Running To Win

Guest (Male): Pastor Lutzer, with all the noise in the media, it seems harder than ever to get the gospel across to people.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, you have put it so clearly. As a matter of fact, it's impossible to overemphasize the point that you have just made. There are so many voices in the media. Oftentimes, the person with the loudest voice gets the greatest audience, and that loud voice may be wrong.

But nonetheless, thanks to social media and thanks to the internet, that oftentimes, it is impossible, almost impossible, to find some space in our lives without noise. But in the midst of that, how wonderful it is that we can proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I want every listener to understand this. It's because of people just like you who have prayed for us and who have invested in this ministry that Running to Win is heard around the world. At the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info so that you can actually become one of our partners, even as we continue to expand, making sure that we're doing all that we can to spread the gospel even further.

We are going to be above the angels in the eternal state. This is what God has done for sinners to display his glory, to show what he can do. We are exhibit A of the undeserved love, mercy, grace, and power of God.

Now, the question is, how is this received? Paul mentions grace earlier. He says, "For by grace you are saved." He has to throw that in. But then he gets to verse eight and clarifies even more directly. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." What do we say about the grace that saves?

First of all, grace, as you know, is God's undeserved favor. He's giving us what we don't deserve out of the abundance of his mercy. That's what grace is. First of all, it's obvious; it has to be a free gift. It has to be a free gift.

Jesus couldn't come to Lazarus and say, "Now Lazarus, I'm willing to raise you, but I need something from you first. I mean, Lazarus, at least wiggle a finger. Give me something, and then I'll do it for you." No, it has to be his sovereign choice and his gift. There is no other way that it could be because in the process of trusting Christ, what happens is we receive the righteousness of God, which is not human righteousness added to a higher power. It's an entirely different kind of righteousness.

So the only way in which you and I can receive it is simply as a gift. Paul says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God, the gift of God, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Could it be any clearer in the text? What else do we say about this grace? It is apart from works.

Notice the text says by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works. All the works done by human beings, all the good works added together from all of the past ages, will never change God's mind regarding a single sinner because, as I emphasized, all of our works are tainted. Our natures are basically corrupt, even though they can do good things, and it cannot be by works.

Paul says in Romans chapter 11:6, he says if it's by grace, it is not of works. If it's of works, it's not of grace. You cannot take saving grace and mix it with works and understand the gospel. So the good news is that it is a free gift; it is apart from works.

What happened is this: God says, "In order to save people, I have to clear the decks. I have to clear the decks. I have to make it sure that no human goodness is involved in the salvation process. If there had been some goodness in us that God could use, if there had been something within us that matched the holiness of God, God would have had to acknowledge it and to use it."

But rather, the Bible says all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. We all are short of it. So God says, "In order to do my own thing, I have to make it very, very clear that human works can have no part of the salvation process. That I must raise the dead, and it must not be of works, lest any man boast. Lest any man boast."

Number of years ago, I was speaking at a breakfast in Detroit. I preached the gospel, and afterwards, the cleric who closed in prayer said this: "Oh God, we pray that we may live in such a way that when we stand before you, we will be proud of all of our accomplishments."

God only knows his heart, but I do not believe that that man understands the gospel, nor was he born again. Can you imagine that? We're going to stand before God and be proud of all of our accomplishments? Stand before God? We'll be on our faces with nothing to present. Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling. That's the understanding of the gospel, and yes, you may clap.

The good news is that because it's grace, it is unaffected by the degree of your sin. I pointed out last time that when you have two corpses, one isn't more dead than the other. Does Jesus say, "Well, I was able to raise Lazarus because he was dead only four days. But my, if he had been dead for two weeks, there's no way I could have done that." No. This is God's work, and it is not affected by the degree of your sin. God can save big sinners.

Some of you, if the truth really were known, if we knew your past and if we know what all you've done, you may have done some very terrible things, criminal things. You say, "Is God able to save me?" Yes, of course God's able to save you because salvation is God's work, and it is not hindered by your sin. If God speaks to you and you savingly believe, the greatest of sinners, we sometimes sing, "The vilest of sinners who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives."

The Sears Tower is taller than the LaSalle National Bank. We could have some young engineers do some research and tell us about how many feet one is and how many yards or whatever, and one is taller than the other. But if you stop comparing them between themselves and begin to compare them from the distance of the farthest star, you say, "Hey, there isn't that much difference between them."

We as humans are different; some are better than others. But once we begin to compare ourselves with God, we all fall short. And God comes along and speaks the word and grants us life, and he is not limited by your past.

