Audio Sermon: Dying to Self — Keith Green

Self-Denial and Digesting Scripture

This is going to be a pretty in-depth study going from scripture to scripture. We're going to be studying all the basic facets of denying self. You can title the study Self Denial or Death to Self. And it's important that you realize we're going to be going quickly through many scriptures.

You're to write the scriptures down and then go back at another time and look them up and study them and pray over them. Some of these are very good memorization scriptures, although I don't believe in a lot of scripture memorization.

I think you can clutter your head up with too much of the scripture without meditating on it, without really... I mean, I've seen people that memorize chapters and chapters and chapters and they can recite it to you, but so can a parrot.

It doesn't matter how much of the scripture you have memorized. It's how much of the scripture you have digested in your spirit. I know there's many people that would disagree with me, but I started memorizing scripture and I was more into the memorization of it than the practice and assimilation of it into my life.

But there's some great scripture here for memorization. 1 Kings 17, verse 12. Let's start at verse 8. Then the word of the Lord came to him, Elijah, saying, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there.

Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks, and he called to her and said, Please, get me a little water in a jar that I may drink.

And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar.

And behold, I am gathering a few sticks, that I may go and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. Now this is in the middle of a famine. It hasn't rained in three years. At this point, it's probably two years, because he stays with them for a year or so.

Maybe it's only one year, but it's an incredible drought. No water, and she's living in a land... All she's got left from her stores is a little bit, enough to make a meal for her son and her, and then that's it.

They don't have anything else to eat. Then Elijah said to her, Do not fear. Do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake first from it, and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son.

For thus says the Lord God of Israel, The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth. So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and he and her household ate for many days.

The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke through Elijah. Now, how rude can you get, right? Now God has already told him, I have commanded a widow to provide for you, in verse 9.

And he comes to her, and this is the way God is going to provide for her, by giving him the first cake from the last meal that she has. I find that when we are exhausted, that when we have nothing left to give, when we have absolutely the last bottom of the jar, that's when God will ask us for peace.

When you're just about to fall asleep, that's when the counseling call will come in. That's true. When you have no more room, then God sends the people. When you have no more money, then the bills come in.

This is the test of the Lord. We're going to end, this is real interesting, we're going to end this Bible study with an Old Testament test, and we're going to start, I'm sorry, we're going to start it with an Old Testament test, and we're going to end it with an Old Testament test, with a lot of New Testament scripture in between.

This is an Old Testament test. You want to be provided for a widow? She's ready to die, what's she got to lose? You want to be provided for? God's going to use you to provide for me, but I'm going to do miracles in your midst.

I think it's incredible, God says, I have commanded a widow to take care of you. I have commanded a widow to provide for you. Dig that, verse 9. The widow isn't going to provide for him. He goes there, she's got one bit of flour left, and he says, all right, you can provide for me out of a supernatural bowl of flour and a supernatural jar of oil that always only has one serving left.

First you must deny yourself and give it to me. Then every day will be a day of faith. You'll only have enough left for that day. But he swears to her. In verse 14, For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.

Giving Everything to Receive from God

Now, there's a lot of New Testament Scripture on this that we're going to go through. I think the amazing thing for us in the Scriptures is that the only way for us to have anything is to give everything away.

The only way to be exalted is to humble yourself. The only way to increase is to decrease. The only way to receive love is to give love. The only way to grow is to get smaller. The only way to be taken care of is to take care of somebody else.

It's the rule of the kingdom. Somebody once said that hell was a place where there was food. There was a big table. There was a feast in front of them. And their arms had no joint at their elbow. They couldn't bring it to their thing.

And there was this thing, and they could carve the turkey and everything, but they couldn't get it to their mouth. And they said heaven was the exact same scene with people whose arms couldn't bend either, but they were feeding each other.

The same situation, but they were saying, here, you feed me, I'll feed you. The only way, the only difference between those two things is selfishness and giving, sharing. The situation is exactly the same.

You can have hell in a situation by having two people who are afraid to love and give to each other, by having people who are afraid to give themselves up. And that's hell. That's selfishness. That's hurt.

That's anguish. And the same situation, with the same amount of love and need, and they give to each other. Here is two people who have nothing to eat at all. She's got enough to live, and he's got nothing.

She's got just one last meal. He says, the only way you'll be provided for is if you give me a meal from that last meal first. And that's the rule of the kingdom. Okay, turn to Matthew 10, verse 37. You have that on the middle speed, right?

Four hour speed, right? The middle one. Okay, Matthew 10, verse 37. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.

