This Bible study was originally considered during Midweek Connection on November 19, 2014.

I saw this comment on an online forum recently. The commenter was referring to a registered sex offender, also a professing believer, who is facing more criminal charges:

"You know, what struck me when I saw that page is that this guy…is only six years older than me. He’s screwed up his life and he’s wasted his life screwing up others’ lives too. I can’t think of a word to describe how that makes me feel. But ugh. Some people are just worthless."

How much sin do we have to commit before we are “worthless”? Or, are there certain types of sin that, if engaged in, make us “worthless,” while others just make us…I don’t know…”bad”?

The truth is, all of us were born “worthless.” We were born in sin (Psalm 51:5), and there was nothing in us or about us that attracted us to God or made us a more worthy candidate for salvation (Ephesians 2:1-3). The incredible message of the gospel is that although we were worthless, God still loved and redeemed us (Romans 5:6-10). What grace! It is only after we have been recreated by Christ that we have any worth (Colossians 3:9-10), for now we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12).

So, in reality, to call someone “worthless” is to state the obvious, but that’s not usually the purpose behind such human indictments. Rather, we typically offer such a censorious label because we’ve taken the role of God, allowing ourselves to judge the eternal (or even temporal) value of that individual and “writing them off” if that’s what our judgment decides. Perhaps we justify such a bold statement by, “Well, Jesus said that you would know them by their fruits,” and we interpret that statement as the allowance to slander and demean an individual whose fruits are obviously missing.

Someone who makes an indictment like we read above is failing to consider two very important realities:

1. First, the individual is failing to consider God’s standard.

Scripture reveals that there is only One who alone is worthy (Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 12-13). His people have worth and significance only because they are “in Him” (Ephesians 1:3; Colossians 2:10). And for these individuals, God’s standard is incredibly idealistic (Matthew 5:48). For example, God doesn’t just tell His people not to murder; He tells them not to hate (Matthew 5:21-22). God doesn’t just require us to just be kind; He requires us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-47). He doesn’t command a tithe; He commands us to give proportionally to God’s blessing (I Corinthians 16:2). He doesn’t expect a redeemed husband to just be cordial to his wife, but to unconditionally love her (Ephesians 5:25-30). He doesn’t insist that believing children only obey their parents, but that they also honor them (Ephesians 6:1-2). Etc. Etc. And God doesn’t demand that His people just not look at pornography or be a pedophile; He demands that they not lust (Ephesians 5:3-4).

So, let you “who is without sin among you” cast the first stone (John 8:7). In ourselves, we daily fall miserably short of God’s ideal standard for His people. The problem is not the idealistic standard; the problem is with me, for while “the spirit is willing…the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38) and “in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing” (Romans 7:18). Hence, the longer Paul walked with God, the more clearly he recognized his own inherent worthlessness (I Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8; I Timothy 1:15).

Therefore, to condemn a fellow-sinner is like one piece of dirt demeaning another piece of dirt for being so dirty. Sin is certainly destructive and at times gruesome, and when we see it in all of its unrestrained and unrepentant ugliness, it is certainly repulsive and warrants condemnation. Nevertheless, in light of God’s standard, such condemnation is not ours to give, for to do so is arrogant and hypocritical on our part, for we also are unworthy. We must allow God to be the Judge, and we must never condemn, “write off,” or conclude the final answer on any man. To do so not only ignores God’s standard, but it also overlooks a second obvious reality.

2. Secondly, the individual is failing to consider God’s grace.

God’s grace never ceases to amaze! Just when we think we’ve wrapped our minds around all it can do and the degree to which it extends and the way in which it operates, we see yet another dimension that challenges our view of God. Perhaps the most vivid illustration of the constantly astounding nature of grace is discovered in two words in II Peter 2:7 — “righteous Lot.” He who had selfishly chosen the best of the land while leaving the leftovers to his uncle, he who had willingly surrounded himself with debauchery and taken a leadership role in a culture of licentiousness, he who had piously rebuked the abominable while offering up his own daughters to their base appetites and insatiable lusts, he who allowed his family to be so contaminated by iniquity that he lost his wife and was raped by his daughters — this man is here called “righteous.” While this statement provokes many meditations, a most obvious one is that God’s grace is able to reach inconceivably farther than we would expect. This verse stops us in our tracts when we take Matthew 7:16, 20 and try to apply it as if we were God, for we are being reminded here that only God can provide the final answer on someone.

Jesus Christ was the personification of grace, and it’s inescapable to note that He was habitually ministering to those whom society had written off as “worthless” (called, in the KJV, “publicans and sinners”). Our God is well-pleased that His people be known by the same ridiculed and scandalous title as His Son — “the Friend of publicans and sinners.” Fellow-believer, if you continue to condemn the modern-day publicans and sinners who are obviously “worthless,” then you are (1) very un-Christlike and (2) very Pharisee-like, for you are perpetuating the deception that only the “well” are worthy, when in fact they need the Physician just as much as the “sick” (Luke 5:27-32).

O church, it’s time to learn with those first 12 disciples again, and to watch our Master through the eyes of faith as He visibly loves and spiritually sacrifices for those whom we might despise. Since we are ourselves recipients of lavish grace, we cannot be stingy dispensers of grace. It is time for us to change our mind about how we look at this world, to change our calculation about who is “well” and who is “sick,” and to learn first biblically and then experientially that God is still able to save the maniacs of Gadara (Mark 5), and He is pleased to do so.

Let us take care, then, lest in our arrogance and hypocrisy we presume upon God’s standard and grace, and show an inferior and prejudiced Savior to the “worthless” (cf. James 2:1) — people who because of their “worthlessness” are actually prime candidates for God’s unmerited grace (cf. Luke 7:1-10; Titus 3:1-7).