How To Remain a Spiritual Pygmy (Part 3)

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, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm your host, and today I have been taping a lot of shows. For those of you that like to know what I do regarding the shows, originally I was in the studio here and had a box where I could go live, but then people knock on the door and emergencies and people pulling up to the front, if I'm the only one here, and UPS, and I just didn't want to go live because sometimes I do a show and think, yikes, that wasn't that good, so I just tape it over.

Secondly, I don't want to have to be here every day at 3 .30 when the show goes on the radio station, and so technical difficulties, interruptions, and the desire not to have to be someplace every single day at a certain time has driven me to tape the shows in advance.

And so what I do is I try to tape probably five shows a week because I would like to get ahead, and so then in the summertime I don't ever have to tape a show, I'm just kind of on cruise control. And so today is show number, right now is show number five today, this will be the fifth show that I've taped.

I feel kind of tired, when you preach you get tired, your mind is thinking you want to say the right thing, and so today is the fifth show I taped, four shows so far, number five, and then I think I'm going to go home and pass out.

And so that'll be a good week, if I get five to seven shows in, maybe in the next couple days I'll tape a few more and we'll just see what happens. And so as long as you listen, we're going to keep doing No Compromise Radio Ministry, and we are very, very thankful to be on the radio, and then on podcast as well we're thankful to Wretched Radio, who does a lot of good promotion for us, and we likewise try to promote their show as well, Wretched Radio and Wretched TV.

The Goal of Christian Maturity in the Church

So let's go to the topic at hand, and that topic is, again, how to stay spiritually immature. Paul says in Colossians chapter 1 that he as an apostle, and certainly pastors and leaders and elders today, should have a desire to present people in Christ, mature, present people not in Christ, sorry, since they are in Christ he wants them to live it out, but to make them mature, to have them be made by God mature, to be the instrument that God uses his word through to mature the people.

And so there's a desire for all pastors to have their people mature and maturing. That is a sign of a good church, of a growing church. I'm not after church growth numbers, that is. I'm not after how many people can we get here.

We're already busted at the seams and our parking lot's too big, and we have to park down the street and on different avenues, and neighbors have been complaining, we can't get more people in here necessarily.

I'm not after that. As a matter of fact, a lot of people are here because No Compromised Radio has introduced them to the ministry here. So if I'm not after that kind of growth, what growth am I after?

So if you say, Mike, do you want church growth? The answer is yes. Of course, I want evangelism, and so new people get saved and then come to the church. But I really am after the maturation of the saints.

So wherever you are, I want to be used by the Lord to help you grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Peter chapter 3. And so, as I was thinking about the carnal Corinthians, I thought about spiritual immaturity, and so I don't want you to stay spiritually immature, but for the sake of Interesting Radio, how to stay a baby, how to be a baby, how to have a diaper on pretty much your whole life.

Remaining Spiritually Infantile and Unweaned

It reminds me, and I guess there's nothing wrong with this, there's not a sin involved here, maybe some of you do it. But I've just seen kids that have not been weaned from their mother's breast. And you know, there's different philosophies.

Maybe it's six months, maybe it's a year, maybe it's two years, maybe it's three years. Whatever culture you're in and whatever you want to do, well, that's your right to want to, that's your right. You can do it.

I'm not going to tell you to do something if the Bible doesn't mention it, and so it's no sin to breastfeed a child when they're older. But it does just, I guess there has to be an age, doesn't there?

Where you just say, that's enough. And so I always think of people, I've seen them at the airport before, I've seen them in stores, I've seen them around town. Some five-year-old will, in a restaurant, walk over to the mother, crawl up the shirt of the mother, and then begin to nurse.

And I say to myself now, you know, I don't want to look like I'm trying to look at something that I'm not supposed to look at, you know, you don't want to do that. But I'm looking to see, am I seeing what I'm really seeing?

That is, I'm seeing nothing inappropriate because everything's covered, but the kid's crawled up underneath the shirt of the mother, or up underneath the dress of the mother, and then the mother's just talking, she's drinking, she's drinking her Starbucks, she's just on her Mac computer, she's drinking her Diet Coke, whatever she's doing, and it's like nothing is wrong with that picture.

Now again, before I get all the letters and emails about, you know, the legalism on No Compromise Radio, I can't prove anything regarding the Bible. I just think it looks weird to me. We'll make it postmodern relativism here.

To me, that seems odd. There should be a time when a child is weaned and no longer has to go back to the mother's breast. Now maybe the mom likes it, maybe it's communion, being close, and she enjoys the, you know, the kid and the closeness and all that stuff.

