Drawing Near to Christ: Trust and Transformation

Drawing Near to Christ: Trust and Transformation (Morning Service)

Amen. Let's take our Bibles this morning and please turn in them to Hebrews chapter 10. I want to pick up the reading there in verse number 16 this morning. Hebrews 10 verse number 16. And it's there that we begin the reading. This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

I'd like you to turn in your hymnal to 362. I want you to get there because I want to sing it acapella in just a minute here. So go ahead and get your hymnal open to that. That hymn. We read from Hebrews chapter 10 this morning. And it was in that passage that we saw clearly Jesus Christ is our high priest. My purpose this morning is not to expound the entirety of this passage, but I want to take us on a little bit of a journey this morning about the blessings of coming to Christ. The blessings that come to us when we come to Christ.

I want to remind you, if you have your Bible marked to Hebrews, keep it there, but I'd like to turn over to Matthew 19 and verse number 13. And it's there in verse number 13 we read, then there were brought unto him little children that he should put his hands on them and pray, and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven, and he laid his hands on them and departed thence. In Jesus' earthly ministry, we see that he enjoyed it when little children came to him. He would call a little child into his midst. There's different instances where we see him referring to the children, speaking of the children; the children were the ones that were singing his praises even in the temple.

But as I think about this this morning, we're living in times where children's trust is being harmed; children are in dangerous times, they can't trust many people. Hopefully, you can trust your parents, but not every child can trust their parents. Some don't even know who their parents are, some don't know who their daddy is, some don't know who their mom is for that matter. We are in a time where human trafficking is at an all-time high. But we teach our children you've got to be careful who you trust. There's only certain people that you can trust. You can trust grandma and granddaddy. You can trust mom and daddy. You know, you trust the church folks here, but we got to be careful. We can't just put our trust in anybody, but there's one that we can trust, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that we can trust. In times like these, we need an anchor. In times like these, we need to know where we can turn, and we can turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's take our hymnal and sing. I want us to sing 362. Let's see if I can set the pitch here. I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus since I found in him a friend so strong and true. I would tell you how he changed my life completely. He did something that no other friend could do. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind as he. No one else to take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cares for me. All my life was full of sin when Jesus found me. All my heart was full of misery and woe. Jesus placed his strong and loving arms about me, and he led me in the way I ought to go. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind as he. No one else to take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cares for me. Every day he comes to me with new assurance. More and more I understand his words of love. But I'll never know just why he came to save me, till someday I see his blessed face above. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind as he. No one else to take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cared for me.

What a wonderful message in that hymn that we sing this morning. I think of another one. It says, earthly friends may prove untrue, doubts and fears assail. One still loves and cares for you, one who will not fail. Jesus never fails. Even if earth may pass away, Jesus never fails. We just sang that hymn, no one else could take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cared for me. I want to give you three reasons this morning why, like little children, we can trust the Lord. We can come to him about everything. We can come to him with every need that's in our hearts. We can trust him fully as our loving Savior.

In our text this morning, we read in Hebrews chapter 10, and there's this statement that's given to us in verse 22, it says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us from a guilty conscience. That's not something I can describe to you. It's something that you have to experience personally. You have to know. You have to know by faith that cleansed conscience by the blood of Jesus Christ. God has given to each and every one of us a conscience. We said before that the Greek word for conscience, if you look at the compound word there, means the conscience is a witness on the stand. The conscience is an unbiased witness. It's going to tell us when we have transgressed against our own value system or we've transgressed against that which we hold others to that same standard.

You know, even babies have a hardwired sense of right and wrong. Even little ones do. An unwed mother who goes into having an abortion and she tries to drown out that conscience will later on regret the decision that she's made. Even though she's tried to reason away and to quell the conscience, perhaps, or give good reasons why she's done so. This is something that the women's rights advocates don't tell people until later on when they have to live with the guilt of that. It's an irreversible decision. The hardened criminal, or maybe we might say one who's not a hardened criminal, may go in and steal something, and if he's caught in the act, he might say, well, you know, give excuses why I was doing it because I've got to feed my family, or I was doing this because I had to, giving excuses. But he knows it's wrong.

