Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: When Jesus comes to town, revival often follows. People are convicted of sin, restitution is made, and spiritual life flows where it never had before.

Guest (Male): Has Jesus come to your town? If not, would you like him to? Please 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. In our series on following Jesus, we're with Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19, finding out what happens when Jesus comes to town. First of all, there's curiosity, and then confrontation.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Thirdly, there is confession. I wish that we had in this passage of scripture the conversation that Jesus had with Zacchaeus. Wouldn't that be great? But we don't have it. I know what Jesus talked to Zacchaeus about. After they sat down and they had something to eat, Jesus looked him in the eye and said, "Zacchaeus, you are lost. You're lost."

Why did I know that Jesus said that? It says in verse 10, when Christ was defending himself—because everybody said, "Look at that, he's going with this great sinner to eat with him"—when Jesus was defending himself, he said, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost." Zacchaeus was a lost man.

Jesus told him about God's love, and Jesus undoubtedly told him that he had to believe on Christ, the savior of the world, because Christ would soon die on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. Zacchaeus with his open, hungry heart believed. That's why Jesus chose Zacchaeus. There were all kinds of people into whose homes Christ could have gone, and they would have fought him tooth and nail. They would have said, "My heart is my own turf, and I will not let you get through to me."

Jesus chose Zacchaeus because he already had what the ancients called an awakened conscience, a conscience that was sensitive to sin and to God. Zacchaeus got his relationship with the Lord straightened out, and then immediately he begins to think about others, which is always true whenever Jesus comes to town. He says in verse eight, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."

That's amazing. Let me tell you why it's amazing, because in Leviticus 6, it says that if you defraud anyone, if you are an extortioner, you have to pay back what you have defrauded plus one-fifth, 20% more. That was the requirement. Zacchaeus voluntarily says, "Anyone that I have defrauded, I will repay him four times." We don't know where he would get the money from. Maybe he saved an awful lot that he had earned legitimately, but what he was saying is, "I want to make things right with others."

Did you know that is the most obvious characteristic of Jesus coming to town? The reason that the secular press in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan carried a story about the revival was because of the many people who were there making things right. Sears stores all over the country received people going back and saying, "Years ago, I stole something from you, and I'm here to make it right." Employees said, "I cheated on my time cards."

There was a woman who said that she had received some money from an essay in a contest, but she had not written the essay. She tried to track down those who were responsible for it to make things right. I remember speaking to a man who said, "I am a carpenter," and he said, "I built homes with inferior material. And now," he said, "I have to go even to the bank and borrow money. I'm going to every one of them to make things right." He said, "Revival is costing me thousands and thousands of dollars."

I asked him if it was worth it. He said, "It's worth every penny." Just imagine what it is like to finally have the freedom and the joy of the Lord, a sense of absolute confidence that one is fully right with God and fully right with man. Of course, it's worth it. Revival's always worth it. But oh, the price that some people had to pay. The customs agents between Canada and the United States were startled to find so many people coming and saying, "I crossed the border and I lied about the goods that I had."

People were saying, "I'm willing to pay any price. I'm willing to make any sacrifice. Everything is worth fully right with God and man." The Apostle Paul said, "I have a conscience that is right before God and right before man." One of the things that happens in revival is not just making financial restitution, but families being united. Parents who were so judgmental of their children because of the way in which their children dressed.

Young people sometimes like to dress a little differently. Parents would get after them and say, "You can't dress that way. We attend church. You had better behave thus and so." It's not because the parent really loves the child, the parent is saying, "Don't you realize that my reputation is at stake?" For all of these judgmental reasons, there is the tearing of emotions and the breaking down of relationships. There were people who were reconciled right in the aisles of the church during meetings.

Teenagers would go through looking for mom and dad, trying to find them so that they can get right with God and right with their parents. That's what happens when Jesus comes to town. Jesus takes long-standing relationships of bitterness and anger and hatred, and he moves right in. He begins to take over all the closets that people have closed the doors to, and he begins to take charge.

Is it any wonder that some people who prayed for revival rejected it when it came? They said, "We always thought revival meant that God was going to take the people who were sinners and he was going to close the movie houses and the pornography shops, and now suddenly God begins with his very own people." They said it is too uncomfortable to be in the light of a holy God. There's always confrontation and confession.

