Today we're still in our topical
series, The Horrors of Christmas. I'm just very thankful for your
patience during this time, primarily that I stand before you today
six hours asleep in 48 hours. Surprisingly, fairly energetic.
So that's only the Lord. But in that, when the flesh is
weak, God is strong. The strength of our Lord is what
it's all about. And as we'll see today, as we're
looking at this text in John chapter 12, a very dear text
to me. It'll be John 12, 20. And there's a lot I want to do.
I'm going to read through 36, and then we're going to preach
just a few little tiny verses out of here, such as what I call
topical exposition. But hey, it gives us an opportunity
to see a little bit of the Word in other places. I cannot wait
to travel through Titus with us together with you in the new
year. I believe the Word of God is
indeed the power of God's grace. There is no man that has ever
come to faith in Jesus Christ, nor been born again without the
Word of God, without the gospel coming from the lips of man,
woman, child, or off the pages of the written scripture. Someone,
in order to be saved, must hear God's Word. If you take a moment
and consider who wrote the Word, who is God, and then to whom
the Word was written, which are the saints of God. It is not
written to those who reject it. It is not written to those who
do not believe. It is written to believers. And
so when we proclaim the Word of God to unbelievers and they
become believers, the Word is theirs. The prophecies of judgment,
the wrath of God belongs to those who refuse to believe in the
Son, as it used to belong to us before God in his grace saved
us through hearing the word of the gospel. I believe also that
the word of God is active, just as Paul says it is, and as Hebrews
says that it is, and it's profitable And it's also the vehicle through
which the grace of God is delivered to the church effectively and
actively, presently. So it's not just salvific grace. It is effectual grace unto sanctification. It is effectual grace unto worship. It is effectual grace unto unity. It is effectual grace unto stewardship. It is an effectual grace unto
righteousness. And so God's Word, if it is absent
from your life, you are living for yourself in the power of
your flesh. Only and only because of God's
absolute unmerited favor have you not slipped into destruction.
O church, do not play with your salvation. If you indeed are
in Christ, your hunger for his word must be paramount. Therefore,
I believe that as we move into this new year, what a wonderful
time to follow the Lord's ways and resolve to do something that
we had not been doing, hopefully to see it to fruition. But by
the Lord's grace, I believe we need to memorize a verse of scripture
every week as a church. New text every week. So I will
be employing the efforts of people who have put together such lists
for years, and we will provide them to you if you so choose
to participate, starting next Sunday. That being said, the
Word of God. The Word of God speaks to us. It teaches us. It shows us. It
reveals us. The Word of God is Jesus Christ,
who is the Word, who spoke all things into being. who has now
revealed himself not only in the flesh through the Incarnation,
but also through the words of the apostles through whom he
speaks and displays the glory of the Father, the direct reflection
of the holiness of God, his worth. And so as we look at this text
today, there are several prior things I want us to consider,
namely from the book of Matthew, as Jesus taught in regard to
the Gentiles, because what we're going to see here is we're going
to see a contrast. That's why it's so difficult
to take this text out. But what I want to see, what
I want you to understand today is that the horrors of Christmas,
in other words, that the birth of Christ came with it such horror
that Jesus was born for the purpose of dying. You say, okay, I get
that. Where is the death of Christ
and the celebration of his birth? To celebrate the coming of Christ
without the death of Christ is, let me just be frank, stupid.
It's blind. It's ignorant. It's humiliating
to the grace of God. For Jesus Christ came into the
world, born of a virgin, that He created, that He created,
in order to suffer the sins of the elect of God. I who believe,
anyone who believes, And so with that, think of the
fact that Jesus, as John says in his prologue, the light has
come. But he came to his own, and his
own did not receive him. We know that. The light has come
into the world, and the darkness has not overcome the light. Who are his own? The righteous. Those who held the oracles of
Yahweh, or Jehovah, or however you want to say that, God Almighty. Those who held the Word of God
for centuries, looking forward to the One who was to come, Emmanuel,
God with us, Messiah, the Holy and Lordly One of God, in the
Greek, Christos, Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. And he came, and those that knew
he was coming and longed for that day, when they heard the
voice of the one crying out in the wilderness, repent, for the
kingdom of God is at hand. They looked, and then when they
saw the one who came from heaven, they did not believe. And John
12 is a lot about that. John 12 is on the heels of John
11, and John 11 is wildly awesome. Jesus took a rotting corpse and
he called him back to life. And just moments before that,
Martha said, if you'd just come, Master, if you'd just come, if
you'd just spend here, he would not have died. Don't you know,
Martha, I am the resurrection. And I am the life. I know, I
know, I know, Jesus, that we will be alive in the resurrection.
