A Living Sacrifice - Part 1 — Paul Washer

Regeneration and the Reality of Conversion

Again, it's great. It's a great privilege for me to be here with all of you this evening and to look at the scriptures and to pray that God will be merciful to us and move on behalf of His Son and the edification of His Church and help us to be in a place to glorify Him more.

What I would like to do before we go to this last message for a moment, I'd like to just summarize some of the things that we've gone through that are so very important. On Sunday morning, we discussed a word that is of extreme importance to historical Christianity, and it's the word regeneration that we are experiencing today in our own denomination and many other places throughout the evangelical community, what I call an evangelical reductionism.

We've done basically, by and large, the same thing the Catholic Church did in the sense that the Catholic Church and what it has done is reduced everything down to a system, a false system, and so therefore castrated and made impotent anything that would be found in a true gospel.

I want you to know the Southern Baptists and many others alongside the Southern Baptists have done the very same thing. If you go into the Catholic community, you'll find most people believing they're going to heaven because at one time they were baptized as infants.

If you go into the Baptist community, you will find most people believing they are going to heaven because one time they repeated a superstitious prayer. Some evangelists who should have spent more time studying and less time preaching led them into a false conversion.

And they are now inoculated and believe themselves saved. But that regeneration, as we learned from Ezekiel 36, is a supernatural work of the Spirit of God. And it is much more than just simply a man jumping out of the line going to hell and jumping into the line going to heaven.

It means much more than that. It is a work of God whereby the very nature, essence, the very ontology or being of a man is transformed and he becomes a new creature. Then we went on to the word reality.

If the reality of being a new creature is not a reality in your life, it's probably because any profession you've ever made of Christianity is false. Then we went from there to Sunday night speaking about poverty of spirit.

One of the ways in which we enter into the kingdom is through poverty of spirit, literally a giving up. The old Puritans and even the old Baptists and Congregationalists spoke about a repentance from good works.

The Bible speaks about a repentance from good works. It is realizing that a man, every man, each one of us prior to conversion is radically, some would say totally, radically depraved, that a man prior to his conversion, it is not that he simply is a pretty good fellow who sins every once in a while and disqualifies himself, but prior to conversion, even his best works are like filthy rags before God.

And that a man entering into the kingdom enters in through poverty of spirit, renouncing every hope in any other means of salvation and clinging only to Christ, and that he who began a good work will finish it.

That if you have repented under salvation in the past, the evidence of that is you continue repenting and walking in poverty of spirit today, and even in greater measure, because as we grow in our understanding of the revelation of who God is, we grow in the understanding of the revelation of who we are, which leads to a broken and contrite spirit in greater and greater degrees.

But we're not left to despair. Why? Because in that new revelation from God, that greater understanding of God, also comes a greater understanding of the grace of God in the face of Christ. And we are filled with joy because of him and his perfect work on the cross.

The Gospel, Penal Substitution, and the Narrow Way

Then following that, we went to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the forgotten message in America today. The word that I want to key in on in this moment is what we call a romantic gospel. That is what is being preached today.

By and large, if someone tells you they're going to put forth the gospel to you, they will talk about how Jesus Christ died on a cross. They will talk about the nails in his hands and the spear in his side.

They will talk about the crown of thorns on his head. They will talk about his robe being stripped from him. They'll talk about being beaten with a cat of nine tails. They will talk about carrying a cross in every shape, form and fashion of the physical sufferings of Christ.

All that men heaped upon him. And it's almost as if the preacher was saying that God looked down on the suffering inflicted upon Christ by the hands of men and considered that to be payment for our sins.

That's heresy. Historical Christianity, that's heresy. We are not saved simply because of what men did to Jesus Christ on the tree. If you are saved, you are saved because on that tree he bore the sins of his people and he was crushed under the hand of his own father.

That God Almighty, as the Bible says, it pleased the Lord to crush him. In order for God to extend an olive leaf to wicked men that must be judged, the justice of God had to be satisfied and it was satisfied by the pouring forth of his wrath, the pouring forth of his holy hatred, the pouring forth of his fury upon the wickedness of man.

