November 29, 2017 Show with Chris Rosebrough on “God Did Not Create You For a Purpose or a ‘Dream Destiny'”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 29th day of November 2017.

Excuse me for the scratchy throat here. I'm delighted to have back on the program a returning guest who

I have grown to love to interview and who has grown to be a very popular guest amongst listeners in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience, and that is Chris Rosebro. Chris is a confessional

Lutheran and pastor of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota.

He also runs Pirate Christian Radio and hosts the Fighting for the

Faith program. Today we are going to be addressing a very controversial theme, and that is did, or should

I say, God did not create you for a purpose or a dream destiny?

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Chris Rosebro. Thanks for having me back,

Chris. Great to be here. And let me repeat our email address for those of you listening who would like to ask a question of your own of Chris Rosebro.

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter that would compel you not to identify yourself.

And before we go into the topic at hand, I know this may seem redundant to you and to those of my listeners who have already heard you on the program, but we are getting new listeners, it seems, every single day joining our audience.

So please tell our listeners, first of all, what you mean by a confessional Lutheran. Sure.

A confessional Lutheran is a Lutheran who actually holds to the

Lutheran Confessions and believes that the doctrines therein correctly reflect what

God's Word says and reveals. So a confession, then, is a summary statement of Scripture, and it's true because it says the same thing as Scripture.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who call themselves Lutherans or call themselves Christians but don't believe within the

Lutheran Confessions, and as a result of it, they cease to be confessional

Lutherans. They're kind of Lutherans with asterisks. You know, well, we're a Lutheran, but we don't believe the

Bible is the Word of God. We're a Lutheran, but we don't believe that we're saved by Christ through faith alone. And we're

Lutheran, but we believe that men can be married to men, and it gets really weird when you have to start doing stuff like that.

So the idea is, by saying I'm a confessional Lutheran, you can find literally what

I believe by getting a copy of the Lutheran Confessions, and everything that is there is actually what

I subscribe to. That's what I believe teaching confession. My ordination vows were also along those lines, that I believe those documents are correct summary of Scripture, and I will only teach and preach what's in accord with what

Scripture says in that regard. Yes, and I am a big fan of confessional

Christianity. I am personally a confessional Reformed Baptist. The church where I am a member is, or should

I say, are an adherent to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, also known as the

Second London Confession. And I think that confessions are valuable, number one, because they give an official record of what that church stands for when you enter in to that building and begin to worship with these folks.

If you are seeking membership wherever that church is, it's good to have an official record of exactly what they believe.

And it also, I think, can be an effective guardrail, not an infallible guardrail, but an effective guardrail, especially for future generations from verging off the road into heretical side -trail teachings and so on.

A church would actually, if they're going to be honest, they would have to abandon the confession that was already held to officially by the church in order to really enter into some kind of an apostate understanding of things, or a deeply heretical understanding.

Would you agree with that? Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And here's the deal, I mean, sometimes the pastor's ideas about what

Scripture says changes. But that being the case, if the pastor's, you know, what he believes is morphing and changing, then he ceases to be a

Baptist or a Lutheran or something. He becomes something different. And oftentimes what he tries to do is drag his congregation along with him.

And the idea then is that if I teach anything contrary to the Lutheran concessions, if my beliefs and my convictions change, then

I need to honor my ordination vows and say, yeah, listen,

I no longer hold to these things, and so I'm no longer qualified to be a pastor here.

I've got to go find a congregation of people that believes what I'm now believing. But you really do a lot of violence and damage to people when you deviate from what you've sworn to preach, and now claim, well, my conscience is bound to this new thing.

And you're right, it always seems to be the open door to leading into apostasy.

And as I have often said to people who are anti -creedal and anti -confessional, I remind them that in reality, they are confessional and creedal.

They just adhere to bad confessions or creeds, or they don't write that down. Because actually, the very statement,

I am not a confessional Christian, is a creedal statement or a confessional statement. Yes it is, that's exactly right.

When somebody says, we have no creed but Christ, well that's a creed, you know. Right. You know, and our creed is the

Bible, well that's a creed, you know, and so then the question comes down to, you know, if you were to summarize

Scripture, what does it say, what does it teach, what's the point of the biblical text?

And Christians have historically, and I mean this, historically had creeds. If you were to read, for instance, 1

Corinthians chapter 15, read the biblical scholars on this, and you'll see that the opening verses of chapter 15, the

Apostle Paul is literally laying out a creed, and he's defining the Gospel.

And many biblical scholars say that what is recorded in 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the earliest

Christian creeds. When you read the Church Father Irenaeus, who was a great defender of the faith against heretics, he talks about how he was taught by Polycarp what was known as the

Rule of Faith. The Rule of Faith reads like kind of a rough draft version of today's

Nicene Creed, and he claims he received this from Polycarp, and Polycarp himself was the disciple of the

Apostle John in Ephesus. And so Christians have used creeds all along to help kind of focus and summarize what

Scripture says, but also creeds are very helpful in identifying people who are teaching false doctrine.

And so in the congregation I serve, we confess either the Apostles' Creed or the

Nicene Creed every single Sunday, and I explain to the people in the congregation, listen, we're going to confess this right after the sermon, and if my sermon says something different than what these creeds are saying, you know that I'm teaching you false doctrine, and the elders of this

Church had better be having a conversation with me as soon as the Church service is over, because if I say something different than what those creeds say, then my theology is straying, and you got to rein me in.

Yeah, very quickly, a humorous story, at least I thought it was humorous, when

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, who was also a radio client of mine, who was a fundamentalist

Baptist and very anti -confessional, he was saying, the difference between you and me is you believe in the 1689

London Baptist Confession, and I believe in the Bible, he said to me. So I said, well you do realize that the is just a summary of biblical teachings, and by the way, this friend of mine happened to be a co -host of a fundamentalist

Baptist radio program that he shared the air time with probably 15 to 20 different fundamentalist

Baptist churches, and they had a manual that gave very specific details on who was qualified to host alongside with them the

Fundamental Baptist Forum, which was the name of the radio program, and what the church, where that pastor was serving, what that church had to believe, and this manual was about 20 to 30 times the size of the 1689

London Baptist Confession. I said, you do realize this is a confession of faith that you have compiled here, and that it's even more detailed than mine, it's about 20 to 30 times the length, and it is filled with much more speculation about what you think the

Bible would teach than is actually in the Bible. So anyway,

I just thought that was funny. But let me just read, I think this will be encouraging to you, Chris.

A listener in Dublin, Ireland, Joe Riley, posted, he actually posted an mp3 of an interview that I had with one of your friends,

Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, and he said, I have to say I have really found a lot of the

Iron Sharpens Iron interviews with Lutheran ministers extremely edifying. As a confessionally reformed

Calvinist myself, I have been learning a lot about the differences between conservative Lutheranism and my own positions on the

Lord's table, baptism, election, free will, the atonement, etc., also seeing the areas we hold in common.

I think there are misunderstandings on both sides, no doubt. This interview stood out to me as Pastor Brian Wolfmuller seemed to really listen and take in where we are coming from as well as explain his own side.

Good interview, Chris. So I just wanted to encourage you that even some of my diehard Calvinist listeners are finding the interviews with you and your

Lutheran brethren edifying. And of course, when I say Lutheran brethren, I'm not talking about the denomination.

I'm talking about your fellow Lutherans. But before we even go into that, let's also briefly let our listeners know about Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota, and Pirate Christian Radio.

Yeah, so the congregation I serve is a small rural congregation in Oslo, Minnesota.

I think you have to say it like that. And it is a congregation in the

American Association of Lutheran Churches, which is a small confessional church body that's also an altar and pulpit fellowship with the

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. So that kind of gives you the idea of what type of conservative confessional church body that we're a part of.

And then Pirate Christian Radio is an online internet Christian talk radio station that I started almost 10 years ago with the goal of really providing good theological talk radio.

And our programs on there are oftentimes hosted by confessional Lutherans, but we also have a couple of programs where confessional

Reformed guys also have their own programs. So we do definitely value our

Reformed brothers and the insights that they bring to the table as well. Yes, well, one of your friends,

Rod Rosenblatt, has for quite a long time, I don't know if he still is, but for many years he was co -hosting the

White Horse Inn program alongside with Michael Horton and Kim Riddlebarger and Ken Jones.

And is Rod still doing that? I think he is, although he's getting up there in age.

And so I think his ability to continue has been a bit spotty at times.

Yeah, I'm sure Rod would love to hear that, by the way. I think he'd be the first to say it.

