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Sermon Manuscripts
The Will of Self Denial
a sermon in the series,
Hebrews: an Epistle of Encouragement
A sermon delivered
Sunday Morning July 15, 2001
at Oak Grove Baptist Church, Paducah, Ky.
by S. Michael Durham
© 2001 Real Truth Matters
Hebrews 10:1-10
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
“Perfection” is a word that haunts me. Oh! If I could only be perfect. It grieves me to be so far beneath the beauty of all that this word means. There is in every man’s heart something that yearns for the likeness of this word to be real in his life. More in some than others, but nonetheless, it is there lurking in the mind. We desire that our bodies be healthy and not sick. Americans spend billions of dollars a year to keep or get their health in a state of near perfection. But with all of our effort and money we still fall far short of it.
To be perfect in our hearts toward God is more elusive than physical perfection. Protesters that say none can be perfect like God have forgotten that the Bible commands such of us, “Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This is where I find my soul aching with fierceness, that I might be like my Father in heaven. Oh, to be faultless before the throne! Who of us can dare stand in His presence? He is brighter than a thousand suns. Who can be saved under the inspection of His glaring gaze? What may appear acceptable in a lesser light will only be exposed in the light of His perfection. What I deem acceptable will be revealed as filthy rags. Who can stand in such an hour?
The Scriptures state that it is possible to be perfect before God. The word “perfect” in our text does not mean perfection in the sense of being infallible. Nor does it mean perfect in the sense of not making mistakes or sinning. It means to be in right standing with God. It means to stand before God without spot, wrinkle or blemish. Although the animal sacrifices could not do this for the one offering them, the sacrifices themselves were to be without spot, wrinkle or blemish. They were an illustration of how you and I are to be and to foreshadow the one who would be. In Hebrews chapter nine and verse fourteen it says, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
“Without spot.” He is the Lamb of God without blemish, without spot, and without stain. Perfect in all of His attributes and in all of His ways. Therefore, today the good news of our text is this . . . you and I can be perfect, that is without spot, without wrinkle, without blemish, if the blood of the Lamb has been applied to our lives and hearts. Perfection, although it seems elusive, is a potential to all who believe. Again we do not mean perfect in action, in thought, or in word, but perfect in our standing with God.
THE WILL OF GOD WAS NOT IN ANIMAL SACRIFICES
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins (Hebrews 10:1-4).
Now again the word “perfect” does not mean without error, never committing sin, it simply means acceptable. The Old Testament sacrifices could never make anyone acceptable before God. As the author says, “For then would they not have ceased to be offered?” If an animal sacrifice could make you right before God then there would be no need of offering more sacrifices. But since they couldn’t, sacrifices were repeated year after year. Instead of the sacrifices alleviating the conscience, they reminded the people of their sins year after year. Therefore the author makes the emphatic statement, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” And with this statement he begins to conclude this section on the Levitical Priesthood and sacrifices of our High Priest, Jesus Christ.
As we have already explained in previous messages, blood sacrifices simply covered the guilt of the one offering the sacrifice and making him externally, that is ceremonially, acceptable in the worship of God in the tabernacle. Why could not animal sacrifices take away sin? Two reasons. The first is that they were not equal to the penalty required for sin. The payment of sin, as we have explained these last several weeks, was eternal death. So the death of an animal in that it is not an immortal being could not be a sufficient payment. The second reason is because they were not an equal substitute for the sinner. An animal does not have a soul or spirit like a man, he is not a human being, therefore they were not an adequate substitute. Dear friend, if your theology has said to you that the Old Testaments saints were forgiven through animal sacrifices, you need to readjust that because that is just not so. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Animal sacrifices were only reminders of sin’s bondage.
Why then did God command animal sacrifices? To remind them that in the breaking of the law, there is death. Men were bound by the law of death. Every lamb, every bull, every goat, and every turtledove killed was a sign that sinners were under the bondage of death, and to foreshadow One who would be the ultimate sacrifice. Now friend, the animal sacrifices, or in other words, an external religion of works could never ultimately fulfill the will of God.
Let us move to our second major heading.
THE WILL OF GOD INVOLVES SELF-DENIAL
This is the joy of this text to me. I have surveyed this text now for a while, and this is the joyous thought that has brought my heart ecstasy time and again as I have pondered on it. In this text, God is communicating to us how to do His will. The will of God comes through self-denial. Look at verses five through seven. It says,
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God (Hebrews 10:5-7).
