Death for Life

Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have sent your son so that we can see your glory in his death and resurrection. Most of all, that we can see your love for us as we think of life and the life you have created and intended and sent your son to die for, for us. Help us, Lord, to know how to live that life for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. A question before us this morning. How do we live well before we die? How do we secure a good life? Our passage this morning is all about life. And it speaks of death. Our message this morning is simple. Christ died to give us life. That is the Gospel. Christ died to give us life. And now we are to die to our sin in order to truly live. Christ died to give us life, and we must now die to our sin to truly live. We're continuing in the chapter of the Gospel of John. We're in chapter 12. And if you're following an APU Bible, if you need to take that Bible home, you are more than welcome to. We will be on page 899. Hear the word of the Lord beginning in verse 20. Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks, so these came to Philip who were from the side and Galilee and asked him, sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew, Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, 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, loses it. 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 my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." The first thing we'll see in our passage is that Christ died to give us life. And here we see first, Christ is the light of the nations. He's just not the King of Israel. He is God's King for all people. We'll first see that he is the light for the nation. Secondly, Jesus must die to give life. And thirdly, we must hate our sin and follow Christ. As we see here, the teaching of Christ, he must die for us and we follow him by dying to our sin. First, let's look at What really brings the teaching of Christ about this, the Gentiles coming and asking Jesus, can we see you? Jesus is just going up to Jerusalem for the last time. It was the triumphal entry. It's the Sunday before Easter. He's gone up for the last time. He's going to go up and he's planning and intending to die this time, his last journey up. And he's going up to become the king of the Jews. or to be declared the king of the Jews. The chief priests, the religious leaders of Israel, they've been plotting against Jesus for some time. They've issued arrest warrants. They threatened anyone who would follow him. They've declared it better for him to die for the entire nation. They will now falsely accuse him before the religious leaders. It's interesting that in verse 19, right before the Gentiles are declared, the Greeks are said to want to come to Jesus. Look at what the Pharisees said to one another. You see, we are gaining nothing. The world is going after him. They have tried to keep the people of Israel and other nations from going after Jesus, the true king, the true shepherd. And now we see over against the Pharisees, the religious leaders, The Greeks, the God-fearing Greeks, those who have come up to participate in Israel worship, the worship of Yahweh, they're saying, we want to see Jesus. As we've been walking through the Gospel of John, there's been a key theme. Jesus came to his own, and his own did not know him. They did not recognize him. They even rejected him. We're going to see that the people that Jesus came to save, his people, the nation of Israel, they're the ones that will betray him and send him to his death. Now, God has called some of the Jews to himself. We see some have had eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to believe. But we see happening here in verse 20 and 21, it's amazing. As Jesus is ascending to be the king of Israel, Greeks are coming. Can we see Jesus? They want to see Jesus. There's no wanting to observe. They've been hearing the promises. They've been hearing the promises from of old that there will be a light to the nations. There will be a light to the Gentiles. That there will be a reversal of the curse. That one son of Israel will come and take away sin. And they want to see for themselves, are you the promised one? Now, the beauty of this is we could go back. I'm only going to mention a few verses, but Genesis 12, 3, the original calling out of Abraham, the father of Israel, the original calling out. It was promised Abraham that you will be a blessing to all nations. Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. He is the blessing for all nations. Or Isaiah 49, 6, I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Or in Luke, Simeon praises God because he is a light for the Gentiles. Now, you have to remember, John, the evangelist, our author here, he's writing after Pentecost. The Jews didn't see what God was doing in the great plan of salvation. All the disciples, they're going to betray Jesus. They're going to reject Jesus before he dies. But now, John, he's writing after Pentecost. He has seen how the Holy Spirit came down on not just the Jews, the Samaritans and the Gentiles, the Ethiopians and all peoples. It's the beauty of the gospel. Every kind of sinner. Is welcome to come to Christ and be saved. Every time every is on our colors, our status is under nationality. It's our faith in Christ that makes us children. Now, we have to see this contrast. Verse 19, the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Israel, they're grumbling. They're all going to go to Jesus. The Gentiles, can we come see Jesus? We have to be overwhelmed here. by how powerful the sin is to bring darkness. The Pharisees, they're walking in darkness. That's why they can't see the light of God. They can't even see that Jesus is the light of Israel, much less the light of the Gentiles. So this is why the gospel is so offensive. It reveals how dark we are. It reveals how much we are enslaved and overpowered by the power of sin. Our hearts, our minds, They're twisted. They take God's good gifts and they abuse them for our own well-being. We are darkened by our sin. We have to be aware of this. Even as Christians, we are still sinners and that darkness still resides and we can be dull. We can be slow to learn, slow to respond to God's word. That's why we constantly need the light. We need the light to constantly show us our sin to repent of, the grace of Christ to know we're forgiven. We find the light in his word, in one another and in prayer. Now, as we look at how Jesus responds, it's kind of an odd response. He doesn't say, let them come to me. He breaks into a very clear teaching. But it isn't a direct answer to the request for the Gentiles to come see us here. We're going to see first Jesus must die to give life. Let's look again. Verse 23, Jesus responds to them. Jesus answers them. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. It's not a direct answer. Except for the fact that We've been waiting for this hour. Over and over again, in the Gospel of John, he's been referring to an hour that will come. In John 2, at the wedding feast, Jesus' mother says, you need to go provide some wine. And he says, my hour has not yet come, woman. We're waiting for this hour when Jesus would pour out His blood to wash His bride pure. In John 4, he confronts the woman of Samaria, he says, the hour is coming when true worship will take place. In John 5, he declares the hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. Very powerful. John 7, verse 30. So they were seeking to arrest Jesus, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. His hour is something we've been anticipating. And it was the hour in which he would be exalted to die on a cross. And here we see Jesus saying, the hour has come. The build up has come to an end. Jesus, because the Gentiles are coming, he now says in response, the plan is in place. I will ascend to Jerusalem for the last time. As we look at what he will do, it says, A son of man to be glorified. Truly, 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. He says, A son of man must be glorified. Now, what does it mean to be glorified? Jesus is going to go and he's going to die on a cross, and we must recognize that he will be glorified on what has been the symbol of shame and dishonor throughout the Roman culture. The cross was reserved for the worst criminals. The cross was a symbol of shame and dishonor reserved for the worst criminals. If we're going to see the glory of Christ, we see it on the cross, which is a representation and a symbol of dishonor. We see his glory in the place of shame. Why? Why would God do this? Because when we look up to Christ on the cross, we have to realize He did not die for His shame and His wrongdoing and His sin. He died for ours. And in order for us to truly see the glory of God, we have to see how we have lived shamelessly for our own worship for our own selves. This is the good news. God showed his glory on the cross so that we could see how shameful we've been living. And then we can see how much he loves us. But God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5.8. Friends, if you want to see the glory of Christ, You have to pray. Show the light on my shame. Shine the light in my darkness so that I can see how great your love is and how great your majesty is and that you, the king, the righteous king, died for me, the sinful servant. That is the glory of the cross. We have to recognize Our place should be one of judgment. But when we believe in Christ, we are given honor and it's his honor that we receive. Now, we look to the metaphor. He gives us a teaching, it's not just that you will be lifted up on the cross. Truly, truly, I say to you, this is true. Pay attention. This is drawing our attention. Truly, 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. Now, he's speaking to an agrarian society, so this metaphor would have hit home, and well, for us, it is a timely matter because we just had spring, and many of us are thinking about planting seeds, and we're anxiously anticipating what those seeds will bring forth, and not just plants, but fruit. Some of us are hoping and waiting to see if it's going to snow so we can start planting. The clear teaching here is that Jesus is saying that one must something must die in order to give life. You see, the seed, it contains the life giving energy and it must cease. It must give that energy over when it germinates to create the plant, which then bears more seed. The point here is clear. He must die alone. He must be buried one life given so that many other lives may be granted and given life. We see this metaphor also used in 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 35. But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of weed or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and each kind of seed is its own body. The clear teaching here, again, is in Christ is said, life comes through death. The first principle we must see is Christ must die to give life, his righteous life given for our life of rebellion. Now, interesting, it must die alone. There's a great emphasis on how he is dying alone, and we can see, as we will see, Jesus is left alone by his friends. His friends will reject him. One of his friends will even betray him. He will die alone on the cross. But it's not just his human company that forsakes him. One of the key emphases in all the Gospels is that it's the father who forsakes him. My father, my father, why have you forsaken me? He is left alone in his death. Why? Why would he die alone, such a painful death he did not deserve? Spurgeon answers it this way. If he had not actually died, he would, as man, have been alone forever, not without the eternal father and the divine spirit, not without the company of angels. But there had not been another man to keep him company. Our Lord Jesus cannot bear to be alone. A head without its members is a ghastly sight. Crowned as he may, know ye not that the church is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all." And we can think of other metaphors that are used throughout scripture. He would be a shepherd without sheep. He would be a shepherd who does not have sheep to care for and love. He'd be a brideless bridegroom. Oh, how great his love is for his bride. That he had to lay down his life to purify her with his blood. He would not have the church to love forever. Another metaphor we can find in Scripture. He'd be an only child. He would not have other siblings with whom he has adopted through his blood to bring about love for them from the Father. Now, the beautiful thing we have to recognize about the gospel. He doesn't need us. but he desired us. He didn't need us for all eternity, but he desired to be with us for all eternity. Oh, how he loves us. He loves us in such a way that he dies for us. Now we see our response. In order for us to have life, Christ must die for us. Our sin counted towards him. His righteousness counted towards us. But now we see how we must respond. Look at verses 25 and 26. Whoever loves his life, loses it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternity, for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. We've seen what Christ must do. He must die to give us life. Now, how do we live? By dying to ourselves. The second main focus is how we respond. And we could see in Matthew 16, 24 and Luke 9, 23, a similar teaching, but phrased differently. Christ says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Here we see the same teaching. You must hate your life. You must deny yourself. Self-denial. We must die to the life of sin that we have grown to love and hold so dear. We can hear something very similar to Paul in Colossians 3. