Christians fail @ Being Christian

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 Show. Steve just got done saying to me that he was going to tape a couple shows in Espanol. Claro que si. Si, como no. Preguntas. Questions? I don't know. When I'm gone this summer for a little bit of vacation, or as we say overseas, a little bit of a holiday, Pastor Steve is going to have 10 solo shows.

That is Esteban, Sola Esteban para tu. That's kind of like Latin, it's one of the solos of the Reformation. Sola Esteban. Muy palabras con Steve Esteban. Para mi. Well today, I can tell today's going to be spicy.

I like that word spicy, Steve. Muy picante. And I like it to talk about these things where it's give and take, it's back and forth, it's hither and thither. It's hither and thither. It's pel, mel, it's flotsam and jetsam.

No, it's not flotsam and jetsam. That's the stuff that floats around.

All right. I was reading the Huffington Post the other day. Always a good idea. You might ask me why. Si. But I kind of like the other particular view that is the socialist fascist view. Just kidding, tongue in cheek, ba-dum-bum.

And so I was reading the religion section because it is quite fascinating to read views of Christianity from liberals.

I must say that of all the things I've ever done in my life, I've never gone to the HuffPo religious section, ever.

Well, now you have because I gave you this article just a while ago. Sweet. And here's what we're going to do today on No Compromise Radio. We are going to take a look at John Shore's article posted May 7th, this year, 2010, called 10 Ways Christians Tend to Fail at Being Christian.

Now, that's kind of a provocative title, don't you think?

Yeah, what I like, though, is the way he has, under his name, his kind of his motto, trying God's patience since 1958. Funny, clever.

I think that's good. And this article is a good jumping off point for us to talk about some social issues today and how Christians are perceived by so-called Christians. And he's got some points on here that are good and some points that are not so good.

Wealth, Stewardship, and the Rich Young Ruler

To say the least, yes. So let me read the first one and then let me see how Steve does as he responds or gives his classical Steve retorts. Sometimes I like to buy fireworks with report.

This is going to be Classico Steve, okay.

Too much money. So the first way that Christians tend to fail at being Christian, according to John Shore, Huffington Post, too much money. That was what was in bold. And now he says wealthy Christian should be an oxymoron.

And then he gives Luke 12, 33. Jesus says, sell your possessions and give to the poor. He gives two more verses, again, out of context. And then he says, Christians are pretty huge, are generally pretty huge on cleaving to the word of God.

I just don't see how those particular words could be clearer. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Well, I'd like to start.

I mean, obviously, like you said, those are taken out of context, but I'd like to start even with that first statement. Wealthy Christian, in quotation marks, should be an oxymoron. Here's an oxymoron for you.

Greedy Christian. Greedy Christian is an oxymoron. I don't think wealthy moron, or wealthy moron could be an oxymoron. Wealthy Christian doesn't necessarily have to be an oxymoron. But these examples of commands he gives, Matthew 19, 21, if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor.

Well, he didn't say that. He wasn't saying that generically. He was dealing with the one man, knew his heart, knew that he valued his possessions more than he did anything else. So he said, listen, you need to get rid of everything that you have, and then you can follow me.

Then you can be my disciple. Then you'll be right before God. And the issue wasn't the wealth. It was what that man was doing with his wealth and how he felt about his wealth.

That is so critical that we look at these particular verses in context. Steve and I get asked Bible questions all the time. Well, what does this verse mean? And I can tell you what we have been trained to do.

That is to read what was before the verse and read what was after the verse so we can understand the context. In Luke 12, for instance, Jesus is denouncing people who were covetous. Verse 13 of chapter 12, someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.

And that's what started it all. And Jesus tells a parable, and then he talks to his disciples. And while he's talking to his disciples, he says to them, seek first his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

I guess if they're added to you, then you got to quick get rid of them. Yeah, can't have any. Then he says, sell your possessions and give to charity, semicolon. Make yourselves money belts, which do not wear out.

Wonder what he's talking about there. I guess that's really real. You have to make some kind of Batman utility belt that doesn't wear out. Otherwise, you're not following him. Tungsten steel, maybe. Then it says, an unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So obviously, Jesus is not talking about if you're wealthy, you can't be a Christian. You have to give all your money away. Maybe some wealthy Christians do.

I'm certainly glad God has wealthy Christians who help support the ministries of thousands of churches all across the country, aren't you? Yes, I am. Even NoCo. Even NoCo. Yes, and so if you are saved by giving away your wealth, then don't give it to somebody else because then they're gonna be damned.

Until they give it away. Well, you know, and I mean, what we're really talking about is how do you view your money? If you view it as a gift from God, which is how we should see it, one that he has given us a stewardship over, you know, and I've often said, look, if people ask questions about giving, well, how much is enough?

