Single Seeds
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. 23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. 27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. 30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. [1] (Jn. 12:20-31)
I’d like to begin our service this morning with a personal recital of my ills. They are not nearly as significant as many but even a little pain is pain and I am in third week of an itch. It began with an ear infection and a trip to the after hours clinic in New Maryland. I met four of our folks there that night and felt better because of that. The doctor asked me if I was allergic to any medication and I quickly and pridefully answered “No”. A person should never do that. God hears every word that we say and they are amplified by pride and other wrong attitudes.
So I was given a prescription for amoxicillin three times daily until the bottle was empty. I took them for a week and started to itch. That was 16 days ago and I’m still scratching.
At Beulah Camp I fried fish in the canteen each evening and the hot fryers lit me up – they amplified my discomfort but not while I was busy. As a matter of fact as long as I was out and about and doing something I was not bothered by my reaction. When I stopped and had time to think about my plight then things got really uncomfortable.
I think that the same principle is true in life. I am most happy when I am least conscious of myself. When I am busy and engaged in kingdom work, I am at peace. I find strength and vision and courage to continue. It’s the times of inactivity when I have too much time for me. When “me” becomes the focus then I begin to lose ground and sink to times of despair and discouragement. The more self-conscious I am the more miserable I am.
The more conscious of yourself you are the less conscious of God you will be. The more I think of me, the less I think of God and the more I think of God the less I think of Me. I find that the more God-conscious I am the less vulnerable I am to hurts and slights. I recover more quickly from criticism. My temper is more controlled and I find it easier to put things in perspective when God is in the foreground of my thinking.
The scripture says:
3Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee. 4Trust ye in Jehovah for ever; for in Jehovah, even Jehovah, is an everlasting rock. [2]
As I read the scripture that we consider today I was struck with the seeming ease with which Christ accepted the difficult task that was his. Surely the days of acclaim were more appealing. How could a person walk away from such an impacting ministry? To hold the healing power of God in your hands and to be able to transform people’s lives physically, spiritually. This would be hard to release. And to accept such a horrific fate? The challenge for us today is one that is a struggle for all and yet a place that every Christian must come to if they are to find spiritual victory and the joy of a relationship with Christ. It is to die to one’s self. It is the joy of a life fully surrendered. It is to think more of God than you do of yourself.
Let me ask you today if your life is Christ centered or self-centered. Do you think more of Him or less of Him.
There are people who want to know God deeply but are Satanically and seductively blocked from that experience because they fill their own consciousness. They are consumed with their own opinions, their own likes and dislikes, their tastes, their preferences. There is no room for personal awareness of God and intimacy with him because self-awareness creates a “NO Vacancy” sign for God. It’s like the old Mac Davis song.
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
Cuz I get better lookin each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a h____ of a man
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin the best that I can
We live in a world where we are told that we will be most happy when we look after ourselves first. This is the path to spiritual madness and personal destruction. The child of God who caters to himself/herself first will soon be spoiled for eternity.
A self-centered focus brings:
ü Frustration
ü Lack of fulfillment
ü Conflict with others
ü Disappointment
ü Disillusionment
ü Cynicism
ü Bitterness
ü Spiritual Barrenness
ü Estrangement from God
ü Spiritual Shipwreck
You are most vulnerable to this when you are inactive. When you have too much time for yourself to sit and sulk and think.
In my conversations with younger brothers and sisters, one question comes up again and again. It is: How can I know that I am walking in the Spirit? How do I distinguish which prompting within me is from the Holy Spirit and which is from myself? It seems that all are alike in this; but some have gone further. They are trying to look within, to discriminate, to differentiate, to analyze and in so doing are bringing themselves into deeper bondage. Now this is a situation which is really dangerous to the Christian life for inward knowledge will never be reached along the barren path of self-analysis.
We are never told in the Word of God to examine our inward condition. That way leads only to uncertainty, vacillation and despair. Of course we have to have self-knowledge. We have to know what's going on within. We do not want to live in a fool’s paradise; to have gone altogether wrong and yet not know we have gone wrong; to have a Spartan will and yet think we are pursuing the will of God. But such self-knowledge does not come by our turning within; by analyzing our feelings and motives and everything that's going on inside and then trying to pronounce whether we are walking in the flesh or in the spirit. . . . No turning within, no introspective self examination will ever bring us to that clear place. No it is when there is light coming from God that we see. I think it is so simple. If we want to satisfy ourselves that our face is clean, what do we do? Do we feel it carefully all over with our hands? No of course not. We find a mirror and bring it to the light. In that light everything becomes clear. No sight ever came by feeling or analyzing. Sight only comes by the light of God coming in; and when once it has come there is no longer any need to ask if a thing is right or wrong. We know.
You remember again how in Psalm 139:23 the writer says, "Search me O God and know my heart." You realize do you not what it means to say "Search me"? It certainly does not mean that I search myself. "Search me" means "You search me!" That is the way of illumination. It is for God to come in and search, it is not for me to search. Of course that will never mean that I may go blindly on careless of my true condition. That is not the point. The point is that however much my self-examination may reveal in me that needs putting right, such searching never really gets below the surface. My true knowledge of myself comes not from my searching myself but from God searching me. (The Normal Christian Life, Watchman Nee p. 236-238)
A God-centered focus brings:
1. An ability to move more freely with time and change.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
Everything in this world has a shelf life. Every good thing and every bad thing. It’s a pleasure to leave the bad behind but difficult to leave what is good. Jesus knew that it was time to “let go”. It’s difficult to walk away from things that are going well. He had done much good while on the earth. He had touched and healed multitudes of people whose lives would be forever different. Now was the time to give up the good. As a church grows it must leave the good times behind. It is a detriment to look back and lament the changing of things. We believe that God leads us to new places and new blessings and new experiences and the good times of the past can inhibit us from experiencing the present blessing of God. It happens in individual lives. We fall in love with the things that we create and we can’t walk away from them. Yesterdays blessings are not designed to meet today’s challenges. Yesterdays blessings can become today’s curse. Jesus was preparing to leave all the good and to embrace what looked like disaster.
