I have a question for you. Does anybody recognize the name Tim Tebow? If you don’t know who Tim Tebow is, he is a quarterback for a team called the Denver Broncos. I guess last Sunday there was a football game and the Denver Broncos hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers for the first round of the NFL playoffs. Tim Tebow threw for a record 316 yards, including 2 touchdowns, and there was a touchdown in overtime which resulted in the loss, unfortunately, by the Steelers by a score of 29-23. So if you didn’t know about Tim Tebow a couple weeks ago, you probably know the name now. What you might not know is that Tim Tebow is a very, very committed Christian. He grew up in a very strong Christian home. In fact, his parents are Baptist missionaries in the Philippines. So he grew up in the Philippines as a son of Baptist missionaries. So he is very, vocal about his faith. In fact, there is a picture I found on the internet of Tim Tebow and he is doing the Tebowing, which they have coined a phrase about Tim Tebow called Tebowing which is to get down on a knee and start praying even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different. They call that Tebowing. So he is not ashamed of his faith. Because of his outspokenness of his faith, he takes a lot of criticism. A lot of people mock him. There was a Saturday Night Live skit a few weeks ago. After last week’s game, people began to change their tune a little bit about Tebow. They began to think that maybe he does have some sort of a direct connection to God, especially when the number 316 began to bubble up. He threw for 316 yards. I guess the average completion was 31.6 yards. The Nielson ratings were 31.6 whatever that means. Once again, that 316 ties to the verse that many of you are familiar with, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” What happened is after that football game, people really began to seek a deeper understanding not only of Tim Tebow but of the meaning behind John 3:16. I guess the most frequent search on Google and Yahoo last week on the internet was Tebow, Tebowing, and John 3:16.
Today, as we open our Bibles to John 12, we begin to see another search going on. Not by people searching the internet but a group of people known as the Greeks who begin to seek an understanding not of Tim Tebow and John 3:16 but of Jesus Christ. If you have your Bibles, open up to John 12:20. As a refresher, we have been looking at the book of John. Last week, we introduced the last week of Jesus’ ministry that began with what is called the triumphal entry where Jesus came into Jerusalem a the donkey. He was led through town like a processional that went through the crowds. People were laying the palm branches down and there were many different faces in the crowed. There was the Roman army trying to keep the peace. There were the Pharisees waiting for Jesus to slip up or for them to catch him in some sort of a blasphemy. There were the people who had witnessed Lazarus being raised from the dead coming around hoping to see another miracle. Then there were just some other faces in the crowd. Some of those faces in the crowd were the Greeks. The Greeks came with a purpose to come up to the feast with the purpose of worshipping the Jewish God. We are going to pick up the story there again, which is John 12:20. We are going to take it all the way down to verse 36 just so we can read through the section, and then we are going to backtrack through those first six verses in the section here. Reading from John 12:20. (Scripture read here.)
There are a lot of passages in here. We can’t spend too much time on them, so we are just going to go back to the first six verses starting with verse 20. We want to look at the situation with the Greeks coming to visit Jesus. The Greeks were coming to worship Jesus. At the same time, their worship was likely a little bit deficient at least in the eyes of the Jews. The Greeks came from a pagan background where they worshipped foreign gods. Where they worshipped different gods like Zeus and Jupiter and the different gods out there. So their worship, though maybe sincere, was deficient. The good thing about the Greeks was that they understood when they were deficient in some knowledge. They sought out a deeper level of understanding. The Greeks were made up of the philosophers and the scholars. The men who would stand around and be able to answer questions just about any topic in the market place. People would ask them about politics. They would ask them about religion. They would ask them about biology and logic and the arts. They were expected to know something about all these subjects. So when they didn’t know something, they would admit it and they would begin to seek a deeper level of understanding. They must have caught wind that Jesus knew something. Jesus had a knowledge about God that maybe the Jews didn’t. They had heard that Jesus was in many ways a teacher. He was a scholar. He was also a miracle worker. They decided to go seek an audience to Jesus. They decided to go and find out what Jesus knows. Instead of going to the Jews, they decided they were going to go to the disciples. The first disciple they went to was Philip. The reason they went to Philip was because Philip was also Greek. Maybe they felt that if they go to Philip they may be able to have better access to Jesus. In many ways, Jesus at that time was very popular. He came down into Jerusalem in a triumphal, victorious way. He was very popular. Everybody wanted to see Jesus. The disciples were guarding him. They thought maybe if we go to Philip we would have this inside track. Kind of like trying to see a rock star. Get a backstage pass that only Andrew and Philip have available. They went to Philip and Philip went to Andrew and asked him what he thought and they both together went and inquired of Jesus. The Greeks want to see you. The Greeks, Jesus. The smart ones. The intellects. The scholars. It might be good for you if you were to see the Greeks because it might open up new doors in ministry that we didn’t have before. They are encouraging Jesus to visit with the Greeks.
