Steve Brown, Etc.

Matthew Porter: That is the name of the show. My name is Matthew Porter, your humble guest host for today. Have no fear, Dr. Brown will return next week. Boy, do we have a show for you today. I am so excited. Before we get to that, let me introduce our producer, Jeremy Purcell. He's in the little glass booth. Hello, Matthew.

Jeremy Purcell: Hello, Matthew.

Matthew Porter: Jeremy recently got back from the Grammy Awards.

Jeremy Purcell: Also true.

Matthew Porter: Jeremy, I'm afraid to ask, but I'm going to ask. Still no Grammy category for best air guitar solo?

Jeremy Purcell: It's a disappointment. It really is. But I lobby hard for you every year.

Matthew Porter: Thank you. I am the Clapton of it. Fine, there's always next year. Whatever. They don't appreciate art. Our one-man IT department, John Myers, is in the tech bunker. John recently lied to his kids. His fortune cookie did not actually say you will be mauled today by a panda. Not true. He just told them that.

John Myers: It's a little livelier. I like that one. I say green light for that.

Matthew Porter: Dr. George Bingham is the president of Key Life. George says there is nothing worse than socialism, but decaf coffee is a close second.

Dr. George Bingham: It acts like it's there, but it doesn't really help you. This is from a guy who gets his daily cafecito Miami style. Yeah, he ain't messing around. You either do it or not do it.

Matthew Porter: And Cathy Wyatt, of course, is the soft, feminine side of the program. Cathy is sad that Winter Olympic ice skating is now over with all the pretty sequins and the sparkly fabrics and the glitter. And that's just the guy's outfits.

Cathy Wyatt: True. About 12 years ago, I wanted to try to set up—it was the first time I came in contact with curling. I had no idea what curling was. I wanted to set up a curling team, but nobody was interested in joining in Florida.

Matthew Porter: That's just the most Canadian thing I've ever seen. I think just by putting waves in their hair, they have that as an Olympic sport.

Jeremy Purcell: You need to write the intro. You should actually.

Matthew Porter: I promise it gets better from here because today we have with us Stephen McWhirter. He is a Dove Award-winning and Grammy-nominated worship recording artist, songwriter, speaker, and author. His breakout worship anthem, "Come Jesus Come," has become a global prayer of longing and revival, reaching literally millions of listeners worldwide. Stephen's new book is called *Radically Restored: How Knowing Jesus Heals Our Brokenness*. Stephen, thanks for hanging out with us today.

Stephen McWhirter: My pleasure. You guys are so fun already. I can tell. I like Cathy the best. She's my favorite. I saw a meme of somebody doing curling at home where they had one of those iRobot vacuum things, and they had a Swiffer in front of it, and they were going really fast.

Cathy Wyatt: Yes, they had Swiffers that they were doing the floor. I saw that one too. With their dog sliding across the floor as the stone. People say with social media we're getting dumber, but I don't know. It takes a lot of high intellect to come up with some of this content.

Matthew Porter: Stephen, the vibe in your book, I can realize you wrote it because it's just friendly and conversational. You have quite a story, don't you?

Stephen McWhirter: If you'd have told me 20-some-odd years ago, you're going to go and you're going to do 50 podcasts and TV shows telling this story to people over and over and over again. And I've been doing it traveling as a musician, as a worship leader, and a songwriter for years, but to sit down and write it all down, wow. I was often in a coffee shop, and I thought, should I be in a cabin in the woods with a counselor nearby? Full Emerson on this.

Imagine when we did the audiobook. I did the audiobook. You can imagine there's parts of the story that are super traumatic and crazy. Imagine reading those parts of the story, and there's a producer on the other end going, "Man, that was beautiful. Could you do it again and this time with just a little bit more? Just imagine you're with a therapist and they do that." It's got to feel like these are heartfelt things, and now they have to kind of be commoditized a little bit.

It's all good, though. It was super fun. My story is not fun to have lived through, but awesome to see how God has restored and redeemed. My dad was an evangelist. We traveled a lot with him. I wasn't a PK; I was an EK. That's a new thing I'm starting. I was traveling with him and I would see him get up and preach about Jesus, and many people would get saved because God is good, he's kind.

