Amen. Amen. Well, I invite you to take your Bibles this morning and turn to the Gospel of John. John. Chapter 12 will be where we study, and if you've been with us, I understand that might sound confusing. That might sound like a typo. I'm not preaching to the book of Joshua. I know I've heard the joke that that's the only book I know how to do, because it's my name, so that's okay. I do know how to at least teach them. Two books, possibly. We'll find out, I guess. But now we love the whole Bible. It's good and it's fun. As we study the Bible, and as we look at God's Word, we do find that the Bible is full of the surprising. The Bible regularly rubs up against our expectations, or even against our logic. The Bible is full regularly of these paradoxes, these seeming incongruities. Let me explain. Bible tells us that if we want to be first, you need to be last. If you want to be exalted, you need to be humble. If you want to enjoy Kingdom riches, you need to understand that you're poor. If you want to be well, you need to see that you're sick. If you want to be a saint, you need to know that you're a sinner. And the scriptures, the way up is down. These are the seeming paradoxes of the Bible, and it's a reminder to us that God's logic is greater than ours. He tells us in Isaiah 55, his ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. They're higher than our ways and our thoughts. And so, because God does not operate according to our limited way of thinking, we should expect to be surprised by the Scripture. We should expect to find some of these paradoxes, and we do find one in our passage this morning.
The paradox we're going to look at today is that life comes by death. Life comes by death. That is if you want to find life, you need to embrace death. If you want to be a part of bringing life, it's going to come through regular practice of death. Let's explore this more. We'll be in John chapter 12 this morning. I invite you to go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word. We're going to read verses 20 through 26 and after we're done reading, I want you go ahead and remain standing, and I'll pray for our time immediately after reading. Let's read John 12:20-26. This is the word of God, it says.
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And 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, 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.
Let's pray together. Father, we are thankful for your Word. We're thankful that your Word revives our souls and makes us wise for life and godliness, and it's the source of the greatest joy in our life. Lord, as we study our study your Word this morning, help us to see your glory. Help us to see the glory of your Son, Jesus. Renew and refresh and encourage our hearts as we turn our eyes from the passing things of this world, and spend this next time focusing on Christ, doing that Lord, help us to see him better and help us to be more faithful. We pray these things in your Son's name, amen.
And go ahead and grab your seat. As we think about this passage, let's go ahead and start by looking at the background. What is the background? Let's set the scene a little bit. We read in verse 20 that they're up to worship at the feast. What is this feast? Well, this feast would have been the annual Passover, that annual event where all of Israel was supposed to gather in Jerusalem to commemorate the fact that they are the people that were rescued out of Egypt. They're going to remember that in one night, God delivered them from bondage, from the Egyptians to the death of the Passover lamb. And that's what they were. That was their identity. That's who they were. They were the rescued people of God. And so, Israel at this time, particularly Jerusalem, at this time, was packed. The streets would have been teeming with tens of thousands of people, probably. Hundreds of thousands, if you count the surrounding area, to celebrate the event. It was an exciting time. But this year was particularly exciting. This year, people were especially interested in going because they wanted to meet and see and hear about the man from Nazareth, the preacher, this man named Jesus because they had been hearing about Jesus. They'd heard of his miracles, how he had cast out demons and healed the sick, and they've heard his teaching, which comes with so much authority and no little amount of controversy. And right before this chapter, Jesus had just performed his most incredible miracle yet, and that he raised his friend, Lazarus, from the dead with a word. And so now, all of a sudden, this is the buzz of the city. We know that this is what they're hearing about.
Let's look at it to see it in the context. Look at verse nine. John 12:9-12. It says, “When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came not only account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.” So, the word is getting out about this. Look at Verse 17, it says, “The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to bear witness.” They can't stop talking about it. I'm sure you wouldn't be able to either, right? Hey, this man just raised someone from the dead. He was in the grave for four days to the point that he stinks, and now he's been resurrected by Jesus. So, everyone wants to see Jesus, but not everyone is thrilled about Jesus, because in the background of what's happening in these chapters is that the Pharisees have determined that they need to kill him. They are out to finally and fully destroy him. Look back, if you would, at the end of chapter 11. Chapter 11, again, this is in the scene and in the mind of what's going on. It says, “After the resurrection,” verse 53 What's it say? John 11:53, “From that day on, they made plans to put him to death.” Verse 57, “Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him for the purpose of eventually killing him. So that's our scene here. So, Jesus has just done the greatest sign of his earthly ministry. The Pharisees are out to kill him, and everybody, the crowds, are intrigued. They're interested. They want to see Jesus. Including verse 20 of our passage today, these Greeks come and they ask a really good question. They say, Sir, we wish to see Jesus.
