Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Announcer: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In Psalm 90, Moses wrote, "From everlasting to everlasting, you are God." He compares God's eternality to our short spans of life, reminding us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. For this and other good advice, stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, Erwin Lutzer continues a series on the mysteries of God. Now, join us again for the eternality of God.

Turn to Psalm 90.

Unidentified Speaker: Doesn't it say here somewhere that we have a number of different days, and if by reason of strength we actually have 80? I'm not seeing it right here, but I read it last night. I know that it's here in the text, where it speaks about the fact that, oh yes, verse 10, the years of our life are 70. Thank God that not everybody dies at 70. Or even by reason of strength, 80. And then sometimes you have people like my father who died at 106 and my mother at 103, so they kind of, we were kind of thinking they were going to blow this idea that everybody dies, but they did. My sister-in-law died in Canada last week.

She was 75, so maybe we'll live to 80, but then it's gone. So he talks about the fact that our life is fleeting, our life is sinful. This is verse 8. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Oh, you say, I've got all these secrets, and who of us has not sinned secretly? We all have, and to God, we're sinning in broad daylight. Our secret sins are set in the light of his countenance, in the light of his knowledge, and some people think that they're kind of hiding from God. Are you kidding me? Our life is sinful, and we need an answer to that sin, and thank God, God supplies it.

So that's why it's so important to hear this message from beginning to end. And then he says, life is full of trouble. I'm now looking at verse 10. The years of our life are 70, and if by reason of strength 80, they are soon gone away, and there's toil and trouble. There is but toil and trouble, it says in verse 10, and isn't there? Moses is saying it's all futile. I mean, you live 80 years maybe, maybe a little bit beyond that. Most people live around that. Many people live less. And to what end? You know, you've got financial problems, you've got relational problems, you've got health issues.

You try one thing and the door is closed, and you try another thing and you can't make any advances toward the place that you're going, and you just sort of say, what is the use of life anyway? And then you begin a project and you can't finish it. Raphael, great painter of the Renaissance, was working on a beautiful painting that can be seen today called The Transfiguration. But while he was working on it, he unexpectedly died at the age of 37, and when his coffin was taken through the streets of Rome, they took that picture along with it and then put it next to the coffin. The unfinished picture was to remind people that oftentimes we leave life and our task seems to be unfinished.

I mean, think of the futility of life. I mean, he dies at the age of 37. There are criminals who live to the age of 80 or 90, maybe. I mean, there are young people who die, aimlessly sometimes, sometimes because of their own sin, but what is the purpose of life anyway? Well, this psalm is going to provide the answer. You just need to stick here with me for a moment. Camus, the great French existential philosopher, began one of his books by saying, there is only one serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. What Camus was saying, with which we would all agree, is that if you cannot find meaning in life, if it's all like a vapor, if it's all just being turned back into dust, if it's leaving life with unfinished tasks at the most inappropriate times, if that's all that it is, why live?

Let's look at this psalm again, and maybe we can find an answer to why live. Maybe a answer that some of you really need to hear today. First of all, it's very clear that God gives unity to history. There is sense to it. I'm back in verse 1, where it says in verse 1, Lord, you have been our dwelling place from generation to generation. God unifies history. It is not true, like Henry Ford says, that history is one blank thing after another, and he filled in the blank. God brings unity to what is happening in the world from one generation to another. Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, but God is there.

Ministries are birthed, and sometimes they die, and God is there. One generation leaves like grass, and then another crop of grass grows, and there's another generation. You've heard me say, and I was inspired to say this by a pastor, that to me, a previous pastor of Moody Church, to me, it gives me so much joy to know that the same God who converted the Apostle Paul on the way to Damascus is the same God who converted D. L. Moody and Billy Graham. It's the same God who came to me on a farm in Canada and converted me when I was a boy, and the same God who has converted you and future generations that are yet unborn.

