How To Remain a Spiritual Pygmy (Part 2)

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

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

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

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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

Mike Abendroth, and I am about, I don't know, 50 days into my no -aspartame life, and so Diet Cokes, gone.

And Diet Mountain Dews, Diet Pepsi Maxes, gone.

Man, what are we gonna do? I still drink coffee, and I try to drink unsweetened tea, but aspartame is out, so I don't know if I'm getting smarter,

I don't know if I'm getting more aggressive. I have no idea, but I sure wish they would make

Diet Coke with Splenda again. I think they used to, but not many people bought it. I would actually like to have it if they made

Diet Coke with Truvia or Stevia, but that is another story. So I do get some emails.

They're telling me, please stop for God, for the love of God, stop drinking

Diet Coke. It turns into formaldehyde. It does all these other things, and so what are you gonna do?

I mean, I don't really smoke anymore. Once in a while, maybe I'll smoke some cherry tobacco just to remind myself how

I don't like it. I mean, I wanna like it, but I don't really. I don't drink alcohol anymore. I stopped that in 1989.

That's helped my checkbook, and that's helped my waistline, and my brain cells probably, and I don't ever have to struggle with getting drunk anymore, so that's helped.

So you have to have something in your life, don't you? And so I guess it's Pete's Coffee. Occasionally, I'll drink some

Starbucks coffee whenever it gives me a free pound. That tribute's actually pretty good. And now, there goes

Diet Cokes. When I traveled the world, I was in South Africa or India. I just think I said Africa.

South Africa, India, wherever it might be, Czech Republic, and get done speaking, and they'd say, what can we do for you?

Oh, I'm good. No, please, what can we do for you? I'd love a Diet Coke. So anyway, we're rambling.

Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. Today, part two, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

Today, part two, how to stay spiritually immature. Last week, we looked at how to stay spiritually immature.

Part one, drink milk when you should be eating meat. Number two, think church services and church people should revolve all around you and what you like and don't like.

So those are the first two. What I'm after in this little series, this mini -series, is for you to make sure you grow up and so you are maturing.

And I think I preached something like this back in 1 Corinthians, and maybe it just played recently on Mondays on No Compromise Radio.

I'm not really sure, but I just was thinking about this the other day because I've had people meet with me on exit interviews, and I don't do many exit interviews because it's usually just people blasting on the way out of what they don't like.

And so, you know, who needs that? But once in a while, I've done them. And I remember one guy in particular, and I did the wedding of the couple, and they stayed around for a couple of years.

And then they said, well, I don't really get anything out of your messages. Now, I will be the first to admit that I'm no

John MacArthur. Like when Rick Pitino said when he was a coach at the Celtics, Larry Bird's not gonna be walking through that door.

So John MacArthur's only walked through the door of this building one time to preach in 1999. Boy, that was a good day, by the way.

That was exciting, standing next to John with the hymnal singing, my daughter

Haley standing there singing songs with John, and then John preaching from the pulpit. Now, that was big, that was huge.

So, well, actually in those days we had, well, I don't even need to get in the whole story.

But back to this topic here on maturity and spiritual maturity. Here's what we wanna do.

I'm just gonna skip the other stuff. I was going on a rabbit trail. Let's go to, oh, I know what I was gonna say. I'm not a

John MacArthur. I don't have the gifts of Martin Deloitte Jones, but I do have the same gospel. I have the same

Bible. I have the same spirit of God. And when that person said, I don't get fed here.

I'm not learning. I was just thinking, it doesn't take me much to fill up a thimble full, a teaspoon full of what you can take.

And so he wanted to be fed smooth, soothing words. He wanted to be, like when

Doug Wilson says, hard hearts want soft words from the pulpit and soft -hearted people wanna stay that way and they know it needs to be the hammer of the rock of the word of God or the hammer that can break the rock of the word of God, as Jeremiah would say.

And then soft -hearted people know they need hard words from the pulpit, biblical words, true words. So anyway,

I just was thinking about that lately and how people just want lowest common denominator of Christianity.

And if you get laid off, I remember I got laid off in Los Angeles, had a wife and a child, maybe a couple of kids, no longer have a position for you in corporate

America. I needed to be spiritually mature and have mature doctrines like the sovereignty of God over everything, all things for good.

The Thomas Watson Puritan Classic, the Banner of Truth book, now published by Banner of Truth. I don't think there was

Banner of Truth back in the 1600s when Watson was alive, but that's another story. You need to have solid doctrines and minimalistic slogan, catchphrase,

Christianity can't help you in those tough days. And so you'll certainly have those tough days.

We live in a fallen world and there are many, many, many difficulties. And if you don't have the difficulties, A, wait, you will, and B, serve other people with those.