Fourth, there is conversion. Notice that Jesus said, "Salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham." Christ wasn't saying, "Well, Zacchaeus, now that you've decided to make things right, you have been saved because of that." Believe me, that would be contrary to everything else that Christ taught. It was in that private conversation with Zacchaeus that Zacchaeus understood that there was such a thing as a gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and by faith in Christ.

Now having been changed by the power of God, what he was saying is, "I need to live out my faith." Isn't that your challenge, and isn't it mine? The conversion that says, "I need to live out my faith all the way, no matter what, regardless of the cost." It's the kind of conversion that says, "Oh Lord, I'm willing to give you my mind." One person said, "My mind was just like a drawer full of all kinds of unclean things, and when God really changed me, God just took the drawer and just dumped it upside down, let all that junk fall out."

That's what God wants to do in your life. Those are the kinds of radical changes that God brings about when Jesus comes to town. Finally, there is commission. Notice that Jesus, here defending himself against the criticism of the Pharisees, said, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost." People who in turn become revived spiritually, these people transformed by the power of Christ, suddenly find that they are able to witness of Christ's power.

They begin to seek and to save that which is lost just like the Master did. When Christ comes to town, he takes the lips and the tongues of people that have never been able to share their faith, and suddenly they find, from an overflowing heart, spontaneously it all spills out how great Christ is and what he can do in the lives of people who know him, receive him, and then obey him, no matter the cost.

In Canada, there were more than 5,000 teams. They gave up counting after 5,000 because nobody could keep track anymore. But there were more than 5,000 services held by laypeople, just going from church to church, and that's the way the revival spread all the way through Alberta and British Columbia and all the way down the line. Going from church to church, telling that Jesus is as good as his word and can be believed.

They know it up here, but they are so filled with disappointments and hurts and defeats and carnality and self-will that they've never experienced it down in their heart. They know it and they love it and they say, "Oh, how I wish that I could just be yielded to Christ and live differently, but I just can't. I don't know where to begin." What they need is a ray of hope. They need somebody to be able to say, "I'm a sinner just as great as you, with the same struggles as you, but Jesus is sufficient."

He can take long-standing family feuds and dissolve them by his power, and take anger and hostility and roots of bitterness and sensuality, and Jesus can put them to death in faith if we are willing to meet him, no matter the cost. That's what God does when Jesus comes to town. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Jesus were to come to Chicago? Maybe we ought to pray and tell him where Chicago is so that he can come.

Maybe Jesus is already in Chicago. As a matter of fact, I know he is. Do you know what God does when he wants to change a city? He always begins with his own people. God isn't going to suddenly change city hall and change all those who work in the Sears Tower or at the John Hancock Building. He is not going to come down in mighty revival power so that sinners are smitten with conviction on the streets. That has happened in history, but it happens when sinners are confronted by loving, holy, spirit-filled Christians.

That's what happens when God comes to town. He always begins with his own people and then, having begun there, he works out to the community and to the city. I know that all of us want Jesus to come in a special way to the city of Chicago. He's here, but we want him to come in a special way. I don't think Christ will—I may be wrong—but I don't think he will until he comes to you and he comes to me and says, "Are you willing, no matter the cost, no matter what's involved? Are you willing to say flat out, 'I'm following Christ regardless'?"

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. Let me ask you a personal question: Are you walking with God? Do you walk with God every day? What about your prayer life? What about your connection to the Almighty? I'm holding in my hands a resource that we think is going to be of tremendous help to you. It's entitled "Praying the Bible" by Don Whitney. It's transforming. I know that because it transformed my prayer life; it can transform yours as well.

Guest (Male): You've heard Erwin Lutzer speaking on Following Christ into the Community, another message in a series on Following Jesus. Next time, we personalize the great commission with a message on seeking what is lost. Would you like to pray in a way that transformed Erwin Lutzer's life? You can. He follows a book called "Praying the Bible" by Donald Whitney, praying the scriptures back to God.

This book is our gift to you when you give a gift of any amount to support Running to Win. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001. Online, go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. Or write to Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.