Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. There is a basic problem in evangelism. The world thinks the cross we preach about is foolish, but to us it's the power of God. How do we bring the message of the cross to a rejecting world? Today, how to have a real impact on those around 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, in the turbocharged atmosphere of an election year, it's not easy to get people to see their deeper need.
Dave, you're absolutely right. You've put your finger on something very important. In the midst of a political year where you have all of the accusations going back and forth, it's so easy for all of us to forget that our deeper need is spiritual.
It's because we are sinners that need to be redeemed. And so while politics is important, the simple fact is that the souls of people, their eternal destiny is supremely important. I've written a book entitled Christian's Politics and the Cross. This is the next to the last day that we're making this resource available for you.
Christian's Politics and the Cross. Hope that you have a pen or pencil handy. Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com.
That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I believe that this book will be of great help, especially as we turn on the news, listen to what's happening, and all of the political back and forth in our country. The title of the book, Christian's Politics and the Cross. Oftentimes there are many discussions as to why the church is not having a greater impact in the world. We are having an impact, by the way, but the question might be asked, why is it not greater? Some people might say that it's because of our lack of political involvement.
If we just had more people to vote the right way and to get the right leaders in office, then our fortunes in America might increase. Other people say, no, it's the methodology that you use. They would say that you are still using 19th century methodology for the 20th century and for the 21st century. You're behind the times.
Get modern. Of course, there's no easy answer to the question as to why our impact is not greater. There's no one right answer. But maybe part of the answer might be that we as individuals are not very good followers of Jesus Christ. By that I mean it may well be that we are really not willing to bear our cross. We are much more interested in Bethlehem than we are in Gilgotha.
We're much more anxious to celebrate Christmas than Good Friday. And as a result of that, our witness might be compromised. We may respectfully be avoiding the cross. Friedrich Nietzsche, who lived in Germany and paved the way for Hitler by his emphasis on a superman, son of a Lutheran pastor who spent 11 years, Nietzsche did, in an insane asylum. And therefore, you must consider the source of his quote, though it is an excellent one.
He said many things that were very provocative. Nietzsche said, regarding Christians, I might believe in their Redeemer if they looked more redeemed. The question is, how does somebody who is redeemed look?
That's the question. How would we look if we look like our Redeemer? And that's the topic that we're going to be discussing today. Today we speak on the subject of the cross before the watching world. What do redeemed people look like if they look like their Redeemer? What I'd like you to do is to take your Bibles and turn to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. The cross of Jesus Christ represents the greatest value reversal that we could ever possibly imagine.
The cross of Jesus Christ shows us that what men love, God hates, and what God hates, men love. It is the greatest decision to descend into greatness. It is the decision that Jesus Christ made to be someone who descends rather than someone who simply remains where he is.
It represents the greatest humility, the greatest love, the greatest passion. And what I'd like us to do as we go through this very interesting theological passage, though we shall see its relevance in a few moments, as we go through this theological passage, I want us to grasp something of that descent, the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and what it meant. Perhaps one way that I could describe it is to say that this is actually a change in status. This was a change in status. He went from master to servant, from master to servant.
We pick it up at verse 5. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he existed in the form, the morphe of God, that's the Greek word, the morphe of God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form, same word, of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. It was a change from master to servant. Now, let us remember that as master, Jesus Christ is and always was God. He was God. You know, there was a council in Nicaea in the year 312 AD. Constantine, the great politician gave the opening speech, told the delegates that theological controversy was worse than war and asked them to get their act together and to settle the issue of the deity of Christ. In those days, theology was the glue that was going to hold his empire together. So he asked them to go to work on it and they eventually debated the issue of whether Jesus Christ's essence was similar to that of God the Father or whether it was the same essence as God the Father.
The decision of the council was that his essence is the same. He is God. You ever wondered what Jesus looked like before Bethlehem? Well, there are many depictions of him in the Old Testament, but let me give you one of them. In the day that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up and his train to fill the temple and above it stood the seraphim.
Each one had six wings and with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew and each one cried to the other saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. You say, well, Pastor Lutzer, wait a minute. Ein minute, wie mann ein moment.
You're going too quickly. That is God, Jehovah, that the text is talking about. Ah, yes, but did you know that in the 12th chapter of John, and some of you perhaps have not read the book of John recently, so you should keep your place in Philippians, but look at this passage. It is a reference to Isaiah 6, the passage that I just quoted, and it refers to a verse that comes a little later in Isaiah's response. And in John chapter 12, it says, verse 40, he has blinded their eyes, he has hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted and I heal them.
