Well, good morning. It's great to have all of you here in person and on the live stream.
And we're glad to worship this Sunday after Easter. We have been preaching through the
Gospel of John, and we will be continuing to preach through the Gospel of John in through
the summer. So we will be continuing the series for those of you who are wondering what comes
next. And today we'll be looking at John 12. John 12 is a unique chapter in the book of
John. It is the hinge chapter. It is the end of the first 12 chapters that talk about the
ministry of Jesus and His life. It covers approximately three years, and then the Gospel then transitions.
And the second half of the Gospel, 13 through 21, cover seven days. And the last seven days
of Jesus' life and His death and His resurrection. And so it is a critical hinge point in the book.
And I want to begin this morning by reminding ourselves of what we have seen in these past
few months as we've looked at John 1 through 11. We have seen Jesus turn water into wine so that the
celebration of a wedding would continue. We've seen a moral and ethnic outcast, a Samaritan woman,
brought to faith in Jesus. We've seen an invalid healed after 38 years of suffering. We've seen
thousands fed. We've seen a sinful woman forgiven. We've seen a blind man's sight restored. We've seen a
friend raised from the dead. And along the way, as Jesus has done these great signs pointing to who He is,
He's also explained Himself, this is who I am. He said, whoever believes in Me shall have eternal life.
He said, I can give you water so that your soul will never be thirsty again. He said, I am the bread of
life. If you eat of this bread, you will not die, but you will live. He said, whoever believes in Me will
have fountains of living water springing up in them. He said, before Abraham was, I am.
He said, I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes though He dies, yet shall He live.
This is the glory of Jesus that we have seen. And imagine those who were with Jesus in John chapter 12.
They've seen all of this. And some, in response to this, believed in Him and rejoiced that He has come
to see how He loves. He has come to love, to bring life, to welcome all to the kingdom of God. But others
in spiritual pride were threatened by Him, rejected Him. He breaks the rules, they said. He says outlandish
things, He usurps God. He takes power unto Himself. Many follow Him. But all of them saw His power. All of
them saw His life-giving power. All of them saw the steadfastness as one who taught with authority.
glory. This is the glory of Jesus' ministry, is it not? Is this not the Jesus we have seen?
And what more do we need to see of Jesus this morning? What more do we need to see of Jesus and
His glory? And yet, as we will read in our passage in just a minute, for Jesus, the hour had not yet come
for us to see the fullness of who He is and what He has done. Even in all these miracles, this was not
the end. Throughout the first part of the book of John, way back in Cana at the wedding in chapter 2,
verse 4, Jesus tells Mary, my hour has not yet come. After the healing of the man in Bethesda, He says,
the hour is coming but is not yet here. After the controversy in the festival of booths in chapter 7,
they could not arrest Him because His hour had not yet come. And then we come to our text this morning,
which answers the question, where and what is the greatest display of Jesus' glory?
So let's read that passage together to answer that question and to look at it. We're in John chapter 12.
We're not going to cover the whole chapter, good heavens, no. There's far too much in it. But
we're going to focus on verses 20 through 28. So we're going to read this passage together,
then we're going to pray, and then we'll dive in and try to answer that question.
John 12, starting in verse 20.
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, and 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 loses his life,
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. Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.
And then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this morning and the chance to gather to worship you. We thank you
for your word that speaks to us clearly about who you are. And Lord, I pray this morning that by your
spirit, we would behold your glory. Lord, and that you would lay bare in our hearts the ways in which
we have wandered, the ways that we have misunderstood you, the ways that we have misperceived who you are
and what you've come to do. Lord, I pray that you would give me your strength this morning to speak
clearly. And Lord, that we would together sit under your word, and that you would do your transforming
word in our lives, that we might worship you in spirit and in truth. Lord, we pray these things in
Jesus' name. Amen.
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. What do we see the glory of Jesus in?
We see it in his loving, self-giving death. The sermon's going to be pretty simple this morning.
