Transactional Christianity (Part 2)

No Compromise Radio

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

00:08

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

00:16

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.

00:24

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

00:30

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

00:41

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Michael E.

00:47

Abendroth here. I've been putting that pause in, that breath, ever since the lung problems, but I think

00:56

I'm going to have to take that out. I don't know why I do that now. What do we have going on today in NoCo world?

01:02

Some people in their podcasts, they talk about what they've had to eat lately. Let's see, what have

01:07

I had to eat lately? That's one thing at NoCo we haven't really ever done, talk about, maybe we talk about coffee and drinking liquids on the air, which

01:14

I haven't done for quite some time, so here we go. Mmm -hmm. Mmm, peach coffee.

01:22

But we never really talk about food. This is New England, so we don't have a lot of spicy food here.

01:28

If you'd like hot salsa for your Mexican food, that would be chopped up tomatoes, maybe with a little onion, just kidding.

01:40

I had some coconut oil -based chocolate the other day with cayenne pepper.

01:49

We were up in North Conway, New Hampshire, and it was hot.

01:56

I usually have a hankering for spicy things. I probably, compared to most people, like it spicier.

02:04

Not compared to every person, but if something's served, I like to have some spice around.

02:10

I like a little extra salt, and I like, not even to get the flavor, but just the flavor of the food, but I just like salt in general, and I also like maybe some ghost pepper flakes or something to ladle on there if it needs a little bit more kick, but that chocolate.

02:30

So I got online, they were like five bucks a bar, little squares, and they shipped to your house with dry ice even, so I have 12 of those bars, why?

02:45

So there's my little food tidbit, and I can't remember the name of the company. If you're dying to know, let me know.

02:50

It's one of the best chocolate bars I've ever had in my entire life. It's the kind of chocolate bar that you don't want to share with your wife.

02:58

You want to just take a little piece and you hide it in that special drawer or sock drawer or something that you want to try to hide it.

03:06

14 inches of snow, allegedly for tomorrow, crazy. Today I want to talk a little bit more about transactional

03:16

Christianity. There's no Z in transactual. Listen to Pat Abendroth the other day on the

03:24

Pactom, you ought to listen to the Pactom. I like Heidel Cast, I like Pactom, I like, what else do

03:34

I like? There's all kinds of shows on there I should probably pull up. But anyway, what am

03:41

I talking about? Oh, transactional, transactional versus evangelical -ish, kitsch, kitsch.

03:47

I don't know, Pat, I'm not so sure I like that. I'll get Pat on here soon, but anyway, transactional

03:55

Christianity is something that we all need to fight, and that fight is initial salvation, if I do this then

04:03

God can save me, something antecedent or before faith, if I stop sinning then

04:10

God can save me, I can't stop sinning so then maybe could I never be saved, that kind of false thinking.

04:18

I will do this, then God does that, when He's the one that does the saving, including with Theodore Beza, even creating in us and giving us faith, right, it's a gift.

04:28

For Christians, we struggle with transactional Christianity because we live in a workspace world, our conscience is works, our relationship with people at work is transactional, business is transactional with exchanges, and sometimes even our marriages or with our children, it just infects and affects everything, and we see its effects.

04:53

See what I did there? A's and E's are important when it comes to A -fects and E -fects.

04:58

I don't want you to be infected with E -fects as a verb, right?

05:06

E -fects, effectual call, effectual call, infectual call.

05:14

So we talked a little bit about, if I do this then God does that, and how that's just wrong.

05:20

If I have a devotional, quiet time, God loves me more today, God's more happy with me today.

05:25

We forget about union with Christ and how we're in Christ, and therefore God's always happy with us, certainly

05:32

He disciplines us, I'm not saying He does not, but He loves us because He loves

05:38

His Son and we're in Christ, and so He sees us not with any sins that are paid for, and with a perfectly earned, meritorious, law -keeping righteousness.

05:50

Can I make that as covenantal as possible? I think actually Patti Benroth would like that kind of talk. If I do this, then

05:58

God does that. I want the transactional to be the other way around. I actually want it to be

06:03

God reveals Himself in Scripture, God tells us something about Himself, God reveals

06:10

Himself to us in time and shows us the beauty of His Son, God, whatever does

06:16

His work first, He's the initiator, and we respond. That's the way it should work.

