John 12:42-43: Who Are You Trying to Impress?

John 12:42-43: Who Are You Trying to Impress?

Please take your Bibles and turn with me to John 12. If you’re using the Story Bibles we provide, that’s on page 745. We’re going to be continuing our series of sermons going through the Gospel of John passage by passage. And this morning, we come to John 12:42-43. The verses right before this passage describe the unbelief of the Jews. The majority of the Jews refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah. Interestingly, however, John records that some of them did believe in Jesus—or at least they sort of believed. Look what it says  in verses 42-43: “42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”  

One of the things I remember the most about middle school is that everyone, it seemed, was trying so hard to be cool. Of course, kids of all ages want to be cool, but at least in my experience, I think that tendency was even more pronounced in middle school. I remember as a middle-schooler, one of the ways I tried to be cool was by wearing a ridiculous amount of hair gel. I mean, if you saw me, you would think I just had a bucket of water dumped on my head. And I would spend 20-30 minutes every morning putting that stuff in my hair—because it had to be perfect. The large spikes of hair that came down my forehead had to be formed just right. Because if they weren’t, my coolness factor for that day would be seriously diminished. It would throw my whole day off. Because my life as a middle-schooler centered around being cool. And so did the lives of all of my friends. 

But this morning, we’re going to see that the glory that comes from God is infinitely superior to the glory that comes from man. That’s the main point we see in our text. The glory that comes from God is infinitely superior to the glory that comes from man. Our text records that even though some of the Jewish leaders supposedly believed in Jesus, their faith was tragically incomplete since they were too scared to publically identify themselves with Jesus. And the reason they hesitated to side with Jesus in public is, as verse 43 states, “they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” I believe one of the main reasons John records this is because he wants us to see what they did and do the opposite. He wants us to recognize that the glory that comes from God is infinitely superior to the glory that comes from man. And I believe it’s infinitely superior for two reasons. And we’ll spend a good deal of our time this morning looking at these. Number one, the glory that comes from God is superior because it’s all-surpassing. And number two, the glory that comes from God is superior because it’s eternal. 

The Glory That Comes from God Is All-Surpassing

So first, the glory that comes from God is all-surpassing. That means it’s beyond any other kind of glory we can receive—beyond the glory of a bestselling book, beyond the glory of an Olympic gold medal, and beyond the glory of the Nobel Peace prize. This glory from God surpasses any other kind of recognition there is. Now unfortunately, many times, we don’t really think that much about the glory that comes from God, and we act as if earthly glory is all that matters. And before you think to yourself that you don’t do that since you’ve never written a book, competed in the Olympics, or been in the running for a Nobel Peace prize, I’d challenge you to ask yourself a few questions that might reveal whether you’re really as unconcerned about earthly glory as you think you are. 

Number one, when was the last time you checked how many Facebook friends you have and felt a certain way—either satisfied or dissatisfied—when you saw that number? You could also ask the same for the number of “likes” you get on your Facebook posts. Number two, why do you buy some of the clothes you buy? Do you really buy the designer labels just because they fit better, or is there also another reason you buy them as well? Number three, for those of you who go to the gym, why do you go to the gym? Is it just because you want to have more energy and be able to do more things, or is there also another concern that drives you to go—a concern that has little to do with your health and has to do mainly with what others think of you? And number four, what’s been driving you to achieve the things you’ve achieved? Obtaining your education, climbing the ladder of your career, expanding your business—what’s been driving your to pursue those things? These are just a few easy questions to help us begin to see how much we value earthly prominence and earthly prestige and earthly glory. So before we’re too hard on the Jewish leaders in our main text for seeking the glory that comes from man, it would probably be good for us to realize how much of our own energy is spend pursuing that exact same thing. 

And yet, people who achieve a high level of earthly glory often discover that it’s an empty glory, a meaningless glory, a glory that doesn’t deliver on its promises. For example, Jack Higgins, an internationally acclaimed novelist, was asked what he wishes he would have known when he was younger. His response? “That when you get to the top, there’s nothing there.” That’s what he said. “That when you get to the top, there’s nothing there.” 

You know, when I was a teenager, we had this fun thing we liked to do called “snipe hunting.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of snipe hunting. Looks like we have a bunch of city folks here. Snipe hunting is something my friends and I liked to do with a newcomer to our group. Now, snipe hunting is similar to other kinds of hunting in a lot of ways. You go out in the woods, you’re looking around very carefully, sometimes you make special noises to attract your prey. However, snipe hunting is unique in that it’s usually done at night in pitch black darkness. Also, another important thing to know about snipe hunting is that snipe don’t actually exist. They’re imaginary creatures. And so, when the newcomer goes out into the dark woods by themselves and makes all of these strange noises that supposedly attract the snipe, they never seem to find any. And instead, they discover that the rest of the group has left them out in the woods alone and gone back home. So snipe hunting is more fun for some people than it is for others, largely depending on what role you have in the snipe hunt. 

