I really like the message of
that song. A lot. Let's turn to John. John chapter
12. And we saw the scene this morning. Jerusalem is full of people.
And they went out to meet Christ as He came in. calling him the
king. And so now he's gotten there
and things have settled in a little bit. And it says in verse 20,
And there were certain Greeks, these are Gentiles, there were
certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast.
And the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida
of Galilee, and desired him, saying, we would see Jesus. Some think that he was a neighbor
to Philip, lived near Bethsaida, and maybe that's why they came
to Philip. I don't really know that, but
these were Greeks, and they came, they were Gentiles, they came
to him and they said, sir, we would see Jesus. I heard of folks putting this
in their pulpits, and I preached in a pulpit that had this in
it. And right when you stood there,
it was written, Sir, we would see Jesus. And the only way to
see Him is by His grace. The only way to see Him is by
God giving us the gift of faith to truly see Him. Truly see Him. To see Him believing. Believing. not being skeptical and doubting
and having that spirit of, well, prove it to me, but believe in
Him. Faith's not really an act. It's not really doing something.
Faith's believing. You believe Him. Trust Him. And then verse 22 says, Philip
cometh and telleth Andrew, Why did Philip go to Andrew? Why
didn't he just go straight to the Lord? Why didn't they go
straight to the Lord? Well, at this time, you remember,
it's a dangerous time. The chief priests wanted to kill
the Lord Jesus. They even wanted to kill Lazarus,
who the Lord raised from the dead because people were believing.
People were leaving them and going to the Lord and believing
Him. And they wanted to stop that. This was religion. of the day
without Christ and they wanted to stop people from going to
Christ. And they were willing to kill
Christ, they were willing to kill Lazarus and anybody else
that they caught professing His name. And so these Gentiles come
to Philip and Philip doesn't really know what to do. These
disciples didn't want to see Christ die. They really had not
understood that He must be lifted up on the cross. They were saved,
they were called, they believed the gospel, but they really didn't
understand He must be lifted up on the cross. And they didn't
want to see Him die. They really didn't want to see
Him die. And not only that, they didn't want to suffer. They didn't
want to be whatever these men would do to them. They didn't
want to suffer either, they didn't want to die. They thought Christ
came to establish an earthly kingdom like they had in David's
day. And if they bring these Gentiles,
Gentiles weren't received like, you know, they would have permit
some Gentiles to come, but Gentiles weren't received. They weren't
good enough. They were Gentile dogs. And they had a special
porch for them. Imagine if you came here to worship
and you had to sit out here on the porch. Everybody else sat
in here, but you guys sat out there on the porch. That's how
it was for the Gentiles. They couldn't gather together
with them. It's not that way today for God's people. God's
people, He's revealed, is not just among the Jews, they're
among the Gentiles. Who He chose by grace, and He
draws you, and He makes you one in Christ. He makes you all have
the same righteousness, so one can't exalt themselves over another.
makes us see we're all sinners, so one can't exalt themselves
over the other. But if the Jews found out these
Gentiles were wanting to come to Christ too, and that he was
receiving them, this would be it. They already wanted to kill
him, this would be it. And so Aunt Phillips, a little
nervous about it, went and asked Andrew, And then it says in verse
22, and again Andrew and Philip tell the Lord Jesus. That's what's
always best. That's always best. Just go straight
to Him. That's what would have been best
for these Gentiles, go straight to Christ. Philip, straight to
Christ. Anytime there's an issue, there's
a problem, go straight to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let
a man make you out to think he's your priest. You go straight
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He hears His people and God always
hears Him. Now, here is what Christ answered,
verse 23. And Jesus answered them saying,
now listen, this all has to do with exactly what I just told
you. It has to do with the Gentiles not coming to Christ, but going
to Philip, and it has to do with Philip going to Andrew, and why
they were nervous about going and bringing these Greeks to
the Lord. It has to do with all this. Now
listen to what he said. And Jesus answered them, saying,
The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth his life shall
lose it. And he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve
me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also
my servant be. If any man serve me, him will
my father honor. Now is my soul trouble. And what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto
this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from
heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it said that it
thundered. Others said an angel spake to him. Jesus answered
and said, this voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world.