No, Martha, I am the resurrection. Your brother is not dead. Watch. Watch the glory of God. Behold who I am, that I might
do that which also you shall soon see. The Riser has come. And what a prophetic word. One
of my favorite pieces of dialogue in the entire book of John. It's
awesome because it speaks to my heart. Since the stone was
rolled away and the odor, people covered their face with the odor.
Now, look at the comparison here. Let me get to John 12. I'm not
even going to show you this. I have to tell it to you, because
it's all here. In John 11, the odor. There's going to be a smell.
He says, does it matter? Take the stone away. And there were
mourners and professional mourners. And the community was there.
And the Sadducees were there. And the Pharisees were there.
Martha and Mary. And Mary had gone to the house.
She was distraught. And Jesus says, Lazarus, come
forth, come out. And there in the shadow of this
crypt came this man covered in the incense of his burial embalming,
wrapped tightly in mummification of the burial cloths. And Jesus
says these words, unbind him and let him go. That's what Jesus
says to you, brother, sister, When you are bound in the chains
of sin, bound in the darkness of spiritual decay, and He looks
at you, and He comes to your grave, and He stands over your
corpse, and He says, unbind Him and let Him go. How does He do
that? Because He bound Himself with
your death. And in John 12, what does Mary
do? She does that which she's good
at. She worships Jesus. Ironically, then in 11, many
people came there to Bethany, and they wanted to see this man,
Jesus, and the one whom he has raised from the dead. And the
Pharisees decide that he must die. Both of them must die. For
he has proven himself to be divine, so he's not the one we think
he ought to be. He must die. They cannot see. They cannot see. They are bound. They are blind. And in chapter 12, Mary comes
into the house, and they are dining and lounging at the table,
and she goes and finds that box of nard. And in some sense of
comparison, archaeologically speaking, the value of that nard
is an annual salary of a household. And she dumps the whole thing
out. The stench of the death of Lazarus compared to the aroma. Here's another little piece of
text, a narrative that I love. And the aroma of the oil filled
the house. I started to preach that today,
but it doesn't reply to really what we need to do. And Jesus comes then. And he's
worshipped by Mary. He's sitting there and he receives
that whole thing. And the apostles, or the disciples,
they're aggravated with her. And of course, Judas Iscariot,
who likes to keep his hand in the tank of cash, is frustrated. We could have given that to the
poor. How dare you waste what I could have taken? And it's
what he's thinking. How dare you waste that? And Jesus says,
the poor you shall always have with you. But for me, I want
to be here a little while. Does our desire for Christ fill
the world in which we live? Does the aroma of our worship
lather up over the world of stench and death?
What a stark change. And then in the context here,
what happens is people have heard of this, and Jews have come to
see Jesus and to see Lazarus, almost like a spectacle. And
the powers that be want him dead. His own disciples are frustrated
that Mary, who sees him perfectly, would do what she did. And then
all of a sudden, out of the blue now, look at verse 20. Now, among those who went up
to worship at the feast were some Greeks. Now, they're going
to the temple, and they're going to worship, and they were Greeks. We're not talking Hellenists.
We're not talking about Greekified Jews. We're talking about Greeks.
The Greek word there means Greeks. Greek people. Non-Jewish, non-related
people. So these Greeks came to Philip,
who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to
see Jesus. And Philip went and told Andrew.
And Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And see what's happening here.
You see what's going on here. Here's right after the resurrection
of Lazarus, and everybody's coming to see, and then it's time for
the feast, and they're there, and now the non-Jewish people
want to come in. Isn't that odd? No, these were
proselytes. These were Greeks who worshipped
Yahweh. But they weren't allowed in the
temple properly. They were only allowed in the
outer court of Gentiles. They could come there. They'd
been coming there. And now they knew Jesus was there. And so
they went there not to worship, but to find Jesus. Much like
in Luke 2, where we see the Eastern people coming to find the King
of Kings. and having to go find the scribes
to figure out what the flip they're talking about. What are they
talking about? Who's this King born in Bethlehem? Fill me in. Aren't you a Jew? Yeah, but a long time separated
here. Tell me what's up. I need to inquire as to the time
and the place where he was to be born. And then what does he
do? He murders a bunch of kids to try to get this Jesus. Because
he's freaked out. Because his throne is in jeopardy.
