Communion with Christ is Found in Service with Him

I'll get us to turn to John chapter 12 this morning, which will be our text as we look at a very significant part of Jesus' teaching, which sometimes we can overlook, especially in this part of John. And we'll see that this is actually a part that takes place in all the gospel accounts of Jesus. This is the cost of discipleship that is found in other parts in Matthew 10, Mark 8, Luke 9. And this is John's account of the same words, but in a unique sort of characteristic way. This is John's take on it, and he has a particular emphasis that he brings out as well, which is going to be very helpful for us. The title for this morning's message is Communion with Christ is found in service with Him.

Communion with Christ is found in service with Him. One of my first experiences of sharing the gospel with someone was when I had just left school. I had taken up working as a part time labourer working on a big project building a factory. One day I was asked to help out one of the permanent workers there by the name of Brad. We were welding steel cages, lots of them.

So you can imagine that it wasn't particularly stimulating work. It meant that we had lots of time to talk, however. And at one point I decided to ask him about spirituality and later what he thought about Jesus Christ. I was surprised by how open he was to talk about it. He said, I think he called himself a lapsed Catholic, and yet he was very willing to discuss Jesus Christ.

He said at the end of the conversation that he was just not ready to take that leap of faith. And he gave this ultimatum, that for him to believe, Jesus would need to personally show himself to Brad. He would need to come in a dream or a vision or even there as we spoke and He would have to say, Brad, I am Jesus. Believe in me. So that is the ultimatum.

No appearance of Jesus, no faith. Now perhaps you've heard people saying similar things. If only God would appear to me, show Himself to be real, I would believe. Perhaps at some point you've thought a similar thought, perhaps in a dark, quiet time. Moments where you've doubted the existence of Jesus Christ and and wished that you might just see a sign of His power and majesty.

How do we experience that ongoing reality and power of Jesus Christ? Is it possible today to speak of experiencing Jesus, experiencing a relationship with Him today, or does Jesus remain a theoretical concept, a philosophy, a way of life? Well, this morning we find that question actually being asked of Jesus and answered by Him. A question is asked.

We would like to see Jesus. And Jesus gives an answer that nobody expects. Let's turn to John 12, and we're going to read from verse 20 to 26. John 12, 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." 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. 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 honour him.

So far our reading. This is the Word of the Lord. In the context of John 12, we find the ministry of Jesus at its highest peak. This was Palm Sunday, a week before the crucifixion. And the followers of Jesus were riding high. This particular conversation we read about takes place immediately following the triumphal entry of Jesus.

You'll remember those scenes. The whole city of Jerusalem is astir with the news that a king has arrived. The people are glad that Jesus has come to the capital because for three years He's been leading a silent revolution, changing hearts, convicting people's minds, bringing people back to the God of Israel. And they celebrate and wave palm fronds, shouting, "Blessed is the king of Israel," as He enters the city. We read here as well that Jesus' enemies see this and they say to one another in verse 19, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look at how the whole world has gone after Him."

That is exaggeration, obviously. Not the whole world is going after Him, but many people are pursuing Jesus, have been moved by Jesus, are interested in what Jesus has to say. Jesus' ministry is at its most popular. And in this context, the Apostle John says there are some Greeks who come to see Jesus as well. We're told at the start of our passage that it's the time of the Passover, and so we know that from all over the world, Jews who had been living sort of internationally have made a pilgrimage back to Jerusalem to celebrate that Passover feast.

But also among them we can probably assume would have been uncircumcised Greek god worshippers, as they were called, who followed the teaching of Judaism but weren't circumcised themselves. And so they might also be part of the mix here, interested in celebrating the Passover and and being part of the celebrations of God. But we know that they are not considered true Jews. And so these god worshippers come to Philip, one of Jesus' disciples, and they give him a very simple request. "Sir, we would like to see Jesus." It's interesting that they go to Philip, and there's some speculation about that.

It's possible that Philip, who is said to have come here, to have been from Bethsaida in Galilee, that fact that statement is made, was more Greek. He's a Greek speaking Jew. Galilee was sort of renowned to have been infiltrated by the Gentiles. And so and Philip, his name is actually Greek as well. So so he's perhaps someone that's easy to approach for these Greek god worshippers.