Animal sacrifices could not give God what He desired for man. What God desires is that men do His will. A significant underlying theme of God’s will for us is a selfless submission to Him. To show the validity of this statement, I want to go to Psalms chapter fifty-one verses sixteen and seventeen, which is very similar to verses five through seven. In verses five through seven, Jesus is saying, “I have come to deny Myself and do your will O God.” When Nathan exposed David for his sin of adultery and murder, David prayed, “for thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt offering.” David admits that if he could be forgiven through the means of burnt offerings, he would do it. But he states that God does delight in such. What does God delight in? In verse seventeen is the answer, “The sacrifices of God are a broken heart: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” What God desires from a man is a heart that is yielded in selfless submission to God in all aspects of his life. That is what God is looking for. Animal sacrifices could not do that.
A man could commit the sacrifice of a bull or a goat and still have an unbending will to God. He might fulfill the law in offering the sacrifice, with his heart boasting in self-exaltation. How true it is that you can perform significant acts of religion while your heart denies God’s right to rule over you. The animal sacrifices could never bring perfection, meaning acceptance with God, because they could be offered without a heart of brokenness and submission to God. What does the word of God tell us is God’s will for us? The prophet Micah declares the will of God in chapter six and verse eight, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what [is] good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8).
You could bring a sacrifice every Sabbath and not do these things that the prophet said are required. Oh, for a heart broken before God, pliable in His hands, willing to yield unto God! This is God’s delight. Do you delight in that which God delights in? Do not be deceived, you can perform great feats of goodness and your delight still be other than God’s delight. Now an unregenerate sinner doesn’t delight in God’s will. If you are not a Christian today, you do not take any pleasure in God’s will. To do God’s will requires brokenness. The will of man, apart from grace, would rather suffer an eternal Hell in order to stand rigid before God than to lie before Him broken. Man left to himself does not desire brokenness. We desire prosperity and promotion; we desire elevation, not humiliation.
To do God’s will requires justice, says Micah. Well, there is no sinner that I know who loves justice. If he did, he would be calling down the wrath of God upon Himself and enjoying it. The Bible says justice cannot tolerate sin. It takes no pleasure in evil. Therefore, for a sinner to love justice he must hate his own self. That will never be, it is love for himself over the love of God that keeps him in the state of rebellion against God.
To do God’s will requires mercy. What unregenerate sinner do you know that loves mercy? Well, if he loves mercy would he not seek God for mercy rather than to continue in his own wickedness? Those of you who are not Christians, yet think you are, are nothing more than deceived sinners. Let me tell you that you don’t delight in mercy, for if you delighted in mercy you would humble yourself before God and find yourself bathed in His mercy. You want no such thing. Mercy is an insult to the proud of heart. You desire the acclaim of achieving favor with God. Mercy denies you this. The only mercy a sinner wants is the kind of mercy that will allow him to escape the penalty and still enjoy his sin. God doesn’t dispense such mercy. You can’t continue in your rebellion and think you can escape the penalty of sin. There is no such mercy; you will not make God a party to your sins. You must submit to God in humility and brokenness.
To do God’s will means a desperate dependency upon God. That is what Micah meant when he said “walk humbly with thy God.” Being humble means you submit to God and say, “Lord, I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t always know what I need to do. I don’t know how to face every situation that comes, therefore desperately will I depend upon you to guide me that I might do your will, O God.” I have never known a sinner to do that nor to desire to do that until God does something in them first. Yet, that is what God requires in us. Hear me, the will of God requires of you self-denial. Salvation requires self-denial. One can’t know Christ and the forgiveness of sins without first denying him or herself. Jesus made it very clear. He said to His disciples, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 88:34).
Before you can pick up the cross there has to be a denial of self-control, a brokenness, a repentance, a willingness to bow before God in submission. So therefore, there is no salvation apart from self-denial. There is no way you can please God or do his will without it.
Well, that leads me to my third and final heading.
