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It’s all for you, dummy!

It’s all for you, dummy!

JANUARY 7, 2021

/ Programs / Key Life / It’s all for you, dummy!

Steve Brown:
It’s all for you dummy. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase and worship. This is Key Life with practical Bible teaching to get you home with radical freedom, infectious, joy and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re looking at the fourth chapter of Galatians as we study that entire book and we’re looking at the first 11 verses of the fourth chapter. And it’s a place where Paul was bragging on God. I mean, he’s bragging on the father and he’s telling us some really, really amazing and wonderful things, that ought to bring us to exactly the same place. And we’ve seen that praise leads to power. That praise leads to all kinds of good stuff, cause that’s why we were created. So do it, even if you don’t want to, or even if you don’t feel like you want to do it, do it anyway, and you’ll be surprised and you’ll rise up and call me blessed. And we have, we’ve seen in this study of these verses, that Paul first praises the father, praises God, because God has a identified you and me, before he created the world. And then we saw yesterday that God has bent history for our benefit. In other words, when you read history, you ought to see my library. I’ve, I mean, it’s disorganized and awful, but if you walk though it, I have two libraries and publishers send me books now. I used to have to buy them and save pennies to get, and now they get, I’m going to say, where were you back when I had the need, I can afford to buy a book now. When I was a young pastor, I couldn’t afford anything. And I had to go spend my money on your books, but now they send them to be free and they are everywhere. But a significant section of my library is history. And whenever I get one of those books, pull them down, open it. What am I reading? I’m reading about me and about you, I’m reading what God did for us before we came along. I’m reading about how God created history for a very specific purpose. And you’re it. You say, prove it. Alright, I will, I could go to a lot of places, but in I Corinthians, the third chapter, Paul is dealing with division in the church, any he says, Oh man, the people in Corinth that are like the people in your church and the people in my church, it hasn’t changed much in all these years. We are a bunch of turkeys sometimes, or as Chuck Swindoll says porcupines trying to hug each other in the storm. And Paul was dealing with problems, always at the church at Corinth and they were going through some major division and he says some profound things in the third chapter of I Corinthians, but he says some really cool things too. At the end of the chapter, let me read to you what he says.

So let no one boast of men.

That’s what they were doing, they were choosing up sides, depending on who was going to be the president. I mean, one was saying I belong to Apollos and another was saying, I belong to Paul and they were having an election kind of like the one we had not too long ago. And so he says,

So let no one boast of men. For

this is, here it comes.

For all things are yours.

Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours. And you are Christ’s and Christ is God. What does that say? That says that history is obviously his story, but it’s also our story. It was created for the terrible meek, the people of God. Now, that ought to be enough. I mean, if you, if I had been Paul, I would’ve, you know, gone and gotten a Coke. Now, you don’t need to say anymore. That’ll get people praising God, but he has a lot more to say than that. I want you to note something else. I want you to note how the father put legs on what he knew about you, before you were ever born. He put legs on history in order to come and get you and love you, Galatians 4:4-5.

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his son to redeem those who were under the law.

Listen to the words of John 10:14, and 15.

I’m the good shepherd, and I know my own and I lay down my life for the sheep.

They’re saying that if you are a believer and were the only one, I think I mentioned this, on the face of the earth, that Jesus would have still come for you. Well, that’s true. And it’s true because of Galatians 4:4-5 and John 10:14-15. Wesley’s answer to Zinzendorf, I think it was Zinzendorf. John Wesley was the founder of Methodism and Zinzendorf was a Moravian, and Wesley had messed up everything. I mean, he really did. He made a mess out of it. And you think, there’s no redemption for him. He blew it too bad, but he had gone and he had heard about the salvation by faith message that had been written by Martin Luther in his introduction to the book of Romans. And he said his heart was strangely warmed and Wesley went to Zinzendorf and he said, I can’t preach faith because I don’t have faith. So it just doesn’t work. And Zinzendorf said, Wesley dost thou know that Christ died for thee? And Wesley said, I know that Christ died for the world. And Zinzendorf replied, yes, but dost thou know that he died for thee? Hmm. He did. And you know, when you think about it, when you really think about it, that is what leads to praise, to bragging on God. There’s a movie and I didn’t see it. I don’t, I’m not even sure that a Christian should have seen it. It was a long time ago. It was called Hard Core. And, that’ll sell movie tickets. And when you see Hard Core in the title of a movie and you’re a Christian, that’s probably not one you ought to go to, unless you read a review and find out that that’s not what it was all about, but it,starred George Scott and it was about a father whose daughter had run away from home and she became involved in pornography and she became a prostitute and she ran in some very bad circles, drugs and all of that stuff. And the father dropped everything and went looking for her in the worst areas that you can possibly imagine. Maybe I ought to see that movie, cause you know what it would remind me of? It would remind me of what Jesus did. If you’ve ever read C.S. Lewis science fiction books, the first one is called Out of the Silent Planet and the second one is called Perelandra and the third one is called That Hideous Strength, not very good science fiction, but great, great, powerful one profound stories. But when he came up with the title of The Silent Planet, what was that? That’s us, that’s our planet, the dark planet. And it was a planet from which the other planets had never heard anything, because it was lost and dark and bad and evil. And Ransom is the one called. to make a difference. That’s what’s happened. And when you think about it, when you think about how dark, we don’t, we have no idea how dark dark really is in a fallen world. You get hints of it throughout Scripture. In Romans, Paul says it’s just awful, that the whole world is languishing. And when you, when you see the effect of sin and the fall and what it’s done to us, you and me, and you realize how bad it is, I mean, if we knew the extent of our redemption, if we really knew how bad we are, it would blow us away. But God is gracious, and he only reveals a little bit of it at a time. I’ve told you a number of times, because it’s one of my favorite quotes in the entire universe. It’s from my late friend, Jack Miller. He’s the founder of World Harvest a mission organization and Sonship a teaching vehicle on grace, but he said this.

The whole Bible is about two sentences. Cheer up, you’re a lot worse than you think you are. And secondly, cheer up God’s grace is lot bigger than you think it is.

You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
That was Steve Brown, wrapping up this week’s teaching on Galatians. We will pick it up right here, when we resume this exploration on Monday. But first, tomorrow, it’s time again for Friday Q & A, as you may know, that’s when our friend Pete Alwinson swings by and together, Steve and Pete take on the very challenging questions that folks like you have sent in. Make sure you join us. So, I don’t know about you, but I want a deeper and more intimate walk with God, a prayer life that is beyond ordinary. And actually, I do know about you because I have no doubt, that’s what you want too. Essentially, we’re desiring to go deeper. Well, there’s a booklet that Steve wrote that explores this call to true worship of God and close companionship with the father. How to go deeper, to love more and to know more of him. Could, could you use that? If so, please call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email your request to [email protected]. By mail, write us at

Key Life Network
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Just ask for the booklet called Going Deeper. And finally, if you are able, would you please give to support the work of Key Life? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope or make it easy, just text Key Life to 28950 on your smartphone. In less time than it takes to write a check, you’ll be all set up. And after that, giving is a snap. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

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