what God has taught us and told us and particularly how Easter should shape our view of the world and how the world actually works. If you have a Bible, you can open up to John chapter 12. There's a section of John's gospel that we'll look at together. John chapter 12. We'll start at verse 12. But before you read, let's let's pray together. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for bringing us here tonight. We thank You, Lord God, for Easter, for the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We thank You for all that that Easter brings to us, that His death and resurrection secured for us. We pray, Lord, as we come to Your word, that You would open the eyes of our heart so that we might see You and so that we might see the world the way it really is and live in submission to Your created order and to You. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. John chapter 12, starting at verse 12, and we'll read to verse 34. And before we read, I want to note that I didn't pick this text for this reason, but it works well. This passage is telling us about this very day. Palm Sunday, the day before, the Sunday before Easter. That's what we're reading about right here, so it's perfect timing. John chapter 12 is is speaking about this very day 2,000-odd years ago. The next day, the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, crying out, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him. The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they had heard He'd done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him." Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So they came to Philip, one of Jesus' disciples, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and they 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 honor him. Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose, I've come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel has spoken to Him. Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not Mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself." He said this to show by what kind of death He was going to die. So the crowd answered Him, "We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man?" This is the word of the Lord. Now, as we come to look at this passage together, I want to start by asking you, if you think about a successful person in life, someone who's who has achieved success, what does that look like? What does a successful life look like? Is it measured by their accumulation of wealth? You know, they might not need to be super-rich, but as long as they've got enough to be comfortable and secure, then they're successful. Or maybe it's measured by influence. You know, the successful people that we look to online are those who gather a following, right? Numbers of followers, numbers of views, that's that's what determines success, perhaps. Or how many people listen to you? How many people gather around you? How many friends you have? Is that how you determine success? Or perhaps success for you is about personal happiness. You know, the wealth doesn't matter, the followers don't matter, but as long as you're content with your lot in life, as long as you kind of have a peaceful approach to life, you know, you can weather storms and and just, you can manage life really well. That might be what you think success is. You know, have a happy family. Maybe that's a measure of success. Your life has few dramas in it. Well, Easter, the story of Easter, teaches us about what true success is in this world, the way God has designed the world and the way that you achieve success. And it turns all of our normal ideas about success on their head. Because Jesus, when He approaches Easter, is approaching it in order to succeed, and He does the exact opposite thing that you would expect. Did you notice in our passage, as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, He has gathered a following. There's these people who are hear that He's coming and they lay out palm branches on the road. That's what you do for a king. They even cry out this, you know, they don't just show it in symbol, they even say it. "Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel." His following is so significant at this point that the Pharisees, who are His sworn enemies, look at what's occurring as Jesus enters Jerusalem, and they say, "You know what? We give up. We're achieving nothing. The entire world is going after Him." And John wants to underscore this this point that Jesus has gathered a following, not just of all these Jews who are calling Him king, but of the entire world by telling us about some Greeks who were coming. These aren't even Israelites. So if if they're crowning Him king of Israel, why are these Greeks coming and wanting to know Him as well? The point is, the king of Israel was going to rule the entire world. The Israelites knew this. And here we have in in verse 20 there, there were some who came up to worship at the feast, and some of them were Greeks. And they came to Philip and said, "We want to meet Jesus." My goodness. This sounds this sounds like Jesus is hitting all the right things here. He's got a following, they're wanting to make Him king, and and if you'd noticed, the reason they want to make Him king is because He's exercised power over death. He's raised Lazarus from the dead just just a few days before. And so Philip and Andrew, His disciples, come to Jesus, and you can almost feel their excitement, right? "Man, the Jews want to make you