John: Lose Your Life

So we are going through the book of John.

We've been going through the book of John since we started in September.

And so we're going to just kind of keep going through it.

And that's where we're at again this morning.

We're in John chapter 12, which is in your in your bulletin.

John 12 · chapter mention

But before we get to John chapter 12, I'll tell you two stories.

John 12 · chapter mention

And so the first story is 3,000 years ago.

So 2,000 years, 2,000 years, 3,000 years ago, 1,000 years before Jesus came.

King David was dying.

Now King David is a lot of us know that story.

This is David and Goliath, same guy, and David becomes king.

And King David is dying.

The family is dysfunctional.

The family is crazy.

I mean, you think your family's crazy.

This family's very crazy.

And so King David's dying.

He knows who's going to be king, but he hasn't announced it out of his sons.

And the kingship's going to go to Solomon, but he hasn't announced it yet.

And so this division sort of occurs, and then one of his sons sort of gets some favor, some people in the court, and there's this huge upheaval and kind of a battle.

And eventually Solomon becomes king.

And so Solomon becomes king at a time where the nation of Israel is united, really a time of peace, a time of prosperity, and no real enemies kind of threatening, and a lot of wealth.

And so Solomon becomes king.

And then 2 Chronicles we read that Solomon asked God for wisdom.

God just give me wisdom of how to lead these people.

So he asks for wisdom and God gives them wisdom, but then God doesn't just give them wisdom, gives them more wealth and more wealth.

And so at this point, so the Israelites had come out of Egypt a long time ago, and the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament is symbolic for the presence of God.

So what we know in the New Testament after Jesus is we know that the presence of God is in us.

Pretty incredible.

Like we are the temple.

We don't have the presence of God in a temple.

The Spirit of God actually lives in us.

But at the time, the presence of God is in the Ark of the Covenant.

It was strange for us to kind of get our minds around, but this is the way it was playing out how God was teaching people about Himself.

And so the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant had been in a tent.

I mean, so they hadn't even built a temple yet.

David drew up the plans for the temple, but then the kingship goes to Solomon.

Solomon starts to build the temple.

This is huge, a huge undertaking.

It took seven years, took 180,000 men.

I mean, an unbelievable amount of men.

And the building was only 88 feet long, 30 feet wide, and about 45 feet tall.

But the materials they use, the craftsmanship, took seven years.

And so Solomon's in charge of this.

I mean, this is a huge undertaking, a massive achievement for Solomon.

And then just after he finished that, he goes and builds himself a palace, mind you, four times bigger than the temple.

And it took twice as long to build.

And so Solomon's accomplishing a lot.

He probably needed a big house.

He had 700 wives.

He had 300 mistresses, which they called concubines.

I don't know how he had the time.

I'm just, you know, I was tempted to sort of like just do some math on it.

I don't know how he had the energy.

I don't know how he had the time.

I don't know how he had the margin.

I mean, he's doing all these achievements and accomplishments, 700 wives, 300 mistresses.

I mean, we can't get our so this was a man who sort of had anything he wanted.

I mean, he was the unbelievable wealth.

In 1 Kings, it tells us that he received about 660 cents, 666 talents of gold a year.

And so this translates into this isn't Arthur Blank's wealth.

This is like Bill Gates' wealth.

I mean, he is unbelievably wealthy.

He's productive, built the temple.

He wrote over a thousand songs, he wrote over 3,000 Proverbs.

The man wrote Proverbs.

Now, I don't know how a man can write Proverbs and then go and take 700 wives.

I don't know how that works out, but it happened.

And what we know about Solomon is that even somebody who received so much wisdom, his heart can still actually be closed off to God himself.

Because at the end of Solomon's life, he absorbs himself more and more in wealth and in women and in pleasure.

And at the end of it, he writes this book called Ecclesiastes.

And Ecclesiastes means meaningless.

And it's this unbelievably just sad book, really.

I mean, it's just, it's just him sort of ranting.

It's filled with depressing rants.

You know, come from dust, we're returning to dust, you know, it's all meaningless, it's toil, work is toil, wealth never satisfies.

Uh we eat in darkness, everything's affliction, everything's anger.

I mean, it's just, it's just, it's a depressing rant.

It's sort of, if you read the book, it's sort of like a stream of consciousness, and then he catches himself, like I'm being I'm so absurd.

And then he comes with like some sort of some good conclusions, but they're not quite the kind of conclusions you come to when you've been rescued by God's grace, and you actually have something other than circumstances.

So here's sort of like a conclusion he comes to.