But Christ bore the sins of his people, stood in his people's law place and was crushed under the punishment that was theirs. And having died, he paid the price in full. Last night we spoke about the small gate and the narrow way and that if we were to look at evangelical life in America and the way it is preached, we would have to totally rewrite that verse, that there is a small gate and a broad way.

Because very few people seem to be warning people that if you're walking in the broad way, it's because you have not passed through the narrow gate. Brothers and sisters, what does it really come down to?

What makes you a success as a man of God in our denomination? Who are the men who speak in the seminaries? Who are the men who are written about in books? And not just in our denomination, but in most denominations.

Who are the men who are touted as the great men of God? They are the men with the very, very large churches. And there are some good large churches, I want to say, that have preached in them. But by and large, what we have is a rat race to see who can reach to the top by having the biggest church.

And the only thing we're doing is building. Pastors are building their churches on the bones of unconverted church members. That's the only thing that's happening. We can brag about certain churches having 500 and 1 ,000 baptisms, but they don't grow.

And then we'll go on to say this. Well, you know, the problem is there's just as many people leaving the back door of the church as there is entering into the front door of the church. And the reason for that is we're not discipling.

No, that's not biblical. Oh, it's biblical to disciple, but that's not the reason they're leaving the church. They're leaving the church because they have never come to Christ. Jesus said that they would hear his voice and they would follow him.

And that not even persecution or death would cause them to stop. They're leaving the church because they came into the building, but they never became Christians and they never became Christians because of the weak, impotent gospel that we preach that has no repentance or demands no change of life.

It's easier to call yourself evangelical than it is to get in the country club, I suppose, around here. I can prove that by the fact that if we dismiss this church right now and went around to everybody in this county, we'd find most people living in pure ungodliness, but they've all been saved and most of them in a Southern Baptist church.

They're not really saved because Jesus said you will know them by their fruit. The old thing, if you can't judge a book by its cover, that's really an invent of Satan, not of Jesus, because Jesus did say you would know them by their cover.

You will know them by their fruit. If there is not the fruit of a Christian in your life, Jesus would tell you it's because you're lost. He doesn't, you know, a pastor doesn't need to know what's inside your heart.

He doesn't need to know what you're thinking and he doesn't need to know or hear what you say because the Bible says your profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth absolutely nothing because many will come before him on that day and say, Lord, Lord, and he'll say, depart from me.

I never knew you. What is the evidence that you've become a Christian? Church role? No. Profession of faith? No. What will it? You will be concerned about discovering the will of the Father and you will be concerned about doing that will.

That's the evidence that you've become a Christian. My dear friend, I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but if all things hold true as they usually do, there are people in here tonight that are lost.

Some of you are lost and some of you are really worried about it right now and you ought to be. Now, we came to an end with the idea of Jesus saying, depart from me. I never knew you. You workers of lawlessness.

Workers of lawlessness. So the word lawlessness means without law, literally. In the Greek New Testament. And what he's saying is basically this. Depart from me, those of you who profess to be my disciples, but you lived as though I never gave you a law to obey.

I just described a great part of what's called American Christianity. Now, that's a summary. Maybe if this is your first night, you're glad you missed all the other nights. Now, before we get to the sermon, I want to share something that I really feel like I need to share.

Fathers, Children, and Biblical Discipleship

Just to give you an idea how warped we've become. I just want to touch on one thing because it's something very, very important to my heart since I have children. And I just want you to hear me out. You might disagree with me.

Fine. I want you to hear me out. Let me ask you a question. How much money do you think our denomination spends on youth ministry and children's ministry in Sunday school? Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars.

How many conferences are there on youth work? How many conferences are there on children ministries? They're countless. Every state convention, national convention, everything. It'll win the youth, win the youth, disciple youth.

And how do we go about doing that? Well, we usually get a really good looking personable single guy out of college or in high school or just came out to teach our youth. We spend fortunes on Sunday schools.

We spend fortunes on youth ministries, spend fortunes on children's church. I want to submit to you something. We are totally and completely wrong. Totally and completely wrong. And what we've done is substituted the plans of men and stuck them in the place of the plans of God.

