Running To Win

Announcer: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Over a period of 1,600 years, God inspired about 40 authors who penned what we know as the Bible. This book is far more than a collection of writings. It’s the revealed Word of God, and that written revelation has the power to change the lives of its readers. 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 this series you’re calling Changed by the Word.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, Dave, our intention, of course, is that these messages might help us to understand the importance of the Word of God, and especially how the Word of God does indeed change us. I can’t help but think of the words of Jeremiah who said, "Thy words were found and I did eat them."

Let’s just think about this for a moment. The Bible actually is a full meal, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, it is bread. Jesus referred to it that way based on the book of Deuteronomy. It is also meat; that’s mentioned in the New Testament. And then for dessert: "Sweeter also than the honeycomb."

So the Bible is indeed a complete meal that sustains us even as we face the difficulties of this world. We’re reminded of its promises, it teaches us how to pray, it teaches us how to believe, it also leads us in the everlasting path. So with that in mind, I’m so glad for the many of you who have joined us for this series of messages. We believe that your own faith will be strengthened, and as a result of listening, I hope that you’ll be encouraged to be in the Word, believing the Word, trusting the Word, and yes, allowing the Word to change you.

Let me begin today with a question. If I were to ask you, as I am, for you to guess the percentage of evangelical Christians, Christians who claim to be born again, people like you and me, what percentage would you think read the Bible every day? You don’t have to shout your answer out loud, but would you say, "Well, I think 50% would"? Somebody said no. I don’t know why, because you may think it’s 75%. But the news gets more discouraging. Would it be 20%? No. Eleven percent.

Is it any wonder that the church of Jesus Christ is so anemic today because we are not being nourished by the Word of God? And all that is going to change as a result of a special challenge we’re going to lay before you today. Now there are reasons why people don’t do it. First of all, because the Bible seems to be a complicated book. Sixty-six books in one and you don’t know where to begin and you’re indecisive. I used to think that I was indecisive, but now I’m not sure whether I am.

And that’s the way people are. Where do I begin? There’s another reason, and that is they may read the Word but they’re not nourished by it. We want to teach you how to be nourished by it. And so they read the Word, but it’s in their mind and it’s gone, and they don’t think about it at all for the rest of the day. So they say it’s just a waste of time.

Some people are indifferent. They don’t see even the relevance of the Word to life, and therefore they set it aside. And of course, in this day when we are bombarded with stimuli, all kinds of electronic gadgets. Somebody told me this past week that someone in front of them in church, at Moody Church, was actually playing a game on their phone during the service last week. I don’t know who they are. God does, and that’s sufficient for me.

But we can’t even concentrate anymore unless your phone is going off. Oh, there’s a ding. Now who wants to talk with me? And the distractions are keeping it. And then at the bottom line, there’s Satan who wants to do everything that he possibly can to distract you and discourage you from being in the Word. And beginning today, we as a church are going to overcome all that for the glory of God.

And so what you have is Christians today who think that they are going to grow in osmosis some way when they go to sleep at night while they are sleeping, God is going to inject in them spirituality so that when they wake up, they have a heart hot for God. And they’ve not been in His Word at all. Maybe they open their Bible on a Sunday or watch the verses of scripture on a screen and that’s it.

The 40-day challenge that we’re going to lay out before you is transforming. Who is it for? And we’ll give you, of course, some of these details, some of which those of you who are in the Moody Church here, you have them in your bulletin. If you’re watching online, you can download the same instructions there. Who is this for, anyway? First of all, it’s for struggling Christians. For struggling Christians. Anybody a struggling Christian? Can I see your hands, please? All right, quite a few hands went up. You’ll notice that mine went up too. Struggling Christians. You know, if you’re perfect, you don’t need this. But before you guess whether or not you’re perfect, I am reminded of a man who said, "You know, if I just had a little bit more humility, I’d be perfect." So if you fit into that category, you don’t need it. But if you’re a struggling Christian like I am and like you probably are, you need this.

Who else is this for? Well, it’s for the lapsed Christian. For the lapsed Christian, the Christian who first of all is so defeated by sin that they give up on the battle and just say I’ll have nothing to do with it. Or they are very angry. They’re angry at other people, they’re angry at God, and so they want to step away from the faith.

Just this morning, I heard about a pastor who stepped away from the faith for a year. He was at a beach and as he looked out over these beautiful surroundings, he said, "You know, I’m just going to see what it’s like to live without God for a year. No prayer, no Bible reading." And he’s kind of now an atheist of sorts and guess what? He has discovered that he can find happiness and help other people find happiness without religion.

