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Dying to Live
Ron Dunn
John 12
 
        Open your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 12.
In these five sessions I have with you this week, I am going to be talking about Jesus before and after the cross.
The gathering storm of victory as Jesus approached the cross, and was on the cross, and then after the cross.
The turning point in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ comes within the passage we are reading this morning.
John 12:20-26
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.
They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, Sir, we would see Jesus.
Philip went and told Andrew.
Then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it abides alone.
It remains just a single grain.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Those who love their life lose it.
Those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me—and where I am, there will my servant be also.
Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
Sigmund Freud, who was the father of modern psychiatry and not a Christian, had a favorite story.
It was of a sailor who had been shipwrecked and washed upon a tropical island.
The natives of that island took him and made him king, absolute ruler for a year.
After that year, he was to be banished to a deserted island.
They explained to him that he had two choices.
With the first choice, everything he wanted during that year of his kingship would be given to him.
He could immediately take that which was given to him and use it, consume it, enjoy it for the present, and then be banished to a deserted island without any resources.
Or, he had a second choice:  he could take all that he received during that year of kingship and conserve it, lay it aside so that when he was banished to that deserted island, he would have resources enough to live.
Two alternatives, two choices.
The fact of the matter is that you and I have two choices in life—and only two.
There is no third alternative.
We can either consume our life for the present, or we can conserve it for the future.
We can either enjoy our lives for the present moment, or we can lay them aside and use them in such a way that they will be future resources.
Basically, this is what Jesus is saying as he enunciates this very important principle in verse 24.
He says, very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it  remains just a single grain.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
So if you have a single grain of wheat, you can do two things with it.
You can consume it, eat it, to satisfy present need, or you can let that seed die, put it into the ground and cover it up with dirt.
For all intents and purposes it will die, but in the dying it will bear much fruit.
A bag of seed setting in a warehouse or barn is not worth much; it is only when that bag of seed is sown into the newly plowed ground that it becomes invaluable.
The farmer must give up that present possession if he is going to have a future harvest.
You'll notice that Jesus didn't answer the Greeks when they came to him.
He said, well, the hour has come when the Son of man should be delivered.
Later on in the passage he tells what that means:  when the Son of man shall be glorified, it means it is time for his crucifixion.
As I mentioned last year in our series on  John 17, the coming of the Greeks to Jesus symbolized the coming of the world to seek him.
So he knew it was time now that he should face the cross and the time of his crucifixion was near at hand.
He explained his crucifixion.
It was not the death of a martyr, and it was not the slaying of a thief.
Rather, it was a grain of wheat sown into the ground so that it must bear much fruit.
Jesus enunciates this principle of spiritual harvest and fruitfulness.
It is this:  if a grain of wheat is not sown into the ground, it abides alone.
It remains a single grain of wheat.
Those are almost condemning words.
How many of us today would have to say, and may have to say at the judgment seat of Christ, here I am, but I am alone.
I have no fruit with me.
I consumed whatever I had for the present, and I refused to fall in the ground and die.
I'm here; but I'm here alone.
Jesus says, no, that is not the purpose of a grain of wheat.
That's not the purpose of a seed.
The seed is to fall in the ground and die; therefore, it may bring forth much fruit.
So, I want us to look at this principle.
In this verse, Jesus establishes that principle, and then he goes on to tell us how this works out.
The first thing is this:  if I hate my life in this world and I am willing to die and fall in the ground and be covered up, then I will bring forth much fruit.
Jesus says, the consequences first of all will be fruitfulness in the life of the believer.
Fruitfulness in the life of Jesus was the reason he was dying.
He was born to die.
What if he had not died.
He would be in heaven, but he would be alone.
None of us would ever be there with him.
Neither would Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, nor any of the Old Testament saints be there.
He would be alone.
And for Jesus to have a gathering of fruitfulness into his life--if his life is to mean anything, he cannot preserve it.
He must be willing to die.
There is nothing in the Scriptures that tells us so much about how out of step with the world we are because the last thing the world wants to do is to die--die to itself.
We are living in a culture where we have gone from worshiping God to worshiping self, from character to celebrities, from self restraint to self indulgence, and from self sacrifice to self awareness.
The whole theme of our culture is discovering ourselves, and being free to be ourselves and discovering all that is within ourselves.
Nothing so strikes against the grain of today's culture as do the words of Jesus that if we are to bring forth fruit, we must die.
Nobody wants to die, not spiritually or physically.
Nobody wants to die to themselves.
We have the idea that we must live and realize ourselves and come to the consciousness of all that we are within ourselves.
Yet, the Lord comes along with direct contrary advice.
He says, no, the life is not to be saved; the life is to die so that it can bring forth much fruit.
If we are not being fruitful as we ought to be, it is simply because we have not yet learned how to die to ourselves.
You see, the secret of fruitfulness is that life comes out of death.
Paul echoed this in 2 Corinthians 4 when he talks about his ministry.
He  says, we are always carrying in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.
(Watch it in verse 12.)
So death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
And I want to say to you that anytime life is working in somebody, it is only because death is working in somebody else.
For anybody to live, to be born again, to be saved, it requires somebody to die.
It required Jesus to die.
Now for you and me to bear fruit and to win those who are lost, it requires the same thing of us—that we must die, die to ourselves, die to our own plans, wishes, and will, and to be covered up out of sight so that they no longer see me.
Sarah is a great example of this—life out of death.
Why do you suppose God took a barren woman and said, this woman is going to be the mother of generations?
That's not the way we would have done it.
It says from the very beginning that Sarah was barren and had no children.
Why would it be that God would make to that woman a promise of motherhood and then wait until Abraham was one hundred years old, impossible for him physically to bear children.
Sarah had always been dead as far as having children was concerned.
Abraham was as good as dead, being one hundred years old.
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