Help when you’re sitting on a tack.

Steve Brown:
Help when you’re sitting on a tack. And I’ll give you the help on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:

Welcome to Key Life. I’m Matthew executive producer for the program. And our host is author and seminary professor Steve Brown. The church has suffered under, do more, try harder religion for too long. And Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captive free.
Steve Brown:

Thank you Matthew. If you’ve been with us, we’re talking about freedom from the fifth chapter of Galatians, which begins at, it’s about freedom, it begins at the 13th verse,

For you were called to freedom.

And that’s what Galatians is about. It’s about radical freedom and we have seen, and you should have been taking notes or listening, and you never listen to me. We are seeing that freedom is discerned by desire, magnified by knowledge, matured by relationship, vertical and horizontal. It is also secured by action, Galatians 5:18.

Led by the Spirit.

Galatians 5:16

Walk by the Spirit.

There’s that old story, and you’ve probably heard it, where a man was sitting on a tack and it really hurt. Somebody came along and said to him, you know, this is punishment for something really bad you did, when you, before you knew Christ. And somebody else came along and said, if you read the Bible and prayed more, it wouldn’t hurt so much. And somebody else came along and said, this is the result of a bad diet. If you would eat better, you wouldn’t hurt so much. And then a little boy came up, cocked his head and said, you know Mr ., why don’t you just get off the tack? That’s what Paul is saying. He’s saying, get off the tack. The Christian faith is not passive. I think I’ve told you about him before, there’s a Spanish priest and mystic, in the 17th century, his name is Molinas, and a whole movement was built around this particular mystic. It was called quietism and it was later declared a heresy. The heresy of quietism said you do nothing, but sit on the tack, and God will take the tack away. You do nothing, but sit there and be still and let God do it all. Well, the Scripture is so against that, that I can’t tell you, but sometimes in some teaching, it still smells like quietism. We are called, this one thing I do. The apostle Paul said. In other words, the apostle Paul was saying, get off the tack. It’s active, Mark 8:34.

Taking up the cross, crucifying the flesh.

That’s the active securing of freedom. Let me show you something else, in the 16th verse of this text, the word walk in the Greek means that we should be walking, but in the 25th verse, the word that Paul uses means literally, to walk in line with somebody. Who is that? That would be Jesus. Not too long ago, I was reading about a study that was done about successful executives, there were two traits that all of the executives, the successful ones had without exception. The two traits were these, they saw what needed doing. And secondly, they did it. Christians are like that too? We really are. Now your salvation isn’t dependent on it, but sometimes when I say, you think about that, I’m going to change that and say, now do something about it. Go out and do something about you or your world or your community. Do something about it. Now, if you don’t do something about it, you’re free and I’m not your mother and that’s okay. But there’s something about this Christian walk of freedom that begins to come together, once we’re involved. I was telling a friend just the day before yesterday, she had given me some music played by a pretty well-known pianist and Jeremy who’s an, our producer of this program, is an incredible musician. Did I tell you Jeremy, that I took piano lessons and was kicked out by three piano teachers, I really was. I just never, I never could get it together. I learned how to play scales, so I didn’t have to think about it. And my mother would think I was practicing, but I just never got it. And I really did try, at least I know my mother is home with Jesus now asking why in the world didn’t you give my son the gift of playing the piano, but I never, but one of the teachers used to say to me, if you do this, you’ll be free. And I would say, say what. If you do this, you’ll be free. You’ve got to learn the rules and the notes and the fingering. You’ve got to practice the scales. If you’ll do this, you’ll be free to play music. Well, that same principle applies to Christians. God doesn’t tell us to do stuff, cause he needs help. He was doing fine, before we came along. He does not need our help. But he does know that we want to be free. Do this, and you’ll be free. That’s what the 10 Commandments are. People think that’s a bunch of rules that God gave us, so we couldn’t have any fun. No, no, no. It’s a gift, a part of the knowledge we talked about earlier, the knowledge of truth, and God says, do this, and you’ll be free. Just do this, and you’ll be free. I told the congregation one time, if you’re not a Christian and you’re here, we’re glad you came. But let me give you some advice from the old guy, go get a Bible, read the 10 Commandments, and do your best to live by them. And you’ll sleep better at night and feel better about yourself. Now there’s a lot, you’re going to have trouble with that, but in so far as you can move in that direction, life’s gonna be better. In other words, do this, and you’ll be free. And that’s what Paul is saying, when he lists the fruit of the Spirit and the fruits of the flesh, he says, do the Spirit, you’ll be free. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Freedom is secured by action. Thank you Steve. We’ll continue in Galatians 5 tomorrow. Hope you’ll join us again then. Of course, Galatians 5 is where we get the rundown on the fruit of the Spirit, starting with love, and love is what we have for our guests on Steve Brown Etc. And we have been blessed with some really great ones, but every now and then, it’s just us, no guests. And that’s what happened back in January. Well, on that episode, we discussed our current political and cultural climate and explored some challenging questions, like how do we demonstrate grace in a graceless age, take a listen to part of that show. Then I’ll be back to tell you about a special free offer.

Steve Brown:
Zach, you said something off the air about this, maybe we were created for this.

Zach Van Dyke:
Well, yeah, I mean, I do think this is an opportunity. I think maybe more so right now, there’s an opportunity, for the watching world to kind of see, who Jesus is through us. And, what I love, going back to what you said in one of the earlier segments, Steve. My gosh, if the watching, I know the world is watching to see how Christians are processing all this, because we’re kind of, we’ve been on the news a lot, because of some of the things that have happened, that have happened have happened, in Jesus’ name. And so people are watching, but if, if what they saw was not us being perfect or, you know, getting it all right. But if they did see us, like confessing, I think that would, that would radically alter what a lot of people think about Christianity. And so, I love what that pastor and Philadelphia did , and I wish more of the Christians who have a platform, would take this opportunity to confess, and not feel such the need, to say this is the right way to think about this, you know.

Steve Brown:
George?
George Bingham:
Well, I was just thinking of the recent letter, I guess, monthly letter article that you had written. And, about the coming dark ages, and thinking back of the role that Christians had in the Dark Ages, many years ago. And one of the things that you mentioned was repentance, in the midst of that. And that’s where a very strong statement can be made, as Zach was saying. And I think, you know, it’s, hatred will kind of be obvious, an obvious one to repent of. I think, fear is one to repent of and confess. Cause, I think, you know, from both sides, but as you hear and see how fast things are changing, I heard an interview with a historian, just today, and he had coined the phrase, the algorithm ghetto, you know, how they’re canceling people off of Twitter and Facebook and so forth. We were even warned, before this show, things we couldn’t say or we’d get kicked off of YouTube. I hope that’s okay to say. Uh, but uh, and China has

Zach Van Dyke:
We’re done. We’re done.

Steve Brown:
We’re history George.

Zach Van Dyke:
We can go ahead and stop the show now.
George Bingham:
Yeah. But we’ve already seen a lot of that in China, with the, I forgot what they call it, but the social score, basically. And, you know, to the point, thinking in terms of Revelation and so forth, that some people can’t buy and sell now in China, because they don’t have the right social score, and how close, how rapidly we’re getting close to that kind of situation. So I think the, you know, that it’s an opportunity for both sides, politically in the church to stand with those, who may become victims of that kind of thing. And certainly to confess our own fear of such things, and probably as fear seems to do, you know, it gets out of control and you start fearing, you know, things that aren’t there, and are not there yet. And, so I think again, repentance seems like a really important step.

Matthew Porter:
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