|
Sermon Manuscripts
Restoration of New Testament
Service to God Part 2
a sermon in the series,
Hebrews: An Epistle of Encouragement
A sermon delivered
Sunday morning June 29, 2003
at Oak Grove Baptist Church, Paducah, Ky.
by S. Michael Durham
© 2003 Real Truth Matters
Hebrews 12:28-29
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29 For our God [is] a consuming fire.
In our last message we began to inquire and to learn that service to God must be offered in a very defined manner. We cannot offer to God a service which we invent or deem acceptable. We are to worship and serve the Lord in the way which He has prescribed. Last week we examined the words, “let us have grace, whereby we may serve God.” We must have grace in order to serve God. Before we can hope to serve our Lord we must first seek God for a grace to empower us to serve Him. We need grace to be put in right relationship with God. Our service to God is not a repayment of grace, for grace cannot be repaid.
We are forever indebted to God for His mercy to us, but the way we glorify God is not by trying to repay Him for His kindness to us. Rather we glorify God by seeking Him for more grace in order to serve Him. This way, it is God who is the one who is magnified in our service since it is He who is empowering us.
Today, we want to return to the twenty-eighth verse of chapter twelve and hear God’s explicit command on how we are to serve Him.
HOW SERVICE TO GOD IS TO BE OFFERED
The writer continues in verse twenty-eight and shares with us how our service is to be offered to God. First, service is to be offered to God “acceptably.” In other words, the author is stating that our service should be offered to God in a manner pleasing to God and not necessarily to us. Our service must be acceptable to God. It is not about us easing our conscience by doing our duty. This is not to be the motivation for our service to God. Our aim is to please Him who is worthy.
Acceptable Service
The question then that begs answering is what does God consider acceptable service? I would begin by saying that the person serving must be “acceptable” to God. He or she must have been made right with God by the trusting of Jesus’ death and by being placed within the family of God. The person acceptable to God is one who loves His Son and is in fellowship with Him. Ephesians chapter one and verse six, “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
You cannot make yourself right with God by serving Him. Service cannot make the one coming to God perfect. Rather you must first be made acceptable and then your service is acceptable.
Are you in Christ? Have you been made right with God, clean and acceptable through faith in Jesus? Again, this is not an achievement of the flesh. You cannot earn this or make it happen. Romans 3:20 is clear, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” You cannot be good enough because even one sin is a breaking of the law and that one sin makes you forever unacceptable to God. If you trust in the law to save you, in other words trust in your ability to be good, you will die. How then is one acceptable to God? By faith in the goodness of Jesus Christ and His ability to have absorbed God’s entire penalty for your sins. If Romans 3:20 is the bad news that “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight,” then Romans 3:28 is the good news, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Being acceptable to God is trusting in Christ in the depths of your being with your entire person. It is a loving confidence that goes beyond the intellect but involves your whole person, mind, heart and will.
The question of the Psalmist is “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?” His answer is, “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psalms 24:3-4). But the question of the proverb is our question, “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” (Proverbs 20:9). The answer is no man. But do not despair. There is one who can cleanse us from every foul stain of sin. It is Christ, of whom we have this testimony of John, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Revelation 1:5).
It is only these who have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb of God that are able to serve God. “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).
Acceptable service to God must also mean the service rendered must glorify God. Service that exalts us or even the church is not acceptable. Jesus warned about serving God with an eye toward the praise of men. “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). Service that gains its pleasure in the accolades of men is an unacceptable service. Unfortunately, a person cannot so easily recognize this motive in others much less in himself. We cannot see to the heart of why a person does what he does for God. You may give to God what we would call great feats of service and in your heart do it so that men will admire you. If we cannot always know what is in another man’s heart, it may not be possible to always know what is in our own hearts as well. How much of what is done in the name of Christ is actually done for our own glory. How sly is our own ego that it has fooled us into thinking we are doing it for God, when the fact is we are doing it for ourselves. This, I am afraid, happens more than we are aware.
