Running To Win

Dave McAllister: Pastor Lutzer, we've come to the ninth message in your series on what we believe and the difference it should make. Give us a preview of "The Church We Love."

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, you're right, the word *Ecclesia* means called out ones. And that means that Jesus Christ has called us out of the world, but yet we must live in the world to be a witness for Him. But the whole point of the church is it is really one body. All those who are born again are a part of the body of Jesus Christ.

But you know, that new birth that puts us into the body of Jesus Christ is oftentimes misunderstood. That's why we are making available for you a resource that we think is going to be of tremendous help. You can read it, you can also share it with friends. It's a book entitled *The New Birth* by Peter Mead.

Now, we must understand, and I love to emphasize this, that you and I, we just don't need a life coach, we actually need a savior. And the savior Jesus Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit, brings about the new birth, and that has huge implications. So even as we listen today, let us keep in mind that the church of Jesus Christ is a fellowship of those who have been truly born again. Not those who say they are, but those who actually are. Let's listen carefully.

The church we love. When I mention the word church, what is it that comes to mind? You say, "Well, a building we're going to the church." That's the way we use the word. You say, "Well, maybe not a building, but a body of people called the church. The church is the body at the Moody Church, the members of the church, that's the body, and that's the church, yeah."

But there's also such a thing as the universal church. Not that I believe in universalism, but the universal church is all believers in all countries, no matter what their nationality, no matter what their style of worship, but they've come to trust Christ as Savior. As a matter of fact, if we use the church that way, we're not only talking about people who are now alive, but even the church that has died, the believers that have gone on to heaven.

It used to be years ago that they always had a cemetery around churches. And the reason for that was a theological expression found in the third chapter of Ephesians where the apostle Paul says that there is a family in heaven and on earth, but there is one family. And so the idea was that we should unify the church by forcing people who go into the present church to make sure that they have to walk past the alumni association before they get to the undergraduates, because the church is one.

And that's the way I'm using the word church in this message, though I will be talking about us because we are a part of that larger group called the universal church or the church universal, better way to put it. Now, what I'm going to do in the next 25 minutes with God's help is to take you from point A to point B. We are going to talk about the church in eternity past and in eternity future. The whole panorama of God's purpose in the church right from eternity past to eternity future, all in 25 minutes.

Are you ready? The text today is Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five, I want you to turn to it because it becomes essential in what we are doing here. Ephesians chapter five, the Bible tells us husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. You say, "Should we love the church?" Well, Jesus loves the church. So if you don't love the church, you're not loving what Jesus loves.

Many of us love the things that Jesus Christ hates, and we don't love what Jesus loves. You should love the church. We should love the church with a love that is implanted in our hearts by God. It says chapter five verse 25, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he may present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

Well, are you ready for the tour from eternity past to eternity future? Let's begin. The origin of the church. The origin of the church, where did it really begin? It began in the mind of God in eternity past. Your Bibles are open to Ephesians chapter five, look at what it says in chapter one verse four, "Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love."

Before the foundation of the world, God chose us to be his. Now, in order to understand what's going on here in the text and what God's intention is, keep in mind that when Adam was created, you remember the Bible says that there was no helpmate found for him, and it was not good for a man to be alone. And so God sought a bride for Adam. And that bride, who was Eve, was supposed to sit with him and not only to meet his needs, but was supposed to rule with him over all of creation.

God says let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air. They were to sit together on the throne of the world and rule all of creation together. That was God's intention. In the very same way, what God did is He decided to seek a bride for his son, the Lord Jesus. Now the Trinity in eternity past was perfectly content with itself because of its love, because of its communication.

We noticed that when I gave a message on the Trinity that the Trinity was perfectly content. But the decision was made that the attributes of God would be more clearly seen if there was a creation and if the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had a bride so that that bride could sit with him on the throne not of the earth, but on the whole throne of the universe and rule with him.

So the whole intention of God right from eternity past is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have a bride that He would marry, that He would sit with and rule with in all of eternity. Do you realize if you're a believer in Jesus Christ that you were in God's mind as long as God has existed from eternity past? When did God show you grace? You say, "Well, God showed me grace when I was redeemed, when I got saved." Yes, but it says in Second Timothy chapter one verse nine that the grace of God was shown to us and given to us from all eternity.

