Audio Transcript: Rebecca Pippert on Grace

Announcer - I first met Becky Pippert and her husband Wes back a number of  years ago, at a very important event down in Fort Lauderdale InterVarsity  Christian Fellowship every year has the Fort Lauderdale event. And if you don't  know about that you should go to the end of the assembly hall and talk to our  colleagues there about that great opportunity to go to the beach, and to witness  for Jesus Christ of people who would like to hear many of them and Becky was  there teaching us about evangelism because she is an evangelist. Many of you  know that Becky is written out of the salt shaker that has sold some 400,000  copies so far. But that was a thrilling evening. That night is my wife, Lois, and  Becky and Wes, we walked up and down the strip and we went around among  these young people. We sat around a pool one evening, and pray together talk  together. God has given Becky a great concern not only for evangelism, but  concerning our own personal relationship for Jesus Christ. Many of you might  know that West has been a UPI, person, correspondent been in Israel served at  the White House. And Becky has backed him up. Probably the most wonderful  thing about them is they're lovely to children. Like you, Becky Pippert is going to  come and share with us, evangelism, the heart of missions, Becky.  

Rebecca Rippert - Thank you very much. I really appreciated the discernment of saying that the best thing about me is my children. That is absolutely true. This  is my hometown. And this is not only my hometown, this is my alma mater, I did  

graduate work at the University of Illinois. I am also sure that I'm the only  speaker who has addressed you, who has a grandmother and a father, and a  brother and a sister and next door neighbors who are all here, right now. And  people ask me so frequently, what is it? How did you get where you are what  shaped you and I have often said several things about my family. But one thing I would like to say before you and that is I have a father, who always made me  feel that I could do it, that even the attempt was the most important thing. And  for a woman that's a very important kind of encouragement. I have an 85 year  old grandmother who did the most she loved me. I'm wondering if they could  stand and we could thank them for all they've done for me. I hope you love your  family as much as I love mine. I have been traveling and speaking and one of  the things that always amuses me as I travel and speak is how people respond  when I tell them what I do for a living. Usually they don't believe me. And I was  flying from New York to California and I sat down next to this guy who was your  absolutely quintessential Southern California type. He had the obligatory gold  chains, you know, the open collar everything but the feathers. You know what I  mean? I don't know what this guy was smoking, but he was in a word mellow.  And we were talking and all of a sudden he said, Hey, what do you do for a  living? And I said, I'm in Christian work. And he said, Hey, that's cool. He said, I  wouldn't hold it against you. I said, How thoughtful. I appreciate that a little bit  later. I'm flying back from California to New York and I'm sitting down next to 

your quintessential New Yorker, intense. I was hanging on by my fingertips in  this conversation. And he said, What do you do for a living? I said, I'm in  Christian work. He said, That's impossible. I said why? He said you look normal. Little bit after that. I was flying into Lubbock, Texas. Yeah. I don't know if you  remember that song by Mack Davis called happiness is Lubbock, Texas in a  rearview mirror. I didn't write the song. Anyway, I'm on this little commuter plane  and I'm sitting next to this woman. And there was only about six people on the  plane. Five of them were obviously East Coast types with their Wall Street  Journal's and their briefcases and I'm sitting next to this woman from Lubbock.  And she says, What do you do for a living? And I said, I'm in Christian work, and she said, Oh, honey, that's sweet. She said that is the sweetest thing. She said,  you stay here right now. Like I'm not really planning to get off the plane. And she turns this is absolutely true. She turns to all of the fellow New Yorkers reading  their Wall Street Journal's. And she said, this little girl over here works for Jesus. Everybody Everybody put down their Wall Street Journal's everyone looked over at me and I said, Well, what can I say it's a living, you know. However, I am  wondering if you are hearing what I am hearing, and that is, as I listen to the  questions, as I meet people, and I hear the question behind the question, I really wonder if you have the same kind of question asked of you when you go back  on campus? You know, the question I really hear, what difference does it make  to believe in God? Does it really make a difference? My husband had a  fellowship at Harvard, and I was with him taking classes at Harvard, and one of  the faculty there said, Becky, I want to tell you something. I admire your faith. I  really do. But I want to ask you a question. Do you really think it makes a  difference to believe in God? He said, Becky, Isn't life pretty much the same for  all of us? Don't all of us really want to be loved? We want to be a part. We don't  want to be left out. Whether we believe in God or not. He said, Isn't life difficult  for all of us? I don't think cancer cells ask before entering a body Excuse me,  are you a praying man? He said I don't. Don't you the way we try to raise our  children to go right and yet some go wrong and leave us brokenhearted? He  said don't most of us have conflict between morality and desire. Isn't life pretty  much the same? He's and don't you fail morally, as we do. He said maybe  Christians do better in some areas than others. But what about pride and  hypocrisy and racism? Does it really make a difference? Furthermore, there's  been a lot of discussion these days about our need for mentors. The idea is that  we need to see qualities that we admire emulated through people we see who  were the mentors for the graduating class of 1987. In business, it was Ivan  Boesky. In politics, it was Gary Hart and in religion, it was Jim Baker. Now that's  pretty sobering. Even more sobering, is that two of these three men came from  strong, evangelical roots. Two of these three men at some point in their life  proclaimed a deep faith in God. But when push came to shove, what difference  did their roots and their nurture really make? It didn't seem to make much 

