“How can you call yourself a sinner?”

Steve Brown:
How can you call yourself a sinner? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase and worship. So here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Hey, I’m looking forward to how you’re going to answer that.

Steve Brown:
Well, you would never call yourself a sinner cause you’re ordained. You know, we’ll talk about it when we get it. Oh man. That was an interesting question, interesting observation. And you don’t want to touch that dial because Pete and I are going to have a confession program. In which we confess our 10 greatest sins and in detail, man, we can sell that and get good rating.

Pete Alwinson:
Don’t even need to prepare for that broadcast.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson and his audio version of Like Father Like Son is out and you can get that at Key Life, you can get a New Growth Press. You could probably get it on Amazon. Wherever, but if you haven’t read that book and you’re not into reading, you’re more into listening, then get it. It’s a book, that’ll change your life. And, check out Pete at ForgeTruth.com. And as you know, Pete and I have been doing this for over 25 years. Every Friday, we sit down in this studio and we answer your question. And there are no dumb questions except the ones you don’t I ask. And if you have a question you can pick up your phone, dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE is open 24 7 and record your question. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you going to send it to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

or

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

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected]. And if you’re going to help us financially, we’ll still answer your question if you don’t, but if you can help us financially, please do. And we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. And, you can use any of those contact points to do that. If you can’t, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. And speaking of prayer, Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Let’s pray together. Father, how privileged we are to be able to come into your presence at the end of this week, anytime, all the time. And to remember that we’re your children and we’re deeply loved, redeemed, that we are held onto, that we’re forgiven and that Lord, you do truly work all things together for good to those that you’ve called, that you love, that you’ve redeemed in Christ. And we’re in that category. So we love you because you first loved us. And we ask that Lord this week-end, that you’d enable us just to rejoice in all that we have in Christ. And that the gospel could be unpacked for us in fresh ways, by our pastors, teachers, priests, by our worship leaders, Lord, what a privilege to worship together. And we just ask that the gospel would be made known to us in a clear way by them. And even now during this time of Q&A, we thank you for this opportunity and commit it to you. In Jesus strong name, we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I often hear you say that you’re a sinner and I tried, but I can’t find support in Scriptrue for that. Once we’ve given our hearts to Christ, II Corinthians 5 says.

If any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature.

And if all things are passed away, then that would mean our sinful nature. So why did Jesus go through all that suffering and become sin for us? If we were to remain sinners. I guess that’s my question. Thank you.

Steve Brown:
Well, I can’t believe you asked that question of somebody like me because it’s pretty obvious. And I’ve been fairly open about it, but you know who was more open than I was? You said you couldn’t find any Scriptural warrant for that. You need to read the Bible a little bit more carefully. Read what Paul said to Timothy.

Christ Jesus died to save sinners.

And he didn’t say I was, he said.

I am the chief of sinners.

Read Romans 7. And it says, Paul, this is Paul, after he had written most of the New Testament, he had been a missionary, he had been doing it right. And he talks about it in the present, not the past, he said.

The good that I want to do, I don’t do. And the evil I don’t want to do, is what I do.

So I’m a sinner. Pete’s not. I’m a sinner and I’m in pretty good company with, and by the way, Paul said, and this is holy writ too about Peter, that he was a hypocrite, that was years after he had denied Christ three times. So, you know, the church is a gathering place, not of saints who’ve got it together, but a hospital for sinners who need grace continually throughout our lives.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay. So what I’m going to say is, I’m going to give, when you say that, I’m going to interpret Steve Brown here. Okay. When you say that you are giving the shorthand, in a way to make us really think because that’s not the sum total of your identity in Christ.

Steve Brown:
No.

Pete Alwinson:
And you’re not, you don’t mean to communicate that that’s the sum total of your identity, you’ve accepted. Jesus Christ. You are a new creature in Christ.

Steve Brown:
I am, and that’s factual. It’s not something I have to work at.

Pete Alwinson:
You’re a dearly beloved son of the most high God.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. That’s what it means to be a new creature. And I’m better.

Pete Alwinson:
And you are.

