If you’re saved and you know it, your life should show it.

Steve Brown:
If you’re saved and you know it, you’re life should show it. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life here to let Christians know that God isn’t mad at them. Keep listening and you’ll hear that because of what Jesus has done, you’re welcomed home into the family of God because of his radical grace, free from the penalties of sin and never alone in your suffering.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re looking at Paul’s defense of himself. Oh yeah. Paul defended himself. Sometimes you got to do that, nobody else will. Sometimes Jesus says, just be quiet and let me take care of it, but sometimes you gotta speak up. You know, we do need sometimes, assertiveness training for Christians. I wrote a book, a long time ago. I don’t even know if it’s around. It was called No More Mister Nice Guy. This is a book about Christian boldness and we, um, we taught assertiveness training for Christians at our Born Free Seminar, but always in the context of washing feet and being a servant and knowing who you are, but Paul’s is defending himself. And he’s, the things he’s saying about himself are good for us because they allow us to see if they’re true with us too. It’s all in the first chapter of Galatians. He was confronted, he didn’t do the choosing, God did. Paul loved because he was first loved. He was convinced, absolutely convinced that he was right, in the major areas where one ought to be right. And then yesterday I mentioned, we’re going to talk, talk a little bit more about it today. He was changed Galatians 1:13-16, and also we looked at II Corinthians 5:17, that if you’re in Christ, you’re a new creation. If you’re saved and you know it, then your life should really show it. But not the ways you think. You know, we think Jesus died to make us nice. He didn’t do that. People think, well, you, you, uh, I one time, there was this teenager who just became a Christian and she was dancing. And one of the saints in the church said, young lady, can you picture Jesus dancing? And she stopped dead and said, no, but I can’t picture him chewing chewing gum neither. And I thought, Oh man, out of the mouth of babes. Paul is not talking about being nice, about obeying all the rules. Now it’s important that we obey the rules that God gives us, because that’s the way you live. But when we don’t, and a lot of times we don’t, we’re forgiven. But he’s talking about something a lot deeper than that, a love that is passionate, a caring about the reality, an authenticity. Paul several times in the letters that he writes, confesses his sins. You think, you think, I don’t believe I’d have said that, if I knew what I was writing was going to go in the Bible. I don’t think I’d confess my sins, but Paul did. He was extremely authentic. In fact, in II Corinthians, he’s again defending himself and he’s bragging and it’s not appropriate the way it is in the book of Galatians. And he knows it. And he says in the text, Holy writ, I can’t, this is I’m talking like a fool. This is crazy. And then he went ahead and did some more of it. There is such child likeness and authenticity and reality about him. He’s who he is. It is a saying worthy of full acceptance he said that Christ Jesus came to sinners. And then he stopped and said, um, and I’m the chief of sinners. Not, I was the chief of sinners. You read Romans 7 and all of a sudden you see a guy who is confessing in ways that I, that a preacher ought not confess. What’s going on here? Something happened to Paul and you could tell it. He said, I used to be this way, arrogant, self righteous, rude, angry, violent, passionate for a spurious religious view. And now the world comes to look at me the way, and that’s what Newton said, the way they come to look at animals in the zoo. They just can’t believe it. And so Paul was changed. The change that takes place is not always what we thought. It doesn’t mean that you quit dancing. Maybe you dance more? Doesn’t mean you quit laughing, maybe a laugh more. Maybe, sometimes I think I sin more than I used to. But I’m more repentant than I ever was, but it means being the real deal. Is God making you more real? If he is, it’s the real thing, just as it was with the apostle Paul. And then fourthly, and I’m not going to have a lot of time on this, but let me mention it and we’ll talk more about it. I want you to note, not only was Paul confronted and convinced and changed. He was consumed. Now I want you to note the change of subjects in the sentences of Paul. In 13, 14,

My former life, I persecuted the church. I advanced in Judaism. I was extremely zealous.

And then in Galatians 1:15,

But when he set me apart. He called me through grace. He revealed his son to me.

Let me give you a statement of a fanatic. Philippians 1:21,

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

I don’t want to sound too biased, but me too, most of the time. Galatians 2:20,

I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

Me too, sometimes. And you too, sometimes. There’s something about the Christian faith and about Jesus that begins to make its way into your heart and it can change you. And it sets you free and starts you laughing. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
And of course, that was Steve Brown, teaching us from Galatians 1. As we’ve learned this week, Paul was confronted, convinced and changed. And today, Paul was consumed. All things that we experience when we encounter Jesus. More good stuff tomorrow. You don’t want to miss it. Well, as we’ve discussed many times here on Key Life, religion can sometimes become a dangerous thing. So what’s the solution. God’s grace. Steve spoke about this in a message called Grace In Freedom. Take a listen to this clip. Then I’ll be back to tell you about a free offer. Here’s Steve.

think about it a lot, a long time after it happened. It was in the chapel of Reformed Theological Seminary, where I teach. We had a student there who had some serious emotional problems, but nobody told him often, because he was big, and he was mean. Looked like a punk rocker, shaved head, earrings, the whole tattoo thing. And we were having our chapel, decently and in order, when Reggie Kidd, who was our Dean of the Chapel at the time, called for sentence prayers. And this student stood up first and said, God, I’m effing glad to be here. And I’m effing glad that you saved me. And I’m effing glad to be a part of this seminary so I can serve your effing people. And it just got really quiet. Then he, then he turned, he walked out of the chapel and Reggie didn’t know what to do. You don’t hear that often in worship. So Reggie said, let’s sing. I mean, what else you going to take an offering? He said, let’s stand and sing. And I looked over at that student’s wife. She had her head on the pew in front of her and crying like a baby. And during the music, I went over to her and I said, young lady, That’s probably the most honest prayer that’s ever been prayed in this chapel. Certainly not anything here, big enough for you to cry about. So you stand up, you sing with the rest of us and she did, I’ve lost contact with him, but I think about him a lot. I don’t know whether he was free or just screwed up. Probably it was a little bit of both. They asked me to talk about grace and freedom and I thought I can do that. And then I thought, no, I can’t. That’s hard. I have an authority problem. I get mad at stop signs, so I say what I think. So I’m reasonably free. I was at the Cove not too long ago. The Billy Graham Training Center in the mountains. And I mentioned that I don’t drink. And the reason I don’t is, cause I’d say what I thought and the guy in the front row said, yeah, you don’t do that now. And I do, but I’m not sure why it could be indigestion. In old people are already irritated about being old. It takes very little, to tick us off. I don’t know whether it’s the devil or whether it’s God. Yea though, I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because I’m the meanest preacher in the valley. And I don’t know, I’m sort of free. I kind of say what I think, but I’m not exactly sure why. I’d like to think it was Jesus. Sometimes it is. So, I thought probably it would be best to check with him, before I said anything more. If you have your Bible, as I said, I’m going to start at the first verse of the 12th chapter of the gospel according to Matthew.

Matthew Porter:
Such a classic sermon and you can get that full message on CD for free by calling us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email [email protected] and ask for the CD. If you’re mailing us send your request to

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