A Heart and Passion for God - Paul Washer - Sermon Jam

I want to talk to you,

young person.

You've learned doctrines
of sovereign grace.

You read the Puritans.

Congratulations.

I will not lose sleep tonight

because people in the world

lack self-esteem.

I will not lose sleep tonight

because they're not having
their best life now,

or they're not being all
that they can be,

or their checkbook is not balanced.

I will lose sleep tonight,

if I lose sleep tonight,

because men will stand
naked before God

and be cast into hell.

When I preach, and when you preach,

whether here or in the mission field,

you cannot simply think that

you're just a communicator of truth

and you leave it there.

You must preach as a
dying man to dying men.

And I see that in Paul.

There was a passion.

There was an urging.

He wasn't simply satisfied

if he preached well

or communicated truth.

He longed for God to be

honored among men.

And he longed

for men

to be holy,

to be Christlike,

and to be able to rejoice

in the benefit of their great salvation.

We ought to be a people

given to urging our brethren

to greater and greater godliness,

to greater and greater piety,

to abound further and further in love.

He says, "I urge you, brethren."

What is he going to urge them to do?

To do the most difficult, scandalous,

in some cases, some would say,

preposterous thing

a person could ever urge

another person to do.

To give their life away.

Do you know, even the
devil had it right?

In this sense,

you can take away a man's goods,

his houses, his lands,

you can do absolutely anything to him,

but the moment you touch his flesh

is when you're truly going to
test this man.

To give away a car,

a home,

a tithe...

is a small thing.

But to ask a man to
give away his life...

I know there is so much
romantic notion about missions,

but Amy Carmichael,

Elisabeth Elliot's book,

it's right,

missions is only this:

an opportunity to die.

And opportunity to give your life away.

For something much larger than yourself.

Much greater than yourself.

So he is going to ask these people

to do what some would consider

almost cultic,

absurd,

ridiculous,

immoral,

to give their life away,

to offer their life.

Now, you're going to need strong medicine

to motivate a person to something

such as this.

What on earth or in heaven

could ever motivate a man

to give his life away?

I'm going to urge you to

give your life away to God.

To offer it up as a living

and holy sacrifice to God.

Now, I'm going to do so

on the basis of the following:

The first 11 chapters of this book

that outline for you the mercies of God.

And have you decided that you

would submit your life
to those directives?

You see, we talk about
being biblical

in our worship.

Have you gone through Scripture

to discover what God desires
out of worship?

Well, you know, we love
worship this way.

I don't care how you like worship.

Because that's not the point.

What has God said?

You see, in this idea,

we can romance this thing to death.

We can spiritualize it to death.

We can say, oh, I've given my life

to the mission field;

that does not mean at the same time

that you have given your heart to God.

Because you can go to the
mission field and be godless,

and carnal and trite.

You'd be better off joining
National Geographic

than you would a mission agency.

Are you seeking in simplicity

to examine your life?

I'm not talking about finding

legalistic inferences

and forcing them upon yourself.

I'm talking about the great principles

of Scripture dealing in every aspect

of your personal life,

applying them to you,

and seeking to obey them?

Let me ask you a question.

If you go to the mission field,

without taking what I have said

as a serious endeavor,

isn't there the possibility

that the only thing
you're going to do there

after you have crossed land and sea,

is make a convert like yourself

that's nothing more than a
two-fold son of hell?

There isn't a whole lot of
American Christianity,

folks, that needs to be exported.

Unless, like Ravenhill says,

we put it on some kind of a raft,

and send it off to a lone island,

and after it's going away from the dock,

we all sing the doxology.

If we're going to endeavor to
work in missions,

then we must be motivated

by a God that we know.

A Gospel that we know.

And we must be a people

who have endeavored with great force

to examine their lives

in the light of Scripture

and conform their lives

to what Scripture says.

How much of what you have -

even the way you sit in a chair -

is formed by those around you,

and not by Scripture?

Something to think about.

Well, I think if you're going to be
a missionary of any account,

this is what you must do.
Stay in your room.

Not only pray, but study.

So that when you walk out of that room,

you have something to say about God.

And so that you will be able
to walk out of that room.

Listen to me.

I've been there, done that,
got the t-shirt.

You walk out there in all your zeal,

in the middle of the plaza,

and you begin to preach,

and you think as a young missionary

that angels are going
to drop out of heaven,

and the Hallelujah Chorus
is going to be sung,

and millions of people
are going to be converted,

they're going to toss
you on their shoulders

and build a statue of you.

That's not going to happen.

What's going to happen is this:

you're going to go there,
and you're going to preach,

and you're going to preach,

and when a crowd starts listening to you,

somebody somewhere is going to rise up

and call you a demon.

The entire crowd's going to turn on you.

They're going to grab your little pulpit

and your makeshift microphone

and all your little tracts

and they're going to throw
you out on the street.

It's going to take a lot more

than a romantic zeal for missions

to make you get up, pick up your pulpit,

your tracts and walk right back in there

and preach again.

It's going to take a passion for God

that is created out of knowing Him.

And that's the same for

everything in the Christian life.