Now, who were these Greeks? These would have been Gentiles is the idea; they're just non-Jews. Perhaps they're converts to Judaism, or they're just God-fearing religious people that want to be either for the Passover, we're not totally sure, but they've come and they talked to Philip, probably because he's from Bethsaida, which would have had more Greek speaking people. And there's this game of telephone where they let Jesus know, like, hey, these Greeks would like to see you. So, Philip and Simon, or Philip and Andrew, go to Jesus. They say, these people want to see you. And here's Jesus's response. He hears they want to see you. And Jesus says two things. He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And then he gives an illustration, and it's right there in our passage, “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.” So, we get a proclamation, the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and then a picture. And what is this picture? This grain of wheat? Well, it's a farming illustration. Probably a better word to help us understand would have been like a seed of wheat. You know, if you just leave a seed out on a table or out on the floor, it's not going to do anything. But if a seed dies, that is, you give it a proper burial, a sort of seed funeral, where you dig a hole, put it in and cover it well, then it will bear much fruit. So that's our scene. Our scene is, Greeks say we want to see Jesus, and Jesus's response is, “The hour has come for me to be glorified.” You need to bury a seed in order for it to produce fruit.
So, what do we make of this? How are we supposed to understand this passage? What are we supposed to learn from this? Well, in order to get it, we need to understand that that phrase there that happens in John 12:23 when Jesus says the hour, the hour. Because if you had been reading through the Gospel of John, Jesus has been constantly talking about his hour, or Johnson writing about the hour. So, in chapter two, Jesus's mother says, hey, these people at this wedding have run out of wine. Can you help them? And Jesus says, well, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not come. And in John 7, and John 8, the Pharisees are ready to lay hands on him, to arrest him, but it says they were not able to. Why? Because his hour had not yet come. See, before his hour had come. Jesus was untouchable. But now, if you had read the previous eleven chapters, and you come to this verse, you realize, okay, now the hour is something that is here. Now the hour is something that is upon us. Things are about to be set in motion that can't be undone, that are going to ultimately lead to Calvary. What's this hour? The hour is he's going to die. Jesus is very aware what is this hour. It's the hour of his death. He's mindful of where this is all going. The cross is not a surprise to him. In fact, look, if you would, at verse 27. In verse 27 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.” What am I going to say? Lord, get me out of this, Father? This is why I'm here.
Look at John 13:1, chapter 13 verse 1. I love hearing the pages turn. That's awesome. 13:1, “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world, to the Father.” He knows his hour has come. He knows it is time for him to die. But do you see how he describes it in our passage, verse 23. Greeks say, we wish to see Jesus. He doesn't say, well, the hour has come for my death now. He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. What does that mean? That's such a church word, right? We throw the words glory and glorify around a lot. What are we talking about when we say that? Well, what's happening is these Greeks say we want to see Jesus, and Jesus says you're going to get to see me. You're going to see my glory at the cross. When we talk about the glory of Jesus, we're talking about his magnitude, his splendor, his Majesty, the beauty and infinite worth of all who he is. Like there's no one like Jesus in the universe. There's no one as breathtaking and enthralling and satisfying and worthy of adoration and praise and glory. No one as exalted as Jesus, no one as high as Jesus, no one as stunning as him or thrilling to our hearts, and for him to be glorified is for him to reveal the greatness of who he is, to demonstrate why he is worthy of such praise. Now, what's unclear is whether or not these Greeks got to see Jesus. Where John's not interested in telling us about that, but we can see him this morning. We can see him with the eyes of faith in the scripture, and we can see his glory and the greatness of who he is, and the place where we most see that is at the cross. Oh, we see all the greatness of who Jesus is coming together in this one moment of Calvary that we just sang about. No place shouts the matchless glory of Christ like the cross, and just as a seed is buried and then produces fruit, we get to see the glory of Christ and his life-giving death.
So, let's think about this passage. As we dive into this, I'm going to ask two questions. You'll see that on your handout, two questions, a Q1, a Q2. Here's what those two questions are. I'll tell you now. They'll put up on the screen in a minute. Question one is going to be, how does the cross help us see Jesus' glory? And then Question two is going to be, well, then what's our response? Right? If that's the incredible, incomparable glory of Christ at Calvary, then what does that mean for me as a follower of Jesus?