At the end of Ecclesiastes 5, he's been ranting.

He's been ranting about how horrible life is and how toilsome and everything's meaningless.

And this has been his experience.

And a lot of this is actually true.

A lot of us know this is actually true.

Wealth never does satisfy.

You know, a lot of life is toil.

And then he catches himself in this depression that he's in.

And then he says this in verse 18 Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him.

So it's still sort of depressing here, for this is his lot.

Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot, and be happy in his work, this is a gift of God.

Some positivity here.

Like whether the fig tree buds or whether the fig tree dies, I can rejoice.

That level of life doesn't exist for Solomon.

So hold on to Solomon.

Just kind of hold on to Solomon.

So 2,000 years later, a guy's born in Tarsus.

So this is modern-day Turkey.

And so he's about, this guy, his name is Saul.

He's about 10 years younger than Jesus.

He's born into a wealthy family, a Jewish family.

He's raised up in the Jewish system of the law of, you know, eat the right things, do the right things, behave the right ways, dress the right way, and then you're approved by God by doing all these things.

And he was good at this, this guy Saul.

We know him later.

His name changes to Paul.

He ends up writing a lot of the New Testament.

He was good at this.

He was fervent.

He was passionate.

He was moral.

He was upright.

This guy, this guy had his act together.

And there's this group of people.

And this group of people they believed that a man had lived and died on a cross for their sins and fulfilled the law, lived the perfect life they could never live, and then came back to life to show victory over death.

And they actually believed that this man was God himself, God revealing himself to humanity.

And they believed he was the Messiah.

And to Saul and to all the other Jewish people, they thought this was blasphemy.

This was horrible.

It was untrue.

And so Saul is on a rampage, to him, a very moral rampage to find these people and to lock them up, to persecute them.

And so he is in Acts chapter 9, he's hunting down Christians.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

And he's on his way to Damascus, and this bright light goes off.

And he falls to the ground and he says, He's a Saul Saul, why do you persecute me?

And then Saul replies back, he's on the ground, who are you, Lord?

And the voice says, I am Jesus who you are persecuting.

Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.

Now that there's Saul's got his little posse with him, persecuting posse.

And so those guys are frozen.

I mean, they're speechless, you're not quite sure to do with this.

And Saul stands up, he can't see, he's blind.

I mean, so this isn't this like um praise the Lord conversion.

I walked down the aisle, gave my life to Jesus, and then and then everything, the complexities of life, they just simplified, and all my past wounds from my dysfunctional family, they went away, and everything was so great.

I'll just all of a sudden everything was perfect, and I was healed, and I never sinned again.

I mean, this is not that type of conversion.

None of us have that type of conversion, by the way.

He's blind for three days.

He doesn't eat or drink for three days.

So he um he meets Jesus and he's blind for three days, doesn't eat for three days, doesn't drink for three days.

And then slowly the Lord begins to heal his heart, and you see unbelievable change in his life.

But the change is not him becoming a better and better person.

The change is him resting more and more and what Christ did for him.

So we have Solomon, hold on to Solomon, we have Saul, Paul, hold on to him, and then we get to John chapter 12, and hopefully by the end of this, I'm gonna wrap this up.

John 12 · chapter mention

It's gonna be the most miraculous, unbelievable sermon you've ever heard in your entire life.

So, John chapter 12, and here's the point.

John 12 · chapter mention

I got one point surrounding just like a whole bunch of ideas around this point.

Hopefully it'll come together.

Here's the point of the sermon.

We are made to find life in the person of God, not the pursuit of life.

And maybe life's not working out for you and you're exhausted and you're not at rest and you're not at peace.

And it's because you're trying to find life in the pursuit of life when really real life is in the person of God.

So let's read these verses.

Verses 23 through 25 of John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

The hour has come.

Jesus talking to his disciples.

Give them a little lesson.

The hour has come for the Son of Man himself to be glorified.

So it's leading up to his arrest and his crucifixion.

And so what he's saying is, I'm going to be glorified.

I'm going to the cross.

This is going down.

You're not picking up on it yet.

The disciples aren't picking up on the whole storyline here.

But he's saying, I will be glorified, and it's going to be by death.

Glory will be by death.

Life will come out of death.

And then he says this.

He kind of explains it.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies.

He's talking about himself.

It remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

So he's talking about himself, and now he's going to apply it, he's going to apply it over to people, to us.

Verse 25.

Anyone who loves their life will lose it.

While anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

So I want to dig into this verse 25 just a second because it's kind of confusing.

So the first part, if you love your life, you will lose it.

So to love your life means this.