I guess that's all true. I remember when I was first a father, I saw some of the ads for how to make straight men kind of gay with child raising. And you know, there's this whole feministic push in childbearing, and the guys shouldn't be consulted.

He's a dope, he's over to the side, he's the one that got the woman in the situation. I remember in the hospital, Kim getting asked the questions, and they didn't even look at me like I existed. But that, you know, they can't be blamed, they're unbelievers.

But they had this thing that if the father wanted to have special, close times with the new baby, it's hard for a man to breastfeed a child, but you could get this sling breast. And the sling breast could be filled up with formula, or I guess you could pump from the wife's breast and then add it in.

And then it was slung around your neck and kind of around and under your arm. And then it was in the shape of a breast. And then where your breast would be if you were a woman, that's where the breast would be now if you're a man, and then you could actually have the child feed.

This is going bad right here. I'm actually getting some kind of interference here because I should probably not be allowed to talk about such a thing. That stupid, idiotic, kind of just lame-brain kind of idea, I mean, how do I get close to the kid?

I play with the kid, hold the kid, take a shower with the kid. I mean, there are ways besides add a breast. And so anyway, I want you to just stop crawling underneath the shirt of your mother at age 12 and just grow up.

That's what I'm after. So that's a pretty long seven-minute intro, but that's typical No Compromise Radio. And I guess on the fifth day, fifth show of the day, anything goes. How to Stay Spiritually Immature, No Compromise Radio number six, forget that Jesus will literally return again.

The Sanctifying Effect of Christ's Soon Return

Deny the imminent return of Christ Jesus. Did you know that the soon and sure return of Christ Jesus, bodily return, is a good stimulus, is a good catalyst? It is a catalytic, it causes catalytic-like effects in the soul of the believer.

First John 3, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reasons why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is. And then verse three, here's the punchline, as it were. What you do is, if you don't want to be precise, if you say something that maybe is not exactly precise, then you just add in the, as it were.

And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as he is pure. Let me read that again. And everyone who thus hopes in Him, thus hopes how, chapter three, verse one and two, purifies himself as he is pure.

So when you have the attitude like Paul did in 1 Corinthians 16, come, O Lord, our John the Apostle in Revelation 22 .20, Revelation 22 .20 says, Amen, come, Lord Jesus. If you, like Paul writing to Titus, have this attitude, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, it will have a sanctifying effect.

It will have an effect that will help you grow. When you believe that the Lord is going to come back soon, you will have an extra incentive to be godly, to do godly work, to prioritize things properly and realize that this life is going to wind it down, and then you'll stand before God.

And then what? There'll be, for Christians, a judgment for your deeds done in the body, whether they're good or worthless. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, not based on the judgment for sins. That's happened at Calvary.

That's already done. God is just, faithful. He won't make us pay for those sins that have already been paid for by Christ. No double jeopardy. But you will be judged, and so if you know Jesus is coming back, you don't do what the bumper sticker says, look busy.

You get busy. When my father would go out of town and he would be gone for several days, my mother would try to egg me on to do housework and to water the dog and to rake the lawn, to mow and pick up the leaves and keep my room clean, etc.

And it wasn't really that motivated. But then she'd say, you know, your dad's coming home tonight. He flies in tonight. Boy, we were on it by then. We did the whole week's worth of work in a couple hours.

Why? Dad was coming home soon. It changed the way we lived. And it's the exact same thing when it comes to spiritual maturity or immaturity. If you want to stay immature, never think about the soon return of Christ.

Just think history is cyclical. What comes around goes around. Believe in karma, deny the literal bodily return of Christ, and you're going to stay immature. If you remember Jesus is coming back, on the other hand, you're going to say, you know, my citizenship is in heaven, and I want to wait eagerly for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Philippians chapter 3.

And so one of the ways you can be motivated to live a godly life and to mature in Christ Jesus is to study the soon return of Christ Jesus. Now, if you don't want to get bogged down into a thousand different ah-mill, pre-mill, post-mill, et cetera, I don't even mind if you say, I'm not going to get bogged down in that, but I will affirm the soon return of Christ Jesus bodily that will help you.

The Need for Life in a Local Church

Number seven, how do you stay spiritually immature? We at No Compromise do not want you to be immature. We are here as a ministry from a local church, Bethlehem Bible Church, to help other people in other local churches.

And so we're not para-church ministry. We are a ministry of Bethlehem Bible Church, and we want to help other local churches. And if you don't belong to a local church, then you need to be motivated to go to one because that's another issue.

