Hebrews 12:14 and Holiness

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 it is Friday, May 96th. May 96th.

How can I be losing my connection? It says connection available, losing connection. Anyway, we are recording a

No Compromise Radio show today, so I thought I'd just hit the phone and do the live kind of Todd Friel thing.

Somebody emailed me the other day and I emailed them back and I said, Does Todd Friel email people back? And I was just trying to bust his chops.

We today need to break all the rules. Rule number one is don't drink things on radio.

I've been told many times it's bad form to drink liquids on the radio.

Now I do have a mute button, but we don't need mute buttons, do we? That's my new favorite right there.

I call it faith life. It says fair life, but I'm going to call it faith life because the more you drink it, the more faith you have.

We are planning on still going to Israel in 2021, but who knows?

I think they've canceled New Year. I think they've canceled Christmas. But here's what

I will say. For those of you who are put in a trial, and some of you, of course,

I know have lost loved ones. Ben said mute. All right. This is what it's like when you mute

No Compromise Radio. It's funny.

You could do that when you do Zoom. You could always pretend like you were having to be muted. Think about life in general.

I remember when David sinned with Bathsheba. He lost his child. I think regularly we think as Christians, something bad has happened in my life.

I'm in a trial. This is God's chastening. This is God's discipline. I'm getting spanked by God.

Here's what I want to do today. I want to disabuse you of that because it's hard to know.

I think God does do that. I mean, he did it with David, but we know he did that for that reason.

Because it's in Scripture. And when we look at Providence, when we look at history and say, is

God judging America with COVID -19? Maybe that sells, but I think it's pretty stupid to ask that question.

Here's what I do know. While I don't know if that's true or not, therefore, I don't speculate. Here's what I do know.

Is God using the trial of lockdowns, quarantine, social distancing,

COVID -19? Of course, I know people who've lost loved ones for that and others who are sick. Is God using this trial in the life of Christians to help them learn how to endure?

What's the answer to that? The answer is yes. He might be doing 1 billion things through the trial with all these billions of people on the earth.

But we know from Hebrews 12 that God disciplines those he loves.

Now, if you look at Hebrews 12, you see that word discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline. And in your mind, you automatically think, if you're like me, oh, that's a chasing.

That's a father spanking his child. So they did something bad, and therefore, they got disciplined.

But really, the root word for discipline is, it's child is in that root word, and it means to train.

It can include a spanking, and often does, but it's correction, it's training, it's education, and it's discipline, that is, chastening.

It's translated other places, 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, all scriptures write,

God breathed and profitable for a lot of things, and training in righteousness, that is, in discipline of righteousness.

So here's what happens. You're in this race. Trials are all around. Life is difficult.

I mean, if you get saved at 15 and die at 70, 55 years of racing. If you get saved at 60 and die at 70, 10 years of racing.

This is not a sprint. This is a marathon. How does God get you to endure to the end?

And we know perseverance of the saints, he will. We know if he justifies you, he'll glorify you.

How does he get you to do it? Because you respond, too, don't you? God doesn't endure for you, you endure.

How does he get you to endure? Answer, he trains you. Hebrews is talking about keeping your eyes on Jesus.

He endured, he suffered, he trained, you're getting trained, too. And the whole section in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 5 through 11 about discipline, think of it as training.

Now, I think even with surgery on my knee, and I'm still hobbling along, I think I could go run a 26 mile run if my life depended on it.

If they said, you know what, your wife's life depended on it, your children's life depended upon it, I could go run 26 miles.

But I don't think I would run it very well. It would be brutal, it would be excruciating.

It reminds me of 2019 last year when that military officer, that guy in the military, you know, crawls the last 100 yards of the

Boston Marathon on Patriot's Day because his legs gave out and he just is going to finish no matter what.

I probably would run the race that way. When I did run a marathon in 1912, in 1986,

I trained. I think I probably bought the Jim Fix book, remember Jim Fix? I bought his book on how to run a marathon, and for five weeks, sorry, 12 weeks,

I did exactly what it said, and I would run probably 50 miles a week and play basketball, do this, do that, do the other, and I was training.

And then I ran the race well, as a matter of fact. So what about the

Christian race? How do you endure big problems and trials? Answer, He, God, helps you through smaller trials, and He matures you, and He trains you, and He disciplines you.

