Watch what God is doing and go there.

Steve Brown:
Watch what God is doing and go there. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you’re sick of guilt and manipulation, and if you’re looking for an honest and thoughtful presentation of Biblical truth, you’ve come to the right place. This is Key Life, with the founder of Key Life Network, Steve Brown. Keep listening for teaching that will make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re looking at the 11th chapter of the book of Acts. It’s an interesting way that chapter, the first few verses, it’s interesting, the story that goes on and we get to kind of go behind the scenes and see how church works. You remember when Paul said to Timothy, you should never have a new Christian as a leader of the church? People say, well, of course you shouldn’t, they don’t know enough. They’re not wise enough. They’re not close to God. That’s not the reason. Paul knew that if you make a new Christian, a leader in the church and they get to see church being made, they’ll become a Buddhist because it’s not very pretty. And we saw yesterday that everybody has a part. Everybody gets to speak, authority is important, and God anoints leaders and decisions are made. And when they’re made, we need to move as the body of Christ. But when God calls one, he calls a bunch and he works through the bunch as he does through the one. And so, in this text, when you look at our church is being done, Peter, after his amazing experience, went to Jerusalem to discuss what had happened in Cornelius’s house. And it had been amazing and he was confused and he wasn’t sure what God was saying, but he just told them what happened. And they made a decision on it. Now, notice that at the end of that text, which would be the 18th verse, after Peter had shared what had happened, Luke writes.

When they heard this they were silenced. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life.”

In other words, check the facts. And that’s the second thing that we need to talk about. Find out where God is moving and then go there. You know, it’s really important to see, where God is doing stuff. And if you ask, God will show you what he’s doing in so many places. And then he says almost always to his people, join them. Now, that’s true individually. And it’s true also for the church. When we sit around and have a committee meeting to decide the mission of the church. And where we’re supposed to go, we ought to say first, where’s God going? And then we ought to go there too. I served a church once where almost everybody in the church was involved in ministries, outside the church. I mean, some of them were leaders, some of them were on boards of ministries. Some were volunteers in ministries. But almost everybody was involved in a ministry somewhere else, other than the church where I was serving. And it was quite irritating, you know, I’m wanting them to come and work on building my empire. I wanted them to come and hold my arms up. I wanted them to get into the church and get involved, so we could grow and show the world how great Steve Brown was. And that’s when the Holy Spirit whacked me upside the head. And I began to realize this is something else. This is God moving with God’s people as servants in ministries all over this city. And so, when we sat down as elders, we decided that we were not there to keep the lights on as much as possible, but to turn them off as much as possible, so people would get out of the church building and get into the ministries where God was operating all over the city. I could go in a thousand ways. The pastor previous to me said, when I came there and the pastor who was before me was Ben Haden, one of them. And the late Ben Haden is one of my heroes. He was the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, a great church. And God used him in so many ways and in my life in so many ways, At any rate. Ben said, when I came to the church, there was an 80% turnover every five years. And I thought, good heavens, man, you’ve got to work just to keep even, in that kind of church. And Ben said, then God told me that was a gift. And so, we began to intentionally anoint and commission people, when they would move from our church to another city and another place. We made them into missionaries. We taught them what they needed to know because God was moving by moving them out. And when we decided that God was moving to move them out, we decided to get on board. And that comes back to this very text. How do you know what the church is doing? Get together and say to each other, what do you think God’s doing in this place? What’s he doing in other places? What’s, what’s he doing? And, let’s be a part of that. And so, that’s how you can know when the church is moving in the right direction. Let me show you, I’m running out of time. I hate it when this happens, I’m running out of time. So, I don’t have time to talk about it much. But there’s a third thing I would have you notice. And that’s the proper direction of the church was checked with the body of Christ, as they went. You’ll find that in the fourth verse.

But Peter began and explained to them in order.

And so, not only before we go, but as we go, we come together and support each other in the places where God has called the church to be. You think about that. Amen.

It’s Wednesday. And sometimes on Wednesdays, when I have some time, I answer one or two questions. And by the way, as you know, Pete Alwinson comes in on Fridays and we’ve been doing that for years. We sit around this table and answer questions that you ask, and we love your questions. And we devote the entire Friday program to Q&A. By the way, you can ask questions by simply picking up your phone. 1-800-KEY-LIFE. It’s open 24 7, and you can record your question and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
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in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail us at [email protected] And we will take your questions seriously. By the way, if you’re going to help us financially, those are good places you can touch. By the way, you can give on your phone, text Key Life at 28950 and follow the instructions. If you can help us, do. If you can’t, we understand. And I promise we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. Alright, let’s turn to one or two of these questions. This is an e-mail. How often should we practice communion? Well, you know, I’ve got some opinions about that. Probably more often than most churches do or less than some churches do. That’s not very helpful, is it? So, let me be a little bit more specific. Frankly, the Bible does not speak to that issue directly. In the early church communion was often because it was a part of their regular meal. The wine and the bread became the reminders and the reality of what Christ had done, that he had shed his blood, that his body was broken on their behalf. And so, the meals sometimes were what the communion was, but as the church grew and as things got more organized and those small intimate gatherings were no longer possible, it became more formalized at the instructions of Jesus himself and Jesus said.

As often as you drink the wine, break the bread, remember, and be glad.

Somebody who said that the world says have a drink and forget. And Jesus always says, have a drink and remember. And there’s a reality there, and I’m not going to debate it about communion, about the real presence, about a transubstantiation, but I’ll tell you something, something supernatural happens during the Eucharist during Holy communion. How often you should you do it? Well, some churches do it twice a year, some every month, some every week, some every day. And Jesus doesn’t have a strong opinion on that. So, I don’t think that I will either. This is an, I know, not very satisfying, but I told you what I thought. And this is an e-mail. Is it okay to pray for someone’s healing or should we pray for God’s will to be done? You should do both, but somebody has said that when we pray for God’s will to be done, it’s a cop-out because we don’t believe he will do it. And because we don’t believe he will do it, we cover ourselves by saying, but only if it’s God’s will, of course we should pray that God’s will be done. Of course we should pray for healing. God still does stuff. He still says yes to our prayers. He says, bring our requests to him and he will honor those requests however he pleases. Just ask that he give you the faith to come before him and to ask. Yeah, should be God’s will, of course, but don’t use that as a cop-out. Are we responsible, another e-mail, for others coming to Christ? We’re called by Christ to be faithful. That’s why we do evangelism, but the outcome is not ours. That’s way above our pay level. The outcome belongs in him. And so, do what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it. Be clear. And let God do the work. That’s what he does. Key Life as a listener supported production of Key Life Network.