Running To Win

Dave McAllister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Prisons are full of people born in sin, born with a propensity to do wrong. But as Paul says, we're all by nature the children of wrath. In our study of key doctrines, we're coming to grips with the sin we rationalize. Today we finish this study.

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, it seems that sin manifests itself quite early in our lives.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: And Dave, the reason for that is because sin is deeply embedded in us. You remember the words of David, "In sin did my mother conceive me." And of course, I really do believe that God never shows us the depth of our sin because we probably couldn't handle it. But he shows us enough so that we recognize our need for repentance again and again, even as we come to him in confession and faith.

But at the same time, I want to emphasize the fact that we do belong to God if we've trusted him as Savior, if we've trusted Christ. And I'm holding in my hands a resource entitled Be Joyful. It's a book written by Dr. Warren Wiersbe, a very readable book that we think will help you greatly on your spiritual journey. And note this, it is the last day we're making this resource available for you.

Very quickly, here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now at the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you this contact info again. We trust that you'll take advantage of this because we want to help you even as you manage the difficulties of life.

And the Bible would teach that because of Adam, we are all constituted sinners and we're all born under condemnation. That sweet little baby is not innocent. A doctor in Edinburgh said that every child that is born is born a potential criminal. The nature of Bin Laden and the nature of Hitler was no different than your nature when you were born. The only difference is God's grace, environment, and situation, but we're all coming into the world as rebels.

Why do you think a doctor when a baby is born, he always spanks the baby twice? Have you ever noticed? Once so that the baby gets air in his lungs. The second time he spanks him is to keep the kid from stealing his wristwatch. We're all born sinners. We're all born sinners. And the Bible says we are by nature the children of wrath.

You say, "Well, don't babies go to heaven when they die?" Yeah, we believe that they go to heaven when they die. But the reason those babies go to heaven when they die is because God credits them, it must be this way, with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Because even that sweet little baby is born in sin.

You say, "Well, that can't be." The Bible says very clearly that proof of that is the fact that babies die. And one of the effects of the fall, one of the effects of sin, is death. So the reason that babies die is because they aren't as innocent and as cute as you think they are.

They're very cute, but you know they all come into the world thinking that they are really the one, you know. I mean, I've known babies to be born who are born complaining about the temperature of the delivery room. And you don't have to teach a child to steal or the art of self-protection, of lying. All of that comes very naturally; all that you need is a situation to bring it out.

Now, all of us have a dark side to us. This is what Lewis Smedes wrote, listen carefully. "Our inner lives are not partitioned like day and night with pure light on one side of us and total darkness on the other. Mostly our souls are shadowed places. We live at the border where our dark sides block our light and throw a shadow over our interior places. We cannot always tell where our light ends and our shadow begins or where our shadow ends and our darkness begins."

Wow. That's why the Bible says that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? And then it goes on to say, "But I the Lord search the heart." Only God knows the potential of evil that resides in any one of us. It's known only to God.

Some of you I know have been born to parents who abused you. And you see even though we're born under the condemnation of sin, we ultimately become responsible for our choices. Some of those choices that you made as a child you may not be responsible for because God is fair in this regard.

But eventually their story ends and your story begins and you and I all become responsible in the sight of God not just by nature but also by choice. And God chose to bring proof of that to this auditorium right at this moment, didn't he?

Augustine, sometimes pronounced Austin, lived in 354 to 430 AD, obviously had a great impact on theology. Some of his impact has been good and some of it has been not so good. But the point that he made about sin is right on. It is true to experience and it is also true to the scriptures.

Augustine in his confessions, which is known as a classic, took the time to probe his own experience and show that that experience was totally consistent with what the Bible has to say. Completely consistent. If you were thoroughly and completely honest. It's honesty that you and I need.

For example, the Bible says that he who lives in pleasure is dead while he lives. Hugh Hefner is dead while he lives, no matter how much he parties. Because there's deadness not only in this world, but imagine having that sin upon your conscience for all of eternity. For as long as God exists, unless he repents, he will be guilty. Wow.

What Augustine said was this. He looked within his own heart and he knew that he was guilty and polluted. He knew that he could not only steal, that was one thing that he did as a boy, but what amazed him was that sometimes he stole things he didn't even need. He just enjoyed stealing.

He looked at his heart and not only saw the sin of covetousness but saw the sin of envy. And my goodness, envy is so much more powerful in ways than covetousness. Covetousness means that I want what you have. Envy says, "I don't want you to have what you have."

