"True Worship and Devotion to Christ" by Paul Washer

please open up your Bible to Romans 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 and 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 what is Paul doing here first of all I want you to see something he is urging men men listen to me preaching is

more than just you doing a fine work of EXA Jesus preaching is more than just you getting the grammar right and communicating truth preaching is more than that preaching is about life and death Heaven and Hell preaching is not just the communicating of truth but it is urging men it is begging men it is pleading with men to take the truth they have been given and to live according to that preaching is an extremely dangerous thing for both the preacher and the hearer it is dangerous ous for the preacher because if he preaches another gospel

he stands condemned if he commits a lesser crime and misinterprets the scripture whatever he builds upon that bad interpretation will be burned on the day of judgment as would hay and stubble so preaching is a dangerous thing for the preacher but it's also a dangerous thing for the hearer every bit of truth that we are given for that truth we are responsible I Le and so be cautious when you preach don't just lay that out there before men and say this is the truth but be like the Apostle Paul who although Apostle demonstrates here a

prophetic and a pastoral heart he urges them he beseeches them he pleads with them schaer's question how then shall we live should be the question that you ask your people every time time you give them a truth how then shall we live you will not be judged for the amount of truth in your head you must tell them but the amount of Truth you have lived with your life sometimes I go and I hear men who boast to be great expository preachers and I feel as though I've just I've just gone through a new testament

introduction they've told me about history and how big the city of colassa is and all sorts of things but I need more than just background I need to hear a voice within a voice I need to hear preaching and when I hear preaching then I need to be urged to act upon it in this day of eloquent men and tellers of jokes and men with Whimsical personalities we need men who have beheld their God we need men who see the weighty matters of Truth and scripture and when they stand up before people they can see

eternity in that man's face they know he is a man who more than being before people is always before God the one thing that so marked Elijah is that he was able to say the god before whom I stand so when you preach when you're going to tell someone truth or what they should do you must plead with them to do it we live in a society a culture that is so superficial that doesn't understand the weightier matters of Eternity in life the importance of a godward life and so when you come to them in

the Pulpit with truth let them know this is serious do you realize that every time time you preach you are going to be to people a smell of death to some and a fragrance of life to others this task that you have been given you're not to be a comedian a narrator or just a teller of stories and you're not just to be a professor you are to be a prophet you are to plead you are to beg men to align themselves with the will of God and we can see this here Paul says I

urge you Brethren sometimes if we're preaching on the streets we may see the Lost multitude before us and we might feel like Whitfield who told the crowd if you will not weep for your own Souls then I will weep for them but as pastors we need to have the same attitude toward our own congregation Paul is not talking here to Lost Rebels or reprobates he's talking to Believers and he says I urge you I urge you some of the old men used to say things like this any conversation in which Christ is not the center

of that conversation is folly that can be taken to an extreme but there's some Sound Advice in that we live in a society that hears truth and as the scriptures say throws it behind their back we live in a society that when even when we meet together as the people of God we're turned away so quickly in our fellowship from Christ to sports we can hear a message preached that that the scribes and kings and Prophets longed for in the days of old we can hear that message preached and Rise Up from our seats and

then go talk about the weather so when you preach you need to communicate to people this is a weighty matter that you must measure and you must live according to this truth that has been given you Paul says I urge you Brethren now what is he urging them to do he says I urge you to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice I've been a Christian I've been a minister for almost 30 years there are so many things that are so easy to give away give away a car give away a home give away

a meal give away 10 all that is outside the body all that can be done while still keeping part of our heart away from God what God is Not Just merely asking of you in a gentlemanly sort of fashion he's not just asking of you he is commanding you that you give him yourself in its entirety one of the purposes of cultivating godliness is cultivating godward that each day as we grow our main occupation is to give more and more of ourselves away to him that is one of the aspects of sanctification it's it's not

just not doing certain things and doing other things but the whole idea is a matter of the heart I want him to have every chamber I want him to have freedom to abide in every place that he might be mine and I might be his that my heart might totally belong to him and if that is the case in the life of the preacher everything else will fall in place everything else will fall in place now notice here very important for our culture for our day he says to offer yourselves to present yourselves now this

this here is not as the Greek Scholars tell us it's not present tense he's not talking about the practice that has become so common in evangelicalism where Believers come every Sunday and rededicate themselves over and over and over and over to God this is a prophetic call this is that prophetic word of how long will you limp between two opinions if Baal is God then serve him if God is God serve him in the church so many times even in our preaching Even in our pastoral work we seem to have become so tolerant that we

give more preference to men and their feelings than we do to God now we must be patient with all men as God is patient with all men but every once in a while the entire congregation and the individual needs to hear this for once and for all stop your limping between two opinions they need to hear that word they need to hear that call this is not some lesser deity following men around as a servant this is God he demands he deserves absolutely every part of us and our people need to know that that God