But behind closed doors, I would watch my dad violently physically abuse my mom. We lived through this trauma throughout my entire childhood. So at around 11 years old, I was like, "If God's real, he's not good. I don't want anything to do with this Jesus guy." I began smoking, drinking, marijuana, that kind of stuff. By the time I was 15, it was cocaine, pills, I'm selling drugs. By the time I was 17, I was a full-out crystal meth addict using every day for many years to come.

I was the guy during this time, I hated Jesus, hated Christians, would have cussed you out if you mentioned his name around me or tried to knock you out. I told you I was a meth addict, so I weighed 100 pounds. So if I threw my whole body at you, you might have got a paper cut. But I'd try. People were praying for me, and I had this—I mean, it was so odd. People were praying for me, inviting me to church stuff, and I was just like, "Ugh."

There's a part in this book too where it was my sister. She was so annoying. She was constantly asking me to go to church and do all these things, and I think I just kind of got fed up. I was like, "Fine, I'll go to this one thing." I literally did meth, and I went to this thing, and it was a Billy Graham crusade in 2000 or something like that in Louisville, Kentucky. Who does meth and goes to a Billy Graham crusade? This guy.

I remember the third day was singing "God of Wonders," and something inside of me was just like my skin was crawling. I was like, "Forget this." I started cussing and I stormed out of there. Everything in me was fighting against this thing. But somebody came and gave me this book called *The Case for Christ* by Lee Strobel, which is evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Lee's a friend of mine now because God writes the best stories.

Somebody came and offered me this book, and the fact that I didn't cuss them out and kick them out of my house is probably the parting the Red Sea moment in my story. I take the book. Fast forward, it's 3:00 in the morning. I'm in this room. I have drugs on the side table next to me. Nobody's playing a piano softly and quietly in the corner making everything sound more spiritual. But it's the kindness of a very real God to a wounded evangelist's kid in a place like this.

I just remember having this internal conversation where I'm like, "I want to quit all this addiction, all this darkness, all this depression, anger that I've known for so long. God, I want to, but there's no way. I can't. I can't do it." This is all I'd known for so long. At one point, I remember being up for three, four days and thinking, "I'm going to die young, but I'm not going to quit. So it is what it is." When I said I want to but I can't, I meant it.

In that moment, a thought more powerful than words, I believe the Holy Spirit spoke something into me that changed me for the rest of my life, and it's this: "Stephen, you won't do it. I'll do it." This is Ephesians 2:8. I didn't know it at the time. You're saved by grace. This isn't something you can boast about. It's a work of God. He does it. But Jesus said there's something we can do, and it's this: In John 6:29, he says the only work the Father asks of you is to believe.

That's what I did. I believed God like I believe I'm breathing air right now. I fell to my knees, gave my life to Jesus, went from addiction to redemption, from meth addict to worship leader, from a total mess to a little less of one. There's a lot more to it than that, but that was kind of the beginning and there's been no looking back since.

Matthew Porter: So amazing. All of this is in the book. As dramatic as the story is, it's just the beginning. There's so much more that happens in your life. Looking at your story, seeing that contradiction, that kind of hypocrisy day in and day out, there's a reason why you rebelled against religion or what you perceived as Christianity. It makes total sense that anybody who has survived that and lived through that would have to go through that process first, probably, before getting to the truth of the thing.

Stephen McWhirter: I don't think you look at my story and go, "Huh, wonder why he did that." Right? You're like, "Yes, who wouldn't?" because it was so brutal. And then, of course, the other part of it, as you talk about there, kind of having to keep a secret. Secrets make us sick. That's a lot to carry for a young kid.

Matthew Porter: Stephen McWhirter is a recording artist, songwriter, speaker, and he has written this book called *Radically Restored: How Knowing Jesus Heals Our Brokenness*. Before the break, we heard the dramatic story of Stephen's growing up years and of addiction and brokenness and how he found Jesus. Jesus found him in a most unexpected way. So take us from there, Stephen. Everything turned around and everything was awesome after that, right? Am I remembering the book correctly? It was just daisies and butterflies?

