Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. The founder and perfecter of our faith. Believers follow Jesus at his command. His road was never easy, and if we walk in his steps, some of those steps will be tough ones. Today, we'll find out what it means to follow Christ into a place not found in too many travel brochures.
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. Pastor Lutzer, we're so used to our comforts. Not many of us would give them up easily the way Jesus did.
Well Dave, your intro has just helped us to once again recognize the tremendous cost that Jesus paid. to be obedient to the Father. And your challenge is very convicting. Would we be willing to do that? Because all of us would like to have a life of leisure rather than a life that takes us into the desert.
rather than a life that challenges us to give our lives for the sake of the gospel. I'm holding in my hands a book I've written entitled Walking with Jesus A Radical Return. to his priorities. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'd like to give you some contact info. What this book is going to do is to encourage you to ask this question.
If I were a follower of Jesus like I should be What changes need to be made? in my life. Here's what you do. You go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218.
9337. For now, let us listen, and at the end of this message, I'll be giving you that contact info again. We must ask. What would Jesus do and what should I do?
Well, I want to begin today by asking you a question. How is it going? following in his steps. Have you been asking this past week, what would Jesus do? Have you seen that question on the screen of your television set?
Have you seen that question on your desk at work? Is it hanging on your refrigerator? What would Jesus do? Last week, I challenged you to live an entire year like that.
Now, if you fail, as all of us will and all of us already have. What you have to do is take out time and confess that sin, but don't give up. That by the strength and the authority of Christ, we may begin to live as Christ would live. Last week, I mentioned to you that the sermon today would be devoted to prayer, because if we want to be like Christ, we must follow Him into the desert. One of the problems we have philosophically when we turn the pages of the New Testament.
Is we begin to ask the question: why it is that Jesus, who was the Son of God with all power and all authority, why is it that He was spending so much time in prayer?
Well, the answer is, of course, that even though he was God, he lived as man. He laid aside all of his glory. That did not mean that he laid aside his attributes, but he chose not to use his attributes. And so he lived as man. The first Adam lived in dependence upon God, but then blew it because he began to depend upon himself.
The second Adam chose to live fully in dependence upon God, moment by moment, and said, I do nothing of myself. And that's why Jesus spent so much time in prayer. He wasn't depending on everything that he had as God, but he came having the resources of God, the attributes of God, but living. as a man. And so that's why Jesus became so acquainted with the desert.
Those rugged hills of Judea. Those wastelands next to the Jordan River. Jesus knew them well. Because, as we shall see, the text says that he often slipped away into the wilderness. Yeah.
What is the wilderness experience? It is a place of isolation. It is the place where God brings us, where we have no other distractions except our problems and our needs. And there we are confronted with Him, the living and the true God. But I want us to realize that the desert is first of all a place of conflict.
It's a place of conflict. Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke. And all of the passages that I ask you to turn to today will be in Luke. The first one is in the fourth chapter. A very familiar story of Jesus Christ being baptized in the Jordan River by John.
and then going out. and being driven by the Holy Spirit. into the wilderness. It says in 4, verse 1, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days while tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, he became hungry.
Now, notice that Jesus Christ here. Filled with the Holy Spirit. Baptized by John in the Jordan River, knowing who he was and what his mission was. Christ is driven out into a land of barrenness, and there, toe to toe, Jesus confronts. Satan.
All of us, I think, are acquainted with the way in which Satan came to Christ. He tempted him with the lust of the flesh. If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. Fulfill your bodily desires. You are hungry, eat.
Then he came to Jesus Christ with the lust of the eyes. He said, Do you see this huge region? He says, all the kingdoms of the earth I will give you if you bow down. and you worship me. And then the pride of life, Jesus, throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple and God will catch you.
His angels will be there and you will be front page news.
Now, we all know that Jesus Christ did not succumb to this temptation. Christ said no to the devil. But what I want you to realize is that standing in between Jesus Christ and the will of God. standing between Christ and the cross that he came to die on. Was a wicked spirit who wanted to interrupt what Jesus was called to do.
He wanted to derail Christ. He wanted to win a decisive victory and take Jesus Christ out of the will of God and out of commission. And that wicked enemy stands ready to do the same to you and to me. I'm told that out in the wild when you have bull moose who are in a fight, fighting over a herd of females. After the confrontation and after the battle is over, the one moose that has won, his authority is never contested again.
He is victor. And everyone else knows that. and they come under his authority, and no other bull moose challenges him again. That's what Satan wants to do. He wants to take the person who has just had a spiritual experience with the blessed Holy Spirit of God and he wants to bring up against him all the resources of evil, get him to fall, to be discouraged, and to say, There's no use me standing up.
