SPEAKER_00: Welcome to City Church Dublin Sermon Archives.
SPEAKER_00: Join us this week as we continue to work through the Book of John in our series The Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_02: A few years ago I was in a uh in a coffee shop.
SPEAKER_02: It's not closed down, it's very sad.
SPEAKER_02: It's a coffee shop that was in uh film base in Temple Bar, and uh they had large kind of uh floor-to-ceiling uh glass windows.
SPEAKER_02: It was very easy to sit out, and you'd sit and kind of idle away with your flat white there and watch the uh the hustle and bustle of Temple Bar along the cobble streets there at uh at Eustace Street.
SPEAKER_02: And as uh as I was sitting watching one day, I was I realized that uh that something was going on outside.
SPEAKER_02: There was a uh there was uh a black BMW 7 series had gone down the street and had uh and had stopped, and there was uh guys with uh earpieces and black suits, and they were kind of stopping people kind of coming down the street.
SPEAKER_02: And then there was another car, another black BMW 7 series came down and stopped, and this tiny little man got out of it.
SPEAKER_02: He was, of course, the president of Ireland.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Michael D himself uh got out and walked very quite unassumingly, very discreetly up the cobblestones uh into an art gallery that was that was there at the time, it's now a barber shop, but he walked into the art gallery there, spent about 15 minutes there, bought a painting, and off he went.
SPEAKER_02: There's no great fanfare, there's no press there.
SPEAKER_02: He just thought, I'm gonna go art shopping today.
SPEAKER_02: And so he arrived in Temple Bar, went in to meet Jason Shankey, who was the uh the uh sorry, Jason Sharkey, who was the artist, and bought the painting and off he off he went.
SPEAKER_02: It's very un very subtle, understated, quick.
SPEAKER_02: But that's how Irish people do authority.
SPEAKER_02: We don't do we don't do pomp, we don't do ceremony, we don't do you know peacock feathers uh on uh on headdresses or or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02: We kind of shy away from flashy shows of authority.
SPEAKER_02: Irish people tend to be quite sensitive uh to power plays uh and displays of uh of authority, not altogether without reason given our our history.
SPEAKER_02: But over the last couple of hundred years, there's been, or especially over the last maybe say 30 years, there's been a really deliberate move away in Irish society and and maybe in the uh in the home countries that you've come from uh as well, uh, to move away from established authorities, those established centers of uh of power and uh and rule and leadership and authority, like the church, for example.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the the authority and the cachet of the the church and the the culture at large here in Ireland is uh is pretty much decimated.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody goes, oh, well, what does the what does the local bishop think?
SPEAKER_02: Whatever, right?
SPEAKER_02: Even the authority of the the family and uh and and being part of that uh that kind of that that blood-linked kind of community of people.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, the the shift has been away from those traditional structures to a focus on the individual as being the the center of our own authority.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm the I'm the captain of my ship, I'm the master of my my fate sort of idea.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the French poet writing during the time of the French Revolution.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we see how how well that went.
SPEAKER_02: But there's a French poet called Denise Diderot, and he said uh about 300 years ago, 250 years ago, he said, man will never be free until the last king has been strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
SPEAKER_02: Pretty graphic.
SPEAKER_02: But it's not massively I did it.
SPEAKER_02: The issue that we have is that we bulk against authority, and yet adhering or following some sort of authority seems kind of inevitable.
SPEAKER_02: Even if it's uh what you think is your own, it's so much conditioned by the people around you, uh, by the by the value structures that our society kind of places, like a grid over your life and says, This is what this is what we like about you, this is what we don't like about you, this is what you should, uh, this is what you should kind of put forward, this is what we approve of.
SPEAKER_02: We're maybe not as free as we like to think that that we are.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there seems to be a kind of structure and in reality that there's a there's an inevitability to to following something, to following some sort of ideals, to following some sort of values.
SPEAKER_02: So the question then is not uh not so much one of uh do I uh do I follow something or not, but is what I'm following good?
SPEAKER_02: Is the authority that I seek, is the authority that I follow uh good for me?