Stephen McWhirter: It was obviously a lot better, for sure. I give my life to Jesus, and I always tell people, the moment you give your life to Jesus, it's like a pebble in the ocean that becomes a tsunami of grace that starts to hit parts of your life you didn't see coming. I would have been okay just to be like, "If I could just be sober, have a job, and not burn my life down, that would be great." God was like, "No, we're going to do more than that."

One of the first things I had to do was I felt the Lord leading me to forgive my dad. When the thought of that was like, this is unimaginable. If anybody doesn't deserve to be forgiven, it's this guy. This just feels unjust. Now, you need to understand that at this part of my story, there was a moment where we left my dad in the middle of the night, which is in the book. I was like, "Oh wow, this is great. We've left him. Awesome."

And my mom was like, "No, we're going back the next day after talking to him." My dad didn't abuse my mom anymore from that day on, but it was still a mess. I don't condone it. I wish she had left him, to be honest with you. If you're hearing this and you're not safe in a situation like that, get safe. It's okay. But she stayed with him for whatever reason. So here we are, years later, I give my life to Jesus, and I know the Lord's calling me to forgive my dad.

I go to him in his room, and he's in this Lazy Boy, the quintessential dad chair. I go to their house and I'm like, "Hey, we need to talk. Dad, I just want to forgive you for all the stuff." He looks at me like a deer in headlights, like reality's breaking, and he goes, "Okay, thank you. Cool." I'm going, "Okay, I'll see you later." I jump in my car and I drive off. And you've just driven like a long way to get there, right?

There was no beam of light shooting through the window or a bird landing on my shoulder. It was just super awkward. But I knew the Lord had done something in that moment beyond what I experienced. Fast forward a little bit more. My fiancee, who is now my wife now, she'd watched me and she'd come along and give her life to Jesus too. She was waiting to see if I meant it. She gets saved and she's like, "Hey, I want your dad to baptize us." I'm like, "That's a terrible idea, whatever, fine."

But we're on our way to get baptized and we get in the worst screaming, cussing match you can ever imagine on our way to get baptized. Obviously, I think the enemy, whatever, stuff was trying to keep us from getting to this thing. We get there. It's beautiful. It's amazing. My mom tells me later that my dad wept all night that night at the idea that it is possible that the Lord's restoring what he had broken.

Fast forward a little bit more. My wife's like, "Hey, I think your dad should perform our wedding ceremony." I'm thinking this marriage isn't going to work out. But he does. It's beautiful. It's great. At the time of us doing this show right now, my dad's passed from cancer 12 years or something like that. If you've ever had anybody that's gone through something like this—cancer or anything like that—they end up in hospice.

It's a very difficult time because usually they'll go into this moment where they're in a coma. They're unresponsive. And the doctors and the nurses and the hospice will tell you, "Let them know it's okay to let go. They can't verbally respond, but they hear you," and normally people will pass. They just hang on. Well, we had done this with my dad. It had been like over a week or something like that.

I'm in the room alone with him, and I just remember watching him struggle to breathe, leaning in with tears in my eyes and just saying, "Dad, I love you, and I really do forgive you." And he breathed his last breath in that moment and his soul left his body. What I learned is that the most—I think about the story where Peter goes to Jesus and he says, "Hey, how many times should I forgive my enemy?" And Jesus responds—he says actually seven times? That seems like a lot.

Jesus is like, "No, 70 times seven times." Don't even count. Don't stop. Do it until it's just—keep going. I knew that in that moment, that's what was happening. Though I forgive, I might still do it 70 times seven times on this side of eternity. But I learned that the most Jesus-like thing that you and I can do on this side of eternity is to forgive somebody. It's up there. It's really powerful and it's very difficult for some people. For many of us.

What I've learned is forgiveness is about a debt, like a legitimate debt that somebody owes you or you may owe someone. But if somebody owes you that debt, you have the ability to take it and tear it up, because you're really hurting yourself more than you're punishing them by not forgiving them. You think, "Oh, I'll show you," but really you're just continuing to drink poison.