He who has found his life shall lose it. He who has lost his life for my sake shall find it. He who receives me, he who receives you, receives me. And he who receives me, receives him who sent me. Okay, the key there, he who has found his life shall lose it.

That means he who tries to save his own life shall lose his life. Again, back to the widow. Do you want to be saved? Give away the last bit of your substance. Now how this reads into our life is that we need to be continually laying our lives down for each other, continually thinking about how we can make the other person in our lives life better.

And if we're always worried about what's in it for me and why, I mean, even reading it into our life here, whether it be the schedule or the job, why is it that I'm always making the salad? Why do they have me cutting the onions all the time?

Well, that might be the nastiest job in the kitchen. Be grateful that you're able to do it so somebody else doesn't have to do it. You're benefiting somebody else. If we would think of the body instead of us, if we would think of the whole, we would be glad to do the nasty job.

I'm sure you're glad when the grease is on your hands instead of your face. You know, when you're working with something greasy and all of a sudden somebody says, Hey, you have grease on your nose. And you look down and you had it on your hand and you rubbed your nose.

And now you can't see your nose, but you can see your hand. I'm sure your whole mind is grateful when you realize you didn't rub your face and you see the grease and you catch it first on your hand. Now, if your hand had a mind of its own, it wouldn't be grateful.

It wouldn't be grateful that it had grease on it. Boy, I'm sure glad. Well, I'm not. I've got grease on me. Well, that's the way the body has to be acting. I'm glad I got the grease instead of the more honorable part of the body, whatever that is.

They said there's some parts of the body to honor and some to dishonor. We walk on our feet. It gets the brunt of weight. If we step on something, it gets hurt first. Our feet, if they had a mind of their own, wouldn't be grateful.

They wish that we'd walk on our hands. So it could be up and you could shake feet with people. You could wave. But which part of your body gets more honor? Your feet or your hands? Your hands do. You cook, you sew, you work with it.

You don't cook, sew, and work with your feet. You don't love with your feet. You don't go up to somebody and give them a foot rub with your foot on their back. The reason I'm saying this is that there is parts of the body that are supposedly, the Bible calls it, parts to dishonor and parts for honor.

There are parts of your body that are covered up. No one ever sees except your husband or wife. And those are for intimacy, those parts of the body. There are parts of the Christian body that no one ever sees.

Only in the bridal love between the body and the Lord do they get exposed. Only when God is being worshipped and only when God is blessing and anointing are those parts of the body lifted up and shown.

And God sees them only in private. That's why Jesus said, when you do your giving, give in private. For your Father sees thee in secret and rewards thee openly. Anyone who's married will tell you that there's intimate moments between a husband and a wife that they don't share with anybody.

But it beams from their face during the day when they're doing other things. That love, that intimate fellowship between a husband and a wife. It's not sex that I'm talking about. It's the intimacy that's a part of it.

That makes a man, a husband or a wife, at ease. That when he's not alarmed, he's thinking of his beloved or he's thinking of his mate. And he has a peace and a joy about that person, even though he's not with them.

That is the way it is with Christians. And you probably, whoever you are, are probably a part of the body that's not getting as much honor as Billy Graham or not getting as much honor as somebody in the spotlight or an elder or a group leader or a team leader or whatever it might be.

And everybody sees them and they're the hand that's always getting shaken and they're the hand that's always getting patted on the back and they're the people that are always getting written about and talked about and you're just not noticed at all.

But if you remain intimate with God as part of the body, then God will honor you openly at the proper time. And it has to do with this losing your life. It has to do with this... The only way to find your life is to lose it.

And I think that there needs to be... This Bible study is not a rebuke. This Bible study is a remembrance. And it's more for me than any of you. As I read through this, as I'm teaching this, nobody needs to be humbled more than those that are in the public eye.

Nobody needs to be at the foot of the cross more than those who are being given honor or being given esteem or being given attention. Those are the people that need to be the humblest because if they're not, they're doomed to fall.

And everybody that's depending on them is doomed to fall with them. Matthew 13, verse 44. Matthew 13, verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which a man found and hid and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls and upon finding one pearl of great value he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Now, what is it that you seek from the Christian life, really?

I mean, a lot of people that are Christians were losers. In fact, most Christians today were losers in the world. And they traded in a losing life for what they hoped would be a winning life. That's not salvation.

That might be something that will spark you to get saved. That might be something that will put a desire in your heart to meet the Lord. But that is, I think, the bulk of the testimonies you hear. I had nothing.

I was down and out. I was this and that. And my testimony is very much like that, too. And that's really not serving the Lord. That might be meeting the Lord, but it's not serving the Lord. I didn't have any happiness.