And so they come to Philip, and then Philip goes and he asks Andrew, and Andrew and Philip go to see Jesus. This is also another bit of detail that's interesting, and we don't really know exactly why Philip has to go and talk to Andrew about this, but we know in the Gospel of John that Philip and Andrew often work together as a team. So they're sort of buddies, and and they go to one another and Philip says, "This is what's been asked of me. What should we do?" And Andrew probably says, "Let's go and see Jesus about it."

So they go and talk to Jesus. And then Jesus gives them this really jarring response. For many people, it would have left them scratching their heads. Because not only do we see Jesus not going out to meet them, we're not told that He does. He doesn't go over to have that selfie taken with them or to sign an autograph.

Jesus not only doesn't go and allow Himself to be seen, Jesus gives His disciples this cryptic response. A kernel of wheat must die. A man who loves his life must lose it. Yet the one who hates his life will find it. And then He says, "To serve me, you must follow me. Wherever I am, you will also be." Now, that's cryptic.

Wouldn't a simple yes or no have sufficed? And yet, if you sort of read that for the first time, you've never heard the story before, you kind of get what's going on here. You get a dawning sense that there's something more than meets the eye in those words, and that's what we're going to unpack this morning. On one level, the Greek god worshippers simply ask to meet Jesus. And yet, when you dig a little deeper, we see something deeper is actually being asked by them.

You see, when the Greeks asked to see Jesus, the verb in the Greek to see Jesus is a word that was often used to perceive something spiritual. That is perhaps what the Apostle John is highlighting here. It's not simply to see what Jesus looks like, to see if He's got a good beard. It's to experience Jesus. It's to gain a deeper understanding of Jesus.

It's more along the lines of, we've heard that Jesus is remarkable, that He gives hope. Can we see if He can fulfil those longings of our heart? So it's not simply a request to see Him, it is a request to experience something of Him. And to this request, Jesus gives three, or makes three points. Firstly, He introduces the fact that despite His great and glorious and remarkable entry into Jerusalem, He is going to die soon.

Jesus says, "The hour for the Son of Man has come to be glorified." Now again, that's cryptic for these disciples. I have no idea what that means. But we now understand it's a reference to the cross. It's still a veiled reference and it will only make sense for these disciples after Jesus rises from the grave and the Holy Spirit comes down and gives them understanding. But this is a significant moment in the ministry of Jesus. For the greater part of the Gospel of John, Jesus has been saying to His disciples, "The hour hasn't arrived yet."

Remember that first miracle in John, where Jesus turns the water into wine? He says, "My hour hasn't come. This is not the moment where I give myself." But here is the first mention of Jesus saying, "It's time. It's happening.

The hour of my glorification is at hand." At this moment, this significant turn in Jesus' understanding of His ministry and His pronouncement of what is going to happen, Jesus tells a short parable about a kernel of wheat that needs to fall to the earth, die in order for it to produce more fruit. This is a further explanation of what is going to take place when Jesus dies. And simply put, it means Jesus must die in order for others to receive life. Jesus must die in order for others to receive eternal life.

The second thing that Jesus says in His response here is He introduces this paradox of discipleship. And like I said, this is John's version of Jesus' cost of discipleship teaching of Matthew 10, Mark 8 and Luke 9. He's saying that if you selfishly cling to your life, you'll lose it. But if you lose that life to follow Jesus, you find it. John stresses the resolve of following Jesus by uniquely.

This is the only thing that he says on this. He says, you don't simply lose your life to follow Jesus. He sort of emphasises that you must hate this life in order to follow Jesus. That's his unique take on it. It means the same thing that that the gospels are communicating the same truth, but there is this particular emphasis here.

And it very much communicates what Jesus was saying about the cost of discipleship. In verse 24, Jesus tells us that He has to die in order to bring others to life. Here in verse 25, we see that the disciple of Jesus cannot escape a similar type of dying in order to receive life. Now theologically understanding that, it means to call Jesus Lord means that you die to calling yourself lord. And John stresses the violence of that transition.

It is a violent thing. To hate is a violent thing, and you must hate your self lordship in order to make Him Lord. And thirdly, Jesus says, "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, my servant will also be." Again, this is John's version of what the Synoptic Gospels say when they read, "Whoever wants to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, follow after me." Jesus is saying the exact same thing here.

It's a call for a willingness to imitate Jesus in suffering and in death. What does Jesus do? Where does He go? He goes to the cross from this moment. What does He say to His disciples?

Follow me. I'm going to the cross to die. You will also die. You must die in order to follow me. But again, John's emphasis, losing your life to follow Jesus, doesn't simply come to this point of saying no to a whole bunch of things.

