Grace Fellowship Church - Saturday Main Conference Session 2

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March 8/2025 | Main conference session 1| Expository sermon by Michael Durham. This is the main session of the conference hosted on Saturday.

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The following recording is from our Grace Fellowship Church Conference 2025. Please visit us at graceedmonton .ca
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to learn more about us. You can also find us on Instagram, Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word, or on Facebook.
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You can also find us on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts. Please enjoy the following recording.
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The text I pray the Lord be pleased to speak to us from is the epistle to the
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Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 verses 7 and 8.
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I want to speak on the theme, the glory of submission. Hebrews chapter 5 beginning with verse 7.
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I'll be reading from the King James. I'm not
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King James only, but as a dear friend of mine who's now in heaven used to say, I'm King James mostly.
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I actually prefer the new King James version, but you will see in due time why
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I've chosen to read from the King James, the old authorized version as it was once known.
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Hebrews chapter 5 beginning with verse 7. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared though he were a son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
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I'm compelled to tell you that I will fail if you expect me to unpack all of the glory that is in these two verses.
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I just simply cannot do so. This text speaks of incomprehensible glories that no man and mind can conceive and no heart can truly delight in to its full capacity.
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The tongues of men and angels cannot communicate to you the power, the beauty, the majesty that this text contains.
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But if the fullness of the text is not our goal, but rather the satisfying of our thirst in the
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Lord Jesus, well, then we'll be able to drink deep from this and be satisfied.
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You see, you don't have to measure the depth of the ocean in order to drink from its bounty. Therefore, I want to bid you, and I would pray
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I'm bidding all of you, thirsty friends, come and be satisfied.
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There's plenty here in this text. I want to deal with a contention that many of you have.
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It's a secret contention. You would never dare say it the way I'm going to explain it, but you feel it nonetheless.
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The conflict is that you struggle to believe that Jesus actually knows what you experience when you are tempted.
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I mean, how can he? He is God, and God cannot be tempted.
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Some theologians actually believe in what they call the impeccability of Christ, meaning
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Christ could not truly be tempted and sin. But we're not here to solve those theological issues.
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We'll leave them to brighter minds than mine. I want to deal with your secret contention, that you don't feel that you can totally relate to Jesus.
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For even if he could have sinned, you and I both realize that there was nothing unrighteous in him to be tempted.
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He was conceived without the corruption of Adam, and he was preserved.
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He delighted in righteousness and hated all that was evil.
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So it is very difficult for us to really relate to him in this capacity.
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How could he truly be tempted as I am? There is a well, a deep well of inner corruption in me that is easily enticed.
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And though I've been redeemed, not all of this sin and corruption has been eradicated.
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There is still this need of further deliverance from sin and its presence in me and in you, but not in our blessed
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Lord. There was no such inner corruption. And when we sin, how can he relate to us who never sin?
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Do you see our dilemma? Do you see the contention? And don't you feel it sometimes? We feel we have little in common with him.
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How can we approach his presence, this great holy God, heaven's perfection?
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But today I want you to hear me. There's good news. Our text expresses our
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Lord's deepest sympathies, if not empathy for you. He understands exactly what you face when you are tempted.
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My dear friend, he knows the pain of temptation much better than you do.
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He's felt sin's vice -like grip and crushing weight more intensely than you and I could ever feel.
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He died under its weight and severity. Our text declares this, and it gives me hope.
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It was this text that changed my Christian life many, many years ago.
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Because I confess to you, I had that secret contention. But it wasn't secret between he and I.
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I often pray, say, Lord, how can you truly love me like what
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I am? And how can you relate to me? And how can I actually come to you when
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I've sinned? Because you never sinned. And it was this text that the
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Lord showed me my heart's need and answer. Well, I want to do that for you this morning, but there are a couple of dilemmas the text presents us.
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The first is the dilemma of Christ's obedience, verse 8. The dilemma of Christ's obedience.
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It says, verse 8, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
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It was his nature to be obedient, was it not? I mean, he was perfect and good in every way.
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What did he need to learn concerning obedience and not only was he perfect and good, but he loved perfection.
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He loved righteousness, and he hated all that was imperfect and unrighteous.