God is already planning to choose those generations and people from those generations to continue his work. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. That's the bedrock of it all. But we look at the text and we find also that God gives purpose to life. And I want you to see this here in verse, in the following verses by just underlining some of the words that he uses as he ends this psalm that give him encouragement. For example, verse 14, it says, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love. Well, that begins the process of meaning, if God loves me and if I find God satisfying. And certainly in this series of messages, I hope that we will find God to be eminently satisfying.

I think it was C. S. Lewis who said that God is the all-satisfying object. And you remember the words of Augustine on the first page of his Confessions, "O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their all in thee." You see, what has happened is God puts eternity into our heart, and yet we can't experience eternity in this life, so life oftentimes seems futile. But God comes along to satisfy us. He says, "Satisfy us with your steadfast love. Gladness and joy," verse 15, make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us. Again, probably talking about the Israelites wandering in the desert.

The days were 40 years, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Make us glad. Gladness in the midst of evil, gladness in the midst of failure, gladness in the midst of unbelief. Yes, God is that kind of a God. Moses said, make us glad. We've blown it, but come along. Give us hope. And God does that. And not only that, he says in verse 17, let the favor of the Lord be upon us. Can God look upon favor to a generation that rejected him in the desert? Yes, he can, because while they were there in the desert, he was clothing them, he was feeding them, he was winning victories for them. God does not abandon you, even when you may be tempted to abandon God.

He is still there with you. But now we come to the end of the psalm, all too quickly, I might say. And he says, let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands, yes, establish the work of our hands. So, what is the purpose of life when you live and people forget you? If you want to know how long you'll be remembered after you die, an experiment that you might want to do is to put your hand into a pail of water, pull it up, and see how long it takes for the water to cover the hole that your hand left. That's a slight exaggeration, but I've known stories about like that.

And even if we are remembered, we'll be forgotten in a future generation. I mean, it's all temporary. Where do we find the permanence? Where do we find that futility can be changed into meaning and so forth? We find it because God establishes our works. Now what we have to do is to go back to the beginning of the sermon. I told you that God exists in this eternal now. I don't know a single teacher, even the name of a single Sunday school teacher who taught Sunday school in this church a hundred years ago. And this church, as you know, has existed for 150 years, but I don't know them. are there people who remember them?

Did they write something? Probably not. They were dealing with kids just like we deal with them and did their best in teaching them the God's word, but they've passed away. But God has established their works, and those works are as present to God as what we did for God this morning. They are all there. He doesn't have to recall them because he instantly knows them, and he sees everything that they have done so that Jesus can say, even a cup of cold water given in my name, which you probably have forgotten about, I added that phrase, you'll not lose your reward because I've established your works.

You're faithful as a Sunday school teacher, you're faithful in obscurity, in your job, in your vocation, you are living for Christ in the midst of an environment that is hostile, and you are representing Jesus well. God takes note and he establishes those works, and they will meet you after you die.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer, and speaking of works that meet us after we die, I have a very special offer for you. Today is the last day we're making available for you a book entitled 1 2 3 Jesus Loves Me. It's written by my wife Rebecca. It's written, of course, for children. It's hardback, beautifully illustrated. It will be a wonderful gift for you to pass along, and in doing that, you are helping pass the faith to the next generation. Imagine teaching children to count and to be introduced to Jesus at the same time. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you. Of course, I've probably already emphasized that it would be a great Christmas gift for your children, for your grandchildren, for your great-grandchildren, or for other people's children.

It's a gift that they will remember, a gift that they will cherish.

Announcer: Erwin Lutzer with more of The Eternality of God, the first in an eight-part series on the mysteries of God. Next time, how to hang on during our brief spans of life. Our children need to know who Jesus is. Rebecca Lutzer has written a book with 10 stories from the life of Jesus, and it's called 1, 2, 3, Jesus Loves Me. We'd like you and your kids to have this hardcover book as our thank you for your gift of any amount to support Running to Win. For details, call 1 800 215 5001. Online, go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. or write to us at Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.

Ask about 123 Jesus Loves Me. Running to Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.