“If you’re saved, should your life show it?”

Steve Brown:
If you’re saved, should your life show it? The answer to that, on this edition of Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you, but if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author, and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good.

Pete Alwinson:
Good.

Steve Brown:
You’ve gone through a banner change in your life. You know what a lot of people don’t know is that Pete’s and his wife, were in a flood area here in Central Florida during the last hurricane and pretty much lost their house.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Their neighbor was making an ark, I understand. It was really bad. So, his family’s been staying with them over this time and they finally moved back into their house.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And you’re missing grandchildren.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. You know, it was wild and crazy for five and a half months.

Steve Brown:
Hey, listen, living in Florida is interesting and never dull, you should know that. Pete Alwinson, be sure and go to ForgeTruth.com great website and you’ll be amazed with what you’ll find there. And if you haven’t read Pete’s book, Like Father Like Son, that is a life-changing book. Pete comes in on Fridays and we answer questions together and we love your questions. You can dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, ask your question and sometimes we put you on the air. Or you can write to

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

in Canada, it’s

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

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and check out keylife.org if you can help us financially, we make it easy for you. And all of those addresses I mentioned are places where you could send a contribution if you are given to that sort of thing. And I promise that we will use your gift in the same faithful way that you gave it, and we also know that some of you can’t or some of you aren’t called to. So, enjoy this ministry and its benefits. And feel guilty. No, that was inappropriate. I shouldn’t have said that. We really do understand, if you can help us, do. We’re a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations check out our books to make sure that we’re ethical. We were anyway before they were formed, but if you’re interested, you can check. So, help us if you can. If you can’t, say a prayer for us, Pete, lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Well Father, here we are and we honor you. It’s Friday, we stop for just a couple of minutes, and we remember that you are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one God, Triune God, and we honor you. Thank you for being in charge of our lives and thank you for watching us all week and that you, as you say in your word, you’ll never leave us nor forsake us. We bring to you our issues, the things that didn’t get done that needed to get done, the broken relationships, the bills. Lord, you know the needs that we have, the frustrations of our heart. We give those to you and we ask that you would continue to work in us. And do that this week-end as we pray for our pastors and teachers and priests and leaders and worship directors and all those that will be crucial in leading us into the presence of the Triune God. Be with them, use them, and then Lord, unleash us in love with the truth of the gospel to the world that needs you so much. We commit this time of Q&A to you right now as we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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

Caller 1:
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that when you repent and ask God into your life, it says right in the Bible, that there is supposed to be change. What is old becomes new. There’s this guy that he said, he knows he’s a Christian and he’s going to heaven, but every other word out of his mouth is the F word. Now, how are you supposed to draw other people to you to ask you about your Christian life, if you don’t even act like a Christian?

Steve Brown:
Maybe that’s the question you answer? Maybe it’s his sin that gives him an opportunity to witness, but maybe not, yes.

If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creature. The old has passed away and behold, a new has come.

I didn’t say that, the Bible said it.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm-hmm.

Steve Brown:
So yeah, that’s supposed to change. The problem is you can’t draw up a sketch of what somebody should be because too often it’ll be if they become like me, then they’re a real Christian. And if they don’t, it’s obvious they’re not saved. So, you have to be careful. Now, I do not advocate using the F word every sentence, that would be a good sign that somebody is probably, if they are saved, they’re just barely. You know what CS Lewis said? He said.

That everybody, when they are converted, turn around on the road and depending on where the person is on the road, you can see it or you can’t.

He said.

For some who are just people who are pains, awful, hate other people, a smile may be the indication that they have changed.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm-hmm.

Steve Brown:
And that’s all you’re going to get for right now, though that will change. And then for others it might be going into the inner city and helping with the poor, it might be becoming an officer in the church and cleaning up your language and quit smoking and drinking. But he said, it depends on where you turn on the road, which is a wise statement.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is. That’s very helpful. And I just want to clarify for our audience, you’re not saying, you don’t advocate using the F word, every other sentence. You don’t ever really ever ever.

Steve Brown:
I do not.

Pete Alwinson:
I just wanted to get that out there.

Steve Brown:
Well, I’m glad you did cause we’ll get letters. I just want you to know.

Pete Alwinson:
No, we, you know, Paul says again in Ephesians.

Let no one wholesome word proceed from your mouth, but such as a word is good for edification that it may give grace to those who hear.

Okay. Our speech should clear up, our thinking patterns should clear up, our actions, what we do with our money, everything should. But we do grow at different levels, at different speeds. Now, here’s my one question. How close are you to this guy? And maybe you’re the one that’s supposed to say it to him. Maybe he doesn’t really have a clue.

Steve Brown:
Oh, you know that’s true. I had a friend and still my friend, a lawyer, who used very foul language and didn’t know it was foul language. He went on a mission trip and the missionary called, this is the first time he ever even knew. Called him aside and said, listen, I don’t know where you’re from, but you can’t use those words on the mission field. You just can’t. Well, he said, what words? And then they got down and he realized what he was doing, repented and cleaned up his language.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. And maybe you’re the one, Hey Bill, I love you, but can we talk, you’ve got to stop using the F word man. Really? Why? It’s just a, it’s just an emphatic expression. Maybe that’s all he sees it as, you know. And you get to walk him through Scripture. I did run across a passage this morning in Proverbs. It was talking about how bad language can lead to bad behavior. That’s not the way it puts it, but that was the idea and I’d never seen that before. So, be his friend, speak the truth in love.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s good stuff. And be careful because we don’t know, you know, that’s above our pay level. You know, you get people that say they’re Christians who are not, who went out from among us John says because they weren’t a part of us. And you have some people that you think are not Christians who literally belong to Jesus deeply and profoundly. And we don’t get to look down deep enough except to those with whom we’re very close, to know what’s really going on there. So, you’ve got to be careful, but I love your idea of maybe you’re the one that needs to go and say something to somebody about that. What’s the difference between, this is an e-mail, what’s the difference between Protestant and Catholic beliefs?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh wow.

Steve Brown:
In 30 seconds or less.

Pete Alwinson:
In 30 seconds. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I would say there’s many different ways to approach this. One would be hierarchically, in terms of how they govern the church. They have an Episcopal form of government versus a Presbyterian or a Congregational. That’s one way. It’s a sacramental difference. Some are, it’s a liturgical difference, the role of the priest is viewed as different than in some ways than the view the pastor. And how salvation is fully received is probably the biggest issue and what fomented the reformation.

Steve Brown:
At the heart of that is the matter of authority. And Roman Catholic, our Roman Catholic friends believe that the Scripture is the word of God, but they also believe that the magisterium, the teaching of the church is authoritative too. And Protestants would say, no, only Solo Scriptura, only the Scriptures.. And so those are differences, underneath all of that, everybody who belongs to Jesus belongs to everybody who belongs to Jesus. And there are a lot of Presbyterians and a lot of Baptists and a lot of Catholics who have the name, who aren’t saved. And there are a lot that you’re going to be surprised at when we get home.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But there are differences.

Pete Alwinson:
And we have seen that in our ministry at Key Life and the ministry. I serve too with Forge. We’ve seen a lot of that.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. You really do. You begin to see something’s going on here. And this guy belongs to me. He is so messed up doctrinally. He’s got every doctrine wrong. He doesn’t know what to believe or what to believe, but he’s been hugged by Jesus, so he’s mine.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. We’re in the same family. One thing that is different is that we tend to speak different languages. We develop different theological language and different experiential language for following Jesus. And so, we think that somebody is not a Christian, when they’re using different language. And we say, what do you mean by that? And sometimes that helps us get on the same page. And we can focus around Jesus.

Steve Brown:
That is so good. And let me tell you something, we’re living in a culture that doesn’t like us right now.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And if we don’t hang together, we can’t afford to dot every I and cross every T. We need to find out who belongs to us and who doesn’t and stick together. Or we’re going to lose this thing. Well, we won’t cause Jesus is the assurance of that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But that’s it. I had another question, but it will wait til next week. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.