So, let's dive in this together. Question number one. Question number one: “How does the cross help us see the glory of Jesus?” Let's stew on this for a minute. How does the cross help us see his unrivaled supremacy. How is it that we could see glory in an execution? How is it that he could say that it's his hour of glory and that we can rejoice in it as glorious? Because we love the cross. We sing about the cross. We delight in the cross. I mean, for us, the cross is such good news, because that's where my sin was forgiven. That's where my list of sins that was hostile towards me was nailed to the cross in Christ. But if the cross, if our thoughts of the cross are where we only think about our own benefits from the cross, we've just fallen a little bit short. Right? Like we should see our benefits in the cross. But more than that, we should be stunned by the person of Jesus at the cross.
And so, what I want to do is I want us to think about six ways. There's more of them, and you can probably think about them at lunch today. There's more of them, but I want us to think of six ways the cross helps us to see his glory. We're going to flip around a little bit here in the Gospel of John. What I want us to do in the same is just think about these. And I know, some of us, we want to, like, write down every single note. I would encourage you. I'd rather you just hear the message and instead of getting every note down, if you're, like, discouraged, I can't write all this down. I've literally printed all the cross references in this handout. I have them right over there. I'll meet you after. I'll just give them to you, a handout, that way you can have all of these. You can think about them during the week. Let's just take a moment think about like, man, how is this showing Jesus' glory? I have six ways for us.
Here's number one, in the cross, we see Jesus' glory because we see “The eternal worth of Jesus.” We consider the eternal worth of Jesus. Let's think about that, that the place to go is John chapter 1. John chapter 1, because when we look at Calvary, yes, we do see that this is the man from Nazareth. We do see the carpenter. We see Mary's son, but he's more than that. This is the eternal God. This is the one on the cross, dying, who is the creator of everything, who is the source of all life, who has never, for one millisecond, not existed. He has always been like that. So that's how John begins his gospel. John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word, being a title here for Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He was, in the beginning, with God. It's amazing. Jesus is God incarnate, God himself, God of very gods. John continues, verse 3, “All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.” And so, here we see his eternal existence, but he's the source of everything. Everything that has life borrows life from Jesus, only has life because of Jesus would have no life outside of Jesus. Hebrews 1 says he's upholding everything by the Word of his power. Colossians 1:16 says that everything was created by Jesus, and everything was created for Jesus, which means he's not just the source of everything, he's the reason everything exists. He created it all, and he created it all so that all of it would declare his glory, to magnify his name. He's the creator and sustainer. And John, he's regularly highlighting Jesus' supremacy in this gospel by emphasizing his eternality. Right? He comes from above. He comes from before. Jesus says, “Before Abraham was I AM. I have always been.” And so, now we fast-forward to Calvary. We fast-forward to the cross. And the man hanging there in the middle is the creator of everything. The wood he's been nailed to was created by him. The people mocking him were created by him. His blood drips down into the dust by which he made those people mocking him. This is incredible.
And we see the glory of the cross. We see the beauty and the wonder of Jesus and that we see Eternal God, author of life, the one who's never needed anything to exist, tasting death. How do we see Jesus' glory at the cross? Number two, we see his glory in “The humble obedience of Jesus.” We consider the humble obedience of Jesus. John 1 we read, he's the eternal God, but he's the eternal God who's existed forever in the past, who then humbled himself that though he is above his creation, he entered into his creation. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” He dwelt among us. He, the Word there. If you've been here for a while, you've heard this, he's tabernacled among us. He took up residence with us. Yes, he's transcendent. But then he lived a life. He lived with people in space and time. We see his origins. Verse 18 says, no one has ever seen God, but then the only God, and that second one there, I think, is referring to Jesus, the only God who is at the father's side. He has made him known like in eternity past. God is not lonely. He's not a man. I should create some people. I need some stuff to do. No, he exists in perfect, satisfying community in himself between the Father Son and Holy Spirit, Jesus, God, the Son, the second person, the Trinity, had always had relationship and had lived in heaven. In fact, 2 Corinthians 8:9 said that “he who was rich became poor.” Yeah, Jesus becoming a man is a riches to rags sort of story. And we have this verse up here. Take a look, if you would, at Philippians 2. Philippians 2 on the screen says, “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself.
Now let's think that phrase there, “emptied himself.” What does it mean that he emptied himself? That doesn't mean he lost any of his powers, right? Don't think like 1990s Disney's Hercules losing the powers kind of thing. That's not what this is talking about. No, his subtraction, his emptying was actually by addition. He emptied himself by what, by taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of men. See, he was the eternal God, and he is the eternal God. But then he took on a body, and he took on weakness. He got tired and hungry and thirsty. He, who's never needed anything, is now being cradled by his mother, helpless at birth, and then as he lives, he's taken on humanity that he is now tempted in every way as we are. He's without sin because he's the Son of God, but he's born as a man, and so he's tempted by sin, real temptation, and then he goes to the cross willingly, obediently. It says that in our passage. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. He prays to the Father, “not my will, but your will be done.” I will submit to all that you have for me. That is who Jesus is. So yeah, on the cross is the Son of God, but he's the Son of God who took on flesh. And though he's suffering for sin, with no sin of his own, he experienced real weakness and sin on our behalf.