He had no throne anyway. It was a Roman throne. So now these Greeks come to the
temple, as they are accustomed to doing, and they go up and
they're looking for Jesus. Now, they're not going to dare
go up and say, there he is, Jesus! They're not that stupid. They're
not even allowed in the temple, much less to go up to a rabbi
and start talking to him. So they find the ones who are,
now there's a lot of people, I love people, I love imaginative
people, but oh my goodness, there's so many, I read some stuff, even
recently on this text, and people, oh the reason they went to Andrew
and Philip is because of this and because of that. Guys, the
text doesn't teach that, get out of that, stop getting into
that, see what's happening here. If you want to study that kind
of stuff, that's great, but listen, if the text doesn't call for
it, then it's not there. It's possibility, but it's not
important. And here's what's important.
They were all toward where Jesus was, and they saw a guy, and
that happened to be who? Philip. And they said, Philip,
we want to see Jesus here. We desire to see Jesus. And they weren't saying, can
we look at him, just look at him. They weren't saying that.
They were saying, I want to see him. We desire to see him. We
want to hear him. We want to be in his presence. And what does Philip do? Philip's
like, I'm not taking y'all up there. I mean, he's thinking
this. I'm not taking you up there. He's remembering the words of
Jesus. And when Jesus sent the twelve out, he says, there are
no more amenable Gentiles, and there are no talented Samaritans
in Matthew chapter 10. And Philip's going, they're allowed
to be here. What am I supposed to do? He
remembers what happened in Matthew 15 when Jesus was speaking. He
says, I was only sent to the last sheep of the house of Israel. Keep in mind, too, when he says
those words, the woman who's crying out after
him says, yes, at least that the dogs still get the crunch
from their master's table. In Matthew 8, the centurion comes
to faith. He says, I'm not worthy to have
you in my home, Jesus. The same word, and my slave will
be healed. For I too am a man under authority, and soldiers
under me." What does Jesus say here? I tell you, with no one in Israel
have I found such faith. So there's this dichotomy of
thinking, don't let the Greeks in here, don't let the Gentiles
around me. Jesus came for the Jews, and
all of a sudden now we see the ministry to the to the Greeks,
to the Samaritans, to the Gentiles. John Fodor, they were astonished
that he was speaking with a Roman and a Samaritan. They were dumbfounded. And you just left John 3 with
someone from the Sanhedrin who professed faith. Wild faith. Jesus, we know you're from God,
for no one knows the things you do except God be with them. And
Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you are man again,
you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. What does Jesus tell the centurion
in Matthew 8-11? He says these words, I tell you,
many will come from the east and west and recline at the table
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the king of heaven. While
the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness,
in that place where they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And Jesus said, go, let it be done for you as you have believed.
And the servant was healed at the very moment. See, these Greeks
knew the power of Christ. And they came to Philip, and
Philip was remembering all this. He's thinking, what do I do? Do I take them
to him? I know, I'll get Andrew. Andrew, come here. These people want to go get an
audience with Jesus. What are we supposed to do here? What
do we do? And so Philip and Andrew said,
I will tell him, if you could tell him, and they go together.
Jesus, The Greeks want to talk to you.
If you notice in the dialogue here, the Greeks never get an
audience with Jesus. Jesus just begins to talk. Because what
they're wanting to do is to see Jesus. They desire with every
fiber of their being to be where Jesus was. To hear Him teach.
To see the beauty of who He was and the power of the gospel that
which He proclaimed. And Jesus answers them in verse 23.
And I'll read all the way through the end. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Clearly, truly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
alone. But if it dies, it bears much
fruit. Whoever loves his life, loves
it. And whoever hates his life in
this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he
must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.
If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. Now is my soul
troubled. And that's why I say, Father,
save me from this hour. But for this purpose I have come
to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then
a voice came from heaven and said, I have glorified it and
will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and
heard the voice said that it had thundered. Others said, An
angel has spoken to him. And Jesus answered, This voice
has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of
this world. Now will the ruler of this world
be cast out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will
draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind
of death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, we
have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How
can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this
Son of Man? And Jesus said to them, the light
is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the
light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the
darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the
light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light. Friends, I would just love to
tell you that here, when you want to look and see what it
means, when it says in John 3.16, for God loved the world, so this
way, so loved the world that He gave. And you want to see
what John means when he says that I write these things that
you may not sin, but if you sin, you have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is our propitiation and not
ours alone, but propitiation for the whole world. If you want
to see that, you just saw it. The Word has come to Jesus. The
Jews have rejected Him, and the world has come to Him. And they
are seeking after Him. Why? For they've heard the Gospel. The Spirit of God draws Him.
