True Gospel - Pt2 - What Is the Gospel? — Paul Washer

The Mercies of God Motivate Christian Perseverance

Let's open up our Bibles to Romans chapter 3, Romans chapter 3. As I did this morning, I would like to share that before we take our major text, to realize the purpose of what the Lord has laid on my heart for this week.

Paul said this, 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. Here Paul speaks with a pastor's heart, urging and pleading with the people of God, the people whom he loves dearly, with a love that young men can't understand.

This is the love of a tried man, of an aged man, of a man who has walked years and years and years with Jesus Christ. This is the love of a man who knows his weaknesses, his failures, and is afraid not only for those whom he loves, but also for himself.

And he realizes that we will begin and finish this race only being urged by those who love us and those who've walked before us. And so many young people here tonight, you're Christians, you know not what you've got yourself into.

And at 20 years of walking with Christ, I'm still a boy of God, not a man of God. But I listen to this, what the Apostle Paul is saying, and he's urging believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices to God.

And it's a reasonable thing to do, he tells them. It's a spiritual thing to do. The most spiritual thing you can do is offer yourself as a sacrifice for the glory of God, for the honor of God, for the good pleasure of God.

But in such a great endeavor, where are we going to find the motivation to give away the only life we have? Where are we going to find the motivation not to walk with Jesus a week or even a year, but year after year after year after year and not surrounded by friends and comforting believers, but standing alone and in the dark.

And when your body is wracked with pain and when temptation comes in on you like a flood, where are you going to find the motivation necessary? I believe that it's found in only one place. And it's what Paul says here, the mercies of God.

After 20 years with the Lord, I'm not near as holy as I was when I was your age. I'm not near as strong and I'm not near as wise as I thought myself to be 20 years ago when I first started preaching. As a matter of fact, now, when I look in the mirror, I don't see a man most of the time that I'm very proud of or that I would put much confidence in.

I'm not motivated by past successes, I'm not motivated by having been used of the Lord, I'm motivated by the fact that God has not given me what I deserve. I deserve hell and God has not given me hell.

And not only has he not given me what I deserve, he has given me what I do not deserve. And that's him. I would never mention something so low as heaven. Heaven could never motivate me. Streets of gold and gates of pearl could never carry me onto the finish line.

It's him. It's him that makes heaven heaven. If you never learn that, you'll be quite deluded. You won't have much strength. It's him and what he has done for us in Jesus Christ, that's the only thing.

What did you come out to hear tonight? Who did you come out to see? A dead piece of wood? Because that's what you get. A man with deaf ears. Well, that's the one standing before you. A man with a tongue of lead.

It's a pretty good description of me. You see, there are no great men of God and there are no great saints and there are no great preachers. The word great can only be used with regard to God. The word holy only belongs to him and him alone.

Worthy of being heard. I've not met a man yet worthy of being heard. But that God might speak through dumb men with dull hearts and deaf ears. Another example of mercy. And for you young people who are here and some of you young guys called to preach.

You were raised in a vain culture of Christianity that thinks that somehow if you can grasp a hold of some secret truth or reach some stage of sanctification. If you can do what I've done. And you'll be where I am someday.

That's a lie straight out of the pit of hell. You will always be what you are by the mercies of God. Only God says, I am who I am. Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God. And so where does a bunch of feeble, self-centered people.

Like me, find the motivation to go on, find the motivation to keep going up the hill, to keep running the race. It is in what God has done for us in his son, Jesus Christ. If that heavenly vision was not before me, even now, I'd step down out of this pulpit and I'd walk out of this church and I'd turn my back on 20 years.

The only thing that can cause you, move you, motivate you to persevere, to continue on, to be what God has called you to be, is that heavenly vision. Not of a celestial city, but of the son of God hanging on a tree.

Human Sinfulness and the Need for Grace

The mercies of God. Paul urges God's people by what God has done for them in Jesus Christ. This morning, what we looked at was us. I spent a great deal of time, as I've told you, to turn to Romans chapter three.