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So in his humanity, how did he learn obedience? Did he not teach
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Joseph and Mary about obedience when they found him in the temple at the age of 12?
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What was his reply to their question? Must I not be about my father's business?
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Even at the age of 12, he was consumed with this passion to fulfill the father's will and obey it perfectly.
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It seems to me that obedience was instinctual, native, natural to him.
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He did not need to learn obedience like we have to teach our children. What could our
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Lord Jesus learn about obedience that he did not already know? What is it here in our text, verse 8, that the writer to the
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Hebrews is trying to communicate? Many commentators and scholars have said that this means that Christ endured the hardship of being a man, the limitations of a body.
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He endured temptations, the rigors of the cross. And they say all of that is the act of submission.
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When it says he learned obedience, it's simply another way of saying he learned submission or that he submitted.
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But I have to be honest with you, that's never satisfied me. The writer is well aware of the
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Greek word for submission. In fact, he uses a form of it in Hebrews 13, verse 17, obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls.
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So if that was the concept that he wanted to convey, why not just use that word here as he does in the 13th chapter?
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Why shroud it in confusing language if you really meant submission?
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But the problem really isn't the word obedience or the word submission. No, the fly in the ointment is the word learned.
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That's the problem word. It's not obedience, it's not submission, it's learned.
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Because the term comes from a Greek word that always conveys the same meaning throughout the
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New Testament wherever you find it. It means this, to find out, to discover, or to learn through experience.
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So clearly the writer wants us to see that Jesus Christ learned something, something he had never faced before.
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What then could that be? Well, verse 7 is the tutor to verse 8.
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It'll help us to see what he means. However, verse 7 has its own challenges.
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It presents us the dilemma of Christ's fear, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.
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That's the King James rendering. Let me read it from the English Standard Version, which I'm assuming is probably the majority
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Bible in your laps. Here's the ESV, verse 7.
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In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his reverence.
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It's the last clause where you see the difference. The King James, he was heard in that he feared,
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ESV, NASB, he was heard because of his reverence, or godly fear.
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New King James uses the term godly fear. Other translations, he was heard because of his piety.
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Well, there are two significant problems here that creates our dilemma. Number one, the word his in your
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ESV. The word his is not in the Greek text at all.
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No matter the manuscript you translate from, the personal pronoun is not there.
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It's inserted by the translators. His reverence, his godly fear, his godly piety, his is nowhere to be found.
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And then another problem we have is the word because. Now I'm not trying to find fault with your
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ESV translation. My beloved New King James doesn't translate it accurately either.
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The word because, because of his reverence, that word is never translated because anywhere else in the
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New Testament. Nowhere else. If the writer wanted to show causality, you know what that means, cause and effect.
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Because Jesus revered his father, his father answered his prayer. That's cause and effect.
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If that was what he intended, he would have used another word, another Greek word, which means on account of.
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But he doesn't use that word. Instead the writer uses a word that means from that or it can be translated that which or out of.
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The King James is the most literal rendering of that verse. The intended message is that Christ was heard and helped from or out of that which he feared.
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There was something Christ feared and he's praying to his father and out of that thing that he feared he was delivered.
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That's what the text is saying. And I don't know, I don't know what was in the mind of the translators of these very reliable English translations.
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I suppose the problem and the struggle was the idea that our
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Lord feared. I mean how do you explain a fearless Christ fearing something?
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But nevertheless our Lord did fear something and it was so terrifying that the author to the
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Hebrews says with loud cries and tears he prayed and supplicated
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God. And so we must now ask the question, what did he fear?
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What was he afraid of? What even in the life of our Lord is this writer referring to?
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When did he offer up prayers and supplications with crying and tears?
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When was there a time that Jesus literally wrestled with fear?
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When? Well the answer is in an olive garden across the way from Jerusalem over the brook of Kidron.
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Luke in his gospel the 22nd chapter beginning with verse 39 details that experience for us.
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Listen closely. Coming out he, Jesus, went to the Mount of Olives as he was accustomed and his disciples also followed him.
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And when he came to the place he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation.
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And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw and he knelt down and prayed saying,
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Father if it is your will take this cup away from me.
