Paul Washer - Do you see God working on your life?

it is a great privilege for me to be here with you this evening a tremendous privilege before I get started the pastor has asked me to introduce myself my name is paul Washer and and i need some help with the microphone my name is paul Washer and i serve with the heartcry Missionary Society which we support indigenous missionaries around the world in South America in Europe Eastern Europe Africa Asia the Middle East God has helped us greatly in doing this work of preaching the gospel among the nations I'm also married I'm married to a citizen of Spain who lived most of her life in South America her name is Charo and I have two boys Ian who is nine years old and Evan who is seven and then I have a daughter who is three years old and also the most beautiful girl in the world she takes after her mother and again it is a tremendous privilege for me to be here and to address you and to address you with the gospel of Jesus Christ now before we get started let me say a few things a few things that are very important there are people in this room right now who if they die will be translated into heaven and they will bear upon themselves a glory unspeakable and there are other people in this room right now who if they die will be sent by the judgment of God straight into where the grace of God is totally removed and they will be revealed as the monsters that they truly are you see those of us who preached the gospel we are not here to entertain you we are not here to talk to you about temporal things about how you can get the best that you can get out of this present life no I am NOT concerned tonight about your self-esteem I am not concerned about whether or not your billfold and your checkbook balanced themselves out I'm concerned about one thing one day each and every one of you will stand naked before a holy God and you will be judged that is my great concern this is not a game this is not something that has to do with culture Western or Eastern this has to do with the word of the Living God the gospel of Jesus Christ life and death heaven and hell and it is an amazing burden for a preacher to stand before a group of people knowing that some of you will hear my voice and go to heaven when you die and others of you will hear warning after warning after warning and you will not listen and you will die under the wrath of God and spend eternity in hell that is why it is such a difficult thing to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ now before I take my text I want to say one other thing I am particularly burdened for the young people who are here many of you who are older you know what it's like to follow Christ you know what it's like to pay dearly for your faith you know what it's like to suffer you would rather die than deny Jesus Christ or live in a way that contradicts his word but young people listen to me many of you were raised here many of you were born in the West and you need to be very very careful this Christianity is not a cultural thing this Christianity is is not something that just should be a small part of your life it is not something that you do on Sunday Christianity is not about you living in the world six days a week and coming to church Christianity is not about you being just like the world all the time and then coming to church on Sunday if that is your Christianity you have no Christianity you are not Christian it is a dangerous thing to be raised in a Christian family it is a dangerous thing to be raised in a Christian community because you may think that somehow because your parents are Christian you are Christian or because you come from a group of people who have suffered that you to participate in that glory that is not true young people let me ask you a question how do you know that your Christian how do you know that you have truly come to know Christ how do you know that if you died right now you would go to heaven and be accepted by God Almighty before his throne how do you know you say well it's all of grace yes it is all of grace we are not saved by works we are saved by grace we are saved by believing the promises of the gospel that is true but what you need to understand is grace is a powerful thing that he who has given you grace to repent and believe gives you grace to continue repenting and to continue believing he who gives you grace to believe unto justification also will give you grace for your sanctification that you might grow in holiness as a matter of fact listen to me one of the greatest evidences that you have truly believed in Christ unto salvation is that God has begun a good work of sanctification in you he works and works and works to make you holy now let me ask you is that a reality in your life young choir behind me let me ask you a question you sing beautifully but can you honestly tell me that your great desire is to be holy can you honestly tell me that your great desire is not to be like the world to not be like what you see here in the West in many other places but to be like Jesus Christ can you tell me that because if you cannot you should be afraid you should be very afraid those who love the world do not have the love of the Father now we're going to take a passage tonight in the Old Testament and we're going to look at that passage it's a new covenant promise it's found in the Book of Ezekiel let's go there Ezekiel 36 let's read the passage ezekiel chapter 36 verse 22 therefore say to the house of israel thus says the lord god it is not for your sake o house of israel that I am about to act but for my Holy Name which you have profaned among the nations where you went I will vindicate the holiness of my great name which has been profaned among the nations which you have profaned in their midst then the nations will know that I am the Lord declares the Lord God when I prove myself holy among you in their sight for I will take you from the nations gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols moreover I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances now we're going to look at this text as I said it's a new covenant promise what does that mean in the Old Testament particularly in the prophets we can see glimpses of the future where God promises that