John 12:20-50 - Living in Light of Christ
Notes
Transcript
Pray
Pray
Father, thank you for giving us your Word.
Please use me now to work in all of our hearts as your Word is preached.
I pray that your Spirit would open our eyes to see the glory of Christ.
And as we see the glory of Christ in the pages of Scripture, I pray that your Spirit would also soften our hearts to live in light of Christ.
Please, use your Word and your Spirit to change us into the likeness of Christ.
I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Intro
Intro
Anyone ever had a pet rock?
Honestly I never understood the appeal, but I know there was a time shortly before I was born when pet rocks were really popular.
They didn’t cost anything to feed them because they didn’t eat.
They didn’t make any messes because they didn’t move.
They were easy to decorate and dress up because they didn’t have an opinion about how they looked.
But I think they ultimately fell out of fashion because they couldn’t respond to your affection.
Without the truth of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit we’re like Jesus’ pet rocks that he’ll end up casting aside.
Because we’re naturally blind and hard hearted like pet rocks, we need the Spirit to open our eyes to believe the truth of the gospel and to soften our hearts to live in light of Christ.
And in John 12:20-50 both Jesus and the author, John, give us four aspects of living in light of Christ so that the Spirit can use his Word to open our eyes and soften our hearts.
So that we can have true saving faith in Christ rather than rejecting him or only accepting him as lip-service.
We’re going to look at each aspect one at a time.
First up, in verses 20-26, we’re going to see that living in light of Christ means that you must follow in the death of Christ.
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Truly, truly, 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. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 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, here we see that living in light of Christ means that we must…
Follow in the Death of Christ (20-26)
Follow in the Death of Christ (20-26)
Jesus had very recently raised Lazarus from the dead, and now all of Jerusalem was hyped.
A lot of the Jews expected Jesus to become their king and liberate them from Rome.
But some, specifically the religious leaders, didn’t want that to happen because they liked their life the way it was.
And into this wrong assumption walks a group of Greeks to join in the feast of Passover.
These were God-fearers, Gentiles who followed Jewish morals and customs and worshipped Yahweh, but they were not true Jewish converts because they hadn’t been circumcised.
Well, these Greeks wanted to see Jesus because of all the excitement, so they went to a fellow Greek who might be able to get them an audience with Jesus.
They approach Philip, whose name is Greek, and whose hometown of Bethsaida was near a Greek region called Decapolis where these guys probably came from.
So, Philip goes up the chain of command to one of Jesus’ inner circle who was also from Bethsaida, Andrew.
And both Philip and Andrew approach Jesus about giving and audience to these Greeks.
As is so often the case with questions and requests of Jesus, he answers the heart of the matter rather than the question or request directly.
He answers Philip and Andrew in a way that everyone around can hear, including the Greeks.
And Jesus’ answer reveals that the people wrongly believed something that his answer corrected.
They were too focused on this life and not the life to come.
They were hoping that Jesus would conquer Rome and set up his kingdom right then and they could live their lives in relative comfort.
They were looking for Jesus to clean house so that they could live their best life now.
Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
The hour had finally come!
After all the waiting through the years of Jesus’ ministry, the time had come at last.
Now, the term “Son of Man” is a clear reference to Daniel 7:13–14 ““I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”
This is exactly what the people expected to happen right then, but Jesus uses a metaphor to explain that this assumption was not quite right.
He says that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
When a grain of wheat sits in a bowl it’s just a single grain, but when it’s planted, when it dies and is buried, it rises again as a new stalk producing a whole bunch of grains of wheat.
What Jesus is saying is that he needed to die and rise again so that his kingdom would advance.
The hour of the Son of Man’s glory had come but it would not be the glory of his kingdom being established.
It would be the glory of his death and resurrection which would give rise to a much greater kingdom than what would have been established right then.
Well, after he said this, Jesus turned the focus from his own death to the practical application of his death in the lives of those who follow him.
Jesus gives a list of promises for his followers if they truly follow him even unto death.
Eternal life is promised to those who “hate” their life in this world.
Being in Jesus’ presence is promised to those who serve and follow him in self sacrifice.