How then can we know the difference? How can we discern our motives of service, whether it is for God’s glory or our own? I think the answer is found in John Piper’s book, Don’t Waste Your Life that many of you are currently reading. Piper says we can know our heart’s motive by answering this simple question, “Would you feel more loved by God if he made much of you, or if he liberated you from the bondage from self-regard, at a great cost to himself, so that you enjoy making much of him forever?” (John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, p. 36).
I think Piper is right. The key is that we enjoy making much ado over God more than we enjoy God making much ado over us. It’s not wrong that we enjoy God making much over us, and He does. The Bible says that the Lord loves us and we are the apple of His eye. Zephaniah says of God in his book, third chapter and seventeenth verse, “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” So God does make over us with much fanfare. But do we enjoy making much over Him, even more than we enjoy His making a fuss about us?
If you enjoy God making you feel good about yourself more than you enjoy magnifying God, then it is obvious who you really are serving, you are serving yourself. You serve God so that in the end He will approve of you, or enlarge your eternal inheritance, or simply to make you the focus of His attention. The issue to you is not the glory of God; your issue is, wrongly, your glory.
We would do well to remember Ananias and Sapphira. They thought they would offer to God an offering, when the truth was the offering was offered to the glory of their own name. Others had sold property and given the money to the apostles to distribute to the poorer Christians. Ananias and Sapphira saw this display of love and wanted others to think of them as being a couple willing to sacrifice to the glory of God. But they kept back a part of the money, which would not have been a problem, but they lied to Peter when they told him they were giving the entire sum for what they sold their property for. God immediately struck them dead, Ananias first, and then Sapphira. The consequences of their self-seeking glory was a lesson for the church and for all who would be identified with it that God takes seriously any person’s attempt to seek self-glory.
The only service that is acceptable to God is service that is offered from a heart that swells with joy in the thought that God is being exalted and demonstrated to others as being as beautiful as He really is.
Oh, let this be the standard for everything you do and may it be the standard of everything we do as a church. We must not be afraid to examine everything done in this church under such a lens. If we should discover that a thing is done and it has no heart for God’s glory in it, let us be rid of it! The quicker we shed it the better. Let nothing go without this scrutiny, “Is God seen to be glorious in this thing?”
In the end this is the purpose for which we are to give our lives. It is this for which we are to live. Your life, my friend, is to be offered as a sacrifice upon the altar called God’s glory.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service (Romans 12:1).
It is to be your business to live and die in such a way that causes, first, yourself and, then, others to be amazed at the person of Christ. We, ourselves, should be so overwhelmed with God’s grace moving and carrying us along that we are awed by it. If it does not move us, how then will it move another? Live every moment with this driving force, “how will this make others see just how awesome God really is?” This would change many lives here this morning; in fact, many lives would have to change in order to be this kind of sacrifice unto God’s glory.
Reverently
Let us now move to the second word in our text that tells us how service to God is to be offered. The word is “reverence.” “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” We are to offer God service in a spirit of reverence. What does that mean? Does it mean we put on long faces and special garments and recite some formal prayer? Many have wrongly believed this is what the word “reverence” means and their whole religion is based upon external form and the true spirit of worship is absent. Reverence goes far beyond the external and must be dealt with in the heart.
The word “reverence” means shamefacedness. The idea is of downcast eyes, meaning, you feel a sense of unworthiness being in the presence of a person so that you dare not lift your head lest you make eye contact with them.
Perhaps the best example of this is in Isaiah chapter six when God appeared to Isaiah. What a tremendous passage and what an example of holy reverence for God. Isaiah saw God in the temple accompanied by angels called seraphim. Isaiah described the vision and the seraphim that cried to God, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). He said they “each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly” (Isaiah 6:2).
