THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE THROUGH DEATH
REVISED JUNE 28, 2006
(John 12:24 NIV) I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Introduction
Today I should like to preach concerning a very important Biblical principle of agriculture. Now I am a dumb city slicker. When I was in public school, I was ignorant about, and afraid of, large animals. Whenever I went to my aunt’s farm near Lindsay, Ontario, my relatives, knowing my abysmal ignorance and deathly fear, would tease me almost unmercifully. It was always a trauma to go to the farm. I suppose that I loved my aunt and my uncle enough, and I knew that they loved me, that I would pluck up the courage to overcome the trauma. But it was always a trauma. I was always the brunt of jokes about dumb city slickers. Only one time have I been able to “get back” at my aunt for all the teasing. Some time ago I asked her whether, when a baby bull was hurt, it went to Momma Bull or Pappa Bull. She said “Momma Bull”; and I did not let her live that down. Yes, as a public school kid I feared large animals. It was always a trauma to go to the farm. But now that I have become a teacher of the Bible, I have learned to love farms and all kinds of animals. And I love to hear and tell jokes about dumb city slickers. I know how intelligent one has to be to make a go of farming in today’s world. And I know how dumb, how plain dumb, many city folk can be; not only about farming, but about anything.
You have probably heard about the city slicker patient in the mental hospital who asked the farmer where he was going with his load of manure. The farmer said he was going to put it on his strawberries. The city slicker patient said: “We put sugar and cream on ours, and they say that we are crazy.” That joke is so old that the mould on it has gray hair.
However, there is a similar joke which I love to tell. In this story the farmer is in the mental hospital. As he walks along the inside of the fence around the mental hospital, he comes upon a city slicker motorist on the outside attempting to change a flat tire. It seems that this dumb city slicker motorist has taken off the wheel, has put the nuts carefully in the wheel cover, and then has carelessly stepped on the wheel cover. All the nuts have rolled away and have gone down a nearby grate in the road. The dumb city slicker motorist stands there, scratching his head, wondering what to do. After a considerably long period of time patiently waiting for the motorist to do something, the farmer patient suggests this idea: “Take one nut off each of the other three wheels, use them to put on the tire which you have as a spare, drive to the nearest service station, get four more nuts, and put one on each wheel.” The dumb city slicker says: “That is a clever idea. What are you doing in there?” The farmer replies: “I may be crazy, but I am not stupid.”
Today I would like us to consider together a principle which to the world may seem crazy, but which is not stupid; which, in fact, is very wise; a principle which is indeed the basis of agriculture. The principle is that of life through death.
I. THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE THROUGH DEATH IS TRUE IN AGRICULTURE.
(John 12:24 NIV) I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE THROUGH DEATH WAS TRUE IN THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
John 12:23 NIV) Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
(John 12:27 NIV) "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ’Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
(John 12:28 NIV) Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again."
(John 12:29 NIV) The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
(John 12:30 NIV) Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine.
(John 12:31 NIV) Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
(John 12:32 NIV) But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
(John 12:33 NIV) He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
(Isa 53:10 NIV) Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
(Phil 2:1 NIV) If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,
(Phil 2:2 NIV) then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
(Phil 2:3 NIV) Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
(Phil 2:4 NIV) Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
(Phil 2:5 NIV) Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
(Phil 2:6 NIV) Who, being in very nature God, did not consider quality with God something to be grasped,
(Phil 2:7 NIV) but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
(Phil 2:8 NIV) And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
(Phil 2:9 NIV) Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
(Phil 2:10 NIV) that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
(Phil 2:11 NIV) and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
III. THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE THROUGH DEATH IS TRUE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
(Mat 16:24 NIV) Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
(Mat 16:25 NIV) For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
(Mat 16:26 NIV) What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
(Rom 6:1 NIV) What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
(Rom 6:2 NIV) By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
(Rom 6:3 NIV) Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
(Rom 6:4 NIV) We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
(Rom 6:5 NIV) If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
(Rom 6:6 NIV) For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--
(Rom 6:7 NIV) because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
(Rom 6:8 NIV) Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
(Rom 6:9 NIV) For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
(Rom 6:10 NIV) The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
(Rom 6:11 NIV) In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
(Col 3:1 NIV) Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
(Col 3:2 NIV) Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
(Col 3:3 NIV) For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
(Col 3:4 NIV) When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
(Col 3:5 NIV) Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
(Col 3:6 NIV) Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
(Col 3:7 NIV) You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.
IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE THROUGH DEATH IS TRUE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE HUMAN BODY.
(1 Cor 15:12 NIV) But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
(1 Cor 15:13 NIV) If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
(1 Cor 15:35 NIV) But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?"
(1 Cor 15:36 NIV) How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
(1 Cor 15:37 NIV) When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
(1 Cor 15:38 NIV) But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.
A poem which some pastors sometimes use at a committal service is called Seeds.
SEEDS
We drop a seed into the ground,
A tiny, shapeless thing, shrivelled and dry,
And, in the fulness of its time, is seen
A form of peerless beauty, robed and crowned
Beyond the pride of any earthly queen,
Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,
The perfect emblem of its Maker’s care.
This from a shrivelled seed? -
Then may man hope indeed:
For man is but the seed of what he shall be,
When, in the fulness of his perfecting,
He drops the husk and cleaves his upward way,
Through earth’s retardings and the clinging clay,
Into the sunshine of God’s perfect day.
No fetters then: No bonds of time or space:
But powers as ample as the boundless grace
That suffered man, and death, and yet in tenderness,
Set wide the door, and passed Himself before -
As He had promised - to prepare a place.
V. THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE THROUGH DEATH IS TRUE IN CHRISTIAN GIVING.
(Gal 6:6 NIV) Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.
(Gal 6:7 NIV) Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
(Gal 6:8 NIV) The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
(Gal 6:9 NIV) Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
(Gal 6:10 NIV) Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
(2 Cor 9:1 NIV) There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the saints.
(2 Cor 9:2 NIV) For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you in Achaia were ready to give; and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action.
(2 Cor 9:3 NIV) But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be.
(2 Cor 9:4 NIV) For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we - not to say anything about you - would be ashamed of having been so confident.
(2 Cor 9:5 NIV) So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given.
(2 Cor 9:6 NIV) Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
(2 Cor 9:7 NIV) Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
(2 Cor 9:8 NIV) And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
(2 Cor 9:9 NIV) As it is written: "He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever."
(2 Cor 9:10 NIV) Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.
(2 Cor 9:11 NIV) You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
(Psa 112:9 NIV) He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his
righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor.
(Prov 11:24 NIV) One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
(Prov 11:25 NIV) A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
(Prov 11:26 NIV) People curse the man who hoards grain, but blessing crowns him who is willing to sell.
(Eccl 11:1 NIV) Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.
(Eccl 11:2 NIV) Give portions to seven, yes to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.
(Eccl 11:3 NIV) If clouds are full of water, they pour rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.
(Eccl 11:4 NIV) Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.
(Eccl 11:5 NIV) As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.
(Eccl 11:6 NIV) Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.
Some time ago Dr. Sidney Kerr, who was then President of Central Baptist Seminary, became Pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Preston, which is now part of Cambridge. One of the suggestions that Dr. Kerr made as he accepted the call was that he would preach only once each Sunday; and that they would invite guest preachers and missionaries to the Church for the services at which Dr. Kerr did not preach. I visited the church not long after Dr. Kerr accepted the call, and stayed at the home of one of the deacons. The deacon himself told me that they had told Dr. Kerr that they could not afford his idea; that the missionaries would take all the money away from the people; and the general fund would go down, not up. Dr. Kerr convinced the leaders of the principle that giving is like sowing. The more you give the more you reap. Since then I believe that the church has had three building programs; has a greatly expanded staff; and there have been Sundays when the church has given more money on a Sunday than it used to give in a year. Many churches say that they cannot afford to pay their pastors and missionaries well. What they are saying is that they cannot afford to sow. And if they cannot afford to sow, they are not going to reap.
It is as simple as that. It may sound crazy, but it is Biblical. It is foundational to agriculture, spiritual and physical life and death, and finances.
