Hi, this is Pastor Lutzer. Let me ask you a question.
Have you been blessed by running to win? Recently, we received a very interesting proposal. One of our listeners has pledged up to $25,000 for those who contribute to this ministry for the first time. Now, this only lasts until the end of June.
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That's moodymedia.org forward slash matching, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. And it's up to us as Christians to show by example the value and power of a godly family. Keeping our kids from moral harm is high on the agenda. And today, we'll hear some more commandments for parents designed to help 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, as you conclude your series on reclaiming the family, what is your heart's desire as we listen? Well, Dave, I can tell you that my desire is that families understand how important relationships are. The relationship between a mother and a father, of course, the couples. But in addition to that, the relationship with their children, how we must pray.
Because as you accurately indicated, we're living at a time when the temptations are huge, when the opportunities for distraction and sin are limitless. My heart's plea to the parents out there is this. Make sure that your priority is your family. I've written a book entitled A Practical Guide for Praying Parents, and I need to emphasize that today is the last day we're making this resource available for you. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com.
That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. This book will enable you to have a pattern to pray scripture, to pray different prayers, different times, circumstances, but above all, prayers that are offered to God in his name and for his glory on behalf of your children. Now let's listen carefully. Some parents need to be liberated from the false guilt that comes that believes that their adult children becomes a barometer of their own parenting. We have to be able to judge parents by what they did and their response rather than by the way in which their children turned out. It says in the Old Testament that Samuel who walked with God, his children walk not in his ways, but turn to immorality. That's scenario number one. God says each is going to be held accountable. Secondly, there's another scenario and this is in verse 14. He's saying what happens if this man, and now we're talking about the violent son, in verse 14, what if he fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done?
He sees and does not do likewise. He does the righteous things. Verse 17, he obeys my rules and walks in my statutes. He shall not die for his father's iniquities.
He shall surely live. Those of you who've had bad parenting, those of you who have had fathers who were violent, alcoholics, whatever, you can fill in the blank. The simple truth of scripture is that you can live differently. You do not have to live the way your father lived. In fact, the text says you see the sins of your father and you turn against it and say, I'm going to live a righteous life.
So that's another scenario. And what is the summary of all of this? Verse 20, the soul who sends shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. Individual judgment. You will not be able to stand before God in the day of judgment and say, the way I acted as an adult is my parents' fault. Now, your parents, if they abused you, they will be judged also by God.
The fact is, radical individual responsibility. There is one other scenario in the text that I'll point out, and that is this, where a wicked man changes his ways and God forgives him. You'll notice this in verse 21. But if a wicked person turns away from all of his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statues and does what is just and right, he shall live, he shall not die.
God says, if you are living today in a unbiblical, sinful lifestyle, if you turn from your sins, God will bless you and you will live. Individual responsibility, radical, radical accountability before God. We have to teach our children that. There comes a time when our children are old enough, when we need to share with them our hearts, give them a warning, and then after that, simply say, but you know, the responsibility rests on your shoulders from here on out. The direction that you take, you are personally accountable before God.
You can control your children when they are young, you cannot control them when they become older, and then they are accountable for their actions. Number 12, commandment number 12, understand the need for personal conversion, the need for personal conversion. The Bible says in John chapter three, verse six, Jesus said that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We've all been born of the flesh.
That's how we get here on planet Earth. But not all who are listening to this message have been born of the Spirit. And what your child needs to do is to be converted by God. Now this often happens in a Christian home, a child grows up and he hears the gospel, and he prays a prayer to have Jesus come into his heart and then afterwards he begins to doubt his salvation, and his parents say well no no no you accepted Jesus when you were five years old or six years old. And the child has no assurance of faith. It's a mistake on the part of parents to give assurance to a child lest it is a false assurance, because not everybody who prays a prayer is saved. You can pray a prayer and that prayer is not necessarily the expression of a heart that is transferring its trust to Jesus because it realizes that without Jesus there is judgment. You see it's possible to get children especially to pray the right prayer, to say the right words, but they have no conviction of sin. They have no sense of their need before God, and so they do what everybody else does, namely they pray to accept Jesus especially because mom and dad want them to. We as parents have the responsibility of explaining the gospel to our children to help them to understand that Jesus died for them, to teach them about sin. I think I commented on this in one of the previous commandments to teach them about their conscience. But we can't convert them. Nobody can cause a child to be saved.
Only God can do that, and God works in their hearts to bring it about, but we need to really depend on God, not our ability to get them to pray a prayer, however important that might be at a very special moment. So I have to ask you today as an adult, are you converted? Because when we are converted by God, the blessed Holy Spirit of God does a work in us, there is something within us that wasn't there before our conversion, and what was in us now has been created by God with a whole new set of desires.
