Pet Peeves (Part 4)

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. Mike Abendroth here, deep sigh. I don't know why a deep sigh. It's maybe that I realize I've got 24 and a half minutes that I have to speak nonstop and try to make it biblical, try to make it provocative, and try to make it in that order.

Thankfully, I believe in the Spirit of God, and thankfully, I know I'm not on my own, and we are No Compromise Radio, and we try to talk about things that are scriptural, things that are biblical, things that are revealed in the mind of God.

How about that? Do you know how the Jews would say three things differently to make one point? Sanctified, holy, and set apart. So that's what we'll do today is continue. I think this will be the last one.

I'm sad about it, but that's okay. Pet peeves, number five. My fifth show on pet peeves. I have a list here in my little notebook. I cleaned my entire studio out, and I have a notebook here, and it talks about topics for No Compromise, and I just am gonna work through these.

There's probably 30 of them here, and these are some of the shows that are coming up in the months to come. Journaling, Christian psychology, churches that go green, Mary, Masons, Derek Webb, holy oil that you anoint people with, understanding God as Father, Christian view of self, racism, the wrath of God, music, Bible translations, thankfulness, heaven, self-esteem, Lord's Supper, thinking properly, and testimonies, work, and that's about it.

So there's more there, but those are the only ones I wanna read. The rest are top secret, and you'll have to listen on No Compromise radio. This is probably right around late March or April when the show is being aired, and we will continue on.

We're booked through August for WVNE, and we'll see at the end of that time if they'll have us or if we'll have them or what we should do. I just got something in the mail regarding expanding to other stations across the country.

I have no idea how that'll all work or if it will happen, but that is not my business today. Pet peeves number five. These are things that maybe rub me the wrong way, and these are just an excuse for me to talk about biblical things in kind of rapid-fire order, just one to one to one to one.

We've talked about how God told me that was one of my problems, come dress casually. That's a pet peeve of mine. Horrible Bible translations like the message, insistence on the US flag and the sanctuary, et cetera.

Felt-Need Sermons That Sell Jesus as a Self-Help Solution

So we're just gonna start adding. I have no idea. Maybe some of the staff can add these up and tell me how many I have, but the next one that I have is sermons given by quote-unquote pastors that are felt-need sermons.

For instance, marriage fixers. Now, if you preach verse-by-verse and if you are in Ephesians 5 and you wanna talk about how these verses will help your marriage, I have absolutely no problem with that.

But let's just think big picture for a minute. Even when people evangelize, come to Christ and you'll have a better marriage. Come to Christ and you'll have a better life. Come to Christ and this will happen or that'll happen.

You'll get rich. There's all kinds of things that people use. Is that biblical? How about when Jesus called people to himself and he talked about hating father and mother and brother and sister and yes, even your own life?

What about those verses? And so we don't sell or promote or advertise. See, I did it again with that kind of threefold Baptist Hebrew alliteration thing. We don't sell sermons based on felt needs. Now, there are some needs, of course, that the gospel relates to.

Primarily, how about this? Reconciliation with God, forgiveness, what the great atonement of Christ did, his perfect work, the once-for-all sacrifice. The sacrifice that actually could deal with sins.

Here, this great priest who was both the priest and the sacrifice, took care of all of our sins, of all the elect for all time. He bore those on his body on the tree and then was raised from the dead, confirming that God the Father accepted the sacrifice.

Spirit raised the Son, the Son raised the Son, and the Father raised the Son. And so there are needs that the gospel helps us with. But the felt need gospel sermons usually come across this way. How to, how to do this, how to do that.

And they are essentially moralistic messages. Just do these things and everything will work out. And then the next week, just do these things, and just do these things. And it is over and over and over with the same five things to do kind of thing.

20 ways to be a better neighbor, 15 ways to be a better husband. And if these things are not driven by the gospel, if these to-do lists are not inspired by the work of Christ at Calvary, that is to say, since God did these things at Calvary and has changed you, regenerated you, converted you, then live in light of that.

If you don't receive these imperatives, commandments, in light of the indicatives or statements of fact about the gospel, the God of the gospel, God is the gospel, I guess, to quote Piper. I don't know if I quote Piper much, but anyway.

If those things are true, then I don't mind a to-do list. There are imperatives in the Bible, lots of imperatives. In James, there are lots of imperatives. Ephesians, you can see most of the time in chapters one, two, and three, you don't have a lot of imperatives.

I think there's one in two, 11, probably 12, verse 12. But most of them are found in verses, chapters four, five, and six, why? Here's who you are in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Him. Therefore, live out who you are.

