Key Life Network

Guest (Male): What about work salvation? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life. Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He's nobody's guru, but he does have honest answers to hard questions about the Bible. God's grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, and worship. Now, here's Steve and Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth with Street Smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete: Hey man, how you doing?

Steve Brown: Doing good. You added a new place for guys to meet with you in the morning.

Pete: Well, not yet, but we're going to, uh, here coming up in February, yeah, we will.

Steve Brown: Listen, this, uh, this Forge is, um, I always say about Baptists, they're like weeds, they're everywhere, you can't get rid of them. But I'm going to start saying that about the Forge ministry. You are reaching an incredible number of men in a very profound way.

I meet regularly with one of the guys who is a part of Forge and man, it has absolutely changed his life. So you're doing a good thing. You don't have to say anything about it. But if you guys want to know anything about the Forge ministry, go to forgetruth.com, forgetruth.com.

Now, if your wife or a girlfriend and you want to know what your boyfriend or your husband is being taught, you can go there too, but mostly it's for men. There's an amazing podcast, such great teaching on leadership and what it means to be a man. It's forgetruth.com.

As you know, Pete comes in on Fridays and we answer questions, and we honestly love your questions. You can send your questions to Key Life's Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794.

In Canada, it's Key Life's Canada, Post Office Box 28060, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8. Or you can email your question to steve@keylife.org.

And if you can help us financially, please do and I promise we'll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving it. We're a member of ECFA in the States and Forces in Canada, and both of those organizations oversee our ministry and affirm to the world that we are ethical.

Now, we were ethical before they came along, but we're glad to have their affirmation of that. So be as generous as you can. If you can't help us financially, say a prayer, that would be appreciated too.

Pete, why don't you lead us in prayer and we'll get to some of these questions?

Pete: Let's do that. Let's do that. Father, thank you as we, uh, we wrap up this week as we come into your presence, that we can come boldly to the one true God of the universe and know that we are accepted, Lord, because of the work of Jesus Christ.

We love you because you first loved us. We love you because you, you brought us out of darkness into your light. We love you because you have forgiven us and you have continued to develop us as your children. Thank you for the high status that we have with you now and that that status can never get any higher.

And so we honor you and we praise you and we look forward to even giving you these issues that at the end of the week, we, we can't fix. There's issues in relationships and work and money and jobs. Lord, there's so much that we can't figure out and we come to you with all of that and pray that you would lead us and guide us in the way we should go. Counsel us with your eye upon us.

And use this weekend even as we worship. Be with our pastors, priests, teachers, leaders, Lord, all of those worship directors who will bring us into your presence, Lord, may they take us deep and and take us into your word and Holy Spirit, will you draw us closer? Now we commit this time of Q&A to you and we ask that you would use it for your good name sake. In Jesus name.

Steve Brown: Amen.

Steve Brown: Pete, this is an email, were the disciples baptized?

Pete: Yeah, I mean, yes. They had to have been.

Steve Brown: How do you know?

Pete: Well, but we don't have the clear indication that all of them were, right?

Steve Brown: But they were obedient, so, you know, do you think maybe their baptism was the baptism of John?

Pete: That's what I was going to say. I think it probably they were all baptized with the baptism of John and associated with that. Some of them, we know, were with John before they came with Jesus, right?

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete: So we know some of them were. But then to be baptized, yeah, I would I would suspect. You can't hang out with Jesus.

Steve Brown: And not do what he says to do.

Pete: That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: That's true. Yeah. But the Bible does not specifically give us an account of the baptism of the disciples.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: But what Pete just said, we can include in scripture because it's factual and we know that they were baptized.

Pete: Yeah.

Steve Brown: So there.

Pete: Yeah. There it is. There it is.

Steve Brown: Let's go to our phone lines.

Guest (Male): Hey Pete, hey Steve. Happy Friday. Had a question about working and our attitude towards working. I've heard some sermons say to give your all towards your job and to not only just work for your boss, but to also work for God and to put pride in your work.

And I can't remember if you guys said this or if I heard it somewhere else, but I've also heard that one of the biggest lies that Satan can tell you is to change your identity from being a child of God into a laborer for God. And I feel like both of those are true, but they're contradictory. So I was just kind of curious, what are your guys' thoughts on that? Is there a right or wrong way of thinking towards both of those ideas? Thank you guys.

Steve Brown: That's a very thoughtful question.

Pete: It is. Yeah.

Steve Brown: You know, I hadn't listened to it before, but that I I'd like to have lunch with this guy.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Because he's really thoughtful in the way he goes. I think in in both cases there's an effort to teach a point. You know, we should and the scripture is clear when we work, we do it for the glory of God.

