Death and Life of a Follower of Christ
John 12:24-26
Today’s lesson is a follow-up to last week’s sermon in John 12:20-26. You may remember we are coming to the end of Jesus’ public ministry in John. It is the week of the Passover during which Jesus will be betrayed, arrested, tried, convicted and crucified. That week began with Mary anointing Jesus with costly perfumed oil in Bethany while Judas objected to the waste (John 12:1-8). The next day Jesus fulfilled scripture as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to the praises of the crowds and the frustrated grumblings of the Pharisees (John 12:9-19). Then some Greeks came seeking Jesus which prompts Jesus to announce (John 12:23) “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.”
As I said last time this text answers two questions for us. First, how do we see Jesus and His glory? The answer from our text is: We see Jesus and His glory at the cross. The hour of the Son of Man’s glorification is the hour of the cross. So Jesus immediate began to teach about His death in John 12:24-36. Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that it bears much fruit (John 12:24). Christ is glorified on the cross because there God judged sin (John 12:31a), there He triumphed over Satan (John 12:31), there He draws all peoples to Himself (John 12:32), and there He produces much fruit (John 12:24)—the salvation of everyone who believes in Him (John 12:36, 46).
Jesus died so that we might live. The Bible declares that we have all sinned against God. For our sin we deserve death and separation from God for all eternity. But the good news is that God has not left us without a remedy. He has come to us in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, Who lived the life we could not live—a life of perfect obedience to God. Even though He had no sin and therefore did not have to die, He chose to die on behalf of sinners. He took our place. He became our Substitute. He died so that any one of us, by turning from our sin and trusting in His death on the cross for us, can be forgiven of all our sin and restored to eternal life with God. His death brings us eternal life. Jesus died so you might live. Jesus is clearly talking about that in this passage. Have you believed in Jesus and His death on the cross?
The second question this text answers for us is: What difference will seeing Jesus and His glory make in our lives? The answer to that question is in John 12:25-26. Here Jesus applies the principle of death through life to us. Jesus is not only teaching about what He will do for us on the cross, He is also teaching about what He will do in us by faith. Jesus is saying, “If you want to live, you have to die.”
Listen to His words again in John 12:24-26,
24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
All of Jesus’ teaching are important. But when He repeats a message often we really need to pay attention. Jesus taught this same truth in a number of settings in all four gospel accounts:
Matthew 10:39 – “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25 – “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Matthew 19:29 – “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
Mark 8:34-37 – “… Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Luke 9:23-24 – Then He said to [them] all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”
Luke 14:26 – “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
Luke 17:33 – “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
These words of Jesus are not just for the apostles or super Christians or martyrs. This is basic Christianity. Jesus’ words apply to everyone who wants to follow Him. He assumes that we all want to save our lives. But He tells us that the way to save our lives is to lose them for His sake and the gospel’s. And, He’s talking about saving or losing our lives eternally as John 12:25 says. So it’s vitally important to understand and apply Jesus’ words in our text.
Jesus brought us life through His death (John 12:24)
Jesus said (John 12:24), “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Jesus was referring to the cross. He is the grain of wheat that fell into the ground, died, and bore much fruit. By giving His life as a ransom for many, Jesus “brought many sons to glory” (Mark 10:45; Heb. 2:10).
We can never imitate Jesus in His substitutionary death for the sins of others. His death was unique because Jesus is unique. He is the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18). He is the eternal Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14), who came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Only Jesus could do that. He died “once for all” (Romans 6:10; Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).
We must hate our life to have eternal life (John 12:25)
Jesus is not only talking about His death—He’s talking about our lives. Although we cannot duplicate Jesus’ death on the cross, we can participate in it.
One preacher titled his sermon on this text, “Why You Should Hate Your Life.” This teaching runs counter to everything our world stands for. The world teaches loving yourself, looking out for number one, and building self-esteem. But Jesus teaches (John 12:25), “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” The one who loves his life will lose it. Loving your life means living with only for this temporary world. It’s to live as if this world is all there is.
Jesus told about parable about a man who was enjoying his best life now. He said to himself (Luke 12:19), “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” But God said to him (Luke 12:20), “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” Jesus concluded (Luke 12:21), “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Our goals, our desires, the way we spend our money and our lives, should not be focused on this life only. Loving your life in this world is the sure way to lose it.
Instead Jesus teaches us to hate our life in this world. You die to your old life through faith in Jesus Christ. This is what happens when you become a Christian by believing in Jesus. When we believe we are united with Christ in His death. As Paul teaches in Romans 6, that is the meaning behind your baptism:
[Rom 6:3-5] 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be [in the likeness] of [His] resurrection,
As Paul writes in Colossians 3:3, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Again in Galatians 2:20 he writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” That is your position in Christ. In order to become a Christian, you must be united to Christ by faith so that you die to sin and yourself.
