Well, good evening, everyone, and it is such a joy and a privilege to be with you this evening as you celebrate harvest and as we reflect on God's goodness to us, it is my joy and pleasure to bring to you the greetings of the General assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and to remind you that you are a part, an integral part of the Presbyterian Church.

And so it's so good to be here and to share with you.

And I'm very grateful to your minister, the Reverend David McCullough, for the opportunity, the invitation to be here.

I don't take that lightly.

And it's lovely to renew friendship with him and Pamela as well, and their family this evening, too.

And just as I look around the building and see all the beautiful decoration for harvest, and it's wonderful to hear the beautiful harvest music as well.

So thank you so much, indeed.

It's good to be here.

This actually isn't our first time in Anna Long.

Those of you who are a little bit older and have long memories may remember that I've been hitting this pulpit a couple of times before.

We're talking, I think, for the first time, at least 30 years, maybe 32 years.

I'm thinking when we were in Malawi and we came back, we were sharing one morning with you about what God was doing there.

And then slightly more recently, I think about 22 or 23 years ago, I took an evening service at that time as well.

So.

But it is good to be back with you this evening and to share and worship with you.

My theme this year as moderator is for God so Loved.

It's based on that wonderful verse from John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And in choosing that theme, I wanted to highlight, especially at a time of challenge for us as a denomination that God has not changed and that the central message of the gospel has not changed.

God is still at work, and God continues to call people to himself.

God continues to lavishly give of his love, generously pour out his grace, and magnanimously offer his mercy to people like you and me, people in need of forgiveness, of mercy, grace and reconciliation.

We come this evening as God's people.

And as we do so, I want to pick up that text that we were looking at and we read from John 12.

If you have it open in your Bibles, I will be referring to it as we go along.

And just to give you a little bit of background Here Brenda and I were at the ploughing championships in Tullamore, County Offaly, just a couple of weeks ago.

We were on the Presbyterian Church in Ireland stand there, and that was an opportunity for us.

We didn't see much plowing, I have to say.

In fact, we met several people who said they'd been there for years and had never seen the plowing.

But we did make an effort to get along, and this picture was taken there.

But it was lovely to be on that Presbyterian Church in Ireland stand to see.

And we literally give out thousands.

I think we counted about 3,000 cups of tea and coffee.

Not just Brenda and I, but many others who were involved in that, but also to engage with people in conversation.

And lovely, too, to work alongside the Reverend Kenny Hanna, our rural chaplain.

If you don't already know Kenny, I would commend him to you.

He's doing a fantastic work in that chaplaincy.

Being at the plowing championship took me back to my own days when I farmed many years ago, and particularly to my early teens or my late teens, sorry, when I worked for an agricultural contractor sowing large acreages of barley and wheat.

My job, it was to load the seed drill and then to stand on the back of that seed drill as I went up and down the field, making sure that all the spouts, if you like, were releasing the grain evenly and that there was nothing missed.

And, you know, you might not notice at the time we were sowing if there was a miss, but you would notice in two or three weeks time when the seeds sprouted and started to come through.

You'll see if I'd done my job right or otherwise.

Because a very basic principle is that if you don't sow, nothing will grow and there won't be a harvest.

If a seed doesn't enter the ground, there won't be a crop.

Put it another way, unless there is death, there will not be life.

And that is the principle of what Jesus is saying here in John 12 when he says, very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

So it is essential in agriculture and food production for a seed to die as a means to gaining a harvest.

Now, Jesus in this chapter takes this to a whole new level.

Death and life are major themes not only in this chapter, but in the previous chapter, because it follows on from the resurrection of Lazarus.

And the chapter 12 begins in the home of Lazarus, whom Jesus has raised from the dead.

There Jesus is anointed by Mary, for, as Jesus puts it in verse seven, the day of his burial.

And also we read that in contrast to to Mary's sacrificial act of devotion, the chief priests conspire not only to kill Jesus, but Lazarus as well.

Now, this evening, we have gathered to celebrate harvest, to acknowledge God, the giver of good things, the one who gives all that we need for life, and rightly so.

For in so many ways, we have so much to be grateful for.

And I have to include myself when I say it's important to stop and reflect on all that we have and to thank God for that.

And today we also remember the changing seasons and the promise of God to Noah in the aftermath of the flood.

As long as the earth endures seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.