difference at all? And we have to ask ourselves, does it make a difference to  believe in God? Furthermore, I meet many Christians who are really secretly  discouraged. I doubt there's a Christian in this auditorium that doesn't long for  the grace to simply live, what they believe. We begin our walk with God with  great enthusiasm. And then slowly we begin to see we may not love him as  much as we thought we did. We understand obedience better, but we feel less  inclined to pay the price. And we begin to say, do my problems and temptations  make a mockery of faith? Does it make a difference to believe in God? And even the world is aware that we've got a problem? Time Magazine did an entire issue  on ethics. They entitled it whatever happened to ethics, assaulted by sleaze  scandal and hypocrisy, America searches for its moral bearings. It began by  saying lamentation is in the air, Clay feet litter the ground. Does it make a  difference to believe in God? Well, the remarkable thing is the secular prophets  that are arising secular prophets that are really saying what we should be saying Gary Trudeau, who writes the cartoon strip, Doonesbury, in a commencement  address said, we live in an age where men and women would rather be envied  than esteemed. And when that happens, God help us. Dan Rather, did a radio  spot entitled whatever happened to sin. Ellen Goodman, the Boston Globe,  journalist did a column on the goodness of guilt. Meg Greenfield of Newsweek  did an article on the possibility of moral absolutes. Even the secular press corps, the group everybody loves to hate, has entitled this presidential campaign, the  campaign of character, and perhaps the most powerful of the secular prophets,  was Ted Koppel in his address at Duke for his commencement, and he said, we  have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us shoot up if you  must, but use a clean needle, enjoy sex whenever and with whomever but just  wear a condom. No, the answer is no. And not because it isn't cool or smart or  because you might end up in jail or dying in an Aids Ward, but no, because it's  wrong. Because we've spent 5000 years as a race of rational human beings  trying to do drag ourselves out of the primeval slime by searching for truth and  moral absolutes. In its purest form, Truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is  a howling reproach. What Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, were not the  five suggestions. What I am hearing from the secular prophets is where are  you? What difference does it make wake up out there? What kind of contribution Are you going to make? Now I must say that when Christians tried to make a  contribution, often were immediately told separation of church and state go back to the pews, we need to make a contribution that is intelligent, sensitive and  unselfrighteous. But the question has to be asked if the secular prophets are  saying this, does it make a difference? I want to say it does. It makes a  tremendous difference, believing in God. But we've gotten into trouble because  we've forgotten what we already know. We have forgotten what the problem is  and what the solution is. The problem according to the Scriptures, is the human  heart. It is the problem of sin. And the treatment for sin has always been grace. 

