Hebrews chapter five again, if
you'd like to turn there. Hebrews chapter five, we're gonna
look at two verses this hour. Verses four and five. Hebrews
five, four and five. One of the most simple ways to
know, the most simplest way to know, have I heard and believe
the truth? Do I know with all my heart that
his blood hath paid my ransom? Do I know with all my heart my
sins have been taken away, that my sins have been paid for? One
of the easiest ways, well truly the only way, to answer this
question, to know for certain, to ask this, who gets all the
glory in your salvation? Who gets all the glory? That's what I've titled this
message, Who Gets All the Glory? Let's read our text, Hebrews
5 verse 4 says, And no man taketh this honor unto himself, speaking
of being a high priest, but he that is called of God, as was
Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high
priest, but he that said unto him, thou art my son today, I
have begotten thee. Christ glorified not himself,
but was glorified of his father. Christ humbled himself, as we're
gonna read here in a little while. He humbled himself unto death,
even the death of the cross. Christ never glorified himself. He never honored himself. He never pointed to himself saying,
look what I can do. Why is this so important? Well,
because if my religion, there's only one true religion, the scripture
teaches us that, if my religion If my gospel points to anything
else other than Christ, then it's not true. It's a lie. If
my gospel doesn't point to his blood alone, the gospel that
we preach doesn't point to his life alone, his burial, his resurrection,
his finished work alone, then it's not a true gospel. It's
a lie. It's false. It's void. It's in vain. There's always
the present danger, as you know, of adding to or taking away from
the finished work of Christ. That's what our flesh likes to
do and that's what all false religion does, promote self. I heard a false prophet speaking. Somebody sent me a message. I'm
a little more innocent on this one. I
was the first hour I mentioned to you about clicking on something
I knew that was just going to make me aggravated. This one,
I didn't know that, but I clicked on it, made me aggravated anyways.
It was a preacher and he was talking about grasshoppers and
how that we're just like a group of grasshoppers. And man, when
we get together, we can do some serious damage. He said, we could
do some serious damage for Jesus. I'm like, what are you talking
about? He says, yeah, we can, we can band together. There's
heat in, in, uh, when we, when we get together, there's heat
that kicks up and there's, um, you know, we, the Lord can use
a bunch of grasshoppers like us. I'm like, not, not following
you, man. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not getting
it. He said, you know, grasshoppers only. They only associate with
other grasshoppers. It matters who you hang out with.
It matters where you go and what you do. You better not be over
there with the frogs. They'll eat you up. Stay with
the grasshoppers. Grasshoppers, they mutate, he
said. They like to mutate and they start conforming. He said,
yeah, that's what we do. We start mutating into the image of the
Lord. I'm like, man, this guy's an idiot. And I stopped watching
him after that. And you won't find that in the
scripture. Nothing about what he said. Now, is it good to not
go to certain places and do certain things? Yeah, I would think so.
But we don't do it as our righteousness, do we? We don't do it as our
righteousness. All that he was doing was his
promoting self. Here's what we do, here's what
we don't do. And it masks itself in so, so
subtly, so subtle, in such subtle ways that people can't see through
it. They think, yeah, we need to do this, we need to do that,
and look what we're doing. Now we've got momentum. Now we're
a locomotive and we're heading in the right direction. No, that
direction is hell. No, it's not what we do. It's
what he has done. Perish the thought that we add
one thing or take away one thing from the finished work of Christ.
You want to serve the Lord? Do you want to be found in him? Do you want do you desire? To
know His will, look to Christ. Look to Christ and live. Look
to Christ. He'll teach you how to live in
Him, looking unto Him. He'll teach you what's right
and what's wrong. If you desire, He'll teach. He'll
show you. Ask Him, Lord, give me Christ
lest I die. The moment we begin to examine
ourself for assurance, we are in danger of seeing something
our flesh can glory in. Well, I really like this attribute
of my flesh that I've been exhibiting lately. It's a lot like Jesus.
No. No, you won't find that in the
scripture. Scripture tells us the flesh is enmity against God.
