Running To Win

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. A blinding light surrounded an enemy of Jesus, and this enemy capitulated without a struggle. Saul was renamed Paul after his miraculous conversion. But reputations die hard and it took some time before this new disciple would be taken seriously. 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. Pastor Lutzer, we're learning about the legacy of a converted man. Now, in Saul's case, conversion was not really an option.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, that's a wonderful way to put it, Dave, because God came to him. Jesus came to him out of heaven when he was on the way to Damascus. And of course, we know from that standpoint, it wasn't an option. But I want to emphasize today that no matter who is listening, if the Holy Spirit of God works in their hearts, they too can come to Christ, receive His forgiveness and receive His grace.

Let me ask you a question. Do you feel as if you failed miserably in life, perhaps making a series of wrong decisions? In the Bible, there's a story of a woman who had five husbands and now was living with a sixth man. Did you know that Jesus had a very special message for her? She couldn't depend upon her husband, certainly.

Jesus said to her, "The Father is seeking worshipers." So let's begin there. Let's remember this, that we can always worship God. That's the beginning of a brand new way to look at the Christian life.

Guest (Male): For a gift of any amount, we're making available for you a special resource, a book entitled Failure, the Back Door to Success that expounds on that story. Following this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info so that this book can be sent to you immediately.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: It says, for example, in verse 27, "But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles." Barnabas also a man willing to take the risk that Paul was for real. And declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord, and he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.

You know where he goes after that? He goes home to Tarsus, which is where he grew up. I can imagine. Can you just imagine in that home the conversation between Paul and his parents? We brought you up as a good Jewish boy. We got you the best education, sitting at the feet of Gamaliel, outstanding Jewish scholar. And now you converted to Jesus?

What's going on? And the Apostle Paul is going to prove his apostleship by standing against all opposition and boldly living for Christ. And there are some of you who are listening. You are afraid to come to Jesus Christ because you say that your family will disown you. And the Apostle Paul is telling you, and later on, as we know the words of Jesus, who said very clearly, "He who loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me."

"And he that does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me." Salvation is free, but following Jesus can be very difficult. It's so easy to follow Jesus until you find out where He's leading you. And then it's not quite as easy to follow Him. But if He is who He is, following Him means even standing against your family, against your culture, and against all the forces that may be against you.

Now, let's just nail this down. Let's nail this down for us, all right? And here it is. First of all, let me give you three life-changing applications as we think about this story. First of all, God takes the initiative in salvation. God takes the initiative in salvation. I can assure you of this. Paul was not looking for Jesus, saying, "I'm going to find Jesus because I want to come to God." No. Jesus came to Paul. And the hunter became the hunted. Hunted by Christ. It is Christ that chose Paul, revealed Himself to Paul in such a way that Paul could not deny that Jesus was who He claimed to be.

And what we must realize is that Jesus takes the initiative. Sometimes when we hear testimonies, especially from new converts, they'll say, "Yeah, well, you know, I found Jesus." Well, good for you. He chased you until you found Him. That's really true. Amen.

You remember that poem, The Hound of Heaven? I looked it up the other day and discovered it's a very long poem, also discovered that it's written by Francis Thompson in England, who was an opium addict. And he would sleep outside. He was basically disowned. And people didn't realize that he was actually a great poet, and later on, some of his poems were published. But in The Hound of Heaven, he talks about how God pursued him.

And he says, and you all know probably the opening lines, "I fled Him down the nights and down the days. I fled Him down the arches of the years. I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, and in the midst of tears." And it goes on and on and on. I'm running from God. I'm trying to get away from Him. But near the ending of the poem, it says, "Oh, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou seekest." It's God.