How did we come to forget? We live in a strange times where we walk around  acting as if we're basically wonderful people who occasionally do bad deeds.  Even as early in our history as when the Constitution was written. They wrote  the Constitution because they understood human nature was treacherous, that  we needed some help. The problem hasn't changed. I think we've just develop  short memories. What's the problem? The problem is sin. GK Chesterton said it  as concisely as anyone I know, when he was asked to respond to a magazine,  entitled The essay was to be entitled what's wrong with the universe? It has to  be the shortest answer in history. I am sincerely GK Chesterton. The core of the  problem is not psychological or emotional or spiritual. The core of the problem  rather, is spiritual, it is the problem of the heart. GK Chesterton said I find it  amazing that modern people have rejected the doctrine of original sin when it's  the only doctrine that can be empirically verified. What's the solution? The  solution is the grace of God that promises to change our heart of stone into a  heart of flesh, not overnight, to be converted isn't a finished product. But God  will help us with His grace to become new people. It changes us, how can we  understand the problem and the solution, we need to look at the cross and the  resurrection. I wish I had time for both. But we're only going to have time right  now to look at the cross. The cross will help you understand what the problem is and what the solution is. If you're going to be a witness on your campus. When  you look at the cross, you really have to keep two images in mind. And the two  images are this, we crucified Him, and we were crucified with Him. Both are  true. We crucified Him, we were crucified with him. What does it mean that  Jesus died, and we participated in his death? Several years ago, I was speaking at a conference and I, after I got done, a lovely woman came and spoke to me.  She was beautiful. She was godly and she was tortured. And she told me her  story. She says that she and her fiance many years ago had been the leaders of a youth group at their church. And they had a tremendous ministry. They were to get married in June. And somewhere in that year, they began to have an affair.  And she discovered that she was pregnant. She said she felt bad enough, that  the very thing she was trying to counsel others to do. She was doing that was  bad enough, but to find out that she was pregnant, she said we knew that the  church could never handle our failure. That is a tragic statement. A hospital can't handle the patients. And so she said we decided to have an abortion. She said  my wedding day was the worst day of my life. She said, Becky, I love my  husband. We've had many children, but I am tortured. I do not know where to go with my guilt because I believe I have murdered an innocent life. I am haunted  by the question, What have I destroyed? I know that God loves and forgives. But I cannot be released from this thought. How could I have ever murdered an  innocent life? A thought came to me. And I was afraid to say it because she was  so distraught. And I realized if this thought wasn't for God, I could destroy her.  But she kept saying how could I have done this? How could I have murdered an 

innocent life? I took a deep breath and I said, I don't know why you're so  surprised. Because this isn't your first murder. It's your second. My dear friend.  All of us are crucifiers when we look at the cross and you seem to feel more guilt over killing your own child than over killing God's child. All of us religious or  irreligious good or bad, aborters or nonaborters. All of us show up as crucifiers.  When we look at Jesus, Jesus died for all of our sin, past, present, and future.  Luther says, We carry his very nails in our pockets. This isn't your first murder of an innocent, it's your second. And I'm just surprised that you're so surprised that  you could do it. She looked at me in amazement and stopped crying. And she  said, You're right. It's true. I have done something even worse than killing my  own child. It doesn't matter that Jesus died 2000 years ago, he died for all of our sin. And I have never felt the same remorse over killing my son and killing God's Son. But she said, Becky, what you're really telling me is that I've done  something even worse than the worst thing I could have ever imagined. I said,  that's true. And she said, Becky, if the cross shows me as even worse than I  thought, the cross also shows me that my evil has been absorbed and forgiven.  And she sat back and said, Oh, Becky, talk about Amazing Grace. And I saw a  woman literally transformed by a proper understanding of the cross. You see,  she walked into the paradox of the cross, is the cross that insists on highlighting  our badness in order to leave us absolutely no doubt that whatever we have  done has been forgiven. I come with remorse and guilt over one thing. And the  paradox of the cross is that it says, You think you're bad? You're even worse off  than you thought? And if the worst thing anyone could ever do, which is our sin  that sent Jesus to the cross, if that's forgiven? How can what you're confessing,  not be forgiven as well. I think this woman intuitively recognize that God obeys  the deepest psychological law of acceptance. And that is to be convinced, I have been accepted, I must be convinced I have been accepted at my most dreadful.  That is why we can face our problems without despair. That is why we can look  at the darkest things in our life without paralysis. Because even the confession  of sin can be seen in the context of hope and joy, because God's solution is so  wonderful. There is no one who can ever say, Well, God may love me. But if he  really knew what I did, God says, I know what you've done. And you've done  more than you even know you've done. And I love you, and I forgive you. The  second image, we crucified him the second image, we were crucified with Him,  Paul says, I've got the most wonderful news, you're all dead. Only say that guy  was depressed on that day. I think he needed a Robert Schuller tape. But what  does he mean? What does he mean that the cross enables us to die to  something What are we to die to? God wants us to be free from the things that  destroy us. He wants us to be whole. And the cross tells us that we don't have to live under the domination of our compulsions and neuroses and sins any longer. We have been given away out. We're not lost in enemy territory, we've come  over into God's territory, we have been given choice. And that choice is the life 