I'm not reflecting him by the things that I do or don't do. You want to reflect him, look
to him, look to the Lord. And it will come out in love,
one towards another in the brotherhood. It'll come out in worship. You'll
be here, you'll have a need to worship, but it won't. You won't
be able to, the only difference brethren, and this statement
really makes some people mad, but it is so true. The only difference
between a believer and a non-believer is a believer believes, that's
it. That's the truth of it. You're not gonna come to a knowledge
of the Lord and then poof, you're some amazing, spiritual being
that has arrived. No, it's going to be a warfare
for the rest of your life. This old dead corpse that's strapped
on your back, you're going to be fighting with it all the time. Lord, the things which I would
do, I would not. That's exactly what I find myself
doing, which brings us back to the same repentance. Have mercy
on me, the sinner. Who gets the glory in that prayer? Lord does. He's got all the,
you in that prayer have mercy on me, the sinner. You're acknowledging
he has all the power to have mercy. You have no power. You have no authority. You confessing
what you are is just a sinner. That's not a good thing. It's
a good thing if the Lord makes you a sinner, but it's not a
good thing just to be a sinner. Lord makes you a sinner. That
means he's going to show you Christ. But acknowledging you're a sinner,
you're saying, I have no power. I have no authority. I have no
merits. I have no goodness. I have no
righteousness. Have mercy. Have compassion upon
me. You know what the Lord always
says to mercy beggars, I will. Be thou made whole. Be thou made
whole. We're in danger often of seeing
something in our flesh we can glory and it can be as simple
as looking to a prayer that I prayed. I have family members that they
literally hold to a date and a time where they walked an aisle
and they knelt down and they prayed and they said that they
prayed the right prayer and they felt the Spirit of the Lord and
they have been a Christian from that time forward. And that's
unbiblical. You won't find that. No one has
ever been saved by coming to an altar. The only people that's
ever been saved are the ones that come to Christ. The ones
that come to Christ. The altar was created in the
Old Testament as a place of worship, but in the New Testament, you'll
never see an altar call one time given. Not once. That's a publicity stunt. That's
a circus parlor. That's a magic trick. Let's stir
people's emotions. And they would play the, you
ever heard the song Just As I Am? Some of you may have not heard
that. Just as I am without one plea. They would sing 10 stanzas
of that song. Boy, I really feel like something's
going to happen at this time. Somebody's about to come forward.
I can tell. And they'd play it again and
stir on people's emotions. The gospel is enough, brethren. The gospel is enough to get all
those whom the Lord has already gotten. And that's what we try
to declare here. That's what we try to preach
here is Christ is all. Christ is all. And he goes out
and gets those. He fetches those that are his,
just like he did Mephibosheth. Just like he did Mephibosheth.
We don't look at a prayer we prayed. We don't say, look what
I have done or what I have not done. No. All that men do, and you saw
that article, I mentioned this the first hour, look at me. What
that means is, is what can I do to improve my status before the
throne of God? You know, the short answer to
that is nothing. Boy, that makes the flesh so mad. Whenever you
tell somebody that's never heard that before, they get angry.
Are you telling me nothing? Nothing. What can you do to change
your status before the throne of God? Nothing. Well, that takes
the flesh completely out of the equation. That takes our anything
completely out of the equation. So what's the hope? God, who
is rich in mercy, wherein his great love hath he loved us,
sent the Lord Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for his people.
That's our hope. That's our hope. All that men do is glorify the
flesh. Self-righteousness is alive and
well because of it. You remember the Lord told the
Pharisees, you will not come to me that you may have life,
that you may have eternal life. He tells us why also he goes
on. You know, it says in that passage that some of them would
have believed, but they were afraid of the multitude. You remember whenever King Agrippa
looked at Paul and he said, Paul, thou almost persuade us me. to be a Christian. For those
of you who don't know that account, I'll briefly tell you. Paul is
in chains. He's in prison. He's appealed
to go to the Roman court, but he stands before King Agrippa
accused of doing wrongdoing when all he was doing was preaching
the gospel of Christ. And it was all purpose. We know that.
But he's allowed to testify. And what do you think he testifies?
Same thing you and I would testify. Christ is all. If we got put
on trial for preaching the gospel, that's what we would declare
is the gospel again. I mean, by God's grace, by God's grace,
that would be our desire, wouldn't it? And that's what he does.
He preaches the gospel to King Agrippa, and he tells him who
the Lord Jesus Christ is, what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished
in the covenant of grace, how that he saved his people from
their sin, and now he's successfully seated. And King Agrippa says,
you almost persuade me to be a Christian. Now there is a interesting
thought that's in that statement because when we first hear it,
we think, okay, so men can be this close to believing. No,
you can't be this close to believing. Either you believe or you don't.
There's no getting closer to believing and closer to believing.
Agrippa wasn't almost persuaded. He was never persuaded, not even
a little bit, not even a little bit. We can't almost believe. No, with the Lord, it's absolute.