SPEAKER_02: Is it leading to my my flourishing?
SPEAKER_02: Will it lead to our good?
SPEAKER_02: And you need to have these ideas of authority and leadership in our minds as we come to our passage this morning, as we come to what Jesus is doing here.
SPEAKER_02: Because the triumphal entry, what we remember on Palm Sunday, which is today, look at that.
SPEAKER_02: Well done.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_02: We synced everything up just nicely.
SPEAKER_02: What we have on Palm Sunday is not just uh a nice, joyous uh scene of everybody being really happy that Jesus has arrived in time.
SPEAKER_02: What we have from Jesus is an unambiguous claim to authority.
SPEAKER_02: It's an unambiguous claim to kingship.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you just bring the shutters down any time somebody mentions kind of authorities outside of the individual, then you'll miss all of the goodness that there is in this passage.
SPEAKER_02: Because in the midst of the claim, this unequivocal and clear claim to authority, Jesus also tells us about the nature of the kind of king that he is.
SPEAKER_02: And the kind of king that he is, the kind of authority that he exerts, it's actually really good news for us.
SPEAKER_02: In a world where authority is kind of inevitable and where people abuse their positions of power, Jesus stands in contrast to all of that.
SPEAKER_02: And he shows us not only his claim to kingship, but the nature of his kingship and how it leads ultimately to our flourishing.
SPEAKER_02: Let's look first of all at his claim to kingship just briefly before we think more about the nature of it.
SPEAKER_02: His claim to kingship.
SPEAKER_02: So John 12, John 12 is the the pivot of the book.
SPEAKER_02: Everything kind of swings around John 12.
SPEAKER_02: So people kind of say that there's two books in John.
SPEAKER_02: There's the book of signs, that is the book of miracles, uh, and that that's 1 to 12, and then from 13 through to the end, the book of glory, where we slow right down and we're just in the last week of Jesus' life, and he's teaching his disciples about where true glory, true glory, true greatness can be found.
SPEAKER_02: So we're we're making this transition.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we're going to pause the series now while I while I go away.
SPEAKER_02: We'll be looking at parables in a couple of weeks' time, and then we'll pick it up again in the autumn.
SPEAKER_02: But this climactic moment comes in uh in John 12.
SPEAKER_02: And yes, all the way through, in a sense, Jesus has been kind of quietly disclosing that he is the Son of God, that he is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: You think of his interaction with the woman at the well, she says, Oh, uh, when uh when Messiah comes, he will uh he will reveal all things to us, and that that electric moment when Jesus looks at her and says, Uh, he who speaks to you, I who speak to you am He.
SPEAKER_02: But all the way through these 12 chapters, when it's when people have tried to push him forward, when people have tried to make him king, to get him to show his glory more, he's kind of shied away from it.
SPEAKER_02: He said to his mother back in John chapter 2, they're turning the water in the wine, woman, what is this to do with me?
SPEAKER_02: My hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_02: He's been putting off the the hour.
SPEAKER_02: But in verse 23 from our passage, something has happened.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
SPEAKER_02: The hour has come, and so he begins to receive worship, to receive honor as the king.
SPEAKER_02: How can we be confident that Jesus sees himself as a king here?
SPEAKER_02: Well, by what he does.
SPEAKER_02: In the first few verses we we read to the next day, there's a large crowd that had come to the feast and heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: So they took palm branches and went out to meet them, crying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt, that is, a young donkey.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus deliberately orchestrates things so that the crowd are thinking, Oh, hold on a second, here we've got a we've got an Old Testament fulfillment.
SPEAKER_02: John is quoting to us from the book of Zechariah, one of the Old Testament prophets.
SPEAKER_02: He's one of the minor prophets.
SPEAKER_02: That is one of the ones that you can barely find when you're kind of leafing through your Old Testament, but he's in there.
SPEAKER_02: And in Zechariah 9, uh verse 9, it says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a donkey.
SPEAKER_02: Zechariah talks about how this king comes to his people to bring peace, not war.
SPEAKER_02: He's coming, having salvation and bringing salv, sorry, having righteousness and bringing salvation.