Love, that word love means to be enamored with, to be devoted to.

So if you set your heart to love your own life, to make it as pleasant as possible, you know, to form your own life, to form your own identity, to manage your own pain in your own way, you will lose your life.

See, this is the secular path.

This is kind of how Solomon did life.

Set your heart on making life as pleasant as possible.

So maybe you avoid pain, maybe you medicate through it, you cope through it instead of facing it, instead of going into death to receive life, you just you work your way around.

I will make life as pleasant as possible.

And if I do that, I will be okay.

And I would just say, how's that working?

It's not working well for me.

Never has, still doesn't.

I I can get life pretty pleasant, and I still don't have rest.

And it's because life is not in the pursuit of life, life is actually in the person of God.

See, loving your life is a self-defeating process.

The love for your life destroys the life it seeks to attain.

And here's why.

Because we have these little fragile egos.

I mean, it's just unbelievably fragile.

And we're so needy.

And when we're trying to seek life in the pursuit of life, we attach ourselves to some idol and some some other thing.

And you know what it does?

We're so needy.

The love for the life just smothers us, just crushes us.

So if you love your life, you will lose it.

So what's the other option?

What's a good option?

If you hate your life in this world, you will keep it for eternal life.

So this is the natural antithesis of the first comment.

It doesn't mean we hate our lives and we're going to hurt ourselves.

It means life in this world, the way this world functions, that I form my own identity, I prove my own righteousness, I medicate my way through pain or I avoid the pain and I make life as pleasant as possible.

That scenario, we actually hate that.

We actually don't want to do that because there's no life in it because the fragile ego gets crushed by it.

So it doesn't mean that we don't live or work out or garden or work or have kids and go to gymnastics and play golf.

It doesn't mean any of that.

What it means is it means that life shifts from being about making life as pleasant as possible to I want my heart to be enlarged and open as much as possible so I might know God more and be free more, and that's actually where life is.

And this enlarging of the heart so we can know God more, it's done by death.

It's done by dying to the concept of measuring up.

You know, if I can just get good enough or I can get wealthy enough or get successful enough, or it's dying to measuring up, and it and it's dying through through to managing through.

And let me explain those because maybe you're here and you would say, you know what, I that idea of measuring up, like I actually associate with that, I connect with that, I know what you're talking about.

Um, because you've lived like Saul used to live.

If I get my act together enough, you know, if my behaviors are good enough, my even my maybe my Christian disciplines are good enough, then I'm gonna then finally I'll be at rest.

Finally I'll be at peace.

If I can look good enough, if I can be the right shape, whatever shape we want to be, some of us want, I want broad shoulders, and some of you go, I don't want broad shoulders.

We have all have these ideals of what we want our bodies to look like.

If I get my body to look like that, then all of a sudden I'll be at peace, and you're not going to, it's not gonna work.

I had broad shoulders one time, it didn't it didn't work out, and now look at me.

So measuring up to a standard, it's not gonna work out.

So if I get, we did it morally a lot, especially within like a Christian world, like okay, so saved by grace, and now that I'm saved by grace, um, if I can just get my act together enough, then I will feel, instead of relying totally on Christ's sufficiency for me and resting in it, you go, well, you know, let's just I'll I'll put myself to work, is what I'm gonna do.

So let's read what Paul has to say about that.

Because Paul remember, Paul was good at getting his act together.

Here's what he says about Philippians 3, 4 through 9.

It's not your bullets, but just listen.

Here's what Paul says to those of us who would do this.

If someone else thinks they have reason to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.

And he's about to give you a resume.

It's a good resume, by the way.

We don't we don't realize how good it is because we're not Jewish.

Most of us aren't Jewish.

Maybe you are, and you'll be very impressed.

Here's what he says: Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.

So I got that, he's like, I got the heritage.

I got it covered.

Like I am, I'm old Marietta, I'm O M.

I'm not, I didn't move here, I didn't move in.

I mean, I am I am rooted.

In regard to the law, a Pharisee, as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

Like that's how good I am.

I was good at behavior.

And he says this, but whatever were gains to me, and now consider lost for the sake of Christ.

What is more, I consider everything a loss because the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

I consider them garbage, rubbish.

I think the word's actually stronger than that.

There's some kids in here, I won't go into it, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.

Here's the deal not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law.

So no righteousness coming from living up to the standard of measuring up.

I actually die to that, and that's the way I have life.

I hate that life, so I might have life.

But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

So we we die to measuring up.

Maybe you're here more like Solomon.

Manage through.

I mean, Solomon's family.

