Why Worth Is Better Than Worthy (Transcript)

Thousands of sermons are written and spoken every year with the basic theme that you, as a Christian, are unworthy.

You are unworthy of your salvation, you are unworthy of God's grace and mercy, you are even unworthy of the blessings that you have in everyday life. Your family, your house or apartment, your car, your dog or cat.

You are so unworthy as to be a worm and a slug on the face of the earth. Why if it wasn't for God and His love for you ol' worms, you would have nothing. Nothing. And if it wasn't for God and His love for you, you would be thrown into the Lake of Fire without hesitation.

You are so unworthy you make a bird heading South for the Winter more worthy than you. At least the bird faithfully obeys God at all times. Can you imagine a bird having an instinct from God in his little bird brain to go South, and he thinks, “No, I'm going to do what I want, God. I'm going North for the Winter.”? Ridiculous.

You, on the other hand talk and act such foolishness all your life. You were born that way. God says obey your parents, and what do you do? Right. And that's just the beginning of sorrows. Your life is spent in virtually total rebellion against God, until you're born again, and even then you succumb to the lies of the world and the flesh and the devil sometimes and God says, “Fly South”, and you fly North.

You are so unworthy that you don't deserve anything from God. But God is loving and merciful and He drags you out of the miry pit and puts your feet on the rock, and you go to heaven someday. But not because you're worthy, you worm.

Now that about sums up a common message preached, doesn't it?

Here's my question. Is it true? Is it true that we are unworthy? That we don't deserve anything from God?

Well, yes, it's true, as a matter of fact.

Oh, we're fearfully and wonderfully made. But that's not the issue. Every fearful and wonderful bone in our body was put there by God himself. 1 Corinthians 4:7 says, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”

So even our gifts and abilities and wonderful attributes – the very fact that we were created in the image of God – that's nothing to boast about. We didn't earn it, we didn't deserve it, we weren't worthy to receive it, and we still aren't worthy.

So is there anything wrong with that message that's preached in Bible-believing churches all over the world every week? Is there anything wrong with preachers pounding into the heads of their congregations how unworthy they are?

I mean, they mean well, don't they? It's often put in the context of how great God is, isn't it? And God is great isn't He? And merciful and loving and righteous and omnipotent and sovereign? And you'll sometimes hear it put this way: We must have a high view of God, and a low view of man.

And there is a sense in which all of that is true. You won't find anything in the Scripture that says that we are worthy of the goodness of God. Only He is worthy, the Bible says. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. He alone is worthy, we sing. And that's true.

Then is anything wrong with that message preached?

I believe the answer is “Yes”.

I believe there are two things wrong with that message. I'll call it the Unworthy Worm Message.

1. It's only part of the truth.
2. It is misleading because it neglects another even greater truth.

The greater truth that is neglected is simply this:

God Has Given Us Worth

God in His sovereignty has deemed that we are worth something to Him. In fact he has deemed that we are worth a LOT to Him. He has deemed us worth so much that God the Father has given us to God the Son as a gift, as a Bride, and as a reward for His death on the Cross.

Have you ever stopped to think about where the worth of something comes from?

When my parents were born, the United States was under what was called the Gold Standard. That meant that paper money, dollar bills, were not only paper, but actually were backed up by actual gold, held in reserve somewhere. The paper, which otherwise would have been worthless in it's own right, was actually worth some gold.

That system was abandoned in 1933, but when I was a kid, we still had what were called Silver Certificates. They were dollar bills that were actually backed up by silver. Theoretically, you could trade those bills for actual silver, though I never met anyone who bothered to do that.

But now the United States, like virtually every other nation, has what is called "fiat currency". In other words, we just deem or declare by "fiat" that a dollar bill is “worth” a dollar. And a twenty-dollar bill is worth twenty of those so-called dollar bills, and so on.

But why are they worth anything? Why did even the gold and silver have worth? Why do we say a diamond is worth such and such an amount of money? And why do we say dirt is worthless? Wait, potting soil is worth something. Why?

At it's foundation, things are “worth” whatever they are deemed or declared to be “worth” by those who deem or declare them to be “worth” something. Isn't that true? And that “worth” can vary drastically.

Today you might think a bar of gold bullion is worth a lot more than a bottle of water and a sandwich. But two days from now, stranded in the middle of the Mojave Desert without food and water, you'd take the Corned Beef and the Dasani water, wouldn't you? All of a sudden it became “worth” a lot more than the gold.

O.K., back to God and us.

God has chosen to give “worth” to us, for reasons ultimately known only to Him, or for no reason at all.

And I'll take the bold stand that being “worth” something to God, is infinitely better than being “worthy”.

