John 12:24-26 “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.”
Late one night a jeep drove into the clearing. Four men with machine guns jumped out. Inside they handcuffed the schoolteacher and pastor of the local church. He and a friend were forced into the jeep. They rode along the rugged road until they reached the bridge. There they pushed the pastor out. Knowing what was going to happen he asked permission to write a few words in his diary. He noted the time, the date, and the events, which were transpiring. Then he simply wrote: “We are going to heaven.” Then he was told to walk to the bridge. As Pastor Yona walked, he sang:
There is a happy land where saints in glory stand,
There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar:
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling place there.
His song ended with a burst of machine gun fire and his body tumbled off the bridge into the river below and yet another chapter was written in the extended Book of Acts.
On Sunday, April 8, 1945 the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was taken from a worship service he had just conducted for prisoners. Hitler’s Gestapo took him to a concentration camp in Flossenburg, tried him for treason, and hanged him – just a few days before the Allied Forces liberated the prison camp. A medical doctor at the scene described Bonhoeffer’s final moments:
“Through the half-open door in one of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so submissive to the will of God.”
Survival is a popular theme these days. We have a top rating T.V. show focused on a group of people in an isolated island or Australian bush country competing, working together, scheming, negotiating, forming secret pacts and alliances, eliminating all threats, all with the goal of surviving and getting $1,000,000. The show is called ‘Survivor’ and various versions of it have swept across the world with unprecedented success over the past decade. One of the top films many years ago was Castaway, the survival story of a postal service manager who spent years in isolation on a lonely tropical island with his only companion was a volleyball he named Wilson.
Survival is the most natural thing that we do. It is our most base instinct, the preservation of our most precious possession – OUR LIVES! But when it comes to following Jesus Christ and knowing the life that He has promised us, the quest for survival creates a real conflict. The desire for our survival and the quest to preserve our lives keep us at a mediocre level of living. It eats away at our beliefs and convictions in such a way that we find it easy to compromise and next to impossible to confront. The result of this is spiritual stagnation.
The quest for survival affects our decision-making, it robs us of our effectiveness, it saps our passion, freedom, and joy in the Lord, it hinders our wholehearted obedience, and finally, it robs us of the power and blessings of God. Survivors are insecure; they rely on things other than God. They won’t take risks. Survivors are unwilling to pay the price. They are more concerned with maintaining the things they have. They want to protect their rights.
In all this concern for survival, however, there is probably no instruction as strange and as powerful as that of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He says in the above passage from John’s gospel. Against this whole society-wide quest for survival at all costs, we have perhaps the greatest and most confronting key principle of the Christian life: We are called to die.
In verse John 12:24 we read that if we are to bear fruit for God, like a seed, and like Christ, we must die. Now when I am dead, I will not care what they do with my body. It will make no difference to me. I’ve been to a morgue, and I assure you that dead people aren’t worried about money, possessions, pleasure, university degrees, popularity, fame, being understood, having their needs met, etc. Why? Because they’re dead! In Jesus’ name listen to this … someday when you are dead you will be home with Jesus and none of those things will matter … am I right? Well, that’s the way it is now, too, if you have died already with Christ, which all Christians have.
Galatians 5:24 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Crucified means dead. So, in a profound sense I am dead on the earth and my life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3) It therefore doesn’t matter what happens to me here on earth. Paul regarded himself to be a dead man walking. His life was no longer his to live as he pleased. If we are going to experience revival instead of survival, we must first accept that we are called to die!
When people lose a loved one, they not only hold a funeral service, but they often go to the grave and leave flowers in memory of the dead person. Doing this helps some people come to grips with the death that has occurred. It is part of the grieving process and grieving is just a process of letting go and dealing with the loss that has occurred.
Maybe that’s what we should do as Christians. Let’s hold a funeral service … acknowledge the death that has taken place, visit the gravesite of our old selves and leave some flowers. Stand there for a few minutes and then leave and move on from that point. Do whatever helps us come to grips with the reality that the person we used to be, has died … with Christ on the cross.
The Apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The verb in this opening statement of Galatians 2:20 is in a particular form that means it’s a “done deal” with lasting effects. Our crucifixion with Christ has already taken place. We’re not dual personalities living double lives. You may say, “But I don’t feel crucified.” That’s all right. Dead people don’t feel dead. But you are crucified because God says you’re crucified, whether you feel it or not.
This is why Paul could say his only boast was “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). Paul rejoiced in the cross not just because it meant that his sins were paid for, but also because the old Paul … that old hate-filled persecutor of the church … was dead and gone. There is this strange thing called “hating your life in this world.” (John 12:25)
What does that mean? We say, “The one who would save his life must save it.” It seems obvious enough. But Jesus said, “The one who would save his life must lose it, for only by losing it can he save it for the life to come.”Jesus used a Hebraic saying of extreme contrasts. The key phrase is “hating your life in this world.” It is a good kind of hating. A kind of hate that is noble and essential. A hatred in comparison to anything that would take the central place of Christ in our lives. It means, at least, that you don’t take much thought for your life in this world.
In other words, it just doesn’t matter much what happens to your life in this world. If men speak well of you, it doesn’t matter much. If they hate you, it doesn’t matter much. If you have a lot of things, it doesn’t matter much. if you have little, it doesn’t matter much. If you are persecuted or lied about, it doesn’t matter much. If you are famous or unknown, it doesn’t matter much. If you are dead, these things just don’t matter much.
