Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 12? So we talked today about the beginning of what we would call Holy Week, the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. One interesting little fact about John's Gospel is that he structures this gospel around the structure of the temple, because John is bringing us to know God. This is eternal life that they might know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And in the temple of Herod, the temple of John's Day, the temple of Jesus, the third temple, there were seven courts, seven layers, seven buffers that you had to go through before you got to the presence of God. There was first of all on the outside of the temple wall, the court of the Gentiles for people who were not Jews, but who were God-fearers who had not yet been circumcised and joined the community of the church, but who were interested in the God of Israel. Once inside, there was the court of the women and then closer to the center of things, the court of Israel or the court of men. And then as you moved inward, there was off by the main altar, the altar of sacrifice, the court of the priests, and then you entered the building proper, where only certain Levites or priests would go on rotations into a place called the Holy Place where they would offer incense and prayer. And once you went through the Holy Place, you entered beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies. Only one person went there at one time a year. That was the high priest who went in there on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, which was the lid or the top of the ark of the covenant, where at one time the presence of God had dwelt in the Shakyana glory. So those were your seven layers, the court of the Gentiles, the court of women, the court of men, the court of priests, the Holy Place, the Holy of the mercy seat, where atonement for sin was made. Remember that John's gospel is a gospel of sevens. There are seven great signs that point to Jesus Christ as the Messiah. There are seven statements, seven IAMs, seven self-revealing, self-authenticating statements about Jesus Christ made by himself. There are seven different people who have encounters with the living Christ and are converted. And there are seven layers through which Jesus Christ takes us in this journey into the presence of God. His gospel of John is structured that way. The first five chapters we meet Gentiles and women and Israeli men who are coming to Jesus Christ as if they were coming through the court of the Gentiles, the court of women, the court of men. The middle section, chapter seven through eleven, Jesus Christ is primarily interfacing with priests. He's arguing and discoursing and sometimes having conflict with them in the temple place where they would be ministering. When he comes to the final week of his life, he enters into an upper room where he will teach his eleven beloved friends that is often called in Bible studies, the holy place of the gospel of John. And then in John 17, Jesus Christ takes us for just a brief moment into the very presence of God, the Holy of Holies, where he offers up a high priestly prayer. We are enabled for one time and the only time in the Bible to listen in on a private conversation between the Son of God and God the Father, John 17. Then finally, on Calvary, Jesus Christ takes his own blood at the mercy seat and washes the nations, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. You see how John booze us step by step closer to knowing God, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, and you have sent. So here in John chapter 12, beginning at verse 12, Jesus Christ makes his final entry, his final visit to Jerusalem for what would be in the gospel of John his third or fourth Passover. And he will take us into increasingly intimate conversations with him and into the will of God until he brings us to know him and to know eternal life. This 12th chapter of John centers around the victory of God over sin. And it is a fulfillment of our call to worship today, lift up your heads, o' gates, and be lifted up, ye ancient doors, the doors of Jerusalem, that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord's strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, o' gates and lift them up, o' engine doors, that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory, the Lord of hosts? He is the king of glory. We'll find in this passage that Jesus Christ is identified as the king of Israel, the son of man, the Messiah, and the one who will take away the sins of the world, our Savior. It reminds us of the fulfillment of Habakkuk. The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent before him. Jesus Christ is moving with a small man to believers closer and closer to the temple and closer and closer to Calvary, where he will take away the sins of the world. And as he makes this journey on this highest of all holy days for Israel, Passover, no doubt he sang along with the pilgrims as he moved from Bethany outside of Jerusalem into the city itself, he would have sung the pilgrim songs. The songs of a sense, Psalms 120 to 134, Psalm 136, the great hallel, he would sing the Egyptian hallel, Psalms 114 to 118 that they sang at Passover supper. And in that last psalm, Psalm 118, the people pick up the words and they begin to sing blessed to see who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ is fulfilling with every step into Jerusalem one scripture after another. Psalm 122, I was glad when they said to me, come, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet are standing within your gates. O Jerusalem, most blessed of cities. Psalm 43, send out your light and your truth and let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill to dwell in your place. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy. And I will praise you with the liar, O God, you are my God. So Jesus Christ is moving us into this place where we will encounter God through the cross of Jesus Christ. That's John's, that's John's one major objective in this gospel that God so loved the world that he gave us only to be God's son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. For this is everlasting life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So I want us to see two things this morning. I want us to see this, this coming of the king of glory and this calling of the king of glory. Jesus is moving from the book of signs into the book of suffering in John's order of thanks. He's moving from the servant to being the Savior. He's going from, from his good works to his glory, step by step. And first we see John portraying this in the coming of the king of glory in chapter 12, beginning in verse 12 through 19. The next day that is on Sunday. 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, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord even the king of Israel. Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it just as it is written, fear not daughter of Zion. Be hold your king is coming sitting on a donkey's cold. 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 it 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 heard that he had 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, John says that there was a massive crowd in Jerusalem. They were waiting for Jesus Christ. They heard that he might be coming to the feast and they were waiting. Why? Well, because they had been impressed with the cumulative effect of his ministry. All of his signs and wonders and all of his great teachings. But it had been kept off in this climactic event of raising Lazarus from the dead. It had gathered a huge crowd in Bethany. They crowded in to see Jesus Christ and Lazarus at the end of the last chapter. And it made them speculate whether Jesus is going to come and have a final confrontation with the leaders of Israel and the leaders of Rome. And so seeing this great sign worker, this great wonder worker coming to Jerusalem, it says they went out to meet him because they heard of the things that he had done. And as they go out on this great Passover, they are moved by the Holy Spirit to begin to sing. And here's what they say. Hosanna, in the other gospels, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They begin to sing out of Psalm 119, this great song of tribute. And they do some odd things for us, but things that made sense to them. Three things as a matter of fact. First, they pick up palm branches, lay them on the ground in the path of this cult that he's in this donkey fold that he's riding upon, and they waved the palm branches and they sing a song of victory. They didn't get this out of the Bible. There's nothing in the Old Testament and spired text that tells them to do this. But it came out of their understanding of their history. The Hebrews had other books that were important to them. They didn't consider them to be the word of God, but they took great stock and historical and in predictive elements of those books, books that we would call the apocryphal. And one of them was a four book set of the wars of the Maccabees, the Maccabees brothers who had captured Israel from the salayosid leaders and had re-denocated the temple that led to the feast of Hanukkah, the feast that we just saw Jesus had in chapter 10. And in that history, after they had taken the city, they had a spontaneous palm branch procession into the city. Listen to what first and second Maccabees say. The Jews made their entry on the 23rd day of the second month of the year of 171 with acclimations and carrying palms to the sound of harps and symbols and zithers, chanting hymns and canticles since a great enemy had been crushed and thrown out of Israel. They kept eight festal days with rejoicing in the manner of the Feast of Tabernacles, remembering how not long before at that time of the Feast of Tabernacles, they had been limbing in the mountains and caverns like wild beasts, then carrying branches and leafy bows and palms. They offered hymns to him and brought the cleansing of his holy place to a happy outcome for a happy nation. Here was a symbol of a great leader coming into the city to cleanse the city, to rededicate Israel to God, to bring the victory of God over their greatest enemy, not Rome, but Sin, St. John, and the Holy Spirit led them to sing this great song. It's kind of like when the president comes by, if we had a parade in our town today and President Barack Obama would come, we would stand there and all of us had these miniature American flags and we would wave them and we'd say things like God bless America or hail to the chief or welcome Mr. President in England, they have these little union jacks and they say God saved the Queen. What we do when we wave those branches and wave those flags is we offer to that leader our loyalty and our land because the palm branch had become the national symbol of Israel when the Romans conquered Israel in 67 BC and again in 70 AD when they conquered Jerusalem. They minted coins that had on the back of them a palm branch under the arc of triumph in Rome. Rome triumphant over the nation of Israel. So here the people are waving the symbol of their nation. They're offering the kingship to Jesus Christ. They're giving their loyalty to him. They say, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord even the Great King. Now their idea of a kingdom is that Jesus Christ will come and crush their enemies. They got that out of another book that meant a lot to them, a book they used in worship called Psalms of Solomon. Listen to the 17th Psalm of Solomon. See Lord and raise up for them their king. The Son of David to rule over your servant