God was already giving you grace before you were born and before you needed it, because in God's mind He had you in mind. And a bride for his son is now going to become the purpose of creation. The fall and the redemption of humanity and the dying of Jesus so that He could purchase for himself a bride is now going to be the focal point of all that God is up to. Good Friday and Easter Sunday, resurrection Sunday, is now going to be the basis upon which all of the purposes of God are going to come together because God says I want my Son to have a bride to rule with him over the throne of the universe.

That's what God is going to pursue. By the way, isn't that wonderful that God knew you from eternity past and that you were already in his mind as long as He existed? One day my wife and I were driving along with an older couple, and they showed us the cemetery plots. They said, "We have plots in this cemetery just over there." I think it's good, by the way, to buy cemetery plots because the statistics on death are very impressive.

But she said this, she said, "I wonder if God will remember where we are buried." Now if you're Jones or Smith, He might get you confused. Yes, God will remember. The Bible says He calls his own sheep by name. When you arrive in heaven, He'll remember your name and He'll get it right. He'll know how to pronounce it. That's how precious you are to God. The church in eternity past.

Well, that's the origin of the church. What about the cost of the church? How much? Notice the text now, we're in Ephesians five. It says, "He gave himself up for her." Wow. He gave himself up for her. In order for Jesus to have this bride, He was going to have to purchase her. And the Bible says we were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with a precious blood of Christ.

He gave himself up for her. He went into the slave market and looked at someone who had the background of a harlot and decided that He would purchase her and clean her up and sanctify her and marry her so that she could sit on the throne with him for all of eternity. That was God's plan. And so the Bible says that Jesus died for us. That's how much He loved the church. How much does He love the church? He loves the church so that He might die for the church.

And by the way, husbands, though I'm not speaking to you specifically today and I am a husband too, the Bible says love your wives as Christ loved the church. Wow. And so the cost of the church is the death of Jesus Christ. Can we take lightly the fact that God was willing to go through all that so that his son would have a bride to sit with him on the heavenly throne? Isn't that truly amazing?

That's the cost of the church. What about the condition of the church? Well, He found her when she was in a lot of sin, let's just put it that way. I already implied that the imagery is that of him purchasing a harlot, but sexual sin isn't the only kind of sin in the world. There's lots of other sins. And if we had a testimony meeting today, we'd hear that Jesus redeemed some of you out of alcoholism, some of you out of a life of deep shame because of the way in which you were treated or because of what you have done.

Deep shame. And that's how He found us. He found us as sinners. Yesterday I was in a taxi cab trying to convince my driver that he needed a savior. And he says, "Well, I ask God to forgive me." And he said, "Remember," he said, "I don't have that many sins." Anybody here today who doesn't have that many sins? Well, if you define sin as killing your mother and robbing a bank, maybe he doesn't have those many sins.

But how about selfishness being a sin? How about the fact that the first commandment is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength? Are you doing that? That's the first commandment, let's not even get to number two. He found us in a lot of sin. Is it okay if we frankly admit that we're messed up people?

I have a friend who said to a relative, "I'm going to be a pastor of a church." And he named the church, and she was very upset. She says, "I think that the church is full of vipers." He said, "Well, do you think that the world is any better?" And she had to think about that a little bit and said, "No, I guess the world isn't any better." And then he said this, "Here's the difference. We know we're vipers, so we know that we need a savior and we know we need God's grace. That's the thing that differs us from the people of the world."

So how did He find us? He found us in sin. What does He do? He decided that he said, "I sure can't marry her the way she looks now for sure because she's got to be a perfectly pure bride. So I'm going to work with her and I'm going to bring her to myself someday and she shall be without spot, without moral blemish, without wrinkle, without decay of any kind. She has to be pure and holy. In fact, I will not marry her unless she is as holy as I myself am."

So God began the process. He begins the process in this life, you'll notice it says by the washing of the water with the word. That's what it says right there in the last part of verse 26 and verse 27, "So that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Just like Jesus. That's the agenda that God has because He says He sure can't marry her.

He's engaged to her now, that's one thing, but she's not ready to be married yet. But the day is coming when this bride is going to be married and my Son is going to have somebody to sit with him on the throne. That's where things are going. And someday we are going to be so holy and we're going to be so without blemish and we're going to be as pure as Jesus is, with no mixed motives.

So that in heaven if someone is promoted above you, and some will be above us no doubt because of faithfulness here on earth, others will be lower because of lack of faithfulness. This is a testing ground to see how much He can entrust you with in the heavenly kingdom. The time is going to come when we will all though be holy and without blemish and with desires that are so pure that when we see those that are exalted above us, we will rejoice in their exaltation as if it were our own.

