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. In the race of the Christian life, there is one gift of God that believers cannot live without. We dare not die without it either, since this gift opens the doors of heaven, making us acceptable in God's sight. Want to know what this gift is? Well, 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. We're in a series on how you can be sure that you will spend eternity with God. Pastor Lutzer, is this all-important gift available to anyone?

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Well, Dave, the answer is yes. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The gospel, of course, is very narrow in this sense; it is through Jesus Christ alone, but the invitation is to everyone. No matter how many people receive Christ, no matter the greatness of their sin, the promises of God are there for everyone.

I'm holding in my hands a resource that we're making available for you. And today, by the way, is the last day you'll be able to get it from us. It's a book entitled *Life-Changing Bible Verses Every Woman Should Know*. Now, it's written by my wife, and at the end of this message, I'll give you reasons as to why we think that this will be a benefit for you. For now, let us listen.

At an evangelical conference, several men with a tape recorder interviewed participants. It was a conference where books were published on theology. Now, this is from conservative evangelicals. And they kept asking the question, is it necessary to be perfect to enter into heaven? And they couldn't find anybody who would say yes. That's astounding.

The people said, "Well, no, of course not." We live in a day and age when people do not think theologically. But think of the foolishness of that answer. Here is God, holy, without stain, and he's going to let imperfect people into heaven? It's unthinkable. It shows you the extent of our theological naivete even among those who should know better.

So in order that it might be unambiguous and clear, let me state flatly and without qualification that if you are not as holy as God, don't even think about being admitted into heaven. Don't even let the thought cross your mind. Let that be said with clarity.

Now if you're thinking, and I know you are, you say, "Well, Pastor Lutzer, I've got a problem." And you do. It's a big problem. Because my guess is you're not perfect. So you have a mighty big problem. Let me tell you how big your problem is. Your problem is so big that there is nothing that you can do to solve it unless God solved it. You'd have had it. That's how big the problem is.

Whether you are here today as a Protestant or as a Catholic, we must all appreciate the struggle of a monk in the 16th century by the name of Martin Luther. He enrolled in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt to save his soul. He was troubled with what is known in German as *Anfechtung*, the existential despair of soul, the consciousness of sin.

When he entered into that monastery, he decided to really become as perfect as he could be, because in those days, at least people knew you had to be perfect to get into heaven. Give them credit. They understood that. But they believed that the only way you become perfect is that God infuses grace into your soul and then you can do good works and you hope that you keep doing those works better and better and better until eventually you're perfect enough.

And if you're not perfect enough, as most people thought they weren't, you would go into purgatory where you would be purged until you would be perfect enough. Give them credit for knowing that no imperfect person ever gets to heaven. So Luther began his quest for perfection. He took advantage of all of the means of grace that were afforded him in the monastery.

He began to be disciplined. He wore coarse clothing so that he would not be able to enjoy life, so that he would mortify the flesh. He sometimes fasted so long that some of his friends thought that he was emaciated and that he might die because of the way in which he treated his body. Next month, God willing, I will be leading a tour to the sites of the Reformation, which I've had the privilege of doing before. And we will go into the actual room, the cell in which he lived there in Erfurt, which is basically a very bare cell with a stone-cold floor, and there he slept without blankets so that he might put the flesh to death.

Then there were the sacraments of the church. Confession gave him some solace. But he began to confess his sins, reminding himself of them by reciting the Ten Commandments and the seven deadly sins. And then he would go to Staupitz, his confessor, and he would begin confessing his sins up to six hours at a time.

Staupitz was so sick of seeing him that one day he said, "Luther, the next time you come to me, let it be some big sin like murder, adultery, or blasphemy, but not all these little tiny insignificant sins." Let me tell you something. Luther understood something more clearly than the people of his day and certainly more clearly than many people in our day.

And that was it didn't matter to God whether the sin was big or little. The point is whether or not it had been forgiven. Because in the sight of the holy God, one tiny little speck of sin was great enough to cast you out of heaven forever. The issue was not whether it was big or little; the issue was whether it was confessed and forgiven.

But he reached an impasse. There were times when he did not know whether he was remembering all of his sins. Furthermore, there were some things he did that perhaps God considered to be sin that he didn't consider to be sin. Sins, in order to be forgiven, had to be confessed. In order to be confessed, they had to be remembered. But if they were not remembered, they could not be confessed. And if they could not be confessed, they could not be forgiven.

And his despair only increased. Finally, when he decided to go to Wittenberg where the Elector Frederick was beginning a new university, Staupitz visited him in a courtyard there, which is still in existence today, and sat down and said, "Brother Martin, possibly you should begin to teach the Bible to assuage your conscience." And so he began to teach the Psalms.

