Jesus Said Hard Things!

In our adult Bible class last Sunday morning the subject of part of our lesson was Christian Leadership specifically the marketing of the world verses Jesus' model seen the four gospels.
The Scripture we looked at was John chapter 6. After He fed the multitude and sent His men in a boat across the lake He walked on the water to them and they finished the journey to the other side of the lake.

The next day a lot of the people He had fed found Jesus and He confronted them in 6:26 telling them they hadn't followed Him in order to see more signs (vv. 2, 14, 30), but because He had fed them. In other words they were in it for the physical food they could get. Our Lord then tells them not to work for the food that perishes, but instead for the food which endures to eternal life (meaning Himself).

And Christ seems to have had enough of their attitudes concerning wanting more physical food and He decides to thin the herd a little, if you will, by saying some hard things. He told the crowd (called disciples vv. 50, 66) that He was the Bread of Life and all that, that metaphor entails (vv. 48-51). He makes it sound like He wants them to become cannibals (vv. 51-58).

Hard stuff, right? Of course He was using hyperbole to make His point concerning taking all of Him (trust, faith and all of that).

So the people realized that He was saying hard stuff and said to each other, "This is a difficult statement, who can listen to it?" And Jesus knowing all of this further pushed the issue telling them that He was telling the truth and that the physical profits nothing, but the spiritual is where true reality and life is (v. 63). Then He tells them that no one can come to Him as a true follower unless it is granted to that one by God the Father (v. 65), and the consequence to all of this is that many abandoned following Him (v. 66).

Then an astonishing thing happened, and this blows my mind (as we used to say in the 60s and early 70s). Jesus turns to the twelve (Peter, Andrew, James, John and the rest) and asks them, "You do not want to go away also, do you?" Incredible!
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So, let this be an example to those in our day who use the world's marketing and promotion methods in and around the local church. Their worldly strategies go counter to Jesus methods.

Jesus said hard stuff to people and He didn't back down. He wanted them to count the cost of following Him and He wasn't all that concerned with the "numbers" but was instead more concerned with the quality of His followers, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father" (v. 65).
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Here is a link to see some of the other hard sayings of Jesus and others in the Bible.
http://www.intergate.com/~subi/hard.htm