Because God is infinitely above us, and infinitely wiser than us, and infinitely greater than we are, and infinitely more righteous than we could have ever been, and infinitely more powerful than us, our “worthiness” could never have attained to much under the very best of circumstances. And Lord knows, we didn't grow up under the very best of circumstances. We grew up with the nature of Adam, which we inherited.

Our own worthiness, like our own righteousness, is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

But God did something amazing. Something that we can barely comprehend now, but which we will praise Him for long after this earth is burned up. Long after we debate worth vs. worthy. Long after we strain our eyes looking into a glass darkly, trying to figure out “Why?” We call it eternity, and we will praise Him and sing “Worthy is the Lamb” for eternity.

Long after we stop asking why the Lord saw fit to save us worms, we will praise Him because He gave us worth. He declared us worth something. Through no work or striving or earning or intrinsic value of our own, He nevertheless deemed us a suitable gift for His Son.

O.K., He has some serious work to do on us. Like uncut diamonds, we are rough and don't look so good. But inside, He has made us a New Creation, and He knows what He values, and He's perfectly willing to grind and sever and chip and polish until what's left is only what He values. And He is working all things together for good, and He is the one that declares what is good, isn't He?

Will we spend eternity congratulating ourselves for being worth so much? Of course not. It's all of grace, all of God.

The Eight-Cow Wife

Patricia McGerr sailed to the island of Kiniwata in the Pacific over 40 years ago. She tells the story of a man they called Johnny Lingo.

People kept mentioning this Johnny Lingo, and they seemed to admire him, but they always had a sort of mocking smile or laugh when they mentioned him. Patricia finally asked why the mocking smiles.

It seems that five months before, Johnny Lingo had come to Kiniwata and found a wife named Sarita. And the joke was that he had paid Sarita's father eight cows for her.

Listen as Patricia McGerr tells the rest of the story.

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I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.

"Good Lord!" I said. "Eight cows!" She must have beauty that takes your breath away.

"She's not ugly," he conceded, and smiled a little. "But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she'd be left on his hands."

"But then he got eight cows for her? Isn't that extraordinary?"

"Never been paid before."

"Yet you call his wife plain?"

"I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow."

"Well," I said, "I guess there's just no accounting for love."

"True enough," agreed the man. "And that's why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the islands' sharpest trader was bested by dull old Sam Karoo."

"But how?"

"No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny'd pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, `Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.'"

"Eight cows," I murmured. "I'd like to meet this Johnny Lingo."

I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny's house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked, "You come here from Kiniwata?"

"Yes."

"They speak of me there?"

"They say there's nothing that you can't help me get."

He smiled gently. "My wife is from Kiniwata."

"Yes, I know."

"They speak of her?"

"A little."

"What do they say?"

"Why, just....." The question caught me off balance.

"They told me you were married at festival time."

"Nothing more?" The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.

"They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows."

I paused. "They wonder why."

"They ask that?" His eyes lighted with pleasure. "Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?"

I nodded.

"And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too. His chest expanded with satisfaction. "Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita."

So that's the answer, I thought: vanity.

And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right.

I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me.

"You admire her?" he murmured.

"She ... she's glorious. But she's not Sarita from Kiniwata," I said.

"There's only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata."

"She doesn't. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo."

"You think eight cows were too many?" A smile slid over his lips.

"No. But how can she be so different?"

"Do you ever think," he asked, "what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita."

"Then you did this just to make your wife happy?"

"I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any woman in the islands."

"Then you wanted--"

"I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman."

"But--" I was close to understanding.

"But," he finished softly, "I wanted an eight-cow wife."
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You know what Jesus paid for His Bride, for you. A price infinitely greater than eight cows. I thought you'd want to know the worth that He places on His Bride.

Sarita wasn't “worthy” of the eight cows. But Johnny Lingo deemed her “worth” the eight cows, and it transformed her. May your worth to Jesus Christ be a transforming influence on you as your mind is renewed by this truth.

Why Worth Is Better Than Worthy

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Why Worth Is Better Than Worthy

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Worrying About The Future?

It's New Year's Eve here in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Christmas is over, the holiday hustle and bustle is over. People's thoughts are beginning to turn to New Year's Resolutions, weight loss after the seasonal delicacies, setting goals for the New Year, and exclaiming, “Where did the last year go?"

Or the last 5, or 20?

But wherever those years may have gone, the next year is upon us.

Here's my question: Are you worried about it? Are you worried about the next year, or the future in general?

Let me state it boldly up front.

There are two things that are infinitely foolish.

One is for a Christian to worry about the future. We all do it sometimes, but we at least need to recognize that it's foolish.

But the other thing that's foolish is for a non-Christian to NOT worry about the future. Someone who doesn't know Jesus as Lord and Savior should worry. In fact we should pray for those we know and love to worry, if they don't know Jesus.