I spent the entire hour and even more time on Romans 3 .23. And why did I do that? To a verse that you memorized when you were in Sunday school. Because this right here could exhaust a lifetime of preaching and it should exhaust a great deal of preaching.

And do you want to know why? You can never be before God as you should be unless you recognize what you are apart from his grace. It's impossible. That is why God so many times throughout history has used the most vile creatures on the face of the earth.

Having saved them, he has used them in great ways because they understood their vileness, at least to some degree. It's hard for people who have a high standing in society. And have a right to hold their head up among men.

It's hard for those people to ever be used of God. Very, very difficult. Will someone like that ever enter into the kingdom of God? You see, you must. We spent an hour and a half this morning on sin and on depravity and on our wickedness and on our evil.

And I put us all together with the Hitler's and the Mussolini's and the Saddam Hussein's of the world because they are us. The only thing that keeps you from making them look like choir boys is the grace of Almighty God.

And that God moved on your behalf was an act of mercy. Mercy that sprang forth from its own fountain. What do I mean by that? Your worth and your value did not draw the love out of God. We have no handle on God whatsoever.

God finds no motivation in us to save us, but he saves us for his own sake, for his own glory to demonstrate his power in the world. But he also saves us. Don't forget, theologians, because he is love and he loves the unlovable.

And as I have been taught, he even loves the objects of his own hatred. His love is so strong. And so what I want us to see is the mercy of God. Never forget this. You will never attain to some spiritual height to where you will be something other than what you are.

And do you know what you are? If you're a Christian here tonight, you are a vessel of mercy. You are a recipient of grace. That is your only boast, your only boast. Everything else is dung and so much excrement.

Everything else, your only boast you will ever have is he shed his own blood for your soul. That's it. Nothing else. Now, when we look at verse twenty three, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I'm not going to go back through everything I preach, but I will say this again. We don't understand this verse. You don't understand this verse. Just I can tell you don't understand it by the way you're sitting.

By the expressions on your face. If we truly were standing, if we truly were standing in the very presence of God, if we knew something of his holiness, of his righteousness, of his majesty. If we heard this declaration against ourselves, it would make us mad.

We would go wild with fear. We would go wild with dread. We would look for every nook and hole and cranny to hide in and to crawl in. You see, we can't understand the vileness or the sinfulness of sin because we live in a culture that loves sin and drinks down iniquity like water.

I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. But what happened to that man when he saw Lord Yahweh, when he saw Jehovah sitting on that throne? That's another thing young people to quite understand.

You've got so many charlatans today saying God is here and God is there. And God showed up last night. I dare say that I dare say that he doesn't show up much because when God really shows up, it's not to tickle.

The presence of God is the presence of God is as terrible as it is wonderful. And when he comes, when he comes, you know, it's God. And he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

We divided this in two things. First of all, we are sinners in that we violate God's law. We have broken every law God has ever given prior to our conversions. It's not that sometimes we did wrong. The only thing we ever did was wrong.

Even our greatest works, our most righteous works, as men might call something righteous, nothing more than filthy rags. And that the disobedience to God's law is not the terrible offense, even though it is a great one.

The most terrible offense is not only did we break his law, we offended his majesty. We offended his glory prior to God regenerating your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. You were nothing more than a God hating rebel.

And as I shared this morning, most people in the world want to go to heaven. It's just that the majority of them do not want God to be there once they get there. Because we are godless apart from God's grace in us, in salvation, we are godless, we are without God and we love it that way.

We have fallen short of the glory of God, we do not desire to live for his honor or his glory or any such thing. We are truly a vile people, a wretched people, blind, poor, naked and not at all victims.

Never forget this, sinners are not victims, they are culprits and criminals. And lost sheep are lost sheep because they both hated and rebelled against the shepherd. The only way anyone in this room can ever be saved is if they're brought to the point to say, I am the one, oh, wretched man that I am who will save me from this body of death.

And if you have never been brought to that point, then your Christianity is too clean. It's too respectable and it has no power. In order to be saved, you must be brought to a crisis. And that's why Paul works so hard.