through the coming of the Messiah he is going to do a great work in which he is going to create a new people and this new people would be different than the nation of Israel because the law of God would not be on external tablets but would be written on their heart that they would not just be a nation under the blood of Abraham but they would be a nation of the faith of Abraham they would truly believe God and they would truly be transformed by his power by the work of the spirit now we can look at this passage and see many characteristics of what it means to truly be a believer in Jesus Christ and I want you to look at the things that are here and I want you to ask yourself this question are these realities in my life in this passage God is going to tell us what he is going to do in the life of every true believer you need to ask yourself are these realities in me or am i a false believer can I honestly see God doing these things in me well let's begin in verse 22 and verse 23 we see something very very important here God tells Israel Israel I'm going to save you but this is what's very interesting he says I'm not going to do it because of you now this is very very important God's motive for saving people is not found in that people the Bible says that all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God when the holy God looks at sinful men the only thing their sin motivates God to do is judge them to condemn them so if God is going to save men it is not because of men it is in spite of men God does not save us because we deserve to be saved God saves us because he is a savior God does not love us because we deserve to be loved we do not deserve the love of God we deserve his wrath God saves us because he himself is loved now another thing that we notice in these neck in these two verses verses 22 and 23 is that God says two things I'm going to save you for my own name I'm going to save you for my own glory why has God done this great work of salvation is it because man deserves it no then why has he done it first of all God saves men in order to get glory out of that work he says I'm going to go down and I am going to save men and I am not only going to justify them but I am going to change them and transform them and show my power in them to such a degree that the world is going to look on and praise me for the power that is demonstrated in my people and he goes on and he says this he says I'm going to do it in verse 23 to demonstrate my power so that the nations will know that I am the Lord now this is very important very important in America in typical American contemporary evangelicalism what do we have I'll tell you what we have we have a great majority of the people in America claiming to be Christian and they live like devils but because they claim to be Christian and they identify themselves with Christ and yet live like Devils God's name is not praised because of them God's name is blaspheme because of them but the question comes down does everybody in America who says their Christian are they Christian absolutely not jesus said you will know them by their fruits and herein is the problem when a church lowers the standard of the gospel in order to get more people to come in when a church does not preach on holiness and what it means to be truly converted then Christianity and the church fills up with a lot of ungodly people and because of their actions the unbelieving world blasphemes the name of God but what we need to understand is that the people who claim to know Christ and yet live in a way that contradict the word of Christ in the character of Christ they are Christiaan we are saved by faith alone we are not saved by works but what you need to understand is that a person who has been truly saved has been born again they have become a new creature God has done a tremendous work in them to demonstrate his power he has made them into new creatures with new affections new desires to serve Christ and to be holy has he done that to you let me ask you a question do you look at the world and long to be like the world act like the world talk like the world dress like the world have the world's respect in the world's esteem if you're that way you ought to be terrified because that just could be evidence that God has not done a work in you if God's power can not be seen in your life leading you to greater and greater holiness then maybe there is no power of God in your life that he has not regenerated your heart you are not born again you are not a Christian because he says I am going to save people why to demonstrate to the world how powerful I am not only in saving their souls but in transforming their lives is God transforming your life Christians are not sinless Christians are not perfect Christians will struggle with sin and Christians can even fall but in the midst of that weakness it will be evident that God is working God is teaching God is disciplining and God is bringing them to greater and greater heights of Christian maturity and holiness is that you since you professed faith in Christ are your desires for Christ growing are your desires for holiness growing is God's power in transforming your life evidence are you become less and less like the world and more and more like Christ or are you becoming more and more like the world now he says something very important here in verses in verse 24 he says and I will take you from the nation's gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land now this is very important God when he saves a people he says I am going to take them out of their land I am going to take them out of the nations and I am going to bring them into a land that I have prepared for them now that is a wonderful illustration of true holiness when God truly saves a person what does he do he begins to work in them with what purpose to pull them out of the world to pull them out of worldliness to pull them out of sin and to bring them to himself now let me ask you a question is that obvious in your life do you see God working in your life to get more and more of the world out of you and is God drawing you more and more to himself and conformity to his image now let's talk for a moment about holiness this is very important the Bible says in the book of Hebrews