Do You Wish to See Jesus?

Intro

What’s up y’all! I’m pumped to be here with y’all, I’ve been looking forward to this retreat since I was offered the job back in May. Before I jump in can we just make some noise and show some love to Marcela, Sarah, and Jesse for putting this retreat together!

They spent a ton of time and energy putting this thing together.

If you did not know, our theme for this week is “Encounters with Jesus.” And as that title suggests, throughout this week, we are gonna take some time to look different moments in the Gospels where people interacted with Jesus. Tonight, I just want to take some time to set up our focus for the week, and to just frame our minds and hearts for what God may have to say to us in our time here. If you have a Bible on you, join me in John 12:20-26

PRAY

Read John 12:20-26

English Standard Version Chapter 12

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. 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. 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.

Body

Now I don’t know if y’all are familiar with this passage or not, but either way I think some background info might be helpful.

At this point in this story, Jesus has just entered Jerusalem during what would be the last week of his life, and he, his disciples, and a bunch of other people are gathering in Jerusalem for a festival called the Passover. The Passover was a memorial for God sparing Israel when He was in the process of saving them from slavery in Egypt. So all of these people are gathering essentially to celebrate what God has done and worship Him.

What is interesting about this moment, is that these Greeks would have been traveling for this festival, but they were also interested in this person named Jesus. So you may be like, “why did they want to see him?” That is because, up to this point, Jesus has been doing some WILD stuff, the most recent of which was raising a man named Lazarus from the dead. And so, somehow knowing that they’d be in the same place as Jesus, they sought him out. It would be like if you heard of someone doing crazy miraculous wonders.

You might be asking at this point, “why does this matter?” Well I think that the Greeks in this passage aren’t too different from us on this retreat this week. Odds are, you are here this week because you were wanting to be a part of something exciting, or see something exciting. If you’ve been on these kinds of retreats before, you might be used to experiencing some kind of spiritual high, you feel like you get the Gospel now, and you’re ready to go back home spread the Gospel like crazy. Maybe you’re because this past year has been soul sucking and you couldn’t wait for the chance to get out of your normal surroundings and do something new and exciting. Maybe you’re here because you wanted to be anywhere but home. Maybe your parents made you come.

Whether you are totally conscious of why you came or not, you being hear tells me, and the other leaders that you are probably looking for something. And I just wanna ask you to think for yourself, why did you come here? What are you hoping for by being here?

did you come just to have a good time with your friends?

Did you come here because you want to learn more about Jesus like those Greeks? To grow in your faith?

Both?

I want to encourage you right now, if you are here mostly because you just want to have a good time, don’t let that be your end all be all. Any of the leaders here can tell you, chasing good feelings isn’t worth it in the long run. When feeling good is your ultimate goal, your work is never finished because those feelings don’t last a lifetime. It’s kind of like eating, ya know? Even after you’ve had the most delicious meal, you wake up the next day still needing food. If you’ve been on a great retreat before, you know this. You go, you have a great time, it’s awesome, and then you go back to your normal life where - sure, there are some good moments, but there are also some pretty crappy ones too. And when all you’re after in life is a good time and good vibes, what do you fall back on when things suck?

That is why part of Jesus’ response to hearing about these Greeks involves Him talking about the way to real, lasting life. It’s because He knows that we naturally want to live for ourselves and our own pleasure. Instead of really seeking Him, we are really seeking after feeling good, being amazed, having “a good time”

I would like to share a story from my life, that I hope is a helpful illustration to you.

So I graduated from college back in Spr 16, and you know, in most cases senior year whether it’s high school or college, is kinda supposed to be “your year” - ya know you’ve got your life figured out with what you wanna do, you’ve got your friends, yall wanna do all the fun senior things (skip school, do fun trips, all that). And this is kind of the attitude that I took into my senior year. I felt like I had put my time in, I did what I thought I was supposed to do, took the classes, led in Christian groups, didn’t do drugs or dirnk before I was 21 even though I had friends who were doing that. I felt like I had deserved to have a great year, and so I essentially did what I wanted to do, what I thought would make life fun.

I gradually experienced the opposite of good feelings: all of the plans that I had made for my life gradually fell apart. Friends changed, my career path changed, and I was having some type of identity crisis almost.

I felt as though, because I did everything right, I deserved to have good things come my way. My heart wasn’t set on doing what I was doing so that God might be known, but it was set on doing what I was doing so that I might be known, I wanted people look at me and see how great I thought I was. And the end result was only disappointment.

That is why Jesus can say here, whoever wants to keep his life loses it, but whoever hates his life will keep it for eternal life. Because when we recognize that our own glory doesn’t satisfy and isn’t enough to keep us going, we can be open to the reality that Jesus can give us what we are really seeking.

Later on in this same passage after Jesus is done speaking to the people around Him about what following Him involves, they all leave because they didn’t believe in HIM. Despite all the signs, all the miracles, they didn’t believe. And those are the same people who would come to see him perform all those wonders, and those good feelings weren’t enough.

So while you’re here this week. Enjoy the good times that I am sure we are gonna have together, but don’t let those be the end goal. You’re gonna be sitting home a month from now, wondering how even though you had such a good time here, why is life so hard sometimes still? Why is it that these good times leave me still wanting more? It is because they these good times were never big enough to handle all our hopes and desires. But there is someone who is big enough to handle them....Don’t waste your life seeking out good vibes.

So i’ll close with this question: Do you wish to see Jesus? or do you just wish to have a good time?