I just saw him a month ago, so I was with him in San Diego at a conference for the 500th anniversary of the

Reformation. Great, and just to let our Lutheran listeners know today, you may be happy to know that I do have another interview coming up on January 4th, which

I'm sorry, January 8th, Monday, January 8th from 4 to 6 p .m.

with Scott Keith. And he is with the 1517

Legacy Project. We're going to be discussing his book on fatherhood. You might want to mark that down on your calendars.

That's Monday, January 8th, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern Time. And we're going to be giving away free copies of his book, and I think it's called

Being Dad, Fatherhood is a

Picture of the Grace of God. Is that the title? I can't remember. I forget. It's been a couple years since I've read it, but you're kind of in the ballpark there.

We'll just say that was a paraphrase of the title. Well, so mark your calendars for that.

Oh, and Fighting for the Faith. Tell our listeners about that program that you specifically host.

Sure, yeah. Five days a week, I host a daily comparative theology and apologetics program called

Fighting for the Faith, and it's one of these rough -and -tumble programs. We name names and play soundbites and review things.

But the gist of it is to kind of compare what most popular pastors and preachers and teachers are saying from the pulpit of the stage, and then opening up God's Word and using just basic, sound, biblical hermeneutics to see if what they're saying about God actually squares with what

God's Word says when we look at it properly. Great. And we will be giving you all contact information on how to take advantage of Pirate Christian Radio and Fighting for the

Faith, and also how you can visit the Kongsvinger Lutheran Church if you happen to be visiting

Oslo, Minnesota, or if you live there. And a listener just told me that the title of Scott Keith's book is

Being Dad, Father as a Picture of God's Grace, and the foreword was written by Rod Rosenblatt.

There you go. And so we are talking today about a very controversial subject.

I think the first half of the title that you wanted to use as our theme today may shock some.

The part that says, God did not create you for a purpose, that may stop people in their tracks.

Even people from both of our fellowships, both our Reformed and Lutheran fellowships, might say,

What? What does he mean by that, God did not create us for a purpose? And the second part is something that you're going to have to define, and that is a dream destiny.

God did not create you for a purpose or a dream destiny. First of all, define what you mean by the first half of this theme, which may immediately, on the surface anyway, give a knee -jerk reaction of shock, horror, or disapproval, at the very least, from some of our listeners.

Yeah, and so I think a little bit of a warning as we wander into the topic, and that is that I have a very carefully defined understanding of what it is that I'm referring to, and we'll take a look at what

Scripture says in this regard along these lines. But purpose and dream destiny are practically synonymous, but dream destiny is the phrase that is being more commonly used nowadays.

You think back 10 years ago, Rick Warren wrote his book on, you know, the purpose -driven life, and many churches did these

Bible studies together where they did the 40 days of purpose, and now 10 -12 years later, this doctrine has taken on a life of its own, and many evangelical churches, and this is kind of an alarming trend that I've been noticing for the past few years, many evangelical churches nowadays, this has become like the core central doctrine, and they really are, the way the message is being preached, it's as if Jesus died in order to save you from purposelessness, or to make it so that your life has some extraordinary destiny that you are supposed to achieve in order to change the world.

And this has become a very, very dangerous, dangerous doctrine, and so to kind of jolt people back to reality, you know,

I like to tell people, God has not created you for a purpose. Scripture doesn't teach that, which then, of course, begs the question, are you saying that my life is purposeless or meaningless?

The answer is no, but we have to basically take this idea that's being put out there by people, and test it according to God's Word, and by the way, what

God has created you and Christ Jesus to do is so much better than a purpose that I think that if we land on our feet, people will say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and they'll be able to embrace the thing that God has created in Christ Jesus to do.

Now, what you said immediately reminded me of a story, and perhaps you could verify whether the story is true, and perhaps you could also clean up any mistakes

I made in the repeating of it. A very short story where a cobbler approached

Martin Luther and says something to the effect of, I want to bring my wife and children with me on the mission field and be a missionary overseas.

Do you have any advice for me? And Luther, according to this story, said to the cobbler, my advice to you is make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price.

Am I telling the story accurately, and is it a true story? Yeah, that is a true story, and that is a fair representation of the story, and that's exactly what we're hoping to be, you know, kind of hatching out here.

And this deals with what's called the doctrine of vocation, the idea that God has called us to particular vocations, and that these are the places that we do our good works.

And so you're right in the right vein here, so I want to just affirm you on that.

Now, some people might immediately say, well, this idea of God not creating us for a purpose can't always be true, and they might point to people like Mary, the mother of Christ, for instance, that she was obviously created in part to bring the

Messiah into the world in human flesh. Would you deny the idea or the concept that that is just one example of God creating someone for a purpose?

That is an example of God calling somebody to do an important good work, and this is where we're going to have to do a little bit of groundwork.

So when we're talking about the doctrine of purpose or the dream destiny, let me kind of give you some of the basics on how this is put forward so that we can begin to start to make some careful distinctions.

So if you were to attend, you know, kind of a mega -church that's kind of purpose -driven or believes in what

I call the dream destiny thingy doctrine, it's always very vague. What the pastor will tell you that now that you've made a decision to make

Jesus your Lord and Savior, that you now need to apply techniques in order to learn how to receive direct revelation from God and to hear

God's voice directly speaking into your heart. Maybe the still small voice or something to that effect.

And that once you have kind of mastered the skill of how to hear God's voice, then you should expect to hear from God, God revealing to you what your specific and unique purpose is.

And oftentimes what they'll say is that when there is a problem in the world, God causes a baby to be born in order to solve that problem.

So you need to learn to hear God's voice so God can reveal to you which problem on planet

Earth you were created to solve. And then once you hear God's voice telling you what your purpose is or your destiny is, and you've got to believe

God for a big one, not a small one. Because apparently size matters when it comes to having these purposes or dreams.

And if your God is too small, then your purpose will be small. If you have a large vision of God, then

God will give you a large, grand, earth -shattering, world -changing kind of vision. And then once you hear it, you should expect obstacles.

And somebody who will say, you can't do that, or there's no way you're going to do it. And of course what they follow it up with is that you can always tell that God is the one revealing to you your purpose.

If your purpose is so big, there's no way that you personally can actually pull it off.

That's the real sign that God is now speaking to you, and that you're going to need His help to actually make it happen.

And here's the sad part about this. Nowhere in Scripture does it teach this. But what it ends, what this doctrine is basically based upon, is a misreading of Scripture.

And so what happens is, is the purveyor of this purpose doctrine literally believes that the

Bible is an anthology, a library if you would, of how God appeared to different people in order to reveal to them their specific and unique purpose.

And then you look at their lives as an example of what they went through in order to achieve their purpose, you should expect those types of obstacles and opposition and haters and things like that.

And that, and that, that, so the Bible then is designed to be devotional material to motivate you so that you can achieve your purpose.

And here's the problem, is that that reading of Scripture makes you the center of Scripture.

It's that it's all about you. But the reality is, is that yes, there are very specific and punctuated times in human history where God has appeared to people, and God has had a unique mission that he has sent somebody on.

And those are recorded for us in Scripture. But the Scriptures are about Christ. And you'll notice that in each and every one of those instances, that had to move, that those people in their lives moved along the genealogy of Christ and how

God was bringing to us the Messiah. And so Jesus himself says to the

Jews in John chapter 5, you diligently search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have life, yet they are the very

Scriptures that testify about me, so that you, and you refuse to come to me that you might have life.

You see, the problem with the purpose -driven, dream -destiny reading of Scripture, it makes it all about you.

Whereas if you understand that the unique people in these very, you know, kind of like outlier experiences that we see in the patriarchs, even in the people in the

New Testament, all of that had to do with salvation history, and the bringing about of the

Messiah, and then the doctrines and teachings of Christ himself in the good news of the

Gospel. It all centers around him. And that nowhere in Scripture are we told that because Mary had this experience, or because Abraham had this experience, or Joseph had an experience like that, that we too should expect that in our lives.

No, that's not at all what we are told to expect. So what this does is it basically puffs up your ego to make you feel like you're going to be the next

Abraham, or the next Joseph, or the next Mary, or in some cases, you too are going to experience the same kind of earth -shattering ministry as Jesus himself did.

And all that is is narcissistic nonsense, and that's not what Scripture teaches. And I can believe that if you have that approach, especially when you are either evangelizing people, or preaching to people, or just conversing with people, if they really buy into this idea of a dream destiny and really believe it and take hold of it, they are setting themselves up for an extremely anticlimactic life that may even cause them to lose faith or become crippled by depression and self -pity because they had this idea that there was going to be some earth -shattering way that they were going to be used by God, and they wind up just having an ordinary life, a godly life, a faithful life perhaps, but an ordinary one.