06:23

We were guilty in Adam in our own sins, God graced us, the triune God graced us, the Father sent the

06:28

Son, the unbegotten Father sends the begotten Son, and then the Father and the

06:34

Son, do I want to say send, or the

06:39

Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. Then we respond.

06:46

And sometimes it's kind of easy to figure out what the response should be.

06:52

And that's what we're going to talk about today on No Compromise Radio from Ephesians 4. Here's what

06:57

He's going to basically say in the first 16 verses of Ephesians 4. Since God has done what

07:02

He's done, chapters 1, 2, and 3, things like giving you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, chose you before the foundation of the world, redeemed you by the blood of Jesus Christ, you have forgiveness of sins, sealed you to the day of redemption, brought

07:25

Jews and Gentiles together in the church, one new man, Prince of Peace, revealed to you the mysteries of the ages.

07:33

The angels didn't even know, we only know because you, God, have revealed them to us. We understand the depth of your love toward us.

07:42

And since that's all happened, well, how do we respond? And I think generally,

07:48

God, we want to glorify you, God, we want to have evidence of fruit and thankfulness, we'd like to obey you and live a holy life, and that's what

07:55

He's saying in Ephesians 4, right, walking in a manner worthy of your calling. And He uses that language, calling, called, call, three times there.

08:04

So remember, the general call is, hey, a belief.

08:10

The effectual call is the Spirit of God takes those preached words and regenerates a person, et cetera.

08:16

That's the effectual call. Since God has done that, monergistically, alone, Him alone working, what's your response?

08:23

And the response is, hmm, I didn't contribute anything to my salvation except sin. I should be humble.

08:30

In a world of self -esteem and self -expression, pride is a virtue. We ought to be humble people.

08:36

We ought to be patient people. We ought to be gentle people. We ought to forbear with one another. That's Ephesians 2.

08:42

So that's the first little response cycle. God has done it all, well, we should probably put our humble hats on, right?

08:51

Secondly, God has unified the church, one faith, one Lord, one baptism.

08:58

He goes on to talk about all that in verses 4, 5, and 6, all the seven ones there. What's our response?

09:05

Well, if God has unified us, Jesus prayed for that unity, and it came about, well, then shouldn't

09:12

I strive to be unified with other people? Isn't that kind of the

09:18

God's work, and then I respond? Not transactional, but more of a response. God did all the calling,

09:24

I should be humble. God is stressing unity and has gone to great lengths to make that unity true.

09:32

I should try to promote unity. And then lastly, He, God, here specifically the

09:39

Son, has given spiritually equipped men like apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor -teachers, and of course others, but they're foundationally,

09:49

He's given everything that the church needs for growth, unity, maturity.

09:56

What do we do if that's happened? Well, to be thankful, to speak the truth in love, to build up the body, to not be tossed to and fro.

10:04

That's the way this works. Transactional isn't, you do this and I'll do that. If you must have the word transactional,

10:12

God, you have done that, therefore it behooves me, it would be wise of me, not to keep my salvation, not to have my final justification secured, not any of that stuff, but just with the guilt, grace, gratitude paradigm.

10:27

God has done all this for me, then I should respond. Yes, generally with gratitude, but specifically if God calls and then

10:35

I should be not patting myself on the back, I didn't do anything I received, that should be my attitude.

10:42

God's concerned about unity and therefore I should be concerned about unity. God is equipping the church,

10:51

I should, since I've been equipped to serve, I should serve and want the same things that God wants when it comes to why would

10:58

God equip the church? To grow the church, to mature the church, to guard the church from being tossed to and fro, methods and schemes of people, they get caught up in all that stuff, and therefore

11:11

I should respond with growth and maybe I should respond with gross growth, a lot of growth.

11:19

So that's what I'm after here in Ephesians 4 and I just think it's a good template, it's a good model. This is our response to God, the sanctifier.

11:28

We're saying no to sin, yes to righteousness, we are enabled to do that, we are worked upon to do that, and we do respond, right?

11:37

We respond with faith, yes, this is all true and it's happening, and then we add to our faith virtue and moral excellence and perseverance with love, etc.,

11:47

2 Peter chapter 1. Since God has called you, you should be humble.

11:54

Since God put a priority on the unity of the church, you should strive to maintain the unity of the church.

12:02

Since God equips the church for growth, you should grow. See how that works? It is not, you're a

12:09

Christian friend, hmm, if I'm humble, God will call me,

12:15

God will love me. If I'm gentle, God will call me, God will love me.

