Running To Win

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. A TV commercial for a charity always ends with your gift shows you care. A major component of our commitments to Christ is that we care for those around us. Today, what caring means as exemplified by how the Apostle Paul cared for a new church in Ancient Greece. 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, tell us about the Thessalonian believers and why they needed the care Paul provided.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: You know, Dave, when we think of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we often limit it to simply faith in Christ, so you go to heaven.

But obviously, believers need discipleship. The believers that you referred to, they needed also funds because they were going through a very difficult time, and what Paul is teaching us is this. Grace not only enables us to go to heaven, but grace enables us to minister to others.

And the reason that that is so important is if we don't get that balance straight, we'll live lopsided Christian lives, if I can put it that way.

This is one of the last days we're making available for you a book entitled Grace Awakening, written by Chuck Swindoll. Now, this book is going to enable us to understand not only salvation by grace, but to see grace applied and to see how Paul applied it, and how we can apply it as well.

At the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info so that this resource can be yours. It'll be a great blessing. I want you to read it, share it with your friends. But for now, let us listen.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Today we're talking about what it means to care. And I begin with a story that is told by Todd Brooks.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Bad luck. The light turned red and I was trapped standing at the corner. I prayed for it to change quickly.

"Can I have something for my file, mister?" he asked.

This man was a crazy, there was no doubt about it. The grimy box under his arm gave him away immediately. Crazies always carry something, usually a shopping bag with handles. They can be unstable, but this guy looked pretty safe.

"Sorry." "No money." I had repeated this old lie so often, it came out automatically.

"Have you got anything for my file?" he repeated. Slowly the message sank through. I fished in my pocket, pulled out a brochure, and handed it to him.

"No!" he shouted. Then almost pathetically, he finished, "I don't have a file for that."

I took a look back and turned away. "Come on, light, change." I stepped over the curb to look for a break in the traffic. "I'm Howard," he said. "What's your name?"

"Mark." One syllable was all the information I intended to give. I chanced a quick look to see what he was doing. He had a pencil in one hand and was stooping to pick up a piece of paper. Just then, the light changed, and I took off.

A few days later, I was walking the same route when I noticed an ambulance parked outside a dingy alley. I joined the crowd of onlookers to see what had happened. Two attendants in white jackets wheeled their stretcher out of the alley. It was the crazy.

His face was showing, so I knew he wasn't dead, but as the attendants shut the door, I could tell by their conversation that he wouldn't stay uncovered for long.

A policeman stayed back and questioned some of the people in the crowd, but received no answers. Nobody seemed to care that much, not even the cop. It was just a little added excitement on an otherwise dull day.

The cop raised his voice and asked, "Did anyone know this guy?" Nobody answered. Finally I volunteered. "His name was Howard."

The people around me backed away as if my knowing the crazy's name made me crazy too. The cop came over and began to pump me for more information. "His name is Howard. That's all I know, sir."

"Well, thanks for your help. Oh, by the way, would you take this for me?" He reached down and picked up the crazy's box. He shoved the box into my hands and walked away before I could say anything.

"Why would I want this guy's garbage?" I thought. I looked around for a trash can, but knew I couldn't just toss the box. Maybe it was the stories of misers who had thousands of dollars, yet lived like bums, or perhaps even a slightly misguided sense of loyalty to the human race. Whatever it was, I opened the box.

I was disappointed. I saw nothing but old clothes and one file folder. No wonder this guy didn't have a file for my brochure. I guess even crazies are into specialization.

I pulled out the file and dumped the rest of the stuff. Then I noticed the crude painting on the folder. It said, "Friends." I opened it and looked inside. It held only a small scrap of paper. On it was written, "Mark."

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: I tell you that story today, it's a story I have thought of this past week because, about in the middle of the week, I decided to walk across LaSalle Street to get a sandwich at Treasure Island, and there was a woman who was there trying to keep warm along the street with a couple of bags. And I say to you, to my shame, the only words I spoke to her was I told her what she already knew, namely that the wind was cold. And then I walked on.

And I've been thinking to myself, hoping that someday this coming week I might meet her again, because I think of this story of a man who had only one friend, whom he had met for those few seconds, and he was his only friend.

We live in a world today that is filled with cruelty and self-indulgence. To make up for my own guilt regarding the woman that I just told you about, I did today, just so that you know, to try to balance the ledger, I did do the snowblowing on my neighbor's driveway. I don't know if that helps any, but I thought I'd tell you that too.

But we live in a world today that is very, very cruel, that is very self-centered, and everybody wants to be left alone. I grew up on a farm, and on the farm, we knew everyone who lived within a radius of five or six miles. It was common that when some machinery broke down or when you needed a dozen eggs, you'd go to the person next door, and there was a sense of camaraderie and ownership.

Today, people don't want to know who lives next to them in high-rise apartments. We live in a day of loneliness, of carelessness and of irresponsibility.

