Key Life Network

Steve Brown: Hey, you're forgiven. Deal with it. Let's talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew: Welcome to Key Life. I'm Matthew, executive producer of the program. Our host is Steve Brown. He's an author and seminary professor who teaches that God's amazing grace is the key to a life of radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness to Christ.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Today is sort of a banner day. By the way, I hope you had a great weekend. I hope you got plenty of rest. I hope your pastor's sermon was as good as my pastor's sermon.

But as I was saying, this is a banner day. This is the day that the new book—and we're talking about the themes in the new book on this broadcast—today is the release day. So, I hope that hundreds of thousands of you will go to your local Christian bookstore or online or wherever and buy the book.

Some of it makes me wince, but some of it is really good and you'll find it helpful. I started to say I need the money, but I don't get anything from these books. It all goes to Key Life. So, Key Life needs the money. Feel free. The book is being released today unless something bad has happened that I don't know about.

So, we're talking about one of the lies that absolutely devastates Christians. We hit a wall. When we became Christians from then on, the cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back, no turning back. And then we turned back. Just as the prodigal son went back to the pig farm but didn't stay as long as he did before, but we hit that wall.

And all of a sudden, we believe a lie that just isn't true: I'm never, ever going to get better. Yes, you are. And if you listen, I'm going to tell you how Christians get better and better in every way, every day, sort of.

Well, let's pray and then we'll talk about it. Father, we come into your presence, sometimes absolutely overwhelmed with the gospel. We just can't believe that anything could be that good. But it is. You loved us. You'll never let us go. We're forgiven. We're acceptable. We're going to live forever. And Father, that's all from you.

It's all the gift that you give to your people. And we worship you because of that. But Father, if you'd never done any of that, you're still God. You're still the sovereign creator, ruler, and sustainer of everything that is, and you're still worthy of our worship.

Father, as we study these themes on this broadcast, speak to our minds and our hearts and our hands and our vocal cords because the world so desperately needs to hear. And as always, forgive the one who teaches his sins, for they are many. We would see Jesus and him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

If you were listening last week when we were talking about this subject about the lie that Christians will never get any better, I spent the last time we talked going over some really, really bad sins. I was blushing when I was doing things like: Does God give us a free sin card? What if I don't have anything to do with the Christian faith anymore?

What if I'm unfaithful to the promises that I've made? What if I become a thief or a con man or a swindler? What if I blow my witness to Christ? Am I always forgiven? The answer to that and thousands of other questions like that is yes. It's not "yes, but." It's an absolute and strong "yes," period.

I know that answer to those kinds of questions makes me wince too. I know me and I know you. I know the sin and rebellion and evil we're both capable of. On top of that, I'm a Christian leader and teacher of sorts, and the Bible clearly teaches one should be careful about becoming a teacher. As James 3:1 says, "For you know that we who teach will be judged with a greater strictness."

That scares the spit out of me. It keeps me up at night. You wouldn't believe how often people tell me that I encourage sin and that I'm missing the clear teaching of the Bible about sin. But it's not just the problem and fear of being judged by God. It's the problem of losing my God-given authority over people.

When I was a pastor and first understood the message of how amazing grace really is, I remember thinking that's crazy. You mean I can't use guilt to motivate people? I can't increase the offering by using that guilt? I can't build an empire to the glory of God? What will happen to the people I've been sent to, the church, my friends, my family? What's going to happen to me? Grace is really, really dangerous and I'm not going to go there.

Now, listen up and I'm going to share a life-changing secret with you. God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness make us better and not worse. One reason it does is that getting better is not even the issue. In a sermon, Law and Grace on Romans 5:20, one of my heroes, Charles Spurgeon—he was a 19th-century Englishman and they called him the Prince of Preachers—this is what he said:

"There is no point upon which men make greater mistakes than upon the relationship which exists between the law and the gospel. Some men put the law instead of the gospel, others put the gospel instead of the law, some modify the law and the gospel and preach neither law nor gospel, and others entirely abrogate the law, bringing in the gospel."

"Many there are who think the law is the gospel and who teach that men by good works of benevolence, honesty, righteousness, sobriety, may be saved. Some men do err on the other hand. Many teach that the gospel is the law and that it has certain commands in it by obedience to which men are saved. Such men err from the truth and understand it not."

"A certain class maintains that the law and the gospel are mixed and that partly by observance of the law and partly by God's grace men are saved. These men understand not the truth and are false teachers. This morning I shall attempt, God helping me, to show you what is the design of the law and then what is the end of the gospel. The coming of the law is explained in regard to its objects: 'Moreover the law entered that the offense may abound.' Then comes the mission of the gospel: 'But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.'"

That's from a sermon preached by Spurgeon in August of 1855. One of my students said in a senior sermon once, "Grace loves sin and seeks it out. And when it does, it takes away the power of the law to make us guilty, afraid, ashamed, and regretful." The law has lost its power.

Not only that, but those who love to beat us over the head with the law have lost their power too. And Satan the accuser can be told to go to his own place where he belongs. You see what God did? In our rebellion, God took away anything about which to rebel.

The authority of the law and its teachers have been removed and our authority problem dissipates. We are not told we must because there's no "must" in God's economy of love. In effect, Jesus says, "I love you. Is that okay?" You think about that. Amen.

Matthew: Thanks, Steve. That was Steve Brown continuing our exploration of his new book called *God's Not Mad At You*. And as Steve mentioned, the book officially launched today. You can order your copy now at keylife.org/notmadbook or find it on Amazon. It's available in paperback and eBook. More tomorrow, do join us.

Since we're celebrating the launch of Steve's new book, I have something else to let you know about. We just released a brand new booklet based on that book. It has excerpts from the book and it'll give you a deeper understanding of the sanctification process and why it takes so long.

We're ready to send it to you for free, so call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You could also email Steve at steve@keylife.org to order that booklet or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for the absolutely free booklet called *God's Not Mad At You*.

One more thing before you go. If you believe in the work of Key Life, would you give today to help us continue that work? 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 then follow the instructions.

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