There are lots of books written for unbelievers, which teach them not to worry. Psychology books, and self-help books, and positive thinking books, and success books. The book stores are filled with whole rows of shelves of books under the general heading of Self-Improvement. And almost all of these books contain some so-called wisdom in them which tell their readers not to worry.

Some will even quote the Scriptures, with hardly the slightest understanding of what they are really about. They will quote Phillipians 4:6, which says, “Be anxious for nothing.” But they might leave out the next part of the verse which says, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” They don't really know what that means, do they?

Some will quote Jesus who says, “Do not worry for tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” - Matthew 6:34.

Of course, most unbelievers still worry. But many have learned to, as Romans 1 puts it, "suppress the truth in unrighteousness". In other words, they have more or less succeeded in “thinking positive thoughts”.

1800 years ago, a pagan philosopher who is still revered for his wisdom, spoke on this subject. His name was Marcus Aurelius. He was not only a Stoic Philosopher, but he had an interesting job. He was Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 A.D. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus wrote, “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

Nothing wrong with reason. Logic is a gift from God, but may I ask the same question Jesus asked? “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?”

See, Marcus Aurelius had something he should have been anxious about. He should have been anxious about his soul. And in the years he lived, he would have had ready access to the Gospel. The Good News that Jesus Christ, just a few years before Marcus Aurelius was born, died on a Roman cross, to pay for our sins, and rose again from the grave. So that whoever would believe in Him would not perish under the wrath of God, but have eternal life.

But the Emperor chose “the gods” of Rome, instead of The God of creation, and the God-Man of the Cross. And so he had plenty to worry about. But he apparently did not.

The great actor Anthony Hopkins, in a recent interview with James Lipton on Inside the Actor's Studio, said, “Today is the tomorrow I was so worried about yesterday.”

We see that same attitude echoed here by Hopkins, who is in effect saying, “See? I worried about today, and it's okay. So I shouldn't have worried.”

I can't help thinking about the Scripture in 2 Peter 3, where Peter writes, “...mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming?” But as Peter says, it escapes their notice that God once destroyed the Earth with a flood, and “by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men....with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day....the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

Sir Anthony Hopkins has something to worry about, doesn't he? I pray the Lord might open his heart.

But how about you, Christian?

If you are a Christian, a born again believer in Jesus Christ, well that's a different story.

It is utterly foolish for you to worry.

You can use your reason, your logic, just as Marcus Aurelius did, but for you the logic is based on a good foundation.

Your logic goes like this: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” Romans 8:31. See the logic there? That's what I call logic! If God the Father gave us God the Son, sacrificed on a cross for our sins, is it logical He will now desert us? Of course not.

“I will never leave you, nor forsake you,” He tells us. And that's reasonable, isn't it? With what He's already done, will He drop the ball, so to speak?

No. In fact, as the almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise God, He can do whatever He wants, and He does.

And one of the things that He does is in that same 8th Chapter of Romans, verse 28. It goes like this, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

And did you ever stop to consider how logical that is? We don't deserve His love, but He chose to love us. And He paid for our sins, forgave our sins, and gave us the gift of His righteousness, declaring us righteous.

And we love Him because He first loved us. And now all things work together for good to those who love Him. That's us. Would it be logical that He would work things together for bad to us who love Him? Of course not.

And so it makes perfect sense when the Scripture says in Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Now God knows that we are prone to worry, to be anxious. So He doesn't just say, “Don't.” He gives us a very practical alternative, in case we haven't fully absorbed the glory of His love for us yet. The better we know Him, and the wonder of His Grace, and the truth that He loves and accepts us fully in Christ, and that nothing we could do can diminish that love and Grace – the better we know that in our hearts and minds, the less we would be able to worry or be anxious.

But God knows we are learners. God knows we need our minds renewed. God knows that we are subject to the lies of the world, the flesh and the devil. And so He gives us some practical things to do, while we're learning the depths of His love.

He tells us not to be anxious for anything, but then He says to do something else instead.

First, He says, to let our requests be made known to God. Now obviously God isn't lacking in knowing anything. But He gives us the simple suggestion that we pray (that means talk to Him) with supplication (that means asking for something). Sometimes you'll hear pious preachers say, “Stop asking God for things. Just say, 'Thy will be done' and leave it to Him, you greedy little beggar.”

Well, the problem with that thinking is that it's just not Biblical.

God wants us to ask Him for things. Why? Many reasons, actually, but a big one is that He wants us to be dependent on Him. Not independent. Dependent. God loves being our Father, our provider. Even people like to be needed. Sometimes I neglect to ask for the help of my wife, and she says, “I'm here. Stop acting like a bachelor.”

