Lent: By Death We Find Life

So when I was 18 years old, I weighed a very impressive 155 pounds.

But I could run forever.

I could shoot a basketball pretty well.

So I was on the basketball team at my high school.

And in the fall of that year, my senior year, we had a scrimmage before the season started for the community to come out and kind of get everybody excited to come to games.

And so we played this game at halftime.

We had a three-point contest and we had a very, very unimpressive dunk contest, which was basically like us doing layups, touching the rim, possibly, and calling it a dunk.

Anyways, in the second half, I was driving to the basket.

I went up for not a dunk, a layup, mind you, and came down on my left foot and landed on somebody else's foot, and I rolled my ankle, right?

Classic basketball injury.

Carried me off the court and we start to rice it.

Remember rice, rest, ice, compress, elevate.

Anybody in sports?

So icing it over and over and over again, just icing it because immediately it started to swell.

And every few hours I would try to walk on it, and I couldn't walk, it'd be immense pain, and then the swelling just kept occurring, and I kept icing and icing and icing and icing and icing.

Now here's the thing: the swelling was not really the problem, right?

Swelling's never really the problem.

I'm not even a doctor, and I know that.

You probably know that.

The swelling's a symptom of something else, right?

The situation in this was the swelling was occurring because I had ligaments that were hurt.

So there's a hurt under the hurt.

And so maybe you know about this as you're planting some black-eyed Susan's next to your hostas and hollybushes, and you're down there and you're planting them, and a yellow jacket comes out and stings you on the finger, and that little finger swells up, and so you run inside, you take some benadryl to control the swelling.

But the swelling is not really the problem.

The benadry will help with the swelling.

The real problem is what?

It's the poison put in you by the yellow jacket, right?

It's the hurt under the hurt.

Now, maybe you're on an unbelievable good streak of being injury free.

It's possible, but you still know about this because your feelings get hurt, right?

Janet said blah blah blah da Sheila, and your feelings are hurt about this, right?

And so what you mean is you mean your feelings are upset.

They're swollen.

Your feelings are swollen.

But something else is really hurt, right?

The feelings are hurt, it's legitimate, but they're hurt because something else got hurt.

The thing that got hurt is this thing inside you, this self, this quite fragile self that's inside of us.

And Janet's words to Sheila hurt your feelings, or Brian's words to Bennett hurt your feelings.

And so, but really it's those words come into you and they touch into you at a inner self, a core self.

And there's a hurt there which then upsets the feelings, a hurt under the hurt.

Now, this is where the Christian faith has a lot to offer us.

It actually says a lot to us because it speaks to this, it speaks to this core part of us, this self that's underneath everything else that we so often experience and operate out of.

And this is where the hurt under the hurt is, and this hurt keeps getting hurt unless we heal from it and we deal from it.

But the thing is, is the way that we heal and the way that we deal with it is actually a way that we're quite uh, we just don't like it.

I mean, it seems quite paradoxical.

Because what it is is to die to all of it.

And that sounds confusing.

Sounds confusing, uh, but really it's not confusing, it's just paradoxical.

And so we're gonna look at that this morning because Jesus speaks right at this.

How does life happen in your life?

How does life happen inside of you?

So John 20, John 12, 20 through 24.

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

So these came to Philip, who was from Beth Seda and Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus.

Philip went and told Andrew.

Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus, and then Jesus said, and Jesus answered them, 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.

So quite a principle is being taught here.

And this is point number one, nothing new to say here.

And it's this by death we find life.

So this makes sense that Jesus would use a seed.

I mean, they're an agricultural society, so it makes sense.

He would just find the most common thing that everybody understands and says, hey, you know, a seed, everybody understands this.

We drop this seed in the ground, we cover it up, we bury it.

And the way to get new life is to actually bury something.

So let me put it in our own words.

Last week I was taking our little puppy brother out to see a boarding place that he could go be at when we go out of town.

So I plugged the address into Waze, it's out in Paulding County, and Waze says it's gonna take you eight hours to get there.

So it didn't, it felt like eight hours to get there.

I don't know if you've been to Pauldine County.

Uh it's out there, right?

Anyone from Pauldine County?

You made the journey here?

No, it felt like eight hours.