Being honored by the Father is promised to those who serve Jesus.
Eternal life, being with Jesus in his kingdom, and being honored by the Father are all things the people thought they would get through Jesus conquering their earthly enemies, alleviating their physical discomfort.
But Jesus reveals that the way to get those promises is through his death and resurrection and our own death and resurrection.
Is Jesus referring to our physical death or a spiritual death?
I think there is an aspect of both.
We all have to actually die the first death.
Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”
Death cannot be avoided, but it can be overcome through the power of Christ.
Eternal life is not continuing this life eternally, but being resurrected to eternal life after the first death, just like Christ.
And those who will be raptured when Jesus comes back will go through something similar to physical death as they are transformed and given glorified bodies along with all those who have died in Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:51–53 “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
But there’s also a spiritual sense of dying to ourselves, dying to sin that we read about earlier in the service in Romans chapter 6.
Romans 6:1–4 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
This spiritual death and resurrection is a focus on pleasing Christ in pursuing righteousness rather than pleasing myself in pursuing sin.
This is an aspect of eternal life that we can experience now as we die to sin and live for Christ.
So, living in light of Christ means that we must follow Christ in his death both physically in the future and spiritually right now.
Next we’re going to see in verses 27-36a that living in light of Christ means that we must walk in the light of Christ.
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
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?” So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
So, here we see that living in light of Christ means that we must…
Walk in the Light of Christ (27-36a)
Walk in the Light of Christ (27-36a)
Jesus prays to the Father who answers him audibly, Jesus has a conversation with the crowd, and they ultimately reject him as the Christ.
They were not walking in the light of Christ, but he admonishes them and us to do so just before he literally and figuratively leaves them.
In his humanity, Jesus was troubled by the prospect of bearing the sins of the world and the full wrath of God poured out on him.
I think I might question his humanity if he wasn’t troubled by that.
He rhetorically asks, “Should I ask the Father to save me from this hour?”
And he answers his own question, “Absolutely not!”
The hour that Jesus had come to was the crucial point of his once-for-all sacrifice to afford forgiveness and eternal life to all who would believe in him.
He wanted to be spared from having to die and bear the wrath of God...
but his death and resurrection was the whole point of his coming into the world in the first place, and the whole purpose of the “hour” he had finally come to.
He can’t back out now! That would not be glorifying to the Father.
But Jesus reveals that glorifying the Father by going through with the plan is his highest priority, even higher than his own life.
He prays, “Father, glorify your name.”
And a voice from heaven answers him.
How many times have your prayers been audibly answered from heaven?
I’ve never had that happen.
A lot of my prayers have been answered, just not audibly from heaven.
But the Father audibly answers Jesus’ prayer here saying, “I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.”
The Father had glorified his name through Jesus’ birth, life, and ministry.
Many times in John’s gospel account Jesus referred back to the Father as the one who sent him.
And the Father’s name would be glorified again in Jesus’ obedience unto death and his glorious resurrection.
His death and resurrection glorifies the Father because this was the Father’s plan in the first place…
to afford salvation from sin and death to those who believe in Jesus…
reconciliation with the Father, justification for our sin, and adoption into his family.
We are considered righteous and considered God’s children because Jesus swapped places with us.
He took our sin and gave us his righteousness.
This was the very plan the Father initiated and sent his Son to accomplish in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Well, the crowd heard the Father answer Jesus, but they didn’t really understand it.
Some thought that it thundered, but the voice of Yahweh is likened to the sound of thunder in the Old Testament so they weren’t too far off.
Others thought that an angel had spoken to him, understanding it as an answer to his prayer at least.
But all of them were ultimately deaf to the voice of God and they would go on to show that they were blind to the reality of who Christ really is and hard hearted to live for him.
They were not walking in the light of Christ.
Jesus told them that the voice was more for their sake than it was for his own because he didn’t really need assurance of the Father’s name being glorified...
but the people needed this final authentication of Christ from the Father to seal their fate as unbelievers.
Jesus talks about his death and resurrection as one “hour” that would glorify the name of the Father
Part of that glory would be the future judgment of the world for sin.
