You Are Not Saved Because of Faith

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth.

And how do we work around here? Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. That's our tagline. We are No Compromise Radio because number three, we don't want to compromise. Number two, at Calvary, law and love were not compromised.

And Jesus, we wanna focus on him, never compromised. He's the one, so that's what's going on here. If you'd like to order any of the books, you can go to nocompromiseradio .com. And it says products there.

It feels like I'm selling shampoo. If you are just a regular person, you just listen for free. And if you're a millionaire or billionaire, there's a donate channel there. Donate button, the whole channel.

But in all seriousness, we have a YouTube channel, No Compromise Radio, that has about 150 different videos. And if you wanna go to World View Weekend, many of you listen through World View Weekend, there is No Compromise television that Brannon generously provides for No Compromise Radio.

And so there's a variety of things. Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm thankful to be the pastor of that particular assembly. And you can go to bbcchurch .org and to go to the Bible Institute there. Sunday school classes, all kinds of sermons, Pastor Steve Tuesday guy, I think he's teaching through Fundamentals of the Faith now.

Lots of things there. And you can also access at bbcchurch .org or nocompromiseradio .com, the flyer, so you can go with us in 2017 for the Reformation 500 tour, May 20th through 30th, Mike Gendron and I are hosting.

We'd love to have you go. It's more of a first class kind of deluxe trip. Sometimes I go on the cheap just to get more people. This is a little bit more expensive for a couple reasons. One, nicer places to stay, nicer accommodations, and it is REF 500 for the world.

And 1517 plus 500 years, 2017, they know they can get more money from the people. But to be there in Geneva and see where Calvin preached, where he taught across the street, Lake Geneva, I'm telling you, it is one of the most beautiful lakes of that city, Geneva.

To sit and have a coffee, a double espresso, doppio espresso by Lake Geneva, it's kind of the, should be on your bucket list for life. And then to be in Wittenberg to see the castle church and to see what's going on in Wittenberg, walk by Melanchthon's house, see the big statue of Lutheran downtown.

We will go to Vortburg Castle and you can see those little demon frog things. I'll have to tell you about that in person, pretty fascinating. We will be in Zurich to see Zwingli, where he preached there, and stop and have a little Reformation talks along the way that's with living passages.

You wanna make sure you read about it through No Compromise Radio's portal. And so there we go. All right, here's what's happening. I walked in today and Pauline, our secretary, handed me this. And I thought it was a joke.

And I thought, well, this makes good radio, right? If you have five days a week, you have to do radio. You're wondering what you talk about. And it's got an older lady. She looks 90-ish, darker skin, but very wrinkly.

That's the most prominent thing, white hair she has and wrinkly skin and a very, very sad face. She kind of looks like my grandma, Nona, did. Nona is the originator of Hanul. What you see very quickly regarding this is there's a little hole cut out.

And inside this envelope that's written to Mike Abendroth here at the church address, Lancaster Street, West Boylston, there's a dime, one thin dime, a real dime. I see who is on the dime. Is it Truman?

I'm watching a story about Truman. When he was inaugurated as president, installed as president, I've not opened this yet, so I'm opening this right now. I want to just make sure I'm talking rightly about Truman.

Is that Harry S. Truman? Looks like Truman. Well, that's FDR. How do I not know who's on a dime? Oh, I opened it up. Now I see, oh, this is, it's even getting better slash worse. Okay, anyway, this coin, so there's a dime in here.

I'm taking the dime, putting it in my pocket right now. This coin holds the secret to transforming the lives of thousands and unlocking God's blessing for you. This is from a nonprofit organization. What a lark that is, in my opinion.

This is from Jewish Voice Ministries International, Phoenix, Arizona. Inside here, you have medical certificates. They're in all different kinds of languages. At least two. Jewish Voice Ministries International medical care certificate.

Please present this certificate to the medical staff when you are seen for treatment. This care is provided at no cost to you by the generosity of followers of Yeshua living in America. Bring this certificate with you to the clinic and exchange it for your treatment.

Funded provided and certificate authorized by, and then it says blank. So I got a lot of these in case I get sick. I don't know why I can't just come in and kind of speak it. You've got the no postage necessary.

Return envelope, S-A-S-E. With on the envelope, I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now how bad is that?

Here we have Abrahamic covenant language and now we take the you and it makes it to be me as long as I spend the money and send this in. All right, it's getting bad. It's getting worse. It says, dear friend, proclaiming Jesus the Messiah to the world.

It is from Jonathan Bernis. If you can do nothing else, simply return the dime I sent to you. Oh, you have to write your name. And for $144, you can provide care for 12 poor Egyptian Jews. Wait a second.

I thought it was, oh, see how dumb am I? $12 a patient. There's 12 medical cards. You write your name on all these medical cards. On the back, it looks like Arabic. And then you send the $144 in. Then these cards get distributed to the Jewish Egyptians.