I was unfulfilled. And I met Jesus, and since then things have been wonderful. That's the attraction between a man and a woman. That is not a marriage. I was lonely, and I met her, and my life has changed.

She has just thrilled my heart. That is not a marriage. That's attraction. That's the spark that might bring two people together. That is not commitment. That is not relationship. People today are so emotional-minded.

People today are so... they need to be fulfilled. They need to have all their goodies. And it's just not like that in man-woman relationship. And it's not like that between Christ and the church. You can be attracted to Jesus.

I have nothing. Now I can have everything. All right. That's valid. Then he's going to say, all right. You really want everything? Give up everything. A man found a treasure hidden in the field. He sold all that he had so he could get it.

He gave up everything to have it. Well, it's easy to give up. As Winky Pratt, he says, you know, you say, I gave up smoking, I gave up drinking, I gave up fornicating, I gave up drugs. It's easy to give up your wrongs, but have you given up your rights?

Giving up your wrongs is easy. Those things are killing you anyway. You didn't do God any favors by giving up things that are sending you to hell. God is impressed when you give up the things you love.

It was one thing for Abraham to send Ishmael away. It was another thing for him to put Isaac on the altar. He had to give up his wrong by getting rid of Ishmael. Then he had to give up his right by getting rid of Isaac.

Put him on the altar. Offer him as a burnt offering. There couldn't be anything more distasteful to a father to do. Nothing could be worse. Nothing. Absolutely nothing could have been worse.

He'd rather cut his own head off with a machete.

Than to burn his own son. Giving up the things that are killing you is a favor to yourself. Nobody ever did God a favor by getting saved. Nobody. It's when you are saved and you are beautiful Isaacs that God has given you your talents, your riches, your future, your images of what you should have as a human being, your rights, what I could be.

I could be making such and such. I could be a so-and-so. I have the talent to do this and that. I could be writing books. I could be making records. I could be a great chef. I could be married by now.

I should have married that guy instead of coming to this place. Or whatever it was. I could have four kids, do the lot, and bury them. I'm glad I'm here. Your rights is what God is interested in.

Your wrongs, you can get rid of those yourself.

If you're smart enough, there's people in the world that use self-hypnosis. In Eastern stuff. They gave up drugs. They gave up fornication. They knew those things were killing them. You can give those things up without the Lord.

You can't give up yourself without the Lord. You can't. It's impossible. Because all you do is benefit yourself unless you give yourself up for the Lord. The man found a treasure and he got rid of everything he had to possess this treasure.

What is the treasure? What is it? What's the treasure? What's the treasure? Jesus is the treasure. Jesus is the treasure. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

He is the bridegroom. Who is the treasure? Jesus. You can't have him if you have any of yourself. You can have part of him. You can be on your way. You can be growing. You can be going step by step on the Christian installment plan.

But you better, you'll always be making payments until you have that experience where God karate chops you behind the knees and you're on your face. And the best thing to get you there is to give up the things you love the most.

Your dreams. Your ideals. The things that you always wanted out of life. Throw them away. I always wanted to live in Colorado. I don't know why. I just always wanted to live in Colorado. And I wanted to have a ranch up in Colorado with a recording studio and a Learjet so that I could go up there and do all my records and I could fly to L .A. or fly out and do concerts and come back.

That would be a little paradise away from everything else. Just my family and my friends. This was in B .C. days. Just going up there and partying and so on. That was my dream. And then when I became a Christian all I had to do was get rid of the drugs and the party and put the Bible studies in and I could still have the ranch in Colorado and the recording studio and the Learjet.

And everybody would say how blessed God had blessed me if I did it. It would be totally acceptable in the body. That's the crazy thing. Today we have a Christianity where you can have anything you want to and just put Christian labels on it.

That's not Christianity. You can have anything you want to and put Christian labels on it. You can say I have a burden for this and I feel led to do this and whatever. And it's all... You can still...

You can Christianize your selfishness. You can stamp a dove and a fish on it. And God is not impressed with your dove and your fish. He's impressed with nothing more than the heart. A heart after Him.

A heart that when finds the pearl sells everything He has. He sells everything He has to buy it. That's self-denial. That is everything. It doesn't say He sold most of what He had. There's a story that I read once about a guy...

I think Winky tells this. A guy comes into the pearl shop, right? He's a pearl collector. And there's a pearl the size of a globe in the front. And the guy goes, I've been looking for a pearl like that all my life.

I've collected pearls. What does that pearl cost? Oh, it's very expensive. Well, how much does it cost? You probably couldn't afford it. Well, how much is it? Everything you've got. Is that all? Is that it?

