Running To Win

Dave McAllister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. It's tough to grow in the Christian life without the assurance that you are a child of God. Some say salvation can be lost, regained, and then lost again. Today, why it's crucial to settle the question of knowing you have eternal life.

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, as we talk about being sure we're saved, you'll be telling us about your own early struggles in this area.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, I do speak about that quite frequently and I'll tell you why. Because there are many people who have my experience. That is to say, they pray to God, maybe even praying to God for salvation, but having no assurance that indeed they are saved. When I got saved, well, I knew about it the next day because the Blessed Holy Spirit of God brought assurance to my heart that I belong to God and belong to God forever. So I make no apology for telling people about my experience because it is based on the Word of God.

We here at Running to Win are deeply committed to get the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible. I want to emphasize that we can do that because of people just like you. We are in 50 different countries in seven different languages and, by the way, we intend to expand. I want to thank you. At the end of this message, I'm going to be reading a testimony from someone who talks about the impact of Running to Win in his life.

Every time you hear us give praise to God for this ministry, we also give praise to God for you. I'm going to be challenging you to become what we like to call an endurance partner. You can find out at the end of this message. I'll be giving you that info. But for now, let us listen.

You take my own life. I've told you this story before, but brought up in a Christian home, I used to pray that Jesus would come into my heart. That was the terminology that we used to use when I was growing up. Every time I got off my knees, I didn't feel any different. I didn't feel any witness of the spirit, so I just assumed I wasn't born of God.

It was later, at about the age of 14, where my parents said, "You know, you have to receive Christ by faith even if you don't feel differently. You receive Christ by faith." I went into the room there with them in the old farmhouse that I got to visit two years ago and knelt there to thank God for all that He had done in my life in the last 50 years.

As a boy of 14, I knelt and said in faith, "I receive Christ now as Savior." I can tell you that the next morning I sensed the presence of God so strongly—I'm not saying everyone has this experience—I sensed the presence of God so strongly, I just said to myself with this overwhelming sense of peace and confidence, "I know God."

I still remember the day when I said, "I know God." The ministry of the Spirit. You say, "Well, what is it like?" It's a sense of confidence, it's a sense of awareness, it's a sense of assurance that you have believed on Jesus. The Spirit, Paul says, is bearing witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. The testimony that I have just given is one that hundreds and hundreds of people who are listening to me today could also give.

Oh, you say, but there are people who belong to other religions and they have assurance too. All right, let's take for example my Islam friend that I had in Istanbul. Wonderful man, he took me around all day and showed me archaeological things. Very brilliant and a devoted Muslim. In fact, during the day when he wanted to go into a mosque, I just said I'll wait outside and you just pray.

I wanted to respect his religion. We should respect people from all different religions. If I were to say to him, "Are you absolutely convinced that Islam is right?" He would say, "Absolutely, totally convinced. Willing to die that Islam is right." Now I ask another question. When you die, do you have the assurance that you'll be in heaven?

I asked him. "No," he said, "Nobody can have that assurance. We do the best we can and we just hope that Allah will do it, but we have no idea what Allah is going to do and I have no idea whether or not I'm going to be there." He's received the testimony of men, and by that I mean the Quran, which is an entirely different subject by the way, but there's no witness of the spirit.

There's no inner assurance that he is a child of God. He has told me that one of the things that is true is that they can never refer to God as Father. It is the Spirit that works in the life of those who have believed in Jesus whereby we call God Abba Father and we know that we belong to Him.

Look at the text. I told you it's important to look at the Bible so that you know I'm not making it up. Verse nine: "If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself." That's a gift of the Spirit.

It's the regenerating work of the Spirit confirming the historical record that Jesus is who he claimed to be and that he died for your sins. If you don't, by the way, John says, you make God a liar. Think about John, he's very clear. He also believes that everybody's on one side of the fence or the other.

It says in verse 11: "And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." For John, it was just that clear cut. You either have the Son or you don't. If you have the Son, you have life. If you don't have the Son, you don't have life.

It doesn't mean that you can't operate. You go around and you are very much alive, but spiritually disconnected from God. You say, "Pastor Lutzer, what does all this have to do with the helmet of salvation?" Well, it does. You have to hang on because we are going to bring it all together. It's all going to come together if you just keep following me for a few moments.

I wish that I had time to comment on the verses that follow. I will read here quickly verse 13: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." And this is the confidence that we have toward him, and we know that he hears us.

