The Cross-Centered Life Q&a 5 — Paul Washer

Testing the Reality of Christian Faith

Let's open up our Bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 13. If you have read 1st Corinthians and 2nd Corinthians, you realize that there were several significant problems in the church in Corinth. And you can even say that in at least certain individuals were not behaving as Christians.

They were not acting as Christians. Now, from a contemporary view, most preachers today would look at the church in Corinth and think basically they're all Christians. It's just some of them are very carnal.

That's not the way that the Apostle Paul handles the situation. When he addresses the church and rebukes them for many of the errors they have in doctrine and many of the errors they have in their manner of living, he doesn't simply assume that they're all Christians.

He doesn't look at the carnal and give them assurance. He does something else, and it's found here in 2nd Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5. Let's look at what he tells the people in the church of Corinth to do.

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, indeed, you fail the test. Many times today, a young person in churches, young people, even nine, eight, nine, ten years old, will make a profession of faith in Sunday school or vacation Bible school and they will be baptized.

And because they are their parents and they live in something of a Christian culture within the church, maybe they continue going to church and they may even appear for a while to have some concerns for the things of Christ.

But let's say that they start getting older. They started 15, 16, 17. They start rebelling against their parents. Either they do not want to go to church or when they are in church, they demonstrate ungodliness in their conversations, in their manner of living outside of the home.

And oftentimes, maybe parents will become concerned because the child now has spent several years walking in rebellion, and oftentimes the parents or even the pastor will come to that child, that teenager, and say something like this.

You're a Christian, I remember when you were saved and I remember when you were baptized. But you're not living like a Christian. And that is a shame, you are a Christian and you need to start living like it.

That sort of counsel and admonition is completely foreign to the New Testament. This is the way the pastors of old would deal with a person who professed faith in Christ and yet begin to walk away and live in rebellion.

They would go to that person and a parent who had better theology than parents have today would go to their child and say something like this. When you were nine or 10 years old. You made a profession of faith in Christ and for a while there seemed to even be fruit so that.

You were baptized in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, but now for a lengthy time you have turned away and you are living as a carnal person, as a worldly person, as a person who has not the spirit of God.

If you keep walking on this path, it will be proof. Not that you have lost your salvation, but that you never truly were saved, that the entire Christian life that you once appeared to have was just a fog, it was just a mist, it was a play, it was a hypocrisy.

They would go to that young person and say, now, listen to me, you have professed faith in Christ and you even still profess faith in Christ, but you are not living as a Christian. Therefore, test yourself, examine yourself.

Isn't it amazing today, even if a sincere young person comes to a pastor and says something like this, Pastor, I'm doubting my salvation. I'm not sure if I'm a Christian, the great majority of time, this is how the pastor will respond.

Well, let me ask you a question. Was there a point in time in your life when you prayed and asked Jesus Christ to come into your heart and if the child says or the teenager says, well, yes, then the pastor will ask, well, were you sincere?

And the young person will say, well. I think so at that moment, I think I was sincere. Well, then you're saved and you need to stop listening to the devil who is trying to condemn you again, counsel that is completely, totally foreign to the scriptures.

A wise pastor would sit down with that teenager who is struggling with assurance. And go over minutely their conversion experience to try to discern and help the young person discern, was there a genuine understanding of the gospel?

Was there a genuine repentance? Was there a genuine faith, did they understand what it meant to look upon Christ, then the pastor would go and begin to look at their life after their profession, was there any evidence, any experience of the love of God being shed abroad in that person's heart?

Is there any evidence of ongoing sanctification, because he who began a good work in them will complete it, is there any evidence of discipline, because if you are without discipline, you are an illegitimate child and not a child of God.

But all this kind of biblical counseling. Is for the most part lost today. So that you have young people who can live in horrendous sin, and yet they believe they are Christians because one time in their life they repeated a prayer.

They may have even had an emotional response. They may have even seemed to walk for a while with Christ, but eventually they turn away and by turning away, they prove that they were not good soil, that the seed of God was never truly planted in them.