I mean, we all we could go through here, we could all just cry talking about even good families have dysfunctionality.

I don't even know the dysfunctionality I'm creating my children right now.

I just know I am, and then when they're in their 20s, I'll have to go back to them and apologize and we'll clean everything up.

That's what's going on.

And he's from a dysfunctional family.

I mean, this family, this family had adultery, murder, rape, unforgiveness, isolation, arson, runaways going on, bitterness.

I mean, just unbelievable unrest within the family.

And I'm kind of supposing here.

I mean, I look at the family he came from, and I look at the trajectory of his life, and I'm willing to say he never reconciled a lot of the pain created in his family.

He never went into that.

He wasn't willing to go in, he wasn't willing to he wanted to manage through.

And that's what we do when we when we live the secular path to life.

You know, I will avoid, I will love my life, so I'll make it as pleasant as possible, I'll make it as pleasant as possible, I'll avoid all pain, and then what you get is you get maybe a version of Solomon's life where it's just like, yeah, I guess I'll just enjoy what I got.

But you're not really at peace.

There's just this avoidance of pain that exists.

I was on this retreat this weekend with a group of guys up in the mountains, and uh the guy speaking read this verse, it's fantastic.

Jonah 2, 8.

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

So an idol, and when we think Old Testament, you're almost thinking like a little wooden statue or something.

So an idol is a desire of the heart.

That can be good or it can be bad, but it that the heart attaches itself, sort of overly devotes itself to something, and in doing so, that idol or that desire or that other thing which will crush you, it actually gets functional power over your life.

That was a lot of words.

Let me just say it this way.

Um, the idol of control can show itself in your food.

Like managing all the food and or exercise.

I mean, the the idol of recognition can be seen in your in the the over-devotion to your work at the price of your family.

The idol of acceptance can be seen in an affair.

The idol of comfort can be seen in an addiction.

Here's a couple questions I was asked this weekend that really bothered me.

Uh the first one is what or whom functionally controls my joy or my frustration?

See, when we're managing through life, this is the kind of stuff we do, is we we we we allow something else to have functional power over us so we don't have to go into pain.

We don't have to we don't have to ask ourselves, why do I get so irritated at home?

Like, why do my children irritate how can they irritate me that much?

Like, that doesn't make any sense.

Like, where's that from?

Like, well why can I why can I uh why can't I have sex with my wife and why can we go on dates?

Why can't we raise children, but still I I don't allow a certain emotional depth.

Like, what's that about?

Where'd that come from?

So these are the types of questions that when you're managing through life, you're loving your life, you avoid this.

Like I don't I don't want to go there.

Because when I go there, there's some there's some pain, there's some death.

And what Jesus is saying, actually, if if you die, you'll you'll live.

You'll find greater freedom, you will find greater life.

The story of my life, I've shared it some.

The story of my life is is a broken family by you know, kind of out of nowhere, and and and dad moved it away, and a lot of hurt, a lot of pain through the high school years.

And, you know, out of that, I'm my mother's so fantastic.

She she avoided to brush anything under the rug.

She said, We're not doing that.

We were gonna talk about everything.

And we did.

We still do.

So we we overly communicate in my family.

We will communicate about anything and we will just keep doing it over and over and over again.

And that's been good because we talk about it, but at the same time, in me has been born sort of like pain avoidance.

Okay, so I can talk about pain, but really I want to create as pleasant of a life as possible because I had so much, so much hurt for so long, I just don't want to return to something like that.

So like if I can get my three little girls, you know, like raised and they don't get pregnant, they don't get hooked on drugs, and like nothing bad happens to them, like, okay, that'd be so great, you know, just keep the marriage, you know, if I can have a beautiful home and nothing, you know, there's no fire breaks out in the home, no accident happens, like if I can manage all this, if I can control all of this, if I have some financial security so there's not some massive just fallout financially, you know, if I can just manage life enough that that hurt doesn't happen.

And then you hit a season of life, or I hit a season of life where I can't control my kids.

Five and three and one, and I put something down in one place and it ends up somewhere else, and then you ask them to do something and they don't do it, and you could give me parenting advice on how we can figure all this out.

But we all know these feelings of I can't control my kids as perfectly as I want to.

Start a church, I can't control the outcome of the church.

I I find myself, I'll talk to another pastor, and I'll find myself asking questions.

Um, and if like give me a few answers, like just give me like the three things, and if we do them, everything's gonna be good.

I would really like that.

Because I can control that.

This builds a certain amount of stress.

And Jesus says, man, if you go after idol comfort, you go after idol, I don't know what your idols are, I'm still learning what mine are.