And this morning I worked so hard. His first three chapters of the book, he is working so hard to bring men to a crisis of seeing themselves as they truly are before God, so that they will cast off all hope in themselves and throw themselves only upon the mercy of God.

That's a part of preaching that men do not understand. We are to always be cutting under the foundation of men. We are to cut it away and cut it away. So it falls like clay into the water and dissolves and they crash into the sea and they can only cry out for help.

That's what we are to do. And that's where you must be if you are to ever be saved. It's not Jesus plus something you and Jesus don't got your own thing going. It is him. The purpose of the law, as I said this morning, is to destroy a man's confidence, to destroy a man's hope in himself so that he throws himself at the mercy of the court, the mercy of the judge, that he throws himself upon Christ.

Repentance and Justification by Faith

We spoke about repentance this morning and it's important to review this. We spoke about repentance, not simply repentance from disobedience, but more so repentance from good works, repentance, hating and even loathing the good works that you trusted in, realizing they are nothing before God and they cannot save you.

Bringing a man to a point where if someone were to say, you're saved by your good works, the man would become nauseous in his heart and cry out, no, no, you've judged wrong. I am saved by grace. Nothing in my hands I bring simply to the cross I claim.

That's why we have to deal so often with sin and we have to be reminded. And for those of you who are believers, are genuine children of God, being reminded of your sin does not lead to despair because the grace of God is manifest and magnified in that.

And it causes Christ to become more glorious. It doesn't matter the price. If we have to be defamed, if we have to be humbled, if we have to be brought low, wonderful if it exalts the grace of God and Jesus Christ.

Now, he speaks to us as the vilest of sorts. He speaks to us. As men and women who could in no way motivate. Our cause, a holy God to move on their behalf. But then he says, verse 24, being justified.

As a gift by his grace. Being justified. This morning, I made a remark that to say just to say that justification means just as if I never sinned, that that remark is incomplete and it is in itself. And that's the reason why I have trouble with that is not the statement, because I use it myself.

But it's when men stop there. As I was talking to the pastor this afternoon. Justification, as he said, does not just mean just as if I'd never sinned, but justification also means that the very righteousness of Christ has been given to me.

Now, look at this, you and I, wretches, poor, blind, naked, paupers, rebels, criminals against the throne of God. And what happens? We are justified. We are declared to be right by the very voice of God.

Now, one of the things that Paul is dealing with through the entire book of Romans is how can a man have a right standing before God? And the great mountain that he's trying to overcome, especially among his own people, the Jews, is they had this idea that some way they would gain a right standing before God based upon their works, based upon their merit, based upon their own words.

And that's the way most people are today, that they believe they have some sort of right standing with God based upon the fact that they're not all that bad or that compared to other men, they are quite good.

But who made men your standard? Who told you that men would be your standard on Judgment Day? I'll tell you what will be your standard on Judgment Day. The law of God, you say? Yes, the law of God will be your standard.

You'll be compared to the law of God, I suppose. But even something greater. You'll be compared to the one perfect man who walked on this earth and you will fall short. So how can a group such as us be declared right by the very voice of God and acceptable to God?

He tells us being justified as a gift by his grace. Now, Paul is being redundant here and he's being redundant on purpose. It is almost as though Paul were saying this being declared right with God, being declared righteous in God's sight as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a free, free, free gift, gift, gift, gift gift.

Now you're saying, why are you doing this? Because this is the one hang-up of arrogant, violent, proud men. This is the one thing that men stumble over, to realize that in themselves they are not worthy.

In their works they are not worthy. They cannot have a right standing with God. That is one thing too big for an arrogant man to swallow. He would rather be able to have a chance to work. If you told man you have a .0001 chance of saving yourself, or a 100 chance of being saved as a gift, he would choose works over gift.

Because of his pride, his arrogance, especially here in America. We can do it. We are strong. We can overcome. You might can overcome some human army, but when you stand in the presence of God, you will melt like a little wax figurine in front of a blast furnace.

What you need to understand, my friend, is the hardest thing for men to understand, is that salvation is not of works. There's only two types of religions in the world. You ought to have me teach your comparative religion class, because it would be very, very simple.