And there's nothing wrong with an ordinary life if it is built upon the

Scriptures, and a love for God, and of course is marked by obedience to God.

But it can be, and is most often going to be, nonetheless ordinary. Yeah, and I hate to say this, this is like the perfect setup for like demonic, narcissistic self -worship.

And it literally destroys your good works. I'll give you an example. I kind of give this example tongue -in -cheek, but the reality is the example

I'm going to give is actually based upon somebody's real life. So you attend a church like this, you think you're hearing the voice of God, and God says to you,

Chris, I want you to be an opera singer, okay? And so now you've learned that your purpose in life is to be a world -renowned opera singer.

And so you then are instructed that you've got to begin pursuing this purpose that God has revealed to you.

And so you take vocal lessons and things like that, and you try, you start auditioning for, you know, opera roles and things like this, and what ends up happening is that your wife says to you, what are you doing?

Well, the Lord spoke to me in my heart and told me my purpose is to be a world -renowned opera singer.

And your wife says to you, you can't carry a note in a bucket. What makes you think you're going to be an opera singer?

And what they literally program people to do is that when your wife says something like that, they say, you should expect opposition.

That's proof that God has called you to be an opera singer. And so you tell your wife, you need to let

God do what God's going to do. And so you spend money on lessons and all this kind of stuff.

And at the end of this, you're not getting any of the roles that your dream destiny isn't happening.

None of the breaks are coming because you're just terrible at singing opera. Well, what ends up happening is that this scenario plays out in many different ways, same kind of idea, in these churches.

And then people go to their pastors and say, listen, God told me I'm going to be an opera singer, but I can't ever seem to land any opera singing roles in the opera.

What's going on? So they'll say, well, you need to tithe more, you need to give offerings, and don't worry, the

Holy Spirit is telling me that God is getting ready to send breakthroughs so that people can start to have movement in the direction of their destinies and stuff like that.

And so you play the game for a while, and you know, you write the tithe check, and you start making offerings, and you're believing for, you know, a breakthrough in your destiny that never comes.

And then ultimately they go back to their pastor and say, why isn't this happening? You've told me that this is how this is supposed to work, but it's not working.

And then the pastor will say, well, it's your fault because you don't have enough faith. Or it's your fault because you have unconfessed sin in your life.

You're not doing what you need to do, so God can't give you your destiny. It really is a formula for being manipulated, especially for money.

Manipulated is taken advantage of, and at the end of it, the person will walk away from Christianity and say,

Christianity isn't true. And the sad part is that they've never actually been taught

Christianity. This whole purpose scheme that many of these churches are engaging in is not a biblical doctrine, it's not what

Scripture teaches, and this is a formula for shipwrecking somebody's faith and turning them into an angry atheist who thinks that Christianity is just a bunch of malarkey.

But they've never been taught Christianity. That's the sad part about it. Well, we are going to our first station break.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Chris Roseborough of Pirate Christian Radio, right after these messages from our sponsors.

Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience, featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

That's wrbc .us. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study. Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the

NASV is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable Bible translation. The NASV offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the

NASV is known for. The NASV is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference

Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues. From compact to giant print

Bibles, find an NASV that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com. Whichever edition you choose, trust, discover, and enjoy the

NASV for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com.

I am Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

Christian perspective. Try World at no charge for 90 days and get a free copy of R .C.

Sproul's book, Relationship Between Church and State. I rely on World because I trust the reporting.

I gain insight from the analysis, and World provides clarity to the news stories that really matter.

I believe you'll also find World to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a depth that's simply not found in other media outlets.

Armed with this coverage, World can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community. This trial includes bi -weekly issues of World Magazine, on -scene reporting from World Radio, and the fully shareable content of World Digital.

Simply visit wmg .org forward slash iron sharpens to get your

World trial and Dr. Sproul's book all free, no obligation with no credit card required.

Visit World News Group at wmg .org forward slash iron sharpens today.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to a visit to the pastor's study every

Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends, Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

Since 1987, the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because, frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com. That's CVBBS .com.

Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And you can also call

CVBBS .com at the toll -free number 800 -656 -0231.

800 -656 -0231 if you prefer ordering things over the phone as opposed to the internet.

Please keep in mind, please remember to always mention if you are ordering from CVBBS .com

or if you are patronizing any of our advertisers, please make sure you tell them that you heard about them from Chris Orenson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

CVBBS .com seems to have had a huge turnaround for the better in their sales lately.

They are having record -breaking sales months, and they are telling me that a very small portion of those sales are coming from people who are specifically identifying

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio as the source of their discovering CVBBS .com.

So I have a feeling that that is simply because people aren't telling them, and the coincidence seems to be far too significant to be merely a coincidence.

It seems like more of a providential thing where the sales turnarounds have been largely due to Iron Sharpens Iron because of the way we've been heavily promoting them lately.

But please tell them when you order anything from them at CVBBS .com that you heard about it from Chris Orenson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And by the way, if you order $50 or more worth of merchandise, you'll receive free

The Theology of the Reformers by Dr. Timothy George. That is a $29 .99

value. You're getting it absolutely free of charge while supplies last by mentioning

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and by purchasing $50 or more worth of books and Bibles and other merchandise.

Also, on top of everything, they are offering a 10 % discount till the end of the month.

So that's an added value, an added discount. Not only are you getting a free $30 book, but you're also getting 10 % off everything you purchase.

So please go to CVBBS .com and mention Chris Orenson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when you're doing your holiday shopping.

Or once again, you can call 800 -656 -0231. 800 -656 -0231.

And that phone line is manned daily between 10 a .m. and 4 .30 p .m. You may still catch them today, but that is not the norm.

It's 10 a .m. to 4 .30 p .m. So if you get no one answering the phone, please call them tomorrow.

We are back with our guest today, Chris Rosebro. He is the founder of Pirate Christian Radio and host of Fighting for the

Faith. We are discussing God Did Not Create You for a Purpose or a Dream Destiny.

Our email address, if you have a question, is chrisorenson at gmail .com, chrisorenson at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Chris, before I go to any of our listener questions, this seems to me to be a very common thing, perhaps even especially in secular media with non -Christians, where children are being raised from infancy with this notion that they can do anything they want to do as long as they set their mind to it, almost like a power of positive thinking kind of a thing.

And this is a very dangerous thing to be instilling in our children's minds and hearts, isn't it?

Yeah, no, it really is. I mean, we've created a generation, and now we're on like multi -generations now, of functional narcissists.

And what's interesting is that this theme, this idea, is embedded in so much of the secular entertainment.

Let me give you an example from maybe about 10 years ago. 10 years ago on NBC, there was a program, and the name of the program was

Heroes. And the basic premise of Heroes was that there were these individuals throughout planet

Earth who had these special abilities, special powers, and they had to discover that they had these special powers and then learn how to use them.

And ultimately, they were kind of collected up in order to use their good, their powers for the good of saving and protecting humanity.

This is the basic idea that so much of the comic book movies, like Spider -Man or the

Fantastic Four or whatever, it's this idea, or the X -Men, that here are these human mutants that have these special abilities.

And the idea then is that this has been brought into the Church. This is that comic book, you know, superhero storyline that is now being taught in, you know, to Christians, that they have some unique ability, some unique purpose for which

God has created them, and they are, once they achieve their purpose, they're going to change the world.

And so what ends up happening in these churches is the Great Commission is changed.

It's no longer, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching all that I've commanded. Instead, the Great Commission changes in these churches to go and make a difference in the world.

And it's not even subtle anymore. It was very subtle when this first came on the scene. But the emphasis is all about you.

The messages are, how do you experience breakthrough so that you can achieve your destiny?

What to do when people are opposing your destiny? I'll give you an example. One of the most popular passages that is used to kind of support this idea of purpose and destiny is the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis.

And so the idea is that God came to Joseph and gave him a dream. And so he's going to come to you and give you a dream, like Joseph did.

And then when Joseph revealed what his dream was that God had given him, he experienced opposition from his brothers, and they sold him into slavery, and he had haters.

And so he had a setback. So when you talk about your dream, and you tell your friends and family what

God has told you, your dream destiny is you're going to have opposition, and people are going to hate you and your own family.

