Living for Him

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to think about what you want more than anything else.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: As a child of God, the supreme passion of your life will be to live for Jesus—not for yourself, not to please others—but to live for Christ.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Surrender, for August 25, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

This week has been such a rich look at the Bible-based answer to this catechism question: What is your only comfort in life and death? Here’s Nancy with more.

Nancy: In the Spring of 2020, just as the first of the COVID lockdowns were beginning to take effect (do you remember that?), Gal Gadot, who’s the actress who starred as Wonder Woman, put together a YouTube video. She was just trying to cheer up people who were feeling discouraged in the face of the pandemic and its uncertainties. She and a number of her celebrity friends pieced together a line-by-line singing of the John Lennon anthem called “Imagine.”

Lennon’s song, if you’re not familiar with it, asks us to imagine a world in which there’s no afterlife—no heaven, no hell–nothing to live for but today. What you can see, hear, touch, and experience in the here and now, that’s all there is. That’s the message of this song.

And Gadot’s rendition of that classic rock song got me to thinking about what that kind of world would be like, if it were possible. And how could it possibly bring hope and comfort to someone who was in the midst of a crisis, trying to imagine that there’s no heaven above (and by implication, no God above)?

To me, the very idea of that kind of world is depressing. It’s a downer, as evidenced by the pandemic of anxiety and depression that is swallowing up so many in our world today. Faced with evil and pain in that kind of world, we would be forced to rely on our own wisdom, our own ideas, our own strength, our own strategies. We would be left alone. And we would be helpless against the floods that overwhelm us.

But thanks be to God (yes, there is a God in heaven above), there is a far better option. And it’s not something we’re just imagining. It’s true.

We’ve been talking over the last several days about the introductory segment of the Heidelberg Catechism. This is a document that was written in 1563, 460 plus years ago. It’s 129 questions and answers. It was intended to catechise church members and young believers and even children in their faith so they would be rock solid in their understanding of the basics of the faith.

We need some catechising today. We have so many church members who are clueless about the answers to these kinds of questions. They know all about Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman and all the John Lennon and all that pop stuff, but they don’t know the Word of God. They don’t know Scripture. They don’t know theology. Now, that’s a big word. It just means what you believe about God, what’s true about God. They don't know. And so their lives are just up for the wind to blow them and their emotions.

This is where we have so many of these young women, even in our churches, suicidal and anxious and distressed because we aren’t grounded in our faith. And I don’t mean to just limit that to young people. There’s a lot of people who have been in the church for decades who don’t really have the basics of gospel down in their understanding.

So, the power of a document like the Heidelberg Catechism, which we’ve been talking about, which is based on the Scriptures, is to help us learn to counsel our hearts according to truth. So, we’re affirming: this is true. This is the creeds and the catechisms of our faith. Now, you’ve got to make sure they’re biblical, that they line up with Scripture. But when they do, they help us succinctly say, “This is what . . .” Like the Apostles’ Creed and some of these, the part of the catechism that we’ve been quoting this week.

It’s not typical for me to teach out of a book other than the Bible, and I wouldn’t be doing that if it weren’t that every sentence in this catechism takes us right to the Scripture, the Word of God.

So, I want us to restate together what we’ve been saying, the answer to this first question. Now, I’ll ask the question, and then I want you to respond by reading the answer as if you really believe that this is true.

So, friends, what is your only comfort in life and in death?

Audience: 

That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. 

He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. 

Because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

Nancy: And I would just add, amen to that.

And, just as a reminder . . . Some of you grew up with the Heidelberg Catechism, and you say, “Oh, that’s familiar.” And some of you are thinking, I’ve never heard that before. But those words are so precious. I’ve been meditating on them, dwelling on them, processing them in my head and heart over and over again, hundreds of times, over the last several months.

That’s why I’ve asked our team to come up with a card that has that portion on it and to put them together in packs of twelve so that anyone this week who makes a donation of any amount to the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, we’d like to send you one of those packs.

You say, “What am I going to do with twelve of them?”

Well, a few of them you’re going to put in places where you will see them, and you can just read part of it out loud and remind yourself of the truth. Read the whole thing out loud. Memorize it. Meditate on it. And let it point you back to the gospel.

But, you probably don’t need twelve in different places of your house. So the rest of them you can have available to share as an encouragement with someone you’re talking with, as I often find myself doing, who needs to be reminded of the hope we have in Christ in life and in death.