That they are not converted. Now, Paul says here that we should test ourselves, examine ourselves now, how do we do that? We need a standard. Even when someone grades a test score of multiple choice, true and false, the teacher will have a standard, they'll have a page over here that has all the right answers and they'll compare this test to the answer sheet.

They will examine the students work in light of the standard. Now, what can we use as a standard to see if there's any evidence that we're Christian? Well, we shouldn't compare ourselves to other Christians, Paul tells the church in Corinth, you compare yourselves with yourselves and that's not wise.

Now, why is that not wise? Well, you may compare yourself to other teenagers in your group. And you may be just as moral as they are. But there are many youth groups that are absolutely filled with immorality and worldliness and carnality and entertainment, so you could compare yourself with another lost person in the church and think you're doing OK because you're doing better than they are.

Or you could make another mistake. You could look at a saint who has walked with God longer than you've been alive and you could look at their faith and their godliness and their knowledge and wisdom.

And even though you might be a true believer, when you compare yourself to them, you come up lacking and you fall into false condemnation and lose all assurance. Fortunately, in the scriptures, God has given us a standard.

Biblical Standards for Examining Christian Character

In several places in the Bible, we can look and see certain characteristics of a Christian. Of a Christian. Now, we're going to concentrate on 1st John tonight, but before I do, remember what we looked at in 2nd Peter.

Remember, there were certain virtues. That are found in the Christian life now, that doesn't mean that the moment you're born again, these virtues are found in you completely and totally mature now, but they begin to be found in you and they increase and grow as God begins to work in you.

Another place where we could look, which is which was used oftentimes by our the earlier Baptists and the reformers and the Puritans is actually the Beatitudes. Just turn there for just a moment in the Beatitudes, Matthew, chapter five, verse three.

Jesus says this, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle or meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All these are characteristics of genuine or true discipleship, characteristics of genuine or true Christianity, characteristics that will be found in some measure and growing in the genuine or true Christian.

Let me just show you how this works. Look at verse 13. I know we're not going to stay on this text, but because we're here, let's just look at Matthew 513. Look what it says. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Now, whenever you hear this text, it's usually about missions or having an impact on the world, right? Got to get the salt out of the salt shaker and got to affect the world, and we're the salt of the earth and we purify things, we keep it from rotting and we give it flavor.

And all of that is true. But if you look at this text in the context. Look what it's saying, saying you are the salt of the earth, salt has certain properties, doesn't it? Salt has certain properties or elements, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?

It is good for nothing. It is it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Salt has certain properties, characteristics. You take those properties or those characteristics away and you no longer have salt.

You take those properties or characteristics away and you replace them with something else and you might you might have something, but you no longer have salt. Do you see that? And that's what he's saying here in the Beatitudes, the true characteristics of a Christian.

Are that they're poor in spirit. They realize they have nothing but God in Christ. They mourn, why do they mourn, they see their sin and the sin around them, it breaks their heart and makes them contrite, but of course, they do not stay mourning because they see the grace of God in the face of Christ and they're filled with joy.

It's this paradox of being broken and joyful at the same time. Blessed are the gentle, I think the word is better translated, meek, and I think it comes from the book of Psalms where it says the meek shall inherit the earth and the meek are described as those who trust in God and trust in his word.

They hunger and thirst for righteousness. One of the characteristics of a Christian is that the Christian hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Years ago, 150 years ago, when I was a seminary student, I was just feeling miserable one day.

I mean, just horrible. So I went to see Dr. T .W. Hunt, a very, very godly man who I admire greatly, a prayer warrior. And I walked into his office and I sat down in the chair and he would always look at me like this and then go, Paul, what's wrong?

I said, Dr. Hunt, I just want to be more godly. I'm not godly. I just I want to be more righteous. I want to be like Christ. And I'm I'm sick and tired of being like I am. And and I need to pray more and I need to read the word more.