It would last about 15 minutes. There are only two types of religion in the world. God's and that which is not God's. You can call it humanistic. You can call it satanic. And it is both of those things.

But there is God's religion and there is everything else. God's religion is this salvation as a gift from God to vile men. And in the end, God is most glorified in what he has done for beggars. All other religions is a promotion of human flesh, a promotion of humanism, a promotion of man, that God can somehow become man's debtor, that man can turn the tables on God and bring God to the point where God must give salvation because he owes it to a man.

And it's the same thing men have always been trying to do, and that is make themselves God over God. But Paul says being justified as a gift by his grace. Now, I want you to look for a moment, just quickly hold your place, but go to Galatians.

There's a marvelous text in Galatians chapter two, verse 16. Now, listen to this. This is amazing. This is absolutely amazing. Galatians chapter two, verse 16. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified.

Three times he says the same thing. Man cannot be saved by works. Man is saved by Jesus Christ and not works. We have believed in Jesus Christ and therefore we're not justified by works because by works no one will be justified.

I mean, it's absolutely amazing how he goes in circles. He would have he would have got a very bad grade in literature here. You have serious problems defending his grammar. He just keeps going and going and going, and that is what he is doing here in Romans chapter three, being justified as a gift by his grace, his unmerited favor.

Imputed Righteousness and the Merit of Christ

You see, this is why I can hear a man and I very rarely hear men do this. But this is why I can hear a man stand up and preach about the sin of my race, about my own fallen people. I can hear him look me right in the face and call me everything I am.

And when. I walk out of the church, I am floating on clouds. Because Jesus Christ is made all the more precious to me. Remember what I said this morning, she loved much because she's been forgiven much and she knew that she had been forgiven much because she knew how sinful she was.

We love not much because we do not realize how much we've been forgiven and we do not realize how much we've been forgiven because we do not realize how sinful we were, because we live in a culture that cannot even understand the vileness of sin.

He says being justified as a gift by his grace. Now, let me say something quickly about justification that is so important. When it says that we have been justified, it does not mean that God made us righteous.

You are not righteous. There's not a righteous person in this room. A righteous person is a perfect, sinless person. That's not you and that's not me. When it says that we've been justified, it does not mean that he made us righteous.

It means he declared us to be righteous. He legally declared you to be right before him, not based on your own works, but on the virtue and the merit of another. Another thing I want you to understand is that is that being justified means more than simply being forgiven in order to go to heaven.

You have to be more than forgiven. Did you know that in order to go to heaven, you have to have clean hands and a pure heart. You have to be. More than forgiven, you have to be perfectly righteous, and that's why justification means that not only did God forgive you, but the perfect life that Jesus Christ lived those years that he walked in the flesh on this earth, his perfect life under the law, his perfect life.

That caused the father to speak out of heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, that perfect life has been given to you. To all who believe it has been given to you, so you are legally declared to be right before God through the virtue and the merit of Jesus Christ.

I remember when I was a young a young man, young farm boy and all my friends and I, we had beat up old cars that we bought with our hay hauling money and trucks and just pitiful among all our cars, you put them all together.

You wouldn't have got a good bumper out of the whole bunch. But then there was always. The kids that lived on the other side of the tracks who, when they were 16. Got the brand new cars and would drive them in and just drive by us with their noses up in the air until one of my good old hunting buddies would yell out his window and go, your daddy sure bought you a nice car.

And then you would see that young rich boy inside that car just deflate or he'd be talking to some girl that he won, lured her in with his beautiful new car. One of my good old buddies would walk over there and say.

It's a pretty nice car, your daddy bought you, does he know you have it out right now? And you would see that boy's chest just deflate and turn red. Well, why did I bring that up? It doesn't matter how precious.

The thing you have is. If it's a gift that you have not earned, there's no cause for boasting. There's no cause for an inflated chest or an inflated head, but there's no cause for sorrow, either. What you have, if you are a Christian, you did not earn, you did not earn one percent of it.

You did not earn point zero zero zero zero zero zero infinite zeros one. You earned nothing. That is why the Christian is the only person who can say I am going to heaven and not be proud. You talk to a Muslim and ask him if he's going to go to paradise, he will say yes.