But God also calls us to experience practically in daily life what is true about us positionally in Christ. Right now in this gathering, through His Word, Jesus is saying, “If you want to live, you have to die.” That’s what Jesus means when He talks about hating your life in this world. Jesus is not saying to hate life ultimately. He’s saying to hate life that is caught up in this world of rebellion against God and His ways. Do not love life like that. Hate life like that. Die to life like that. And as Jesus says in Luke 9:23-24, we must do it daily: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”
A cross is an instrument of death. If you take up your cross to follow Jesus, you are following Him to death. To live, you die. To live in the next world, you die to this world. You die to yourself daily.
It is a death to sin. If you want life, Jesus is saying you have to die to sin. This doesn’t mean as a Christian you don’t ever sin. All of us would be disqualified by that measure. As long as we are in this world, we are prone to sin. But that’s just it. We hate that. We hate that we are prone to sin. We hate our sin. When we do sin, we confess it before God and others. We repent. We turn from sin. We don’t toy with it. We don’t treat sin as trivial. We die to sin. Paul writes in Romans 6:11, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Again in Colossians 3:5 he writes, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” We die to sin daily.
It is also a death to self. Kathy and I had a wonderful trip to NYC a couple weeks ago. There we experienced a praying church. What is prayer? Prayer is an expression of death to self. Prayer is saying, “We can’t do it. We need You, God.” Whenever we don’t pray, we’re saying, “God, we can do this without You.” But Jesus says, you can’t. We need God in our lives. We need God in our marriages. We need God in our families, in our kids’ lives, in our teenagers’ lives. We need God in light of all the temptations and trials we’re walking through. We need God in our church. We need God in our country.
We need to stop living our lives—in our families and as a church—like we can do this without Him. We cannot. We need God. If we believe this, we will pray like we need Him. We’ll cry out to God with desperation, because we can’t do this on our own. “God, help us to die to ourselves. God, deliver us from our sinful self-sufficiency.”
And it is a death to this world. It’s clear in John 12:25. Hate your life in this world. Again, this means to hate the kind of life that is caught up in the ways of this world—the pursuits, the pleasures, the possessions and the priorities of this world. In order to really live, you have to die to these things. Christians follow Jesus in death to this world. Paul suffered beatings, imprisonments, a stoning, shipwrecks, and frequent dangers for the sake of the gospel (2 Cor. 11:23-27). Christian martyrs down through the centuries have been persecuted, burned at the stake, had their heads cut off and worse. None of these stories make sense if John 12 is not true. If life is all about the possessions, pleasure and pursuits in this world, then these brothers and sisters totally wasted their lives. But Jesus says they didn’t waste a thing. They spent their lives for what matters. I guarantee you not one of those brothers and sisters regrets hating their lives in this world for a second. Remember the famous words of missionary martyr Jim Elliot: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Taking up your cross or hating your life in this world is not something you achieve in an emotional moment of spiritual ecstasy or dedication. You never arrive on a spiritual mountaintop where you can sigh with relief, “I’m finally there! No more death to self!” Nor are there any shortcuts or quick fixes to this painful process. The need to hate my life or die to self is never finished in this life; it is a daily battle. A. T. Pierson said, “Getting rid of the ‘self-life’ is like peeling an onion: layer upon layer—and a tearful process!”
We must follow Jesus by serving (John 12:26)
Jesus is the example for us all. During His short ministry on earth, Jesus was constantly dying to Himself as He loved others. We will see a beautiful example of this in John 13, where Jesus takes a towel and a basin of water to wash the disciples’ feet. Jesus humbled Himself, died to Himself to serve His disciples. Jesus did it as an example of how we are to lay aside our lives to serve one another (John 13:15). The culmination of Jesus’ dying to Himself was when He literally laid down His life on the cross for us. That’s how He bore much fruit. When we follow Him by daily dying to ourselves to serve others, we will bear much fruit, and so prove ourselves to be His disciples (John 15:8). Jesus applies this principle of service to us in John 12:26, “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”
Jesus assumes that all His people will serve Him. And all who serve Him must follow Him. This means obeying His teachings and commandments, of course. But in the context, it especially means following Him by dying to self so that we might, like Jesus, bear much fruit. Then comes the motivation: If we serve and follow Jesus, we will be with Him forever and the Father will honor us.
Jesus here doesn’t say that He will be with us, although that is true (Matt. 28:20). Rather, He says that we will be with Him. In John 14:3, He promises, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” “Where I am” refers to heaven. To be with Jesus in heaven throughout eternity is more than sufficient reward for all of the trials and persecution that we may go through in this life! And on top of that, Jesus promises that the Father will honor us! He will say to us (Matthew 25:21), “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your lord.”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity) nails it:
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
This is what Jesus teaches. It’s what the cross of Jesus Christ does for and what it demands of us. While preparing for a communion service in 1707, Isaac Watts wrote a hymn he originally titled “Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ.”
Ask yourself, does this hymn express my experience of life in Christ?
When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ, my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.
See from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er his body on the tree;
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
