Jesus promised you’d get in trouble.

Steve Brown:
Jesus promised you’d get in trouble. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
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 penalties of sin and never alone in your suffering. That grace is what Key Life is all about.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. I hope you guys had a great week-end. I hope you got some rest and relaxation. You got to play and eat good food, and that your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. If you have your Bible, open it to the fifth chapter of Acts. We spent a long time in this fifth chapter, and probably could spend a lot more and probably are. This is the place where the disciples get arrested. And then, God tells them they’re to go and do what they got arrested for again, after he got them out of prison, about their standing before the council and the powers, speaking truth to power, the refusal of the disciples to be canceled. And we’re living in a canceled culture, we should not be a part of it, or allow it to happen to us as Christians. And if you were listening last week, we talked about why, but this week we’re going to look at the end of that chapter. And we’re going to start at the 33rd verse and go through the 42nd verse. So, they send the disciples out of the courtroom and this is what went on inside the courtroom.

When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a while. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose, giving himself out to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred joined him. But he was slain, and all who followed him were dispersed and it came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean arose in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if it’s this plan or this undertaking is is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found to oppose God!” So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then they let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and at home, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

Oh man. I love that. They just refused to back off, to shut up or to go away. Let’s pray. And then we’ll see some things in that text. Father, thank you for our heritage. Thank you for these people who stood when it was hard. Thank you for their refusal to back off or to go away. Thank you, that they remained and persevered. Do it again with us. Do it again with us. You know everybody who’s listening to this broadcast, and you know the hard places and soft places, you know the pain and the joy. Father, remind us that you’re sovereign. And that nothing comes to us, the jokes, the laughter, the fun, the pain, the hurt, the diagnosis, nothing that doesn’t first pass through a nail scarred hand. Teach us to reach out to you, to lean on you hard and to trust you in everything. And then Father, as always, we pray for the one who teaches on this broadcast. Forgive him his sins, cause there are many, we would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let me tell you what Jesus, we interviewed a wonderful lady a couple of weeks ago on our talk show, who had written a book about talking back to the purity culture, and she was a delight. I was kind of worried about the program, but it turned out to be just a fun time. But she said, one of the problems in the church, is that we claim promises that God never made. She said, she said that when she was in college and that’s when those books came out that said Christians shouldn’t date or kiss, except the person they were going to marry. I remember Ruth Graham, somebody asked her, did God always answer your prayers? And she said, of course not. If he had, I would have married the wrong man several times. Well, the purity culture and it sort of crashed and burned, and I’m not going to go into that, suggested that you, just didn’t look at anybody, except the one you were going to marry. And, she said she did it. She did everything that, she wore the ring, she was careful about the guys that she looked at and how she looked at them. When she met her husband, she gave herself to him. There was, and properly no sex before they got married. And she did everything. And God had promised that they would have a wonderful marriage, because she did. And then six years later, he left, he left the Christian faith and he didn’t want to be married to a Christian. So, he left her and she said, Steve, you’ve gotta be careful about claiming promises that God never made to you. And that is true, and we do that all the time. You promised, and God says, no, I didn’t. You presumed. And there’s a difference. Make sure that I promised it. And once I promise it, I’ll do it, but don’t put words in my mouth. Don’t make me say things, I never said. Don’t make me say promises, or say that I said promises, that I never made. So, when Jesus promises, and there are a number of things, and maybe one day we’ll do a series on the real promises of Jesus. Some of them aren’t altogether that pleasant, but let’s distill them, in three promises. He promises his presence. He doesn’t care how you dress or how you look or where you go or what you do or how often you fail or what a mess you make of things. He doesn’t, he doesn’t care about all that. He will never leave you, period. That’s a fact, you can hang your hat on it. You can trust it. You can lean on it hard, because he promised. He promises that he’ll always love you. And the first question is, why? And the answer from him is generally, I have no idea. There’s something unreasonable about my love, but he’ll always love you. And when you feel that he doesn’t, that’s a lie and it’s from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke. When you feel that he has canceled you, he never will, because he loves you, not just a little bit, but more than you could possibly imagine. And then there’s a third promise that is clearly made. You are going to get into trouble. I don’t like that one very much, but it’s true. You’re going to get into trouble. And the text we’re looking at now on Key Life is a good example of how that happens. You would think that after the resurrection, after all the promises, they would sing, Kumbaya around the fire. And then when the fire burned down, join hands and walk off in the sunset together. It didn’t happen. They were in trouble and here they are in court. Now, there’s some observations that come to me, as we go through that text I just read to you. And the first one is this, there’s probably a correlation between your commitment and the persecution against you. People are always asking why Christians are so angry. Well, they shouldn’t be, we shouldn’t be condemning people or angry people, that shows that we don’t really believe what we say we believe. But to be honest with you, I’m not making excuses for sin, I mean, I’ve been dealing with an anger problem, almost all of my life, but, and I’m better, you wouldn’t describe me as an angry person anymore. And there was a time when you could. But, but when you, when you look at this, you begin to see, that there is a correlation between your commitment to Christ and the persecution against you. Pagans are never angry and you know why? Because they don’t believe anything. They don’t get persecuted for the same reason. Hey. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thanks Steve. That was Steve Brown, setting the table for us here at the end of Acts chapter five. And just to be exact, our text was Acts 5:33-42. We’ll learn all about these holy troublemakers, the rest of this week. So, make sure you join us again, starting tomorrow. So, you’ve probably heard about Steve’s latest book, Talk the Walk. The basis of that book was a series of messages, Steve gave at the Billy Graham Training Center, at The Cove in Asheville, North Carolina. The book and the sermon, is all about speaking truth to power, but not forgetting that we’re to speak the truth in love, easier said than done. Yes, I think you’re going to love this sermon. So, get your dialing finger ready and call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] and ask for the CD. If you’d like to mail your request, send it to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

If you’re in Canada, send your request to

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

Just ask for your copy of the CD called How to Be Right Without Being Insufferable: The Gift of Truth. And finally, if you value what we do here at Key Life, would you prayerfully consider giving to support that work? Giving is easy, you just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or just grab your phone and text Key Life to 28950. That’s Key Life, one word, two words, doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And as always, we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.