Would Jesus eat lime Jello? (Part 1)

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

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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

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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.'"

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

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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

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

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Mike Abendroth, and today we have a very interesting topic, at least

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I find it interesting. And so I pretty much operate the show's philosophy with what do

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I think is interesting? And if, in fact, it touches on biblical issues, then

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I like to talk about it. But, of course, it's flipped around the other way because we'd rather be biblical than we would be provocative.

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You could talk probably about LeBron James and be provocative. You could probably talk about Warren Beatty and be provocative.

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You could probably talk about, I don't know, economic theory and be quite boring.

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But what I'm after is biblical thinking for the common man or woman.

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Today, I'd like to talk about codependency. Codependency.

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Are you codependent? What is codependency? Is codependency something that Christians should be?

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They are? Is this just psychological mumbo -jumbo? What is going on with codependency?

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Now, I've got a lot of these quotes put together by Gary Gilley. You go to his site and he's got lots of information there.

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And I'd like to discuss codependency because with the onslaught of secular psychology, as it has permeated and penetrated the warp and woof of evangelical churches through places like Focus on the

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Family and other quote -unquote ministries, we live in a psychological church.

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We live in a church that's psychologized. We live in a healing and wholeness church, not necessarily a holy church.

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And so I have nothing against whole living if you're thinking about it from a

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Jewish perspective, an Old Testament perspective, shalom perspective. But I do have a problem with secular, man -centered psychology in the local church.

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Now, you might say, well, it works and I'm doing such and such. I remember I did a show a while ago about medicine for psychotherapeutic use.

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And somebody said to me, stick to what you're good at, and that's the Bible, and leave the medicine and psychology and those other things to the experts.

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And they said, well, you've kind of hurt me with what you said, et cetera. Well, I think this is a very pastoral issue, a very

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Christian issue, co -dependency. And so if you look at co -dependency, what goes through your mind?

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Melody Beatty, in a book called "'Codependent No More' says, "'A codependent person is one "'who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, "'and who is obsessed with controlling "'that person's behavior.'"

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So that's Melody Beatty's definition. As far as I know, she's not a Christian, although she does have interesting insight for an unbeliever.

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And she is, I think, rightly, according to psychology, rightly defining that.

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Now, what about love is a choice? Let's move from secular to more quote -unquote

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Christian. Love is a choice by Hemfelt, Minnerth, and Meyer.

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Codependency can be defined as an addiction to people. I can think of some

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Robert Palmer song right now, but addiction to people, behaviors, or things. Codependency is the fallacy of trying to control interior feelings by controlling people, things, and events on the outside.

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To be codependent, control, or the lack of it is central to every aspect of life.

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When it comes to people, the codependent has become so elaborately enmeshed in the other person that the sense of self, personal identity, is severely restricted, crowded out by that other person's identity and problems.

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Page 11. The writers go on to say on page 38, codependency is the condition when your love tanks are running on empty.

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I know I'm influenced by pop culture, but I keep thinking of Tom Petty's song, Running Down a Dream, when your love tanks are running on empty.

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Yai, yai, yai, yai, yai. Well, are you dependent upon other people? Are you?

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Do you poop out at parties? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. My daughters love

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I Love Lucy, and so are you listless? Do you poop out at parties? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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Oh, Vida Vegemin is a very funny skit, that's for sure.

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Melody Beatty. There are almost as many definitions of codependency as there are experiences that represent it.

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In desperation, some therapists have proclaimed, codependency's anything and everyone is a codependent.

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And that's in her book, Codependent No More, page 29. So I guess, you know what, we're all sick.

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It's back to the old psychological deal where are you an extrovert or introvert? Well, they forgot to tell you that the original diagnosis contained three different areas.

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A, introvert, B, extrovert, and C, normal. But you know what, normal doesn't sell.

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Normal doesn't get you back into the office to be paying another 100 or $200 an hour for counseling.

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It doesn't get you back in the office to have the office charge for him to write you another prescription. And so everybody's sick, everybody's codependent, everybody's got a problem, and that fuels this industry, the mental health industry.

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By the way, I have a question and that question is, is your mind and brain, are your mind and brain different things?

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And if they are different, then what does the Bible say about loving God with all your heart, soul, brain?

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No, mind and strength. How are you codependent? How can you tell if you are codependent?

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Maybe some of you are listening now and you think I'm actually gonna promote this. I think it's a load of garbage, and I think it's trash, and it's no illness, it's no disease.

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It's nothing except, you know, it has nothing to do with unmet emotional needs in the life of your significant other.

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It has nothing to do with a loss of childhood. Meredith and Meyer inform us in their book, different kinds of abuse, one parent who's preoccupied and unavailable to a child emotionally, a child who is not constantly praised, lack of touching and hugging in the family, parents not being at peace with one another.

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It could be sexual abuse, parents who demand too much, parents depending too much on their children, a parent who's too rigid, page 52 to 62, it talks about all that kind of stuff, how people are scarred for life.