Totally free of wrinkle and blemish and spot and any such thing, the Bible says. Holy. That's the agenda of God. Now, so that is the condition of the church. Now what I want you to do is let's turn to the wedding. Let's see the wedding. The 19th chapter, the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 19. You'll notice it says in verse six, Revelation 19 verse six, "Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out Hallelujah, for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready."

Wow, it's time for the wedding folks. Now we're in heaven and we're ready. We've been declared to be as pure as Jesus. Not only that, that happens in this life, but in the life to come we are so purified now because we have our resurrection body. The rapture has already happened and by the way, don't even think about not coming back next week when I speak about that, the return of Jesus.

So a number of things have happened to us to get us there. First of all, we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. We stopped trusting ourselves and we trusted him alone. In fact, listening to me today, maybe on the internet or radio or right here in this sanctuary, there are those of you who have never made that transfer of trust. And maybe you think you have, but part of our ministry as pastors is the reconversion of church members who were never genuinely saved.

So have you trusted him? So that's it and then you're declared as righteous as Christ is. And then we go and we've already been judged at what we will call the judgment seat of Christ where only Christians go, but the whole idea of there is to take care of all issues on earth that were that were left untangled or tangled up.

Divorces, husband walks away from his wife, does terrible things. Both of them are Christians. They walk into heaven, does God say ha-ha-ha, let bygones be bygones? No, no, no. That's where it's all dragged out and adjudicated and justice is brought to the situation. And the righteousness of Jesus Christ is then finally and totally applied and it's not only legally applied now, it is actually true of us that our desires finally are totally pure and holy and righteous because we have our new bodies with brand new desires and sin is gone.

The bride is ready because the groom took us out of the pit of sin, cleaned us up, has been cleaning us up all the way through our lives, gives us the final cleanup at the judgment seat of Christ and now it's time for the wedding. In most weddings, the emphasis is on the bride, understandably. In this one, the groom gets an awful lot of attention.

You'll notice it says in verse seven, "Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come." Let us at that moment folks give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come. Are you going to be excited to give Jesus glory someday? Are you going to be?

This is Pastor Lutzer. Let me ask you a question, what comes to mind when I mention the new birth? Many people think of salvation as someone drowning in their sin and Jesus Christ throws them a life preserver. Well, that's not sufficient. A better illustration is to think that Jesus comes into the water with us and rescues us from our sin. This is a great miracle.

That's why we're making available for you a book entitled *The New Birth*. It's written by a man by the name of Peter Mead. Now it's going to clarify many of the issues that surround the new birth. It'll be a great blessing to you even if you are born again, it will help you to understand who you are in Christ.

Very quickly, here's what you do for a gift of any amount. You go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let me give you that contact info again. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Dave McAllister: It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. These days church, for some, has become optional. Dr. Lutzer, a listener named Eric sent us this question: "I speak to many people who profess to be Christians, but who don't go to church and don't feel the need to go to church. They claim they're already spiritual and worship the Lord on their own. So here's my question. What Bible verses specifically deal with church fellowship with believers and God's desire for us to be part of the fun?"

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, Eric, first of all, I'm interested the way in which you describe that. I'm not sure exactly if going to church makes us part of the fun, but I am very interested in your question itself. The Bible is very clear. For example, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25. It says, "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as some do, but rather see that the day is approaching and encourage one another."

Eric, I want to be very clear that when you talk about Christians who see no interest or no need for church, they probably aren't true Christians. And the reason I say that is that the New Testament presents the church as a body, and the body has to function together. It's connected. It's presented as a community, it is talked about as sheep that are part of the same sheepfold.

We find, for example, that it is a temple put together with various stones. Eric, we need one another. The encouragement, the support, the singing together, the affirmation that we are indeed one. All that is important to church. Bottom line is this, what draws us together as believers is not a common interest.

This is not like a club on photography or some other special interest. What draws us together is a common life, and that common life touches all areas of our experience and our own individual lives. Church is necessary, don't listen to the folks who are telling you otherwise.

Dave McAllister: Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. Thank you, Eric, for the question and we hope to see you in church on Sunday. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running To Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.

The church is much more than a building on the corner. One day in heaven, Jesus will be united with his church at a great marriage supper of the Lamb. Next time on Running To Win, Erwin Lutzer wraps up his study about the church as a key element of what we believe. Tune in as Pastor Lutzer talks further about the glories of a great wedding feast yet to come.

Running To Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running To Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.