Now shall the prince of this world be cast out, and I, if
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me. This he
said signifying what death he should die. Our Lord Jesus Christ. He came to this earth with a
mission. He came to this earth, sent of God the Father, to do
something very specific. He came to this earth to lay
down His life for His people. Remember that the angel of the
Lord said His name should be called Jesus, for He shall save
His people from their sins. That's why he came. The Lord
said through Isaiah, he shall not fail. He shall not fail. He will not lose one. He said
in John 10, I lay down my life for the sheep. He said, I make
them to know me and they know me and they follow me. And he
said, no man will pluck them out of my hand. He said, my father's
greater than all. No man's able to pluck them out
of my father's hand. I and my father won. He came
into this world to lay down his life. That meant some suffering
was going to happen. painful, being rejected of men,
being despised of men. He is going to have to suffer
rejection. He is going to have to go to
the cross and bear the sin of His people. All the crimes that
they are guilty of, everything they are guilty of, He is going
to go to the cross and rather than them bear the judgment and
the justice and the whipping and the lashing of the wrath
of God, rather than them bear it, He is going to bear it. so that He can come to His people,
sinners we are, ruined, desperate sinners, and have mercy on us
and do it justly. Because He honored His law, He
satisfied His law. This is why He did it. This is
why He did it. And what He's teaching us here
is, if we're going to believe on Him, we're going to have to
forsake all. And it's going to mean we're
going to face some suffering. But if we continue trusting Him
and believe Him until the end, the Father will honor us with
eternal life. Trusting Him, looking to Him,
following Him, never turning from Him, you will suffer. There will be some suffering.
But to do so and follow Him and trust Him entirely, looking nowhere
but to Him for salvation, for righteousness, for wisdom, for
redemption, for sanctification, for everything you need, the
Father will honor His child with eternal life. He'll honor. He did it all. He kept you. He
preserved you. He brought you there. But you're
going to have to follow Him. And you're going to have to keep
looking to Him. And you're going to have to stay on Him to the
end. And in the end, he'll honor his people with life, eternal
life. Oh, he honors you along the way.
Peter said, Lord, what are we going to receive? We've left
everything. That wasn't a very, we'll be kind to Peter. That
wasn't necessarily the best thing to say. They hadn't left all,
not like our Lord did. We left everything, Lord, what
do we receive? He said, in this life right now, you receive brothers
and sisters, family, across the country, across the world, and
in the life to come, eternal life. The Lord's not going to
let His people go without providing and keeping and giving us honor
in this life. But in this life, you're going
to suffer. In this life, there's going to
be some fire. In this life, there's going to be some trouble. There's
going to be some rejection. Because Christ is a man of sorrows
acquainted with grief. And He said, the servant's not
greater than his Lord. If they persecuted Me, they're
going to persecute you. And He said, but he that endureth
to the end, My Father will honor him. And He makes His child willing
to follow Him. Now let me show you this first
thing our Lord declares here. Christ declared that it was by
His death that He'd be glorified. See, He's going to suffer. He's
going to suffer. He's rejected of men here. Rejected
of the most... I mean, rejected of men that
if you saw them, as religious as they were, you'd say, there
is not a flaw in those people. But they hated Christ with everything
in them. And they rejected Him. Nailed
Him to a tree. But He had to suffer that for
His people. But that's how He's glorified. Listen to this, verse
23. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come that
the Son of Man should be glorified. Now, understand, I've tried to
show you this more and he's in control. Because time and time
again throughout the Gospel, they wanted to get him and they
wanted to kill him. And the Scripture says, But his
hour was not come. And he went right through the
middle of them and nobody could touch him. But now his hour has
come. And he says this in direct response
to Philip and Andrew, who obviously, he knew their heart, he knew
this had gone on with the Gentiles, and he knew Andrew and Philip
were hesitant about coming to him with the Gentiles, and he
knew why, and he knew what they needed to hear. And this is what
he says to them, right now it's my hour that I should be glorified,
and this is how he was going to be glorified. He voluntarily
willingly laid down His life for God and for His people. Did you know that He laid down
His life for God? He is God, He is the Son of God,
but the Son of God was sent because before God can save a sinner,
God's got to do something for Himself. Before He can do something
for you, He's got to do something for Himself. He's got to honor
His justice. It's not justice if He clears
you without executing you. The soul that sinneth must die. That's what the Scripture says.