And so remember, Christianity is, God has graced us, we respond to that grace. We respond to that grace with thankfulness, with obedience, with reverence, with honor, et cetera. We don't serve the God of Poseidon.

And so the God of Poseidon or Neptune, he needs to be placated, he needs to be pacified. And so before we go out on the Mediterranean, we give some oranges, some fruit, a couple of virgins, and a few pieces of wood to the God and say, if we've done this for you, now you do this for us.

Give us a safe journey, give us journey mercies. Give us journey mercies on this very, very rough and dangerous sea. But for God, the only God, the one true God, the living God, He is the initiator because we're dead in trespasses and sins and we can't approach God and we need a Savior.

We need an author of salvation, a captain of salvation, an initiator of salvation. We actually need a Savior, one who will come and rescue us. And God is a Savior and there's no one else besides Him to save.

And here this great God who is a creator, yes, who's a judge, yes, but He's also a saving God because He's a loving God and a compassionate, gracious God. He saves sinners. But it's not because we do something first for Him.

We get baptized, we get catechized, we get irrigated, we get consecrated, we get demarcated. No, God does the work first. And in light of that, then we respond. And so these churches that have all these felt needs kind of sermons basically end up forgetting to preach Christ crucified.

We determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even Him, the crucified one. That's Paul's ministry at 1 Corinthians, at Corinth rather, in 1 Corinthians, the book. We are crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live. And so when you have all these how-to sermons, my pet peeve is they easily turn into, do these things and they forget about Christ Jesus. Listen to what Spurgeon said in a sermon back in 1884.

Nothing puts life into men like a dying Savior. See, if you've got people who need to be educated and people who need to be exhorted or confronted, you can tell them to flee immorality, of course, but you remind them who they are and what Christ has done and what a good God God is.

And in light of that, how could you disobey? Wouldn't you want to obey? And parents can do the same thing with their kids. I prayed for you, I've cared for you, I've fed you, I've changed your diapers, I've given you everything that you have in your room, I've been your friend, I've taken you on vacations, I've clothed you, I've done all these things, I loved you, I cherish you, you're the apple of my eye.

And in light of all these things, when it comes to hitting your sister, what do you think you should do? I don't think I should hit my sister. And so it's the same exact thing. So Spurgeon says, nothing puts life into men like a dying savior.

Get close to Christ and carry the remembrance of him about you from day to day, and you will do right royal deeds. See, it's back to give me Jesus, we need Jesus, preach Jesus. Come let us slay sin, for Christ was slain.

See that imperative indicative right there. Come let us bury all our pride, for Christ was buried. Come let us rise to newness of life, for Christ has risen. Let us be united with our crucified Lord in his one great object.

Let us live and die with him. And then every action of our lives will be very beautiful. Oh, that Christians today, that I would truly get this, living in union with Christ is the key to holiness. And so you see how Spurgeon understood that very thing.

Of course it's proper to tell congregations to do something because the Bible does that, but it's in light of what God has done. That's why scripture reading should be Christ-centered. We know the Bible is, so if you read the Bible, it'll be Christ-centered.

We know that song should be Christ-centered, cross-centered, because everything is in light of what God has done for us. And we want to respond. Listen to the hymn by John Kent, who lived in the late 1700s, early 1800s.

Twixt Christ and the chosen race subsist a bond of sovereign grace, that hell with its eternal train. Boy, I can't say it. How would you like to sing it? Shall never dissolve our rend in twain. See, it's all about Christ.

That's the point. It is about Christ Jesus and no one else. So on No Compromise Radio today, we're talking about pet peeves. And so here's my pet peeve. Technically, for those who think that you should preach only imperatives and never talk about the indicatives of Christ Jesus.

Let me see if there's anything else here. Here is D .A. Carson regarding preaching Christ and how important it is for Christ Jesus to be spoken of. Do we have the gift of the Spirit? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Do we enjoy the fellowship of the saints? Secured by Christ on the cross. Do we enjoy the fellowship and comfort? Does this give us comfort in life and death? Secured by Christ on the cross. Does he watch over us faithfully, providentially, graciously, and covenantally?

Secured by Christ on the cross. Do we have hope of a heaven to come? Secured by Christ on the cross. Do we anticipate resurrection bodies on the last day? And he guesses what D .A.'s gonna say. Secured by Christ on the cross.

