Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

God uses people who don’t care who gets the credit.

God uses people who don’t care who gets the credit.

JULY 1, 2021

/ Programs / Key Life / God uses people who don’t care who gets the credit.

Steve Brown:
God uses people who don’t care who gets the credit. Let’s talk 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. We’re looking at the subject of leadership. We’ve been talking about that all week and even last week when we started this part from the first chapter of the book of Acts, which is a part of our many, many week long study in the book of Acts. And we saw that the first problem that the disciples dealt with, and the followers of Jesus dealt with in the beginning was the problem of leadership. And so I thought, you know, it’d be a good thing to spend some time in this chapter, seeing if we can find some principles that worked in the first century and will work in the 21st century. We need leaders. We really do. Everybody is a follower. We have a cancel culture. We need leaders who will not be canceled, who don’t cower every time somebody says that you’re this or that, or how could you be that? Or how could you have, we need leaders who will stand, and the best place to go is the Scripture to find out about the doctrine of leadership in Scripture. Now we’ve looked at the qualifications of leadership. We’ve looked at the observations on leadership and who they chose. But I’ve got one final thing that I want to say before we leave this subject, and then we’re going to go to the second chapter and that’s a wild chapter. I mean, that is a very important chapter in the Bible because that’s when the Holy Spirit came with power. And I will fully expect that after I finish teaching, we will all speak with tongues of fire. No, I’m not going to try. I’m not a charismatic, but sometimes I wish I was, I’m not a Pentecostal, but sometimes I don’t have the words and I wish I had some other words that the Holy Spirit will give me, but I’m not, I’m a Presbyterian and we don’t do things like that. But, we’re going to look at when God did it. And he did it in a major way in that second chapter of Acts, when we look at the coming with power of the Holy Spirit. Now it wasn’t that the, well I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll get to that, when we get to it, I have one other thing to say on leadership. Leadership has nothing to do with pride or credit. Mathias, who was chosen to be the leader, must have been an incredibly wonderful leader. He must have been godly. He must have been the kind of guy you want to lift up to be a hero for the church, so a model on how you’re supposed to do it when you’re a leader. I mean, he must’ve been articulate. He must have been a dynamite preacher. He must have been really something else, but you know something, he’s never mentioned again, ever, ever in Scripture. This is it. This is all there is. I want to know more. I want somebody to write a biography of Mathias, but nobody has. And you know why? Because nobody knows about him and that’s an important principle. God uses people, who don’t care who gets the credit. And God often makes it clear that credit, or that leadership isn’t about getting the credit. I love being the pastor. In some ways, some ways I didn’t. And I’ve told you about both, but one thing that was cool about being a pastor is that when things went well, you know who got the credit? I got the credit, that’s who. They didn’t say the name of the church, they said Steve’s church, man that’ll make you self-righteous and insufferable. I mean, I began to think of it as my church. And look what I’ve done, and then God would always fix it, with a monumental failure. People say to me, how do you, how do you stay humble? I have nothing to do with it. God has made me into a fool so many times with dumb and stupid things that I’ve done and hurt people that it is no problem. He fixes it. And, then he loved me enough to say, it’s not about that. It’s not about the credit or the good or the bad, it’s about me. And that’s all it’s about. Lord Alfred Milner said.

The last thing, which the thought of the British empire inspires in me is a desire to boast, to wave a flag or to shout rule Britannia. When I think of it, I am much more inclined to go into a corner by myself and pray.

It ought to be exactly the same way with leaders of the church. Do you do this? I do it. If I’m driving down the road and, I let somebody in traffic, maybe backed up and, you know, they’re trying to get in traffic, so they can get home or to work. I’ll pause and motion for them to come through. And, they do. And you know what some of them don’t do? They don’t wave. They don’t thank me. They don’t smile. They act as if I owed them that place. And you would have no idea how often I wanted to crash my car into their car, and say, where were you raised, in a barn? Didn’t God, didn’t your mother teach you to say, thank you sometimes? And then I stop, and I remember, wait, it’s not about that? Is it. It’s not about that at all. And so, if you’re willing to see God use you in a gigantic way, say God, bring me to the point where I don’t give a rip about the credit. I think I may have told you that if Jesus were to have another kind of mini incarnation, Or maybe when we’re all home and we’re sitting around the fire and we’d have all kinds of questions of Jesus. I would, man, I’ve got, I’ve got more questions than you would believe, but one of the questions I think we would all want to know, we’d say alright, history is over, it’s all finished, every bit of it, it’s done. The books are there, there aren’t any more books, it’s all been accomplished. Everything you said would be accomplished, is accomplished. Now, Jesus, could you tell us who was the one that you used more than anybody else to accomplish your purposes in history? And Jesus, as I imagine it would say, no, I won’t. And we would say, what? Why not? That’s something we ought to know. Why won’t you tell us? And Jesus will say because child, you don’t even know the name. Well, that’s all I know about leadership. Now, we’re going to talk about the coming of the Holy Spirit. And I’m going to have to wait until next week to read that whole text to you. But it’s the second chapter of Acts and it’s Pentecost. And the question we’re going to examine over the next two or three weeks is this is Pentecost reproducible? I mean, what do we do to see it happen again? Now listen to me. And I’m going to explain this a lot more when we get to this particular chapter. No, it’s not, there is a thing you can do. There aren’t 10 steps to reproducing Pentecost. If you’re more religious, Pentecost won’t happen again. I mean, no matter what anybody tells you, Pentecost is not reproducible. But it is reproduced by God in his time and in his place. And so what we’re going to do when we get to the second chapter of Acts next week, we’re going to look at when the Holy Spirit came in a unbelievable, exciting way. The Holy Spirit does that often, in the history of the church. And when it happens, miracles happen, they really do. When it happens, people are coming to Christ in droves and the Wales awakening when the leader of that awakening walked into the church, people fell under conviction and came to Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes, amazing things happen. When the Holy Spirit comes, you see people’s lives change, drunks getting sober, addicts getting rid of their addiction. You see the love pouring out of every pour of every believer. You see the world standing up, and saying, wow. I can’t believe that. But mostly, when the Holy Spirit comes, he starts with you and with me and it’s called repentance. Hey, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve. It’s been a great week of learning about leadership from the book of Acts. If you missed anything this week, be sure to drop by Keylife.org where you can listen to all of our episodes for free. We will pick it up again right here next week. But tomorrow of course, it’s Friday, Q&A. That’s when our friend Pete Alwinson swings by and together, Steve and Pete answer the challenging questions you’ve sent in. Well, I did mention our website a moment ago, Keylife.org, but I want to take a minute to point out a few features and resources you might not know about. Keylife.org is where you can learn all about our new Key Life app. Yes, it came out several months ago, but we’re still very, very excited about it. You can also check out the contact section to send us a message directly. You can also find great posts from all our Key Life contributors and hey, while you’re there, click on over and check out their bios. And of course, you have sermon videos, episodes of Steve Brown Etc, great new You Think About That spots and so much more. And all of this is still free, thanks to the generous support of listeners, just like you. If you’d like to donate to Key Life, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. Or, you can mail your donation to

Key Life Network

P.O. Box 5000

Maitland, Florida 32794

If you’re in Canada, mail

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

Or e-mail [email protected]. You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. And of course, now you can just give by text, just text Key Life to 28950 on your smartphone, and then follow the instructions. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations assure financial accountability. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

Back to Top