Key Life Network

Steve Brown: I've asked a thousand times of God. Does that mean that I don't have faith? Let's talk on Key Life.

Matthew: Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus in the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life's hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us. But there's a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So here's seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth to answer your questions.

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

Pete Alwinson: How you doing?

Steve Brown: Pete, they didn't think I could do that teaser right and I got it right. And Pete, for those of in our television audience, you you know he stuck his thumb up, so that was a good thing.

Pete Alwinson: You got it, man. You got it.

Steve Brown: Pete Alwinson comes in on Fridays and we've been doing this for more years than some of you have been alive every Friday answering questions and we love to do it. Uh Pete's ministry to men is called Forge and it is an incredible ministry. And you need to check it out if you're a guy. And you can do it online, but if you're in Central Florida, you can participate in person in several different places. So go to forgetruth.com and find out. You'll thank me have it for having told you about it. As I said, Pete comes in and we answer questions and we love your questions.

You can send them to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000 Maitland, Florida 32794. In Canada, it's Key Life Canada Post Office Box 2860 Waterloo, Ontario 2 N2L 6J8 or you can email your question to Steve at Key Life. And of course, if the spirit moves and you have a question that needs an answer quickly, pick up the phone and call 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433 and follow instructions. And sometimes we put you and your question on the air. Uh by the way, and you knew I was going to say it, if you can help us financially, uh we're a member of ECFA in the States and four Cs in Canada.

And those organizations oversee our books and proclaim to the world that we're ethical. So that means that we're not going to steal your money. We're not going to buy Mercedes. We're not going to have yachts. We're going to use it for the glory of God and you can count on it. So help us if you can. If you can't, we understand. Say a prayer for the ministry. Pete, why don't you pray for us and we'll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson: All right, let's pray together. Our great Father, what a joy to be your children and to come to you at the end of this week in a in a chaotic and and changing world um where you never change. We thank you that you are the immutable God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That you are always consistent in your kindness, in your patience, and your mercy as well as your justice and your holiness and your righteousness. Thank you that you lead us and guide us in the way we should go, that you counsel us with your eye upon us, that you lead us day in and day out.

And so at the end of this week, we're thankful for your leadership and love in our life and our great salvation in Jesus. And so we we come to you now and and Lord, as we look to the church gathered this weekend, we ask that you'd get us there and and that you would have our our leaders be fully prepared to lead us into your presence. Oh Lord, bind the hand of the evil one that they would be ready to go, to teach us your word, to lead us in worship, be with our pastors, priests, worship leaders.

Oh Lord God, that you would be lifted up. And now we commit this time of Q&A to you. How grateful we are that we can ask questions and and find answers from your word, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen. Pete, this is an email. I read somewhere in the Bible that you should have to pray for something only once. Well, the Bible doesn't say that. Jesus said just the opposite, by the way.

Pete Alwinson: Right.

Steve Brown: There's a parable and she kept bugging the judge

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: and wouldn't shut up. So finally he gave her what he wanted. And then Jesus said do that with God. In other words, persevere in prayer.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: But so we have to question your original hypothesis and suggestion. Uh so the Bible doesn't say only once. As if my faith should be strong enough. I see myself praying for the same thing over and over again. Am I lacking in faith? Should I pray only once? Or maybe you ought to consider God said no.

Pete Alwinson: I mean maybe. You know I was talking with a young man about this the other day, just exactly this. And and I said just keep praying it until you have a sense Excuse me. That you should stop praying it. And if you have that, then stop praying it. And I've had those situations. But then I on those other things, keep praying if if they're in line with the word of God, uh they may well be the will of God. It's just a matter of time.

Steve Brown: That's true. So keep asking.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: You know this morning I changed my prayer. I have a guy I've been praying for. He's a young man who's been outside the faith for a long time. And his father asked me to pray and I pray daily, not just for a week, but for at least 10 years.

Pete Alwinson: Wow.

Steve Brown: This morning and you just mentioned that and that made me think of it. This morning I didn't pray for that. I thank God for what he had done. And I'll bet you that when I check, he's back in the faith. Cuz the Holy Spirit said

Pete Alwinson: I'll bet you. Yeah.

Steve Brown: I did it for you. What do you keep doing this? And so there are times when we get the thing it's time to stop praying or that's enough.