So He sent His Son to die in place of His people to declare
God's righteousness. And He sent His Son to willingly
bear the sin of His people and settle that judgment for His
people. And our Lord Jesus did that by
suffering. He justified and saved His people
from our sins, declaring God just in the process as He did
it. Now if we would see the Lord
Jesus, we are going to have to see Him high and lifted up. We
are going to have to see why He went to the cross. This is
the message of the Word. Why did He go to the cross? He
went to the cross because God is holy. God is holy. God loves with an everlasting
love, the Scripture says. He loves His people. He loves
His people like He loves His Son. but God is holy and He is
not going to save one single sinner who is guilty unless He
pours out wrath on the sinner and executes him and satisfies
his justice. That's got to be done. That's
why we say Christ died for a particular people. It's because Christ got
it done. He went to the cross and He answered
to the... You know, if you got arrested
and they took you over here to the courthouse and they put you
on trial, You're not on trial being judged for everybody in
the city. You're on trial being judged
for your sins, for your crimes. Well Christ wasn't on that cross
bearing the crimes of everybody. He had a specific crimes for
a specific people that he was answering to. And if a man is
sentenced to die and he's found guilty and he's executed, when
he dies, justice is satisfied. Justice is not looking to anybody
else. That man died. Justice is not
coming to the rest of the people and he died. Well, when Christ
went to the cross, He's representing a specific people, bearing their
sin, and when the justice of God was poured out on them, they
all died, and justice is satisfied. And justice won't come calling
again once you've satisfied it. Not ever. Look over at John 17. John 17, verse 1. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up His eyes to heaven and said, Father of the hours, come glorify
Thy Son that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. As Thou has given
Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to
as many as Thou has given Him. And this is life eternal, that
they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And I glorify Thou me with Thine
own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world
was." That's what he finished the work. He did it. He accomplished
it. Now secondly, He declares here,
not only is that His glory, that's how He's glorified. Now is the
Son of Man glorified. He's glorified because He accomplished
the work. But now He says to us here, it's
by His death that He'll bring forth much fruit. Much fruit. Look here in verse 24. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, bringeth forth
much fruit. Now, I've said this to you before. Our Lord Jesus did not, when
He gave His parables and He used things in creation, it's not
that He went along and He looked and He saw a corn of wheat and
He went, oh, that will illustrate what I'm trying to tell you.
That's what we do. We look at something and go,
that will illustrate what I'm trying to say and we'll use it for an
illustration. Our Lord Jesus created it, everything, to illustrate
Him and His salvation and what He accomplished for His people.
Some way, somehow, though we might not see it, everything
He created, Colossians 1 says, He created it, it's created by
Him and for Him. And it's to glorify Him. That's
what the end of Romans 13 said. Christ is the seed. He's the
seed. Now you take a seed. And if you
got a basket full of peas and if you want to soak them and
boil them and just eat the peas in one sitting, you eat them.
They're gone. You're done. But if you take
that pea and you plant it and you plant them and they die,
there's much fruit in that little seed. And when it dies in the
ground, much fruit's coming out. You're going to get a whole bunch
more peas than if you just ate that little handful of peas.
Well, our Lord Jesus Christ is the seed. He's the seed. Listen to this, Genesis 22.18.