And they came, and they finally caught up with Him. And they
wanted to see Him. And now the world has come to
see Jesus. The religious have hated Jesus.
And now the sinners desire Jesus. The righteous ones have despised
him and plotted to kill him, but the wicked ones have come
that they may worship him. Jesus responds with a majestic
announcement triggered by Greeks. Here is now the announcement
of the purpose of the Christ from Isaiah today, from Genesis
to now. Here is the purpose for which
I have come. I have come because the hour
has now come. The Greeks have come after me. Now I proclaim, now is the time. Do you see that, church? They
come seeking to find salvation and Jesus says here I'll give
it to you. Salvation doesn't come through
our walking to the temple. Salvation doesn't come through
our following after Christ. Salvation does not come through
even our worshipping and adoring and loving those things, or the
result of our salvation that has come and fully has been effected
through Jesus who says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to
be glorified. So what do you say, church? Do
you want to see Jesus? He's about to reveal Himself
for His true purpose. He has done so, so that you may
have life through sight. Now the time has come for what?
Verse 24. For the Son to be glorified. Look at verse 24. He says, a grain must go into
the ground. and die. For if it doesn't go into the
ground and die, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much
fruit. Now, Jesus is speaking. He's already in John 4 talking
about the harvest and other places. And now, He's giving an example
of what He means by the hour. What, how is the Son going to
be glorified? The Son of God is glorified through
dying. The death of Jesus is not a happenstance
or a possible outcome. The death of Jesus by the hands
of sinners for whom he came to save is the plan of God before
there was ever a world to come to save. The reality of Christ's glory
is that he should be killed so that he could be seen as the
Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. and not just seen
in its practice, but seen in its glory, that He gives sight
to the blind by doing so. What's that have to do? Who is
Jesus that His death is so glorious? Well, let me remind you of who
Jesus is. Just a few things. Jesus reveals the glory of God
in the face of God. Jesus is the perfect imprint
of His nature. John 1, Hebrews 2, Colossians 1. He is the King
of kings. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, For
unto us a child was born, and on this day a son is given, and
the government shall rest upon His shoulders. Jesus is the King
of all things. Jesus is the light of the world
over which the darkness cannot win. Jesus is the resurrection. Jesus is the life. Jesus is the
light of God. He's the light of truth. He is
the almighty creator of all things, whom through the power of his
word sustains the molecules of all things that hold together.
Christ is God almighty. Jesus is the giver of joy. Jesus
is the giver of hope. Jesus is the giver of life. Jesus
is the judge of the world. Jesus is the perfection and humanity.
Jesus is perfection in obedience. Jesus is perfection as a preacher
of the gospel, as he proclaims to the ones who are blind and
in captivity, like we saw last week in Isaiah 61. Jesus is the
perfect love of God, sane in the Son, and sane towards sinners,
and sane in mercy, and sane in absolute equality. express love
because it's a deep love. Jesus is the everlasting satisfaction. He is the sustaining grace. He is the bread of life. He is
the living water. He is the pillars and the temple. He's the whole of the law. He's
the fulfillment of our prophecy. He's the absolute obedience of
all things. He fulfills absolutely everything
that God the Father has ever decreed. In Him was created all
things, for Him and through Him, and nothing was created that
was not created by Him. He is not created. He is God. That's why the death of Jesus
is glorious. So I believe because of who Jesus
is and that He came to die willingly and necessary in order to save
sinners, this makes the death of Jesus Christ necessary and
it makes it amazingly horrifying that who He is must suffer how
He must suffer. For who He suffers for. I know
that grammar is mixed up, but you get the point. The perfect made sin. The pure
made disgusting. Jesus is made as nothing that
we might become the fullness of God's reflection of His very
worthiness, holy. I ask you again, do you desire
to see Jesus? Are you coming to the outer court
begging to see Christ? Unless a grain of wheat falls
into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears
much fruit. See, Jesus is preaching the Gospel. He's saying to those Gentiles
who are there, He's saying to them, You've come to see Me. I'm about to let you see Me.
You want salvation? You want what I have to offer?