And I just I'm just not what I should be. And I want to be more. While I was having this conniption fit in front of T .W. Hunt, he got up out of his chair, walked around his desk, put his hands on my shoulders, and he said this in the name of Jesus Christ, I pronounce you blessed.

And he sat back down and then I kind of looked at him like a deer looks at headlights right before it gets run over. And he goes, Paul, you didn't understand what I just did. And I said, no, Dr. Hunt, I I don't understand.

Have you never read, Paul? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Paul, if you came into my office content with where you are. I would have to assume you were unconverted and lost.

But you come in here hungering, thirsting and starving to be more righteous, does that describe you now? I don't want to heap condemnation upon you. It is not all the time that we are passionately starving for righteousness, even though I wish I was always passionately striving for righteousness.

But one of the marked characteristics of a Christian is that they will hunger and thirst to be more like Jesus. And if you're out here tonight and you are just so miserable and even doubting yourself because you're hungering and thirsting for righteousness instead of allowing that to condemn you, it ought to give you assurance.

Only God's people hunger and thirst after righteousness and know this, the promise to you is you will be satisfied. You will be satisfied now. Also, he says, blessed are the merciful. It is a people who find it very, very difficult to tear other people apart because they know what they themselves deserve.

I remember one time in a church I was in a woman who had committed horrible crimes even within the church, had destroyed families, had done all sorts of things. She walked in one morning and fell just down in the front of the church, weeping and crying.

People just stood there like this. I mean, no one went to her. I got up out of my seat. I walked over and I knelt down beside her and I put my arm on her shoulder and I began to pray. After a while, she seemed to get some relief and she sat down.

And later on, a group of people came to me and said, how could you do that? You know what she's done. And I said, I have to do it because if there's no mercy for her, we all go to hell. You see, Christians grow in mercy, they grow in grace, they grow in grace.

Then purity of heart, blessed are the pure in heart. Now, I don't think you kind of really get the idea of what's going on here. You think of purity and heart. This word means something like unalloyed, no mixture.

Let's put it this way. No competing loyalties. Now, again, I don't want to heap condemnation upon you and say that if you have competing loyalties in your heart, you're not a Christian. A Christian's heart will be inclined toward Christ and will desire that Christ be everything and will struggle, though, while it is in the flesh, while the Christian is still in the flesh, he will struggle with the fact that there is a battle raging in him.

He wants to be holy and completely for Christ. And sometimes the fire is very hot and other times things creep in and compete with that. But the Christian, when that happens to him or her, they cannot be content.

They are miserable. He goes on and he says, blessed are the peacemakers. You know, one of the as we as we have seen, one of the characteristics of a true Christian is that they are useful to God. This this word does not mean blessed are the pacifists.

It means blessed are those who will labor and work and even fight for peace. People who care about the conflict in this world. People who care about the war within man and within society, the rift between God and man, the rift between people, they're always trying to make peace.

Blessed are the persecuted. As a matter of fact, in this text. Blessed are those who have been persecuted, that the Greek, the tense here indicates this is not that they're just one time they were persecuted, no, they are marked by persecution.

Listen to me, young person. They say there's no persecution in America. Maybe it's because Christians aren't living for Christ, because all who live a godly life will be persecuted. It doesn't mean that someone will put a gun to your head or that they'll burn you at the stake necessarily, but you will be persecuted.

And I want to tell you this. If you are a genuine Christian filled with the Holy Spirit and living for Christ, you will be persecuted in most churches. So you see, here we go again. We saw Second Peter.

We saw Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonica. We see here it's the same thing. What true Christians give evidence of their Christianity. It's not that they do these things in order to become Christians, but they have become Christians by faith through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

They have become new creatures and they just live a different way. And so you can begin to compare your life by the characteristics of a Christian as they are revealed in Scripture and ask yourself, to what degree do I look like that?

The Tests of True Faith in First John

Now, let's go to First John, chapter five, verse 13. This is an amazing thing. You know, when John wrote his gospel, he told us why. He said that he wrote it so that we believe that Jesus is the Christ.