And so you need to not listen to them. Whatever you do, stop listening to them. And only surround yourself with people who are going to affirm you in your pursuit of pursuing

God's destiny. And then at the right time, like Joseph, you know, God exalted him to the highest, you know, office in the land, you too are going to be exalted at the proper time so that you can change the world or save the day or whatever.

And see, it's right there in the story of Joseph. It's right, and so this is your story too. But what they fail to recognize is that the story of Joseph is one of those stories in Scripture that in type and shadow prefigures

Jesus Christ, and His incarnation, His death, His resurrection, and exaltation.

It's all written large in type and shadow. It's all a prefiguring of Christ. When you think it's about you, you've turned yourself into a little

Christ, a little Messiah, and the sad part is is that you've turned yourself into a false

Christ and a false Messiah, and you've missed the whole point of that story altogether. Now how do we follow your guidance and counsel here, biblically driven of course, without falling into the trap or while preventing ourselves and our children and others from falling into the trap of not aiming any higher than mediocrity in our lives?

There are people that we all know, and some of those people may be ourselves, who have been given extraordinary gifts from God that are being wasted.

Now I'm giving a caveat here. I don't want anybody to be offended by what

I'm about to say because there is nothing wrong or there is nothing not noble and praiseworthy about being faithful to jobs such as being a janitor or anything like that, but there are people who are perhaps even more artistically talented than anybody whose works are hanging in the

Louvre or things like that. There may be people who have just such extraordinary gifts. Perhaps it's even teaching the scriptures that is their gift, and yet they are doing nothing but staying in jobs that have nothing to do with those gifts, like being a janitor or being something else where their gift is just totally being hidden under a bushel and being wasted.

How do you prevent that from happening while at the same time taking heed to your counsel and your teaching here today?

Okay, so the scenario you have set up is a fellow who has legitimately, he has gifts, and we do not deny that God gives gifts to Christians.

Scripture makes this so clear, and so the fellow has a teaching gift and he's not doing anything with it.

Well, the proper way to fix this problem is the right biblical doctrine regarding what it is that we are created in Christ Jesus to do, and I think the most basic text to look at at this is

Ephesians chapter 2. Now, we all know those verses 8 and 9 that says, "...for

by grace you have been saved through faith." And this is not a result of works so that no one may boast.

We know that, that salvation is a gift. This is that text that teaches salvation by grace through faith alone. Verse 10, though, is the key to understanding this, though.

"...for we are God's workmanship," verse 10 says, "...and we are created in Christ Jesus for good works."

And it goes on to say, "...which God has prepared in advance that we should walk in them."

So the idea here is that we are not created for a unique purpose or dream destiny.

We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. And if you look at the

Apostle Peter in his epistle on this, he says that we as Christians are to be zealous for good works, which then begs the question, what is a good work?

And a good summary text to go to in this case would be something like Colossians chapter 3, which is an abbreviated version of what we see in Ephesians chapter 5.

But Colossians 3, verse 18, says this, "...Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the

Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the

Lord. Fathers, don't provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." And listen to this, "...slaves,

obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service, as people -pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the

Lord. And whatever you do," verse 23, "...work heartily as for the

Lord, and not for men." So here's the idea. Scripture tells us what a good work is, and tells us that our good works are done in the vocation that God has placed us in.

And so that's going to start off with family as husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, and then moving out from there into the employee - employer relationship.

And so the idea then is that we're not created for a purpose, we're created for good works. And good works then can be done regardless of your age.

A good work can be done if you're a child, a good work can be done if you're an octogenarian.

The good works are done in our different vocations, and then we do all of our good works in our vocations, not for the purpose of promoting ourselves, but we do them all for the purpose of knowing that they are for Christ, they are unto

Him. He's our boss, not anybody else. So then that challenges us to be a great father, a great mother, an obedient son or daughter, or and to be an exceptional employer, employee, even if the thing that we are - the only employment we have is that of a slave.

You're going to note that the New Testament reveals that slaves even do their good works as slaves.

And this is not something - this is not an endorsement of slavery, but should you find yourself abducted by Muslim terrorists and sold on the slave market in Sudan, don't worry, you can do your good works.

Now be a great slave and be a slave unto Christ. And these are the good works that Christ has called us to.

And you'll note then that with this understanding that our good works are done unto the

Lord, and that we are to be zealous for good works, and they're done in the very ordinary things that we find ourselves in, we will then be dedicated to excelling in our good works, which will kind of create the momentum, if you would, for growth in the works that we do so that we become even better husbands and wives and fathers and mothers, and even better employees, which then kind of takes you to the next opportunities in your own growth.

And knowing this, that so if you start off in the mail room of some Fortune 500 company, and you are the best mailroom employee, that will oftentimes give you the platform then for the next promotion and raising up and going up higher and higher.

But all of the time, you're doing good works by being a great employee, regardless of your level in the organization, and by excelling at them and being zealous for your good works, knowing that all of these are pleasing to God, you will then experience growth, and rather than waste the potential and the gifts that God has given you, you'll then be able to kind of leverage those gifts and expand them and become even better at them and kind of move on to the next thing.

I'm going to read for you a question from Joe in Slovenia, and have you answer it when we return from our

Midway station break. And I've also just emailed you, I forwarded you

Joe's email with his question. And Joe's question is,

Dear Brothers Chris, thanks so much to two of my favorite polemicists for teaming up for the gospel.

I totally agree that we are not created for a purpose in the sense that the synergistic megachurch gurus masquerading as pastors teach.

However, we are created for biblical purposes, loving and serving God and neighbor, that result in multiple forms of daily ministry.

Would it be better to not flatly deny that we are created for a purpose, but rather created,

I'm sorry, but rather correctly define that purpose for which we are created biblically?

Love and respect you both, stay the course, and fight the good fight. That's Joe in Slovenia, and we will have you answer that question or respond to it when we return from the break.

And this is a longer break than our normal breaks, because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, 90 .1

FM requires that we have a 12 -minute break between our two hour segments, so we are complying with their requirements.

So please be patient with us, and send us an email with your own question to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We'll get to as many of you as we possibly can before the end of the program, God willing. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Chris Roseborough, right after these messages from our sponsor.

One sure way all Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers.

I know you all use batteries every day, so I'm urging you all from now on to exclusively use

BatteryDepot .com for all your battery needs. At BatteryDepot .com,

they're changing the status quo. They're flipping the script. They're sticking it to the man.

In other words, they'd like to change the battery industry for good by providing an extensive inventory of top -of -the -line batteries that are uniformly new, dependable, and affordable.

Ordering from BatteryDepot .com ensures you'll always get fresh, out -of -the -box batteries you can count on to work properly at competitive prices.

Whether you need batteries for cordless phones, cell phones, radios, PCs, laptops, tablets, baby monitors, hearing aids, smoke detectors, credit card readers, digital cameras, electronic cigarettes,

GPSs, MP3 players, watches, or nearly anything else you own that needs batteries, go to BatteryDepot .com.

Next day shipping available. All products protected by 30 -day guarantees and six -month warranties.

Call 866 -403 -3768. That's 866 -403 -3768.

Or go to BatteryDepot .com. That's BatteryDepot .com. Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus. We are rural and urban and we are always about the message of Jesus.

Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

For details call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333.

That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.

That's liyfc .org. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

Solid Rock Remodeling to our family of sponsors. Serving South Central Pennsylvania, Solid Rock Remodeling is focused on discovering, understanding, and exceeding your expectations.

They deliver personalized project solutions with exceptional results. Solid Rock Remodeling offers a full range of home renovations including kitchen and bath remodeling, decks, porches, windows and doors, roof and siding, and more.

For a clear detailed professional estimate, call this trustworthy team of problem solvers who provide superior results that stand the test of time.

Call Solid Rock Remodeling at 717 -697 -1981.

717 -697 -1981. Or visit solidrockremodeling .com.

That's solidrockremodeling .com. Solid Rock Remodeling, bringing new life to your home.

Have you been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio? We remain on the air because of our faithful sponsors and because of listeners like you.

There are four ways you can help. First, do you know potential sponsors who may wish to advertise their goods or services on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio?

Second, whenever possible, purchase the products or use the services that our sponsors advertise and then let them know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Thirdly, you can also donate to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio by going to our website at ironsharpensironradio .com

and click support at the top of the page. But most importantly, keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in your prayers.

We hope that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio blesses you for many years to come. Chef Exclusive Catering is in South Central Pennsylvania.

Chef Exclusive's goal is to provide a dining experience that is sure to please any palate. Chef Damian White of Chef Exclusive is a graduate of the renowned

Johnson and Wales University with a degree in Culinary Arts and Applied Science. Chef Exclusive Catering's event center is newly designed with elegance and style and is available for small office gatherings, bridal showers, engagement parties, and rehearsal dinners.

