SERMON: “Discipleship: Die to Live” (John 12:20–26)
“Discipleship:
Die to Live” (John 12:20–26)
Series: “John: Life in Christ’s Name” Text: John 12:20–26
By: Shaun Marksbury Date: January
28, 2024
Venue: Living Water Baptist Church Occasion: AM Service
I.
Introduction
I’ve been thinking a lot about books and stories I’ve enjoyed, and I came back around to C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Some of you have watched the movies, which always leave some room for improvement in the minds of book lovers. One of the parts that hasn’t captured in film, though, was the final book of the series, The Last Battle.
In the story, everyone hears that there’s a problem in
Narnia and seek to return. That is, all
of them except Susan. She is no longer
counted among the friends of Narnia. The
narrative presents her as having lost her belief and interest in Narnia and
Aslan, having become more concerned with worldly and superficial pursuits, such
as clothes and parties. She has
essentially “grown out” of it. It was
one of the saddest aspects of the story.
She illustrates an unhappy reality in this world — some
people can have convictions, coming to Christ with excitement and vigor, but over
time become entangled again in the distractions and pursuits of the world. An example of this in Scripture would be a
man named Demas; Paul mentions him in Colossians 4:14 as being in his group
with Luke, engaging in ministry.
However, in 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul says Demas deserted him, “having loved
this present world.” Demas became
fascinated with the wider world, eventually abandoning the ministry and
possibly even his belief in the Lord.
These are examples of disciples, of learners, who forsake
their teaching. We know that, while many
disciples stay, others leave, and we’ve seen examples of that here in the Book
of John. Still others have never even
known Jesus Christ and are coming for the first time, but they need to know
what they’re facing.
Disciples must value the Lord above all else. Only this is true discipleship. So, as we go through this passage, then,
we’ll see that we must approach Christ as disciples, understand Christ’s
mission as disciples, and value Christ above all as disciples (vv. 25–26). Let’s consider the first of these.
II.
First, Approach Christ as Disciples (vv. 20–23)
Now there were
some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; these then
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him,
saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip
came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus.
We’ve considered in this chapter both the anointing of Jesus
at Bethany and his triumphal entry. Although
the text seems to hint this is the same day, it may not be the case. The word translated “now” in v. 20 is an
extremely common conjunction which can often indicate that time’s passed. Various gospel harmonizations breakdown the
events of this final week slightly differently, but this does seem to be the
next day.
Regardless of the day, who were these people? A few have thought that these might be Jews
of the dispersion — the diaspora spread out among the Gentiles — and
that these Jews were Hellenized or had adopted Greek culture.[1] However, the best indications are that they
are simply Greeks, actual Gentiles who had come to the feast to worship.[2] There were a couple of groups of Gentiles who
worshipped along with the Jews: one which had converted to Moses, and the other
which, not yet following circumcision, were known simply as the God-fearers (cf.
Acts 8:27; 13:26; 17:4).
Unconverted Gentiles were allowed into the first courtyard
of the temple but no further, under penalty of death. As one commentary notes, “Warning notices
were posted on the barrier (‘the dividing wall of hostility’, Eph. 2:14) that
separated the inner courts from the court of the Gentiles. Not even the Roman Governor of Syria,
Vitellius, dared ignore the prohibition or test its sanction when he attended
the feast seven years later (March ad
37; cf. Jos., Ant. xviii. 122).”[3] Perhaps these Gentiles were in that outer
court when Jesus cleansed the temple for the second time (which John doesn’t
record here), sparking their interest in the one concerned about the pure worship
of the Gentiles.[4]
There’s a great irony in their coming to Jesus. First, it serves as a foil for the
Sanhedrin. As one study notes, “At the
very moment when the Jewish authorities virulently plotted to kill Him,
Gentiles began to desire His attention.”[5] There’s also a corporate foreshadowing here,
for as Paul says in Romans 11:25, a partial hardening will come upon the Jewish
nation until the fullness of the Gentiles.
Here, the Gentiles are coming to Christ!
It also signals the next stage of Jesus’s ministry. Jesus has already said He has sheep of
another fold (John 10:16), though the disciples did not understand that
yet. The next stages in ministry will
include the hated Samaritans, as we saw with the woman at the well, as well as
the Gentiles. However, Christ is
reserving both until after His ascension back to the right hand of glory. Book of Acts records the fulfillment of this goal.
For now, let’s consider how they approach Jesus. Keep in mind that there could be anywhere
between one and two million people in Jerusalem at this time, and many of them
would likely crowd near Jesus to see what He’ll do or say next. So, either out of humble respect (they refer
to Philip as “sir”), or due to a lack of an alternative due to the masses,
these Greeks seek out one of His disciples to request some time with Him.
They pick Philip, a disciple with a Greek name. The text notes that he is “from Bethsaida of
Galilee,” which may be significant to their own origin point.[6] Perhaps they picked Philip specifically
because they saw some kinship in him.
The text doesn’t say specifically, though — they might have just grabbed
the first confirmed disciple they could find!
