Running To Win

Dave McAllister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and proctor of our faith. Ever felt wounded when someone said an unkind word to you? Did you know that God feels wounded when you sin? The Bible calls this grieving the Holy Spirit. As we mature in the faith, we become ever more sensitive to the Spirit's presence and our behavior begins to change. 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, give us a preview of what you mean by the gift of sensitivity.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, you know, Dave, the Bible says, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God by which you have been sealed unto the day of redemption. And I've discovered, and I'm sure that everyone who is listening, who's a believer, has discovered this, that there are times when we grieve the Holy Spirit and we know it. And that should hurt us deeply. The Spirit loves us. The Spirit desires that we live holy lives. He is grieved because of sin, especially sin that we tolerate. I'm so thankful for the many of you who support this ministry. You are actually partners with us.

And perhaps you've heard me say this before, but the end of this month is the end of our fiscal year. But to give you some encouragement, this also is the time when we have our matching gift challenge. What that means is every gift that you give will be doubled. I'd like to give you some contact info. And I'd also like you to pray and to ask the Lord whether or not he is leading you to become our partners. Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And by the way, if you are unable to give, I trust that you will indeed hold us up in prayer.

For now, let us listen. This happens to be number eight in a series of messages entitled When the Spirit has his way, recapturing the wonder of God within us. One of the most important things we can learn about the Holy Spirit is that he is indeed a person. He's not an influence, he's not courage, he's not a feeling. Though he may produce some of those effects, but that's not who he is. He is a person. And when we are inhabited by Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, we actually get the Father, we get the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

It's impossible for us to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit without also being indwelt by the Father and the Son. Jesus made that clear in the upper room discourse when he said that my Father will come and I will come and we, together with the Holy Spirit, will make our abode with him. Today's message is on sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, becoming sensitive to the God who lives within us. I remember one time Rebecca and I were at a dinner and there was a man who he and his wife and he was very boorish. Uh he spoke without sensitivity to his wife.

We could tell that she was actually on the verge of tears, but he didn't get it. He either thought A, uh I'm not hurting her, or B, even if I am, it's no big deal. Now that's the way we treat the Holy Spirit. You see, we grieve the Spirit and we say to ourselves it's not that big a deal and we're grieving him and we don't even know it. Today I want the Holy Spirit to uncover ways in which we grieve the Spirit so that we are made more blessable. Came across that word this past week and like it very much.

Not sure if it's in the dictionary, but God wants to bless us and how do we become more blessable? The passage that was read to us, the fourth chapter of Ephesians, you need to open it so that you can see this for yourself. Ephesians chapter four and you'll notice that the apostle Paul says in verse 22 uh we're to put to death our old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Don't you marvel at how accurate the Bible is? It calls these desires deceitful because they are. Don't have time to explain it today, but I think it's very obvious.

And we're to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Conversion to Christ is a big deal. It's a big deal because God comes to live within us by virtue of the Holy Spirit, whom we emphasize as bringing salvation to us, even though the other two members of the Trinity are involved. And what the Spirit of God does is he he creates a space, not an actual space that you can measure, but he creates a space within us in which he can live, which is created in holiness and righteousness.

And he intends to live there and feel at home there. And he takes up residence there. You've never trusted Christ as Savior, just understand that it is a great, marvelous work of God. And if you haven't keep listening to this message because I want you to be encouraged in the direction of Jesus. You may be investigating Christianity and you're you're not in yet with Jesus, but you are listening. Keep listening. And for those who have trusted Christ, understand that the Spirit of God wants to inhabit us and he does not want to be grieved. My chief text today is verse 30.

It says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Last message in the series was entirely devoted to the sealing of the Spirit. So I'm interested in that first phrase now. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Spirit is very sensitive. He's likened onto a dove because doves are sensitive birds. And the Spirit isn't going to force himself on you. You see, one of the mistakes that we make is we think that because we have the Holy Spirit, we don't have to seek him. But of course that's wrong.

In the Old Testament, your member David knew God very well and yet he kept saying, I seek the Lord. Why? Uh it's in the process of seeking that we make ourselves blessable uh where we deal with issues that of insensitivity to the Spirit that he reveals to us. And it is there that we are pointed to Christ. It is the Spirit of God whom we must seek in his fullness and great blessing. So with that background and with our text in mind, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. What I'd like to do is to give you five transformations that conversion is to bring about in our hearts.

And each of these will have a way in which we grieve the Spirit and a way in which we please the Spirit. Paul likens it onto putting off the old man, the old clothes, and putting on the new clothes so that that part within us that's been created within us, a space for the Holy Spirit that that he might feel at home and not grieved by our insensitivity and sin. So that's the agenda, five different transformations that the Spirit brings about. Number one, you'll notice it is from lying to truthfulness. Verse 25, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor.