Is there a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness? Secured by Christ on the cross. We need to be reminded that Jesus Christ is Lord and that he has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

And we are the ones who then say out of reverence, out of respect, out of honor to the living God, worthy art thou to take the book of the seals, worthy is the lamb that was slain. And then we say, we're forgiven, cleansed, pardoned, atoned for, our sins are covered, they've been cast into the deep sea.

And in light of all that, of course I want to love my wife. Of course I want to honor my employer. Of course I want to do these things. And so if you've got a church that's only preaching the how-tos, that wears on people.

That legalistic kind of preaching wears and grates on people because there's no power then to do anything differently. There's no power to say no. There's no power to say, well, you know, I fail, what am I gonna do?

Who can I look to? I failed in loving my wife and so I need to look to Christ Jesus who never failed in loving his bride. I failed at work and there's one person who always worked doing the work of his father, Christ Jesus.

Lazy Pastors and the Hard Work of Exposition

So no compromise today, we're looking at pet peeves. Let me give you another one of my pet peeves as we're talking about these things. And that pet peeve would be lazy pastors. If you are a lazy man, you can easily hide in the ministry.

There are so many things that go on. Prayer breakfast with other clergy, other affiliations and fraternals with other clergy, conferences you can go to. Of course fraternals are not wrong. Prayer breakfasters are not wrong.

Conferences are not wrong. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the ministry requires hard work and that's exactly what Paul talks to Timothy about in 2 Timothy chapter two. And when you think about lazy pastors, the best way you can find a lazy pastor is to listen to their sermons.

And if you listen to one of their sermons and you think, you know what? I could get that sermon with my English text. You can tell they haven't done the hard work, the grunt work, the work that's not the romantic work of preaching but it's the hard work in the study that deals with authorial intent, textual issues, how this passage relates to the previous passage.

The previous passage, those kind of things. Taking then the data of scripture of the word of God and then trying to present it in a way on a plate to feed the congregation that looks appetizing, not taking away any of the vitamins or nutrients but just presented well.

You know how you go to a restaurant that's really kind of a low-rent restaurant and all the food just kind of slapped on the plate and then you go to a really super deluxe nice restaurant and it's just presented well?

Well, of course we want to give the people the word of God but we wanna present it in a good manner. Listen to this quote here. The minister must not be idle. Sloth is inexcusable in a minister as sleeping in a sentry.

Isn't that amazing? This is Thomas Watson, the great Puritan, the easiest Puritan in my mind to read, Thomas Watson. Get his book on repentance, Banner of Truth, little paperback, classic paperback and you will read Thomas Watson, you'll think that's right.

If you're a sentry, do you need to sleep? You sleep on duty? Well, that would cost you your life. And then Watson goes on to say, John the Baptist was a voice crying, Matthew 3 .3. A dumb minister is of no more use than a dead physician.

A man of God must work in the Lord's vineyard. Thomas Watson. Men of God need to be hard workers. They expect their congregants, their men, to work 40 or 50 hours a week and then to work 10 additional hours doing church ministry things.

So does that mean the minister of the gospel should just work 40 hours? Actually, the minister of the gospel is working all the time, is on duty all the time because you never know when you're going to get those phone calls in the middle of the night.

My loved one is dying or has died, et cetera. There's some kind of emergency or car crash. And so if you're going to be a lazy pastor, then either repent or get out of the ministry. There are lots of other people who would like to preach the gospel and you just need to work hard.

Listen to how Paul talks to Timothy. And again, if you're listening today and you're not a pastor, well, if your pastor is lazy, one of the ways pastors show their laziness is they steal other people's sermons.

It happens all the time. And they'll just pull up MacArthur's old sermon or somebody else's and then just change a few illustrations and preach it as it is their own. Of course, nobody is coming up with creative new material.

If they are, they're not preaching the Bible. But you want to take all the information in and then you personalize it and then give it to your people. That's all you do. You kind of ebb and draw thighs the material and then you present it in such a way that of course I've read 20 commentaries on the passage.

Of course I've been influenced by MacArthur. Of course I have been influenced by all kinds of other people. And I don't want to have a new idea in my mind. Spurgeon said, if I start preaching new doctrine, then put me in an insane asylum because surely you'll know I've lost my mind.

So we're not talking about new. We're just talking about do the work of study. And actually it's fun to study. That's maybe the wildest thing about my job. I wanted to be in the NBA years ago, but I wasn't fast enough or tall enough.

And I thought I'd get paid to play basketball. Now people pay my bills. The Lord has my bills paid so I can study. And if that's gonna happen, I want to give them a nice meal. And I want the people to say, you know what, today when I show up for the worship service and I hear from God, that man will have studied.