So I just wanted to remind you that those are available this week.

We’ve been reading, talking this week about our comfort. We looked at the first part of this response. It talks about salvation, who Christ is: our faithful Savior, who has saved us from the penalty for our sins, because He fully paid the price for all our sins with His precious blood. He has delivered us from the tyranny of Satan—He’s our salvation.

We looked in the last session of the comfort that we find through the providence of God, His watch care. He knows what’s going on in our lives, and He is causing all things to work together for our good and His glory.

Now we come today to this final section of this answer which gives to us the assurance of eternity with Christ. This is where the catechism says: “Because I belong to him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of salvation.”

Now, again, if that’s not in the Bible, then don’t believe it just because you read it in this catechism. But it is in the Bible.

John chapter 3, many of you are familiar with this verse: “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life . . .” There’s basically two kinds of people in this world, and that person who rejects the Son “. . . instead, the wrath of God remains on him” (v. 36).

Listen, either God is going to smile on you and say, “Well done. Welcome to eternity with Me.” Or He’s going to say, “Out!” eternal damnation, condemnation. There is no middle ground. And your only comfort when you stand before God will be not anything you have done, but that Christ is your faithful Savior. He has paid for your sin. That will be your only comfort. 

He assures us by His Holy Spirit, those of us who are in Christ, that if we believe in the Son not only we will have, but we have right now eternal life—life that never ends.

Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 28: 

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures us of eternal life. That’s the words of Christ in John chapter 10.

Paul wrote it this way in Romans chapter 6, verse 23: 

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And then the apostle John in 1 John chapter 5: “God has given us eternal life . . .” You see that theme that He’s given it to us? It’s a gift. You didn’t earn it. You don’t deserve it. You can’t work for it. God has given us eternal life. “. . . and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” There again, you have the two different kinds of people. “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (vv. 11–13).

Do you know that you have eternal life?

You say, “Yeah, I know. I’ve known that all my life.”

Do you know it? And even if you do, I can assure you that there are people in your church, probably some in this room, people in your world, who do not know that they have eternal life.

Now, the number one reason people doubt and don’t have assurance of salvation is because they don’t have salvation. People who don’t have salvation should know; we don’t want to give them assurance. “Oh, yes. You prayed when you were three years old to receive Jesus as Savior. Of course you’re a Christian.” Don’t tell that to your children. The Holy Spirit has to give them the assurance that they are a child of God.

But then sometimes there are those who really do, they have believed in Christ, they do believe in Christ (and this will be a whole other series someday), but they have times when they wonder, they doubt. I’ve been through that. You probably have, too. And so what do we do? We go back to the Word of God.

God has given us eternal life. This life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has life . . . I’ve spoken these things, written these things to you who believe [do you believe in the name of the Son of God?] so that you may know [not think so, not hope, not wish, you’re not gambling, but so you may know] that you have eternal life.

In the last episode, I talked about Nanci Alcorn, wife of author Randy Alcorn, who went to heaven several months ago after a four-year battle with cancer. And just hours before her death, her husband Randy posted this excerpt from one of Nanci’s recent journals on “Caring Bridge.” Here’s what Nancy said as she was facing death, just looming right before her. She said,

My Savior ministered to me greatly this morning with this truth: I will be ready to die when my time comes because my Shepherd will give me His joy, peace, and readiness. It will not be me working up enough faith and trust, my God will fight the battle for me! It will be His perfect ministering Spirit who will carry me peacefully—jubilantly into God’s arms.

There’s a woman who knew that she had eternal life. She knew she was facing death, but she had comfort in life and comfort in death—not through doctors, not through hope of being healed. Yes, they prayed for that, and yes, God used doctors to bless them and to help extend her life through those four years. But in the end, her only comfort in life and in death—and your only comfort, my only comfort in life and in death—is Jesus. Jesus. Christ alone.

Do you belong to Christ? Do you have assurance of eternal life as Nanci did?

As I was preparing to come record this session today and just asking the Lord to bless and use this, I just had it so strong in my heart to pray that God would use this short series and today’s episode to help some to see that they have never believed in Christ and that this might be a day of salvation for maybe many, perhaps in this room, perhaps someone listening on the podcast or or on the Revive Our Hearts app.

Maybe you’ve grown up in the church, you’ve known this all your life. Maybe this is all kind of new to you. And maybe somebody just introduced you to this program, and you’ve been, “What is this all about?”