I feel more comfortable to say that.

So I'm at about the avenues headed west.

Some of you don't know where Paulding County is.

It's just that way.

That's all I can say.

Just keep going.

And so I'm at about the avenues and my phone starting to die.

And I'm the moron who doesn't have a phone charger in my car because I think I can manage my power, and I can't, I never do, so my phone constantly dies, but I'm sticking with it, sticking to my guns here.

And so I'm at about the avenues, and I know my phone's about to die.

Uh, but brother and I, we make it to the boarding place, we check it out, he approves of it, uh, I approve of it.

We get back in the car, and the phone is dead.

I'm also the moron who won't walk back in to get directions to go home because you know I got this under control.

And so I make a few wrong turns, uh, but we make it home, right?

Finally make it home.

And the phone's still dead, and there's only one way to use this phone again, and it's to bury it, right?

And we hate this moment.

You plug it in, right?

It is a very frustrating minute for all of us.

You sit there, and the little apple pops up, and you wait, and you wait, and then the little red bar pops up, which doesn't mean you can use it yet.

It just means it's starting to get there.

It's incredibly frustrating, but it's the only way that you can get to use it again is by burying it.

This is what Jesus is saying.

He's saying you will eventually run yourself down to that red bar, to that low battery, and then eventually, what will happen out of all your self-saving efforts, self-justification efforts, all your coping mechanisms, all of that for you to feel, I don't know, absolved of something, forgiven of something, righteous enough, valuable enough, all of that effort of your own will eventually not be enough.

And you will be exhausted.

And the only way out of that, the only way out of that is for you to bury that sort of life for a new sort of life.

Watchman Ni, who is a church leader and author in China, he said this 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.

So this means, this means if you love your life, you'll lose it, right?

If you love your life to have affection for trying to attain life by self-assertion, self-effort, to maintain a fulfillment, to get a redemption, to be valuable enough, whole by your own production, that sort of life is actually self-defeating.

Because your love destroys the life you seek.

Because you smother it to death with that fragile self, that fragile, broken self that we were talking about at the very beginning, that's the hurt under the hurt.

That self is so fragile and so broken, it will seek life in the very ways that condemns you and breaks you and exhausts you.

Fortunately, there's a different way.

Verse 25, whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

So author and pastor Eugene Peterson says, learning to live is learning to die.

And then he says, and here's the quote, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable of true intimacy and love.

So I think when he says illusions, I think he probably means your self-justification methods, your self-saving methods, your coping mechanisms.

You know, as you start to lose your life to know that you are loved and redeemed and absolved and accepted by God alone in Jesus.

And it is given to you outside of yourself.

When you start to grasp that, all your illusions start to go away.

And now, now you're able, you're to move into true intimacy and love, which is point number two.

Jesus teaches us life is by death, and then Jesus calls us to love him and others.

Jesus teaches us life is by death, and then Jesus calls us to love him and others.

So we're called to follow and serve.

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.

So we're called to follow and serve.

So to serve him is this great call to love God and love your neighbor.

That brings us back to verse 24.

I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into earth and dies, it remains alone.

Now last week we talked about Randy and Sandy.

Do you remember Randy and Sandy from last week?

If you were here.

Randy, I painted him as a hero husband to Sandy.

I mean, this this guy, Randy, unbelievable.

Remember him?

He he loads the dishwasher the way that Sandy taught him.

And he once she showed it to him, he couldn't believe he had been loading the dishwasher for 25 years, 30 years, as that way.

Sandy's what unbelievable, Sandy.

Thank you for showing me that.

And from that day forward, he always loaded it that way.

He does the laundry for the whole family in the morning before Sandy awakens, and she awakens to breakfast in bed.

That he gives to her.

He prepares it, he brings it to her in bed, and he loves to sit and listen to Sandy's day at the end of the day because she has a high-pressure job and she comes home and he is waiting to listen to her about her horrible boss and that colleague and that post by that friend, and she can't believe that her friend made that comment.

And he he wants to listen to he loves it.

He loves to listen.

He offers no solutions, he just listens.

He's unbelievable.

He's unbelievable, Randy.

Now, what I didn't tell you is as great as Randy is, there's more to this story.

I didn't realize there was more to the story until this week.

