[0:00] Turn back now to the Gospel of John and to chapter number 12 and we can pick up the reading at verse number 20. John chapter 12 and verse 20.
[0:15] Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip who was from Bethsaida and Galilee and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus and so on.
[0:31] The Bible is the most fascinating book in the world and when we begin to read the Bible we see that it begins with a day of great expectation, a day of great joy because God has created the world, He has created imperfection and He has created mankind and placed Adam and Eve in that paradise. That great bright shining of God's creation becomes spoiled soon afterwards and it does so because Eve enters into a cozy relationship with Satan, the serpent, the devil and we know that whenever that happens disaster will follow and because of that cozy relationship we read that Eve took the forbidden fruit, she gave to Adam and having both eaten then they had come under the condemnation, the penalty of God who said, when you eat of it you shall surely die. So we start off with a great day of joy and of brightness and of expectation shortly afterwards we are in the darkness of Adam and Eve sent out of the garden but we can see in that in a real way it was after that great darkness that we have the brightest light of all because in that very moment God spoke into the world and He promised, speaking to the serpent, that there would be that enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, no more cozy relationship with the devil, that's going to come to an end but along with that there is the great promise that God would send the seed of the woman, the son that we born of the woman would send him into the world and that through him the world would be saved and the devil would be crushed. So with a bright light we have deep darkness and then we have the dawning of this great declaration by God and when you read our Bibles we stand on a threshold of that morning and we look down the whole story of the
[3:06] Bible and we learn what that means and we are here tonight looking at what Jesus learned about what that means and in some ways the most important thing of all is that Jesus knows who He is, that He is aware of His identity, that He is aware of His purpose and from time to time we ourselves might struggle with who we are, we might struggle with why we are here but when we come to discover our identity and our purpose from God's word then we are on our journey to freedom and here we see Jesus having been born into this world, having grown up as an infant child, having lived the life of showing compassion and of healing the sick, teaching him with the kingdom of God, we see Him on His journey up to Jerusalem, He's at a particular stage on His journey through the world and in this moment certain things are said and because these things are said certain things are told us about who Jesus understands Himself to be and tonight we want to look at this passage against that kind of background to learn something of the way there is a triumphant self-consciousness in the mind of Jesus, He understands what Genesis 3.15 means and He knows as surely as He understands it that He is at the center of it and what to see first of all that in the passage we have a prompt, there are times in life and things that happen move us to do something, it calls us to action and we recognize that, the same kind of event at other times might mean nothing and might do nothing but there are specific occasions and something is said and we're waking up to where we are and we're waking up to a sense of our duty and what we should be doing and it's something like that that happens to Jesus here, we see that there are Greeks present and we hear them saying we wish to see Jesus, why is that important? Why should the presence of Greeks at this special festival of the Jews, why should it be important? Because God has promised when Jesus comes and when Jesus brings people back to God that it will open the floodgates for the world, the nations of the world to know God's salvation and here is Jesus and the disciples come to Him and they tell Him the Greeks are wanting to see you and it triggers in the mind of Jesus the realization that the promises of God which begin in Genesis 3.15 that these promises are now going to break into the world and that the moment has come and His experience for Him to play His part in that. He is moved,
[6:37] He is prompted by them and prompted by them to do the will of God and for you and I this very mention of these Greeks and this very prompt that comes on the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem is a prompt for us not to go to be crucified the way Jesus did but as it was a prompt for Him to do the will of God so it is a prompt for you and for me to think about the will of God, to think about what the will of God means for you and for me and to think about what obedience to the will of God means for ourselves passionately. Jesus knew what it meant it's important for us to be prompted to think of what the will of God requires of us in relation to what it required of Jesus and in the light of that prompt we see the way in which Jesus realizes for the first time the hour has come and of course we know that Jesus was not ignorant of why He was here we know that He knew why He came but we also understand that He was not sure or did not know when it was all going to happen so He's engaged in His ministry He's packing so much into these three years He's reaching out to a lost world He's the light of the world and during that ministry said to them when his life may be in danger my hour has not yet come he recognizes that there is some point in the future when his hour will have