Everything about our Lord is absolute. And it's the same with
the Pharisees. He says they would have believed except they feared
the people. But he tells us why they love the praise of men more
than the praise of God. This is why men won't come to
Christ. This is why Agrippa was not converted. He loved himself.
He loved his glory. He loved the glory of the people
for himself. This is why the Pharisees wouldn't
come to Christ. They loved their position. They
loved their authority. They loved themselves more than
they loved the Lord Jesus Christ. And you and I will not come to
him unless he causes us to because we love ourself. We love our
glory. But thanks be to God, he gives
grace and he gives mercy to his people that causes us to cry
out, not unto us, oh Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be
all glory and all honor and all praise. Our Lord is our example. Says
that he didn't glorify himself. Didn't praise himself. Never
pointed to himself and said, look what power I have. You know,
you and I, if we had, as a matter of fact, I can give you an example
of this. He gave the disciples power to cast out demons and
to heal, didn't he? And what did they do? Look at
what we can do. Look at what we can do. But when they came
across one that they couldn't cast out, what happened? Lord,
we, what happened? We, we can't, we can't cast this
one out. Lord said this kind cometh not,
but by prayer and fasting. What is that? What is he telling
us there? They begin to look to themselves,
didn't they? They begin to think, we have this power, we can do
this. That's what you and I would have done. That's not what Christ
did. He never said, look at me and what I can do. He did everything
looking unto the Father. As our example, as everything
we do, we look unto Christ. We look to Christ. Never drew
attention to what he did. He always glorified his father. His nature was perfect. Therefore,
everything he did was honoring to his father. He had a perfect
nature. You and I can't glorify and honor
the father in everything we do because we don't have a perfect
nature in and of ourself. He has to give us a perfect nature.
We're sinful. No, he's the one that's sinless,
separate from sinners. He's the one that gets all the
glory because of what he earned. To say that the Lord, to say
that there's one thing we do, to say that there's one thing
we do in salvation is to glory in ourself, to glory in ourself. And it's taking the place of
the Lord Jesus Christ is what it is. It's saying the blood
wasn't enough, or his work wasn't enough, his death wasn't enough.
I have to do something. Men don't realize how dangerous
that is, how wrong that is. The Lord's people are made to
know by grace, he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory,
nothing in our self worthy of glory. He gets all the glory. So the question is in the title,
and I've already answered this question, but who gets the glory?
He does. That's what has to be the answer.
If we see ourself as the center and we see him as the savior,
he has to get all the glory in saving. He has to get all the
glory. I find it interesting I have
a daughter that's going to graduate soon and so many people are praising
her mom and I. They're like, man, you guys did
a great job. You guys are good parents. Every time I hear that, it scares me. It truly scares me. I can look
back. And how many lessons do we really think of as parents
that we taught our kids? Like, okay, well, let's see,
on June the 12th, 2009, I taught you this, and on July the 14th,
2011, I taught you, we don't, you know what I remember doing?
Crying out unto the Lord every single day for that little girl,
that the Lord wouldn't leave her to herself, and that the
Lord wouldn't leave me to myself. And it's the same in our life,
no matter whether it's raising children or it's going to work
or it's coming to worship, we're just crying out to Him. We don't
get the glory and how our children, if our children are bad, it's
not, well, it's partly our fault. I suppose they're our children,
but if they're good, then we can't take the glory for that.
The Lord done did that. You see what I'm saying? It's,
He gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. Ask yourself this, is there one
thing about you? Or one thing about what you believe
that points to you? Is there one thing about what
you believe? Is there one thing about what I believe that points
to me as any part of my salvation? If so, you and I are lost. Christ
Jesus didn't point to himself as our example. He said, I come to do thy will,
O God. He rose, robed himself in the
likeness of sinful flesh. Think about that. He didn't take
on the nature of angels. He humbled himself. He became
a poor man, physically speaking. I'll show you that in Philippians
chapter two, if you'd like to turn there. Philippians chapter 2 verses
5 through 11 say this, let this mind be in you that was in Christ
Jesus also, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and
took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness
of men and being found In fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name
which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee
should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus Christ
didn't exalt himself. Lord Jesus Christ didn't glorify
himself. He made no reputation of himself.
He never said, look at me. Now some, the Lord having all
the authority and all the power that he had, you would have thought
would have drew attention to himself. How many times did he
just pass through them? They couldn't, they didn't see
him. How many times did he, now yes, he did all kinds of miracles.