And God is saying, “Stop acting like a god.” He wants us to pray to Him and ask for things. Of course, He doesn't want us to ask with bad motives, just for pleasure's sake, James 4:3.

But we can now come boldly before His throne of grace, “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” - Hebrews 4:16.

So first He says in Philippians to let our requests be made known to God.

But secondly, He says that it should be “with thanksgiving”. What's the logic here? What's the process? Should I pray for something, and then when I get it, be thankful and give God thanks?

Well, there's nothing wrong with that kind of thanksgiving, but that's not what God is getting at here. He's talking about an attitude, as much as an action. Of course we should give thanks for specific things, and specific answers to prayer. But even higher than that, is a heart of gratitude. It's first the recognition for all the good that God has brought into our lives.

Now life is filled with bad things, isn't it? I mean, we live in a fallen world, and the bad stuff, like the poor, you will always have with you.

But most of the things in your life are good, in one way or another. Some of you will have trouble believing that, and I don't have the time right now to prove it. But if you actually, honestly believe that you have more bad things than good in your life, then you have a lot of meditation on the Scriptures to do. You are starting from scratch, you are starting from square one. That's okay. Start.

Absorb yourself in the Word of God and learn of Him until you understand that the blessings He has showered you with are abundant. In a very practical way, maybe write down, or list in your mind, all the blessings you can think of, one at a time. And thank Him for them. And do this over and over, until you have the simple basic truth down, that the blessings in your life far outweigh the bad things. Start with Jesus Christ Himself. Many of us can testify to the truth that if we have Christ, we truly lack nothing. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall not lack for anything. Everything else is gravy, or frosting, if you prefer.

So first is the recognition for all the good that God has brought into our lives. Then comes our heart attitude about that. It starts with the knowledge that is expressed in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

In other words, every good in your life is a gift from God. So after you recognize the good, be thankful to Him for it, and express that thankful heart with thanksgiving.

Now this process, like all of the Christian life, requires walking in the Spirit. That's why a pagan can't really live a life of thanksgiving. They may say in their psychology books, “Have an attitude of gratitude,” but what is sadder than having an attitude of thanksgiving and having no one to thank?

But we know who to thank, don't we?

And He is the one who has promised to meet all our needs, Philippians 4:9. We may not even know what our needs really are at a given time, but He does. And He will supply them as surely as He supplies the garment of the Lily of the Field.

And so we don't need to worry. We don't need to be anxious. We have a God, a Lord, a Friend who is closer than a brother. And with Him all things are possible. There is nothing He can't do.

And so I leave you with a final piece of logic. Not cold calculating logic, but the warm joyful logic of the Lord who loves you. Here it is:

“If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” The wonderfully logical answer is...Nothing.

So don't worry. And have a Blessed New Year!

Worrying About The Future?

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Worrying About The Future?

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Remembering The Jesus of Christmas

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Remembering The Jesus of Christmas

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Remembering The Jesus of Christmas

It is Christmas Eve as I write.

And we all know the Christian warnings about remembering Jesus. Jesus is the reason for the season. Keep Christ in Christmas. And these cliches have become cliches because they are valid.

Still, the baby in a manger was just the beginning.

It's good to celebrate the birth of Christ. But the Son of God didn't come to earth for the purpose of being a baby. As He grew in years, He grew in wisdom and stature, as a man. He was and is God, but now God with us, Emmanuel.

And He came to us, dwelt with us, tabernacled with us, in a human body, on Earth, that He might die to pay for our sins, so that we might be saved, forgiven. And then He rose again from the dead, and lives today, in a body at the right hand of the Father, but by His Spirit in us, who believe in Him.

Have you ever done Bible memorization? I have.

If you have, one verse you probably haven't memorized is 2 Tim. 2:8.

It's something important that Paul the Apostle told his spiritual son and protege, Timothy. He tells Timothy to remember something. It's something that you wouldn't think Timothy would need to be reminded of. But he did need to be reminded of it, and so do you, and I.

2 Tim. 2:8:

“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel.“

Why would Paul remind Timothy to remember Jesus?

1. To be strong in grace.

“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

Strong in the Grace? Sounds like a contradiction.

But life is tough, isn’t it? Timothy had things to do. And so do you.

These things require the grace of God. Remember Paul’s thorn in the flesh?

We can’t be strong in grace if we don’t remember Jesus, that He is alive (risen from the dead). He's not just a dead Savior, He is a living Savior, and may I say it like Jesus did?...He calls us his friends.

Can you imagine? We are FOJ's. Friends of Jesus. The Creator of the Universe, the Lord of all Creation, the almighty God, calls us His friends.

And the Lord wants us to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Do you ever hear preachers, or other Christian folks, all they talk about is sin? Now if you're preaching through the Bible and you come to something about sin, preach it. But do you notice how some think the most important subject in the world is sin? I'm talking about Christian brothers and sisters. They think the most important subject in the world is sin.