THE WILL OF GOD WAS PERFORMED BY CHRIST
When Jesus came He said, “Father, You established animal sacrifices never to save, but to point to Me. You commanded animal sacrifices, not to bring perfection or acceptance of sinners, but as a reminder of the death and penalty of sin. Thus, Father, knowing that you don’t delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices Lo, I have come because in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will O God.” For Jesus to do the will of God, He had to do exactly what you and I have to do. Jesus Christ had to deny Himself and do God’s will. Again verse five of our text,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me (Hebrews 10:5)
Do you see the self-denial? It involves the incarnation. “A body hast thou prepared me.” When Jesus laid aside the visible manifestation of His glory and became a man, born of a virgin, there was self-denial. He left the splendors of Heaven and all of the glory thereof and He became subject to the vile poverty and degradation of humanity. Self-denial. He submitted to a body that His Father prepared for Him. Self-denial. Eternal God who transcended time and space became obedient to time and space. Self-denial. What should be said of the passion of our Lord? Our author says in the last portion of the tenth verse of our text that the body prepared for the Lord Jesus Christ was offered “once for all.” I weep; I really do at times truly weep that I cannot faithfully communicate the sufferings of our Lord. I wish for a tongue that exceeds the one I have, and a mind more capable of conceiving and containing such thoughts of the terrible agony of my Lord. The sacrifice for sins on the cross for me. Self-denial. Oh, I look at the torment of His body and I see it racked with pain. But could His self-denial endure even more pain than the physical sufferings? Was there an agony far worse than beatings, thorns and cross?
The agony of the cross was deeper than these things. Hear the deepest pain of Christ when Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me?” He endured a spiritual torment that included the infinite wrath of God. Self-denial. The hatred and punishment of the Father was poured into His heart and soul as well as His body. Self-denial to do God’s will? Absolutely. Jesus is the epitome of self-denial. Only through self-denial could He obey God’s will for Him.
God the Father also denied Himself to save us. God the Father denied Himself for us. We began so many months ago with Hebrews chapter one and verse three. It spoke of Jesus being the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the expressed image of His person. I can’t explain how the Father and the Son are one and yet two persons. God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are not three Gods. They are one. We don’t worship a multiplicity of Gods. We serve and worship one God. The Bible teaches us a divine mystery that God is comprised of three distinct persons. This passage tells me that Jesus Christ is the very brightness of the glory of the Father and the expressed image of His person. The eighteenth century theologian and pastor, Jonathan Edwards explained the eternal generation of the Son of God from the Father in these words,
It may be thus expressed, the Son is the Deity, generated by God’s understanding or having an idea of himself. There is nothing else can be an express and fully perfect image of God, but God’s idea. Ideas are images of things and there are no other images of things in the most proper sense but ideas, because other things are only called images as they beget an idea in us of the thing of which they are the image — so that all other images of things are but images in a secondary sense. But we know that the Son of God is the express and perfect image of God, and his image in the primary and most proper sense.
The word “image” is a key and integral word. What is an image? When you look in the mirror what do you see? You see an image of yourself. You carry with you at all times a mental image of who you are. We affectionately call it our “self.” How you see yourself is your self-consciousness. How many of you carry on conversations with yourself? You can literally be in a room all by yourself and be talking out loud to yourself. Now they say when you really cross the line to insanity is when you begin to answer yourself. But the truth is we do, have conversations with self. We are talking to the person that we imagine ourselves to be. That is our image.
If Jesus is the very image of the Father, then that means as the Father sees Himself in all of His perfection, in all of His attributes, and His infinity, He also sees Jesus. Unlike you and me, God sees Himself perfectly. God knows Himself perfectly and as He sees Himself there is the image of Himself, and that image is the Son, eternally generated from the Father. Jesus has always existed because the Father has always been and has always seen Himself perfectly. This image of Himself is a person. I believe Edwards to have the closest understanding of the Trinity ever explained, and it is the closest that I can get to understanding this mystery. Now when the Father sent Jesus Christ to the cross to die, He had to deny His very self, the image of who He is and to subject Himself in that image to passion for our redemption. Oh what marvelous, marvelous mercy!
Christ performed the will of the Father. His obedience to the First Covenant was in accordance to the will of God. In verse nine the writer says that our Lord Jesus brought an end to the First Covenant by doing God’s will.
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second (Hebrews 10:9).