How else do we see the glory of Jesus at the cross? Number three, we see it in “The sovereign service of Jesus.” The Sovereign service of Jesus. Turn, if you would, to John chapter 10. John chapter 10. Part of the way the cross highlights just the greatness and beauty of Jesus is that we recognize that Jesus is not there by accident, like he's not there as a victim of celebrity that got out of control. He's not there because the mob just became too much for him to handle, like what is going on there. But he is there because he intends to be there. He planned on being there. He desired to be there, and he had authority to be there. Look at John chapter 10. We'll start in verse 17. John chapter 10:17, he says, “For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.” Verse 18, “No one takes it from me if I die.” It is not because I was overpowered or pushed into something I didn't want. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I've received from my Father. Jesus dies on the cross according to his own authority. This is what he tells Peter, right? Remember, in the garden, Peter pulls out the sword. He's ready to scrap with these guys, and Jesus says, you don't need to do that, Peter, I could call twelve legion of angels down to rescue me. This is what I am meant to do. This is what I'm called to do. And so, for us, it helps us to see that the cross was not something that Jesus had to do that was forced upon him. He chose to endure. It isn't that what we read in John 12:27, earlier. What am I going to say? Father, rescue me from this hour? This is why I have come. He's come knowingly and willingly for the sake of sinners like you and me. He says so in Mark 10:45 as a verse many of us know Mark 10:45, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” I've come, come to lay down my life for sinners. It's his choice to serve sinners. And the cross is glorious because Jesus is there because he wants to be number.
Four. Let's keep moving. How do we see Jesus' glory at the Cross? Number four. We see it in “The spotless righteousness of Jesus.” We see it in the spotless righteousness of Jesus. His death is glorious because it is an innocent death. See, this is the Passover, and so Israel would commemorate the Passover through the death of a spotless Lamb of a sacrifice, that was the best of a sacrifice without blemish, and now Jesus comes as the ultimate spotless lamb to give the ultimate Passover sacrifice, not one that would need to be repeated year after year, but that we finally and fully pay for all sinners who trust in him because he is righteous beyond comprehension. I mean, let's jump to John 19. John chapter 19, because, again, we see that the authors of the Gospels are regularly emphasizing his innocence, and they don't really have to try very hard, because it's all over the accounts of Jesus’ life. I mean, I'm reminded of Jesus's trial. I mean, Jesus's trial, the night before his death, is complete injustice. They've already decided the verdict, and then they're trying to gather evidence. Right? That's not usually how it works. They've already decided he's guilty. They just need to figure out how they're going to prove it. The problem is, they can't, is they can't get their story straight. They can't be like, we're not really sure what to do with this guy. And then when they bring him to Pilate, look at John 19:4, it says, “Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘See I am bringing him to you that you may know I find no guilt in him’.” John 19:6, it says, “When the chief priests and officers saw him, they said to ‘Crucify Him, Crucify Him.’ But Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” I mean in Luke's gospel, it's in Luke chapter 23. In Luke 23, one of the thieves is mocking him, and the other says, “Do you not fear God? We are here for crimes that we've done, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
Friends, the innocence of Jesus is such good news. And if you're new this morning, if you're newer to Christianity or been exploring what it means to be a follower of Jesus, I want you know Jesus' sinlessness is not just some superpower he has. It's foundational to the gospel message. Let me explain this verse up here. It’s one of my favorites. I think it's the gospel in one verse, I would encourage you, if you're like, how do I pull out my Bible and explain to someone the gospel at work? This is a great one. This one's going to have everything in it. Ready. It says verse 21 “For our sake he made him.” So, the first he there is God the Father, the second he there, or the him, is Jesus. For our sake God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin. That is, Jesus, who knew no sin, who never sinned, never gave into temptation, God treated him like he was a sinner. God made him bear the wrath of sin. God sent him to the cross to be treated as if he had lived the lives we had lived. Why? So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. See, this is important. This is important if you're new, trying to figure out, how does God accept me? This is it right here. Because it's not going to be you getting accepted by your own good works. It's not going to be your own merit earning it. Now, here's what happens on the cross, God treats the sinless innocent Jesus like a sinner, so that we, who are sinners, could be treated as if we're innocent, righteous. Jesus is treated as if he has done all the vile things we have done, so that we who are wicked enemies of God could be treated as if we lived his righteous life. And so now, if I've repented on my sins and turned to Christ, my spiritual bank account, which had so much debt now has some infinite righteousness in there. It's Jesus's righteousness credited to me, that's the gospel that you could be viewed as if you've lived a perfect life, as if you've never sinned, and as if you've always obeyed someone's thinking. How can that be? How can one man dying forgive the sins and pay for the sins? Of so many people, the answer is, because he's so righteous, he's never sinned. He is unimaginably, infinitely righteousness, with righteousness to spare, to pay for your sin and your sin and your sin and all our sins, to give us acceptance for God from his matchless, infinite, glorious life that's so good, never a moment where he failed to obey the will of God.
