Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Addictive behavior, it always starts with small steps that lead to bigger steps. If you find yourself addicted to substances or to destructive habits, stay with us, because today you'll hear about the steps you can take to break free from addiction and to get your life back on track. 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, getting addicted takes time. Is breaking free something that also requires a long time to achieve?
Dave, the answer is yes. Sometimes there are people who are almost instantly delivered. You know, there are those who've been alcoholics, and once they're saved, they take the alcohol and they pour it into the sink, and it's the end of their problem. But many other people struggle. And so what we need to do is to come alongside of people and help them in their journey. You know, I believe that this message is so important, and there are many of you who are listening right now who ought to get on your phone and call some of your friends and invite them to listen to Running to Win because of these very important messages. And you know, what I'd like to do is also suggest that you might want to get these messages so that you can listen to them again and again.
For a gift of any amount, they can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com.
That's RTWOffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now I'm going to be giving you that contact information after this message. For now, I want you to listen carefully because what we're doing in this message, we're taking human experience in all of its depravity, so to speak, but we're applying God's holy word.
Listen carefully. You know, there are people who actually have learned that it's possible to help someone reach the bottom more quickly with family members gathering around and simply, simply telling that person what his lifestyle is doing to each of them so that reality somehow sinks in. You say, well, what about Alcoholics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, all of those different groups? I want you to know today that if you're attending one of them and you're finding it helpful, I encourage you to continue.
I would not be critical of those groups in that sense. Alcoholics Anonymous has helped hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, and we can be grateful, but I do want to tell you this. This summer, I was in Whiting, New Jersey, where there is the House of Mercy over 100 years old committed to helping addicts. They have primarily alcohol addicts and drug addicts, and they put them through a program that lasts about five or six months, and then they have a graduation ceremony, and then they follow up on these, and they're receiving a tremendous amount of percentage, a great percentage of permanent, permanent deliverance. So I said to Bill, this is a Bible-based program where the men have Bible studies. They pray together. They call on God.
They're required to read the scriptures, to memorize the scriptures. I said to Bill, what's the difference between your group and these other groups out there? He said, well, first of all, we receive many from these other groups, and that's not a criticism of them.
It's just simply a reality because all have their failures, including even the House of Mercy. But then he said this. After doing this for years and years and years, having hundreds of graduates, hundreds of graduates throughout the country permanently delivered, he said the difference is that when you are in a program that only believes in God as a higher power, your desires do not change. When people come to Christ and are converted, their actual desire for that substance, whatever it is, eventually leaves them.
And I thought to myself, well, of course that's right. That's biblical. A new heart I will give you. I will take out the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, says the scripture. He that is in Christ, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.
There is something within us. If you're a born-again Christian, and I hope you are, and you may not be, and if so, I want you to know that you can come to Christ so that you are. But if you're a born-again Christian, there is a part of you that hates sin. There is a part of you that loves righteousness. There's a part of you that wants to please God. I've seen this over and over again, people falling into sin, but they're genuine Christians and when they repent, the first thing they say is, oh God, you know how much I love you and I'm sorry that I offended you and that I grieved you.
And that's the first thing they think of. That's Christian because the desires change. Now, as I was thinking about this message, it was difficult to make because I thought of so many passages right now that I wanted to give the congregation. So I outlined one set of passages and I said, I'll use those. And then I said, no, here's another set of passages. I'm going to use these. And then I said, there's another set of passages out here and I'm going to use those.
So aren't you glad that I'm not going to use them all today? But I do want to tell you this. I'm going to give you some principles and we will turn to some passages, but at the end of the day, I want to exalt Jesus as the deliverer. The very time that he came, it says he has come to save his people from their sins. I talked to those of you today who are in despair.
You've tried a thousand times. Would you listen carefully? A couple of principles with some scripture. First of all, everything that God expects us to do, everything that God expects us to do is based on what he has already done.
It's based on what he has already done. Does he want us to crush Satan who is a part of our battle? Yes. Has he crushed Satan? Yes, he disarmed all principalities and all powers and made a show of them openly. Does he want us to be able to say no to sin? Yes, he put us into Jesus Christ. It says later in the book of Romans that we are one with him, united with him, and therefore we can be free. It's this awesome work that Jesus did for us that becomes the basis of all deliverance from sin.
And now I'm not just talking about addicts. I'm talking about all of us in our struggles with sin. You take, for example, it says this in the book of Corinthians. It talks about those who were caught in various sins.
It speaks about the sex offenders, the immoral, the idolaters, the thieves, the greedy, the drunkards. And then Paul says, and that is what some of you were, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You've been justified in the name of Jesus. What a marvelous passage.
That's one of the ones I wanted to camp on for about 15 minutes, but we don't have the time and it's not necessary because the essence of it is clear. Jesus came in and he washed them and he sanctified them. He set them apart and he justified them.
Notice that what happened in their lives was based on what Jesus did. Nearly 20 years ago in the lobby of this church. And isn't it amazing that I can talk like that?