Well, that's great. What do you got? Oh, man, I opened up my wallet. $117. All right. What else you got? Well, I've got a check here in my bank account. There's $40 ,000, $50 ,000 I've saved in stock and bonds.

All right, write a check. $40 ,000. Sign over your stocks and bonds. Okay. What else you got? Well, that's all I've got. I mean, you know, I don't even have much left to make my house payment with. Oh, you have a house.

Yeah, I have a house. All right, we'll take that. Where do you want my wife and I to live? In our car? Oh, you have a car. Yeah, two of them.

Two cars. Well, where do you want my wife and children to go out in the cold? Oh, you have wife and children. One wife. How many children? Three. Three children. You expect me to live alone? Oh, yes, you too.

That's the whole thing. People, when they think God wants everything, they stop short. They think He wants my money. They think, well, He wants this and that. But He wants everything. It has to be under the blood.

Everything has got to be committed. You can't think of just money. You can't think of what I could be doing. You can't think of who you could be or what you're hoped to be or any other thing. It's got to be everything.

Readiness, Servanthood, and Unworthy Slaves

Okay. Luke 12, 36. Starting at 35. Luke 12, 35. Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight. And be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes anock.

Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the underworld when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at table, and will come up and wait on them.

Now, this goes with the scripture in Luke 17. I just want you to read that first. It says that when we're with Jesus, it says that He will gird Himself, have them recline at table, and will come up and wait on them.

Now, this might just be a parable. It also might be literal. At the wedding feast, Jesus might come up and say, What would you like? That's incredible. The king, the master, will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at table, and will come up and wait on them.

Now, this goes with Luke 17. Turn to Luke 17. We'll come back to this. Luke 17, verse 7. But which of you, having a slave, plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, Come immediately, and sit down to eat.

But will he not say to him, Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself, and serve me, until I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink? He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?

So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded, you say, We are unworthy slaves. We have done only that which we ought to have done. Now, that is the attitude when you serve God. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do.

Remember Paul said, I don't have any reward for preaching the gospel. Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel. My reward is that when I preach the gospel, I offer it without charge. But think of that. It's like whether it be Kevin on the press, or whether it be Julie Lynn in the track department, or whether it be Carol up in the office, or Terry in the art department, or whoever you are in this ministry.

If that's where God has you, you don't get a reward for doing those things. Not at all. I don't get a reward for playing the piano and singing. Woe is me if I don't. Woe is you if you don't draw pictures.

It's not that that gets us a reward. It's serving God in everything we do with a proper heart. It isn't the deeds. God isn't going to give art points for him, and car points for him, and music points for me.

God isn't impressed with my songs. He's got better music in heaven. God isn't impressed with any of us and what we do. He's impressed with how we do it. He isn't impressed that this guy is out tending sheep.

He isn't impressed. He isn't impressed that he comes in and cooks him a meal. He's impressed that the guy says, I'm doing all I'm supposed to do. This is wonderful. He isn't patting himself on the back.

I'm just an unworthy slave. That's the best slave there is. And yet, to tie it into Luke 12 that we just read, I'm sorry, yeah, Luke 12.

It says, He is going to wait on us.

The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. And to prove it, in John 13, turn to John 13, verse 3. John chapter 13, verse 3. Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come forth from God and was going back to God, that's an interesting start, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, girded himself about.

Then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He dressed as a slave. He took off his clothes and put a towel on, the way a foot slave would be girded, and then used the towel that was around him, I mean, it's a pretty big towel, to start wiping their feet with.

Not only did he say he's going to serve, but he showed his disciples he was going to serve the night he died. He says, Now the hour has come for me to be glorified, not until I wash your feet. He goes on.

So he came to Simon Peter in verse 6, and Peter says to him, Lord, you wash my feet? Jesus said, What I do, you do not realize now, but you shall understand later. Thank you. Peter said to him, Never shall you wash my feet.

Jesus answered him, If I don't wash your feet, you have no part in me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not only my feet, but my hands and my head. He's the guy that opened his mouth and changed feet all the time.

He came to serve. Yet our attitude, he says, must be, and when we do what we are commanded, we are to say we are only unworthy slaves doing what we're supposed to be doing.

We don't deserve to live.

With what we have done against God, with the lives we have lived for selfishness. We do not deserve another breath. We deserve only hell. It's only God's grace that we're saved. We did not do anything to get saved.

We did not turn around and go, Okay, God, I promise I'm going to be a good boy now. And God says, Okay, I'll save you. It was that God saw that we were lost in our sins and he made provision for us, and then he offered us a way out.

