#413 A Conversation With Steve Green

People need the Lord. People need the Lord. When will we realize?

People need the Lord. I believe Steve is with us. Steve are you there? I'm here can you hear me?

I can indeed. Good morning Steve. This is Steve Green.

Good morning. You all have heard his music for a lifetime. I grew up listening to you.

I mean you're not that much older than me but I still listen to you a lot as I was growing up. And we've actually met a time back in Nashville, actually a couple times in Nashville when we lived there. Gracie and I live out in Montana now. And you're in Atlanta. I am yep northeast outside Atlanta about an hour close to our family. And I was born and raised in upstate South Carolina not terribly far from you. They're in Anderson, South Carolina. You know where Anderson, South Carolina is?

Yes I do. And I'm a long way from South Carolina out here. They don't have boiled peanuts out here Steve in Montana. Yeah and less sodium is probably better for you.

Well it is but you know boiled peanuts are good for the heart. Well your emotional heart. Well I wanted to have you on the show because as I've been watching the landscape of the country and it's just you know we're struggling. The country is sick.

We're struggling. And every so often I will play this song and I won't get past a couple of measures and I could just see the audience move just like when I'm playing at church I mean I'll be doing an offertory or just during you know communion or whatever a prelude or whatever and I just you know. And all of a sudden you could just see a ripple and I realized how powerful that song is. The simple message of what you have shared with who knows how many people through your music.

People need the Lord. And I just wanted to hear your heart as you look and I was talking to a couple in our church that sing with this little church out here where we are in Montana. And I said you're going to be on the show and here's what they said Steve. They said we went to what was billed as a concert in Bozeman many years ago. But it wasn't a concert. It was a worship service.

And I would imagine that's about as high a compliment as the artist you could probably get. And they were so moved that you're going to be here today on the show. Look at the landscape and if we have to go to the bottom of the hour break I'm sorry about that but hang tight with don't leave.

But look at the landscape and just share what's on your heart and as you do this because you have ministered to so many people so just whatever's on your heart with it. Well you know first I apologize for being late calling you but my wife and I were embroiled in just this very conversation and I lost track of the hour but we were talking about you know I mean as you said this is this is a very difficult time in our nation. unprecedented not only with the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted every aspect of life and brought with it a lot of confusion. I mean so many varying reports, and we're finding it difficult to know well who do you believe about this.

And then add to that. The murder of George Floyd. And, you know, the, the uprising and protest. And then, in addition to that, what's turned into violence and writing there is such a division.

We're unraveling and so you know what my wife Mary Jean and I were discussing this morning is that it. When you say the gospel is the answer it isn't, it isn't trying to be simplistic it isn't ignoring deep social issues, if that is God's answer for the human dilemma of sin. And it feels like it it seems like, you know, we're in Romans chapter one, where it talks about the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness that's not that's not a specific social group it's not, it's not talking about ethnicity that's talking about the human, the fallen human condition. And, and how is that wrath revealed and it's, it's repeated several times in the last half of that of that chapter, where it just says God gave them over. And when we exchange the truth of God for a lie. When we replace the God who has revealed himself in creation, which is his general revelation. But we replace that with the God of our own choosing and we worship and serve created things rather than the Creator. There's this, this terrifying phrase in Romans one which is because of that he gave them over. And that seems to be what's happening we are devouring ourselves he, he has withdrawn his help for this moment in our nation's history and this is what it looks like for God to give us over to our own lust, desires, depravity. Our own thinking, it all stems from that and so the song People Need the Lord is as basic and as simple as it sounds it's really profound, because Christ alone can change my heart.

And so, long time that was probably early 90s Larnell Harris and I recorded a song called Teach Me to Love, which was based upon our friendship, but also recognizing that there was, and has, has been and there will be a prejudice in the human heart division, and we were acknowledging, you know, Larnell was saying, look, you don't know a loss that I have suffered with my entire life, I don't think you really understand it. And so we're both coming together in the chorus saying, you know, there's, there's no power that can do any change except the power of the cross and that's Christ. So, you know, if there was ever a time when we need the gospel, the gospel is simply this, that God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. That I cannot change my heart, God has to do it.

