Key Life Network

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Hi, Pete.

Pete Alwinson: Hey, I'm looking forward to how you're going to answer that first question.

Steve Brown: Why do you think you're here? I'm not here. You, you have been invited these last 30 years to sit here, so you can answer the hard questions and you get the negative comments and the letters that we receive.

Pete Alwinson: No, I'm here only to clean up your.

Steve Brown: That's Pete Alwinson. If you haven't gone to forgestruth.com, that's one of the most exciting men's ministry in the country. And you'll love what you find on that website. Forgestruth.com.

Great podcast, great teaching. Mainly for men, but they let women go there too, and you you'll find benefit when you do. As you know, Pete comes in on Fridays and we answer questions, and we've been doing that for a whole lot of years, and we genuinely love your questions.

You can ask a question anytime you want by calling 1-800 Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. Or you can send your question to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794.

If you live in Canada, it's Key Life Canada, Post Office Box 2860, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 6J8. Or you can email us your question to steve@keylife.org.

And if you can help us financially, please do. We'll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And if you can't, pause sometime and just pray for this ministry that we remain faithful, that we remain clear, and that God uses these sinners to touch people's lives. Pete, why don't you lead us in prayer and then we'll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson: You got it. You got it.

Father, we do come to you on this Friday and we come into your presence, and we bow for a moment as we do remember that we are sinners saved by your grace. We think of who you are. In your majesty, the high and holy and lifted up in your perfections, your holiness, your righteousness.

And yet, Lord God, we realize that in who you are with all of your omnipotence and majestic power, you still love us and you're gracious toward us and long-suffering, patient and merciful. And we need all of that because we are we are still sinners saved by grace.

But thank you for your grace, and thank you that we have new names because we belong to you in Jesus. We thank you that this is all because of what you have done.

And so, Lord, today we come to you at the end of this week and we we praise you, we ask for your continued power in our lives and that you'd even meet us this weekend as we go to church and worship and be with your people and remember that the kingdom is here and the kingdom is coming.

And so we pray that you would be with our pastors and priests and teachers and leaders and worship directors, draw us into your presence and conform us more and more to your image. Now we commit this time of Q&A to you as we pray these things in the strong name of the only savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen.

Steve Brown: Pete, this is an email. When we get to Heaven, will we know our loved ones as we did on Earth, or will we just know them as sisters and brothers in Christ?

Pete Alwinson: All right, you take the first stab at that.

Steve Brown: Well, I think you have to be very careful about spiritualizing Heaven. Heaven's going to be cool.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: It really is, and I have a friend who wrote a book on Heaven, who said Heaven's going to be the place where we have time to do the stuff we wanted to do, but didn't have time when we were alive on Earth.

Pete Alwinson: Hmm.

Steve Brown: And I think it's better to put it that way. You know, I get the impression, you listen to some people talk that it's going to be an ongoing worship service. I hope not.

Pete Alwinson: Listen.

Steve Brown: After an hour and a half, I'm ready to go home. I don't want to spend all of eternity singing worship songs and listening to preachers.

So, so Heaven, you know, don't spiritualize it so much. Of course, we'll know each other. Of course, there'll be friends. Of course, when our family is there, it'll be a family time. Those are all things that are given. But when we get religious, we start spiritualizing it, and that bothers me sometimes.

Pete Alwinson: I know. I so, so yes, a simple answer is, is there will be there's continuity between this world and the next, but it'll be perfection, the continuity of perfection. And those relationships will be better.

Steve Brown: Oh, a lot deeper.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And it's going to be, and it's going to be a good thing.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: You know, religion will make you weird if you let it. You got to stop sometimes and say, if that's Heaven, I don't want to go.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: But that's not Heaven.

Pete Alwinson: And you've taught me to use your sanctified imagination in thinking through the new Heaven and the new Earth. It's a new Heaven, it's a new Earth. We have perfected bodies and therefore capabilities that we don't now have.

Steve Brown: Oh, yeah.

Pete Alwinson: And and and there are unseen possibilities of what of what we would be a part of. Just as work preceded sin and sin's entry into the world, I think there will be positive work.

Steve Brown: I do. Positive activity. I really, I think so.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And also, I've been promised I'll have hair.

Pete Alwinson: Okay, back.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete Alwinson: You have some, which is not all that you had when you were 22. It's true.

