The Cross Around the Corner part 1

Go ahead and take your Bible and turn with me this morning to John chapter 12. The Gospel of John chapter 12. Now we're back in our verse by verse study through the Gospel of John and most of you know by now the title of that series is Christ the Son of God Believe. That comes out of the theme verse, out of the Gospel of John. That's the theme of the entire message of the Gospel of John. John wanted to present Christ as deity, the Son of God in the flesh and he did this so that those readers would believe on him and have life.

Now we're back in our verse by verse study because we took a break last week as we observe Mother's Day and I do believe the Lord taught us about suffering as we looked at Job's wife as she suffered alongside her husband. Now the context of this morning's message are all of the events which transpired within the chapter chapter 12. Now not only do we need to see all of the activity within the chapter but we really need to see that this chapter is a tremendous turning point in the ministry of Jesus. For the very first time Jesus states my hour has come.

If you would write in your Bible you go to verse 23 and you see where Jesus says the hour has come. You need to underline that, you need to highlight that because this is a great turning point in the ministry of Jesus. After chapter 12 the events in Jesus' life leading up to the cross seem to get faster and faster and faster. Here Jesus is less than a week away from the cross and with that time frame in our minds we will see more clearly that Jesus' hour has come. Now quickly I want to reach back into the chapter and mention what we've seen. We saw the great banquet that was given in Jesus' honor in Bethany at the beginning of the chapter.

This was the event where Mary anointed Jesus in worship and she anointed his feet with that costly perfume and washed his feet with her hair. What a beautiful picture of worship. Then we saw Jesus come to Jerusalem at the Passover celebration starting in verse 12. And when he came to Passover we saw this great confluence of two great crowds. Those from Bethany, they merged with those who were coming to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. And here is where we saw that great triumphal entry. We are familiar with the triumphal entry in our day and time in the life of the church.

Remember that the crowd greeted Jesus in victory as they waved the palm branches and they shouted, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." And this was a quotation of one of the Messianic Psalms. This was all prophetic even though the crowds did not fully know, if they even knew at all, what they were doing or saying. And then Jesus announced to the crowds in verse 23, "My hour has finally come." So here we come to verse 27. And it seems that Jesus is continuing to speak to these crowds in verse 20 we see that the Greeks who were there at the Passover feast came to inquire of Jesus. Remember we saw how they came.

They sought out Jesus and Jesus taught them very openly. The message Jesus presented to them was of his approaching death. And this morning's verses are just a continuation of that same interaction, that same message that he presented to the crowds. Now the title of the message is very simple. I think it's very accurate. And that is the cross around the corner. The cross around the corner. This will be a part one and a part two. This morning we'll cover just a few verses, verse 27 through 30. And then next week we'll go on down with that same title to verse 34.

Now like I said earlier, these verses are a continuation of our previous verses where Jesus was approached by the Greeks. And a good way to divide those verses is like this. Verses 20 through 26, Jesus is speaking of his approaching death. Remember what he said? "My hour has come." And here in verses 27 through 34, Jesus is seen grasping the implications of that death. So let's look at these verses starting in verse 27. "Now my soul has become troubled or grieved, and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Father glorify thy name.

There came therefore a voice out of heaven." And this is a quotation here. "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." The multitude therefore stood by and heard it, where saying that it had thundered, others were saying, an angel has spoken to him. And then verse 30, Jesus answered and he said, "This voice has not come from my sake, but for your sake." Now just those few verses, you see how we're going to divide them. Two main truths that are before us. The prayer of Jesus, verse 27 in the first portion of verse 28. In the answer of the Father, verse 28 to verse 30. Hope and pray you're taking notes.

We want you to develop that discipline, because it is our habit here to go back and study our notes during the week so that we can learn and grow and retain all that the Lord wants us to learn. So let's look at our main truth, truth number one, the prayer of Jesus. The prayer of Jesus. Verse 27, "Now my soul has become troubled, and what shall I say?" Now he starts with his prayer, "Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name." Now here in these verses we are going to see the paradoxical person of Christ. Jesus was fully man and fully God. This is paradoxical.

