Consider Him — Greg Locke

The Call to Consider Jesus

Hebrews chapter number 12 tonight in your New Testament Bible. I hope you have your Bible. We're going to use it tonight and it'll be handy for the service. I appreciate the good singing tonight. Psalm 1830,.

As for God, His way is perfect. The Word of the Lord is tried and He is a buckler to all them that put their trust in Him. And certainly if we could understand that as God's people, that God's way is perfect, it would save us from a lot of heartache and a lot of discouragement and a lot of doubt.

I appreciate the good singing tonight. I appreciate all of you being here to be under the sound of the Word of God. Now let's stand together, shall we, Hebrews chapter number 12 tonight in your New Testament Bible.

The book of Hebrews, chapter number 12. Let me just say a quick word about the table as Brother Robertson did. Certainly we did not come to sell books, music, nor preaching tapes. We've come to be a blessing, but we do have some things back there that we think will help you in your vehicle, in your home, in your office.

Many preaching tapes, I think I'm down to about 55 or so. And of course the Robertsons have many good books and they have several recordings from the family that it would do you good to get them in your home, get some good, godly, conservative music into your vehicle and into your home.

It's always good to have that type of music playing around the day and maybe in the office if you have an opportunity. So go back there and see them, some of you back there, and we'll be glad to help you in any way that we possibly can.

The Word of God and the Sermon’s Burden

I want to help you tonight with this sermon. I've been praying about what the Lord would have me to preach and I told you last night that I prayed that the Lord would help me this week as an evangelist to preach a whole new series of sermons.

And so tonight I want to preach a new sermon. It's God laid upon my heart. I hope it'll be a blessing to you. It's one of those sermons that the Lord kind of works in your heart in the study before He ever lets you get in the pulpit and say anything to God's people.

And so certainly I hope this will help you tonight. Hebrews chapter number 12, notice please verse number 1. Hebrews 12 and verse 1. The Bible says, "...Wherefore, seeing we also come past about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.". Go back to the very first part of verse number 3 if you would. Because tonight I want to preach on this subject.

For consider Him. Thank you very much. You may be seated. Let's bow our heads and hearts. And ask the Lord to bless our time together tonight as we not only preach, but as I borrow your imagination and we try to consider Him tonight.

Now, my father, I do pray that you would empty me of myself, that you would fill me with the blessed Holy Spirit of God. And Lord, I pray that you would help me as I preach the Bible as in truth it is the Word of God.

Lord Jesus, you told your disciples in John chapter number 16, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. And Lord, tonight I want to not exalt the ministry of Evangelist Greg Locke, but I want to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ tonight with all of my heart.

And I pray that in doing so, that you would draw some sinners close to you tonight for salvation. That you would do your dead-level best and work in our heart as you draw Christians unto yourself tonight.

Lord, we're praying for revival. We're asking that you would have your will and your way in our hearts. And so tonight, Lord, as we consider you, as we consider the Lord Jesus, I pray that you would burn deep within our hearts, that you would, Lord, give us a great passion to want to know more about the Word of God, to want to know more about the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Himself, our wonderful Lord and Savior.

So please help tonight. Help these friends in this congregation as they listen to the Bible. Be with the children's meetings. Be with the nursery workers. And help me tonight, Lord, as I preach the Word of God.

And I pray that when we leave, we will be James 1, 22 Christians, not just hearers, but doers also. And so, Father, we pray that You would bless, that You would work, that You would stir unconvicted change, have Your will and way.

Tonight we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Let's suppose tonight that this room was packed to capacity with many, many influential people. Not to say that you're not influential and that we're just a bunch of hillbilly, country bumpkin rednecks, but let's just say that the building was packed to capacity with very political, highfalutin influential people from the choir loft all the way to the very back pew.

Considering the President and the Presence of Christ

Let's suppose that that American flag that is draped there on the back of this auditorium, we had them draped all around this building and tonight we were going to have a presidential rally. And let's suppose that all of a sudden, a big, long Cadillac of a black, dark tinted window limousine came pulling into the parking lot.

