitable catch from the waters he could skillfully read, and negotiate an acceptable price for his effort.  Galilean fish would reach the best tables in the Roman Empire. 
 
Peter possessed an all-round expertise; a man of action with acuity in doing business.  It was no wonder that he demonstrated a strong sense of self-reliance.  He rated his views highly and yet we see that in his association with Jesus he became spiritually schooled in the virtue of humility.  It is the tendency of humanity to over-rate its mental ability.  Even in the exercise of great mental power it cannot discern the thought and intent of the divine mind.  It misreads the things of God.  The natural man is a non-starter in matters of the Lord’s way and his unsearchable purposes.  From many of his instinctive conclusions Peter had to back down and learn from his vulnerability to error.  We trace through the details of the New Testament Peter’s descent from hubris to humbleness.  It is a moving pilgrimage through stages of grace for the lovable apostle. 
 
Three incidents stand out from several that illustrate Peter’s education in dependence upon the Lord for understanding of the deep things of God.  A person must be born of the Spirit and taught by the Spirit in order to grasp spiritual realities.  When Jesus posed the question, “Who do you say I am?” to his disciples, Peter answered, “You are the Christ” (Mark 9:29).  Here in Mark’s Gospel we detect something of the developing modesty of Peter, for he is the informant behind Mark’s account of the ministry of Messiah.  Peter does not embellish the narrative, but Matthew adds detail to the story, both Peter’s confession and Jesus’ reply:  “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but my Father in heaven” (Matt 16:17ff).  Peter eliminates any tendency to pride in his standing before God.  It is alien to him suggest any tendency to boasting in divine enablement received.  Yet, when he is at fault a short while later, and rebuked by Jesus for issuing rebuke at him, Peter is willing to confess his presumptuous sinfulness, “Get behind me Satan!  You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (cf Matt 16:23).  
 
Such an address from the Lord Jesus would be witheringly radical and hurtful but Peter does not shy away from his shame.  He lapsed so quickly into contradicting Jesus’ exposition of his saving assignment.  He had no insight into his redemptive suffering, death, and rising again.  He thought as a mere mortal and had no comprehension of the divine method of human salvation.  Peter, accordingly, learned of the spiritual blindness of natural man even when he hears the very word of God (Matt 16:21-22).  Without grace our minds are helpless.  We are totally blind to the truth of the Gospel. 
 
But how Peter progressed in his understanding of the divine purpose of God realized in the Lord Jesus Christ.  At Pentecost there was full assent to the way of salvation:  “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.  But God raised him from the dead… ” (Acts 2:22-24).  Peter learned cautiousness with words but boldness in the Gospel.  
 
RJS 

The Canaanite Woman
Matthew 15:21 – 28  

No one would be more unwelcome to a Jew than a Canaanite.  They were notoriously evil and superstitious and a traditional enemy and bad influence upon the Israel of God.  What is more a Canaanite woman would be unbelievably daring and exceedingly presumptuous to suppose that she might be able to gain an audience with Jesus.  She would be considered the ultimate outcast.  Not only her ethnicity but her demeanor would disqualify her from access to the Lord.  Very suddenly she emerges from within range of Jesus and emits a loud howl of anguish:  “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!  My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession”.  Its a moral situation that a Jew would almost expect from a despised pagan and the woman is creating an embarrassing public scene.  But Jesus neglects to respond to her.  The disciples are indignant and insistent that Jesus should firmly dismiss her.  Her wailing is uncouth and disturbing.  Jesus addresses her with a discouraging statement:  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”.  It was if he was intending to brush her aside.  But the woman was not put off by this negative reply to her plight.  Kneeling before Jesus she continues to plead with strong emphasis,“Lord, help me!”  
 
Again, Jesus is seemingly not moved by the urgency of her approach.  His answer is based on a matter of strict principle ostensibly at the heart of his divine assignment.  “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”  Jesus holds to the fact that he is the prophesied Messiah promised to Israel.  What entitlement to his favor has as a member of a disgraced and degenerate people? - the Canaanites!  Moreover, whether as a pet or unkempt mongrel it is not pleasant or complimentary to be addressed as a dog.  Such a saying would have turned many away instantly.  But Jesus has his purpose.  Suddenly, the amazing faith of an unworthy and undeserving Gentile is revealed.  The woman has already manifested an appreciation of the status and ministry of Jesus way in advance of his own people.  She acknowledges him as “Lord” and “David’s Son”, very close to a recognition of his divinity, if not so.  
 
