Running To Win

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. If you ever wonder what to say when you pray, try praying scriptures back to God. Today some real life evidence that this may be the best way to pray when we're lost for words in coming to God. Please 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.

Guest (Male): Pastor Lutzer, some of us are so broken down by life that we can't form coherent sentences in a prayer. Will today's lesson help us?

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Dave, I think that we will be helped and I want to say a few things about your intro. First of all, yes, it is true that sometimes we don't even know how to pray. And that's why the Apostle Paul says in the eighth chapter of Romans that the Spirit itself intercedes for us. But at the same time, we have to intercede for one another.

If you were to ask me what is it that gives me hope and gives me a great sense of joy, it is when I discover that there are some people who genuinely, consistently pray for me and pray for the ministry of Running to Win.

I want to remind you that Moody Church Media exists to bring glory to God through the transformation of lives. So today, I just want you to share our burden that this ministry might continue to expand, that it might continue to grow.

Why? Because we have intercessors who really do believe that God answers prayer and as a result of that, uphold us. Thank you so much if you are among those who remember us in prayer.

You read the word, you pray the word to encounter God. You can pray the letters of the New Testament. Once again, for the most part, they are easy to pray, but I'm thinking of people.

I have a friend and I met him at Founders Week and he shared with me a huge trial that he is going through. And I prayed for him right there by the way, but you know, it dawned on me later, what I could have done and what I'll do is to pray the book of James for him, the opening verses.

Oh, may so-and-so count it all joy when he meets various kinds of trials. Oh Lord, I pray that he might know that the testing of his faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Give him wisdom and all the way through.

You're just praying now God's word. I'm not just saying, oh God, bless him. I'm praying something different because the word is filled with opportunities to pray or to praise if you only look for them.

Now I know that I'm giving you a lot of material here, but I am giving you these examples for a reason. That as a result of this, I want you to latch on to something that I am saying today that will change your life. Let me give you some transforming lessons as we try to nail all this down.

Praying scripture is praying God's will, God's mind. You're finally on God's page. This morning as I was walking down the stairs, I met a member of the choir and every time I meet him, I always say, you know, are you walking with God? And he said, yes, and I have reason to believe him. I was just checking.

But let's suppose I were to ask you, are you walking with God? Do you have an intimate relationship with God and you were to say, well, you know, the weather this winter wasn't as bad as last winter, but still, I think we're going to have a lot of cold.

Say, okay. Are you walking with God? Well, you know, I don't think that the president did right when he made this other decision. Okay. Are you walking with God? I've had back trouble and I've never been able to find a solution for it, you were to say.

I think that's the way we pray sometimes. There's a disconnect between what we're thinking and what we want and God wants. God says, I want the best for you, but I also want intimacy with you. And the reason that I'm not answering all of your prayers is to keep pushing you toward me so that you could actually sing sweet hour of prayer and not be lying.

Many of us who are a little bit older, we used to sing sweet hour of prayer. How many of you remember that song? Look at that. That draws me. Listen. Many of the people who sing that prayer have never had an hour of prayer in their life unless they were trapped at a prayer meeting. And it certainly wasn't sweet.

Basically no intimacy with God. Listen, the prodigal son came home because he was hungry. But actually I have to tell you, he needed his dad more than he did a dinner. And God draws us to himself by all of the problems, all of the unresolved issue, all of the pain. Why? To keep pushing us toward him because he says, there's something more that I'm after than answering your prayer.

And that is, I want you to walk with me. I want you to enjoy a sweet hour of prayer sometime. After all, Jesus enjoyed a tremendous amount of time. Some of us were with Dave Jeremiah the other day and he outlined for us all the times that Jesus went to the mountain to pray and over and over again. And he prayed and he prayed and he prayed.

What was going on? He was enjoying fellowship with his heavenly Father, reminding his heavenly Father that he was his servant willing to do whatever the Father wanted to. And the Father was well pleased. That's what prayer is all about. It's not checking a box.

