Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally.
So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor, wherever you get your podcasts. For my benefit, for the glory of God, And for my family, and for the impact I am having. I have to stop this behavior. And the first thing that must happen is the kind of dead honesty before God. that this person needs to have and to recognize.
The fact that I've sinned. Does not make me unimportant. I am unworthy of God's grace, but so is everybody.
So we all come cap in hand saying, I'm depending upon you. to give me a new beginning. That's Dr. Erwin Lutzer describing how it's possible to overcome bad habits and temptations and grow in your faith in the process. He's back with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
I'm John Fuller and we're glad you've joined us. You know, I'm thinking about last time, John, and Dr. Lutzer said so many things that we all have to, even sitting here at the table with them, which I wish you all could be just right here at the table. Hopefully you're the next best thing listening in or watching on YouTube. But you got to apply this to yourself first, right?
It's not the other guy, like what Adam did with Eve in the garden. You gave me the woman. It's okay, Lord, what am I doing that I need to be mindful of in my behavior that is Kind of short-circuiting my relationship with you. And what a great place to start. It's convicting.
And, you know, I think in today's culture, we don't have much of a mature appetite, even as Christians, to do this. But what great benefit comes in your relationship with the Lord if you can do that? That's called being mature, right? And so today we're going to continue with the discussion. If you missed it, get the app for the smartphone.
You can go to the website and listen in. This is Pearl material that we talked about last time and we're going to talk about again today. And with decades of experience as a pastor, writer, speaker, theologian, Dr. Lutzer has studied these issues of habits and sin, and he's got a lot to say, as you indicated, Jim. The book is called How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit, Even When You Feel Like Saying Yes.
And you can learn more about Dr. Lutzer and this specific book, which is so helpful. by clicking the link in the show notes. Dr. Lutzer, welcome back.
So great to be with you, Jim. I love just talking with you. You must have been quite an amazing pastor. And I, you know, don't let that go to your head. But that must have been fun for you.
I think you just know how to feed the flock with. Provocative thoughts about where you're at in your journey with the Lord. Not every pastor has that courage to say, wake up. You know, Jim. I know that this isn't a program for pastors necessarily, but when it comes to preaching, and I used to teach preaching.
I always tell pastors, Always ask yourself this question. Why should this message Change people's future forever. In other words, how do we take? the gap between what we know and how we live and somehow bridge them. And that is so critical, even in our Bible study.
But you think about that. That's the work of the pastor every Sunday when he gets up to preach a sermon. How do I get you from that gap into the. In fact, I like to shock pastors by saying the Bible wasn't written to be studied. Oh, really?
No. The Bible was written to change your life. And we study it that we might be able to understand that transformation better. Yeah, that's so good.
So, so good. Let's pick up where we left off last time. And it's an area that I know the book, you've covered it, but this acknowledgement of the spiritual warfare that is a part of our struggle with temptation and sin. You point to an interesting fact about a lion's roar. I always love, you know, the longer I live, the more I realize God has set in nature so many lessons for us to understand Him better.
The lion's roar, how does that teach us something?
Well, you know, Peter says Satan goes about like a roaring lion. seeking whom he may devour.
Now, Jim, if you watch the Animal channel, which you know you know that lions never roar. when they are about to jump on to prey, because they are stealth, they are quiet. What does it mean when a lion roars? Two things. First of all, he's marking his territory.
And he's saying, This territory belongs to me. And secondly, what he is doing is. He's instilling fear in anyone who would take this territory from him. And when you think of Satan, What he is really doing is, he's saying this territory is mine. And you know This may be extreme, but what I see on the Internet Obviously we use the Internet, all of us do, it gets the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.
But there are sections of the Internet where I believe the devil says this is my territory. Oh, yeah. Come over here. and I will give you all the pleasures that you want, In exchange, for your soul, in exchange for your future, and that's the deal that he is trying to make. You know, and of course we want to protect ourselves from satanic influences, if we're believers for sure, but even some agnostics I know, who wants that kind of pitfall?
And you remind particularly believers to check your armor.
So that's out of Ephesians 6. What does that mean? Let's be clear. What does the armor of God provide? First of all, it indicates that we are in a spiritual battle.
I can't overemphasize that enough. And most Christians don't know that we're in a battle. because they have really submitted to the enemy. But what we must do is to put on the armor of God, and we could list all of the pieces. The one I want to emphasize is the shield of faith.