Ladies and gentlemen, the Old Covenant is not continued in the New, it is finished, it is completed. There is a discontinuity. Is there any continuity between the New and the Old Covenants? Yes, there is, but it is not to be found in the statement, “The old is found in the new.” The new is certainly found in the old, but the old has been fulfilled, and it has been clearly brought to an end.
The Old Covenant was a tutor to bring us to Christ, but now Christ has come and set in place a New Covenant. Can I see hints and promises of that new law in the old? Yes, but that is all you see-promises and hints. Did people experience the pleasures and benefits of the New Covenant, in the Old? The redeemed saints did, but not all of the benefits and promises of the New Covenant. We will get into that when we get into Hebrews chapter eleven. God has established a New Covenant and here is why it is so critically important that we understand this—because our Lord Jesus established the New Covenant by doing God’s will. If He had not fulfilled the law of God and walked humbly before God, done justly, loved mercy, kept the commandments, and loved God, then there is no hope of a New Covenant whereby we are saved by His blood. By Christ’s fulfilling God’s will, He has fulfilled it for us so that His righteousness becomes our righteousness.
The great wisdom of God is in this truth of our justification by His blood through faith. The writer returns to this truth in order to encourage saints who are hurting. So again, to those of you who are hurting, I remind you that this epistle is an epistle of encouragement. How does it encourage us? By taking us back to the Sacrifice. Christ did God’s will, and thereby He sanctified His people.
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10).
Through Christ’s doing God’s will, we are sanctified. The word “sanctified” here is under the same idea as being perfected, being made acceptable to God. It is not talking about the progressive sanctification of the believer; we will deal with that next week in verse fourteen. The idea is being cleansed and made acceptable to God through Jesus Christ is doing the will of God. We are set apart and stand perfect in the sight of God.
APPLICATION
Now I want to give some application. The first application is to any and all who think that their religiosity or goodness will have some merit with God. I think we can draw some comparison with the insufficiency of the animal sacrifices we find in verses one through four. The emphasis on animal sacrifices or external religion is upon doing. In other words—works. The only way you could approach God was through your doing something. But Christianity and salvation is not about what you do, it is about who you are. Are you in Christ? Are you a child of God? Are you a new creature in Jesus Christ? That is what New Testament Christianity is about.
Let God change who you are, and then you will do what is right. Often we reverse this and say,” do what is right and that will change you.” There is something about the nature of man, his neck so rigid and stiff, he is so proud in his heart that he dares to think that without himself, God could not do anything. So many sinners come to God thinking that it is God and them working together for their salvation. “Lord, I will do this, and you do the rest.” Dear friend, don’t you understand that such a statement says to others that God is impotent and weak, that He is not sufficient to save? How dare you think that God needs your righteousness (which is filthy rags) in order to make you acceptable to Him. Why, that is blasphemy! It is to suggest that the blood of Christ is insufficient.
All you need is Christ. Humble yourself today. There is no goodness in you except what God places in you by grace through His spirit.
The second application is that, we have been commanded to be perfect. We have been commanded to be acceptable to God. But how shall any of us climb such a high and towering summit? A few weeks ago I read that a blind man climbed Mt. Everest. I would say that it would be easier for a blind man to climb Mt. Everest than for any person to arrive at the pinnacle of God’s perfection. But how did that blind man reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain? Certainly not alone, he was assisted by others and was guided by those who could see. Dear friend, we who have been saved, what chance have we of reaching any higher ground? What hope do we have of climbing into God’s perfection and being like Him? None ,except by the divine assistance of God. We too need a guide; surely we have one in Christ. That is what this text tells me. Look out ahead and see Him, He is the epitome of a selfless submission. Hebrews chapter five and verse eight, “yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” We are to learn from His self-denial. The Bible tells me that Christ exchanged His wealth for poverty. It was not the wealth of the world; it was much, much more. It was the wealth of Heaven. Why do we cling so tightly to the little we possess? A mere smidgen compared to the prosperity that our Lord possessed. All that we have is like a single crumb compared to all that is God’s. If Jesus Christ could give up so much in order to do the Father’s will, how can you continue to grip so tightly the little that is in your hand?
