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Steve Brown: The Christian faith is about being woke. God's way. Let's talk about it on Key Life.

Guest (Male): This is Key Life. Here to let Christians know that God isn't mad at them. Keep listening and you'll hear that because of what Jesus has done, you're welcomed home into the family of God because of His radical grace. Free from the penalties of sin and never alone in your suffering.

Steve Brown: The Christian faith really is about awareness. And awareness starts with the cross. You ever think that the problem is that we sometimes ameliorate and absolutely, the absolutely radical nature of Christ's work on the cross?

I wince when I think of the times that I've done that. It's not that we don't understand and believe that Christ died for our sins. The problem comes when we limit what He did on the cross. It has to do with the kickers I referred to earlier when we started this series.

You're forgiven if your repentance is real enough and deep enough. God cleaned the slate, listening to your uh, listing your sins and gave you a new slate on which to write. But be careful what goes on that slate. You're forgiven, but be very aware of God's discipline. He expects you to return the favor after all that He has done for you. Thus, the Gospel.

It's watered down and God's people sometimes drown in that water. In other words, staying with the water metaphor, we take the water Jesus turned into wine and we turn it back into water. Because Christians are already aware of our sin. That's how and why we became Christians.

We are susceptible to calls for faithful obedience and experience overwhelming guilt when we're not obedient. And if that position doesn't feel right and it's not. We are accused of, or we accuse ourselves of having no convictions, backsliding or betraying our faith.

I love German Shepherds. They're great dogs and our family has loved all of our German Shepherds over the years. Almost all of them have been loving protectors of our family, loyal, bright and fun, except one, and his name was Calvin. And a previous owner had terribly abused Calvin.

Whenever I think of beaten down and depressed Christians who repent every time locusts attack the crops of a country on the other side of the world and feel guilty about it, I think of that German Shepherd, Calvin. Whenever Calvin was confronted about doing something wrong, he would relieve himself on the floor. And that often happened when he had done nothing wrong.

Some Christians are like Calvin in that they're sure they're fault. It's their fault whenever anything goes wrong. Later, we're going to talk about the lies that are used to manipulate us. But for now, it's good to remember that not only are we a lot worse than we think, but more importantly, God's grace is a lot bigger and more active than we think.

Let me give you a truth. On the cross, all your sins, past and present and future, were cast into the sea. And as Corrie ten Boom said, God then put up a sign that said no fishing. But it doesn't stop there. God gave Christ's righteousness to His people. And every time we come before a holy God, we are clothed in Christ's righteousness.

In other words, we are as good and as pure and as faithful as Jesus is. There aren't any kickers to that. It's what's so good about the good news of the Christian faith. You don't, you don't have to do anything. It just is. If you never did the right thing, got worse instead of better, and were a total failure, it's still something that just is.

It's built into the infrastructure of what it means to be a Christian. In Galatians 2:20, Paul said this, that he was crucified with Christ and yet he lived. And then he said, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. That is not another command to be crucified, it's a statement of fact.

But there's more. The very nature of justification and imputation is that something supernatural happens. And we find ourselves often without our knowing it, getting better and better in every way. Well, maybe not that, but we do get better, and we just can't help it. And so, if you stay up at night and think about your sin, and if you've ever said to yourself, I'm never going to get any better, I've tried and tried and tried. I'm going to be a Buddhist.

If you've ever become discouraged because you look at your life and there's been so little progress you think, and that you're not getting any better and you get discouraged and decide, I'm giving up on this thing. If you've ever been there, stop it. Jesus is doing His thing in your life and there isn't a thing you can do about it, except rejoice in it. You think about that. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks Steve, and thank you for joining us on this journey through Steve's new book called "God's Not Mad at You." It addresses the lies that keep us trapped in guilt, shame, fear, and regret. If any of that sounds familiar, you may want to check it out. Go to Keylife.org/notmadbook or find it now on Amazon.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think one of the most refreshing qualities in a person is honesty. Someone who doesn't pretend like they have it all together, that's my people. And that's author and pastor Drew Hensley. We spoke with him recently on Steve Brown, etc. about his new podcast called "Still Becoming." Check out part of that conversation, then I'll be back to tell you about a special for your offer.

Guest (Male) (Drew Hensley): You know, I find myself, and I'm sure you guys too. I think everybody does. You find yourself having these conversations with friends or people at your church or, you know, other pastors, leaders, but just about faith and not really in a polished way, but in a way that I think matches up with, you know, the life that we all live. And as I found myself having more of these conversations, found them interesting and really helpful.

I was like, hey, that could be cool for a podcast, just this idea of we're in process, you know, in our faith, we're in process, in our journey. People are in different places. But what does it look like to have just conversations that are hopefully helpful, encouraging, maybe challenging, but they really do hit that sweet spot of, you know, where grace does meet us right there in the middle in the mess. And these conversations just about faith as it applies more to our day in day out.

And I I love Eugene Peterson, and I really like his work, Long Obedience in the Same Direction. And he has this line in there that just says, you know, all the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, and uneven performers. Um, we're secure not because we are sure of ourselves, but because we trust that God is sure of us.

Um, and so I had that idea too or that belief I think for decades. And it was very frustrating. Started to feel more like shame and condemnation, which I knew didn't match up with the gospel. So that was bothering too. But I felt like, man, I would look around and I would see other people. And here's the the magic trick if you will or the illusion when we look around at other people is we only see an exterior version.

And so we don't really know everything that's going on, right, in their life or or that they're not even sharing. A lot of times we just get this false illusion of, man, they really seem to have it together. Why don't I have it together like them? And we start this comparison track and it's really unhealthy.

I think I was reading something by Paul Zall years ago, and he actually just had a really good description of sanctification. And it shifted something for me where, you know, he he talked about how we can have this very upward trajectory view of sanctification, right? You're just a little bit better every day. You're getting more like Jesus every day, and it's going to be this clean path upward. And I think we'd love that if it if it worked like that.

But the reality is, I think the sanctification, the way he describes it, it's a lot of peaks and valleys. And it's all over the place. And that's what I found true for my life. You know, in some areas of my life, I feel like I've I've really grown. Um, I would say that if you looked at my life, you know, five, ten years ago and now, it's like, man, there's an area of faith or there's an area of something that's that's really grown, but there's still areas in my life that I look at and I say, yeah, that one's still pretty rough around the edges. Or, man, I feel like this is kind of, I feel like I was here, or maybe I've even dipped down a little bit. For whatever reason, you know, life hits, circumstances change, our faith gets tested, all of those things.

And so, I believe that a healthier view of sanctification is more of this uneven line, but we are becoming more like Christ, just not necessarily holistically all at the same time. You know, there are still all of these edges. And I think then that allows us to actually, what I think it allows, it allows us to actually be honest. You know, I think God can only sanctify the real us. He can't sanctify a version of us that's not real.

And so, um, only when we're able to be honest and say, all right, I'll bring out my mess, I'll bring out this over here, my anger problem, I'll bring out this thing that's been tripping me up, I'll bring out my lack of patience over here, and I'll just put it on the table. Then I think God does some of his best work. But if we believe that sanctification is just all upward trajectory, that's defeating before it even gets started. And I think that's why a lot of people feel like they stall out in their faith. They just become overwhelmed with this feeling of almost shame or, man, I'm just not going to get there. And so, I think if we looked at it differently, I I think it's actually much more freeing, honest.

Guest (Male): You are going to love Drew, and you're going to love this conversation. We'll send it to you on a CD for free. Just call us right now at 1-800 Key Life, and let us know where to send it. Again, that number is 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to order that CD, or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for the CD featuring Drew Hensley.

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