Everyone awake now. These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Christ, Christ. There is a passage for you when those folks come to your house two by two telling you that Christ isn't God.
There is one that will cause them to do a little bit of thinking on the steps of your home. Isaiah saw the glory of Jehovah and Jehovah in the New Testament is Christ, God. Now notice that Jesus Christ, though he is in the essence, the very form of God, he is willing to take the form of a servant.
In heaven, the angels sing holy, holy, holy, holy. And now the text tells us that he emptied himself. Verse seven, he emptied himself and theologians have written huge dissertations on that word and that phrase because what they want to say is emptied himself of what? Well, did he empty himself of his attributes? No, if he had done that, he would have ceased to be God when he was here, but he was God when he was here. He voluntarily gave up the use of his attributes. That's what happened when he emptied himself. He lived like a man. I'd given you the illustration before. If you were a millionaire and lived with the poor people in Chicago, you could eat with them.
You could live with them and you could choose not to depend upon that which you had as a millionaire and you would not use those resources though they were yours. That's what happened. For example, Jesus Christ being God, he had omnipotence. That big word means all power.
And yet there we see him on the well and the text says Jesus being wearied with his journey sat on the well and we want to say, why in the world is he weary? He's God. He created the worlds. He wasn't depending upon his attribute of omnipotence. What about omniscience, knowing all things? God knows everything. That's a scary thought when you look into our own hearts and know that there is not one particle of matter or one of thought that escapes his notice. And yet what did Jesus say?
He said regarding his second coming, he said, but the day and the hour knows no man, not the angels in heaven nor the son of man, but the father. He limited what he knew. He had access to all of that knowledge, but he didn't use it.
Omnipresence because he was God, he filled the universe and yet there he was as man. If he was in Galilee, he could not be in Jerusalem at the same time limiting himself and he became a servant, a bond servant. Now always remember that the limitation was self imposed. You see, it was not a part of the godhood was not involved in some kind of a downsizing and Jesus Christ got caught in the squeeze and was fired. That's not the way it happened. You see, it didn't happen with Jesus Christ being in a situation where he was asked to, he was asked somehow to abdicate his responsibility. This was a voluntary decision on his part. He didn't have to do it. He didn't have to be yelled at.
Move it Jew boy, get out of my way. He didn't have to listen to the curses of the people. He didn't have to allow the people who lived in Nazareth to try to push him over the brow of a hill and he let them try to do it. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to put up with all this nonsense.
He didn't have to walk sometimes 50 miles in a single week to get around in a hot desert needing provision and all those other things that he needed. He simply did not have to do that, but he emptied himself and he chose voluntarily to do it. You see, Jesus Christ never had to apply for the job of being God.
He never put in his application because he really is God and because he really is God, that is something that belongs to him in essence, but he did put in his application to become a bond servant, to come from the glories of heaven to the grime of earth was his lone decision made of course as the Trinity, the Trinity's decision, but he became a bond servant. So one way we can describe this greatest of descents is to say that it was a change from master to servant. It was a change of status. Another way that we can describe it in that is to say that it was a change of appearance. He looked differently. Notice what the text says that he had the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men, verse eight, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
It says in the last part of verse eight, even the death of the cross. Now, notice he changed his appearance from godhood to manhood. When it says that he came in the appearance of a man, some people have said that that means that he wasn't really a man. It just means that he appeared like one. Well, I want you to know that that is heresy if you happen to believe that because actually he was a man. It says earlier that he was in the very form, same word, of man as being also in the form of god, very same. So he was a man. It just means that that's the way he was on earth.
His appearance was that of a man, fully human, fully human. Now I want you to catch the significance. Those hands that formed all the worlds that spoke and suddenly they were in existence, those very hands would now have to be held. The feet that walked to and fro about the whole universe, the feet whose goings forth have been from of old and from everlasting, those feet would now have to learn to walk.
The eyes that are like a flame of fire that see throughout the whole universe and see the juxtaposition of every single particle, those eyes would now have to adjust to the dim light of a stable. And the ears that have heard all that has ever gone on in the world and in the universe, those ears would now have to be trained to listen. And the mouth that spoke further by the word of the Lord where the heavens made and the host of them by the breath of his mouth, the mouth that spoke would now have to learn to speak Aramaic and Hebrew.