king, there's Greeks coming. This is it. This is it. The Messiah is here. The king of Israel is here. The whole world's going to come and submit to Him." And they come and say, "Jesus, some Greeks are coming, they want to meet You. Can we line up a meeting?" And listen to what Jesus says. "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." Well, that's good. Right? Philip and Andrew are like, "Yeah, we see it, Jesus. We can see. Everyone's coming. You're going to be made king. We can see that Your glory is right here." And then, Jesus flips it all. "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." That's verses 23, 24, and 25. And in this, these simple two verses, Jesus masterfully unveils the true nature of this world, the true nature of success, and the reason for Easter Friday and Easter Sunday. Jesus here is is speaking about the fact that He has not come to gather and grab and grasp at a worldly following. He has come to die, to lay His life down. That's what Easter is all about. And what's remarkable about what Jesus says here, particularly in verse 24, is He's saying, "This is how the world is." Jesus, when He goes to the cross, is not cutting against the grain of the way that God has made the world. He's going with the grain of how God has made the world. And we know that because Jesus points to a created thing, a natural thing: seeds. We all know how seeds work, right? You to grow food, to grow more wheat, you plant seeds and the seeds die. They go into the ground and they are no more. But when you put a seed in the ground, it produces more seeds. It bears much fruit. And so Jesus is actually saying to us, to His disciples, "Guys, you've got to understand how the world works. God has made the world in such a way," in fact, Jesus has made the world in such a way, "that death bears fruit. That death leads to life. That the giving up of glory leads to glory." It's what He explains in the following verse: "Whoever loves his life loses it." So if you gather and hoard and grab and grasp at life, you lose it. But if you give up your life, you gain it. In fact, He uses stronger language than that. He says, "Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." But notice here that what Jesus is saying is that He's not saying you have to hate glory or don't pursue glory or don't pursue life. What He's saying is pursue it in the right way. Jesus wanted glory, but He knew that the path to glory was not to secure it in worldly ways, but it was to secure it through death, through submission to His Father, through giving up of Himself. It's why it's the motivation He gives there in verse in verse 25. You want to keep your life for eternal life? Is that what you want? That's the motivation He's pointing to. You should want to keep your life, but you do that by hating it in this world. You want glory? You want to be glorified? Well, you do it by submitting yourself to God, by renouncing the glory of the glories of this world. That's exactly what Jesus did. That's exactly what Easter is about. Jesus didn't seek glory in this world in worldly ways. He could have. He could have come into Israel and claimed the kingship and secured things. He could have done it way back when He was tempted in the wilderness. He could have given into Satan and said, "Yes, I'll worship You." Satan would have given Him the world, and He would have got it through sinful means. He didn't seek to keep His life in this world. He gave up His life in order to secure a glory far higher than we could imagine. That's what we read in Philippians, isn't it? Jesus came down, humbled Himself. He was the divine Son of God, took on flesh, lived in this cursed world, and submitted Himself to His Father, even to the point of death. Therefore, because He gave up everything, God has given Him a name that is far above every name. A glory that is far above any other glory. A kingship that is eternal, not temporal, not temporary. And we know that Jesus is seeking this glory, seeking this victory, seeking this kingship, because He continues on to talk about it. Look at look with me at verse 31. "Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out." You see what He's saying? "I'm about to go and win. I'm about to go and defeat the powers that rule over this world: sin, Satan, death, the curse." And look again, verse 32: "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to Myself." Can you hear Him answering Philip and Andrew there? They're saying, "Jesus, the Jews are coming, the Greeks are coming, everyone's coming." And He goes, "Yes, but I'm going to win more by going to My death, by giving it all up, by being forsaken by everyone, I will draw all people to Myself." You know, as a side note, the astonishing thing about this is that what what Jesus is saying is this is this is built into creation. This is how the world works. And this is how the world worked pre-fall. Before Adam and Eve sinned, I think it's fascinating that in Genesis, God likes pointing out the fact that there's seeds, right? He talks about plants that bear fruit according to their seed. And it's almost as if Jesus here is saying, "Look, if Adam was switched on enough, right? He should have known. He should have known that fighting the the dragon in the garden, even if it killed him, was the pathway to life." He should have known that when his wife sinned, he could have handed himself over to God to take her penalty for him, and it would have resulted in glory and life. Why? Because the way up is down. Because