of the Spirit. And it is God's Spirit that will enable us that will infuse us and that  will help us to become the people that God longs to be the battle with sin is  going to continue, I can assure you of that. But I hope you've tasted the Spirit of  God and His life within you and his resources to make you knew. Now what are  the implications of the cross that we crucified Him, and we were crucified with  Him as we share our faith. I think one of the most wonderful implications of the  cross is that it frees us from the pretense of innocence. We live in a world that is  absolutely terrified of being discovered, as being inadequate. You know, for all of our bravado and boasting the great secret about human beings is that we're so  alike. We're all so afraid that we're inadequate. One of the wonderful things  about the cross is that it frees us to own up to our badness, and to not live in  despair over it to be to pretend to be innocent, in light of a cross is according to  CS Lewis, like being a divorcee pretending to be a virgin integrity does not mean that we act as if we don't have a problem. Integrity means we refuse to deny that we do have a problem. We must abandon our lust for innocence. And any  illusions we have about our innocence. No one can be innocent. After the fall,  the sad truth is that we are all hopelessly centered in ourselves. We're self  absorbed, self preoccupied, self centered people. There's no one's agenda that  we care more about than our own. That's the disease of sin. And we've all got it.  The good news is that once we recognize we're not innocent, once we  recognize we have a problem, Jesus says, Help is on the way he wants to help  us, and he wants to free us. The problem is that Christians seem to walk around  acting like it's a sin to admit they were sinners. I remember hearing a TV  evangelist, famous TV evangelist say, people asked me Do you struggle? And  he said, Maybe I do. Maybe I don't, I'm not going to tell you about it. I just go to  God, things if you don't you have tiffs with your wife or problems with your kids.  He said, Maybe I do. Maybe I don't, I'm not going to tell you about it. I just go to  God. And then he faces the camera and he said, oh, people don't share it all  your problems and temptations. You just be a strong champion for Jesus. He  said, I'm going to read a little poem that I think sums up the Christian life. It's  called being a man. I just loved it. It went like this feel down feel discouraged. Be a man feel like throwing in the towel Be a man feel like giving up Be a man be a  man be a man. Now, I counted the refrain Be a man 27 times in the whole  poem. I have a little problem with that poem. Number one, I have a little trouble  identifying with Title number two. Number two, I really and this is even far more  serious, I think. Why did that man have such difficulty even acknowledging that  he was tempted? I'm not suggesting that he share his sins before the television  viewers as interesting as it might be to hear, but I thought Paul said I am the  chief of sinners. Wouldn't that be refreshing over the TV airwaves? I do. I  remember when Paul said he had a thorn in his flesh. And I do not recall when  Jesus helped Paul with this thorn in the flesh. I do not recall Jesus saying to  Paul, Paul, for crying out loud, would you just be quiet and be a man be a man 

be a man? You know, buck up. Paul said, I will not Jesus said I will not take  away this thorn in the flesh because I am glorified in your weakness. I TV  evangelists did what we often do, we took a secular myth and spiritualized it  really what he had done is taken the Lone Ranger cowboy motif. And he was a  Marlboro man for Jesus. You know, he was sort of saying All I need is God, my  horse. If I have a problem, I'll tell my horse, and they rode off in the sunset. It is  not biblical Christianity. What is the cross mean and how we evangelize it means that we model repentance, by acknowledging that we are not innocent, we have  a problem. And God is helping us and is the process of making us whole people  a second implication of the cross. And what I love about the cross is that the  cross is so very, very democratic. Everybody's in trouble. We all share that.  There isn't anybody who's better off than someone else. We all desperately  need God. This is no subtle image. The cross is a rather dramatic statement that we have a problem. That means Consequently, there is no room for superiority  and there's no room for inferiority. Now, what does that mean, then in context of  evangelism? Well, it means that we can't look at someone in the world and say,  Oh, I could never relate to them. They're not godly. They're a sinner. As if the  experience of sin is something foreign to us. How does that impact the way I  have shared my faith? There's a couple that wasn't I became very close to in  one of our assignments, in Wes's assignment? They were political reporters.  She was by the most secular standards. somewhat shocking. She was jazzy.  She were very seductive clothes. I used to tease her that I couldn't imagine she  paid money for so little material. She smoked these slim cigars and always  made a statement. Whenever she came into a room. I got to know her and I  found out that she was bright and sensitive and tortured. She told me I knew she was married and had two children. She told me she was having an affair with a  man who was also married and had some children. And I loved her and I shared my life with her and I kept always encouraging her to read the Bible. And I  remember one day, she came to my house and she said, Becky, I have a  specific question about the gospel of Mark and I said, I knew it. I've been  praying for you and loving you and always telling you you need to read the  scriptures is because I've been doing that. She said no, actually, she said, You  know, I was with my lover last week, he is Jewish. And very unexpectedly, he  turned to me and said, What do you think of Jesus? And she said, Pardon me?  He said, Who do you think Jesus is? She said, Why do you ask? And he said,  Well, I'm a Jew, I know something of the Old Testament. I just decided, I should  know something of the New Testament, and I am so struck by Jesus, there is  something very beautiful about who he is. So I thought you'd tell me. She said,  Well, I'm very sorry. I take all my religious questions to Becky. So she had a list  of all of her questions and the parting word from her lover was next week when  we get together, among other things, I would like to study the gospel of Mark.  Now, I have heard of it unusual context for a Bible study. This is first place. So I 