It is a seeming contradiction in our understanding. Now we've seen this before in our study of John. We saw Jesus humanity when he wept for Lazarus in chapter 11, verse 45. In the future we will see it in chapter 13, verse 21, when Jesus expresses grief over Judas. We learned of his deity in the beginning of the Gospel. John chapter 1, we saw that Jesus was in the beginning with God and he was God. That is the Apostle John elevating the deity of Christ. Again, this seems contradictory to us, but we accept this by faith that Jesus was fully man and fully God. Now there are two observations I want to make about Jesus' prayer.

First I want you to see that Jesus prays with a burden. Jesus prays with a burden. Look at verse 27 again. You see it says, "My soul has become troubled." Now all of the translations that we refer to, the New American, the English Standard, the King James, uses the word troubled. Now this word needs to be understood to understand Jesus' prayer here. This word means to be disturbed. It means to be shaken up. It means to be in great, great turmoil.

The construction of the word in the original language tells us that this was a very strong word with an ongoing feeling, meaning that this troubling, this grief in his soul went on and on and on and on. Simply Jesus was deeply, deeply troubled to the very core of his being and it was an ongoing, nonstop anguish. There are several different commentators and authors I like to read. One of them is named A.W. Pink. He describes this very, very well. I'm going to quote it because it really helps us. A.W. Pink says, "His soul, his holy soul was moved to its very depths by the horror of that coming hour. His anguish was extreme.

His heart was suffering torture. Horror, grief and dejection are all included in the word troubled and it was a prelude to the garden of Gethsemane. This demands us a question and this question must be answered correctly. Why in the world was Jesus horrified? Why was he grieved? Why was he tortured to the very core of his being? Was it because of the suffering that he would endure at the hands of sinful men? We know that it was the Romans that crucified Christ. It was Roman soldiers who drove the spikes into his very flesh. Was it because of the dejection of his own people that he would suffer?

We know that it was the Jews who would reject Christ and scream, "Crucify, crucify, crucify." Was that the source of his troubling? No, that's not the source of his troubling. He was horrified. He was tortured because he was staring at the reality of suffering the holy wrath of a sin-hating, sin-judging God. I said earlier that this was a prelude to the garden of Gethsemane. If we speed over to Matthew's account in chapter 26 verse 38, we see Jesus is there in the garden and he is praying. And what does he say here? My soul is very sorrowful even to death.

The New American here in Matthew reads "grieved." And this word sorrowful or grieved is the exact same word in the original that we find here in verse 27 translated "troubled." If we go on a little further in Matthew's account, verse 39, Jesus prays, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." Now what was this cup? When Jesus stared into this cup, what was he seeing? Was it a collage of different human faces? Was it just a mixture of the names of humanity? No, that is not the case. That was not the case. That cup that Jesus stared at contained the reality of suffering the holy wrath of a sin-hating, judging God.

That was his burden. That was that horrible grief. That was that horror. That was that torture. He was looking ahead at that suffering that he endured. So we see that Jesus prayed with a burden. Second, I want you to notice that Jesus' prayer was a prayer of submission. Go back to the verse. "Father, save me from this hour." What shall I say, Father? "Save me from this hour." But for this purpose, I came to this hour. And now he says in verse 28, "Father, glorify Thy name." Here Jesus asks a strange and rhetorical question. Strange because it seems to suggest that Jesus was wrestling with a choice. But that is not the case.

He is posing the hypothetical possibility, but he emphatically states his predetermined eternal choice by answering his own question back to God the Father in his prayer. We see this predetermined eternal choice communicated by Peter as he is preaching at the Day of Pentecost. Listen to what Peter says in Acts 2 starting in verse 22. "Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst. As you yourselves know," verse 23, "this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God." So what was this eternal choice?

Jesus' eternal choice was to embrace this hour, verse 23. He was to fulfill his predetermined eternal purpose to be the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world. In this prayer, we see Jesus again submitting to that which he submitted to before the foundation of the world was laid. This was not a choice, but an affirmation of that eternal choice which he had already made. So what are we seeing here? One commentator I ran across said of Jesus' prayer here, "Prayer can be a window into the inner self." And that is just what we have here. Jesus is opening the window shades. He is opening the curtains to the window of his inner self.