That verse, of course, speaks of time of seasons.

But Jesus introduces in John 12 another concept of time, one that surpasses the seasons.

He talks of the appointed time, the kairos time, using the phrase an hour has come.

The hour has come.

And this is a major shift in John's Gospel.

It indicates that something significant is about to happen, because up until now, Jesus has been saying the time has not yet come.

It's like a constant drumbeat providing the rhythm through the gospel.

But now that note has changed dramatically.

And even more dramatic is what is to follow, because Jesus then says in verse 23, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

And this glory that he's speaking about has directly to do with his death, his own death.

And of course, we have the benefit, in hindsight, of seeing that the disciples struggled to grasp what was happening.

And Jesus is clearly articulating that it is necessary for him to die if there's to be a harvest, just as it's necessary for a seed to die if it is to yield a crop.

And so he says, very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Jesus is that single seed, the one who must die if there's to be a harvest, if there's to be life to the full, now and for eternity.

And Jesus is also, we see in this passage, very clear as to what his death will entail.

He says that his soul is troubled, but he is not asking his Father to save him from this hour.

Rather, he says in verse 27 that it is for this hour that he has come.

His purpose in his life is coming to earth.

His purpose is to die.

His whole life and ministry have been moving towards this climax.

This is so important because Jesus is not simply a good moral teacher.

He's not simply an engaging storyteller and preacher.

He's not simply a compassionate, miracle working, life transforming healer.

He's not simply a good example for people to follow.

Yes, he is all those things.

But ultimately and most importantly, he is the Savior, the Savior of the world.

And to be Savior, he has to die.

Because for there to be a harvest of people from every tribe and people, language and nation, he had to go to the cross.

Only through his death could there be eternal life that is foundational for who we are.

But Jesus is not simply speaking of his own death in this passage.

He's also speaking of the implications for those who followed him then and who continue to follow him today.

And there are two broad ways in which this impacts us now.

One, in terms of our salvation and secondly, in terms of our service.

Yes, for us to be rescued from sin and death, Jesus had to take our sin.

In his death, he had to die.

And all the sacrifices of the Old Testament point to the one and only once for all perfect sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.

But we also have to die.

And I'm not talking here about physical death.

Only Jesus can die for sin.

Only the perfect, unblemished Lamb of God can take away the sin of the world.

But we also have to die to receive the benefits of his death on our behalf.

You know, we live in a world where there's so much about self realization, self fulfillment, positive things in themselves.

But here the focus from Jesus is the opposite.

He says in verse 25, anyone who loses, sorry, anyone who loves their life will lose it.

Anyone who loves their life will lose it.

On the Presbyterian stand at the Ploughing championships, we met thousands of people.

Many of them were young people.

And where possible, we presented them with the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, that God loves them so much that he gave his son.

We had some wonderful conversations.

Yet it struck me that many of those whom we engaged in those conversations struggled to grasp the concept that we need to die to self to receive the gift that God gives us.

In Jesus, we need to let go of our own way of salvation.

Because the way that Jesus offers is only attained by God's grace.

And Jesus is saying that unless you're prepared to sacrifice your own way, you can't be saved.

Because salvation is only in Christ.

And it's only as we die to the possibility that we can sort ourselves out that we can receive what he's done for us and receive that in humble repentance and simple faith.

Very truly, I tell you, Jesus says, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Our salvation demands that we die to self, to trust totally in what Jesus has done for us on his finished work on the cross, which is totally adequate.

We cannot save ourselves.

But then in service as well for the Christian, there must be a constant dying.

Jesus talks about himself in this passage, but then he clearly implies that those who follow him must also in a sense, die.

And he says that in verse 25, whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

For the Christian, it's a constant dying to our own desires, so that we live by God's purposes and plans for our lives.

I've planted some apple trees in my garden.

They're improved varieties.

They're grafted onto a rootstock.

And for the grafted variety to prosper, there can't be any competition from suckers or shoots from the old rootstock.

I must make sure that those suckers and roots are removed so that the grafted on plant can grow healthy and strong to bear fruit.

In a sense, the wild plant's characteristics must die for the new grafted variety to reach its full potential.

So it is with our lives, our Christian lives, we are grafted onto Christ.

Paul tells us in Romans 11 that we are grafted unto Christ.

Therefore we must die to our old ways of life, to our own will, and to give ourselves to God's will to surrender ourselves to him for him to work through us.