This is what the Lord said to Abraham. He said to Abraham,
He said, In thy seed. Now make sure your Bible says
seed. They've changed some of these
new translations. They've changed this to say, children or in your generation
or different things, but it needs to say seed. It needs to say
seed. And I'll show you why. He's talking
about Christ. He says, In thy seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed. He's saying, In this one that's
coming through you, Abraham, he's the seed, and in him I've
got to elect people all over the world that are going to be
blessed because of Him. Go to Galatians 3.16. I'll show you
that that's what it means. Galatians 3.16. He's saying here that way back there
430 years before He gave the law, He made this promise by
grace to Abraham. that he's going to be saved in
Christ. And he said, now when he gave the law at Sinai, that
couldn't change that whatsoever. That law was given at Sinai just
to declare us guilty. But now look what he says here
in Galatians 3.16. He said, Now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He said, Not unto seeds as of
many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. It's Christ. And he says, and as I say, the
covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which
was 430 years after that, can't disannul it that it should make
the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of
law, it's no more a promise, but God gave it to Abraham by
promise. Now here's Christ the seed. And
in Him is all this fruit. God chose His people in Christ. That's how we became, we were
in Christ. It's like you take a corn of
wheat or a piece of corn seed or peas or whatever. All the
fruit's in it. It's all in there. Every man
that walks this earth, the children he's going to have, they're in
him. They're in him. And they're going to be born
of him. If he has children, they're already in him. All Christ's
children were in Christ. They were all in Christ. Chosen
of God, in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, Of God
are you in Christ Jesus? Ephesians 1.3 says, Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him
in love. But now, like a corn of wheat, Christ had to die. If He's going to bring forth
this fruit, He's got to die. He's got to die to bring forth
this fruit. And He's declaring here the necessity
of His death. He's declaring why it was a must
that He had to die. If He's going to save His people
and bring forth this much fruit, He had to come into the earth,
be born of a virgin, a sinless man, so he could walk in place
of his people under the law, satisfy the law. Now he's got
to go to the cross and die under the justice of God to satisfy
justice. That's what he's got to do. And
so the scripture says, he said this, he said in Hebrews 10.9,
Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. I know that men everywhere want
to preach the will of man, and the will of man, and the will
of man, and oh, don't offend the will of man. Everything's
got to be worded just so, so you don't offend man's precious
will. Next time you get a common cold,
you will it away. See if you can just will it away.
You can't accomplish nothing by your will. If it's not God's
will, you can't do it. God said we can't say tomorrow
we're going to do this or that or the other thing. We have to
say if it's God's will, we will. God alone is whose will is going
to be accomplished. His will is going to be accomplished.
And Christ is the one who came to work God's will. He said in
Hebrews 10.9, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes away
the first covenant of works, that covenant that declared we're
guilty, that covenant that said we're under the curse. He took
it away that He might establish the second covenant which is
the covenant of everlasting grace whereby He saves His people freely
because Christ did all the work. And it says, and by the will
of Christ we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ one time. Because by one offering He perfected
forever them that are sanctified. He accomplished it. Perfected
forever is as good as it gets. He perfected forever His people.
Made us righteous, put away our sin. But you see, He had to die
on the cross to do that. And he said, unless a corn or
wheat fall on the ground and die, it abides alone, but if
it dies, it brings forth much fruit. And then, but not only
did we die and we come guilty on the law, we got to be born
again. We got to be born of God. And it's by this gospel, it's
called the living word, the incorruptible seed, that the Spirit of God,
Christ, enters in. It makes us to be born again,
a new man created. And remember how that new man
is created? Of incorruptible seed. First time you were born,
you were born of corruptible seed, so you came forth from
your mother's womb speaking lies, you conceived in sin. This new
birth is of God, of incorruptible seed, whereby we are given a
new nature, a new will to give all the glory to God. We just
don't have this will beforehand. Before He gives it to us, we
don't have it. A young friend of mine one time was talking
to an older fellow, and this fellow, he believed he was saved
by his will, and he was just arguing with my young friend,
and my young friend didn't, the Lord just called him, he really
didn't know a lot, but he said, he said, I know this, he said,
we're saved by the will of God. He said, it's God who saved us
according to His will. Read Ephesians 1 over and over
and over. Everything's according to the counsel of His will. And
he said, we don't, we can't, we can't, we can't believe unless
he gives his heart to believe. And they went through this for
a while and finally this fellow that just kept butting everything
he was saying, this fellow said, I must tell you something, I
can't believe that. I just cannot believe what you're telling me.
And my young friend said, that's what I'm trying to tell you.
You can't. You cannot. It's not within your
will, it's not within your capability to believe this. God has got
to give you a new heart and give you a willingness to believe
the gospel. You see, salvation is in God's hand. We try to shut
sinners up to Christ, it's of His own will that He begat us
with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits
of His creation. He's bringing forth much fruit
and He makes His people the first fruits of His creation that He
accomplished. Now, the Lord applies this to
us. Showed us why He had to suffer,
this is His glory. Showed us that He had to die
in order to bring forth much fruit. Now, He was declaring
what He was accomplishing. And when He did that, He says
there, now is the judgment of this world. Judgment has already
taken place. Judgment happened at Calvary's
cross. He settled judgment for His people.