God is not in this for them primarily he's in it for him for his own glory and to demonstrate his power and anytime the preacher or the people of God are not living according to his word rather than being for his glory through them his name is blasphemed churches need to be warned people need to be warned your activity not only reflects upon you it reflects upon God so so if you are in the world stop it if you are living for yourself cease and turn back to him in Repentance and Faith present yourself even

for us we need to hear this word and some of you who are young need to realize that in your youth you're being carried by Zeal and some of it even might seem spiritual but some of it is just being excited about what's around you and you need to know that when you get older and you get tired and bones hurt in the Years pass you're going to need more than youthful Zeal to cause you to walk with him it's the old Prophet that Strays so often in his heart and you're going to have to

meet with this text at different times throughout your life and you're going to need to hear this prophet call stop it return to him offer him yourself some of you will probably experience great success in the ministry be careful men who experience great great success if they are not careful often begin to see themselves as the spoiled rotten of God that they can get away with things that other people cannot get away with because somehow they're treated differently also they will stop going out to battle and begin to rest because they think they've won enough

victories and they'll car it home when they should be in battle you need to hear this over and over in your life you belong to him and make sure that you are presenting yourself to him now is an interesting thing here also for our day he says this present your bodies that seems strange present your bodies what's being said well at least in our day it has a wonderful application we are a people who have somehow divorced what's inside our hearts from our external actions if you confront someone who is in sin they will often

say this you can't judge a book by its cover you confront someone in sin they'll say yes you are exer observing my external actions but you can't judge my heart you don't know what's inside my heart Paul Paul has put this here as a remedy to this curse to this type of thinking the whole idea in the scripture is that if God has your heart he has your body there wasn't this separation in the scriptures when he says love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength he's not trying to divide

the human psyche it's Hebrew thought of piling one term upon another why to say love the Lord your God with every fiber of your being it's what's meant in the Old Testament warning that he is a jealous God and he desires you with jealousy you belong to him all of you to all of him it is not your life anymore it is not your breath it is not the beating of your heart they're not your ears they're not your eyes they're not your lips they're not your feet they're not your hands they all belong to

him and everything is to be governed by him his nature and his desires that he has revealed in his written word that was the Puritan genius they sought to take every aspect of their life and do what with it conform it to the will of God because that's what slaves do I see so many young Christians today they've got their ears pierced or they've got tattoos on their necks and things like that telling the whole world somehow they're a slave of Christ away with all your stupid external things that tells me nothing about your position

before God but poverty of spirit mourning over sin rejoicing in him glorying in Christ making much of Christ to all those around you that tells me if you're a slave submitting to his will tells me you're a Slave your actions tell me the content of your heart you can study here I'm not a flatterer anyone who knows me knows I'm not but you'll not find a place where you'll be more gospelize than here if you ever had a chance to be so mesmerized by Christ that you would turn yourself over him into entirely it's here

it's here and I'll tell you this student if you cannot run with footmen here how are you going to run with the horses when you get out if you can't be mesmerized with Christ to such an extent that you offer your life to him here how are you going to do it when you're alone in the mission field or in that very tough pastorate it's not just about getting a degree it's about him getting you about you belonging to him offer yourselves to him as a sacrifice it's impossible to speak of sacrifice apart from speaking

of loss of loss have you counted the cost if you're truly going to walk with him there will be great loss there will be death to self there are so many things that will have to be cut out of your life in order that the great things the superior things might be engrafted into your life someone asked me to describe my own Christian Life I would go to Ezekiel 36 I would say that God took out my heart a stone that could not respond to Divine stimuli and in its place he put a heart of

Flesh that can respond to Divine stimuli and then in the Providence of God he has taken me out of the land to put me in his land and that he has spent 30 years cleansing me from all my idolatry and my filthiness and it is costly offer your lives to him in their entirety cultivate that attitude so that as he reveals to you more and more of that which still belongs to you you are ever willing to turn it over to him now here's the question from where does the motivation come to do this sort

of thing because I have found that the obtaining of Truth is not quite as difficult as living out the truth obtained from where does the motivation come to live this this radical sacrificial life unto God and this is what I want to stay on most in the next few minutes that I have he's telling them to give their life away as a living and a holy Sacrifice from where does the motivation come well let's look verse one therefore I urge you Brethren by the mercy IES of God to present your bodies a living and holy