Well, of course he still has a moral sense because he is created in the image of God. You know, I had to just kind of laugh out loud when I thought of this. Here’s a man who said, "I’m going to do away with God. I’m not going to have anything to do with God for a year. I’m doing away with God for a year." What if God were to say, "I’m doing away with you for a year"? I mean, he’d be a grease spot on a rock by the beach.

The very breath that he breathes is God-given. And think if he is a believer, and I don’t know that he is, but if he is, think of what he is missing in terms of fellowship with God. I wouldn’t want to go a whole day without a fellowship with God. Imagine what he’s missing, but he doesn’t know that. So that’s for you. It’s for people with other religions. You may be here as a Muslim or as a Hindu or some other religion and you’re kind of exploring Christianity. This is for you. This would be a wonderful way for you to have some direct access to the text of scripture and therefore we want you to participate as well.

Now, everybody with their Bible open. Of course, with your Bible open, 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter one. When you look at the text, what you discover is that Peter is talking about the family of God. I hope that your Bible is open. You’ll notice in 1 Peter chapter one, it talks about children in verse 14. "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who has called you is holy, so be you holy in all your conduct." So we are children in the family of God.

You’ll notice that there is a Father, of course, in the family of God. Verse 17, "And if you call him as Father who judges impartially." So you’ll notice that. Notice we are brothers, and of course when you have the term brothers in the New Testament, it refers to sisters as well. Verse 22, "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love." Well, we’re brothers and sisters, so we love each other. And guess what? There are infants among us. Chapter two, verse one, "Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk." So we’re the family of God.

But the question is, how do we join the family of God? How do we get into the family of God? That’s the first question now that we want to answer today. And you’ll notice the words of Peter. I’m now in verse 22, "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart." That’s the way a family is supposed to exist, with love. Now your family wasn’t perfect and this church isn’t perfect, but we are a family and we are part of the family of God.

But how did we get there? "Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God because all flesh is like grass and its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our God, our Lord remains forever. And this is the word, the good news that was preached to you."

All right, how do we get into the family of God? What Peter is doing here is he is contrasting natural birth with spiritual birth. He says that we were not born again with perishable seed. That’s what happened when we were born the first time, physically. Our fathers and our mothers got together and as a result of that relationship, what we have today is our own life, but it will die. You can look at the animals, you can look at the plants, they come and they go and it is perishable seed. Even like the flower of the field, he says, because sometimes flowers are, they stand above the grass and they look very, very beautiful. But at the end of the day, those flowers fade and they die. That is perishable seed.

But he says when you’re born into the family of God, you are not born into with perishable seed. You are born with imperishable seed, with the living and the abiding word of God that abides forever. And this is the word, he says, that was preached to you. That’s what happens when we are born again. Now just like you have the seed of the father and the ovum or the egg and they come together and you and I were conceived, in the very same way God takes the Holy Spirit.

Do you remember Jesus in John chapter three said to Nicodemus, "Unless you’re born again, you’ll not see the kingdom of God"? You have to be born from above by the Spirit of God. So what God does is he takes the word of God, he takes the Spirit of God and he brings them together to create within us the life of God, so that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold all things have become new.

If you are a believer today, I need to emphasize the fact that God did a miracle in your heart from above. It wasn’t something that you generated, it wasn’t something that you participated in. It was a direct miracle of creation within you so that after you receive Jesus Christ as Savior, there was something within you that was not there previously. It’s the miracle of God.

You know, George Beverly Shea was the singer for evangelist Billy Graham. Now there arises a new generation that knows not Billy, but he was one of the most famous men in the world. He could draw crowds much larger than anyone else. He was in Harringay Arena, London, England, for three months every night filling Harringay back in 1954. But his soloist George Beverly Shea sang a song that some of you will be acquainted with. It said, "It took a miracle to put the stars in place, it took a miracle to hang the world in space, but when he saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole, it took a miracle of love and grace." That is a miracle just as great really as the miracle of creation.

And by the way, an English woman misunderstood what Bev Shea was singing. And she went up to him later and said, "Mr. Shea, what do you mean by saying it took a miracle to put the stars in space?" Now America’s done some wonderful things. America has put a man on the moon, but one thing that America has never done is to create so much as one single molecule. Creation is God’s work. And the Bible says that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. You didn’t participate in the creation part.