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Nevertheless not my will but thy will be done.
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I don't know if you noticed but the Father and the Son here have different wills at this moment.
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Jesus prayed for the Father to remove the cup. He expressed a desire for the cup to be removed.
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Meanwhile the Father desired Jesus to take the cup. Two wills there.
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Now I know that may initially prove difficult to your mind to comprehend but if Jesus is fully man as if not
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God as well as being fully God as if not man. This one person
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Jesus possessed the will of God and the will of a man. And at this moment the will of the man from Nazareth was different from the will of the
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Father in that not that he wouldn't obey the Father but he was asking if the
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Father would remove this particular will or aspect of his will.
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He was struggling, listen, he was struggling with the
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Father's will. Not in a sinful way, not in an unrighteous way, but as you shall see in a moment in a very holy way.
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My friend has God ever asked something difficult of you? Have you ever experienced
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God's will to not be joyous but a burden? Have you entered the toil of obedience and found it not easy, not necessarily pleasant?
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All of us can testify to moments when God's will is difficult for us.
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And our high priest, listen, look at him. Our high priest has a moment in time when the will of God met a labor that offered no joy in the moment.
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Oh, yes, there was a joy, but the joy was the result of the finished work as the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12.
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He despised the chain because of the joy that was set before him, but there was nothing joyful and pleasing in he bearing your sin.
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Nothing. Do you think our Lord and Shepherd is unaware when you face fear?
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Brother, he knows it very well. He's been there. Do not in your exaltation of him distance yourself from him.
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Yes, he's exalted at the right hand of God, but my dear friend, he is very close and near to you even in that difficult moment.
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He too was assigned by the will of God something arduous beyond any of us.
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His assignment was far more grievous to his personal will than you can comprehend.
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Oh, yes, my friend, he understands when you find the will of God hard.
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The writer continues. I'm reading from your ESV. Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears.
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He's referring to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prays with tears and cries, loud cries.
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A stone's throw. I used to play baseball. I can throw quite a quite a ways of stone.
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They heard what he was praying until sleep overcame them, but they could hear him.
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How come? Because he was crying loudly. What was he praying for?
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Why was this strong crying? He's praying that the father might spare him the death that the father had ordained.
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In Matthew chapter 26 in verse 38, Matthew quotes
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Jesus. Listen to what he says to his disciples. My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.
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He tells them that he is so grieved in his heart that he could die.
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Jesus didn't need nails thrust to his wrist and feet. To be pinned to a cross to die, he could have allowed his grief to take its course, and it would have caused his heart to stop beating in his chest.
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That's how sorrowful he was, according to his own words. I don't believe he's being poetic.
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Have you, my friend, ever felt such sorrow? Has grief ever gripped your heart so tightly that you believed your heart would melt like wax?
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Have you been threatened, leaving you convinced that life would be over by your sorrow?
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Have you experienced an anguish so profound that you felt so low and that death was coming as if you could fall right into the grave?
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Well, my dear friend, our Lord knows that kind of sorrow, human sorrow and grief.
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Don't think he cannot relate to you when you experience these valleys, these crushing moments.
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Just because he's God in his perfection doesn't mean he can't relate to you. He's been there.
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Hallelujah! He's been there. Well, my next question, was he sorrowful about the physical pain he was about to endure?
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And I quickly answered, no, no way. A thousand times, no. How do I know that?
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Well, because far weaker men have faced death with courage. Many men, weaker than our
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Lord, have entered the battlefield knowing that they would not escape death. There they would be killed in combat.
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So I know he's a man. I know he wouldn't relish the thought of the pain, especially the death of the cross.
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We get our word excruciating from this, out of the cross. No pain evidently known like this kind of pain.
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So I know he would not have relished the thought of that, but that's not the cause of the sorrow here.
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No, there's something else here. Something much more painful than physical death that he knew he would have to endure.
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The Bible says of our Lord that he was a man of sorrows. It's not talking just about the cross or the garden.
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No, no. He was a man of. He lived with a sorrow constantly.
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The brow that had once borne the crown of heavens. Now furrowed with another kind of sorrow though.
