Series: It’s Backwards!
To Win Give Up
John 12:24-26
In our living room we are starting a project of investment for future growth which we believe will be very profitable. It begins with at properly amount of investment in a fertile market….. actually we are growing tomato plants in our family room. In little cups filled with dirt Leigh Anne and the kids put these really small seeds into the dark soil purchased at Lowe’s. A few days after planting a small green stem emerged from the dirt along with some small leaves. The process is not something that hasn’t been seen before – how a small seed somehow becomes a plant, yet it is still a mystery exactly how it can take the nutrients from the earth to reach upward toward the sun. During this time of teaching Jesus loved to take the simple things like the process of a growing plant to draw a line of comparison to the spiritual truths people struggled to understand. The God who made the physical earth also made the spiritual life, and understanding is found in application of the wisdom learned from what is seen.
This past 6 weeks have been focused on how the majority of the world lives one way and the truths of God call us out of that pattern to live in a new way. The image first given was two roads – one is a wide path which leads to destruction and the other a smaller and less obvious path which leads to life. The basic thrust of Biblical instruction is in this concept – that living for God means you will grow demonstrably different from most of the world you live in. Following him means you will end up in a place which is not normal in terms of what the general consensus finds. Hearing Jesus instruct is like someone going at it completely backwards – be a servant instead of being served. To be rich let go of your riches. To find rest take up the right burdens. These are not things which will naturally occur; they are only completed through thoughtfully prepared and regularly practiced people. If we quit concentrating on doing them then we will mindlessly find ourselves acting like the rest of the world and no difference will be evident in our walk with Christ. This is the point Jesus kept trying to make in his day and wants us to know in the modern era. We are not to be like everyone else, we are to appear different, original, and yes even supposed to seem backward in comparison to what the world considers progress. The one huge difference which should be obvious between God’s people and the rest of the world is the view of death. We should look forward to it.
I. A View of Life.
A. The Natural inclination is to cling to life not matter how much hope they have.
1. That is to say our body has certain responses to threats which we do not necessarily think about. Loud noises overhead often causes us to duck, heat from a fire drive us back before being injured any further.
*I was recently watching a rerun of the show called “Dirty Jobs,” with Mike Rowe – he travels across the country working with people to do some gritty work, this time he was helping a man harvest alligator eggs. It is dangerous because of the swamp, the fire ants, but most importantly the mama alligator watching the nest. Later when they were dealing with juvenile alligators, the owner of the farm instructed Mike that if the alligator bit his hand he should not immediately try to pull his hand out. Instead he should wait for one of the helpers to pry open the mouth of the animal because pulling his hand out would tear up his entire hand because of how the teeth of the animal are shaped. The natural reaction would be, pain, my life is in danger, get your hand out of there – but that would be the wrong reaction because it would cause more damage. Our mind sometimes has to override our natural inclination to preserve our life in order to limit the damage.
2. Survival is an instinct and one we are comfortable with because it will more than not keep us alive. But would we say that life is all about not dying? I do not think must of us wake up in the morning and say “Today I am in non-dying mode. I am going to come as close to dying as I possibly can today.”
*Sure there are thrill seekers and people who just don’t think things through who experiment with stuff that could kill them. But I would suggest that even those who say they want to push the limits don’t actually want to die they just want to feel the thrill of being close. Dying to them would end the fun and they don’t want to do that. Does anyone really want to die? Yes those in the agony of death want the suffering to end and some want to escape the troubles they see around them because they think that nothing beyond this earth could be as terrible as they currently are enduring. But if you give us something to hold on to we will grab it even if it might seem silly and hopeless to everyone sees our picture.
3. But to live in survival mode for your entire existence is not really what could be called a life. If we are going to really “live” there is more to it than not being dead. There are things we are out to do, ways in which we want to feel, and things we want to accomplish.
B. And most are seeking what could be termed the “good life.” What does that consist of? It is subjective.
*There are some general consensuses in the world what the good life looks like.
1. Generally people think it means being able to have Instant gratification – that comes in a bunch of forms – from physical pleasure to financial awards and possessions to instant access. The idea is that waiting is for losers, and the consequences can be dealt with later. And when the consequences do catch up with you, don’t suffer dump the plan, the person, or the problem. Life is short - If you really want to live you have to get it now. But immediate gratification keeps going each time the hard stuff shows up it is shoved away until it piles up to big to ignore and crushes you.