He came to Psalm 22, verse 1. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And he knew that those were the words of Christ on the cross. And he began to think, how is it that Jesus himself, who was sinless, experienced this disquiet of soul, this *Anfechtung*, this despair? And then he realized it was because Jesus was taking upon himself our sins and our despair.

Then Luther got to the book of Romans, which you can turn to today, Romans chapter 1, and he began to ponder the phrase "the righteousness of God." It says in verse 17, "For in it, the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation," Romans 1:17, "in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith."

Luther began to ponder that and say, "The righteousness of God." He said, "That is frightening." He said, "I know that I have to attain the righteousness of God, but how does a sinner get the righteousness of God?" He said day and night he pondered that question. And then as he began to study the book of Romans, he came to chapter 3 where the Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And it says in verse 24 of chapter 3, "Being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." And that God set forth his righteousness, middle of verse 25, "God set forth Christ that he might declare his righteousness," verse 26, "for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness; that God might be just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus."

And Luther saw something in the Bible that he hadn't realized: that there was such a thing as the righteousness *of* God, which was an attribute of God, but there is also the righteousness *from* God, which was a gift given to needy sinners. And as he pondered this and began to see the connection, he says, "Then it was as if I was reborn and I entered into the gates of paradise."

That there was not only a righteousness *of* God, but there was a gift that is the righteousness *from* God given to needy sinners. I want you to take your Bible and turn now to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. Notice what the text says, and I'm giving you time to find it if you have your Bible, and I encourage you to always bring your Bible when you can.

It says, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21, "He," that is God, "made him," Christ, "who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him." Let's take this verse slowly. Here's Christ who knew no sin, who is made sin for us. Christ received the alien sin, and I use the word alien because it was not a part of his nature. It was credited to him; it was imputed to him.

And when Christ died on the cross, he became guilty of breaking all of the Ten Commandments. And he became guilty of genocide, and he became guilty of adultery, and he became guilty of all of the sins, the ugly, ugly, damnable sins that people commit. They were not his; he was legally guilty of them. God says, "I'm counting you as being guilty of them." Now follow this.

God places upon Christ all of our iniquities and all of our sins. He who knew no sin becomes sin for us. Our sin is imputed to Christ. And what do we get in return? Oh, that last part of the verse: "that we might become the righteousness of God." So we give to Christ what we are, namely our sin, and he gives to us what we do not have, namely what God has, namely righteousness, which is the thing that we lack so desperately.

Now Luther began to see it. Up until that time, the promises of God in the Bible were like giving a promise to a blind man that says, "I'll tell you what I'll make you a deal, okay? You're blind. All that you need to do is to see, and if you see, I'll give you a million dollars. Go ahead, enjoy the million dollars, but see first." Oh, such a lovely promise, but a condition that is impossible to fulfill.

How does a man attain enough righteousness so that he can stand before God? Answer: he cannot. He cannot. How does he receive it? He receives it from God who imputed sin to Christ and Christ's righteousness to us. Now what I'd like to do in the next few moments that are still allotted to me—and whether they are allotted to me or not, I'm taking them—I would like to give you five characteristics of the righteousness of God, characteristics that will bless your soul and that will take you all the way to heaven if you believe in Christ.

Number one, obviously, obviously, it must be a free gift. It must be a free gift. It is the gift of righteousness. "Being justified," we read in the book of Romans a moment ago, "being justified as a free gift." How in the world are we going to earn this righteousness? How are we going to make ourselves worthy of this righteousness? Answer: we cannot. Don't try. Don't bother. Don't waste your time.

Luther called it a passive righteousness, because by that he meant that it was a righteousness that we simply receive and we can do nothing to make ourselves worthy of it. We just simply receive it as a gift from God. He used the illustration of rain. What is there in rain, or what is there on the earth, I should say, that makes it worthy of the rain? The earth may not deserve the rain; the earth may not create the rain. All that it can do is to enjoy the rain as a gift, and then later on it bears fruit.

Just like we as Christians, we receive the righteousness of God through faith, and then we begin to bear fruit. But the rain, the righteousness which refreshes us and covers us, is a gift of God. As we learned last week when we spoke about grace, and you know of course that this is a series of messages, and I hope that you have the opportunity of listening to all of them because they are connected.

So the first thing is it is a free gift. It can be given, as we explained last time, to big sinners and to lesser ones indiscriminately. In fact, let me change the illustration and use one that Luther did not use. Think of snow. Here you have messy trails in the snow. And some of you looking back in the rearview mirror of your lives, you see those messy trails, don't you?

You see what you have done to your body. You see what you have done to other people, and some of you are still doing bad things to other people right now. And you look back and you see this mess and you wish things could have been different, but the past cannot be changed. And all that you see is the mud and the grime and the dirt. But then a snowfall comes. 18 inches of snow that blankets the whole area.

