Key Life Network

Steve Brown: We all lie and don’t mean to. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew: Being adopted into the family of God is not about doing more or trying harder. It’s about being welcomed by God because of his radical grace, free from the penalty of sin and never alone in your suffering. That grace is what Key Life is all about.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. We were starting yesterday, and this is a part of a book I’m working on. We’re not even sure of what the title is going to be, but I thought I’d share with you what I’m thinking. I would solicit from you comments about what I’m thinking. Is it helpful or not helpful?

If you were listening yesterday, we were talking about the nature of lies. I quoted Dr. House, who said everybody lies. People really do. Sometimes we intentionally lie. Sometimes it’s not on purpose. Things often become distorted through memory, proclivity, or perspective, and so for all intents and purposes become lies.

The biblical reality is that the infrastructure of much of what we encounter rests on what is simply not true. It seems to be true. We may think it’s true, and everybody you know may say it’s true, but in fact, it’s not.

The reason the Bible and its truths seem counter-intuitive is because we have bought into the lies we’ve been told by others, our culture, the media, religious leaders, and even our pastor, and sometimes even me. A good way to gauge how much one has bought into those lies is to notice how often you think to yourself when you check on the truth claims of Scripture, when you say to yourself, "That doesn’t make sense," or maybe, "That’s too good to be true."

In 1 Corinthians 2:14-16, Paul wrote that believers have the mind of Christ. He said the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they’re spiritually discerned. The spiritual person, Paul goes on, the spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

In other words, there is a direct and inverse correlation between our acceptance of biblical truth and our acceptance of truth from other sources. To wit, the more we accept other truths, the less biblical truth makes sense.

As I’ve worked on the book from which I’m drawing this teaching, I’ve experienced a kind of weird feeling that makes the truth about what I’ve written needing to be sanded down a bit, made a little bit more acceptable, made a little bit more in the box.

At a conference where I was speaking sponsored by the ministry of my friend Dudley Hall, after a wonderful presentation by one of the speakers, Dudley got up and he opened with these words: "Man, I hope that stuff is true." He was, of course, speaking facetiously. However, there have been times when I’ve thought, "I do hope this is true."

The truths of Scripture are true. They’re absolutely true, but they are so amazing and so wonderful that they are sometimes hard to believe. In fact, you can’t believe them without some help.

If we argued, I would probably win the argument. You know why? Because I’m so smart? No, that’s not the reason. Because I know so much? No, that’s not the reason. I would win the argument because I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve heard it all. I have a glib tongue. I know the dumb things that we all believe, and I would probably win the argument.

The Christian faith is good news. That’s where the word gospel comes from. But if you worshipped at church lately, you may have left feeling condemned, ashamed, or horribly guilty. That’s because the preacher, the liturgy, or the people have bought into the lies.

Old, habitual lies are hard to change and die hard because it’s always been this way. So when we hear the truth, the radical truth of Scripture, we sometimes feel that it doesn’t make sense and it is too good to be true.

As a result, when we change that truth into something more rational, we think, and more religious, we think, we make a horrible mistake. As I’ve said, I’m not throwing rocks here, given that I’ve done that in my sermons, and if Jesus had let me, I would have done it in this series that I’m going to teach you too.

It’s so much a part of our DNA that we do it without even realizing it. That’s why we must constantly remind each other of the truth of the gospel, hang out with others who will do it for us and us for them. It’s what Luther meant when he said that we must preach the gospel to one another lest we become discouraged.

Now, before you reject what I just said, stay with me a bit. I’m going to show you a better way to deal with guilt, shame, fear, and regret. A lot of our guilt is because we have believed lies about forgiveness. A lot of our shame is because we believed in the world’s lie about who we are. A lot of our fear is because we believe the lies about our fragility, and our regret comes because we believed lies about God’s sovereignty and his goodness.

Now, let me show you some kinds of truth. There are lies we welcome because they make us feel good. We want to believe them. In the 1965 play *Man of La Mancha*, Don Quixote seems to live the lies of a play in the face of the horror of the Inquisition. We sometimes do that too. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. That’s true, but there are times when we believe the lie about horses. It’s ultimately a game of pretend, and the lies eventually hit the rocks of reality.

You may remember when Sally Field a long time ago accepted an Oscar for the movie *Places in the Heart*. She said when she accepted the Oscar, "You like me. You really like me." She believed it at the moment, but it wasn’t true. Madonna made fun of her and a lot of others did for what they thought was her self-aggrandizement. But she felt good about the lie, at least for a while.

There are unintentional lies, too, that are more often than not harmless. Those lies are often believed and spoken by well-intentioned people who are asleep and simply need to be awakened.

I was a lifeguard and a water safety instructor for years when I was young. Everybody knew the danger of swimming too soon after eating. We all believed that we needed to wait an hour after eating before jumping into the swimming pool, and that was the way we would avoid cramps. You know something? That’s not true, and it never was.

Someone suggested that it was a lie agreed on by mothers so they could get some rest. However, I believed it, as did almost everyone else. Whether intentional or not, the upside of that lie was that mothers really did get some rest.

And so we believe folk tales. We believe things that are just said over and over again until they feel like they’re true. We believe lies and we don’t mean to hurt anybody. We’re Christians, we’re kind, and we mean well. You think about that. I’m in.

Matthew: And with that, we wrap up our first week of teaching from Steve’s new book called, well, technically doesn’t even have a name yet. That’s kind of exciting, right? We get to ride shotgun as Steve lands the plane on this thing. Tomorrow, join us for Friday Q&A. That’s when Steve and Pete will answer this question: What in the world is anointing? Curious? Tune in for their answer from the Bible.

So here’s your random Matthew fact for today. Last year, I was an actor for one day. It was a TV show and I didn’t do that great. Another story for another day. Maybe you do a little acting yourself, acting as if everything is okay when it’s really not. We all do it.

In Steve’s book *Hidden Agendas*, he invites us to drop our masks and remember that we are forgiven, redeemed, accepted, and loved. For a gift of $15 or more to Key Life, that book is our gift to you. Just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at steve@keylife.org to order that book or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, the name of the book is *Hidden Agendas*.

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