Lent: Lose Your Life to Find Life

So we are in the season of Lent, which is the 40 days leading up to Easter.

So during this season of Lent, we're studying different Jesus stories and Jesus conversations, preparing our hearts to contemplate and celebrate the gift of Christ come Easter.

So our text this morning drops us into the final week of Jesus' life.

And in this text, a group of Greek people, outsiders to the religious elite, they come to find Jesus.

And the word that we'll see in verse 21, this word came, that they came.

It signals that they were arriving in a lowly position.

And it made me think back to just last week when we talked about Nicodemus coming to Jesus.

So last week we had a religious elite show up seeking Jesus, and then this week we have an outsider show up.

And isn't that great?

Because isn't that how we feel, right?

Like at times you feel like a religious elite, like you have your act together and you're holding it together, and you got everything together, and you got your little bit of status and you got through stuff together.

And then at times you just feel like an outsider, like you don't fit in, and everything's falling apart.

And yet, on back-to-back weeks, we get through the lectionary passages, a religious elite and then an outsider both coming to Jesus in these lowly positions to say, I don't have anywhere else to go, but I've been hearing about you and I want to know about you.

So our text is John 12, verses 20 through 24.

John 12:20–24

Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.

So these came to Philip, and there's the word, showing up in a lowly position.

They came to Philip, who was from Bathseda in Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus.

Philip went and told Andrew, 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, and we that word is amen, amen.

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.

So Jesus is clearly alluding toward his own death and resurrection here, and at the same time, as we'll see where the passage takes us, he's talking to us, he's talking to people about how we need a death and a rebirth.

And so our point number one is this: such an overarching principle for life.

You always find abundant life, and we say abundant and eternal life on the other side of death.

That's where it's found.

These people would have heard this passage so clearly as an agricultural people.

They knew the experience of walking into a field and putting a seed under the dirt and burying it in death to come back a few weeks later and to see new birth.

See, the point here is that planting ourselves in the soil means for us to be buried in Christ, that we've died in Christ, to have a rebirth, to be born again is what that means.

Our hearts are buried in the mercy and grace of God so that we might have sustainable worth, forgiveness, and righteousness in Him and not in our own ability to try to conjure it up.

Christy was out of town at the beginning of this week and over last weekend.

So what that meant was that I was waking up earlier than normal, right?

To get stuff together, to quarterback the schedule of the house and the girls, and then to drive them all over the place, which meant also in the evening I was more exhausted than normal.

But you know the upside if you're married or you have a roommate or something.

The upside is come evening, you don't have to talk to anybody else about what to watch, right?

Like, I mean, your selfishness can just run for my meat free side could just go wild this past week with her gone.

Like I could do all that without her saying anything.

And then at night, you know, there's no discussion.

It's just like laying on the couch.

I watched Coldplay and Garth Brook documentaries back to back, of which I'd already seen both of them.

That's how bad it was.

I'd already seen both of them, and she didn't even have to say, you've already seen this.

No, I love it.

I'll watch it all the time.

I might watch it this week.

I just got excited that I could watch it again this week.

Both of them.

I love them that much.

Right?

In short, I got to be selfish.

I got to be selfish.

Because to love anyone actively is filled with deaths.

It's filled with a whole bunch of deaths.

Because to experience the blessing of being loved or to love is to die.

It's to die to pride, it's to die to your own way, it's to die to selfishness.

I love this quote.

I've read it before about this passage.

Watchman Ni, who was a church leader and an author in China, he wrote this about this passage.

God's means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker.

That is surely rather a peculiar way of victory, you say, but it is the divine way.

God sets us free from the dominion of sin not by strengthening our old man, but by crucifying him, not by helping him to do anything, but by removing him from the scene of action.

Now, here's what I think that means, at least to me.

It means to have affection for trying to self-assert into redemption or wholeness is actually self-defeating.

Like the attempt to self-justify into worth or forgiveness or righteousness, the very attempt of it suffocates the desire that you want for those things.

And so what we need, because that's true, what we need is a death.

For that flesh, we say flesh, we can say old Adam, we can say false self if you want to become really current in your language.

I mean, any of those things, same thing.

It's your flesh.

Has to die.

Has to die into Christ's sufficiency for you.

And that's what we mean when we say God's grace is enough, or we say Jesus is enough.

That's what we mean.

It's this position that we get to be in.

To be both humble and completely beloved in the same moment, at the same time.

Verse 25 leads us to this well-known verse: whoever loves his life loses it.

And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

This week I found myself thinking about our church.

As I feel like we're sort of like entering into a new season or like a like a pivotal moment, at least for me, as being behind the scenes with other leaders making decisions and our staff making other decisions.

I think back eight and a half years ago, six of us around a dining room table talking about a church.