It had its nice little white wall Goodyear tires and had the little American flag sticking up on the front of the antenna and the Secret Service people got out and they had their little antennas that went down their backs and up and around into their ears and they had their little lapel mic instruments on their backs and they could hear one another.

And they had their little Uzis and their little 357s and their 9mms and I mean, they were all over the parking lot. And I mean, they were just combing the woods and there were snipers on top of the roof.

And let's say that we were privileged at the Elk Creek Baptist Church to have a visitation from the President of the United States of America. Now, we're not just talking about your average Joe Blow, run-of-the-mill type of man.

But we're not just talking about somebody that somebody's never heard of before. We're talking about the very President of the United States of America. And I don't care if you're a Democrat or if you're a Republican, I thank God we've got somebody in office that we can call brother who's getting the job done for Almighty God.

And so let's suppose that the doors open up and all of a sudden old glory was raised and we began to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Everybody would stand to their feet and I don't care how influential people in the building would be, I mean they would clap and I mean they would lift up their voices and they would want to see the President.

They would want to meet the President. And we would stand there probably for five or six minutes and I mean we would clap until we think that our fingers and hands would fall off. And we would clap and clap and give Him a standing ovation.

And then all of a sudden there'd be silence. I mean there'd be complete quiet on the set as the President of the United States of America stood in this very pulpit and looked at the very citizens of this great and wonderful miraculous nation and gave us a discourse on His personal testimony.

How He came to know the Lord Jesus Christ His Savior. I'm telling you when that man walked out the double doors of this church, everybody would want to shake his hand. You'd want him to sign your Bible.

You'd want the President of the United States to know that you prayed for him. And I'm telling you everybody in this building would be enamored to be in the presence of the President of the United States.

I mean the moment he walked in the door, no piano would have to play. No organ would have to play. Nobody would have to cue us. I mean just instantaneously, spontaneously, we would stand to our feet and like an active volcano, we would erupt in anthems of praise and we would thank that man for the good job that he's doing in the White House because everybody knows what a mess he had to come in and clean up and some things that he had to fix.

And I mean we'd clap our hands and we'd slap that man on the back and say, thank God for you. And I'm telling you everybody would stand up and hoop and holler and clap their hands if the President of the United States of America came walking through that back door.

But did you know, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to popular belief, let's suppose that no limousines were to pull in the parking lot. Let's suppose the building was just filled with the very people that it's filled with tonight.

Influential, non-influential, makes no difference. The nursery was going with the children. My wife was doing the children's meetings as she's doing even now. And there was nothing different about the service, but all of a sudden the back door opened and physically, actually, and factually embodied the Lord Jesus Christ came walking through the back doors of the Oak Creek Baptist Church and came to this pulpit.

Now I do believe that we would be enamored to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Himself. Never a man spake like this man spake. He taught them as one that have authority and not as the scribes and the Pharisees.

And you'd give a good glory flip to hear a sermon from Greg Locke if you could hear one from the Lord Jesus Christ. But there's one thing I know tonight from my Bible. I know that when the Lord Jesus walked in the back building, we would not stand up in anthems of praise.

I know that we would not stop our feet and hoop and holler and ring cowbells and beat on our pews and clap our hands until we felt that our fingers would grow numb and fall off. I know that we would not holler amen and jump around and shimmy up the tent pole.

For ladies and gentlemen, if the Lord Jesus Christ Himself walked in the back doors of the Elk Creek Baptist Church, the last thing we would be doing is standing and jumping around. Rather, we would fall on our face before the presence of the most holy God of the Bible.

Jesus as the Fulfillment of Hebrews

And in the book of Hebrews, if you believe the Apostle Paul wrote it, and I do, and if you don't, we won't argue about it. You can preach it another way when you get a chance to preach. But nonetheless, I believe that the book of Hebrews was written by the Apostle Paul.

