Hi, this is Pastor Lutzer. Let me ask you a question.
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That's moodymedia.org forward slash matching, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. In the mainstream media, truth seems to lie with the majority opinion, and so we're analyzing what people believe about the cross of Christ. For some crucial insights, 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, our TVs today are filled with stories about the left wing, the right wing, Democrats, Republicans, everything except that which is really important.
Well, Dave, you're right. And of course, as we know, those who live by the political sword die by the political sword. Now, I believe that Christians should be involved in these discussions. We should all hold to our convictions and do so deeply. But at the same time, we also have to be able to hold politics at arm's length so that we recognize that the cross of Christ, and you've heard me say this before, that the cross of Christ must always be above the flag. And we may be divided on many political issues, but as believers, let us always be united in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the wonder of the cross. I've written a book entitled Christians, Politics, and the Cross. We want you to have a copy because we think it will help you to think through some of the issues that we are facing today.
For a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com.
That's RTWOffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. May God help us to understand our commitment to the flag, but above all, our commitment to the cross. So you see, the cross clashes with our pride, it clashes with our wisdom, it also clashes with our values.
Read this. For consider your calling, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen.
The things which are not, that's what he has chosen, that he might nullify the things that are that no man should boast before God. In the early church, there were many different converts. In fact, Pliny tells us that people were converted from all different walks of life. And you had some who were rich and you had some who were poor and some who were educated, but by and large, Christianity flourished among the lower class.
It always has. It flourished there not because it is intellectually indefensible, but usually those who are going through tough times recognize their needs. And there were many slaves in the empire, remember, in those days. And a slave, according to Greek teaching, was a tool. A slave was a thing without any rights, without any value, except in so far as he helped his master.
That was all. In fact, it was incredibly cruel. Even the children of slaves, if they had children, were considered to be owned by the owner. And the parents were not considered the owner of their own children.
Tragic. But you see, it was the remarkable truth of Christianity and the surprising good news that it is exactly those kinds of people that God often calls to greatness. Because there are not many wise, according to the flesh, some but not many, not many mighty are called, and not many noble. You remember Queen Victoria? She said, thank God for the letter M. And she said that because she read this text, and she was so thankful that it did not say not any noble are called, just not many, because she was among the called.
Since that time, there have been some members of that royal family that, at least looking at across the ocean, it appears as if they are not yet called. But nevertheless, it says not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God comes along and takes a slave who is a nobody in this life and elevates him to be a somebody, to be a son and a daughter of God Almighty. And Christianity taught that you might not matter in this life at all, but you matter to God.
You matter to God. And that God sometimes to scandalize the human mind takes people whom we think are great and mighty and wonderful, and they think that about themselves too. And he bypasses them, and he goes to the needy and the downcast and the nothings of this world, and he makes something out of them. He loves the unlovely, and he elevates the lowly. It is Bonhoeffer who said that Christianity teaches the unending worth of the apparently worthless and the unending worthlessness of that which is apparently very valuable.
That's the genius of it. And why does God do it this way? That no flesh should boast before God. That nobody can ever say it is because of my wisdom or it's because of who I am. It is all because of his grace that we've been singing about this morning. It is all because of his mercy.
It is all because of the depth of his undeserved love. He has made us what we are. And that's the message of the cross that runs so counter to human wisdom. To summarize three lessons. First, the cross, you see. The cross is considered foolishness because it is actually a witness to our failure. It is a witness to our failure. The Jews failed. The Greeks failed.
We failed. We are all equally under sin. We are all equally in need, and the world does not want to hear that. You know what most people believe? They believe that they were born normal. By the way, have you ever wondered what normal is? Have you ever met anybody that is normal?
Do you know the name of anybody that is normal? But they believe that they were born normal and all of their hang-ups are because of what other people have done to them. See, that's what they believe. And there are some people today who struggle greatly because of terrible things that have been done to them. But the point is that we have to understand that we were born sinners already, born in trespasses and sin, born dead toward God, and unless God were to quicken us and enliven us and grant us the gift of faith, we would stay that way. And the cross, therefore, as it is preached, is despised and thought of as foolishness. That's why it's not very popular today. The idea that there has to be a sin-bearer for us, and people say, I'm not that bad.
Thank you. It may be necessary for you, but not for me. So first of all, the cross is a witness. It is a witness to our failure. Secondly, to accept the cross, to accept the cross is really to accept a whole new world view, a whole new world view. It is a whole new way of seeing the world and seeing God. Think of that woman to whom I witnessed, the one who's wearing, you know, the cross of Christ and also a pendant to the God Om. Think of what she needs to do in order to believe in Christ. Now, mind you, we could have maybe had a little prayer on the plane. I could have convinced her that what she needs to do is to pray to Jesus, and she could have said, oh, yeah, sure, I'll pray to him.