Whatever your background is, spiritually, religiously, whatever your sin has been, I can tell you: Christ is a faithful Savior. He died to pay for your sin that you might have the assurance of eternal life.

If Christ is not your Savior, just lift your eyes up to Him and say, “Oh, Lord, I believe. I trust You. I receive You as my Savior. I want to have life. I know that if I died right now, I wouldn’t have life. I would be under Your judgment. I would have eternal death. But I want to believe in You. I do believe in You. And thank You for the gift of eternal life that even if I die, when I die physically, (as we all will, unless Jesus comes back first), that will not be eternal death. That will be just the shedding of this body, and our soul will live forever with Christ, and one day our bodies will be resurrected to live forever with Him. Amen.

 

The Holy Spirit assures us that we have eternal life. Let me say, if you do belong to Christ and you have assurance that you have eternal life, that will impact everything about your life, not just your future. . . “Oh, yeah, I’m going to heaven.” But it will impact your present. And that’s where we read at this point of the catechism.

Because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit [here’s the last line] makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

As a child of God, the supreme passion of your life will be to live for Jesus, not for yourself, not to please others, but to live for Christ.

Romans 14, verse 7:

For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord.

2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 15: 

And he died for all so that those who live [that’s those of us right now] should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

How do we do that? Well, we don’t do it through our own power, through our own strength, but through the enabling power of His Spirit.

Galatians 2, verse 20:

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me.

Ephesians 3, verse 7:

I was made a servant of this gospel [Paul says] by the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the working of his power.

I serve today, you serve today, wherever God has put you, whatever He’s called you to do, by the power of His Holy Spirit within you.

For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose. (Phil. 2:13)

So what is our only comfort—our only comfort—in life and in death? If I could just summarize what we’ve said in these four sessions: there is a God. He rules from heaven. And because He does, we are free from guilt and shame over our past. And our present circumstances are being perfectly ordained and orchestrated by Him–all things–and our future is bright with hope.

That’s our comfort in life and in death because of Christ. Yes, there is pain, but He mourns with us, and He comforts us in our sorrows and in our losses. And in the midst of those “all things,” we can be at peace because everything is under His control. And we have the promise that one day He will remove all tears, all sorrows, and we will have eternal comfort with Him forever.

Dannah: Yes, the source of true comfort, ultimately, is not in changing our circumstances. It’s in understanding the very things we just heard Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth say everything is under God’s control. And there’s a day coming when He will right all wrongs and make all things new.

We’ll hear more from Nancy and from some of those who’ve been listening to Nancy’s teaching in just a moment. First, let me remind you that this week we’re sending out a special thank-you gift when you make a donation of any size to support Revive Our Hearts. It’s a pack of a dozen cards with this question and answer from the Heidelberg Catechism printed on them—the question and answer you’ve been hearing us recite all week long this week on Revive Our Hearts.

The pack contains enough cards so that you can put one in your car, one on your mirror or maybe one on your desk—wherever you will see it and be reminded of these truths. And you’re still going to have some left over to share with friends who could use some encouragement.

Just ask about the catechism cards when you contact us with your donation. To do that, head over to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-59559.

Nancy recorded the messages we’ve been hearing this week in front of a studio audience, and some of the women in the room that day shared how the truth they heard impacted them.

Zereda: I’m not through, but to some extent, I’m on a journey with my children. Through that season what I kept telling myself was, “I feel like Job.” I feel like Job where everything was stripped from me.

I’m a full-time staff member at a church, so it struck me even harder because I know God’s truth. But when something comes in your life that really just is unexpected, you really don’t know what to do when you’re in the thick of it. I remember even one Sunday I was, like, “I’m not even going to go to church. I can’t believe this is happening in my life with my children.”

And it started with my son back in October, and I started another journey with my daughter in January. And that’s why I said, “Lord, are You kidding me?” And the only thing that sustained me was God’s truth that He is sovereign and that what transpired is no surprise to Him. And if I believe that God is sovereign, then He knew that this would happen. And what is my reaction? I need to run to Him, not flee from Him.

I was just so blessed to hear that because, people, when you’re really in the storm, don’t really know that. It was His Word that sustained me.

Jesus says, “No one comes to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them near.”

So I’m like, “Lord, the fact that we all know You, is because we’ve been called. Your Word says You use everything together for our good who have been called. So even though this is happening, I don’t have to fear, and I don’t have to crumble.”