There are some choices to be made here, not just passive experiences. You cannot enjoy the fullness of God’s blessing without submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life. Jesus says, “follow Me.” Where to? He is moving into Gethsemane and towards the cross. Jesus is not just saying: “If things go bad, don’t fret, since you are dead anyway.” He is saying, “Choose to die with me. Choose to hate your life in this world the way I have chosen the cross.” This is what Jesus meant when he calls us to choose the cross.
Luke 9:23-25 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
People did only one thing on a cross. They died. “Take up your cross,” means, “Like a grain of wheat, fall into the ground and die. Hate your life in this world. And choose to die!”
The word ‘daily’ shows that following Jesus means a daily dying, not only a once-for-all dying. Each day I must experience, in practice, what is true of me in my position in Christ. I am once and for all “crucified with Christ”(Galatians 2:20; 5:24) – that’s my position; my life is “hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Therefore, I must believe this reality and act on it and experience it by faith. That is what Paul says in this foundational passage:
Galatians 2:20-21 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Over the years there have been some music groups exposed as frauds because they just lip-synch the words on stage and never actually sing live. Perhaps we can be the same. Instead of lip-synching the Christian life, affirming our position, mouthing the right words, while trying to continue to survive, God wants us to “life-sync” the Christian life. He wants us to imitate Him in death so that we can imitate Him as well in life.
So, what’s the point of all this? Is it aimless masochism? No. It is the path of revival, true love, true life, and true worship. Well, let me remind you of some wonderful promises.
Our aim in dying is fruit:
John 12:24 “But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
John 15:5,8,16 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing…”By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples…”You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
The apostle Paul tells us what this fruit is which comes from our dying:
Galatians 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law.”
And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. It is not pleasant to die, but you will never truly live until you do. Some Biblical scholars call this “the exchanged life.” I like that. When I exchange my life for Christ’s life, He expresses Himself in me through fruit. When I move, Christ moves. When I speak, Christ speaks. Perhaps more accurately put: when Christ moves, I move and when Christ speaks, I speak.
George Mueller lived in England several generations ago and founded many great orphanages, maintaining them solely through prayer. He was extremely effective. But when asked the secret of his effective service, he replied, “There was a day when I died – died to George Mueller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame of my brethren or friends; and since then, I have studied only to show myself approved unto God. “
Our aim in dying is life:
John 12:25 “He who hates his life in this world shall keep it to, life eternal.”
It was the great missionary Jim Elliot who once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” When you are always seeking your own life, you are actually dying. When you are dying, you are actually living! Stop trying to live the Christian life. Understand that the Christian life is the life of Christ. It’s not your life, but His. Jesus is the only person who ever lived as we were designed to live … and HE STILL IS. So in order for you to live the Christian life, Christ must live His life through you while you get out of His way!
2 Corinthians 4:10-11 “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.
We are guaranteed of life in the present . (v.26) He will be with us, wherever we are. We are guaranteed of life in the future. If you are with Him here ,you will be with Him there as well!
2 Timothy 2:11-12 “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. “
Paul is the great example of what it means to die.
Galatians 6:14 “[Through] the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ … the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
But why did Paul say these things? For the sake of radical commitment to ministry:
Acts 20:24 “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
“I consider my life worth nothing to me.” This is a classic statement of a dead man walking. This is an “I don’t have to survive” statement. What mattered to the Apostle Paul was finishing the work God had for him. No wonder Paul was such a change agent in the early church. No wonder he was willing to stand before the Jerusalem council and say that the gospel was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. No wonder he was willing to be the first missionary. No wonder he was willing to be killed for it.
The Apostle Paul didn’t have to survive. No one could stop him. Those who didn’t like some of the statements he was making on the council floor couldn’t take away his position. Paul didn’t have a position to lose. Those who wanted him to quit preaching could throw rocks at him, but that had happened before, and it didn’t stop Paul. He would have counted it a privilege to suffer for Christ. They could threaten him with prison, but Paul could laugh and say, “Which one? Can I go back to Rome? I was witnessing there the last time I was in prison. Maybe I could lead another prison guard to the Lord.” Or they could threaten to kill him. “Would you? I have had such turmoil inwardly. I don’t know whether I should stay with the saints or be present with the Lord; if you would just knock me off, that would take care of my dilemma.”
What could be done to the Apostle Paul? Absolutely nothing. Why did Paul choose to live this kind of life? So, he could be independent? So, he could call his own shots? No, it was so he could “finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
I have been asking myself earnestly, and I want you to ask this with me today, what in me must die? What must die for my life and ministry to bear more fruit? It’s a scary question. This is the big picture of what it means to be a Christian. I don’t want you to get the impression that this word from the Lord is a little peripheral word. This word about dying and hating your life in this world is not a marginal word. It is a central word. This key principle of Christian living is really a KEY.
So, today let us soberly ask ourselves some questions: is my life a quest for survival or revival? Is there something that is hindering the fruitfulness of Christ in me – something that I need to die to? Is there something God is calling me to die to that I might experience more fully my position in Christ; that I might see Christ more clearly and follow him more compellingly? Am I striving against my very nature as a Christian by trying to keep alive something God sentenced to death when I became a Christian? Are my weaknesses as a parent or a spouse or a disciple owing to something that needs to die in me – some old habit, some secret sin, some root of pride, some fear of looking silly, some desperate need for approval, some desire for wealth? Can I speak Christ’s and Paul’s words as my own? Do I even want to? Tough questions indeed – but really important ones which God will help us process.
Let me leave you with these words by a Pastor who wrestled with all those questions and really did understand their implications for his life.
‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)