You want to ask Me about these things? I'm not just going to
tell you. I'm going to make it effective for you. I'm going
to certainly save you as an absolute Savior. I am going to show you
that you've got what you came for. Just look. It was the will of the Lord to
crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an
offering for Jill, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong
his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper
in his hands. Isaiah 53.10. Seeds. We have seeds that we
bought. We have grain that we bought
when Grace was an infant. And it's in buckets. Y2K, we
bought some grain and we still have that grain. And we've been
grinding it and eating it for 13 years. Grain lasts forever. There have been grains of wheat
found in crypts and pyramids and other places. And as long
as it's not broken, it is still good. It is an amazing food. But if that grain is not broken,
it does not yield anything. And you can have a bag of grains
all day long, and they're worthless. You can't even bite them. You
cannot bite wheat. Teethless afterward, it's hard. A seed must go into the ground,
it must have moisture, it must have nutrients, it must have
chemicals that cause that thing to deteriorate and the outside
of that seed to die and that's no longer a seed, it's germinated. And out of the seed then comes
a plant, a harvest. Jesus is saying, I'm about to
die as a seed must die to yield the harvest. I am going to plant
myself, look at the metaphor, into the ground, dead, that I
might rise up. The Savior, the Lamb of God,
that takes away the sins of the world, not just Israel. But all whom the Father giveth
me, John 6, The Lamb of God will rise as
the Savior, as the King, as the eternal and perfect Priest, bringing
life to all types of men, not just Jews. So what is dying for
Jesus? He says that my death must be
this way. I will die in this manner. I
will be lifted up. They knew what He meant because
they were horrified by it. I thought that Christ was to
reign forever. If you're going to be crucified on a cross, How are you going
to reign forever? Because I'm coming back. I'm
going to die, but I won't stay dead. I will die, but you don't
have to. What is dying for Jesus? Oh,
so He just died, okay. Well, there were thieves on the
cross that day that suffered just like Jesus did. Some people would
argue. No. Not only did they not suffer,
As worse, as bad as Jesus did physically, though in comparison,
there's probably no one who could have a scale to measure it. Crucifixion
is absolutely crucifixion. The word excruciating means out
of the cross. It's a word that comes from the
act of crucifixion. The most intense pain. There
is no pain. It's not on a scale from one to ten. It is, ouch. It is over and above. It is excruciating. There is no way to measure. And
yes, Jesus suffered. He suffered physically when his
beard was pulled from his head, when his hair was pulled out
in clumps, when he was pummeled with rocks and stones and sticks,
when he was spat upon, when he was beaten. When the cat and
lion tails and the whips and the scourges, the scourge rips
flesh, folks. And when the whips took around
the rocks and the bones and the metal went around the side of
Jesus and it wrapped around His flesh and it pulled the meat
from His ribs and left it exposed. And then they took cloth and
they pressed it in to that. The coagulation of His open flesh
where He was bleeding. Most people die from the whippings. And they stuck it in there, and
as the blood began to dry, when they took him to the cross, they
ripped it off of him. And they knotted through the
tendons of his hands, through the nerves of his hands, as he
was knotted to a pillar that he carried partly up to Golgotha. As he was mocked, as he had preached,
he came from the Father, and he was almighty and powerful,
and that the Father had sent him there to do a work. And as
he was mocked and said, look at you, you say you come from
the almighty and powerful God, and look at you, you're about
to die, you worthless piece of liar. You're a liar! And he was
mocked. And they knelt through his legs
and knelt his hands to the bar, and knelt his legs to the bar,
and they raised up the cross and dropped it into the hole,
and it jarred him. And part of that, they had put
thorns on his scalp that was left of that, and they pushed
it down into the distance between his scalp and his skin. And it
stuck there, and they made fun of him. He put a sign over his head that
said, King of the Jews. For six hours, he would pull
out all the tendons of his nerves and his wrists, and he would
pull up and scoop up the back that was ripped to nothing, so
that he could take a breath, because having been hanged from
the cross, he was flooding his lungs with blood and water and
was drowning. And the only people who died
that way were guilty criminals who deserved to die that way. So that was dying for Jesus physically. But Jesus died in so many ways.
Jesus died in John 8.50 when he says, I do not seek my own
glory, there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Jesus
dies when he says in John 8.29, and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for
I always do the things that are pleasing to him. When he died
to his own desires, to do the will of the one who sent him. And so Jesus lived perfectly
before God, perfectly obedient, perfectly holy as a man. He created
all those who walked among Him and scoffed at Him, who He Himself
turned Himself over to. And by the hands of those who
He came to save, He was crucified. He died to Himself in obedience. He died to Himself by becoming
the God-man. He died to Himself by being crucified
as a criminal. He died to Himself. He died. But just as that seed, as it's
a perfect seed when it's dead, it's vindicated. Oh, what a waste. I threw those seeds away. And
they're covered up with soil. And they're rotting in the ground.
