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Steve Brown: God still moves mountains. Let's talk on Key Life.

Matthew: God's grace changes everything. How we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. This is Key Life with practical Bible teaching to get you home with radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. If you were listening yesterday, I told you a story about a missionary lady and the kids in her mission home and how they prayed for a mountain to be moved and it was moved. And you say Brown, you made that up. That didn't happen. No, it was an actual fact. Uh, after World War II, Christian missionaries went to Japan and started orphanages for children whose parents had died. And Irene Smith, an English missionary, was one of them. And it was her story. When they prayed, God moved. Listen to me. At the very heart of the Christian faith, and by the way, we're talking about the lie that God is away on vacation.

At the very heart of the Christian faith are the supernatural acts of God on behalf of his people. Christians suffering from guilt for their sins, the shame of their actions, the fear of God and people, and the horrible regrets from their past rarely ask or expect God to do anything for them because they don't believe they deserve it. This it would probably be good before we get down to deal with that problem. Of course, we don't deserve it. Of course, you don't deserve it. However, you're forgiven. And not only that, you are now in possession of the perfection of Christ.

It's technically called and I've mentioned this before and will again, imputation. And it goes hand in hand. They're twin sisters, justification and imputation. Justification means that Christ took your sins. Yeah, that one. All of them. And he took it to the cross. Imputation means that God has imputed, given into your account, given to you freely all of Christ's perfection. So now, given those facts, anything God decides to give you is appropriate. In other words, you deserve the good things he promises and gives to his people. We also deserve some bad things, too. Uh, uh, we didn't earn either one.

I'm not a name it, frame it, claim it kind of guy, but I'm a Presbyterian and we believe that God rarely answers prayers with yes. And name it, frame it, people believe he always says yes. But the truth is we deserve whatever God determines we could have. He is not away on vacation. There's a an interesting event that's recorded in the first part of Acts 19. Paul has just come to Ephesus and he meets some very new believers there. He asked them if they received the Holy Spirit when they first believed. And their response was interesting.

We didn't even know this is Acts 19. We didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. That's so like so many believers. We don't recognize the supernatural power that is available to us. Uh, my late friend and mentor Fred Smith, uh, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but he had a withered hand. And it prevented him from doing some things that other boys his age could do. He told me, uh, that when he was a boy, he would walk out into the woods near his house. During those times, he sometimes thought that there was more going on than what they were telling him.

And he told me I spent the rest of my life trying to find out what it was they weren't telling me. He was right. A lot more was going on than most people think. And as an aside, with his weird, uh, hand, uh, Fred Smith became a very accomplished golfer. He had to learn how to do it without lessons cuz nobody else had a withered hand and couldn't teach him. But he worked at it and he became a golfer. He worked at so many other things and he hung out with Jesus and God did some amazing things in his life.

But he was right. There are a lot of things in this world, more things than are dreamt of in our philosophies. And sometimes we as believers miss that. For instance, if you had stood on the hill where Jesus was crucified, you would have seen a little rabbi dying spread eagle on cross beams between two thieves and probably would have heard him quote a psalm that God had forsaken him. But if God had removed your spiritual blindness, uh, if God had taken away the scales that were on your eyes, you would have seen the real scene behind what was going on.

You would have been absolutely astonished at the supernatural and cosmic battle that was taking place. You would have seen thousands of angels and not only that, you would have seen the darkness of the event receding further and further into the light as Jesus drew nearer and nearer to dying. A lot more was going on that day on that hill than the people who stood there knew. Scripture tells us that graves were open. Dead people were walking around. That the temple had some pretty bad stuff done to it with the big cloth that separated the people and the priests from the Holy of Holies was rent in two.

There are a lot of stuff was going on. Now listen to me. That's true of your life right now. And it's true of my life, too. Over the years, I've tried to be honest with seminary students about the downside of ministry. Uh, it's a hard calling. Part of my responsibility has been to make sure students aren't blindsided and destroyed by it. We were at a faculty meeting and uh we were naming students who had left ministry because they had been eaten alive by some twits in the church. And the faculty said to me, Brown, that's your responsibility.

You're going to have to do some teaching on that. Uh, and I did. It was, uh, it was interesting, man. I I I invited guys who had gone through hard times in church and my class and let them lecture. I told them stuff that would scare you to death. And because of some of what I taught being so dark and negative, you know what I told the students? I said if what I 'm teaching makes you think about leaving the seminary, raise your hand and I'll tell you some of the good stuff. On occasions, students would raise their hands.

So I would always pause and tell stories of victories and success and people whose lives have been changed in the ministry I had. I often said to those students, one of the great gifts God gave to pastors is that a pastor gets a front row seat to watch God's amazing and supernatural work in people's lives. And there were times when the students would raise their hands and want actually I didn't want them to lose the seminary, leave the seminary cuz I could lose my job. I had to be paid. So it wasn't totally altruistic, uh, my comment, but I would stop when they raise their hands and tell them the good stuff.

And the interesting thing is that very often when I would start talking about people I loved, what God had done, the places he had moved, the changes he had made, I got emotional and got very close to tears. And we all know real men don't cry. You've seen that, too. If you want to, Jesus said all you have to do is have faith. Faith that moves mountains. Not gigantic faith of some kind of super Christian, but just just a little bit. And it's such a good deal because he says, I'll give you what you need as my gift.

And we'll move mountains together. You think about that. I'm in.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Steve. Hope you're enjoying our special teaching series about confronting the lies of guilt, shame, fear, and regret. Don't forget each and every one of these episodes is now streaming for free at keylife.org/notmad. Tomorrow being Friday, we'll once again be joined by Pete Alwinson for the nearly world-famous Friday Q&A. Do join us. If Jesus is the source of our understanding of who God is, and he is, one thing that's apparent about him is his loneliness. In John 6, people deserted Jesus and then Jesus said to his disciples something filled with pathos. Maybe one of the saddest things Jesus ever said, are you guys going to leave, too?

Peter replied, are you crazy? Where are we going to go? Loneliness is hard, but it is also a gift. Well, that excerpt is from an article by Steve called When You Feel Lonely. You'll find it in our latest Key Life Print magazine. Get your free copy now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to ask for the magazine or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact for our mailing addresses. Just ask for your free copy of Key Life magazine. Finally, would you partner in the work of Key Life by giving?

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