Grain of Wheat
Notes
Transcript
Does anyone else remember the shamwow commercial?
Well if you do this was a commercial that was running when I was a child and apparently as a child I told my parents the the shamwow towl was somthing I needed.
And can you blame elementry school me?
I mean did you see what this commercial said?
You can wash your car with it.
You can wash a boat
you spill something on the carpet guess what? the shamwow can obsord 50% of the liquid without even applying pressure.
I mean did you hear the people who were talking in the video?
They were so impressed they litterly said shamwow!
And not only that but the spokesman said how the shamwow has the ability to actually replace paper towels completely.
So instead of buying papertowls you can just have your shamwow
and you get 8 of them for 20 dollars!!!!
I mean do you see how I would have been excited?
Because when you have a shamwow you are almost promised that your life will be forever changed.
And so as a kid apparently I nagged my parents enough where they bought me a shamwow.
And so I waited and waited and the day came where we finally got our shamwows.
And I was young so its a little bit of a blur, but I am pretty sure I remember thinking somthing along the lines of this is the day my life is changed.
And like I said its a little bit of a blur, but I am pretty sure that shamwow got used once before it sat in the garage indefinitely.
It turns out that it did not change my life but was a let down.
Have you ever had somthing like that where you thought this is the thing that will change my life, but then it ends up disappointing?
Probably not a shamwow, but maybe you said this promotion will change my life, maybe you said this car will change my life, If I won the lottery it would change my life.
And these thing would definitly change your life, maybe even positvely, but can I be honest because there are a lot of things that promise hope, they promise joy, happieness, fullness.
But I would say almost all of them leave us with a void or gap between the thing they promised and what they delivered.
And so today what we are going to be doing is we are going to be in John 12:20-26 and in this passage there is this group of people who have looked everywhere for hope, but now they find true hope in Jesus.
And this hope will not leave them disappointed
So once again we are in John 12:20-26 and we will be starting in verses 10-23.
It says this:
20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
So around this time Jesus really has begun to make a name for Himself where people outside of the Jews have begun to seek Him.
And so in this passage it says that there was this group of Greeks
And before we go any further one thing we need to understand is that the Greeks at this time where known to be very philosophical
And so it was very common for them to travel around and check out all sorts of religions, ideologies and philosophes so they could understand them better.
And I want to be clear because some people think they were Greeks who were Jewish converts, but regardless they would have still been exposed to all these religions.
And so what happens is these Greeks go up to Phillip (which Phillip was a greek name) and they go up to Him and say somthing very simple.
They say “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”
And I love this verse because these people are coming from this background where they have seen all these different religions and Ideallogies and since they are still searching it means that they have been left disappointed.
But now they come saying we have tried other things and now we want to see Jesus.
You know we live in a world where we try almost anything that can make us happy, where we can find Joy and completion.
We have 5 recreational marijuana stores in town, but I can guarantee it can’t fix that void
We can find the perfect spouse but it can’t fix the void
We could have an amazing house and look like we have a perfect life but the void will still be there.
And people think people do not care about the church or Jesus anymore, but disagree because we live in a world where people are saying what these Greeks are saying which is “We want to see true hope,” “We want to see Jesus.”
And something that is so cool is this group of Greeks they actually do not go straight to Jesus but they go to the Disciples which are actually the earliest version of the church.
And I forget if I have said this or not but there is a quote by a Pastor named Bill Hybels that I believe is true and what He says is “The Hope of the world is found in the local church”
Because Jesus uses us to share the Hope He has given us to our neighbors and world.
And I hope I am not going to long on this section but I really want to flush it out because something else that is so neat is this verse “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” is engraved on a ton of pulpits that Pastors preach on.
And it is meant to remind the person preaching that while they are preaching they are representing and speaking the words of God.
And that is something to take very seriously.
But what I want you to get is each of us has our own pulpit, maybe it is not one we preach on, but each of us has the ability to represent Christ to the people around us.
People who are coming to you saying we have tried everything but it has left a gap.
And now you have the ability to show them hope and to show them Christ.
In fact I just want to challege you write down “Sir, We want to see Jesus nd place it somewhere you see everyday.
So Everyday when you start your morning you will say how am I going to show Jesus today.
Will you look at the next couple verses with me? Verses 24-25 because these verses say this:
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.
So the passage shifts a little bit because Jesus goes into teaching mode.