without sanctification without holiness no one will see the Lord and what that means is this if you have truly believed in Christ unto salvation then God will be working in you to make you holy if there is no evidence that God is working in you to make you holy there is a good chance that you have not truly been converted holiness what is it the word comes from a hebrew word which at its root means to cut to cut now my wife she loves to cook and she has this large cooking table and she'll put carrots on that table and celery and other things and she'll take a sharp knife and she'll begun to cut very quickly and as she cuts the carrots or cuts the celery and a big pile of pieces of carrots and celery grow up here she takes the knife and she not only cuts the celery or the carrot but she also pushes it away and separates it from the rest of the bunch and she keeps cutting and separating cutting and separating that's what God means when he's talking about holiness when God saves a person he is cutting them off from what from the world what is the world everything in on this planet every idea every thought every word every action that contradicts God's will and God's nature everything on this earth that opposes God when God truly saves a person he cuts them off from that and he begins to separate them little by little changing their life getting the worldliness out of their life and drawing them unto himself now there's two aspects of holiness that's very very important one of them holiness means to be separated from the world Christian one of the purposes of the Scriptures is to teach us what God hates so that we will run away from it make no mistake there can be no friendship with God in the world and between the believer there can be no friendship between the believer and the world if God is truly working in you he is going to use his word and the power of his spirit to do what to reveal to you what is wrong in this world and to draw you away from it but holiness is not only ceasing to do what is evil but holiness is primarily running to God to be devoted to God to grow each day year after year in a greater and greater devotion to God now you can't have both things you cannot when I teach my little children each of them when I taught them how to walk I can remember all of them they would pull themselves up on their two feet holding on to a chair and then they would reach out for their dad and as they reached out for me I would take a step back and they would strain holding on to the chair and trying to grab me at the same time but I wouldn't let them do it I wanted them to see that if they're going to have me they're going to have to let go of the chair that's a good illustration of holiness if you want God you're going to have to let go of the world and if you do not want to let go of the world because you love the world then know this the love of the father is not in you young people I know how deadly my culture is I know what it's done to my own people I've seen the West go into Eastern Europe and destroy churches you are in a very deadly place you live in a land full of all kinds of things that glitter but they're not gold you live in a land full of all kinds of promises that are lies you live in a land that will do everything in its power to turn you away from Christ but you live in a land that tells you you can have God and the world too you live in a land that tells you you can love the world and love Christ and I want you to know it is a lie it is a lie do not think I'm trying to be angry do not think I'm trying to have a mean spirit I am saying this to save you from the monster that has killed more people than any political tyrant that has ever ruled this land in this planet if you love the world be afraid because that could just be an evidence God has never worked in you you have never believed under salvation you have never truly been converted because if he truly saves you he who began a good work in you will finish it and why do we know that this is a very important truth because his reputation is on the line remember God saves people to demonstrate how powerful he is and so if he begins a work in you he will finish it to demonstrate his power let me give you an illustration when Israel was coming out of Egypt they committed many sins against God and God tested Moses he said this Moses get out of the way I'm going to destroy this people and I will make a people out of you and this is Moses intercession he said this no Lord if you destroy this people then your enemies will say that although you were strong enough powerful enough to bring them out of the land of Egypt you were not powerful enough to bring them into the land you promised them you see what Moses is doing he's concerned about God's reputation I'm concerned about God's reputation here today I want you to know that if God has brought you brought you from the condemnation of sin if he has truly saved you if he has truly justified you then the evidence of that is he will continue working in you to transform you why because every Christian is a demonstration of God's power he is going to finish the work he has begun because his reputation depends upon it that's why Paul warned in the book of Romans he said that the name of God was blaspheme among the Gentiles because of the Jews who identified themselves with God and yet did not live according to God's commands in the same way many nations of this world mock this nation that we are in at this moment the United States of America and one of the reasons why they mock it is because they say America claims to be a Christian nation and yet almost every abomination that contaminates the world comes out of the United States every moral filth almost has its beginning here so you see the name of God is blasphemed among the nation's because so many people in America believe themselves Christians when they live like Devils but that in itself is evidence that they have not come to know God but you see we're not talking though about a multitude of people we're talking about you can you say can you prove that since the moment of your conversion there is evidence that God is working in your life to make you holy can you see that can you tell me that you are truly a Christian because when you