We now desire God. I was 14 years old, out on the farm I was struggling with assurance of salvation. That's a whole story brought up of course in a Christian home but the age of 14 when I finally prayed with my parents and they, they told me to receive Christ by faith after days of feeling convicted of sin. I really marvel now as I look back because the sins of which I was convicted in the minds of many people would be very very trivial but you know nothing is trivial when you are confronted by a holy God. After that I came to full assurance of faith and I remember I woke up the next morning saying to myself, I know God. God's presence was so real. Suddenly I began to have a hunger for the word of God.
I began to read the Bible and memorize the Bible. You see that is birthed in us by the Holy Spirit. No parent can change his child's desire toward God. God does the changing. We can only expose them to the truth and trust that they will personally come to faith in Christ. We also understand the need for personal conversion apart from that where do children go in today's world.
Number 13. Make God the center of your whole life. Make God the center of your whole life.
Now sometimes I've heard people say and maybe I've said it too something like this. Well you know we should have a hierarchy. God is at the top, that's my most important relationship, then my family, then my vocation, then entertainment or whatever.
Well you know that's really nice to say but I have no idea that makes no sense to me whatever in this way. Let's suppose that your vocation is 40 or 50 hours a week. You can't give God that much time. You can't be reading your Bible and praying 50 hours a week and then you can't be giving your family an equal amount of time.
There are only 168 hours a week. So what you have to do is to think about bringing God in the center of everything. So God is in my vocation. When I'm working those 50 hours I'm working for God. Don't ever work for your boss because number one he's hard to get along with. Number two you're not getting paid enough. Number three after you do something wonderful he'll give somebody else the credit. Don't work for him. Don't, don't, don't do that.
It'll just drive you crazy. You work for God. And God is brought into it. I think that's what it meant in Deuteronomy chapter 6 when it says talk of these things. When you sit in your house, when you walk on the way, when you're going to the field, when you come back, when you go to bed, it doesn't mean be constantly lecturing your children about God. It just means show your children how to incorporate God into all that they do so that God becomes the centrifugal force of all of your activities.
And then what will happen is the kids will pick up on that. And may I include under point number 13 or commandment number 13. Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. And never before have children needed so much prayer, grandchildren needed so much prayer. Because we live in an age when temptations are absolutely everywhere, when the world is pushing in upon us. And sometimes we feel so helpless and so alone that we don't know where to turn to keep turning to God and praying and praying and praying. And yielding and submitting and worshiping because we are expecting miracles in our families. If our kids are going to walk in God's ways, we're expecting miracles in our families that only God can bring about. Sometimes there are those who have looked at my parents who've raised five children and said, oh, you know, isn't that ever wonderful that your children are walking with God? You ask them sometime, they'll say, they'll say it is entirely a God thing. It's a God thing. You do your part. But at the end of the day, only God can make our children have such a passion for Jesus that it is greater than their passion to sin.
Only God can bring about that kind of passion. Commandment number 14, be there for your children. In joy, in sorrow, when they encourage you, when they disappoint you, hang in. I'm ending today by a letter that was written by a young woman to her father. And this young woman publishes articles in a newspaper and this is her article. She actually published the letter that she wrote to her dad.
And I know her dad very well, though I do not know her. But this is a letter that is worthy of our attention. She writes, when a child runs away from its home because it has brutal parents, it is excused. But when the child leaves a tender mother and an affectionate father, what shall we say? If the sheep quits a barren field to seek after needed pastures, who shall blame it? But if it leaves the green pastures and forsakes the still waters to roam over the arid sand or to go bleeding in the forest among the wolves in the midst of danger.
How foolish a creature does it prove itself to be? And now her story. When I was a teenager, I made a very grave mistake. I ran away from home, not like most rebellious kids run away from home with a night at a friend's house or with a bag of clothes set on the porch. I really ran away for nearly three months. No one knew where I was. In fact, I remember meeting with her father when he didn't know where she was in tears.
He and his wife were praying. No one knew where I was, and many had even given me up for dead. And with what I saw and did, I certainly could have been.
But God is merciful and gracious. I did not run away because I was treated badly. In fact, I was pretty spoiled. I was not abused or neglected in any way. In fact, I was constantly nurtured and encouraged in all areas of my life.
But I guess that in my radical teenage mind, I felt that the few simple rules I had been given were barring me from freedom and keeping me from really seeing the world. But when things got so bad that my life seemed to be in danger and there was no longer fun in sin, I called home. Nearly 30 years later, I can still remember my father's loving response. I called him collect from a thousand miles away, sobbing at the other end of the line. He did not ask me to tell him the bad things I had done.