That will keep you spiritually immature as well. Matter of fact, let me just add that now for number seven. Number seven, don't get involved in a local church. Say things like this, oh, you know, I got burned before at churches, and I've been kind of damaged at other churches, and I've been wounded.

I've been wounded. Well, join the club. Sinners wound other people. Spiritual debridement of a wound. Of course people burn you at churches. But I like to say to the visitors at the church who are thinking about membership, if you're not going to join a church because people have dogged you in a local church and have hurt you, I mean really hurt you, no joking aside, you have to remember Jesus Christ bought this church, and Jesus Christ is glad to associate with the church, and he's the king of the church, and he'll clean up everybody one day on the outside as he has on the inside.

That is to say, they're positionally pure, and they will be practically pure one day in glory, and so in the meantime, join the club, because I'm in the inner circle, as it were, as a pastor, knowing more things than the typical layperson, and I've been wounded more than other people, hurt more than other people, criticized a lot more than other people, and I'm still here.

So don't use that as an excuse, because that will just revert you back to pacifier times. You don't need to be a pacifier, some kind of binky, some kind of pinky, I don't know what you call it, but it's time to grow up, and so if you'd like to stay spiritually mature, use the excuse that other churches have always dogged you, and by the way, the common denominator with you and all these churches, I think, is you, but that aside, there is forgiveness, there is wholeness, there is restoration, there is an integration back into the body-life, and so you're not going to mature if you're disobeying.

And this whole idea about, well, we do home churches. Now there are probably a few good home churches out there, and there are, you know, pastors who are trained and they have several families and they are able to minister properly in their plurality of elders, etc.

There are probably some of those out there, but mostly home churches are run by men who have a hard time submitting to authority, they have a hard time submitting to their boss, they have a hard time submitting to the leaders of the local church, but of course they want their wife to doubly submit to them, and many home churches are populated with men like that, and they can't use the excuse that they're out in the middle of nowhere on the mission field or in Saudi Arabia where they can't have a church because of persecution or because of the law.

They're around other churches, they just don't want to go, and they want to be in charge, and they are not trained to speak and preach and to rightly divide the word, they don't have enough time to do it even if they could, and there are these ingrown churches and there's all kinds of trouble, and again, that's a big generalization, but that is what I found typically true in my experience, and you can't deny my experience.

So overall, if you'd really like to stay as a spiritual midget and not go very far, then do home church. Say, well, you know what, I'm going to just listen to Piper, and that's our church, and we'll sing a couple songs, and with our family, that's it.

There's not a plurality of elders there. There aren't leaders there who are called from God, it's just you. And so submission means I disagree, but I go along with anyway, so go to a local church, and if you think you're going to agree with the elders on every little decision, you're not.

That doesn't matter. I was at Grace Church for a long time, and I said, these men at Grace Church, I've entrusted my family with them teaching me about God, pretty big subject there, pretty important subject, and how to get to heaven, but I can't trust them for the selection of the carpet color.

I mean, you've got to be kidding me. You know, there are two words for those kind of people. Grow up. Think about it. But people just like to complain. They like to backbite. They like to criticize, and that just shows their immaturity, too.

Get alongside of a church that preaches Christ Jesus verse by verse from the Bible, and then just say, you know what, God's sovereign over them, and let's pray for them. Maybe you should start praying for your pastor that God would have a larger, better church, one that loved their pastor, come along and snap him up, and then you can get rid of your pastor that way.

That's probably the best way to get rid of a pastor, is to pray that a really godly, mature church would desire your pastor and come and hire him and pay him as he ought to be paid, instead of the philosophy, we keep him humble, and he's got to take his own health insurance, etc.

So I'm on a little diatribe there, but I get paid well, and so that's not my point. Don't send this to my elders, because they already do a great job taking care of the staff. Number eight, believe that knowledge alone sanctifies.

Knowledge Alone Does Not Sanctify

If you'd like to stay a spiritual pip-squeak, I was going to say squick-peep, then, as a matter of fact, this is the time of year for those peeps, those really nasty, fluff kind of marshmallow egg. Better do a show on Easter, Ashtar, Ashtoreth.

Number eight, believe that knowledge alone sanctifies. Mike Ebenroth here, No Compromise Radio, WVNE 760 on your radio dial. You can get us at nocompromiseradio .com. You can also get us on iTunes. Somebody typed in limited atonement the other day in iTunes search and found us.

How cool is that? And then you can also get us at Facebook, etc. Or if you heard some shows and want some tapes, then you email me, I'll see if I can get you some CDs to pass around. I know we have some on the five parts here.