Jesus sees that future judgment as coinciding with his death and resurrection because it contrasts the sin and death of the world and the salvation of believers.
Jesus is commenting on how obvious the sin of the world is in light of the salvation he offers through his death and resurrection.
There is now a vivid difference between the sin of the world and the righteousness of Christ given to all who believe in him.
The gavel of God’s judgment has not yet come down, but the verdict has already been declared: guilty.
Not only is the world judged by Jesus’ death and resurrection, but the ruler of this world is cast out as well.
Satan is the ruler of this world, also known as “the Prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2.
He will be cast out in the future just before the world is judged as John recorded in Revelation 20.
Again, there’s an aspect of certainty for a future realization.
Satan is a defeated foe, though he hasn’t officially been cast out yet.
That will happen as Revelation depicts his bondage during the Millennium and ultimately being cast into the lake of fire in Revelation 20:1-3,10.
Just like the judgment of the world, Satan being cast out is a future reality that the death and resurrection of Christ ensures.
The outcome of Jesus’ death and resurrection would be the judgment of the world, the casting out of Satan, and the drawing of all people to Christ.
Jesus would draw all people to himself by dying on the cross and rising from the dead three days later.
But all people doesn’t mean every single person.
That would contradict all of Scripture, and significantly what Jesus had just said about the judgment of the world.
There wouldn’t be a judgment of the world if Jesus would draw every single person in the world to himself.
This is better understood as Jesus drawing all peoples or all kinds of people to himself.
Even from among the Greeks who had come to see Jesus at the beginning of the passage.
Even people from Eureka!
Now, you might think that Jesus drawing all kinds of people to himself would be the part that the people would pick up on, but they don’t.
John draws our attention to the same two words from Jesus’ statement that the people focused on: “lifted up.”
This was how Jesus would die, and this is what the people focused on.
Jesus’ death.
Now, finally it becomes clear to them that Jesus is claiming to be the Christ... who must die.
And they don’t like that idea.
They said that they had read in the Law that the Christ remains forever, but Jesus said that the Son of Man had to die.
There’s clearly a disconnect between the peoples’ assumption about the Christ and what Jesus was saying.
The Law here is a reference to the entire Old Testament, not just the Pentateuch, and there are many references to the eternal reign of the Christ.
We don’t have enough time right now to go through all of those references…
but I can give you them after the service if you want.
Because of this disconnect, the people lean on their own understanding and mockingly ask Jesus, “Who is THIS Son of Man?
What kind of a Messiah would get murdered?”
Hashtag not my Messiah!
Well, Jesus answers their statement of unbelief with a final exhortation to believe in him and to live for him using the metaphor of light and darkness.
This metaphor has been used many times throughout John’s gospel, and Jesus will do so again toward the end of our passage.
Jesus is the light, and the world is the darkness.
Jesus would be going away soon.
Once his death and resurrection were accomplished he would ascend to heaven.
The imminent departure of Christ also calls to mind the imminence of our own death and subsequent judgment.
And before we die and face the judge we must put our faith in Christ which ought to result in living our lives motivated by the gospel of Christ as proof that we are indeed saved and adopted into the family of Christ.
That’s what Jesus means when he says that we should walk in the light rather than in darkness.
We must believe in Christ and live in his righteousness rather than living in the sin of the world.
In a word, repentance.
So, living in light of Christ means following in the death of Christ, and walking in the light of Christ.
Next we will see in verses 36b through 43 that living in light of Christ means that you must confess your faith in Christ.
While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
“He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.”
Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.
Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
So, here we see that living in light of Christ means that we must…
Confess our Faith in Christ (36b-43)
Confess our Faith in Christ (36b-43)
This whole section is an extended comment from the author, John.
He breaks from the narrative and dialogue to give us, his audience, some extra information about what’s going on, so that we’ll understand it better.
He’s giving us the background prophecies about the unbelief of the people so that we’ll know why they refused to believe and what we ought to do instead.
Jesus physically departs from the crowd to sort of dramatize his spiritual departure from them due to their unbelief.
They had so many signs to point them to the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
He turned the water to wine (2:1-11).
He healed an official’s son (4:46-54).