Jesus denied Himself; yet today, so many Christians are not climbing the peaks of God’s righteousness. They refuse to go higher in maturity simply because they are unwilling to deny themselves the things they cherish. They have cherished these things more than growing in grace. They cling to them too tightly. I do not want to be such a scolding preacher today; I say this for your help. For I know there is coming a day when you and I are going to stand before God, and we are going to look all the things that we weren’t willing to turn loose of. We shall see all the possessions that so entangled us, keeping us from running the race better than we could have. And our hearts shall be stricken with such sorrow and pain. We will mourn that we did not carry them with a lighter grip. Christ is our example, He denied Himself.
Another example of selflessness and self-denial is our Father. Why one guide would be sufficient to get us up the mountain, but we have another one flanking us. We have both the Father and the Son. The Father gave us the infinite sacrifice when He gave us His Son. Someone shared with me this week that they had asked someone if she could give her life for somebody that she cared for or valued. The person said, “Yes, I believe that I could give my life for somebody that I cared very much for.”
But my friend asked her would she give one of her children for someone. Would she be willing to throw her baby out in front of a speeding truck? And the lady quickly, without hesitation said, “Oh no, I could never do that.”
But our Heavenly Father did as much and much more for us. Oh, dear friend, we often speak of the passion of Christ, but we seldom, if ever, think of the passion of the Father in Heaven as He watches His Son die for us. We seem to think that He crushed the Son with great pleasure. These are the words of Isaiah in chapter fifty-three and verse ten.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand (Isaiah 53:10).
Here the prophet uses the word “pleased” to indicate that God’s justice is satisfied in the sacrifice of Christ. But it does not mean He took actual joy in seeing the innocent Lamb suffer on behalf of sinners. I can’t think that of my Father. I think when Christ did utter those immortal words, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me,” there was a breaking heart in Heaven as the Son’s heart broke on earth. Oh, the pain to deny His very own self, the Son, who is the very image of Himself.
My last application to you and me is where there is self-denial to the will of God there is always gain. There was gain to both the Father and the Son. Again they are our examples and guides over the steep slopes of holiness and righteousness. In Hebrews chapter twelve and verse two the Bible says
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).
Friends, God is not some masochist. In other words, God takes no pleasure in pain itself. There is no prize in suffering. There is no great reward in heartache and misery. It was “for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross.” Listen, some of us think that the more we endure pain, suffering and hurt, the more spiritual we are, to the point we delight in pain and suffering. A fool takes pleasure in pain and joy in suffering. The pain, the suffering, and the heartache are not where the joy is. It is the joy that comes in enduring those things and the prize afterwards.
You can never deny yourself in obedience to the will of God and not gain. So often we waste our time worrying about what the Lord may require for us to give up or endure if we obey. “Lord, what will you ask of me if I really devote myself one-hundred percent to you?” Foolish question. Look beyond the sacrifice. The comfort and pleasure of the present world is not worthy to be compared to the comfort and pleasure that is in Christ Jesus. And what fullness of joy shall be ours when we reach the place which He is now preparing for us? Oh, the gain that will be ours in due time if we presently endure!
Our Example of self-denial was willing to give up comfort and pleasure for a short season that He might gain all the more joy. Not only did He regain the splendor that He had before He left heaven, but He gained much more than that. The Bible says there is an innumerable host called the saints of God who are His inherited possession. It is for that joy that He has in us, that He endured the pain. God is not asking you to endure pain for pain’s sake. He is asking you to endure pain for the prize. Self-denial to God’s will, will bring great gain and glory. Eventually, should I continue to follow my Guides I will reach the coveted prize—perfection.
To finally reach the top of the peak of God’s perfection, I must slip the surly bonds of this earth and plant my feet on firmer ground than this. I must pass beyond the grip of gravity, slip beyond the region of the stars. I must come to the very throne of God where my High Priest will present me as a warrior before my King. It will be there, kneeling before the Majesty of the heavens, that the final stroke of perfection will be finished when my perfect King dubs me glorified. Then, and not before, will I be like the Son through and through. But the course which will lead me to that towering height, that glorious summit, that promising peak, will be the path of God’s will, denying myself, picking up my cross and following Him. And although difficult as the climb may seem and arduous as the journey is, when once there upon the summit, we will look down upon the ascent and realize that it was, in the end, God’s amazing grace that planted our feet on top of Mt. Zion. We will see that the glory was worth the climb.
It will be worth it all
When we see Jesus.
Once glimpse of His dear face
And all sorrow will erase.
So bravely run the race
Till we see Christ.
Amen. |