Now, notice it says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith." Through faith. That is the sole requirement: faith. You say, "Well, what does faith involve?" Faith involves three things. First of all, knowledge. Did the people whom Jesus Christ rejected, that he predicted he would reject, the folks who cast out demons in his name and did all these marvelous works, did they have knowledge? You bet they had knowledge. They may have been on television with open Bibles. They may have been brought up in church. Of course they had knowledge.

The second part is that you need assent. Assent is an intellectual conviction that the facts of the gospel are true. It is true that Jesus died for sinners. It is true that he was raised from the dead, and you have assent to these, and you believe they happened. Did these folks have assent? I would think they would.

I don't believe that they'd have been casting out demons, doing all kinds of miracles. By the way, we're not sure in whose power they were actually doing it. They may have used the name of Jesus and yet because of their doctrinal error, demons might have cooperated and made it look as if they were being cast out. We're not sure. But they would have had assent to the facts. What was missing? Why were they turned away from the heavenly gates?

Because faith involves something else, and that is trust. It involves a transfer of trust to Christ. It is not my faith in Jesus plus, in case Jesus isn't good enough, I've got something in my back pocket to add to it.

The founder of one of America's great seminaries, who understood grace, said this: that he wants to trust Jesus Christ so completely and so totally that if he gets to heaven and discovers that faith in Jesus alone is not the way of salvation, that you need something else, and to have believed something else, he said that he will be turned away and be damned forever. That's the kind of faith that saves: the transfer of trust to Christ. That's grace.

Now, grace is difficult to accept. You'd think that after this exposition that everybody would believe, that those listening on the internet and on the radio, they'd all say, "Let me stop the car, wherever I am, wherever I'm listening to this, right now, I'm going to transfer my trust to Jesus." But it's difficult for two categories of people.

First, it's difficult for those who have sinned greatly. Because they say to themselves, "I am so unworthy. I am so defiled because of my sin. There's no way God would accept me." Well, I hope I answered your question by pointing out that the real issue isn't the degree of your sin.

Then there's another category. They are even more difficult to deal with. They are the ones who really, really struggle against grace and don't receive it, and that is the goody-two-shoes people. The people who work in social work and who devote their time and their energy. The people who want to better the world. The people who are basically fundamental, honest, decent people, many of them attending churches.

They struggle against grace greatly because, "You mean to say that I am that bad off? What do you mean?" And then they drag out all of their list of accomplishments. And so they struggle, and they find it difficult to accept grace.

Like somebody said, the only time I ever sinned was to take my golf clubs in anger and wrap them around a tree. Oh my, could I get your autograph here? Here's a man having in 26 years committed one sin. Wow. He finds it difficult to accept grace. Grace comes along and undercuts all that and says, "Hey, the social work that you're doing is great; keep doing it. But it buys no saving merit in God's sight," and people don't like it.

I told you earlier, didn't I, but I have to use it again, about the woman in the plane who is very self-righteous that I was sitting next to? She was the kind who probably would say, "Well, maybe I committed two sins, but I need to think long and hard before I'd be able to identify them." And I said, "Would you consider yourself ungodly?" And she said, "Oh, are you kidding? I'm not ungodly."

And I smiled my best smile. Don't ever be mean unless you smile. Don't ever. But if you smile, then it takes the edge off. I said, "I'm so sorry to hear that because that means that Jesus didn't die for you." "What do you mean, Jesus didn't die for you?" He said, "Jesus, the Bible says, died for the ungodly. So if you're not ungodly, he didn't die for you." Wow. You see how hard it is for her to accept grace? It's tough to accept grace.

For those who are willing to accept grace and transfer their trust to Jesus, admitting how bad off they are, they are the ones who are saved. And Jesus said that every plant that my heavenly Father does not plant will be rooted up because it was a false faith. It was knowledge, it was assent, but there was no transfer of trust to Jesus and to Jesus alone. Alone. Alone.

When I stand before God, I will quote the words of Toplady: "Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling." That's all that I'll take to heaven. Now, the Bible does say that now that we're saved, notice it says, "We're saved unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Having been converted, having been raised from the dead, Lazarus has to get out of the tomb, and if he lived long enough, he has to begin to help make dinner.

So God wants us to serve him. The works, though, follow salvation; they are not a part of the salvation process, the saving process. That can't be of works. But boy, once you're saved, you had better work. And if you don't, we have good reason to believe whether or not you really are saved because it naturally follows. And to think that God foreplanned the works that we should do boggles the mind.