You ask him why? Because I've obeyed the Koran, because I've made the pilgrimages. I fed the poor. I gave alms. I did this. I did that. I'm a righteous man. I'm going to heaven. You talk to an Orthodox Jew.

Are you going to go to heaven? Yes, I am. Why? Because I keep the way of the law. I love the law of God. I study the law of God. I am a righteous man. You talk to a Christian, a real Christian. Sir, are you on your way to heaven?

Yes, I am. Well, why give your reason for the hope that is within you? OK, I was born in sin. In sin, my mother conceived me. I have broken every law that God has ever given. All my works, even my best works are nothing more than filthy rags.

And there the interview stops and the man says, sir, you've got me confused. You say you're going to heaven like the rest, but you portray yourself as the most vile, the most undeserving of all men. How is it that you're going to heaven?

I'm going to heaven on the virtue and the merit of another. My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to him be the glory throughout all the ages and ages to come. All hail the power of Jesus name. Let angels prostrate fall, bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all.

Now, how is it that we have such a gift of salvation? By his grace through this is not theatrics. This is true. There's a word here that I have a very difficult time. Speaking through the redemption, I've read that Jews.

We're always afraid to say the name Yahweh. For fear that they would take the Lord's name in vain, I'm afraid to speak this word. I don't know where this fear has come from, but this word makes me tremble.

Now, I want to speak of God in a human way so that you will understand and realize. Do not press this illustration too far. What enters into the mind of the father? And I know, again, I'm speaking in human ways.

I'm speaking foolishly. We cannot say these things, but one enters into the mind of the father when he hears this word. Sometimes I am so sick of us, the way we scream out words, the way we blab them, the noise and the confusion and the yelling and the screaming, like little children playing marbles with diamonds, like fools rushing in where angels fear to tread, speaking words that are priceless, that mean so much.

And yet, without any understanding, we vainly confess them to God. What enters into the mind of the father? And this was truly brought home to me after I felt the love that I felt for my little boy when he was born.

I had always thought about the son dying on that tree, never thought much about the father until my son was born. It's like having given your son. There is no strength in me to do something like that.

There's no strength in me to give my son for you. I'm sorry I would let you die. But if I could give my son and then have you turn what he has done into some kind of silly little children's nursery rhyme and speak words about him that were meaningless because you made them meaningless because of your lack of knowledge and because the way you spoke them.

He says here, through the price that was paid, through the price that was paid. You know, I heard of an old Puritan, I can't remember his name, my mind. I don't remember things very well. But I can remember being touched by something I read in a book one time.

It said that this old Puritan, sometimes he would say certain things. Use certain words, names like Jesus, like redemption, and he could not say them without having to stop. And bow his head for a moment, they said, you could see the old man's lip tremble when he pondered on such words that were coming out of his mouth.

The Holiness of Christ and the Gravity of the Cross

You see, this is why Satan wants you to be ignorant. Of truth. You see, this is why Satan wants to fill the world up with all those preachers who don't want any of that doctrine stuff so that you will not realize what words mean.

That's why postmodernism, even in your own school here, as it is infected with it, will choose to teach you that words don't mean much. So that when you speak about Christ, it won't mean much. It won't mean much.

I turned on the radio a while back and someone was screaming on there, comes down to a man dying on the cross, saving the world. I shut off the radio. I said, what was what was that? What was that? How could you say that that way?

Just because it rhymes, you've got the right to do that. Do you know what you just said? The son of God dying on a tree and you said it that way. I don't know a lot of my heart is very dull and I'm not a spiritual man, but that is not right.

Shouldn't you bow your head or something? Shouldn't you fall down or something? Or does the beat carry you away? Mention these things and not be afraid. Things into which angels long to look and you will talk about these things like a little foolish boy, bratty and clammy and whiny.

Playing marbles with diamonds. I think the one great regret that we will all have when we come into the presence of God will be the regret, the regret. Of not treating his son as holy, you see, if you could only be there for a moment, I mean, angels, when they opened up their eyes the first time.