Yes, Jesus give his life so that we could have eternal life.

And we need to die to our own efforts to get right with God if we're to receive the gift that he offers us.

And when we've received it, we constantly need to die to ourselves, to our own way of living, and embrace that new way of living that Jesus offers us.

I want to share with you a story of another part of the world.

It's come up on the screen or will come up on the screen.

From the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, a place I visited a few years ago.

Beautiful valley.

It's a breadbasket of Lebanon.

And there in a Shiite Muslim community, I met Pastor Molad, who had started a small church, was involved in a small church there started about 50 years ago.

It was a difficult time.

Through the Lebanese civil War.

But a seed was planted, and God watered it.

In those early days, the believers met in a home, and then Milad came to serve them, coming from Beirut from relative comfort to serve this fledging church.

And he says it wasn't easy by any means.

They were dying to many creature comforts that we might take for granted.

But he says that God planted in the life of that little congregation.

There were only about 10 families meeting in a home.

A big vision that they would build a church.

And as they prayed together, they believed that God was calling them to take this on.

They had virtually no money, but God kept reminding them of the story of the five loaves and the two fish, their need to depend on him.

And so they decided to have a special offering one Sunday morning so that after the church service, Molad wasn't very optimistic that they'd be very much given because he said, nobody had any money or very much at all.

It was a poor community.

But after the service, the treasurer of the congregation called him excitedly to come and see.

And there in the offering plate were the wedding rings, the wedding bands of every member of the congregation.

They had decided independently to give their most precious gift as a seed for the building of this church building.

And my lad said he was so moved by what had happened, and he held up one of the rings and he says, lord, you know how much this has cost people.

May you bless it.

He said he was reminded of the widow's might.

Little by little, the building took shape.

They didn't have much money, but God continued to do miracles.

Let me give you a little example.

And my lad told us so many stories of things that God did.

But one of them was one morning he went out and there was a lorry had come down their road, a lorry with 25 tons of cement.

And the driver said to him, I'm here to deliver this load of cement for the new church.

And lad said to him, well, we didn't order any cement, and we certainly don't have any money to pay for it.

Well, the guy said, I'm not taking it back.

So he offloaded it.

That was 26 years ago.

My lad says he still doesn't know who paid for it.

But story like that, stories like that over and over again.

Eventually the church was completed and they had this beautiful building.

I think it appears in the picture, yes, seating 200 people.

And there's only a small group of them.

They're sitting in this big building and they're asking God, and did we hear you correctly?

Why do we need a building of this size.

Where are the people going to come from?

And they started praying, meeting every week to fast and pray.

You'll hear that prayer is so key to this story.

And they place it all in God's hands.

And then just about that time, tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people moved into the Bekaa Valley, displaced from Syria.

It provided a huge challenge.

What was the church going to do to reach out to these people?

My lad said, you know, we learned so many lessons, including that this was not our church, but God's church.

His comment was, the keys of this church are in God's hands, not in our hands.

God gets to decide who we open these doors to.

And so they started to reach out to the refugees.

They discovered one of the key things was the lack of education for refugee children.

So they started two classes run by the church members.

150 In the morning, 150 in the afternoon.

They were able to serve 300 children.

It started to make a real difference.

Then one day, my lad said they had a man from the United States called to see them, perhaps was keen to support what was going on.

And he started talking to some of the children, and he said to them, you know, what would you like to do when you grow up?

There was silence.

Nobody said anything.

So he started prompting.

Maybe you want to be a lorry driver or a doctor or something else.

One little boy responded.

He said, when I grow up, I still want to be at this school, because here I am loved.

Here I am loved.

What a recommendation for any church.

Milad described their church as a lighthouse sharing the love of Christ.

You know, as I think of that, I think of that seed planted about the sacrifices made by those people in that small church, Mulatt himself, those families who had met together at the beginning, people who had stepped out at great cost to themselves to support the refugees who were coming.

But a seed was planted, and as it died, God watered it and brought it to life, enabled it to blossom and bear fruit and bring glory to him.

And today, if you go back to that church, it is full of people.

It is packed with people praising God.

Sometimes we think that we can do little.

Our contribution is small.

But God is saying, give me what you have, your five loaves, your two fish, what you can, what is valuable, and trust me to do the rest.

Jesus said, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Amen.