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is. See to the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. Sexual morality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, a wrath of God is coming, and these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self with its being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator. What Paul is saying here in different words, hate the life of sin that we are born in, that we are predisposed to, that seems so natural. As his teaching starts, you get a new position because I'm going to die for you to give you new life. Now, that new position means you live a different kind of life with a different purpose. We're supposed to be living for his glory. Let's go back to verse 25. Listen to this very clear language. Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it. Very clear contrast. Love. Hate. Now, biblically, we can see that there's something behind this language of love and hate. God loved Jacob. He hated Esau. As language of God's sovereign choice, there wasn't something more lovely about Jacob than Esau. God sovereignly chose Jacob over against his brother Esau. Or more so, we can see this in Jesus' own teaching. We are called to love God and hate our parents. Now, this is not God, Jesus, overthrowing the call and command to honor your parents. It's saying, when it comes down to it, if you have to choose between me and your parents, you choose to worship me. We're to honor our parents. But God is to be honored and followed and obey above all. We see here there's two ways to live. You either love your sin, and you'll lose your life, Or you hate your sin. And you gain eternal life. What a strong contrast. To love sin is to die. To hate sin is to live. There's something else I want us to think about as we go into this passage. God created life. The life God created, we are to embrace. The life God created, we are to hold to and love and long for. He created us to live for his glory. That's what he created. That's what he intended. So, first and foremost, as we think about this passage, we're not to hate the life God created. We're to hate the life of this world. It's very clear. Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world, they will keep it. How John uses the world is very important. John 15, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you were not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. You see here, the world is opposed to God. It's the order of man working against God in rebellion. You see this in 1 John 2, 15. Do not love the world or the things of the world. What defines and describes the world? If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that the world is, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of possession, it's not from the Father. There's two ways to live. You either love the Father and the things of the Father, or you love the world and the things of the world. One has true life. One is death. One will last forever. The other ends in destruction and God's wrath. As we think about this passage, we must say that Jesus is a light that came into the world so that we could stop walking in darkness. That if we believe in Him, we see sin for what it is, destructive. We see life for what it is. It's not meant to live for our glory. It's meant to live for God's. The only thing that will last forever is the things of God. If we're trying to hold on to the life we live in sin, it's like capturing water in a sifter. You can't capture it. You can't hold it. If we're trying to hold on to a life of sin, it's actually worse than that. It's like trying to swallow an exploding atomic bomb. It will destroy you. It will conquer you. We are called to hate our lives in this world. God is the author of life. God is worthy of all the glory. This is the chief sin. We're idolaters of self. We are continually and shamelessly making idols of ourselves. It's amazing when I think about it. I am so inclined towards my own glory, I don't even have to think about doing it. This is what I'm predisposed to. I don't have to choose to love myself. Even Jesus' own teaching assumes we love ourselves. We love ourselves. That's what we do. The problem is we love ourselves over and above God. We give ourselves the worship that only God is worthy of. This is our natural condition to love ourselves above God. And it's scary how natural it is. If you think about all the things you do, all the decisions you make, all the things you talk about, how much of it is about you versus God? How much of our lives are consumed about us and our happiness and our well-being and our security over against how much is consumed by God? and the things of God and the things that are above and for His glory. This is our sin. We're natural self-idolaters. We're natural born self-idolaters. This means that very difficult, hard decisions lie ahead. The call to love the life of God versus the life of the world, it isn't done by letting go and letting God. It's not just simple surrender. It is a difficult, ongoing, everlasting battle while you're in this flesh to submit to Christ and to resist the things that seem natural. That is your love for self. You see, the call is not to stop sinning and pursuing sin when you stop loving and enjoying it. That'd be nice. I'll stop sinning when I stop loving sin. That's not the call. The call is not to stop making yourself an idol after you stop desiring it. We naturally desire it. No, Christ died while we were still sinners and we're called to resist sin while we're still sinners. We must choose against what we desire. If you're waiting to stop sinning when you stop desiring it, you'll never stop sinning. If you're going to wait to come out of this enslaving power of sin, when it stops tempting you, you'll