Now sin is important. As Christians we're against it, aren't we? But we don't need a huge amount of teaching about it, because we are very familiar with it, aren't we? It's not something we need to be constantly reminded of, or to be constantly dwelling on.

What we do need to be constantly reminded of, and to be dwelling on is Jesus Christ, and His astounding grace. That's what honors Christ, and that's what gives us the light to walk by, the light to walk in the Spirit. And the Bible says that when we walk by the Spirit we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh.

See how that works? If we dwell on sin, we end up trying to defeat it in the flesh, which just compounds the mess. It's like trying to clean honey off of your hand with your other hand, and both hands end up sticky with nowhere to go.

But if we dwell on Jesus, who gives us the water of life, He by grace fills us with His Spirit, and we walk with clean hands. It's grace we need to obsess over, not the Law and sin. And the grace will minimize the sin, as we realize freshly that we are not under Law but under grace, and we are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ, Rom. 6:11.

"The Law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." –John 1:17

2. Because of His past faithfulness.

Don’t you just love the Book of Psalms?

An entire Christian life could be spent meditating on the Psalms. Maybe no other book so exalts God as the powerful creator of the universe, and maybe no other book exalts God as the faithful provider of mercy for His children.

He is faithful.

And the Psalm-writers, mostly David, write over and over about remembering the Lord.

I want to mention some things the Psalmist says about the Lord, and just let them wash over you.

Take a few moments. Be still, and know He is God.

Remember Him for these things. His:

Loving-kindness
Mercy
Word
Salvation
Faithfulness
Deliverance
Justice
Compassion
Righteousness
Strength
Watchful eye
Blessing
Protection

We are so prone to forget these things, and partly because we are so prone to forget Him.

We live in a “now” world.

We have things to do, people to see, presents to buy, things to arrange, go go go!

And we've got problems, and we have them NOW.

And we know we will have more problems in the future.

And so we’re prone to worry.

But then we remember Jesus.
That He is born in Bethlehem.
That He died for us, for the forgiveness of our sins.
That He is risen.
That He is here.
And not just here, but in us (Christ in you, the hope of glory).

And we remember His faithfulness in the past.

How He rescued us from that storm of life (even a literal storm, maybe).
How He comforted us in that loss we had.
How we had this thorn in our flesh, but His grace was sufficient.
How we lost hope in a certain person and then God turned them around.
How we had that financial setback or lost that job, and He provided.
How we thought we just couldn’t get through that one thing, and He brought us through it.

And so we remember His past faithfulness to us.

We remember Him as we walk through the day, and we remember Him as we lie on our beds at night, like David did.

We remember Him as our Rock and our Fortress, and our Deliverer, and our Friend, and we long for Him like the deer who pants after the waterbrook.

And we love Him. We love Him.

And we remember that He loved us first. Even when we were unloveable. And maybe we don’t feel all that loveable even today. But He loves us anyway. And so we love Him.

I became a Christian in 1976.

Contemporary Christian Music was a brand new phenomenon.

Four years before I became a Christian, there was a man named John Fischer who wrote a song. And it’s a song I have never forgotten in 30 years. It’s simple, almost simplistic, but it sticks in your mind, and it blesses you, and then you realize how profound the simple little song is.

It’s called the “All Day Song”.

"Love Him in the morning when you see the sun arising,
Love Him in the evening ‘cause He took you through the day.
And in the in-between times when you feel the pressure coming,
Remember that He loves you and He promises to stay."

Have a blessed Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Savior!

Merry Christmas.

Baby Jesus: 3 Reasons To Reject Him - Audio

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Baby Jesus: 3 Reasons To Reject Him

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Baby Jesus: 3 Reasons To Reject Him

1. Virgins don’t have babies.

I mean, the whole idea is absurd. Remember the birds and the bees? Remember biology? Remember, the egg has to be fertilized by the seed, then grows until birth? How could a virgin have a baby without any seed to fertilize the egg?

2. Gods don’t humble themselves.

There has never been a humble God in history. From the beginnings of man in Mesopotamia, Gods aren’t humble. Gods can’t be humble. After all they’re gods. They are above men, they rule over men, they squash men at will, they fight with men, they dominate men.

To humble themselves would be to show weakness, to show that they’re really not gods. No god ever humbled himself and no god ever will.

3. Gods don’t make friends.

This goes along with number two. Gods don’t make friends because that would be to humble themselves. And they sure don’t make friends with man. What do they even have in common? Nothing. Gods are gods and men are men, and never the twain shall meet. The very idea of having a god as a friend is like a man having an amoeba for a friend. Not going to happen.