Then it goes on to talk about a brother who sins a sin unto death. There are some sins that result in death eventually; there are others that don't. You pray for the one; for the other, it may not even be worth praying when you have a case like Ananias and Sapphira. Now notice I'm in verse 18: "We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him."

This connects with the helmet of salvation. Now, it says that the one who is born of God does not keep on sinning. In fact, the Greek text, I think, actually says he doesn't sin. Well, you and I know that we sin. We sin. If there's a man here who says, "I do not sin," I would like to meet with his wife and see whether or not she is in hearty agreement.

What John is doing, in addition to saying that when we are saved we have a desire to do righteous things and so we don't continue in sin, it seems to me that John is looking at us now as being born of God. He's looking at the new nature. When you receive Christ as Savior, there is a new nature within you that cannot sin.

That's the struggle, as Paul himself said. I have this desire to not sin and I also have this desire to sin. The new nature certainly doesn't sin. But notice what he says. If we could live without sin—I'm not saying that we do—you'll notice it says that he who is born of God, and I take that "he" to be the individual Christian, he keeps himself because there is within you now the Blessed Holy Spirit of God.

I put it this way: that if you are a Christian you will, I'm sure, sin, but you fight against it and you don't like it because you don't like to displease the Lord. Non-Christians commit sin and they enjoy it and they indulge themselves and they think of new ways of indulging themselves, and there's really no quibble of conscience.

We can't sin as Christians without grieving the Spirit and if we walk with God, we know that we are grieving the Spirit. The Spirit is a person, the Spirit that keeps witnessing to us, testifying to us about Jesus. But you'll notice it says that the wicked one does not touch him. In other words, actually the word "touch" is too weak. It doesn't apprehend him.

It doesn't hold him. You see the connection? We talked about the helmet of salvation. When you are walking in obedience and in assurance, the devil comes to you and says, "You know, if you were really a Christian, you wouldn't do that, but look at what you're doing." And you say to him, "I have the witness of the Spirit. I belong to God. My desire is to follow God. I have sinned, but I confess it and I forsake it and I keep going."

Because at the end of the day, I belong to Almighty God and not to you, Satan, because you have this confidence, this overwhelming sense of saying "I connect with God" and I believe in God and his promises and the Spirit is bearing witness that I am a child of God. Now how do we put all this together?

I'd like to point out to you again, if I may, that it is God's will that you know that you have eternal life. Did you see it there in verse 13? Your Bible is open before you. In verse 13, it says of chapter five, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life."

If you're here today and you don't know that you have eternal life, almost certainly you don't have it. But let me talk very specifically. First of all, to believers. Most believers I've encountered know that they have eternal life. Most of them do. But occasionally you find those that don't and let me give you some reasons why they lack that assurance, the assurance of the Spirit.

Sometimes wrong teaching. For example, if you were brought up with the idea that you can just lose your salvation whenever you sin, you're led into such despair that it stifles any ministry of the Holy Spirit to your heart. Remember, the Holy Spirit is like a dove. He is gentle. There's a calmness brought to you by the Spirit. It isn't imposed upon you.

So if you're taught that you're losing your salvation every day, how can the Spirit do any significant witnessing to you if that's what you believe? Or there are those who sometimes have a weak conscience. If you have a weak conscience so that you see your sin as greater than God's grace, you may have doubts.

One day I was speaking at a conference and a husband and his wife asked me to come over to their place. She led Bible study, she led people to Christ, but there were times when she doubted whether she had believed. Now I think it is wrong for anyone to say to somebody else, "You're a Christian." Let the Spirit do that.

But there are times when you're sure that there's no question. They have the fruit of being a Christian. So I told her and we were beside a lake. I said, "You know, there is a story which I think probably happened of a man who was going to cross a very huge, long lake and he was so afraid that the ice was not thick enough that in places he actually walked on all fours to distribute his weight until in the distance behind him, he saw a team of horses coming."

Once he saw the team of horses, get up and walk and enjoy it. If the ice can hold the horses, the ice can hold you. I said to her, "The ice beneath me and the ice beneath you and the ice beneath all those who have trusted Jesus is thick, equally thick. The only difference is some of us are walking along and we're enjoying it and you're walking on all fours, hoping you won't sink in."

The strength of the promises of God. Now let's suppose you're brought up with a branch of Christendom that says that if you do your part, God does His. Salvation's a cooperative effort. If you believe that, will you have assurance? Will the Spirit minister assurance? Of course not.