And what Jesus says is His life is like a grain of wheat.
because when the seed is buried it sprouts out of the ground and brings new life and not only that but the plant that grows reproduces
And so what Jesus does here is He tells the people listening that His life is going to be life this.
Because He will die, but then will raise from the grave which will bring new life to others.
And whats neat about plants is that when they grow they reproduce naturally because they have seeds that fall off of them.
And so what is so neat is now each of us has been given a seed and oppritunity to grow.
In fact when you came into the church you were litterly given a seed or a grain.
I want you to take that out and look at it for a second.
Because if you look at the grain in your hand a lot of us would look at it and say you know there is not really anything that special about this grain, right?
and if you kept it in your hand you would be correct, it would stay a grain.
But if you buried it in the ground and you nurtured it what would happen is a plant would grow.
And thats whats happens in our walk with God, when we say I am going to burry my old way of living and resurrect with Christ we begin to sprout out of the ground.
And then as we begin to nurture our walk with Christ we grow.
And this is the coolest part, because if we are growing and our healthy a plant doesn’t just die and thats it, but it reproduces.
Meaning we are naturally bringing others to Christ and helping them grow in there walk with God.
And whats so neat is that eventually if you use the seeds that each stalk of wheat produces it can eventually create a field.
I mean Arika and I lived in Illinois before this and it almost seems like there are endless wheat fields (INSERT PIC OF FIELD)
They just go on forever.
but I love this image, because when we are growing in our walk with God we have the ability to go from a single stalk into a field,
Where the lives we impact through God are many.
Look at this last verse (Verse 26) because Jesus finishes the passage we are by saying what all this means. He says:
26 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 Jesus says if we die and rise in Christ then it means we follow Him.
I am assuming everyone in here has played the game follow the leader before right?
How do you play the game?
There is a leader and everyone follows the leader right?
So everywhere the leader goes that means you follow them.
And really this is what Jesus is saying when you die to yourself, and come alive in me I am calling you to follow me and when we follow Christ that is where we see the reproduction and harvest.
But this is a lot harder then a game of follow the leader isn’t it?
Because there are times where we are following Jesus and it looks like we can’t follow Him
He is calling us out on the water and we are saying Jesus thats impossible
Or there are other times where He is calling us somewhere and it looks like He is calling us off a cliff and we are saying “Jesus what are you doing?!”
But Here is the deal because we are not told we follow Jesus and He guns it out of there leaving us drowning in the water or falling off a cliff.
But this passage says “Where I am my servants are”, which implies where my servants are I am.
When God calls you some where you might ask how is this possible God, but God is saying I will make a way and I will not abandon you.
In fact I know some of us might be in this tension this morning where God has called us somewhere and we are wrestling with Him or maybe we are in the middle of that call and we are saying “God what are you doing?”
But I want to end with a story this morning.
Look at this picture on the screen. This is Elizabeth Elliot
And Elizabeth was married to a man named Jim.
And Elizabeth and Jim were both missionaries who felt called to deliver the gospel of Jesus Christ to indigenous tribes.
And on one of these visits Jim was with a few other men when they arrived to this villige, but unfortunately while the men tried to deliver the gospel to these people the people murdered them.
But the amazing thing is the story did not end there, because a couple years later Elizabeth felt called to share the gospel with the same tribe that killed her husband.
and you can imagine the hurt that she could have felt towrds these people
You can imagine how scared she would be to be killed for doing exactly what her husband did
But whats amazing is because she was faithful to God 2 years after she arrived and lived with this tribe the entire tribe accepted Christ.
And they actually ended up changing the tribes name because there lives were so tranfromed when Christ entered them.
You know this morning as we close I just want you to look at the seed in your hand.
And I want you to ask yourself what am I going to do with my seed God has given me.
Because I can keep it in my hand or I can plant it and see God move in immeasurable ways.
And as we close this Sunday you will notice that there is a pot of dirt up front.
What would happen if this morning you moved from holding the seed to planting it?
Because I believe God wants us to leave this sanctuary not holding the sedd in our hand but planting it in the ground where we can say use it God.
As we close during this last song I would invite you to come foward and place the seed in the pot as a way of saying “God I am giving you my seed, burry what I desire, resurect and grow what you desire and allow me to reproduce it in others.
Will you pray with me
Song: Oceans