Pete Alwinson: 1 John 5:14 and 15. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us and thing we ask, we know we'll have the request that we made of him. Keep praying in the will of God and and and don't give up. And I think prayer is much more of a dialogue too.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: There's a lot more going on in prayer than just okay Father, would you answer this? God, would you do this? There's more of the shaping of our minds and helping us as we reflect and behold his presence to have our minds changed to get a bigger picture of just about everything.

Steve Brown: Yeah, it really is. And you what you said about as long as it's in the will of God is pretty pretty important. Uh you you need to be careful what you're praying for. You know is it God's will you be sanctified right on, that you be better right on. Pray for it and expect God to give it to you. Is it his will that you get a Mercedes? Well, maybe maybe not. Is it his will that you that the lady you've been trying to get a date with you finally get a date with? Well, maybe maybe not.

Pete Alwinson: I know. I I prayed for your voice and you said no.

Steve Brown: I prayed for your hair and you said no too. You know but and we're being facetious of course, but let the Bible be the guide about what you can stand on and not your own desires. And that's just a side comment that needed to be This is an email too, Pete. And I kind of like this. Uh lately I've become so acutely aware of my busyness uh in my life and in others. How do you keep your perspective regarding this? I really can't remember this particular, but somewhere in my memory something about the tyranny of the urgent keeps coming to mind.

Do you have any ideas?

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: Well, first that was the title of a booklet. I think that InterVarsity published

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. It was a good booklet. Still good. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Yeah, it's still good and it's still good and it's still in print.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. Probably.

Steve Brown: Uh I And you know Pete, between you and me and if you say I said this, I'll say you lied. Uh I'm um uh obsessive uh in my personality, ODC or whatever it is, OCD. Yeah, I get that right. So I have a problem with that too.

Pete Alwinson: OCD. Yeah. I'm CDO. I got to have things in the right order, you know.

Steve Brown: But don't Oh, but I really am. And so I kind of if I see it, I want to do it.

Pete Alwinson: Mm.

Steve Brown: And I want to do it right then.

Pete Alwinson: Mm.

Steve Brown: And so I end up with a life sometimes that is busyness not because I let it get a hold of me, but because I have this proclivity to fix it now. Do it now.

Pete Alwinson: Mm. Oh man.

Steve Brown: Uh straighten the picture. Put the pencil where it's supposed to go. You know the tool in the proper place in the toolbox. Those things And I've literally made that a subject of prayer in my life and I'm better.

Pete Alwinson: I I I admire that. I mean you've always had one of the most orderly offices and been one of the guys that

Steve Brown: That's the part of the obsessive part by the way.

Pete Alwinson: Well, and you know you know right. So some of our obsessiveness, a weakness isn't in a uh uh strength pushed to an extreme. And so it's a strength, but then when it gets pushed too far, it becomes a weakness.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete Alwinson: And so there are issues like that and so it can make you busy. I appreciate that self-analysis and I I know that I can out of busyness for wanting approval or just task accomplishment.

Steve Brown: Yeah, me too. I do that.

Pete Alwinson: And and so I think we do need to And this is why God says and had to command take a day off. Worship me.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: Relax.

Steve Brown: He understood.

Pete Alwinson: He understood how sin energizes us negatively uh into busyness.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: And and um you you have to sit back on a Sunday, go to go to church and not do a lot of those other things. And I'm not saying we always have to sit around. I think the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Jesus too. So that's a whole another theological thing. But

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: um this this really is a big issue and Americans can go to one of two extremes, busyness or passivity, expecting others to take care of them.

Steve Brown: I agree and there's a good balance and God will show you that balance and your brothers and sisters will too.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Steve Brown: But for heaven's sake when you go to church, leave the phone at home. Try You I look out over congregation, half of them are on their phones.

Pete Alwinson: I know.

Steve Brown: And and I want to say listen, let it go for an hour.

Pete Alwinson: And and you know I don't believe you're on the Bible on the phone. I believe you're doing some texts.

Steve Brown: I know. I had kids do that in seminary to me, man. I would stop the class and say I don't mind if you leave, but if you are going to sit here, turn that thing off.

Pete Alwinson: When they started bringing uh laptops into seminary classrooms, it was like yeah, I don't know.

Steve Brown: Yeah, I agree. I don't know. And listen, that is an asking God to show him yourself and places where you could clean that up and buy that little booklet tyranny of the urgent.

Pete Alwinson: Tyranny of the urgent in a varsity still out there.

Steve Brown: Well guys, we're out of time and we're going to leave because we are. But before we go, I'm required to say Key Life is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.