look at the world and it maybe deceives you and draws you to it that God comes and disciplines you but when you participate in sin you can't stand it because the Holy Spirit is so convicting you or can you simply call yourself Christian and yet look like the world act like the world talk like the world dress like the world do everything the world does now I want you to look at something here that's very important about your salvation our salvation is the work of God although there is a human element in it and there is a great misty mystery regarding the will of man and the will of God we do know this salvation is primarily a work of God and he who begins the good work will finish it now look at our text in verse 24 I want to accentuate I want to emphasize the personal pronoun I that refers to God listen to what it says for I God speaking I will take them from the nation's I will gather you into your own lands I will bring you into your own land I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean I will cleanse you from all your filthiness I will cleanse you from all your your idols I will put a new heart within you I will put a new spirit within you I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh I will give you a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes do you see what God is saying he's saying I'm going to do a work of salvation I am going to create a new people called the church and I am going to do it and it is going to 6 seed and throughs it's succeeding it is going to prove to the nation's how powerful I am so if God saves a person he's going to do these things in the life of that person is he doing these things in your life and what are these things first of all he's going to work to make you holy he's going to little by little remove from you your desire and your fellowship with the world and he's going to replace that with a desire and a fellowship with Christ is he doing that since you're supposed conversion are you growing in your devotion to God and your love for Christ are you growing in holiness or are you the same person that you were when you began do you still love the world do you still want to be like the world now let's go to verse 25 he says then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols one of the things that the Lord will do when he has truly saved a person is again he will begin to do a work of cleansing them the moment we believe in Jesus Christ we are justified and we are right with God through faith but if we have truly believed God is going to begin to do a lifetime work of sanctification in us of changing us of cleansing us from all our filthiness and from all our idols and I want you to know something he can do it he can do it he is sovereign over the believer and he can work in that believers life to make that believer clean - cause that believer to grow in holiness let me give you an example when I was a little boy I was raised on a farm and I don't know if any of you living here in California has ever been raised on a farm but the one thing about boys who are raised on a farm is that they are always dirty always and I was the dirtiest of all of them everywhere I had a crack or a crease or a crevice there was dirt because I was always playing in the fields working in the fields with my father just a farm boy always dirty one time when I was about 9 or 10 years old I came into the house late at night having been in the fields all day I was very tired and my mother said Paul you need to take a bath and of course I was 9 or 10 years old I was becoming a man and I told my mom mom I don't think I'm gonna take a bath tonight all of a sudden the entire face of my mother changed and my mother looked at me and I still can see the picture of her face and it still terrifies me she looked at me and she said you will take a bath so I said ok I'll take a bath so I go in there I open up the water a little bit just a few drops because boys who live on farms they love to swim in the river and everything but they're afraid of water that's in a bathtub I don't know why so I turned on the water and a few drops came out and I did like this and then I grabbed my mother's white towel and I dried myself off and now the towel was black and everything was going along just fine until my mom walked in the door and my mother looked at me and she turned that water on and she grabbed me by the back of the neck they were allowed to do that back then she grabbed me by the back of the neck and she stuck me down in that water thought I was gonna drown and my mother was a woman who worked most of her life on the farm her hands were like metal files and she grabbed me and started scrubbing and scrubbing and when I came out of that bathtub I was glowing with the Shekinah glory of God I had lost at least three layers of skin but I was clean now I want you to think about something is my mother more powerful than God some preachers I think would say yes but the Bible says no God says I will sprinkle clean water on you and notice what he says you will be clean you will be clean one of the problems in the West is we have no concept anymore of a father's Authority I see father's begging their children we have no concept of parental authority and therefore we cannot understand the work of God in the heart of a man God looks at his children and he says you will be clean furthermore he says this now we can do this the easy way or we can do this the easy way because for me both ways are easy he says God will clean his people and one of the greatest evidences that you have become a part of his people is that you cannot escape him he will work in you to cleanse you now I want us to look he says I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols if I were to describe my Christian life I would have to say this is one of the best verses to describe my life I have been walking with the Lord for around 28 years and in those 28 years I have seen God's loving hand of discipline teaching me putting me through trials chastising me when I had gone the wrong way I could see from almost the moment of my conversion that I had entered into a relationship with God that I could not escape he had become my father and he is a very diligent father he makes sure that his children do