Let's open our Bibles today to
John chapter 12. Begin our reading in verse number
20, John chapter 12, verse 20, and read through verse 35. And the time period in which
this took place is the last week, in the last week of our Lord's
earthly life. Beginning in verse 20. And there
were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the
feast. The same came, therefore, to
Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him,
saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew,
and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them
saying, the hours 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. 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 also shall my servant
be. If any man serve me, him will
my father honor. Now is my soul troubled, 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 men unto me. This he said, signifying
what death he should die. The people answered him, we have
heard out of the law that Christ abided forever. And how sayest
thou the son of man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man? Then Jesus said unto them, yet
a little while is the light with you. Walk while you have light,
lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness
knoweth not whither he goeth. I want to end my message this
morning with our Lord's prayer in verse 28. Father, glorify
thy name. But before we come to the prayer,
I have several lessons I want to bring out to us from these
verses that I've read. First of all, may we learn a
lesson about worshiping. A lesson about worshiping. That's
what this service is. It is a worship service. And we see here in verse 20 that
certain Greeks, that is Gentiles, they had come to the Passover
and the scripture here says to worship, to worship. And then we see their request. Sir, speaking to Philip, we would
see Jesus. Let's connect those two together.
They came to worship and they said, sir, we would see Jesus. That should always be the desire. of each and every one of us when
we come here to worship is that we might see Jesus. We do not come to worship to
see one another, although we love to be with God's people. We do not come to worship to
hear the news headlines of the day, but we come together to
see Jesus. May that always be our prayer.
May we utter that prayer. May we pray that prayer as we
come into this building for worship service. Lord, let me see Jesus. Let me see
Jesus. Look with me, if you will, in
Mark's gospel chapter nine, just a moment, and we'll come back
here. But look with me in Mark chapter nine. In Mark chapter 9 and beginning
with verse 2, we read here of this account of the transfiguration
of the Savior. We find this account in both
Matthew and Mark and Luke. But here in Mark, something is
brought out especially that I wanted us to see. And after six days
Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John, and leadeth them
up into a high mountain apart by themselves, and he was transfigured
before them. And his raiment became shining,
exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white
them. And there appeared unto them
Elias with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter
answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here,
and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses,
and one for Elias. For he wished not what to say,
for they were so afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed
them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my
beloved son, hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked
round about, they, this is what I wanted to say, they saw no
man anymore save Jesus only with themselves. Jesus only. God spoke from heaven there and
said, this is my beloved son, hear ye him. And these three
disciples, when they looked around, they saw no one but Christ only. In our worship services, we pray
in Jesus' name, we sing hymns which praise the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we study the word of God which speaks to us of Him. You
remember the testimony of the two disciples on the day of our
Lord's resurrection. Two of them were going to a village
by the name of Emmaus, and the Lord Jesus Christ came along
with them, but their eyes were beholden that they did not know
it was Christ who was walking with them. And the Bible tells
us that he began with Moses and explained to them the scriptures
which spoke of him. the Lord Jesus Christ. He took
the Old Testament, the scriptures, and showed how that they spoke
of him, of Christ. And then when he left them, this
is what they said to one another. Did not our heart burn within
us? That's what we want to do. We
want to have our hearts set on fire. our hearts to glow with
love for Christ, for the Lord Jesus, because of who he is,
and because of his great love, and what he has done for us,
and what he's doing for us. We would see Jesus. Sir, we would
see Jesus. They came to worship, and they
came to worship. They would see Jesus. These two
disciples, they said, did not our hearts burn within us while
he talked with us by the way and while he opened unto us the
scriptures? I said, we pray in his name,
we sing unto his praise, we study the word of God to see Christ,
to hear of him, for to know Christ is eternal life. To know Christ
is to have our sins forgiven. To know Him is to have a relationship
with God. To know Him as our God, as our