And so, check this out. when we read the gospels, which you could do this week. And when you see Jesus obeying, when you see him fulfilling all righteousness, as he tells John the Baptist, when you see him not sinning, when you see him tempted and choosing obedience, you can say, wow, that's so great that Jesus is righteousness, or Jesus is righteous. Hey, that's my righteousness. What I'm seeing now is how God sees me as if I lived that life. That's why his death is so glorious. Let's go back to John chapter 12. We have two more to think about. So not only is he Eternal God who took on humanity and willingly and righteously and sovereignly suffered for sinners, we also see His glory in “The sure sacrifice of Jesus. The sure sacrifice of Jesus. John 12: 24, “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.” It will produce fruit. If it dies, there will be fruit that comes of it. See, Jesus died to accomplish something. He did not die to accomplish a potentiality. He did not die to say, well, maybe there will be some good that comes of it. No, he accomplished a specific aim in his death, he always succeeds in what he endeavors to do, and he died specifically to pay for the sins of sinners. He gave his life for a bride he has, though his death will be effective, and that's the gospel. Right? We need someone to pay for our sins, we need to believe this good news. And what Jesus did is he died for those who would believe in him. Look, if you would at John, chapter 10, verse 11. Let's see this again, this effectiveness, this surety, this reality that we can bank on, because this is what he set out to do. John 10:11, what does he say? John 10:11, he says, “I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Verse 14, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own. My own know me, and just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.” That’s amazing. Just as the Father knows me and I know the father, hey, the same kind of intimacy that exists within the Godhead between the Father and the Son Jesus, that kind of intimacy, that's how well I know my people and those people, I've died for them. I've made it happen. It's just in a maybe I'm not going to spill my blood in vain. I will effectively rescue all those.
John 6:37 say, “All the Father gives me will come to me, and Jesus has bought all of them.” Any who come to Christ Jesus is going to say, oh, man, I didn't pay for that one. No, he's done it. Which is good news for us, right? We can rejoice in that. Because as dark as this world is today and as rebellious as it is, we can rejoice knowing that all whom Jesus has bought will come to them and their sins will be paid for. It is done because he has done it. And it turns out that those whom he laid his life down for would be more than just Israelites. Let's go back to John chapter 12.
We'll have one other passage, but we're almost parked at John chapter 12, because how do we finally see the glory of the cross? We see it in “The global reach of Jesus.” The global reach of Jesus. As I said, if you're taking notes and you've missed one or two, I have a handout for you after; I could just meet you right over there. One of the things that keeps happening is the Pharisees and all their frustration and anger with Christ, they keep sort of venting, but then speaking better than they know. They keep saying things they don't intend to say, but in an attempt to hurt Jesus, they keep saying things that actually exalt him and magnify him. Here's an example of one. So, in John 12, right before our passage is the triumphal entry, Jesus riding into Jerusalem, and the people are celebrating. Writing and in verse 19, the Pharisees and sort of hyperbole complaining, as we tend to do. We, when we complain, we speak in hyperbole. The Pharisees said to one another, you see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him, right? There's an amen. The whole world's going after him. Now, what are we going to do? They're complaining they're being evil, but they're speaking better than they know. Because what happens in the next verse? Some Greeks show up, right? The world's going after him. Actually, they are going after him. The whole world is coming to him. Why is this? What is this helping us see? It's helping us to see that the death of Jesus was not just for a few random Israelites at a random time in history, but that it has global ramifications, that his intent was to save, not just a select few from one region, but to rescue a multitude from every place and every time of history since he says that, look at verse 32. In verse 32 he says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Now that's not saying every person gets saved. That's not the point that we that's obvious from reading the rest of the Bible. What he means by all people is every type of person, all peoples, all nations, all cultures, people in the 1700s and the 1300s and the 1800s, and people from every time and every place, every corner of the earth.