When your conscience troubles you and it seems as if life cannot go on, it's God seeking you. C.S. Lewis said something like that, I think, in one of his writings. He even likened God unto a chess player. You know, when you play chess, what you need to do is to put all of your pieces in such a way that eventually your opponent has to say, "Checkmate. Game over. Nowhere else to move." And C.S. Lewis said, "That's the way I felt. I tried to get away from God. I tried to disbelieve the New Testament, but the more I looked into the New Testament, the more compelling it became, until God, the Hound of Heaven, took the pieces and rearranged them. And finally, I had to say, 'Checkmate. You are God, You are King, You are Savior.'"

How do you know when somebody is saved? It's when they say, "My faith is in Jesus Christ alone," and "I know He is the only Savior." If you don't say that, you're not converted. Well, God takes the initiative. And we could prove this from Scripture. For example, if you're saved, it says, "He chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world." Now, you can do whatever you like with that. And of course, as we know, when we begin to discuss that, we're jumping into the deep part of the swimming pool. But remember, you're saved because of Jesus and not because of yourself. He takes the initiative in salvation.

Secondly, and this is so important, conversion involves the shattering of self-confidence. Conversion involves the shattering of self-confidence. Let me ask you a question. I want you to get this question, whether you're in the balcony, whether you're listening online or the radio. Between you and me, I'm going to ask you a question. Are you a good person? Are you a good person? If you answer yes to that, you have never been converted. No Christian will ever answer yes to that question.

You know, the Apostle Paul was a good person. He kept all the law. Listen to what he says in the book of Philippians. I mean, you talk about being a good person. He says, "If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel. I was from the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, that is, top scholar. And as to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, I persecuted the church. As to righteousness, under the law, blameless. I could put up my life next to you and you see whether or not you measure up to me, and you won't. But whatever gain I had, I counted it loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish."

The greatest enemy of the Gospel in the American church is moralism. Moralism says that, "I'm trying to be a good Christian. I'm trying to be a Christian because it has to do with the improvement of the behavior. Yes, I'm a Christian because I'm going to church now. Yeah, I'm a Christian because I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a Christian because I'm doing better than I once did," as if that is the Gospel. It is nothing but self-confidence which God condemns. Now, it's good for you to be a better person. It's good for you to do this, but that is not the Gospel. It's not the Gospel.

Anyone who is saved, if you ask them, "Are you a good person?" If you have been converted, the answer to that is, "No, I am not, but the good news is, Jesus is a good person." That's the way Christians answer that question.

You look down in your heart, and you'll see what you find. Take an honest look. Not all of the religion that you see, but take an honest look into your heart and ask yourself whether or not you are really deep inside a good person. Some time ago, I told you about McGee, James Vernon McGee, who is still on the radio, even though he's been dead for many years, and he was preaching from this pulpit.

And he said, "I want you to know, if you knew my heart the way I know my heart, you wouldn't be listening to me." And then he said, "Before you run to the exit, if I knew your heart the way you know your heart, I wouldn't even talk to you." Christians are broken people. They are people who know that they are not good, but Jesus is good, and He saves us and He redeems us.

So if you're sitting here today, or listening by some other way, and you think, "I'm a good person." You know, I witness to people on the plane almost all the time. And I've had some very interesting conversations. Somebody said I should write them up some time. But all the interaction that I have, and that you have, as you witness for Christ. And one of the questions that if you ask, "You know, where are you on your spiritual journey?" Or you ask them the question of what they would say to God if He were to say, "Why should I let you into heaven?" The answer I get most often is what? "I'm a good person." When they answer that, I can tell you they do not understand, nor do they believe the Gospel. Paul said he was a good person.

And look at him. He needed to be converted, and so do you, and so do I. When God intervenes, there is a transformation. In fact, that leads me to a final and third conclusion here. We've learned that God takes the initiative, He shatters all self-confidence. Luther said that one must descend into hell before he can descend into heaven. Because unless you see yourself as a needy sinner who cannot save yourself, you can't be saved. Thank you very much.