And peering through this window, we see the great ongoing torturous agony of Jesus as he expresses himself to the Father in prayer. We see the perfect submission to the Father's will. Not that it was decided in this prayer, but it was affirmed in this prayer. Now a question for you. Why are we seeing this prayer? Verse 30, if we speed ahead, tells us why. Because verse 30 tells us that all of this took place not for Jesus' sake, but for man's sake. This was for our benefit. The first readers of John's Gospel would have benefited, and the readers of this prayer in John's Gospel benefit as well. That's you and that's me. This was for us.

This was looking into the window of the inner self of Christ. Now an application of these verses. I want you to see that there are two burdens here today. I'd love you to write these down. I want you to see that there is the personal burden, and then there is the corporate burden. The personal and the corporate burden. But I want you to see that these burdens are not quite what you think they are. We need to visit a verse, another verse, and then look at the verse in light of Jesus' burden to help us understand our burden. If we go back in the Gospel of John to John chapter 4, we're familiar with that chapter.

Remember Jesus had to go to Samaria, and he made a B line, a straight line to Samaria, and he went to Samaria because he had an appointment with a woman at the well. Remember, he was breaking all kinds of social rules. First he was a Jew talking to a woman. Second he was talking to a Samaritan woman. And as a matter of fact, she was a woman of very bad reputation. He had sent the disciples off to buy food, so he had this one-on-one encounter with the woman, and they came back with food, and they did not understand what Jesus was doing. They didn't want to be there. They didn't want to be in Samaria.

They didn't want to deal with that woman, and they sure didn't want any of their Jewish friends to know where they were. But in the middle of that supernatural, wonderful appointment that Jesus had, he says to the disciples this, "My food," verse 34, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." So with that verse in our mind, in the prayer of Jesus, we see that Jesus' burden was to fulfill the work of the Father, and that was to die as that substitutionary death for the sin of the world, according to 1 John 2.2.

And our burden, individually and corporately, must be to do the will of the Father and to accomplish his work as well. Now what is our work? It's not the same as Christ's work. No, we're not here to die as a substitutionary death. That was the role of the Messiah. But our burden is to accomplish the work of the Church. And so we must see that we have an individual personal burden and a corporate burden to do this work, to fulfill this work, the work of the Church. I'll help you with this. I'll flesh this out for you. There are some of you. God has enabled you and called you to teach.

Some of you teach our children and teenagers, and I'm very thankful for that. See, that is an individual burden that you flesh out in the life of the Church, and we relate to that together because some of those teachers teach your children and my children. As an elder in the life of the Church, I am to equip you and encourage you and watch over you and supply you with all the things that you need. You see that individual burden and that corporate burden? Many of you have children that you're raising in your home. You're teaching them the Word of God. You're praying with them.

But then when you bring them into the life of the Church, you bring them under our authority. And I have a responsibility to teach the Word of God to you as a parent and to impact your children. I've said this many times. I hope and pray that when my children graduate from high school, they look across the Church and they see countless adults who have impacted them. This is the individual personal burden and that corporate burden that we share to do what? To pour our lives into the work of the Church. Now I want to share with you there's a trap right here.

I know I'm spending quite a bit of time on the first main truth, but there's a trap here. And this trap can be hidden. It reminds me of my upbringing years. I had a grandfather that used to take me hunting and fishing and all those good things. He'd walk up and down the pond dam and catch crickets so I could fish. But growing up, my grandfather always had animals. He had chickens and guineas and all those good things. But you know, if a varmint came along and caught one of his chickens or guineas, he would always go get his string of what he called steel traps. Catch them on the feet.

He'd take that dead chicken or that dead guinea and he'd set those traps. He would lay an ambush. That might have been the neighbor's dog that caught those chickens, but I'm telling you, he was going to catch that predator. There's a trap right here. Let me share with you the trap. The Jews could not see that the Messiah was for the Gentiles as well. And oh, let me tell you the trap here. The trap here is that we could embrace this personal corporate burden and then we could become selfish with this thing called the Church. The Church isn't for you. The Church isn't for me. The Church isn't just for your children.

