Get it right…then get moving.

Steve Brown:
Get it right…then get moving. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life is a radio program for struggling believers, sick of phony religion and pious cliches. Our host and teacher is seminary professor Steve Brown. He teaches that radical freedom leads to infectious joy and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We have just finished spending a lot of time defining the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it’s simple. You know, I found a thousand different ways to talk about it because I’m a preacher and that’s what we do. But Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. You know, we do all of these training sessions on evangelism, how do you present the gospel so people will hear it. I’ve always wondered about gun training. I mean, what’s there to know if you know where the trigger is and which way to point it. I mean, you got it. You might miss, but if you’ve got a magazine that’s pretty full by the time you get to the last bullet in it, you’ll be hitting at least the target, if not the center of it. Well evangelism is kind of like that, I mean, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon. The gospel is, are you in trouble? Have you messed up? There’s a Holy God. If you’ll run to Jesus, Jesus will take you to that holy God. And you’ll be forgiven forever. That’s it? That’s the gospel. So, we took about four weeks to say that and I hope you got it. You know, Martin Luther said we got to preach the gospel to each other or we’ll get discouraged. And he is so right. Now let’s turn to another text. And this also is Galatians and it’s Galatians 3:1-9, a whole new subject. We’re going to talk about remembering Paul writes

O foolish Galatians! Who in the world has bewitched you? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain- if really it is in vain?. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith- thus Abraham “believed God, and he was reckoned as righteous”? So you see it is men of faith who were sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, “In you shall all nations be blessed.” So then, those who are men of faith (and women of faith parenthetically) and children of faith are blessed as Abraham with faith.

Now, we’re going to talk about how important it is to remember stuff. But before we do that, I want to go down one side road. And I want you to note from these verses, Paul’s insistence on right doctrine. I was on a podcast with some guys that I love a lot. I’ve been on with them two or three times. They are young and I want to say, get a haircut, but I do that cause I’m bald and I’m jealous. But they love Christ with all of their hearts. And it was fun. We got to talking about, how we try to control and we got to talk about how Jesus is different from religion. And as we were talking, I said to them, yes, Jesus is different from religion. But sometimes people who believe that, have no conviction. They say, Jesus is all I need. You heard about the pastor who was on a plane with an astronomer and the astronomer asked him what he did for a living. He said, I’m a pastor. And the astronomer said, you know, pastor, I keep my religion simple. Jesus loves me, this I know. And the pastor said, I keep my astronomy simple, twinkle, twinkle little star. Well, the Christian faith is truth, absolute revealed, propositional truth. And you got to get that right. That’s the reason for having systematic theology. It’s the Biblical theology. It’s the reason for studying the Bible. Now, it may not be a list as long as some people say it ought to be, but there are certain basic truths, like the Apostle’s Creed, some of the other creeds, there’s some basic truths, that are absolutely basic and you gotta get them right, before you move. And if you move before you get that right, then you don’t have anything to say. And so Christians need to study the Bible. And if anything that I’ve said seems to say different, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to say that. Doctrine is important. You know, mothers used to have that sewn saying that they would give to their daughters and it would be kissing don’t last but cooking do. Now don’t write me letters. I know that that sounds sexist, but theologically, it’s not sexist at all. It’s very important. Feelings don’t last, doctrine do. It was those who believe the right things under the Third Reich who stood against Hitler, the people who thought it didn’t matter what you believe, as long as you believe something and sincere about it. Those are the ones who sold out. But those Christians, confessing Christians who knew the truth stood when the going got hard. And we live in a time when we need to stand and you will not stand if you don’t get the truth right first. You think about that. Amen.

Well, it’s Wednesday. And sometimes when I have some time on Wednesdays, I spend some time answering one or two questions. And as you know, Pete will be in on Friday and that’s a very popular part of Key Life. Pete comes in on Friday and we spend the entire broadcast answering questions. But sometimes, if Wednesday I have a little bit of extra time, I take one of the questions and spend a little, or maybe two, if I have time. And we get so many questions from you guys, and we love your questions. You know, you can ask a question, 24 seven, just pick up the phone, dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE and record your question. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. That’s always available. Whenever you have a question, or you can send a question to

Key Life Network
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In Canada it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
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Or you can email your question to [email protected], and we’ll take you and your questions seriously. And if you can help us financially, please do. When you help us, you help so many others, cause only a small percentage of people who benefit by this ministry of Key Life are able to help us financially. And so if you’re really excited about the concept of God’s grace and freedom and getting people home faithfully, and you’d like to see more people get in that groove, then help us financially. If you can’t. And if you can’t, we understand that, do say a prayer for this ministry. And by the way, all of those touch points are places where you can help us financially, if God moves you in that direction. All right, let’s go to one or two of these questions. This is an email question, and we get it a lot in a lot of different forms. This email was, was Jesus really, really slain before the foundation of the world? That means that he was on the cross like forever? Well, no it doesn’t mean exactly that, but it does mean kind of that. The statement by the way is found in Revelation 13:8, about Jesus being slain from the foundation of the world. And when you read that, you kinda go, Whoa, what in the world does that mean? God is trying to let us know about something that is really important. When Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am. He was doing exactly the same thing. And you can find little flashes of this time thing throughout the scripture. And what is God saying to us? He is saying that you’re in a time continuum where you’re born in one place, and you get baptized in another place, and you meet your beloved and you’re married and in another place, and then you get children in another place, and then you get grandchildren, then you’d die in another place. And that’s all on a timeline and that God is never on a timeline. In fact, and you got to put your thinking cap on in order to get this. In fact, God is outside of time and space. C.S. Lewis said,

He looks at everything that always was, is, or ever will be on a plane at the same time.

It’s always extant and present with him all the time. And, we look at things on a timeline and when you die, you get into a place that isn’t time and space, where God is. Now, what does it mean to say that Jesus was slain from the foundation of the earth? It means from God’s perspective, when you look at the plain, the cross is always there, always there because God is outside of time and space. It means that when Jesus prayed, he prayed, when people ask, how could he, how could God pray to God? Because he was in time and space and prayed to God who was outside of time and space, even to himself who was part of the Trinity. And there are a thousand questions that I answers, once you get it, but you have to think about it for a while. Yes, Jesus really was slain from the foundation of the earth, and it’s pretty exciting when you get it. I got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.