said, Look, if you're really going to do a Bible study with him, and you've never  read the Bible, let's study it together. She said, Okay. So we began to read the  Bible. The first time we ever did this Bible study this woman and me, we began  reading and she was so nervous and so uptight. And I said, What's the matter?  

And she said, Well, excuse me, but can I ask you a personal question? I said,  Yes. She said, Do you think the Bible would mind if I smoked a cigar? I said, I  think it could handle it. Yeah. So she lit up a cigar. We're into the past. And she  goes, Excuse me, but can I ask you another question? I said, certainly, she said, Do you think the Bible would mind if I had a glass of wine? I said, you could  always ask it, I don't know. And so from that point on, we begin to read the  scriptures every week, with her glass of wine, her cigar in her hand, and we'd  read about Jesus. It was amazing to see her responses. And I remember one  study in particular of Jesus with the prostitute at Simon's banquet. And she  looked at me and she said, Becky, all of my life, I have thought I was worth a  piece of dirt. And I was sure if there's a God, and I don't think there is, but if he  does exist, I'm sure he concurs with my analysis. Nobody needs to tell me, I'm  lost. I know, I'm lost. I know I'm groping in the dark. And I thought, if there is a  God, he despises my blindness. And my lostness. What I can't get over is that if  you're lost, Jesus loves you more than ever. And if you're lost in you know,  you're lost, you are probably close to the kingdom of God. She's like, can you  imagine that? Me close to the kingdom of God? And I said, Oh, yes, I can. And  she said, Becky, I can't get over Jesus. I put down my Bible, and I began to cry.  And I said, you know, I've been a Christian for 20 years. And I can't get over  Jesus either. I said, obedience is not easy. It's harder than it was when I first  became a Christian, but the joy of knowing God, and of knowing that he is our  wholeness. I said, I don't know what's going to happen to you. I hope with all my heart, you become a Christian, and that you find the wholeness that God wants,  but you'll never be the same. She broke off the relationship with that man. She is trying to make her marriage work. They were assigned overseas, and she called me from overseas. And she said, I haven't become a Christian yet, but I'm  reading the Bible. I'm reading the Bible to my children. And she said, I found a  minister and his wife. I don't know Becky, she said, they have an aroma that  reminds me of you. But she said, frankly, I find the church a little uptight. I said,  What? Try wearing more clothes. It's just a thought. I hope with all of my being  that she comes to know God. But the question I want to ask you is, why do I  have the freedom to relate to a woman like this? Because the cross shows me  I'm no different. That is the wonder, do you think it matters to Jesus, that He  went to the cross and died for one set of sins have happened to be different  from another. The cross shows me I'm no different. And that's why we have this  tremendous bond to the world. I need to be forgiven as desperately as she  does. I can't put down a cup of coffee without needing someone to forgive me  and love me. And that's the wonderful news is that we are loved and we are 

forgiven. God does so much more for us than we could ever dream of doing for  him. We must recognize that the cross leads us into relationship to the world.  Out of joyful gratitude for all that God has done And so what does it mean as we go back to our campuses to be a witness to the world, it means that we must  refuse to feign innocence. But to Christ for holding us, it means that we must  reach out with open arms and embrace the world. Embrace your roommate and  your neighbor as deeply as God has embraced you. You do not need to go  immediately overseas, be a missionary on campus, do the preparation and love  with the love of Jesus. And lastly, what it means to be a witness is joy. That is  the byproduct of knowing Jesus. And as GK Chesterton says joy, which was the  small publicity of the pagan is the gigantic secret of the Christian. Amen.