sacrifice what is the motivation the mercies of God what is the motivation for the Christian Life the mercies of God now what does this mean well that's why the preposition therefore is so important Paul is linking this chapter with the chapters that preced it what has he done in the chapters that preced he's described to you the mercies of God now instead of just apply this to your life I want to apply this to your preaching and to the people that the Lord may give you you are constantly be going you are constantly going to

be telling them what they're supposed to do but with that comes the urging and with that comes the responsibility to tell them how to do it you tell your congregation you need to love God more will your sermon be wrecked if someone stands up and says yes pastor we fully agree could you tell us how I mean when you tell someone that they ought to love God more they ought to offer themselves be more willing to offer themselves as a Living Sacrifice and they ask you okay I agree I want that I long for that

but I don't seem to find the power to do it how are you going to respond well Paul gives us the answer here you know if I was if I was laying on the ground here I somehow passed out and I was in my work boots I was at home and I was in my work boots and you saw me laying on the floor and you walked by and you saw me grabbing a hold of my bootstraps and pulling with all my mind as I lay on the ground and you asked what on Earth are

you doing well I'm trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps and you pull out Elementary physics and you show me how that is absolutely impossible that I must be acted upon by some external force in order to pull me off the ground I can't pull myself up well how can you make yourself love God more how can you make yourself more disposed to offering your life as a Living Sacrifice the answer to that question is the primary task of the preacher and what is that the more the TR truly regenerate heart understands about the

nature and works of God specifically revealed in the person and crosswork of Jesus Christ the more their heart is going to be inflamed With Love Now make no mistake you present these things to an unregenerate heart and the more knowledge they hear the more they will hate God but those who are truly Christian a supernatural work of the Spirit has been done to them a work that is far superior and demonstrates more power than the very creation of the world because he created the world EX Niko out of nothing but when he converts a man

he takes a mass of rotten corrupt humanity and turns it into a child of God and that heart and that further work of Providence ensures that the more that child learns about who God is and what God has done for them in Christ Jesus the more their love will be drawn out of their heart their desires for Christ will be inflamed and those desires will have an impact upon their will and drive them to Holiness with joy so what is the main task of the preacher what does Paul do in Romans 1 through 11 he

labors with all his might to do what to ascribe to the church in Rome and to us the mercies of God so that our hearts will be inflamed now I want you to think about this for a moment if I were to go into most even sound biblical Evangelical churches and and do a poll and I were to ask each member how many years have you studied the attributes of God most would say well I don't think we could talk in terms of years I mean what do you mean ask many pastors how many years

have you studied the attributes of God well I I had a I mean in my systematic for one semester I had two weeks in which we are you beginning to see something of a problem what is the greatest knowledge that the preacher can give to the people the knowledge of God I mean after all rich men are not supposed to boast in their wealth strong men in their strength or even wise men in their wisdom and what are we to boast that we know God that we know who he is one of the reasons why

I would submit to you that even converted Hearts seem to be so apathetic today is that there is a lack of the knowledge of God we have become a principle-based many times ethical based type of Christianity instead of the preacher standing up and proclaiming the power and the glory and the superiority of God and the great work he's done in Christ that is your task tell people who God is and that's what Paul does and then what does he do he goes on and he tells them what man is apart from the mercies of God

you see if I give Bill Gates a ham sandwich he is not going to applaud but if I go to many of the places in the third world where we work and I give someone half of that sandwich they will kiss my hands they will run through the neighborhood telling everyone about me you see in order to fully appreciate the nature the person and the work of God on our behalf in Christ we must understand what we were one time a reporter came to me and he was so Furious a Christian reporter he was Furious

he said why did you spend the whole night talking about the radical depravity of the human heart and I said because I want you to love God you don't love God as you ought because you don't know how much you've been forgiven because no one ever told you how radically depraved you are and so Paul labors for three chapters out of 16 and the closest thing we have to a systematic theology in order to set man up to learn to love and appreciate God and then he goes through chapters four and five with this wonderful

message of Grace and salvation through faith and then he gets into seven and8 and talks about how we can even in this life live victoriously he gets 9 10 and 11 and talks about God's faithfulness to his To His People Israel that should promote in US confidence he's the Covenant keeping God and then he comes comes here and says based on everything I just showed you now offer your life is a Living Sacrifice same thing he does in Ephesians chapter 4 that's the division of that book do you realize that first three chapters of Ephesians

in my opinion the deepest Theology and all the scriptures then he comes to four and he says therefore therefore what based on this live your life now young men I appreciate so much all the Resurgence of whatever you want to call it uh more reformed type of Truth more biblical truth the Resurgence of the Puritans the early evangelicals I so appreciate this but young men many young men who are learning these things are not understanding these things because they're marveling in these truths but they're not realizing that these truths call them to lay aside all