I have confronted evil and I have succumbed, I'm finished. That's what he wants. And there are Christians today in their spiritual experience who never have gotten beyond their first wilderness experience. They have failed, and that's where they have stayed.
Now mind you, Satan doesn't take no for an answer. Even if we do win that initial victory or those initial victories, he is back again and again and again and the desert is always a place of conflict. Notice what it says in verse 13. And when the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him until. a more opportune time.
It's just a matter of time. Don't ever think that this was the only time that Jesus met Satan in the desert. The desert is always a place of conflict. Secondly, the desert is a place of communion. It's the place of communion.
Notice in chapter five, verse 16 of Luke, Jesus is very popular. The news about him is spreading. And instead of taking this as an opportunity to say I've got it made, because I'm beginning to catch on in my popularity. He was climbing the ladder of success in the eyes of men. The response is this, 515.
But the news about him was spreading even farther, and great multitudes were gathering to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But he himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
Some translations say the desert. But it was a frequent occurrence.
Now turn to chapter 6, verse 12 of Luke. Notice that Christ is going to choose the 12 disciples, and it says, And it was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night. in prayer. to God. What was going on?
How do you spend? Six hours in prayer, twelve hours of prayer. We sing sweet hour of prayer. Many people who sing sweet hour of prayer have never spent. one uninterrupted hour in prayer.
What was Jesus doing? You see, Jesus was finding in God the Father a listening ear. He was finding the father. to meet his spiritual inner needs. He was finding the Father's will as he sought it, as he would lay bare before the Father all of the concerns that he was facing in the tremendous, precious ministry of healing, which was so exhausting.
He was doing that. There was communication from the Son of God to God the Father. But there was also communication the other way as well. God the Father was there in heaven with Christ. In the desert, and God the Father was bestowing upon Christ all of the inner resources that Jesus needed for the pressures of ministry for combating Satan.
It was two-way communication. That's why we call it communion. It was Christ in the presence of the Father whom he loved, and it was the Father with Christ of whom he said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am delighted. My dear friend, there was a lot of things that were happening there. Lots of things were happening in the desert.
Jesus Christ Receiving from God the Father and giving back to God the Father.
Now, if you want to learn the lessons of the desert, you must have those two kinds of communication going on. Most of the time, we think that prayer is simply coming to God and unburdening ourselves and saying, God, this is what I'm concerned about. And that's only half the story. The other half is God speaking to you in language that you can understand, so that you leave that area of the desert and you say, I have heard from the Almighty. You say, well, are you talking about some mystical inner voice?
No, God may sometimes speak that way, but I am talking about the voice of God, the voice of God through the scriptures. Later on, I'll be sharing with you how George Mueller discovered something that transformed his life. He discovered that before he could even begin to pray, he had to first of all hear God's voice and refresh himself in the promises of God before he could pray with confidence. And you see, those who have found Rest. And comfort.
and resources in the desert. They knew what it was like. to be met by the Almighty. That's why Bernard of Claravaux could say, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, thou fount of life, thou light of men. From the best bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfilled.
to thee. Again. Communion. In the desert. Thirdly, The desert was a place of commitment.
Turn to chapter 22 of Luke now, where we see Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. In those days, the Mount of Olives was largely desert. But the same idea applies. Luke chapter 22. where we see Jesus now just before he is to be crucified.
And what is happening? It says in verse 39, And he came out and proceeded as was his custom to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples also followed him. And when he arrived at the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down and he began to pray, saying, Father, If thou art willing Remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but thine be done.
Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. And being in agony, he was praying very fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground. And when he arose from prayer, he came to his disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow. And he said to them, Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
There's a time to sleep. But there's a time to be awake. Here is Jesus in Gethsemane. He is facing now the cross finally, the purpose for which he came. And he's in agony.
Yes, he's in agony because he's going to be nailed to a cross, which is one of the most painful means of death. Jesus didn't take a sleeping pill. Jesus didn't die with dignity. He was going to die, even the death of the cross, the most horrid way to die, the most shameful way to die, because crucifixions were public. And Jesus was going to hang there.
But that's not the greatest burden that was upon his mind in Gethsemane. There was something else. And that was that the spotless Son of God, the one who originated from heaven, the one who was one with God the Father. You know, I think sometimes we think that Jesus was just an assistant up in heaven. Jesus Christ was one with God the Father.
He was a member of the Trinity and still was a member of the Trinity. And before he came at Bethlehem, wherever he went, he was attended by angels who would sing, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Isaiah chapter 6. Where the angels sing that, we say, well, that was sung to Jehovah. Do you know that John chapter 12 says that they were singing to Jesus?
And now Jesus comes to this earth where he travels incognito. He travels and is despised and is spit upon and is spoken ill of and is being accused of being an illegitimate child. And he's gone through all this where nobody was singing holy, holy, holy. And now, something else has to take place that was even far worse than that. It was the final indignity.