And we said, Come and get me. And he saved us. We didn't save ourselves. He saved us. And we've got to remember that, that we are on borrowed time. It's just like a man, you've heard this expression before, a guy, he gets healed of cancer, you know, or he has an operation, they take out half of his lung, and he says, I'm living on borrowed time.

I should have been dead a year ago. All the time that I've had since then is borrowed time. You all heard that expression, I live on borrowed time. Who'd he borrow it from? From God. We're all. As they say, as Lenin said, Lenin, from the Communists, said that Communists were dead men on furlough.

They were dead men on furlough. And I tell you that Christians are already to be living martyrs. They're already to be dead. You're already crucified with Christ. You've already been destroyed. There shouldn't be anything left in me of, you know, trying to build Keith's kingdom or trying to build up Keith Green or in you, trying to build up you.

There's all got to be building up Jesus. There shouldn't be anything left in John the Baptist of trying to build up John the Baptist. He says, no, I shall decrease and he shall increase. There shouldn't be any looking to what we can gain from being in Last Days Ministries or we can gain from being in this department or being the head of this or the tail of that.

It's a got to be. We're trying to build up Christ. We're trying to expand his kingdom. We are serving him. I don't care if it's washing toilets. I want to be the best toilet washer in the universe. I want to clean the parts of the toilet no one will ever see, that God sees.

I always remember that somebody told me that they were, he says, I was in a C .S. Lewis book. Has he ever thought about the wildflowers that are in the crags in the hills that no one ever sees, that just bloom, they're beautiful flowers that no one ever sees?

He says, I meditated on that once and after that when I had bathroom duties I used to polish the bottom of the toilet, the behind the toilet, I'd polish it. Sounds ridiculous, but it's, God sees the bottom of the toilet.

Who are you polishing the toilet for anyway? God sees everything, you know. And I've never forgotten that and when I make the bed, my wife and I make the bed together, it drives me crazy when the sheet underneath isn't totally straight.

If there's a wrinkle in it, you know, I still remember, well, God sees the wrinkle, you know. We're not really making the bed right because these eyes are under the blanket. Who do we make beds for? Who do we wash dishes for?

Who do we clean toilets for? Is it so that people will go, boy, she's a great toilet cleaner? Well, they're never going to look behind the toilet. I think Wayne can tell you in the service they have what's called white glove inspection.

You put on a white glove and go to the place behind the footlocker and run a white glove behind it and see if there's any dust back where nobody can look. They want everything spick and span. They do that at McDonald's too, I hear.

It's important that we realize that it's God who sees the back of our minds, the back of our toilets, the back of everything and when we're given a job to do, we're to do it, that he's the one we are to impress and we are not to try to impress anyone but him.

And if you can impress God, who else do you have to impress? And he, like any loving father, wants you to impress him. Not by impressing others, but just by impressing you. Okay. This is getting exciting.

Losing One's Life to Bear Fruit

John 12, verse 24. Back a chapter. This is beautiful. Truly, truly, verse 24, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

He who loves his life, loses it. He who hates his life in this world, shall keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Now, look at verse 25. That's a good memorization verse. We ought to write that up on the wall. He who loves his life, loses it. This is different than he who finds his life, loses it. He who loses it, finds it.

This is he who loves his life, not just finds it, but loves it, loses it. He who hates his life in this world, shall find it to life eternal. That's getting right down to it. Remember it says, he who loves father and mother more than me, he who does not deny father and mother, he who does not love me more than son, even his own life.

In another place it says, he who does not hate his father and mother, or his son and daughter, or his wife or husband, even his own life. The word hatred there means by comparison to God's love. Comparison for your love for God.

What's important to you? You know, we had to go through a time. I went through a time when the newsletter was important to me, believe it or not. There was a time when opening the mail was important to me, two and a half, three years ago.

And now I find that I've got to keep my interest in the newsletter up. It's not so much that God is so important to me. It's just that I have had my heart and my treasure in so many things in my life.

I think the hardest thing to give up my treasure right now is my kids. I treasure my kids a lot. First it was music, and then it was fellowship in Bible study. Anything but God is wrong. And then it was ministry and concerts, and then it was the community and the newsletter.

And then it was administration and so on. Now it's the children and well I don't even know, I guess it's the kids and indecision about what to do in the future. But after a while you kind of get the hang of it.

After a while you get something in your hand and God slaps your hand and you let it go. And then you get something else in your hand and he slaps your hand and you let it go. And then you get something else in your hand before he can slap you and you let it go.