He cast out the devil. He did it all at Calvary when
He accomplished redeeming His people. The last judgment is
just going to be God declaring it's done, and declaring, here
they are, I've saved them. But now listen, He's going to
apply this now to Philip, and to Andrew, and to these Gentiles,
and to everybody He's going to save. Now listen to what He says
here in verse 25. He's speaking of Himself here
too, but this is applying it to us as well. He says, He that
loveth his life shall lose it. He that hateth his life in this
world shall keep it unto life eternal. If we love our life,
we'll lose it. What's he talking about? We're
going to hang on to our will. We're going to hang on to our
works. We're going to hang on to our
goodness. Hang on to our merit. Hang on to our self-righteousness. We're going to hang on to our
sins. We're going to hang on to this world and everything
we put above God and everything that comes between us and God.
We're going to hang on to all these things whereby we think
we're saved or better or commend ourselves or anything else and
we'll lose our life. We'll lose our life. Christ is
the life. If we love our life, we love
these other things, we'll lose all when we die and we'll perish
forever. We'll perish forever. He that
hated his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. What is hating our life? It's
hating our sin. It's hating our self-righteousness.
It's hating that That Pharisee that's in us, it's hating the
pleasures of this world that attract us so. It's hating everything
we are in our sin nature. It's letting nothing and putting
nothing above Christ. Letting nothing be above Christ,
putting nothing above Christ. That means no person. If your
dearest loved one tells you, you're going to have to stop
worshiping Christ or it's me or Christ. You're going to have
to go with Christ. And if He is, you will. No person,
no thing, no thing in this world. Your boss tells you, you're going
to have to stop going over there and worshiping. You're going
to have to start coming here and working for me. I'm going to
give you a big raise though. Just tell them you can't make
it all the time. I had somebody just this past week wrote to
me and told me, my job I work just don't allow me to go anywhere
to worship. But we worship the same. The
best thing that could happen is to get fired. Really, the
best thing that could happen is to get fired. God will provide you a job. God
will provide you a job. God will provide you plenty of
loved ones. God will provide you with the necessities you
need in this life. Whatever it is that's attracting
and pulling you away, if it's vile sin or if it's the viler
self-righteousness of thinking you don't have any sin, God help
us to see there ain't a thing in any of us to trust. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But He's
everything. And as long as we trust Him and
He's all, You ever heard this acronym of faith? Take faith. Spell it out. F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking all, I take Christ. No, wait. I take Him. Forsaking
all... I can't spell. I'm an English
major. Forsaking all, I take Him. Faith. Faith. Look at verse 26. If any man
serve me, let him follow me. Now remember this. We're slow to learn like Philip
and Andrew. We're sinners like Peter. Peter
denied that he knew the Lord and left the faith. That's what
he was trying to do. He was trying to leave the faith.
God's not going to let that happen. He's not going to let it happen.
But now, when you see that happen, you've got to remember Christ
is on His throne. Christ is on His throne. And
if a brother or sister has ever done anything nice for you, ever
sacrificed anything for you, don't forget that. Don't forget
that. Look to Christ, be gracious,
be kind, be loving, speak the gospel, speak of reconciliation
to Him, to Christ. That's who we need to be reconciled
to is Christ. It's to Christ. If we're reconciled
to Christ, everything else will be alright. Reconciled to Christ. Where was Christ going? He said,
if any man serve me, let him follow me. Where was He going?
He's going to the cross. He's going to the cross. He's
going to lay down His life for His Father and His people. And
He's teaching us, if we'd serve Him, we have to lay down our
life for His sake. We have to lay down our life
for our brethren's sake. He was going to the cross to
bear the sin of His people, to put away our sin, to give us
free forgiveness by His precious blood. And He's teaching us,
if we're going to follow Him and we're going to serve Him,
we're going to have to bear one another's burdens. We're going
to have to bear one another's sin and shortcomings. We're going
to have to do it. And I'm telling you, when folks
get upset and they look down on somebody else and they have
too big a problem with somebody else, You've got plenty that's being
borne with. You've got plenty of burden that's being borne
with by your brethren. We have to bear one another's
burden. That's what Christ did for us. Now what does that mean? It means there's going to be
brethren like Philip and Andrew and Peter. There's going to be
brethren that are going to deny the Lord. What does it mean you
have to bear with their burdens? You can't whip the gospel into
somebody. You can't whip the gospel, you
can't whip faith into somebody. You have to declare the truth
quietly, calmly, lovingly, and trust the Lord to work. Trust
the Lord to work. And when you don't, when you
don't, and when somebody don't to you, you're going to have
to bear the burden. You're going to have to bear
the burden. This thing's a two-way street.