The Church is for all those we could reach. And there are countless people all around us. And if we're not careful, we can let just a little bit of selfishness come in and we can think all that we have and all that we're going to do is just for us. It's not good English, but it might help. It ain't for you and it ain't for me. It's for all those that the Lord would put in our path. And the disciples were there in some area and they just couldn't get it. So what do we see? We see Jesus' prayer. Let's move on. I want us to notice truth number two. I want us to see the answer of the Father.

Jesus said, "Father, glorify Your name." And there came therefore a voice out of heaven. I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. The multitude therefore stood by and they heard it where they were saying that it had thundered. Others were saying that an angel has spoken to Him. Jesus answered and He said, "This voice was not for my sake, but for Your sake." Here we see the immediate and direct answer to Jesus' prayer. Not only did Jesus hear the answer, but those who were with Him, they heard the answer. Now question, who are these people? Was this the Bethany crowd that followed all the way to Jerusalem?

Was this the Passover crowd? Was it both? Was it just the Greeks who came to Him in verse 20? We really don't know for certain. Now if you study the Scriptures carefully, there is a break between verse 19 and 20. But in verse 20 we see there were Greeks, but we see that there is a crowd besides Jesus and the disciples there who heard this voice. Three observations I want to make here. First I want us to see the voice of the Father. We see that in the second part of verse 28. Here we see that there was an audible voice from heaven just as there had been an audible voice at the baptism of Jesus.

If we go back into Matthew chapter 3 verse 17, when John, that is John the Baptist, was baptizing Jesus, there was a voice. And what was said? And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. But notice in this verse, verse 28, what is being said. The Father is saying that He has glorified His Son's name in the past and He will glorify it again. This past glorification is really hard to identify. Was it one particular event like the baptism here? Or was it just a glorification over all of His earthly ministry? It's hard to know.

Bible commentators really debate what is being specifically talked about here. But what we do know is how He will glorify His name in the future. The Father is talking about the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus back to His rightful place. True in because of the Son's perfect obedience, God the Father will glorify His name. So we see the voice of the Father. Second observation I want us to see is the misunderstanding of the crowd. Verse 29, "The multitude therefore who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered.

Others were saying an angel has spoken to Him." What needs to be understood here is that what was said from heaven was an audible, understandable voice. The problem was not with the voice, but with those hearing the voice. The text tells us that there were two explanations given to this voice out of verse 29. Some thought it was some natural phenomenon. What did they say? Surely it thundered. Some thought it was some supernatural phenomenon. They thought that an angel from heaven had spoken. So they misunderstood this clear, audible voice from heaven. And then the third observation, the explanation by Jesus. The explanation by Jesus.

Jesus answered and He said, "This voice has not come for my sake, but for your sakes." Here, we see Jesus responded to their perplexed responses. He states plainly that this voice was not for Him, but for the multitude. Jesus had perfect communion with the Father, meaning that He did not struggle to know God's will or hear His voice. This voice was for those who had spiritual perception, they had the spiritual ears to hear. This voice was to strengthen, to encourage, and to prepare those who had the spiritual ability to hear.

Those who were blind and deaf spiritually were left even more perplexed and more confused, and this was meant to prove or to reveal who they really were. So what are we seeing here? There are two words I would like you to write down, and that is the word "authentication" and "confirmation." Authentication and confirmation. The Father is authenticating the Son and His ministry. The Father is confirming the Son to the crowd as well. Now, what was the ultimate purpose? For those who had ears to hear, it was to encourage them, it was to strengthen them, and it was to prepare those true disciples for what was to come.

And then those who did not have ears to hear, it was to prove and to reveal to all who they truly were. Now in application of these verses, I want us to see that God will give you, those of you who have ears to hear, He will give you confirmation and authentication. But the sad reality is, there are some in the life of the church, and maybe even in our church today, they will not receive confirmation, they will not receive authentication, but they will react in greater perplexity. I'll show you how this works in the life of the church.

As God is rebuilding the church, as we are growing in the life of the church, as the Word of God is preached on Sunday morning and on Sunday night and on Wednesday night, as we remain true to the preaching and the teaching of the Word of God, as God works in the life of the church and the Word of God is preached, there is something wonderful and terrible and mysterious and experiential that happens. There's some here you receive confirmation and authentication. I hear that from your lips.