10%, 5%, 20 Do I give off the gross, the net? And here's what I say. I say, listen, if Bill Gates was here at our church and he said, he came up to me one Sunday and he said, I have to tell you, I give.

10 of my gross, I'd go off because the guy's got billions. He doesn't need all that money and he could do with a lot less and give a lot more to the work of the gospel. But if somebody makes $10 ,000 a year, then they probably ought not to be given 10 of their gross.

So, you know, God loves a cheerful giver, the New Testament would tell us, and I think we have to look at it that way. But getting back to this original point, the idea that having too much money, well, what is too much?

More than the next guy? Yeah, I mean, what do we all have to do? Contribute to, we give all of our money away and then the church gives away as it sees necessary?

Well, Steve, you make a critical point there. What would the rich be? You'd think if you have riches that God would tell you, if your eternal destiny was banking on this, that you would know. So if he would say, if you've got more than X amount, then you're rich.

But the Bible doesn't say anything about that because John Schur couldn't be more wrong. Steve, how about this in Matthew 19? Schur quotes verse 21, go and sell your possessions, but he forgets the rest.

"'Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.'. And then Jesus said to these astonished disciples, with people this is impossible, but with God, all things, talking about rich men going to heaven are possible.

It is possible for rich Christians to go to heaven, rich men to go to heaven, because God is the one who saves and God saves based on Christ's work alone, the triune God saving, electing, sanctifying, regenerating the whole kit and caboodle, if you will, not based on how much money do you have.".

Yeah, humanly speaking, it would seem impossible for a rich person who has no apparent need to come to Christ, but that's not how God works. And that's what Jesus tells us. He goes, it's not about, you know, the things that you carry around, it's about your heart.

And God can change the heart of a rich man, a poor man, an in-between man, any kind of man.

And probably what John Schur has forgotten is he, no matter how he lives or what he does, would be considered rich in comparison to what was going on with the poor people back in the New Testament times.

We would all be rich. If you have a car, if you have a house, if you have an iPod, if you have more than one set of clothes, you would be considered rich in New Testament times. If you have food in your refrigerator, if you have a refrigerator, I mean,.

Just think about how great that would be. None of those things. They were literally fighting for survival, the people who didn't have a lot, and there was a lot of poverty then.

All right, 10 ways Christians tend to fail at being Christian. I think we should probably come up with our own list, but right now we're dissecting someone else's list because it gives us a springboard to talk about things.

That the way we want to talk about.

The Danger of Self-Centered Worship

Number two, the second one. So I think it'd be fair to say, Steve, on the first one, too much money. If you were a free throw shooter, basketball player, that would be an air ball. Clank. Yeah, the next, I think the third one's a clanker.

This one was an air ball. Whoosh. Number two, too confident God thinks we're all that in a leather-bound gift Bible.

I'd rather have it be a leather-bound study Bible, but okay.

Maybe a leather-bound TNIV Plus. He says, I'd like to humbly suggest that we spend a little more time wondering how we displease God and a little less time being confident that we do.

You know what all I can say to this one is amen.

This one is, this one's a swish.

Yeah, and this is even gonna get him a bonus free throw. I mean, this is for three.

Three to make two back in the old NBA days. Yeah, this is good. This is Will Chamberlain at the line. I mean, three to make two. Remember when Will used to stand farther back? He wouldn't stand at the free throw line.

He'd have to stand farther back, close to the top of the key for the clank of man. Because he was too strong. Most Christians attend churches today, I think it's fair to say. At least many of them do, if we don't want to generalize.

Many Christians today go to churches that make them feel so good. I was watching that Rick Warren show last night and the first thing he said, Steve, it was unbelievable, it was about adoption and other things, social issues.

Do you know, I think you are the ones that make this successful tonight and you ought to be really proud of yourself that you are here and why don't you give yourself a round of applause, literally. You, you, you, you, you.

It's all about you. That's like the Starbucks cup. You see the Starbucks cup and the biggest three letters on the cup. I've heard about that. Why, oh you. People somehow have the idea that God sure is lucky that they worship him and so they've got it all wrong.

I believe that John Shore is correct when he says we ought to be thinking about how we displease God or maybe, Steve, do you think better? How we have displeased God as unbelievers yet God still loved us anyway, which should elicit praise.

Well, I think that's great because ultimately what that does is cause us to reflect on the gospel, to think about how undeserving we are and yet God descended to send his son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins.

It blew my mind when I first read Arthur Pink's book called The Attributes of God, which you need to read if you're listening today. You need to read again if you're listening today and you've already read it.

He said in the chapter on omniscience that God, before he saved us from our sins, knew every one of our sins that we had ever committed in the past, that we were committing at that moment, and that we would commit in the future and yet in spite of all those things, God chose to set his love on us.

Now that is amazing love.