Jesus told a parable about two men, both of whom believed in grace. There was a Pharisee who went into the temple to pray along with a tax gatherer. And the Pharisee was the goody-two-shoes person who couldn't think of anything terrible he'd done for a long time. So he stood up there and he prayed, and he said, "I thank thee God that I am not like other men: adulterers, extortioners. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of everything that I possess."

You say, "Did he believe in grace?" Yes, of course. Notice he said, "I thank thee God that I am not like other men." He was saying, "I'm a very, very good person, but I'm thanking God for the fact that I'm so good." So yeah, after a manner of speaking, he believed in grace.

But the other man, the tax gatherer, he had a better assessment of himself. He smote his breast. He wouldn't even look to heaven; he couldn't look God in the eye, so to speak, and he said, "Oh God, be merciful, be propitiated to me a sinner." And Jesus said that the man who said those words, he went home justified and the other man left unchanged.

What the Pharisee was saying is, "You know, I'm a good person, and with God's help, with God's help, I think I can save myself." The other person was saying, "I've got a real serious sin problem, and unless God intervenes, I'm going to damn myself." And one left justified, and the other left quite confident that he'd do better next time. With God's help, of course, and thankful that God gave him the grace to do good works.

Hear me out. Even the works that God gives us the grace to do will not save us, cannot save us. Only what God has done for us in Christ that we receive by faith, and the faith itself is a gift; it is not a work, so that salvation wholly and totally is of God. That's why we believe that God alone is the Savior.

So I have to ask you today, are you saved? Very good terminology, by the way. Somebody said to me the other day, "Why do you use this saved language?" Well, we have this kind of silly idea here at the Moody Church that we should preach the Bible. It's not widely done anymore, maybe, but we use the word saved because you'll notice it says, "For by grace you have been saved."

So I have to ask you, are you saved? Has the transfer of trust been made, and from that flows the assurance? Let me say a word about assurance. If you believe that when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, that he did all that ever will be necessary for you to stand in God's presence, and you embrace that for yourself, you not only will be saved, but you'll have the assurance that you are because you know that it has nothing to do with you; it has everything to do with the wonder of what Jesus did for sinners. And that's where assurance is found. So I ask you again, are you saved? Let's pray.

Father, we ask in Jesus' name that for the many who are listening, and you know who they are, who are cut off from you, who've never been redeemed, never been saved, cause them at this moment, Lord, to see their need and give them the ability to trust Christ. Come to them, Father. Reveal your truth to them.

Then, Lord Jesus, may they have that calm assurance that their hope is in Jesus alone. Not Jesus and rituals, but Jesus alone. Grant that, oh God, we pray. And for those who know you as Savior but struggle with assurance, show them the wonder and the beauty of the cross that they might rejoice in what Jesus did for them. We ask in your blessed name, Amen.

My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer, and so I have to press that question home to your heart one more time: are you saved? If not, today let it be the day of repentance and faith toward Jesus Christ. I want to emphasize that this ministry exists because of people just like you.

I've had the privilege of speaking in prisons, not often, but once in a while. What really impressed me is that many of them know Jesus Christ as Savior. I remember how some brought big Bibles, and they were interested in spiritual things.

Running to Win has the wonderful opportunity to go into these prisons by means of radio and internet and help share the good news of the gospel in that context. I'm holding in my hands a letter, actually, from someone who wrote and said that I'm a prisoner. I listen to the radio all the time because I have become more aware now of what good doctrine is. A lot of teachers teach feel-good doctrine, but it's not supported by scripture. I believe that the scripture is the inherent Word of God, and thank you, my relationship with Jesus Christ and others has been built upon the foundation of solid doctrine and biblical truth. Then it went on once more to commend our ministry.

Do you know why we receive testimonies like that? It's because there are so many people who support us with their prayers and, of course, with their gifts. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy right now. I want you to consider becoming what we call an endurance partner, someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their support. Would you at least investigate what an endurance partner is?

Here's what you do: go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word. Rtwoffer.com and then click on the endurance partner button. That'll give you the info that you need. Or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks again for joining hands with us as together we run toward that finish line.

Guest (Male): You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. The world of the spirit exists alongside the world we can see. Unseen millions of angels hover all around the people of God, serving those who are the heirs of salvation. In the Bible, angels are the messengers of God. Next time, don't miss another chapter in the basic teaching of the Christian faith: a chapter on the angels we appreciate. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.