First of all, because He ministers to that which is true and not to that which is false. Also, that teaching will override any possibility that you can have assurance because if part of it is dependent upon me, I can never be sure that I'm doing my part. But if you believe that when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, He did all that ever will be necessary for you to stand in God's presence and you embrace that for yourself, you will be saved and you will know it and it will be confirmed to you by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

But there are some Christians who are true Christians, but wrong teaching has kept them from enjoying assurance. Then there are those who walk in disobedience. Now I'm talking about those who sin and they go against their new nature and they commit sins and they decide to live in sin. Obviously, the work of the Spirit, because the Spirit is so sensitive, the Spirit will be grieved and there'll be no ministry of assurance to a person like that.

But God wants you to know. These things I have written unto you that ye may know that ye have eternal life. So much for those who believe. Now for many of you who are listening who have no assurance whatever. It's possible that the real reason is because you have not really believed on Jesus.

I remember a teenager saying to me, "You know, I received Jesus as my Savior in the youth meeting, but I can't tell my parents because my parents always tell me that I was saved because I prayed a prayer at the age of five." Could I say that it's possible for you to pray even a good prayer and not be saved? Because it isn't even prayer that saves us.

It is that transfer of trust where we believe into Jesus and we trust Him. The full weight of our sin and our future is laid on Him. That's what it means to believe in Jesus as being the Christ and then we'll be born of God. So you see, there are those who have a false sense of assurance because they have never really savingly believed.

There are those who are so self-assured that even when they listen to a message like this, it's filtered. And their filter tells them that what he's really trying to say is that salvation is a matter of just being good. So they keep believing that and they develop their own sense of self-confidence. But when push comes to shove, there's no assurance because they've never believed.

How do I illustrate this? Think of O'Hare airport. You're there in the departure lounge. Have you ever noticed the difference between those who have a confirmed ticket and those who are flying standby? I've been in both categories. When you have a confirmed ticket, you're sitting there reading the newspaper, you're dozing, you're laughing and joking with your friends, and you're enjoying the wait.

When you're flying standby and they tell you, "Well, we have no seats, but it's possible that someone won't show," what are you doing then? You're pacing the floor, you're looking down on the floor, you're rolling your eyes, you're trying to listen to what's being said, you keep your eye on the monitor and there you are. You're unsure.

When you believe in Jesus as the Savior, as the one who bore your sin, who came both by water and by blood, you receive the ministry of the Spirit that confirms that you've got a ticket—confirmed ticket—and you don't have to worry about the departure lounge. James Simpson, who was the first to use chloroform in medicine, was dying.

People said to him, "What is your speculation regarding your future?" It's a question to ask somebody who's dying. He said, "I have no speculation." And then he said this, quoting right from the Bible: "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

That is the confidence of all those who trust Jesus as Savior, who have been born again, born of God, who now love God because they're born of God and the Spirit witnesses to them that their ticket has been confirmed and they're good to go all the way to heaven. So, do you have assurance? Do you know that you have eternal life? Has your ticket been confirmed or are you flying standby? Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you might help us to pick up the helmet of salvation and I pray that your Holy Spirit may point out in the lives of all those who are here who have never really trusted Christ as Savior, who are flying standby, that they can have a confirmed ticket. Father, I ask in the name of Jesus that all those who lack assurance today may believe in Christ so fully that your Spirit will minister to them and they will know that they belong to you forever. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.

Dave McAllister: You know, my friend, I can't help but think that this message is specifically speaking to many hearts. It may be speaking to you because you do not know for sure that you are going to spend eternity with God, and your walk with God is one of confusion and not confidence. That's why I encourage you to believe on Christ and be saved.

We here at Running to Win are deeply committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you've been listening for any length of time, you know that that is our central message. I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone named Fernando. He said, "It has been a real pleasure for me to listen to your program. The messages have brought deliverance to my soul from a long experience of captivity."

Thank you, Fernando. That's why we exist. I want to ask you a question today, all who are listening. Would you consider helping us as we continue to expand this ministry? Would you become an endurance partner? I want you to investigate what that means. Very simply, here's what you do: you go to rtwoffer.com.

That's rtwoffer.com and when you're there, you click on the endurance partner button. You see, an endurance partner is someone who helps us run the race with endurance. Once again, go to rtwoffer.com or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. I visualize thousands of people holding hands with us and saying that we indeed want to run with endurance the race, yes, all the way to the finish line.

So here's what you do: go to rtwoffer.com and when you're there, you click on the endurance partner button. Investigate what that means or call us at 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life.

Jesus practiced compassion wherever He went and so should we as His followers. Next time on Running to Win, we begin a brief series on practicing the compassion of Christ, beginning with compassion in outreach: the heart of Jesus. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.