2. A greater degree of fruitfulness to your life.
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
I have never known a self-centered Christian whose life is productive and fruitful for the kingdom of God. God brought defeat to the Israelites when they engaged in battle without His clear direction. When they were confident in their own abilities he showed them their weakness rather than His blessing. I think He does the same to us today because He loves us as His dear children. He will allow us to gain a certain amount of ground on our own but He takes us to the end of our ropes to learn the lesson once again. We are nothing apart from His blessing. There may be times in our own church life when we run ahead of him. Our intentions may be good but He will allow us in love to fall on our faces until we remember and return and seek Him. He is the church builder. We may be the healing church but He is the Healer. We are not.
3. A desire to quit “saving” and start “spending” our lives.
25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
The more control that you exercise over your own life, the less control God exercises. The more cautious a person becomes in a contact sport the greater the likelihood of injury. We hold back because we fear that we will get hurt. Our caution makes us forget about what we are participating in and we often get hurt.
There was a very cautious man
Who never laughed or played
He never risked, he never tried
He never sang or prayed
And when he one day passed away
His insurance was denied
For since he never really lived
They claimed he never died.
Some Christians are so afraid of failure that they become reserved, overly cautious, and uninvolved in life. They follow a policy of guarded living, holding back time, talents, and treasure from God's service. Their motto is: To keep from failing -- don't try! On the other hand, those who are willing to make mistakes and risk failure are the ones who ultimately achieve great things. Instead of being filled with fear, they go forward in faith. Problems are challenges. While they may not all be solved, these courageous people would rather live with that reality than have a clean record of no failures and no accomplishments. Benjamin Franklin said one time, "The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all -- doing nothing."
When you hold back you are in greatest peril.
4. An ability to recognize the movement of the Spirit of God and to follow it.
26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
God moves in different ways at different times and seasons. If we want to experience His fullness as a church, and as individuals we must be sensitive to this, and be watching. He is blessing churches these days who demonstrate a clear commitment to prayer. He is raising a generation of worshippers who are willing to express themselves to Him. It is a time when He is leading us to the most basic elements of the faith. If we are to follow, we must move.
5. The strength to not “shrink back” from the difficulties that “followership” brings us to. There are times when there are no easier alternatives.
27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No. . . “
There is a spiritual juncture that people come to. It calls for every amassed resource to take them forward in obedience. These are points of no return.
I believe that a challenge for the church today will be to articulate and demonstrate a commitment to the truth of God’s Word that will clearly offend people who are not prepared to live by it. But we need as well to clearly articulate and demonstrate the love of God and an acceptance of people regardless of their sin. This will bring criticism to us but our lives and our love will be the manner in which we refute those criticisms and validate the Word incarnate within us.
When we preach a hard message we had better preach it with a broken heart. Otherwise it is a detriment to the message and the openness that people will have as they hear it. Some will walk away. That is not a consequence which we can control. It is a God-given right to reject.
6. An ability to reflexively see the hand of providence in our lives.
“. . . it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”[3]
It is a wonderful thing to know that God is at work in everything that comes my way. We can bow our heads without having our spirits broken. It’s really impossible to readily obey God unless we know that He is in charge. He can bring discipline to our lives and will as a sign of His love.
Hebrews 12:4-9 (NIV)
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”a 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! [4]
He can bring blessing to our lives as a sign of His goodness. He doesn’t bless us because we are good but because He is good.
7. An awareness of the greater victories in this life. This makes temporary setbacks and losses easier to bear.
31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”
I just want you to know that I plan to live in victory here on planet earth. While I respect the fact that the Devil is a formidable foe, I also know that He is defeated. The only power that he has in the life of the believer is his ability to deceive and intimidate. If I give him ground and back up, he will occupy it. If I stand in the power of Christ he will flee.
I don’t care what I see around me. I don’t care about the degradation and sinfulness that I see. I still believe that the cross was the conquerors stake declaring that this ground belongs to God.
I plan to live in that victory. I plan to hold my head high. I plan to speak plainly of my relationship with Him.
Dying To Self
When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ, that is dying to self.
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take in all in patient, loving silence, that is dying to self.
When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance; when you stand face-to-face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility - and endure it as Jesus endured, that is dying to self.
When you are content with any food, any offering, any climate, any society, any raiment, any interruption by the will of God, that is dying to self.
When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown, that is dying to self.
When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances, that is dying to self.
When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart, that is dying to self.
"Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25).
I hope that this church never gets a preacher who allows them to sit untouched in their comfort zone. The comfort of what is familiar and tried and tested. The comfort of past success and achievements.
And I hope that I never become so spiritually stale that there are no new ideas and challenges that the sweet Spirit of God breathes into my imagination.
I hope that I never see myself so dignified that I would hesitate to humble myself before Him.
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[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
[2]American Standard Version. 1995 . Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
a Prov. 3:11,12
[4] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Zondervan: Grand Rapids