Either way, Philip first finds Andrew. We see something of circles of influence
within the disciples, where Philip was in more of an outer circle and Andrew in
an inner circle. Philip wants advice
before taking these Greeks straight to Jesus.
Why?
We’re not told exactly, but we can assume he was a sensible
man who had his reasons. One commentary
says, “Since crowds of people probably wanted to speak with Jesus, the
disciples may have tried to do some screening (cf. Luke 18:15–16).”[7] Another notes that Jesus had often said
through His ministry that He was there for the nation of Israel, and that Jesus
speaking now to the Gentile might further provoke the Jewish leadership.[8] So, Philip goes to Andrew for help.
What lessons should we draw from these verses? It’s odd that some have tried to make this
about praying other people, like dead disciples and saints, when our Lord no
where commands this of us.[9] This does demonstrate that, as Philip went to
Andrew, Christ’s ministers can go to one another for help. This also illustrates that, if you don’t know
Christ, get ahold of someone who does and ask them to lead you to Him. It’s not that you need a minister or an
evangelist to get you in good with Christ (you can approach Him on your own as
countless others do), but you may have questions about Jesus you want answered.
One of the chief questions you should have is why Jesus is
here. If you are going to be a disciple
of Jesus, you should know what His mission is.
That brings us to our next point and Jesus’s response:
III.
Second, Understand Christ’s Mission as Disciples
(vv. 23–24)
And Jesus answered
them, saying, “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.”
Now, you might be fairly confused about what we just
read. After all, the Greeks request an
audience with Jesus, and He starts talking about time, glorification, and
agriculture. What is happening?
Well, He isn’t ignoring anyone. As one commentary notes, “The Lord’s response
is directed neither to Jews or Gentiles, but to all who choose to follow Him.”[10] This answer must be understood by all true
disciples of Christ.
First, He says, “The hour has come.” The first time He says this in this
Gospel. It’s true that we read about His
hour or time not having yet arrived (John 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20). Here, however, Jesus says the time is here,
that the hour has come, and we’ll be reminded throughout the rest of this
Gospel of this fact (v. 27; 13:1; 16:32; 17:1).
What time has come?
He says that it is the hour “for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Specifically, based on the immediate context
and the rest of the Gospel account, this applies to His death. Now, that may seem counterintuitive: How can
the Lord’s death glorify Him? Even the
others ask about this paradoxical reality in v. 34.
We might think of Jesus being glorified through rising from
the dead and ascending to heaven. Yet,
that doesn’t happen without first His humiliation. It is through the cross that He can offer us
salvation, and it is through His death that He can pay the penalty for our
sins. Without His death, we could not
live.
This is where His glory begins to grow, like a fresh sprout
from the ground. We see the importance
of this image as we begin the next verse, for Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say
to you.” He sets up His solemn
statements in that way, and then He gives that agricultural picture: “unless a
grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies,
it bears much fruit.” This is a picture
Paul borrows later when he explains that nothing sown comes to life unless it
dies (1 Cor. 15:36), and in this case, Jesus is the seed which must die to
bring life.
There would be no salvation for Jews or Greeks if Jesus did not die. There would be no New Covenant. There would be no church. There would be no eternal life for anyone in the Old or New Testaments. If Jesus did not come to die, He could not bring about this bountiful harvest of souls. We would have no hope.
So, this is the important mission that all Christ’s
disciples must see. Many reject Jesus on
the basis that He had to die for them; they want to work their own way into
glory. Yet, it is only through the glory
of the cross — not our own glory — that we can have salvation. Jesus died (and rose again) to become the
Lord of the dead and the living (Rom. 14:9).
Jesus is saying that one must die to live. That is the great paradox. As Matthew Henry notes,
He fell to the ground in his incarnation, seemed to be buried
alive in this earth, so much was his glory veiled; but this was not all: he
died. This immortal seed submitted to the laws of mortality, he lay in the
grave like seed under the clods; but as the seed comes up again green, and
fresh, and flourishing, and with a great increase, so one dying Christ gathered
to himself thousands of living Christians, and he became their root.[11]
Salvation is His mission.
It comes through His death: He died that we might live. Yet, this doesn’t mean He died to give us
better lives; disciples of Christ must count how costly it may be to follow
Jesus, as we see next.
IV.
Third, Value Christ Above All as Disciples (vv.
25–26)
“He who loves his
life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life
eternal. 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.”
In a sense, Jesus continues to talk about Himself here. He is the one who did not love His life in
this world. He was a man of sorrows, and
He looked forward to the coming age. It
was because of His obedience and lack of love for the things of this world that
we can know salvation.
Yet, He is also subtly shifting to speak of disciples
here. Consider how a person might love
his life or her life here. Even
Christians in church might do this as they think less about the Lord and His
Word and more about where they are going to eat after the service or what they
are going to watch on TV. Unbelievers
can do it by valuing their time outside of church, loving their lives of
disobedience as they pursue all the pleasures that the weekend can afford them.
Now, I don’t want you to feel guilty for the wrong things,
so please understand. We’re not talking
about enjoying things God created to be enjoyed or getting excited about a big
event coming up in life — praise God for those things and enjoy them. Rather, Jesus is condemning a prioritizing
worldliness over godliness, finding treasure only here on earth rather than in
heaven. This is living for self rather
than the Lord.
