Follow Me
Download MP3If you would open your Bibles to John chapter 12. It's also there in your worship guide. We'll begin reading in verse 20. 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.
Joel Brooks: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.
Joel Brooks: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.
Joel Brooks:Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.
Joel Brooks: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 he thundered. Others said, an angel had spoken to him. Jesus answered, this voice had come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world.
Joel Brooks:Now will the ruler of this world be cast out, And 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?
Joel Brooks:So Jesus said to them, the light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have this 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. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, we ask that you would glorify the name of Jesus and that you would glorify it again and again and again. Spirit, you're welcome in this place to open up our hearts and to do Your work. Where there needs to be conviction, convict us. Where there needs to be healing, heal us, but have Your way in us. And most of all, Spirit, may you lift up the name of Jesus, and may He draw all people to Himself.
Joel Brooks:I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I'm gonna start by making a statement, and then we're gonna spend the rest of our time together just unpacking this one statement.
Joel Brooks:Here's the statement. What Jesus demands of you and what Jesus has to offer you is far greater than whatever you are thinking. So what Jesus demands of you and what Jesus has to offer you is far greater than whatever you are thinking, and I don't care who you are or whatever you are thinking. The cost of following Jesus is much higher, and the rewards are exceedingly more than any of us can imagine. Both the cost and the reward to following Jesus are simply staggering.
Joel Brooks:So we're going to unpack this. Last week, we saw how Jesus, as He was coming to Jerusalem, people lined the streets. They're crying out, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. And they're essentially crying out, save us, save us now.
Joel Brooks:And as all Jerusalem is lining these streets, shouting these things, the Pharisees, they gather to one another in verse 19, and they said, look, the entire world, not just the Jews, but the entire world has now gone after Him. Some of the Greeks were actually coming to Jesus now. And the text we just read, we see a couple that are wanting to come and actually meet with Jesus. And Jesus responds to their request to meet with Him by saying, the hour has come. Now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Joel Brooks:And if you've been reading throughout John, this theme of the hour keeps coming up, but the hour never quite arrives. And so you have places like in John chapter 2 at the wedding of Cana, in which Jesus' mother says, Jesus, we're out of wine. And he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Or later you could get to John 7, and the authorities are trying to arrest Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And it says that they could not lay a hand on him. Why? Because his hour has not come. And over and over again, you get this this idea, this theme that there's this climactic moment that is approaching according to God's timetable. This hour is coming in which something big is going to happen, in which Jesus is going to be glorified.
Joel Brooks:And after waiting and waiting and waiting, Jesus finally says, it's here. It's here. The hour has come. And you would expect as you're going through this gospel, and after waiting and waiting and waiting for Jesus to finally feel relief that the hour is here, or maybe a sense of exhilaration, or to be pleased that it's here, or maybe proud or ready that it is here. But Jesus is none of these things.
Joel Brooks:1st 27, now is my soul troubled. This long awaited moment finally comes when Jesus is gonna be glorified, and Jesus is depressed. He's anxious. Emotionally, He's in turmoil. And this isn't just like He's got butterflies before a big moment.
Joel Brooks:No, this is dread. And then Jesus says these words, in verse 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. So it's time for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Joel Brooks:It's time for the Son of Man to die. Jesus is glorified through His death. That's His turmoil. And He's saying that just as a seed needs to be planted in the ground in order to grow up and become a mighty tree that bears fruit, He's saying, I have to be planted in the ground. I have to be buried in order for me to bring life, in order for me to bring fruit.
Joel Brooks:Now, the fruit that Jesus is talking about here is the salvation of of all different types of people, the the Gentiles, the Greeks, and also the Jews. The section begins with Philip bringing people to Jesus, to meet with him is, that's right. The time has come for this. The time has arrived. And then it'll say in verse 32, and when the son of man is lifted up or when the son of man is crucified, I will draw all people to myself.
Joel Brooks:I will draw Jews to myself. I will draw the Gentiles to myself. I will draw people from Asia, people from Africa, people from Europe, people from the Middle East, people from Latin America. I will draw all of the world to myself when I am lifted up. And this is what every Christian believes.
Joel Brooks:If you're new to Christianity, or you don't really know much about it, this is what every Christian believes. This is what we call the gospel, that Jesus Christ, He died and was buried and He rose again, that we might have life. But I wanna be clear about this. This isn't just the message or the gospel in which we are saved by as Christians. This is the gospel that we are called to live by.
Joel Brooks:Jesus is not only saying here that that my death is for your salvation. He is saying that my death is for your imitation. Did you get that? It's not just for our salvation, but it is for your imitation. Unless we all in this room, in some way, in some sense, die, we are gonna remain alone.