By which you shall be able to quench all of the darts of the wicked one.
Now Jim, in context, What he is talking about is Romans going into warfare, and their shields were beveled. That is to say, they were all hooked together, so that when the soldiers marched it was as if there was a wall going up to the enemy. And that reminds us of two things. First of all, faith is absolutely critical. If there's anything that Satan wants to do, it is to attack our faith.
to bring in doubts that we can't deal with. And the second thing is, we can't fight the battle against Satan alone. We should see ourselves in our churches. As linked together with other believers, marching against the enemy. Wow, that's a great word picture.
Really is. And what we must do is to see that Believers we may have disagreements, But at the same time I hope that we have the same heart. Namely, To stand for Jesus Christ, despite the arrows that are against us. and to be faithful All the way to the finish line. You know, Romans 12 is, I think, an applicable scripture here where we're told to transform our thinking by renewing our mind.
Now, again, we can be so asleep at the switch in this modern world, Dr. Lutzer. Let's grab this. How does a person they have the normal job, whatever that might be, they've got the kids, they're taken care of, life is going by them at warp speed. And we're saying on focus on the family today, remember to work toward renewing your mind.
What does it mean? To put this in context, Romans chapter 12 verse 1. Do not be conformed to this world. but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. All right, how do we renew our mind?
Well, obviously. We renew our mind. Through our devotion to Christ, through the memorization of Scripture.
Now, I'm going to give everyone a test who is listening. I want you to think for a moment about the number seven. I just chose that number arbitrarily. And now I want you to stop thinking about the number seven. Stop it.
Well, you can't. But I can tell you quickly. How you can stop thinking about the number seven. I want you to think about your mother. Yeah.
Some of us had a very good mother, some of us had a very perhaps evil mother to some extent.
Some may not really have known their mother. But think about your mother for a few moments, and you know what? You're going to stop thinking about the number seven. It's the principle of replacement.
So what we have to do is to replace our Thoughts. and our worldly thoughts, with biblical thoughts.
Now I'm going to give a personal illustration which I seldom share, but it's especially interesting to me. I was taking an exam in philosophy for a degree in philosophy, and I had to learn French. I'm not good at languages. The way the professor did it, he took a French journal off the shelf, handed it to me and said, translate into English. I was terrified.
I remember eating breakfast, and I was just so overcome by anxiety I couldn't eat. I got in the cart, it was about a twenty minute trip to the University. But I thought Satan has something to do about all this fear.
So I began to quote every verse I know, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Or Philippians, you know, cast all your anxieties upon the Lord. I quoted them over and over again, five or six different verses.
I got to the university. And as I parked the car Jim, I was overwhelmed by a sense of peace and the power of God. It was just Almost euphoric. I walked in, the prof said, Here's the journal, translate it, and I flunked it cold. And then I went to the church where I was the pastor.
And my secretary said, What in the world got into you? Why are you in such a good mood? I said, I just flunked French twice in a row. That was number two. I said, I just flunked French twice in a row.
So I tell students if you've got to flunk Do it victoriously. But do you see how Instead of all of these anxieties, my mind was now filled and renewed with the promises of God. No, that's so, so good. Explain how spiritual warfare impacts the process. What are some of the ways we can anticipate and respond to those negative Thoughts that Satan will put under our heads, you know?
And maybe the modern things, whatever they might be, just. Taking it captive. Yeah.
We heard the story, but perhaps you can elaborate a little bit more in a practical way. Like, how do I do that?
Okay, I think of a woman I shouldn't think about. What do I do? I think of. you know, drinking. And I shouldn't.
What do I do? Just give us some practical insights of replacement, like you just described. What you have to do is especially find verses of Scripture that relate to your specific addiction or your specific proclivity. What is it that is the weakest part of your life? Satan knows that.
And Satan knows that.
Now, visualize. that you are in a town that has a wall around it. Obviously what you want to do is to strengthen the weakest part of the wall. I've known people who have allowed the devil to go into that particular town through the same weak part of the wall over and over again and never think to themselves, I have to strengthen that part of the wall because that's my weakness. That's where I go off and do my own thing and ending up in all kinds of sinful and hurtful behavior.
So what you do is It takes discipline. It takes the grace of God. It takes both. You know, when I was in Bible college, We'd have people come and teach us and one of them would say, You know, I just learned that I have to be disciplined. and be sure to be up early in the morning, and so forth, discipline was very important.