I didn’t actually see it, but I read about an episode of the TV show Thirtysomething. I never watched the show because by the time I even heard of it I was already Forty-something.

But this episode was about the character Hope, who was a Christian, arguing with her Jewish husband, Michael, about the holidays.

“Why do you even bother with Hanukkah?” she asks. “Do you really believe a handful of Jews held off a huge army by using a bunch of lamps that miraculously wouldn’t run out of oil?”

Michael shoots back, “Oh, and Christmas makes more sense? Do you really believe an angel appeared to some teenage girl who then got pregnant without ever having had sex and traveled on horseback to Bethlehem where she spent the night in a barn and had a baby who turned out to be the Savior of the world?”

Well, do you believe it, friend? I do.

Well, it wasn’t a horse that Mary rode to Bethlehem, it was a donkey. But the character Michael got it pretty accurate, otherwise, didn’t he?

And it’s got to be one of the most ridiculous-sounding stories ever to be written, that the writer actually expects you to believe. We’re not talking about some fiction writer telling of Hobbits or Jabba the Hutt, and hoping we’ll pretend to believe it just long enough to enjoy the story. We’re talking about serious theological guys who tell the story of the birth of Jesus without batting an eye, and expect us to believe it as true, down to the last bit.

Well, what about our three reasons to reject this baby Jesus?

Let’s take them one at a time.

1. Virgins don’t have babies.

It’s true they usually don’t. But think with me for a minute. Suppose God wanted to send a Savior to pay for the sins of men by sacrificing Himself on a cross, dying to take our sins on Him so that He could give us the free gift of His righteousness, so that we would be saved from Hell, and have eternal life, everlasting life eventually with God in heaven.

Well, there’s one little problem with that. After Adam sinned in the Garden, sin, or the sinful nature, was forever passed on to everyone who ever lived since, and that sin was passed on, the Bible says, through the seed of man.

But a Savior for man would have to be sinless. A sinner can’t pay the sacrifice for another sinner. To satisfy or appease God’s just wrath against sin, the sacrifice must be perfect, sinless, not only without having committed any sins, but without even a sinful nature. In other words, righteous.

And the sacrifice that God the Father sent, was God the Son. The perfect candidate for sacrifice. Pure, righteous, sinless, and with no sin nature.

But that brings up another problem. How does God the Son get to earth to get this done. After all, since it was by a man that we fell or inherited our sinful nature, it must be a man who sheds His blood in our place for our forgiveness and salvation.

But if Jesus were born as a man in the normal way, then sin would pass on from His earthly dad, through his earthly dad’s seed. Got that? The sinful nature always passes on through the seed of the man.

So God did a miracle, a small miracle for Him really, but one with a huge impact on history. He implanted, miraculously a seed into Mary, which the Bible then calls “the seed of the woman” (see, not the seed of a man). This miraculous seed joined with Mary’s egg, and you know the rest. A sinless baby boy was born. Not only sinless in not ever committing a sin, but sinless in not even having a sinful nature, like the rest of us.

So not only did this virgin have a baby, but it couldn’t have been any other way, or the baby could not have been sinless.

2. Gods don’t humble themselves.

It’s true in human history, that those called gods in verbal stories and written literature never humble themselves. But let me say a couple things about that.

First, they are not really gods, of course. The Bible clearly says there is only one God. There is only one true God who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and everything that is in the earth. The Bible says that this one God is in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That’s what theologians have named the Trinity. But there is only one God.

And so all those so-called gods who never humbled themselves, are just made-up stories and superstitions of fictional gods, or in some cases, may be actual beings which we call fallen angels or demons. And anybody knows, no demon is going to humble himself.

But the true God of the Bible did humble Himself.

George Herbert, the poet and Anglican priest of the 1600’s put it poetically like this:

"The God of power, as he did ride
In his majestick robes of glorie
Resolv’d to light; and so one day
He did descend, undressing all the way."

This “undressing all the way” is nothing more than the humbling of the mighty Creator of the universe. This Creator God who spread trillions of galaxies into space, and made the atoms and neutrons and electrons and quasars and army ants and the aardvarks who would eat them; this almighty, all-knowing, all-wise Jehovah God, because He so loved us, humbled Himself.

And came to earth, Emmanuel, God with us. Came to earth as the most helpless creature there is, a baby.

A real baby, by the way. Don’t believe the Christmas carol that says “no crying he makes”. I’m sure he cried alright. And he kicked and cooed, and drooled, and he couldn’t have lived more than a few hours if he wasn’t cared for.

But he grew, and because he was a real baby, he grew to be a real man. He was really God, too. But He set aside the glory and rights that He had as God. Could we dare say, "like a man becoming an amoeba"? Probably not. But it was the most astounding humbling that the world has ever seen.