The conscience is like a witness on the stand, we said before. It's like a pair of balances. And whatever we know to be true on one side has got to equal our actions on the other side because isn't it interesting, people even in sin are good at calling out the sins of other people. They're good at seeing that's wrong, that's going to hurt someone, that's going to be a bad thing. But then in their own lives, when the balance is out of balance, they have to come up with something to try to quell the conscience. Well, let's find some stuff to put over here on the other side of the balance so we can balance out the conscience and get it to quiet down because it's just screaming at me like a witness from the witness stand. It's screaming at me that you're wrong. But I don't want to admit that I'm wrong, or I won't just say, well, nobody's perfect, or whatever the case may be.

But thank God that he gave his son so that we don't just have to shut up the conscience. The conscience can be clean. We can have, by the blood of Christ, a clean conscience the day that we, like that publican, call out to God and say, God, be merciful to me a sinner. The conscience is clean. The blood of Jesus Christ sprinkles that guilty conscience. And we saw in Hebrews 10 here, didn't we, back in verse number 17, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more? It's under the blood. And it says now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Thank God. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from that sin. We laid it out before him, and he forgave us of it, and we are as white as snow.

And yet, we've seen in the book of 1 John, if we sin, we're not to go on in sin and live in sin. We're saved to walk in doing this life right. But if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. So what, as Christians, we can live with a guilty conscience. We can live with a bad conscience. We can live with an impure conscience in our lives. But we don't have to live with that. Isn't it something? It's just like Jesus, to roll the clouds away. It's just like Jesus to keep me day by day. It's just like his great love. We can go to God and confess our sins, and we have a clean conscience. We just need to draw near. We need to draw nigh and say, Lord, deal with this. I bring it to you. I cannot serve you right with an impure conscience. I cannot love my wife with an unclean conscience. I cannot love my children. I cannot love my husband. I cannot love the brethren. I cannot serve you right if I have an unclean conscience. So I'm drawing nigh. I'm drawing nigh to get this conscience. It has been cleansed, thank God, by the blood of the Lamb. I am viewed with the righteousness of Christ, but the guilty conscience, not only for the transgressions of the past, now that's dealt with, but even in my walk with God, I know that he loves me because he cleansed me and cleanses me and continues. That one sacrifice continues as we sing in that hymn.

It revives my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice, or the Savior's sacrifice, in my behalf appears. Before the throne, my surety stands. And my name is written on his hands. And it goes on and talks about that, but the blood of Christ, because we have a great high priest, sprinkles the guilty conscience. It cleans the conscience so that we can serve God. We are to even hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. It says that in the context of the deacons. But we are all to hold this gospel, this faith we have in the gospel, the faith of Jesus Christ, with a pure conscience. You know, thank God for conscience when it does scream at us, because like your nerve endings when you have pain in your body, it's telling you something's wrong. Sometimes we would like to kill those nerve endings perhaps, but it tells us something's wrong, and we go to the doctor with the hopes of fixing what's wrong and not just negating the pain.

Now we are living in a fallen planet, understand that. We're not going to have perfect divine health on this side of the war. But those nerves send signals to us to say something is not right. When you, if you inadvertently put your hand on something that's hot, you realize it was hot before it cauterizes, before it burns your hand to a crisp, you realize, oh, that's painful. I need to do something about that. Thank God for our conscience, but thank God that not only do we have to just tell it to shut up, but we can come to the cross. We can draw nigh to God as little children. We can trust him. We can trust him because he forgives and he cleanses us from our sins.

We notice that also there's another thing I wanted to point out about the Lord Jesus Christ this morning and why we can trust him. It's because he humbles our hearts. He humbles our will. In Matthew 11, look in verse 28, Matthew 11 and verse number 28 says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. They're not real, and yet Jesus Christ is all that we think He is and more. He is all that He says, and He proves Himself true. Isn't this something, how He proves Himself true? If any man will come unto Him, He'll give him rest. He is who He says He is. He says, I am meek and lowly, and you will find rest to your souls. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Come and try me. Come to me. Here we have this terminology. We have the children coming to Him. We have us coming and drawing nigh in the way that the high priest has made for us. We see here that He says, come unto me, all you that labor. Come unto me. I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

We've said before that the yoke is a symbol of submission, to take that upon us is submitting our will to His will and say, not my will, but thy will be done. The two animals are either pulling or plowing together that are yoked together. They're pulling together, plowing together. Usually horses or oxen or something like that, they're in that yoke. When they are in that yoke, they're moving together. They're working together. They're one in purpose, one in heart, one in design. That's why, as certainly as Christians, we ought not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, but we ought to be equally yoked. How can two walk together except they be in agreement? And so here we have, in that context, the question was how can Israel walk together in agreement with the Lord? Is that an agreement? But here's that agreement. Here's that submission. Lord, teach me, not my will, not my way, but teach me your way, O Lord. Teach me what you want me to know.