If you were brought up in a home where there was lots of lying, where there was covering for an alcoholic and you had to lie for him or lie for your mother and you lied as a family, you'll grow up wanting to lie, to tell lies and uh hopefully at some point you think that these lies uh don't make any difference. And if you were brought up in a home where truth was important, you may still become a liar. And you may lie because of self-protection. You want to guard what you've done. You want to look good and you don't want to admit the truth.

Or for self-aggrandizement to make yourself look better. Either way, we are all tempted to lie. And the Bible says that we should speak truth to our neighbor, to our friends, to our wives, and to our husbands. Now um it's interesting that somebody gave me an article the other day that said the average American tells 11 lies every week. Of course, I look at that rather skeptically and say, can you trust the survey? I mean, you know. Uh you remember if you're reading through the New Testament, you came to Titus where Paul says, Accretion told me that all Cretans are liars.

I'm saying, hey, you know, you heard it from Accretion. Was he telling you the truth or wasn't he? Now here's the point. The apostle Paul says, put all lies aside. Put all lies aside. Don't lie to yourself, don't lie to others because in the end you are lying to God. You remember Ananias and Sapphira? They thought that they were lying to the church and Peter comes along and says, you've not lied to men. You've lied to God. Those fibs that you tell, you've lied to men and you have also lied to God. Let's get that straight.

Some of you perhaps are living a lie for whatever reason and God wants you to clean it up because you see the spirit is a spirit of truth and he is sensitive to it and the Holy Spirit brings it to the surface so that we can deal with it. Thinking, for example, of a mother who changed the date of their wedding. They moved to a different town and she thought nobody here really knows us, nobody's going to investigate it. So she changed the wedding date, changed it by a couple of months so that her oldest daughter would get the impression that she was conceived within marriage rather than outside of marriage.

And the woman's husband kind of went along with it, but now this woman really wants to serve God. She wants to do and boy, there it is. You lied and that lie is still there on your marriage certificate. It's amazing what price people are willing to pay to be fully right with God when the Spirit has his way. Well, let's go to a second transformation. And by the way, at no extra cost. I can tell you exactly how to stop lying if you're a liar. I mean, you can stop this habit in two weeks, probably one.

Here's what you do. Every time you tell a lie and you become conscious of it, stop right there and tell the person that you're talking to, I want you to know that I've just lied to you. And it'll work and I'm going to tell you the truth now. Just do that regularly. And pretty soon the lies won't come out of your mouth because the spirit will prompt you ahead of time, lie coming up. Tell the truth. Really? Second, we have from anger to self-control. Why? Anger to self-control because the Holy Spirit of God enables us to have self-control.

Here it is now. Verse 26, be angry and don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Uh when angry, do not sin. There is a legitimate anger. We should be angry. It's child abuse at all of the injustices of the world. There is such a thing as righteous anger. In fact, God is angry with the wicked every day we read in the Bible, in the Old Testament. Illegitimately, but don't sin when you do. Don't respond in a way that you're going to regret when angry. Do not sin.

Don't go to bed angry. I always say that, you know, Rebecca and I had that as our motive and uh we have never gone to bed angry, though I do recall one summer when we were up for two weeks, okay? For those of you who are literalists, that is a joke. Just so you know. The Bible says, don't become angry and give the devil a tapos, an opportunity. Let me say a word to those of you who are abusers. You were abused, now you're abusing. And you keep promising yourself you aren't going to do it again.

You need help. You need the help of the Holy Spirit, but you also need deep repentance and accountability. If anybody is listening to this and you are abusing a child, stop it. Stop it right now and get help because you're not only lying to God, you're destroying a child. So what he says, yes, you can go ahead and clap. What he says is when angry, do not sin. Uh do not uh give the devil a tapos, an opportunity. The imagery there is to give the devil a place. You open the door. You may have had this experience.

Somebody's out there that you don't want to let in, but they get their foot in the door. And now what are you going to do? The devil loves to instigate, to aggravate, to cause anger. Why? Because it's so destructive. You do things that you when you are angry that you later regret, that you cannot undo. And somebody says, well, you know, I just blow up and get it over with. Oh yeah, yeah, and all the pieces. Lie there and you can ask forgiveness and forgiveness may be granted, but you do that a number of times and it all becomes very hollow and the anger is destructive and goes from one generation to another, a whole generation of angry children because of some angry parents.

Deal with that anger, recognize it to be sinful. And the Holy Spirit will help you, the church will help you, accountability will help you, but when angry, do not sin because the devil wants to use your anger to kill, to destroy and to wreck homes and marriages and families and children. It's terrible. Spirit will help us. A third um it says um don't steal, don't be a taker, but be a giver. You'll notice it says, let the thief no longer steal. I'm in verse 28, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

People steal today. They steal from their employer by the time they waste or the supplies that they take. They steal from the government. They steal by having illicit and wrong lawsuits. Uh people steal. It's amazing what even good people will do when big money is flashed in their face. And so what he's saying is he is saying do not steal. Uh don't steal, but rather he says work with your hands. Sometime ago I heard a report that it is true that the thieves, if they work with their hands, it becomes helpful. Of course, in those days that was the only kind of work they could probably do.

