You're listening to audio from Faith Church located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now, here's the teaching. Well, good morning to all of you and happy Easter. I am Jeff Schultz, one of the lead pastors here at Faith.

And, though you probably heard it already, welcome. Glad that you're here with us, on this best Sunday of, all the Sundays that we gather together and worship. And it's just a beautiful day too, right? The sun is shining, the grass is turning green along with the dandelions. The trees are budding, flowers are blooming.

This is the time of year in the spring when my wife, Amelia, likes to work in her garden, over the years, kind of as a result of her ongoing, feud with the squirrels and rabbits in our neighborhood who've eaten up all her tulip bulbs. She's grown quite a beautiful garden of lilies all over, including a a lily tree that's like seven feet tall, taller than I am. Kind of amazing. All different sizes and colors, she is justifiably proud. I've never been much for gardening myself.

I did a lot of yard work growing up as a teenager, you know, mowing the lawn all the time. My grandfather always wanted me to take an interest in his gardening. He grew tomatoes and okra and snap peas. And to me as a teenager, it just seemed like a lot of work for vegetables I didn't wanna eat. So I just didn't appreciate it.

But when I see Amelia's joy in the gardening that she does, I can kind of understand why my grandfather took so much satisfaction in seeing things grow. It's amazing what can grow out of the ground from such a small, humble beginning. Gardens and seeds stories, these parables of Jesus that he told. A number of them are really, almost all of them are about showing us what God is like, what life with him is like, what we're like, how we can know God. And often Jesus' stories about relationship with God centered on farming, planting.

Jesus challenges his disciples to be open open hearted listeners is when he tells a story about a farmer planting seeds in four different kinds of soils and to ask, what kind of a soil am I? He used the mustard seed to illustrate this picture that that was the smallest seed like like it. The kingdom of God starts small but grows to become something large enough for everyone to find shelter in. Last week, we saw how Jesus used the image of planting a good crop, when an enemy comes along and sows weeds in the field to explain why there's still ongoing evil and difficulty and opposition in the world parables that we've looked at over these last six weeks have also shared this common theme of what we could call reversal or a kind of a surprising outcome. And now in John 12, Jesus shares another king to And now in John 12, Jesus shares another kingdom principle that also has a surprising reversal to it.

One that's central to knowing and following Jesus and finding life. And it's that life comes from death. Life true life comes ultimately from Jesus. If you haven't already, you can open your Bibles to John chapter 12. The passage that we're looking at really actually starts a few verses earlier in verse 20, where there are some Greeks, some Gentiles, some non Jews who want to talk to Jesus at the Passover Festival.

There were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival and they came to Philip who was from Bethsaida in Galilee with a request. Sir, they said, we'd like to see Jesus. And Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Now, we don't know why they went to see Philip. Maybe it's because he has a Greek name, and he's from a predominantly gentile area.

Why he goes to tell Andrew, except Andrew is Peter's brother, and maybe he has a special position of significance. But the these Greeks, Gentiles, apparently appreciated Israel's God and Israel's faith. And and they make this simple request. We'd like to see Jesus. Apparently, they're curious in some way.

They're seeking. They're they're opening to open to spiritual truth. Different religious background. Maybe you already believe in God. You've heard something about Jesus, and there's something attractive there, something interesting.

You want to know more about what he's about, maybe benefit from what he teaches. Maybe he who has answers to what you're looking for in life. Maybe that's what these Greeks thought when they approached. Jesus' disciples Andrew and Philip tell Jesus about these Greeks, but his response is itself a little unexpected. So some Greeks come up, Hey, we'd like to see Jesus.

They go tell Jesus and he turns and it's almost like he, like, starts a monologue off in a totally different direction. The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. Dies, it produces many seeds. Okay.

So two things. Jesus, what are you talking about? And what happened to the Greeks who are like standing there asking to see you? What is Jesus' hour? What does he say?

Has come for him to accomplish what he's come to do. It's time to reveal how God will save the world through the death of Jesus. Potential is not realized until it dies, until it's buried. What's in the ground? The moisture in the soil decomposes the seed shell and the seed germinate.

And then eventually starts to grow and send up shoots to produce new. The grain of wheat gives life by being buried in the ground. If it doesn't die, if it isn't buried, it can't realize its potential. I mean, you've maybe been to the State Museum or science fair or an ag building at the state fair and you can see little kernels of wheat that are sitting in a jar doing nothing because nothing will happen until they die, until they're buried. The time has come for him to die.

Now, the people closest to him didn't want that, didn't understand it. The people who had cheered him the Sunday before on Palm Sunday waving palm branches and, claiming him as a king who would sit on David's throne and rule from Jerusalem, they weren't wanting him to die expecting it. Military campaign forward. He'd come to die, which even if we know that, it it's still meant to grab us. Why?

I mean, it seems if nothing else like a waste of incredible human potential. Couldn't his death have a better purpose than losing his life at 33 and what seems like a failed movement. Jesus knows unless he dies. Their would remain. And a better rendering of this is not just alone, a single seed, but literally alone is what the word says.

In other words, Jesus is saying, if I don't die and go in the ground to produce more seeds, I will be the only son of God. Daughters and sons of later in John 12, just a few verses down in verse 32, he says, If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to my self. Self. He said this to show what kind of death he would the Greeks show up wanting to see Jesus and they represent all people. They're outside the nation of Israel, whom Jesus comes to.

Side the nation of Israel, whom Jesus comes to draw everyone to himself, which means us, that most of us here, Gentile, non Jewish, trust and believe that you died for me, that you rose to give me new life. And you're being lifted up on the cross. You are showing me the death that you took on for me in order to give me a life and forgive. Burdens, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and most miserable, slow agony of humiliation that the Roman world could invent. Of bringing life to us by offering himself up to the father.