12:22

If I bear with other people's burdens, then He'll do that.

12:27

If I work on making sure there's no factions and that I'm striving for unity in the church, then

12:34

God will love me. If I use my spiritual gift and I'm trying to speak the truth in love and build one another up and I'm thankful for what

12:44

God has given with apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor -teachers, then God will love me. That's not the transaction, but dear friend, that's how you do things left to yourself.

12:55

And I know it because that's how I... I guess we need to get the transactions out of our life when it comes to,

13:03

I do this, then God does that. I mean, if we think about it, what am

13:10

I able to do anyway in my own strength? What do I have that I haven't received? So I guess maybe

13:16

I could trick myself with, well, if I didn't really want to do something anyway for God, God's already put that in my heart and enabled me and Ephesians 3 .16

13:24

can give me the power to be able to do it in my inner man. So then the transaction life doesn't work because God has already done the work before I want to do the work.

13:34

So why would I want to do the work before the work and after the work and then think that if I do the work, God will love me when he's already done the work in me as I'm working.

13:44

Man, that'll make you rearrange your chair. Pete's coffee, 14 inches of snow.

13:56

Let's just try to get away from this. And let's try to teach our children. Let's try to teach our relationships, even with our spouses.

14:04

It's not the transactional love because that's everything that agape isn't.

14:10

Three times in this section, I think in chapter three and chapter four, maybe four times, in love, in agape, self -sacrificial love that wants the best for the other person.

14:26

Of course, we see how God loves the world and at his own expense, sends his own son for us because it was glorifying to him and we will receive good.

14:40

It will be good for us not to be punished in hell for eternity. God calls, we're humble.

14:48

God's unified, we're eager to maintain that. God gifts the church for growth.

14:55

We want to grow, use our gifts. That's the Christian life and it could be with any particular law.

15:02

It could be with any particular exhortation, but we left to ourselves somehow flip everything around.

15:10

I mean, even at the funeral that I did a while ago for my friend, Ray Johnson, can't believe

15:17

Ray's in glory. But at the end of the service, because there was a scripture reading read by his nephew and then the gospel preached and a letter from one of the family members and a memory that was the gospel preached,

15:33

I preached the gospel during the message time. I said at the very end,

15:40

I said, before I give you a benediction, I want you to realize that very uniquely you heard today that God had graced this man's life and therefore he wanted to respond with being gracious to other people.

15:55

God was good to this man, particularly sending the Lord Jesus to die for him and therefore he wanted to be good.

16:02

God is true and faithful and therefore this man wanted to respond with honesty because he was known for being honest and keeping his word.

16:10

But what I did not say today at this funeral was, since this man was honest and good and generous, therefore he's in heaven.

16:20

That's most funerals, right? With an unbeliever or with a sad sack of a so -called pastor who gets up there and just wants to tickle ears.

16:31

That's not the direction this is going. We need to think about it in a proper focus.

16:37

That's why even Hebrews 12, fixing our eyes on Jesus, right? Because when your eyes are fixed on who

16:43

God is, then you realize, he's active, I'm passive. You think of divine passives in 1

16:50

Corinthians 6, washed, sanctified, justified. Forget the

16:55

WSJ for Wall Street Journal, it's washed, sanctified, justified, or if you're from the

17:00

Midwest, washed. Do you wash your clothes? In the clothes washer. I never figured that out because in the

17:09

Midwest, Nebraska, we didn't have a New England accent. We didn't have a New York accent. We didn't have an English accent,

17:14

Scottish accent, Irish accent, not even Welsh. But we got the R in there because after the

17:21

A goes the R, washing. I don't even think we say that here in New England, wash.

17:27

We say wash. Wash your car, car park. Hey, schmad pack.

17:33

That's so funny, isn't it? When I hear people talk like that, I just think, I'm home. Right? 25 years,

17:39

I'm home. I've lived here in New England more than I've lived any other place. Crazy.

17:48

God calls, we respond with humility, lowliness. What's the chief of all graces,

17:56

Augustine said? Humility, humility, humility. Actually, he wrote, humilitas, humilitas, humilitas.

18:04

We want to assert ourselves, exert ourselves, advertise ourselves, esteem ourselves.

18:11

No, no. We don't have anything. We're not important.

18:18

I'm replaceable. That's right thinking if God did all the calling.

18:28

What's our ambition? Well, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to the Lord. Nothing about my ministry, my church, my radio show, thriving off of everybody else's praise.

