Running To Win

Announcer: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. A simple three-point outline can help us make the most of hearing a sermon. As we're learning, one outline comes from the book of James. Today, how to take home more from church than you ever thought possible. 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, what does it mean to be blessed by the word of God?

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, I'm going to answer your question in just a moment, but you know, we're living at a time thanks to cell phones and other technologies, people are constantly distracted. Even in church.

And what James would want to tell us is to listen carefully, to recognize that you are listening to the word of God and hearing from him with a sense of respect and openness.

But in answer to your question, what does it mean to be blessed? I think we've all had that experience. I remember going through a very difficult trial. And I woke up very early in the morning and the words of Scripture came to me about the sovereignty of Jesus and those who worship Jesus in the book of Revelation. My heart was so blessed. The anxiety left. That's what the word of God can do for us. It can rebuke us. It can help us, it can encourage us, it can be the exact word that we need when we need it. Now let me ask you a question. Have you been blessed as a result of the ministry of Running to Win?

If so, it's because other people, just like you, or perhaps it is you, you have helped us in this ministry. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? At the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info, but pray about it. Because God knows we depend upon people like you as we spread the gospel around the world.

Before a sermon, cleansing. During a sermon, humility. After a sermon, well, obviously, the word that you're expecting me to say, and I will say, is obedience. But let's look at the text, okay?

Verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he is going to be blessed in what he is doing.

James says it's like a man looking in the mirror. Now I need to tell you that in Greek there are two different words for man. There's one word for man which means mankind, it could include women. That's not the word that James is using here. He's using a word that can only be translated, male. He has a man in mind.

Now, whenever you approach the gender issue, you begin to get a little nervous. I mean, after all, we're living in a day and age where we can't even build a snowman anymore. It has to be a snow person that has to be built. But I'm going to skate across this really fast.

Now, just tell me honestly, one-on-one, who is it that spends more time in front of a mirror, the male species or the female species? I mean, is there any debate about that? I don't think so. I don't think so.

You see, James knows that it's not like a woman to look in the mirror and then go her way and forget what she was like. Men will. They'll look at the mirror, they'll maybe use a little bit of mouthwash, throw on some cologne, and hey, they're fine. And they forget about all the rest. James says that's the way auditors do it.

You see, what they do is they look at the law, they're there on Sunday, they listen to a sermon and then they go their way and they forget about it and and they don't apply it and they forget the truth of it. The word of God is a mirror. And it tells you the truth about yourself. It is not bent.

You know, years ago when I was a little boy, I was in what in Canada would be like a state fair and I was in a house of mirrors. I don't know if you've ever been in one of those, but you know, you are in some rooms and you're just as tall, you know, you're like Jack and the Beanstalk, you know, you're up and then you're in some other rooms and you discover that you are short and very rotund.

You know, there are some people who are running around trying to find a mirror that makes them look good. The Bible is a mirror that tells it the way it is. It reflects, it reveals who we are.

Years ago, I remember a missionary telling this story and I believe it to be true because the missionary told us. That they were in a primitive tribe that had never seen mirrors in their life. So here they are, they bring a mirror to these people and a woman looked in the mirror, obviously, she had never seen her face before.

And according to their translation in English and I'll give it to you just the way they gave it when they told us, she looked in the mirror and then she looked away and said, who is this hag that has come into our village? She'd never seen herself before.

You see, and the word of God tells us who we are. It reveals God, but reveals us, but it also reveals, reveals God, and it becomes redemptive. You see, in the Bible, and I want to be clearer than what I just simply said, we not only see ourselves, we also see God. Beyond the sacred page, I see thee, Lord.

So the mirror not only reveals, the mirror also sanctifies, it brings us transformation. That's the word I'm looking for. You remember a second Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18, the Bible says, we also with open face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, even as by this word the Spirit.

What the word of God does is it reveals us to ourselves as to who we are, but then it also reveals Christ and there in the word we see his grace and we see his power and we see his love and we see his redemption. The Bible contains in itself all that we really need from now to eternity. It's all there.