2. Another popular thought is that the “life” is found in having Increased control. Being able to make your own decisions, write your own plan, and control your own destiny now that is really the life. It is real tempting to believe that if you were just given the power you could fix all the things that are wrong and everyone would be happier if they did it your way. Some people try to make it happen -Control the household, control the money, control the work load, control other people or the fate of the organization. They are just so sure that “the life” is found once they have things under control and so they push to get there.
*A few years ago there were brewers who were attempting to convince people that their choice of beer determined if they were living the “good life,” Miller beer called it the “high life,” no pun intended. On the TV commercials were happy people really living – care free, perfect health, stylish, and smart. The message was life really isn’t complete if you aren’t spending time enjoying a good beer - check that: The right beer. And it seems like every experience, product, service, and organization promises to give the most fulfilling life if you go with them. And when Jesus says that real life resides with his words then the world goes, “Okay so Jesus is another option I can try if I’m not happy with the other choices.”
3. And the good life is one where there are painless problems. Not troubles that you have to work on for years with pain and effort, but where things that are troublesome just fade away with time or take care of themselves. This is reinforced because some things do seem to take care of themselves and most of the worries never seem to come true – our imagination tells us that is the way life is suppose to be and the good life all the bad things take care of themselves.
*People decided that was the way to live way back at the beginning of creation – just before the guy built the big boat and stuffed it full of cute animals. Everyone was living this “Good life” not dedicated to anything but themselves – immediately gratifying their thoughts, increasing their control over the world, and just thinking their problems weren’t really hurting anyone. The result was something absolutely destructive:
Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The result was that though they felt alive in the body their soul died. They were dead inside. And look through history and you will see mankind repeating this process of trying to live but killing themselves in their heart and soul – the Bible refers to it as the hardening of the heart – as a person puts more value on their day to day life, they devalue the future and their spiritual life. In the process they become dead and calloused on their soul, which removes their empathy for other people. So Jesus knowing this problem comes and says the opposite; To live spiritually you have to let the body die.
II. A Decision to Die
A. The perfect illustration comes from John 12 and the contrast Jesus makes with the events of that week.
1. Two weeks ago we recognized that Sunday as “Palm Sunday” which refers to events recorded at the beginning of John 12 – people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with shouts of joy and waved palm branches to show their approval of him as their savior.
2. This would appear to be a good thing from outside observations – to have such adoring fans would seem to have been exactly what Jesus would have wanted to spread the news.
3. But that wasn’t the reason Jesus had come to the city – he walked into the city with the purpose of dying and releasing control of his life.
*And that was his decision to give up what the rest of the world considers the “good life” because if he would have stayed out of Jerusalem and out of the lime light he wouldn’t have been killed. But this wasn’t just about him, 24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
4. What I have often overlooked in this passage is that Jesus had all ready made the decision to give his life for the sins of the world and this entire passage is about the people who would choose to follow him. He wasn’t inferring a complicated spiritual truth here, he was talking about giving up life as everyone else lives, he was speaking of focusing on methodically allowing our desires die.
B. Because it is only when we surrender that part of our being that we are prepared to be what he has planned us to be.
*This is where Jesus uses that concept of a seed. The seed itself is not useful just remaining a seed. It wasn’t designed to just stay as it is – the fullest potential will not be reached if it is not planted in the ground. Once it is put down in the dirt, it grows to become a plant and then produces something valuable and produces a huge amount of other seeds. As long as that seed is not planted it is not doing what it was designed to do.
1. So Jesus says this is the same concept when it comes to truly living. If you go along with the concepts the world is selling – living for instant gratification, looking for ways to control, and avoiding pain at all costs – that life will eventually be gone and the soul along with it. 25The man who loves his life will lose it meaning if earthly existence is the most important thing to you then when you die you not only lose all the stuff here but also miss eternal life.