not run wild let me give you an example let's say that I was your pastor and I came home one night with my wife at let's say 12:00 at night I was preaching somewhere very late and I as I was driving home I went by a street corner and I saw your daughter that was 14 years old standing on that street corner with a whole bunch of very bad young people as the pastor and since my wife is in the car I would pull up to the street corner and I'd say girl get in the car I'm taking you home but here's what you need to understand I wouldn't be angry as a pastor with the little girl but I would be angry with her father if he was a member of the church I would go to him and I would say what kind of derelict father are you how could you so neglect your children that you would allow them to be out on the streets running wild without your care and your discipline do you honestly think that God is a derelict father that God has all these children in America he allows them to live in heresy he allows them to follow every sort of lie he allows them to live in sin and in every manner every sort of way that contradicts his nature do you think God is that neglectful of his children absolutely not one of the evidences young people that you truly belong to God that he truly is your father is that he is involved in your life to make you clean I'll use another illustration from my life as a boy my mother told me it was the first day of school and she told me this she she had bought new clothes for me to wear to school and she told me she said after school don't get in a fight and tear your clothes up and don't go down to that that river where you always play and get muddy where those were my two favorite things to do at school well I did exactly what she told me not to do and I knew that I was going to be in trouble a lot of trouble so I always had kind of the mind of a lawyer so I told two of my friends John and Rance I said will you guys go home with me and they said sure because they were just as dirty and their clothes were just as tore up as mine so we're getting near my home and my mother looks out the window fire coming out of her eyes and my mother I knew I knew that my life was over at that point and quickly I thought now mom before you get mad let me just tell you this rants and John they also got dirty and tore their clothes up and then she said something that really taught me some good theology this is what she said rants and John are not my children you are my child I have nothing to do with them but I have everything to do with you now go upstairs say your prayers and prepare to die now do you see what's going on here my mother had a claim on me my father had a claim on me I belong to them I was their child in the same way if you have truly been converted God has a claim on you you belong to him he is going to change you for his own glory and he is going to change you because he loves you he is not going to let you stay the way that you were and he has the power to change you he is a sovereign father I want us to hold our place in Ezekiel and just go to Hebrews for a moment chapter 12 look at verse 5 of chapter 12 of the book of Hebrews he says and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons my son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by him for those whom the Lord loves he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives and then he says it is for discipline that you endure God deals with you as with sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline now listen to verse 8 here is the warning but if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers then you are illegitimate children and not sons if you can live in sin live in the world with all your worldly friends doing all your worldly things and you can get away with it and there's no conviction of the Spirit there's no discipline from God it is evidence that you are an illegitimate child you are not truly a child of God if you love the sensuality of the world and you love all its boasting it's pride of the eyes and it's it's boasting in the flesh and all the things that glitters in this world and you can participate in it without the discipline of the Father it is because the father is not your father now back to Ezekiel I want you to think about this there is a passage in the scriptures that says this Jacob I loved Esau I hated now we have to ask ourselves a question how did God manifest his love toward Jacob and how did he manifest his hatred or wrath toward Esau this is very very helpful to understand this will help you understand something about God being your father if you look at Esau's life God fulfilled every promise he made regarding Esau he blessed Esau with wealth with power he became a great leader a great nation god blessed Esau so how is it that God's hatred was manifested toward Esau God never disciplined Esau he let Esau be Esau he never intervened in Esau's life he never worked to make esau holy he just cut the rope and let Esau go and live exactly like Esau wanted to live now how did God manifest his love toward Jacob he beat Jacob every day of his life look at Jacob he would not allow Jacob to continue on his Jacob Jacob was the deceiver but when Jacob become a son God said Jacob it's gonna take a while but I'm gonna change you from a deceiver into a prince and you look at the life of Jacob the trials he suffered the things that he went through so that when he entered into the promised land once again he entered in limping he entered in limping why because here's what you need to understand especially in America the goal of God and your life is not prosperity it's not health it's not wealth and it's most certainly not your best life now God's goal if you belong to him as a child is to make you holy to conform you to the image of Christ he will cleanse you from your filthiness he will cleanse you from your idols and he will be very zealous in doing that he will do anything that is necessary to make you conformed to the image of his son is he doing that in your life is he let's go on how is God going to change us it is not merely by external discipline how else does he change us look in verse 26 this is one of the most if not the greatest illustration an example of what it means to be born