But look in verses twenty five and twenty six. They, they tell us that this principle, that's the kind of kingdom that Jesus is showing us, that he invites us into. Look in verses twenty five and twenty six. They tell us that this principle of life from death isn't just about Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their 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 honor the one who serves me. Like that grain of wheat, joy. To find life by following and worshiping and serving. Truth.

Anyone who hates their life, and they're like anyone who hates their life let's make sure we don't hear what Jesus is not saying. Okay? He's not telling us to literally hate ourselves. He's not saying we're worthless and we don't deserve anything good. He's not asking us to accept abuse.

He's not telling us we're worthless. Hate is a strong word, but for one thing, it's just the antithesis of love. So, you know, it kind of works as a parallel. But I think Jesus also knows how much we love ourselves, and how much we love our lives, and the things that we can accomplish, and accumulate. And he knows how difficult it is for us to serve others in God's love when we're focused on ourselves most of the time.

To love our lives, Jesus is saying, is actually to kill the possibility of life. The word translated lose here, the one who loves their life loses it, is often translated in the New Testament as destroy. And it's rendered, Jesus says it in the present tense, the one who loves his life is actively ruining Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis that takes place in kind of a gray, dismal town.

It's sort of a suburb of hell. And for those who want to, there's a bus ride that they can take foothills of heaven. And residents of heaven meet them to, to guide them and, and try and help them. Relatives, of, of these people or friends are trying to persuade them to let go of following the lore. Each soul has to their isolation from God and from others in that gray town.

Everyone is like off in their own area and all they're doing is just constantly in conflict with one. Person is confronted, a man who's a bitter and can't let go of his grudges. There's a pampered woman who, clings to vanity and desires for attention and recognition and luxury. One particularly moving example is, the a mother whose love for her son has become possessive, even to the point of idolatrous, overshadowing any possibility of love for God. Her brother is there trying to encourage her, that her her son wants to see her, but she has to recognize that her son belongs to God first and not to her.

And she cries out angrily, but but Michael is mine. Even good things, Lewis is saying, st. And then, and then, you can love your st. And then, we put in the place that God deserves, become deadly things, destructive things in our lives. The cross is the complete contradiction of every religion, every philosophy.

It tells us that everything that we have heard in this world is wrong. Because Jesus say the says the way to get real power is to give up your power and serve others. The way to get real riches is to give away your wealth generously and freely and gladly. The way to get healthy self esteem is to acknowledge that you are a guilty broken sinner that contradiction of everything that we're told to value and believe in because in the cross, God becomes weak, God becomes vulnerable, God becomes powerless, God suffers and dies, and that is the way to life, Jesus says. Crazy.

And Jesus says, that's because you're all abnormal. You're all messed up. We're living in a world that has distorted how we understand everything. Our hearts and our minds are confused. And the way to be saved and set It's to with Jesus through his weakness, his humility, his sacrificial love, sacrificial love.

To lose one's life is to stop trusting ourselves. We all want we're in fact, we're all made for validation, for approval, for delight, for significance. We're made for honor. The way to get it, Jesus says, is to honor him and to follow him. Listen to what he says.

In verse 26, whoever serves me must follow me, but my father will honor the one who serves me. What does Jesus deserve? What what glory, what praise, what recognition, what delight, what honor. Everyone in this room longs to be delighted in, longs to be loved and valued. That's what, in most cases, is really driving our life.

It's it's what's behind our search for romance. It's what parenting is about in many ways. I mean, when a young kid runs into your arms and and just says, daddy, And you just melt with delight. That's what we're made for. But it wears off.

And the reason it wears off is because you, your life, your soul is a seed. And you were made to be delighted in, but the only soil that will bring that seed to life is the love of the father who created you. The honor, the smile of your heavenly father. That's why For many of us, we go from one relationship to another, one job to another, looking for honor, looking for applause, looking for love, looking for significance. But none of them can be the satisfaction for our souls.

And when that other person, that other job, that other home, that other toy lets you down, we can get disappointed, and resentful, and bitter, and end up hating the thing that we thought would satisfy, because the one who loves their life is ruining it. The only way to find life is to quit chasing after it ourselves and to find it in Jesus. And he gives it freely. And the proof of it is what we celebrate today. On Friday, Jesus went to the cross, and he took on himself the rejection, the abandonment, the brokenness, the judgment that we all deserve.

Because he trusted in his father, he had life in himself even in the face of death. Today, we celebrate the fact that he has risen to offer life to all who will come to. The one who loves his life, loses it. Servant will also be. Oh, do you get it?

Draw. Maybe one thing to reflect on this Easter is what do I need to die to in order that I can bear greater fruit for God in the lives of others. You know, it's hard not to be happy and optimistic on a beautiful spring day. Right? We see bunnies, and there's eggs, and and pastel colors, and, and this whole season is filled, you know, with metaphor and images of new life and new birth.

That's what makes possible real and and and and it's good news that the best it's the just just our broken world, where you take up Jesus' trauma to lay down your own life, like a kernel of wheat being buried in the ground, to let God bring life through you to others. Let Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day, especially. The reminder, the promise, the reality that Jesus is alive and because he is alive, we can have life in knowing and following him. Jesus, thank you that, you don't give us a list of things to do, standards to measure up.

Place to reconcile us to the father, so that through your death and by our letting go of our lives and trusting them to you, we would have life. Oh, Jesus. Help us to trust and believe that and to know your life for our good and for the good of those around us. Thank you, Jesus. We pray in your name.

Amen.