Key Life Network

Guest (Male): God's in his heaven, and all is right with the world. Are you crazy? Let's talk on Key Life.

Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Because life's hard for everyone, grace is for all of us.

Our host is seminary professor and author, Steve Brown.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. If you're just joining us, we are at the pretty much the beginning of a very long series that I'm building around a book that I'm writing, and I'm going to be writing it some as I teach this on the broadcast. The working title of the book is, and it's not settled yet, is The Lies We Believe, dealing with fear and guilt and shame and regret.

I have noticed, and I've been doing this for a long time, that we as Christians sometimes buy into narratives that are just not true. If you were with us last week, we spent time looking at the nature of lies, where they come from, and how they affect us. Today, we're going to turn to the first of a long list of lies, to wit, "God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world."

That's just not true. God is in his heaven, and all is not right with the world.

Before we turn to that lie and what the Bible says about it, let's pray. Father, when we come into your presence, there is a sense that we're walking in truth, because you never lie, because you've revealed truth to us, because you have been faithful at every point in our lives. And so we come to praise you, and we come to worship you, because you are worthy. You are also sovereign, sovereign over every molecule in our lives. The good and the bad from our perspective, the tears and the laughter from our perspective, you are God, and you're working your way in the world and in our lives. And we worship you because of that.

Father, we lift this broadcast before you and the one who teaches. Forgive him his sins, because they are many. We would see Jesus and him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Back in the olden days, when I was a young pastor, there was an elderly lady in our church who was dying. She was someone who simply could not deal with anything dark, anything painful, or anything troubling. She only read books with happy themes and endings tied with a bow. She refused to watch television news, because there was so much that was so negative. She only had friends who lived in the same dream world bubble that she did.

Now, the doctors didn't want her to know that she was dying, because they felt, well, they felt she just couldn't deal with it. However, they needed her to get to sign a power of attorney attorney form. It's the microphone. So that when she was no longer conscious, her medical bills could be paid. They wanted me, as her pastor, to facilitate the signing of that form.

I remember holding her up on a pillow and guiding her hand as she did the signing. And I also remember how horrible and depressed I felt when I did it. And when I tell you about it, and when I remember it, I still do. In those days, I thought that doctors were all wise and all-knowing.

Do you know the difference between a doctor and God? God doesn't think he's a doctor. At any rate, I learned an important lesson from that experience. We should never hide bad news from those who are affected by that bad news. There's plenty of good news, but also there's a lot of bad news, and it's never a good plan to pretend otherwise. We should be sensitive, we should be gentle, we should be compassionate in delivering bad news, but lying is never helpful.

Romans 5:12 says this: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all men have sinned."

As I, as I'm teaching you, I remember Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World." I love that Louie Armstrong song, and I still do. Of course, Armstrong was singing about a wonderful world because of someone he had met. I understand that, but I also know that romance is not a substitute for reality. It's not a wonderful world. Okay? Frankly, it's an incredibly bad word.

The biblical doctrine that teaches us why the Fall is the Fall, and it refers to Adam and Eve's rebellion in the Garden of Eden. Paul describes the good and the bad news this way, and this is Romans 5:15-17. He says, "But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's gift. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ."

I've been doing this for a very long time, and frankly, no sin, no failure or weird behavior surprises me anymore in me or anybody else. It's all a part of what we call a fallen world, and that's one of the reasons Christians should be the most street-smart people around. It is also, given the bad news of the Fall and what God did to fix it in believers, one of the reasons that Christians can laugh and sing and dance.

The problem, and we're going to be spending a good deal of time on this. The problem is false expectations. It's the soil from which guilt and shame and fear and regret grow. Discovering that they are false can make us either angry or bitter, or on the other hand, create forgiveness and freedom and peace.

Now, I'm not going to spend much time on the subject, but a fallen world shows in nature. Mother Nature isn't my mother, and she's, if she is, she's an abusive one. A number of years ago, my wife and I went through a hurricane, Hurricane Andrew, and at that time, it was the worst natural disaster America had ever faced. We lost our house and dealt with several legal battles. Eventually, that hurricane caused us to move the entire ministry of Key Life to Orlando.

Our ministry had just completed a new building for our headquarters in Miami. And when the hurricane came, it blew the entire lobby away. And our agency in California said, "Now that gives new meaning to open house." It did, and it gave new meaning to the devastation that is sometimes a reflection of the Fall.

Paul references the Fall's curse on the world, and he says, "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, we have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons and the redemption of our bodies."

Now, that's bad news for now, but as my friend Tony says, "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming." You think about that. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Steve. That was Steve Brown, resuming our still new series based on his latest book, one that he is actually in the process of finalizing now. More tomorrow. Hope you will continue with us on this journey.

Have you ever heard the term invisible grief? It's a phrase coined by author Drew Hensley to describe the pain of losing what never was. A miscarriage, singleness, an unrealized dream. It's a kind of sorrow that often goes overlooked. We spoke with Drew about it on a powerful episode of Steve Brown Etc. If you or someone you know has ever experienced that invisible grief, I think you'll appreciate that conversation. We'll send it to you for free on CD. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEYLIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email steve@keylife.org to order that CD, or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for the absolutely free CD featuring Drew Hensley.

One last thing. If you're blessed by the work of Key Life, would you help share that blessing with others through your financial support? Giving is easy. Just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope, or you can simply text KEYLIFE to 28950. And hey, if you can't give right now or maybe you're not called to, all good. But while you're thinking about it, please pray for us, would you? Thanks.

Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and Forcey in Canada, and Key Life is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.