the way to to life is death. The way to glory is renouncing renouncing glory, or seeking the glory of another. And this is what Easter is all about. It's about Jesus forsaking these things. It's about Jesus laying His life down. Why? So that He would be glorified, so that He would be crowned king of all, so that He would achieve victory over sin and Satan and the curse, so that He would draw to Himself all people and reign forever and renew this world. This is why we still talk about Jesus 2,000 years later, even though His story looks like defeat. Christians worship a man who claimed to be God and was then killed by local Roman authorities. It's insane. Why do we do that? Because we understand that the pathway to glory was Jesus's death. That after His death came resurrection, and that ultimately, when all of history is wrapped up, Jesus will be revealed as the king of glory, as the one who all knees will bow to, as the one who has defeated death itself. This is the good news that Christianity brings to the world. Jesus has defeated death and Satan and has been and has made a way to be brought back into peaceful and joyful relationship with God, our creator, and He does this precisely through dying and rising again. And Jesus here says that free and full forgiveness and restoration and eternal life are is now available to any person who joins themselves to Jesus. And how can you join yourself to Jesus? By taking the same path that He takes. Because that's how the world works. The way to life is to lay down your life. It's exactly what He says in this passage here. "If anyone serves Me, he will follow Me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him." It's what Jesus says here in verse 26. Can you hear the same theme running there? You want glory? You want honor? Well, serve Jesus. Seek His glory. Seek His honor. And the Father will honor you. You want life? Follow Jesus into death. Not necessarily physical death. You can't just die and think that you're joined to Jesus, but laying down of your life, laying down of everything that you hold dear, laying down of your sin, of your guilt, of your shame, laying down your pride that keeps you from confessing your guilt, from confessing your sin. Laying down your pursuit of worldly success. You know, you're working hard every day trying to get yourself into that version of success that you hold in your mind, whether it be wealth or health or prosperity or following or whatever it is. Lay it down. Give it up. Lay it at the feet of Christ. That's the pathway to success. That's the pathway to glory. That's the pathway to life. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, my sole goal of this this look at this passage is to reframe how you see the world. You should want eternal life. You should want to defeat death. This is this is at the heart of all mankind. We know this, that the very rich of this world, if you track what they're doing, they're always seeking to evade death. I think Elon Musk said the other day that death is just a technical problem, like we can solve it. There's some some guy who made his millions somewhere who's spent the last five years and all of his money trying to become younger. That's this is what the rich and famous want to do. They want to evade death. You should want to evade death, too. Death is the great enemy. You should want glory. You should want honor. But the way God has made the world is shown to us in this seed and in the Easter story, you save your life by laying it down at the feet of Jesus. You save your life by being willing to give it all up. You find glory by seeking Christ's glory and the glory of God the Father above all else. That's the only way to be saved. It's the only way to have eternal life. If you seek life, if you grab and grasp like Elon and the others, you know, rich and famous, but all of us, like all of us, if you grab and grasp at the things of this world, at your own sinful pleasures, at your own ability to secure success in this life, you will lose it. You will lose it for eternity. It's how the world works. And we know it. The seed show us. If you are a Christian, I also want you to reframe how you see the world. Why? Because the reality of this world is so topsy-turvy that we so easily forget these truths, that the way up is down, that the path to life is death. And it's a hard way to live. I think it's fascinating that Jesus, even though He made the world and understood how it worked perfectly and knew what the end would be, He knew that resurrection and glory was coming, He still found it hard to lay His life down. In the garden, He's praying, "Lord, if this cup can pass from me." He's weeping, great drops of blood are coming from His brow. It's not an easy thing, even for the Son of God, to lay down your life. Repenting from your sins is the hardest thing you will ever do. Because it's dying. And the life of a Christian is a life of continually living in line with this reality, continually giving up glory, giving up the things of this world, giving up our very life. But that is what faith is. Faith is trusting that this is the way to life, that this is the way to live, even when our natural senses and our natural fleshly hearts want to grab and grasp at the things of this world. So my encouragement to you on this Palm Sunday is to see the world through the eyes of Jesus. See that the seed, unless it dies, remains alone. But if it's willing to die, if it's willing to give it all up, then it bears much fruit. Let's pray.