SPEAKER_02: And in verse 10 of Zechariah, he says that this kingdom will be extended from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_02: And so when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on this donkey, he is claiming universal kingship.
SPEAKER_02: Make no mistake.
SPEAKER_02: This is not some object lesson about how we need to be really humble.
SPEAKER_02: It's Jesus saying, I'm the king.
SPEAKER_02: And this is the kind of king that I am.
SPEAKER_02: I don't ride a war horse, I ride a donkey.
SPEAKER_02: I don't come to slay the Romans.
SPEAKER_02: There's bigger enemies than that.
SPEAKER_02: They come to bring salvation, they come to bring peace.
SPEAKER_02: He's making a claim of universal kingship.
SPEAKER_02: Now there is a uh an application for us, something to be aware of.
SPEAKER_02: That for Christians, this has got to be the model of authority.
SPEAKER_02: All those who seek to be in authority or to have people under them do well to remember this model of leadership.
SPEAKER_02: Our king comes in humility to bring peace.
SPEAKER_02: That is his posture.
SPEAKER_02: And we'll see later he calls us to follow him in that sort of vein.
SPEAKER_02: But it is a universal and unmistakable claim to kingship.
SPEAKER_02: And he is proclaimed by the crowd as king.
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta imagine the scene now.
SPEAKER_02: So Jesus is is sitting on the on the donkey, he's he's riding in, and you've got to imagine that there is this there is this rotating crowd.
SPEAKER_02: So they're they've got their palm branches and they and they lay them down and listen to everybody's going in.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we can do a crowd now.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and they're laying down the palm branches, and Jesus kind of goes over past and they're running down the back and they're picking them up and they're bringing them around the front again, and they're kind of and they're calling to one another.
SPEAKER_02: Hosanna, and then the guys in the back are blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It's this dynamic, swirling thing as it moves into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: It's not just this singular moment, it's that they're moving with him, bringing the palm branches and shouting to one another, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Hosanna, which means save us.
SPEAKER_02: Now we've seen already in these chapters people speaking better than they know.
SPEAKER_02: It's the crowd shouting, save us to the king.
SPEAKER_02: And like a snowball, it's it's it's growing and it's building.
SPEAKER_02: And by the time it reaches the city, it is this carcophony of joy and delight, of commotion and and dynamism.
SPEAKER_02: And in the mouths of the crowd, Jesus, in a sense, is making a statement about himself.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, Jesus doesn't need to say anything here.
SPEAKER_02: The crowd's saying it for him.
SPEAKER_02: They're quoting Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_02: They're saying, This is the king who's come to save us.
SPEAKER_02: He's the king that is going to sit on David's throne, as was long foretold and promised.
SPEAKER_02: He is great David's greater son.
SPEAKER_02: And so as they as the noise gets louder and louder moving into Jerusalem, everybody begins to realize, without Jesus uttering a word, exactly who he is.
SPEAKER_02: The palm branches themselves were laden with symbolism.
SPEAKER_02: They were a symbol of joyous worship in the Old Testament, but particularly in the years leading up to Jesus' life, they become a symbol of something else.
SPEAKER_02: They become a symbol of really Jewish nationalism.
SPEAKER_02: They were printed on uh on seals and on coins, uh, the the palm branch as a as a sign of the nation became a national symbol.
SPEAKER_02: They were a symbol of liberation from oppression because they were used to to celebrate after the Maccabean revolt, which we uh thought about just a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_02: And here again, the crowd, like Mary, like Caiaphas of last week, they're speaking better than they know.
SPEAKER_02: They're praising this messianic liberator who will who they think will restore the nation to Israel and usher in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_02: But here's what Jesus is not.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is no mere nationalistic leader.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus doesn't drive around in a black BMW 7 series.
SPEAKER_02: His term of office will not run out.
SPEAKER_02: He is not merely the king of the nation.
SPEAKER_02: He is not the king of one people.
SPEAKER_02: That's what they don't get.
SPEAKER_02: The people don't realize that actually he is the king of the whole world, but there are some people who realize it.