We're going to talk a little bit about misunderstanding and how we misunderstand glory and Jesus' glory,
and then we're going to talk a little bit about clarifying how Jesus clarifies what his glory is
about. So that's what we're going to do this morning as we look through it. So first, let's talk
about how we misunderstand Jesus' glory. It's fascinating as you read through chapter 12,
those around him misunderstood Jesus profoundly. In verse 4, you see Judas, the one who had betrayed
Jesus, commenting and complaining about the way Jesus is receiving worship from Mary and the breaking
of an ointment. You guys probably are familiar with that story. But he thought that Jesus was going to
bring a social revolution to care for the poor. And so he was offended when Jesus received such lavish
worship. Verse 16, a little bit further on, in the triumphal entry that we talked about two weeks
ago on Palm Sunday, even as Jesus rode in on a donkey, fulfilling the Old Testament Scriptures,
it says the disciples did not understand this. They did not understand the significance. They did not
understand what Jesus was doing coming in on a donkey until after the resurrection of Christ.
Verse 19, the religious leadership of the day, the Pharisees, saw Jesus as a threat to their political
and social power and their religious power. They saw him as one who was stealing away their following
and their position in society, and they were threatened by it. And therefore, they responded
violently towards him. And if we look on even in verse 34, as Jesus is teaching about himself,
the people are asking him, who is the Son of Man to be lifted up? Who are you talking about? The crowds,
nobody understood what Jesus was about to say in terms of why he had come.
Misunderstanding Jesus is easy, I believe. It's easy to misunderstand what Jesus has come to do.
Thinking about our world today, I can think of a couple of examples, and I'm sure there are many
more of ways in which we misunderstand Jesus and why he's come today. If we went to Houston,
we could go to Joel Osteen's church, and he could teach us about your best life now. How
Jesus has come to bring us glory by providing prosperity in our physical, earthly life.
That he has come to bring success in our careers. That he has become, he has come to bless us
by increasing our bank accounts. We ought not to suffer setback or trial or loss. Those would be
signs of faithless living or of distance from God. This is the message of the prosperity gospel,
and it's out there. It's out there in lots of churches in America and around the world.
And it's a misunderstanding. I believe there's also a misunderstanding that was laid bare on January 6th,
when people in the name of Christ, some, sought to, by force, impose an outcome on an election
in an attempt to promote the kingdom of God, and one that they saw as God's anointed leader
for our country. Now, friends, this is a complicated thing, and I want to be clear.
We did a great Sunday school on politics and how we ought to be properly engaged, and I'm not saying
that we ought not to do this. But if we think that Jesus has come to bring America into moral alignment,
or if we think that Jesus has come so that we, by political and social activism,
might usher in the kingdom of God, if we place Jesus, if we believe that Jesus has ordained particular
political leaders to save our society and to save our church and protect it,
we have misunderstood what Jesus has come to do.
Coming closer to home, maybe for some of us,
the story of the evangelical church has shown
many leaders who have failed to understand how Jesus has come
because they have shown by their actions and by the way that they have led their ministries
and their personal lives, ultimately, that they believe that Jesus has come for their own personal
gain and glory, not his. So I think of people from Mark Driscoll to Ravi Zacharias, people for whom
many of us may have been blessed at one time by their ministries, and yet who have shown in the end
that their position in ministry and religious leadership has been used for selfish gain and promotion.
How they have questioned and silenced others who have brought concerns to them,
how they used their power to hide from accountability and to excuse their sin.
How easily, even those who start out on a good path,
believe that Jesus has come ultimately,
and the sacrifices they have done for ministry,
therefore, entitle them
in ways to establish their own
commitment
commitment to comfort,
to pleasure, or to power.
Friends, these are some of the ways
that Jesus has been misunderstood
in our culture today.
We may be able to see them
from afar, if we feel
like those are far off from us,
and denounce them as being misunderstandings.