Father, to have fellowship with Him. We come to worship. God help us to worship Him. Amen. More about Jesus would I know,
more of His grace to others show, more of His fullness see, more
of His love who died for me. Yes, a lesson about worship. What is it? It's to see Christ. It's to hear of Him. It's to
praise Him. Actually, the word worship means
to prostrate oneself, to bow down before Him, to know
Him as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Another lesson,
may we learn a lesson about the accessibility to Jesus. Now, the action of Philip here,
at first, it may seem somewhat strange. When these Gentiles,
they came to Philip and said, sir, we would see Jesus, but
he doesn't go immediately to Jesus. He goes to another disciple
by the name of Andrew. And could it be that he wasn't
real sure that the Lord Jesus Christ would receive him, receive
these Gentiles? Several years ago, my wife and
I had the privilege of visiting London, England. And we went
to the Tabernacle, Spurgeon's Tabernacle, and we attended a
service there on Wednesday evening. And it was a real blessing to
me after having read so many of sermons by Charles Spurgeon
to see the Tabernacle and go to the Tabernacle. We listened
to the pastor preach and he brought a good message. And one of the
assistant pastors spoke to us afterwards, recognizing we were
visitors. And I said, I would like to meet
the pastor. Of course, I told him I am a
pastor, a pastor of church in Houston, Texas, and I'd like
to meet the pastor. And he said, well, we'll send
up in a few minutes and see if the pastor is receiving people
tonight. Well, he wasn't. Or he didn't that night. And
you know, there's a lot of people that you just don't come into
their presence immediately, do you? There's a protocol you must
go through. Our Lord had sent these disciples
out before this, Philip and Andrew, and he had told them not to go
in the way of the Gentiles. These were Gentiles. He had told
them not to go into the way of the Gentiles, but to go only
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So maybe there was
some doubt in their minds if the Lord would receive these
Gentiles. But they should have remembered
there's two people in the life of Christ when he was here that
the Lord Jesus Christ commended as having great faith. And you know, both of those people
were Gentiles. They were Gentiles. One was a
Roman centurion, and he had a servant who was sick. And he had heard
of Jesus, and he sent his servants to Jesus to intercede for his
servant that he might be healed. And you know, the Lord Jesus
said, I will come and heal him. And he met the Lord Jesus, and
he said, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should even come under
my roof. He was a Gentile. But he saw
himself as not being worthy that the Lord Jesus Christ, he knew
something about who he was and the authority that he had. He said, I'm a man who has authority. I say to this man, go, and he
goes, and to another, come, and he comes. He knew something about
authority, about lordship, about kingship. Lord, I'm not worthy
that you even come under my roof. But the Lord did go under his
roof, and he did heal his servant. And then there was that other
Gentile, that woman, the Syrophoenician woman, whose daughter was vexed
with the devil, and she came to the Lord, and you remember
the Lord And the conversation made the statement, it's not
me to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. Truth,
Lord, you're right. But even the small dogs eat from
the crumbs of the master's table. She knew something about who
she was talking to. You see, a crumb from a lot of
people's table wouldn't be enough to fill a little thimble. But she knew something of who
he was, who he is, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And
so she said, well, just a crumb, just a crumb. And our Lord cast
the demon out of her daughter immediately and said, great is
thy faith. Yes. But that may be the reason
that they didn't come. Philip didn't come immediately.
But the point I'm making is the Lord Jesus Christ is accessible. This is what the word of God
tells us. But to this man will I look.
Would you have an audience with Christ? Would you love to be
in His presence and speak to Him? I would. Maybe you're here this morning,
you've never been saved. You've never come to know Christ
as your Lord and Savior. Would you like to know Him? Would
you like to come into His presence and ask for salvation? The Word of God said, for whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you don't call, surely you're
not going to blame the Lord when He casts you into hell. How much more shall your Heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, if you never
ask? then surely you won't complain
when you stand before the Lord Jesus Christ one day and are cast into a devil's hell. You see, there's two doctrines
in the Word of God that run all the way through it, side by side,
and they're not contradictory. We'll never understand it completely,
I know that. But God is absolutely sovereign. He has mercy on whom he will
have mercy. And man is absolutely responsible. If a man goes to hell, he has
no one to blame but himself. If a man goes to heaven, he's
got no one to thank but Jesus Christ. To this man, to this man will
I look, even to him that is poor. You say, well, I'm not poor.