These magnificent and holy beings did not see themselves worthy to be in the presence of Him who is holy. With two wings they covered their eyes and faces so that they would not look upon the Lord God Almighty. What a humbling thought for you and me today, that these absolutely perfect creatures feel such a sense of reverence or unworthiness to be in the presence of God that they would cover their faces. And yet you and I who are not perfect are told to approach the same throne and He who sits on the throne with boldness. Remarkable! But our coming in boldness does not imply we are entitled to come, nor does it minimize our unworthiness to be in God’s presence. We are unworthy, and if seraphim must cover their face in His presence, how much more should we be reverent as we approach Him. The fact that we are commanded to come boldly is not to mark the fact that we deserve to approach God, but it emphasizes the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice. By the blood of Christ, unholy creatures are given access to the holy God, for the blood of Christ cleanses us from all our sin and removes our guilt from us.
To say that the death of Christ makes us worthy to come into fellowship with God is not wrong, but it can be made into error if we think that we, ourselves, are worthy without the mediation of Christ. It can quickly promote a service that is not offered in reverence but in pride and arrogance.
Another concept of the word “reverence” is the idea of bashfulness or blushing. The writer of Hebrews is saying to come to God with a sense of blushing. Again, the concept is not to come to God as being ashamed or timid, but rather in lowliness. It is the opposite of pride. We are not to come to the Lord thinking we are something and that we deserve to come before Him. The blushing is the result of the joy we experience in coming as unworthy creatures given access by the merits and death of Christ Jesus. In a very small way it would be like going into the Oval Office of the President of the United States and being astonished that the president had invited you. Charles Spurgeon said it best when he said it is “not a servile dread of God, but out of an overwhelming sense of his unutterable love we blush to be so highly favored.”
Herein is a major error in the Charismatic camp. I, too, believe that God is to be experienced, but I cannot agree with the perception of God that many Charismatic leaders are giving. They portray God as their buddy, as a friend with whom they are very chummy. They convey that God desires informal intimacy with us that we would carry on with one another. This is not the manner in which the writer of Hebrews commands us to approach God. There is no reverence in it.
Charismatics take pleasure in having the Holy Spirit come upon them and create phenomena that do not suggest this word “reverence.” Often, but by no means always, when the so-called “blessing” is imparted in a meeting, some will respond by making noises and bodily movements like various animals. The most common of these animal manifestations is "roaring like a lion." However, this is only one of many animal manifestations which have been observed. You may witness people gibbering like monkeys, barking like dogs, howling like wolves, and screeching like cats. A charismatic was boasting about what he believed to be a spiritual meeting. Here is what he boasted in.
That room sounded like it was a cross between a jungle and farmyard. There were many, many lions roaring, there were bulls bellowing, there were donkeys, there was a cockerel near me, there were all sorts of bird songs.... Everything you could possibly imagine. Every animal you could conceivably imagine you could hear.
This is not with grace serving God acceptably and with reverence and godly fear. Yet, it is this concept of intimacy with God that has driven many Christians away from the truth of a reverent intimacy with God. Men, not wanting to be led astray and fearful of Charismatic foolery, have deserted the Scriptures and any form of a personal God with whom we can fellowship and interact. They have gone in the opposite direction and as a result there is no dynamic of the Holy Spirit in our churches.
Serving God with reverence does not mean a dead orthodoxy. It is not an intellectual exercise. It is not a formal and passionless matter. No, service filled with grace is alive and vibrant, so much so, that a holy blushing comes upon us as we realize the awesome privilege that has been given us to draw near to God, who is a consuming fire, and to worship Him.
Godly Fear
The third phrase that the writer of Hebrews uses to describe the holy act of serving God is the words, “godly fear.” We are to serve God with a godly fear. What kind of fear must the author of this epistle be meaning, for John says in First John chapter one and verse eighteen “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” And Paul tells us that “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). It would seem from these two references that fear should not enter into the equation of our relationship with God. Christ was often telling His disciples to “fear not.” What then is “godly fear”?