I don't think that's a good song. Walk like Jewish Egyptians. If you can do nothing else, simply return the dime I sent to you. But remember, your gift to Jewish Voice right now will transform lives. Unlock eternal destinies of thousands of poor Egyptian Jews.

Please be as generous as you can. Now, really? Unlocking eternal destinies. Shouldn't that be enough for you to think this is a works righteousness-based system? You open it up and you see the persecuted Jewish people.

I'm sorry, they are persecuted. But you see doctors. You see children with eye patches. You see little medical cards. Oh, here it is. When we give it to a poor Egyptian Jew as a gift from you, when they come to the medical clinic to receive free medical care and hear the good news of Yeshua.

What you do is you hand all these out. Free medical care. They come in, bring this little card. It's like a ticket. And then you'll tell them, you'll fix their eyes and unlock eternal destinies. I guess you give them the dime and then you tell them about Jesus.

Yes, Jonathan, I will stand with you to take the gospel to poor Jews of Ethiopia and the world and closes my gift to help provide medical care and other humanitarian needs and a witness of the good news to those in need.

$12 for one, 60 for five. Well, you don't get a discount. 24 for two, 144 to help 12. Please send me a shofar for a gift of over $60. Beautiful, handcrafted, made just as they have been prepared for thousands of years.

How did they get my name? If you don't have any money, please charge to my Visa MasterCard Amex Discover, US only. We have to process your checks electronically just to let you know. IRS says you can deduct the amount of your gift that exceeds the values of materials received.

Well then, how can I deduct anything if I'm paying for $144 worth of stuff and then a shofar? That seems like it's negative. Yikes, isn't that bad? All right, next on the table here. All right, what is the difference between, I think I did that one, Pastor Steve.

Award and reward. 75 incorrectly used words that can make you look dumb. Award and reward. See, that helps us when we look at Ephesians chapter two that we're gonna look at in just a moment. Un momento, por favor, pita.

An award is a prize. Musicians win Grammy awards. Car companies win J .D. Power awards. Employees win Employee of the Month awards. Think of an award as a result of a contest or competition. A reward is something given in return for effort, achievement, hard work, et cetera.

A sales commission is a reward. A bonus is a reward. A free trip for landing the highest number of new customers is a reward. Be happy when your employees win industry or civic awards and reward them for the hard work and sacrifices they make to help your business grow.

So there is a difference between an award and a reward. Now you have it. So transport yourself back into the Bible days and in light of this Jewish voice, ministries international and unlocking destinies.

What does the Bible say in Ephesians chapter two? Now here's the thing. When you think of award and reward and grace, you're gonna have to say to yourself, I must think biblically. We live and breathe and move and have our being in a works righteousness system that is a tainted system.

It's just the way we think. We're not programmed to think Augustinianly. We are not a pre-wired to think Calvinistically. We are not born thinking, who else do I wanna use? Pauline, right? That's just not what we do.

Thankfully in Ephesians, we're reminded about our depravity. And if you realize how spiritually corrupt you are, spiritually unable you are to come to Christ. And even looking back now as Christians, we see it was all of God's work.

The words award and reward in terms of merit, achievement, effort. I'm not talking about a beam a seat judgment and rewards in heaven for the Christians. I'm talking about how do you get to heaven? I'm saying as a spiritually dead person in trespasses and sins, Ephesians two, can we use words of ourselves along the vein of effort, achievement, hard work, merit, works.

We just can't do it. There's something worse than using a word incorrectly, aggressive or enthusiastic, right? Between and among. But when it comes to merit, grace, award, reward, you've gotta be very careful.

And if you want to say, Jesus earned our salvation, Jesus, his effort alone accomplished redemption, it was Jesus's achievement as a God man, both as active and passive obedience. It was his hard work.

It was his merit. It was his law keeping. It was his substitutionary atonement. It was his resurrection. I am more than happy to do that. I'm very glad to do that. And the focus is properly placed. But I'm not glad to, and many people don't do this just directly, but it's indirectly because of bad theology.

They just don't know where one point of theology leads to the next. Their Arminianism gets in the way. It's just not consistent Arminianism. There's kind of a Charlie horse between their temples. I don't mean temples like worship temples, but the temple lobes, your temple.

You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, while we were rich in our sins. Now here comes the word, because. We at No Compromise Radio and you, the listener, value prepositions. In, upon, into, among, with, by, for.

When I first started studying the Bible, I was told verbs in the epistles were very important. And actually they are, everything's important. Connectors, participles, particles, subatomic rivets. Do you believe in black holes?

How can you prove a black hole? I don't think you can. It seems like it's the right thing. If you look at the passage and you say, because, what's the because of your faith? What's the because of your salvation?

What's the because? And does it have anything to do with rewards? Work, merit, achievement, and effort of you? That's the question today. That's the question. Unlocking eternal destinies. Does it have anything to do with you?