He did all kinds of things. They were all done unto the Father. They were done as affirmation
of who he was, but he didn't promote himself like men promote
themselves. If a man's up promoting himself,
we're going to turn there in a second and hear this. If a
man's promoting himself, if he's glorifying in his flesh, that's
all he's doing is promoting self. No, the Lord, the Lord said,
look unto me and live. But he always pointed to the
father. I come to do thy will, O Lord. Christ humbled himself, the creator
became the creature. Listen to First Chronicles 29
11. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and
the victory and the majesty for all that is in heaven and in
the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and thou are exalted as head above all. Thou are exalted as
head above all in heaven and in earth. And yet we see the
owner, the creator, and the sustainer of all life in heaven, in hell,
and in the earth was born in a barn, was laid in a feeding
trough. That's what a manger is, is a
feeding trough. Didn't come to draw attention
to himself. He set his eyes like a flint,
the scripture says. He had one purpose and it was
to redeem the Lord's people, to honor the Father. To honor
the Father. That's why he was esteemed of
the Lord. That's why we esteemed him not. He didn't come to set up an earthly
kingdom. He was rejected of men and yet he came meek and humble. Glorified the Father in every
word, action, and thought. You know, you and I can't even
have one pure thought. Not one pure thought of another
self. We can't glorify God by ourself, but the Lord Jesus Christ
always, always, He always did. He always glorified His Father.
Didn't matter whether He was I say this reverently, you and
I, we tap our finger, we're sinning just because we're moving, we're
breathing still. He taps his finger, he was glorifying God.
Think about that. He was breathing, he was glorifying
God on our behalf so that every breath we take that's full of
sin and exhale that's full of sin, he took that into himself
so that now the Lord sees us as every breath we take is in
Christ and it's good and it's pure and it's holy. Why? Because
we're in Christ. That's what he did. The good news of the gospel,
he did everything he did in the place of his people, making his
people perfect by his suffering, making his people justified by
his death, making us the very righteousness of God in him. They asked the Lord one time,
me and Al were talking about this, I think Wednesday night,
They came to the Lord and the Lord told the man, he said, thy
sins be forgiven thee. Boy, that burnt them up. The
Pharisees hated that. They asked the question, who
has power to forgive sins but God? The answer's in the question. They just couldn't see it. God's
the only one that can forgive sin. Christ was God. That answer's
in the question, isn't it? Lord says what's easier for me
to say thy sins be forgiven thee or take up thy bed and walk but
so that you know the son of man hath power on the earth I say
unto thee take up thy bed and walk. The Lord was the only one
that could make us the righteousness of God in Christ he's there's
only forgiveness of sin and I wish I could. latch on to that the
way the debt we've heard it so many times we've become desensitized
a little bit to the words of forgiveness of sin. You're forgiven. Your sins been put away. It's
gone. You've been forgiven. He has
the power to forgive your sin by his own blood. He's the only
one that can do that. We can stand before him and he
says, I forgive you. I love you. You've done no wrong
in my sight. I put away that sin. That's why
he gets all the glory. That's why he gets all the glory. You and I could not become God
to please him, and that's what God requires, is absolute perfection.
There's only one being that's absolutely perfect, it's the
Lord. We couldn't become God, but what does the scripture say?
The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full
of truth. Can you imagine being with the
Father glorified, veiling that glory? I mentioned this the first
hour. The condescension, we can't fathom because we've never, it's
the opposite for us. When the Lord says unto us, live,
the glory is already in us. We just can't see it. But the
opposite of him, he became a man. So the glory had to be veiled
in his flesh. You see what I'm saying? He knew
what the glory was being with his father prior. Never having
a beginning of day, never having end of years. He was already
with the father in heaven and he chose for that glory to be
veiled to redeem you and I so that he could give us the same
glory. We're gonna turn to John 17 in just a minute and read
that, but this is what he did. Him being the creator, him veiling
all that glory, he condescended to this Well, it's think about
his awesome. His magnitude is you can't. He's
immeasurable. It's just be a speck of dust,
wouldn't it? That's what he came down to is a speck of dust. For
what purpose to save a bunch of dead dog sinners, that was
the purpose to save his own people. How grievous would it have been
brethren for him being perfect, him have being with the father,
him being holy and separate from sinners, being around all the
unbelief and all the sin. You remember when the scripture
talks about Lot being grieved with the filthy conversation
of the wicked? How grievous would it have been to the Lord if the
conversation of those around him, and yet, what did he pray?