SPEAKER_02: Who realizes that Jesus is the king of the whole world?
SPEAKER_02: It's there in verse 19.
SPEAKER_02: It's actually the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees get it.
SPEAKER_02: The pennies beginning to drop, and they hate it.
SPEAKER_02: It's like something going on here.
SPEAKER_02: Because what look what they say?
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees said to one another, You see that we are gaining nothing?
SPEAKER_02: Look, the whole world has gone out after him.
SPEAKER_02: It's true.
SPEAKER_02: They were right.
SPEAKER_02: They might not have realized it, and they might have hated the implications of it, but they were right.
SPEAKER_02: The whole world is going out after this humble donkey-mounted king.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is not just the king of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: He's not just the king of the jungle.
SPEAKER_02: He is the king of the universe.
SPEAKER_02: He is the king of me.
SPEAKER_02: He is the king of the whole world.
SPEAKER_02: Let's think now about the nature of Jesus' kingship.
SPEAKER_02: What kind of king is he like?
SPEAKER_02: As we've already noted, this clearly isn't the arrival of uh the president of the USA on Air Force One.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, the beast isn't uh rolling through downtown Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: Not that it did very well when it came here.
SPEAKER_02: If you remember when it got beached at the uh USN embassy, uh there's no armored sedan, nor is this Julius Caesar riding into Rome uh after conquering the Gauls on his mighty war horse.
SPEAKER_02: This is kingship, but not as we know it.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus riding on a donkey, he's riding on a beast of burden, seen as lesser in the eyes of the world to those majestic horses.
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's a poem that I've put in here, and I forgot to put the author, so forgive me for not giving proper attribution.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps if somebody thinks of it, you can tell me who the author who the author is, but it says this When fishes flew and forests walked, and figs grew upon thorns, some moment when the moon was blood, then surely I was born, with monstrous head and sickening cry, and ears like errant wings, the devil's walking parody of all four footed things, the tattered outlaw of the earth, of ancient crooked will, starve, scourge, deride me, I am dumb, I will keep my secret still.
SPEAKER_02: Fools I also had my hour one far fierce hour and sweet There were shouts about my ears and palms beneath my feet.
SPEAKER_02: This is the way of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: God uses the ridiculous things in the eyes of the world in order to carry the sublime and the majestic.
SPEAKER_02: Why Paul might say of us who follow Jesus who believe in him, that we carry treasures in jars of clay, that we ourselves are like those disposable Chinese takeaway boxes, and that God has put the most precious thing inside them.
SPEAKER_02: This is the way of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus rides not on a war horse, but on a donkey.
SPEAKER_02: This king comes not to rule, but to serve.
SPEAKER_02: He is crowned not upon a throne, but upon a cross.
SPEAKER_02: And this is a theme that will run through this this chapter and on into the next section.
SPEAKER_02: You see, in one sense, all the way through this chapter, people are beginning to realize that Jesus is the Christ, but they think that he's a uh a militaristic leader.
SPEAKER_02: They think of him in geopolitical terms.
SPEAKER_02: They cannot get their head around this most crucial truth that the Christ has come to die.
SPEAKER_02: That the Christ, God's king, must die.
SPEAKER_02: The way to glory is the way through death.
SPEAKER_02: The way to his glorious throne lies through the cross and the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_02: That is what his kingship is like.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' kingship is gentle.
SPEAKER_02: He is the one who offers rest, who says in Matthew's gospel that his yoke is easy, that his burden is light.
SPEAKER_02: In Luke's account of the triumphal entry, when he comes into Jerusalem, and you can imagine this crowd kind of leading, uh leading him from uh uh Beth Seda all the way to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: They're coming over the brow of the hill that would be the Mount of Olives, and they're coming up over this other side, and Jerusalem suddenly rises up out of the horizon, and he sees it for the first time, and in Luke's gospel, we're told that he does what weeps.
SPEAKER_02: It weeps.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't yell a battle charge, he weeps over Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: Oh Jerusalem, I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not.
SPEAKER_02: He weeps over it in grief and despair, longing that he might gather those people under his good and loving rule.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, that's the kind of king we need.
SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of king that calls to a part of us that longs not to follow people who will toss us aside, who will abuse their power and authority, but a king who would cherish us and who would.
SPEAKER_02: Weep over us and gather us to himself.
SPEAKER_02: We've been told for years and years that we can be whatever we want to be.
SPEAKER_02: As a result, many of us have no idea who we are.
SPEAKER_02: We've been told that we can create our own meaning, our own way in the world, and we find ourselves under the crushed under the weight of that expectation, riddled by anxiety because we don't quite know how to move forward and make the next decision for the best.
SPEAKER_02: What if it goes wrong?
SPEAKER_02: What does that say about me?
SPEAKER_02: What if I fail?
SPEAKER_02: It's exhausting.
SPEAKER_02: Exhausted and anxious, trying to make a name for ourselves to live up to the expectations of others, to make our parents like us, to make our friends approve of us, and some of them never will.
SPEAKER_02: To try and get the fickle congratulation of the world.
SPEAKER_02: Life under the rule of King Jesus is not like that.
SPEAKER_02: He's on his way in this passage to put an end to all of those structures.
SPEAKER_02: To put an end to our addiction to me, myself, and my and to give us rest.
SPEAKER_02: And by his death and resurrection, he makes us his.
SPEAKER_02: And he makes us as he is, not self-seeking, but selflessly loving, as we'll see in just a moment.
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees acknowledged it in verse 19, but now it gets confirmed in verses 20 to 22.
SPEAKER_02: Now those who were among those who were worshipping in the feast were some Greeks.
SPEAKER_02: So they came to Philip, who was from Beth Seda in Galilee and said to him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Philip went and told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We got some Greeks.
SPEAKER_02: Greek is just a term for a non-Jew.
SPEAKER_02: Non-Jews were coming to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And they were part of the fulfillment of verse 19, where the Pharisees were saying, the whole world is going out after him.
SPEAKER_02: So we cast our minds back to chapter 1.
SPEAKER_02: And I know it's it's so vividly from September, just right at the fore of your minds.
SPEAKER_02: I can I can tell.
SPEAKER_02: But what do we read in chapter 1?
SPEAKER_02: He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.
SPEAKER_02: But all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to be called children of God, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a husband, but of God.
SPEAKER_02: The rejection of the of the Jewish religious leaders has is reaching its peak now in this final week of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_02: The descent into their own darkness, their own willful blindness is all but complete.
SPEAKER_02: Their hostility has turned from vague opposition to Jesus to now murderous hatred of him.
SPEAKER_02: He came to his own, but his own have not received him.
SPEAKER_02: And it is precisely at that moment when the rejection of Jesus by his own people is most acute that John turns our attention to the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_02: The Gentiles, the Greeks, the non-Jews are coming to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And this is what is the turning point for Jesus up until now.
SPEAKER_02: The hour has been pushed off.
SPEAKER_02: It's been a future thing.
SPEAKER_02: The hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_02: But now the whole world is watching.
SPEAKER_02: Now the whole world is saying we want to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The Gentiles are watching.
SPEAKER_02: Me and you, every tribe and tongue and nation turning their eyes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus says, now, glorify me now.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's watching.
SPEAKER_02: The world is watching.
SPEAKER_02: I have the attention of Jew and Gentile, every tribe and tongue and nation.
SPEAKER_02: Father, glorify me now.
SPEAKER_02: The hour is now.
SPEAKER_02: Do it now while they're watching, so that they might see my glory.
SPEAKER_02: And so that they might be called into the life that I have.
SPEAKER_02: Do it now.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Jesus responds as he does, because it's strange, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Some Greeks, sir, would want to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Philip goes down to you.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's go.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is some Greeks here for you.
SPEAKER_02: Now the hours come.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 23, the hours come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
SPEAKER_02: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, in a sense, to the Greeks and to us, he said, You're you're right to look for Jesus now.
SPEAKER_02: You're right to look.
SPEAKER_02: Keep looking.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you here this morning are you're like the Greeks.