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The kind he's never felt before. Eyes that had flashed with fire are now pools of water streaming down his face as he weeps for what is about to happen.
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And again, I quote Luke chapter 22, then verse 42. Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.
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You know, as I was reading that, the thought came to me, flashed. Be careful, Michael. These are holy, holy, holy words.
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Be careful how dare even utter these words. I feel that I have no authority to utter these words.
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These are the words should be reserved only for the lips of our Lord. Who am I to utter them and repeat them?
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But they are in the sacred text. Thankfully, we can know something of our Lord's anguish by these words.
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Here, don't read this verse so quickly. Look at it. Meditate it. Let it squeeze your heart for a few moments.
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What is this cup? The cup was every sin
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I have ever committed or will commit and mixed with it are all of your sins.
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I think there's not enough cups in the world to contain all of our sins.
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And yet the father bottles it all up in one cup and he hands it to his precious son.
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Consider all of your iniquities. For a moment, think about your most grievous sins.
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Think of them. I know you're ashamed of them. I know you don't want to think about them. They fill your soul with regret.
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But look, it's in the cup. They're in the cup. And now the cup is passed from the father's hand to the son.
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I'm sure the physical pains of death had to be terrible, but the cup represented something.
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And the moment he takes it, it begins. His redemptive work doesn't start as the nails pierce the flesh.
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It starts right here. Technically, we could say it begins in the incarnation. Yes, of course.
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But the cup is now given to him. And now he begins to identify with the very thing he found almost unfathomable.
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This is precisely what occurred in its fullness when he cries out on the cross,
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Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani, my God. My God, why have you forsaken me?
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We have no idea of what we speak now, do we? Even the angels look in, peer with wonder.
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You sang about it a moment ago, and it almost seems heretical to say
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God estranged from God. In one sense, that is not true. God cannot be separated.
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But in a way that beyond my understanding, in a mystery far too great for man or angels, there was something that kept
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Christ from experiencing what he had always known in eternity past and for 33 years as a man, the constant smile and love of the
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Father. As he embraces your cup for the first time in his existence, eternal and human, no conscious awareness of the joy of God in him.
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The one who had been eternally loved, who had eternally loved the Father, was now being rejected and despised.
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Listen to me. The Father literally despised
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His Son and hated Him. No, I'm not being blasphemous.
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He was cursed by God. God turned His back on Him. The sun grew dark.
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Why? It was only an illustration of the Father's heart towards the Son, because the
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Son now was the sin bearer. He was me.
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He was you. In your place condemned He stood.
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The agony of knowing that His death was going to be condemnation from His Father tore at His heart before the soldier's javelin pierced it.
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And so the Father turns at the cross at some point and He curses
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Him. I hate you. I despise you. I reject you. And that's what
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He realizes. That's all there in the cup, my friend. And so there in the garden, the grief being so great that Luke records in Luke 22, verse 44, in being in an agony,
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He prayed more earnestly and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
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The Lord Jesus knew that God could either spare Him of all of this or at least help
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Him endure it. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7 tells us of this garden of Gethsemane.
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Jesus is praying to the One He knows that can save Him from this death.
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And now we go back to the Greek, to the King James translation.
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The word from can imply either deliver Him from dying or help Him through dying.
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And as we read Luke's account of Jesus's prayer, Lord, if it is
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Your will but this cup pass from me, we find a clue. He's asking for deliverance from what is about to happen.
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He doesn't want to be separated from His Father. He doesn't want to experience the Father's displeasure.
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He feared what we cannot even begin to fathom here this morning. Listen to me, for the holy and innocent
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Lamb of God to be nailed to a cross and associated with everything
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He despised is unimaginable for you and me. We just are not capable to go there.
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Being seen by His Father as something vile and putrid caused His soul to tremble at its very foundation.
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Look at us even now, straining with all the powers of our minds and emotions, trying to get a sense of what that must have meant for Jesus.
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And we can't. Some of you are sitting there and thinking, what's wrong with my heart?
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Why can't I feel anything right now? You see, we have no comprehension, no way of knowing what
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He felt. Being the perfect man, perfect in emotion, perfect in intellect, perfect in spirit, what could this holy soul, the pain and the agony be when now the
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Father is saying, drink Michael's sin. Be its representative.