Israel in the time known to you, O God, undergird him with strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from the Gentiles who trample her to destruction in wisdom and righteousness, drive out sinners from this inheritance, to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter's jar to shatter all their substance with an iron rod to destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth and his warning the nations will flee from his presence and he will condemn sinners by the thoughts of their hearts. He will gather a holy people whom he will lead in righteousness and he will judge the tribes of the peoples that have been made holy by the Lord their God. He will not tolerate unrighteousness even to pause among them and any person who knows wickedness shall not live with them. For he shall know them and they are all his children, the children of God. He will distribute them upon the land according to their tribes. The aliens and the foreigners will no longer live near them. He will judge people and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness. This is how the Jews understood their Messiah to come. This is what they thought Jesus would do with this great power to work miracles and even raised the dead. Can you imagine what an army could do against Rome if all your soldiers were killed? No problem. Jesus just makes them stand up and fight again and again and again until Rome is crushed and the Gentiles are obliterated and pushed out from the holy place and of course Jesus hadn't come to do that at all. He had come not to judge and destroy the nations but to save them because God loved the world and all those who dwell therein. So Jesus Christ comes in and they sing these songs to him and they pick up a theme from Scripture from Psalm 118. Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna simply means and Hebrew save us or help us and it comes directly out of Psalm 118. The last psalm to be sung on the evening of Passover night. We'll find when we get to the gospel of John when Jesus leaves the upper room and goes to the garden of assembly the scriptures will say and he sang a final hymn. What hymn was that Psalm 118? Save us Lord we pray. O Lord we pray give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God and he has made his light to shine upon us bind up the festival sacrifice with chords and tie it to the horns of the altar. They didn't realize they were prophesying about exactly what Jesus Christ would do. He would come like a king into his kingdom, a kingdom not a destruction but of life and they would bind him up. They tie his hands behind him. They'd scourge him. They'd tie him to a cross. They'd bind this festival sacrifice, this Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and that is how Jesus Christ would save them. That is why he is the blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord. The Jews are here clearly proclaiming that they believe that Jesus Christ is not only this king that they long for in history but the one promised in their Psalter and in their prophecies. And Jesus gives evidence that that is true, that he is the one who fulfills the prophecy. First, he fulfills Psalm 24. He is the king of glory who enters into his temple and do his city. He also sits on the cold of a donkey, taken directly out of Zechariah chapter 9, rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion, shout aloud, O Daughter of Jerusalem, behold your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation with him. He is humble and mounted on a donkey, on a cult, the full of a donkey. I will cut off the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be cut into. He shall speak peace to the nations whose rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. Jesus Christ fulfills this prophecy that the stark contrast is between this humble servant king on a donkey as opposed to the war horses of the great leaders of the nations. And Jesus Christ will destroy all of these weapons of war, speak peace to the nations and he will rule from sea to sea through his gospel witness. All of this Jesus is doing as he gives them the hope of salvation, the hope of Zechariah, sing aloud, O Daughter of Zion, shout O Israel, rejoice and exalt with your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away the judgments against you and has cleared away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord is in your midst. Therefore you will never be afraid again. Now John tells us that all of this happened and the disciples and the people did not understand what it was. It wasn't until after Jesus Christ had sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost that all of these things in the Old Testament, the things that Jesus taught them and the new things that the Spirit revealed and then began to come together and to make sense. And so they had this great anticipation that Jesus was going to be glorified in some earthly way on this weekend and it was going to be a great day for Israel and a miserable day for the rest of the world. So Jesus corrects their thinking. I want you to notice that about Jesus Christ. Whenever there's a great crowd in the gospels, it doesn't matter if it's Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, whenever there's a great crowd they always want to make Jesus king. And Jesus always does something to boil the thing down. Mississippi, they put vegetables in a pot and they'd say we'd boil it down to glump. Well that's what Jesus Christ does. He boils his people down to a glump. He makes them think about what is really involved in the kingdom of God and it has nothing to do with overthrowing Caesar and crushing the Romans and punishing the Gentiles for all they had supposedly done to the Jews. Now Jesus Christ says, the coming of the king of glory gives you a calling from the king of glory that's quite different from anything you've ever imagined. And that's what Jesus does beginning in verse 20. He begins to tell them three things. First, that he's calling them to a life of sacrificial service. This is a call to a life of sacrificial service, verse 20. Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip who was from Bethesda in Galilee and ask him, sir, who wish to see Jesus? Philip went and told Andrew and Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them. That is answered Philip and Andrew so that they could tell the Greeks this. 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 the next day, that is Monday, some Greeks. We don't know if they're actually Greek people are just a word that the apostles used throughout the New Testament for Greek speaking Gentiles. They came to Philip and Andrew, why? Because those were the two guys with Greek names. Two of their own. And they said, we'd like to have an interview with a Messiah. Doesn't appear that they really want to have faith in Jesus Christ. We often read that into it. In fact, I know on many pulpits there is a stencil where only the minister could see it serves. We would see Jesus. It's supposed to encourage the preacher to preach Christ and not himself. But that's not what they wanted. They were interested in this, this man of notoriety, this famous miracle worker. They wanted to see what he could do for them. And Jesus says, you tell them this, that the kingdom of God does not advance in a linear fashion. It doesn't go from glory to glory to great or glory. It is, as Leslie said, an advancement with a great break of discontinuity. This would be the moment that most of our politicians would strike at. Jewish enthusiasm and gentle curiosity, the moment is right for Jesus to say, I'm bringing the kingdom to earth now. The crowds were with him. Even we learned in this text, a great number of the priests were getting interested in the kingdom, even though we are afraid to confess him publicly for fear of the San Edron. But Jesus does the opposite. He says, no, we're not going to move from this glorious moment into the glory of the kingdom, into the glory of heaven. In fact, before we live, we're going to die. Before there is reward, there must be punishment. The Son of God must suffer before sinners are saved. Before my crown must come the cross. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains by itself. He's pointing to himself. I could gather a great crown today, Jesus is saying, I could bring all of Israel to me, and many of the people who were Gentiles in this region of Palestine, but I cannot bring the world to me unless I die on the cross. What is even more unsettling is that Jesus said, and that is what you will do. If anyone follows me, he has to learn this lesson, maybe in the number one lesson of the kingdom of God. If you try to save your life for yourself, you'll lose it. If you lose your life for Christ, you'll save yourself and many other people, and that for all of eternity. Think of a little package of seeds. That's what Jesus Christ is illustrating here, a little package of seeds in his day, a little sack of seeds. Unless you take that seed and throw it into the ground, unless it is churned over, becomes moist, crushed, decayed, dies. Nothing grows, the blade, the ear, and then the full harvest. If you just leave the seeds in a pack, they dry up and do nothing. That little pack of seeds, my friends, is you and your family and your sphere of influence, your little life. And if you don't want the discomfort of following Christ, if you're afraid that Jesus Christ might do something bad to you, if there's some kind of threat to giving yourself away, if I gave myself away to people I'd have less money, less time, less enjoyment, less of me than you're thinking's wrong. You're just like a seed that dries up in a package good for nothing. And I think that American people, if they are not the most miserable people, then they're at the top of the list. Because we live continually for ourselves, and that is why we are as a people and as individuals, as a nation, we're shriveling up and we are dying because we will not give ourselves to Christ the King, and we will not give ourselves away. You know this as well as I do. You want to have a good marriage? You have to die that your spouse might live. Jane and I are going to celebrate 33 years of marriage in just a week. And Jane said to me before she left and went to visit some of the kids. Now, some people think she left for good, no, she's coming back. She said, you know, she said, Michael, what I want to celebrate this year in our anniversary is the promise of God that if we die to ourself, many good things are born. It's worth hanging in there, folks. You thinking about divorce? Don't do it. Just die to yourself. And God will bring new life to your marriage. It's true in the family. What kind of parents won't live for their children? What mom and dad here would not die for their son or daughter in a heartbeat? Isn't that what a friendship is built upon? I give myself to you selflessly as a friend. I don't worry what you give back to me. I give myself to you because I love you and I'm wanting to foster your life and all the good things that may happen in it. Well, that's how it is with the relationship with God and His church, with the world. God sent us into the world to do for the world. But Jesus Christ has done for us to lay down our lives and Jesus repeatedly talks about it, talks about picking up our cross and following Him, talks about if we love other people more than Him. We're not worthy of Him. If we seek to save our life, we'll lose it. It's a divine irony that out of death comes life and out of self-denial comes self-fulfillment. And out of suffering and sacrifice and service comes glory. Who do we admire