He did not ask me where I was at or even if I was ready to come home. The first thing he asked was, what can we do to help you? Many of us would not have received such a merciful response from our earthly parents. In fact, I must admit that as a parent now myself, I'm not sure I could give it. The Bible, however, uses the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate that this mercy and even more is exactly what our heavenly father has for any of us who are ready to come back home. The prodigal son's father loaded him with blessings, yet he still chose to leave his father's house and journey into a far country. He wasted the things that his father gave him on riotous living. Still, it was only when he reached a low point once his substance was gone and he was wallowing with the pigs and he could no longer even find food to eat.
Only then was he ready to come home. But the best part is that no matter how low we fall in or where we're at and what we've done, our father not only welcomes us, he, like the prodigal's father, comes to meet us. In the account of the prodigal, it says that when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Notice in passing, these are now my comments, but the father did not send a delegation to try to find his wayward son.
There comes a time of personal responsibility where adult children just need to find their own way and learn life's lessons the hard, disastrous way. Even if you've wasted all that he's given you, he wants to bless you again. The prodigal said to his father, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it. And let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found. And now the concluding paragraph of her letter is my heart to you today, no matter where you may be listening to this message.
It's not too late and you're not too far away. As soon as you make up your mind to come home, the father will be there to meet you. Angels will celebrate your return and your father longs to welcome you home. And that is certainly true of our heavenly father who longs to welcome us home. And that's the starting point for some of you in your relationship with God, because you've never felt the warmth of the father's home, the love of his forgiveness and the blessedness of trusting his son who died to redeem us.
That ultimately is the only message that can help us in a culture that is falling apart. The end of the day, it's the father and his son who welcome us back home. Would you join me as we pray? Our father in this world with all of its, all of its temptations. Right now in this prayer, I'm thinking of people who have fallen into all kinds of sins that nobody knows about that they're trying to keep from others. Already lives, sometimes young lives scarred by the temptations that sin has brought about. We come to you in our need, but we come to you believing that you have a heart for us.
Some who are in the far country eating out of the pig troughs need to come home. Others need to be reconciled with their children. Fathers need to humble themselves and ask their children to forgive them.
Mothers need to repent of the hatred they have toward children who were begotten in a defiled bed. And we pray today that the love of Christ and the strength of Christ might be upon us. Before I close this prayer, how many of you would say today, Pastor Lutzer, I know as a result of this series of messages, I have a decision to make. And by God's grace, I'm going to make it. Would you raise your hands, please?
You have a decision to make. And with God's help, you're going to make it. Father, for all those who have raised their hands, for those who have not but should, grant as much grace we ask. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, my friend, I want to ask you the same question that I ask the people here at the Moody Church. Is there a decision that you must make? Parents, I hope that the decision that you make, at least one of them, one of the most important, is that you pray regularly for your children. I've written a book entitled A Practical Guide for Praying Parents. The reason I wrote it is because so often we pray for our children the same old prayers in the same old way. God bless them.
Keep them. How about if you begin to pray scripture for your children? This book gives you a template. It gives you examples of praying scripture, and you don't even have to end it with, if it be thy will.
Well, for a gift of any amount, I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy, because this is indeed the last opportunity you have that we're making this available. You go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com. I want to emphasize, of course, as you know, that RTW offers, all one word, rtwoffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.
That's 1-888-218-9337. It's time once again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. What kind of structures belong inside a church building? Joseph wrote to us with this question. I heard Pastor Lutzer say he thought having an altar in a church was wrong, but he did not expound on the subject.
Why is it wrong? Thank you for your time and consideration. Pastor Lutzer?
Well, my friend, thank you so much for writing and asking about this question. The point that I was trying to make is, usually when you think of an altar, you think of sacrifice. And the Bible is very clear that Jesus Christ as our sacrifice was sacrificed for us. So I don't believe that there should be any sacrifices in a church. Now, of course, there are churches who believe that Jesus Christ is re-sacrificed during what is called the Mass. My point was simply that the altar does not need to be there.
I don't think that we should call it an altar, even though we have a front platform on a church, because now Jesus Christ, having been fully sacrificed, there are no more sacrifices to make. Thank you, Joseph, for your question, and thank you, Pastor Lutzer, for your perspectives. If you'd like to hear your question answered, you can 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 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. Many Christians active in politics find themselves increasingly at odds with the culture. That's because the cross of Christ is inherently at odds with the culture. Next time on Running to Win, we begin a series on Christians, Politics, and the Cross, an eight-part journey into faith, politics, and the essential mission of the church. Plan to tune in for Part 1, The Clash of Cross and Culture. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