And so it's hard to serve other people when you're a spiritual pygmy, when you're a spiritual dwarf, when you're a spiritual baby.

And so I want you to grow up. I want you to be mature. I think that's the goal of Christian ministry.

And I think about Colossians chapter one, one word should talk about Paul's, I should summarize

Paul's desire when he thought of the Church of Colossians, and everywhere else for that matter, that we may present every man mature in Christ.

That's what we're after. That is the goal of Christian ministry, Colossians 128, that we may present every man mature in Christ.

Now, I'm not directly responsible for your maturity if you go to a different church, if you don't go to Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm not responsible.

But for whatever reason, you are listening. And so if you're listening, I want to try to contribute to your maturation.

Paul did not say that we may present every man, we may present every church that has two services.

We may present every church to have new building, new programs, new singles. That wasn't the goal.

We are being assaulted by, bombarded by experts and authorities telling us what the goal of Christian ministry is, like the

Barna Group and other people. The goal of Christian ministry is preventing, presenting every man mature in Christ.

The latter day's, last day's newsletter, the old revivalist, Leonard Ravenhill, talked about a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village.

And there was an old man sitting by the fence, and they walked by this man. In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked, were any great men born in this village?

The old man replied, nope, only babies. Well, I want you to be strong, stable, firm with your convictions in your walk, in your faith.

That is what I am after. That the word of God would help you be steady, stable, not ignorant and gullible and compliant and not easily influenced by other people.

It's the whole thing about strong -willed children. I actually want strong -willed children, but they just need to have their will broken by first daddy and then the

Spirit of God, so that their strong wills for themselves and selfish desires are now strong -willed for the gospel and strong -willed against the world and its system.

And so I want you to have a strong will. I want you to not be a pragmatist, not be a baby, not be immature, but I want you to be mature in Christ Jesus, that we may present every man mature in Christ Jesus, or every one, as ESV would say.

So the third way you can keep spiritually immature is don't show up for corporate worship service unless the senior pastor is preaching.

And so if you know that the pastor's out of town, used to happen a lot when

I was at Grace Church, is MacArthur preaching today? No? Okay, I'll stay home. I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't believe it. Now, certainly, if you call a church ahead of time because you're visiting, you're on vacation, will

John be in the pulpit while I'm out of town? I get that, I understand that. I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, and made the phone call to Glasgow to see if, in fact,

Sinclair Ferguson at the time was at St. George's Tron to see if he was preaching. There's nothing wrong with that.

And maybe if he was not there, he happened to be there that night, he actually called back from the manse.

And so maybe I would've gone to a different church service, someplace closer. But I thought, you know, I'll make the drive because I wanna hear

Sinclair Ferguson preach. But why do you show up?

You don't show up to say, I listened to the top dog, and if Mike's not preaching, then

I don't show up for worship. Actually, I hate to even admit it, but I will on no compromise radio ministry.

What I usually do, and I don't think I'm any John MacArthur, but I am the senior pastor. And so as I am to this church, so John is to Grace Community Church, and that was my home church for a long time, and still feel like it's my home church.

When I go back, I think, oh, I'm home. And so when I go out of town to do any preaching overseas or any place in the country, or even here locally,

I usually don't tell anybody. Now, that is to say, the secretary knows, the staff knows, that kind of stuff.

But I usually don't say, I'm gonna be gone next week, because fewer people show up. And if that happens at Bethlehem Bible Church, then it must happen at other places too.

And so if you'd like to be mature, you should say this, as long as it's biblical, and then meaning

Christ -centered, as long as it's preaching from the Word of God, it will be

Christ -centered, it will be God -centered, it will be something that the Spirit of God uses for exaltation of Christ and the building up of my soul and transforming me into the

Son's image and likeness. It doesn't matter who preaches. I wonder how many people have really lost out, have really stayed less mature for saying, you know,

I'm not gonna go because the senior pastor's not there. What does that tell your family? Well, unless a top dog is there, a big dog, then we're not going to go, the second string guy.

And let alone, what does that do for loving the second string guy? Oh, you know, we're not gonna show any love because he's put a lot of work into this, and he's gonna get up and preach, but nah, we're gonna stay home and do

John Piper Desiring God Church today. That is a way to stay spiritually immature because it betrays your thinking.

It portrays you as a person who doesn't understand corporate worship, where you're going to primarily give anyway.

It's Mike Ebendroth, NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can write us at info at NoCompromiseRadio. And today we're talking about saying spiritually immature.

If the Bible is preached, it's Sunday morning, the Lord's day. We don't believe in the

Sabbath anymore. The Sabbath was the seventh day. This is the first day of the week, the Lord's day. Jesus was raised on the

Lord's day. He ascended into heaven on the third day. Well, that's true too, on the

Lord's day. The saints got together on the Lord's day for worship.