What I'd like you to do is to take your Bibles today and turn to First Thessalonians, chapter two, where the Apostle Paul gives us a lesson on what caring means. First Thessalonians chapter two, the Apostle Paul began that ministry after he came to Philippi, in the 17th chapter of Acts, we read that he was there for three Sabbath days.

I can't believe that the Apostle Paul actually began a church just after three Sabbath days. It could be that those are the only days he was in the synagogue.

Because as he writes to these people, it seems as if he shared with them all the basic doctrines of the Christian church, particularly regarding the second coming, as becomes clear in this letter as well as in Second Thessalonians.

And what the Apostle Paul does is he pours out his heart to this congregation and basically defends himself because he was under criticism and showed to them how much he really did care.

Now I have to say that the Apostle Paul was sometimes criticized for being harsh, cold, and aloof and indifferent. Not all personalities are alike. And you have someone like John, for example, who had a personality that immediately loved people, or you have Andrew. Paul apparently was not that kind of a man.

But beneath the strong exterior of his powerful preaching, there was a man who really cared and who understood what people's needs were and did what he could to meet them.

And what I'd like to do to help us today is to point out that in this passage of scripture, he delineates three different levels of caring, levels of caring that you and I can actually carry out every single day of our lives.

First of all, Paul says, "I provided," or I should say, he says, "I helped you by what I said, by what I said."

I'm going to pick up the text in verse three. He says he came there amid much opposition. Verse three, First Thessalonians chapter two. For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.

For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ, we might have asserted our authority. Just that far for a moment.

The Apostle Paul says that our message came to you in truth. It was not a message that was based on deceit, it was not based on our own desire to promote ourselves.

He says that we shared with you honestly and openly the Gospel of Christ, and not only was the message genuine, but he says, "So were the motives that we had when we presented it."

Now you understand that Paul was under criticism. Some people said that he did it for money. That's why he says in the text here, "We did not do it as a pretext for greed," the last part of verse five, "God is witness."

Other people said, "Well, you know, Paul was actually a pretty good preacher, but he preached and he flattered us so that he in turn might get glory and everyone might talk about what a great orator he was." "No," verse six, "We did not seek glory from men, either from you nor from others, even though as apostles of Christ, we might have asserted our authority."

In fact, he says that our presentation of the Gospel was not with deceit. This is going back to verse three. That means without guile. There was no bait to Paul's hook. There are some methods of presenting the Gospel that are unworthy of the Gospel.

Paul says, "We never tricked anybody into believing. We never used any deception. There were no invitations that were deceitful." And so what Paul says is, "We cared for you by what we said."

Stop to think of it. If we say that we care for people, one of the best ways that we can care for them is to share with them news that will put them in good stead for the rest of eternity, namely the news of the Gospel.

And if they are already believers, the best way that we can care for people is through words of encouragement, as the text says, words with grace seasoned with salt, so that what comes out of our mouths is actually care, care. And this relates not merely to what we say about Jesus Christ in the presence of others, but how we handle conversations about other people.

Jesus taught that it is out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. He said, "How can you being evil speak good things? Because a good tree bears good fruit, but an evil tree bears evil fruit, and actually what comes out of our mouths is a reflection of what is in our hearts."

That's why James says that the tongue is set on fire of hell, and unless you put out the flame, you're going to be saying destructive and evil things.

I've read recently that scientists say that everything that we say, all of the vibrations that are set in motion through speech, carry on beyond the walls of the building in which they are said. They carry on into the atmosphere, and eventually perhaps land on some other planet. If only we had instruments that would be sensitive enough to pick up those words, we could maybe hear them again.

Little wonder Jesus said, "By thy words thou shalt be justified," or vindicated, "and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." You say, "I want to care." You care by the words that come out of your mouth.

Secondly, the Apostle Paul says, "I not only cared because of what I said, but also because of what I did." And here we come to that verse seven. "But we proved to be gentle among you, even as a nursing mother."

That's the idea there. Not just a nurse, but a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Now we get to where caring costs something.

Now, what does a nursing mother do for that infant that is in her arms? First of all, she nourishes that infant, she feeds it. And as she nurses the infant, actually, her own strength and what she eats, eventually is translated into nourishment and is eaten by the baby. That is to say that the baby imbues the nourishment given the mother, so that if she eats the wrong things, the baby can get sick.

Paul is saying in the very same way, "I absorbed the word of God into my life so that I might be able to feed others based on what I myself have been fed."

So Paul says, "When I was among you, I provided food." Another thing that a mother does is she protects the baby. Paul says, "I want to protect you from those who are critical, from those who speak evil against the apostles, and from those who have wrong doctrine."

Today, in a day of eclecticism, we don't speak much about wrong doctrine. Everybody is allowed to believe as he wishes, but the Apostle Paul said to the people at Ephesus, he says, "Wolves shall come among you, and they will not take care of the flock, but they will divide the flock, and they will begin these little groups where there will be factions and disagreements and arguments and they will be led astray."