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." God says, "There's the messy trail, but I'm going to cover it. And it will be covered by the special pure righteousness of Christ, which is my righteousness, so that before me you will be as holy as he is." And the first characteristic is it is a free gift.

What do you do with those who can't forgive themselves? Spalatin, who was a friend of Luther, did some things he couldn't forgive himself for. He had given some bad advice and he hurt other people because of the advice, and he could not be consoled. If Luther had been living in our century, he would have said, "Now, Spalatin, let's get a couple of things straight. First of all, it was not that big a deal. Everybody is in the same boat as you are.

Number two, what you need to do is to work through this through recognizing that you have to feel good about yourself. That's your real problem. So what I'd like to do is to help you to feel good about yourself." Luther didn't do that. He did not minimize the sin; he magnified grace.

He said to Spalatin in a letter, "My faithful request and admonition is that you join our company and associate with us," he says, "who are real great and hard-boiled sinners." He said, "You've committed a great sin? Oh, come and join us because we're big sinners. You must by no means make Christ to seem paltry and trifling to us, as though he could be our helper only when we want to be rid of imaginary, nominal, and childish sins."

Oh, no, Spalatin," he said, "that kind of a redeemer would not be good for us." He said, "He must rather be a savior and redeemer from real, great, grievous, and damnable transgressions and iniquities, yea, from even the greatest and the shocking sins." I didn't bring it with me, but we have a letter from a man in prison who listens to our radio ministry who wrote, who is guilty of rape, raped four women.

He's in jail now, and he has come to saving faith in Christ. But he is wondering, how does a man who has done something so terrible with consequences that are still ongoing and who has had such a terrible effect upon women, how does a man like that ever become at peace with himself? It's not by feeling good about himself or even getting in touch with his pure inner child, as some people are doing.

It is to realize that God has sent a snowfall and covered the mess. God helps us with the consequences; he helps us work through it. But we have a brand new basis upon which we can accept him. He is not looking at us legally now as those who are such damnable sinners, but he sees the righteousness of Christ. "To be found in him," said Paul, "not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

And it hurts me to say it, but I'm going to say it anyway: God's righteousness is so perfect and so pure that it even can cover a rapist. And now I've said it. Number one, it is a free gift. Number two, let us remember it is unchangeable. It is unchangeable.

Well, my friend, I certainly hope that you listen to Running to Win next time for the continuation of this message and the understanding of God's wondrous grace. But the point that I want to emphasize is this: it is not the greatness of your sin that will keep you out of heaven. It is the fact that you have not received the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to all who believe.

I'm holding in my hands a resource entitled *Life-Changing Bible Verses Every Woman Should Know*. Now, this resource was written by my wife. It has about 25 short chapters with questions at the end—a great book for mentoring, by the way—dealing with issues of hope and stability in the midst of our changing world, of course with those who struggle with various issues, and all of us do.

I'd like to make sure that you have a pen or pencil handy because in a moment I'm going to be giving you some info as to how this resource can be yours. But you know, even while I think about it, Mother's Day is just around the corner. This would be a wonderful gift for all the women who are mothers in your life.

Here's what you do: you go to rtwoffer.com—that's rtwoffer.com—or you pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now, my lovely wife Rebecca had a very difficult childhood, and she talks about it because she wants to help women to understand that there is hope and there is healing in the midst of a world that has lost its way. Once again, the last time we're making it available, go to rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Dave McAllister: It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Relationships are very important to all of us; that's why we feel so much pain when a loved one dies. We received an anonymous question about this, Pastor Lutzer. It goes like this: Does the Bible really say we will know one another in heaven? If so, where?

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Well, I think it says that quite clearly in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, where it says that now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face, and then we shall know even as we are also known. So clearly what it's talking about is at death, we're going to know a lot more than we do here on earth, and we will know one another.

In fact, I can't imagine that in heaven we are going to know less than we did here on earth. So obviously we're going to know one another. There's another hint about that on the passage of scripture that speaks about the transfiguration. Jesus is there on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John, and Moses and Elijah show up.

And you remember that story? I don't think that they needed to be introduced. I think that in heaven we'll have intuitive knowledge of who it is that we are meeting. There you have it: knowledge of people who have died in Old Testament times still having their names, the very same people. And yes, of course, we shall know one another in heaven.

Dave McAllister: Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, you can by going to our website at rtwoffer.com and clicking 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. For those running the race of life, the goal line is heaven. Now if there's one thing you have to have to get into heaven, you'll want to know what it is. Next time on Running to Win, we'll make theology practical. Tune in to learn what it actually means to receive the gift of righteousness as Pastor Lutzer wraps up the gift you can't live without. 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.