Dying to Live.

Invocation

O Holy Father, you have gathered us this day to worship Christ our king, the exalted Lord, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of your throne on high. Some of us have come here weary from trying to live, for we are living to die. But Christ came to show us that real life is found in dying, so teach us that only in dying may we truly live. Father show us the glory of your Son, manifested in his death on the cross, and so conform our lives to that pattern that by dying we live. Through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, and Amen.

Confession of Sin

Mark 8:34–37 ESV

34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?

What will you give to live? I mean really live. Would you be willing to give up your life to really live? Does that sound like nonsense to you? The paradox at the heart of the gospel is that only by dying can you truly live. For at the center of the world is crucified Christ, whose lifting up has drawn all men to him. Those who are drawn to him must go through the same process of death to the old man, death to the world, and its autonomy, death to all that is set against God.

As you reflect on the week that has just past, I want you to recall the many ways that you sought to grasp life instead of surrendering it to God. Think on the ways that you avoided the suffering of the cross in search of glory some other way. Christ bids you come and die, here at the foot of the cross, by confessing your sin and hearing his gracious pardon.

New Testament Lesson

Ephesians 5:1–21 ESV

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” 15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Pastoral Prayer

O God, you are our God, earnestly we seek you; O you who are the true God, the living God, the one only living and true God, and the everlasting King! You are the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change, and from whom proceeds every good and perfect gift. If we claimed to be in the right, our own mouth would condemn us; if we said, “We are blameless,” you would prove us wrong; for if you contend with us, we could not answer you once in a thousand times. For we have often grasped after life in this world, choosing to glory in the pleasures of this world, rather than embracing the sufferings of the cross of Christ. We know that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but you have said that if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So cleanse from the guilt of sin, and remove our transgression by remembering the sacrifice of your Son for our many sins. Lord, all our longing is before you, and our sighing is not hidden from you, even the sighs and groanings that are too deep for words; for, he who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit. And you have commanded that prayers and petitions be offered up for all those in authority over us. So we ask your blessing on our president Joseph Biden. For his cabinet, the house and congress, and for our justices. Grant favor, wisdom, and your blessing in so far as they rule under your authority and by your word. But if they turn away discipline them, for the good of your church and that evil may be restrained, the glory of Christ maintained in our land. In all the contentious precedings of this election cycle grant us your peace, and the certain knowledge that you work all things together for our good. If our nation is to flourish we know it will not come because we manage to elect the right person to office, but because you pour out your spirit uon us in revival. Only you can speak the words of life to bring the dead out of their graves; only you can take a heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh. And you are pleased to do this mighty work through very ordinary means—word, sacrament, and prayer. Let us not be distracted by those who promise other ways. But let us hold fast to the truth. So Father, raise men, to go into the highways and byways with the good news of Christ. Strengthen the witness of your church, for we long to see solid reformed congregations planted in every borough in this valley. Unless you build the house we labor in vain O Lord, so establish the work of our hands and let your favor be upon us, as we seek to glorify you in all that we do. May the ministry of Hope church equip your saints for their varied callings in the world. As we shine a spotlight on Christ in word and deed. Make our lives, the greatest apologetic the world has ever seen, by conforming us to the image of your Son. Teach us to die so that we may really live. Gird up those who suffer among us, and comfort them with your great love. So that we may learn patience while we endure the trials you bring our way with joy, that each one may produce in us those fruits of repentance and the holiness without which no one will see God. For those who lack faith grant it, for those who are weak, strengthen them, those who suffer comfort them, and those who are wayward, bring them back. That all hear today, who have been called into your presence may drink deeply from the wells of your salvation, seeing and savoring Christ in Word and sacrament to the nourishment of their souls. Open our eyes to behold your glory shining in the face of Jesus Christ, through whom we offer to you, our Father, this prayer, praying just as our Lord taught us to prayer: Our Father...