So first of all, praying scripture, we pray God's will. And as a result of that, God does talk back to us. I mean, through his word. I don't mean verbally, you don't get special revelations. You know, I happen to be writing a book on the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther encountered some prophets from Zwickau who came and they had all of these fantastic revelations.

They said, if God wanted to give us the Bible, he'd have given it to us directly from heaven. We don't need the Bible. What we need is just these revelations. And you know, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is like a dove. So Luther, who was known for his sarcasm, said, I will not accept their revelations even if they have swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all, he said.

So we're not looking for external revelation, but in the word we see God. And that's why Calvin, I may have mentioned it in a previous message, says that when we approach the scriptures, we should approach it with the same kind of reverence with which we approach God because we expect to be blessed and we expect to hear from him. So it isn't just a one way conversation anymore.

Your soul is refreshed. Second, God's word triggers memories and ideas and other people to pray for. I think it's fine to have a prayer list. But the fact is that as long as it isn't just a list where we say the same old thing in the same old way. You might want to pray for the people and you might want to use the same prayer for all of them or maybe read the prayer once, but say, Lord, this is my burden for so and so and so and so and so and so.

But the point is that I want to make is that in the process of using the word of God this way, ideas will come to your mind that will never come. If I'm reading the Psalms and I come across, for example, the fool has said in thine heart, there is no God. So how do you pray that? You pray for atheists. You know, pray for Dawkins.

The word of God triggers within our minds other people, other events that we can give thanks to God for and that we can pray for. And that's what the word of God does. You know, there are some people who are so particular in the way in which they pray and they have so many barriers that they have to overcome before they come into God's presence, perhaps forgetting that the only way that we come is after all through the blood of Christ.

Sometime ago I heard about a man, you know, one of these real particular men. God created some of them, thankfully, perhaps not too many of them. But he said that if I kneel, I get my clothes dirty. If I stand, it's so hard for me, my my legs hurt. Sitting isn't reverent enough. Okay.

So the story goes that at dusk he was walking across a field, happened to trip and fell headlong into the shaft of an old well. Are you following this? And there he is, head first, in the shaft of an old well, and he discovered that, you know, you can really pray regardless of the posture. Yeah. Get over it.

And so I emphasize that we need to learn to pray, learn. You say, well, what do I do with the distractions? Well, uh, yesterday I was on open line and somebody asked that question. Uh, one of the things that you can do is, you know, you're, you're praying and this comes to mind. You might want to pray for the thing that comes into your mind.

Either a sin that needs to be confessed, an issue that needs to be given to God. I have to tell you that sometimes I have actually had a pen next to me while I was praying because I knew that the devil, I think it was the devil, would bring to mind everything I had to do that day. So if I wanted a complete list, all that I needed to do was to pray and all of these thoughts would come.

And if I wrote them down, I didn't have to worry about forgetting them. So you know, I'd pray and here'd be a list of things that I need to do. Don't let the distractions, whether it's a baby crying or whether it is the distractions that come into your own mind, don't let them deter you from concentrating on God. Is God worth 10 minutes of your time in the morning, 15 minutes?

Is God worth that to you? Listen, waiting on God, no time is lost. I can assure you of that. God makes it up in a hundred ways. I've proven that. He makes it up to us if we spend time with him.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Don't be discouraged. Sometimes God says no, sometimes he says slow, sometimes he says grow. Either way, you're after him ultimately, not just getting the answer to your prayers.

Now, I'm going to give you an assignment. You say, well, we're already listening to the word of God. Good. You've got something else to do. This week, I'm going to give you a chapter on which that I want you to pray. And the chapter is actually going to be Romans chapter 12. I, I want you to have this as the basis of your prayer.

You know, this is this very, very famous passage of scripture. I appeal to you by the mercies of God to give your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you might know what is the will of God, that is good and acceptable and perfect.

You know anybody who needs that prayer? I venture to say, you probably do, I do. Pray that for yourself. And by the way, it has 21 verses, pray three verses a day if you want to do it that way. Verses number one and two are so critical, you might want to pray that for a couple of days, for a number of different people. And then you move on and it talks about spiritual gifts.