again this is a phenomenal illustration now before we go to it let's step back and look at something in America being born again or the doctrine of regeneration has been totally and completely lost regeneration is the super natural work of God whereby by the Spirit of God he recreates a man if anyone be in Christ he is a new creature do you see that the Bible says that God created the world ex nihilo are out of nothing I believe that there is more power of God manifested in the conversion of a man than in the very creation of the universe because as I said he created the universe ex nihilo out of nothing but when he recreates a man and makes him a Christian he takes a mass of radically depraved corruption and turns it into a new creature who will love him so many people today I've been born again they say and you ask them what do you mean by that well I made my decision I prayed that prayer I asked Jesus to come into my heart yes but has your changed has your life changed is it changing are you a new creature or someone who just repeated a Creed and passed through a ritual the evidence that you are truly converted is not that one time in your life you pray to prayer and ask Jesus to come in the evidence that you are converted is that one time in your life you repented of your sins and you continue repenting today the evidence that you're saved is one time you believed unto salvation and you continue believing today the evidence that you're converted is that one time God began a good work in you and he continues working in you today changing your life transforming you by his power look what he says here he says I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh now let's say that I take the biggest man in this building right now and I bring him up here and I make a stone statue out of him and here he is just a statue of stone I can punch him I can pinch him I can kick him I can insult him I can do all kinds of things to him and what is he going to do absolutely nothing he's stone he's dead he's in animate he is unable to respond to stimuli but what if I can snap my fingers and change that stone statue back into a man a man of flesh if I pinch him he's probably going to react and then punch me if I kick him he's going to kick me back do you say I don't care how big you are how strong you here to are here tonight if I reach up behind you and get you under the arm like this and pinch you with all my might you are going to react you are going to respond to that stimuli and that is what God is saying in the supernatural work of salvation this is what God does when a man is born again he takes out his heart of stone a heart that is dead a heart that cannot hear God cannot respond to God and what it knows about God it hates and by the power of the Holy Spirit hovering over that man just like on the day of creation God changes that man's heart from a heart of stone that is dead and cannot respond to a heart of flesh that is living and alive and can respond to divine stimuli now let me ask you a question has God done that to your heart has God done that to your heart can you remember a time in your life where you were just dead to God you didn't care about God you didn't care about his word you didn't care about sin you didn't care about his voice hearing him obeying him following him nothing but then one day everything changed God took out that heart of stone and he put in its place a heart that would respond to him my dear friend when the Apostle Paul says if any man be in Christ he's a new creature he's not just reciting beautiful poetry he's teaching us something that is actually true have you become a new creature have you do you now respond to the voice of God you may be sitting here right now young person all mesmerised by the world looking like the world loving the world acting like the world and you're sitting there going I don't have a clue what he's talking about well then you ought to be afraid and you ought to seek God and you ought to cry out to him Oh God search my heart Oh God if I if I do not know you if all I have is religion but no salvation lord I cry out to you save me change my heart grant me grace help me Lord dear brothers from Slavic lands listen to me it'll only take one generation to lose everything that's how difficult how worldly the place is where you live pray pray for your children children do not believe the lies do not they are deadly if you are saved he says I will take out your heart of stone and I will put in its place a heart of flesh moreover look at verse 27 I will put my spirit within you my dear friend think about this conversion is not just a human decision what happens when you're converted not only does God transform your heart what else does he do he indwells you he puts his spirit within you and look what it says I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances he says when I change your heart and I put my spirit in you you will live a different way it will happen it will and then he says verse 28 and you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers so you will be my people and I will be your God young person teenager college student even those of you are older but my burden here is for the young listen to me can you honestly look at me and say he is my god he is my god I longed to know his will I longed to obey his commands I longed to follow him and be what he wants me to be I am learning and he is teaching me to love what he loves and to hate what he hates can someone look at your life young person not while you're here at church no while you're there in the streets and no one sees you can they look at your life and say that person belongs to God that person is different that person is not like the world that person is changing young person do you desire to meet with God in the morning do you desire to meet with him in the evening do you desire his word do you want to be changed by it young person when you fall into sin does it break your heart and afflict you or do you love it do you relish it let me share with you this to close it's an illustration from Charles Spurgeon it's very powerful I want you to imagine that I have right here absolutely the best food you could possibly could possibly prepare just a gorgeous plate of the