Let the Holy Spirit remind you of Him.

Steve Brown:
Let the Holy Spirit remind you of Him. 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 are looking at the Holy Spirit’s reference to love. And we started by looking at that passage on the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians and I took the time to read that to you. Let me do it again.

But I say, walk in the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And John, or Paul, in that passage starts the list with love. And I believe that everything else is a definition of what he means by love. Now, if you’ve been with us, we started talking about how the church is the way God does evangelism. Not by our programs or even by our obedience or our goodness, but by our love for one another. And we saw how the Holy Spirit is involved in love. First, the Holy Spirit takes away condemnation. You find it in I John 3:19 through 20. Now let me show you something else. The Holy Spirit not only takes away condemnation, and by the way, this is the only way you can love your brothers and sisters in Christ, when they’re unlovable. He takes away the condemnation. But then, the Holy Spirit reminds us of him. I John, in that passage, verses 23 through 24.

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

You know what I did this last week-end? I went to the mountains of North Carolina and we had a memorial service, and buried a friend of mine, where we had buried her husband, and their son, in the same place. It was on top of a mountain. I had to go miles up the side of this mountain to this nice house. There were only maybe 15 of us there, all of whom I know and love. And we have been friends for a hundred years, and we had the memorial service there. And now the first thing you need to know is that in order to get to that house on the top of the mountain, in the mountains of North Carolina, we had to drive up the most pot filled, rut embedded, dirt road, you have ever, and for miles. In fact, after I finish this broadcast, I’m going to take my car and get the wheels aligned. We had the service and it was good. It was sad, but it was good. And then when my wife and I were driving back down from that mountain, and headed for home in Florida, I lost my hearing aids. They just quit on me. And I remember thinking, Lord, is this any way, you know, my car’s going to be a wreck, and I can’t hear? Is this any way to treat one of your children? I would remind you that I’m saved, and I belong to you. And then I got back to our house in Orlando, and we had a new roof put on. And they had somehow severed the electrical connection to our house and I was ready to jump off a bridge and I thought, Lord, don’t forget that I’m yours. Don’t forget that you were going to use me as an example of how you love your kids. And in that quiet moment of complaining, of yelling, of accusing God of doing some bad stuff to me in that moment, there was quiet. And in the quiet, the Holy Spirit came and laughed at me and reminded me of him. I’ve told you about my friend who concerned with the problems in Northern Ireland when all the fighting was going on, didn’t know what to do. So, he took out billboards all over the country. And do you know what was on the billboards? One message. I love you. Is that okay? Signed Jesus. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit reminds you of him. And no matter where you go, or what you’ve done, or who you are, the secrets you have, be still, be quiet, listen, and the Holy Spirit will remind you and tell you about him. Now, let me show you one other thing when we talk about the Holy Spirit and its connection with love. Thirdly, know not only that the Holy Spirit takes away the condemnation, and reminds us of Jesus, the Holy Spirit keeps us there and won’t let us go. I John 3:24.

Whoever keeps his commandments

i.e. believing in Jesus and loving

abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

Oh man, listen, when it’s bad and it’s dark, when I’m bad and dark, I remember, and the Holy Spirit reminds me that he’ll never let me go. You think about that. Amen.

Well, it’s Wednesday and sometimes when I have a little extra time on Wednesday’s broadcast, I take that time to answer one or two questions. And as you know, Pete will be in on Friday and we’ll spend the entire broadcast answering questions. And by the way, we love you and your questions, and we take both seriously. You can ask a question anytime you want to by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE and following the instructions, sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can write to

Key Life Network
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in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can email us, [email protected] and by the way, if you can help us financially, please do. I promise that we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. Okay, let’s turn to one or two of these questions.

Who are the elect? I have no idea. I’ve got a short and wonderful and cogent answer. I don’t know? I, I don’t know? The Bible teaches there are the elect and the Bible teaches there are those who are not of the elect. And you can generally tell by what they say about Jesus. And you can generally tell by how they love. And you can generally tell by what they say and what they do. But not always. In fact, there is a theological construct called the Ordo salutis. That means the order of salvation. And it means that we are not saved by faith, we are saved and given faith. And when we are given faith, then we are saved. I don’t know if I would defend that in a court of law. But generally, I believe that’s true. And you may be of the elect, and if you’re worried about it, Spurgeon said, you are of the elect. Because those who aren’t, don’t give it a second thought. But I don’t know who they are. That’s way, way above my pay level. This is an e-mail too. What does righteousness mean? Well, technically in the Bible, when you read righteousness, it means faithfulness. When it refers to God as a righteous God, it means that God is a faithful God. And it means the same thing with us. Does it mean that Abraham was seen to be without sin? Because of his faith and the promise. Yeah, it does. It seems crazy and it seems counterintuitive, but the Book of Hebrews, the 11th chapter and the 12th chapter, teach that faith comes as a gift. We put our faith in God and God counts the faith as righteousness. And so, there are two doctrines that are very important to the church and to every Christian. One is justification. And that’s a legal thing. That means in a court of law, because Jesus has paid the penalty, you’re just. It won’t be counted against you. You are forgiven. You are justified. But there’s a second gift, and it’s the gift that God gives to those who are justified. What is that? That’s the imputed righteousness of Christ to those who believe. Throughout Romans and much of the New Testament, that doctrine is taught. It means that even if you aren’t pure and good and faithful, Jesus was for you, and God took his purity and righteousness and faithfulness and obedience and applied it to your account. That’s why the good news is so very good. And it’s why if you’re a believer, you shouldn’t go around wringing your hands and talking about how horrible and sinful you are. You are. I am too. But I am clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And so, it’s all good, every bit of it. Not only are you justified, Jesus put his arms around your shoulders in the court and said, I took care of it on the cross. You are given the goodness of Jesus himself. I’ve got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.