Tithes and Offering

Often times Christians live like functional atheists. We believe in God, but we act like he’s not there. We pretend we are self-sufficient, that we keep ourselves going, and that what we have, we got on our own. Paul says to the Corinthians, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you recieved it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” You don’t hold your life together, you don’t keep yourselves alive, you are not self-sufficient, for you are not God. You may think to yourself, I know that, I don’t believe that I am, yeah but you live like you do. Where do we see this. One in a general prayerlessness. We don’t pray, because think we don’t need too. But two, we see it also in our relationship to our stuff. The money we worked hard for, after all we earned, its ours. But wealth is from the Lord, and he commands a tenth be given back to Him as your confession that he is Lord, and you are not. Tithing is the surest way to remind yourself that you belong to God. And He will have you, body and soul, all of you. So give today out of the cheerfulness of your heart unto the Lord.

Father accept these tithes and offerings today as our humble confession that we belong to you. Use them as you see fit for your glory alone. Amen.

Dying to live

John 12:20-36

Intro

The world has its own formula for how to really live. It takes many forms, but they can all essentially be boiled down to this: live while you can, because you will soon die. And that sounds almost like common sense. But Jesus comes, as per usual, and flips that logic right on its head. For as we shall see, real life, real living, is found in dying. That is, the glory of living is found in following Christ by dying. As we consider the glory of the Son and the Father, Jesus shows us that the glory of sons is becoming like The Son. And to do that, you must lose your life so that you may find it.

As we open up this portion of God’s word, let us consider the Son’s glory, the Father’s glory, and the glory of sons.

The Son’s Glory

Some Greeks seek Jesus, and in response Jesus gives a sermon, and what a powerful sermon it is. Theological deep, profoundly simple, but practically difficult. These Greeks are not Greek-speaking Jews, and probably not even proselytes, but god-fearers (as Cornelius Acts 10). But crucially, they represent the gentiles (nations), which triggers a response from Jesus. Whether they meet with Jesus at this time is besides the point for the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Which is the moment when he will draw all men, including the gentiles, to himself in salvation. As in Romans 9-11, the rejection of Jesus by the Jews will mean the inclusion of the Gentiles who will provoke the Jews to jealousy and a return to Jesus. Only then will the end come.

And the glory of the Son is the glory of a seed that dies and then produces many seeds. For one grain of wheat produces a whole stalk with many grains, but not, of course, unless it dies. This potent metaphor seems tailor made for Jesus. Paul also employs this metaphor in his description of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. And it’s fitting also for those who serve/follow/believe in the Son of man. I will return to this when we consider the Glory of sons. For now, I want to consider first the Glory of Christ.

Jesus says this is the hour of His glorification, and everywhere in our text, this alludes to His death. For in the most counter-intuitive way, his death was his glorification, His death was his triumph, not His defeat. Jesus uses a play on words to express this when he says, “when I am lifted up.” That describes both the nature of His death as a crucifixion, while also showing that his death on the cross was His exaltation.

As an act of obedience to His father, this hour of His death is glorious also because he will see it through to the end, despite the inner anguish that causes him turmoil at just the thought of it. For the prospect of dying causes him great anguish, not because he is afraid of the cross, of being whipped and beaten and hung to suffocate in one of this world's cruelest forms of deaths. But because in death he will be separated (in some way) from his Father, and suffer the full weight of His wrath for your sin. No one but the eternal Son of God could endure such a trial. No one but the incarnate Son of God was qualified to engage in such a trial.

We need not discount that Jesus is in real anguish at all. For when Jesus says, "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, Save me from this hour?" Jesus is not asking a rhetorical question. Jesus is not saying, Now is my soul troubled, but it would be absurd to say Father, save me from this hour. Rather, since this is genuine anguish, Jesus really pleads with His father, as he does in the other gospels in the garden of Gethsemane, when he asks if the Lord would take this cup from Him, yet, not his will be done (Mt. 26:39). "For this purpose I have come to this hour" is Jesus' confession of faith, and the acknowledgement that he is fully submitted to the will of the Father. For Jesus knows that there is no glory if there is not first suffering, for the apex of glory is the cross.