When he writes this epistle, John, the beloved, tells us why. Look what he says, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Now, primarily he is speaking here. I think the main purpose of this letter is not that John has given us a bunch of tests so that I can take you through them. And prove to all of you that you're lost, that's not the reason why he wrote this, this book.

You see, what had happened here was some false teachers had entered in and caused a great deal of confusion, probably the early beginnings of what's known as Gnosticism. They had caused great confusion and made the true believers think that maybe they weren't even the people of God.

But these false teachers were horrible, they were heretical, they did not give Christ his supreme place. They denied many of the things about his person and work, and they were ungodly, immoral people.

And these wolves had come into the flock of God who had been walking simply by faith and growing in godliness and made them believe that they weren't the people of God. So John comes and he writes this letter and he says these things, what are these things?

The things written in 1st John, these things I've written to you who believe in the name of the son of God. Why did he write these things? So that after you read these things and compare your life to them, you will see that you are Christian.

Now, this does have an opposite effect also, you see, tonight I'm not here to try to make a bunch of Christians doubt their salvation. When I preach this, what's going to happen is this true Christians are going to walk out of here more assured than ever that they're saved.

But some of you will look at these things and begin to fear. I don't see these things in my life now before we begin, let me say something. Do you know, in Christianity, there's just extremes everywhere, there's extremes in my life, the Christian life, because we all are growing little by little, it's kind of like a pendulum.

You know, you'll swing over here and maybe be walking in Christian liberty and go too far and you realize I've gone too far. I'm getting close to worldliness. And so you swing back. But instead of swinging back to center, you swing over here and become a legalist.

And then you realize, oh, I'm a legalist, so you swing back and usually you don't swing back to center, but hopefully you don't go as far as you went before and gradually as you mature, you swing down right into centeredness, being right in the scriptures.

Now, there is a problem today. A lot of people are beginning to see that a lot of people, a lot of people call themselves Christians in America, are lost and that the gospel that we preach is really superficial and especially our invitation for people to come to Christ is not only superficial, it's heretical and people are returning to the idea that in order to be saved, you must repent and believe.

But herein lies the problem. You are to repent and believe, but that does not mean that in order to be saved, you must have a perfect Puritan repentance. Or that you must have a perfect Puritan faith, that you must be broken and collapsing and realizing all these horrible things about yourself and fully understanding the doctrine of radical depravity and everything else and throwing yourself upon Christ.

And if you don't have an experience like that, you're lost. That's not true. In order to be saved, you must repent and believe. But many times that repentance that saves us is so small and so meager and that faith that saves us is just like a mustard seed, so small and so meager.

Now, they will be genuine, but they'll be small. But here's the thing, the evidence that that little repentance and that little faith is real is that it doesn't stay small. It begins to grow and deepen.

Let me tell you something about my testimony at the risk of being crucified on YouTube. OK, I'm going to tell you something about how I got saved. The day that the Lord regenerated my heart and made me a new creature and I knew that I had been born again, I was saved.

I was not overwhelmed by my sin, even though I was a wicked, wicked man, I wasn't. I didn't fall on the ground, tear my clothes, think how great a sinner I was. Do you know what happened to me that day when God regenerated my heart?

I only knew this. He loved me and I believed in him. He loved me and I believed in him. So someone says, ah, Brother Paul, you weren't saved. Well, just hold on. I knew I was a sinner, but the thing that happened to me that day that God did to me was he overwhelmed me with his love and I knew that I believed in him.

But if that was all that happened, I would doubt my conversion. But after that day, after that day of being overwhelmed. With the love of God and believing in him, I began to study the scriptures and you know what happened, my repentance, that little repentance I had the day I was saved, it began to deepen and grow.

And I can tell you that twenty eight, twenty nine years later, however later it is that my repentance right now is much deeper than it was when I was first saved. And I when I first got saved, you know, I thought it was all Jesus.

