Would you open your Bible with me please to John chapter 12. The greatest teacher in the history of the world was Jesus Christ. Using simple language, familiar illustrations, and common stories, he revealed the deepest truths of God and his kingdom. Sometimes, however, Jesus employed figures of speech which challenged the imagination of his audience. Sometimes he talked in parables.
By parables he told stories from the everyday life of the people which were intended to communicate spiritual or moral truths. Parables at the same time served to conceal and to reveal God's truth, to conceal it from those who were rejecting him and to reveal it to those who were receiving him. And then sometimes Jesus spoke in paradoxes. He made a statement that was apparently self-contradictory in order to increase the curiosity and thought of his audience.
Jesus employs a paradox in the text we're going to read in John 12. I'll begin in verse 20. And there were certain Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast. These therefore came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him saying, So we wish to see Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew, Andrew and Philip came and they told Jesus. And Jesus answered them saying, 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 by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it. And he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. Notice the paradox in verse 25. Essentially, Jesus says that we must die in order to live.
That paradox and the more full text talks about a spirit or an attitude that is so fundamental to spiritual life that to overlook it may imperil one's soul. The attitude that we're talking about is the attitude of humility or lowliness of mind. Humility is a distinctively Christian grace. It causes one not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. The heathen religions of the world had no concept of humility.
Aristotle taught that man ought to experience a high-minded self-sufficiency. And that idea is common throughout pagan religions and humanistic philosophies. Today, humanism tells us that man is autonomous, has no need of anyone or anything outside of himself, and that to promote oneself is the right, the most ethical thing that one can do. Out of that stands in contrast to what Christianity teaches, humility. Humility that is freedom from vanity.
Humility that causes one to be aware of his unworthiness. Dr. Vernon Grounds has said, humility is that attitude which results from a fearlessly honest self-appraisal. A self-appraisal which neither minimizes one's achievements nor exaggerates one's failures. He goes on to say, it is the child of that radical theocentricity, that is God-centeredness, which gratefully acknowledges God's sovereign bestowal of gifts and his sovereign enablement in service.
What he is saying is that humility comes from God-centeredness and our recognition that whatever we have or whatever we are or become, all comes from a sovereign God and not from ourselves. That which really produces humility in our lives is the worship of God. But when we worship ourselves, we become proud. Humbleness of mind is essential for one who would be a follower of Jesus Christ. It's not merely a possibility, it is an essential. In the first place, humility is essential for salvation.
In fact, our text in John 12 really focuses on that theme of salvation. There are Greeks who come searching for Jesus, asking that they might have an interview with him. They approach some disciples who then go to Jesus for the purpose of introducing him to these Greeks. Notice that Jesus doesn't directly respond to them. The arrival of these Gentiles seems to signal something to Jesus. It is that his hour has come.
Up to this point several times in the Gospel of John, he has said, my hour has not yet come. But the arrival of these Greeks, these Gentiles seeking for him, and perhaps him laying his eyes upon them and seeing them, caused him to realize that his hour had come for his sacrifice, the hour in which he would be glorified. As Isaiah said, he would see the fruit of his sacrifice and be satisfied.
So now Jesus sees not only Jews but Greeks who would be purchased by his blood, not just Jews but Gentiles as well, that would be brought into the kingdom of God by what he had come to do. And he says, my hour has come. The theme seems to be salvation here. And in verse 25 he says, he who loves his life loses it. He who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. So Jesus is talking about eternal life.
When I say that humility is essential for salvation, I am not saying that humility is a separate, distinct act apart from simple faith. But what I'm saying is that implicit in saving faith is humility. I believe that's why Jesus began the Beatitudes the way that he did. You remember the Beatitudes and how they begin? If not, look back at Matthew 5 and verse 3. Matthew 5 and verse 3. For theirs is the kingdom of God. Notice that. Jesus begins with those that are poor in spirit.
And then he moves ahead to say, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. What is our Lord doing? Well, in giving of the Beatitudes he is expressing what is part and parcel of salvation. He begins with poverty of spirit that then leads to the mourning of repentance. Humility gives birth to repentance and on it goes through the Beatitudes. Dr. Warren Wiersbia said, the word humility is another way of saying poor in spirit.
He says, I think it was Andrew Murray who said that humility is that grace that when you know you have it, you've just lost it. He also said, humility is not thinking mainly of yourself, it is simply not thinking of yourself at all. Wiersbia goes on to say, this explains why blessed are the poor in spirit is the first of the Beatitudes. For until we admit our need, we can never receive what God has for us.
The person who is self-satisfied and self-sufficient, who feels no need for God, is not poor in spirit. The point I'm trying to make is this, when I come to the cross for salvation, I can bring nothing of my own pride, my sinful ego, or my boasting. Rather I must lay all of that aside and come empty handed, as it were as a beggar, to the cross. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, says the hymn writer. In coming to the cross, I must recognize my essential unworthiness.