The cross is glorious because Jesus is winning himself a bride throughout history. And this is very much the plan of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not about Jewish salvation. And then Jesus changed that idea that's been the plan, been the plan to rescue nationally, even. Fact, this title here, “Son of Man” is a reference from Daniel 7, where the Son of Man is going to be the given authority over this final kingdom that will last forever. Listen to the words of God, the Father to the Son. I have it up here. This is Isaiah 49:6. Here's what the father says to the Son. He says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel.” It's too light. It's too small of a thing that you would just be a Jewish savior. No, I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth, which is why, everywhere you go today, in every place you find disciples of Jesus, from Jerusalem to Huntington Beach, the rest of Orange County to Columbia to Uganda, Tokyo, Los Angeles, to the Middle East, steeped in Islam, to the United States, steeped in selfishness for 2000 years; in every place you find disciples of Jesus. Why? Because “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” This is what Christ has done. This is why the cross is glorious. It would be unimaginably glorious if Jesus died to save even one sinner. But look what he's done. Look what he's done through his death. Look what it says about his righteousness, about his goodness, about his purposes, about his love, even about the Father's love for us and in heaven right now. According to Revelation 5, there is a multitude saying, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.” This is Christ. This is his glory. This is his life-giving death. This is what happens when a grain falls to the ground. It dies, it produces much fruit. This is why we praise him and love him and commit our whole lives to him, and we just highlighted just six of these. You could think of more. You could even at lunch today say, man, what other ways could we talk about how the cross shows the greatness of Jesus? But I would encourage you this week is, is take these six and take some time just to meditate on the cross, maybe even your private prayer times and private worship times this week. Just pick one of these and just chew on it and think about like, man, this is God of gods. Like, wow. All these people I know and love at church have been saved because of this man's death. One death saved us. Meditate on it. Think about the cross of Christ. Relish him, enjoy him. Delight in him and worship him.
Now, let's move to our second question more quickly. Now let's think about question number two. Here's our second question today: “What does the glory of the cross teach us about following Jesus?” What does the glory of the cross teach us about following Jesus. The cross demonstrates the matchless glory of Christ. What does that mean for you and me? What are the appropriate implications of such glory? And we'll spend the most of the rest of our time here in John 12. What is it? Well, what we begin to see is Jesus talks about his own death, and he talks about his own glory in verse 23. In verses 25 to 26 he kind of changes the topic. It says, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me.” He goes from talking about his death verse 23 to our life. And what we begin to realize then is that verse 24 is not just an illustration to talk about what Jesus is doing. Verse 24 is illustrating just a principle of reality. It's how life works. It's how things work for Jesus, and it's how things are supposed to work for us as well. It's the linchpin of the passage, the sort of hinge in that what Jesus is saying about a seed being buried and producing fruit. It's not just true for him. He intends for it to be true for us as well.
See, what Jesus is doing in his life-giving death is that the cross then becomes an invitation to us to enter and enjoy life by embracing death. I'll say that again, it becomes an invitation to us to enter life and enjoy life by embracing death like he did, we are called to the same kind of life. We're called to the same mindset. Let's think about this. And I think these just come right out of the passage; three ways this reality plays itself out.
Number one, here's what we learn from this. We learn that “Salvation comes by dying to self.” Salvation comes by dying to self. Verse 25 whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Our biggest need in this life that we're born with is salvation. We need our sins forgiven before God. We need to go from his enemies to his children. We need our hearts changed from being those who love sin and self to those who love glorious and eternal things. That is our biggest need. And the good news is that salvation is totally free. It's offered graciously and freely and abundantly; it's offered to those who recognize their sin and cry out for forgiveness. We can't earn it there. There's no way we could pay for it. We can't do enough. Isaiah 64:6 says, “even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags before him.” Right then we can't build up enough credit to be forgiven. We need the free grace of God, and therefore, whoever confesses their sin and asks for forgiveness turns their life to Christ, they will be forgiven the riches of heaven free.