So today on No Compromise Radio, I want you to think of trials as a way

God uses, means, to help you look more like Christ, His Son.

You could go to James chapter 1 and find this, that these trials produce endurance and character, right?

You could go to Romans chapter 5, verses 3 and following, and see that these trials produce endurance and character and hope.

He's doing something. So you don't have to say, is God judging America? No, is God training me a

Christian? The answer is yes. I know that for certain, and I know it's not because He doesn't love me, but because He does.

And that's what Hebrews chapter 12 is talking about. So when you're talking to people, is this the judgment of God on America?

I just, I mean, I listen, and I try to be nice, but I don't really agree.

I would make me, when they talk that way, probably have some extra protein drink.

Now, when you're running the Christian race, here's something that's interesting to me. Whenever I did races,

I would train by myself. I didn't really want to run with other people because of their time schedule or they're late or whatever.

You know, it's the classic thing where you're going to ride the bicycle with some other buddies, and the night before the bicycle ride,

I get all my tires inflated properly to 110 pounds per square inch.

I want to make sure I've got all my drinks set up and my protein bars and my CO2 deals and everything's ready.

And then your buddy, he's waking up late and he's not ready. So I'd go on my own.

But the Christian life isn't on your own. When you look at Hebrews chapter 12 and following, he brings another aspect to this run.

And that run is, don't forget about other people. You're running the Christian race, yes, for yourself, but not only for yourself.

And if you think about the great commandments, how many great commandments are there? Two great commandments, simply love

God, love your neighbor. And as you're running the race, you need to love

God and love your neighbor as you're enduring to the end as you run. And he uses language in 12 and following that's plural.

He's talking about, well, what you do affects others. I don't know if you know that or not, but what you do affects other people.

And by the way, think about this. When you see another Christian go through trials and they endure, and they still say, even though it hurts,

I'm trusting in the Lord. How do you respond to that? Do you just go, ah, or do you go, that's impressive?

That's motivating. The way they are handling this trial, I'm sure they cry.

I'm sure there's sadness. I'm sure there's loss. I'm sure there's anxiety that they're trying to work through and suppress, but I'm impressed.

I'm encouraged. If they could do it, I could do it, right? One of the reasons why I read Christian biographies, and I hope you read them as well,

I read them for two reasons. Number one, they motivate me, because if God could use them to do all those things, then

He could use me, and so I should probably get motivated. And number two, I don't know,

I can't remember. Oh, I conflated the two into the one. It motivates me, because I think

I'm a slacker, and it encourages me, because God could even work through sinful people. Like I always say, and never remember to forget, why do

I read Christian biographies? And similarly, too, you're in a church, and you're running, and I want you to look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.

I want you to see Him who endured the cross, despising His shame for the joy set before Him. You follow

Him. You're accepting this training as from the Lord. That's all true, and that's Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 11.

But here, from 12 to 17, He's saying there are other people that you run for.

It's not just the isolated, singular Abendroth thing. My wife would always say, why don't you want to go ride with a bunch of other guys?

And again, because I don't want to. Sometimes I do.

But I like to just get in the zone, pedal, listen to the podcasts with my knee, the way it is.

I am able to ride now outside, but not very far and not very fast. Maybe it's not knee -related.

Maybe it's just because I'm old. But I'm finally catching up on some podcasts, and so I'm thankful for that.

But the Christian life isn't like a bicycle race. You're running together. It's like a team.

I would think maybe of the team stages in a

Tour de France stage, where the whole team is going together, and you have to have four of them cross the line, or you don't get credit for it, et cetera.

Listen to some of this language here, and it's just plurals. It sounds like if you see somebody who's running, and they're about ready to faint, this is what it sounds like, doesn't it?

Therefore, lift your drooping hands, and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

There's some that are running, and they're stumbling. They're tripping. They're lame, as it were, in their

Christian life. They're despondent. They're emotional. They're getting caught up in all this stuff, and they don't understand.

They need to see you run well, because that will encourage them. That will lift them up.

You need to see them as not a hindrance, right? I don't want to go ride with these other guys who are slower, but no.

Somebody's helped you in your Christian life and race. They need help from you.