SPEAKER_02: You've you've come to the disciples here in City Church, and you're you're kind of saying, I want to see, I want to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I want to see this guy that you follow.
SPEAKER_02: Keep looking.
SPEAKER_02: It's part of what it's part of my job.
SPEAKER_02: On the on the lectern, on the pulpit where I used to study, there was printed John 12 21.
SPEAKER_02: Sir, we would see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That's the job of every Christian leader.
SPEAKER_02: That is the job of every preacher.
SPEAKER_02: It is the job of every pastor.
SPEAKER_02: It's the job of every Christian disciple.
SPEAKER_02: Sir, we would see Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus' response to everybody who says that is that, yes, come, look, look now.
SPEAKER_02: I'm about to be glorified.
SPEAKER_02: I'm about to turn all of the categories of power and wisdom on their head.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to show you true power and I'm going to show it to you in weakness.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to show you wisdom and I'm going to show it to you.
SPEAKER_02: And it's going to look like folly, but it's going to be the wisest and most glorious thing in the whole world.
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to see my love for you?
SPEAKER_02: See me stretched out on a Roman gibbet.
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to see my glory?
SPEAKER_02: See me crying with thorns.
SPEAKER_02: Keep looking.
SPEAKER_02: Don't take your eyes off me.
SPEAKER_02: Because this is what really matters.
SPEAKER_02: You've reached the moment.
SPEAKER_02: You're looking at just the right time.
SPEAKER_02: Keep your eyes on me.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, that's what Good Friday's all about.
SPEAKER_02: On Good Friday, we turn our eyes and the eyes of our hearts deliberately to look and to see the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Come and look with us this Friday night.
SPEAKER_02: Look and behold the man of sorrows.
SPEAKER_02: The glorious Son of God.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is saying, Don't take your eyes off me.
SPEAKER_02: The road to glory for Jesus leads him to the cross.
SPEAKER_02: And this road is necessary.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 24, truly, truly, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.
SPEAKER_02: But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
SPEAKER_02: The going and dying of Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_02: If Jesus turns from this road and turns from the cross and goes another way, it is though he is a seed that remains in the pocket.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, no, I need to be planted into the grind by my death.
SPEAKER_02: Because if I if I die, I will bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_02: Fruit from every tribe and tongue and nation, from Jew and Gentile, men and women, from all over the world.
SPEAKER_02: But you know what, guys?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus doesn't just stop there.
SPEAKER_02: The application is actually in these last couple of verses, verses 25 and 26, because he doesn't just say see it.
SPEAKER_02: He wants you to follow it.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just say watch me as I do it.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do it for you.
SPEAKER_02: And what it means to be my follower is to walk this road behind me.
SPEAKER_02: To do this with me.
SPEAKER_02: Don't just see it, follow it.
SPEAKER_02: And that's our final point.
SPEAKER_02: There's this universal claim to kingship, there's the humble nature of his kingship, and then finally, follow the king.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 25 and 26.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever loves his life will lose it.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
SPEAKER_02: If anyone serves me, he must follow me.
SPEAKER_02: And where I am, there will be my servant also.
SPEAKER_02: If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
SPEAKER_02: This is the dynamics of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_02: This is the dynamics of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_02: Not just to observe and to admire, but to emulate, to walk in, to follow him on this road.
SPEAKER_02: That this is ultimately good for us.
SPEAKER_02: What is the dynamics of the reality that you live in?
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you a really important piece of information.
SPEAKER_02: Everything that you value, everything that you pursue, here's the dynamics.
SPEAKER_02: Suffering now, glory later.
SPEAKER_02: You do this all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Delay gratification.
SPEAKER_02: You suffer now.
SPEAKER_02: You bust yourself studying or working now because you're working for something.
SPEAKER_02: You're working for glory later.
SPEAKER_02: For what will it give you?
SPEAKER_02: You're saving and saving and saving for a mortgage or for for an engagement ring or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02: Suffering now.
SPEAKER_02: You're forgoing things, suffering now.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Glory later.
SPEAKER_02: This is the dynamics of reality, and they are embedded here by the God who made us.