See, Randy, he serves and he listens and he gives, but Randy doesn't do something.

Randy never lets Sandy into his thinking, into his doubts, into his hurt.

So he's a rock of charity and generosity and service.

I mean, we would all look at this guy and be like, this guy's unbelievable.

What a husband.

But people who know him actually know something quite differently because what they know is knowing him is almost impossible.

And Sandy knows what he's doing all the time, but she doesn't know him.

And it is very hard to be loved by him truly, and it's very hard to love him because he doesn't ever let her in.

And Randy can be the moral right in any relationship, but until he dares to die to a few things like fear of being rejected, fear of actually being open or vulnerable, until he dies to those fears, his love will always be limited.

To give it or to receive it.

Now, maybe I described you a little bit.

I described myself a little bit.

We can be with other people and feel utterly alone.

Very possible.

Last night we were at the Atlanta United game with some friends, and at some point in the game, it's Saturday night, I'm thinking about the sermon, I'm sort of at the game, I'm thinking about the sermon pretty much.

And so I was thinking about the sermon, and I'm thinking, I don't know, maybe 50,000 people here, and I'm thinking, how many people in this given moment, surrounded by everybody and all this energy, how many people feel alone?

Right?

Because you felt alone.

You're at a party in Paulding County or you were in a stadium.

There's been a party, don't laugh at a party in Paulding County.

It happened.

Maybe a family reunion.

I mean, there's some loneliness.

You go to a family reunion.

Sandy knew it sleeping next to Randy.

It has nothing to do with proximity to a person.

Loneliness has nothing to do with a proximity to a person.

It has everything to do with whether someone is dying for you, or if you are dying for someone.

Because that's what love is.

Not just romantic love.

Any kind of love.

Love is you dying for someone or someone dying for you.

And we have to learn.

We have to learn if we're going to move out of loneliness into the call of Jesus to love God and love others, we have to learn how to die to some things.

A lot of our fears and a lot of our anxieties.

And then we're pulled out of our loneliness.

And this is very scary.

And this is what it's like with God.

So often we use behavioral religion or morality because to be loved as a sinner, to be loved as a sinner as I am, I'm not quite sure if I want to die to that humiliation and exist in that place.

But that is the way of the gospel, and it's actually the way to life.

It's definitely the way to love.

And here's the good news.

Because none of us are really good at this, so there's some good news at the end of this.

And this is a as our love for our own lives is insufficient, your love for your own life is insufficient, it's not a good path forward.

As our love for our own lives is insufficient, God's love for our lives is always sufficient.

So while this text is teaching us something about life, say a principle for life, this text is showing us, is Jesus telling these people how he will die for them.

This is God revealing love in flesh for us to know.

And the beauty of a God who dies for you is not that the love only meets you when you feel broken.

Well, that wouldn't be that great a news, really, because then you would constantly have to feel broken.

And then how broken do you have to feel in order to be loved by God?

See, God didn't come into the world to save you when you have your act together, nor did he come into the world to save you when you're humble enough, as if to earn something.

God came into the world to love you and save you as you are.

Which at times is a very prideful sinner, quite blind to everything you do, and quite lonely.

And at times it's you being exhausted and broken and very truthful and repentant and ready to receive.

And the truth of this sufficient gospel is that it saves us, it absolves us, forgives us, grants us righteousness and value apart from our works, because he died for you.

See, life is always found in death.

My brothers and sisters, you are safe in Jesus' death.

Loved by the Father, and you're never alone.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace to us.

Why we do not live out this principle perfectly.

We know the loneliness.

We also know we do not always die to the things we should die to.

We know we don't always hate parts of our lives that are unhealthy and that are sin and separate us from you and peace.

We thank you that your grace is enough.

That you love us when we are broken, and you love us when we pretend like we're not broken.

Forgive us for all the moments that we are unaware of how far we are from humility and repentance.

Thank you that your love, your grace, your redemption in the cross is sufficient for us this morning.

For those of us that are in extreme loneliness, would you help us to see that your love is always there?

That you died for us.

And would you call all of us to greater vulnerability before you?

That our hearts would be wide open as we are, that we might know your love in greater and greater ways.

In Jesus' name and power we pray.

Amen.