We are entertainment-saturated people. Yet, as Matthew Henry says here, the religion
of Christ is “to wean us from this world, by setting before us another world.”[12] No one can be a disciple of Christ if they are
constantly wandering away from Him after every shiny thing they see.
By contrast, we should seek to “hate” our lives. Now, there are people who say they hate
themselves, and there may be a germ of truth that they could get out of that;
usually, though, they mean they hate something about themselves they wish could
change so they could fit in better with the world. This isn’t about hating life, becoming depressive
or anything like that. Rather, this is
about hating life in this age, seeing the sin and corruption all around
and wanting that to vanish.
We could go back to the word prioritization. Some people would say money should be a
priority, but most of us see that as an excuse for greed. Some might say something sounding good, like
family should be our priority; Jesus says the shocking words in Luke 14:26, “If
anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and
children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My
disciple.” True disciples of Christ
value Him above all else, even life itself.
Many would call that hatred, even today — people have made
an idol out of loving oneself. However,
Jesus calls us to treasure something above our own will, following to the point
of discomfort and even sacrifice. One
might have the natural drive for self-preservation, which would include not
identifying with Christ in this world, but the one serving and following Him
will even sacrifice his own life in the cause of Christ.
We must be willing to follow Him, even to death. That’s hard to think about here and now. There are places in this world where
unbelievers will murder you for following Christ, even if you are a child. While that kind of persecution is rare in the
United States, there are people who will mock you and shun you for going to
church, reading the Bible, and doing what the Lord commands you to do. You may even lose opportunities in the
future. You must choose, though — do you
value your life and your comforts, or are you willing to do what people would
see as foolish and self-hating, and follow Jesus Christ no matter what?
Jesus comforts us. He
says that the people who choose to hate their lives here will have assurance of
eternal life. This does not mean that we
earn salvation through our works. Jesus
has already made it clear that the work of God is to believe in Him (John 6:29)
and that by believing, one has eternal life, promising to raise that one up on
the last day (v. 40). However, the one
who comes to Christ is transformed so much that he will serve and follow Jesus
to the point of hating one’s own life.
Indeed, there are signs that follow conversion that help to increase our
confidence that our salvation is kept to eternal life.
This is about serving Christ, of course. Disciples follow, as v. 26 says. There are some who say they serve Christ, but
they don’t follow Him. They don’t put
their sin to death within their members to ensure that He’s their ultimate
focus. They don’t want to obey all the
things He commands, denying some of His words by their actions or their vain
speculations, all while claiming to serve Him in spirit rather than in letter. These are the believers who can rationalize
their lives in this world, and they can keep them quite comfortably here.
However, if you truly follow Christ, you will have some
suffering and discomfort in this world.
You may even follow Christ in death. Yet, Jesus says in v. 26 that you can know
you’ll be right there with Him. You can
also know that the Father will honor you! The question is whether heaven is your true
treasure rather than the things of earth.
V.
Conclusion
A young reader of the Chronicles of Narnia series named
Martin wrote C. S. Lewis in 1957 because he was concerned for Susan’s fate. Lewis replied to him, explaining, “The books
don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She
is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather
silly, conceited young woman. But there’s
plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in
the end... in her own way.”[13] This caring letter was written not just by an
author to a young fan, but by a man who spent many years as an atheist before
finally coming to Christ.
It’s difficult to keep our priorities straight, especially
when new experiences come along. These
Greeks (as well as the Jews) must understand that before following Jesus. Discipleship calls us to deny ourselves,
sometimes even to the point of death, if we’re going to be His disciples.
Are you willing to turn your back on pursuing this life for
the true joys of following Christ? Are
you willing to put your sins at His feet?
Are you willing to follow Him even if your family and friends mistakenly
think you hate them? These are the hard
questions of discipleship, but at the end of the age, there is far greater joy
and honor in Christ than in anything this old world has to offer!
What about if you’re afraid you’ve loved life here too much
and did not hate it enough? You can know
that Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirement in this regard. We are to follow His example and strive to
keep this life in proper perspective with eternity. Yet, never forget to trust in the good news
of the gospel, that our salvation is ultimately secure in Jesus Christ alone.
[1] John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, (Bellingham, WA: Logos
Bible Software, 2010), 2:26.
[2] A. T. Robertson, Word
Pictures in the New Testament, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), Jn
12:20.
[3] D. A. Carson, The
Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Leicester,
England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 436.
[4] Ibid.
[5] John MacArthur Jr., Ed., The MacArthur Study Bible, electronic ed., (Nashville, TN: Word
Pub., 1997), 1609.
[6] Edwin A. Blum, The
Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, 1985, 2, 317.
[7] Ibid.
[8] John F. MacArthur Jr., John 12–21, MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (Chicago, IL: Moody
Publishers, 2008), 26.
[9] Calvin, 2:27.
[10] MacArthur, John
12–21, 26.
[11] Matthew Henry, Matthew
Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume,
(Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 2000.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Cited in the Susan Pevensie Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Pevensie.