Steve Brown:
But not much. I used to ,on these broadcasts, I used to almost always end the prayer, pray for, they call Steve Reverend and he’s not, forgive him his sins. And early days of this broadcast back just before Columbus came to America, we used to get really angry letters. You can’t say that because you’re encouraging sin. You know, people need heroes. Don’t talk about your being a sinner, but all those people have either died or refuse to listen to us anymore. So I don’t get those kinds of letters very often.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, that’s right. You’ve actually taught us to see that we’re, as Luther said, sinner saints.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, exactly. And we shouldn’t forget about the saints. Now talk about that.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, that’s the reality, we are in Christ set apart and that’s in, you mean this and you know this, you’re just trying to, and have been combating the self-righteousness that we so often feel and actually live out as Christians. We’re all sinners saved by grace. We’re sinner saints. We are his, his forever, positionally, practically we still sin. And that’s really the emphasis that we, even, those of us who have followed Jesus for a long time, we can see a deeper level of our sin, if we’re open to the Scripture.

Steve Brown:
That’s really true. And you begin to see that you’re a greater sinner, then you thought you were.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But he lets you see sometimes you’re a greater saint than you thought you ever would be.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, you’re better. We were talking a little bit about that before we came in here from your office,

Steve Brown:
Yeah, we were.

Pete Alwinson:
you know, sometimes you realize I don’t always have to promote myself anymore. I don’t have to defend myself anymore, you know, and it’s you go, whoa, that’s a God thing.

Steve Brown:
It really is. And somebody has said, I think it was Martin Luther and he said that God does not look for people to love him, he creates them. And so he doesn’t look for good people, he creates them. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s so good.

Steve Brown:
Okay. This is an interesting question. It’s an e-mail question. Would human clones have a soul?

Pete Alwinson:
The heresy of the hypothetical. I guess so, created in God’s image as humans.

Steve Brown:
You know, the interesting thing in the creation account in Genesis, when Adam and Eve are created, Adam in particular. God blows his breath and creates, not Adam with a soul, but Adam a soul.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And so, I guess a clone would be in that category too, if it were human. Let me add something, if we create a robot with, that has the intelligence, the IT of greater than ours, program in sympathy and care, like on Star Trek. That guy that was, did he, did he have a soul?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, no.

Steve Brown:
Just wondering?

Pete Alwinson:
I don’t think so, but Hey, this is on, this is outside of what my professors used to call the heresy of the hypothetical. I don’t know, so we may be in heresy right now. I don’t have an answer for that one, Steve.

Steve Brown:
I agree with you about the clone thing. And I agree with you about the robot. I don’t see how that can ever have soul.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right.

Steve Brown:
So you can kill them.

Pete Alwinson:
My car does not have a soul.

Steve Brown:
And my car kind of drives itself sometimes, it’s getting close to be a person.

Pete Alwinson:
It is. Scary. Scary.

Steve Brown:
Alright. This is, how does God speak directly to us?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, well, you know, in the word, and, but as the Spirit of God takes the written word and communicates it to our hearts and mind. Jesus said.

The Holy Spirit is going to come and lead you into all truth.

So that’s, God’s speaking to us.

Steve Brown:
It really does. That’s why you have to be in the word because God takes things that you never saw before, you never applied before, you never thought were relevant to you. All of a sudden become relevant and that’s him.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s absolutely amazing and how you keep reading the Scriptures and they keep revealing truths, old truth and new truth.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. You think God speaks directly sometimes?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, I do believe he does, but you can see if it is him by how it lines up with the word of God.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And the fruit of what was said.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I can’t say that’s ever been a big deal with me that God speaks directly. There was this television healing evangelist who put his hand on somebody’s head and looked up at the sky and said, yes Father, of course Father, I’ll do that Father. And I wanted to say, I wouldn’t do that in a thunder storm, that’s almost blasphemous, but God does speak. He does impress on us. He does call us to particular people and particular places, to do particular things. And sometimes that’s individual.

Pete Alwinson:
I agree. God’s a great communicator in so many ways, through creation, through nature, all of that. He’s a great communicator, never underestimate that he can get his point through to us.

Steve Brown:
That’s a good statement. And it’s also good to remember that he doesn’t want to keep from us what we need to know from him. And so, he makes sure that we have multiple ways that he communicates to us.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that.

Steve Brown:
I think I just heard it’s time to quit. Actually, it was the clock. And we’re out of here. But before we go, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.