That I will never know what love is until I understand the love of God expressed through Christ Jesus. So, yeah, people need the Lord, it almost sounds too simple, but, but it is the answer. It is the answer. We need Christ to rescue us, to change our hearts. We're going to unpack that a little bit more if you can hang on to the break.

We're talking with Steve Green. This is Hope for the Caregiver. I'm Peter Rosenberger, 888-589-8840.

I promise I will get to the calls, but I wanted to have Steve on today and just share from his. He will be strong to deliver me safe. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord, joy of the Lord, joy of the Lord, joy of the Lord is my strength. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. That's my wife, Gracie with Russ Taft off of Gracie's new record, Resilient. And she is indeed resilient, 80 surgeries, both legs amputated and the coronavirus. And she is still chugging away here. And she's a tough gal. And I'm very proud of her. We're also talking right now with another extraordinary individual, a singer that you've heard his voice for a lifetime and his heart and his ministry. That's Steve Green.

I invited him to be on the show. Caregiving has is no respecter of persons. We're all going to deal with if you love somebody, you're going to be a caregiver.

If you live long enough, you're going to need one. And Steve and his family have also walked through that journey of caring for a family member with a chronic impairment. And he understands the journey. Right now, we're talking about the landscape of this country and the unsettledness of what is happening to us as a nation. And Steve was saying earlier that God gives us over to things. There's a point where there's a tipping point and talks about a romance where people just want to embrace the sin on such a core level that God just gives them over. And as you see, the unleashed hatred and violence and rage and all these kinds of things.

That's a picture of what this looks like. And I'll never forget this moment when Gracie and I were down with the kids. Gracie was out with the kids in Nashville. They have near the state capitol.

They have these bicentennial fountains that it's a beautiful little area. And when they first built it, I remember Gracie took the kids down there and they were all playing and having a good time. And there was an African-American couple looking at Gracie and their kids were staring at Gracie because Gracie has two prosthetic legs that are very visible.

She doesn't wear skin covering on them. And so they look real robotic. And these little kids, African-American kids, were looking at Gracie. They were just wide-eyed because she looks like a robot, you know, from the knee down. And Gracie heard the most precious thing. And the mother said to her children, She's okay, honey. She's just like us.

She's just like us. And I thought, and Gracie realized at that point because of her physical disability, that what unites us is far more than what divides us. And that we are all just flesh and blood human beings.

And somehow that gets lost in the message of all this rage and everything. And as I thought about this, and I brought Steve on, not just because of the song, People Need the Lord, but because I know the heart of what he brings to his ministry worldwide. I've watched this man for a lifetime.

And I thought, Steve, wade into this kind of thing, continue on that discussion. There's no agenda here other than for you just to share your heart. I've always respected your heart.

I've always admired it. You intersected me at a very profound time in my life that you probably don't remember. We talk about that another time. And I just open-ended whatever's on your heart to share.

How's that? You've done a lot of radio interviews, but none like that, have you? Well, my first response has to be that any benefit that has come to anyone through anything that I've done is simply God's kindness. Meaning I am the least likely person to be doing what I do, to have had the privileged platform. You know, I was raised in South America, so I was the minority for all of my growing up years.

My brothers and I are the only blonde, fair-skinned kids in the entire city that we lived in. And so that shaped me. But when I came back from South America at age 18 to start college, I was lost in every sense of the word. Meaning I was a runaway. I wanted to distance myself from anything that had to do with missions and missionaries. And that kind of consecrated life that I'd seen in my parents that just looked really austere and strict and conservative. And I was lost. I had no vision, no dream for the future. I'd had a very poor education in the missionary school. With a constant rotation of short-term, one-year teachers going down to try to probably find themselves to. And so the fact that God would have given me something to do is just another indication that he really likes to choose people in his service.

