Welcome to the Westminster Pulpit, an extension of the worship ministry at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Please contact us for permission before reproducing this message in any format, and may this sermon nurture your life in a meaningful way as we proclaim our Savior. We now join our pastor, Dr. John Light. We come to our scripture text tonight. If you turn to the book of Hebrews, chapter five, and put your finger there, and in chapter 10 as well, looking this evening at Christ's glory in his obedience. And I want to read first from Hebrews 10, verses five to seven, which is a quote from Psalm 40. Hear the word of God. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, oh God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. And then turning back a page or two to Hebrews chapter five, beginning at verse seven, a passage which has profound mystery to it. And speaking about our Lord. 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 he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. This is the word of God. May God add his blessing and reading to the hearing of his word. We are looking this evening at the glory of Jesus Christ. And in this series, Dr. Walker began a few weeks ago by preaching on a verse in John chapter 17, verse 24, which is all part of Jesus' high priestly prayer before he is crucified, where in that prayer, Jesus states his ultimate desire and his ultimate prayer, which is that his disciples might be with him so that they might see his glory. That may surprise us, that second part of that, that they would see his glory, but in reality, scripture sets that forth as the highest reward and the greatest blessing that we could possibly have. And I would guess that many of us are familiar with the great consolation and the great joy of being with Jesus, that idea of Jesus being present with us now in this life when we have come to faith, he is always with us. but also that we will be with Him finally after death when we go to be with the Lord. But as Dr. Walker pointed out a few weeks ago in his sermon, as wonderful as it is and will be to be with Jesus, actually according to John 17, 24, the higher end that Jesus desired is that we would be with Him in order to see His glory. because that is our highest good, to see Jesus, to be with Him and to see His glory. So in this series, these Lenten sermons, we are seeking to hold forth various aspects of the glory of Christ. We see that glory in a limited way in this life as it's revealed in the word of God, but in heaven we will see it fully and finally in that sense without any darkness of our own remaining sin. And this evening we are looking at Christ's glory in his obedience to the Father. If the glory of Christ is like a diamond, it shines with many facets, many sides and edges that the light shines off of those. And one of those facets of the glory of Christ that shines with beauty and excellence is the glory of Christ's obedience to the Father's will. throughout His life, always perfect and full and joyful and delighted obedience to do the Father's will. I want us to look at this subject under three points. First, how do we see Christ's glory in this life? We want to review that. How do we see the glory of Christ? What does that mean? And then secondly, a brief tour of the obedience of Christ in His earthly life and ministry. How do we see that? And then finally, three brief points of application. So first of all, how do we see Christ's glory in this life? And the answer is relatively simple but very profound. We see Christ's glory as the Bible reveals Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us, from beginning to end, the Bible is about Jesus. It tells us who Jesus is. The Old Testament prophesies about him and foreshadows him in various ways. And it tells us who He is in the Gospels, in His life, in His ministry. And then the epistles further elaborate the meaning of Christ's life and death and resurrection. But then there's a second part to this answer that the Bible reveals Jesus Christ to us. Because the second part is this, we need to have our eyes opened to see the glory of Christ. And the scriptures declare that the Holy Spirit must give us eyes to see Christ's glory. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, the apostle writes, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So there's this description here. Before we come to Christ, there's a natural blindness in all of our hearts. No matter how many facts we may know about Christ, if we do not trust Him, if He is not the Lord of our lives, there's a blindness, there's this veil to those who do not believe. And Paul says it's the God of this world, it's Satan who has blinded the minds of unbelievers. But look, he says, to keep them, and here's the phrase, from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of God who is the image of God. And so because of that darkness, we need the Holy Spirit not only to inspire the Bible originally so that it reveals Christ, but also to shine into our hearts and to give testimony to the words of Scripture that they are true and that we would see Christ's glory. And regeneration, being born again, and conversion can be described as, in one sense, having our eyes opened. John Newton in the famous hymn Amazing Grace, the very first verse, I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. What does he see? He now sees the glory of Christ and the great plan of salvation and what Jesus came to do to save us from our sins. Well, there are many lines of evidence that the Bible is trustworthy and the Bible is historically reliable. We could pursue a lot of those evidences if we wanted to look at it from that point of view. But the ultimate answer to how do we know that Jesus is real, that Jesus is true, that Jesus is who the Bible says He is, how do we know that? The fundamental answer that Scripture gives is that the Bible is self-attesting to its truth. In other words, the Bible shines forth with the glory of Christ. It's like, how do you know the sun is bright? How do you know by looking at the sun that you're looking at light and not darkness? It's