But there is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation in the sense that you can forgive somebody. That doesn't mean you're going to be in relationship with them every time. It's not like you're going, "Hey, you still get access." No, there are consequences to our actions on this side of eternity. That being said, forgiving someone and actually trying to love them like Jesus, man, that's one of the most powerful things we do.

I believe there's something really important for people on the other side of that that we don't even realize is there. That's probably been the biggest thing about this book, people telling me, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea how much unforgiveness I was dealing with that I thought I'd dealt with, or I felt guilty about, but God, there's grace in it, man. It's really good." What's crazy is I say, "We may not be in relationship with them and reconciled to them," but here's the crazy thing: We are just as bad to Jesus, if not worse, prior to getting saved, yet we are reconciled to Jesus.

Matthew Porter: Forgiven and reconciled. That's the key thing there. This is so powerful, Stephen. When you talked about that in the book, you know, and the 70 times seven, I've always thought of it as, "Oh, if my brother offends me 77 times, I forgive him each time." Something I need to roll around is I have forgiven you, but when the enemy brings it back up, I'm going to have to forgive you again and again and again. It might be the one wrongdoing that you crossed me, but I'm going to have to forgive you over and over as God teaches me and heals me.

Stephen McWhirter: Otherwise, you're guilting yourself. Exactly right. Guys, there's so much on the other side of the break about forgiveness and reconciliation and healing. We're going to hear about a song Stephen wrote that has literally changed hearts all around the world. Guys, you can't go anywhere. You are listening to Steve Brown, Etc. We'll be back.

Matthew Porter: Oh my goodness, that is "Come Jesus Come." That is recorded by Stephen McWhirter, who we've been talking to. Keep up with Stephen at worshipjesus.live. I love that. And on Instagram @stephenmcwhirtermusic. If you love Jesus, you'll know how to spell it. That's it. Trust the—I said I wanted to ask the questions in this segment, but I forgot that every time I listen to that song, I literally come unglued.

Stephen, I spent a lot of years involved in church music, singing on gospel worship teams and all that kind of stuff. I love to stand in a church in a traditional service and sing all the stanzas of all of the hymns from memory without looking at the hymn book. That does make you more spiritual than most people anyway. But I'm doomed. 20 years ago or so, I feel like the church musically was—not challenged, but when "In Christ Alone" came on the scene, it was like a really, really big huge deal across the board, across denominations. It was just huge.

For me personally, there hasn't been a moment like that until "Come Jesus Come." So I want you to explain a little bit about that, how it all came to be and the process when you're writing. I got to tell you, I finally just the other day listened to you sing it because I thought if we're going to talk to him, I need to listen to the guy who wrote the song. But I got to tell you, when CeCe Winans sings that song, it's like all over. Did you allow her to sing that song?

Stephen McWhirter: Allow? Oh my gosh. There is hardly a day that goes by that I don't play that song. By the way, I want to bask in the compliment that you just gave me: "In Christ Alone," "Come Jesus Come." Wow. Well, I've never met CeCe Winans. I have never spoke to her. I was told that she did it. That's how it happens. That was a smart lady. It's fine.

People told me she was like, "I don't really like the song," she said, and her manager like told her, "You really do have to do this. It's going to be good." She's like, "Okay." So that's funny because the producer that worked on the recording said that he told her that. This is so funny. She's actually said that in a couple of things. So really interesting. But anyways, I've heard she's just absolutely sweet.

But I love what she did. I think if you were to ask me if anybody was to cover the song, who would you want? I think I would say her. Yeah, that would have been the answer. Not just from a financial aspect, but just carrying it. I think she's done a really great job.

Matthew Porter: Well, how did it come—I read that it was during COVID, right?

Stephen McWhirter: The song is six years old. My wife and I wrote it. We started the idea. It was in our basement. We were reading Revelation 22, verse 20, where it says, "Behold, Jesus says, 'Behold, I am coming soon.'" And then right after that, the "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." We were just weeping and reading and worshiping and praying, never thinking we're writing a song per se.