It is not a fear of God that is based upon a dread of God or an anxiety based upon uncertainty with God. It is not a horror of God that comes from being under His wrath. A godly fear is a fear of offering God the wrong sacrifice, or in other words, to present worship to Him in a manner that is not acceptable and reverent. It is a fear of displeasing Him, not a dread of Him.
An example of this is also found in Scripture. David desired to move the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He gathered Israel to witness the joyous event of taking the Ark into Jerusalem, but along the travel route one of the oxen that was pulling the cart carrying the Ark stumbled and the Ark of the Covenant became unsteady. Uzzah, one of the priests driving the cart, reached out his hand to steady the Ark. Immediately God in anger struck Uzzah dead. The reason for God’s anger was the refusal of the men to transport the Ark of the Covenant according to His instruction in the Law of Moses. The Ark was not to be carried on a cart but was to be carried on the priests’ shoulders by two heavy wooden rods that ran through rings that were on the sides of the ark. This was God’s specific instruction.
The character of God has not changed since the days of Moses. The God of Moses is the same God of Peter, James and John. Moses was banned from entering the Promised Land because he disobeyed God. The New Testament does not suggest a grace that makes God lax concerning His commandments. As the writer of Hebrews has already told us, God has not changed. He did not reverse Himself from the Old Testament to the New Testament. But this is hard for present day Christians to see, much less believe. We have been told about a syrupy God of love that does not resemble the God of Scripture. We laugh at the suggestion that God will judge us if we violate His commands. We treat them like suggestions and if we choose something else instead, we do not fear breaking His commandments.
But the writer of Hebrews, realizing the tendencies of men to abuse the mercy of God, declares that we are to serve God with godly fear. We should be fearful about approaching God or doing one thing that is not in accordance to God’s word. We think little, if any, of sanctifying the Lord. There is no fear of God in our eyes that we might be sure to set God apart in our actions so that the world may know Him and also fear. Moses was refused the Promised Land as God said, “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them” (Numbers 20:12). When Aaron’s sons Nadib and Abihu offered a different fire from the one God had prescribed for the sacrifices, God killed them in the very act of offering the strange fire. Moses went to his grieving brother Aaron and said, “This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace” (Leviticus 10:3). What could Aaron say? God had warned them, but his sons refused to heed. God has warned us New Testament believers also here in our text. God “will be sanctified in them that come nigh” Him. What you do for God is not for you in the end. It is not about you being lauded as a great man of God. Your service is not about you being praised by others. Your worship is not for you to be recognized by your peers. It is about sanctifying, setting God apart from all others and magnifying Him.
How much of what you do is about sanctifying God? Are you disregarding the commandments of God thinking grace covers you? Have you been negligent in your making sure that God is set apart by your behavior and life? Do you think that it doesn’t really matter because you are already saved and God is merciful? Have you abused the mercy of God? “How might I abuse the mercy of God?” you ask. By serving or worshipping God without godly fear, thinking that grace covers your negligence.
Why does the writer present God in such a light? Because God has never changed and He is extremely serious about your worship! You cannot approach God in a half-hearted way and God not be displeased. You cannot offer Him your leftovers from a cool heart and passionless soul. If you have become careless in your approach to God’s throne, if recklessness has crept into your worship, then dear friend, while you still breathe, be afraid! You have set your hand to touch the holy as did Uzzah. You are offering strange fire as did Aaron’s sons. You are refusing to glorify God before the people as did Moses. You are lying to the Holy Ghost as did Ananias and Sapphira.
I tell you your approach to God has been earned and given to you by grace through the death of God’s Son. You cannot afford to take your coming to God and serving Him lightly. If you do, how will you escape the charge of having “counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith you were sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”
We model before the world a sloppiness in service and worship that says to them “you need not take God seriously”. And then we wonder why they do not take our gospel seriously. “Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” Let the world see God is much too holy to be trifled with. May this community see a holy fear in our eyes and then, with God’s grace, perhaps they will begin to fear the Lord. Amen. |