And it says work in such a way that you can give. Replace your stinginess and your thievery with being generous. By the way, you want to spend $1,000 at a casino. Uh don't do that because you're going to lose it anyway. And if you do win it, you're winning somebody else's money that you don't own or deserve. So what you do is you give it to Christian ministry and then you know at least you're going to get an awesome return. It's going to meet you again in heaven. And what you do is you become generous.

Why? Because that is really the opposite of stealing. Maybe I'm speaking to somebody today and you say, well, you know, I don't steal. You don't steal, but if you aren't giving, there's a sense in which you're still a thief because you're not acknowledging God to be the owner of all that you have. And so giving becomes very very important, not stealing. Let me tell you that when the Holy Spirit has his way in a church or in a community, there are all kinds of issues that people have to deal with. Uh for example, um I'm thinking of somebody who during a time of revival had uh 99 cent bag of potatoes go past the checkout counter without the checkout lady seeing it.

Well, you know, it's 99 cents. The store's big. It's not that big a deal stealing 99. I didn't intend to steal it. It's just that she didn't see it at the bottom of my shopping cart. But now when the Holy Spirit of God begins to work, the Spirit of God who makes us sensitive begins to speak to people and they say, you know, I have to make that right. So this lady did. And because there was a revival going on in the community, the store manager said either something is going on in this town or else this is my lucky day because you're the second person that has come to confess stealing from the store.

She told them something is going on. He was visibly shaken. Why? Those who do not know God, when they see righteousness like this, they're terrified. Years ago I told you the story about the man bent over in his office weeping. This pastor came over to him, thought for sure a child had died, wondering what in the world. Couldn't even talk to the guy who was sobbing so much. He said that the Holy Spirit showed him his heart. And he said it was like looking into hell and he had been dishonest in terms of his uh reporting cards.

You know, the uh business accounts. Well, businessmen steal, don't they? Don't they fill their cars with the gasoline on the company credit card? Isn't that just kind of accepted if you can get away with it? It's no big deal. But when the Spirit has his way, it becomes a mighty big deal. You know, my friend, I believe that God would be so honored if we all developed sensitivity toward the Holy Spirit. I've experienced times where the Holy Spirit puts a check on me, so to speak. There's something that happens and something internal that says don't do this.

I trust that we will not only love the Holy Spirit, but we will walk in the Spirit and we will not grieve the Holy Spirit. And you know, speaking about our ministry here at Running to Win, I want to thank you so much for the many of you who support this ministry. And during this period of time when we are having a matching gift challenge, it's a great opportunity for you to contribute. And if I might mention again, the end of this month is the end of our fiscal year. I sure hope that you have a pen or pencil handy so that you can write down this info.

Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. In my mind, I visualize you as holding hands with us as together we run toward the finish line. Let me give you that contact info again. 1-888-218-9337. Or go to your computer right now and type in rtwoffer.com.

Dave McAllister: It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Karen listens to Running to Win on KVIP in Redding, California and has this unusual question. I was wondering, how did the Roman soldiers get Jesus' body off the cross? Was there a tool or was the flesh torn to the extent that the nails did not need to be removed first? I'm thinking they must have had some sort of tool to use since they crucified many people in those days.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Karen, thanks so much for your question. And of course, it's hard for us to visualize exactly how this happened, but I did a bit of research and discovered that indeed they did have nails during those days. Now nails were very scarce because iron was scarce. And of course, they couldn't manufacture the nails the way in which we do today. So according to my sources, when they nailed somebody to the cross, they always took down the body, yes, but also they retrieved the nails. Did they have hammers like we do today to pull them out? I don't think so.

But of course, they'd have had some kind of primitive tools by which they could pull out these nails and reuse them. Now as far as Jesus dying there on the cross and how his body was taken down, that's something that perhaps we don't know a lot about, but the important thing to remember, of course, Karen, as you likely know, is that the physical suffering of Jesus was nothing in comparison to the spiritual suffering. The fact that he was willing to take our sins and to become our sin bearer. So at the end of the day, what rejoices our heart is the willingness of Jesus to die on the cross, to have his body nailed to a cross.

And then thankfully, when it was taken down and put in the tomb, Jesus was raised three days later. God bless you, Karen, and keep thinking about our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dave McAllister: Some wise counsel from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Thank you once again, Dr. Lutzer. 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. Becoming Christlike involves developing a growing sensitivity to the Holy Spirit who wants to create in us the character of Jesus. When this happens, sins that seemed so small suddenly seem big. And our desire to please God means saying no to many things that didn't bother us before.

Next time on Running to Win, more teaching on the gift of sensitivity. Thanks for listening. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.