There's much internal evidence for that, but nonetheless, he even starts the book by preaching about the Lord Jesus. He says in Hebrews 1, verse 1, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things and by whom also He made the world.

There are many people who do not understand the 13 simple chapters of the book of Hebrews because it talks much about sacrifice. It deals much with the Old Testament law. It deals much with the Levitical priesthood.

But if we would take our Bible and compare Scripture with Scripture, basically, the Apostle Paul, or the writer, if you will, of the book of Hebrews, is giving us this idea that in the Old Testament, there had to be an atonement for sin.

There had to be that lamb of the first year that was sacrificed every year around the same time of the year, and their sins would have to be atoned for. The word atoned means to cover. The word atoned just literally means to pull a blanket over the top up.

But yet in the book of Hebrews, we do not see necessarily the atonement. We see what John saw in John 1, 29. The next day, John saith, Jesus coming unto him, and saith, behold, the Lamb of God, which not covereth up, but which taketh away the sin of the world.

And ladies and gentlemen, when we get to the book of Hebrews, we have a book that is all about Jesus. We have a book that is about His birth. We have a book that is about His preexistence in eternity past.

We have a book that is about His life. We have a book that is about the Gospel, the death, the burial, and the resurrection. And when we get to chapter number 12, the Apostle Paul is trying to encourage us not to give up.

He's trying to encourage us to stay in the fight, to stay in the battle, and he uses the illustration of the Lord Jesus. How He set His face like a flint toward Jerusalem. How He did not look back. How He put His hand to the plow, and He kept going forward, and He did not look back.

And I'd like to remind you, at any moment, He could have called ten legions of angels to destroy the world and set Himself free. He could have said, Father, destroy this wicked, vile, sin-cursed earth.

But He did not. He died on that old rugged cross for your sins and for my sins. And the Apostle Paul says, God's people have reason to stay in the battle. We have reason to stay in the fight. And we have reason to continue in the grace of God.

Why? For consider Him the Bible says. And did you know, ladies and gentlemen, if you study the Word of God from Genesis 1 -1 to Revelation 22 -21, you will find out that is the main theme of the Bible.

Consider Him. Consider Him. Consider Him. The Bible says, Lo, in the volume of the book it is written of Me. I have come to do Thy will, O God. Did you know why this Bible is so important, ladies and gentlemen?

Because this Bible is not about a place. Oh, it talks about places. It talks about heaven. It talks about hell. It talks about the earth. It talks about Jerusalem. It talks about Jericho. It talks about the far-flung worlds and the far-flung things that we see all around this world.

But I'm going to tell you something, this book is not about a place. This book is not about people. Oh, it's a people-oriented book. It deals with the Jew, God's chosen people, the only nation that at one time went out of existence, and all of a sudden God began to regather them for the four quarters of the earth and put them back together.

And as Israel goes, so goes the world, because Jerusalem is the breadbasket of the world, ladies and gentlemen, and the day that America turns on the Jew is the day that Almighty God turns on America.

And so it is a people-oriented book. It deals with many different types of people. It deals with white people and black people and red people. It deals with all types of tribes and nations and tongues and people, but it is not a book that is necessarily specifically about people.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, this book is about a person. And from one cover to the other cover, that person is the lovely Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to let your fingers do the walking and take your Bibles and go to Philippians chapter number two tonight, would you?

Joy in Philippians and the Mind of Christ

The book of Philippians, please, if you'd turn there, and chapter number two. While you're turning to Philippians chapter number two, let me give you the introduction to the book of Philippians. It is only a few chapters long, four in fact, and out of four simple, short chapters in your New Testament Bible, did you know that out of those four little chapters, 17 times the Apostle Paul either used the word joy or rejoice.

In four simple, short, yet straightforward chapters, 17 different times, several times in every chapter, he uses the theme, he uses the word, and the encouragement that God's people should have joy. He even ends the book with Philippians 4 .4, rejoicing the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.