most wonderful food imaginable and then over here I have a bucket of garbage slop now I know many of you are from California and are not from the farm but let's say that there was a pig in the back of the church and I told someone let the pig go where's the pig gonna go is it gonna go to this wonderful plate of food absolutely not where's it gonna go it's gonna go to the garbage why is it going to go to the garbage because it's a pig pigs love garbage it's gonna go to the garbage it's gonna stick its head down in that garbage it's going to be unashamed and it is going to eat eat and eat and it is going to love what it's eating now let's say that I have the power with the snap of my fingers to in one second change that pig into a man what's going to happen he's gonna pull his head out of that bucket he's going to throw up what he was eating why because a man cannot eat what a pig eats it's going to make him sick to himself he's going to turn around he's going to see you and he's going to be ashamed now don't be offended but if you're a Christian I just described your conversion all of our conversions we were born and by nature we were sinners we did not want the good food of God we would rather have the sin and the disgrace and the debauchery of this world we ran to it we fed on it we ate it we loved it we desired it but when a person is converted what does God do he changes them into a new creation a new heart recreated in the image of God and true righteousness and true holiness and with that new heart they have new desires and they can no longer stomach the sin of this world and they're ashamed that they ever participated in it and they begin to walk no longer as a sinner but begin to learn to walk as a saint now can a Christian be deceived and put his head back in the bucket yes he can but the moment he takes a bite he knows it's wrong the moment he takes a bite it makes him sick and it will not take long for him to repent of his foolishness and to be ashamed for returning to what he had left is this you has God changed your heart does he continue changing your heart do you long to be free from the filth of this world do you long to be like Christ if you can say yes that is a great evidence that you have been born again to close young person listen to me the things that are presented to you in this culture are more deadly than venom the sensuality the lack of discretion the lack of decency the rebellion the love for money and vice and sex and all the things that this culture throws at you it will kill you the way this culture acts the way this culture talks the way this culture dresses everything about it is wrong don't do this but also understand this if you recognize the cultures wrong and you turn away from it and you think that just by turning away from it you're going to be saved you're wrong turning away from this culture won't save you but turning to Christ turn to Christ and how will you know that you have come to Christ because he will change your heart he will change your heart imagine that I came into town and I was the new pastor and you told me that there's a man who hasn't been in church for five years and that he was over there living in the neighborhood and I needed to go visit him because he was a member of the church and full of sin so I go over and knock on his door and he invites me in and I say brother or sir you haven't been in church for five years and this is what he says he says you're right pastor I just love to play soccer play football do other things on Sunday but but you're right I need to go back to church you're right I need to do that and then I say to him and I hear you've been getting drunk and running around in different taverns and he says you know pastor you're right I love to get drunk and I love taverns but you're right I need to stop doing that and I need to come to church and then I say to him and I understand that you have not been faithful to your life he goes you know what pastor I mean I just can't help myself I love other women but you're right I need to stop it I need to do the right thing and I need to come back to church and so on Sunday he comes back to church and all of you say oh praise the Lord a sheep has come home no he hasn't a goat just entered the building because you know what he's saying this is what he's saying he's saying and young person listen to me this may be you what he is saying is this I need to stop doing all the sinful things that I love with all my heart and start doing all the righteous godly things that I hate and that bore me in order to save my soul that's not Christianity he is not a new creature all we've done is put a wolf in the cage so he can't continue to act like a wolf but he's still a wolf let me ask you honestly young person do you really love this just admit it do you love this world more than Christ you say well don't judge me you don't know what's in my heart I don't have to know what's in your heart I can just look at your life is your life given to the things of this world to its so-called beauty and sensuality and entertainment and all these things so that the Scriptures mean nothing to you fellowship with Christ and prayer mean nothing to you seeking out other believers in the local church to grow in godliness means nothing to you you just come to church on Sunday if that is you be afraid repent of your sins turn to Christ call out to him until you know he has saved you and you know he has changed you and that he continues changing you now I know that I have said a lot of things and I know that I have been very hard but I know my culture I know what it does and I know human nature and I know what the Bible teaches about salvation and everything that I've said I've said because I love you remember how I began this message there are people in this room who will be glorified Saints in heaven and there are people in this room who will be monsters in hell what will you do will you repent will you believe in Christ let's pray

Channel: Denis Gvozdov

Views: 1,114,984

Rating: 4.8146 out of 5

Keywords: Paul, Washer, Evangelism, SCYOA, see, you, your, must, loving, must see, thank you, spirituality, discussion

Id: AXzRXb0fHik

Length: 63min 28sec (3808 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2011