Who know that there's just no possibility that they had anything to do with it. And so early on I began to recognize that the platform wasn't mine. And I had to be really cautious and careful not to turn that into grandstanding or self-promotion. But he gave me a platform for one reason and that was to proclaim Christ and the glorious gospel that God has revealed to us in his word. And yet the longevity of what I've done is not due to my own ability, my own grasp of Christ.

But rather it's been his continued grasp of me. And when we get to a time in our country like this, again, the very thing that Mary Jean and I were talking about this morning is we have so much to guard our hearts. We see violence, we see anger, we see this rioting, this looting. But we have to so ask the Lord to expose in our hearts just the remnants and the shreds of prejudice. And it doesn't have to be necessarily due to the color of skin, it can be all kinds of things. It can be education and it can be experience, it can be a neighborhood, it can be possessions, it can be all kinds of things.

You know, let me ask you about that real quick while you're on that subject. Let me ask you, would you agree or disagree that at the core of prejudice is a sense of self-righteousness? I mean, it has to be. You're exactly right, it has to be.

It has to be forgetting. And self-righteousness, you know, Satan was not expelled from heaven for being a homosexual or being a different color or being an adulterer or any of those things. He was expelled because of his own arrogance and self-righteousness.

Jesus saved all of his outrage for self-righteousness. And somehow when you said that it just triggered, that's got to be the core of all of this. Right, and you know, it doesn't, I mean, I've traveled to 50 countries and I went, the last thing I did in the town where I grew up in Argentina, the last, the very last thing I did was a concert in the town where my parents first moved from when I was five years old. And only to discover that there was, there are huge racial prejudicial issues in that town amongst the indigenous people based upon the shade of their skin. And you're not going to get rid of this. This is so deeply ingrained in the human heart, we find someone to look down on.

Right? It's just there. And that's why in the psalmist, here's a list of things that God hates.

One of them is haughty eyes. And that is someone who's puffed himself up in their own mind, in their own heart, thinking themselves better than their neighbor, looking down on them. And that's exactly what it is. You're exactly right.

It is self-righteousness. And, you know, that's the whole point of him exposing these things in our lives. I've had that point, and I was talking to my friend, my pastor back in Nashville, who's still one of my very closest friends. And there is that moment of revelation that we get, and sometimes it comes multiple times.

For me, I think it's going to be a lifetime. And I've seen my work, Steve, it's not pretty. And I remember I was riding on a plane with some guy, and he was going to a cult somewhere in Minneapolis, and I asked him about his cult. And he said, well, we look to ourselves, we develop our inner savior. I said, oh brother, I've got to stop you right there, I've seen my work, I need a bigger savior than me.

Right, that's right. But I said, you know, there's that point when you come to the realization of who you are in the light of a holy God. We keep comparing ourselves to one another, but when we compare ourselves to Christ, that's when we get that moment where we put our hands over our mouth. And I've been in that place, and it is an awful, terrible place when you see yourself exposed for what you are in your heart. Not just your actions, your heart.

And I wish that for everyone, and I wish that for no one, because it is a terrible, awful, but also a liberating place. Because that's that transformative moment when you, as a human being, taste a little bit more of what the cross really means. And that's what reframes everything that we do, whether we're being a caregiver, taking care of somebody who is cursing at us while we're changing adult diapers, or whether we're watching someone suffer out of control, whether we're watching people loot and pillage. All of those things get reshifted in our brain because we are so lockstep in what the goal is for us to be so lockstep in what Christ did, because he came down here and put on all of that for us. And I want the people to see that in their suffering. So I apologize for interrupting, but go ahead, but it just triggered that for me.