When it's the Lord's day, tell your kids, we're gonna go hear the word of God preached. Now, it might not be as good as the senior pastor.

My guess is the senior pastor is the senior pastor, the lead pastor, as many people say today. That's the cool word, by the way.

Now, you don't say you're the senior pastor. You say you're the lead pastor, the lead pastor, that is.

So if the lead pastor isn't there, the pastor teacher's not there, well, you go anyway.

And by the way, if you open your Bibles up, or your iPad to ESV icon, and you have a pen and a piece of paper, or you type on iPages on your iPad, you are going to get something out of that message.

You're gonna get something out of it even if you just read through it yourself. You are going to get something out of that message.

If the man is faithful and regenerate, let's regenerate, let's put that first, and then faithful, you're gonna get something out of the message, so show up.

I don't think staying home is any different than what was going on in Corinth where some people follow

Apollos and some people follow Paul. I show up if Paul's preaching, but if Apollos is preaching, I don't show up.

Who does it hurt? Well, it is discouraging to the staff and whoever's preaching, but it hurts you, and it shows me that you are a spiritual toddler, that you should be in junior church with that kind of attitude, and you should be getting little goldfish given to you so you can mind your manners.

When I was a kid, we didn't have a goldfish when I was growing up, so you know what my mother gave us in the Lutheran church?

To keep us busy and to keep us fed. Of course, it was a short sermon, it was a short church service, and by the way, who needs preaching and everything else when the sacraments of salvation are baptism and communion?

But that's beside the point now, isn't it? And so what did my mother give us to keep us settled, to keep us still?

Well, there's no such thing as goldfish to give, but there was something close, and it was crackery.

It wasn't quackery, it was a crackery type of substance. Here I am again sitting here, there's nobody in my room, and I'm just laughing because I'm feeling the empathy between you and me, the host and the listener, and it's like I'm just in your living room.

It's like I'm in your brain. And so she gave us oyster crackers.

So you have clam chowder, and they have those little oyster crackers that are small, so you could still kind of eat them, you wouldn't choke, you didn't have to bring out the big bags, a nice little

Ziploc, I don't know if they had Ziploc back then, it was a plastic thing folded inside for your sandwich bags, or maybe we were just too poor for the actual

Ziplocs. That's what our parents did. And so if you say, the main pastor's not preaching,

I'm not showing up, then I, if you write me an info at No Compromise Radio, I'll send you some oyster crackers

I was at. Okay, number four, how to stay spiritually mature, and that is let your kids pick the church, or let your wife pick the church, or let your wife and kids pick the church.

Now, of course, I want them to like the church, especially if they're regenerate. If they're not regenerate, then that's a no brainer.

You pick the church, and you stick to your guns. I want your children to be fired up about church.

Matter of fact, we have lots of young people here at this church that are fired up, that want the Bible, have their

Bibles open, and they are really excited to be here, learning and growing. But some kids, they don't really like the church, because they wanna have their flesh fed, and so if you want your flesh fed, and we want to feed your spirit, and the two are in opposition to one another,

I don't know how theologically fine I'd like to slice that, but just for the sake of argument, then there's gonna be a problem.

And so, fathers, you're leaders for a reason. It doesn't mean you ought not to consult your wife.

You could even ask your kids, hey, we went to this church today, and that other one last week. Which one do you like better?

Why do you like it better? What does God say about picking a local church? If you were the dad and had to pick based on what the

Bible says for local church, and the requirements of a healthy church, nine marks or any other standards, the reformed standards of preaching the word and proper administration of the sacraments and church discipline, which one would you pick and walk them through?

You are the dad. You are responsible. And if your wife is unhappy, and you've talked her through it, and you've walked her through, and you've been patient and kind, but you say, after everything's said and done,

I've heard your input and all that, but here's where we need to go. And she throws a fit, and she gets bugged, and she gets angry.

As men, we can lord it over people. We can do that. We can under lead. And wives, they can get bugged, and it is trying to desire to rule over the husband.

And if your wife is mad for a couple days or a week, stick to your guns, and she will respect you later. She'll say, you know what?

I tried to run over the guy, but I could not run over him. And I don't really like the church that much, but I respect my husband.

Then she'll learn, grow, sit under the word, and then she'll really love you for that.

And it's your responsibility anyway, fathers, husbands, to lead your family.

And you are a leader. You're either a bad leader or a good leader. And if you are a bad leader, you're going to let your kids pick.

That is an asinine thing to do, is to let your kids pick the church. Unless they pick the church, you already know which church you're going to, and you just confirm the fact, because your kids are smart, biblical, and regenerate.