Lord, they all deserve to die. Is that what he prayed? No, forgive
them, Father, they know not what they do. There's his compassion. It doesn't make sense to us,
but we believe it by faith, and it's our only hope. If you want to know if your religion
is vain, if you want to know if your salvation is true, ask
yourself, who gets the glory? Who gets the glory? The Lord
warns us of this simple truth. Turn with me to John 7, and then
we'll close in John 17. John chapter 7, verses 14 through
18. Lord tells us here that if we
seek glory, if we seek our own glory, there's unrighteousness
in us. John 7, 14. Now about the midst of the feast,
Jesus went up into the feast and taught, and the Jews marveled,
saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? I love that. That word letters
translates the Old Testament scriptures. How does this man
know the scriptures? He is the scriptures. He is the
Sabbath. They always got offended at his
word. How does this man know letters? Because he's the one
that wrote it. He is it. How knoweth this man letters
having never learned? Jesus answered them and said,
my doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man
will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself
seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his own glory that
sent him. He that speaketh of himself seeketh
his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the
same is true and no unrighteousness is in him. If you ask yourself
who gets the glory, you can also ask whose glory am I seeking?
Whose glory am I seeking? If I'm seeking self-glory, there's
unrighteousness in me, is what he's saying. But if you seek
the glory of the Lord, which is only found in the person of
Christ, there's no unrighteousness. How can that be? Because he's
given you faith to believe him, and you've been made the righteousness
of God in him. If we boast of ourself, if we
boast of our lives, our choices, there's unrighteousness in us.
But if we have been made to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as all,
all in redemption, all in salvation, all in justification, all in
sanctification, all in glorification, it's because God by grace has
made us the righteousness of God in Christ. He's given us
faith to believe him and he gets all the glory for it. That's
why David said, I've already quoted this once, but not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us. Who gets the glory? Not unto
us, O Lord. Can you relate with David when
it comes to salvation? Not unto us, Lord. I don't, not
unto us, but unto thy name be all glory and praise and honor
for you alone are worthy. but into thy name give glory
for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. This is what he teaches
his people by his gospel through his spirit, that he gets all
the glory. Now let's close in John 17. And I just wanna read the first five
verses here. Who gets all the glory? These
words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour is come, glorify thy son, that thy son also may
glorify thee. As thou hast given him power
over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify me. Glorify thou me with thine own
self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. He says, I may give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given me. What was the purpose of the
father glorifying the son? You'll never see another display
There's no glory to be seen other than the glory of the cross and
what happened on the cross of Calvary for the Lord's people,
for their salvation, for their salvation. He says, Father, give
me this glory that I may give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given me. And then what does he say? I
have finished the work that thou hast given me. I have, why does
he get all the glory? I guess we could have done this
in two or three different parts. Who gets the glory? And then
why does he get the glory? And then how does he get the glory? Why does
he get all the glory? Because he alone finished the
work. I finished the work that thou
has given me father on the cross of Calvary is final words. It
is finished father into thy hands. I commend my spirit. And he gave
up the ghost. Why does he get all the glory?
Because he did all the work in salvation and he saved his people.
How did he get all the glory? By his own power, by his own
might, by his own authority, by his own sovereignty. He has
the right to have all the glory. Now he says these words, I have
finished the work which thou hast given me. What part of salvation,
what part of anything pertaining to God does that leave for you
and I to do? What part of anything For salvation, does that leave
for you and I to do? He says, I finished the work. And when the work's done, it's
done. It's finished. It's over. There's no more work to be done.
If you ever went to help somebody, this is a weak example, but it's
best I can come up with at the present moment. You ever been
asked to help somebody move or you've ever been asked to help
somebody do something and you show up and they're finished?
Yeah, a buddy of mine, one time we were, were we moving up from
Florida? Somebody said, I'll be there,
but it'll be a little bit later. We said, okay, we'll come get
here when you can. And he showed up, there's no work to be done.
Everything's been loaded. And he's like, well, at least
I got here in time for the pizza. Work was finished, there was
nothing, there's nothing left to load. The doors are locked,
it's over. Brethren, that's what, Christ is seated. It's finished. There's nothing for you and I
to do except, well, enjoy the Lord's table, the banquet he
set before us. Who gets all the glory? Well,
the scripture tells us clearly. I am the Lord, that is my name,
and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise
to grave and images. This is why he gets all the glory.
Ask yourself, who gets all the glory? in your salvation and
what you believe. Who gets all the glory? Answer
has to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Be honest with yourself and ask.
And may the Lord give you the faith and give me the faith to
believe and know that he gets all the glory and rest in that. We'll ask Mac and Dana if they
would come forward and disperse the elements.