Well, wouldn't you expect then, if it says in Ephesians 2 .4, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which I, Paul, loved him. With which we, the nation of Israel, loved God. Which we loved one another.

The great love that we had as we loved the triune God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The text says because of the great love with which he first loved us. And then to reiterate the point, he's already made it, but he has to drive it home.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Award, reward, merit, achievement, effort, hard work, works. It cannot be ours because of our works.

It has to be what God has done. Made us together. Made us alive together. You've got to be regenerated. And it is by grace that you have been saved. And God furthermore has raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

So that in the ages to come, the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God. Not a result of works, achievement, merit, effort, rewards. What's God gonna reward us with? No, it's not that, it's not. It's the gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Friends. Friends on No Compromise Radio. Enemies, if you listen. We used to have a lot of people listen that didn't really like the show.

That's when we were on WVNE. They had no choice. They just had the radio set to the dial all day long. And then we are off the air and James MacDonald's taking our place. Karma. I don't believe in karma, I just said it.

I'll give you my thin dime, my one thin dime. Is that Harry Truman on the dime? Who's on the dime? Roosevelt? It's gotta be Truman. It's gotta be Truman. Truman was an interesting character. A haberdasher, a farmer.

Liked to take a few chances with the money. It took him eight years to win his wife. Eight years. Eight years, that's a long time. By 60, he was a president of the United States. He always ran from fights.

And then when it comes to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he wasn't running anymore. He ran from when he was a kid, but not when he was older. Fascinating just to study some of these men and their families. By grace, you've been saved through faith.

So the because, if you say to yourself, why am I saved? What's the because of my salvation? Why am I saved and my next door neighbor isn't? Think of a best friend. I have a best friend growing up, his name was Scott.

Best friend growing up, his name's Wayne. You know, there's different people in my life. Why are, and maybe they are now, I mean, but at least from last time I knew, neither one are Christians. Why am I a Christian and why aren't they?

I mean, in the born again sense of the term. I don't mean culturally. I don't mean they go to church and worship once in a while. I don't mean they say to themselves, they're not Muslim. But why am I born again and they are not?

What is the because? And does it have anything to do with reward? Does it have anything to do with effort, achievement, hard work, merit, something that I have done, deeds of righteousness, law keeping?

Is there a because? Because I believed? Really? No, you see, you cannot talk that way. Well, you can, but you must not talk that way if you'd like to honor the Lord. Because is reserved for God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

That's the because. Now, if you'd like to say in Ephesians 2, verse eight, you're saved by grace through faith, you may say that. What's the because of my salvation? Because God loved me, because God graced me, because God applied Christ active obedience to me, because God credited my sin to Jesus and God confirmed all that by raising him from the dead.

And the spirit of God then made me alive together with Christ. I am in heaven or going to heaven because of that. I am a Christian because of God. I'm not a Christian because of my faith. Now, I know what you mean, and I don't mean you lose your salvation if you say it or you're not saved if you say it, but you're not giving glory to God.

You're actually able to boast so that no one may boast is written in there for a reason, that no one may boast. I believed, therefore it's my belief that is the cause of salvation. Now, I think if you think a non-meritorious instrument through faith, you could think that way.

Maybe you could even say the effect of God's saving work and his regenerating power, you then respond with faith. Maybe you could say it that way, but there's a reason why through and because are two different words.

And one is works righteousness because of my faith. And it makes faith a meritorious work, which is tainted by sin, it can't ever be. Versus a faith that says, God has even given me faith. It's a gift.

And I'm recognizing because Jesus did all the work, that work has been credited in my account through an instrument. I just take God at his word. I just acknowledge that he exists and he's a rewarder of those who seek him.

And that Jesus really died on the cross and was raised from the dead. And faith is not, I don't contribute anything. I'm just taking you at your word. Or if I say to my father, I take you at his word, I'm not contributing anything.

I'm just acknowledging that what he says is true and right. And I assent to that and I trust in that. When you talk about unlocking eternal destinies with one thin dime, of course that's wrong on so many different levels.

But for us practically, when you use because, you are not saved because of your faith. Your faith did not die on the cross. Your faith did not raise itself from the dead and your faith isn't coming back anytime soon with a bunch of angels.

Faith doesn't earn anything. And even this truck that's backing up outside would tell you with a warning sign, you're saved through faith. That is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

And that's what we teach at No Compromise Radio. So why don't you just say to God right now, thank you for saving me. Thank you for giving me saving faith. Thank you for making me alive together with Christ.

Thank you for your great love that you love me even when I was dead in my trespasses and sins. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I boast in you. You are not my workmanship. I am your workmanship. I didn't create you, you created me.

My name's Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. Don't forget, if you'd like to travel with us to Europe for the Reformation tour, you can. I think we'll go through Boston or New York, but wherever you live, we will see you there.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.