come and here is that moment the hour has come it's arrived we long for things ourselves in life and we we long for that fulfillment and we look for something that tells us the moment has come and we we can get excited about that because it's it's a promise that's being fulfilled we didn't know when it was coming but now the moment has come and Jesus recognizes that the moment has come for Him the Son of Man to be glorified and we can be sure that as we stand with Jesus here to be glorified it's not to be raised in the estimation of His enemies it's to be for it to be shown what God thinks of Him and what God thinks of Him because of what He is going to do and Jesus prays in John 17 the hour has come glorify your Son that your Son may also glorify you and the remarkable thing about about this sense of of the radiating glory of God in the depression of Jesus that that this glory radiates in the darkest of moments that this world has ever seen we have come from the scene of darkness and in the garden when when Adam sinned and was cast out but here is the result and darkness of of that sending away from God that Jesus goes to the cross at Calvary that He goes into the darkness that the Bible speaks of that there was a darkness over the whole world for for these three hours humanly speaking it does not make sense but for us tonight as we think of the way in which Jesus was prompted by the arrival of these Greeks we think of the way in which we are going to see light in the darkness glory in the abandonment we're going to see that when Jesus cries out my God why have you forsaken me and when He says it is finished there is the light shining and from His pain there is a sense of of the beauty of the glory of God shining in that very moment the prompt that leads Jesus to understand that that moment for which He came into the world has now at last arrived and as we move on we can sum up and see Jesus came into this world he came down from God and when the Greeks come to meet with them on this path to Jerusalem what is the prompt what what is the call yes it's it's the call to go and suffer but ultimately it's the home calling of God it's the home calling of the glory at that's the right hand of God for him and when the Greeks come he he understands their desire as the call of God come and do my will come and finish the work that I've given to you come and die for the sins of the world come and be glorified come and be raised up it's time for you to finish your work and to come home to the glory of God the prompt his identity is clear to him he's the son of man the purpose is also clear to him he is going to Calvary's cross he knows he understands and for for you and for me as we move on it's a prompt for us to consider what the will of God requires us to do in the light of what the will of God meant for Jesus that he came to die for the sins of the world and that we are prompted because of the way in which he knew his calling and knew his purpose and knew what his death meant we are prompted to think of what his death means for us does it mean anything at all does it mean more than just wonder or does it mean that our eternal life depends upon it a relationship with God depends upon it and without his death no matter how wonderful his birth is no matter how beautiful his life is that without the cross there is nothing there for us it's the prompt to think of what the will of
[13:49] God means and secondly because he is prompted to think of the moment he is prompted to think of the process it's obvious what we do what does this mean for him we put ourselves in any kind of situation and we're placed into it this has come upon us and what does this mean for us it's going to impact upon us in some particular way Jesus was no different he understood the moment and now the wheels begin to turn and he understands that there's a process which is at the center and we see the process from the way in which we have that parable in the verse in verse number 24 truly truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone it's a parable it's a simple agriculture a parable we take a grain of wheat a seed and unless it falls into the ground in the right conditions at the right time unless it does that it's going to remain alone it's a seed that's going to be isolated and solitary and will not be of benefit to anyone and what do you think Jesus thinking about well when Jesus speaks this parable he's saying except a grain of wheat he is the Jesus who understands the promise of God that the seed of the woman is going to come and crush the head of the serpent he recognizes himself to be that very seed that promise of God and when he's using this parable the grain of wheat or the seed of wheat all that God has said connects in his mind and he begins to see his purpose in the light of the promise of God and in the light of what that promise means and he knows in his in his own thinking in his own mind and he wants them to know and he wants us to know that no matter what happens to him as the seed of God as the seed of the woman as the one who was born of the Virgin Mary no matter what is true about him if he continues to live then he's going to be useless he's going to be meaningless he's not going to be any help to anyone he's not going to be the savior of the world except the greater wheat falls into the ground except the seed and we we have the promise of God to Abraham that the seed is offered is off to me will be like the sand of the seashore we have Revelation 7 the glory of God that there's a multitude that no man can number the people of God the the seed that there is there is fruit there are people children to be born to the Lord and unless Jesus dies there will be no church there will be no