But the enemy really tried to crumble our home. I am so thankful for knowing His truth, because even though I’m not out of it, it’s what’s sustained me. It’s what’s comforted me.

I will get to see the glory and the testimony of all of this because it says raise them when they’re little, and then when they are old, they will not depart. But that “and” in-between is their season. I have to stand in the gap. The children of the righteous will be mighty, and I will stand in the gap for them and for those that see us because we’re the hands and feet of Christ. If I crumble in adversity, what am I saying?

And I know God’s truth. And, man, I went from feeling like Job to just being revived in Christ, honestly. I’m just so thankful for that reassurance, even though I’m not out of it, that God is in control, and He knows and He sees every hair of my head.

Nancy: Amen. If you’re a mom, or maybe you’re not a mom, but God has just put these two kids on your heart in the next couple of days, if you’ll just pray as the Lord prompts for these two children. If you’ll just lift your hand, let me just encourage that we want to walk, at least a little bit of that journey with you, because God’s writing a story in their lives, too. I know you know that.

Amanda: My name is Amanda, and one thing that you said that stood out to me was, “When everything I can see or sense tells me that God or God’s Word isn’t true, am I going to believe God or am I going to believe my feelings?”

When I started dating and then married my husband, it was really. That was God’s good providence, because I had been a Christian, but I wasn’t really founded in God’s Word. I read the Word every day, but I didn’t understand it. There wasn’t the foundation of this type of truth that you’ve taught us today.

I have been learning that and am now going through my biblical counseling certification. Even more of that truth and getting into the theology of who God really is, it’s like the rug has been pulled out from under me. I’m in this season where I’m having to rebuild. It’s, like, “Lord, just keep me.”

So just dwelling on these truths has been such an encouragement to me.

Nancy: Amen. Praise the Lord.

Dannah: Yesterday on Revive Our Hearts, Nancy was talking about the phrase in the catechism that says, “All things must work together for my salvation.” And she said:

Nancy: I want to just park for a moment on that “all things.” I want to put a question mark there. All things? All things?

Dannah: She mentioned that earlier this year marked the second anniversary of her husband Robert’s initial cancer diagnosis. And then she read something she had posted about it on social media.

Nancy: I wrote: 

Two years ago this week, just as COVID was taking off, my DH (my dear husband) was diagnosed with melanoma, the first of two cancers that year, multiple scans, biopsies, surgeries, and chemo treatments later. Robert is now in complete remission. We could not be more grateful.

We don’t know what the next two years will hold–we don’t know what tomorrow will hold—but here’s what we do know: [And then I listed these bullet points.]

• We know that God is good.
• We know that He loves us.
• We know that this ordeal has all been for our good.
• We know that we needed the refiner’s fire to make us more like Jesus.
• We know that He has not left us alone in the fire for a moment.
• We know that this trial has provided many opportunities to share the love of Jesus with others.
• We know that we do not deserve the mercy He has shown us.
• We know that His grace has been sufficient for each day’s challenges.
• We know that the prayers and encouragement of God’s people are sweet and powerful gifts.
• We know that we are deeply grateful for each other and for the blessing of each new day of life.
• We know that our hope is not in this world or in physical health, but in Christ and the world to come.
• We know that our joy is not dependent on what happens to or around us but on who is in us and with us.
• We know that when we are weak, He is strong.
• We know that He will never leave or forsake us.
• We know He will never give us more than we can bear.
• We know that the best is yet to come.
• We know that death is not to be feared.
• We know that heaven rules.

Dannah: That meant a lot to a listener named Nicole.

Nicole: Nancy, when you said “all things?” I felt like that was really an encouragement to me, because when you look at things from a human perspective, it’s easy to lose hope sometimes. Something I kept thinking of was my husband was adopted from Korea when he was three years old. He was abandoned by his parents, and he was adopted by a Christian family from Wisconsin. And now he has this beautiful, wonderful life. Each of us has been adopted into God’s family. And if we can’t see the good, it just means that the story isn’t over yet. We’re still in process. God is still writing that story.

So it was an encouragement to me to know that other people think “all things?” And just how God is working all things together in my husband’s life; He can do it in your life, and He’s doing it in our family’s life.

Nancy: The answer to the question, “All things?” is all things. Yes.

Dannah: Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, musician and songwriter Keith Getty joins us to talk about a song he helped write based on question one of the Heidelberg Catechism. I hope you’ll join us tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you live for Him and discover freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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