Is it in Roman Catholicism? I think some of those are still laying around. So what about the person that says, I want to learn a lot, but that's just it, it's going to be head knowledge. Well, we know knowledge puffs up, and we know that those who have knowledge alone, that's not what the Bible's after.

Now you do have to have knowledge to grow, and that's why it says grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. But we know it's just not intellectual data. You just learn more than you're more godly. We know it's not that.

We know how the Spirit of God energizes the Word and how people in a progressive sanctification say more regularly no to sin and yes to righteousness, more often deny themselves and pick up their cross and follow Christ Jesus and His church.

And so I don't want anybody to ever think, since I do believe in the intellectual aspect of the Christian faith, that it is not only intellectual, it is not merely intellectual. You have to have knowledge, but it needs to be an applied knowledge.

It needs to be a knowledge that makes you motivated to do something. It's just not learning about God like it's some physics class. You're learning about the Lord so that you may walk in His ways and walk as Ephesians 4 says in a manner worthy of your calling.

Keeping Your Eyes on Christ Alone

Now we're working up to this. This is the big one, number nine, how to stay spiritually mature. Take your eyes off of Christ, His person, and His work. You say that you want to learn and grow, then you're not going to say to me, I've already got that gospel down and therefore we don't need that anymore.

The gospel was good to get me into heaven and now I need some good practical how to do things type of things. No, when Paul said back in Colossians chapter one that we may present every man mature in Christ, he is talking about this goal of ministry.

This is not a once and done deal. This is not once and then we never have to go back to it like Haddon Robinson with preaching. He calls, what do you call that thing at the very beginning of the national anthem?

That you sing it and never go back to it. It's time for football. We need some football going on and so if you use the Bible verse and then preach for a while and never go back to it, that's national anthem kind of preaching.

Similarly, it is national anthem kind of theology that says you get Jesus in the gospel and the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. You get the life of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the soon return of Christ.

Jesus is King, Savior, Advocate, Redeemer, Friend, King, etc., but we don't need that anymore because we got that at salvation. We got all we need and we're filled up and ready to go. No, you need to say the gospel is for Christians today and I think we've had a good resurgence of that.

Brian Chappell's Christ-centered preaching. We have had Billy Graham's grandson, Tulian Tevetchian. I don't even know how to say his name actually, I'm just making a good guess. Talking about grace, Carson talking about grace, gospel-centered sermons, grace-centered sermons.

This is very, very important. When you fix your eyes on Jesus, you are going to be learning and growing. And Jesus is manifest, the glory of God in bodily form, and we need to study Him and serve Him.

And as you increase in Christlikeness, you are going to grow. And if you don't keep your eyes on Jesus, you're going to turn into a licentious person or a legalistic person. I like Ephesians 4 .13, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

That is the issue. More like Jesus Christ in all His attributes. That is the goal. And you don't get that goal through consultants, you don't get that goal through surveys, you get that goal through looking at Jesus Christ.

In Colossians, the Christ that is called the Son of God, the object of the Christian faith, the Redeemer, the image of God, the Reconciler, the supreme authority, the standard of all religious teaching is measured by Christ Jesus, the conqueror of evil, the one who is seated at the right hand of God the Father.

That's why it's not Christ plus philosophy, Christ plus experience, chapter 2, Christ plus psychology, any other ology, sociology, Christ plus politics, Christ plus charismatic visions and angels, Christ plus ourselves and the world and the worldly wisdom.

No, it is Christ plus nothing and no one equals maturity. You start adding anything else into there and you lose maturity. You don't need Christian psychology. It will decrease your maturity. You don't need Christian charismatic experiences because this has nothing to do with Jesus.

This has to do with something else. And so we want to speak the truth in love and we want you to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. Therefore Albert Barnes said something that's good if you'd like to grow, I entreat you to devote one solemn hour of thought to a crucified Savior, a Savior expiring in the bitterest agony.

Think of the cross, the nails, the open wounds, the anguish of a soul. Think how the Son of God became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief that you might live forever. Think as you lie down upon your bed to rest how your Savior was lifted up from the earth to die.

Think amid your plans and anticipations of future gaiety what the redemption of your soul has cost and how the dying Savior would wish you to act. His wounds plead that you will live for better things.".

That is a good dose needed today for spiritual apathy, spiritual maturity, focus on Christ Jesus. Well, today we have done part three. I think I'm going to have to do one more on how to stay spiritually immature.

You can get the last two online at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Why don't you write us at info, tell us what you like, tell us what you don't like, and we appreciate you listening. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.