He healed a lame man on the Sabbath (5:1-9).
He fed 5 thousand men with 5 loaves and 2 fish (6:1-15).
He healed a man who was born blind (9:1-7).
He raised Lazarus from the dead (11:38-44).
There was a bunch more that the people would have witnessed, but at least these few should have been enough to warrant belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
That’s why John included these in his gospel account!
John 20:30–31 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Back to our text in John chapter 12.
John gives us a couple of quotes from the book of Isaiah to explain why the people refused to believe even with so many signs.
The first quote is the beginning of Isaiah 53 which goes on to prophesy about the substitutionary death and resurrection of the Christ… the very thing the people refused to believe.
Isaiah begins that section with a negative rhetorical question showing that people will not believe what they have heard from Isaiah, and the arm of the Lord, Christ, will not be revealed to the people… specifically regarding the death and resurrection of the Christ.
The second quote is from Isaiah 6, and the first part of that chapter is Isaiah’s encounter with the glory of Christ in verses 1-7.
Then the glorious Christ gives him a message to tell the people of Israel in verses 9 and 10 all about how he would blind their eyes and harden their hearts.
John wants us to know that the unbelief of these people did not mess up God’s plan.
It’s always been plan A.
There’s only ever been and only ever will be one perfect plan!
The source of their unbelief was their own blindness and hard hearts...
but ultimately it was the sovereignty of God to further blind their eyes and harden their hearts so that they would not, could not turn and believe.
Then they would end up killing the Son of God so that salvation would come through his death and resurrection.
God is not the source of their unbelief, but he is the sovereign cause of it for his good purposes.
He did not force them to reject Christ, but he orchestrated the events and their ultimate lack of perception and lack of understanding so that they would remain in their self-satisfied unbelief where they wanted to be in the first place.
But John brings up another group of people.
He already explained those who refused to believe, now he explains those who believed, but refused to confess their faith in Jesus.
Believing in Jesus but refusing to live for him is not true faith.
Confession of Jesus as the Christ was the step that many were unwilling to take because they did not really believe.
They believed as far as it was comfortable, but as soon as discomfort arose from their belief, they stopped short.
This is the dead faith of James 2:17.
This is loving one’s life rather than hating it unto eternal life as Jesus said back in verse 25.
These people did not want the glory that comes from God, they wanted the glory that comes from man.
They did not truly fear the Lord, they feared the Pharisees.
They considered being cast out of the synagogue a worse punishment than being cast into hell!
Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Confession of your faith in Christ is so important, Jesus continued in Matthew 10:32–33 “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
This is why Paul says that confession and faith are both necessary to be saved in Romans 10:9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
You cannot truly believe if you are not willing to confess it and cast aside your love for this life in that confession in order to gain eternal life through true faith in Christ.
The first step in this confession is baptism.
I know there are a lot of different reasons why a believer might wait to be baptized.
I’m not speaking to all of those reasons.
But, if you have not been baptized, and yet you truly believe, then ask yourself if Christ is worth it?
Is he worth the awkwardness of being the center of attention?
Is he worth the difficulty of organizing when and where to be baptized?
Is he worth facing the the fear of public speaking?
Is he worth the loss of friends, or family, or the persecution that might arise from confessing your faith so publicly?
Is he worth it?
We’ve got to live in light of Christ by following him in his death, walking in his light, and confessing our faith in him.
Finally, we are going to see in verses 44-50 that living in light of Christ means that we must submit to the gospel of Christ.
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.
The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
So, here we see that living in light of Christ means that we must…
Submit to the Gospel of Christ (44-50)
Submit to the Gospel of Christ (44-50)
This is a sort of summary of what Jesus had said to the crowd before, but specifically regarding Jesus’ authority and the message he was sent to deliver.
Jesus cries out, but John doesn’t say who he was crying out to because he had already left the crowd.
The effect this has is more personal than if Jesus had a particular audience.
Jesus is crying out to you in this passage.
If you believe in Jesus, then you also believe in the Father who sent him.
If you see Jesus, then you also see the Father who sent him.
It’s important to understand the relationship between the Father and the Son because they along with the Holy Spirit are one God, Yahweh.