[17:16] Christianity there will be no Christians he will abide alone he will be without others quite simply and we would then marvel as the people in the days of Jesus is the marvel at his works even Peter said don't even think about your death when Jesus told him that he was going to die be that far from you master they wanted the Jesus who's going to live forever there was a lesson for his enemies there was a lesson for his disciples that Jesus is here to die and so there was that parable but the alternative is that the seed will do what seeds are designed for for planting in the ground for for gemmating in the soil for for falling apart for breaking up and for bearing shoots of new life and for multiplying and that's exactly what Jesus says here but if it dies it bears much fruit and Jesus knows the promises of Isaiah to to his servant and to the children of history and I say at chapter 53 he shall see his seed the servant is going to come the son of God is going to die as as the savior of the world he's going to see many children and here is Jesus reminding them that unless he dies he is not going to have these many children there is not going to be a church of God there will not be the establishment of them as the first who belong to the the new testament church but if it dies it bears much fruit and we know that for seed to bear fruit it needs the right environment and it needs the right conditions and we plant a seed in in the soil and unless we have the right conditions to go with that then the seed will not bear any fruit and we seed across different parts of the world where there is barness and people laboring to to to plant seed and bears no fruit because the weather conditions don't suit and the and the soil conditions don't suit there is no productivity there there's no product or fruit at the end but when we have the right conditions when we have the right soil when we have the right moisture in the soil when we have the right amount of sunshine when we have the right amount of shade when all of these things come together we watch and and we see and the seed begins to to break up we see the the shoots coming to the surface and so is Jesus on the cross at Calvary where God has created the environment and the conditions for his promises to be fulfilled he has created the conditions and the passion of his son he has placed him here he has placed laid our sins upon him he is nailed to Calvary's cross the Lord lays upon him the the iniquity of his all
[21:25] God has prepared this moment for his son and and as well as the the conditions he creates the environment and the shocking environment is that that the the warmth that is needed for for the seed to bear fruit is the eternal wrath of God and the the powerful way in which the wrath of God bears upon the passion of his son and for the powerful way in which we see in Psalm 70 Psalm 22 that the body of Jesus begins as if it were to break up the seed must fall in the ground and die it must break up so that it brings forth fruit and the intensity of the heat that is required is such that the moment that produces the fruit it's not the brightness of the sun but it is the darkness of the forsakeness and out of that moment when when Jesus is made sin when
[22:34] Jesus bears that the the penalty due to us for our sin from that moment just from there that that fruit will come and because of that moment the same disciples went to the tomb on the first day of the week what did they find did they find a dead seed did they find a dead body they found the body but they found they found not didn't find the body they found that Jesus was not there they found that there was life beyond death and when they understood that they began to understand what the gospel means and how important the death of Jesus was how central was to their needs and because he died that there was no new hope for them that God has sent a spirit into the world that Jesus had given to them his spirit that they had the life that they could not have apart from the death of the Lord Jesus there's a process and if we love the Lord Jesus tonight the way that the
[23:55] Bible calls us to do so we cannot have that love without his death being at the very center of it and that's why Paul is able to speak of the Jesus who who lives in him and he is the one who loved me and gave himself for me broken for us the process what moves us in our hearts tonight are we moved by by by the sense of the way in which Jesus embraced the purposes of God he embraced his own identity and he embraced his own destiny and he went willingly and lovingly to Calvary's cross for you and for me so that in the season of good will we would celebrate the birth of Jesus because we understand why he came and our celebration doesn't begin and end in his birth our celebration begins but it takes us all the way to the glory that he has after having died for our sins so there's a prompt to do the will of God there's a process which means that Jesus died that we might have life and that flourishes through every generation of the world a great number of people who are the children of God who are the the proges of of the death and resurrection of Jesus and those who who are such the sense that that life of Jesus in their hearts and there's life and there is love and there is love and there is life and they are so intertwined that they are these two cords that bind us to the person of Jesus as we believe in his name and finally that leads naturally to the fact that there is power in the message of Jesus there is a prompt there is a process and there is power and the power is important and we're read of that per further on in the passage where or Jesus says in verse number 31 now that's in this moment is the judgment of this world now will the ruler of this world be cast out now is the judgment of this world the God who has a verdict the God whose judgment is through the judge of all the earth will he not do right says says Abraham in Genesis 18