So to deny yourself of things. In other words, Christianity is not simply saying no to sinful lifestyles. Christianity isn't simply saying no to different attitudes. Of course, losing your life in order to follow Christ may include, negatively put, getting you to give up your sinful lifestyle. It may include that, getting rid of sinful stuff in your life. But the unique element here of John is that he actually frames it in the positive.

Following Jesus means you get to be with Jesus. In other words, you may say no to things in order to say yes to Jesus. And this is the wonderful encouragement from God's Word today. The cost of discipleship in denying yourself as lord has the reward of that same discipleship being union with Jesus Christ. So Jesus gave these Greeks who asked the question, "We want to see Jesus. May we?"

And He answers them with something that doesn't seem to fit the question. He says, "Follow me and you'll be with me." And it's like, "Duh. Of course, if anyone follows me, they're going to be with me." And at face value, that primary school answer is laughably simple, but it's actually profound.

Follow me and you'll be with me. That's why the verb to see that the Greeks used here should be understood to mean more than just seeing with the eyes. Jesus knew that they were seeking something deeper. They wanted a taste of His presence. They wanted to experience Him in some way.

And Jesus knows their hearts and He knows that they're not ready to follow Him. The time of the Holy Spirit and the time of the Gentiles hasn't arrived yet. So perhaps at this stage, even as they request to see Him, He knows that it's a shallow emotionalism, or it's an experience they're chasing, or it's a romantic or philosophical buzz that will tickle their intellect. But in declining their request, Jesus affirms a very significant truth. The deepest question anyone in this life will ask, "Can I experience Jesus?"

And Jesus actually here tells us yes, and here is how. Friends, the deepest communion that you can have with Jesus, and I want you to listen to this, is to be found working where Jesus is working. To follow Him in the ministry that He is busy with. Initially, Jesus says, "The hour of my death has come," and He foretells that He must die in order for many more disciples to be made. A kernel of wheat must fall to the ground.

It must die there on the ground in order for other seeds to come from it. The work of Jesus, His primary work is to die in order to produce more disciples. But now He says to His disciples, "My disciples will also undergo a death. They must hate their life in order to live for me. They will need to die to themselves in order for me to be their lord."

But it's this second element of Jesus' teaching here about the parable of the wheat that He has in mind when He says, "And where I am, my servant will also be." The deepest communion we can have with Christ is to be with Him in His mission of producing disciples. Our experience of Christian reality is tied up to that truth. You will see me if you follow me. And if you follow me with what I am doing, you will be with me.

You see, this is the thing that so many people get wrong about the Christian life. Our experience of Christianity will be a massive disappointment if you do anything less than serving Jesus where Jesus is Himself serving. Let me ask you this. What is a disciple's greatest desire? A disciple's greatest desire is to be with their master.

A disciple's desire is to share time, knowledge, unity, experience with their master. Where will disciples be closest to their masters? When they are aligning their timetables with His. When they go out to wherever He wants to go, that is where a disciple is closest to their master. And so when you find yourself disheartened with your Christianity and you feel far from Christ, when you think your faith is unfulfilling, ask yourself, where are you closest to Jesus?

And the answer is, you are closest to Him working where He is working. Do you wanna be exhilarated by His power? Do you wanna be astounded by His love? Do you ache to cast off the complacency of a wavering faith? If you're visiting here this morning and you're tired of hopping from church to church, seeking for the right experience, the solution is right here in the words of Jesus.

Be where Jesus Christ is. If you wanna see His majesty and power, then be at the coalface of the kingdom's advance and you won't miss Him. You never lose anything when you decide to lose your life for Christ. In fact, Jesus says to us, the rewards are endless. He finishes with the words, "If anyone serves me," that is a present tense word.

"Whoever serves me ongoingly, the Father will honour." That means something simply more than receiving eternal life. God the Father will honour the one with blessing upon blessing who has served Christ in the work that Christ is busy with. Jesus' work was that He is the kernel that must die, and yet His main purpose is not simply to die, but to produce many other kernels of wheat. And that is His main desire.

That is the result of His work, to have more people receive eternal life. And that is the work that He is busy with right now through His body, the church. So it's not a surprise then when we get to the book of Acts after Jesus has obviously told them these things and the Holy Spirit has empowered the disciples, the apostles, and the wider church body, that in the book of Acts we see the power of God most manifested at the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Acts 3, 5, 14 and so on, we see God and His presence so clearly in the making of disciples, in the bringing up of the people, the elect into the kingdom of God. And so in the history of the early church, God's most powerful interventions go hand in hand with the proclamation of the good news.