Isn't it amazing that when it comes to children and young people, the only admonitions that we have in the Bible are directed towards the father of those children and those youth. Fathers, disciple your children.

Don't exasperate them, but raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Now I want to point something out to you. Look what we've done. We spend fortunes on youth groups and we spend fortunes on Sunday schools and we spend fortunes on children's church and we have all kinds of teachings.

When's the last time you saw a conference or a teaching in our denomination on how to train fathers to be biblical? And do what they're supposed to do, which is teach their own children and teach their own youth.

You see, we substitute and we take God's plan out and we put man's plan in and man's plan never works. You say, well, it's good to have the other. Now listen to me when you say that. But you don't have what I'm talking about.

You concentrate only on what? Now I'm not saying this church, but I'm talking about Southern Baptists as a whole. What's the plan? The plan is youth. The plan is children. And God's plan is the men are to be godly enough to teach their own children and train their own youth.

And not the disintegration of the family. And why do we do it that way? Again, it goes back to if we can make everything go around the church, then we have power and prestige as a church. They need us.

I want to submit to you, if we wanted a revival breakout, I could tell you how one could break out really quick. If every man in this room got right with God, with regard to their wife and their responsibilities before her, and with regard to their children, and started dedicating their lives to discipling their wives, their children, and their young people.

Then you see a revival breakout. But while all this disobedience, all this replacing God's word with man's plans is going on, you can forget about a revival. Then again, that's a whole other week of sermons.

That's just something I threw out. It's free. All right, let's go to Romans. Oh, and while you're turning to Romans, there's just a passage that caught my eye right before I got up. He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Why do all our children mainly suffer harm? Because we turn them over to fools and they become fools. We turn them over to youth ministers who are fools. Young guys whose job is to entertain them with their personality and their activities, who've never raised children, and don't themselves even know how to be men.

We send our children to school and what are they? Their peers are fools. They learn everything they learn from other kids that learn everything they learn from Spongebob. Companion of fools. Sir, how much time do you invest in your children?

I don't care about your ministry. God doesn't either. How much time do you spend with your wife and how much time do you spend with your children? Because they're your two priorities. Your number one priority in this life, sir, is your wife.

Your second priority are your children. You come home from work. Your job has just begun. After work, it's your wife and your children. Doesn't matter how tired you are. Doesn't matter if you think you need a rest.

Doesn't matter if you want to run around with all your little boyfriends and play pool or other things. And it doesn't matter if you want to sit down and watch television. That's not your job. Your job is to come home, your wife and your children, and train them up in godliness, to love them, play with them, teach them.

They are the center of your life. You want to talk about revival breaking out? That's how it breaks out. And you say, I'm awful tired. That's what it means to be a man. By the sweat of your brow. That's where revival breaks out.

In doing what God said. Not playing church. But being Christian. Outside the four walls. Being Christian. Let's go to Romans and we'll start our preaching. Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is. That which is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, he says, therefore, I urge you, brethren.

Presenting the Body as a Living Sacrifice

Now, Paul was an apostle, but the language here that we have from the apostle Paul is a pastoral language. His heart was going out to these people. He loved them, though he did not even, maybe even knew them.

And yet his heart is going to them. And he's saying, I urge you. I plead with you. I beg you. To do certain things. You see, the Christian life is it's more than just I urge you to believe certain things, but I urge you to do certain things.

And he's pleading with them. Why is he pleading with them? Because this is a life and death situation. It's not just about self-esteem, balancing your checkbook or prospering. This is a life or death, heaven and hell situation.

The kingdom of Christ has come. Life is found inside of it. Outside of it, there is nothing. This is serious. It is to be taken seriously. He says, I urge you, brethren. Now, he's going to urge them to do something.

He says to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. Now, he said, what is he asking you to do? He's asking you and he's asking me to give our lives away for something. No, to someone. It's not for a cause.

It is to a person living in holy sacrifice unto the Lord. To give our lives to him. Now, you could ask many things from me and it wouldn't take a great motivation for me to respond. But to ask me to give my life away, to turn the control of my life completely over, to take it out of my hands, put it in the hands of someone else, to dash all my hopes and dreams and purposes and self-will into a million pieces and take my life and grant it to someone else, that's going to take some great motivation.