[26:56] God's verdict on the world he judges the world who are condemning his son to the cross Jesus says with regard to them that because he has come that judgment has come upon them the presence of Jesus forces them into making a choice they are making a judgment and so many are saying we don't want this man to roll over us and God judges the world when he puts his son to the cross and that moment when when the enemies of Jesus and the enemies of God seem to have the victory it is that moment which is actually their great defeat and Jesus goes on to say now is the judgment of this world now will the ruler of this world be cast out the ruler of this world the serpent Satan who who entered into that cozy relationship with with Eve in the Garden of Eden that the God of this world who who deceived Eve and threw them herself and Adam away into into committing that great sin the God of this world that Jesus describes as the one who is a liar from the beginning the truth is not in him he's a murder and a liar in chapter 8 the ruler of this world and the ruler of this world that that Paul tells us that the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they would not believe and if there is power and there is and the way in which the spirit of God takes the veil away from people's minds he does that in the context of the way in which Satan has blinded the minds of different people and tonight you can you can ask yourself where you see yourself in in that process whether whether you are still blinded by the God of this world blinded by the power of Satan blinded so that you do not believe or is it the case that God has taken away that veil so that you see in the words of the same Paul so that you see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ but that God of this world whose work is to blind your mind so that you will not believe that's the God of the world that Jesus says here is being cast out Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden because of their sin but here the God of this world is cast out he is dethroned he is depowered he loses all the influences all the influence that he has he continues in existence as we see from the rest of the
[30:36] Bible but in the picture of Revelation chapter 12 he is thrown out of the throne of heaven and he no longer has that influence and power that he had in the Old Testament to deceive the nations of the world he is chained he is restricted and in that restriction the peoples of this world God is working in their lives to take away the blindness and Satan is chained so that you and I tonight can be set free from from the the slavery of sin and so that we can be set free to be the children of God the sense of the breaking of Satan's power and perhaps thankfully none of us tonight know how powerful the devil is we understand from the Bible that he's powerful we see glimpses in human history where we see the power of Satan breaking into to to the ordinariness of life but so often we are so deceived that we cannot begin to understand it and that's the the power of his deception that he can deceive you now and you don't think you're deceived and he can deceive you know and you think you're the the most enlightened person in the room that's how he operates if he can make you believe that you're not deceived but that you do understand then he's got you but Jesus died so that that would not be the case that he'd break every influence he has in his cunning and in his deceit to make you believe the lie and to lose your salvation
[32:36] God of this world the rule of this world is cast out and the the visible expression of that is the way in which Jesus goes on in the next verse when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself how tonight do I know that the blindness has gone it's only because I find Jesus irresistible I'm drawn by the this purpose and coming into the world I'm drawn by the way in which he was so committed to the will of God that no matter what my salvation cost he was willing to bear it I am drawn to him because he's in the powerful position at God's right hand tonight and I know that I'm saved in him and drawing of course it's the opposite in many ways of being pushed to believe and no one has ever believed in Jesus but the person who came and who marveled at at the greatness of his love in the midst of a sense of our own undisservingness that we're not worthy of such great love but when we see that love there is no resistance there is total willingness on the part of our hearts to give ourselves to him and tonight that's what we're looking for as we reflect upon who Jesus saw himself to be and his triumphant self-consciousness that we will share his understanding of the purposes of God and that we will have that sense of triumphant ourselves that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us and that's our freedom and that's the purpose of God for us we believe in Jesus and we are compelled tonight to to be moved in our hearts to be drawn to him and to submit ourselves to him that we may be members of the family of God and be the seed of God in the world that bear fruit and that shows to the world around us the product and the proges of the death and the resurrection of Christ we can see it in ourselves if we are believers we can see it another and we encourage one another in the Lord to to let our fruit be seen and also to share in the gospel and praying that others will be persuaded to believe in the same
[35:36] Savior. May God bless his word to us. Let us bow heads and pray.