the world worldly carnal means of doing Christianity and of planting and edifying churches the more you truly know about the greatness and the power of God the more you're going to lay aside all these silly ideas of church growth and church strategies and getting tattoos and wearing cool glasses and putting on Dawning tight blue jeans you're going to lay all that aside and you're going to realize that the Kingdom of Heaven is not built by little boys playing preacher because they're not willing to do the things that God has commanded in scripture which is this

your weapons of warfare they are the proclamation of Truth intercessory bone jarring prayer and sacrif icial love and if you want some other weapon don't come talk to me about missions all these other things are substitutes for what for men not wanting to deny their flesh and take up the true armaments of God now what kind of men should you be I want to take you to a passage that is always ringing in my ears just hold your place in Romans but I want you to go to job for a moment I'm going to describe

to you what I hope will become your study room I'm going to take you to what I hope is in time appropriate description of your library of the place where you open the word word and the place where you bend your knee in prayer this is the task at least Illustrated of the true preacher the true Prophet verse chapter 28 of job verse one surely there is a mine for silver and a place where they refine gold iron is taken from the dust and copper is smelted from rock man puts an end to Darkness and

to the farthest limit he searches out the Rock in gloom and deep Shadow now Brothers I do not want to enter into some Puritan type of maybe extreme metaphorical preaching but I imagine this self this passage at times is applying to me at 4:30 in the morning putting an end to Darkness going into my study verse four he sinks a shaft from habitation forgotten by foot they hang and swing to and fro far from men they are both alone and in a precarious position as they mine silver and gold when I was first called into

the ministry my preacher who was old school he looked at me and this is what he said he said boy can you be alone and I thought he I thought he meant at first that if if I preach the truth other people won't like me and I'll be alone that's not what he meant what he meant was this well all the other preacher boys are hanging out together singing Kumbaya and playing games will you go be alone with God will you make his habitation your dwelling place where no one else can go and Son it

is precarious it is dangerous you swing to and fro you're there before God almighty studying his word that you might speak it forth to his people a great mantle a great stewardship has been laid upon you carry it out with the greatest of caution the greatest of Joy but the greatest of caution and he goes on he says five the Earth from it comes food and underneath it is turned up as fire its rocks are the source of sapphires and its dust contains gold Alexander Claren the great preacher of of the past he used to

say this about the scriptures even the dust of the book is gold goes on and he says the path no bird of prey knows nor has the Falcon eye caught sight of it the proud Beast have not trodden it nor has the fierce lion passed over it he puts his hand on the Flint he overturns the mountains at the base he hws out channels through the Rock and his eyes see sees anything pre ious he dams up the streams from flowing and what is hidden he brings out to the light do you see how this

applies to you I know he's talking about those who are mining but then job goes on and makes the comparison with the wisdom of God who can know it this is your marvelous task this is your terrible task this must be your Magnificent Obsession that while everyone is warm in their bed you're in the watch night you're alone with God you learn to speak his language you learn to hear his word as you study it you go down into the Mind where no proud man goes you swing to and fro it's dangerous because you get

into the word you see your own heart revealed skin back as a prey that's been hunted and you learn you become something more than just a man you become God's man more than just an Expositor but one who speaks forth God's word it will cost you everything and instead of spending your life trying to figure out every new strategy that comes from some PhD PhD student that's never done Ministry instead of doing that get yourself in your study mind God know God so that when you come out into the pulpit and you open up your

mouth the word of God comes out now in the last few minutes that I have I want to say this as I've walked around this campus and the other I've heard many people talk about this students wow that guy has such an intellect that guy is such a brilliant Greek scholar that guy can so rightly divide absolutely everything that guy is brilliant I hear people talk about Spurgeon I want you to know many people who've written biographies on Spurgeon when they meet Spurgeon in heaven he's going to be very put out with them they talk

about his mind his photographic memory his ability to just walk up and start preaching without any notes without anything impromptu did you know what Spurgeon said the prince of preachers you listen to me because if you do not learn this all the other stuff you learn will not help you much he said I would rather teach one man to pray than teach 10 men to preach now this came from one of the greatest of all preachers when you finish your studies here and again let me iterate not in flattery but out of sincerity of heart