Oh, but what comes from the decay of death? The harvest. And people will scoff. You threw
that grain away. You could have made bread with
that. You're so wasteful. You're so worthless. You threw
that grain in the ground and it is gone. And the next harvest
they come back and you have fields of new grain. More than you ever
had to start with. For that one seed makes a stalk
that gives hundredfold more grain. And oh, the waste of the death
of Jesus as the world looked upon in horror and they saw how
this seed who was supposed to lead them to life was being destroyed. Emotionally and physically dying. Oh, but the vindication that
comes when he is raised to life and glorified by the Father. The seed is vindicated by the
immeasurable harvest that it yields, thus dying for Jesus
is vindicated. But He is raised to life and
seeded, and one day all, all, all humanity will bow before
Him and say, Jesus is Lord. And of that multitude will be
those whom he brings with him to life. The harvest of the Lamb
of God. Jesus not only suffers through
death physically and emotionally and publicly and socially and
all these little weeds, but he suffers the wrath of God as a
sinner when he was not one. when he was separated from the
Father. Friends, you cannot understand that. So stop trying. Just be in awe and marvel that
your God is a God like that. The next question is this. That
was why did Jesus... Why did Jesus die? That's why
He died. What did it mean to Him? And so the next question would
be, so Jesus died and He's raised from the dead, so I'm good now,
right? Everything's great, right? No. Yes and no. Yes, you are a child of God,
alright. And you're better than alright.
You're righteous and you stand before God justified as if you'd
never sinned. Because Jesus Christ the righteous
took your sin on Himself and suffered the judgment of God. Black spirits in death. By faith, have you received the
fullness of the good news of Jesus Christ? Have you been made
alive in Christ? And thus, your nature of death
has been harvested by the Son of God. And now you have a harvested
soul that produces something that I think is genuinely lovely
and beautiful. I think the horrors of death
will give way to the beauty of life, making death for the Christian
a beautiful thing, only in the Gospel. Jesus qualifies this
when He says in verse 25, whoever loves his life, loses it. And
then He contrasted with this, whoever hates his life in this
world will keep it for eternal life. What does loving one's
life look like? I will speak broadly on a topic.
You plant your problems into one of these. And of course,
they're not all exhaustive, but just in Passing let's think I
love my life when I refuse to allow God's authority to have
authority over me I love my life when I refuse to see the authority
of God's sovereignty in my life I love my life when I refuse
God's rule. I love my life when I love my
life Over God's life for me. I love my life when I have self-wisdom
and understanding and knowledge Because I know I love my life
I love my life when I refuse God's Word as the rule of doctrine
and faith and salvation. I love my life when I renew my
idolatry and adultery and love myself above my brother. I love my life when I aspire
to be all that I could ever be because I can. And I could care
less about how it's glorifying the Savior who saved me. I love
my life. when my life remains an object
of wrath and destruction, and I don't even know it. And because
of that, those who love their life search revel in the focus
of one's own self, in the importance of one's own problems, in the
issues of one's own lusts, and desires, and greed, and materialism,
and friends. We must not love our lives. We should not revel in our own
ideals, our own special faith, our own pet beliefs, our own
history and experience, our own knowledge and wisdom and soul
and satisfaction thereof of these things. Because when we do, we
are self-condemned. And those that love their life
have no life because they have spurned the Son of God who was
sent from heaven to preach the gospel to them. In contrast, whoever hates his
life in this world will keep it for eternal life. What does
that look like? Where just everything that we've
just described, it's an absolute contrast. It's an absolute, just
under, different direction. It's an undergirding of all that,
and we fish it, and we go the other way. It's a repentance
of all those things. It's an opposition to all that. They hate the life that this
world has and the flesh that this world lives in, and they
love the life of God in Christ because they love Christ above all things. And there are
no other gods before them. And there are no other idols
before them. There are no other means to salvation
in their hearts and minds. There are no other lovers in
their marriage bed. There are no other lovers in
their affections. There is no other love except
that which is given them. And that love is Christ, and
His Word, and His Church, and the Cross. Jesus says, if you
desire to follow Me, come after Me, and take up a cross, and
come around. Following after Christ. I don't
know how to help you see this. Verse 26, if anyone serves me,
must follow me. Sometimes it's easier to say,
well, I hate my life, and I'm willing to lose it for the gospel's
sake. As Jesus says in another gospel, in another gospel, it
was, OK, I've got it. The following Christ is pursuing,
is running, is designing, is treasuring, is serving, and it's
longing after the Word, it's longing after worship, it's empowering,