I must think of myself as is appropriate for a sinner to think of himself, as being without hope apart from God. And as one who is poor in spirit, I then reach out in faith to lay hold of the mercy of God extended to me because of what Jesus did on that cross. You see, humility is the only proper reaction for a sinful creature in the presence of a holy creator. Humility comes from sin consciousness.
Isaiah the prophet, who was perhaps the most righteous man externally in his day, when he was aware of God's presence in the temple and aware of his own sinfulness, cried out, O is me, a way of saying I am judged, I condemn myself. He was poor in spirit and humbled. Despite the fact that man is created in the image of God and therefore has inherent dignity and worth, still he is only finite and is an agent of rebellion against the Most High God and is unworthy.
The apostle Paul agrees with this, doesn't he? For in Philippians chapter 3, he gives us a list of his credentials externally. He concludes by saying, and according to the righteousness that is by the law, he said I was blameless. He measured himself against the external code of the law and he said I am blameless, but he said all of that that I might boast in, he says I gladly lay aside.
He says it is nothing but a pile of rubbish so that I might know Jesus Christ and not have my own righteousness which is after the law, an external righteousness. But he says that righteousness which is given to me by God in Jesus Christ. When I come to the cross, I have to recognize that my righteous deeds are like filthy rags. I must lay those rags aside and receive from God's mercy a robe of perfect righteousness that he gives to the sinner who comes impoverished of spirit.
The bad knee, the humbled mind, the repentant heart are all a part of what is saving faith. And as Jesus said, it is the poor in spirit who are blessed to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Isaac Watts lived from 1674 to 1748. He was of course an Englishman and has been called the father of English hymn-nity. In his day, Isaac Watts was a radical because he challenged the tradition of the church at that time of strictly singing only from the book of the songs.
He was a pastor but he had to retire early at the age of 38 in fact because of his ill health and became a tutor and a private chaplain to the family of Sir Thomas Abney. Isaac Watts was a brilliant man. He authored some 60 volumes covering various themes. In addition to that, he wrote over 600 hymns or paraphrases of the songs, what we might call today scripture songs. Isaac Watts wrote what is acclaimed by music scholars as the finest hymn in the English language.
The words go like this, When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, and poor 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. 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. How well he captures in that hymn what we're talking about.
A humility is essential for salvation. We come to the cross bringing nothing of our own righteousness, nothing that we claim is merit for ourselves, even the good things of our lives. By recognizing our sinfulness, we cry out to God for mercy. Humility is also essential for service. Jesus says in verse 26 of John 12, If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
No attitude of the soul for serving the King is more appropriate than that of humility. For he himself exemplifies too is what humility is all about. Think of what he says in verse 24, about himself. I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
As Jesus said those words, he was looking at those Gentiles who had come to seek him out, recognizing that they too were part of the fruit for which he was about to die. Jesus says regarding his own service for God, that he was as a grain of wheat, which would abide by itself unless it fell to the ground and died, but if it did that, just as a grain of wheat germinates and produces a stalk with a head of grain on it, much fruit, unless he died, there would be no fruit.
And he died and we are a part of that fruit today. The Lord Jesus was humble even to the point of the death of the cross. Philippians chapter 2. Paul recounts for us in that passage and we need to turn to it because I want to look at something else in that chapter. Philippians chapter 2. Our memory verse in fact comes from here. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind that each of you regard one another as more important than himself.
He says, do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Our sovereign, Savior came into the world and himself exemplified to us what humility is all about. It is giving oneself for the sake of others. It means not only to look after your own concerns, but others, others. Jesus came to die and you and I are here that in our living we too might die. Die to ourselves.
That is the way Paul lived. In fact in this chapter he gives some other examples of humility and he is one that he gives. He points to himself in verse 17. He says, even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. Paul is imprisoned not knowing what the future holds as he writes these words. He sees his life passing by.
He has given himself to service for people like the Philippians and he looked upon his life at that moment as being poured out like a drink offering upon the altar in Jerusalem. He says my life is simply being poured out, but he says I rejoice. Why? Because Paul had the attitude of humility. He was here to serve. Whatever that required of him to serve others, whatever that meant in God's will for his life he was willing to do it even if it meant pouring out his life upon the altar.
He points then to Timothy as well. Verse 19, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. Think of how many people brush shoulders with Paul.
And yet Paul as he looks over all of those people that were around him, all of the possibilities says that Timothy is the only one at least there with him at the moment who had the same heart that he did, the heart of humility. How was that exemplified? By being concerned for their welfare? Others, others, others? He says in verse 21, they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. Isn't that a sad verse?