You share with me and Brother Keith how God has brought you here, how God has worked in your life to bring you here, how God is working in you personally, how the Word of God is molding you, you share with us prayer requests and how God is using the life of the church, you and I, in each other's lives. And all that is is confirmation and authentication. You know God has brought you here and God is working. And look, the longer you are here, the more this work takes place. I'll never forget Brother Keith and I had a particular man in the life of this church communicated it like this to us. I feel like I have finally found my people.

And look, the longer you are in the life of the church, it is a greater, greater confirmation, a deeper authentication. There is a work that God does in you and you are rooted deeper and deeper and deeper and God is working in you more and more and more. You see how it works? But the sad reality is, as God works around others, there are some, all they do is offer perplexity in their interpretation of what God is doing. You are confirmed and you are affirmed. You are growing and yet there is somebody right next to you, they don't like it. They don't want it. They don't want it. They don't want the Word of God.

They argue with what is being taught. They don't want the work of the church to expose them and the Word of God to run deep in their lives. And look, just like this voice from heaven drew a strong harsh line between the crowds, that's what has happened around us. Listen, Nola, I don't mean to be rude, but when you look around, there are some people who have come and they have gone because they have been just like these crowds. They haven't looked at the work of the church here and said, "This is God!" They've looked around and they've had some strange explanation as to what they've seen. Sometimes that's hard for us.

Sometimes it's difficult because sometimes we think that there are people in the life of the church who are just like us when actually they're not. So the answer of the Father. Now I want to move to the conclusion of the message. And I want us to see that out of these verses, we have the prayer of Jesus. And like I said earlier, this is a window into the heart of Jesus. This reveals His torturous ongoing burden and His perfect submission, His perfect obedience to the work of the Father. There is a confirmation, there is an authentication in you and in the life of this church. Christ really is the Son of God.

Christ really is over the work that we see in the scripture, His substitutionary death, and He really is Lord over our church, the church that He's given us. But I want to ask you a question. I really want you to listen to Brother Chris. If the Lord were to open the window shades of your heart, would we see a great burden to submit to kingdom work? I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand more times. The center of God's activity on earth today is the church. Listen there are lots of prayer church organizations out there. There are lots of Christian organizations that do good things.

But if you look in the scripture, Christ is coming back for one organization and that is the church. These prayer church ministries are good and fine. But they're not rooted in the biblical church. They're lone ranger works. And if God were to open the shades of your heart today, would we see a great burden for kingdom work? And kingdom work is the church. And in your heart in life, is there a confirming? Is there an authenticating work binding you more and more and more and more to the work of the church? Is there a confirming and authenticating work in your heart binding you more and more and more to this work?

I was reminded this week of a way that I can illustrate this to you. I think that because it's time when we celebrate young people graduating from high school, it reminds me of what took place not long ago. Was it that long ago we had a young man graduate and y'all know him. His name is Jonah Henderson and he went into the Marine Corps. We prayed for him as he went to boot camp. There's a lot of things that go on at boot camp, I have many purposes. You know one of the main purposes of boot camp in the Marine Corps is to see if you're going to make the cut. Isn't that right? I never doubted in my mind that he would make the cut.

But I want you to see that when you see a true, listen close, biblical expression of the church, the word of God preached, there are some that don't make the cut. They're perplexed. But there is a way we can change that. All we've got to do is alter the message, dumb it down, change the church. But you know if the Marine Corps can't dumb it down, surely the church of the Lord Jesus Christ can't dumb it down and we're not going to dumb it down. Listen, it's not my desire to weed anybody out.

No, it's my desire as God has appointed us to govern the affairs of the church to preach the word and see God build a true New Testament church and listen, he will confirm and affirm those who he has called here and I'm sad to say he will weed out and he will cut out those who can't make the cut. Now I want to go back to the title of the message, the cross around the corner. Jesus is less than a week away. That burden is getting greater and greater and greater. That bitter taste, that horrible cup is getting closer. Cross is around the corner. And for us as a church, the cross, the cross of the church is here and now.

This is his church and I hope and pray that if the Lord would have pulled the window shade of your heart where we could see what's in your heart, we would see a personal and corporate burden for his work. It's a cross that we must bear and it's a cross that I want. Let's pray.