We're not talking here about material wealth. We're talking
about spiritual poverty, of being a bankrupt sinner, not having
one thing to commend yourself to God with. not a prayer, not
ever any duty that you've ever done, nothing, nothing to commend
you to God. Poor, blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. To this man, God said,
I will look, to him that is poor and of a contrite heart. I've
sinned against thee. You know, true repentance is
recognizing that we've sinned against God. So many times people will acknowledge,
well, I've done wrong to this person. I've done wrong to that
person. I've sinned against. Yes, we
all have, but we've all sinned against God. That's the issue,
how we've treated God. He created us for His glory,
and we've lived for our own glory. I've sinned against God. Contrite,
poor in spirit and contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. I was
looking over these notes this morning earlier and I prayed,
Lord, Lord, give me that contrite spirit. Give me that poverty
of spirit. Oh Lord, help me to tremble at
your word. Not to be afraid of God, oh no. But just recognize who he is
and who I am and how I should respond to him
and respond to his word. But the point I'm making here,
or hope to make, is the Lord Jesus Christ is accessible. You may come. What a privilege
it is. at any hour of the day, any time
of the night, to go into the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ and say, Father, here I am again. Here I am again. I've messed
up again. I love that verse. I believe it's in James. It says
he upbraideth not. He upbraideth not. Maybe some of you have experienced
this. You went to your father or your
mother sometime when you were young, and they said, well, what
about this? What about the other day when
I told you this or did this? No, that's upbraiding us. He upbraideth not. Come with
all your needs, all your cares, at all times. And he hears, and
he answers our prayers. Here's a third lesson we may
learn about Christ our. You notice in verse 23 here in
our text, and Jesus answered them. It's kind of strange, isn't it,
the way it doesn't say that he spoke to the Gentiles necessarily,
but he answered. He answered them saying, the
Irish come. Now, two times before, if you were
reading through the Gospel of John, two times before, you come
to this verse, you will see his hour was not yet come. And both
of those times, man, his enemies had worked at destroying him,
but his hour was not yet come. So when we read this, his hour
is come, the hour is come, then we automatically think, well,
he's speaking about the hour of his death, and no doubt he
is. But that's not all. No, the hours
come that the son of man should be glorified. Yes, that includes
his death, but that's not all. He died a very ignominious death,
a shameful death, as far as men are concerned. The hour has come
that the Son of Man should be glorified. Yes, he died upon
the cross, he was laid in the tomb, but he came out of that
tomb as a conqueror. He conquered death. You've heard me and you've heard
other preachers and you've read that so many times. Has it lost
its meaning? He conquered death. No other man had ever conquered
death. When a man dies, that's it. There's no restoring to life
by himself. You say, well, Lazarus died and
he came back to life. Yes, he came back to life to
die again. When the Lord Jesus Christ, when
I say He conquered death, He conquered death so as to never
die again, to live forever. Not only did He conquer death
in His resurrection, but He ascended unto the Father. I want you to
look back with me to a Psalm, just a moment. Psalm 24, if you
will. And can you just kind of imagine
with me a moment when the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man, came
into this world as a man to be our kinsman redeemer, lived here
for 33 years, died on the cross, was buried, rose from the grave,
and after 40 days, he ascends back to heaven. or he ascends
into heaven. What would that have been like? What would that have been like
to have seen that? The Lord Jesus Christ coming
into the very heaven of heavens, into the presence of God. Well,
look here in Psalm 24, verse 7. Lift up your heads, O you
gates, and be you lift up, you everlasting doors, and the King
of glory shall come in. Is this a picture of what took
place? Sounds like it to me. Who is
this King of glory? The Lord. The Lord strong and
mighty. He was crucified in weakness.