Critics and guests alike acknowledge Chef Exclusive's commitment to exceeding even the highest expectations.

I know of their quality firsthand since Chef Exclusive catered by most recent Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon.

For details, call 717 -388 -3000. That's 717 -388 -3000.

Or visit chefexclusive .com. That's chefexclusive .com.

Are you a Christian looking to align your faith in finances? Then you'll want to check out Thriving Financial.

We're not your typical financial services provider. We're a not -for -profit Fortune 500 organization that helps our nearly 2 .4

million members be wise with money. We provide guidance that reflects your values so you can protect what matters most.

We help members live generously and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship. Learn more about the thriving story by contacting me,

Mike Gallagher, Financial Consultant, at 717 -254 -6433.

Again, 717 -254 -6433. Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

That's the Thrivent story. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round

Bible conference and retreat center nestled on the Jersey Shore. Harvey Cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400.

For generations, Christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at Harvey Cedars. Each year, thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about God's Word.

An additional 9 ,000 come annually to Harvey Cedars as families, couples, singles, men, women, pastors, seniors, and missionaries.

90 miles from New York City, 70 miles from Philly, and 95 miles from Wilmington, and easily accessible, scores of notable

Christian groups frequently plan conferences at Harvey Cedars, like the Navigators, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade, and the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Find Harvey Cedars on Facebook or at hcbible .org.

hcbible .org. Call 609 -494 -5689.

609 -494 -5689. Harvey Cedars, where Christ finds people and changes lives.

Charles Hedden's virgin once said, give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered,

Christ -exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And please remember solid -ground -books .com

when you're doing your holiday shopping as well. Solid -ground -books .com, they need to recover from a sales slump that they entered into after they relocated from Alabama to Florida, so I'm asking you please to patronize solid -ground -books .com

when you're doing your holiday shopping. In fact, as I've said to you before, you can order titles published by Solid Ground Christian Books from my other sponsors, cvbbs .com.

cvbbs .com is only a book distributor, they are not a publisher, whereas Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher.

So you can go to solid -ground -books .com, make a list of everything that you want to order from them, and if you want to order them from cvbbs .com,

you can take that list and go to cvbbs .com and place your order, and that way you kill two birds with one stone, and you're able to reach that $50 or more goal, so you could get

Timothy George's book free, that book, The Theology of the

Reformers that we mentioned earlier, that's a $29 .99 book. So please help

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio's advertisers, because when you help them, you help us remain on the air, since they are making this program possible through their own hard -earned advertising dollars that they spend with us.

But before we return to Chris Roseborough, just have a couple of quick announcements in regard to special events that our listeners, or should

I say that our sponsors are having. First of all, my very good friend Marcus A.

McKnight III, attorney at law, who is also a former elder at the church where I am currently a member,

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle. Marcus McKnight III is now a member at the

West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, but he is a very biblically literate man and a very passionate speaker, and he is going to be speaking on Joseph, the

Quiet Hero of Christmas on Friday, December 8th, and this event begins at 1130 a .m.

and then lunch is served. The whole event will last no later than 1 p .m.

It's being held at the Comfort Suites of downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania. If you mention

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, your registration is free. That includes your lunch and everything. The recommended donation normally is $20, but if you mention

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you get in for free, you eat for free, you fellowship for free. It's all free of charge by mentioning

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you want to register, call 717 -395 -5854.

717 -395 -5854. Then coming up in January, from the 17th through the 20th, the

G3 Conference returns to Atlanta, Georgia. The G3 standing for Grace, Gospel, and Glory. The theme this

January is Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. The 17th is exclusively a

Spanish -speaking edition of the event, and the 18th through the 20th will be exclusively in the

English language, and the speakers at the English edition include Stephen Lawson, Bodie Balcombe, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

If you want to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and please, whenever you go to any of these events, or if you're just contacting the organizations running them, tell them that you heard about those events from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Last but not least, we are in urgent need of your donations if you want this program to remain on the air.

We are, and have been, facing the worst financial times in our history over the last year, and we really need more of you to come to the rescue with not only donations, but commitments to donate regularly, and I thank

God that the stream that nearly evaporated a month or so ago is starting to flow again, and I am getting a small steady stream of gifts from you in the audience that I can't even describe in the

English language how thankful to God I am for you. Your generosity touches me in ways that I can't describe, and I thank you so much, and I know that some of you are even donating regularly, and I just appreciate you so much, and we need these gifts to remain on the air, and as I try to remember to remind you, never ever ever siphon money out of your regular giving to the church where you are a member.

If you're not a member of a local church or prayerfully seeking to find one, you're living in disobedience to God. You, in order to be a faithful Christian, must be under the eldership of a local faithful Bible -believing church, so if you don't have one, find one, and if you are giving to that church, which you should be if you're going to be obedient to God, please don't siphon money out of your regular giving to that church, and don't siphon money out of your own family's meal budget if you're struggling to survive.

I don't want anybody taking food off of their family's dinner table because they are donating to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Providing for your family and your church are two commands of God. Providing for Iron Trip and Zion Radio is not, but if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to financially provide for your family and church, please consider

Iron Trip and Zion Radio in your monthly giving, and please pray for us more than anything.

If you would like to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is that you want to advertise is compatible with the theology we express here, we would love to launch an ad campaign with you because we could surely need or you surely use the advertising dollars from those ad campaigns.

So if it's your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your professional practice, whether you're a lawyer, a doctor, a chiropractor, a dentist, if it's just a special event you're having, as long as whatever it is your advertising is compatible with Iron Trip and Zion's theology, not exactly identical, it doesn't have to be exactly identical, it just needs to be compatible, it can't militate against what we believe.

And we would love to hear from you at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line.

Well we are now back with our guest Chris Roseborough, who is the pastor of the

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, I was going to say Oslo, Norway, Oslo, Minnesota, and he's also the founder and director of Pirate Christian Radio and host of the

Fighting for the Faith program. And we are discussing today, God did not create you for a purpose or a dream destiny.

And before the break I read to you a question, which you should have in front of you, but from Joe in Slovenia, who says,

I totally agree that we were not created for a purpose in the sense that these synergistic mega -church gurus masquerading as pastors teach.

However, we are created for biblical purposes, loving and serving God and neighbor, that result in multiple forms of daily ministry.

Would it be better to not flatly deny that we are created for a purpose, but rather correctly define that purpose for which we are created biblically?

All right, so great question from Joe in Slovenia, and I'm not trying to split hair.

That being said, we have to pay close attention to something, and that is in his question, he asked, are we not created for biblical purposes, plural.

And the title of our discussion is that God has not created you for a purpose, and a purpose is singular.

I have no problem if somebody says that God has created each and every one of us for the purpose says, plural, of God.

Or as Ephesians says, that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural.

So the idea here is that it might seem like we're splitting hairs, but the reality is that when you believe that God has created you for a specific, unique purpose, singular, you've got a problem because what happens if you achieve that purpose?

You know, do you not have any good works left to do? No, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, and we can say that we are created for the purpose says, plural, of God, but we're not created for some unique dream destiny thing.

For instance, coming back to the Virgin Mary, we can literally say that God called her and used her in a very powerful and mighty way.

Was that the only good work that Mary did in all of her life? She was married to Joseph, so she still had good works to do as the mother of Jesus.

She had good works to do as the mother of her other children. She had good works to do within the community of people in Nazareth.

She had good works to do as a wife to Joseph. And so, you can sit there and say that one of her good works was that she was the

Virgin who gave birth to our Lord and Savior, but she still had many other good works and other purposes for which she was called into existence, and she fulfilled them throughout her entire life.

She did her good work and fulfilled the purposes of God when she was still a little girl, and she was obedient to her parents and, you know, obeyed the commandment to honor her father and mother.

She was still doing good works when she was faithful, uh, you know, and was faithful to her husband and wasn't sexually immoral and didn't commit adultery, but was faithful to Joseph.

She was doing her good works. And so, the idea here is that when we talk about not being created for a purpose, that is a singular idea, and it's a dangerous idea that it basically is a counterfeit idea of what sanctification is and what

God has called us to do. We are called to the purposes of God, and God has created us in Christ Jesus for good works, which then, there isn't a day that goes by in your life when you're not, you are not called to do good works.

The good work may be to pray for somebody, and I think back to, uh, when

I was early on in my pastoral ministry, called to attend to a lady who was dying.