Friends, we need to look
into our own hearts as well.
How easily do we
think that Jesus has come
for us,
for our pleasure,
for our comfort,
to lessen our suffering
and increase our joy?
Here's some diagnostic questions
that I want you to ask
as you think about this question.
What do you pray for?
How do you pray for God's work
in your life?
Here's another one.
What do you invest in?
For where your money is,
there will your heart be also.
What stirs your passion?
What energizes your efforts
and your energy?
As you lie in bed
before you fall off to sleep at night,
what consumes your heart
in worry and fear?
And what do these questions
reveal about what you think
Jesus has actually come
to do for you?
Because we love a glory
that is here and now,
that is visible and easy,
that will be seen by others
and praised.
But as we come to this text,
Jesus says,
the hour has come
for the Son of Man
to be glorified.
And he goes on,
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.
Friends, this is even more
clearly explicated
in verses 32 and 33,
where it says,
where it refers to Jesus
being lifted up,
that when Jesus is lifted up,
he will draw him into himself.
We have seen that this refers
to his crucifixion
in the Gospel of On.
This refers to his death.
Jesus says,
the hour has now come
for me to be glorified,
and it is not in the resurrection,
though there is glory
and the resurrection too,
but it is in the crucifixion itself.
The gruesome,
bloody, tortured cross.
The humiliating,
shameful death of Jesus,
where those standing around him
reviled him and mocked him.
By the measure of any human standard,
at that moment,
Jesus had failed in his death.
His followers had abandoned.
He was betrayed by his inner circle.
He left no texts to pass on,
no schools,
no institutions.
He did a terrible job
of beginning a religion.
where is glory in that death?
But friends,
of course,
we've been living with this
for 2,000 years now,
that we know that there is glory
in it,
isn't there?
That there is glory
in the upside-down nature
of God's kingdom.
Glory not in power achieved,
but in power surrendered.
Glory not in self-promotion
or preservation,
but by self-denial
and sacrificial,
loving action towards others.
Glory not in victorious triumph,
but in selfless death.
This is the way of the cross.
This is the way that Jesus says,
I am going to glorify myself.
Because on the cross,
you will see the fullness
of grace and truth.
You will see where justice
and mercy meets.
You will see where God's hatred of sin
and His love for sinners
will be merged in a way
that you wouldn't even imagine
if it hadn't happened.
Jesus says,
the doctrine of a full atonement is made.
The ultimate ransom is paid.
Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us.
For it is written,
cursed is everyone
who hangs on a tree.
In Christ,
upon the cross,
we see the just dying
for the unjust,
that He might bring us to God,
the innocent bearing
the crimes of the guilty,
that they might be forgiven
and accepted.
And friends,
it is in this shameful,
terrifyingly horrible death
that the greatness of Jesus
is seen.
The depth of His love
is seen that He would not
save His life,
but offer it up for us.
We see the breadth of His grace,
that He would do this,
that all would come
to Him in faith,
that any could come
to Him in faith
from every tribe
and tongue and nation,
that we would see
in this,
the source of His power,
that in His weakness,
God's power is made manifest.
And we would see
the irresistible beauty.
Have you thought,
friends,
of how often we wear
a cross around our neck
and how odd that is
and how much it speaks
to how much our culture
has embraced this gospel story
even in the background?
How many movies
have this great story
of a sacrificial one
who gives their lives
for others
that is honored
and glorified?
glorified.
From Dickens
and Sidney Carton
and dying
for Charles Darnay
to Tony Stark
for heaven's sakes
or Anna in Frozen,
depending on your movie choices.
Glory and sacrifice
is a theme
in our culture
because of what happened
at the cross.
And we do it
in real life too
when we see examples
of people
who lay down their lives
for others.
We think
of those who died
in Flight 93
to bring down a plane
so it wouldn't crash
into a building
and kill many people.
We think of Mother Teresa
living selflessly
for her whole life
in the slums of Calcutta
and so on
and so forth.