No, you're so right that the bad news are utter helplessness. So the whole book of Romans, the thesis of it is that verse in the first chapter is 17. You know what Paul in the previous verse 16 talks about, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God for salvation to all who believe, first for the Jews and then for the Gentiles. For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous or the just shall live by faith. And what Paul is saying that that whole righteousness from God is alien, it's foreign to us. And the principle of justification by faith is a legal declaration where God, not because of anything that we could possibly do or have done, because we are justly under condemnation.

But God, because of his love for us, makes a declaration that Christ has satisfied all the laws of man. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up.

That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. We are so glad that you're with us. I am Peter Rosenberger, and this is the show for you as a family caregiver. For those of you who are willingly, knowingly, and voluntarily putting yourself between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster. How are you holding up? How are you feeling? You're why I do the show, and I get the journey.

I've been doing it for 34 years myself. I'm on the phone here with Steve Green. Steve, by the way, I played your music at the beginning of the show there, and I'm sorry you missed it because I really didn't play. I played your stuff. I had it all programmed in. I had it all nice and packaged.

It makes no difference. Absolutely. But I wanted you to know that I was thinking about your stuff here. I invited Steve on because Steve intersected me many, many, many years ago.

Probably doesn't even remember it, and we'll talk about that another time. But at a very, very intense moment in my life, and just took compassion on a young guy that seemed very, very lost. It was a profound moment.

I'll never forget it. I've always admired and respected the stance you've taken, the heart that you brought, the focus that you've had for the gospel. Right now, this is where we are as a nation. The time is so intense right now, and if we don't speak into this with clarity and conviction, how are we going to ever reach each other and connect with each other and point people to Christ? We've got to do it with clarity, not with sentiment, not with all kinds of catch phrases and things like that, but with clarity because it's a brutal time. Not just with all the race stuff and the riot stuff and all that kind of stuff, but just life. Life is hard. Those of us who are caregivers understand this.

It is hard to watch someone suffer. And in light of that, I thought, Steve, I'm going to put you on, I'm going to really jump on you here. Sorry about that, but I'm going to ask, we've got James in North Carolina, and he wants to talk about some life and death decisions. And so if it's all right, Steve, just hang in with the call and chime in with it. But James, good morning. How are you feeling? Good morning.

Good morning. Well, I hope you are. We're doing well. You're on the phone here with me and with Steve Green.

What's going on with you? Well, about 20 years ago, my sister and I were caregivers for my dad. He was a 93-year-old lawyer who was still practicing law.

Right. And he was in the hospital for heart problems. He had a stroke and basically was unresponsive. And they wound up, had him in ICU for a while.

Tell me, what's the core issue going on with you right now? My dad was moved to the cancer ward where they basically put people on nonresponsive, on no sustenance, no meds, no nothing, you know. Right. And the nurse kept coming in. My sister made that decision. And the nurse kept coming in asking if she could give the doctor, had wanted to give him a shot of morphine. And she kept coming, we refused for a while. She kept coming in and insisting and said something like, it'll make him feel better.

He'll breathe better. And she gave him the shot and he died. Now, that was 20 years ago. Yeah. And you're still struggling with that. I pretty much come to terms with it, but there may be a multitude of people who are listening who will be faced with that same decision.

And I like your opinion on it. Well, my opinion is irrelevant. My experience, however, is not, and these are very painful decisions that a lot of families are struggling with right now. I'm not a medical practitioner, so I can't speak to that. I can tell you that there is a growing debate on basically whether or not we're just going to drug people into oblivion and let them die in that manner. Are we going to value life?

And what are those decisions? Some of these things need to be dealt with with physicians. All of these things need to be dealt with physicians, but all of it in the light of the gospel, in the light of scripture.

What is God's opinion on this is more important. And there are times when people are in so much pain that they can't function and it is brutal for them to ease their pain for comfort and anesthesia. Those are not bad things in of themselves, but is the goal to escape or is the goal to equip?

