Rescued From Habitual Sin Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The enemy of our souls will do anything to keep us mired in the sins we used to commit. Jesus sets us free from the compulsion to sin, but we must be diligent to avoid situations that might cause us to fall back into old patterns of behavior. Today, a final look at overcoming daily sins.

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, is the battle against sin ever winnable? Some teach that sinless perfection is possible.

Well, you know, Dave, it depends on how you answer that question and what is meant. On the one hand, we don't have to be bogged down by our sins. We can live with righteousness, with righteous motives, but sinless perfection is beyond our reach. When I meet someone who says that he is living sinlessly, I always say with a smile on my face, I'd like to ask your wife if she agrees with you.

Everything that we do in this life is tainted, but thank God for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And if you, my listener today, are anxious to know more about that righteousness and about the gospel of Jesus Christ, this series of messages is for you, and you can have them permanently so that you can listen to them again and again and share them with your friends. And I need to tell you that this is the last day we're making this offer. The title of the series is Rescued, What God Did to Save Us.

And here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. For a gift of any amount, these messages can be yours, rtwoffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. And now let us go once again to hear the book of Romans, and we've called it Rescued. This passion that we develop for God isn't something that comes to us by osmosis while we're asleep. It comes because we're reading the Word, we're meeting with the people of God, we are in fellowship with God's people and with Him, and our love for God grows and grows and grows until we become passionate lovers of God. That's part of what happens when we present ourselves to God. But also it means not only that we value God, it also means that God owns us. God owns us. After all, we've been purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ, the precious blood of Jesus. Therefore, we are owned by God, aren't we? We're very much owned by God.

We are His privileged possession, the Scripture says. So that means I yield myself to God, I yield my eyes to God. And I say, God, these eyes are yours. Help me to turn away from evil. And Jesus said, if your eye offends you, pluck it out and cast it from you. What He's saying is, do whatever you need to do so you don't keep going back into the same sin. I mean, cut off your cable television if you have to.

Do whatever you have to do. Because the temptations are great, there's no obligation, but the old man comes knocking. And so what you do is you present your eyes to God, you present your ears to God, you present your hands to God, your feet to God, wherever they take you, and you say totally, as far as I am concerned, I am an offering to God. I have a pastor friend who said when he was trying to get this across, he actually had one of the ushers bring up an offering plate and he stood in it.

Well, I try that, but you know, our baskets, I don't think they are quite strong enough to be able to hold that, but that would get the point across. What you do then is you yield to God. And then what?

You begin to serve. Now, if you look at your Bibles, as I hope you are doing, you'll notice in verse 15 and following, Paul gives a contrast between being a slave of righteousness and a slave to sin. He uses the expression the slavery of sin at least five times, depending on how you count them, maybe six. And he uses the same expression as being slaves to righteousness.

And all the way through from 15 to the end, that's what he's doing. He's contrasting it. What then are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace by no means? Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness? He says, but thanks be to God, you were one slaves to sin, but now you're obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching which you've received and you're obeying righteousness.

A couple of comments. First, when the apostle Paul uses the word slave, he means slave. He doesn't mean servant. If you're somebody's servant, you might be able to leave serving that person and go serve somebody else. Slaves are owned.

And you and I are created to be owned. And what Paul says is either we are going to be slaves of sin or we're going to be slaves of righteousness, we're going to be one or the other. I think that Bob Dylan was absolutely right when he used to sing, you're going to have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody. And my friend, you're serving somebody today. You say, well, I don't want to serve sin. I don't want to serve God. I just want to serve myself. Well, isn't that sweet? But there is no third category.

I'm impressed. But there's no third category. You say you're serving self. The essence of sin is self. You've just voted to become a servant of sin. That's what you have done. Now, let's look at these two phrases. The servant of sin.

What does that look like? Those of you who struggle with cocaine addictions, alcohol addictions, sexual addictions of any kind, you understand this phrase very, very well. Because you know right well that ultimately you aren't in charge. You can swear it off. You can say this is the last time. You can obey your conscience and say never again. But it will happen again.

Why? Because slaves don't tell their masters what to do. A slave doesn't wake up in the morning and say to his master, now, master, today I think we're going to do this.

Uh-uh. The slave wakes up and says to his master, who is sin, what do you want me to do today, and how can I get by and manage the consequences? That's what the slave master says. And sin is always a bad idea. Notice what the Apostle Paul says here. He says, and I'm in verse 19, actually, for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness. Sin isn't static. It leads to more lawlessness.

You begin that direction. It will always demand more. It will always come back with more ferocity and power.