She was literally heading towards her death, and I would visit her often in the, uh, in the hospital, and I remember in one of the visits, she said to me, oh, pastor,

I just feel so worthless. I, I, I'm not getting any better.

I'm clearly going to be dying soon, and you know, and I just feel like I, you know,

I've got nothing to contribute anymore. And I literally looked at her, and I said, that's ridiculous.

I said, you've been into the vocation of patience. And so, for you, uh, that your good works are done now as a patient, and being a good one, because other people are caring for you, and doing their good works for you, that you, that is, that's still a good work.

And as a patient, you still have the ability to pray for other people. You may not be physically able to go out and serve them, but you can serve them by lifting them up in prayer to our

God. And when she realized that, it, it helped her, even as she was heading towards her death, to continue to do good works, and believe that even though she was bedridden and on her deathbed, that she was still fulfilling the purposes of God in doing good works, even though they had taken on a very limited form as she was heading towards the grave.

Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia. Keep listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and spreading the word about our program in Slovenia and beyond.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and she says, well,

I'm assuming that B .B. is a she. I never really found out for certain. B .B. Warfield was a man.

But B .B. says, is it true, in your opinion, that the, hold on a second,

I'm getting a phone call on my cell phone. It might be B .B. Is it true that the feminist movement has been driven largely by things that you are talking about today, meaning the dream destiny idea, even if it may be a secularized version of it, where women are not content with being wives and mothers, but seem to have to go outside the home to fulfill some kind of larger dream and purpose in life?

Oh, man, this is a great question, and the answer is yes. Like, yes, with like three exclamation points after it, and yes, all in capital letters.

And I would say that, unfortunately, we train our daughters this way if we allow them to watch movies like the

Barbie movie or something like that. And, you know, the Barbie movie is all about following the dream in your heart and following your heart and becoming this, you know, a woman of influence and affluence and stuff like that.

And feminism definitely, it denigrates and basically hates the idea of a woman faithfully remaining a stay -at -home mom and being a good wife and mother.

And it despises these ideas, and unfortunately, there are a lot of women who are Christians who feel guilt when they make the decision to stay home and raise their children and be good wives and mothers.

But the reality of the situation is that Scripture is so clear on this, is that staying at home and being a great mom and a great mother and a great wife, these are good works, these are precious in God's sight.

And so I would tell anybody who's listened to the lies of the feminists and this idea that you've got to somehow sacrifice your children on the altar of your purpose or dream destiny, that's not, that message is not coming from Christ.

That's coming from the devil. God's Word is so clear on this, that when you change a diaper, when you basically take a

Kleenex and wipe the snot off your child's nose, you help them with their homework, that you cook a meal for them, that these are all good works, and you are fulfilling the purposes of God in doing that.

Now, this is not to say that if a woman is in a situation where she's gone into the workforce that somehow she's not doing good in that matter.

That may not necessarily be the case. We have Lydia, the seller of purple, who apparently was buying and selling property and doing all kinds of things.

Exactly. So the idea is, and we have great examples like the Proverbs 31 woman, which a lot of women nowadays feel intimidated by her.

I mean, this is a woman who clearly knew how to operate in the marketplace and had her own little side business that she was running.

The idea then is that if your career requires you to sacrifice the well -being of your children so that your vocation as employee now is making it so that your vocation as mom has to take a back seat and you're no longer being good mom, then we've got a question of priorities because you're mom first.

And so that might require you to rearrange things. And granted, there are women and men.

This is not just a woman thing. There are men who sacrifice their families on the altar of their upwardly mobile, moving career and influence and affluence.

That's wicked and evil. And so the idea then is that you have to recognize that the scripture is clear.

What God has joined together, let no man tear us apart. That when you are married, that you are put in the vocation of husband or wife, and that is the vocation that God has put you in.

And therefore being a good husband, a great husband, a great wife is a godly thing.

And you don't sacrifice that vocation for your own sanity or your own influence or affluence or power or whatever.

And so you're always going to have to make judgment calls in those things. But remember, your good works are then done in your vocation.

And so you don't despise them or belittle them, because scripture is very clear that our good works done in these vocations are precious in the sight of God.

Amen. And I think I just combined Lydia and the Proverbs 31 woman into one person, but I'm sure that Lydia fit that larger description in some way.

Well, thank you, Bibi. Keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio here in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and beyond.

We have an anonymous listener, and I think I see right now why the person remains anonymous.

The person who is anonymous is asking, right up front, I want to make it clear to everyone listening that I am in no way, shape, or form a racist.

But when I have seen lately some programs that have televised special events primarily for African American women, and I hear them repeating a chant that they are queens and things like this, it disturbs me.

It seems like it is doing nothing more than elevating the pride in human beings.

Does this kind of behavior actually benefit people? And is it appropriate in light of the fact that Blacks as a race have experienced great hardship in this country?

The hardship that many of us outside of the African American community have not ever tasted.

But at the same time, it still seems a bit much to be chanting over and over again that you are a queen.

I cannot think of a valid reason why I would ever chant that I'm a king, regardless of the color of my skin.

But what you're describing here is something that you may have seen in a cultural context where it was taking place in an

African American church or a context like that. Let's make this clear. I've seen examples of what you're describing take place in churches that are predominantly white.

I've also seen it take place in churches that are predominantly people of color.

It doesn't matter. The problem is still the same. What you're describing is a narcissistic form of decreeing and declaring and proclaiming things about yourself that we are not called to do in Scripture.

Now, I'll kind of draw the circle closed in this way. And that is that Scripture teaches that in the last day, that part of the great apostasy was that people would believe in and proclaim and teach, within the church, doctrines of demons.

And I cannot think of a more demonic type of doctrine than one that would have me decreeing and declaring about myself that I am some type of royalty.

And to kind of give you an example of why I would say that would be a demonic doctrine, I would point somebody to a passage like Isaiah chapter 14.

And in Isaiah chapter 14, we have an actual picture of the primary problem with the devil himself.

And listen carefully to what this says. Isaiah 14, starting at verse 12,

O how you have fallen from heaven, O day -star son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid low the nations!

You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God.

I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north.

And I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. And I will make myself like the most high.

But you are brought down to Sheol, to the farthest reaches of the pit. And so there you see the heart of demonic doctrine.

The heart of demonic doctrine like the devil exalts itself.

Scripture is so clear on this. And Jesus, one of his common refrains was this.

The one who exalts himself will be humbled. The one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Christianity does not teach you to decree and declare of yourself that I am royalty.

I am a prince. I am a king. I am a queen. No. Scripture teaches you to say,

I am a sinner. Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. And it is

God who exalts, not ourselves. And decreeing and declaring about yourself that you are something like that could not be more like the devil if you tried.

Well, we are going to our break right now, our final break. It's going to be much briefer than the last one.

And by the way, I have one word for our anonymous listener, chicken. I'm only kidding.

But we're going, I'm only kidding, you know that. I'm going to our final break right now. And if you have any questions that you'd like to ask,

I would send them in immediately because we're running out of time and we already have several people waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

So if you want to get in line, send that email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA. God willing, we will be right back after these messages.

So do not go away. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the

London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect

Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostle's priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org,

that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. From now on to exclusively use

BatteryDepot .com for all your battery needs. At BatteryDepot .com,

they're changing the status quo. They're flipping the script. They're sticking it to the man. In other words, they'd like to change the battery industry for good by providing an extensive inventory of top of the line batteries that are uniformly new, dependable, and affordable.

Ordering from BatteryDepot .com ensures you'll always get fresh out -of -the -box batteries you can count on to work properly at competitive prices.

Whether you need batteries for cordless phones, cell phones, radios, PCs, laptops, tablets, baby monitors, hearing aids, smoke detectors, credit card readers, digital cameras, electronic cigarettes,

GPSs, MP3 players, watches, or nearly anything else you own that needs batteries, go to BatteryDepot .com.

Next day shipping available. All products protected by 30 -day guarantees and six -month warranties.

Call 866 -403 -3768. That's 866 -403 -3768.

Or go to BatteryDepot .com. That's BatteryDepot .com. Have you been blessed by Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio?

We remain on the air because of our faithful sponsors and because of listeners like you. There are four ways you can help.

First, do you know potential sponsors who may wish to advertise their goods or services on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio?

Second, whenever possible, purchase the products or use the services that our sponsors advertise and then let them know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

Thirdly, you can also donate to Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio by going to our website at ironsharpensironradio .com

and click support at the top of the page. But most importantly, keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio in your prayers.