They were looking in the face of Christ and it would take a mighty force to pull them away from that face, the preciousness of the lamb, the beauty of the son, the reflection of the father, the spirit crying out hallelujah.

And then us making nursery rhymes. What's wrong with us through the redemption? The purchase price paid, slaves bought, slaves bought, slaves to sin, slaves to our own selfish desire, slaves to our own ego, slaves to our own arrogance, slaves to the vileness of our heart and the filth that dwelt within slaves, slaves, slaves.

And he bought us. You gather up the whole group together and they're not worth a six pence and the one who is worth you take all the galaxies, all the mountains, all the seas, all the planets, all the stars, all the crickets, all the clowns, all the men, all the mole heels, all the dust, all the suns, all the moons, everything that is.

And you put them in a scale and you set the Christ on the other side and they'll fling off into eternity because they have no worth. And he offered up his life for this. I'll never forget when I was a brand new Christian and I came back to my home from the University of Texas.

I've been a Christian for a few months and I happened to bump into a fellow who I knew at another university and we met there and a little pizza place and I just happened to bump into him and he said, what's been going on?

And I said, you know, I was going to be a lawyer. Well, I've been saved and God is calling me to preach. And he stood up and he goes, I've been saved, too, and God's called me to preach. Isn't it amazing?

God's starting to save some really, really good people now to do some stuff. And I couldn't have found John 316 in the Bible. I was a brand new Christian. But all of a sudden, a fear shot through my heart.

And I just wanted to lay down on the ground and say, oh, God, those words did not come out of my mouth, but they would have apart from your grace. George Mueller begins his the autobiography. I'm not sure if it's in the smaller version, but in the larger version, he speaks about mentioning his sin.

The first page, he addresses it with caution and he explains to the reader why he goes, I do not enjoy telling you about my wicked past. I do not want to promote sin. But from such a black sky. The star of Christ will be most exalted, as I shared with you this morning.

Where did the stars go today? They stayed in the sky, but the light kept them hidden. When you go out to to purchase that very, very tiny engagement stone for your wife to be. That jewelers are smart, he's smart, he lays that thing out on a black velvet and that thing becomes four times its size and its brightness grows because he knows that darkness will set off the brilliance of that.

Well, then so be it. If I'm to boast in anything, let me boast in my weakness, if I am to boast in anything, let me boast in what I am apart from the grace of God that the sun might be exalted. People say, talk that way.

You're just destroying your self-esteem. No, because my esteem is not found in self. It's found in the Savior. It's found in him, which is in Christ Jesus. I begin much of my praying, not just public praying, but I begin much, much of my hidden devotion with this prayer.

Oh, God, apart from your son, I would have no part with you. That is the truth. You know, people say Jesus is all you need. Let me tell you something, Jesus is all you have. He's not just all you need.

He's the only thing you have. And apart from him, the only thing that would await you is the just furious wrath of almighty God. Jesus is it. Jesus is all Jesus is everything. And that it beware, because it's not so much that you say you know him, it is more that he says he knows you.

So I've said so many times, if I were to go to the White House this evening and stand there at the entrance to the gate and try to get in and when a soldier stopped me, I said, I know George Bush, I would still not get in.

But if George Bush came out of the White House and said, I know Paul Washer, I'm going in. Protocol to the wind, I'm going in because the one who must speak spoke and it was a good word. I'm going in.

He says many will come before me on that day and say, I'm in Christ, I'm in Christ, I'm in Christ. And he'll say, depart from me. I never knew you. I never knew you. You see, Jesus is I know you know this, and I'm ashamed that I can't say it better, and I wish that somehow my lips would be set on fire to explain one truth that Jesus is absolutely everything.

He is everything for those of you who are here, arrogant and bold enough to stick out your chest, believing that God did a good thing when he saved you. Then lay down in the dust and grovel and let your pride die.

And then for some of you saints who are here thinking, oh, will I get in? Can I sneak in the back door of mercy? Could he could he allow one such as I to enter in? Rejoice, you humble saint, because your entrance way is through the son, Jesus Christ.