Jesus acts like he doesn’t have the time of day. He says “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” In other words, time’s up. I am not going to make time at this point for really anybody. It is time for me to begin the last stages of my life on earth. The hour he is referring to is a time span. Really talking about the crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection, and ultimately his exultation back into heaven. That is what he is talking about when the hour has come. Andrew and Philip are probably saying, Jesus listen, the Greeks are here. Would you just give them a moment of your time? Jesus says I will tell you the truth, he probably picks up a kernel of wheat and says “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many more seeds.” These guys are probably thinking come on Jesus. It is the Greeks. Give the Greeks something of substance besides some sort of a proverb from the farmer’s almanac or wherever this came from. Give them something. It is the Greeks. Jesus is thinking, well I have given them quite a bit. Although Andrew and Philip probably didn’t understand the significance of that proverb and the Greeks likely didn’t understand the significance of that proverb, we today should understand the significance of that proverb. Because basically what he is saying is just as a grain of wheat falls to the ground, is buried, and in some sense dies while retaining the substance of life within it and then produces a new plant with a bunch of new seeds, in the same way, the one God, the savior Jesus Christ would die, be buried, and be raised up again and create new life for many. That is what he is saying. We should get that. We should understand that. This idea of the one becoming many is something that the Greeks would be familiar with because they have this thing, I don’t have time to get into it, but it is called the problem of the one and the many. They look around the earth and they look around life and they see this wide variety. These many things while at the same time these many things seem to have a unity. A oneness to it. That is the problem that they are trying to solve. Jesus is kind of starting to clue them in on some of this stuff. He is saying the one person had to die so that many would become sons of light. That many would become seeds. This is not that different from what we see the apostle Paul talking about in Romans 5 where he writes “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Sound familiar? The one and the many. Paul is using that same bit of language to mess with the Greeks heads. It is the idea once again that through the disobedience of one man, the Adam race, the endemic race, many people became sinners but through the obedience of one savior, Jesus Christ, many would become righteous. In other words, we are the recipients. We are the many. Getting back to the idea was Jesus giving anything to the Greeks? He was giving them a lot. He was giving them keys to a mystery. He was giving them the keys to the mystery of why evil exists in the world and better yet the solution to it. That is what he was handing to them.
At this time, Andrew and Philip and the Greeks are probably scratching their heads saying what do we do with this. Jesus is thinking, if you think that is confusing, let me tell you something else. He goes on to say “The man who loves his life will lose it, but the man who hates his life in this world will be able to keep it for eternal life.” Andrew and Philip are probably thinking what is up with that? Come on Jesus. It is the Greeks. The Greeks need more than that. I can just see Jesus thinking, well it’s not that difficult. It is just taking the principle from nature and that law of nature that I have applied to my life just needs to be applied a little bit farther down. What he is saying is just as the one seed had to die for the many seeds and the one seed, Jesus Christ, died for the many, maybe it is time for the many seeds to die for the one in order to keep this life moving on. It begins with a hatred. A hatred of this life. We don’t like to use the word hatred because it is such a strong word but Jesus is using it for a reason. It is what we refer to as hyperbole. It is an exaggeration not meant to be taken literally but meant to make a point. The point being is that Christians, or followers of Christ, should love God so passionately, so much so that even the greatest desires on earth would appear as just nothing. It would border on hatred. We see Paul also referring to this. In fact, Paul who was a Greek scholar, a Jewish scholar, he said in Philippians that that stuff is garbage. The stuff I have had in the past, all my credentials, all my degrees; that is garbage. He says that in Philippians where he says “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I might gain Christ and be found in him.” Paul understood this. Paul understood this principle of hating your life in order to gain life. That is what Jesus is referring to. You need to hate your life. The interesting thing is when you hate your life, you somehow get to keep your life. That is really a mindbender because you think how does that work?
In order to understand how that works, you need to understand a little bit about the Greek language because, as most of you know, the Bible as we have it, especially the New Testament, was written in the common Greek of the day, the Koine Greek of the day. Unfortunately, we translate the Greek and we can’t translate all the nuances that come along with each word. The word that we translate life has a lot of different meanings. When he says the man who loves his life will lose it while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life, there are two words for life. The one word is Psuche and the second word is Zoe. Basically, when he says the man who loves his life, his Psuche, will lose it, while the man who hates his life, his Psuche, in this world, will keep it for eternal life, for Zoe. I guarantee that the Greeks understood this little difference. We might not catch that, but they catch it. They understood this idea of Zoe life because Zoe life was the abundant life. The life that would transcend this life. When we talk about Psuche, we are just talking about not just biological life. We are talking about life as we live it right now. Pretty much the life that we are all living right now. That is the Psuche life. There is a greater life. There is a greater plane of existence that they would call Zoe life that takes us to a new level. That begins not only here but extends into all of eternity. They believed that and they were seeking out what does that mean? The Zoe life had a direct connection to the divine. It was a life that you couldn’t have on this earth. It was a life of freedom and righteousness and peace. It is what the Jews would call Shalom. It is what the Buddhists would call Zen. It is that type of existence that he is talking about here. The Zoe life. He is saying that that life is available. The Greeks are seeking that life. They sought it often by going into what they would call the mystery cults. Back then in that time, they would have these things they would call the mystery cults where people would hold secrets to the mysteries of life. The Greeks were in tune to this so they would go to these cults and they would try to get initiated into the cults. They did it by knowing somebody. So they go to Philip because they think Philip is in this cult. That they may have my inside track. They were all about finding out information and gaining access because very few people could get access to the secrets behind the walls. What is going on here is that they are thinking there is something to gain through these people. There is access to this Zoe life and that is what we want. There must be a secret.