And yet this always occurs within the corporate body of the church when it is active. Men and women witnessed the ascended Christ at His most visible and powerful when they met at corporate gatherings of God's people, when they came together at corporate prayer events, when they prayed for Peter to be released from prison, when they prayed for missional activity and they laid hands on Paul and Barnabas to send them off. Again and again you see that activity, that presence, that life altering power of Christ, the risen Lord, and it is tied to what? The mission of the church in producing more kernels of wheat. It means, friends, that your participation in this church gives you front row seats to see Jesus Christ at work.

It means that your volunteering isn't for some social good. It means that it doesn't go on a resume and pad it out a little bit. Your direct involvement in the life of this church is working beside Christ Himself. And so when you give up your life to disciple another person, your work is where Christ is working. When you teach catechism, when you serve on the music team and facilitate corporate worship, when you visit the sick, when you commit yourself and your family to come to church worship every Sunday, to attend worship every Sunday, when you commit yourself to bible study groups, in order, in other words rather, when you die to self in order to follow Christ, when you do that, you receive the greatest opportunity to see Jesus Christ Himself.

To paraphrase John Piper, don't waste your life on second rate discipleship. A Christianity that thinks it's simply about a knowledge of a certain set of principles. If you think that Christianity is a certain political persuasion or a certain theological club that you belong to, you're setting yourself up for a Christian faith that has no experience of Jesus. Not only will your Christianity be painfully unfulfilling, it's just plain boring.

But if you wanna experience Jesus Christ more fully, more vibrantly, work where Jesus is working because anything less will be disappointing. I don't know what your New Year's resolutions are, but if you are bored with church and if you are bored with your faith, let me invite you to restart your 2023 with attending our weekly prayer meetings that we want to restart again, where you can pray for our people and you can see God answer. If you are bored, join a bible study group and you will see how Christ will work through His Word in the lives of those that are present there. If you think the Christian life is simply a pie in the sky when you die theology, and that our job is now simply to wait out this life in order to finally know Jesus, I'm happy to show you that the bible says Christianity is actually a stake on your plate while you wait. Right now, as First Corinthians 15 will tell us, Jesus Christ is in the process of conquering all the forces that oppose Him.

He's making every enemy a footstool for His feet. He is establishing His kingdom further and further every single day and He will do so until the end when He hands the kingdom over to the Father and says, "It is finished. It is done. I have won it back for you." As Christians, our task is in the furthering of His kingdom. Where you will use those gifts that you've been given, the talents, the passions that God has given us, well, that remains to be seen.

But I believe whether it is you being a mechanic or a business owner, your Christianity will cause you to treat your employees with grace and patience that is tied with the kingdom. Whether you're a doctor praying for your patients, whether you're a retiree who refuses to retire from service in the kingdom, whether you're a vet, an accountant, an engineer, a pharmacist, a nurse or a lawyer, all of it can be used and will be used in the church for the kingdom, for the increase of God's glory. We've been called to a limitless mission field, and so I wanna ask you to join with me in asking the Lord Jesus to lead us, to show us where He is working, and then join with me in entering into that mission with Him so that we might receive what those Greek men were seeking, to see Jesus. "Whoever serves me," Jesus said, "must follow me, and where I am, my servant also will be." Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we ask that You will stir within our hearts a desire to move past a hot and cold following of You, that we will be spurred on in our actions and so be able to move to reprioritise our lives, to commit ourselves to worship, to commit ourselves to bringing our families to church, to to serve the young people in our church by teaching them, to pray for one another, to remember each one in the week in our prayers, to put up with one another, to have patience with one another, to move past cold acquaintance, and to seek a deeper relationship. Lord, help us to become the church that You want us to be, and help us to work alongside You in accomplishing that. Lord, where there are still areas in our lives that need Your grace and Your sanctifying power, Lord, even as we began to sing this morning that our lives may become Your throne, we pray that those areas will be strengthened, that our weaknesses will be removed, that we will become strong, and that this word again this morning will just be another link in the chain of accomplishing that. Help us as a church in 2023 to continue to grow both in height and in length, but also in depth.

And Father, help us to remain faithful to You even as we sense the path of destruction being wide. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.