We hope that Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio blesses you for many years to come. Lynbrook Baptist Church on 225

Earl Avenue in Lynbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

Call Lynbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit lynbrookbaptist .org. That's lynbrookbaptist .org. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio.

www .wlie540am .com.

We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, this is our final 25 minutes of programming today with our guest,

Chris Rosebro, who is pastor of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota, and he runs

Pirate Christian Radio and hosts Fighting for the Faith. We are discussing the theme,

God Did Not Create You for a Purpose or a Dream Destiny. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c h r i s a r n z e n at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter. We have

John in Bangor, Maine, who wants to know, it seems that you are indicating this dream destiny idea is isolated to the word of faith charismatic movement, but isn't this a much bigger phenomenon that is restricted to people who are actually receiving divine revelation and extra biblical knowledge, according to their own imagination, of course?

Okay, so this, unfortunately, the belief that you can receive direct revelation from God is not limited to those churches that are overtly

Pentecostal or charismatic. You can say that charismatic and Pentecostal influences have crept into the mainstream of American evangelicalism, and that this false doctrine regarding purpose is one of the results of it, and it does require one to believe that they hear directly from God.

And you've got to remember that some of the main purveyors of this doctrine historically over the past decade have been none other than men like Rick Warren and Bill Heigl.

Nobody would say that Rick Warren is a Pentecostal or a charismatic. No one,

I don't know of anybody who says, oh yeah, Rick Warren, he speaks in tongues and believes in the second baptism of the

Holy Spirit. I'm still trying to figure out if Rick Warren is an evangelical or a Roman Catholic these days.

Yeah, he's a chameleon. I remember a good friend of mine, Bob DeWay, used to describe him as chameleonic.

You know, this fellow, he'll take on whatever color of the wallpaper that he's currently standing on.

So if he's in a Roman Catholic church, he somehow chameleonically changes color and becomes strangely

Roman Catholic. Perfect description, perfect description. So Rick Warren, he's one of these fellows who teaches that you need to hear directly from God and that God will reveal to you what your unique purpose is.

And so you'll note then that the question from the listener was that, are they not hearing like the own deceptions of their heart?

The answer is yes. The source of this belief that you're, you know, I've heard the voice of God and that he's told me that I'm going to be an opera singer.

That's not God speaking to you. That's either some undigested piece of pizza from the night before.

I'm just saying, you know, I had some of the weirdest dreams after I had pizza with anchovies. But, you know, is that your own weird things going on inside of your heart, or it's the demonic?

But the one thing we can rule out definitively is that it's not God telling you this, because nowhere in Scripture are we told that we have a unique purpose that we've got to fulfill and that God will reveal it to us directly.

Now, interesting to note that a doctrine that is akin to this,

I would say is probably a sister doctrine, is the doctrine known as vision casting.

And so seeker -driven vision casting leaders, you know, men in the past like Terry Noble and others, they have taught that somebody, a pastor is going to receive a vision from God for how he wants them to do church in a specific context or community or location.

And then his job is to then receive that vision from God and then cast it to his leadership team.

And so you'll note that along with the kind of the evangelical megachurches, they oftentimes will say that we have a unique vision to do church for the unchurched, or to do church in this way, in this context, or whatever.

And that also requires a direct revelation from God, at least that's the claim.

And it's similar to a unique purpose, except for rather than a purpose for an individual, it then becomes a unique vision or purpose for a particular congregation.

And both of them are equally false. Nowhere in Scripture are we taught to expect or anything akin to that, either on a community level or church level, or even on an individual level.

Both of them are like the same doctrine but applied differently to either an individual or a group.

We have, let's see, we have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. And Christopher says,

I heard you disparagingly speak of the idea of people calling themselves kings and queens.

And I would largely agree with your statements. However, is it not very appropriate for one to, in an affectionate way, refer to their own wife, for instance, as a queen and his daughter as a princess?

And not only as an affectionate nickname, but with some truth behind it, as in this woman being referred to as a queen, meaning the wife is the queen of her household, and that she is unique among all other women in regard to this specific man, and that she is superior to all other women according to this specific man and husband.

And the same would go for the daughter being called a princess, that no matter what anybody says on this earth that may be mean -spirited or disparaging to that young girl, that she is always her father's princess.

Aren't these completely acceptable terms and approaches to your own wife and daughter?

I will say, I'll grant the premise, and you'll note then it's going to come down to how is it being used.

I'll give you an example. A spoiled, rotten little girl who's been, you know, since she was three years old has been dressed up as a princess, as Disney princess, has received from her father everything that she's ever wanted, and he always refers to her as my little princess, and now when she turns 16, she says to her father,

Dad, I expect you to give me a femur, and I am not happy,

I would like a boob job as well. You can sit there and say, yes, she's a princess, but we all know that when we use the word princess in that context, for that type of person, we're talking about a spoiled, entitled brat who is going to be quite the handful for the rest of her life, and that's a child who has not been raised as a

Christian. But if you have a term of endearment, and you are teaching your child to humble themselves before the

Lord, to teach them to do their good works in love and service towards neighbor, and you lovingly say of your daughter, my girl, you are my princess, you will always be my princess, that is a term of endearment, and doesn't have along with it this satanic, selfish identity, but is more along the lines of saying that, you know,

I love you, and so it becomes, you know, it becomes your term. In that case, you can say, using that in that context is not wrong.

So, going back then to the original question regarding the Queen, I know exactly the type of context that, you know,

I've seen these types of church services online and in person, you know, where you have people declaring of themselves that they are royalty and kings and princes and queens and stuff like that.

That is not... There's no context in which that is okay. And so, you're right, you have to make distinctions, but, you know, it's kind of sad that we now live in a day where, you know, this isn't that obvious, and we've got to be very careful.

The question is, is this feeding my ego, or is this a term of endearment and love?

And if it's feeding my ego and basically, like the devil, having me exalt myself and think more of myself than I ought, then we are to reject that use of the term.

And generally, I can tell you right now, my wife doesn't call me a king. Just saying.

But I have no problem in saying, yes, she's the queen of the house, and when she says something needs to be done,

I say, yes, ma 'am, and get to it. Well, you know, a

Rodney Dangerfield joke just popped into my head, where Rodney Dangerfield said, my wife cooks meals fit for a king.

Here, king! Here, king! But anyway, all complaints about Chris's reference to a certain plastic surgery should be sent to Chris Rosebro, care of Pirate Christian Radio, Oslo, Minnesota.

Going back to something that we hinted at before, or I hinted at before, and had you respond to it,

I want to make it clear to our audience, and I think that you would agree, that if we have been given a gift, a talent, an ability from God, that we should not have a vision of our future where we strive for excellence, where we might even believe, if I train at this hard enough, and if I practice long enough, and I pour my sweat and tears into this, and prayerfully pursue using this talent for the glory of God, I may actually be one of the finest representatives of this specific field in the world, and somebody that pops into my head is

Eric Little of Chariots of Fire fame, the actual true historic figure who was a

Christian Olympic athlete, and he had, combined with this view, because he knew that God made him a great runner, he also had an extraordinary sense of humility, or a genuine humility about him, and so on, so he wasn't like an arrogant snob as were some of the other competitors in that Olympic game that he was involved in, but if you could respond to what

I just said. Okay, sure. The idea is that God does uniquely gift us.

I mean, you look at somebody, you know, go back in time, and I remember growing up watching

Michael Jordan, I mean, and what he did with the basketball was just amazing, and it's legendary, and so the idea is that if you have that type of ability, that you do have,

I would almost say, an obligation to use that gift for the glory of God, and this is where it gets...you've

got to be careful, because remember in Scripture, where it talks about the gifts that God has given, that all of them are for other people.

You have to think of a good work in this sense. A good metaphor is to look at an apple tree.

An apple tree was made for the purpose of making apples, and so an apple is fulfilling the purposes of God when that fruit is feeding other people, so the idea then is that when

God gifts us, He doesn't gift us for ourselves. He gifts us to serve other people, and so the idea then is, how do you use this gift that you have?

Maybe you have the ability to teach very well. Well, teaching as a gift is one that, you know, you have natural talent and proclivity towards, and you can still improve it and make it better, but ultimately the question is, how do

I use this gift for the sake of my neighbor, for other people? And that's the idea, is that these gifts and our good works are not done for ourselves.

They're done for the benefit and help and building up of others, and so our good works are for other people, not for ourselves, and so the idea then is that the gifts that God has given you, the things that you're naturally good at, excel in them for the purpose of helping other people.

