Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Dave McCallister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Running the race of life includes learning to worship God acceptably. And that includes our time, talent, and treasure.

Today, why giving to God is an intrinsic part of worshiping God. 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 Disciplines of the Soul: Four Ways to Stay Close to God. Today, we take a final look at the discipline of worship and how that affects our giving.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: We read it today in the scripture reading. It says, "Come into His courts, bring a gift." In Hebrews chapter 9, verse 9, it says that they offered both gifts and sacrifices. Do you notice that when it’s time for us to receive the offering, I always say we continue our worship? You probably think it's just a segue that he uses to try to connect the two together. It’s not.

In the Old Testament times, it was unthinkable that somebody would come into God’s presence and not bring a gift for God. And yet I suspect, and I think our records might indicate, that there are hundreds of people who attend Moody Church week by week who never bring a gift for God.

When my wife and I are invited out somewhere for dinner, she always wants to bring a gift. Even if it’s a box of chocolates, you bring something. And here we’re coming to God and we’re giving Him His praise, but that for some people may not be too costly. For some it shall be, as we shall see in a moment, but we don't understand that it is not just a segue. Worship is saying we have now praised God, now we bring a gift to God. We bring something for the Almighty.

Don’t ever in your mind think that you’re giving money to Moody Church. Because then if we do something you don’t like, you’ll be able to say, "Well, look what they did with that money." Give it to God. Bring it to God with a heart of joy.

Of course, we need financial assistance, but it says in Philippians, the apostle Paul says, "You sent me money, and even if I didn’t need it, it did you some good because it was an aroma and a sacrifice with which God was well pleased." Isn’t that what life is all about, knowing what pleases God and doing it? So whether it’s little or much, whether you can afford a little or much is not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is you bring a gift to God.

The Bible goes on to say that we should obey the leaders in verse 17. You say, "How do we do that as a church? We don’t have leaders who are up here all the time." Within God’s providence, His undeserved providence, I am the primary speaker and preacher for the leadership at Moody Church. That doesn’t mean that others don’t do it. Thank God they do, and they do an awesome job, but I happen to be the primary one.

So if you want to obey the leaders and submit to their authority, you’re listening to the message. You’re saying, "What is the exhortation? What is the message that is being given today? What vision is being painted in my relationship with God?" You know that this is a series of messages on the disciplines of the soul. So you ask yourself, "How do I apply the message on meditation, the message on prayer, the message on worship?" Next week, we have the message on silence. How do I apply this? Because what we’re here to do is to be taught. In the presence of God, you expect to be rebuked, challenged, convicted, encouraged, forgiven, and given insights. You’re expecting all that to happen.

Does that mean when you get together then, the sequence that you have in the bulletin is just a tradition? No. You look at the bulletin and what do we have? First of all, we begin with an invocation. We’re saying, "God, we know You exist everywhere, at all times, in all places, but now that Your people are together, would You give us what the older theologians called the manifest presence of God?" We want God to dwell here with these people. We want people who are coming in, new people and visitors, to say as they leave, "Surely God dwells in that place with those people." That’s why we have an invocation.

Notice that we sing hymns of praise. We read the scriptures, we receive the offering, we have a message. All of worship should encompass these elements. The only question we as a worship committee have is what is the best sequence. If we ever think that the sequence should change, and from time to time we do change the sequence, it’s only because we think it might make a better flow. But this is worship. This is us in the presence of God with this kind of variety and intention.

What an opportunity it gives us. Just imagine what it is like to be in the presence of God after you’ve been to the altar and the laver. You come here saying God is here, and I’m going to be here to praise God. The issue is not whether we are traditional or contemporary. I mentioned a moment ago that I think we’ve achieved a marvelous balance. But the real issue is a matter of heart. The real issue is whether or not God is pleased, and that is determined almost always before we get here rather than when we get here.

I have two concluding lessons. First, worship is always costly. Some of you probably read this and you said, "Why the sacrifice of praise? It doesn’t cost much to praise God. My goodness, we sang songs of praise today and talk is cheap." Some people know what the sacrifice of praise is because they’ve praised God in the midst of tragedy, heartache, difficulty, a bad marriage, or the death of a child. That is a sacrifice of praise with which God is well pleased. It’s always costly.