I've said it before, I'll say it right now. I wouldn't choose me so it makes it all the more amazing that God would choose me. I can get a second on that one.

Thanks, Mike. Too confident. God thinks we're all that in the leather-bound gift Bible. If you have forgotten who you are, I think it's fair to go take a quick visit to your past and remember who you served and how you were a slave to sin and how Satan was blinding your mind and how you were running with lusting greed to engage in evil like a sporting event, the Old Testament would talk about, and God rescued you and stopped you and saved you.

Yeah, getting back to what you were saying originally, sometimes it just seems to me our churches, many churches should be called the church of you. Maybe there should be a you denomination. Because ultimately if you go to church and all you wind up leaving with is I feel better about myself, well then you've gone to a worship service where you were the center of worship.

Steve, when people come to the church services here at Bethlehem Bible Church and they say something afterwards to me about the sermon, and if it was a particularly strong sermon, a very aggressive sermon from the text that was aggressive as well, and they say, I really like that sermon.

I like to be beat up, as it were. I like to hear things that chip away my sin. I always quote the Doug Wilson quote, and he says some things I disagree with vehemently, but he was right when he said, soft-hearted people like hard words from the pulpit, and hard-hearted people like soft words from the pulpit.

Yeah, if we're being conformed to the image of God, what do we want to hear? Messages that actually shape us, conform us into the image of God, or messages that just leave us exactly as we were before we entered the building?

Well, this is Mike and Steve on No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Steve, call me old-fashioned, but when I go to church to worship God, I like hearing sermons about God.

You're old-fashioned.

You got to get with the cool mode now.

When you hear about His perfections, His attributes, His holiness, His standards, His compassion, His faithfulness, who He is, even if someone doesn't say, and by the way, in light of Him, you're a sinner, by mental deduction, you say to yourself, I'm learning about God, and I realize I don't measure up, and I don't think I am who my friends think I am.

I don't think I am good at all. I think I'm a sinner saved by grace. I want to hear sermons about God. All right, I'm with you. Okay, Steve's looking at me like, all right, it's time to go to the next one.

Time to move on, yeah, third one. Any kind of pop culture references we want to give to Peter out in Maynard? None, he's going to have to suffer. Yeah, okay. Number three, so what we would call that, we got one air ball and one swish.

That wasn't even a backboard swish, that was just a No, that was straight through.

Nothing but net. And the net barely moved. I mean, that was one of those perfect shots, you know.

All right, I think this next one is going to be straight as a salmon swimming upstream, but short, to use Chick Hearn's vernacular. Chick Hearn, for those who are listening, would be the West Coast equivalent to Johnny Mouse, have the chick stole the ball.

Wow, that was pretty good, I think, I don't know.

Well, you know what, if I could just smoke like 25 camels without filters, and then I could say, he hacked him, he hacked him, the Detroit Pistons are hackers.

Lambert. All right, now we've got Peter from Maynard is very, very pleased.

The Bible's Clarity and the Need for Good Hermeneutics

All right, we did it, number three. Too quick to believe that we know what God really means by what he says in the Bible. Oh, this is going to be bad. This is perfect emergent theology, though, because we have the humility hermeneutic.

We can't really presume to know what God would really say in the Bible. Because after all, John Shore says, the Bible is extremely complex, multi-leveled work. We're sometimes too quick to assume that we grasp its every meaning.

And so to start, we'd like to say this. There are difficult things in the Bible. 2 Peter 3, Peter says some of Paul's writings are difficult when you're trying to understand the infinite God as a finite, sinful creature.

There are difficulties, but God has not stuttered. God is clear when he communicates who he is, his standards of salvation, who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and how we should respond, that is, repentance and faith, in light of that.

It is not that hard to understand. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. You don't need to know any language except the language that you speak and you could figure that out. And so I think he's clanked this one.

This is a brick.

Yeah, but it gets even worse because he cites Luke 8, verses 9 and 10 as an example of, you know, sometimes Jesus says things and we're just not supposed to understand. And Luke 8, verses 9 and 10 reads this way.

And when his disciples, this is following the parable of the sower, and when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others, they are in parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand.

So he ends right there and he says, well, there you go. You're not gonna understand everything because, you know, the disciples got to know everything, but sometimes we just don't.

Well, he actually says right after he quotes that, huh?

Yeah, yeah, and he says, and that's Jesus explaining what is generally regarded as one of his most readily understood parables. But if you just keep reading, he explains the whole parable. So it's not, that's really a very poor example, but it's a good example of taking something out of context in order to make your point.

Well, and don't people do that all the time with the Bible? I think if he would have said, why don't you make sure to study the Bible regularly, in context, understanding a little bit of nuances of Greek and Hebrew, Eastern culture, a different kind of circumstances, culture, historical issues, geographical issues, and you're gonna have to need to use good hermeneutics to understand the Bible.

