The Tipping Point
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jeremy_4_01-22-2026_151316: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Faith.
These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions. And doubts. Now, we've seen a theme happening throughout the gospel of John. If you've been with us up to this point, or even if you've only seen a few of these, you might have seen me address something that has come up time and time again.
It's this idea that John is building the tension of the gospels of when is Jesus going to fully reveal what he's about? When is it going to be the right time? For Jesus to put this plan into motion, and yet what we've seen so far is that it's not yet time, not yet time.
And we've seen this in a variety of passages. Here are a few examples. John chapter two, verse four. Jesus says, my time has not yet come. So already in the beginning of the book, chapter two, we saw this is an idea that we're gonna see built on John chapter seven, verse six. Now is not the right time for me to go.
[00:01:00] John seven, eight. My time has not yet come. John seven 30 his time had not yet come. John eight 20. His time had not yet come. This is a tension building point and it's been building and building and building. But today, friends, we have come to a turning point.
Okay. It's happening. Everybody. Stay calm. What's the procedure? K one. What's the procedure?
jeremy_4_01-22-2026_151316: Something big is going to happen in the verses that we're gonna look at today.
And if you've been with me thus far in the journey, this will feel like a big moment after all of the tension we've seen building To finally have the tipping point and what sets it off might surprise you. This is John chapter 12, beginning in verse 20. Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, paid a visit to Philip, who was from Beeda in Galilee.
They said, sir, [00:02:00] we want to meet Jesus. Philip told Andrew about it and they went together to ask Jesus, and Jesus replied, now the time has come for the son of man to enter into. His glory. Those are the words we've been waiting 12 chapters to hear, and now we hear Jesus saying it. So now we have Greeks entering the story.
That's the context of this. And notice they're not coming in demanding signs and miracles. Like many of the local Jewish residents have been demanding of Jesus prove to us over and over again, these Greeks aren't coming in with a laundry list of expectations. Notice what they say. Instead, we want to see Jesus.
Such a simple request. We want to see Jesus. They have heard something, they have been intrigued. They have [00:03:00] traveled, and now they have come. They want to see Jesus. And in response to that, in response to these Greeks coming with this request, Jesus says, now the time has come. This is the signal that Jesus' mission has reached a turning point.
The moment Jesus becomes universally visible is the moment the cross becomes unavoidable, that when Jesus begins to be recognized by a wider net of people, by more and more groups of people, that becomes the turning point for him to initiate what's going to happen on the cross. He talks about it's time for the son of man to enter into his glory.
Now we hear that word glory, and we have probably a very different understanding of what glory means than what Jesus is referencing here. Now, we think of fame or power or [00:04:00] influence. This is what glory means to us. But in this context, Jesus means the cross. The glory for Jesus means self-giving love. It means public humiliation.
It means faithfulness unto death. That's what glory means for Jesus. And Jesus says, all right, now it's time. Now it's time to put this plan into place. Verse 24, I tell you the truth, Jesus says, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new Kers, a plentiful harvest of new lives.
Those who love their life in this world will lose it, but those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me because my servants must be where I am, and the father will [00:05:00] honor anyone who serves me. Now we can misread an idea like this, but I want to point out Jesus isn't celebrating punishment.
He's not celebrating suffering just for the sake of suffering. He's offering an agricultural image of how life works. It's a very practical image that the original audience would've understood. Well, this is not about hating yourself or thinking less of yourself, or figuring out how to have low self-esteem about how horrible you are as a person.
None of that is what Jesus is getting at here. This is about refusing to let fear or ego or survival instinct become the thing that drives you, become your God. We don't let any of that be the driving force in our life, and here he's foreshadowing. Cross. He's foreshadowing the power that he will display, but he's gonna display it in a way that no one was prepared [00:06:00] for.
He's gonna display it in a way that most of the people in that moment will be very confused by and will even think he got it wrong. And yet only from our vantage point. Looking back, can we understand when you see the fullness of this story, see, his glory will be revealed on the cross. After the cross, as God reinforces what the cross is through the resurrection, that the power that we see in the self-sacrificial love on the cross is redeemed.
It is validated through the resurrection, and this is what Jesus is hinting at already. Now I want to close with this question. Why is Jesus being universally understood, universally recognized? Why is that? The tipping point for him to start talking about the cross. Why is it that these Greeks come in and now suddenly Jesus says, now is the time.
What? What's going [00:07:00] on with that? See, it turns out this is one of the most offensive things about Jesus because we want Jesus to be for us. For people like us and for our tribe and not really for them, and certainly not for our enemies and the people who disagree with us. See, we want a very localized Jesus, but Jesus is only willing to go to the cross once the reach that he has becomes universal once it extends out beyond other people.
Start to be included in this. Then he says, okay, now, now it's time. Now the conditions have been met because Jesus is for everybody and he keeps holding everything off. Now's not the time. Now's not the time until all of a sudden these Greeks show up and he begin to see already in these subtle details in this story that Jesus has always been for everyone.
This [00:08:00] universality of Jesus is still just as bothersome, just as offensive to Christians today as it was to the early followers of Jesus back then.
Worst reading ever.
jeremy_4_01-22-2026_151316: I want to close with something that David Bentley Hart wrote, and this is such a beautiful way of understanding the bigger picture of what Jesus is all about.
He writes this, for the whole substance of Christian faith is the conviction. That another has already and decisively gone down into that abyss for us to set all the prisoners free, even from the chains of their own hatred and despair, and hence the love that has made all of us who we are, and that will continue throughout eternity to do so, cannot ultimately be rejected by anyone.
See [00:09:00] when you preach this message that, hey, maybe Jesus is actually for everyone, and what he does on the cross applies to everyone. You will see the same reaction, the same hesitation, the same discomfort, because this is still such a radical idea to us today. But when we take note that when the Greeks show up.
Up. Then Jesus says, now is the time we get an incredible insight into what Jesus is all about and what He's inviting you and I to participate in. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