Salvation is free and it will cost you everything. It is free and it will cost you everything. Jesus says, “If you love your life, you will lose it.” He's talking about your life in this world. That is, if you try to cling to all the sinful passions and all the sinful priorities of this life, if you just try to mix in a little bit of Jesus, but keep living however you want. If you try to cling to this life, you're already having a hard time getting a full grip, or you're going to lose it. You can't hold on to the pleasures and passions and priorities of this world. No, in coming to Christ, you have to experience a sort of death. Coming to Jesus means dying to self, means saying, Lord, I give up every part of my life that's not in submission to you. I relinquish the kingship over my own life. And I say, I submit to you in all of it. You've flown before, you've been to airport security. You can't go through the checkpoint until you surrender all your belongings, in a sense. Well, the same is true for us as well. It's a narrow gate, and we can't bring our worldly desires with us. We have to lay it all down and say, Jesus, I completely submit my life to you. And anything that does not line up with your will, you're welcome to remove all of it. It's free, and there's a great cost. Says again, second half, “whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for life eternal.” So that means his life becomes about him. My money is about him. My phone use about him. My career, where I move, how I raise my kids, how I spend my weekends. All of it becomes about Christ. He has freely given me salvation, but I must turn to him in everything. The Gospel of John is trying to get you to do this. That's why this was written. It's trying to get you to trust Jesus like this, right? You're hearing this, and you're going like, man, how could you you relinquish so much of your rights to one person? Well, if you're thinking that way, I invite you this week, read the Gospel of John. Read it slowly, and as you see Jesus ask this question, is this the kind of person I could entrust my whole life over to you? This is the kind of person I can give my whole life over to. And you find that you can trust him, that he is worthy of such a response. In fact, he's so glorious, as we just studied, this is the only proper response to Jesus. There is no JV kind of Christianity, where, as long as I do a bit on Sunday and cuss a little less, then I could live however I want. Not when you turn to Christ, it's a death to self. When you get converted, you might as well have a funeral, right? Your old self died. Is now a baptism. Is when we do baptisms. The old self died, and they've been raised in newness of life, a life that used to love sin has died, and now they want to submit to Christ.
Oh, friend, do this this morning. If you've not done so, you will find that you can trust Christ like this. Listen, you're thinking, how could I follow someone in this way? You're already a slave to something. You're already a slave to your own passions, your own desires, to alcohol or drugs or sin, and those taskmasters don't seem like they're doing you any favors. But Christ is a good king. You can trust him in this way, and that's the only way you can know him as your King, is if you trust him like this, the people sitting around you, or even I would love to talk to you about that after if that's what you need to do today, you could talk to the people that brought you, or just find me. I'll be right over here. Would love to talk to you about turning to Christ.
Here's the second lesson from this. Number two, “Fruitful service comes by dying to self.” Not only does salvation come by dying to self, but fruitful service comes by dying to self. Let's look at verse 26, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am there will my servant be also.” This teaches us is that dying to self is not just a description of coming to Jesus, but in following Christ, I, day by day take up my cross, I, day by day say no to my fleshly desires and temporal passions, and I follow Jesus. And what this teaches us is a little shocking. It's that if I'm going to do anything in this life that's of lasting fruit, that's of eternal worth, if I'm going to do anything that matters to millennia from now, it's going to come through cost. It's going to come through sacrifice. If I'm going to invest in heavenly things, it will come by a sort of death. See, this is what we're called to do. We are called to embrace it. Look at it again. “If anyone serves me, he must follow me.” What we're being called to do there is embrace the mission of Jesus. What is the mission of Jesus? Well, in John 17, the mission of Jesus, he says, “I came to give eternal life, and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only God,” and me “whom you have sent see eternal life is knowing God. And we're called to follow Jesus in helping people know God, to come to know him. For verse 5, isn't that amazing, by the way, when we share the Gospel, we're not giving some like quick shtick of a worldview. We're explaining to people how they can intimately know the God of the universe, know him truly. In Jesus Christ, we're called to do the same work that he's doing. He's inviting us to do the same mission. And it's not just the same mission. We do it by the same means, we do it the way that he did it. We produce eternal fruit as well by dying to self. I mean, let's think about things that are eternally good, our personal holiness, building up fellow believers at church, sharing the gospel with the lost, parenting our kids well, working in a way that honors Christ. All of that is going to require self-denial.
See, we live in a culture that is selfish, a culture of ease that runs from risk, and we could live that same way. We could gather wealth and build a name and enjoy the easiest and finest things of life, but it will produce nothing of eternal value. Now this is, this is how you can produce fruit, much fruit. See, what matters most is the loss being found, people walking in newness of life. Christ being worshiped, and he calls us here to serve the way that he serves, and we do it the way that he did. Listen friends, serving is going to have some cost to it. It could cost you reputation, cost you sleep time, fewer ball games. You might be socially unaware what's happening in pop culture. If you want to do big stuff, like man, I'd love to see the gospel go out to another country, this place in my heart, it might cost you five years of seminary learning so you can be ready to go living in somewhere different. If you're like man, I want to reach an outreach area. You might live in some wonky areas where school is like, really hard to do, but souls are found. Believers are built up. God is worshipped. And life comes by death. One of my favorite quotes on this is from a missionary from the 1700s, a guy by the name of Nicholas von Zinzendorf. That's a name right there. Von Zinzendorf, and he was part of the Moravian Church. He had an influence on many missionaries in encouraging them about the cost of missions. He writes this. He says, “Remember, you must never use your position to lord it over the heathen. Instead, you must humble yourself and earn their respect for your own quiet faith and the power of the Holy Spirit.” He says, “the missionary must seek nothing for himself, no seat of honor or hope of fame like the cab horse in London, each of you must wear blinders that blind you to every danger and to every snare and conceit.” And then he says this, “you must be content to suffer, to die and to be forgotten. We take that quote today, we summarize with three words or three commands: Preach the gospel, die, be forgotten. That's our aim, and that's the way to produce much fruit, friend.