What I do know is that I can really run away from the Lord and run away from pain and just try to create as pleasant of a life as possible.

And I think in my mind, if I do that, I will have life.

But what I'm learning is I'm doing that and I'm still not at peace.

Because peace in life is not in the most pleasant life as possible, it's in the person of God.

So it's a shift from make my life as pleasant as possible to, God, will you enlarge my heart as big as possible, even unto suffering, so I can know you more.

That's where life is.

That is paradigm shifting for us.

That is the antithesis of our human nature of thinking.

That's what the book of Jonah is saying.

If you give your life to an idol, you're forfeiting grace.

Is what Jesus is saying here.

Love your life, you'll lose it.

Hate your life, you'll gain it.

The good news, what I'm also learning, even this weekend, I was reminded so many times, was that although I am running away often from God, he's a faster runner than I am.

And he's running to me.

And I know this because he actually came and died on the cross, so I can know it objectively that he does this.

He did this.

And he delights in me now.

And I can't even increase the delight.

Because the delight's based on what Jesus did for me.

And perhaps you're at unrest in your life because you're running to some idol or some other thing, some pursuit of life or making life as pleasant as possible rather than that the way that real life is.

God enlarge my heart.

I know you more.

So we close with verse 26.

Jesus keeps teaching here.

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, my servant also will be.

My father will honor the one who serves me.

So losing your life for Jesus' sake is about following him, it's about serving him.

So this means our lives become about his concerns, his priorities, his kingdom.

Not building up our little kingdom.

Oh, yeah, my great little career, this tiny little corporation.

I think it's a big deal.

No, no, no.

Bigger, like kingdom, kingdom of God, not kingdom of Russ.

And the power of God's grace creates fruit for God's kingdom.

Following him means we're dying.

That's what this is about in John 12.

Following him means we are dying.

We are buried in his death as to be raised to walk a new life.

He died to bring us life.

And here, I keep resurrecting myself.

I don't know if you're like me.

I keep finding Solomon and Saul showing up in my heart.

I'm going, like, I thought the whole Saul thing was over.

Like I did that for a while.

Like, be moral enough, be good enough, be the good enough Christian, get my act together, then all of a sudden I'm going to be okay.

And Saul shows back up.

Or Solomon shows back up.

I think, oh, if I can get it as pleasant enough, I get enough wealth, I get enough security, all of a sudden I'm going to be good.

These guys keep showing back up in me.

I don't even die well.

So we actually die to the act of perfectly dying.

So not only do we trust in Jesus' life that he perfectly lived a life we can't live, he actually died perfectly because we don't even die well.

Here's what I'm saying.

I surrender my ability to completely surrender.

We can go round and round on that one for a while.

But there's some there's freedom in that.

I can't even get myself dead enough.

I can't even surrender enough.

Right?

Let's go on another retreat.

I'll surrender again.

Here we go again.

I can't even do that.

And that's the process of repenting.

I'm going to keep doing that.

I'm going to keep doing that.

But at the same time, it's like I'm not even going to have to trust that Jesus' death was even enough for the death.

I'm not even capable of dying well.

I keep resurrecting myself.

I mean, I really need Jesus to live the life I cannot live morally, motives, thoughts, and I need his death to be the death that I don't even die well.

And when we're no longer preoccupied with these two ways of life of measuring up and managing through.

When we're no longer loving our life to do those things, and we start to die to those things and trust in Jesus and rest in Jesus more, then we actually come alive.

And our hearts can enlarge.

And they don't get filled with stuff, they don't get filled with worldly things, and they don't get filled with another idol.

But as we're dying to that, just filled with the very Spirit of God, God's love for you, which is freeing.

And it'll help you come alive.

Let's pray together.

Father, we do confess we don't live the life we should, we don't even die the death we should.

And so we come back to you and we say thank you that you live the life we shouldn't live, and you died the death that we don't do, and we rest in you.

Free us from the cycle, the cycle of um just being enough, managing through, avoiding pain, and help us to go into your death, help us to go into our pain, help us to trust in you and know that we can, because we're already loved, already validated, that we can risk going into those things, and that there's life there, that there can be healing there.

And so, God, we come before you and we thank you.

We thank you that you run toward us and you're constantly running toward us, and even though there are days and weeks and seasons, we're running from you.

You are coming toward us.

The father off of the porch, running toward his son, hobbling home, and and there's no lecture waiting.

But there's the open arms that say, You're my son, you're my child.

Come come on in.

So we thank you for this love, mate.

Define us more in Jesus' name.

Amen.