It will always be there, and it will always increase. That's why if you never want to become an alcoholic, you say one thing I never want to do as an alcoholic. I never want to do illegal drugs. I have some good advice for you. Never once touch the stuff. And I can tell you from personal experience that works. You'll be able to walk through a store and see all of those shelves of alcohol, and there'll be absolutely nothing within you that will say, I need this stuff.

It is best for you to simply say no from the beginning, because once it gets its stronghold, then it demands more and more and more. Lawlessness, Paul says, leads to more lawlessness. Now you say, well, you know, I'm not into those sins, but what about anger, self-will, envy?

All those increase in power as well until you become as miserable to live with as your wife says you are. I thought I'd just throw that in as we're going along the road here. You see, there is really no safe sin. And you and I think that we can manage the consequences, but sin. And what is its ultimate destination?

What is its ultimate destination? There in verse 23, we have it. The wages of sin is death. Now the free gift of God, thankfully, is eternal life, but the wages of sin is death. In other words, you're getting your wages and it's death.

It's not just physical death, which all of us participate in, but it's a spiritual death and a moral death. And for some who don't know the Lord, it is an eternal death, horrid, horrid future. So that's the wages of sin. Do you see how sin really falls under the category of false advertising?

Oh, this is the way to happiness. Think of what we can do if you get into these sins. Oh yeah, in the end, it leads to death. And even those pleasures that are sinful, what does the Bible say? He who is in pleasure is dead, even while he lives.

And that's why people need drugs and alcohol just to deaden the pain of an empty life. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life. So having looked at the slavery to sin, what about the slavery to righteousness, the slavery to God? When we become slaves of God, now we're talking about the freedom, finally, to be what God created you to be. The freedom to live with a clear conscience. The freedom to be able to say, I'm walking in what my created status is all about. The freedom to be able to listen to a song as we had today, How Great Thou Art, and to be able to know that that great God belongs to me. And I rejoice in the privilege of being his slave. Because to be a slave of God is to live a delightful, joyful, meaningful, eternal existence. Can you get it better than that?

I don't think so. It's a delightful kind of slavery. You know, the bottom line that the Apostle Paul talks about here is the fact that in Jesus, and I want you to get this today, in Jesus Christ, the power of sin for believers has been broken. It has been broken. You must believe it if you believe it and apply it. And some of you say, yeah, but you know, I've tried to get rid of this sin so long. I understand that. But can you believe this, that in Jesus you die to all obligations to continue along those sinful habits? Your obligations are over. There's a story that D.L.

Moody, who founded this church way back in 1864, liked to tell. Apparently the president of the United States on one occasion said to the president or the leader of the prison commissions, I want to hand out five pardons to a prison, evidently in Ohio, and I want the warden to award these pardons to the inmate who has the best example of conduct for six months. But don't tell the inmates. I don't want them to just behave because they want to get a pardon. I just want them to be observed by the leadership and then you choose who it is that gets the pardon. And so the day came to hand out the pardons and all of the prisoners gathered and the commissioner of prison stood up and said today, I have five pardons in my hand. Whoever gets these pardons will leave the prison today and be free. You can change your clothes and you can be out of here.

The rest of you, of course, will stay. Pardons to be offered. He opens the sheet of paper and says, Reuben Johnson. Reuben Johnson. The chaplain sees Reuben sitting on the front row and says, hey, Reuben, he's talking about you. Reuben kind of looks behind himself wondering if there's another Reuben Johnson here. Finally, Reuben has the nerve to go up and take his pardon. He sits down, he holds his head in his hand, and he begins to weep.

The other four pardons also were handed out. And then the warden stands up and says, time to go back to your cells. And guess what Reuben does? He stands up and he begins walking back to his cell. And the chaplain says, hey, Reuben, you don't belong in that line.

Let's review. When Jesus died on the cross for me, he broke the penalty of sin. When I died with Jesus, he broke the power of sin. My dear brother, my dear sister, you don't have to be in that line. You belong outside of that prison.

Yes, indeed, maybe you have to begin to attend men's fraternity. You have to connect with other believers so that that sin that has had such a great part in your life can be broken. But ultimately, the breaking has taken place on the cross because you are standing on conquered territory as a Christian, and you can say no. You can say no. Let not, therefore, sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should fulfill its lusts, it says. It's an impossible command. But what God commands, he also gives the grace and the strength to do, no matter how difficult it is.

Why? We are under no obligation, no obligation to serve sin. When you look at this passage, you know that Paul uses a big word as he gets near the end. He uses the word sanctification. He says in verse 29, but now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification. Its end is eternal life.

Boy, is that good news. The word sanctification means to be made like unto Jesus, which is really God's big agenda in your life. You say, I always thought that God's big agenda in my life was to serve here or there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that will come. The big agenda is the inner part of you to become like Christ. That's what's sanctification.