Why should I do that? I want you to notice something. Paul says, therefore, I urge you, brethren, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. But in the middle, he says, by the mercies of God, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God.

Now, what is our motivation? Why should we offer our lives as living and holy sacrifices unto God? What's the motivation for it? The mercies of God. Now, what are these mercies? Paul set them before us in the first eleven chapters of this book.

Those are the mercies. You see, Paul is fond of doing this. He does it also in the book of Ephesians. You go to the book of Ephesians, the first three chapters are all that God has done for us in Christ.

You get to chapter four, he says, therefore, live this way. What is the motivation for living this way? What is the basis for living this way? All that God has done for us in Christ Jesus. That's why theology is so important, because you cannot have correct praxis or correct Christian practice apart from correct Christian thought.

And that the motivation and the zeal, the true zeal of all true Christian living comes from truth about who God is and what he has done for us in Christ. And so he says, I am going to ask you, I'm going to beg you to offer your life as a living, as a holy sacrifice unto God.

And the motivation for that is what God has told you in the first eleven chapters. And those first eleven chapters begin with the first three. And those first three begin with Paul using every intellectual power at his disposal, being inspired of the Holy Spirit to do what?

To condemn every human being on the face of the earth. Now, why does he do that? If you do not recognize, at least in part, the depth of your depravity and sin, you cannot appreciate mercy. You cannot.

And that's one of the reasons why there's so little love for God in our churches. Why? There's so little preaching on sin. Have you never read she loved much because she's been forgiven much? People in church today don't realize how much they've been forgiven because it's the gospels almost preached where they're doing God a favor to join up with him.

The radical depravity of man inspires love for God. When you get to chapters four and five of Romans and see that after every hope has been cut off from fallen man, here comes God's work in Christ that is received by faith.

And then we get to chapter six and chapter seven dealing with what? That although the Christian has been regenerated, there's still this residue of the flesh and this mighty battle that goes on. And God has made a way even through that to have victory.

Through the mighty work of regeneration, which Romans six is speaking a great deal about regeneration to the mighty work of regeneration. Chapter eight through the mighty ongoing work, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, that there can be victory.

Then we get to nine, ten and eleven. And what is that about? Well, it's a controversial text, but primarily what we're looking at is the sovereignty of God that instills hope that he who began a good work is faithful to his promises and will complete it all.

Knowing this full story of what God has done for us in Christ, he now says, lay down your life now. He says, therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present. The word carries with the idea of it's used often to present a sacrifice, even in pagan literature and secular literature to present a sacrifice.

But the most important thing here is that it's it's in a certain time or tense. Which it indicates not over and over and over and over again, but a once and for all decision. We hear that in the prophets, don't we?

How long will you limp between two opinions once and for all? Make up your mind. If Baal is God, then serve him. If God is God, serve him once and for all. Make a decision. I just get my heart just breaks whenever I hear these evangelists talk about how many people got saved and how many people rededicated their lives, especially when I know that most of the people who got saved will be rededicating their lives a few months down the road because they probably didn't get saved.

We have so taken the power out of salvation that it means nothing. That he who began a good work in you unto salvation is he that will complete it. It is an ongoing thing. There is no such thing as a Christian who lives in a continuous state of carnality.

The whole idea of spiritual Christians, carnal Christians and lost people is the invent of a seminary. And praise God, at least it wasn't a Southern Baptist seminary in Texas. Has nothing to do with Scripture and nothing to do with historical Christianity.

A Christian can fall into carnality. A Christian can fall into sin. A Christian cannot continuously live in a state of carnality. It's an impossibility. Why? Remember what we learned about soteriology yesterday?

A good tree bears good fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. Why? Its nature has been changed in the same way that a pig can eat garbage. But if you transform that pig in one second into a man, he can no longer eat garbage.

Even if he tries, it will not go down into his stomach and stay there because he is a new creature. The impotent salvation that is taught today is frightening. It is no salvation at all. And it doesn't just contradict what I'm preaching tonight.