God forbid that that verse should be written over the life of any of us. That we have lived our lives looking after our own interests and not those of Jesus Christ. But Jesus said if anyone follows me he must have this attitude of humility. Others before oneself. And then Paul points to another example of Epaphroditus verse 25. He says I thought it necessary to send to Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier who is also your messenger and minister to my need.
This is the man who came from the Philippians with a gift for Paul, they're in prison. Paul boasts of him as being a brother, a fellow worker and fellow soldier. And verse 26, because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. Indeed he was sick to the point of death but God had mercy on him and not on him only but also on me lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly in order that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you. Therefore receive him in the Lord with all joy and hold men like him in high regard because he came close to death for the work of Christ risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me.
So Paul lifts up Epaphroditus to these people who knew him well and he says this is a man that you should hold in high regard because he also exemplifies my spirit. He was willing to risk his life for the sake of serving me and Jesus Christ. We read about people like this, we admire them and we marvel at them but there are people like Epaphroditus and Timothy sitting right here in this auditorium.
Now I thank God for the people who serve Jesus Christ with a sense of even reckless abandonment who are willing to say God whatever it takes, whatever the cost may be, I will serve you and serve others. Who say as Paul said here, God I am willing to pour out my life that I might minister to other people in your name. Those kinds of people we ought to hold up in high regard because they set an example for all of us to follow for they follow the Lord Jesus.
That example of humility is essential for our service. Kenneth Kirk is quoted in the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Encyclopedia. Let me tell you what he says, without humility there can be no service worth the name. Patronizing service is self-destructive, it may be the greatest of all disservices. If we would attempt to do good with any sure hope that it will prove good and not evil, we must act from the spirit of humility. You see what Kirk is saying?
He's saying that if I serve others, then my motive is wrong. In the end my service may be disservice. And instead of building up others, it may ultimately undermine them and destroy them. Therefore when I serve, I must serve with humility. Death to oneself, drivenness, and self-desire for recognition, and self-drive for achievement, death to all of that is necessary in order to serve Christ fruitfully. May I say that there is no death that comes harder to any of us than death to our own desires.
We are driven by self to find expression for self's gratification, and self's fulfillment, and self's independence, and our self's rights. And we must bring all of these to the altar of God and slay them as they are expressions of the self-life in order to experience the fullness of the life of God. It is only the humble attitude of sacrifice that will allow us to practice that kind of commitment. But when we do, it allows us to bear fruit that will really honor God. It really will.
And when we serve Jesus Christ that way, one day we too will be honored. We really will by God. God has ways of humbling us, doesn't he? Did you ever think of God as having a sense of humor? I know God has a sense of humor. I remember one occasion back in the first year that we were here in the Twin Cities when Bob Ricker, who was Pastor at Grace Edina at that time, and myself were exchanging pulpits on Sunday evenings. Some of you remember those Sundays?
They were great experiences, especially in the summertime when we had no air conditioning here and I got to go to Edina on Sunday evenings and preach in an air conditioned church. I was all for the pulpit swap on those Sundays. I remember one Sunday evening wanting to deliver my soul of the message that God had laid in my heart. And of course, wanting to make a good impression in this church that I was brand new to in Edina as well as here. Wanting to put my best foot forward.
So I put on a good, nice looking suit, you know, and dressed up and went and preached in a way that I thought was acceptable. On my way home, I decided to take off my coat and when I did, I found out that my coat had ripped from here all the way under my arm. And every time that I lifted my arms in the service and gesture, this flap of white lining would open up on this side. A way to impress people. Well, I laughed about that, I thought, God, you're right.
You know, what does it matter what we wear or whether we impress people? Let our service be from humility. Reminds me of the preacher who preached well, he thought, one Sunday morning. And on his way home, he was waiting for his wife to say something and she didn't. So he decided to prime the pump and he said, dear, there are so few great preachers in the world today. She let a couple of seconds appropriately pass and she said, yes, dear, and there's one fewer than you think.
Humility is the acceptance of the place that is given to us by God. It can never be a place in the front of the pack or in the rear of it. It is possible for us to be too big for God to use, but we can never be too small for God to use. Humility is essential in service. And finally, humility is essential for sanctification. I draw this out of the text by way of application. Dying and as a result of that, the production of fruit in the life.
The work of God's spirit within us, changing and transforming us into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ depends upon our attitude. Ego centricity will hinder the work of God's ministry in this regard. Self-centeredness quenches his Holy Spirit, but humility of soul is the atmosphere in which the Holy Spirit works to make us like Jesus. Again I would quote Warren Wiersbeck. It is difficult to conceive, he says, of a Christian growing in grace apart from humility.