Nearly 20 years ago. And here I'm so young. I met a woman who said, I'm living with a man. And she said, I know it's wrong.
We're not married. And she says, I just need to break up this relationship. And I said, well, just move out.
She said, it's not that simple. I own the apartment. And I said, we'll ask him to leave.
He won't. I said, go to the police, get an order that he has to vacate the premises because these premises belong to you. She did that. And later on, she said that when she presented him with this piece of paper, whatever it was, he packed up and left.
Now I have a question for you. How does a 125 pound woman get a 200 pound man to leave an apartment? She doesn't do it by power. She does it by authority. And I want to speak to those of you today who say I have no power. I want to speak to women who have told me that they have no ability to say no to sexual solicitations, that they were brought up in such an atmosphere, maybe because of molestation or whatever, that they want to say yes to every man no matter what he asks them to do.
And they lack willpower. I want to say to you today, dear people who are listening, there is such a thing as exercising authority as a believer. You do not have to say yes because Jesus died to set you free.
He crushed the enemy and he broke the power of sin. Accept that and live by it. First of all, everything God expects us to do is based on what he's done. Secondly, the transformation occurs when our passion for Christ is greater than our passion for sin.
Our love for Christ is greater than our love of sin. Now I want to talk to you very candidly. I think I've been doing that.
I'm going to continue. Here's why I think many people are never delivered from their addictions. They come to God and they say, oh God, I've got this problem. It's alcoholism.
Deliver me, deliver me, deliver me. And God isn't up in heaven giving out little packages of victory. Oh, you're an alcoholic. There's a little bit of victory in this package. Oh, you've got a problem with gambling. There's a little bit of this. Oh, you have a problem with pornography.
Here's a little bit of victory that I'm giving out. What God wants to do is to see that our problem is even deeper. Our fundamental problem is that we are not wildly in love with Jesus. And therefore he wants to deliver us but he wants us to make a commitment in all the areas of our life to make Christ the Lord of our lives no matter what the cost in every area. Not just because we want victory in this little area, important though it is. And it's fine to call upon him on that.
But he wants to do something more radical. I have two briefcases. One I bring to the church every day and then there's one that I just use for traveling because there's some things that I like to just keep in it and I always know that they're there for. So this one is the traveling case.
This one is the one that I use. So I was on a plane this past summer. Actually it was in the spring and I was served a sandwich but I wasn't hungry. And yet I hate to throw food away.
I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm always told that there are a billion people in some big country that would give anything for this sandwich but I didn't want to throw it away. So I thought well I'll put it in my briefcase. A couple of weeks later I noticed that in a part of my study at home there was this smell. Now it wasn't overpowering because the sandwich was wrapped. It wasn't overpowering but it was kind of a dead smell. Well about a month later I was going somewhere and so I reached in and here was this soggy mess that had turned white.
And then I took it and threw it away and knew the source of the stench. Sometimes we have things like that in our lives. Hidden sins that we've tucked away that we've said nobody's going to know about.
The problem is you can't just tuck them away because the stench permeates everything you do. It affects your marriage. It affects your vocation. It affects the way in which you see life. It affects your inability to minister at church.
It affects the way in which you see other believers. It's amazing how one little package of sin can do so much damage. And then we come before the Lord and we say Lord this stench is unbelievable. Please send me some perfume that I might be able to manage it. God says I don't want to give you a perfume to manage it. I want you to deal with it. I want you to deal with it. And I want to tell you something my dear friend. We exist as a church to help you deal with it. We really do.
And there's nothing that has to be shameful about the fact that you've got things you have to deal with. You know when I was out on the farm many, many, many years ago we once had a horse that got stuck in a slough. He went into a slough. Now some of you maybe don't even know what a slough is.
You city-ites. But it's this messy body of water and mud. We had to take a tractor, put a rope around this horse to help him out.
Now notice this carefully. He got into the slough alone but he couldn't get out of it alone. And there are many of you who have gotten into things alone but you can't get out of it alone and that's okay. That's why we exist is to come alongside of you and to say we're gonna pray and we're gonna fast and we're gonna seek God until he brings deliverance to your life and we learn all the lessons in between in the deliverance process. So that's what we want to do to see God set us free and to give us a new love. And you know what God sometimes does to get our attention? He turns up the stench of our sin until it becomes unbearable and we say I can't take it anymore and because I can't now God do anything, everything regardless of the cost set me free.
As long as it's bearable we try to put up with it. And number three the path to freedom therefore is to pursue the Christian graces and we shall turn very briefly to the book of James. This was one of the passages I wanted to use and then change my mind but decided in the end that I would use it.
James before, very quickly if you have a pen or pencil and you're in the habit of underlining your Bible just want you to grasp some words here that are going to give us the direction that we need. First of all he says why are these fights and quarrels among you your desires that battle within you? James talks about our desires as a hedonized from what we get hedonism.
Why all these desires these hedonistic desires? You want something but you don't get it you kill and covet you can't have what you want you quarrel and fight you do not have because you do not ask God and when you ask you do not receive it because you ask with wrong motives. Number one is prayer with a pure motive and what is a pure motive?