But snipe hunting reminds me a lot of what people often discover when they spend their lives pursuing earthly glory—the glory that comes from man. As Jack Higgins said, they discover that “when you get to the top, there’s nothing there.” Or think about these words from Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11: “10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. 11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” So Solomon had everything and achieved everything, but he soon discovered that his “everything” was actually nothing—or at least nothing significant. 

However, in contrast to the glory that comes from man, the glory that comes from God is all-surpassing. It surpasses earthly glory in every way. Instead of leaving you empty, it leaves you full. And instead of leaving you disappointed, it leaves you satisfied. When our days on this earth come to an end and God himself publically recognizes our faithfulness in following him, it means so much more than any recognition or status we could ever achieve here on earth. When we hear those words Jesus told us we could expect to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” I’m convinced it will immediately and fully satisfy all of our desires for approval and acceptance and recognition. The glory that comes from God is all-surpassing.

The Glory That Comes from God Is Eternal

But not only is the glory that comes from God all-surpassing, it’s also eternal. That’s our second point this morning. The glory that comes from God is eternal. It will never come to an end. We’ll receive it, and then we’ll keep on receiving it for all eternity. And that’s very different than the glory that comes from man, which only lasts for a brief period of time, and then it’s gone. 

When you think about it, it’s a lot like our earthly possessions. I remember an incident from my childhood that taught me from a relatively young age just how temporary earthly possessions are. As a child, I went through a multi-year phase where I was obsessed with Pokémon cards. Back then, Pokémon cards were all the rage, and I just had to have them. And bit by bit, card by card, trade by trade, I was building up my collection. And I didn’t even really use my cards to play the Pokémon game very much; I mostly just liked collecting them and looking at them. I was so proud of all of the cards I had managed to collect. But then, tragedy struck. While I was at a sleepover with a group of friends—or at least people I thought were my friends—I remember opening my binder full of Pokémon cards and discovering to my horror that someone had stolen my Charizard card. For those of you who have no clue what that is, Charizard is the name of the most valuable Pokémon card there was at that time. I think it was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 dollars. And once I saw that my Charizard was gone, I was absolutely devastated. It actually took me a couple of weeks to get over someone stealing that card. And I never found out who it was. But that’s a reminder of just how temporary our earthly possessions are. 

That’s why Jesus tells us not to lay up treasures on earth but to lay up treasures in heaven. In Matthew 6:19-20, he states, “19 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” There’s only one kind of treasure that cannot be taken away, and that’s treasure in heaven. 

And it’s the same way with the glory that comes from God verses the glory that comes from man. The glory that comes from man is incredibly short-lived. Just think about Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great and all the other great people of history who at one time were on top of the world but now are barely even remembered. If even their earthly glory is relatively short-lived, how short-lived do you think your glory is going to be? All of the glory that comes from man that we spend so much of our lives pursuing will probably be gone even before we are. The only glory that remains is the glory that comes from God. It lasts forever.

Listen to the perspective Paul has in 2 Corinthians 4. He first talks about the intense hardships he’s had to face as he works to spread the gospel. But then he says this in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Did you catch how he described his afflictions in verse 17? “Light momentary affliction.” 

Let me read to you something Paul writes a few chapters after that so you can see exactly what Paul was describing as “light momentary affliction.” From 2 Corinthians 11:24-28: “24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” So according to Paul back in chapter 4, all those hardships we just read about in chapter 11 are nothing but “light momentary affliction.” How in the world can Paul call those things “light momentary affliction”? Well, as we see later in that verse, it’s because Paul saw ahead to heaven, and he understood that the glory he would receive in heaven is an eternal glory. He calls it “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” and then he concludes that “the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” So the main difference between the things that are seen and the things that are unseen is that the one is “transient,” while the other is “eternal.” So here’s the question you have to answer: “Will you spend your life pursuing the transient, or will you spend it pursuing the eternal? Will you pursue the glory that comes from man, or will you pursue the glory that comes from God?”

Conclusion

And the first step to pursuing the glory that comes from God is deciding to become a follower of God, and more specifically a follower of Jesus. Back in our main text in John 12, this is the decision that some of the Jewish leaders just couldn’t seem to bring themselves to make. They “believed” in Jesus in the sense that they were sympathetic to the message he was preaching, but their belief was tragically incomplete. Verse 42 says that they were afraid of being put out of the synagogue. Now, being put out of the synagogue legitimately was a heavy punishment—because in ancient Jewish society, the synagogue was the center of community life. It wasn’t just a place of worship. It was also the place where children attended school as well as the place where community decisions were made. And since the synagogue was so central to community life, being put out of the synagogue would have also had significant economic consequences for the excluded family. So being put out of the synagogue a pretty big deal in that society. And that was the consequence the Pharisees imposed on anyone who publically identified themselves with Jesus. So that was why these Jewish leaders didn’t want commit themselves to Jesus. They didn’t want to be put out of the synagogue. And ultimately, verse 43 states, they let their desire for the glory that comes from man keep them from obtaining the glory that comes from God. 