self-attesting. How do you know that honey is sweet and not sour? Because it tastes sweet. You know, there's no other evidence or proof that you need. The Bible is self-attesting to the glory of Christ, so that as you read the Bible, as the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, and opens up the truth of God's word to us, we become convinced that it is true. We see, our eyes are opened, that Jesus is who he said he is. He is who the Bible declares he is. He did come and die on the cross and rise again and ascend with glory to sit at the right hand of the Father. I was thinking about this with the example Brother Philip gave this past Sunday morning. For those of you who are here to hear that missionary sermon that he preached, this pastor and worker in parts of Northern Africa. And he told this story about this Christian man at his job who would just quietly do his job faithfully and go about his work. He knew Jesus Christ. But there was a woman in his office or his job that would watch him and see that he was different in terms of his character than everyone else there. And one day she finally got up the courage, this was in a Muslim country, to say to him, what makes you different? And he said, I'll bring you something tomorrow to explain what makes me different. And the next day he brought to her a New Testament. And she took that home and read it. And as Brother Philip told the story briefly, she eventually came to Christ. Her family all came to Christ. A lot of her extended family came to Christ. How? That to me is a great illustration of the Bible showing the glory of Christ. Probably none of those people knew what seminary students study about. The manuscript evidence for the New Testament is much, much, much more abundant than the manuscript evidence for Shakespeare's Worth. Do you believe Shakespeare wrote those things? Well, then it's even more certain that the Bible was written like it was said. But probably none of those people knew evidences like that. They just read the New Testament and came to faith in Christ. I don't know if anyone even preached to them, anyone even explained it to them. How did that happen? The Bible shines forth with its written declaration of the glory and the beauty of Jesus Christ and who he is. And the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and minds so that as we read the Bible or hear it explained or preached, our eyes are opened. And then as believers, we continue to grow in our knowledge of the word and we grow in seeing the glory of Christ. And so we also grow in our assurance. that we know Jesus Christ because we see Him and know Him and walk with Him and we are sanctified, we are changed in our character and lifestyle so that we reflect Jesus more and more, always imperfectly, sadly in this life, but more and more we declare His glory to the watching world. So that's how we see the glory of Christ. And I think that's helpful just to remind ourselves of that. But then secondly, Let's have a brief tour of the glory of Christ in His obedience. And I want to back up to the beginning of Jesus' earthly life. We know how He was born, that's the Christmas story, but later on in Luke chapter 2, We have the only paragraph in Scripture about Jesus before he begins his earthly ministry. Between his birth and his ministry, we have this one paragraph in the Gospel of Luke about the 12-year-old boy, Jesus Christ, verses 41 to 52. I'm not going to read it all, but this is the account of Jesus when he's 12 years old, and his parents take him up to Jerusalem, maybe with siblings in tow. Of course, Joseph is his adopted father, and then Joseph and Mary have other children as well. But here, they go up, they celebrate Passover, and then in their journey back home, apparently they're, you know, a large group of travelers together for safety, and probably with many of their friends from the area where they were from. And at the end of the first day, The 12-year-old boy, Jesus, is not with his mom or with his dad. You know, probably each of them thought, well, he's probably with mom or he's with dad. And they find out he's not there. And as a parent, you know how frightening that would be. And so they go back to Jerusalem and they spend three days looking for him. And if you don't know the story, they finally find him in the temple discussing with all the legal religious experts in the law and the word of God. It's interesting, isn't it, that Scripture, God in his wisdom, didn't include chapters on Jesus' questions and answers at age 12? Wouldn't you like to know? What in the world did he say? What did he ask? But already it was evident this person was unlike any person who had ever lived. But that's not even my main point here. And his parents find him and they say in verse 48, son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And he said to them, why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. What's his answer? Did you not know I must be in my Father's house? And if you look in the margins of your Bible, an alternative translation is that I must be about my Father's business. The words are actually, literally, I must be about the things of my Father. Jesus is saying, he's already very much aware that he is living for the Father's will. He is carrying out the business of his father. He is in his father's house. I'm certain he's delighting to be there. But then after that, and they didn't understand that, notice that Luke records the only character decision Jesus makes in his boyhood and teenagehoodness. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. Think of that. And it says, and Mary treasured all these things up in her heart. If ever there was a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old or a 14-year-old who had the prerogative to not be submissive to his parents, Wouldn't it have been the Messiah, the perfect, sinless Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man? It just kind of makes me fall down in awe. But here is Jesus being submissive to his parents. Why? Because he was keeping perfectly all the commandments of God. And one of those is honor your father and your mother. And he righteously and completely fulfilled that for our sakes, that he might perfectly keep the law of God. And Luke summarizes in verse 52, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Notice how this summary statement, and we see other summary statements like this, that highlights a great mystery. The Bible presents Jesus as one person with two natures, the divine nature of God and the human nature. And we can't go into this in depth here, but just to give us an idea of this, As to his human nature, Jesus had to experience the full range of human experiences. He had to learn as a baby to crawl. Even while the divine nature was holding the stars in place, Jesus had to learn how to talk. He had to learn how to walk. And as a boy, he grew in intelligence. Even though the divine nature would have been able to solve calculus problems far beyond what I could solve, we don't even know if the human nature of Jesus learned calculus. I don't think he did. So as to his human nature, the Bible makes it clear that Jesus had to learn. In the scripture I read earlier, in Hebrews 5 verse 8, Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. Now that's a very deep subject, but Jesus learned obedience to the Father in the sense that as He lived and grew and faced increasing suffering and increasing opposition, and He fulfilled His messianic calling completely, He learned more deeply the pathway of obedience to His Father's will. And you see how even as we talk about that, if you're a believer in Christ, doesn't it make you glory in Christ that he was willing to do all of that for us? It reveals his glory. And the fact that he learned obedience does not in any way say that he ever disobeyed. It's just that he learned obedience by deeper degrees of suffering, we might say. all of this in Hebrews 5 said that he might become a faithful high priest, a merciful and faithful high priest. Just like that doesn't mean that Jesus had been an unfaithful and unmerciful high priest and then he became a faithful and merciful. No, it just means that he obeyed completely so that he might be perfect as our high priest. It's a beautiful truth. that in order he might be our high priest, to be our representative, to be fully qualified by this lifetime of obedience to the Father's will. Jesus delighted in the will of God. He delighted in being submissive to his earthly parents for the glory of God. Well, we move ahead a little bit to Jesus as a man in his 30s, or early 30s. At the beginning of his earthly ministry, the tour takes us to Matthew 3. There are just going to be three parts of this tour. Matthew 3, verses 13 to 17, where Jesus is coming to John the Baptist to be baptized. And John the Baptist hesitates to do this, and Jesus answers John, let it be so for now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. There's the reasoning Jesus described to John the Baptist, because John the Baptist knew that Jesus was greater. John the Baptist knew that Jesus was the Messiah, and he was just the forerunner to the Messiah to prepare the people for the Messiah. And John knew that he was a sinner who needed to be saved. John himself was a sinner who needed to be saved by Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But when Jesus explained that, it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, the Bible says that then John consented. And Jesus was baptized. And when he came up from the water, the Spirit of God descended like a dove coming to rest on him. And a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. There were a couple times in Jesus' life when a voice, the Father's voice, said that he was well pleased with his son. And so we see that up to this point, after 30 years or so, Jesus has lived a life pleasing to God in His thoughts. Think of it, in His desires, in His attitudes toward His parents and siblings. His words, His actions, all was pleasing to the Father in the way He treated other people in the Nazareth community, in the way He did His work, His ordinary everyday work as a carpenter. And then right after that, In the gospel accounts, we have the temptation of Jesus. After He was baptized, the Spirit drove Him out into the wilderness or led Him out into the wilderness. And there are these satanic temptations that come with power to Jesus. But in each and every case, Jesus resists them with the Word of God. And so we see this is what Hebrews chapter five verse eight is describing when it says Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered. It was a suffering to have Satan come to you and offer you these glittering temptations. And in each case, he resisted. It's interesting in Luke's account of the temptation, he concludes with these words that the devil departed from him until an opportune time. So it's not like, okay, for the next three years of Jesus' ministry, the devil's gonna have hands off and just wait till, you know, wait till the very end. No, but you had the sense that Jesus, Satan was always looking for an opportune time to tempt Jesus to sin. I'm sure there are many opportunities for that. And so the third tour part of Jesus' earthly ministry is the ministry itself, leading up to the cross. And this is the major area of obedience that the Scripture unfolds for us in more descriptive detail. This is what the gospels are all about. The major portions of the gospel are about Jesus' ministry, His life, the way He was compassionate. on the weak and lowly and on the crowds, the multitudes, He loved them, He gave Himself to them, His teaching, His miracles, and then setting His face to ultimately go to Jerusalem when He knew what awaited Him there. Have you ever had something hanging over your head, a big stressful event coming up? When I retired the other week, and here I am again up in front of you all, but when I retired, I said to Patty the week before, you know, we had family come. Coming in, I said to her, why did I say I would preach when I retired? Why didn't I just go out with a whimper and say, you know, see everybody? It's like, I don't want this. I feel like it's gotta be the best sermon of my life or something like that. But if you've ever had something