Now, here's my point. Justification to be declared righteous happens in a point of time. The free gift of eternal life, the chapter ends through Jesus Christ. And there are some of you who are listening right now who have to say, Jesus, I received that free gift of eternal life. I come to Christ as I am with my sin and my need and my brokenness and my mess. But I do come to Jesus for eternal life.

And it is a free gift to those who believe. Yesterday evening, I spoke at a fundraising event for a very fine Christian school here in Chicago. And a man came to me later and told about attending Moody Church many, many years ago. And he said that I was leading a small group. Of course, I don't remember this, but he said that he was there, and he was an unbeliever, and he was a very angry person, very angry, angry at everything. And he said that he listened to the gospel, and he said, you put a seed in my heart that we never, ever did go back to your church. Five years later, I believed on Jesus. And he said, Jesus just took all the anger away.

Now, he was standing next to his wife when he said it, so I believed that what he was saying was true. It is a free gift to those who believe. If God's speaking to you right now, if God is overcoming your stubbornness and you see that you need Christ, believe on him and be saved. And then what you'll discover later is this message that you've just heard that may have been puzzling in spots. It'll all come together, and you'll say, well, now I get it.

I not only experienced the fact that Jesus died for me, but I died with him, and now I'm on a lifelong journey of sanctification, of learning to walk free, because I no longer am to be in that line. Would you believe? Would you trust? Do we take him at his word? Do we act on it? Let's pray together. Father, we ask in Jesus' name that the words that you have written, we know that they are true words, but help us to believe them and to act on them.

Set your people free. Oh, God, we pray. We've read in your word that we need not serve sin. We say no to that terrible, terrible master, and we gladly say we are servants of God.

Sign us up. For those who have never trusted Christ, may they do so even now. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. And I might add, amen.

Today is the last day we're making this series of messages available to you so that you can have them permanently. Listen to them for yourself and for your friends, and along with the messages comes a study guide. It's a personal study guide that will help you in your spiritual journey. There's nothing that delights me more than when we hear people say that the ministry of running to win, it is transforming in their lives. And I think that this sermon series entitled Rescued, What God Did to Save Us is one of the most important.

It's wonderful to know that we have a hand from heaven that came to deliver us from our sins. Let me give you that contact info because as I've mentioned, this is the last day that we are making this resource available. You can go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer, O-F-F-E-R, but of course it's all one word, RTWOffer.com, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the sermon series Rescued, What God Did to Save Us. The most important facts that we can ever learn have to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Connect with us right now.

Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. We exist here at Running to Win to help us all make it successfully to the finish line. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. As economic times get tougher, one form of preaching has some added allure.

Nate lives in Chicago. He hears Running to Win on WMBI. He says, I work with someone who is teaching nonbelievers about prosperity theology. What can I say to this person so that I am armed with the truth?

Well, my friend, thank you so much for asking that question, and you should be armed with the truth, and you should speak to that person. Because if he is teaching prosperity theology to unbelievers, they are not going to understand the gospel at all. They'll think that it all has to do with money. They will not understand the meaning of the cross, the meaning of humiliation, nor for that matter, the meaning of suffering.

So I would take that friend aside, and I would say, let's have a discussion about this. And of course, there have been books written that show the errors of prosperity theology. And I'm sure that even if you haven't read one of those books, it becomes so very apparent. The problem with prosperity theology is they really have no category for suffering. I always ask the question, how does this relate to the fact that 400 Christians today will probably die for their faith?

That's about the average number of Christians killed every day, particularly in Muslim countries. How does prosperity theology help them? Well, you know, of course, that prosperity theology is largely American. It is not Christian.

So please keep that in mind. And always remember this, that your responsibility is to help this man and your colleagues in a different message, the message that comes to us through the death of Jesus Christ, who by the way, did not experience any prosperity theology, did he? He had nowhere to lay his head. He lived in poverty and then he died. Where was his prosperity theology at that point? Of course, God blesses those who are generous.

But there's no cause-effect relationship, one-to-one correspondence. I did this, therefore God is going to do this for me. Prosperity theology has greatly harmed the church because it has not taught us how to suffer. You, my friend, have a responsibility to clarify that for your friend and share with others a much better message of eternal salvation. Thank you, Nate, and thank you, Dr. Lutzer, for that very wise counsel. If you'd like to hear one of your questions answered, you can. Just go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Many believers have never seen themselves as clay on a potter's wheel, being molded to suit the potter's purposes. But the sooner we do, the sooner we'll be fruitful members of the body of Christ. Next time, lessons from a wheel and a furnace during a trip to Israel. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.