It's your time now to serve. In this section here, you see, make straight paths, plural, pursue peace in verse 14, plural, verse 17, plural.

This has to do with running the Christian race, not just by yourself, but with other people.

You say, well, how do I do that in the middle of all this COVID stuff? That's a really good question, but there's still ways to run the race.

There's still opportunities for you to serve. My guess is they're going to start unloosening things pretty soon, and maybe you can use all your bottled up energy to serve.

Let's see. I want to just kind of deviate here for a second for fun.

I know when I'm losing the audience, I have something here in front of me, and it's a little test.

So here's my little ADD, OCD test here in the middle. I'd like to ask you this, which one's right?

I'm going to give you two statements. You tell me which one's right. God gives man right standing with himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous, or God gives a man right standing with himself by actually making him into an innocent and virtuous person.

Which one's right? And we know, of course, it's the second one. No, it's the first one, of course.

All right. Let's see. Number two. Are you a Roman Catholic? I think that's really the test. Are you a

Catholic? Roman Catholic. Are Roman Catholics neither Roman nor Catholic? How does that work?

Christian science. Number two. Which one's right? God gives a man right standing with himself by placing

Christ's goodness and virtue to his credit, or God gives man right standing with himself by putting

Christ's goodness and virtue into his heart. Answer, the first one's right. It is

Christ's work for us, then Christ's work in us, but when it comes to right standing, it is all credited or accounted

Christ's work. Number three. I didn't make this up, this is somebody else's, so if it's dumb, it's their fault.

God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Christ Jesus. Is that right?

Do I even need to go on for you to go, that's right? Okay. But let me just give you the other one. God makes the believer acceptable by infusing

Christ's moral excellence into his life. Of course, sanctification follows justification, but they're two different categories.

They are inseparable, but they are different. So right standing and fruits or evidence, those need to be in the category of right standing, justification, fruits and evidence, sanctification.

Make sure you don't combine the two because you will be federal vision, you'll be new perspectives, you'll be

Roman Catholic. Could you be one of each? Maybe you're a trichotomous.

Number four. I don't know how fun this is, but it's too late for me to redo this show. Number four.

If the sinner accepts right standing with God by faith, he then will experience transformation in character.

Okay. What do you think? B, if a sinner becomes born again, he has a right standing with God.

That is, once he becomes born again or transformed, then he'll get the right standing with God.

Of course, we know it's A. How about this next one, five. We receive right standing with God by faith alone.

B, we receive right standing with God by faith, which has become active by love. Whenever you hear love, obedience, submission, following, whenever you hear those words, you ought to be thinking sanctification.

You ought not to be thinking justification. We believe in sola fide, sola fide, and sola fide simply means this.

We contribute nothing to our salvation, our justification, our salvation, except sin.

Therefore, Jesus, who was born of a woman, born under law, he perfectly obeys the law, and God grants us his perfect righteousness by the doctrine of crediting our imputation, and then grants

Jesus all of our sins credited to him, treats him as if he were a sinner, even though he wasn't, treats us as if we kept the law, even though we didn't, confirmed by the resurrection.

Therefore, we have these differentiations. And then, after you are justified, of course, sanctification begins, and you will be loving.

You will be obedient. You will grow in that area of holiness.

But positionally, you can't involve love and obedience, because how much love would you need in order to stand before God positionally, before the bar of God's justice, a judgment hall?

How much obedience would you need? How much love would you need? How much submission would you need?

And the answer is a perfect amount. Be perfect as God the Father is perfect.

Therefore, make sure you don't take sanctification and meld it into justification.

They are inseparable because one follows the other, but they are distinct. If you had to ask me the number one problem in evangelicalism today,

I think it stems from this. There are celebrities that jam the two together or make it unclear.

Anybody that has to write a bunch about this in terms of their special explanation on how, you know, like Piper does, you're not saved by faith alone or whatever.

This can be very simple. You don't have to wax eloquently for me to get to know your view.

It's very simple. God justifies you. By the way, when you're finally in heaven, is there going to be another justification that's different than the first one?

Is the first verdict not guilty based on the work of Christ? No condemnation. Will that be your final verdict?

Or do you have to do something about it to keep that verdict? Stephen said, so my

Schofield Bible with Jack Isles signature on the inside doesn't help me. That's funny.