But you don’t have to make the mistake they made. You can decide that regardless of what may come to you now or in the future as a result of following Jesus, that you’re going to commit yourself to him—you’re going to seek the glory that comes from God. 

I recently read a story of someone from Bangladesh who decided to do this. And to be clear, the consequences for becoming a Christian in Bangladesh are a lot more intense than those for becoming a Christian in America. A man going by the name Anil Gomes used to be a Muslim. He actually taught at an Islamic university in Bangladesh for a period of time. But in 1994, he converted to Christianity. And one day not long after his conversion, Anil’s colleagues at the university saw him reading the Bible, and they reported him to the administration. So the vice-chancellor summoned Anil into his office and asked him if he had converted to Christianity. And Anil responded in a very straightforward way: “Yes, I am a follower of Jesus.” The vice-chancellor then replied that “a kaffir (a disbeliever) cannot teach in any Islamic universities,” and he immediately fired Anil. Then a few days later, some of the members of an Islamic student group kidnapped Anil and nearly killed him. He states, “They cut the veins in my legs, hurt my body at various points, in front of my family and local Muslim fanatics. My body still shows the scars of those 40 blows.” Eventually, Anil was knocked unconscious and woke up four days later in a hospital, where his mother had paid for him to be taken. And after almost 4 months of medical treatments, Anil was finally able to return home but was then again beaten by Muslims from a local mosque. Eventually, Anil was abandoned by his entire family. And not only that, he found himself to be unemployable. Since 1994, Anil has lost every job he’s ever had. As soon as his employers find out he’s a Muslim convert to Christianity, they don’t want to have anything more to do with him. So to this day, Anil is still having difficulty finding a steady job to support his wife and child. And I wish this were an exceptional story, but believe it or not, this is actually a very normal story for someone who converts to Christianity in many Muslim-majority countries around the world. 

But Anil and others like him have actually chosen the better option. They’ve chosen the glory that comes from God above the glory that comes from man. And one day, they’ll be glad they did. What about you? Of course, the consequences for becoming a Christian in America aren’t nearly as high as in Bangladesh, but the question remains: Have you been able to see beyond the glory that comes from man? Have you decided to become a follower of Jesus regardless of what it may cost? 

The Bible teaches that each one of us has sinned and rebelled against God. And because of that rebellion, we deserve to be punished by God for all eternity—since we’ve rebelled against one so holy. But this God of holiness is also a God of love. And 2,000 years ago, he sent his own Son Jesus to die on the cross and take the penalty for our sins. But Jesus didn’t stay in the grave. He resurrected from the dead. And as we put our trust in Jesus to save us and invite him to become the Lord and King of our lives, we can experience the joy of having our sins forgiven and a restored relationship with God himself. And one day, we’ll receive the glory that comes from God we’ve been talking about throughout our message—a glory that’s infinitely superior to any glory that comes from man. Only a fool would choose the latter.

And for those of you who have already committed yourself to following Jesus, let me encourage you not to be shy about making that known. I believe there’s a little middle-schooler within each of us—a middle-schooler who, at the end of the day, just wants to fit in. And I think we all sense it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to “fit in” with the rest of American society. But remember: you’re not called to seek the approval of Hollywood or of the mainstream news media or of your secular humanist coworkers. In the grand scheme of things, of what value is their approval anyway? The only approval—the only glory—that’s even worth thinking about is the glory that comes from God. 

I’m reminded of that story in the Old Testament about Jacob and Esau. One day, Jacob was cooking a nice pot of stew. And his brother Esau came in absolutely exhausted from working in the fields. And when he saw the stew Jacob was making, he said to Jacob, “Give me some of that stew.” But Jacob replied, “Sell me your birthright.” Now a birthright was extremely valuable. It was a privilege given to the firstborn son that included a double portion of the family inheritance. So this birthright was a really big deal. And when Jacob asked Esau for this birthright, Esau actually gave it to him. And he gave it to him just so he could have a bowl of Jacob’s stew. It’s incredible to see how foolish Esau was. But if we’re not careful, we can be a lot like Esau in forsaking our birthright as Christians for a bowl of stew that the world gives to us. We can elevate that the glory that comes from man above the glory that comes from God. 

So let me encourage you to spend your life seeking the glory that comes from God. More specifically, let me challenge you to be very open and public about your faith—regardless of who you’re around or what environment you’re in. Of course, we never want to force our beliefs on somebody else, but there’s nothing wrong with being a Christian or talking about your Christianity in front other people, even people who don’t share your beliefs. Talk about how Jesus has saved you. Describe the kinds of things he’s been teaching you and showing you lately. Share with people about the joy and the fullness you have in Jesus. And don’t be overly concerned about what some people may think—because remember: you’re seeking the glory that comes from God.