Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2874
“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” John 12:26.
I HAVE already said, in expounding the chapter from which my text is taken, that the sight of these Greeks who desired to see Jesus seems to have very greatly affected our Savior’s mind. [See Exposition at end of sermon.] He had not had much to do with Gentiles, for, as far as His personal ministry upon the earth was concerned, He was not sent to the Gentiles, but only “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But now He sees, in those enquiring Greeks, the advance guard of that mighty host of Gentiles who, for these 1,800 years and more, have continued to seek Him out and to call Him their Leader, Friend and Savior! The thought of this great result of His life’s work naturally led Him to also think of the Cross from which that result would spring. “These are the redeemed,” He seemed to say to Himself, “then it is time for Me to think of the Redemption which I have yet to present on their behalf. These are the first fruits of My great harvest. Then I must see to the sowing of the Seed and I must set my mind steadfastly to think of that sowing, for unless the grain of wheat is cast into the ground, and die, it abides alone.” So He began to feel the throes of desire for that Baptism wherewith He was to be baptized, for the joy that was set before Him was, just then, clearer than usual—the joy of winning souls and, especially, the joy of winning Gentile nations unto God and, therefore, His mind fixed itself more than ever upon the plan by which His people’s redemption was to be achieved. Hence, I think, arose the words to which I called your attention while we were reading the chapter.
The sight of these Greeks also led the Savior to feel that He must again explain the conditions upon which He could receive disciples. There have been religious teachers who have been content to gather followers through falsehood or error. They have never properly explained what allegiance to them meant, or they have caught men by craft and guile. Our Lord Jesus Christ never did that. He said to any who proposed to follow Him, “Have you counted the cost?” He bade them not to begin to build their house if they were not able to finish it, nor to commence a warfare in which they could not reasonably expect victory. It seemed, sometimes, to be rather repelling men, than attracting them, to say to would-be disciples, “If you will follow Me, do this and do that”—perhaps some very trying ordeal—yet that was the Savior’s usual habit. So, now, lest these Greeks should say that they would become His disciples without knowing what disciple-ship involved, He said to them, “I, Myself, will have to die in order that I may produce others like Myself, and you, if you become My disciples, will have to follow Me in this respect as well as in all other things. You will have to deny yourselves and to undergo self-sacrifice, for, otherwise, if you will not do this, it is no use for you to pretend to be My servants, for My servants you cannot be. If any man would serve Me, He must follow Me.” It was the coming of these Greeks to Christ which led to the utterance of these words—and that incident, in a measure, explains them. Now may the Spirit of God impress the Savior’s words upon your hearts as I try to speak to you about them!
Our text is divided into three sentences. The first is a sentence of precept—“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me.” The second is a sentence of precept and promise, for, to this day, no scholar can tell whether it ought to be rendered, “Where I am, there let My servant be,” or, “Where I am, there shall also My servant be.” Either may be a correct inter-
pretation of the original and, therefore, I take it in both senses as a sentence of precept and promise. Then the third is a sentence of pure promise—“If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”
I. First, then, we have A SENTENCE OF PRECEPT. “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me.”
The Greek term used here might be translated, “If anyone will become a deacon—do a deacon’s work, be My minister, My servant and wait upon Me—then let him follow Me.” By which is intended, first, that, if you become Christ’s servant, you must obey Him. This does not seem to occur to many professing Christians. They say they are Christians and, therefore, Christ’s servants—yet they dare to sit in judgment upon Him and upon His precepts! They are a law unto themselves—they obey this precept because they like it and they disobey that other precept because they do not like it! They call Him Master and Lord, but He is not really their Master and Lord, for they do not obey Him. Paul rightly says, “To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey.” But if you simply take the name of Christ upon you and call yourself His servant, yet do not obey Him, but follow your own whim, or your own hereditary prejudice, or the custom of some erroneous church—you are no servant of Christ. If you really are a servant of Christ, your first duty is to obey Him.