being empowered by the Gospel, it's living out the Gospel, it's
living for the Gospel, it's pursuing Jesus with an absolute white
hot affection in such a way that everything else just sort of
goes undone. John the Baptist was undone. Bugs in his teeth, rats in his
hair, stout. Look like garbage. And that means that we refuse
to look selfishly, but most importantly, we look servingly at how we are
going to live for Christ. Friends, I'll tell you, be very,
very careful when you think that a thing that man starts to do,
and you plug into that thing, that that's gospel. Be careful. If you clean poop out of a toilet,
do it as unto the glory of God. But cleaning that toilet is not
pursuing Christ. But be part of your job on the
way, and as you do, yes, but it's not there. And so many times,
if I stop right here, if Jesus didn't keep on going in 26 and
beyond, we could, some of us could go, I'm doing that, I got
it! Yes! Hallelujah! Break this! We got
it! What's he saying, verse 26? If
anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my
slave be also. If anyone serves me, the Father
will honor him. The antithesis of that is, if
one does not serve me, the Father will not honor him. Friends,
don't be deceived. Honor means salvation. At the root of it. It's not like
the whole church is going to be there, and God is going to
say, let's just kill them right now. You should have worked a
little harder. But go on anyway. That ain't the point. The point
is, if you are honored by God, you are His child. If you are
dishonored by God, you are not His child. And if you are not
the child of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, you will suffer
the wrath of God. Forever. So serving Christ and following
Christ is not just dying to yourself. It's not self-deprecating. I
mean, that's part of how it looks. But anybody can do that. Anybody
can love themselves and be benevolent. Anybody can love themselves and
be a student of Scripture. Anybody can just do that. It's
not just dying to self, but it's a replacement of that. When you
kill yourself, per se, when your self is dead, what else is there? You serve and follow after Christ. You don't just don't die of sin,
you raise to newness of life. That's why holiness and affection
and growth and evangelism and spiritual love and churchmanship
and all of these things are manifested in the life of the church. And
if it's not, you're not in Christ. You cannot hate your siblings
in the Lord and claim salvation. It is absolutely impossible. Follow me. Where I am, there
will my servant be also. Where is being with Jesus? Being
with Jesus. Where is Jesus? Jesus is in the
light. Jesus is in humility. Jesus walks
by the Spirit. Jesus walks in fellowship with
the Father. Jesus walks in power. Jesus walks in glory. Jesus walks
in obedience. Jesus walks in truth. Jesus walks
in the light of God. Jesus walks in life. Jesus walks
with a desire to glorify the Father in everything. What hope do we have, church? What hope do we have? It's disheartening
right now. I can feel it in my own spirit.
I'm going, that's never going to manifest perfectly in my life. Absolutely. It'll be there. And we strive for it. We don't
make excuses when it's not there. But that's how God understands.
We stamp it out. And we turn from it. And we battle
with it. And we trust in the sufficiency
of Jesus who gave us life. Period. Christ alone, my hope is found. How deep the Father's love for
us. Not how deep our love is for the Father. That would be
a very bad song to sing, because we'd all feel like liars. So the ultimate issue now is,
are you in Christ? Do you seek after Him? Those
Greeks went there. He was born for that day, when
He would say, the hour has come. How horrifying is it when you
hold an infant child and you think, well, this child is going
to die. Every day I think about that
with all of my children. Not in fear, but just that as
our children are born, then when they're one day older, closer
to the day, they will stand before God in death. 6 years old, 20 years old, 60 years
old, 90 years old. Every day is one day closer to
the day we will stand in death. For it is appointed unto man
once to die and then to judgment. The question is, are you in Christ
alone? Jesus says, now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour. But for this purpose I have come
to this hour. Father, glorify Your name." See,
then a voice cries from heaven, I have glorified it and I will
glorify it again. And the crowd that stood there
and heard it said that it thundered. And the others said, an angel
has spoken. So Jesus speaks four things, and then we'll die, I
promise. First, Jesus speaks literally. expressing his heart. He says, I am so, my soul is
troubled. I'm troubled in my soul. What is the trouble? Don't miss
scripture when you see what this is. The trouble is as he prayed
in Gethsemane. Oh God, take this cup from me,
but not thy will be done but yours. The trouble is, in the
soul of Jesus Christ, is that He knew what He was born to do,
and the hour has come. The Gentiles have said, I want
to see salvation. And Jesus says, you've got it.
I'll give it to you. It's yours. And they didn't know
how. They were going, how? How are
you going to see? Are you going to die? We want
salvation. He goes, I know. I'm going to
give it to you in my death. So Jesus expresses His heart.
He's troubled. He knew the wrath of God. And then secondly, He speaks
rhetorically. He speaks literally. I'm troubled.