Now, the oxymoron, if you will, to that is this. We would think that if he's writing about joy, that he would be sitting with nice little silk pajamas on, with his leg up against the air-conditioned unit in the old air just blowing right up his pants leg there, and he's got a big chicken leg in one hand, and he's got a big thing of kingly grapes in the other hand, and he's sitting up there in the Hilton high-rise hotel, having himself a jolly old time while he's preaching a Bible conference in a large fundamental Baptist church.

But to the contrary, ladies and gentlemen, he is in a Roman jail cell on a stony, cold jail cell floor, his belly is growling because he needs something to eat, and the rats and the sewer are running through that infested prison cell, and he's down there with the murderers and with the rapists and with the extortioners, but yet the Apostle Paul says, if there's one thing that God's people should experience, if there's one thing that we should have, if there's one thing that should keep us going in the rough times of life, it is the joy of the Lord.

And that is what the entire theme of the four chapters of the book of Philippians is all about. But when we get to chapter number two, he gives us a synopsis. He just kind of boils everything down into one big boiling pot of life and tells us what real joy is and where the real source of joy comes from.

Notice what your Bible says, Philippians chapter number two and verse number five. Philippians chapter number two and verse number five. Paul again is writing, he says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation.

It 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 is the name of Jesus. That means he should bow all 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.

And ladies and gentlemen, if you study the ministry of the Apostle Paul, you will find out that Paul had a passion. That passion was to live his life, was to preach his sermons, was to pray his prayers, and was to live a life that would simply allow people to consider him.

The Apostle Paul never one time walked into a church with his Bible under his arm, with his head swollen up like an overripe watermelon, and said, now listen to what I have to say. Though everywhere the Apostle Paul went, he opened his heart, he opened his mouth, and he opened his Bible like the front door of his house, and he said, consider him.

He said, consider him in his life. Consider him in his birth. Consider him in his death. Consider him in his burial and his victorious bodily resurrection. And if there's one thing the Apostle Paul was consumed with, he said, church, you better consider the fact that Jesus Christ came the first time, but blessed be God.

He said Jesus Christ is going to come the second time, and that may be this very night before I even conclude the final remarks of this Gospel sermon. And everywhere Paul went, he said, consider him. Consider him and consider him.

So tonight, quickly in our outline, I want you to write down four areas that you consider the Lord Jesus Christ. Four areas tonight that we should worship Him for. Four areas tonight that we should praise Him for.

And tonight, simply four areas where we should consider Him. Notice your Bible, please. Philippians 2 and verse 5. Philippians 2 and verse 5. Paul is writing. He says, let this mind... You study your Bible, you will find out he's speaking of the mind of humility.

A mind of selflessness. Let this mind, Paul says, be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Notice the phrase, please. But made Himself.

Christ’s Reputation and Divine Identity

But made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. I want you to consider, number one, what I call His reputation. His reputation. Now this is interesting.

This struck me as kind of odd, Brother Potter, when I was reading my Bible this afternoon. I came across this particular verse and it said, but made Himself of no reputation. But why did it not just say that He didn't have a reputation?

Why didn't it say that? Why does it specifically say, why is the Bible so minutely inspired? Why is it so perfect down to the very dot and tittle that the Word of God says He had to make Himself of no reputation?

Because I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, there's no one in all the world who has a reputation like Jesus Christ. He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. And when He left heaven's portals and became God manifest in the flesh, He had to make Himself of no reputation because never a man spake like this man spake.

Never a man had a testimony like this man because He was not just mere man. He was 100 God. The second person of the Godhead. And ladies and gentlemen, He said, I and my Father are one. Now there's a lot of Dr. Bottlestoppers and Nurse Ragamuffins who want to debate that.

There's a lot of people who don't say that Jesus Christ was God. But you study your Bible. John 1, verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We're not dealing there with the written Word.

We're dealing with the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. And without the living Word, the written Word is of none effect whatsoever. And that's why the Bible says in John 14,. And we beheld His glory.