But this is not something that naturally makes sense. You can't look at the cross, and the death of Christ, and reason your way from that to the conclusion that it was His glory. Which is why Paul calls the cross, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks (1 Cor. 1:23-24). Which is exactly the dispute Luther had with the scholastic theologians of his day, whom he called theologians of glory.

What that means... is that one cannot “[look] upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.” One cannot look upon the visible manifestations of Calvary, “which have actually happened”—Christ hanging brutalized and forsaken on the cross, His cry of dereliction lacerating the groans of the criminals alongside Him—and see victory in those visible phenomena. The invisible power and glory of God are not visible to the human eye in the events of Calvary. Human reasoning expects victory to come through evident strength. Calvary seems only to offer weakness. To human reasoning, there appears to be no correspondence between the invisible glory of God and the manner in which He is revealing that glory. On Calvary, man sees God. But he does not see a King shrouded in light. He sees a condemned Man enveloped in darkness. (Myers, Stephen G. “‘The Sufferings Are Better’: Martin Luther and the Theology of the Cross.” Puritan Reformed Journal 9, no. 1 (2017): 84–100.)

The Son's glory is His death, for the cross is the revelation of God. It's the clearest revelation of His character showing ruined humanity the limits He would go to recover man, and the creation he wrecked with sin. But many missed this, for their idea of power was not the cross, their notion of glory was not suffering.

We see this clearly in the crowd's response to Jesus' teaching, which shows they have no place in their social imaginary for a suffering and dying Christ.

So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”

Many have stumbled over the cross, but just as many have found great comfort. A fact that can only mean God has sovereignly drawn the latter to see not shame and ignominy in the cross, but for what it really is—the Son's Glory. If the glory of the Son is His death, then what is the glory of the Father, and where is the glory of those He calls sons? Let's consider here, secondly, the Father's glory.

The Father’s Glory

St. Irenaeus once said, "the glory of God is man fully alive." By which he meant humanity, renewed after the image of God in holiness, righteousness, justice, goodness, and truth. And how can that not be, when this is only realized in His Son, the only perfect man?

After, struggling with the prospect of death, but knowing that the Lord had brought Him to this hour, Jesus cries out, "Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”"(John 12:28, ESV). Many in the crowd prove they don't have ears to hear, thinking the majestic voice is thunder or the voice of an angel. But some hear, for the voice came in answer to Jesus' prayer, but for the sake of His people. Since he had such intimate communion with the Father, Jesus had no need of an audible assurance, but we do. But the question remains, how has the Father glorified His name, and how will He glorify it again?

First, I think the Father means he has glorified himself in the coming of Christ, His incarnation, and his ministry up to that point. Like his death, the incarnation was a humiliating process. For God the Son, the second person of the trinity, left His place at the Father's side, to come and take on flesh and dwell among us.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, ESV)

In His coming, Jesus reveals the Father, for no one had ever seen God; "the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." (Jn. 1:17). His ministry until the moment of His death was to proclaim the good news of the Gospel of the kingdom. That the moment had arrived which had long been promised when God would establish His kingdom, installing His Son on His throne. And His enthronement, mysterious as it had been hinted at through the prophets would be His death on the cross. The Son had glorified His Father by being perfectly obedient to His mission, in His birth and ministry, whose signs and wonders pointed the people of God to the fulfillment of those eschatological promises of blessing.

And He would glorify the father in His once offering up of Himself for sin in His death on the cross. Which was not only the redemption of fallen humanity, but the restoration of all things. For it was not only your sin that was dealt with on the cross, but sin and evil in general as well. You might say, Jesus dealt with sin at the source, by casting out the ruler of this world. The cross was the death blow to the head of that ancient serpent. It was the binding of the strong man, so that Jesus could plunder His house, leading a host out of captivity into the freedom (and glory) of the sons of God.