She turns an apparent rebuke into an utterly persuasive request that cannot be refused by the donor of divine compassion for it is the expression of sincere saving faith that God grants and seeks.  “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Jesus congratulates her before both skeptical onlookers and his immature friends:  “Woman, you have great faith!  Your request is granted.”  The demon possessed daughter is healed without delay.  
 
So much is disclosed in this reported eye-witness incident.  The miracle performed is of great power.  Satan’s reign in a blighted human life is overthrown.  Enormous kindness has been shown to two lost wretches - pagan mother and daughter that Jews would not have been regarded as candidates for sovereign grace.  From a social outcast a magnificent confession has been made - Jesus is Lord and David’s heir, i.e. Messiah King.  Great faith has been exercised from an unexpected source - someone outside the confines of Israel.  The elect are found beyond the nation.  Great clues are given as to how we are to reverently argue with God in persistent trust and appeal. 

RJS

The vital element in true religion is the inclination of the heart.  Appearances, profession, ethics, ritual, discipline, good actions may all play their part in appropriate manner and degree, but it is the set of the heart that determines authenticity, genuineness, sincerity, reality.  
 
Over and over again Sacred Scripture affirms that God observes, sees, searches, examines, judges the heart.  He knows its secrets, desires, direction, yearnings, its true content, motives, preferences, and designs.  The inmost core, centre, the most private chamber of our inner being is discernible, open, transparent, and known thoroughly by him.  As hidden as the heart may be from others and even from ourselves, God reads the human heart with total clarity, unclouded vision, and exhaustively to the point that he knows the spring, source, and essence of our true being without limit.  
 
Lent is the season of the examination of the heart, as to whether it is touched, made whole, and matured by Grace - ripened for a fruitful relationship with the Lord.  Lent is the wise pastoral provision of the Church to set aside every hindrance and distraction in order to be, as John Owen expresses it, seasoned by grace, to rearrange our spiritual priorities and cultivate with due care our companionship with God.  
 
Our opening Lenten lessons bid us to approach God with the earnestness and totality of our full interior being, not merely our formal and physical presence before him, but in the way that he invites:  “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12).  Nothing less really counts or matters.  “Rend your hearts and not your garments” (v13).  Externals are not of the essence of true faith.  Outward performance is only validated by sincere inward disposition.  
 
Jesus, observing the inadequacy of mere outward observances of any kind, counsels absolute sincerity and the ultimate secrecy of true oneness with Christ:  “Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (see Matthew 6: 16-18).  We know the state of our heart by that which it most treasures.  This ready awareness is the infallible test of the heart’s preference.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (v21).  
 
John Donne takes us to the heart of the matter concerning grace: 
“God did not elect me as a helper, nor create me, nor redeem me, nor convert me, by way of helping me; for he alone did all, and he had no use at all of me.  God infuses his first grace, the first way, merely as a Giver; entirely, all himself; but his subsequent graces, as a helper; therefore we call them Auxiliant graces, Helping graces; and we always receive them, when we endevour to make use of his former grace." 

Its influence in our hearts begins with a sovereign God and his free determination.  Grace in the first instant is a gift, entirely of his giving.  Lent humbles us before him in earnest longing and patient waiting.  Because we desire him we cling to him, for what we seek is a priceless blessing concerning which we have no desert.  Yearning, says Augustine, makes the heart grow deep, and mercy granted satisfies the most thirsty heart. 
 
RJS
 

SEASONED WITH GRACE 

"The mighty streams of the evil thoughts of men will admit of no bounds or dams to put a stop unto them.  There are but two ways of relief from them, the one respecting their moral evil, the other their natural abundance. 
 
The first is by throwing salt into the spring, as Elisha cured the waters of Jericho - that is, to get the mind and the heart seasoned with grace. 
 
The other is, to turn their streams into new channels, putting new aims and ends upon them, fixing them on new objects: so shall we abound in spiritual thoughts; for abound in thoughts we shall, whether we will or no." 

JOHN OWEN