You know, you got to believe in Jesus. But, you know, a person comes to Christ realizing that salvation is only in Jesus. They really don't know what they're talking about. But over the years, God breaks you and shows you how weak you are so that in the end you really begin to understand it's all just Jesus.

What I'm trying to tell you, young person. Is that the evidence of salvation is that on the day of your salvation. You repent and believe, and it may be a small, meager thing, but the evidence that it is true is that your repentance will deepen.

Your faith will deepen, you will come to understand little by little how great God is and how holy is and how sinful we are. And your heart will break and break deeper and deeper and deeper. And that faith that saved you, you will begin to realize several years after you were saved, you'll realize I really didn't understand what was going on there.

But more and more, as I see how weak I am and how unproductive my works and how quick I am to betray him, I now understand more and more that it really is faith and faith alone. Let me show you how the Christian life is.

I'm getting off of the path here, but that's what I usually do anyways. Let me share with you what the Christian life is. You're walking along. I'm going to do this is the closest I get to drama. OK, you're walking along and you're a lost person.

You just lost. And then one day someone preaches the gospel to you. You're walking along, they preach the gospel. You listen and it pleases the Lord to call you. You see God. In a way, you have never seen him before and you see you in a way that you've never seen you before and you see Christ in a way you've never seen Christ before.

And what happens is when you see God and his holiness, you see your sin. And your sin breaks your heart before you were just happy walking in sin, but now this vision of God has broken your heart. But you're not left there to die in despair, because in your brokenness, God also shows you his grace in the face of Jesus Christ and you're filled with joy, unspeakable and full of glory.

And then the next day you get up and as you're walking through your Christian life, this happens over and over and over as you're growing in the word and growing in Christ, you see more of God. And the more you see of God, the more you see of you and the deeper your brokenness, the less you trust in yourself, but you're not left in despair because also you see more of God in the face of Christ and you're filled with even greater joy, unspeakable and full of glory.

And you walk like that through the entire course of your life so that at the end of your days, when you are an old man or an old woman, you are infinitely more broken than you were when you began. But you are also infinitely more joyful than you were when you began.

Do you see that? There's a transaction that occurs, God is emptying you, emptying you, emptying you, emptying you, emptying you until all you have, all you need, all you want is Christ. That's the Christian life.

That's the Christian life now, just so you're not left hanging. When you die, here's what happens. Do you want to know? Well, I've never been there personally, but I'm going to tell you something of what heaven's like, OK, the purpose of all of this.

You walk into heaven, OK? Now, kids, listen to me. I know about the streets of gold and the gates of pearl, but I mean, how long can you walk on streets of gold before it gets kind of boring and swinging on gates of pearl?

I'm sure that's fun for a season, but I mean, that's not going to fill us with joy throughout all of eternity. I mean, we're going to be there for an eternity. There better be something really special up there or we are all going to get really bored.

So what is it you walk into heaven and you're strengthened, you're changed so that you can behold God. You behold God and see him in a way you have never seen him before, and you are filled with such ecstasy and joy that if you had not been strengthened, it would kill you and you worship and live with a joy unimaginable.

Now, let's pretend there's days in heaven. So after all that happens, you go to bed, you wake up the next morning. It's the next morning. It's the second day. What do you do? Step outside your house. I'm making a lot of this up.

Step outside the house and you see God, but you see God today in a way that's so eclipses what you saw the day before that it's as though you never saw him and you are filled with such ecstasy and joy that far surpasses the first day that you have to be strengthened with even greater strength so that it doesn't drive you mad and you live in the light of that glorious revelation filled with joy, unspeakable.

And then you go to bed and you get up and do it over and over again. You see, eternal life. When you get saved, eternal life starts because eternal life is knowing God. And so when you're saved, why are you saved?

You are saved to track down, to trace down, to chase down. And the more you see of him, the more you are transformed and the more your joy is complete and you keep chasing that vision and chasing that vision.