And then a year after that, being a small group of 25 people in a dentist office, and then we were in somebody's home, and then a preschool, and then we were in the old sanctuary on that side, and then we're in this much nicer room over here.

And along the way, there's probably like three different times where it was like significant steps were about to be made, and there wasn't enough money to make them.

And so we freak out behind the scenes.

Like I'm real confident up here, but like behind the scenes, like really freak out and pray a little bit, to be honest.

A lot of freaking out, a little bit of prayer, and then God would do something, is sort of our rhythm.

And then last year, this past year, I mean, the the room was empty.

I mean, I love that this morning is Sam and Erica and myself, because last year at this time, for three months straight, it was us three.

None, this was empty.

We did this, we did this for three months to an empty room.

And we would just come in and we'd be scared to touch stuff each other touched, but we didn't know what we didn't know, you know, and we just did it just like every single week.

And then now we get to be at this point, like in the email sent out this week, we get to be at this point of entering a sequence of steps in the coming months of just getting back to normal communal and worship patterns.

And what I love to say when I always think back over the trajectory of our church, because maybe you just showed up, like this is your this is your first week, and you even know what I'm talking about with the dentist office, is here's what I'm saying is it was good back then.

Like it was good in the dentist office.

Like the Lord was good to us then.

And when we were at the preschool, the Lord was good to us.

And last year, when the room was empty, and you were at home, and you were just like finding resources online to just like feed yourself as best you could, the Lord was still good.

Like we won't ever understand all of like why and how and how's he allowed that and all that, but we can know this.

This is what we can know.

This is what the passage gives us.

He doesn't just meet us in our strength, right?

He meets us in our weakness.

It is in our weakness that we are found in the lowly position that we arrive with.

That's such good news because we're not always strong.

The passage makes me think about the difference between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross.

So the theology of glory sort of works like this.

It's kind of like consumerism in a way.

If I get that, then I will be saved whole and fulfilled.

It's also how the law works, by the way.

The idea with the theology of glory is that the Christian faith would be a step-by-step increase of becoming better and better and better.

And that that's the way in which the Christian life works.

The delusion of that, of course, is that the delusion is that life is at the top, and that maturing is always you getting better and better and better.

And it does require a delusion.

We've been wearing masks for about a year or so in different settings.

You wear masks, you have to throw it on, you walk in somewhere in here while we sing.

Now, the introvert part of me, if I'm honest, and some of you, just raise your hand if there's part you have loved some mask wearing.

Like, there's some moments, okay, Phil, me and the Enneagram fives, all the Enneagram fives, who raised your hand.

I can put a hat on and a mask on and walk into the Kroger where you see 37 people you know.

And I don't have to say hi to anybody.

And I'm sorry, I walked right by you.

Like I walked right by, I got my bananas, right, and my lar bars, straight up front, cut off an old lady, straight, nobody, you know, look what the pastor's doing, right?

Like, I could just, like, anonymous, amazing what a mask can do, right?

Then that's what a mask does.

It like allows us to behave a little differently than we would otherwise.

Now, here's the problem with theology of glory: it creates masks for our identities and our hearts, because glory theology, it forces you to be dishonest as soon as you enter it.

Because you're not always getting better.

So you will eventually become dishonest about yourself.

There'll be a pretending side to you, which is exhausting.

But Jesus' way to say, no, no, no, no, no, like it's in your weakness you are found.

This theology of the cross, that you're not always perfectly getting better and better and better.

This theology of the cross says this God provides salvation, wholeness, and fulfillment as I die into Christ.

Like that's what the Christian life is.

It's more and more sacrifice and honestly facing your weakness and shame and guilt in increasing manners.

So you're losing the parts of yourself that's actually sabotaging yourself as to find your true beloved self in Jesus.

Now, let's say this.

Theoretically, you might be getting better, but you'll never know it.

Which is really good for us.

Like maybe you're getting better.

Maybe some other people around you are going, like, wow, he's really maturing.

She's really maturing.

But you won't know it.

That's what's so great about the theology of the cross, is it doesn't send you back into pride.

Verse 26.

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.

Point number two is this your resurrected life is characterized by following Jesus as to serve God.

I kind of love that order there.

I don't want to over like equation things because I love the relational nature of our relationship with God.

But it's in a relationship with the Father that we understand that we are resting and following Jesus.

And resting and following Jesus means that our lives are being in service unto him.

Thinking about that calling and then thinking about the point of like we're not always getting better and better and better and aware of that.

It's sort of like hiking with a four-year-old.

Have you ever taken a four-year-old hiking?

Well, we learned early on, it's as much about a bag of lollipops as it is anything else.

It's all about snacking the child through the process, is what it's about.

In our family, we have a rule.