Jesus is basically saying there is really not a secret. If there is a secret, the secret word is service. It is serving Christ. It is becoming his slave while he is the master. He goes on to say “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” He is letting them in on the secret. If there is a secret, it is service. Once again, it is the idea of a master-slave relationship. Only this master is a benevolent master. One who has the best interest of the slave in mind. He goes on to say if you are my servant, they have to stick close to me. In fact, they have to follow me. The bad news about that is about six days down the road we know where Jesus is going. He is going to the cross. People are thinking I don’t know if I want to do that. Jesus says it very clearly in another passage in Matthew when he says “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Just in case they are to miss it, he said it a little bit differently in Matthew. If anyone is to be my servant, you have to pick up that cross and follow me to the crucifixion. People are thinking, I don’t want to do that. It’s not an option. He says they must deny themselves and pick up the cross. It makes sense because it just goes back to the whole seed analogy. A single seed has to die to produce more seeds. Jesus is a single seed that had to die to produce more seeds so why wouldn’t the other seeds need to die in order to produce more seeds, in order to release the life within. That is what he is talking about here. When we talk about the crucified life, it is a very difficult thing to get into because there are so many facets to it. It involves every area of your life. In a nutshell, it is trying to crucify whatever it is that is trying to prevent you from releasing the life of Christ within you. The thing from your past. Whatever it is. Pride or greed or jealousy or hatred. Whatever it is. The thing that is holding you in that you refuse to die to. But if you don’t die, you are not going to have the life. You are not going to release that life of Christ within you. Some people get it right away and they just go. All of a sudden their whole life is one freedom. It is one release. They are able to begin to share that life of Christ in a very free way to others. Some people it takes their whole life to break through that shell or whatever that is holding them in and preventing them from living the life that God intended for them. You will know it I think when you get there. Paul was a person who knew it. We sang a song at the beginning of the service. I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live. It is Christ who lives within me. That comes from the scripture. It comes from Galatians 2:19-20 where he says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” We are singing that scripture is what we are doing. We are singing the idea of the crucified life. Don’t sing it if you don’t believe it because that is what is going on here. When you sing I am crucified with Christ, what you are saying is that you have let go. You have died to the thing within you that is holding you back and you are beginning to release the Zoe life of God to the world. That is what happens. You died. You become like that seed. You die and new life should be coming forth. It is a difficult concept to explain.
That is why, in close, I think it is easier just to point to that sort of life. I bring it back to Tim Tebow. We coin this phrase called Tebowing where it say to get down on a knee and start praying even if everybody else around you is doing something completely different. That is a picture of the crucified life. It is. There are people here that wouldn’t pray at a meal even on Sunday morning let alone pray in front of a million people, but he doesn’t seem to care. I think Tim Tebow is the real deal. I don’t know him but I read enough to believe that he is the real deal. He is not concerned about all these things. All this stuff that is going on. He really isn’t. It is funny, I guess there was another game last night against New England. I began to think about that. I was watching the game until about the 3rd quarter. I knew I had to get to bed. I really wanted Tim Tebow to do well. It didn’t look too good about the 3rd quarter. To be honest, this is something I never do, but I actually prayed for his success last night. I went to bed saying, short of a miracle, it is not going to happen. The first thing I did when I got up this morning was go on the internet and sure enough they lost 45-10. It was funny reading the sportscaster, but he said Tebowing ended with a thud last night. Ended with a thud. I am thinking I guess so. That might be the end of Tebowing, but it is not the end of Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is a guy who doesn’t care about the awards. He doesn’t care probably about the Super Bowl ring. In fact, he would consider it dung. The literal is poop. That is what he is saying there. Sure he is going to be disappointed, but he doesn’t care because he is more interested in paying honor to God than he is seeking the applause of men.
It reminded me of another famous athlete, some of you might even know the name, Eric Liddell. He was a runner back in the early 1900s or so. He refused to run a certain race in the Olympics because it was on a Sunday. He refused to do that and people mocked him. The media just attacked him. One phrase that stuck out to me in the movie, Chariots of Fire, he was seeing a little boy playing football on a Sunday after church and told him don’t play football on a Sunday. The scripture he quoted, I think it comes out of Jeremiah that says God will honor those who honor him. And in this passage in John, what do we see? If you honor Christ, if you become the servant of Christ, God gives you the honor. God gives you the honor. That is really what we are seeking. What higher honor can be sought? As we think about Tim Tebow, we think that he doesn’t really care for all those things because he, like Paul, has lived that crucified life. He considered all things to be rubbish for the surpassing greatness of knowing his Savior Jesus Christ and being found in him. Let us pray.