Steve Brown: This is an email. What is the best way to explain how we as Christians know that God exists without being able to see Him?

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Don't bother. I mean, if you're not asked questions, don't go out and tell people stuff that they don't care about. That's what Jesus meant when he said, shake the dust off your feet and go to somebody who cares. I think God begins to move in people. We don't have to justify everything. Just create questions and be prepared to answer them when they're asked.

Pete Alwinson: Okay. And so that's that's one really good way just don't feel like you have to say things that you don't have definite answers for.

Steve Brown: That's right.

Pete Alwinson: On the other hand, there are things that we can't see that we believe exist. Like, I can't see love, but I can see the result of love.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: I can't see truth. I can't see truth, but I can see the results of truth. So there are many things that we can't see, but we can see the results of them.

Steve Brown: That's true, and that's God in steroids.

Pete Alwinson: Right.

Steve Brown: It really is. I agree. But I think we go out with this attitude that we've got to answer every question, got to meet every need. And we don't. I mean, God opens up every day of our lives people in whom He is working. And what we've got to do is not duck when that comes along.

Pete Alwinson: Good point. Good point.

Steve Brown: What is God doing when He changes somebody's name?

Pete Alwinson: I love that. Yeah, you know, in some countries still today, and in the early church they did this a lot. You become a Christian and you get a new name.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: It's it shows that there's a new thing taking place in your life, I think.

Steve Brown: That's true and you they make you have to be careful, you don't make too much out of this. The Bible teaches we're going to have a new name in Heaven.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And I'm kind of thinking that's cool. Steve Brown is pedestrian. I'd like to have a cool name, and I hope that.

Pete Alwinson: Stephanus means what? Crown?

Steve Brown: Yeah, it does. But Steve doesn't sound like that. But a new name in Heaven means that we'll know the essence of who we really are when we get there. You know, we do things like, well, Paul changed was Saul, they changed his name to Paul. No. That's just a Greek way of saying something that was Hebrew. Sometimes names were changed.

Pete Alwinson: Yes, yeah, that's right.

Steve Brown: I think Peter's name was given by Jesus, because you're going to be a rock. So, you know, I I would just say that sometimes it's powerful, sometimes not, but someday it's going to be your true name.

Pete Alwinson: That's good.

Steve Brown: What language? This is true. This is an email.

Pete Alwinson: This is a real question.

Steve Brown: What language will be spoken in Heaven?

Pete Alwinson: Hebrew.

Steve Brown: No, English.

Pete Alwinson: Do you think?

Steve Brown: With a southern accent.

Pete Alwinson: Well, that's because you're from the South. You know, I mean, you know, somebody said to me the other day, you have an accent. I go, accent, I'm from Southern California. We don't have accents. You have an accent.

Steve Brown: Back when Jimmy Carter was was running for President, he came to Boston where I was serving. And I met him and I said, it is so good to have somebody talk to us who doesn't have an accent. So, yeah.

Pete Alwinson: So, so you think it's English with a Southern accent?

Steve Brown: I I think that's you know, I think it's fun to kid about, but I think it's irrelevant. I think communication is going to be so incredible and so right on that we will know.

Pete Alwinson: Maybe we'll have the key to all languages and I'll finally be bilingual.

Steve Brown: Could be. That wouldn't be bad at all.

Pete Alwinson: I would love that. Okay.

Steve Brown: What is an appropriate age for an elder in a church?

Pete Alwinson: Oh, good question. You know, we we always had young, we tried to always bring younger elders on that they could learn from older elders.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: So, in Hebrew culture, in the first century, you know, you you really weren't adult until you were 30, or considered an adult. I think it was 30, right? Ish. Jesus began his ministry then.

I think you have to have some life experience under your belt, and people grow differently from different home environments and nurture and nature and all that. So I don't want to put a limit on that, but I I think I think after 30, 35, maybe 40. Elder means something.

Steve Brown: It does.

Steve Brown: And it means you've been around for a while.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. Life experience and and some wisdom and growth in Christ.

Steve Brown: Yeah, but but sometimes you find somebody that's younger who has incredible wisdom and love for Christ.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: So don't don't make a rule out of it, but be wise about it and that would be a pretty good thing. Guys, we got to go, but there's one other thing that I need to say before we do. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.