When God's desire becomes our command, then obedience to Him is a delight. Obedience to Him is a delight. We will gladly say, not my will, Father, but thy will be done. Lead me to Calvary. Life is hard for those who have a stubborn will. Especially if we're a Christian, and we are resisting the Lord in some way, there is not going to be peace in your life. There is not going to be peace. Thank God. He doesn't let us rest about it, but there's not going to be peace. If you're resisting salvation, if you're resisting the new birth, the Scripture says that the wicked are like the troubled sea, it cannot rest. Take my yoke upon you. And learn of me.

Stephen said in his preaching to the Jews in Acts 7 verse 51, he says, ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do ye. Your conscience is screaming, but your will is tightening up. You don't want to listen. Don't want to come into agreement with what the Holy Spirit and my conscience are saying. I want to do what I want to do with my life. No, we must not be stiffnecked. We must not be hardened and uncircumcised in heart and ears, but we must yield, surrender. To surrender means to yield to the power of another. It means to agree to give up the battle, to give oneself up to the power or influence of another.

Why would we yield to someone? Well, the greatest reason to yield to someone is you trust him, right? I trust, certainly we see surrender, maybe that Lord at last I have conquered. We sing in that hymn of the Lord, there's, I think C.T. Stud gave those words, none of self and all of thee. I can't remember the whole poem, but anyway, the idea is, Lord, I surrender all. I surrender all. I want what you want from me. I'm tired of trying to do it my way. In Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6, we know that well, don't we? Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Oh, it makes it a lot easier for him to direct our paths if we take his yoke upon us and learn of him.

And it says that he would, he shall direct thy paths. Trusting heart to Jesus clings, nor any ill forebodes, but at the cross of Calvary sings, praise God for lifted loads. Singing I go on vice. Brought it to me, the Lord Jesus has lifted my load. Oh, at peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. See, we need to come to say, Lord, I want what you want. I want to do what you want. Your desire is my command. I will take that yoke upon me and learn of you, and I want you to direct me. Let go of my plans. Let go of my wishes and let you lead. If I don't do that, I'll be struggling and frustrated and complaining because I'll see everything is against me rather than for me. And for my good, God did not promise that skies would always be blue, but he promised peace and rest to those who let him have his way in the way.

Let him have his way, and there are benefits that come when we let God have his way. There's a lot of benefits that come to us. Our faith in the Lord grows. We get to see the Lord in a fresh way in our lives. We are not just living on the memory of what he's done, but we're living in that blessed fellowship that comes when we walk with him. And as a result of that, people around us get to see the Lord in our lives, flowing through us, right? A channel of blessing. He can use us. Fears dissipate. The things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. The peace that floods our soul. There's just so many things; that discontentment, the complaining, the discouragement. We get discouraged in our lives, and we get down in the dumps, and we get ho-hum, and we get all of this because we got our eyes on ourselves. We really, that's really the simple answer to it. We got our eyes on ourselves, and we wanted things to work out the way we wanted them to work out, instead of taking the Lord's yoke and saying, teach me, I want to learn what you have to teach me through these adverse circumstances even. And let him have his way with us.

I want to turn to Romans chapter 12 as well. We can trust the Lord. He wants us to trust him, like little children. He wants us to trust him. He will cleanse our conscience. If we'll let him have his way with us, he'll lead and direct us and guide our steps in a way and teach us and bless us in the way that we could not know if we are resisting his will. And then in Romans chapter 12 verse number 1, Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

If we're presenting something to someone, that means we're coming to them, right? I want you to come before the Lord and present your bodies, a living sacrifice. In this passage, we see the mind, we see the renewing of the mind by which we are to be transformed. We see that we are to think soberly, not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Here we see the mind and how God our Savior renews our minds. He is able to transform us by the very renewing of our minds. I don't know about you, but I need a renewed mind. My mind naturally is not a good one. My mind doesn't think the right kind of thoughts.