And that's an important thing to do. And the person who teaches you're not, uh, you're not, you don't live in a slave house, you live in the big house, you're now a child of God is another point altogether.

Pete: Mhm.

Steve Brown: And they're both true. And I don't think they're dichotomous or that they contradict each other. I think it depends on what you're thinking about and how you apply it in your life.

Yeah, work. And you're not doing that for yourself. You're doing that in the name of Christ and you're doing it for him and you're doing excellency because of that.

Pete: Mhm.

Steve Brown: But you're not a slave. You live in the big house and that's cool too.

Pete: Yeah, we're we're we're sons who are we're slaves of righteousness, Paul said.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete: So we want, but we're willing slaves. We want to do that.

Pete: Yeah, good good point, Steve. And um the difference between a laborer and a worker, there's a nuance there that he might be working on that I might might be missing.

Steve Brown: Well, I think he I I think he gets the point of that teaching. You know, that we're not, you know, we're we're not the the servants of Jesus and that's all it is because as you said, we're a child or a son or a daughter of God.

Pete: Right.

Steve Brown: And they're both true and they're not contradictory, but maybe they seem that way. And I think both can be abused.

Pete: Mhm.

Steve Brown: I think you can say, look, I'm the son of a king, I'm not doing anything anymore.

Pete: Yeah, right.

Steve Brown: Or on the other hand, you could say, you know, I hope Jesus is watching because I'm doing all this for him. And in both cases you'd be wrong.

Pete: Yeah, and one thing I think is important is that to understand is Jesus said that God, the Father was working and he's working until now.

Steve Brown: That's right.

Pete: That we were created to work. And so in culture, one of the ways we glorify God is by tending the world that he made, as Adam and Eve were supposed to do, to guard it, to tend it and make it fruitful and multiply and exercise dominion over it, use the resources that he gave us so that we could live abundantly to his glory.

So in a very real sense, work, um, is redeemed by the gospel. But it but when a when a pagan works, he's and is producing good things for others, um, he's fulfilling his creation ordinance in the sense.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete: You know.

Steve Brown: And that's good.

Pete: It's very good. And and and the whole idea of retirement is really not found in the Bible. Uh, that's why we talk about re-wire-ment a lot, not retirement because what are you going to do? Go around sit sit around all day?

Steve Brown: And eat bonbons and watch soap operas.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Yes. That's what I'm going to do.

Pete: Not you you haven't done it to this point. You will never do it. I love it.

Steve Brown: So, that's true. This, uh, is an email. And we've had a discussion because we just saw it. Is saying thy will be done a cop out?

Pete: Huh. Yeah, I you know, and you said there was a particular group of Christians that actually teach it's a cop out. Go on and talk about that.

Steve Brown: Well, there's there's a branch of our brothers and sisters in Christ who says when you say thy will be done, you're doubting God. And you you don't have the faith that you need to have. And so it's a cop out. What you're doing is, I'm asking this, I don't think you're going to do it, but your will be done. And so you've copped out.

Pete: No, you haven't. No.

Steve Brown: You know, that didn't nobody made that up. That came from the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: Thy will be done on earth as it's done in heaven.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: So, if you're not bringing that up when you pray, you're probably making a mistake.

Pete: I I totally agree with you and I think that what happens is that sometimes those that want to emphasize that we need to have faith when we pray and believe me, as we read the gospels, Jesus loves faith and responds to faith all the time. So faith is a big part of of when we pray. There's no doubt about it.

But we've got to be careful that we don't attach our certitude to our request.

Steve Brown: That's true, yeah.

Pete: That this is definitely God's will.

Steve Brown: So good.

Pete: And and that's you know, if if I say, Lord, heal my friend. You know, that's consistent with scripture, but I can't demand that God do that. Now, and and some of those people will say, yes, you can. And we would say, no, you can't.

Steve Brown: No, you can't. And it's presumptuous.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: To think that you can.

Pete: That's right.

Steve Brown: And so there's a sense in which we always pray with a relinquishment to the God of the universe who is God and we're not.

Pete: I love that. I love that. And 1st John 5:14-15 says, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And and so if I say, Lord, I I I pray you'd make me more loving, he will bring that to pass.

Steve Brown: If it's in his will and we've been revealed that it is.

Pete: Yeah, we know, we know it's his will that I become more loving. So he's going to teach me how to do that. He'll answer that prayer. Make me a millionaire, uh, is is is is another point.

Steve Brown: But maybe.

Pete: But maybe.

Steve Brown: But give 10% to Key Life.

Pete: At least, why not 50%?

Steve Brown: Well, that's good. A million, you could live on 500,000.

Pete: Come on. Come on. Come on.

Steve Brown: Guys, this is degenerating quickly, so we're going to leave. But first, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.