By the way, somebody gave me a genuine leather Jack Van Impe prophecy study

Bible. So, you know, the vestiges of dispensationalism that I still have, regrettably.

Maybe, maybe it's not Schofield Bible. Maybe it's not Ryrie study Bible. Remember when

I first got saved, everybody walked around with the Ryrie study Bible. That's what they all had. Some Schofield, but mainly

Ryrie study Bible and all the notes in there aren't bad. I'm not trying to say that.

I remember the James 2 .14 Ryrie study Bible note. You can look that up sometime if you'd like.

But anyway, no, just because you have signatures on a Bible, it doesn't matter at all.

Anyway, back to this here, because what this paper is trying to do, and by the way, if you want this little thing that I got, oh, it's

Don Kistler, Don Kistler's deal here. If you want it, write me, mike at nocompromisedradio .com.

And I think I have it here safe someplace. Number six, we achieve right standing with God by accepting the fact that he has obeyed the law perfectly for us.

Is that one right? Or B, we achieve right standing with God by Christ living out his life of obedience in us.

And of course, as Kistler would say, it's the merits of Christ, not our merits. Standing before God, let's make sure we get this right.

There's a legal standing. How do we stand legally before God? We need to have a perfect, entire, exact, perpetual, personal obedience, right?

That's what God requires. Do this and live. See how, if you understand law gospel, this is very, it makes it simpler to understand.

And then this God who said, here's my law, and I want you to keep it in order to live.

And we say, we can't keep it. We trust in the one who does. Now he said, here's my law, but the law is not going to be given to you as a judge, obey this or else.

But since I don't change in terms of my essence and nature, then I give you my law, but not from a judge, not from the hand of a judge, but as the hand of a father, because the rules still apply.

Just before you were saved, here's how they applied. If you break one, you're accountable for all, because you're trying to earn my favor, then you better obey.

And then now the only way to do that is trusting in the Savior who obeyed. But now, since you're my son,

I accept you and therefore try to keep the commandments, not to keep your standing, but because you have a standing.

And I've given you my spirit and the word. All right, let's put it this way. If you have a child and she's a daughter, she's seven, she's learning how to bake.

She bakes you a cake. You come home from work and your little daughter presents you a cake and there's too much salt in the frosting and the cake is kind of mushy on the inside.

Do you accept it? Well, you're a real jerk if you don't.

Oh, sweetheart, thank you. You made dad a cake. Oh, you're going to be a great cook like your mom one day.

I can just see it already. Since the father accepts the son, i .e.,

biblical language of Hebrews 12. In this illustration, he, the dad, accepts the daughter.

Doesn't he accept the daughter's cake? That's less than perfect. And so to us, for us as Christians, we offer up in response to sanctification, good works that are sullied with all kinds of sin that aren't done from a pure motive.

Have you really ever? I'm preaching to myself not to, but I'll say it to you. When's the last time you offered to God something that was perfect?

Perfect works of obedience as a Christian to the father with perfect motives of love for him and love for others at a cost to you of self -sacrifice.

Now, I don't think I ever have. But how does then God accept my good works, my love, my obedience, the fruit?

Answer is I'm accepted by the father in Christ anyway. And so since I'm accepted, then my works are accepted as well.

Therefore, just in review, think about this. There's a law that reflects

God's character. It's unchanging. Therefore, he either gives it to you as a judge or because of the work of the son, that same law is given to you from the hand of a father.

One is to condemn, first use of the law, and the other is to guide, third use of the law.

It's still the same law, but your relationship to the lawgiver changes because of who

Jesus is. Isn't that good news? So I bake a cake for the father in heaven. It's got too much salt.

Does he accept it? Well, the only reason he accepts it is because he accepts the work of the son. And I'm in the son, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, union with Christ.

And you know what? I only have one slogan to say to that. I would drink a faith life in regard to that.

You know what these maybe really are? I turn 60 in a couple weeks. Maybe they're just insurers with a different label.

Do you realize I get to go to the grocery stores when they open up for senior citizens soon.

Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. We just dropped a new video, Feminism and Calvinism.

You can look at that at YouTube channel, No Compromise Radio. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.

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

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. 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.