Death cures a lot of things.

Steve Brown:
Death cures a lot of things. Let’s talk on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life with our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown. He’s nobody’s guru. He’s just one beggar telling other beggars where he found bread. If you’re hungry for God, the real God behind all the lies, you’ve come to the right place.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew, we’re looking at paradoxical statements in this second chapter of Galatians to help us understand exactly what the gospel is, and I mentioned that I’m saying the same thing, six different ways to make sure that I understand it and to make sure that you get it. We have seen that to be disqualified is to qualify, that to succeed is to fail, that to stand is to fall, to build is to destroy. And we mentioned yesterday, to die is to live, Galatians 2:19 and Galatians 2:17. And then Paul, and that’s another point that he’s making, is Galatians 2:20,

I’ve been crucified with Christ.

So if you want to live, find a casket. That’s awful, isn’t it? You know what we did recently, we interviewed my friend, Sharon Hersh, she’s a counselor of note. She teaches in seminary and she’s a speaker and she writes great books. And the name of this book we talked to her about was Belonging. And one of the things she said when we interviewed her on our talk show, and you can find that by going to our website, it’s called Steve Brown Etc. And, it’s on weekly, it’s an audio version on about 160 radio stations. And the video version is always posted and you can subscribe to that. But it’s fun. And we talk to a lot of people. And Sharon’s my friend, in fact, I wrote the forward to this book, Belonging. And she said to us, when we were interviewing, she said, you know, this was the hardest book I ever had to write. She said that, I started it not during this pandemic, but four years ago. And it was too scary to write. I couldn’t do it, cause I had to face so much of my own stuff. And she said that her editor told her that, I told her I don’t want my editor telling me things like that. I want my editor to edit. I’ll do the ideas. And then, but she’s got a good friend, who’s an editor at, I forget the publisher. And he said that to her. And she said it was really, really hard, but it was really, really freeing. And you know why, because she didn’t have anything to lose. She doesn’t have a thing. She talked about how we can be brought together across all kinds of political lines and sociological lines and religious lines without setting aside our convictions. And what she says is, you’d die. You just die. You realize that it’s not about you. You realize you don’t have to be right. You realize you don’t have to win the argument. You realize you don’t have to come over smelling like a rose. You realize that you are loved and acceptable by God, just the way you are. And, and that’s a dying. It really is. It’s when you come to the place in your life, when you say I am so tired of me, I can’t stand myself anymore. I have a friend. His name is, his last name is Strawbridge.,Rick Strawbridge. There was a, there was a girl when he was with Crusade that was suicidal, she wanted to take her own life. And, you know what he said to her? He said, I agree with you. That’s not a very good bedside manner, frankly. And I thought it was unwise, but it was incredibly wise. You know what he said to her? I agree with you. You say your life is worthless. You no longer want to live it anymore. Since it is worthless to you, let me make a suggestion. Give it to me. And give it to me for a year. At the end of the year, I’ll give it back to you and you can take it. She said, that’s weird. And then he said, I know, but you know, what have you got to lose? And she said, all right, my life is your life. You can do with me, whatever you want. And he did. And whatever he wanted was Jesus. He began to disciple her and introduce her to other Christians and she began and to find meaning, and she began to find that she wasn’t alienated anymore. She began to understand that she was valuable to God and important to him, unconditional love and unconditional grace at the end of the year. He said to her, you want your life back? And she said, No, and it’s not yours either, it belongs to Jesus. And I don’t know what I was thinking a year ago. That’s dying. That’s where we all get to a place of coming to the end of ourselves. Now we’re gonna, we’re going to move on to the final point really quickly. But don’t forget that the way to live is the way to die. You gotta, you gotta just, it doesn’t have to do with you anymore. I’ve often said to places where I speak, I’m an old guy and you’re very fortunate that I’m here and that I’m old. Cause an old guy will tell you the truth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what you think. He isn’t trying to do anything or achieve anything or to get anything. I’m old and I don’t give a rip. So listen up, I’m going to tell you the truth. Well, death is like that too. It’s at the point where you don’t have anything to prove anymore. And then I said there were six statements, to qualify is to disqualify, to succeed is to fail, to stand is to fall, to build is to destroy, to die is to live. And here’s the final statement. To rest is to move. Look at Galatians 2:20.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life. I now live in the flesh I live by faith rest on the son of a God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This is not a let go, let God kind of passage. Let go, let God sounds good. But it’s a heresy. It’s called quietism and it was founded by a Spanish monk. Take notes on this. I’m going to test you on it. A Spanish monk by the name of Molinas, and he said you do nothing. You just sit there and God does it all. No, he doesn’t. You know, I press on, Paul said, we do not take up your cross, Jesus said. Follow me, Jesus said. We don’t worship a passive God who asks us to be passive. And so don’t make a mistake of misunderstanding what Paul is saying here. He’s saying that you can rest in and trust in and to have faith in the anchor of your soul. And what is that? That’s the gospel. Listen to me. I don’t care where you’ve been, what you’ve done, who you’ve hurt. You’re forgiven, if you belong to Christ. I mean, and you say, yeah, but you, you, you don’t know, you don’t know the things that I’ve thought and, uh, yeah, I do. You’re forgiven. And I say that on the authority of God’s word and the power of the gospel, you’re acceptable. No, I’m not. I was never accepted by anybody. I’ve always been on the outside trying to be accepted. Nope. You’re acceptable, just the way you are, you’re loved and you say, no, I’m not. I’m not very lovable. Of course you’re not, that’s the issue. Love isn’t love, when you’re good enough to be loved. You can’t experience love until you’re not lovable. And once you do, you’re loved, you’re forgiven, you’re acceptable and you are loved. And if you know that, if you rest in it, you’re dangerous. You know, the trouble with Christians?, the world has us figured. I mean, we’ve learned a certain language and we use it and they know exactly what we’re going to say with those words. We eat Christian cookies and listen only to Christian music and go to Christian places and hang out with Christians and smile the way Christians smile. And the pagans look at us and say, I knew, ain’t nothing new. It’s still as boring as it was the first time, I encountered you. But if you know that you can’t do anything, not one thing to be unloved. That you can’t be so bad that you’ll ever be forgiven, that you can’t do anything unacceptable enough, not to be accepted. When you know that, you’re dangerous. I mean, you say weird things and you go almost anyplace, you reach out to almost anybody. You’re not fighting a fight. You’re rejoicing in a victory. And that’s what the gospel is, and now you know. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
And that was Steve Brown, teaching us from Galatians. Today, we explored the sixth and final paradoxical statement from Galatians two. The idea that to rest is to move. More from Steve tomorrow, hope you will join us then. Well, I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel guilty. Just kidding. I know you experience the same thing. Hey, we all do. Guilt about things way in the past, or maybe just something that happened this morning. Well, what can free us from this guilt? Well, Jesus and the fact that his death paid the debt for all of our sins, that means guilt can actually lead us back to Christ, to find it true and lasting forgiveness. Steve wrote about this in a mini-book called Feeling Guilty? Grace for Your Mistakes. And you can get that mini-book for free right now, by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also drop an email to [email protected] and ask for the mini-book. By mail, send your request to

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