But the moment that you believed and the miracle of the new birth happened simultaneously. And that’s why the Bible is so very clear that it does not happen by baptism, it does not happen by confirmation. People say, "Yeah, I’m a Christian, I was in confirmation." Good to be in confirmation to learn something, but it doesn’t produce within you the new birth apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ and the transforming experience of the gospel.

All right, what does the word do? The word combines the word preached, he says. This is now, of course, in verse 25. The good news is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners and that he’s the only savior of the world and if we believe on him, we shall be saved. That’s the word that was preached to you that is combined by the Holy Spirit to produce the new birth.

So first of all, we’re converted by the word. But secondly, we’re nourished by the word. The chapter break here in 1 Peter chapter two is unfortunate. You know, of course, that chapter breaks are not inspired. They were put there to help us find our way through the Bible and sometimes they’re in places that really break the thought. So he’s saying in chapter two, "Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may be growing up into salvation," that is to say, so that you enter into the full experience of salvation. If indeed you’ve tasted that the Lord is good.

So what Peter is doing here is as he’s talking about the family of God, what he is emphasizing is the fact that we begin as infants. We begin as infants. Now he’s talked about the new birth being born from above. And when you’re born from above, you are likened to an infant into the spiritual family of God.

What do we know about infants? First of all, they are born complete, aren’t they? Complete. In other words, when you bring them home from the hospital, and by the way, they let you know that they are home from the hospital if I remember correctly. But when you bring them home from the hospital, you don’t say, "Okay, well next week what we need to do is go back and get the toes of the child because, you know, we have part of his body and then what we need to do is to get his hands or his or his feet or whatever." No, they are born complete.

By the way, when a little baby is born, couple days old, have you ever looked at his or her little thumbnail, or I guess I should say the nail of their little finger? Just as small as the head of a pin, but it’s there. It’s there and it’s going to grow. It’s complete, all that it needs to do is grow. Spiritually speaking, the Bible says in Colossians chapter two, verse nine, that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus. And then it says, and you are complete in Him. You are filled up in Him. When you receive Christ as Savior, you receive the imprint of God in your life and you have everything in you that you need for growth, except of course, you need to be fed.

Infants always are born complete. You have within you the DNA of Jesus and what you need to do is to grow. And of course we know that infants often have, should have an appetite. If a child is born and has no appetite, that’s very, very serious. And indeed they let you know that they are hungry. And in the very same way, when we are born spiritually, what we need to do is recognize that we have a new appetite created within us, a love for God. It’s miraculous.

You know, before you’re converted, God is just there to kind of be used. Oh, I need prayer. Yeah, I want God to help me. And then after you’re converted, there is birthed within you a love of God and a love of Christ that needs to be nurtured. And what you need is food. Now have you ever seen, and I know you have, on television children that have had no food? Most of them are starving because of some reason. It’s hard for me to look at that to see the way in which they are sometimes children that are four years old that look as if they’re 18 months old. And yet I force myself to look at it because I say even though it’s so hard for me to accept, I have to remember that those infants are actually going through the experience.

But you know, that’s the case, I believe, of many believers in the body of Jesus Christ. They’re basically infants and they are they are starved spiritually. And as a result of that starving, they don’t know how to receive the pure spiritual milk of the word that Peter talks about. Now imagine a baby who gets fed once a week. Every Sunday morning he goes for some food. And then he’s starved during the week and then he comes on Sunday and he sings songs and he hears the word of God preached and he opens his or her Bible. And so they are inspired and they say, "Wow, you know, that was really interesting and helpful and I’m motivated." And then nothing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Starved. And they don’t grow.

And why is it that we don’t have an appetite for the word? Well, I think what we need to do is just look at the context of what Peter is talking about here. You’ll notice it says chapter two verse one, "Put away all malice." Boy, that’ll stifle your appetite for the word of God. If you have malice in your heart, if you’re overcome by hatred. "And all deceit." What are you doing that’s deceitful? You begin to live a deceitful life and I’ll tell you, it’ll be hard for you to put up with church, much less reading the word and being encouraged by it and being fed by it. What about hypocrisy and envy and all slander?

You see, as sin develops in our life, it zaps our appetite for the word. And the world does. My mother, I remember used to say, "No, you can’t have sweets before dinner" and so forth. Why? Because it takes away your appetite. So we’ve got all of these other things going on, including the technology around us that is constantly distracting us. And so there’s no way for us to grow spiritually and—