True poverty of spirit is the soil out of which the fruit of the spirit can be cultivated. That's a great statement, isn't it? True poverty of spirit is the soil out of which the fruit of the spirit can be cultivated. He goes on to say, certainly the seed of God's word could never be planted in the hard soil of a proud heart. Pride always makes a slave out of a person while humility sets that person free.
When you live to promote yourself, you are bound to become a slave of people or things or circumstances. You are never really free to be yourself because self has already enslaved you through pride. Are you free this morning from that? Maybe a better question is, is the Spirit of God free to accomplish his work within you, that work for which he lives in you, to change you to be like Jesus?
Pride and ego lock the Lord in the chapel of our hearts, as it were, and does not allow him to go throughout the rest of our house. It locks him up in that one small room. When we take the key of humility and unlock that door, the Lord is free to walk into every room in our lives and there change it to be what would please God. Augustine stated that the secret of sanctity or holiness is, as he put it, humility, humility, humility. He is right.
Was it not the boasting and pride of the Corinthians which caused Paul to scold them, calling them fleshly, calling them babes in Christ? All spiritual growth and development was there because they boasted in human teachers and in their own giftedness and were not characterized by humility. So Paul told them, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. That is our only boast, isn't it? You and I need not fear God's work in humbling us. As you see, whom God would greatly use, he must first humble.
And so when God chooses to break us, it is so that in the end we might become more usable by him. Some of us are going through that experience of being broken. That does not happen pleasantly. It is painful. And it does not usually happen quickly. It is drawn out. God has ways of humbling us, particularly when we do not humble ourselves.
That is why it is so much better when we take the initiative and do what he says to do, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due season he may lift you up. But there are times when we humble ourselves that God yet sees a need for further humbling. And so he brings failure. He brings heartache. He brings demotion. He brings disappointment. At first it sears us and stabs us and we wonder, God, what are you doing?
And because he loves us so much, all God is trying to do is to break us of that ego that hinders him from having more power in our lives, making us more like Christ, making us more fruitful in our service. Humility is a grace that not only enables us to be more used by God and to know God better, but it is a grace that helps us in our human relationships. There is nothing that breaks up friendships or marriages or relationships at work faster than ego.
I find that in my marriage when I am stubborn, which I can be occasionally, but when I'm proud about something, it will cause the relationship between me and my family to be strained. When I am stubborn about something or proud about something, it destroys relationships with others. But humility brings us together. Humility brings us together. If you're experiencing a strain in relationships with others, that's something you may want to look at and consider before God.
Humility is essential for salvation. Dr. James Simpson from Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1848, discovered that chloroform could be used as an anesthetic to render people insensible to the pain of surgery. Many of us have benefited from his discovery. I'm glad he made it. Some years after that discovery, he was speaking at the University of Edinburgh. One of the students asked him, Dr. what do you consider to be the most valuable discovery of your lifetime?
Dr. James Simpson replied, my most valuable discovery was when I discovered myself a sinner and that Jesus Christ was my Savior. In order for us to discover Jesus Christ as our Savior, we have to first discover that we're sinners in need of that Savior. Humility is essential for salvation. We must come to God broken and humbled, recognizing our need of the Savior before we can receive him. Have you come to him that way? Are you a Christian?
Have you bowed the knee, opened your heart in faith, and received him? But humility is also essential for service. Dr. John Mitchell said, the great leaders of men in all fields have not been the arrogant and the greedy, but the servants. The real servants are the true nobility. The greatest of all, the Son of God himself, declared that he had not come to be served, but to be a servant and to give his life a ransom for many.
Beloved, that's why we are here too, to follow in Jesus' steps and to lay down our lives that there might be much fruit rise from that. For some of us that will mean going to a mission field somewhere, even when others say it's a terrible waste of life, and laying down our lives in humility for Jesus' sake, knowing that that's what we must do to follow him.
For others of us it involves other commitments, but the point is if we would serve him, it means that we lay down our lives to him in humility. Then humility is essential for sanctification. As Jonathan Edwards said, nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility. Andrew Murray wrote, humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.
It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in the Lord where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Father in secret and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness when all around and above is troubled. If you and I would live, we must first die. How is it that God wants you to die today? Let's bow together. Jesus said if we seek to grasp, to hang on to, to covet for our lives, in the end we lose them.
But if we lose our lives for his sake, we gain them and eternal life as well. In order to live we must die. We must be as that seed that falls to the ground. Where is the battle in your life today? Where is it that self is driving you, dominating you? Where is it that pride is enslaving you? Will you right now at that point bring death? Will you choose to die that you might live? Lord Jesus, apply that to my life and to the life of every hearer this morning.
And show us the grace of humility that so exemplified you as you laid down your life for us. Teach us to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of the Father that he might exalt us in his time and his way. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.