And this is why no one theory of atonement captures the depths of what God has wrought in Christ. Truly, it was a substitutionary atonement, when Christ died in your place as a spotless lamb of God, taking your sins on himself, and imputing to you His perfect righteousness. But it was also a triumph over the forces of evil, as in Christus-victor, that held the world in bondage such as sin and death. Paul holds both ideas together in Colossians 2:13-15.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Colossians 2:13–15, ESV)

The Glory of the Father is manifested in the Son, whose life and mission body forth the Father's glory to a world which lay under the power of the evil one. Now, having glorified the Father by being lifted up, Jesus continues to glorify the Father by drawing men from every tribe, tongue, and nation and calling them to follow Him. What then is the glory of sons?

The Glory of Sons (Application)

The glory of the Son is the Cross, and the glory of the Father is the Son, what then is our glory? What is the glory of sons?

Notice that as Jesus describes the paradoxical nature of His sacrificial death, he exhorts His disciples that to serve Him, they must follow Him (v. 26). And then looking down at v. 36, he says that those who "believe in the light...become sons of light." So we see that serving, following, and believing in Christ are all synonymous. Faith goes to work by following the king. And those who follow Christ are honored by the Father becoming sons of light. But what does Jesus mean when he says in v. 26 follow me? And how does that relate to our glory?

Following Christ on the path to glory must take the same shape as the path Jesus walked. Since his glory was the sufferings of the cross, so too is the shape of our discipleship as we follow Him.

John 12:24–25 (ESV) — 24 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. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Wait a second, hate your life, isn't that a bit strong? I thought hate was bad. Don't we incur the judgement of hell for hating our brother? Why then does Jesus call us to hate our life? First, notice the first qualifier in this world. That helps us understand what Jesus means by hate. Which must be further qualified by Jesus' parable of the seed that dies, and unless it dies, it cannot bear fruit.

John uses the word world to describe what Paul calls this present evil age, which lies under the power of the evil one. The world is a system set in opposition to God, dominated by sin, and marked by death. But for which Christ has come to judge, and cast out its ruler (v. 31). Jesus is then saying that to try to grasp life in a transitory age marked by death is foolish and fruitless. You won't find life here, it's a matrix, whose clever concealment masks death, giving you the illusion fueled by the endless optimism of the myth of progress, which tenaciously strives for transcendence, that if you strive, you can become immortal and live forever.

We see this played in the cult of youth with seventy the new sixty, sixty the new fifty, and fifty the new forty, on and on. With a little nip and tuck, the right diet, avoiding those nasty seed oils, daily exercise, you can achieve perfection that approaches transcendence. This will at least help you survive until our tech-saviors figure out the problem of death. Maybe they can freeze you so that they can reboot you later when they've figured out the problem. Or upload your consciousness online to live in some metaverse.

Nothing is more foolish and sad to watch than someone try to grasp on to whatever life they can as it rapidly slips through their fingers. O vanity of vanities, life (in this world) is vanity. It's not just the cult of youth, or the god of fitness and health. Men strive for immortality. They build monuments to themselves in the legacies they hope will survive. The things they build, even the children they bring into the world, they hope will outlast them, and give them immortality. The preacher in Ecclesiastes wrestles with this. In His commentary on Ecclesiastes, David Gibson said this:

The reality is, we spend our lives trying to escape the constraints of our created condition. Opening our eyes to this is a significant breakthrough. To be human is to be a creature, and to be a creature is to be finite. We are not God. We are not in control, and we will not live forever. We will die. But we avoid this reality by playing “let’s pretend.” Let’s pretend that if we get the promotion, or see our church grow, or bring up good children, we’ll feel significant and leave a lasting legacy behind us...We long for lives of permanence in a world of constant change, and we strive to achieve it. We spend our lives aligning our better selves with a different future that we envisage as more rewarding. And in it all we are simply trying to make permanent what is not meant to be permanent (us), and by constant change we are trying to control what is not meant to be controlled (the world). (Gibson, Living Life Backwards, 29)

Ecclesiastes was written to teach you that when you greedily grasp the good things in this world, they will slip right between your fingers, for joy and enjoyment of these good things is a gift of God which only the wise receive.