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Be identified with all of the sins of the people in this room and all of the people that He had loved before the foundation of the world.
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Father, if it be your will, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
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Now what does this have to do with Jesus learning obedience to the things He suffered? And I say much in every way.
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Let me present the answer. I believe it will stand the test of truth in relation to the text, because I believe this is what the text is saying.
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It was natural for Jesus to be repulsed by sin and to have nothing to do with it.
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And everyone would say, amen. It was His nature to reject sin, right?
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To turn from it, to flee it, to detest it. He could not tolerate it.
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That is and was His nature. Here's my question for you.
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This is what the writer of Hebrews wants you to see. Could Jesus so easily go against His own nature?
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He has to violate His own nature to do what the Father wanted Him to do. Could He do that?
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And could He do that easily? No. Much easier for a leopard to change his spots, a man to change the color of his skin, than for Jesus to go against His nature.
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It was not in the nature of Christ to have any identification with sin. It was this that He feared.
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That's what the writer is referring to. A godly fear because it was a fear of sin.
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So you see, even the man in His will is a holy will. He doesn't want to embrace sin.
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That's a holy, virtuous thing. There's no sin in His will being different at the
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Father right now. No. It's because He is holy. He finds it difficult.
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Therefore, here's where verse 8 and 7 become connected. The test of obedience for Christ was to do what was unnatural for Him to do.
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Unnatural. It's natural for me to sin.
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I've got remaining corruption. I still have fallen human nature. There's still something natural to me.
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But there was nothing of that in Him. It was contrary to His moral constitution.
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Everything in Him told Him to reject this. And so now the test comes.
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Would He be obedient to the Father even having to act contrary to His holy constitution?
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Would He trust the Father even in this?
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There's the challenge, isn't it? There it is. Would He, the
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Lord Jesus, obey God and do what was unnatural for Him to do? Embrace sin and its consequences.
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To submit to the Father's will, Jesus had to learn to do something so contrary to His holy being.
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The obedience is not contrary, but what the Father asked. It's the same test, is it not, of Abraham.
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To take your only son and to slay him. That's not natural. My father told me a story when he was a little boy.
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There was a man who literally thought God had told him to do that. And thankfully, somebody had heard that he was about to do this and they intervened just in the nick of time.
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He had lost sanity. He had lost true reality. And now here is our
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Lord being asked to do something that's so contrary to His holy person. And so he cries out to the
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Father. He cries, Father, nevertheless, not my will, but Thy will.
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And the Father heard him and delivered him from that fear and empowered him to do that which was not natural.
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And Jesus took the cup for the Father's sake and our sake.
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Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
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It's the only reason I'm here today, that the man, the man
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Christ Jesus, could lay aside holy impulses to reject sin and now embrace it and be identified with it.
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Isn't this incredible? You got to get this.
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It's natural for you and me to obey because we still have something of that fallen human nature and follow the impulses of our flesh.
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Why? It's in our nature to do so. As much as holiness repulses the sinner, oh, to that degree, and much more, unholiness repulsed our
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Savior. But even for we Christians here, yes, we've been given a new heart, praise be to God, with new inclinations, new dispositions, new affections.
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But don't we sometimes find sin easy and obedience difficult? Why? Because that flesh, oh, there's a struggle there.
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It would prevent us obeying God. The flesh would have us at war with the
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Spirit rather than obedience to the Spirit. There's still something native to my flesh that finds sin natural.
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Hence, hence the struggle that Christians experience. Now, I'm thankful that I have a
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Savior who knows exactly what that feels like. He knows what it is to be obedient to God and not follow the natural impulses and inclinations of His disposition.
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I hope this is making sense for you. I'm trying not to be over our heads here because this is all over all of our heads.
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I mean, think about your own heart. Isn't anger more natural to the flesh than forgiveness?
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Covetousness, far more conducive to the flesh than charity. And we, at the moment of temptation, we have to cry out to the
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Father, Oh, Father, there's something in me that's enticed to this, but not my will, but Thy will be done.