most in our world? When it really comes down to it, folks, it is not the athlete who wins the championship or the actress who's the most beautiful popular item this month in Hollywood or even the great politician. It's the people who've given their lives for us. I've done many, many, many funerals and I've heard many, many memorial messages by people and I've not heard one funeral, the thank the president and athlete or person in Hollywood for anything. Not one, but I've heard many funerals that thank moms and dads and pastors and teachers and medical personnel and friends and missionaries and people who gave something of themselves to enrich that person's life and bring them to faith in Christ. And that is what Jesus Christ is calling us to do. If we live for a self, we die. If we die to ourselves, we live. This is the call of radical discipleship. And my advice to you, like everything else that Jesus says, please don't try to make a logical sense of that. It doesn't make sense on this end only when we look back. Just obey, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to lose your life in service for him. That also calls us to a cross-centered faith. People I'm sure are saying, well that's easy for you to say, you can get yourself up from the grave if you die, but we can't. So Jesus answers that. Verse 27, here's the second call. Call to lose ourselves to a life of selfless service. Now a call to cross-centered faith. Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose I have 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. Another said, an angel has spoken to him, but Jesus answered, this voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the rule of this world be cast out? And when I am lifted up from the earth, I 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 the Son of Man? Jesus said to them, the light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light less darkness overtake you. The only walks in the darkness does not know where he is going while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. When Jesus said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Jesus says, look, it's going to be easy for you to say, fine, you give yourself the Lord, we know what you can do. He said, listen, I'm going to go embrace the cross. I'm going to suffer physically more than most of you will ever suffer in your life. And I'm going to suffer spiritually the greatest suffering, a suffering only God could bear, the weight of all the sin of the world, of all of the evil in creation, of all God's wrath will crush the soul out of me. Shall I say to God, save me from this hour? No, it was for this hour that I came. And then the voice from heaven said, I have glorified you in the past. Now glorify you in the future. God did not mean way down in the future, not even on resurrection day a week later. I will glorify you in that cross. How so? Well, if the way to save one's life is to lose it, who has lost his life more nobly than Jesus Christ, who died for all men, that all men might come to God. What's Jesus Christ get out of the cross? Not much. In fact, the world belongs to him already. What he does he does for you and me and for his father, not for himself. And he says, here is the glory of the cross. Number one, that the rule of this world will be cast out. He doesn't mean cast out of heaven that already happened. He doesn't mean cast out of the world because John says and his first epistle that the enemy is in the world and active. He means cast out of you. Here is the first glorious thing about the cross that Jesus Christ says, the young him right has said he breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoners free. Because of the cross of Christ, those who believe in him are no longer under the power of the enemy, they are under the sovereign sector of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. Second glory is that this is what draws all men to myself. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself. How are you going to convince the world that God loves them? Go tell them that God gave His only son to die for them. Talk as cheap actions speak louder than words. When Jesus Christ has lifted up on that cross, that is what brings the nations to Christ. That is what our missionaries have preached for thousands of years and will continue to preach. Not that our God is stronger than their God or that our God is more magnificent than their God or that our God will bless them. No, our God does the one thing, no other God does. He takes his only boy and gives him unto death to show once and for all he loves the world. And that is God's glory. Christ is glorified in giving himself the father was glorified in giving his son. They are modeling for us what it means to live a life of selfless service and to find one's life in great enrichment. And thirdly, Jesus said, the cross brings glory to me because it enlightens the minds of men. These Jews said how can it be that you're going to die? Listen to what they say. We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the son of man must be lifted up? Who is the son of man? Now, how do they get that idea that the Messiah would never die? Well, they got it quite frankly from one of their targums, one of their versions of the Bible, that had been mistranslated in Isaiah, chapter nine, where it says that out of the house of David will come a child who we born to us, a son to be given to us. And he will be known as wonderful counselor, mighty God who will live forever the anointed one. That's not what the Hebrew says. It does not say he would live forever, but he would be eternal. Jesus said, no, you misunderstand the Messiah, but I'll tell you what will make you understand the Messiah is that cross in which I am lifted up on. That remains the truth today. Martin Luther is right. No one understands the God of glory until they see the God of shame naked and dying for mankind. That is the only Christ. There is no other convenient one. There is no American one. There's not one of our fancy. They're all idols of our mind. There's only one thing that interprets for us who Christ is and who God is. And that is the cross. He who has seen me has seen the Father. I love the world enough to die for their sins. And so does the one who sent me. That was Jesus Christ repeated message. And he calls us to believe that message with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. This is the third calling very quickly, a call to live by the light of God's word, verse 37. Though he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Lord, who is believed what he heard from us. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, for again, Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes and then stand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him nevertheless. Many even of the authorities believed in him, but for the fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. Jesus cried out and said, now folks, this is the last public statement. Jesus will make to the crowds before the crucifixion recorded in the gospel of John. Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me and whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak, and I know that his commandment is eternal life, but I say therefore I say as the father has told me. Here is Jesus Christ. Lastly, it's only the second time in the gospel of John, only the third time in the scriptures where it says that Jesus Christ raises his voice and cries out. He said, please listen. The father sent me. I come in the name of the father. Therefore the words that I speak are the words of God, the father. If he would come himself, he would say the same thing, but he sent me to speak for him. I am his ambassador. I am his spokesman. And if you believe in these words that I speak, these good news, you will receive eternal life. But if you do not, I will not judge you. When you step before the great white throne in the future upon which I will sit, I will simply open the Bible and say, did you believe this? And you, if you are unbelieving, will condemn yourself.
There is a transition here to our modern age. God sent the father to speak for him. Jesus Christ sent the apostles to speak for Christ. And the apostles have sent me to speak for them. You say, pastor, that sounds arrogant. It's not arrogant at all. What I have told you this morning from that book is the word of God. As best I can tell, and as God is my witness, if Jesus Christ were to stand here this morning, he would have said the same thing just a little bit better. In fact, a whole lot better. But he would have talked to you about how he is the king of glory, how he would fulfill all these prophecies, and how he is bringing to earth the kingdom of God. He would call you to a life of selfless service. He would say, don't waste your life on yourself and the world. Give it to me and the kingdom. And I will say, but forever, he would call you to believe in the cross to see that that is how God is interpreted and God is understood. He would call you to receive the light of the scriptures. He would ask you to believe all these things and to receive the gift of eternal life, because that is the stuff of his kingdom. And he would, as he left this room, he would expect you to stand and to say, save us, O son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
I believe that Jesus Christ, every Sunday and in every pulpit in every church around the world, where his gospel is preached, is passing by. One more time, passing by on his way to glory, inviting all of us to come with him deeper and deeper through the courts of God's temple, until we enter with him into the presence of the Father himself. He is on a triumphal journey, bringing the nations to himself. He is the Lord of hosts. He is the king of glory. And the ancient doors of all the civilizations of the world are opening up to him one at a time, as he passes in and passes by. The question remains, when he passes by, will you go with him? It was this very passage that led Fanny Crosby to write a famous hymn, pass me not, O gentle Savior, hear my humble cry, while on others that were calling, do not pass me by. Save your Savior, hear my humble cry, while on others that were calling, do not pass me by. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again that the king of glory now risen from the dead in glorified forever, passes by us every Sunday evening and morning, calling us into himself, into a new life, into a kingdom, into the great cause of something larger than ourselves, greater than our lives and lasting forever. This thing called the kingdom. And there's my prayer this morning, that you would open up the hearts and minds of all who need this revelation this morning, that they might see Christ for who He is and themselves, for who they have been, that you would give them faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit, that they might be willing to sacrifice their life now, laying it so to speak on the altar, giving it to Jesus Christ, knowing that He will do great things with it and save it for eternal life. Give them a love for Christ and understanding of what He did on the cross for them, open up through the light of the Holy Spirit, this word that Christ has spoken and that we speak in His name. Hosanna, save us, O great king. We bless you and we bless Jesus Christ who has come in the name of the Lord. We open up the ancient doors of our closed hearts that the king of glory may come in. And we acknowledge that this king of glory is the man of Nazareth, our great God, your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ and whose name we pray, amen.