Paul Washer “Examine Yourself” Notes
If a work of God does not continue, it never was a work of God. If you examine yourself and fall short, throw yourself onto the mercy of God. Do not listen to your heart about your salvation, listen to the Word of God. Compare your secret life to the Word of God—see if you stand. Don’t compare the one who’s pretty and fixed up and polite to the Word of God, but compare the person you are in your secret life. 1 John: God is light. John was writing against pharisees who were saying that God was dark and hidden, that you couldn’t know God, etc. so when he says God is light, the audience knows exactly what he’s talking about.
Test #1
Vs. 6, “So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness.”
We are raised in a way that if you say you’re a Christian and are living a wicked life, you’re just a “confused” Christian or a lost one. But this verse says that you are lying if you say you’re a Christian but continue to live that way. If we say we are Christian but walk in spiritual darkness, we are lying! Darkness is the opposite of light. If our style of life contradicts everything God has told us about Himself, we are a liar. If the way I am goes against His character, then I am a liar.
Test #2
Vs. 8, “If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.”
A true Christian is sensitive to sin. When was the last time you wept over your sin? Are you sensitive to sin? Does it lead you to confession? Are you sliding into sin? Are doing things you shouldn’t do gradually? If God pulls you back, you’re saved. If you don’t get pulled back, you’re not. Do you tremble at His Word or do you look for loopholes around it? Do you have a new relationship with sin? If you don’t, you don’t have a new relationship with God.
Test #3
Ch. 2 vs. 3-6, “And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments. If someone says, ‘I belong to God,’ but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. But those who obey God’s Word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we really live in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did.”
If we persevere in His commandments, we know that we know Him. What does it mean to live in the truth? It’s a style of life. Living a lifestyle that is marked by a desire to know God’s commandments, to obey them, and brokenness if you didn’t obey. If the work isn’t finished, he didn’t do it. Is your lifestyle marked by a keen interest in God’s commandments, and a desire to obey them? Do you have a new relationship with His Word? His commands? If you don’t, you don’t have a new relationship with Him.
John was the apostle of love, but he called them liars.
Is your greatest desire to walk like Christ? To be like He was? The exam is this: if God was to look at your life, does He see that you want to walk like Him, or that you want to walk like the world?
Test #4
Vs. 9-11, “If a person says, ‘I am living in the light,’ but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves other Christians is living in the light and does not cause anyone to stumble. Anyone who hates a Christian brother or sister is living and walking in darkness. Such a person is lost, having been blinded by the darkness.”
In Peru, unless someone brings you food, you will starve to death in jail. Anybody who brings Paul food has to be a Christian—a love so great you would risk your own life to care for other brothers and sisters in Christ (But according to what Professor David told me, it was more a political issue as opposed to a Christianity issue). Do you love to be with people who love to be with and talk about and worship and serve God? Or do you love to be around people who don’t love God?
Chickens hang with chicken, they don’t hang with pigs. Pigs do their own thing. Do you love other Christians? How many Christians are you serving? How many Christians do you read the Bible with? American Christianity is very shallow. Think about missionaries.
How do you know you love others? You just want to be with them, and talk about Jesus.
Test #5
Vs. 15, “Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world.”
The world is everything that contradicts the Word of God, and God Himself; the Will of God. The television shows you watch can be wicked, music, etc. One of the signs of a Christian is that you are not entrapped by this world, but you follow Christ and you follow hard after Him. The only thing that will remain is the glory of Christ; life is fleeting.
You love listening to the very things that nailed your Savior to the cross? Love the world that nailed Christ to a tree?
Skinned alive vs. can’t even attend church on Sunday—they’re both born again? I think not.
The wealth, glamour, beauty, fashion, etc. will all rot. The older you get, the more the glory of God will be more evident in your life. The one who does the will of God abides forever. Many who were used were called as young children.
Test #6
Vs. 19, “These people left our churches because they never really belonged with us; otherwise, they would have stayed with us. When they left us, it proved that they do not belong with us.”
Once you are in Christianity, you stay in Christianity, because God keeps you.
Test #7
Vs. 22, “And who is the great liar? The one who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Such people are antichrists, for they have denied the Father and the Son.”
The true Christian is going to embrace the fullness of the person of Jesus Christ. American Christianity teaches that you can accept Him as your Savior but not as Lord. True Christians embrace it all—Savior and Lord. Jesus is the only King.
Test #8
Vs. 29, “Since we know that God is always right, we also know that all who do what is right are his children.”
Do you practice righteousness? Are you practicing God’s law, wisdom, precepts and commands? Is it a practice in your life? Or does it have nothing to do with your life? Legalism is death and we are not saved by it—but the Bible does tells us what we can think about and what we cannot think about, what we should and shouldn’t watch, what we can wear and not wear, etc.
If your clothing is a frame for your face, it’s of God. Your face should shine God’s glory the most. If your clothing is a frame for your body, then it’s sensual. The Bible touches every area of our lives. The commandments of God for a real Christian shouldn’t be a burden, but a joy.
Test #9
Ch. 3 vs. 3, “And all who believes this will become pure, just as Christ is pure.”
Not only has God sanctified us in Christ, He calls us to strive to be holy—to sanctify ourselves. Could you share to someone the ways in which you are striving after holiness? How are you striving after holiness? The Bible is your life. We are in Him when we seek to make ourselves pure, when we strive after holiness. Strive.
Test #10
Vs. 4, “Those who sin are opposed to the law of God, for all sin opposes the law of God.”
When we sin, we don’t sin against wordly princes or mayors, we sin against the Lord of Glory. God tells the stars, so huge they could swallow up thousands of us, to move to the other side of the sky, and they do it without question. He tells mountains to move, and they do. He tells the sea to stay on one side of the land, and they do. But he tells us to come, and we say NO! “Look at the vulgarity of sin! It is a beast.” Anyone who practices sin practices outright, fist-clenched rebellion against the Lord of Glory.
Christians will sin, but they will repent, confess their sins and move on to higher Glory. They are different who just continues to live in sin and makes it a habitual lifestyle.
Test #11
Vs. 6-10, “So if we continue to live in Him, we won’t sin either. But those who keep on sinning have never known Him or understood who He was. Dear children, don’t let anyone decieve you about this: When people do what is right, it is because they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows they belong to the Devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy these works of the Devil. Those who have been born into God’s family do not sin, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep sinning, because they have been born of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the Devil. Anyone who does not obey God’s commands and does not love other Christians does not belong to God.”
Test #12
Ch. 5 vs. 12, “So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life.”
American Christianity: You can be Christian, but not have Jesus mean the world to you. Do you love Jesus? Do you the Bible more than you love Jesus? Your life must rest on Christ.
True Christians will live a style of life and a struggle, fight for righteousness. The mere fact that you struggle because you don’t love Him enough is evidence that you’re a believer. The mere fact that you look at your own life and realize that you are not as holy or righteous as you want to be, is proof that you’re a real believer.
This is a warning for those people who live a constant habitual life of sin, those who are not living the right way, and those who love the world.
“Everything you have is dung if Jesus Christ is not the Lord and Savior of your life. He is the source of your life! Not an accessory.”
button