Joel Brooks:1st 25, 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. Now, when we hear Jesus talking about follow me, we've kind of got to throw away what our culture, what we think of when we hear the word follow. He's not asking you to follow Him on Twitter.
Joel Brooks:He's not asking you to follow Him like one would follow politics or follow your favorite sports team. I recognize you could be pretty passionate about politics. You'd be pretty passionate about your sports team. Half of Facebook would go away if you were not passionate about these things. And in some ways, you know, politics, sports, you know, these things can can define us.
Joel Brooks:But what Jesus here is talking about something far more demanding when He says, you need to follow me. He's not talking about switching political parties here. Jesus is not asking you to become a better person. He's not saying, I am asking you to study up on my teaching. He's not inviting you to a class where you could get out your notebook and you can journal, listen to his podcast.
Joel Brooks:Following Jesus is going to cost you. Let me ask you this. Where exactly is Jesus going right now when He asks these people to follow Him? Where's He heading? I mean, right now in this text, where is Jesus going?
Joel Brooks:He's going to the cross. His call for us to follow him is a call for us to go with Him and to die. The other gospels recorded this way. It says, Jesus says, if any man wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.
Joel Brooks:Whoever who loses his life for my sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what is a man willing to give in exchange for his soul? To follow Jesus means we take up our cross. It's a call to death.
Joel Brooks:Probably most of you are familiar with the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred in Germany during World War 2, And he wrote a book called The Cost of Discipleship that's that's really famous. But he actually didn't call it the cost of discipleship. That's his English title. The German title, the one he gave it, is to follow after. To follow after.
Joel Brooks:Because the whole book is about following Jesus. And in this book, Bonhoeffer wrote these famous words. He says, when Jesus Christ calls us, He bids us to come and to die. The gospel is not just the message we are saved by. It's the message that we are to live out.
Joel Brooks:Jesus didn't just die for your salvation. He died for your imitation. If you do not die, you will remain alone. If you do not die, you will not bear fruit. If if your version of Christianity fits really, really well with kind of, you know, this American suburban, you know, lifestyle that we're all sold, if it fits really well with that, you perhaps don't get Jesus' call to follow him.
Joel Brooks:There is a sacrifice. Our death is necessary, absolutely necessary, if we are to bear fruit. When I was thinking through how I could apply this text, 1 Corinthians 13 kept jumping to my mind, because we know 1 Corinthians 13 is all about dying. That's what it's about. It's about death.
Joel Brooks:That's why it's read at every wedding. It's the love chapter, the love chapter. We read these words in 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.
Joel Brooks:It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
Joel Brooks:That is actually all about dying. Let me walk through that. Love is patient. In other words, you must die to your desire to have things immediately. You must die to your desire to have things your way right away.
Joel Brooks:And that's hard for us, because nobody likes sitting in traffic. Nobody likes standing in line. Nobody likes having to wait an extra 5 seconds for something to download. This doesn't come naturally to us, but we have to die to our desire to want things our way right away. Love is kind.
Joel Brooks:This means you must die to your desire to think you have the right to speak so freely in front of others, no matter how rude or cruel it is. You must die to this. You must die to your desire to to come home from a a hard work day and just wanna shut down and be terse and unresponsive to the needs of others. Love does not envy. You must die to your desire to want what other people have.
Joel Brooks:Die to your desire of wanting someone else's job, of wanting somebody else's marriage, of wanting somebody else's beautiful body who can eat all they want and never gain a pound, or look 10 years younger than they really are. You've gotta die to that desire to want that. Love does not boast. This means you must die to your desire to want to be noticed, to to have all of the hard work that you've done be recognized. Whether it's hard work slaving in the kitchen, or whether it's hard work in the office, in which you just want somebody to acknowledge what you've done.
Joel Brooks:We boast in so many subtle ways, and one of the things I do is, and maybe you do this as well, but have you ever found how you, whenever you're talking with somebody, you can, you like to casually steer the conversation to where it finally winds back up to you? If finally, you could bring it back to yourself, which is what you wanted to talk about all along. You need to die to that, die to your desire to take credit for every good thing that has happened to you. Love is not arrogant or rude. You must die to thinking that you are superior to others and that you could think of them as insignificant.
Joel Brooks:Love does not insist on its own way. You've gotta die to this notion that your way is always the best way. And So hypothetically speaking, if your spouse loads the dishwasher and you're looking at it and it drives you crazy because you could think 20 I could think of 27% more dishes. I could get in there. And you know your way is a right way.
Joel Brooks:You need to die and not express that. Or die when you know the best way to cook a burger. And that person needs to know that, because my way is the best way. Die to your desire of having to have your house always look a certain way, my way. You need to die to having your schedule uninterrupted, but welcoming an interruption when it breaks up the day you have planned so carefully.