*But the idea of giving up our life here for something that we haven’t seen and don’t have much information about can be very difficult. The other day I caught a show that I thought had long ago been cancelled called “Let’s Make A Deal,” and the host Wayne Brady standing in a room full of costumed people hoping to be chosen and you know the concept right? He gives them something valuable and says, “You can keep that or trade it behind door number 1.” And the tension begins because what is behind the door might be better than what they have in their hands or it may be worse – they have to choose to give up what is right in front of them for the possibility that it would be better. I think sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus has promised us something great behind the curtain of heaven but we aren’t sure it is worth trading what we can see right in front of us. That is the strong hold the world has on us, and Jesus says “What can a person trade for their soul?” A lot of people have traded it for all kinds of earthly things and been less for the trade.
2. Jesus says let’s make a deal - if you “hate your life” in this world, meaning you see it as something that isn’t as good or as perfect as the future God has planned in heaven, then you aren’t so caught up in what is going to happen to you here or are completely devastated if things on earth don’t work out as you planned. Seeds weren’t designed to stay seeds, neither are we designed to stay as we are now.
But that change doesn’t happen just one time and it is all done. It has to happen over and over again – it is what Jesus meant when he said if we wanted to follow he told us in Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” which means that we are choosing to die. Do you look forward to dying? Does carrying a cross sound like something that is pleasant to do? Not really, but we somehow think that living for God should only occasionally hard and the rest of the time should feel good, but carrying a cross everyday is work and takes determination. I am not sure where this idea came from that doing the right thing makes you feel good all the time, carrying a cross won’t. This is the reason Jesus equates dying and hating this life because if you don’t focus on what is to come, getting caught up in the things of this world and feel like we are “in love” with what we see. That was the idea of dying every day to the things that people around you are doing and what your body seems to feel is natural. And if you do that it will have some interesting effects.
III. A Way to Win.
A. Where we take what Jesus said and demonstrate it through our regular life. We plant the seeds.
1. Seed of your priorities.
a. Becoming a follower of Christ means giving Jesus the right to determine what is most important in your life. You know what these seeds look like? It looks like your calendar. It means your time is not your own, your work time, your free time – if Jesus is Lord of your life then he is Lord of your whole week not just a few hours or a day. You have to give up thinking that you can handle time on your own.
b. If you want to live then the things that interfere have to be dumped or they have to start bowing to Christ. 26Whoever serves me must follow me- give up the control and work on being a follower.
2. Seed of your possessions
a. Meaning that we bury the ownership of the money, the car, the family, the stuff – and consider them God’s stuff to be used for his purposes. It is helpful when the things we have go from being what we have to what God has given to us for a reason. Giving up ownership is important because it keeps us from getting too connected to them.
3. Seed of your purpose.
a. Meaning that you decide that what comes after this life is too important to trade for any good thing on earth. That there are things you won’t do because it would dishonor God, things you would die to keep because God said it was important.
*Jesus in the wilderness after not eating for 40 days was tempted by Satan to turn some stones into bread to make things better for himself, and Jesus basically said he wouldn’t do it because of his dedication to God, he would in fact rather die than do what Satan suggested. He didn’t forget that his purpose, and wouldn’t avoid painful things in order to keep his word to God.
Not long ago I was driving my car toward my house and even though I was staring straight ahead I was lost in thought – and nearly hit a darkly dressed individual who was half way across the intersection when I was turning from the stop sign. If I would have hit that man he might have been damaged for a lifetime just because I as the responsible individual was not paying attention. I forgot that my purpose was to drive the car and to keep myself and people from harm. My purpose was to remain focused on what I was supposed to do - And what we don’t always pay attention to is how important our life is to God and how much he is counting on us to be his people in this confused world – that if we just float through life without putting much thought to our action we will intersect with something and not realize how important it is.
That is what happens when we forget our purpose – the one to be where Jesus is and to be serving like he did. We constantly have to realign our priorities, to put back into place the most important things because the world around us will constantly be influencing us to quit trying to do the right thing and just go along to get along. Jesus doesn’t want that for our life, he want us to truly win and to completely get past the world determining our happiness, our goals, and our measurements of winning. To win in God’s kingdom the first priority is to die to your own wants – to pick up the cross that you will crucify that desire to do what everyone else is doing. Giving your life to God is a daily thing, not a one-time shot.