I think we think of sin as that's somebody else that's always fallen.
And sin is... We're going to go back there
and sit down and eat today, and you're going to say something
sinful. You're going to give a look that somebody's going
to take wrong. All these things are going to happen. And we're
just constantly overlooking things. You're going to have to do it.
You're going to have to do it. He's going to the cross, He's
going there willingly satisfying justice for His people. Now we
can't satisfy justice for our brethren. But we can perceive
our brethren knowing justice has already been satisfied for
them. That's the only just thing to
do. It's called mercy. It's why Paul says, Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's Christ that
dies. God to justify them. It's being
merciful. That's going to require some
self-control, isn't it? That's going to require some
self-sacrifice and some self-humiliation to come down and not be able to force obedience
into somebody and to trust that only the Lord can do that. It means we have to restore to
Christ and trust Christ is working in the heart. And that's honoring
Christ as the King. That's honoring Him as the Head
of His Church. That's honoring Him as the High
Priest. That's honoring Him as the Savior. And that's taking
our place at His feet and saying, I ain't that. I ain't the head. I ain't the king. I'm not the
priest. I'm not the savior. He is. He is. He was submitting to the
will of His Father. He's teaching us to submit to
His will, to not insist on our will being done, to trust ourselves
and our brethren to His will. That's what He's teaching us.
To put away our sin, our pride, our own understanding, to mortify
our flesh, to surrender our will to His will, to love one another
as He loved us. And He was going to give everything
the Father gave to Him. his life. And he's teaching us, if any man serve me, let him
follow me. I haven't given enough. That's
what our thought ought to be. I just haven't given enough.
There's a little more I can give. little more I can give. He gave
everything. I mean everything. And this is
what He promises. He says, And where I am, there
shall also My servant be. If any man serve Me, him will
My Father honor. Where is He now? Where is He
now? He said, Any man serve Me, He
says, where I am, there shall also My servant be. He is at
God's right hand. Perfect. Complete. Accepted. Never again to be forsaken like
He was on the cross. Never again. And that's where
His people are. Go home and read Colossians 3.
That's where His people are. Seated there with Him. And when
He's coming again, He's going to take us there. That's the
honor He's talking about. Now remember, You're going to
suffer some things in this life. Don't start thinking that because
God's chastening you and He's putting you through some fire
that, oh, God's not honoring me. No, that is God honoring
you. There's a lot of people in this world he don't do that
for. He just lets them be fattened up for the slaughter. But he's
chastening his people and applying it to your heart and making you
see your sin and your self-righteousness and that you need him and him
alone and that's great honor. That's treating you as a son,
as a child. He's doing that for you because
he loves you and he's not going to let you be a spoiled brat
running out into the world and dying with the rest of the world.
And that's what he's doing for his people. But the honor he's
talking about is that day when you stand with Christ, with that
great multitude no man can number that Christ has saved, and he
says, these are mine. That's the honor he's talking
about. Eternal life. And then Christ said, I'm going
to be real quick. Give me one more minute. He says here in verse 27, now
is my soul troubled, what shall I say? Father save me from this
hour. He is saying we are going to
suffer, you are going to come in with some things that are
uncomfortable, you don't like the way God is working it because
it ain't how you do it. God does most things the way
we wouldn't do it. To stain our pride, to show us
He is not going to do it the way we do it. And he says, and
when I'm about to suffer, he said, what am I going to say?
Father, save me from this suffering. I just heard a statement this
week, and it was a good statement. Instead of praying, Father, get
me out of this suffering. Pray, Father, teach me how to
honor Christ in the middle of it. That will change it all. Just teach me how to honor Christ
while I'm suffering. He said, what am I going to say?
Save me from this hour? For this hour I came to this
hour. I don't care if it's suffering
because of your sin. I don't care if it's suffering
because of somebody else's sin. I don't care if it's suffering
because of whatever it is. For this hour you came to this
hour. God brought you here for this
purpose. To say, It's okay to say, save
me, Lord, save me. We say that. But here's what
we want above saving me out of the trouble. Here's what we want.