Friends,
the way of the cross
will still seem foolish
to some.
They will believe
that glory is found
in another path.
They will strive
for power,
for control
and domination
over their opponents.
They will seek
to promote themselves
at the expense
of others.
But Jesus says,
my glory
is in the cross.
This is where
you will see
who I am
and what I have come
to do.
So what about you?
What do you think
of Jesus?
Is this surprising
glory of Jesus foolish
or is it marvelous?
The upside down kingdom
is not merely
what Jesus has done
but it is then
as we see
in verses 25 and 26.
It is the pattern
for those
who follow him.
It produces a church
that knows
the fellowship
of suffering
with Jesus.
As the apostle
Peter writes later,
we read from
1 Peter 1,
1 Peter 4,
he writes
verse 12,
beloved,
do not be surprised
at the fiery trial
when it comes upon you
to test you
as though something strange
were happening to you
but rejoice
in so far
as you share
Christ's sufferings
that you may also
rejoice and be glad
when his glory
is revealed.
If you are insulted
for the name of Christ
you are blessed
because the spirit
of glory and of God
rests upon you.
Yet if anyone suffers
as a Christian
let him not be ashamed
but let him glorify God
in that name.
Friends,
there are many
who are living
today
in this pattern.
It is the missionary
who chooses
to stay in China
when the pandemic hits
in order to shepherd
their flock
and to love
those brothers and sisters
that they have
been ministering to
to stay
and to suffer with them.
It is in the Christian
executive
who is fired
from his high-powered job
high-profile job
because he has shared
his faith in Jesus
with a colleague.
It is with Christians
who welcome
foster children
into their homes
and love
these broken children
at great cost
to themselves.
It is seen
in those
even in our congregation
facing degenerative
and terminal illness
who suffer
great trial
and great loss
and yet continue
continue to know
that Christ
has set a pattern
for them to follow
and a path
for them to walk.
one of humility
not pride
one of service
not triumph
one of self-denial
not self-promotion
and friends
look
we know
Pastor Greg
preached eloquently
about it last week
so go back
and listen
if you didn't listen
to last week's sermon
that Jesus
did not just die
but he rose again
on the third day.
There is a great hope
that the glory
of the cross
is married
with the glory
of the resurrection
and that we know
that he is now
ascended into heaven
promising to return again
and he will one day
come to finish
the work of redemption
he will finish
the work of redeeming souls
and he will come
and he will renew
the world
and make it the way
it is supposed to be
and he will come
bearing the scars
of that cross
to say
this is my glory
this is how
I have achieved this
and he will gather
his people in
and he will make
all things new
friends
this glory
that we long for
that our hearts
were made for
that we strive
and so often
misunderstand
how we are going
to get it
this glory
is ours
for those who
have faith in Christ
but it will be ours
only when Jesus
returns
and when Jesus
comes
to bring
the fullness
of it
when we are
caught up
with him
and so now
we suffer
with him
so that
in that day
we will be
raised with him
and we will have
his glory
and be caught up
in it
and what a great
thing
that will be
friends
this is the glory
of Christ
that he suffered
and died
for us
at the cross
let's pray
Lord we thank you
this morning
for this message
Lord thank you
that your ways
are not our ways
and your thoughts
are not our ways
our thoughts
Lord
thank you
that you
have come
to do the
unthinkable
of forgiving
sinful people
like us
pardoning
our sin
Lord you
have come
to wash
away the
evil
of our
hearts
and ultimately
of this
world
to redeem
it
and Lord
you have
done so
by entering
into it
and taking
it upon
yourself
oh Lord
will you
help us
to see
this pattern
of the cross
that we
might glorify
you
for the
greatness
of all
that you
have done
for us
and so
that we
might put
our hope
in the
glory
that is
ours
with you
when by
faith
we will be
raised with
you in
that day
we pray
these things
in Jesus
name
amen
nie
vel
to
hear