And.

And that's why James says that what we have to do is we have to look intently into the law of liberty. We have to persevere in it and then he says, that person will be blessed in his deeds. And then he gives us some deeds that we should be doing. For example, in verse 26, he talks about the tongue. He says, if you can't control your tongue, I don't care how many sermons you've listened to, I don't care how many songs you've sung, your religion basically is vain.

James puts a tremendous amount of emphasis on the tongue. And then he says he deceives his heart because he thinks, once again, look, I've heard the word, I've memorized the scripture, but it hasn't gone down into his heart. And then it says in verse 27, take care of the orphans and the widows.

And today we may include in that preborn infants and their mothers, and in this way, James says, we live out our faith so that it becomes practical and it becomes real because we have been gripped by God's holy word. And by the way, all of the statistics indicate that there is a tight connection between people who are in the word consistently. And people who serve in the church, people who are committed to the church, people who are loyal to God's ministries, people who are generous, there is a direct connection between the word of God and the way in which we live. And so James says that what you need to do is to look intently and persevere in the word.

And by the way, in the next message in the series, I'm going to be talking about meditation. The meditation in the scriptures so that we understand how we can persevere in the word.

How do we nail this down for ourselves so that we can leave here today, not just merely as auditors? First of all, keep in mind the outline that I want you to remember. First of all, before a sermon, cleansing, during a sermon, humility, teachability. After a sermon, obedience to what God has said.

First of all, let me put it to you this way, glancing, glancing is not the same as gazing, glancing is not the same as gazing. I don't know how to put that more clearly except to say being present doesn't mean that you're experiencing transformation.

You know, years ago when they had transistor radios, now of course, I'm sure that technology has passed way beyond them, but transistor radios was really quite a big thing because you could carry your radio in your pocket and there was this man who went to a concert with his wife, a symphony concert, and she appreciated the fact because he didn't really want to go, he didn't enjoy those kinds of things, that he he didn't complain at all, he seemed to enjoy it, he'd smile and participate. And she thought later on on the way home, I want to commend you for the fact that attending the concert isn't your big deal, but nonetheless, you were such a good companion tonight. He said, well, he said, honey, I have to confess to you that I had a little earpiece and I was actually listening to a baseball game.

That's the way some people come to church. It may not be the transistor radio, it could be the phone, it could be other distractions, and even if it's none of those, their minds are somewhere else. And what I'm saying to you is glancing is not the same as gazing. You look at the scripture of those who encountered God.

Now they encountered him in ways that you and I don't, but we encounter God through the word. What did Peter say? Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Job, after he encountered God directly, he said, I've heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee. Therefore, I abhor myself in dust and ashes. The word of God will slay you.

It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It takes us apart. It it lays us on the table. The imagery there in the book of Hebrews chapter 4 is a medical kind of imagery. It it takes us apart and shows us our need. But glancing is not the same as gazing with a heart that is intending to obey. You see, the man who looks in the mirror and walks away, he's a man who does not look deeply into himself, nor into God, nor into redemption.

So glancing is not the same as gazing. Hearing is not the same as doing. Hearing is not the same as doing. Jesus repeatedly talked about those who heard, but they really didn't hear. They they listened to the words, they they had those words come into their hearts, but nothing really happened beyond that. There was no, there was no follow-up.

And then I have to emphasize something else. And that is that we should remember that knowing and hearing is not the same as believing. You know, in the fourth chapter of the book of Hebrews, we have an amazing passage of scripture that I want to remind you of. It is a marvelous example. Of how a nation of Israel heard God's word, understood what he said, there is no doubt about the fact that they all heard the same thing, and yet they turned away from him because they didn't believe what they heard. Listen to this.

The author of Hebrews is writing about those people and he says, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. I want to pause there for a moment. It's possible even when it comes to sermons that the sermons can harden your heart.