And He speaks rhetorically. He asks a question. What am I
to say? He's not saying, I don't know
what to say. He's saying, what am I to say? Are you going to save me, Father? Am
I to say, oh Father, don't do this? Then he speaks confidently, but,
Allah, the word in Greek, but, for this purpose I have come
to this hour, the hour of wrath, the hour of judgment, the hour
of death, the hour of horror. I'm here. And then he speaks
a word of prayer. He speaks straight to the Father.
He says, Father, glorify Your name. So Jesus speaks and then
God speaks. And He speaks and He says, I
will have and I'll do it again. And then what does Jesus say? Why did God speak audibly? Did
Jesus need it? Not at all. Not at all. He spoke. So those that heard
would hear. Jesus says, this verse has come
for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world.
You know why we do the things we do? Because we're sinners.
Do you know why it's a war? Because the enemy of God is at
war with God, and He's at war with us. And so it's a war. And Jesus is saying now, The
judgment of this world. In other words, he says, I will
divide the truth. I will divide the light from
the darkness. And the ruler of this world will be cast out.
When? It's done. You're saved. You're in Christ. He has no authority over you.
And I, when I'm lifted up from the earth, crucifixion, will
draw all people to myself. You Greeks are looking for me?
I'm here at the feasts of the Jews, in the Jewish temple, and
the Gentiles are coming in. I'm here with my people, and
they will see me, and the Gentiles are coming in, looking. So I'm
about to show them the fullness of everything they've ever desired
of me. I'm going to save them. He said this to show what kind
of death it was to die. The crowd said, we've heard them all. The
cross remains forever. How can you say that you must
be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man in verse 35? It is Jesus
preaching the gospel. Listen to these words and then
we pray. The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk
while you have the light. Lest darkness overtake you. The
one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While
you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become
sons of light. So what does that mean for us?
For walking, friends, is not a sitting. Though we rest at
the grace of God, we walk toward the light of Jesus. John 3, listen
to these words where Jesus says this. Bear with me, church. How would
these things be?" Nicodemus says. Jesus says, are you the teacher
of all Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
Truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we bear
witness of what we've seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
If I told you earthly things, you do not believe. How can you
believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has descended
into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have
eternal life. Whoever believes. Anyone who
believes will have eternal life. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only Son, that whoever believes Whoever, anyone who, all who
believe, all who believe should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it,
but in order that the world might be saved through him. Now Jesus
is at that hour in John 12. Whoever believes in Him is not
condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already,
because he does not believe in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the judgment. This is what I want you to see.
The light is coming to the world, and people love the darkness
rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone
who comes, irony, to the light. For anyone who does wicked things,
hates the light. It does not come to the light
unless its works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true
comes to the light. So Jesus is saying, walk while
there's light. Come while there's light. Because
when the light is gone, you stumble and fall. You cannot walk any
longer. What is the light? Jesus is the light. The gospel
is the light. Today is the day of salvation.
Do not play the tomorrow I will. But why do they come to the light?
So that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried
out in God, important for your church, and a breath of hope. God will affect, as you stay
abiding in Christ through this Word, God will affect those holy
things in your soul and in your mind and in your life. You will
grow into the likeness of Christ. And when you stumble, it's not
because you're in darkness, it's because you turn to look that
way. and Christ will pick you up.
Trust in Christ alone. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the
light of Jesus. So often, many people in this
country decorate a whole lot of stuff with lights, so that at night we turn the
lights out, and the sun's going down, and then we turn on the
little lights, so we see this great form of shadow of the thing
that is covered with the light. Tree, reef, words. Father, the light of Jesus fully
endrapes the fullness of your being. And we see you as you
completely are. And then when you bring us into
the light, when you bring a good heart into us, when we believe
by faith that Jesus has satisfied your wrath against us, Lord,
you then shine in us that we become the light of the world
and that people see the full glory of you through us. Let this season be about such
things, about such true things, even as we engage in ridiculous
things that are just enjoyable. Let us not squander this time. Father, I pray that we don't
swallow up the gospel in our commercial things. And I pray
that those who may have heard this sermon today would not miss
the point Jesus came to save sinners. And we are all sinners. And if
Jesus is not our salvation, nothing is. And so, Father, with that we
leave it. Rest it in the hearts of those children who are here.
Plant it deep into the soil of our lives that we would lay our
lives down and see the great harvest of our faith in You.
For You have reaped a harvest. and are still reaping that harvest
through your Son, Jesus, to whom we carry to the nations. In His
name we pray. Amen.