My friends, don't think of the Lord Jesus Christ as some weak
individual. No, no. He's the Lord God Almighty. He came back. The Lord strong
and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. You
say, did the Lord Jesus Christ go to war? He sure did. Did he
do battle? He sure did. We're going to see
that in just a moment. Lift up your heads, O you gates,
even lift them up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory
shall come in. He was despised of man, acquainted
with sorrow. When he returned to the Father,
he was received as a king of glory. The Lord of hosts, he
is the king of glory. The word host, of course, means
the armies of the angels, right? The armies of heaven. And he
is the commander, he's the king. When these Gentiles, These Greeks came, and they said,
sir, we would see Jesus. I believe that this served as
like the first fruits, the offering of the first fruits in the Old
Testament. Under the law, a man would bring
the first fruits. He'd take a bunch of wheat, you
know, and bring it to the priest, and the priest would wave that
before the Lord. It was called the offering of
the first fruits. That showed that there was many
more out there in the field yet. That was just the first fruits.
And when these Gentiles came, as they did now, asking to see
the Lord Jesus, I believe it testified to Christ of what he
knew was coming. There's a prophecy in the prophet
of Isaiah in chapter 49, it's the father speaking to the Son,
God the Father speaking to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Father said unto His
Son, well, the Son said, I've spent my strength in vain. I mean, He labored here and He
was preaching and teaching, and yet when He ascended back to
the Father, you remember, there was 120 people. that gathered
there in that upper room on the day of Pentecost. Not very many,
not very many, 120? I've spent my strength in vain. And then the father says, it's
a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the
tribes of Jacob. and to restore the preserved
of Israel. Now listen, I will give thee
for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation
unto the end of the world, the earth. Our Lord knew that these
were just like the first fruits. There was many Gentiles that
were coming, that would come and have come. So that today,
think about this, today, all around this world, I realize
that Sunday's already passed in some parts of the world, but
on this Sunday of September the, what is it, 28th, 2005, all around
this world, people have worshiped the Lord Jesus Christ. and are
worshiping him and will worship him from just that small beginning,
just like these Greeks, maybe just a handful, the first fruits. Oh, but there was so many, so
many yet to come. And then fourth, maybe we learn
a lesson about reading the word of God. You see, these people
who heard this, they said, well, we've heard out of the law that
Christ abides forever. And yes, they had heard that
out of the law. Just one example is Psalm 110,
when David said, the Lord said to my Lord, which is certainly
speaking of the Messiah, the Christ who was promised to come,
thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In
other words, an unending life. But now you say that this son
of man must be lifted up. They did see that in the word
of God, that Christ abided forever. But didn't they also see that
he would be cut off out of the land of the living? Didn't they
also see that the scripture said that his feet and his hands would
be pierced? And I said a lesson about reading
the word of God. You don't take one scripture
out of its context and build a doctrine on it, a teaching
on it. We interpret scripture with scripture,
with spiritual things, with spiritual things. Many people read the
scripture and just like these people, they only saw one thing
and they looked over what the scriptures teach about Christ
also giving his life as a ransom for many. May we learn a lesson from the
Lord's answer. The Lord answered by illustrating
the necessity of his death. He used a piece of corn, a corn
of wheat. And he said, a corn of wheat
must fall into the ground or it will remain alone. There are
four things that I want to point out about that hurriedly. First, he used a corn of wheat. Wheat, that's what we make our
bread with, isn't it? He is the bread that came down
from heaven, which giveth life unto the world. It wasn't a corn
of corn or barley or something like, it was a corn of wheat
in his illustration. "'cause he is the bread of life. "'Whoso eateth my flesh shall
live forever.'" Second, it was one corn, singular. The Lord
Jesus was alone in redeeming his people. He tried the winepress
of the wrath of God alone with none to help him. By his one
offering, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. He
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh
unto the Father but by me. It's Christ and Christ alone. No saints, not the Virgin Mary,
not a church, no. It was one corn that fell into
the ground to die. There's one Savior, and third,
It fell into the ground, shows us his death was not accidental. Peter on the day of Pentecost
told those men that they had crucified the Lord of glory according
to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. In other
words, his death was determined, purposed, ordained from before
the foundation of the world. It didn't just happen. No, it
was God's purpose in bringing many sons to glory. And the fourth
thing about our Lord's example here, he has one corn, it falls
into the ground and dies, but then it brings forth much fruit,
much fruit. When the apostle John, you read
the letter of Revelation, the book of Revelation, and think
of these two things that John saw in heaven. He saw a complete
number, first of all. Not one's going to be missing.