Yeah, I have nothing against him. It's just that I have all these other gods, too. And if she had said that, she had not believed, and the cross in her life would have been of none effect whatever. What she needs is a whole new vision of God. She needs to see God's holiness, the fact that he is so holy and so far removed from us in terms of moral holiness that there's no way that we can just come to him on our own terms. Luther spoke about the mystics in his day who thought that they could come to God on the ladder of their own works to see God naked, he said, talking about those who think that the cross does not have to intervene.
Why, there are many different ways to get to him. Somebody who believes that has not yet seen the cross. They have not seen the holiness of God, and they most assuredly have not seen themselves. That's why it's so important, you know, to get people lost before they are saved, because if so, they'll be praying prayers that are meaningless down the road. Because they have not seen the fact that the cross of Jesus Christ is not just a bridge to God, the cross of Christ is the bridge to God, and there can be none other. None, because there's no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.
There is none other. It's like thinking to yourself as you come to a door, it doesn't really matter what key you use because somehow there's a lock on the door and all keys fit. No, the door to heaven has only one key that fits, and that is the cross of Christ when he died for sinners and became the sin bearer of those who believe. Do you see in our postmodern day how people don't understand the gospel at all? They may say wonderful things about Christ, and this lady is going to have to learn someday that actually the more you add to the cross, the more you subtract from it, the minute you try to amalgamate it and bring it in with another view, you dilute its power, that its power is in the purity of its message.
The cross of Christ. And then third, and most important, the cross is the power of God. It is the power of God, this message is. You see, what I fear is that we come now to the end of the message and there are some of you who say, well, you know, if what you say is true, why should I bother witness? Why should I bother telling people about Christ? Because you're saying they consider it foolishness, they see it as something that goes to the heart of really who they are as sinners and they don't want to acknowledge that.
Why should I bother? Well, if that's your conclusion, you most assuredly have missed the point of it all. Notice what the text says in verse 21. It pleases God. It pleases God through the foolishness of the message as it is shared. Don't get hung up on the word preach to think that you have to preach a sermon. The foolishness of the message to save those who believe.
Yes, it is a scandal. Yes, by some it is considered to be foolishness, but it is exactly at that point that its genius is most clearly seen and its most power is released. It is then that it explodes in people's hearts. That's why I'm not discouraged if people don't immediately believe. That woman for whom I prayed several times after I witnessed her on the plane, who knows but that by now she has already come to saving faith in Christ. Not only because I left a witness with her and explained why the cross has to stand alone, but I also gave her a copy of a book I like to carry with me entitled How You Can Be Sure That You Will Spend Eternity With God, which she promised she would read.
Who knows? There are many people who think that the cross is foolish, but you present the message and it begins to wear on their soul and they begin to think about it and God begins to change their heart and somewhere down the road they come to saving faith in Christ and the message that they thought was stupid is now a message of strength and glory and liberation and power and release and blessing. That's where its power lies, is in the content of explaining the gospel. Do you realize that there are thousands of people in America every single day who come to saving faith in Christ? Thousands of them scattered throughout this nation.
And if you were to add all those throughout the whole world, there are tens of thousands of people throughout the entire world in all the different countries of the world who every day experience the power of the cross. Yesterday I was at a meeting where a couple shared for a half an hour. It was quite an experience. They talked about an impossible marriage. They were both into the drug scene, not only because they used drugs, but they actually sold drugs. And so because they didn't know whether they should be married, they lived together for six years, and because they had so many arguments, they thought, you know, if we get married, maybe our arguments will stop.
How do you like that? Now that's really the wisdom of the world. I mean, now we're talking really, really wise. Well, of course, the arguments didn't stop, and then they thought to themselves, you know, maybe if we had a baby, then our arguments would stop. So they had a baby and a little girl.
But eventually he left and began to live with other women, go back to his lifestyle and do drugs again. But meanwhile, she became friends with some Christians who introduced her to Christ, and now she said she's going to Bible studies. And people would say to her at work, you know, what are you doing for an exciting evening? And she says, I'm a woman who got blitzed every night, and now I tell them I'm going to a Bible study.
And they think, well, that really is foolish. Mind you, as long as you're into drugs, you're not stupid, but to go to a Bible study, now that is stupid. For three and a half years, she hung on to that marriage with an entire church praying for her husband. He became friends with the pastor, the pastor shared with him, they became friends. You see, the purpose of friendship evangelism is not to dilute the message of the cross. It is to build some credibility so that we can get people's ear, and that's what the pastor did.
You can't just dump the message on them and expect people to respond to it. They've got all of these misconceptions. They wonder who we are, they wonder who this strange person is that loves the Bible and goes to Moody Church. It takes a while for them before they actually know that you're authentic and that you are believable, and it gives you then the right to share the gospel. Well, that's what happened.