Then the next week we'd have a teacher who'd say, You know, I just learned to rest in the Lord. And we as students used to say, which one is right? And then I read in the book of Hebrews. labor to enter into his rest. In other words, God has done his part.
but we also have to do our part Under his grace and under his strength, because if we don't, things are just going to float down the river, and at the end of the day, we'll discover that our lives have not been very fruitful. You know, Dr. Lutzer, that makes me think about the importance of transparency and honesty and community. In our journeys, because you can hide that kind of thing only so long before it really becomes.
So destructive. And you've got a story about a woman who was contemplating suicide, very actively contemplating it, but she got. uh sidetracked from that thought, that destructive pattern in her life of of negative thoughts by a prayer group of some sort. I share that story with us because I think it really displays the power of community when it comes to habits and sin. You know, John, I think that one of the reasons why we can't live the Christian life alone is because of what you pointed out, namely, the need for humility.
The need for brokenness. For example, at Moody Church we had a special group for men who were dealing with pornography. And they needed community, they needed accountability. Why? God uses that to humble us and show us that we do indeed need others.
Now to your point, this woman yes. The sleeping pills were in her purse. And she wanted to commit suicide because of all the depression and all the things that happened in her life, but she thought that she would stop by the church to say goodbye to God. On my way, but I'll say goodbye to God. She goes in.
to church. and the women are singing songs of praise to God. I don't know, John, if you know the song Oh Say, but I'm glad, I'm glad that was a chorus we used to sing. She felt like singing Oh. God, I'm mad, I'm mad.
But the women urged her to come into a prayer room. And there she spilled out all of her anger, because she had a great deal of anger toward God and toward others, because she felt that she had been victimized and been shortchanged in life. She spilled all of that out and laid it at the foot of the cross. The women began to pray for her. and with her And you know?
She said she was never depressed again.
Now, whether or not that's true of everyone who's listening, but that would be a wonderful suggestion. get with other people, be honest before God, Let it all hang out. And so Honesty before God is absolutely critical because The part of us that we hide, or we think we're hiding, before God, is the thing that is going to give us. most grief.
So this is what I tell people. What you have to do is to open every door of your life. There are some people who allow God into one part of their life, but not another, so you open every cabinet. every door and say, God, here it is. And God responds to that kind of honesty.
In the book, you explain why you believe the moment we begin to experience some victories in this space, we start to overcome, we start to conquer, we start to live a less negative habit, sinful life. Is perhaps the most dangerous part of the journey, which that word picture comes to my mind, like a perilous cliff on the road. We're experiencing getting there. But Now we're d in a dangerous place. Why do you think that is?
Maybe I'm not answering your question directly, but I was in Europe recently and I met a man who said that he was an atheist. I said to him, You know, it's fine for you to be an atheist. Are you healthy? Yes. Do you have a good job?
Yes. But I said, the day is going to come. When somebody's going to tell you, a doctor's going to tell you that you have two months to live, and then you're going to begin to say, I wonder whether or not I really do need God. And to your point. When we are in that zone where things are going well, When we seem to be victorious and we've overcome this and we've overcome that, it's a very dangerous place because at that moment, we begin to think we have it made.
And we never have it made. And to many people, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is misunderstood. They think to themselves, The power of the Holy Spirit of God is given to people who have it all together. No. The Spirit has been given.
To help us To get it together. Jesus said in John 7, that when I go to the Father I am going to pour forth the gift of the Holy Spirit. All right. How did you get saved? You got saved by looking at the cross.
How do we get the fullness of the Spirit? We get the fullness of the Spirit by looking at the ascension. and the fact that Jesus Has been totally victorious, and he has poured forth the gift of the Holy Spirit in every one of us. That's why, to all the weak saints out there, and we all join you in that. The Holy Spirit is available.
He is resident if you're a believer, but what he wants to do is to be president. In Egypt They under the pyramids discovered grain that had been there for what, four or five thousand years, And they took it and put it in moist soil, and with sunlight it grew. That's amazing. Imagine this there are people today with the blessed Holy Spirit of God. But it is not transforming their lives until until they are willing to have those conditions.
of spiritual growth, So that they might experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit and walk in the Spirit. And that is available to every Christian. And you might be answering that last question I wanted to ask you, and that is for the person listening, let's just. create an avatar of that, the person. Who is a Christian, but they've got these Nagging sin habits, whatever they might be.
