Key Life Network

Guest (Male): God's not mad at you. Let's talk about it on Key Life. Key Life is all about God's radical grace. Grace that has dirt under its fingernails and laugh lines on its face. If you want the Bible to be a book of rules, you may want to stop listening now. But if you're hungry for the truth that will make you free, welcome to Key Life.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. If you're just joining us, we're doing something that I've never done on Key Life before. Generally, I've gone to a book of the Bible and have taught through that book of the Bible, line upon line and precept upon precept.

But I've been working on a book for a number of months, and I'm going to share the material that I've prepared for that book with a purpose in mind, and you're the purpose. Now, we have a working title. In the industry, a working title means what you're doing provisionally in terms of a title, not necessarily the title that will be a part of the book.

And so, as you listen and we go through this material, it's all biblical. It's all Bible teaching, and it's all geared to make a difference in your life.

But the working title for this book is "God's not mad at you," confronting the lies of guilt and shame and fear and regret.

Now, as you listen, if you can think of a better title, let us know. Or if you're listening to the material and there are additions or corrections that ought to be added to it, let me know that too.

That means this will be a kind of joint project. If you will contact, you can email, and that's easy, steve@keylife.org, or you can mail to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794. And we'll look at your comments, and maybe you'll make the book when it's published.

Enough about that, but I thought I would remind you, help me out if you can. The book contains lies. One of the working titles was "The Lies We Believe," dealing with guilt and shame and fear and regret. Another one, well, never mind. But we've thought of a number of titles, and if you think of one, let us know.

And what the book contains, by and large, there's an opening chapter, and we've gone over that on this broadcast on just the subject of lies. And then we're looking at lies that enchant us, lies that cheat us, lies that define us, lies that confuse us, lies that defraud us, and you get the idea. And so we're looking at these different lies as we go along.

And today on the broadcast, we're going to talk about some lies that cheat us. But before we do that, let's pray and then we'll study.

Father, as we come into your presence, we recognize that sometimes we've walked down funny roads that were not the roads that you wanted us to walk. We believed what people, even people we admired, said to us when what they said was true. Sometimes, Father, we believe things that you said were not true. Sometimes, Father, we woke up, and we saw the truth, and we danced, and we sang before the throne.

Remind us in this broadcast, in our lives, in our study of Scripture, that you really aren't mad at your own people. That all of the anger and the judgment and the condemnation, you gave to your son on our behalf. That's so amazing, and we praise you and we thank you for it.

Father, you know everybody who's listening to this broadcast. You know the hard places and the soft places, the tears and the laughter, the good things and the bad things. Remind us that you're sovereign, and that you're sufficient for every need and have ordained every molecule.

And then Father, as always, we pray for the one who teaches on this broadcast. Forgive him his sins because they're many. We would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. This week and probably part of next week, we're going to look at some of the lies that cheat us. Let me give you a text. Second Corinthians 1:19-20. "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, was not yes and no, but in him it is always yes. For all the promises of God find their yes in him."

Let me give you the lie. Jesus loves you, but don't let it go to your head. Of course, God is gracious and merciful, but the truth is, God loves you. Let it go to your head.

I once participated in a dinner for Jewish friends that had only one purpose. It was to ask forgiveness for the anti-semitism from Christians throughout much of Christianity's history. That was it. After the dinner, a Jewish friend said, "Steve, I've loved this evening." In fact, he was crying when he was talking. "Steve, I've loved this evening, and you know why?"

I said, "I didn't." And he continued, "Because I listened, and there weren't any kickers." Every time Christians talk about the way the way you just talked, there's always a kicker about coming to Jesus. This evening you didn't do that.

What he was saying was that there was no hidden agenda. Several years ago, I wrote a book titled *Hidden Agendas*, dropping the mask that keep us apart. Hidden agendas are masks that we wear to hide who we really are, what we really think, and what we're really saying.

Hidden agendas are also kickers. Kickers that change the truth to make the truth less powerful, less life-changing, less amazing. I once saw a bumper sticker and I and I gave it to you earlier in the lie, "God loves you, but don't let it go to your head."

That, "just don't let it go to your head," was, just so you know, a kicker. As someone said, "Satan will use 1% lie to destroy 99% of the truth." He does. Before we consider some specific lies, I want you to see the small print, the 1% lie that fosters guilt and shame and fear and guilt. The kicker is often very subtle, so you have to be careful.

The Christian faith, listen up, is not about kickers. It is unconditional, and its promises and its truths are without reservation. When kickers are, if you want to call them qualifiers, are added, the promise can radically change. Kickers are always prefaced with, "Yes, but."

It's sort of like how theme parks hide long lines behind a wall so the wait doesn't seem so long. But then when you go around that wall or curve, you suddenly realize it's going to be a long time before I get to the attraction.

That disappointment is not dissimilar to, though far less important than, the disappointment experienced when a kicker is added to biblical truth. I've seen it my entire ministry. I've bought into it most of my life. I've listened to the kickers so many times and been so depressed and so wiped out because of them, that I've decided I'm going to look at those.

I'm going to see which kickers came from the dark side and which maybe came from the light side. I'm going to look at them in the light of the clear and basic teaching of the Scripture that God isn't mad at his people. If you start with that, everything that you'll hear thereafter that seems to lessen the power of it, that seems to lessen the strength and the joy of it, you can call a kicker.

And you got to be careful of the kickers because every time they'll give it with one hand and take it from the other. You think about that. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Steve. That was Steve Brown, continuing to guide us through his new book, so new that he's still writing it. Throughout this week, we'll be exploring this theme of the lies that cheat us, and again, our text today was Second Corinthians 1:19-20.

You know, something that often cheats us out of joy is guilt. And so it seems like it would follow that guilt is bad, but, but hold on. God actually designed guilt to be a powerful and important instrument in his hands. So what does God actually say about guilt? Well, Steve spoke about this in a sermon called, "What Good Is Guilt?" And we'll send it to you on CD for free. Just call us right now at 1-800 Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. You could also email steve@keylife.org to order that CD, or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Again, just ask for the CD called, "What Good Is Guilt?"

Hey, and before you go, if you've been 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 Key Life to 28950. Hey, and by the way, if you can't give right now, that's okay. Seriously. But if you have an extra 60 seconds, would you please pray that God would continue to guide us and give us wisdom? Thanks. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and Force in Canada, and Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.