Galatians 6:13 tells us we tend to think ourselves to be something when we're nothing. Philippians 2:4 says we tend to look out for ourselves and not for others. Ephesians 2:3 says we are naturally fulfilling, in our past life, the lusts and desires of the mind because we believed it was our own to do with whatever we wanted to do with it. But our minds are not ours. They belong to the Lord. They belong to Him. Sin begins when it enters the mind, and we embrace it. It's one thing to have a thought in the mind; it's another thing to meditate on that sinful thought, whatever the sin may be, to harbor that thing in our minds, to meditate on it. And that is the sinful characteristic of our fleshly, carnal mind.

But this is why we need to give our minds to the Lord. Lord, we say, present your bodies. Present my mind. That's included, right? Here's my life. Here's my mind. Take it. Renew it. Transform it. Transform my life by the renewing of my mind, that I may please live in a way that is good and acceptable before thee. We need to let the word of Christ dwell in our minds, richly, richly saturating them. We need to come to Christ and ask Him to fill our minds with His thoughts rather than letting the world, the flesh, the devil, fill our thoughts, fill our minds with these thoughts. And God, as we said even in the Sunday school hour, through Jesus Christ, transforms our life from the inside out. He transforms, he changes us from inside out. Instead of being conformed, it will lead to the fashion and the fads and the attitudes and the philosophies of this world. God has transformed from the inside. We can trust the Lord to do a good job, a great job, an excellent job, if we'll just let Him have His way with us and we'll present ourselves to Him. Present ourselves and say, Lord, here's my life. Take it and make it with it what you will.

In 2 Corinthians 10, let's look over there in verse number 5. We are told that something we are to be doing. And it is this, that we are to be casting down imaginations, casting it down. That's what they did with idols when they broke them, right? They cast them down. And every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Every proud thought has got to go. Every doubt has got to go. Every lustful thought has got to go. Every complaining thought has got to go. Every evil surmising, every thought of revenge has got to go. And you know what? We can surrender our lives to the Lord, but every day is a surrender. Every day has got to be a fresh surrender to the Lord. You know it's not like you just put a coin in the slot and you say, well, God, that's taken care of. You know, pay the bill or whatever. No, Jesus Christ has paid it all, but this is a lifestyle. This is a mindset. This is, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Let this mind be in you.

If our minds are truly pleasing to God, we'll meditate on and walk according to His Word, not only even in our thinking, in our thinking. He'll lead us in the green pastures and restore our soul. We must pray for understanding for our minds so that we can obey. When we open God's Word, we must behold the Lamb of God. We must consider Him. We must find our all in Him. All of this is connected. Clean conscience. All He comes when we submit our wills to the Lord. And as we submit our wills to the Lord and ask Him, Lord, we must ask Him, take my mind and make it what you will, and He'll do it. As we surrender our wills, then the Lord will fill our thoughts with that which is true, which is honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. This is a life that the Lord calls us to live.

And as we prove Him true by stepping out in faith on Him, this is not a blind step of faith. This is stepping out on promise. This is stepping out on command. This is stepping out with a submissive, trusting heart. There's not many that we can trust in this old world, but we can trust the Lord. No one ever cares for us like He did. No one else could take the sin and darkness from us. No one ever loved us like He loves us, not even our parents love us like He loves us. As much as they might love us, thank God that we can trust Jesus Christ to do what's best for us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us each one of us today if there's anyone here that does not personally know Jesus as their Savior, that you would draw them to yourself and they would come with a tender heart, Lord, that they would come with a broken will, Lord, and say, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. If there's anyone here today as a Christian, Lord, as we think of these things, and I think in my own life of how I need this message, Father, that we would draw near to you, that we would draw near with full assurance of faith, that we might know this clean conscience, this surrendered will, this scripture-saturated mind that meditates day and night on the things of God, that would be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in season because we know that you transform us from the inside out. We pray, Lord, for this. We pray that you would help us to trust in a time, especially in a time where we see that it's hard to trust in man, it is better to put our confidence in the Lord. Help us to put our confidence in thee and help us in so doing to be a pointer, to be an encouragement to others to put their full trust in the Lord. Help us, Lord, to live our profession. Help us to live out this confidence in you day by day and to be guided by thee, to be blessed in our daily walk. Help us, Lord, now as we conclude this service, we pray for your blessing upon this final hymn. In Jesus' name we ask, Amen.