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It's the exact same thing, isn't it? Only in His case, far, far greater, far broader, far, far more immense than what we've ever experienced.
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And so, I don't want to keep repeating myself, but I want to drive the point home. It was natural for Jesus being perfect to reject sin, run from it.
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But now the Father is asking His Son to do that which is unnatural. And so, here's
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Jesus basically crying in the garden, Father, I don't know what this is like.
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I've never done this before. I've never been here before. Father, You've got to help me.
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That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Everything in Him craves to destroy sin.
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Now the Father asks Him to take it in. And verse 8 says, Though He were a
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Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. He learned to do that which was unnatural, as you and I must do every single time we're tempted.
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We have to learn to submit to the Father's desires, even denying natural, fleshly, carnal inclinations.
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And that's what Jesus did. He did it for me. He did it for you.
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Praise be to God. And so, the Father rejects Him so He can accept you.
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Well, I must, for time's sake, get to the final lesson of the text, the final lesson on the schooling of our high priest.
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Jesus demonstrates for us a dependence upon the Father. He faced a predicament
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He'd never encountered before. Therefore, He had to rely upon His Father and the
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Father's strength to get through this. And so, the Bible says in our text,
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With cries, tears, supplications, loud voice wailing, He cries out to the Father to save Him. And it also states,
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He was heard. He was heard. Go back to Luke chapter 22.
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It's an interesting insert that none of the other gospel writers insert in their account.
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Luke chapter 22. Something very supernatural happened there in the garden.
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The Bible says in verse 43, after His prayer, Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening
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Him. The Father heard the cry of His Son and gave
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Him supernatural strength. He was heard. He was heard. What does this teach you and I today?
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That every time you're tempted to do something natural to your humanity, you've got to depend upon the
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Father for the strength to do something unnatural to your flesh. And this is what
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I call the doctrine of desperate dependency. You won't read it in any other book.
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The book's being written right now, but I haven't got it finished yet. You cannot, please listen, you cannot and you must not depend upon yourself for your spiritual advancements, your progress in sanctification, or even scriptural knowledge.
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You must humble yourself just as the Lord shows us right here in the garden. Because without Him, you can do nothing.
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The text last night. But if I've learned anything about myself and my human nature, it's this.
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I never truly depend upon the Lord until I am truly desperate.
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That's desperate dependency. As long as I've got other resources or supposed resources,
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I try them. But when I have no resources, then
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I'm desperate and I go to God. That's just human nature. How many of you say you'd love to see a miracle sometime in your life?
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Well, I don't think you do. You really don't. Because in order to have a miracle, you've got to be between the proverbial rock and the hard place.
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That means no human resources available. And now the supernatural power of God is required.
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See, we really don't want miracles, do we? We'd rather not be put in that position or straight.
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But when it comes to overcoming the natural tendencies, human strength will not avail.
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You ever try to discipline yourself out of sin? And surely we should be disciplined, but in the end, it will not give you ultimate victory.
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My friend, you need supernatural power. You need power from above. You need heaven to intervene on your behalf.
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You need to know your desperate state. And here we see Christianity coming full circle again.
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For Jesus begins the great sermon on the mount with what? Your desperate state.
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The poor in spirit, blessed are they, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those who know they're spiritually bankrupt are the ones who will depend upon God.
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You see, it's always been this way. This is the way faith works. And this is what our blessed
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Savior, our great high priest modeled for us when he didn't have the wherewithal in himself to do it.
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What did he do? He turned to the Father as he had done all of his 33 years.
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And the Bible says God heard him. Beloved, we have a high priest who truly knows and feels, not just intellectually knows, but he knows by experience and he feels what you feel.
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I have an advocate with the Father, fully qualified, having been there before me, all the predicaments and positions that I find myself in, he's qualified to relate to me in all of his perfections and me and all of my imperfections.
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There's a common bond we have here that he knew what it's like to be tempted, to do that which is natural.
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In this case, not sin, but to reject sin.
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In my case, it's just the opposite, but it's the same principle, do you see? Can you see that it's the same principle?
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When you pray to him, I ask you, I urge you, I plead, believe he understands, he stood where you are, he has overcome.