You remember Abraham? What an awesome story. He’s asked to sacrifice Isaac, and immediately in the morning after the Lord tells him that, he leaves and goes. When he gets to the mountain, he says to the young men who are with him, "You stay here with this animal"—they had a donkey that brought some of the wood—"and I and the lad, my son, we’re going to go yonder and worship." Did it cost Abraham anything? He was willing to put his son to death, believing that God would raise him from the dead. You talk about cost.

Remember David? David was given a threshing floor. This guy said, "I want to be kind to you, I want to give it to you." The average person would have said, "Hey, that’s really great. That’s really a God thing." David said, "When it comes to building a worship center, I will not offer to God something that doesn’t cost me anything. I’m going to pay you because I don’t want cheap worship."

When Job’s ten sons were put to death because of fire and wind, leaving ten fresh graves on the hilltop, the Bible says Job fell on his knees and worshiped. Did it cost him something? You better believe it cost him something. And it costs us something. Because we come to worship and we yield and we give ourselves to God and we say, "I have no more plans of my own. From now on, my plans are Your plans."

We become honest in our confession of sin and dealing with that which defiles the conscience. Now we come into God’s presence. Now we are going to be enjoying the sacrifice of praise and the sacrifice of giving because we give sacrificially. We give until it costs us something. We’re not freeloaders. Now we begin to understand why all worship costs. If it’s cheap, it probably doesn’t mean that much to God.

The second lesson is that you really can’t worship within the church if you don’t worship outside the church. If your life is not a life of worship on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, it’s very difficult for you to suddenly come in here and say, "Now it’s worship time." To put this clearly, I think it’s very difficult for us to pour water on the Blessed Holy Spirit all week and then expect to strike up a fire on Sunday.

Worship, in a sense, is a culmination of who we are. We love God, we serve God, we are in the Word, we’re praying, we’re yielding, and we're being cleansed. Now we come together. Whenever possible, we come together on time. If I don't stop soon, I'm going to start meddling. We come together on time. Why? Because God is here and the people of God are here. We expect God to show up in conviction, joy, worship, rebuke, and hope, everything together.

Bishop Pike, the liberal whose son committed suicide, believed that his son wanted to talk to him after the boy died. He believed this because the clock on the wall would stop at the time that the boy committed suicide. After the suicide, the clock would stop at that time. He went to a witch and didn’t know that he was actually talking to a demon who was inspiring the witch. He thought that he was talking to his son, and he published a book on that years ago.

One of the questions he asked his son was, "Do you hear much about Jesus on the other side?" The boy said, "No, Dad. We don’t hear too much about Jesus here on the other side." Could I humbly suggest that if you die and go to a place where you’re not hearing a lot about Jesus, you’re in deep trouble?

At the end of the day, worship and all of the praise that is being offered to God is really preparation for heaven. In heaven, there will be endless praise. From beginning to end, we’ll be singing "Glory to the Lamb." The songs that we have been singing here on earth are going to be enlivened and maybe given some new words and maybe even some new tunes. All of us are going to be able to sing like the soloists that we heard this morning, and maybe even better. All of the praise is going to be God-directed. On earth, we’re training for heaven, and that’s why we worship.

Some of you perhaps have never really worshiped because you’ve never trusted Christ as Savior. That’s the beginning point. I encourage you to receive Him as yours, as your sin-bearer, because He died on the cross for sinners. Through connecting with God, He will birth in you a desire to worship the King and to worship the Almighty. You will become a worshiper for the rest of your life, both in the church and outside the church, where it all begins.

The reason we are so interested in getting the Gospel around the world is simply this: we want God to have more worshipers. I’m holding in my hands a book entitled *How To Begin The Christian Life* by Dr. Sweeting. It has to do with how to grow in the Christian faith and how to study the Bible. It has chapters on prayer and also talks about our relationship with the world, the church, and money. We think it’ll be a great blessing to you, and for a gift of any amount, we’re making it available right now.

Dave McCallister: Pastor Erwin Lutzer concluding "The Discipline Of Worship," the third of four messages on Disciplines of the Soul: Four Ways To Stay Close To God. Most of us live lives assaulted by sounds: TV, radio, traffic, and endless conversation. Next time, a surprising final discipline. Tune in to learn all about the discipline of silence.

Running To Win is all about helping you find God’s roadmap for your race of life. The new year is a time for beginnings. We’d like you to have a book by George Sweeting on *How To Begin The Christian Life*. It tells new believers how to follow Jesus.

This book is yours as our thank you when you give a gift of any amount to support Running To Win. For details, call 1-800-215-5001. That’s 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. This is Dave McCallister. Running To Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.