If we go hiking, like the snack and candy rules and quotas and all that, that's gone.

It's gone.

We will shove Snickers, little Snicker bites, down their throats all the way down the trail to get them to the end.

Because hiking with a four-year-old is not linear.

And it's definitely not like a like a steady step-by-step increase, right?

Like you're all over the trail.

You're off the trail, he's peeing behind the tree, he's going running backward.

Like you're like, you are hiking three times as hard by all this crisscrossing.

If we could just stay like directed, you would have so much energy for this hike.

But it's all over, right?

It's all over.

But it's still inside the hike, like it's still an ongoing direction.

And that's such a good image.

That's the image I return to for Christian life.

Because it is ongoing direction toward godliness.

But within that, inside the grace of God, like there's all this imperfection that we have because we're still sinners.

It's not perfect, but inside the journey of grace, it is over time an ongoing direction.

And this following Jesus, what this passage gives us, part of this following of Jesus within that construct of in the grace, and we're not perfect, is serving God, called to be in service to God.

We were created to be in service to God, which turns out to be largely about loving other people.

A few questions for growth and grace that surfaced for me contemplating this passage.

What ways are you still living by a glory theology in your faith or purpose?

In what ways is your spiritual life and your faith and your purpose still tied to a glory theology and thus sabotaging the very thing you desire?

Number two, how could dying to self grant you a healthier and freer heart?

Now that's not prosperity gospel because that question, dying to self, sends you into Christ Himself, where He has declared you free and you're still becoming freer than you could imagine.

Third, what ways do I need to die to self and the key relationships God has called me to in my life?

About 600 years before Christ was born, there's this prophet named Jeremiah.

He taught about the new covenant.

We just came out of the book of Hebrews, if you've been around here.

And so as I read these words of Jeremiah, 600 years before Jesus, if you've been around, you can think back to all the teaching we had, breaking apart Hebrews, the old covenant and the new covenant.

And here's Jeremiah 600 years before, Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me.

From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

So inside this new covenant, this Jesus life, there's an implication.

And this last point is an implication point.

Point number three.

In Christ, our motivation shifts from have to and try harder to already finished and empowered by.

Now, this doesn't mean we do nothing.

It means that the presence and activity of our faith is our dying into Christ.

It's in Christ.

Verse 31, it starts with that beautiful word that we've looked at before.

Behold.

Keeps popping up in Scripture, and I love when it pops up.

We talked about it about a year, year and a half ago in 1 John when it popped up.

1 John 3, 1.

Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

Behold is this rich word.

We don't use it, right?

Like we say, look, look over there, go see that.

But behold is so much more than that.

It's like it registers in us and it brings up the imagery of something that's so magnificent that you look at it, but you don't like look at it and move on.

Like you look at it and you are stopping.

You have to stop.

Years ago, with my old job, the job I had before this one, I pastored a group of single adults and I took them to the beach on a beach retreat.

And I learned when I got down there that one of my friends, Tim, he had not seen the ocean in like 15 years.

So he was like 30 years old, and he had not seen the ocean since he was 15 years old.

And it's like, well, I'm gonna walk with you.

Like I want to I want to behold that while you behold that.

Like I'm gonna watch that.

And we walk the block to Grayton Beach, and you've seen this beach.

Here's an image of that beach.

We walk about a block to the beach and we come up over the dunes on one of those walkways, just like that, and we get up and over.

You know the moment, right?

When you've been to the beach.

Right?

When you can hear it, you hear it before you get there, and you can smell it, and then you come up and over.

And as soon as we got up and over where he could see it, he just stopped.

Right?

I mean, it wasn't like, I'm good, let's go, we're grilling hot dogs, let's head back.

No, it was like he was really like, he was beholding this.

I mean, he stood there for a while.

Have you ever seen something that is so magnificent that you just don't move on because there's just nowhere else to go?

And think about Nicodemus.

Think about these Greek people, and they're seeing something so magnificent that it forces them into a humility, a lowly approach.

They don't have anywhere else to go.

There's nowhere else to go.

Where else will they take their heart?

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant.

Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

And in this gospel, both the religious elite and the outsider are called, which is so good because we're both of these things at different times in our lives.

There's nothing to move on to.

And in that lowly and beloved place, we get the implication that's so good for us that all the half-tos and the try-harders we've been white knuckling trying to get our worth and forgiveness and righteousness.

All those transform in Christ into already finished and empowered by.

Thank you that our calling is in your love.

And that the way that that is lived out is not by us endlessly becoming better and us becoming aware of that, and thus back into the cycle of pride and self-saving, but into just a constant humility and lowly position before you, for you are the magnificent Savior, not ourselves.

How freeing it is to stop self justifying, to stop the endlessness of self righteousness, to find a death to the old self and a new birth in you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.