So Jesus warns if you love your life by trying to grasp it you will lose it all, but if you give it up, letting God do with it what he will, then you will receive it back as a gift, then you will really live. For real life comes only by dying. The sixteenth century Lutheran Pastor commented this way,

The chief point of this entire statement is that there is no glory without a cross, there is no life without death and there is no understanding of the gospel unless our reason is made foolish in obedience to Christ...Those who love their lives are those who want to obtain glory in another way than through a cross, who want to obtain life in another way than through death, who want to obtain true understanding of the gospel in another way than through mortification. (Farmer, Craig S., Timothy George, Scott M. Manetsch, and Brannon Ellis, eds. John 1–12: New Testament. Vol. IV. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014. Pg. 453.)

Your glory is to follow Christ, by taking up your cross and dying to yourself every day. And this is not a once in a lifetime event, but a daily dying, surrendering of your will to the will of God, and seeking first His kingdom.

To often we seek glory at the expense of another. But we miss that true glory consists of the glad acceptance of your sacrificial obedience by hating your life.

2 Timothy 2:11–13 (ESV) — 11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

Husbands, what would it look like in your marriage and in your family if you hated your life, if you died so that you could live? And wives what would it look like if you did the same? How about as brothers and sisters, what would body life in the church look like if we joyfully excepted the glory of the cross? I think the results will be surprising, they will be the same that the preacher discovered in Ecclesiastes— Surprising Joy and profound glory. Both in this life, and much more in the life that is to come. For only by dying can you really live, only by losing your life can you really find it. Amen. Let's pray.

Holy Father, Your glory was manifested in your Son, and it was so surprising. So much so the world could not even understand it. Some here today may not understand it either, but some do. And what those who do see is the glory of the cross, where suffering savior bled and died. And that great sacrificial act, proved to be judgment of the world, and the casting of its ruler. But even our Lord Christ bristled at the prospect of death, yet he refused to grasp after life, entrusting himself to you. So to do we, as we come to lay down our lives in glad obedience to you. Crown us with glory of Christ's sufferings, so that we may also share in the glory of His resurrection to real life. And when we falter, attempting to grasp after that which is fleeting and a vapor, show us the true glory of Christ, by holding out for us His cross, teaching us to hold with open hands all the gifts you have given us in Him. Through Jesus Christ our crucified Lord. Amen.

Lord's Supper Meditation

What fitting emblems these elements of bread and wine are which showcase the dying-to-live of our glorious king. For in weakness and suffering, he cast out the ruler of this world, binding the strong man, so that he could plunder his house of all those captive sinners. But notice how he did it, torn flesh and poured out blood. Flesh won't work if it's torn, and blood loses its ability to convey life throughout the body when it is poured out. But the mystery of Christ's death works backward, like a grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and then bears much fruit. Adam, our first father, grasped after life by taking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eating it, and from that one act, death spread to all men. Proving that if you love your life, you will lose it. But Christ refused these temptations in the wilderness, temptations to receive glory apart from the cross, showing us what it means to hate your life when he surrendered to a bloody death on the cross. Now, out of that one act of sacrificial death, life spread out to all who, by faith, come and participate in His death. Since it can be said of all those that follow Christ that they do not love their life, but lay it down in death, this meal is a public proclamation that you have chosen to follow Christ in the way of the cross; a proclamation that you will seek glory in no other than the cross. But if the cross is foolishness to you, and you stumble over it, then you will not find glory in this meal of bread and wine. And if you eat and drink in that state, you heap up condemnation for yourself on the last day. For you will die, you cannot escape that. And when you do, all the life you tried to hold on to, will be all the glory you will ever have, for only those who lay down their life will receive the glory of eternal life with Christ forever. Do you want to really live? Then come and die with Christ.

Charge

As God's glory is manifested in His Son, and the Son's glory is revealed through His death, your glory lies in following Him—by dying so that you may truly live.