It contradicts the Scripture. It doesn't just contradict my interpretation of the Scripture. It contradicts everything we know about historical Christianity from preachers for the last 2 ,000 years. This idea of constantly rededicating, constantly rededicating, constantly rededicating and falling and rededicating and falling and rededicating.

Isn't it amazing? They usually rededicate not under a theological sermon of truth, but under some evangelist's emotional story about a grandma. And that's why they're back again the next revival. Same person, rededicating themselves again because they never were born again.

I realize that what I'm saying goes against the grain of everything in our Christian culture. But if you're a student of history, you'll realize that if all the old preachers from 150 years ago could rise again from the dead at this moment, they would be on my side.

The Whole Person Belongs to God

I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies. Now, why does he say body? I think there's a reason. There are several reasons, but it sure does avoid this almost Greek separation of body and soul.

It sure does avoid this super spiritual idea. Well, I know I'm walking in total disobedience. I know I live like an unbeliever, speak like an unbeliever and have desires of an unbeliever. But in my heart of hearts, I love Jesus.

No, your body, your mind, your eyes, your ears, your tongue, your hands, your feet, your body. If you haven't given him your body, you haven't given him your heart. Remember what Jesus always said, by your words, you'll be judged.

Why? Those words are a perfect revealer of the content of your heart, your fruit. The things you do with your body are evidence of your sanctification, of your dedication, of your giving over to God or the lack thereof.

Guarding the Mind and the Senses

Now, let's just talk about this for a moment. Your mind. Do you think it's detached from the spiritual part of you? Your mind. It belongs to him. It does. So there's a gate on this thing. There are many things, most things in this world that are not allowed of God to enter in there.

And yet you pump it into your brain three and four hours a day if you're a normal American. And so many young people and people walking up to me and men walking up to me going, I have so much trouble with my thought life.

I say, how much do you read the word every day and meditate upon the word? And how much do you sit in front of television every day? So don't talk to me. Is this not a mystery? You have a sick, filthy mind because you're constantly filling it full of garbage.

Well, I just watch sports. Do you shut the commercials off? My friend, a line is being drawn. It's got to the point where no, no, a thousand times. No, you leave it on for 30 minutes. You're going to be contaminated.

I don't care for what's in the Lucille Ball show now. Does it matter? Do you want to be holy? Leonard Ravenhill one time sent me a track years ago. A friend of mine told him that I was struggling and really praying over some things.

He sent me a track and it said on the track, others can. You cannot. And what the basic of the track was this. If you want to be like everyone else, like all the nominal Christianity and everything. Go ahead.

You're free to do it. But if you want the power of God on your life, you can't do what others seemingly can do with no problem. And one of those and the main thing is the mind, as a man thinketh, so is the heart.

It's a wellspring of life. You must guard that thing, son. And the amount that you want God on your life and you want God to use you. This begins here. Years ago, there was a famous violinist playing in Europe and he was a very old man and a master.

And he finished his playing. And a young student walked up to him and said, sir, I would give my life to play like you. And he said, young man, I have given my life to play like me. You see people and you say, I would give anything to be as godly as them.

I'd give anything to know what they know of scripture. I'd give anything to be used like them. OK, I'd give my life to be like that. They have. They can't go where you go. They can't see what you see.

They can't listen to what you listen to. They can't live that way. And it begins in the mind. My dear friend, even if I were secular, even if I were atheistic. If I was just a student of education, I would have to say, no, we can't watch this stuff.

No, we can't look at this stuff. And not just the pornography and the filth and everything else, but just the vanity and the stupidity and the foolishness of it. The waste of a life when you could be reading scripture, a noble book, studying art, walking through a field, worshipping God for a sentence, talking to your wife.

Marvel of all marvels. Playing with your children. The mind, it belongs to God. Have you is have you laid that thing down? Have you said here? Yours. Put a watchman. On the doors. Your eyes. And this doesn't affect women as much as it does men.

You know, you very rarely see a nude guy selling truck tires, but you see girls dressed, you know, with no clothes on selling all sorts of car parts. Because men are attracted by the eyes. And that should be recognized.