My guess is in here, if we're self-sacrificial, if we do things at cost, probably at this time, very few of us will actually have to die for the sake of the gospel. But my question for you this morning, just to think about yourself this week, is, is there any way I'm being inconvenienced, like, like, like, like, hey, I'm praying for my neighbors to get saved. I'm praying that my kids will get discipled. I'm praying that I'd be more helpful at church, but there's no fruit that's going to come without cost. Right? Sacrificing yourself doesn't guarantee that there will be fruit, but it's a guarantee that there's nothing of eternal value that happens without dying to self. And so just reflect on your own life and priorities. Am I being inconvenienced in any way, and just as encouragement to you, just because serving is hard doesn't mean it's wrong. Let me say that again, that's really hard to think about in 2024 in Southern California. Just because serving is hard, backing that up, just because it's hard doesn't mean it's wrong. In fact, it seems very much in the line of Christ, if that's how things go.
Finally, salvation comes by dying to self. Fruitful service comes by dying to self. Glory comes by dying to self, hating your life, losing it, falling in the ground, dying for the sake of fruit. That sounds like if you're new here this morning, you might be thinking like, that sounds like a lot like, how can we do that? Not everyone would embrace such a lifestyle, and in our day and age, again, self-denial sounds ridiculous. And so how do we do it? How do we embrace it, when our flesh, when society, when we have an enemy who pushes back against it. As I was thinking about this sermon is how many of you I see regularly doing this, like, some of you, you're just here serving all the time, meeting with people, all the time, showing up early or staying late to clean up all the time. Some of you could probably receive mail here, like, you're here that regularly, and on days that you're not in here, we're like, man, where have they been? We walk over like, oh, it's because they're covering for children's ministry this week. You're sacrificing your time on a regular basis to share the gospel of this person, to encourage this fellow believer, to bring this meal to someone who's sick. We see you sacrificing in your evangelizing, discipling, parenting, using your money and vacation time for the sake of the gospel. And when you're at church long enough, you get to meet some heroes that the world will never respect, but you know what they've given up? You think of Rosie, our beloved friend, who had friends at this church and then moved to Tokyo for the sake of God, the gospel. Think of Shannon Hurley, who some of you met last year, who was a successful businessman in the States, and then went to Uganda so that the gospel would be proclaimed there. And I'm even encouraged that some of you have even sacrificed said, I want to move to Long Beach and share the gospel there, when we plant that church, right? You see this happening all the time. At great cost to yourself and at great inconvenience, you're serving. So why do you do it? Why do any of us do this? I think we do it because we believe what Jesus said is true. What does he say? “If anyone serves me, the Father, will honor him.” It's going to happen. You can take it to the bank.
See, this sounds risky, but risk for the gospel is right, because it's no risk at all. The end has already been decreed. Jesus wins, his saints make it home. So, we could serve Jesus, we follow him into death, because we know that through death comes life. And we could do that, knowing that when we die, we will see Jesus and hear “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And then, after our faithful death, what do we get? Life! Let's pray.
God, Father, we are so thankful that your ways are not our ways, and your thoughts are not our thoughts, and that your wisdom is so much better than our wisdom. We're so thankful for your Son, Jesus, who, through his death, has brought life. We're thankful that his death has not just brought life generally, but has brought life to us who know him and love him and trust him. We're so thankful for the forgiveness of sins, for the glory of Christ and his authority and his kingship that he's creator who took on humanity. Lord, I pray that we would be enthralled by him this week, that even as we sing this last song, that these words about the worth of Jesus will not just come from our lips, would be on our very hearts because we've seen his beauty through the eyes of faith. And God, help us to respond believing your Word. Help those here who don't know to come to you, relinquishing the things that are causing them to perish, and surrendering all to the God who gave all for them. And Lord, help us to follow in life, giving death to self. Help us to serve you faithfully. We pray these things in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen. Amen.