18:41

What has God done for me? And I respond. I do like that story of George Washington Carver, and he did all kinds of stuff with what?

18:50

The peanut. And he developed a lot of stuff with peanuts. Here's what the account states about George Washington Carver, quoting himself.

19:03

When I was young, I said to God, God, tell me the mystery of the universe. God answered, not literally, but for the sake of this.

19:13

That knowledge is reserved for me alone. So I said, God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.

19:21

Then God said, well, George, that's more nearly your size.

19:31

Philippians 2, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.

19:39

Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.

19:47

Second Corinthians 10, I, Paul, may entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Jesus our

19:52

Christ, I am, I, excuse me, who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when

19:58

I am away. I mean, this is the attitude that Jesus had, right?

20:04

He was in the form of God, did not equality, and not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself.

20:18

You realize what God has done and how he's called you out of miry sin and clay and depths of depravity, and you respond with humility.

20:27

What's the next one? Gentleness. It's not weakness, it's everything's under control.

20:35

Jesus was called gentle, handle with care, gonna be gentle around other people.

20:44

They're not my people, ministry, self -mastery, we have to be careful.

20:51

We're patient, long -suffering. Verse two, God has called us, so how do we act? See, this is the way.

21:03

This is the way. All right, I will admit it. I watched the,

21:09

I love Star Wars in 78 when it first came out, obviously, the first three that were released

21:15

I watched, and I mean, there's just nothing like it, right? Can you imagine Star Wars? I mean,

21:20

I love Star Trek, but then Star Wars, and I remember the theater

21:26

I went to, and then we just stayed for the second showing, because it was just so incredible, light speed and all that stuff, but I'm not really that impressed with all the other

21:34

Star Wars. I couldn't even tell you anything. Maybe, who would I talk about,

21:39

Darth Maul or something, I mean, that's about the only person I remember, but I watched

21:45

The Mandalorian and thought, okay, and then I just watched Boba Fett, whatever the annals of Boba Fett or the lifestyle of Boba Fett or whatever, this is the way.

21:59

Oh, I'm so sorry to have to admit that. This is the way, but I watched it on the life cycle where I'm trying to get my lungs back in shape, which doesn't even really get your lungs back in shape.

22:09

Only time does that, but might as well exercise a little bit, and actually, after yesterday's 22 miles on the bicycle, my legs are cramped in the middle of the night like I went on an 80 -mile ride, and I went on some slow 22 -mile ride, which

22:22

I'm thankful for, but, man, I'm old. I'm ready for a nap today after that bike ride.

22:27

Who would think after a 22 -mile ride, probably used to take me just a little over an hour to do that, but now that God calls us, we respond with patience.

22:38

Long fuse, not wanting to fight. You know what? I'm not going to fight.

22:44

I'm just going to say no to that. I'm going to be long -tempered, step on my toes if you want, put up with difficult people.

22:57

Not to get God to love me, that's just not the point. When 1 Corinthians 13 says, love does not take into account a wrong suffered,

23:05

I want to obey God, because it's good for me, it's a guide for me, and it reflects

23:12

God's good nature, and it gives Him glory. I want to be full of thankfulness and gratitude, and the same thing, bearing with one another in love,

23:22

Ephesians 4 .2. I mean, what's that old poem? To dwell above with saints we love, oh, that will be glory, but to live below with saints we know, well, that's another story.

23:37

Bearing with, that's putting up with each other in love.

23:44

How long shall I put up with you, Jesus said in Mark 9 .19. In love.

23:51

It's not merited, it's not earned, it's not deserved, it's over and over and over, because love covers what?

23:57

A multitude of sins. This is the way. I wonder what the

24:08

Message Bible says regarding this. I've got one minute to fill, and if you never know how to fill that one minute, the

24:14

Message Small B Bible never lets you down in being bad.

24:23

Okay, I'm here in Ephesians chapter 4. What do you think it says? In light of all this, well, that's not too bad.

24:30

Here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the master, I want you to get out there and walk.

24:37

Better yet, run. On the road God called you to travel. That's a horrible translation.

24:42

I don't want any of you sitting around in your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off down some path that goes nowhere.

24:50

And mark that you do this with humility and discipline, not in fits and starts, but steadily pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

25:04

That is the worst I've ever read. I don't have time to dissect it. But my name is

25:10

Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

25:18

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.

25:28

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

25:35

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.