The Bible says that the Word became flesh. There was a teacher in Sunday school, and she got up and she said, boys and girls, she said, today I'm going to talk to you about 1 John 5, 17. There are three that bear record in heaven.

The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. She says, now I don't understand this. She said, I've never been able to explain the Trinity. And she gave them the little old egg illustration. You've heard it before about the three being in one, and they're separate, and all this, that, and the other.

And she said, now, kiddos, I want you to know that I just can't exactly explain to you the Trinity. She said, there's some things in the Bible that are just too hard to be understood, and I can't explain to you the Trinity at all.

And the little girl raised her hand, and she said, well, mommy and daddy taught me about the Trinity for many, many months of my little Christian life. And she said, it's not that hard to understand. She said, teacher, if you'd allow me to stand up in front of the class, she said, I think I can give them a little phrase.

I can give them a little poem that they would never forget that would remind them of the Trinity every day that they lived. And that teacher looked at that little girl and said, Susie, you think you can actually explain something so deep as the Trinity?

You think you can actually explain something so big, so magnificent, and so miraculous and supernatural as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? And she said, I believe I can. She said, come on up here.

That little girl walked up into the front of the class, and she cleared her throat. She looked at all those kids, and she said, it's real simple. It goes like this. She said, they're three and one, and one and three, and the one in the middle died for me.

And I'm telling you what, ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly right. He had to make himself of no reputation because he was the very Son of God, gave the very God of God Himself. And the Apostle Paul said, He robed Himself in human flesh, and God became a man.

One of the greatest mysteries that we will ever try to rack our brains and try to figure out is why in the wide world, God would ever want to become a man. He humbled Himself, robed Himself in human flesh.

He left the glory dust. He left the angels. He left His Father and the blessed Holy Spirit. And He left all of that to come to a sin-cursed earth and made Him of no reputation. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Christ’s Humiliation and Incarnation

There was a man one night that stayed home from church. He was a Christian man. He had been saved for many years, but his heart had grown cold and indifferent, bitter and calloused towards the things of God as we do so often in our Christian walks.

They were having a Christmas play down at the church in the middle of December, freezing cold outside, three or four foot of snow, and his wife begged him to go to the Christmas program. And he said, No, honey, I just don't want to go tonight.

I think the Lord will understand I'm just not feeling real well. And he had been reading his Bible a little bit lately, trying to appease his conscience for never going to church and for never wanting to do what's right, never having family devotions, and so on and so forth.

So the wife decided she wasn't going to chide him and beg him anymore. She got in the car and the kiddos got in the car and they went to the Christmas parade, a thing there at the church. And the man was left at the house and he was watching television, watching a ball game, and all of a sudden while he was watching that ball game, he was interrupted and disturbed and outside he heard a...

He couldn't figure out what in the wild world it was. He sat there for just a moment. He kind of looked around. He thought maybe somebody was at the door and he couldn't figure it out. And so he just kind of slumped back down to the couch and grabbed his cup of coffee.

He heard it again. He thought to himself, What is this? And he got up and he walked over to the door and he looked out and nobody was at the door. And he looked around all over the place and he looked out there and he said, Well, there's nobody here.

And so he went back inside and he sat down, no sooner than he sat down, he heard it two or three more times and he looked over in the living room and they had a big bay window. And what it was is there was all these birds, big, huge flocks of birds that had come into the yard and they had seen the warmth inside that house and they had seen the light inside that house and they couldn't see the glass in the front of that big bay window.

And those birds just one by one and grove by grove were flying right into that window, knocking themselves silly. And that little knocking that he kept hearing was those blackbirds busting up against that glass.

And he thought to himself, I've got to tell them birds how stupid they are. And so he went over to the glass and he stood out in front of the gill making a bunch of funny faces to no avail. Them birds just kept hitting.

Them birds just kept hitting. And so he thought, I know what I'll do. I'll go get me a little pack of sunbeam bread and I'll crumble up some of that bread and put it on the doorstep and they'll see it over in the doorstep and they'll come eat it.