Paul says to the elders of the church, "Guard the church." That's the responsibility of caring.

And then, of course, you give an example to your children. You model behavior. Paul did that. That's why later on he says that we didn't receive any money from you. Sometimes the Apostle Paul received money from churches and even asked for it, but not here because it was an issue of criticism.

That's why he says, "We labored night and day. We made tents during the night and we worked during the day. We did all that we could so that we might be able to model behavior that was beyond criticism." Children learn from example.

We're learning with our own children that even after they grow up and go to college and don't need us anymore, they still need our money, which is an interesting twist on becoming parents and having children that are growing up.

Also, no doubt, Paul nursed those believers, healing their hurts, healing their hurts. And how important that is. You say you want to care. You find someone who is hurting and you listen to their hurt and you help them bear it through your prayer and through your interest.

I read this past week that 15 million Americans are in something like 400,000 self-help groups throughout America. You have all these various self-help groups that are springing up for every kind of difficulty and aberration.

Do you know that that may well be that the church has failed, and that's why people are seeking their sense of identity, their friends and their help through sources that are not based on the scripture, that may give some limited amount of help, but ultimately cannot do for them what Christ alone is able to do.

Now the Apostle Paul says, "I not only said the right things, but I did the right things to help because I cared."

But there's a third level of caring, not only based on what we say and what we do, but also on what we are willing to endure, what we are willing to endure.

Now the Apostle Paul put up with an awful lot there in Thessalonica. If we took the time to read the 17th chapter of Acts, we would find out that there was persecution. When he came into the synagogues, there were riots among the people.

Now, interestingly, Paul was not intimidated. Paul didn't run for cover because he had this overwhelming sense of conviction that he had been brought there by God to do something. And so he was willing to endure persecution. He was willing to endure criticism.

You see, that's why he says in verse nine of the second chapter here, "For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working day and night so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the Gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers."

Paul is saying that we were willing to have our lives examined. We were willing to have our lives as an open book so that the Gospel might not be spoken against. And Paul says that was part of what we were willing to endure, as we gave you, middle of verse eight, our own lives we communicated to you.

It's one thing to communicate information, it is quite another to communicate your very own life.

So Paul says, "We cared for you by what we said. We cared for you by what we did, and then we were willing to endure."

You see, the extent of our caring, the extent of our love is dependent on how much we are willing to endure and how long we are willing to endure it. And sometimes God brings people into our lives that need a lot of care and a lot of help and a lot of attention, and they may appear to be a burden, but they are God's invitation for us to show forth Christ.

Now, in order to tie all this together and to help us get a handle on it, let me say that our caring for one another is first of all to be based on Christ's caring for us.

If we read the first chapter of First Thessalonians, he says in verse five, "For our Gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake."

He says, "It was the Gospel that came in power, and it was the Gospel that changed us and changed you and made you into a caring kind of person."

You see, in the Bible, when God gives us commands, when he tells us to love one another, for example, all those commands are always based on something that Christ has already done.

The reason that I point that out is, I feel very uncomfortable preaching a message that exhorts people to do A, B and C, unless I point out that there is a reason why we can fulfill the command, because God has graciously supplied the strength to do what he commands us to do.

We don't have those inner resources. Left to ourselves, we are just as selfish as the person next door. We are basically into our own lives.

But then we experience Christ's caring. We experience his work on the cross and we ask him and say, "Jesus, how much do you care for us?" And he stretches out his arms and he dies. And now he says, "I have given to you the gift of the Holy Spirit that you might be able to get beyond yourself and begin to love even as I love, to be able to have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts that beat with mine."

You realize, of course, that if all of us every week entertained one stranger, if we had a hundred families that did that over a course of a year, we would entertain and we would help 5,000 people as a church.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, as I've emphasized in this message, we cannot live the Christian life without grace. We see first of all, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. He not only is our example, but he is our strength.

And a book that emphasizes that is the book Grace Awakening by Chuck Swindoll, and I want to emphasize that this is one of the last days we're making this resource available for you.

I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy, because here's the info you need. You can go to rtwoffer.com, that's rtwoffer.com. Or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Oftentimes, grace is misunderstood by those who don't receive the grace of God in salvation. They think that they need to add their works, but it's also misunderstood in the Christian life, not understanding how it is to be applied so that we can fulfill with joy the commandments of God.

Once again, here's that contact info. Go to rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word. Go to rtwoffer.com. Or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. The name of the book, Grace Awakening, a balanced view of grace in a world of confusion. Let me thank you in advance for helping us in this ministry.

Guest (Male): You can write to us at Running To Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running To Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. In Erwin Lutzer's series on commitment to Christ, we're learning that commitment means caring and making that caring visible to others. Next time, we'll see that caring can come with a price as it did for the Apostle Paul. Plan to join us. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAlister. Running To Win is sponsored by The Moody Church.