Cain. Cain could have had the same blessing as Abel. God said to him, "Cain, if you do good, if you bring the right sacrifice, you can be accepted by me just like your brother Abel." But there was something in Cain that said, "I don't want what my brother Abel wants. I'm not satisfied with that. There is a cauldron that is burning within me and the only thing that will extinguish it is the blood of my brother. I want to kill him because of the fact that you accepted him."

Have you ever noticed how we delight in the fall of others? Some of you have a problem with gossip. I'm tempted to say shame on you. I won't, but I guess I just did, didn't I? You take delight and you pass gossip around like an hors d'oeuvre at a happy hour. Wanting to tell others the way others have failed. Where does that evil and sin come from? It arises within the human heart.

So Augustine saw that he was guilty and polluted. Now the next point needs a little bit of clarification and you need to think about this for a moment. He also knew that though he sinned by one kind of necessity because he was a sinner, obviously he would therefore sin.

He also knew that that sin was not absolutely necessary to be a human being. And that's why he felt guilty about it. If we sinned like a bird grows feathers, we wouldn't feel guilty about the sin because that is physical necessity.

But Augustine said we don't sin by physical necessity, but we do sin voluntarily and that's why we feel this sense of guilt. And sin strictly speaking is not necessary to human nature as proved by the fall because prior to the fall, Adam and Eve were fully human though they did not have a sin nature nor had they sinned. And Augustine said that's why we feel this sense of shame and this sense of guilt. And we all do, if we're honest.

Then he also concluded that nobody can change his own nature. He knew that he couldn't change his. He looked around and knew that no one can change his desires at will. You can't choose to get up and say, "I'm not going to do this anymore and not do that," particularly if it's an addiction. You can't.

You might be able to curb some things but your fundamental nature can't be changed by you. You are who you are. The Bible asks the question. It says, "Can a leopard change his spots?" Jeremiah said, speaking on behalf of God. And God says, "Then you who love evil can also begin to love good." The answer is no, you can't. You need God's intervention and thank God that's where grace comes in in our predicament.

Let me therefore summarize what I'm trying to say very briefly as we think about bringing this down and making it transforming for all of us. First, Calvin was absolutely right when he said we can have no knowledge of who we are until we know who God is.

If you don't know who God is, you don't know who you are. You'll rationalize who you are. You'll excuse who you are. You'll bungle along taking all the good things that you've done, because you've probably done a lot of good things, and you'll try to balance them with the bad things and hope that it comes out. But if you know who God is, you know that that does not work.

The sin that you have on your conscience today, a sin that you have committed, you will be guilty of 10 years from now. You will be guilty of that sin 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now, and a million years from now. You'll still be guilty of that same sin unless God takes it away.

That's the nature of sin. Once you begin to fall, you have to continue to fall and you can't write your direction. 1,000 years of suffering will not take away your guilt before God. And that's why suffering, incidentally, has to be eternal unless God intervenes.

Secondly, salvation is God's intervention. Oh praise God for verse 4. "But God, being rich in mercy..." and the next message in this series is the salvation, the gospel that we proclaim, where all that I'm going to do is continue on in this passage explaining what salvation is now that we've looked at what sin is.

That's the next message in the series. That God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he has loved us, he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, even when we were deceived, even when we are depraved, God who is rich in mercy comes to the graveyard and says, "Arise, be connected with me."

The barrier of sin is taken away by faith in Jesus and we can be reunited with God and your eternal penalty has been borne. Praise be to God.

You've heard it before, but I was 14 years old on a farm, really not into a lot of sins as young people know them today. There wasn't a great opportunity to sin a whole lot. But still overwhelmed with such a sense of sin, I knew I needed a Savior. And my parents recognized that; they prayed with me.

And as I mentioned this past summer, it was my privilege to go back to that very room where I received Christ 50 years ago and I knelt again to thank him for his marvelous mercy. Because 50 years ago, God came to that farmhouse.

And in effect, though I heard no voice and I didn't recognize it at the time, God says, "Erwin Lutzer, be raised from the dead." And God spoke the word, overcame my blindness, granted me the ability to believe and to trust Jesus as my Savior, and I was converted.

Let me tell you another conversion story and that is Augustine himself whom we referred to earlier. Augustine was immoral. He was living with someone who was not his wife. He was involved in many sins in his youth.

And his father was a pagan, so his father was totally okay with that. I mean, if you're a pagan and you live like a pagan, the lines of morality are blurred, you're not too worried about a son who follows in your footsteps.