They could be extreme or they could be light, but they. They in the end create separation. between them and God. They're not moving in a positive direction. They're content in that.
And now they're feeling a bit of shame. that I'm not motivated to do better. What do you say to them right at the end here? the first two, three things that they can do. To give them that appetite to say, I want a richer, deeper relationship with God.
I don't want to be in this chaos in my family, at my job, whatever, or all of it. What should they do to start turning the tide of living mediocre for Christ? First of all, I would bring to mind a very familiar verse that all Christians should know: 1 John 1, verse 9. If we confess our sins, that's the beginning point. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And that cleansing gives us a new appetite to move on for God. Very quickly, I was talking to a woman who said Every time I go in a mall and I see a little three year old girl. I just absolutely am overcome by guilt because I had an abortion, and that's how old. She would be if I had not had the abortion. What do I do?
The Bible says that He not only forgives us, but cleanses us. There are many people who have been forgiven because they have confessed their sins, but they have never experienced the cleansing of their conscience.
So this person that you described, they need to understand that even their failures, and I'm glad they're admitting them, even those failures they can be cleansed from so that they can have a new beginning. The cleansing of the conscience. Is so important to free up our relationship with God. To say that the past doesn't have to define me, I'm going to get on with the business. of having a relationship with God daily.
That's a good word, by the way. Daily, consistently, because that's where I'm going to live. Yeah.
Do you tie in where Jesus said, you know, be aware, that's not the word used there, but be aware of the plank in your own eye before you're worried about the speck in your brother's eye? We take that as kind of a. you know, a bit of a spiritual Yeah. But maybe the Lord's just being very direct. You know, before you're going after other people, look at your own heart, know what is true about you, and that puts you in a better position.
when you can be honest with yourself. to with humility be able to say to someone, hey, I've noticed this. You know, Jim, we're ending where we began. The key is honesty. Yep.
Whatever you are holding back. is what you are going to pass on to somebody else if it is something that is sinful, or harmful.
So, for many people listening, we have two different kinds of people listening. First of all, those who have never savingly believed on Christ, we urge you to do that. And to those of you who are believers, but you're not where you should be, stop today. Stop and Analyze Repent. And have a new beginning.
That is so good. Dr. Lutzer, this has all been so good. Thank you for being with us last time today. Great stuff.
It's like a tune-up spiritually. It's just been good to sit here with you, talk with you, and really apply those things to my own life. And I'm sure literally hundreds of thousands, millions of people that are listening are doing the same.
So, thank you for that boldness, that willingness to say, Hey, here's what I'm learning. Apply it to yourself because we'll be better. In Christ for it.
So thank you. And all that really matters is what matters forever.
Well, that is for sure, and it is so good. And let me invite our listeners, if today's program has inspired you or challenged you, please let us know. We welcome your feedback. It is important for us to hear from you. And that way, we also are hearing the stories of how together with the donor community and those of us working here at Focus, we are impacting families.
For example, a man named Richard wrote to tell us this, Focus on the family has been such a guiding light in my life. There have been seasons when I felt overwhelmed, alone, or unsure of the path ahead. And it was through this ministry that I began to see God's love and guidance in real, practical ways. That's a wonderful testimony of God's faithfulness right there. It really is.
And that's what we're all aiming for with sincerity. We're just trying to put the hands and feet to it. And of course, the donor community that supports us is providing the fuel to allow it all to go. And we want to be that guiding light of God's love. And truth to families in North America and literally around the world.
A monthly pledge or a one-time gift is so important to help us to do that. It takes money to be able to make this happen, produce radio programs, and podcasts, and content, and counseling department, all those things that we do together results in a changed life. And that is a good thing because it's all in the name of Christ that we do this.
So make a monthly pledge or a one-time gift, and we'll say thank you by sending a copy of Dr. Lutzer's book, How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit, Even When You Feel Like Saying Yes. Just call eight hundred the letter A and the word family. That's eight hundred two three two six four five nine, or donate and get the book when you follow the link in the show notes. And by the way, if the conversation has raised any concerns that you have about bad habits or addictions that you're struggling with.
Give us a phone call. Ask to speak to one of our caring Christian counselors. Again, our number 800A Family. And thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally.
So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor, wherever you get your podcasts. Mm-hmm.