And men should at all costs, as Job made a covenant with his eyes not to look upon the Virgin, men should make a covenant with their eyes not to look upon things. To guard their eyes. You're never taught to be strong enough to stand up to temptation.

You're told to avoid it, to flee it. The ears. What I listen to. And it's not just media, it's people. I'm not going to be around people who are always gossiping, always talking about other people, always doing things such as that.

I'm not going to be around people who are always negative, doubting and everything else. Because I am responsible for what I hear. These belong to God. For his glory. And then there's the tongue. The tongue.

My, what a world, what a hell that thing sets on fire. And why? It's just spouting forth what's ever in the heart. It's to guard our tongue, that it be used only for edification, for the building up of the body, tearing down when necessary, prophetically.

But biblically and seeking for the good of all, that the edification of God's people. And there's the hands. To be busy, busy at work in the things of God. Now, let me stop here for a moment with the definition of the things of God, because this has been totally lost.

Every Vocation Is Sacred

Especially in our Baptist community. And it's this. We think that there are these secular vocations and these spiritual vocations. I know no more believe that than a man on the moon. As a matter of fact, for the Christian, there is nothing secular.

Everything is sacred. The pots and pans in your house are sacred. And the man who goes to work as a state trooper, who is a Christian in the name of his God. He's sitting there in the car ten hours a day on the side of the road, but he's doing it unto the glory of God.

God has called him to that thing and he does it with all his heart for God's glory and God's good pleasure. It's a sacred task. We're to be busy, all of us, in the place in which we are called. Sir, your job is to be done for the glory of God.

When you come home, you maintain your house in the order of it for the glory of God. You raise your children, you disciple your wife for the glory of God. Ma 'am, if you are at home, you are doing everything in that house that you do for the glory of almighty God, knowing that in the same way that this preacher will one day be judged before the throne of God, so will you be judged on how you ordered and managed your home.

That everything is sacred and everything's a calling and everything's a vocation. And we should do it as an honorable thing because it's been given to us by our Lord. One of the greatest ways, Thomas Watson in his book, Body of Divinity, one of the greatest ways in which he speaks about glorifying God is how?

By being content with God's providence and staying in the situation in which he has called you and doing it with all your heart. And then as our feet, the direction in which we run. We run to God's will to do it heartily.

But not only that, we run and make progress towards God. We desire him, we long for him and we want to be like him. Now, let me say something that almost never gets said. And it applies to men as well as women.

Modesty, Holiness, and Avoiding Stumbling Blocks

I preach a lot of conferences, preach in little churches, great big churches, out in fields, in coliseums, in stadiums, in barn lofts. It is so amazing to me. And if you had other preachers standing here in my place, they could tell you the same thing.

Isn't it amazing that one of the prayers that has to be prayed when I go into many churches, before I go, I know, Lord, protect my eyes, protect my heart, protect my mind from the way people are going to be dressed when I get there.

Let me just put it to you clearly. Whether you're a guy or a girl, it really doesn't matter. If your clothing is a frame for your body, it's sensual and God hates it. If your clothing is a frame for your face, from which shines forth the glory of God, it is acceptable before your God.

I am so tired of this no longer being taught. Every time I open my mouth with regard to this, people start screaming legalism. My goodness, is there no teaching anymore? That our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Not only that, our bodies can be a great blessing or they can be a stumbling block. And if you're a stumbling block to a new believer or any believer, it'd be better that a millstone be tied around your neck and you were flung into the bottom of the sea.

This is something that has to be addressed. It has to be addressed among my generation, the younger generations. There should be no cause for stumbling in us. What are you trying to advertise? Your body doesn't belong to me and I don't want it.

I don't want to see it. I don't want to have to deal with it. One body belongs to me. It is my wife's and my body belongs to her. And that's it. And it's the same way. I was preaching this one time in a big college retreat.

There's this kid on the front row dressed. I mean, it's like he painted his shorts on. This guy thought he was Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I'm preaching this thing and he's going, amen, amen, amen. Finally, I walked in.