Don't read it like a white New Yorker.

Right, and you know, sometimes are there, you know, you alluded to some of them. Are there some passages that are difficult? Yes, there are. In fact, we heard about several of them Sunday night during the Elder Q &A, but I digress.

But yes, there are certain passages that are difficult to understand, but as a believer, do you have the Holy Spirit? The answer is yes. You know, does the Holy Spirit work to illumine your mind so that you can understand the Word of God?

1 Corinthians 2 .14 would tell us that. And so it is just a matter of study, of working hard. It's not always easy, but we can know what the Bible says and we don't have to act like it's all some big mystery.

What's the principle of that? When the Bible is clear, it is, oh, perspicacious. It's the perspicuity of Scripture.

That's right. In other words, it is clear. Why is the word perspicuity, the word that means clear, why is that an unclear word? That's back to the oxymoron again. Words that sound like the opposite of what they are.

It's a reverse onomatopoetic kind of thing.

You know, in fact, I would say number three is so bad, I would use another Chick-ism.

It didn't draw iron. I mean, that was, yeah, that was, he's a bricklayer by trade. One of the things that you can do, if you're a person who reads the Bible and you continually and constantly become frustrated because you can't understand the Bible, then I have a couple hints for you.

Number one, get a translation that's up to date. That is New American Standard, English Standard Version, New King James. That will help you because if the King James says conversation, it doesn't mean the way you talk.

It's your lifestyle. And so that's the first thing I'd say to do. Number two, if you continue to have trouble, then why don't you get a study Bible with some good study notes, ESV Study Bible, the MacArthur Study Bible, Reformation Study Bible.

That will help. And number three, if you've done all those and you still can't understand basic principles in the Bible, it would be fair to ask yourself the question, am I really a Christian? Because if I have the Holy Spirit and he illumines my mind to understand the scriptures and now I still can't understand them, maybe I don't have the spirit.

Don't you think, Steve, that many, many people today read the Bible and they say they can't understand it and they're basically saying, because I'm not a Christian, I can't understand the Bible. I don't have the decoder ring, who happens to be a person, the Holy Spirit.

Right, and so many people struggle with that and they say exactly what he says here, that they don't understand the scripture, that they can't get it. And one of the possible reasons is because they're not saved.

I mean, it also helps to go to a Bible teaching church where you can have the Bible explained to you or taught to you. And then that can help a lot of times in putting things together.

Good, that's another great point. Even here on WVNE, I'm very, very impressed with the caliber of Bible teachers on this radio show, from Alistair Begg to John MacArthur to R .C. Sproul, top-notch Bible expositors who help Christians like you to understand the text.

Don't you think it's wrong, Steve, when people say, I have the Bible and I have the Holy Spirit and I don't need anybody to teach me? Well, it absolutely is.

I mean, in Ephesians chapter four, Paul talks about how the church has been gifted by Christ with men who are teachers and who are expositors of the word, teachers, preachers, all these evangelists. And there are, you know, certainly if you wrestle with it on your own and you can't understand it, then you ought to be under the tutelage of these sorts of men.

Good, and what you should do is ask these men, what kind of resources can I buy to understand the Bible better? You ought to have a line item in your budget for Bible tools. There are some things more important than food, and the word of God is even more important than your food budget.

Of course you have a food budget, but put $100 every three months away for Bible books to help you to get a Bible commentary, comments from godly men on the Bible, a Bible concordance. So if you say, I know there's a verse in there, Jesus wept someplace, but I don't know where, it tells you right where it is.

What else could we get, Steve? A Bible atlas so you can understand the topography and geographical considerations when it comes to Paul's journeys.

What would be some other good tools? Good, you could get something on the culture, you know, talking about the Bible history or the culture during Bible times. You know, what kind of world did Jesus really live in?

Why was foot washing such a big deal? All these kind of things come into play.

Good, and somebody says, well, what about three days and three nights? I don't know how Jesus could be crucified on Friday, and then that's only Friday night and Saturday night and be raised from the dead on Sunday.

And you would learn with the Manners and Customs book that that's a colloquial saying that the Jews had for any portion of a day is considered a day and a night, and so that would make it much easier.

So, so far today, Steve, we've got the first three ways Christians tend to fail at being Christian by John Shore with our analysis. Number one, it was an air ball. Number two, swish. Number three, straight as a salmon swimming upstream, but short.

We will continue next Tuesday looking at the next several. Maybe we'll do them all, maybe we'll just do a few. We're gonna blitz right through them. And if you would like to go to a Bible teaching church this week, call up the church and say, what book are you teaching through the Bible verse by verse?

That would be a good litmus test. And if you can't find one, Bethlehem Bible Church, West Boylston, we'll see you here.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth 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.