It’s also important to remember that Jesus was not acting or speaking on his own apart from the Father.
This was the Father’s plan empowered by the Spirit and enacted by the Son… this is the authoritative message of the triune God!
Monotheistic Jews needed clarity about the Trinity, as we all do, but they were especially resistant to the idea that Jesus could be God.
Jesus constantly reassured them that he was sent by the Father as an authentication of his ministry and his authority.
But he also claimed to be God right alongside the Father as a further assertion of his authority.
Well, then Jesus brings up the light and darkness metaphor again, the same one that has already brought up so many times in this gospel account.
Jesus is the light and the world is darkness.
Jesus came into the world to expose the sinfulness of the world in judgment and to liberate us from the sin and death of the world.
Then Jesus turns to the results of unbelief.
Believers would be saved from the darkness of the world, but what would happen to unbelievers?
Jesus says that he does not judge those who don’t keep his word because he came to save the world not to judge the world.
He didn’t come to judge at his first coming, he came to die and rise again as the perfect sacrifice to save mankind from sin and death.
His second coming will be to judge and reign forever.
But then Jesus says that the judge of those who reject Jesus will be the word that he has spoken.
The judgment of those who reject Jesus will come because they refused to believe the gospel.
Refusing to believe is not a sin worthy of condemnation, it’s a refusal to be saved from preexisting condemnation.
The word that would judge them is the gospel as they realize the truth and the reality that they missed their opportunity to be saved.
They are not judged for their unbelief, they are judged for their sin.
But the gospel that reveals their missed opportunity for salvation is the thing that would judge them as Jesus, the one who the gospel is about, says, “depart from me,” and casts them into hell forever.
Everything that Jesus had spoken was sovereignly commanded by the Father, not just coming from Jesus’ own initiative.
And the specific content of the words Jesus spoke is the gospel message which brings about eternal life.
Jesus’ identity as the Christ, the Son of God, his imminent death as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world, and his ultimate resurrection that secures eternal life for all who truly believe in Jesus.
The content of Jesus’ words is the gospel.
The Father commanded Jesus to speak the gospel so that we might believe in him and have life in his name through his death and resurrection on our behalf.
The authority of the gospel comes from the Father through the Son by the Spirit and gives eternal life.
And we must submit to it if our faith is true faith.
We cannot live our lives however we want and still say that we believe the gospel.
That’s not submitting to the gospel of Christ, that’s actually backwards.
Living however you want while claiming to believe the gospel is trying to make the gospel submit to you.
To live in light of Christ we must follow in his death, walk in his light, confess our faith in him, and submit to his word, the gospel.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the truth of Christ and soften our hearts to live in light of Christ.
As for opening our eyes to the truth of Christ, if you don’t believe in Jesus yet, then I beg you to believe right now.
It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to give spiritual sight to understand and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
But the truth of Scripture is also necessary as the contents of what the Holy Spirit reveals as he gives spiritual sight.
The truth of who Jesus is and what he has done is what I’ve just been talking about, so I pray that the Spirit would unblind your eyes to see the glory of Christ and believe in him.
And when you believe it should affect your whole life as the Holy Spirit softens your heart.
All of our hearts need to be softened to live in light of Christ instead of just saying that we believe and living in sin.
That means following him in death, walking in his light, confessing him before others, and submitting to his gospel.
We’ve got to rely on the Holy Spirit to do this, but we also have to know what it means so that we can do it.
We must follow Jesus in death.
This doesn’t mean that we should throw our lives away, but it means that we no longer live for ourselves.
We no longer focus our efforts on making this life more comfortable or more tolerable, but we focus on eternal life after death where we will live forever in the loving and infinitely satisfying presence of Christ.
We also focus on extending the offer of salvation to everyone regardless of the consequences.
To live in light of Christ we must follow him in death, and we must also walk in his light.
Live your life right now with Christ illuminating everything you do.
The love and forgiveness of Christ should overflow into our loving and forgiving everyone we encounter in life.
To live in light of Christ we must walk in his light just like we must follow him in death, and we must also confess him before others.
All too often people say that they believe, but they refuse to live out that belief.