And so he put it over there while he was putting it out. Boom, boom, boom. Well, I mean, them birds just by the droves was hitting that thing. I mean, there was hundreds of them all over the yard, all up in the trees.

He thought to himself, what I need to do is go get a shotgun and just shoot it up in the air and scare all these birds away. He said, but I know what I'll do. I don't want to disturb the neighbors. And so he goes outside.

You know, he puts his big galoshes on, puts his boots on. He gets his earmuffs on and his gloves and he goes over to the hickory tree and he breaks off a limb and he gets that limb and he starts shooing those birds away.

Shoo, birds! Get out of here, birds! Go! And I mean, just to no avail. They kept just hitting the window. Boy, they just kept hitting the window one after another. Them birds flopping all over the ground, you know, just knocking themselves silly.

And they're just laying all over the place and they'd get up and fly off and sure enough, another flock would come down and hit that window and bust themselves in the head and bust their beaks, all the pieces, and they'd fall to the ground.

And finally, after shooing those birds, I mean, the man was just completely physically exhausted. He threw that stick down. He fell down on his knees in the snow and he said, you bunch of stupid birds!

He said, how in the world am I going to make you understand that that's a window that you can't fly into the house? Shoo, birds! Shoo, birds! And the more he hollered, the more they kept hitting. And all of a sudden, he slumped over in the snow and he said, you know what?

If I could only be a bird to warn the birds of their waywardness. And I'm going to tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, there was a time that we were beating our face against a glass of wine. We had no hope.

We were dead, doomed, and dying. There was a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And we went to church and we tried to read and we tried to be religious and we tried to do what was right, but to no avail.

But thanks be to God, one day the eternity passed. Jesus Christ said, the only way I can warn them of their waywardness, of their sinfulness, of their ungodliness, is if I become one of them. And God came down.

God manifest in the flesh, but yet the Bible says He made him. I'll never be able to figure that out. And I'll never be able to preach a million sermons and explain to people all that that means and all the great spiritual ramifications, but I do know He had to make Himself of no reputation.

So consider, number one, His reputation, but please look back in your Bibles if you would at verse number seven again. Made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.

Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death. Notice the emphasis. Even the death of the cross. Consider, number one, His reputation, but please consider, number two, His humiliation.

Here's the Lord Jesus. The Bible is prophesied in Isaiah chapter 7 verse number 14, Behold a virgin, not just a young lady, but an actual young lady who had never been with a man ever before in her life.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son. Thou shalt call His name Immanuel, which is being interpreted God with us. You know the story. Jesus Christ came and there was no room for Him in the inn.

And sad to say, in many of the Baptist churches I preach in, there just doesn't seem to be much room for Him in most of the churches I'm in either. They said you can go out in this little lowly stable.

And they went out to a stable. Most historians believe it was a type of a cave. Whatever it was, it was lowly. And it certainly wasn't the Hilton High Rise or the Holiday Inn Express. They went out there, and you know the story.

The shepherds came. We're talking about the off-scouring of the earth. We're talking about the lowest paid job in the entire land around that particular region, ladies and gentlemen, in Bible days. We're talking about men with dirty feet and dirty hands and dirty breath and dirty eyebrows.

We're talking about men who hadn't had a bath in days. Men who hang around with dirty, stinking, smelly, woolly sheep. And the Bible says that the angels appeared unto those bunch of lowlifes. Appeared not unto the prophets of the land, not unto the preachers of the land, not unto the prophets of the land, and the big theological bigwigs and the political people and the kings and presidents, but He disappeared to the lowly people.

And the Bible says that those shepherds came by and they fell down and knelt down before the Lord Jesus. And they realized in their heart this is the promised one. This is that seed of David which would come.

This is that one that will deliver us. This is that one that will set up the kingdom. This is the Messiah of the world. And yet He wasn't born in a large, huge room. He wasn't born with grapes in His mouth.