The Gospel For The Worthless
One of the most brutal things you can ever say to another human being is this: "You are worthless."
Worse than any cuss word. More devastating than any slur. The idea that someone has no value, nothing worth preserving, nothing good about them—that is a statement capable of shattering a soul.
In fact, nearly every suicide is preceded by that exact conviction. The belief, whether whispered by inner demons or shouted by external voices, that says: There is nothing about me worth saving. And when the human ego tries to grapple with that despair apart from a Savior, it implodes. The weight is too heavy to bear.
And yet... God calls people worthless.
In Proverbs 6:12-15, we read:
"A worthless person, a wicked man, Is the one who walks with a perverse mouth, Who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, Who points with his fingers; Who with perversity in his heart continually devises evil, Who spreads strife. Therefore his calamity will come suddenly; Instantly he will be broken and there will be no healing."
This passage doesn’t describe someone who is merely flawed. It doesn't describe someone who struggles. It describes someone who has become worthless—not by accident, but by rebellion.
The Hebrew word used here is Belial (בּלִיַעַל)—a term that became synonymous with lawlessness, ungovernable rebellion, and a soul bent on destruction. This is not just a bad man. He is a man who resists righteousness, who sneers at truth, and who spreads strife like a spiritual arsonist.
His mouth is his weapon. His eyes wink to signal deceit. His feet run to evil. His fingers blame and accuse. And his heart? It is a plow field, tilling up row after row of wicked intentions.
He doesn’t fall into sin—he plots it. He doesn’t stumble into destruction—he runs toward it.
This is the biblical anatomy of a worthless man.
But before we recoil too quickly, as if this is about someone else, let’s not forget what the apostle Paul says in Romans 3:12:
"All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is none who does good, not even one."
Worthlessness is not just a category for the obvious villains and reprobates. It is a theological reality for every sinner apart from Christ. And this is the scandalous truth:
We are the worthless ones.
Our mouths have lied. Our eyes have lusted. Our feet have wandered into sin. Our fingers have blamed and judged. And our hearts have manufactured wickedness.
We have nothing in us that deserves God's love.
And that is what makes the Gospel so shocking.
Because Jesus did not come for the worthy. He did not come for the polished, the noble, or the valuable.
He came for the worthless.
Romans 5:6 says:
"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."
He did not wait for us to clean ourselves up. He did not peer into our future to see if we’d be worth His effort. He knewour hearts were septic. He saw our rot. And still, He came.
He, the Worthy One, was treated as worthless.
He took on our filthy speech, our manipulative glances, our wicked steps, our blame-shifting hands, and our corrupt hearts. He absorbed the judgment due to Belial’s sons, so that we might receive the name beloved instead.
He became sin so that we might become righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21).
That’s not rehabilitation. That’s resurrection.
The Gospel doesn’t improve the worthless man. It crucifies him. It doesn’t season him with morality. It buries him and raises a new creation.
We did not need polishing. We needed death.
And because of Jesus, we who were once spiritual refuse have been given infinite value—not because of what lies in us, but because of what Christ gave to us: His own worth.
So if you are drowning in guilt, shame, failure, or the bitter conviction of your own worthlessness—know this: You are the very one Christ came to save.
He was treated as worthless so that you could be treated as royalty.
That’s the Gospel for the worthless.
And it is the only hope we have.