We are saved by faith alone, but that faith is never alone, true faith is accompanied by a willingness to confess it before men regardless of the consequences we may face because of it.
It could mean you get passed over for a promotion, or you lose friends, or you get targeted and made fun of by your teacher or your classmates or your boss or your coworkers, or even rejected by your own family.
It could even mean imprisonment, physical pain, and death.
To live in light of Christ we must confess him before others as we walk in his light and follow him in death, and finally we must submit to his gospel.
By the authority of the Father and the Son we have been given a message.
This is the good news that we don’t have to die for our sins because Jesus died in our place, and we can look forward to eternal life with him because he defeated death by rising from the dead all according to the Scriptures.
This is a message that both saves and condemns whether it’s believed or rejected.
The authority of this message is the same as the authority of the one who bore this message, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and ultimately the one who sent him, God the Father.
This is a message that ought to change how we live because of the authoritative truth it bears, and the authority of the one this message is about.
To live in light of Christ we must submit to his gospel as we confess him before others, live in his light, and follow him in death.
Pray
Pray
Father, thank you for showing us the importance of living in light of Christ.
Thank you for showing us what that means.
Please help us to follow Christ in his death.
Help us to die to ourselves, to die to sin.
And help us to live more for eternity after our physical death than for this fleeting life.
Help us to live in the light of Christ, to live righteously for him because he has saved us from sin and death.
Father, help us to have the courage to confess our faith in Christ regardless of the negative consequences we may face because of it.
And help us to truly understand the gospel, the good news of our redemption through the death and resurrection of your Son on our behalf.
Help us to submit to the authority of that message, your authority bound up in that message, so that we will be compelled to live for Christ rather than living for ourselves.
Father, we need your help to do all of this.
We need your Spirit to work in our hearts.
We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Communion
Communion
Well, it’s time to celebrate communion together.
We never want to forget the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.
If you are visiting with us and you are a baptized believer in good standing with your home church than you are welcome to join us.
As the men pass out the elements, just hold on to them and we will eat and drink them together.
I want to draw your attention to how the passage we just looked at in John 12:20-50 relates to our celebration of communion.
Remember that true faith in Christ means living in light of Christ by following him in death, walking in his light, confessing your faith in him, and submitting to his gospel.
In celebrating communion, we are remembering his death until he comes, and remembering our own sinfulness so that we can die to it.
We remember Christ’s death as he gave his body and blood, and we follow in that death and resurrection as well.
That’s why when Jesus instituted this symbolic meal, he said in Luke 22:19 “Do this in remembrance of me.”
We also celebrate communion as the inauguration of the new covenant in Jesus’ blood as he continued to explain in Luke 22:20 saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
And living in that new covenant is walking in the light of Christ.
Jeremiah 31:33 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Ezekiel 36:25–27 “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
The new covenant is God’s law written on our hearts and the Holy Spirit living inside of us replacing our stone hearts with hearts of flesh.
Our celebration of communion is also a confession of our faith in Christ so that all who see and hear this celebration will know that we are identified with Christ in his death and resurrection, very similar to the confession of baptism.
And we’ve got to confess our faith in him or our faith is just lip-service.
1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Proclaiming his death, confessing our faith in him to each other and to the world around us.
Finally, the celebration of communion is a celebration of the gospel message and a submission to that authoritative message from God.
We don’t have to die for our sins anymore because Jesus Christ died in our place and rose again!
1 Corinthians 15:3–4 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,”
That’s what this bread and this cup represents.
Jesus’ body broken and his blood shed for you, so that now you are reconciled to God through faith in him.
And we submit to that authoritative message every time we celebrate communion together.
Pray
Pray
Father, thank you for sending your Son to die in our place and rise again so that we can live with you forever.
Thank you for the gift of his body broken and his blood shed on our behalf.
This is a gift that we can’t forget.
I pray that as we celebrate the gospel in eating this bread and drinking this juice, that we would remember to keep living for Christ, keep living in light of Christ because he’s worth it.
He is worthy of all of our lives lived for him.
Please bless us as we celebrate our new life in him and help us to continue living our lives for him.
We thank you and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