Joel Brooks:Love is not irritable or resentful. You must die to your desire for revenge, which comes in so many forms. We don't label it revenge because, you know, then we'd be called out. We just do things like give the cold shoulder to somebody, Perhaps not invite them to a party. We must die to our desire to be the judge and make people somehow pay for their sins, even if it's in subtle ways.
Joel Brooks:Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This is saying that you must die to your desire to just run away when things get hard. So you can see just when you read through 1 Corinthians 13, yes, it's about love, but it's actually really about dying. And that we have to die to ourself in order to love. If you want to bear the fruit of love, you're gonna have to die.
Joel Brooks:Or as Jesus says it, if you don't die, you're going to remain alone. You're gonna be alone. Do you know how many married couples that I have in my office and the reason that they are there is because they refuse to die to their own selfish desires? They refuse to give an inch. I mean, our our culture is so is so narcissistic.
Joel Brooks:I mean, every culture is, but you could just so see it today with with every every selfie we have to take, every Instagram we have to do, every tweet we have to put out. We we are literally hugging ourselves to death. I mean, I know you are not having half as a good of time as you were projecting on Facebook. I know that, but we're in love with the projection. This is death to us.
Joel Brooks:Have have you ever noticed when you're taking a group picture with friends, so they take the group picture now, you know, you can instantly look at it. What makes for a good picture or not? Is it the beautiful scenery? Is it how your friends are glowing? It's you.
Joel Brooks:You look at it, and that, if you look good, it's a good picture. You look bad, this is a terrible picture. You know, it wasn't the right side of my face. You know, it was, you know, my I had that awkward smile. You know, it doesn't matter if the person next to you has, like, broccoli all in their teeth.
Joel Brooks:If you look good, you're like, this is the picture I want. We're we're wired this way. Jesus is saying, you've gotta die. You have to die if you want to bear fruit. You have to die if you don't want to remain alone.
Joel Brooks:Paul puts it this way in a familiar text. Galatians 522. We know this verse. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. If you're in VBS, you would sing it.
Joel Brooks:I'm not going to, but you know that. But we stop it there and we don't actually connect the verse that's right after this that enables that, which is this. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires.
Joel Brooks:Crucifixion is necessary in order for the Christian to bear fruit. We have to die. Whoever loves his life, loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world, will keep it for eternal life. Man, I I have I've just been chewing and chewing on that statement all week.
Joel Brooks:What does Jesus mean here? Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever loves it. I mean, aren't Christians supposed to love life?
Joel Brooks:Aren't we supposed to love life? I mean, I've seen the Christians who don't love life, know, always complaining the music's too loud. You know, those people are dancing. You know, whatever it is. You know, they're they're they're grouches.
Joel Brooks:I don't wanna be like them. I love my life. I love where I live. I love my my wife. I love my family.
Joel Brooks:I love playing with my kids, and tickling them at night, and tucking them in bed. I love good food. I love good drink. I love these things. And so I read this, I'm thinking, is this wrong?
Joel Brooks:Is that what Jesus is calling me to do, to be miserable? I mean, tonight, after the service, I was planning on afterwards probably going and having a bite to eat and drink and maybe a good conversation with some friends, perhaps some laughter. Is that wrong? Am I supposed to eat my meal in the corner in silence, just judging people? Like, what what am I supposed to do here?
Joel Brooks:What does He mean when He says, hate your life in this world? Let me give you a starting point. The starting point is this. You need to come to the understanding that even if you were given every good thing that this life has to offer, you were given it all. It would not satisfy you.
Joel Brooks:That's the starting point. Right now, I want you to think of the best life you could possibly have. Should write a book. In this life, I want you to think big, not just you should get a job promotion, think you own the company. All right?
Joel Brooks:Not that you should just have a really good meal, but you own all the restaurants. You could get the best meal for every meal. I want you to think big. You don't just have a good house, but you have the dream house in every country you want to go to. And in every house that you have, you have a closet full of the trendiest clothes, the best shoes.
Joel Brooks:You've got absolutely everything. You've got the jet to take you there. But more than just material things, you actually have all these intangibles. You have people's respect. You have the adoration of everybody around you.
Joel Brooks:You have affection from those who are close to you. You've got health. You feel good. You look good. You literally have it all.
Joel Brooks:So the question is this, as as you were eating your lobster and Bono is serenading you in person. You're Instagramming the heck out of that thing. And and and you're doing all of that. Is it enough? Is it enough, or does it feel hollow?