But you are supposed to pick the church. If I pick the church when I'm 10 years old, I want the most

M &Ms given for free, the shortest Bible times, or if you are going to have to have a Bible time, give me the kind of David killing

Goliath every week, something with some action, some army kind of thing. And where everybody likes me, and everybody asks me how

I'm doing. I mean, the list goes on and on. They've got a kinder gym, and they've got a skate park in the back, and they've got carbon fiber bikes for everyone to ride, and free

Diet Cokes, or unsweetened tea. So think about it.

You're going to be immature, because how does this manifest your spiritual immaturity? That you're letting other people lead.

The church should not lead the elder board. The citizens should not lead our leadership.

And the same thing goes true for the home. The dad is a leader. Be a kind leader.

Be a loving leader. Be a leader that gets input from the family, age -appropriate kids input, but then make a decision.

And so if you were at a church now, because your wife likes it, but you know it's not the best church in town, and you know it's not good for the souls of the kids, and if you're there because you don't want to cause any trouble, then it's time, as my brother would say, to man up.

It's time to grow up. It's time to be spiritually mature. I got an email the other day from a husband who knew he had to make the right decision to go to a

Bible teaching church, leave the current church. It's not easy to do. Friends, ministry, family, your kids are connected to the church.

Your wife is connected in the Oprah Book Reading Club and all that kind of stuff. It's hard. I get that.

But you need to make the best decision you can, and the most crucial decision you can make as a father is not where to live, not what job to have, not what homeschool curriculum to walk through.

None of those things, although they're all big decisions, is what church to go to.

And I guess that's probably why people are driving for 50 miles, 55 miles, 60 miles to come to Bethlehem Bible Church.

There's no gimmicks here. There's no tricks. There's no free M &Ms and sweet tea given away.

There is just Bible teaching. And so what we'd like for you to do is we would like you men to lead.

And if you're a wife, then we want you to follow your husband and you follow your husband by going along with him, even if you disagree.

And God will honor you for that because God will honor those who say, I will trust in the

Lord by following my husband. Number five, how to stay spiritually immature.

Step number five. By the way, we don't want you to do any of these. Just for the teaching style, the teaching tactic, we do the opposite to get you to think.

How to stay spiritually immature. Try to stay as close as you can to the world.

After all, you need to know them to evangelize them. This could happen in any particular area.

How close can I get to sin without sinning? It could go with dating. How far can we go without it being sin sexually?

How far can we stay? How far I can get to the world without capitulating?

James 4 .4 says, you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Now that verse alone in James 4 .4

should be enough to make you frightened of the prospect of God's reaction to your love affair with the world and its system.

We don't want that. You don't want that. 1 John 2 .15, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father, what? Is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride and possessions is not from the

Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

How do you get people? How do you present them? Mature in Christ Jesus.

Well, one of the things that you should do is if you're a pastor is to teach people about worldliness.

And if you are a lay person and you're in the pews and you're a Christian, an average Joe Christian, average Jane Christian, G -I

Jane Christian average, then what you should do is to say, I don't wanna be worldly. I used to be worldly, but I don't want to anymore.

And my thought should not be how far can I get away from the word of God and how close can I get to sin, but how close can

I stay to the word of God and how far away can I stay from sin? When my father took our family for a trip in 1972, my guess is we drove from Omaha to Colorado and we went up Pikes Peak and it's a very tall mountain in Colorado.

And I remember he did not get as close as he could to the edge so we would careen down the hill and all die.

When you go up Mount Washington here in New Hampshire, I'm sure you don't try to get as far as you can to the edge of the cliff to fall over, possibly fall over.

No, you get as close as you can to safety. And so it's the same thing. Spurgeon said, you

Christians ought to watch against the beginning of worldly conformity. I do believe that the growth of worldliness is like strife, which is the letting out of water.

Once you begin, there is no knowing where you will stop. I sometimes get this question put to me concerning certain worldly amusements.

Certain worldly amusements. May I do so and so? I'm very sorry when anyone asks me that question because it shows that there's something wrong or it would not be raised at all.

If a person's conscience lets him say, well, I can do A, he will very soon go to B, C, D and E.

And through all the letters of the alphabet. When Satan cannot catch us in a big sin, he will try a little one. It does not matter to him as long as he catches his fish.

What bait he uses, it does not matter. Beware of the beginning of evil for many who bade fair to go right have turned aside and perished among the dark mountains in the wide field of sin.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Mike Habenroth here, No Compromise Radio Ministry. How to Stay Spiritually Immature Part Two.

It'll be Part Three next week. Write us about a doctrinal issue. Write us about the

Wretched Radio Conference that I'm speaking at here in November. You can go to wretched .com to get more information regarding that as well.

And we wanna help you in any way we can. Read the book of Romans for your homework tonight. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Habenroth 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.