SPEAKER_02: Suffering now, glory later, is not just the road for Jesus, it is the road for us all.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus saying, the way that I am going to bear much fruit is that I'm hating my life now.
SPEAKER_02: I'm hating my life.
SPEAKER_02: I'm dying to the world.
SPEAKER_02: I'm dying for you.
SPEAKER_02: Now follow me.
SPEAKER_02: Die with me.
SPEAKER_02: If you love your life, that is, if you see your life as your own, as yours to govern however you want, as something that you possess in and of yourself, as is your own to manage and to govern selfishly, you will lose it.
SPEAKER_02: You will lose it.
SPEAKER_02: The tighter you grip on to your life and your control of it, the more that it will slip through your fingers like sand.
SPEAKER_02: You ever felt like that?
SPEAKER_02: We see this.
SPEAKER_02: We see this in various areas of life.
SPEAKER_02: I mean you think of think of work life.
SPEAKER_02: Who's the worst boss?
SPEAKER_02: You raise your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Your really bad boss is a boss who is who is narcissistic, who's controlling, who's insecure, who's micromanaging, who's gripping on to their position.
SPEAKER_02: They don't want to be seen ever as a as a failure.
SPEAKER_02: And what they end up doing is by gripping onto that, they end up squeezing you.
SPEAKER_02: You feel crushed under that scrutiny and expectation.
SPEAKER_02: It's a horrible environment to work in.
SPEAKER_02: Because they're clinging on to their life.
SPEAKER_02: The worst marriages are the marriages where one or both spouse is unyielding, selfish, always looking for their own way, never wanting to flex or give a little.
SPEAKER_02: They begin to crush all the joy and the goodness out of the marriage that everybody becomes miserable.
SPEAKER_02: But when you die to yourself, to your own love of your life, that is, having everything your own way, governing yourself, your own selfishness.
SPEAKER_02: The promise of the gospel is that actually all of those dynamics improve.
SPEAKER_02: The relationships that you enter into become more fulfilling and more joy-giving.
SPEAKER_02: And it is the same with our God.
SPEAKER_02: It is only when we die to ourselves, by repentance and faith, turning away from our sin and from our selfishness and turning to God.
SPEAKER_02: That's what it means to die.
SPEAKER_02: When we die to ourselves, that's when we find life.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Jesus is promising us here.
SPEAKER_02: Find life as it was meant to be.
SPEAKER_02: Find rest in Him, our servant King.
SPEAKER_02: And what does dying look like?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he gives us a couple of images here as we conclude.
SPEAKER_02: It's following and it's service.
SPEAKER_02: Following, it's realizing that I'm not the leader.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not the center of my own universe.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not the locus of my own authority.
SPEAKER_02: That there is one to follow, and it is good to follow him.
SPEAKER_02: Seeing the goodness of that authority outside of ourselves and to serve.
SPEAKER_02: Serve him and to serve others.
SPEAKER_02: That is to forget ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: There is a freedom in self-forgetfulness.
SPEAKER_02: It's true.
SPEAKER_02: What did Jesus say about himself in Mark 10, 45?
SPEAKER_02: The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_02: There is freedom and there is joy in that sort of dynamic, in following the King, and laying all of that we are and have down at his feet and saying, I follow you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm getting my palm branches, and I'm walking with you on that road to the cross, and I'm crying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And the result?
SPEAKER_02: That last clause of verse 26, the Father will honor him.
SPEAKER_02: The Father will honor her.
SPEAKER_02: See, to live that sort of life.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just a life of abject like asceticism.
SPEAKER_02: Or we have to, you know, beat ourselves up and flagellate ourselves, and we can have no fun and no joy and nothing.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that's not what I said.
SPEAKER_02: But there is something greater to be gained.
SPEAKER_02: It is the honor that comes from the Father.
SPEAKER_02: GG honored by the Father, life in him.
SPEAKER_02: That is the promise for all who would follow this king, this unequivocal, universal king, whose kingship is good, whose rest is complete, and whose salvation is full.
SPEAKER_02: You follow him with us wherever he leads.