And it had to be that way, but He didn’t have to do it. The Bible says He did it because He loves us. And He loves us because He chose to love us, before the creation of the world. How’s that for a mystery? He didn’t love us because we’re so lovable, He loved us because He is love, and He chose to love us.


The Bible says He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life.

An explosion of glorious love as big as God, resulting in a baby away in a manger, no crib for his bed.

3. Gods don’t make friends.

Have you seen the bumper sticker, “The more I get to know people, the more I love my dog.”

It’s a sad point, really, but one that we can understand. People are fearfully and wonderfully made, the Bible says, but the same Bible says "Cursed is he who trusts in man.”

Or how about the cynical little verse, “To dwell above with saints we love, O that will be glory. But to dwell below with saints we know, well that’s a different story.”

What God in His right mind would want to be friends with us?

I would contend that the Bible teaches that God not only loved us when we weren’t lovable, but he chose to befriend us when we were his enemies.

Thankfully, Mary didn’t say to the angel, “Are you crazy?” O.K., she did say, “But I’ve never been with a man.” So she wasn’t gullible. But you know what she was? She was godly. And so she said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

She wasn’t gullible and she wasn’t stupid. She had to have known instinctively what she was in for. The humiliation, the doubts even from loved ones, the shame for her betrothed, Joseph, the jeers and stares and tsk tsk’s. But she did what a godly girl should do. She said in effect, “Thy will be done.”

When we read what’s called the "Magnificat", Mary’s beautiful words in Luke Chapter 1 which begin with, “My soul magnifies the Lord”, we see that her language is filled with the Psalms. This tells us that she was probably raised in a Bible-believing home. And this too was part of God’s wonderful plan.

Malcolm Muggeridge, commenting on our modern Roe v. Wade society wrote,

“It is, in point of fact, extremely improbable, under existing conditions, that Jesus would have been permitted to be born at all. Mary’s pregnancy, in poor circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious case for an abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of the intervention of the Holy Ghost would have pointed to the need for psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy even stronger. Thus our generation, needing a Savior more, perhaps, than any that has ever existed, would be too humane to allow one to be born.”

But God worked it out, didn’t He?

With a baby in a manger, who was Himself God, yet man.

And the man grew in wisdom and stature, and He suffered beyond imagination as He shed His blood and died. And by shedding His blood and dying, and rising again from the dead, this man who is also God, became a friend to those who had been His enemies.

This is His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of friends of God.

Friends of God are those who have been born again. They are those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And they are those who have given up working and striving to earn God’s love and favor, but accepted the free gift of His love and forgiveness and salvation, by grace.

Jesus said, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

As of this message, it’s close to Christmas. The day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. And once again, we are reminded of three wonderful things.

A virgin did have a baby.

And our God did humble Himself.

And the one true almighty God has made us His friends.

Happy Birthday, Jesus...and thanks.

Are Christians Wicked And Depraved?

This week's audio message:

Are Christians Wicked and Depraved?

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Are Christians Wicked And Depraved?

I want to deal today with statements that are often spoken BY Christians TO Christians ABOUT Christians.

To put it another way, I have many times heard preachers and teachers use these statements to describe their audience, even while assuming that their audience was made up of believers in Jesus Christ.

Or let me put it one more way to clarify what I’m saying:

These two statements are used to describe born-again Christians. And I want to challenge that thinking, not only because it’s not biblical, but because being unbiblical, it is ultimately harmful to the Christian walk, denies the work of Christ in the believer, and confuses an understanding of the New Covenant.

I will give you the two statements in just a moment, but first I want to say a word about the New Covenant.

The New Covenant is the basis of our understanding the work of Christ on the Cross, on our behalf, and should result in our praising and glorifying Him for His awesome work. It should also result in our freedom to draw near to Him in fellowship and communion. And it should result in the freedom of the very Life of Christ being lived out through us.

But teaching these two statements as applying to believers, to Christians, stifles our understanding of the Work of Christ, it stifles our freedom to draw near to Him in fellowship and communion, and it stifles the very Life of Christ from freely being lived out through us.

O.K. Terry, so come on, what are the statements, already?

Well, here they are:

First Statement

1. The first statement actually is a verse of Scripture from Jeremiah 17:9. I’ll quote it from the King James Version, because that’s how it’s usually quoted, even by preachers who normally use a modern version of the Bible. It goes like this, and if you’ve heard much preaching and teaching, you’ve heard it a hundred or a thousand times:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

Now modern versions will more accurately read, “desperately sick”, but in making their point, most preachers will revert back to the King James, because it drives their point home stronger.

And their point is simply this. That you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, still have a heart that is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Now, before dealing with the actual question of whether this applies to a born-again believer, let me make it clear that I’m not disagreeing with the truth of God’s Word. When God inspired those words of Jeremiah, He meant them. I’m certainly not calling into question the truth of the verse, only the truth of to whom the verse applies.