never come out of it. You see, the life of godliness is a long, slow, difficult process. One, you'll never reach perfection. But you'll make the continual progress of these little decisions, and they're little decisions. No, I will not enter into that word of gossip. No, I will not entertain that scene. These little small choices that have such huge consequences. A life lived of making very small little decisions. You'll progress ever so slowly, but surely in godliness. Growing in godliness takes effort. It's hard work. because you have to fight against sin and desires that are dwelling up within you. A few application points. Well, this entire passage is application because he's speaking directly to us, but I want to focus on a few folks. First, children, I want to warn you, you're setting patterns right now. You're setting patterns right now. Learn the discipline of self-denial. Learn the discipline of self-denial now. Once sin becomes a habit, it's so hard to break. Choose now to follow Christ. Choose now not to make sin a pattern in your life. Because you may think I'll start obeying when I get older and it really matters. No, it matters now because your life is about worship now. And that's the thing that matters most. Choose now to pursue righteousness. Because if you're waiting till later, that habit is only going to make it harder. Parents, train your children by exercising self-denial. Teach them to resist sin. And I think this is probably the most important thing we could do as parents. Ask for forgiveness for our own sins. Be transparent about the sins that we are so easily accustomed to, the ones that we so easily are enslaved by, so that they can see us battling sin. Third group. College students. Something I have to tell all college students, so here you are. You have more free time right now than you'll ever have the rest of your life. Everyone's laughing because everyone knows it's true. How you are choosing to use that free time is setting a pattern for who you're going to become. Choose now to set a pattern towards godliness, not a self-consumed livestock, but a life living for God's glory. There's no way to polish off the hard teaching what Christ has given us. If we're going to believe in him and have the life, we have to hate our sin. We have to reject and resist that which seems so natural. Avoid calling it natural. It's not the way you were created. You were created for worship. Long for the worship and the pure worship of God by making little decisions and knowing that those little decisions of our time with great effort leads to a pure worship of God. This, of course, means we depend upon the Spirit. Depending on the Spirit here as we gather and we hear God's Word and as we pray and we look to His Word and study, find brothers and sisters who are going to walk hand in hand with you as saints struggling against sin toward a God-worth life. Let's look at verse 26. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. We see here an allusion to one of the great teachings of Christ. You can't have two masters. If you're my servant, I'm your master, you'll follow me. You're either on the path of righteousness or the path of self-worship. He is the ultimate servant. And we are to follow him in serving and worshiping God. Finally, let's look at this last promise. If anyone serves me, the father will honor him. Something very important, this passage is the future trajectory of it. Me speaking to his disciples for when they will have the Holy Spirit and they will be able to follow him. But there's a future trajectory of Christ in this passage. He's telling us the father will honor you. You will be with me where I am. We have to be future thinking as Christians, but this is a very dangerous future thinking. When we think about the future, when we're called to think about the future, it does not mean that I think when I reach this stage of life, then I'll start worshiping. This is such a Such a natural, sinful tendency we have to procrastinate true worship until I've reached that next stage, until I become 18, until I get married, until I have children, until I retire. If you are thinking about waiting for really worshiping God, you're never going to do it. If he's not worthy of worship right now, he never will be. He's either worthy of worship right now in your circumstances or he's not. He's not waiting until he's really going to be worthy or until you have the right circumstances. You're purchased by Christ. He's worthy. Do not wait for that next stage. Live the life against sin now, seeking to worship Him. Finally, this is such a great paradox. If you serve me, the Father will honor you. It's not pursuit of honor, it's pursuit of God's glory. Those who serve will be honored. Those who serve are looked upon by God and they said, well done, good and faithful servant. If we seek honor. In this life, we seek our own honors specifically. We will not be honored by God. But if we seek the honor and the glory of Christ by serving him, Then the Father will honor us as we are with Him in Christ. Friends, it's a call to discipleship. It's a call to see that this life that we've been living is a life of sin. It's recognizing how dangerous, how deadly that life of sin is. And that Christ has died to rescue us from that life of sin. To rescue us from the consequences of God's wrath. To rescue us from the consequences in this life. And it's showing us there's a higher calling than just pursuit of gross sin. It's the worship of God. It's seeing his glory. It's reveling in his majesty and his love for us. This is the call of Christ. Get out of the dangerous sin and follow him into the life of love. Will you pray with me? Father, what heavy words you have laid upon us today from your Son. And that we are too prone to love ourselves. We are too prone to love our sin. And in doing so, we've rejected you. Lord, help us to see the glory that we could be enjoying In you, if we resist and reject sin. If anyone does not know you, Lord, I pray that they would see their sin for what it is and they would long to know that new life that you give to them. Well, for those enslaved by sin, I pray that we will be able to come around them and proclaim your truth into their lives and your spirit will well up within them a desire to resist the evil one. Well, I pray that we as a church would be constantly encouraging and exhorting one another to good works and to love you more faithfully. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.