The neat thing about it, though, is God is infinite. This will go on forever when you have spent an eternity of eternities in heaven. You will not even have begun to know God or experience the joy, the ecstasy that he has for you.

That's a pretty good future. That's a pretty good future, chase hard after God, chase hard. Now, the first, John, I promise I'm not going to stray, my wife says that someone needs to put an electrode in my head and every time I stray, she'll just zap it with a button.

This is why I got such bad grades in preaching class. But first, John, chapter five, verse 13, these things I have written to you, believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Now, there's a series of tests in first John, and I want to look at them with you. We're not going to go through all of them, but we are going to go through some. Let's start in first John, chapter one, verse five.

This is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Now, when it says God is light, immediately you're thinking God is holy, God is without sin and all that is true and all that is found in this passage.

But there's something else I want you to say. These false teachers believed that God was esoteric. That means that he was dark and hidden and you couldn't really know him or know his will without some secret knowledge that they had.

And what John is saying is saying, no, no, God is not dark, he's not hidden, not esoteric, he's not running from you, God has revealed himself to us in the person of Christ, and he's basically saying to them, look, God has told us who he is and he has told us what his will is.

OK, now, verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with him, that means if we say we are Christian. He's not talking about spirit, so-called spiritual and carnal Christians here now, if we say we have fellowship with him, if we say we are Christians and yet we walk in the darkness, we lie when we say we are Christians and do not practice the truth now.

But if verse seven, we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of his, the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin. Now, what is this saying?

First of all, let's look at the word walk. Peripateo means to walk, walk around. Another thing I want you to understand is that verb is in present tense in the Greek, which which indicates a continuous action.

He's talking here about a style of life, OK? Now, what do I mean by style of life, if let's say that and I couldn't believe this would be possible, let's say that you don't like me. And so you say, I'm going to prove to you that that guy is a sinner.

So you get like a Nikon camera, just the snapshot, you know, Nikon camera, not a video camera, and you just follow me around. You're just waiting behind every bush one day, I come out of my house and there's a cat there.

I don't like cats and you see me go like this. Goodbye, kitty. Now I'm going to have all the kitty lovers hating me on YouTube. And the moment I do that, you snap a picture, bam, and then you come to the conference next year and you blow it up.

Me kicking the cat and you say, look, Paul Washer in sin. Well, if it had been a dog, it would have been sin. But with a cat, I'm not so sure. Now, please understand, I'm just kidding. I love all animals.

I have enough trouble. Why did I do that? But you take a picture of me and you blow it up and you say, look, Paul Washer's lost. He's not walking in the light. But you see, that's not that's not very accurate.

That's not my style of life. You caught me at one moment in time when I sinned. Now, what would be more accurate is if you took a video camera and you followed me around for an entire year, 24 hours a day.

Then you would be able to see my style of life. Now, what are you saying here, young person? Now, look at this. This is so important and so brilliant. The Holy Spirit in saying what he says, he says in verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with him, if we say we are Christian and yes, we walk in the darkness.

What does that mean? Our style of life, the way we live, not just a moment in time or a week or a month, but you look at our entire life after our so-called profession and you look at our style of life after we claim to know Jesus, you see that we are living in a way that contradicts what God has told us about his nature, his person, about who he is and what he has told us about his will.

Your life contradicts what God's told us about himself. Your life contradicts God's law, God's will, the things written in Scripture. He says, if your style of life, your manner of living over a period of time is a direct and constant contradiction of what God has told us about himself and his will, you're lying when you say you're a Christian.

Do you see that now? That's the first test. The first test is this, the true Christian. Will walk or have a style of life that is inclined towards an agreement with conform to what God has told us about himself and what God has revealed to us about his will.

Now, let's go to the next test. Verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and his truth is not in us, if we say we have no sin, we're not Christian, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. This is also so wise because look, look at the first test. I told you that the evidence that you are Christian is that your style of life is in agreement with what God told us about himself and what God told us about his will.