God rarely uses self-righteous people.

Steve Brown:
God rarely uses self-righteous people. I’m going to tell you why on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life is a radio program for struggling believers sick of phony religion and pious clichés. Our host and teacher is seminary professor Steve Brown. He teaches that radical freedom leads to infectious joy and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re talking about the Holy Spirit in evangelism, and as I said we’re doing it Socratically. Socrates, asking questions and finding answers. First question was, what do we do first? What does the Holy Spirit tell us to do before we witness? Nothing. You’ve got to be still, Jesus said. And you’ve got to wait for the fire. And then secondly, to whom do we go? And we saw that when Jesus sends us, he sends us home to bloom where we are planted. That’s the way it ought to be. And then, how should we go? When we saw yesterday goes you, don’t try to be somebody else. God, before you were ever born, decided to create you just the way you are. It took me a long time to get that. I had some issues when I was growing up. Demeaning issues, issues of being an adult child of an alcoholic, and some other things that you’re not interested in, but they really made me kind of ashamed of who I was. So, I kept trying to be somebody I wasn’t, so I would be accepted. When I was in high school, I used to listen to music even though I didn’t like it, so when my friends talked about it, I wouldn’t seem like an outsider. I worked very hard to be somebody I wasn’t, and then, as I began to walk with Christ, I realized that Jesus liked me the way I was. And not only that, he created me the way I am. Now, that doesn’t mean that he isn’t sanding that down a bit. He does some sanding work, it’s called sanctification. It doesn’t mean that he likes the kind of things that we do that are offensive, he begins to fix those. But the basic person you are is the person that God created. And so, if you’re going to witness and the Holy Spirit sends you to witnessing, then be you. Be the person you are. And then secondly, not only go as you, when the Holy Spirit sends you, he sends you broken. Now, that sounds sad, but it’s really not. It means that you go knowing how weak you are, how often you have failed, and how sinful you have been. Martin Luther said.

The great truth of the Christian faith is that we are great sinners and that Jesus is a great Savior.

A Christian who goes to share the fire under the power of the Holy Spirit without being broken will find that the fire has gone out. Recently, we interviewed my friend Eric Schumacher. And he wrote a book, and I think the title of it was The Power of Weakness. This was on our talk show, and if you’ll go to our website keylife.org you can get some information about it. It’s a weekly, I started to say podcast, but it really isn’t. It’s a broadcast on some two or three hundred radio stations, and we have a YouTube channel, so it’s video. And thousands of people have subscribed to that, so if you want to check it out, you might want to do that. And you will find if you put in a search for the interview with Eric Schumacher, his book, The Power of Weakness starts in Genesis and goes to Revelation. And the thing he points out in his book is that every place God uses people, it’s in the power of weakness. He quotes as kind of a basic verse for the book, and he’s right, in II Corinthians where Paul said.

That he had been given a thorn in the flesh, lest he become too arrogant and too self righteous.

And he said that God said to him.

My power is made perfect in weakness.

And so, if you’re waiting until you know enough, maybe you take a few more courses at a seminary. If you’re waiting until you’re smart enough, if you’re waiting until you’re good enough, if you’re waiting until everything is right before you do what he told you to do to point to him, then cut it out. In fact, there is power in your brokenness. A Christian who goes to share the fire without being broken will find that the fire has sometimes gone out. Let me tell you something that you need to know, and it’s true, it’s true in my life and it’s true in the lives of so many people and congregations and Christians that I’ve known over the years. God rarely uses self righteous, obedient, faithful Christians. He uses sinners, who are broken and weak and who know it. And I’ve said this a thousand times, but I’m going to say it again cause I have to keep reminding myself. Your sin, and your failure, and your weakness is a gift from God when you know it. And your obedience, and your faithfulness, and your goodness is your most dangerous place when you know that. And so, when the Holy Spirit moves you, he moves you the way you are, he moves you as a sinner, as a weak sinner, as somebody who sometimes doesn’t do it right. Go anyway. Go anyway and I promise you that he will go with you. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Thank you Steve, for that reminder. Well, believe it or not, we are about to wrap up this month’s long study on the Holy Spirit. The series we’re calling Follow the Wind. Our final day is tomorrow, do join us for that special episode. Well, Steve just mentioned our talk radio show, Steve Brown Etc. And recently on that program, we spoke with Philip Plyming about his new book. It’s all about the apostle Paul’s hardships and the enduring power of being authentic. Take a listen to part of that conversation, then I’ll be back to tell you about a special free offer.

Steve Brown:
Paul was, for a long time, not my favorite person. He was kind of uptight, kind of angry. And then I discovered a side of Paul that Philip talks about. I found a childlike side to him. Time when he cries, a time when he’s so authentic and so honest, where he sins and says so. Philip, did this come out of the soil of your dissertation?

Philip Plyming: I became a Christian, came to a living faith when I was 18, and I remember noticing fairly early on that there were, there was this tendency to kind of always sort of talk about the positive, just talk about the fantastic parts of the Christian life. And I struggled a bit with anxiety in my second year university. I’m thinking, well, where’s there a place for anything struggles in the Christian life? How can we talk about this? And I came across these passages in Paul and I thought, this guy’s being real. So, I just tucked it away, you know, where you tuck away an idea and you think I’ll come back to that later on. And then I did my theology training here in Durham and I was looking at an idea to research and I thought that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I wanted to work out why did Paul tell people about how tough his life was? So, I spent five years doing a PhD, which as you know, Steve, is always of technical, I did some empirical research, but I wanted to get it out there in a way that was actually going to be helpful to people, so that’s what this book’s about. One of the things I try and do in the book is kind of identify the way in which Paul is completely honest about the reality of his suffering. He takes no bones about it. It’s his own kind of living out Good Friday. But at the same time, Paul says that as well as living in the middle of Good Friday, he’s also living in the middle of Easter Sunday. So, in other words, the only thing that gives him power to keep going in the middle of his Good Fridays is because he knows that God was raised, Jesus was raised from the dead by the Father. And so, it’s never just doom and gloom, but it’s about reality infused with hope, and how he sort of navigates that. So, that’s why he can say things like in II Corinthians 6.

Sorrowful yet always rejoicing, having nothing yet possessing everything.

He’s always living with the reality of suffering. and the reality of hope.

Steve Brown:
And even despair, we despaired of life itself.

Philip Plyming: Yeah, I think that’s one of the most fascinating passages, Steve, which is II Corinthians 1, where he doesn’t tell us classic Paul, he doesn’t tell us what it was that made him despair of life, but he says, which gives the chance for commentators to speculate wildly. But he does say.

We despaired of life itself.

But then he says.

We receive the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

In other words, It was the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead that gave him hope in the middle. That’s probably the key thing that we need to understand is that Paul doesn’t try and sort of protect his readers from the reality of what it means to live a Christian life, which is to live a life that involves hardship.

Steve Brown:
You do a lot of preaching at the cathedral. Are people surprised that the Saint Paul should go through these kinds of things, and if they are, does that say something pretty negative about the church?

Philip Plyming: Yeah, I haven’t been here at the cathedral long, Steve, but I was a vicar, I was a pastor for 11 years in a congregation, and I think sometimes some people have the assumption that if you’re sort of a saint, life should be pretty easy. And I think when they come across these passages where they experience Paul being honest about his own hardship, they can either kind of just brush them away and pretend they didn’t happen, or they can be a bit embarrassed by them. But actually, I think that can be quite challenging to people, because I think sometimes we live with an implied narrative, Steve, that basically says, you know, I used to have problems, then I became a Christian, and then everything was sorted. And Paul challenges that because he says, I live with hardship, and I live with resurrection hope at the same time. And if you’ve come to Christ because you want all your problems sorted, Paul’s stories create a bit of a counter narrative to that.

Matthew Porter:
Such a great conversation there with Philip Plyming, and great news, we put that entire episode on CD, and we’ll send it your way for free. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. To mail your request go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of the CD featuring Philip Plyming. And finally, if you value the work of Key Life, would you join us in that work through your giving? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or give safely and securely through text, just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.