Now, let me say also that finally that we are not saved by good works. I think that's very clear from what I've said. Paul says, "I take all of my good works and I stack them together, and I have a good word for all of them." And that is rubbish. And actually, in the Greek text, it's a little stronger than that. So the point is that you're not saved by good works, but you're saved unto good works. Notice what God said there in the book of Acts, right out of the chute, He said to Ananias, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine to carry My name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for My sake."

In other words, what God is saying is that you are not saved, you're not saved by your works. But, once you are saved, God births within us a love for God. He births within us a desire for holiness. However much we may struggle with Him and in our sins that we still struggle with, but He births that within us. He transforms us. He makes us into a different person. "If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. All things are passed away. All things have become new." And then God says, "I have a place for you." In fact, why am I saying it? I might as well just quote Scripture at this point. "For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God hath preordained for us."

You're a believer, God has something for you to do. He has something for you to do. Some of you within the church, and we need hundreds of volunteers. We need volunteers for our ministry to children, for Summer Blast, and a whole lot of other responsibilities. Some of you will serve within the church, some of you will serve through the church. You have ministries outside of these walls, connected with the church. And some of you will serve outside the church. And all of us will serve in our vocations wherever God has planted us. Why? Because we are saved unto good works.

You know, when I think about the Apostle Paul, of course, and his marvelous conversion, I can't help but think of Martin Luther. You remember he said, "If anyone," he's in the monastery there in Erfurt, Germany. He says, "If anyone would be saved through monkery," he said, "I would be." He exceeded all of the requirements of being a monk. He slept on a hard floor without a blanket. And Rebecca and I have been to that place many times. And the hard floor is basically a kind of plaster. And he, he slept that way. He went begging. He starved himself with fasting until some people thought he might die.

At the end of the day, he's still not, could not understand how much he had to do to please God. Until he realized the glorious truth. We can't do it through works. We do it because Jesus pleased God. And through faith in Him, we please God. Jesus paid it all. And the vilest of sinners who truly believes that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives. I've been praying that as a result of this message, that there'd be people here today who believe on Jesus.

If you want to believe on Jesus, you come forward later, shake my hand or the hands of our prayer committee here. Tell someone that you want to believe or that you have believed as a result of this message. Because the Jesus of the Apostle Paul and the Jesus that saved the man who wrote Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound, is the Jesus who is still saving people. Even as we heard in our testimony this morning.

Now, let's pray that the Holy Spirit will do the work because we can't. Father, I'm aware of the fact that I cannot save people. Nobody can. We can't overcome their darkness. We can't overcome their resistance. We can't overcome their self-satisfaction with themselves. Only You can do that. We ask today that You'll do that in many hearts and many lives for Your glory and for Your honor. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Guest (Male): My friend today, this is Pastor Lutzer. Do you feel spiritually exhausted? You're trying to go to church. You're trying to listen to podcasts that have religion in them. You're trying to find your way and it seems as if no matter where you go or how much you do, it is never enough. If you're on that kind of a treadmill, I have hope for you. There is a stopping place.

There is a place in which you can put your trust in Jesus Christ and if you do that, all of the pressures, the religious pressures, all of the anxieties and the doubts can be set aside because Jesus keeps His promises. I've written the book entitled Failure the Backdoor to Success, and I wrote it because so many people are not finding peace and satisfaction even through religion. Even religious people who go to church.

For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word. Or call us at 1-888-218-9337. If you want to be blessed and encouraged, here's what you do. Right now, go to rtwoffer.com.

Guest (Male): It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. "What kind of Christian life pleases God?" Sergey lives in Willowbrook, Illinois and listens to us on WMBI. He writes, "Pastor Lutzer, could you please give a clear definition of what being a legalistic Christian in our day is? And what doesn't God like about it? Doesn't He teach, in effect, that the stricter we are toward ourselves, the better we are as Christians?"

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Sergey, you have asked a very interesting question. So let me try to be concise and clear. Legalism is a wrong use of