It talks about our relationship with one another. Have you ever prayed that God would show you your spiritual gift or that someone else would discover their spiritual gift? Well, all that is going to come out if you begin to pray this passage of scripture. And when you get to number nine, verse nine, I have frequently prayed verse nine to the end of the chapter for Moody Church.

This is an incredible passage of scripture. Can you imagine, oh God, at Moody Church, may love be genuine. May we abhor what is evil. May we hold fast to what is good. Let us love one another with brotherly affection. May we outdo one another in showing honor. Let's not be slothful in zeal, but rather be fervent in spirit.

May we contribute to the needs of the saints. There's one that just happened to pop out at me, verse 13. May we contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. May we bless those who curse us and on and on. What a marvelous prayer. If necessary, pray that a couple of times this next week. But concentrate and of course, there are other prayers you're going to pray.

Sometimes the scripture is only the basis for prayer, but there are other prayers you're going to pray, but pray those prayer. Romans 12 is the assignment for this week. Now, and and God will give you creativity as to how to do it. Now, in the Bible, there are many prayers and there are some prayers that some of you, there's one prayer I'm thinking of that some of you should really pray for sure before this meeting is over.

You may be here and you say, well, you know, this business of intimacy with God and you folks talk as if you know God and and you just don't feel at all a connection to what I've been talking about. Maybe it's because you've never come to saving faith in Christ because Jesus is the connection between you and God the Father. If you don't come through him, you don't get an audience with the Almighty.

So you have to. And uh in the Bible, Jesus told a story about one man who was very self-righteous, who went into the temple to pray and said, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. I'm better than they are. And he listed all of his goodness. Maybe even there's somebody here today who feels that way.

You know, I'm better than these snobby Christians. And uh next to him, there was a publican who didn't have the nerve to to even look into heaven. His posture was one of looking down. And he smote his chest and he said, God, be merciful to me a sinner. Jesus said, that guy went down to his house justified, the other guy didn't.

It's not the prayer that saves you. It's not a magic formula, but if you pray that prayer as a response to your heart because God has worked in your heart and shown you your need and your sin. If that's what has happened to you, I can assure you that God led you to this moment to pray that prayer for yourself. God, be merciful to me a sinner.

I need a savior. And whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Praying scripture is transforming. And what I want us to do is to get into the habit of doing that. And the way we're going to conclude today in just a moment is we're going to pray one of the prayers of the New Testament that you could pray at any time for Moody Church, for yourself, for your family.

It is directly from the word of God. The only difference is we changed the pronouns, so instead of Paul saying, I'm praying for you, we end up praying for ourselves. Let's all stand together now as the words come on the screen and we are going to read God's word together as our closing prayer.

Congregation: For this reason, we bow our knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant us to be strengthened with power through his spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be full with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Well, my friend, to that I would say, amen. And isn't it wonderful that when you pray that way, you don't even have to add the words, if it be thy will. That is the will of God. I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who wrote and said, I dealt with a series of spiritual attacks that no one knew about. After listening to you, I was able to close the gateways by which Satan was gaining access into my life. And then he goes on from there and says how our ministry helped him.

I give God glory, he says, for delivering me and using your ministry in my time of need. My friend, when we share testimonies like that, you share them with us because you are our partners. Would you consider becoming what we call an endurance partner, someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts? I sure hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'm going to be giving you some contact info.

Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com. And when you're there, you click on the endurance partner button. That's rtwoffer.com. Or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let me give you that number again. 1-888-218-9337. Thank you in advance for praying for us. Thank you also for considering becoming an endurance partner. Together we're making a difference.

Guest (Female): Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer. A question about the Bible or the Christian life. An anonymous husband has this interesting problem for you, Pastor Lutzer. He says, my wife has always wanted to get a tattoo, but when we talked about it, I argued against it and she argued for it. Now I find that she got one without my permission. She argues that it's perfectly fine because it has three small stars that represent our three children. I have two questions. What do you think about tattoos? And second, what do you think her actions say about her walk with the Lord?

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: You've asked a very interesting question on both levels.