Not one of God's chosen. Not one that God chose from before
the foundation of the world and gave to his son. to be his bride. It's a complete number, 144,000. You know, the group that called
themselves the Jehovah's Witness, they started up in the early
20th century, I believe it was. And at first they were teaching
there's only going to be 144,000 saved. But then when they got
up to 144,000, they had to revise their doctrine. No, it's not talk, when John
saw 144,000, he's just talking about a complete number. He's
not talking about there's only 144,000 saved. We don't know, but I know it's
going to be a complete number. Not one of those who were given
to the son is he going to lose. And the second thing, not only
a complete number, but a great number. A great number. In fact, he tells us a number
so great, a multitude which no man could number of all nations
and kindreds and peoples and languages. 10,000 times 10,000
and thousands of thousands. Oh my. Just to be one of those millions
of people. Amen. Not going to be us four no more.
No, no. We've got a big family. Yes. Now let me just say a word or
two about the prayer. Father, glorify thy name. He acknowledges here his soul
was troubled. In verse 27. Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? What shall
I pray? Father, should I pray this? Father,
save me from this hour. What shall I say? No, he didn't
say that, did he? He said, Father, glorify thy
name. In other words, not my will,
but thy will be done. You know, it may be easy when
God's providence is smiling upon a child of God to pray these
words, Father, glorify thy name. What if you were the priest like
Aaron when God killed two of his sons immediately? What if you were like Eli, the
priest? It's the Lord when his sons were
killed in battle. It's the Lord. Father, glorify thy name. What about if you have been sick,
live in a body that is suffering, not a few days, but week after
week and month after month and year after year, and knowing
full well that God has a power to heal you, but he doesn't. Father, glorify thy name. What about when you look down
into a casket of the remains of someone that you love so much? for the last time to see that
body in this world. They've been stripped from you
by death. Father, glorify thy name. Why I'm saying this is because
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he said this, Father, glorify thy
name, he knew, he saw everything that was coming. He saw the scourging
that he would experience in Pilate's Hall. He saw the mockery that
he would experience from the crowd there. Ah, you saved others. Let him save himself, and then
we'll believe on him. He saw the pain that he would
experience by the nails piercing his hands and his feet, no doubt.
He saw Satan coming, the prince of the world. He said, now he's
going to be cast out. He suffered the temptation of
Satan earlier in his life. Now he's going to suffer that
temptation in the garden and on the cross. And he sees all this. He knew what was coming. And somehow, and none of us can
understand this, none of us can explain this, but somehow, when
he was made to be sin, when the sins of his people were charged
upon him as their surety, that his father would somehow forsake
him. I think I read this, I've heard
it before, Martin Luther was studying that scripture one day
and he just came flying out of his study, threw up his hands
and said, God forsaking God. How can anyone understand it? But he saw that. He knew that
was coming. And yet he still prayed, Father,
glorify thy name. Because he could see also that
in glorifying his father's name by his substitutionary death,
that he would bring many sons to glory. May God bless his word here today
to all of us.