Second Statement

2. The second statement I want to deal with is also a statement that I agree with. I think it’s biblical, and I have often taught the statement myself, but NOT as applying to a born-again Christian.

The statement is actually the first point in the so-called 5 Points of Calvinism, and is usually called “Total Depravity”. It’s not a single verse of Scripture, but is deduced from several Scriptures, and goes usually something like this:

Man is Totally Depraved, in the sense that every part of his being has been affected by his inheriting Adam’s fallen nature, and he therefore has no spiritual good in him and can do no spiritually good act.

I believe this statement is perfectly true, when applied to the right persons.

The truth of this statement is the basis for Paul’s words in Romans Chapter 3, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who seeks for God; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

But, again, our question is, does this teaching of Total Depravity apply to the born-again Christian?

Let’s put the two statements together and examine the truth of them as they apply to a true believer in Jesus Christ.

If we combine the two statements and boil them down to their essence, and apply them to Christians, we could say, “Born-again Christians are wicked (Jer. 17:9) and depraved (Total Depravity).”

Let’s examine, Scripturally, if that is true. Let’s look at some biblical truths and compare.

The New Creation

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

This is a most amazing part of the New Covenant, that God has given us a new nature, made us a new creation. He didn’t just add it on to the old nature, we were transformed in our spirit, and made a new man.

The Old Man was crucified with Christ, and is now dead. That means that we don’t have two natures, as is commonly and unbiblically taught. Our very nature was changed, in our spirit, and we were made a new creation.

Now that doesn’t mean there are no problems. Although our spirit or nature was born-again, made new, our flesh was not.

That’s why Paul is careful to say, in Rom. 7:18, not just, “I know that nothing good dwells in me,” but he adds, “that is, in my flesh.”

Did you know that a probe applied to a certain part of your brain can bring you back to a day in your life when you were five years old, and your mind will experience it as if it were today?

See, we still have the same essential body, the same physio-chemical brain, and unfortunately, some bad thought patterns ingrained in our flesh. These things are more physical than most Christians are led to believe. We know now from medical science how closely related our brains are to our minds.

I say all that to say this, that as Christians we are no longer wicked in our heart, in our nature, in our spirit. In fact, Jesus has come to dwell in our spirit and the Bible says that we are one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17).

The promise of the Prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah to give us a new heart has come to pass in the New Covenant. It’s no longer accurate to say that the heart of a Christian is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, or sick. We have been made new.

And God wants us to know that, because if our hearts are still wicked, then it makes perfect sense to live or walk like wicked people, doesn’t it? But if we are a new creation, with a new spirit that loves Jesus and hates sin, IN OUR NATURE, then it makes perfect sense to live or walk like Christ-lovers.

And that’s why Paul pounds it through our heads in Romans 6:6, when he says, “…our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be made powerless, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.”

And in verse 11, he says, “Reckon yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God through Jesus Christ.”

In other words, don’t reckon yourselves wicked and depraved. Don’t be so foolish. You’ve been made new. Your nature has been changed. You are a new creation.

That’s one of the many ways in which our minds need to be renewed. Our spirit was born-again, made new. But our minds still need to be renewed, so that we are not squeezed into the mold of the world. But also our minds need to be renewed so that we are careful not to deny the work of Christ on the Cross in which he not only paid for our sins, but allowed us to be crucified with Him, making us dead to sin and alive to God.

No longer wicked and depraved in our heart, in our spirit.

Will we still act wickedly at times? Perhaps even lots of times?

Yes, but such wicked actions spring not from our nature anymore. They don’t spring from our spirit, but from being deceived by the world, the flesh and the devil. Being deceived into thinking that the desires of the flesh which war against the spirit are best. And so we find ourselves agreeing with Paul that “I do the things that I don’t want to do, and the things I want to do I don’t do.”

But we need to also agree with Paul when he says, “But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.”

What does he mean? Simply this. That in his heart, in his spirit, he loves the Lord, he loves good, he loves what is right, and he hates sin. That’s his new nature, that’s his spirit. But in his flesh, in his members, in his physical brain, still dwells sin. And it’s that sin which is operating, not the new creation Paul.

And so Paul had to do the same thing that you and I have to do. To learn to walk by the Spirit, and not by the flesh. And part of that learning to walk by the Spirit is to realize that as believers we are no longer wicked and depraved in our nature. We are new creations, God-lovers, sin-haters. And we can live like it, IF we walk by the Spirit.

When we fail, thank God we have an Advocate. We are forgiven, all our sins, past present and future.

But what a joy it is to walk like what we are, new creations who love Jesus Christ.