Joel Brooks:What Jesus is doing here, He's coming to you in the midst of the best party you have ever thrown. This is the best party ever. Like, follow me. I'll show you where it's really at. I'll show you where life really happens.
Joel Brooks:To hate your life in this world means that you can look at everything good the world has to offer, and you will gladly give it all away in order to be with Jesus. To hate your life in this world means you see Christ as having supreme value over the best that this world has to offer. So are you allowed to go out, have a good time, enjoy a good meal? Somebody's giving my wife and I a gift card to Highlands. We're going to go there on our anniversary, and am I allowed to enjoy that?
Joel Brooks:Better bet I am. I'm gonna enjoy the stink out of that. No. We we we certainly we certainly can enjoy these things, and the reason is we're not like the rest of the world, which has a ceiling to the amount that they can enjoy. Christians have no ceiling to our enjoyment.
Joel Brooks:Alright? Because we recognize that everything we have is a gift from our Father, and that nothing is an end in itself. Amen. So we can enjoy it because we don't need it. If you were to go outside, you know, some spring, and you were to pick yourself a beautiful rose, I mean, it's this gorgeous rose, and it looks beautiful.
Joel Brooks:It smells beautiful. You will really enjoy that. But that enjoyment, there's a ceiling to it. It can't it can't go any higher. But if somebody else, somebody who knew you and loved you picked that rose and gave it to you, You would also see it.
Joel Brooks:It'd be beautiful. You would smell it, and you would enjoy it, but now your appreciation of it has no limit. You blow through the ceiling. You you you it goes through the roof. What you think about this, your ability to enjoy what's before you is so much more because of the person who loves you and who gave it to you.
Joel Brooks:And then if that person said, I want you to throw that aside and follow me, you gladly would. Do you see what's happening here? You both enjoyed it far more than anybody, yet you could just as easily discard it. You don't need it. Because it's really not about the rose, it's about the person who gave you that.
Joel Brooks:That's what Christ is talking about here. When he says that we are to hate our life in this world, he's saying our life and all all that this world has to offer, we can now freely enjoy. There is no ceiling to our enjoyment. We can enjoy it far more than anybody else. But you know what?
Joel Brooks:We don't have to have it. And we could gladly and easily throw those things aside if it means being with Jesus. We can, in a sense, die to those things. There's times that Christ is gonna ask us to sacrifice many things in order to be with Him. This is the cost of following Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It is death to ourselves. Our life is no longer our own, but it belongs wholly to Jesus. The reward. Let's look at the reward. The reward is Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 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. This is your reward, is that when you follow Jesus where He is, you get to be there with Him. Your reward is to be with Jesus and to be honored by the father and to be treated like a son.
Joel Brooks:This is for free if you'll have y'all have 2, 3 more minutes so you can hang with me. Alright. I don't care if you do or not. I'm going. Alright?
Joel Brooks:The glory that we receive in heaven is the glory from being with Jesus. The glory that we receive in heaven is the glory that we be in we receive in being with Jesus. This this whole text is about is about glory. It actually really paints a great picture of what heaven is and what hell is. Heaven is being with Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Hell is remaining alone. Utter forsakenness. Really helps if you understand the word glory. In Hebrew, it's kabod. It it means heavy or weighty.
Joel Brooks:Like if something's really heavy, that means it's it's substantial. You can't ignore it. That's it's immovable. It's real. It's solid.
Joel Brooks:A person who has glory, when they walk in the room, everybody notices them. The opposite of glory is when you are not noticed, when you're transparent, when you're light, when you are ignored, when you're no longer remembered, when you are forsaken. The glory that we have in heaven is that we will not be ignored. We will not be cast off alone and forsaken, but we will stand in the presence of our savior, and he will recognize us, and he will honor us. We will have substance before him.
Joel Brooks:In order for this to happen, you have to die. You have to die to your selfishness. You have to die to these things. You have to follow Jesus. If you don't die, all that's happening is is your soul is curving in on itself.
Joel Brooks:You can no longer even think outside of yourself, you're just thinking of your selfish needs, your selfish desires, and all of this, and then you gain the whole world. But what do you do? You forfeit your soul. You become alone, forgotten, forsaken, transparent, blown away. But the glory of heaven is that we get to be with Jesus, and we are recognized.
Joel Brooks:There is a reward. Pray with me. Lord, words fail. I fail when we try to think of what awaits to be before you and to be known for you to smile upon us. Well, that puts everything in perspective.
Joel Brooks:It makes the whole world and the pursuit of it seem like, as Paul would say, dung compared to knowing you, Jesus. I pray that through your spirit, you would make that a reality in our hearts in a way that I can't do it, no words can do it, but, lord Jesus, through your spirit, you could press that in us. And we pray this in your name. Amen.