stressful hanging over you, you know you're just tense, you know, whatever it is. Can you imagine the Son of God knowing his whole life and how much he was aware of it when he was five or ten, we don't know, but certainly he became very much aware. of where the destination of the Messiah. He knew the Scriptures. He had a mind that was unclouded. He had a human mind, but it was unclouded by indwelling sin. You know, I'm sure he could have run circles around Albert Einstein with his human mind, let alone his divine nature. And just think of this. And Paul summarizes what Jesus did in Philippians 2 verse 8 when he says, he's talking about Jesus being God and then coming and becoming man. And it says, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That was hanging over Jesus, even as he did his earthly ministry, as he loved the multitudes, as he cared for people, as he taught these disciples who didn't seem to learn very fast. They would have been just like we would have been. And in Luke's gospel, I was just reading this the other week, a couple chapters after Jesus announces to the disciples, his first announcement to them in chapter nine, that he's going to die. He's going up to Jerusalem to die. And they can't understand that, but then later on in Luke 12, he's speaking about different things and he says, I came to cast fire on the earth. What a way to describe his ministry. I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. Here's Jesus going about ministry, everybody pressing in on Him, wanting to see Him, wanting Him to heal them, and He's saying at this point, I am distressed. Even then, the cross weighed heavily on Him. That was His obedience, and you see the glory of that. That's what He was willing to do for you and for me, to come and bear that anguish, to live that kind of a life. Don't we all feel pretty good when we've served our family really well and maybe done extra chores or loved our husband or our wife especially well? We think, I've done really well, I can just sit back. You know, Jesus never got to just sit on His laurels and rest on it. He was always giving of Himself. His whole life was giving, and you just think about how He came to this lowly outpost in Nazareth, that He was born in an oppressed society with Romans. You know, when Jesus says that if, you know, if someone requires you to go with him a mile, go with him, too, in the Sermon on the Mount, the rule was that a Roman soldier could ask anyone to go a mile with them and carry their pack. And Jesus says, if that's so, go with them too. I just wonder if Jesus did that many times, you know, in his carpentry work, that he was, you know, called by a Roman. You know, just think, he didn't sin in his attitude toward his oppressors, his nation's, his people's oppressors. And then he went all the way to the cross in the garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26. He says, Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass by me, but not my will, but thine be done. And there is the beautiful and excellent glory of Jesus Christ being willing to let go of his own earthly human will, which was not sinful, but would have liked to bypass the cross, but would even more have delighted in doing the Father's will. Well, how can we apply this? Three quick points of application. Have you come to see the glory of Christ? You know, it's possible to be very familiar with the facts of Jesus Christ, to never have had your eyes opened to who Jesus Christ is, and you haven't trusted him, and fallen down before him in adoration and praise. Or maybe you're wrestling with doubts. It's not unusual for genuine Christians to wrestle with doubts. But I would say to you, ask the Lord to open your eyes to the glory of Christ. And read the Bible, hear it preached and taught, and He will open your eyes by His grace. But secondly, an application is understand that beholding Christ in His Word is a fundamental means by which we grow to be like Him. Pastor Walker talked about this a few weeks ago. As we look at Christ, we desire Him more and more, and we grow to be like Him. And so seeing the glory of Christ transforms us from the inside out. And we realize that just as Jesus set the pattern for us in learning obedience through what he suffered, we also, as we follow in his steps, we learn obedience more deeply through suffering. And as we seek Jesus in the midst of suffering, then he gives us strength to want his glory and his will to be done in our lives more than we want comfort and pleasure and our own agenda for our lives. And we're able more and more to say to him, Lord, not my will, but yours be done. And then finally, seeing the glory of Jesus in his obedience gives us real hope. Not that we will be perfectly sanctified in this life, but hope because we have such a great High Priest who's gone before us and His glory that we see fills us with a certain hope. His life and His example and His Great salvation is like the greatest hero of any movie or any book we've ever read. You know how heroes tend to sacrificially lay down their lives for others around them? Jesus is the ultimate hero of the story, and He fulfills the hero role in any movie or book. Jesus has poured out his life in fulfilling the Father's will so that we might be given fullness of life in him. To know him, to be with him, and to see his glory forever. Amen. Father, we pray that you would shine the light of your word into our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit, that we might delight in Jesus Christ, that we might trust him, that we might walk with him, that we might love him, that we might honor him with our lives, and that we would grow more and more to be like him every day of our life in this earth. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. The Westminster Pulpit is courtesy of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You are welcome to worship with us on Sunday mornings at 8 or 11 a.m. To learn more or have questions about the gift of salvation through Christ Jesus our Savior, contact us at westpca.com. Thank you, and may Christ be glorified through this ministry, the Westminster Pulpit.