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Well, if you use codependence, a definition of codependency, then everybody's codependence, and you got to have your love tank filled up.

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My love tank's on empty, by the way. Can you imagine getting home from work? I drive into the driveway, and I say, you know what?

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I think my love tank's running a little low today, and I'm gonna have my wife fill up my love tank, and my kids fill up my love tank, and my neighbors fill up my love tank, and all those people,

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I better go to church, and if they don't fill up my love tank, they're in big trouble. How selfish this talk is.

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I'll tell you what, if you focus on yourself, you're gonna have problems with your love tank, because you are not made to worship yourself.

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Show me Miley Cyrus, show me Britney Spears, show me anybody else who is worshiped and adored, and then they worship and adore themselves, there's going to be a problem.

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It's like putting orange juice in your gas tank. Oh, it might run for a little while like a Land Rover out in the

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Sahara, but it's going to start having problems, and if you do things incorrectly, it's the grace of God that He has given us a reaction to wrong thinking and wrong living.

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There are causes and there are effects. There are things that show us in our lives that the wheels are falling off, and you don't need to have your love tank filled.

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You love yourself already. There are not three great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself, and see, since you have to love yourself first before you love your neighbor, there's three, no, there's two.

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Jesus says simply, you already love yourself with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the way you love yourself is the way you should love

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God and your neighbor. Specifically, love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. If you already love yourself, love your neighbor.

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Minnerth and Meyer said on page 65, we all possess a primal need to recreate the familiar, the original family situation.

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Even if the familiar, the situation, is destructive and painful. Page 65.

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Friends, this whole issue ignores sin. This whole issue ignores where the blame should go, and the blame doesn't go on Satan.

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This is not Flip Wilson theology, the devil made me do it. Can't blame Satan for this.

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Can't blame your parents for your own sin. Of course, Satan influences.

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Of course, parents can influence, and we want to parent properly, and in light of the cross, we want to parent in a holy way.

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But when you sin, the blame always resides on you.

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You. And what do we do? Then we accept that, we confess it, we agree with God, and then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

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But if we deny our sins, and we say we're codependent, we have an illness, we have a syndrome, we have a disease,

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I have unmet emotional needs, I have a lost childhood, I've been abused because I wasn't hugged as a child,

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I've been abused because my mother raised her voice, I've been abused because I've had a parent who's too rigid, therefore

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I don't have to obey my creator God. Friends, that's the wrong trap to fall into, this whole codependency thing.

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Where's codependency in the Bible? Is the Bible, in fact, sufficient for all your needs? Everything pertaining to life and godliness, 2

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Peter 1, verses three and following. If that's true, then what do we do with the codependent?

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It's made up. It's made up for money, and it's made up for office visit enslavement, is what it's made up for.

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No, if you're an unbeliever, and you wanna go to your doctor, and you say, I'm codependent, and you wanna visit them the whole time,

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I guess you can do it. But if you're a Christian, and you think you've got codependency problems, you need to theologically grow up and accept the fact that you made yourself sin, and that out of your heart is the issue,

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Mark chapter seven, that bad things happen. It's not based on your environment.

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You can put Adam and Eve in the perfect environment, and they can still sin.

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Environment, it may push, it may prod, it may promote, it may, how'd you like that for Baptist alliteration?

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It may somehow instigate, or initiate, or investigate.

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No, that wouldn't work. But that's Baptist alliteration. Always alliterate? You can't say somebody else made me do this.

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Now, everybody can go back and think about ways that their parents have sinned. I can think about my drunk father.

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I can think about my drunk grandfather. I can think about my wife's drunk father.

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I can think about my wife's, you know, drunk mother. I mean, the list can go on, and on, and on, and on.

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And when are we going to say, do you know, I'd like mercy. I'd like mercy from God. Well, Proverbs 28, 13 tells you how you can have mercy.

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Confess your sin, forsake it. That's what you do. You confess it and forsake it. You don't say,

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I'm emotionally abused. I'm verbally abused. And even if,

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God forbid, you've been more than verbally abused, you've been physically abused, sexually abused,

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I would hate that to happen. And I know there are ramifications for people that have been abused.

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There's no doubt about it. But still, may I tell you in love and in kindness, that is still not an excuse for your own disobedience before a thrice holy

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God. It's not an excuse for disobedience. And so, you need to be told the truth.

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Live for the glory of God, and don't blame other people for your own sins. They will receive their own blame.

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They'll receive their own justice from God. Either Jesus will intercept that justice, or they will get that justice themselves.

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But don't buy into this whole, I'm dysfunctional, you're dysfunctional. Friends, sin has affected everyone.

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So if you want to define dysfunction as sinful, then I could probably agree with you, although the psychologist wouldn't.

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But sin has ravaged the human race. And it has ravaged every class of race, of society, of economic strata.

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It's ravaged everything. So why do you have to run around and spend your money on some dopey

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Christian psychology book that's more psychology than it is Christian? They just try to sell it to the

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Christians who have no discernment. You don't need to think you have some kind of unmet emotional need.