The pure motive is Jesus glorify your name in my life no matter the cost. Not just deliver me from one sin but but do a cleansing in me help me to make you Lord of my life over everything point out everything everything I'm going for broke. So the first is prayer the second is humble yourself it says in verse six but he gives more grace that's why the scripture says God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Do you realize why that is the case? Every one of the sins that we listed the addictions you remember from the book of Romans every one has self in the center instead of God. Now God sometimes humbles us but we can humble ourselves. I was called to preach one time and before I stood on the platform I had this sense of pride thinking you know just to think that I'm the one who speaks and just like that the Spirit of God said that sin deal with it and right there silently I dealt with it and said God I humble myself in your presence and I confess as sin those feelings of pride. You see we need to deal with that and the pride that keeps me hidden and keeps my sin hidden.
Then of course they're submitting very quickly verse seven submit yourselves then to God and here we do that thorough submission. We've talked about that then it talks about purifying yourselves wash your hands you sinners purify your hearts what's in my heart that is displeasing to God show it to me all the areas not just my sin the one sin that I'm concerned about and then it talks about grieving and mourning this is repentance. Sometimes people say when a man falls into a particular sin a man or a woman and then they redo it they say well you know I thought that he repented I guess he wasn't sincere when he repented of course he was sincere she was sincere. There have been people who have repented with tears in their eyes and their tears have run down their cheeks I mean you can't manufacture tears can you I don't think so I think they were sincere but they misunderstood repentance. Repentance isn't something that I do at a point in time because of what I've done repentance is a lifestyle repentance is me confessing my sins yesterday as I ask God to search my heart repentance is asking God to search my heart this morning as I did repentance is continual submission to the will and purposes of God it doesn't matter what you did five years ago ten years ago but my question is did you repent yesterday did you repent this morning through submission to God that's the issue. I don't know why God delivers some people from addictions instantly and others have a tremendous struggle though I do know that the struggle often teaches them things about themselves and God and the joy of the Lord that maybe they couldn't learn another way remember what I said at the beginning of this message when these sins call they have a voice and if you're bound to them you must answer but he came to saving faith in Christ and God delivered him and he worked at a rescue mission helping hundreds of others through the process of deliverance I like the hymns of Charles Wesley all of us do one of the hymns has this stanza think you think of how wise Wesley was to write this he breaks the power of canceled sin there's some of you who are listening here today your sin is canceled because you've been to the foot of the cross you've confessed it but its power is not broken this week you will commit it again if God doesn't intervene because he breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free his blood can make the vilest clean his blood availed for me we all know the blinding absorption of sin but he breaks its power don't give up don't give up there's yieldedness there's fighting there's praying there's believers helping you because we seek the deliverance that is promised will you join me as we pray and father we ask in the name of Jesus the strong and powerful name of Jesus that you might reach down into hearts that have been so so hurt hearts that are so empty hearts that are so defeated and we pray that you will generate faith in those hearts and we pray today that your people your people that are called by your name would walk in victory over the sins that doth so easily beset us before I close this prayer if God has talked to you I'd like to include you in this prayer if you say pastor Lutzer please in the closing moments I want you to know that I need help I want you to pray would you raise your hand wherever you are across the audience there are many who are raising their hands more numerous than I can count maybe also here in the front and back in the balcony some of you over there difficult for us to see but those of you in the balcony has God talked to you some of you thank you for those hands father we ask in Jesus name that every raised hand may receive your hand sent down from heaven that there may be deliverance and freedom from those sins Oh father help us to be able to pray and come alongside of and to and to intercede for and to fast for that we might see your glorious deliverance in Jesus name amen you know my friend as a pastor I want to emphasize that the battle oftentimes is very fierce and if you lose don't give up what we need to do is to continue to pursue God and also I want to emphasize at the end of the message I pointed out that other believers oftentimes play a very vital role in our deliverance honesty with one another small groups many churches think about these things and they make available to people help in the midst of addictions and brokenness we here at the ministry of running to win are so thankful that God has given us the opportunity to preach messages like this in more than 20 different countries we are in Arabic all throughout the Middle East also in Spanish over a hundred stations in Central and South America how is this possible it's because of people like you people who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts we call them endurance partners now many of you already contribute to this ministry and I encourage you also to sign up as an endurance partner so that your gifts can be sent regularly here's what you do you go to RTW offer.com while you're there click on the endurance partner button that's RTW offer.com or if you prefer call us at 1-888-218-9337 let me thank you in advance for helping us as I sit behind this microphone I visualize in my mind thousands of our partners uplifting us with prayers and gifts together we are helping people make it all the way to the finish line RTW offer.com click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer 1-888-218-9337 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 some people seek to control the lives of those around them such behavior is destructive ruining the race of life for the oppressed as well as the oppressor next time on running to win we turn the light of scripture on the lives of so-called control freaks by examining the life of King Saul of Israel this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
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