And this is what I've struggled with as they have put so many chemicals into my wife's body over the years. Gracie could be out of pain right now, James. She could be out of pain, completely out of pain right now with her broken body, but she wouldn't be able to function. So was the goal to help her escape the pain or to equip her to better handle the pain so that she lives her life? One of the things I hold onto is in the Westminster Confession of Faith, shorter catechism. Number one, what is the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

How does this glorify God? Am I being equipped or am I using this as an escape hatch? And that's the guiding principle and I don't know that there's a template that's going to fit every single circumstance on, you can't give this much morphine to this person, you can't give this to this person. I just know that I look at this in the light of scripture and Gracie depends on pain relievers. But if she's using them to escape, then we're in a much different conversation.

If she's using them to be equipped, then we're dealing with this. And families that are dealing with this kind of guilt or frustration or angst about whether we should have done this, we should have done this, we can't go back and undo this. We have to accept the fact that we did the best we could with the information and the craziness that was going on at the time, bring this all to the light of Christ in this and say, okay, his blood atones for that too. It may have been a mistake, it may not have been a mistake.

It may have been this, who knows. But I also anchor myself in this James, if he's Lord at all, he is Lord of all. And his sovereignty was not threatened by this nurse or the decision your sister made or even your decisions. His sovereignty is not threatened by that and he is working in all of these things to present all of this to his glory. We don't understand it and that's why we trust him. And how do we know we can trust him?

Because of what happened at the cross. And it always comes back to that and that's what we hang on to. We let that stuff go and realize, okay, that is beyond my ability at this point, way beyond my ability to change. But as we look forward to this, what can we learn from it? I would look to this and say, okay, what is the goal here?

Is the goal to escape or is the goal to equip? And then we have that discussion from there. And that's the way I've seen that from scripture and I hope that helps a little bit.

Steve, do you want to weigh into that at all? No, I think you're exactly right. I think that time and again you see in scripture that we do the best, we make good decisions. But behind all of it, God is still accomplishing his purpose. Not only in all of creation but in each of our individual lives. And it comes down to a matter of exactly what you said.

His sovereignty is not threatened or altered and in the end I can completely trust that this didn't turn out like I thought. I can blame everyone around me or I can say, Father, thank you that even in this you are active and working for your glory and for our good. And we receive this, this timing of this as something that was part of your design. James, the passage in scripture I would go back to for you and I would encourage other people to go into this. When Joseph looked at his brothers, they all had this big reveal of what had happened and he said, what you meant for evil, God has transformed, we didn't say the word transformed, but meant for good. He is working his purposes out in all of these things. And that's the scripture that I consistently go back to when we see the evil that is perpetuated on this, knowing that that evil is not beyond the purview of God.

This is sin sinlessly and I don't understand it, way beyond my abilities to comprehend it, but I trust him because this is what scripture backs up. James, I hope that gives a little bit of comfort and help. We've got to run, but I thank you so much for the call and thank you for taking the time and thank you for listening. Steve, thank you for being a part of this today and just chiming in. And I want you to know you are and continue to be an individual who has strengthened me, Steve, and that is no small thing and I thank you for that. And I mean that from my heart and every time I play your music, you know, and in fact, you know what? Just sing one line, Steve, would you do that? I'm in C. What key do you want it in?

Maybe in B flat. Just one line. Just sing just one line for me.

Steve, just do that for me. All right. People need the Lord.

People need the Lord. Oh, that's it. That's it.

That's all I needed. All right. I just I just I wanted to hear you sing it because it is touched my life. You have you have inspired and ministered to me. And would you please come back on? Absolutely. Be glad to because I seem to talk about caregiving.

We did that for 10 years with my folks. Well, and I know that and I want to I want to unpack that a little bit, too. So you have you are welcome at any time. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Steve Green, stevegreenministries.org. This is Hope for the Caregiver. By the way, I'll put this out on the podcast at hopeforthecaregiver.com. You go out and see all the things that we have out there for it. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Today's a great day to start that healthy journey. And look to the cross for that place, for that anchor in your life. We'll see you next week.