Every time you hear about the need to receive Christ as savior and to receive his grace, you can continue to harden your heart because you say no, no, no, no. And the more often you do that, pretty soon you discover that it no longer bothers you and it no longer brings any conviction because your heart is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is incredibly deceitful. It promises one thing and then gives us another, but we go bumbling through thinking to ourselves, this has to be right because I want what I want, when I want it. And the author said, beware, lest you heard the word of God and all that it did is harden you, rather than soften you.

And then you'll notice it says in chapter 4, it says this, you don't need to turn to it, but listen carefully. For good news came to us just as it came to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. I memorized the book of Hebrews in the King James version many, many years ago, and it just simply said this, the word preached to them did not profit them because it was not mixed in faith. And what happened? They died in the wilderness and did not experience God's best.

You see, it's a tragic story. Jesus said in the Old Testament, and of course, he says it explicitly in the New, through his own words and through the writings of the Apostle Paul and other writers of the New Testament. That I am offering you grace, I am offering you forgiveness, I am offering you the promised land, the words of James say that whoever is intent in the law of liberty and obeys, will be blessed in his deeds. That's what I'm offering you.

But it's possible for our hearts to be so hard, so indifferent, that we harden them against God and the word preached is not mixed with faith, and it profits none and we are the losers.

So, as we think about our own commitment to listening to the word of God in 40 days, that is to say the New Testament or reading it, and if you're behind, you continue to to go ahead. And some of you, I know are behind, I have to believe that you are behind because I'm a day behind. And if I'm a day behind, I I'm sure I represent many within the congregation, but we're all going to persevere, why? Because James says that when we do that, we will be blessed in our deeds. Here's my concluding plea to you. Don't harden your heart. That's what it says in the book of Hebrews. It says harden not your heart, today you hear his voice. Don't don't do it. Don't don't bring so much anger to the situation, don't bring so much love of sin, don't bring so much unbelief to the situation. That you cannot benefit from God's holy word and his most blessed promises of forgiveness and hope and help and fellowship and all those things await those who look intently and continually in the law of God.

It's a very sobering thing to realize that there are people who sing the same songs because they're singing in the same church. People who listen to the same scripture read, people who listen to the very same sermons. And yet one group of people is on a trajectory to heaven and to blessing, and the other people are on their way to a place that the Bible refers to as damnation. And the problem is that we frequently can't tell the difference because to us they look so much alike.

Could I ask you as a result of this message, how inadequately it might have been preached? To simply ask God to search your heart and ask you, where are you on the continuum? Are you a true believer? Or are you a believer, but you have also hardened your heart? Don't do that.

Remember that old story about the $50 bill, the fake $50 bill, the counterfeit $50 bill that was used to buy some groceries, it helped a child buy some shoes, it did a lot of good along the way, but when it got to the bank, totally disqualified because it was fake. Only you know your heart, you don't know it as well as God knows it. But where are we?

James says, when you listen, don't be an auditor. Receive with meekness the word which is able to save your souls and it does, it's the implanted word, it's the word that God has sown in our hearts. And in response to that, what is the promise that James gives? A man like this, he says, who obeys, will be blessed in all that he does. There's nothing but blessing for those who pursue God and his word.

Father, we ask today in the name of Jesus that you might take these remarks and help all of us to understand that we have been brought to this moment with this great opportunity to be involved in your word. We pray, oh Lord, help us. Help us, Father, to come to it with the same reverence and openness with which we come into your presence. Help us to listen, to learn, to respond. For those who have never trusted Christ as savior, no matter where they are, we pray that they might believe on him right now and be saved. And for those of us who know you, make our hearts tender toward you and your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. Did you know it's because of people just like you that messages like the one that you have just heard goes around the world free? As a matter of fact, if you go to our website, you'll discover that we have sermons, blogs, articles, all available, all free, why? Because of our many partners who support this ministry. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? You know, I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who wrote, the moment I heard your teaching, the Lord lifted me and stood me so firmly upon much higher ground. I can never really truly express, you offer such wonderful teaching. Well, it's really not me. It's our partners who help us. Here's what you can do. Go to RTWoffer.com. That's RTW