He came to saving faith in Christ five years ago, and he stood up there just in tears, in tears telling what God had done in their life and how he restored trust in their marriage. It's the power of the cross. No other message can do that.
There's no way that we can turn to some theory to say that that's what is going to happen. Why? It pleases God. He said that when the pastor asked him about his relationship with God, he was offended.
He said, I was a good Lutheran. But it pleases God by the foolishness of the message shared to save those who believe. What a message. And at the very time when the evangelical church should be excited about this message, it is losing its nerve. We cast about looking for an answer to our problems and we think it's in politics, or we think surely the answer to people's problem is in psychology, or it's in taking the cross and dressing it up and making it look a little better so that we can have some real entertainment. Now that'll really do it.
We're looking for some way to do something because our nation is in such need. And God says, I'm pleased. I'm pleased by the foolishness of that message to save those who believe. Jesus was not crucified between two candles in a cathedral. Jesus was crucified on a cross that was in an area that was so cosmopolitan that the message above his cross had to be written in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He was crucified in a place called the Place of a Skull because so many skulls apparently had been there. It was kind of the garbage heap of Jerusalem and that's where he died. And when he died there, there was one thief on one side and there was another thief on another. And you remember the one who was on one side represents all those who reject the cross of Christ.
Do you remember what he says? If you're the Son of God, well then come down from the cross and save us. Show us a sign that we might believe thee. And on the other side there was a man who said to the guy across the way as they were dying, look, you'd better watch what you're saying. This man is innocent and you and I, we're dying because we deserve it.
But this man didn't do anything amiss. And then he turns to Jesus and what does he say? He says, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Think of the faith that man had, much greater faith than you and I need to believe on Christ because he never even saw the resurrection. All that he saw was a man who was dying, who was in the same mess as he was. Christ appeared to be as helpless as the thief next to him. But he saw in that death something that was for him. He saw the cross and just said, remember me. Now you think about it, Jesus died before he did because it says that when the soldiers came they found out and they were surprised that Jesus had died already and the other two guys had not yet died.
The soldiers made sure they did. But you know what that means, don't you? It means that when that thief died, the first person he saw when he got to paradise was Jesus there waiting for him.
What a message. Because it pleases God by the foolishness of the cross to save those that believe. And we can say with William Cowper, the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, but there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. And there at the cross, when Jesus Christ died, he did something for sinners that no other God can ever do. He died for us. And if you believe, he died for you.
And even in this great auditorium today, there are probably dozens of people who have never believed on Christ. You have never finally ended all of the jockeying of control of your life to say, Lord Jesus, if you died for sinners, I receive you as mine, that you also may be in paradise. It pleases God from the foolishness of the message to save you.
If you believe, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you today for the message in all of its starkness and in all of its revoltedness, if I can say that, of a man dying, gruesome, blood, sweat, smells. And yet, Father, as we look at that event, we say with the Apostle Paul, God forbid that I should glory in anything except the cross of Christ. Thank you for taking a moment of darkness and turning it into a moment of blazing light. Today we pray that even today that you might reach out and call some to yourself. And now this is your opportunity to pray again. Do you want to reach out to God? Wherever you are, you say, Pastor Lutzer, right now I believe on Christ.
I give up all attempt to save myself. I know that God is holy and that I'm a sinner. And right now, as best as I know how, I transfer all of my trust to the one who died on the middle cross.
You tell them that right now. Father, in grace we pray that you might complete the work that has been begun. And may no one leave here today without knowing that they belong to you forever. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Well, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. You may be a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent. No matter who you are, I want to ask you a question. Have you savingly believed in Jesus Christ? To put it as clearly as I possibly can, are you saved?
Saved from the wrath to come because your trust is in Christ as Savior and Lord. If that's true of you, you can face political opposition, no matter which side of these things you fall on, because you know that you have a hope that is eternal in the heavens. Meanwhile, we do live here on earth, and that's why I wrote a book entitled Christians, Politics and the Cross. And I want to emphasize one more time that, of course, there have been controversies about the relationship of church and state, Christians and the cross, going on for many, many years.
How should we think about these matters? Always remembering that politics is important, but the cross is supremely important. Well, for a gift of any amount, this resource can be yours, and we make these resources available to help you make it all the way to the finish line, so to speak. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com, or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the book Christians, Politics and the Cross. It's a plea from my heart to yours to help us think through in this very volatile political year where we should fall and where our emphasis should be.
Once again, rtwoffer.com, or pick up the phone and call us at 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. As we run life's race, let's not forget that mercy is getting what you don't deserve. God was not obligated to save any of us, and yet He has. Next time on Running to Win, we begin an awesome look at how far God went to provide redemption for a lost mankind. We'll look at why the cross represents more than just the suffering of Jesus. We'll learn that on that cross, God the Father also suffered. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