I do not think you could find a better place to study but when you finish your studies here do you think you finished you haven't even started what did you get here all the knowledge of God you didn't even reach the foothills of that Everest you've studied the attributes of God in your Systematic Theology class and I guess that makes you a man of God now in law school one of the things that they will tell you is we will not teach you law here we will teach you how to find the law and how

to apply it here you are here to do what to learn how to study God's word and to learn how to Proclaim it and when you leave this place what do you do you start your journey taking all the tools that have been given to you now you live Job 28 what does this world need we do not need more movers and shakers we do not need more CL clever men we do not need more strategy there is more missionary activity on this planet right now than any time in the history of Christianity and most

of it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors because the task of the missionary is the same task of the pastor and vice versa it is primarily to know God to be before God to study God's word and then to go out and proclaim the word studied to proclaim the god that is known and this cannot be done just by the intellect it must be done in the power of the Holy Spirit do not allow so many false prophets that exist today saying so many rude and blasphemous things against the Holy Spirit do not allow

them to steal your inheritance the only thing you can do young man of any good in the Kingdom of Heaven Is by The Power of the Holy Spirit and you must be men and women of prayer you must be you must be Jesus did not ask you he did not suggest to you that you pray at all times and not lose heart he did not lay that down as a spiritual growth principle he laid it down as a command I beg you to cultivate a life of study I beg you to cultivate a life of

prayer do you not realize that all true men of God are broken they're mosaics they look like they've been strapped together and welded in different parts they look like a stained glass window in which all the glass has been smashed and then patched back together they are men who are broken by God because you see see here's the thing you've got to understand God will work in your life to empty you to break you to show you that you can do absolutely nothing even in your brilliant expositions you can do absolutely nothing unless the spirit

of the Living God is breathing through that place it is the spirit of God when is eel prophesied in that Valley of dried bones it was the wind that gave life what most failed to realize is that the spirit of God is most promised to work among God's ministers when they are lashed down to the gospel when they are giving themselves wholly to just preaching the word but never forget you've done all your ex of Jesus you've studied every book you've looked in every commentary you see that you're Orthodox but if your need are not

scarred do not come to my church I do not want to submit my people to you young men come to me sometimes and they say brother Paul I love the You Preach so passionately and you say things like they are and you're not afraid of men that's the kind of preacher I want to be and I tell them young man lift up your pant leg lift up your pant leg if I see no scars don't you ever open your mouth that way it must be tempered by the spirit of God oh man why play with

Saul's armor why encumbered so foolish you are prophets you wear a mantle you are called to search out the most Superior things and then give them to the people who hear you and you are called upon to do it by the power of the Holy Spirit and none of that will happen unless you are a man of prayer I praise God that I'm weaker than all of you I praise God that I am more needy than all of you I praise God that I can't even tie my shoes or find my own watch in the

morning when I get up it is in weakness your weakness is not your problem the lack of recognizing your weakness is your problem and when you find that weakness do not allow the devil to turn your head and thus you become discouraged but in that weakness cling to Christ I want to say this at the end the man who is used of God is the man who clings tenaciously to Grace clings tenaciously to Christ now in our culture when I say that many of you may be thinking yes these strong men with with self-will these

determined men who've caught a vision and and by By Their Own Strength they're going to accomplish it no that's not what I'm talking about let me share with you something you take the three biggest guys here three biggest ones you've got strongest all of you can take me in you three could probably take me in a fight well I'll be leaving in an ambulance but you could probably take me in a fight but let me say something there's a way in which if I was only 90 lbs I could kill all three of you you

say how put me in the ocean without being able to swim I've gone down twice I have become a cauldron of strength it is weakness it is fear it is knowing that if I do do not grab a hold I am going to die and that let three of you men swim by even on surfboards I will knock you off I will grab you I will drown all three because of my need not because of my strength oh I would pray that you would see your need so that you would grab a hold of the

person of God in Christ that you would depend wholly upon his good spirit that you would see your primary task as mining out the gold of the knowledge of God and of presenting it to God's people with scarred knees what do we need in America what do we need on the mission field it's really simple take all the activity that I see today put it on a boat and ship it to an island where there are no people give me a man who spends the great portion of his morning in the study of God's word

on his knees in prayer and then going out from there every day and proclaiming what he has discovered in the power that he has discovered of preaching Faithfully God's word and ministering with a sacrificial love the darkness is out there that's out there is so terrifyingly great have you ever look down the mouth of evil it'll chew you up in a millisecond you can do nothing against that but in the power of the Holy Spirit lash to the word of God proclaiming it in boldness and living in humility Every Mountain can be lifted up and

cast into the sea do not hide behind the sovereignty of God it is the sovereignty of God that tells us the kingdom can advance the Nations can know so catch that vision and go let's pray father I come before you use this time for the glory of your name and the good of your people in Jesus name amen