For God’s sake, stop yelling.

Steve Brown:
For God’s sake, stop yelling. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
It’s for freedom that Christ set us free and Key Life is here to bring you Biblical teaching that encourages you to never give it to slavery, again. Our teacher on Key Life is Steve Brown. He’s an author, broadcaster and seminary professor who is sick a phony religion.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew, if you have your Bible, open it to the fifth chapter of Matthew, and we’re looking at the fruit of the Spirit. And we’ve looked at the love, we’ve looked at joy and laughter, and we’ve looked at peace, and we’ve looked at patience. By the way, something I didn’t have a chance to say yesterday about patience. Is that the best example of patience is God’s patience, with me. Years ago, I was in commercial broadcasting, before I started doing this for Jesus. And you need to know that I made a lot more money working for the devil, then I get working for Jesus, but the retirement policy is so much better doing Christian broadcasting, then it was in doing pagan broadcasting. But I remember when I started, a friend of mine who was in broadcasting, he said, Brown, you’ve got a good voice. You could pay for your college education. If you go down to the radio station and volunteer. And I did, and to my surprise, because of my deep voice, they hired me. Now in those days, it was not easy, you did everything. You didn’t have, like, I have, a producer sitting in a little glass booth doing all the technical things that I don’t have the foggiest idea how to do. You had to do it all yourself. Do you know, in the first six weeks that I was in commercial broadcasting, I played a Billy Graham tape backwards. Have you ever heard Billy Graham preach, when it’s going backwards? It’s quite interesting. And, but it’s not funny, if they’re paying you to play it the right way. I did an entire broadcast without turning the mic on, and the manager of that station, now, he wasn’t happy with me, but he was extremely patient. If he had been a Christian, which he wasn’t, he would have said he was going to pray for me. He said, Steve, I know this is confusing, but stay with it. And it’s going to work out. Do you know that God has done the same thing with me over and over again? I say to him, you know, I thought by now, I’d have this thing down, pat. And I’d be the best disciple you have in all of Christendom. God sometimes laughs. And he says, listen, just be patient. This thing’s going to work out. Eventually, you’re going to look just like Jesus. Listen, the patience that God has shown to you and to me, is the patience that he’s called us to show to everybody else. Which brings me to the next fruit of the Spirit, fifthly. If you’re keeping track, if you’re free in Christ, you’re free not only to love, to be joyful and laugh, to be at peace and to be patient, you are free to be kind, look at Galatians 5:22.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness.

Now, in order to get a flavor of what the Greek word for kindness means, I want to show you another place where it’s used, it’s in Matthew 11:28-30. And this is what Jesus said.

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy Laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly and heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The same word used for easy, in that text, is the word used in Galatians, when the apostle Paul is talking about kindness. You know, something, I lived a long time and I’ve never seen people so angry. Now, I’m an angry person and I get that. And Jesus has had to deal with me in a lot of ways. There was a time when I would have been defined as an angry young man. And then later is an angry old man, but Jesus has been working with me and that’s not my definition anymore, but I’ve noticed in our culture, I’ve never seen such anger, such hostility, such condemnation. We don’t cut anybody any slack. That’s what the canceled culture is all about. It’s not that other people are wrong or mistaken, it’s that they are evil and they must be stopped and removed. That kind of stuff is awful. And it’s awful for a Christian, isn’t it? No, it’s not. It’s one of the biggest gifts that we have ever been given. You know why, because when it gets dark enough, even a little light will do. Let me say that again, when it gets dark enough, even a little light will do. We’re called to be civil and we can be that way because of who we are. I am beloved. I can love you. I’ve been forgiven. I can forgive you. I’ve been changed and I can react to your anger with something more than pulling my gun out, and shooting you dead, because of Jesus. And even if you can’t do that completely and totally, even if you can’t pull it off, if you can pull it off some, if you can be kind some, it will show and it will show big in this culture. If you are on social media and I’m not, although Key Life is, and I’m there kind of, but I don’t do Twitter myself and I’m not on Facebook myself, because there is just too much stuff there that makes me angry. And when other people are angry at me, I have a tendency to be angry at them, and to push harder than they push. And if you’ve got that proclivity, it’ll kill you. But that proclivity is being taken away from me. And I can be kind to those who disagree with me. I can be gentle with those who don’t accept what I accept as important. I can be different. And even if I’m not perfectly different in Christ, if I’m a little bit different in Christ, it will show, because when it gets dark enough, and it is dark enough, a little light, that would be you, and that would be me, when it gets dark enough, a little light will do. Now, when I read the word kindness in the Bible, I have an advantage over most people. You know what it is, my father was the kindest man I have ever known. Now, my father was not good. And he became a Christian three months before he died. He had a real problem with booze and a lot of other things, he didn’t fit the mold and he didn’t go to church. Not because he thought he was better, but because he fought, he was worse. He didn’t think he was good enough to associate with good people. And he wasn’t, but he didn’t know that the people in the church were as bad as he was, and needed grace as much as he did. And I thank God for the doctor who led into Christ, on his death bed. But let me tell you something about him. He was quiet. He was kind. He was a gentle. Do you know, do you know that he only spanked me two times that I can remember? And both times he cried, when he did it. I have never been loved so totally and completely by anyone, anymore than my father. It was total. It was absolute. And when I read in the Bible that Jesus said, if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your father, how much more your father in heaven. And I went, cool. I’ve got it made in the shade, man. If my father in heaven is anything like my father on earth, then I have no more worries. I am loved totally and completely. And out of that was a kindness and a gentleness. Kindness, never judges harshly. I heard my father so often making excuse for bad behavior. Kindness never punishes. Kindness never pushes. Kindness never hurts. And do we have an opportunity in our culture to make a witness? Oh, an incredible opportunity, because when it gets dark enough, a little light will do. When Eugene Debs was sent to prison as a conscientious objector, he was placed in a cell with a man, they said could never be rehabilitated and Debs did everything that he could to be kind to that man. And eventually the man changed. And when Debs died that prisoner wept, and said he was the only Jesus I ever saw. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve. So great to dig into the fruit of the Spirit, as we continue our exploration of Galatians. We will resume our journey soon, but first, tomorrow, it’s time again for Friday Q&A. That’s when our friend Pete Alwinson swings by the studio, and together, Steve and Pete answer the challenging questions you’ve sent in. Always a fun and informative time. Don’t miss it. Speaking of questions, there are some questions that come from just kind of a, I don’t know, general curiosity kind of place, but other questions come from somewhere deeper. Questions like, does God exist? Am I really forgiven and free? If all of this is true, why don’t I feel different? Well, Steve is no stranger to doubts and questions. And he wrote about these things in a mini-book called Faith and Doubt: When Belief is Hard. In it, he explores the reasons behind our doubts and explains how we can rest in faith. May we send you this mini-book for free. Let us know at Key Life by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email [email protected] and ask for the mini-book. If you’d like to mail your request, send it to

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