Father, glorify Thy name. And that's what He said. Am I
going to say, Father, save me from this hour? No. Father, glorify
Thy name. And the Father, He said, in Him
that follows me and trusts me, the Father will honor. And so
to prove that Christ's word is true, to show us Christ's word
is true, as soon as Christ says this, the Father speaks from
heaven and He says, I have both glorified it and I will glorify
it again. He honored Him. Him that trusts the Father, He
honors. Now you can't take that too far. You get too zealous with that.
You make people fanatical. I wish we could just get fanatical
about trusting God. Our Lord was so fanatical about
trusting the Father, He went to a cross and was crucified
and buried in a tomb, trusting. The Father promised me He'll
raise me from the grave. Let's be that fanatical. Let's
be that fanatical. Mary brought an entire year's
wages of ointment and dumped it out on him at one time. What's the annual year's wage
in America now? I don't know. $45,000, $50,000,
$60,000 maybe? Maybe it's more than that. I don't know. She brought it all to him at
one time and dumped it out right there. Why? Because she saw what he
did for her. Here's what our Lord said. I'm
going to give this illustration. Don used to give this illustration. It's a good one. I think I've
only used it one time. He's with the Lord now, so I
might start using some more of his illustrations. He borrowed
them from somebody else too. There was a wealthy man and his
son, and they loved to collect rare art. And they had all these collections
of Rembrandt and Raphael and Picasso and all these different
artists. Well, the son was drafted to
the Vietnam War and he went to the war. And he wasn't in the
war very long and he got killed. He got killed. And one day the
man heard a knock at the door and he went to the door and there
was a young man standing there and he said, you don't know me.
And he said, but I am one of the soldiers that your son saved
the day he was killed. And he said he saved a bunch
of fellas that day, but he said he was carrying me when he was
shot and killed. And he said, I'm not an artist. And he said, but I have painted
this, and I want you to have it. And the man opened it up,
and it was a portrait of his son that this young soldier painted. And a man took that portrait
of his son and he hung it up and he was more pleased with
that than any other of the masters, any other works have already
had. And anytime people would come into his house he would
take them first to see the son and show them, look at this,
this is my son. Well he died. He died and he
put in his will and testament he wanted an auction to be held
to auction off all these classical pieces of art that he had worth
thousands of dollars, thousands and thousands of dollars. Millions
of dollars I guess. And so all these people gathered
up to come to this auction. And the first painting they held
up is the sun. That's what it's called, the
son, it's his son, that's a soldier painted. He said, who will bid
on this? And they sat there and nobody said anything. He said,
who's going to bid on the son? Nobody wanted the son. And finally
somebody spoke up and they said, we don't want the son. They said,
get to the master. We want Rene's and Rembrandts and the Picassos and
all of these that's who we won't and an auctioneer said is anybody
gonna be it on this one They said no nobody wants it. Nobody
wants it We want the Monets won't this is hands. We want to we
don't want that And finally the gardener was standing there and
the gardener didn't have much money, and he said I'll be $10
on it And the auctioneer said, anybody
else? Anybody else want to bid? Nobody wanted to bid. He said,
OK, $10 to the gardener. And they said, finally, let's
get on now. Let's get on with the good stuff. Bring out the
good stuff. And the auctioneer laid the gavel down, and he said,
I couldn't tell you this before now, but there was a stipulation
in the will that whoever took the son They get the whole estate
and all the artwork. And that's what our Lord said.
You leave everything else for the Son, you get it all. You get it all. Alright, brethren,
let's go to Him and then we'll observe His table. Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for this word. Pray you bless it. Lord, make us see what you sacrificed
for us. And by your power, make it powerful
in our heart. And give us the ability to mortify
our flesh. And unite our will with your
will and make us truly want to serve You like You served the
Father. Make us want to be like You. We thank You, Father, for giving
Your Son. Help us now as we take the bread
and the wine to remember Your broken body and Your shed blood.
Give us grace to believe on You, to remember what You've done
for Your people. and make us, Lord, willing to forsake all
for Him. We thank You, Father. Thank You for free forgiveness
of our sin. In Christ's name, Amen.