Bear in mind that when Jesus was in heaven, nobody had to say, who is that on the throne anyway? You know, some of us were in Petra and they were filming a movie there. And some of our tour groups said, you know, we met so and so. I don't know. I never heard of these movie stars, but people were saying I met them. And I want to say, well, who is he?
Point him out. They all look alike to me. It's not the way it was in heaven. Angels didn't go around and say, well, who in the world is that on the throne anyway? Instant recognition is God and King. He gets to earth and he has to show his ID wherever he goes. Nobody knows him. He came onto his own nation and his own people.
They received him not. He was unrecognized. He was not accepted for who he was. And he was accused of being born illegitimately because nobody believed this business of the virgin birth.
That was just a story. And so they accused him of that and Mary and he had to bear the shame and the snide remarks and the sarcastic comments. And he had to put up with all that and he created the place and they didn't recognize them as the creator. He was incognito, unrecognized. One of them spat on and not honored at all for who he was and he took it.
He took it. Have you ever been in a situation where you think that somebody should have known you and they don't? That can really affect our pride, can't it? You know, the contrast with other religions is explosive. In other religions, you have many instances of somebody who's a man who wants to be God.
In fact, we have people on earth like that. You know, there is that story of a woman who speaks at Bible conferences. She got onto a plane and she was going through her briefcase and checking some and the woman next to her said, who do you work for? And she said, not knowing exactly who to say. She said, God.
And the other woman says, yeah, I work for a guy like that too. We have lots of people who want to be God and the Romans, they took an emperor and they said, let's call him God. I know of no religion in history. Many religions where a man aspires to be God, but no religion where God aspires to be a man. And that's what happened in Christianity. Imagine that in the appearance of a man, unrecognized the appearance of God to the appearance of a man.
There's another way to describe that and that is to say that it involves a change of roles from victor to victim, from victor to victim. Notice it says last part of verse eight, he was obedient. And by the way, there is in heaven always giving orders.
Now he's on earth and he has to take them. He was obedient unto death, even, even the death of the cross. There are many ways to die, many ways to be put to death. You can be stoned, but to be stoned you keep your clothes on. Rock hits you, you finally fall over. They throw a few more on you and you're gone.
That's a possibility. Crucifixion was reserved as the nasty, cruel way to do it. It's not only cruel physically to hang on the cross and to have to endure that. It was also cruel emotionally and spiritually because, because it was so shameful, usually crucified naked, gawking. Today people say, well, you know, I want to die with dignity. This was not death with any kind of a dignity.
In fact, it says in the scripture, cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree. Therefore it was an awful way to die. I mean, we're talking about blood. We're talking about smells.
We're talking about shame. And that my friend is Jesus, son of God, King, Lord. Can you believe it? Jesus went from victor to victim. Can you imagine on that day what happened? He is the one, you know, who limits Satan and give Satan the parameters and tell Satan what he can and can't do because Satan is always subject to God. But on that day, Jesus said, I'm going to let you be in control so far as this is concerned. Can you imagine Jesus Christ staring in the very face of evil on that day and saying, today you win.
Go ahead, do it. When he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and he lays aside his rights, he lays aside his glory, he lets it all pass. And what he says is, I am willing to do even that.
Get it done. And he's King and he's God and he's Lord. This is Pastor Lutzer.
What's the takeaway? Let us remember this. Even when Satan seems to be winning, God is still in control. Jesus is still Lord of Lords, King of Kings. If there's anything I want to convey to you in the midst of all of the political noise that we are living through, the one thing I want you to see is this, that amid all of the political accusations, would you as a believer be able to look beyond that to Jesus, King of Kings, and remember that he is just as much Lord even when he is waiting for his enemies to be made into a footstool.
And all of the political powers of the world seem to be in disarray. Now here's what I want to emphasize. I've written a book entitled Christians, Politics, and the Cross. I wrote this book to help us think through what our relationship should be to politics, especially in this political year. And this is the next to the last day that I'm making this resource available for you.
Here's what you do, and I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy so that you can write this down. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.
Ask for the book Christians, Politics, and the Cross, and for a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Once again, that contact info rtwoffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And from my heart to yours, I want to thank you so much for your love, for your support, for your prayers, for this ministry running to win that goes around the world.
Go to rtwoffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. While on earth, Jesus chose to contain His glory and limit His options, and that's the key to how we can bring His message to the lost. Next time on Running to Win, we'll find out how to effectively take the cross into the world. Erwin Lutzer will continue his time in Philippians chapter 2, telling how Jesus chose to not use His rightful resources while on earth. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