For instance, I mean, people have told me for many, many decades that I have a teaching gift, and this is one that I put to use for the benefit of other people.

I do not have an accounting gift. I stink at accounting and math and things like that, and no matter how much

I would apply myself to it, I would never be able to serve anybody well as an accountant. It's just not in my skill set, and that's okay, so if there's one thing that you are great at and another that you're just not good at, that is kind of a key to then, okay,

I can serve people in these ways very well, and these other people, I can't serve anybody in these other ways because I'm just not wired in that sense, so the idea is that use your talents for other people in good works towards your neighbor.

That's the idea, to serve them with what you're good at and don't serve them with what you're not good at.

And of course, since pride is one of the most evil sins that one can possess, we have to be very careful, no matter how good we are at something, not to let that puff ourselves up and have a superiority complex, because that will be our downfall if we allow that praise and glory that we are receiving on earth from people who admire us for some reason, not that I ever experienced this, but that other people who are truly gifted at things, it could ruin your life eventually, especially in eternity.

Indeed, indeed, because then your good works are no longer good works, they're evil works. When you do it for yourself in your own glory, you're not helping anybody but yourself, and those cease to be good works, and those are turning to literally works of evil, and God doesn't reward those works of evil,

God punishes. Uh, let's see, we have

Robert in Westchester, New York, who wants to know, can you define the difference between self -esteem and appropriate self -value, where one is puffed up with pride, and on the other hand, one is just recognizing abilities, gifts, and talents that the

Lord has given them? Okay, so this is going to come down to, I'm going to use a phrase that a lot of people talk about it, and it has to do with our identity.

Self -esteem is a really nasty thing, and I don't know how to rescue the concept.

In fact, how it's been taught in the past, and I think about Robert Shuler, you know, he was the big purveyor of this idea of self -esteem.

And Norman Vincent Peale, who was his mentor. Yep, and these are fellows who ultimately could not confess and agree with what

Scripture says, that we are all born dead and trespassingly sinned, and that we are by nature objects of God's wrath.

So in order to rightly understand a correct Biblical anthropology, it must begin with a fall, and recognize that we are not by nature good, that we are ungodly and evil, and in need of a

Savior. And so then, as Christians, we find our identity in Christ.

You know, so we are united with Christ in His death and His resurrection, and our identity is in Him.

And you'll note that when we're baptized, God's name is put on us. We are baptized in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So the idea then is that I find my worth in Christ.

And that being the case, you know, I am a penitent sinner.

I am a forgiven sinner, first and foremost. My identity is in Christ, and I still have a sinful nature, and so daily,

I am a repentant sinner. And I pray to God, you know, on a daily basis, forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.

So everything is done from a humble service point of view, believing then that even the good works that I do, even though they're tainted by sin, that Christ sees them as precious and rewards them.

And so the idea then is, I think a good way to get out of the self -esteem trap and all this kind of stuff, is stop thinking about you in the first place.

Listen, you do your good works for other people, and if the trick really comes down to it being satisfied that you are in Christ, your identity is in Him, that He has redeemed you and purchased you, a lost sinful being, and that He has created you in Christ Jesus for good works.

So focus on the other people. Wake up in your morning, read your

Bible, pray, and then go to work, and focus on who needs your help, and how you, with the gifts that you have to serve other people, pour yourself out like a drink offering, or as Roman says, to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice.

Sacrifice not for your sins, but sacrifice for the sake of your neighbor. And when you're done with that, and you're exhausted, and you fall asleep in your bed, be refreshed, and wake up, and then do it again.

And keeping your eyes focused on who needs your help, rather than on yourself. And I think

Christ will kind of work out what's your worth in all of this, because then your worth shows up as, you know, being in Christ serving other people.

That's where you're going to find your worth, and it's at the bottom, not at the top. This is why we're admonished in Philippians 2 to consider others as better than ourselves.

This is what we do because of the cross and our identity in Christ. Now don't you think that most of the time, if not all of the time, when someone has some kind of a self -loathing complex, they are the exact opposite of a product of the self -esteem movement.

They are somebody consumed with morbid introspection. They hate themselves.

They perhaps are even suicidal. That this is not really someone who truly hates themselves.

They are someone who is self -absorbed and are just not satisfied with the outcome of the lot that they have been given in life.

Am I overstepping my bounds here by saying that? No, I think you're absolutely right.

It's akin to, have you ever noticed that atheists are the ones who seem to be the most obsessed with God?

That's right. You know, in a similar way, the one who loathes himself, the problem is the person he's thinking about the most is himself, okay?

It's just that his thoughts about himself are steering into the negative and the dark, whereas the person who is really arrogant and loves himself and looks himself in the mirror and goes, oh, you are just the bee's knees, you are the head and not the tail, and kind of Joel Osteen style, that person is also self -obsessed, but in a positive way, but the problem still is the self -obsession.

Christ frees us from that so that we can focus on our neighbor, not ourselves.

I mean, there's something wonderfully glorious about becoming self -forgetful in doing your good works for your neighbor, because at the end of the day, the last person you thought about is yourself, which is kind of the point.

Amen. And there is, it is definitely a minority voice today, but there is a concept of our worthlessness that exists in the preaching and teaching and writings and evangelism of a tiny segment of Christians, and perhaps

I should be open about it, that it probably is usually someone who is more of a hyper -Calvinistic type of an individual.

I don't know if this type of thing would be in existence in Lutheranism, but there is truths that are brought to extremes and twisted where mankind is being described as really walking excrement, and that we are worthless.

Now, if you were to take that to its logical conclusion, abortion wouldn't even be a sin or wouldn't be a wrong thing to do if we were just garbage.

And Jesus Christ didn't die for garbage, but we have to balance the fact that we are indeed helpless and hopeless and damned without the mercy and grace and blood of Christ, but at the same time, the overboard description of just being human excrement, if you will, for lack of a better term, that is not a biblical understanding of man, is it?

No, in fact it almost borders on the Gnostic view of matter being evil.

We must remember that prior to the Fall, that our first parents were made in the image of God, and God said it is very good.

Now, after the Fall, our natures have been corrupted, but it is still

God who creates us, and Scripture is so clear that it is God Himself who knits us together within our mother's womb.

And so, you know, so when we talk about worthlessness, that's taking things to an extreme that denies that the creation itself is good, and that even though we are marred by sin and that we experience total depravity as a result of original sin, but still,

God is in the process of, because of His great love for us, that He has bled and died for our sin, and it is in the process of restoring us and remaking us, and ultimately we will be remade and and, you know, resurrected in the new creation.

And so, I think it is best to not get into speculations regarding worthlessness and stuff like that, because I don't even know how to work in a category like that, because I don't know any biblical texts that say that.

So I would instead point to that we were originally created in the image of God. Christ is restoring that image in us through our sanctification and ultimately through the glorification of man after the resurrection.

And in the meantime, I would point back to the very cost of us being saved, being the blood of Christ, which nobody can even begin to put a monetary value on.

That's the very price that was paid in order to ransom us from slavery to sin and the devil, and that's quite a steep price to pay.

That doesn't sound like worthlessness to me. And the only thing that we know of for certain that is worthless is our deeds when we hold them up to God as something meritorious to gain favor with Him.

Indeed, indeed. No, we do all of our good works because we are already saved, not in order to be saved or to be forgiven.

Amen. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the necessary contact information to get a hold of you.

First of all, your website for the Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota is kongsvingerchurch .org,

K -O -N -G -S -V as in victory, I -N -G -E -R church .org.

And then the website for Pirate Christian Radio is piratechristian .com.

Piratechristian .com and specifically for your program, Fighting for the Faith, it's piratechristian .com

forward slash fightingforthefaith. That's piratechristian .com forward slash fightingforthefaith.

Do you have any other contact information that you care to give? No, that's pretty much exhausted all.

Yep. Great. Well, if you could just leave our listeners with about a minute's worth of summary that you most want etched in our hearts and minds today.

Sure. The idea is this, is because we are forgiven and regenerated and in Christ, God has called us to have something even greater than some unique purpose or dream destiny.

Instead, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which serve the purposes of God, notice the plurals.

And so the great news now is that because you are redeemed and in Christ, you are set free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil.

You are now set free to serve others in good works and so much greater than pursuing some unique world changing destiny, which means that even right now, things that you have done even this day are the very good works that Christ has created you to do, and he himself will reward them.

So excel at them and be zealous in your good works and serving others because you are saved, you are redeemed, and this is what redeemed and saved and regenerate people do.

Well, thank you so much, Chris Roseboro. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in today. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.