But he had a very godly mother by the name of Monica and Monica prayed for her son and prayed for him. And Augustine, according to his story, he was in a garden and some way, and it seems strange, I'm not sure if he was clear on it, he seemed to hear a child say, "Take up and read."

I don't know what the child was saying. But Augustine had been given a New Testament which he had avoided and ignored. And he decided to open it somewhat arbitrarily, usually a bad idea, but actually better than not opening it at all.

And he opened the Bible and it fell on these words: "The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." He read that and the light broke and he knew that he needed a Savior and he trusted Christ right there and Augustine was converted.

So I have a question to ask you today before I end. You may be in this sanctuary at the Moody Church in Chicago, you may be listening by way of internet, radio, whatever other method you've picked up this message, and so I have a question for you. Are you converted?

Has the light come to your soul that you need Jesus to connect you to God? The way in which you're going is the wrong way. You need to trust Christ as Savior and in trusting him, your sin is taken away, your penalty is cancelled, and you have the prospect of living in the presence of Jesus forever. That is the gospel that I'll explain in more detail next week, but you've heard enough right now to savingly believe. So if you will, let us pray.

Father, who can speak to the dead and say, "Be alive"? Who can speak to the deaf and say, "Hear"? Who can say to the blind, "See"? That's your work. However imperfectly the gospel may have been preached today, I pray that many right now may believe and trust Christ as Savior in this sanctuary and others who are listening.

And I'm speaking to you now, you as people, wherever you are. If you've never believed on Jesus, would you do that right now? If you're in the balcony, floor floor. This is your moment to be brought out of the graveyard if God has talked to you. He wants to beget life in you. You talk to God now and you trust Christ.

Father, whatever work you're doing in the human heart, bring it to completion. May those who are struggling overcome Father their resistance. To those who do not understand, bring them understanding. But right now may they trust your mercy and your grace as given to us in Jesus. We pray in his blessed name. Amen, Amen.

Well my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer and you've just heard a summary of everything that we stand for here at Running to Win. Getting the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible because we do believe that Christ is our only hope.

At the same time, I want to emphasize that after you have believed on Christ, it is important for you to learn to walk in the spirit. And today's the last day we're making a resource available for you entitled Be Joyful. It's a book written by Dr. Warren Wiersbe. It's a very readable book.

For example, one of the first chapters is The Joy Stealers. What steals our joy? And from there of course the book continues on that theme. Now here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to give you some contact info. Sure hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because this has to go quickly.

Here's what you do, go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Go to rtwoffer.com. Sure hope that you do that right now.

Dave McAllister: It's time again for you to Ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. Today's question, Dr. Lutzer, comes to us from Silvia and she lives in Georgia.

"My husband is extremely angry with our teenage granddaughter who has gotten pregnant. He wants to ignore the matter and does not give her any attention. She's a born-again Christian; she's confessed before the church congregation. In my heart, I've forgiven her and I know God has forgiven her. She knows this as well. How do I get past wanting to convict my husband of his anger and show love and care for our granddaughter at this time?"

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well my friend Silvia, I hope that your husband gets on his knees and repents of his attitude. Here's a granddaughter who undoubtedly was involved in a sinful relationship; she's willing to acknowledge it; she's confessed it before the church.

Your husband should be grateful that this young woman has turned to God. Think of the thousands of others in her predicament that have turned away from God at a moment like this.

Second, your husband has to realize that the child that this young woman is bearing may someday be mightily used by God. In fact, sometime I'd like to preach a sermon and include the stories of people that I know about who were conceived out of wedlock whom God has greatly used.

I mean, I'm thinking of Erasmus, the great Greek scholar. I'm thinking of Felix Manz, who was a great martyr in the city of Zurich during the time of the reformation. Let's remember that God's providence and God's forgiveness is great enough to encompass, yes to encompass all of the sins and the failures of human beings.

Your granddaughter at this moment needs her grandfather's love and acceptance, and I hope that when that baby is born, he or she will receive very special attention and love because that child is a child created in God's image and I hope that God will use him or her to his glory.

Dave McAllister: Thank you Dr. Lutzer for that compassionate answer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, you can go to our website rtwoffer.com and there you can click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.

Turn on CNN and you get a lot of bad news. Now turn the clock back 2,000 years. Even under Roman oppression, the early church reveled in some really good news. That news was the gospel, the message that Jesus came to seek and save lost sinners.

Next time on Running to Win, Erwin Lutzer talks about the gospel we proclaim. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.