The first verse that came out of that moment was just my wife and I and some of the rest of it. Then we brought it to some friends of ours, Hank Bentley and Bryan Fowler, and the Lord crafted the song that it is today. True story. I don't know why I said true story. Everything else has been a lie, but this is a true story. Stephen's not even my real name. I'm actually not Stephen. He was busy.

We wrote the song and I recorded it, the version you just played. I took it to the label I was with at the time, which will not be mentioned, and I said, "Hey, I think God's breathing on this. We should put this out." They're like, "Well, we'll pass." And they dropped me from my publishing deal like two weeks later. Wow. So here I am with this song.

So for four years, I just was like, "This is just for you and me, Jesus." Then I played it and I put it on TikTok and Instagram and all these places and just let the Lord use it. Eventually like an acoustic version of me went viral. Then K-LOVE picked up my version and it did really well. Then CeCe came along. But there was literally about four or five years when nobody could care less. I was just worshiping Jesus.

So here we are today. CeCe won a Grammy for it. I did not win a Grammy. She won a Grammy. The songwriters don't get the Grammy; she gets the Grammy, which is fine. Very interesting though, to think this song that we just like fought with the Lord for for five years. And then to sit back and watch God use it the way he is, it's super humbling.

This thing is so fast, this thing called life, and to get to do anything like that and to see him use it like that for people to begin to actually—I mean, I think it's not about a song. I think it's about the church, his bride, learning to love people better here and now towards that day as they long for him to return, to build things that matter more here and now towards that day as they long for him to return.

The southern saying of "You're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good" is bunkum because Colossians 3 says set your mind above where Christ is seated. You can only be so heavenly minded you're more earthly good. And that's basically what I'm learning about really longing for Jesus to come. I believe that's the heart of the Father with this song doing as well as it is. Wow.

Matthew Porter: And I also think, just as a closing statement on that, the older you get, the older I get, the more I appreciate songs that talk about this. I mean, the longing for heaven becomes greater. Come, Jesus, come. We've been waiting. It's okay to long for that. And Stephen talks about that in the book. So much more to talk about, guys. Songwriting and unexpected journeys God takes us on. The name of the book is *Radically Restored: How Knowing Jesus Heals Our Brokenness*. We're talking to the author Stephen McWhirter. Still more to come. Don't go anywhere.

Wow, what jumped out to you guys? You know, the dramatic story and that conversion, no more drugs. You hear that, and it really is not that common. I mean, God's certainly capable of doing that, but for those people who may still be struggling, even though they've come to Jesus and still struggling with things, I mean, that doesn't mean you can't be encouraged, you know, if we're like Paul in Romans 7, "The good that I want to do, I don't do."

Coming back to the repentance, which was an important point. And so many elements of process, which is funny because there's a process of forgiving his father and being reconciled, and that takes time. And then a process with the song finding the audience and everything. The one thing that didn't really take a process was him getting over addiction.

Jeremy Purcell: Yeah. 12 steps? Stephen was like, "How about one step, y'all?" That's right. Done. And I didn't even do it. Gosh, that was so remarkable. What a powerful story and his conversion is just the beginning. God's just used this song and his music. What a cool guy.

Cathy Wyatt: And it happened and you just go, "What?" I mean, I have a guy working at my house right now who has done some work for me over the years and he said to me the other day, he goes, "Cathy, guess what?" I said, "What?" and he goes, "I've been delivered from smoking." He'd been trying to quit smoking for years and years and he said he got down on his knees one night and said, "Lord, I'm done. Would you please take it away?" and I said, "And?" and he goes, "I'm done."

Matthew Porter: Nice. Speaking of done, we're done. Would you tell us quickly who our next guest is?

Jeremy Purcell: Our friend Joel Muddamalle, who's been with us before. Talk about your long subtitles, *The Unseen Battle*. That's the title, *Spiritual Warfare, the Three Rebellions, and Christ's Victory Over Dark Powers*.

Matthew Porter: My goodness. Don't miss it. Make a sandwich and hang out with us next time. Until then, you be safe and stay dangerous.