That man will have known. He knows the Bible inside and out. I want to know the Bible like that, man. And I can't wait to have my soul fed. I have trials and temptations this week that are huge. And I need to have a huge God presented to me by a man who has shown himself worthy of the high calling.

So listen to 2 Timothy chapter two and listen to this kind of language here. Now then my child be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust a faithful man who will be able to teach others also.

If you're gonna be a pastor, by the grace of God, you train other men. That takes work. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Soldiering, those people work hard. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. Athletes, do they work hard? Ask Bruce Jenner. Ask one of the basketball players in the NBA. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

Discipling takes work. Soldiering takes work. Athletics takes work. Farming, ask a farmer. I've worked on a farm before. 6 a .m. you start, you bring your breakfast. I was 16 years old, you bring your breakfast.

And by about 8 .30, you eat your breakfast. Then they call you in for kind of another breakfast at 10 o 'clock, you eat that. They call you in at 1, feed you again. And then you work until 5 o 'clock and you go home and pass out.

I mean, you work, work, work, work. And here, Paul says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David. Both his divinity and his humanity. In the middle of all this ministry, remember Jesus.

I find that's interesting. Jesus was working, always doing the work of his father. Wasn't he? And then he says down in verse 14 of 2 Timothy 2, remind them of these things and charge them before God, not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

Do your best, King James was studied to show yourself be approved. Do your best, work hard to present yourself to God as one approved. You wanna be an approved worker, don't you? You wanna be tested if you're in gospel ministry.

And if you're just a listener and you're a lay person, this is still for you. If gospel ministers are to work hard in ministry, are you supposed to work hard? Of course, they're the ones you're supposed to imitate as they imitate Christ.

They're the ones who you look at and say, you know what? I'd like to be like that person. I don't wanna be that person, but as they're like Christ and as they work hard and as they minister, as they know the word of God, as they love their wife, as they love their kids, I want to be like that.

Paul said, imitate me. Of course, as he imitates Christ. Here he says, has no need to be ashamed. A worker who has no need to be ashamed. And that is God shaming the pastor because he's not a worker. You are to work hard.

If you're a pastor, you're pretty much the boss and you can come and go as you please and you can study at home all day or you can go off and do anything you want all day. Who's there to see you? I mean, maybe there's some kind of a board that says, I want your timesheet.

But if you're a church and you need to get a timesheet from your pastor on what he does throughout the day, you have to fire him. You don't need a timesheet. Either you need to be fired as a board or he needs to be fired.

The way you tell if a pastor's lazy or not is how he preaches on Sunday. It takes a lot of work to preach to the same congregation Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, et cetera, over and over and over and over.

That takes work. And here Paul says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. A worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling or dividing the word of truth. And so Paul using the metaphor of a tent and he would cut the tents perfectly out of animal skin so that they would wrap themselves up and cover the person who was going to be under the tent and in the tent.

So too, you've got to rightly handle the word. You've got to just cut it just perfectly. You've got to study and you've got to be a good soldier. You've got to be like a farmer. You've got to be like an athlete.

You've got to be like Christ. You've got to be like a discipler and it takes work. And so you should be a weary pastor. I remember MacArthur once, I think I asked him, are you tired? And he said, I'm always tired because we've got one life to live.

We've got one life to live. And Spurgeon said, work so hard now. This is for lay people and leaders. Work so hard now that when you're on your sick bed, on your death bed, when you're disabled, when you're in the rest home, your conscience will be clear because you worked while you had a body that was able to let you work.

And so we want to work. And you say, well, I don't want to burn out for the Lord. That's usually an excuse for laziness. And men, you'll struggle with laziness. Men, we struggle with laziness more than women.

Why? Because God said, Adam, tend the garden. Adam fell and now all the commands of God became burdensome. They all became tough. And so if man's job was to work and to tend, guess what he struggles with now?

Laziness. And so I want pastors and I applaud pastors on the positive side. The pastors like MacArthur, the pastors like Sproul, the pastors like Lawson, pastors like Boyce, pastors like Rick Phillips and the list goes on who study, study, study.

I admire them. I want to be just like them. I want to model my life like those men who will study and study and study because they model Christ Jesus. They model soldiering. They model good athletes. They model farming.

And so on No Compromise Radio today, we've talked about some pet peeves. If you've got a pastor who works hard, write him a nice note. Pray for him. Encourage him in some way and say, thanks for feeding my soul today, pastor.

I love God more for loving me so much to give me a man like you. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can write us or listen at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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.

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.