And that is that Upon Jesus would be laid the sin of adultery, and he would become legally guilty of that. And he would become legally guilty of homosexuality and genocide. And lying, and stealing, and the lust of the flesh, and all of those things would suddenly come upon the pure Son of God as he would be made there an offering for sin. And then God the Father would turn Away from him and just let him writhe there in agony until he died. That's what he was going through in Gethsemane.
But notice what he says. In his own sanctified, sinless spirit, there was still a struggle. Parenthetically, what makes us think that the Christian life can be lived without a struggle? If you know that kind of a Christian life, I want to meet you afterwards. I want to get your autograph.
I'll have you autograph it right here. Where other people who have the same view have autographed my Bible. It is. free from any handwriting. Notice this, it says.
Verse 42: If thou art willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will. But thine be done. When Jesus finished with Gethsemane, after that there was the cross, and the issue was settled. But I'd like to suggest to you that the reason that Jesus could settle it was not only because he was the spotless Son of God, but because of all of those times spent previous to this. All of those times spent previously in the desert, now suddenly when he came to the most dramatic moment.
When it came to the issue of death, When he would have to die voluntarily, voluntarily become a loser. In that moment, Jesus submitted to the will of God the Father and committed Himself unto the Father. and died a committed obedient. servant.
Now, my dear friend, I'd like to say to you today. That every one of us is brought at some time in our life into the desert. You look at Jesus Christ, he is baptized by John in Jordan, receives the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and he is driven into the sphere of conflict. Yes, it is a place of communion and it is a place of commitment, but first of all, prayer always is a place of conflict. You look at the nation Israel, God delivers them out of Egypt, and where do they go?
They go into the desert. Why did God bring them into the desert? He said, I want to humble you and I want to prove you to see what is in your heart, whether you will keep my commandments or not. There is nothing like the heat of the desert to bring out what is in the human heart. And so Jesus is there.
in the desert. Paul was taken to the desert, spending many years in the desert after his conversion, having God's full attention there in the desert, and God having his.
Something going on that would forever change the life of the Apostle Paul so that he could become that great missionary statesman and be the one responsible for writing 13 books of the New Testament. In fact, what is the bottom line of what I'm trying to share to you today? I'd like to say that conflict Conflict in the desert precedes communion and it even precedes commitment. conflict. You go into your closet as Jesus said we should do.
Jesus said, when you pray, go into your closet, and after you have shut the door, pray to your Father which is in secret, and the Father which sees in secret will openly reward you. I want to tell you: the minute you go into that closet and you close the door and you say, This hour is God's. Instantly, you go there to meet God, and Satan shows up right away. There he is, to distract you. This is Pastor Lutzer.
I do want to ask you this question. Are you in a desert? Do you feel that you are in a place where there is unending sand with no oasis? Perhaps you are experiencing the desert in your relationships. In your job?
In your health, You feel as if there's no place to go. Boredom. each day being like the one that precedes it? You know, Jesus would say, I've been there. We're making available for you a book I've written entitled Walking with Jesus: A Radical Return to His Priorities.
Jesus was in the desert. and he teaches us how we should experience our deserts as well. For a gift of any amount this book can be yours, and I certainly hope that you have a pen or pencil handy. Because here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com.
That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218. ninety three thirty seven. Remember the title of the book, Walking with Jesus, A Radical Return to His Priorities. After you've read it, share it with your friends. It can be transforming.
Once again, here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com and let me thank you in advance for your support of this ministry, or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-8. ninety three thirty seven. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. It only takes a single word in the Bible to elicit some deep questions.
One of our listeners is asking this. In Second Corinthians chapter twelve, verse two, Paul was caught up into what he called the third heaven. Pastor Lutzer, what are the first and second heavens? You know, I've never studied this, but my suspicion is that the first heaven would be the heaven where the birds fly, the atmosphere. For example, it talks in the book of Genesis at the creation.
It says that the birds of the heavens Then of course you have the stellar universe with all of the stars and you have, of course, a great expanse, and I would think that that would be the second heaven. The third heaven would be where God dwells. The Apostle Paul in the reference that you referred to, the Apostle Paul talks about being called up into the third heaven. and hearing words which no man can utter. What he's talking there about is the fact that he actually was in God's presence.
Now, I don't know where the third heaven is. I don't know whether or not it is beyond the first and the second. But clearly the third heaven is the very dwelling place of God.
Some wise words from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337.
That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running2Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.
Some people think trusting Christ means all their pathways will be strewn with roses. If you're in that number, think again. Many of Christ's pathways were pathways of suffering.
Next time on Running to Win, we'll learn more about the desert, a place of conflict, but also a place of communion with God. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