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And when you cry with tears and strong supplication, just remember the
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Father delivered him, he will deliver you. Don't focus on your imperfections and his perfections and compare the two.
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No, no, no, no, no. Instead, look at his identification with you and the difficult decision that he had there in the garden and reflect, he's been where I am, only more severely.
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Yes, he's almighty God. I hope I've not taken that from him, nor would I. I shudder to think that that's what you've you've deduced from my remarks today.
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All I've done, I hope, is to tell you that God didn't become less than God. When he became a man, he simply emptied himself by becoming a man, subtraction by addition.
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And he didn't cease being God, but he did add to his person the nature of man. Though he were a son, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.
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And in Hebrews, the ninth verse of the same fifth chapter, what do we read?
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And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him.
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My dear friend, Jesus is perfect for you. He's perfect for you.
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He's met all the qualifications. He lacks nothing so that you, believe me, dear child of God, so that you would lack nothing.
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All that is his is now mine. Co -heirs with Christ, participants in him, joined in a perfect union with Christ.
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Even at this moment, we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
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Remarkable. Hard to imagine, you say. Hard to see that.
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Well, I'm not asking you to see it. I'm asking you to believe it. It's true about you because of your great high priest who went before you.
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You're complete in him, and he is enough for you. Oh, may our souls rejoice in our
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Savior today. Bob, but what if there be one here? If there's but one of you who doesn't know him like I know him,
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I plead with you, my friend. I beg you. Would you give me two more minutes? Just two.
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That's all I ask. It could be the difference between heaven and hell, eternal life, eternal death.
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This same Jesus is a sin -bearer. If you've heard anything, did you not hear that?
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He bore the sins of his people. This wretched preacher, I'm telling you, if you really knew what
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I was like, inside this old heart of mine, you would have jumped up and ran out of the building and wouldn't have listened to me.
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But Jesus loves me, and I can stand righteous in his sight, and he can identify with me because he went to the cross and he took my sins, which made him cry with strong tears and feel a sorrow and a grief that almost killed him before the cross.
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And he took all of that filth from my past, my present, and my future.
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He bore it. But he didn't just bore my sins. He, having been identified with me, joined me, he's given me his perfect obedience.
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Every obedient thing he did to the Father is mine, including this text.
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Including this, so that when he prays to the Father, Father, if there's any way possible, take this cup from me.
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But nevertheless, not my will, thy will. He obeys, he submits, and I get awarded for that submission, that very one, and every other submission, act of obedience, he committed and rendered to the
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Father. And that's what he's offering you today. That's a perfect high priest.
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That's a perfect advocate. He's not just arguing on your behalf as an attorney would in a court of law.
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My friend, he does more than that. He supplies what you cannot give, but God requires of you.
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You trying to reform yourself and keep the commandments won't work, because there'll come a day when you come to a commandment you can't keep in spirit or in deed, action.
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And the moment you do, all that you've done is destroyed.
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Now, though theologians among us know that even that illustration is not accurate, but I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to a sinner right now.
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Dear sinner, do you understand on your best day, you could never be as good as this son of God.
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And that's the measure by which you and I are going to be judged by. That's the only kind of righteousness that God will let any sinner into heaven.
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It's called the righteousness of God. And the only way you can get that kind of righteousness is by casting yourself upon Christ and embracing him as he embraced sin for the sinner.
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I pray you do that. You say, I don't even know how to do that. Well, of course you don't.
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These things are above and beyond our minds. We're dealing with a genius far greater than yours and mine.
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No, but he said it. Can you not trust him? One who would do this for you?
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Can you not trust him now with you and your immortal life, your eternal life?
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May God help you to do that. That's my prayer. Amen. Amen. Let's pray.
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If you're not a Christian, God has spoken. Something's happening. You feel something for Jesus that you've never felt before.
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That's the spirit working. Just cry out to God.
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Ask him to help you, to save you. Believe that when
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Jesus died on the cross, he took the penalty of your sin and will give you his perfect righteousness.
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Believe it. Dear Christians, I exhort you as we pray, put an end to this secret contention in your heart.
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You've got a savior far better than you realize. The high priest much better than you knew before you came in here and praise him.
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Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our
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Instagram at Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca.