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Just finished @threefreesins -> thx for recommending @GSPN Reviewing next week via andytraub
Steve Brown is old enough to not care anymore and if you read five pages of his book Three Free Sins you’ll find out what I mean. He was a paid holy person (what I call people in full-time ministry) for most of his life and today serves as a professor at the Reformed Theological Seminary, speaks, writes and is the main personality for Key Life Network which you can find out about at KeyLife.org
At the core of this book is a very simple message. Grace. Grace is undeserved forgiveness and the idea of Three Free Sins is that our lives would change radically if we accepted three free sins in our lives. The true message is this…we don’t get three free sins, we get unlimited free sins because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a cross around 2,000 years ago. He was perfect so when He died on the cross all of our sins, not just three, were paid for. His perfection was exchanged for our imperfection.
“The only people who get any better the people who know that if they don’t get any better God’s going to love them anyway.”
Steve Brown has a unique way of leading you into a conversation about sin and grace. He takes us down the road into agreeing that grace covers all sins and then asks us why we don’t live like it does. Why do we live like we can earn God’s forgiveness at the same time teaching others that they don’t have to earn God’s forgiveness.
Steve’s journey took a turn when he grew tired of “trying to teach people not to sin”.
He asks the very difficult question, “What if the Christian faith isn’t about getting better?” That started him on a journey to start telling the truth. He started sharing his sin and struggles and how the cross brought him healing.
Steve thinks pretending is stupid and he’s right. “Trying harder doesn’t work. You should know that by now.”
“I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way JESUS came to reveal God’s love.”
People who have experienced sin and grace are equipped to extend that same grace. (page 82)
If you want to attract new people who are outside of the church into it, people from outside the family of God into His family then holiness and goodness will not have the effect. Authenticity draws people in. Humility and authenticity is a magnet for other messed up people…and we’re ALL messed up.
In front of a audience of missionaries Steve opened up about his failures and it caused one member of the audience to get angry because he felt Steve wasn’t worried enough about right and wrong. Another missionary in the audience stood up to defend Steve and said, “Just because someone is honest about not meeting the standard doesn’t mean that he ignores or lowers the standard.”
The lesson of forgiveness, grace and hope always begins with helplessness.
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Sounds like an interesting book.
Have you read Ragamuffin Gospel? If so, is this a similar style of book?
Yup. Different style of writing but same message. I’ll be reviewing Manning’s autobiography in the next month as well. – All is grace
I’ve been listening to Steve’s commentary on this book for month’s on Key Life. He has a lot of wisdom. As someone who has grown up in the church, I find him very refreshing! I really want to get my hands on some of his books.
This is my first exposure to Steve and I will be sure to check out his web site. I must agree, until I received grace, especially from those I did not expect to receive it from, I was not fully prepared to extend grace. I was very stingy with Grace distribution.
My experience has been that we spend way too much time trying to point out where others are doing wrong when we should be spending our time doing good and sharing grace. God has not placed us in the position as judge, we should leave that to him. I often find myself wanting God to be “fair” with other but want him to extend grace to me.
Darrell, great points. Perhaps that is why Paul was so ready to give grace. He needed it himself as “the chief of sinners”. He wasn’t kidding. He murdered Christians! Then there’s Brennan Manning, a life-long alcoholic who has admitted to breaking all ten commandments several times over. They are simply redistributing their received grace.
If you are reviewing Brandon Hatmaker’s book, you should take a look at Jen Hatmaker’s book “Interrupted”.
Another good book is “Margin” by Richard A. Swenson. The book is a few years old but I found it to be more relevant than ever.
It’s on my kindle and i’ve read some of it already and will be starting a show with Brandon in the next few months.
Thank you Andy.
The quote from the book stood out to me.
For us to truly accept grace, we must walk in it.
I had a conversation yesterday about this. If we have taken the free grace and changed, we should be able to talk about our pasts sins. Sharing them and saying “I struggled with that also” is a great way to helps others in their walk.
Unconditional love is getting more and more attention. Yes we should be striving to seek God more and increase our relationship with Him, but it is not like every time we fail He loves us less.
Good topics. Thank you again.
K, bye
Great podcast. Sounds like a good book. I love books that help people understand grace better.