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God, if you're a Christian, is your Father. And if you have been loved by God the

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Father, that is sufficient. That is wonderful.

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John Bradshaw, who is a very popular author, says this in his book, healing the shame that binds you.

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Many religious denominations, you're gonna fall off your seat. You better get your hands on the wheel if you're driving today around Worcester.

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Hands on the 10 and two position on your steering wheel. Many religious denominations teach a concept of man as wretched and stained with original sin.

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With original sin, you're beat before you start. End quote. Healing the shame that binds you,

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John Bradshaw, page 64. Well, I guess for the first time in my life,

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I'm speechless. No matter what Bradshaw says, and he should know better, he should be actually a realist, the human heart is depraved.

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And the human heart is depraved because God in his holy, righteous, wise decree decreed that Adam would be our federal head and that Adam sinned and we all in Adam sinned.

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And we know that's true because people die, babies die. And so we know we've been touched by the fall.

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We also know we've added sin to sin. We've added our own sin to original sin. And we are sinners to the core.

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And we have a wise, holy, just, righteous decree by God that all those who are in Christ, the federal head, the second

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Adam, no, the last Adam, there'll be no third Adam. The last Adam, according to 1 Corinthians 15, those who are in that Adam, in Christ Jesus, are judicially, forensically counted righteous based on the work of Christ.

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Alien righteousness with the righteousness of the divine God -man who has an infinite amount of righteousness to bestow on all those who would ever look and believe and trust and follow.

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And so if you say, your religious denomination talks about you're wretched and stained with sin,

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I guess you cut out Romans 7, O wretched man that I am, who's going to deliver me from this body of death?

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But then we go on to say in Romans 8, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You're in Adam, condemnation,

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Romans 5. You're in Christ Jesus, no condemnation. So this kind of hokey, backwoods, secular, humanistic psychology, we've got a problem.

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Don't follow them. University of California's wellness letter years ago, the literature of codependency is based on assertions, generalizations, and anecdotes.

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To start without the slightest shred of scientific evidence and casually label large groups as diseased may be helpful to a few, but it is potentially harmful and exploitative as well.

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If as the bestsellers claim, all society is an addict and 96 % of us are codependents, that leaves the precious few of us outside the rehab centers.

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But at that point, the claims become ludicrous at best. October, 1990. That's interesting from the

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University of California wellness letter, page seven. If you listen to the secular psychologist or Christian psychologist, you're going to be labeled as codependent.

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You can't escape that. And you know what? Then you have an excuse for your inability to obey

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God. And if you're a Christian, you have the spirit of God, you are able to obey God, to respond to him.

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That's what you need. Minereth Meyer, the Christian's foremost privilege and responsibility is to hear and respond to God. The codependent can neither hear clearly nor respond adequately.

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It's that simple. Page 171. Well, there's no hope for you.

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I was taught when you give counseling to people, when you give them the word of God and when you try to counsel them according to the word, you are to give them above all things, scriptural hope.

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There's a hope for those who look to the Lord, who fear him, who trust in him, who take him at his word, to do things the way

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God has prescribed for you to do in light of who you are in Christ Jesus and according to the power of the resurrection that dwells within you, the spirit of God himself.

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And if you're codependent according to these people and you're ill and you've got problems and you've got low self -worth and you're dependent on others and you've got weak boundaries and you've got all kinds of sin, well, there's only one hope for you,

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I guess, according to these other people, and that is a 12 -step group. You've got to get in a, quote, codependence -anonymous kind of group.

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Like Alcoholics Anonymous, now you've got codependence -anonymous. Or maybe you could go to Minereth Meyer's New Life Treatment Center, New Life Clinic, I think it was bought out by Steve Arterburn, if I'm correct, or RAFA Hospital Treatment, and you can pay the big bucks to learn about psychology.

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Why don't you instead go to James chapter one and say, I made me do it, and I'm not gonna blame

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God, and each one's tempted when he's carried away and enticed by his own lust.

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Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

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Do not be deceived, my brethren. And we'll say, you know, I'm going to own it, and I'm going to plead for forgiveness based on who

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Jesus is. And there is hope for the penitent, for those who repent.

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I'll go to Ephesians chapter four, where we put off the old man, and we put on the new man.

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You don't need to have your love tank filled. It costs a lot of money to fill a love tank. When I filled up my tank the other day, my gas tank,

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I think gas at 287 a gallon, and it was 40 -some dollars, and I just thought, wow.

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But it's gonna cost you a lot more to fill up your love tank. You're gonna have to pay a Christian psychologist $100 a shot for 20 -some five meetings, all your co -pay with all your medicine, and it's gonna cost a lot of money.

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But it's not going to fix the problem. So it's like buying something that gives you no benefit.

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It's like buying Kool -Aid to put in your gas tank. You're still not going to work.

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And then you're gonna go back, and they're gonna have to give you more medicine or an increased dose.

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That's what they're going to do. God has given you the solution. He made you, He's given you the sufficient word, and you need to be first saved from your sins.

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If you're not a Christian and you're codependent, you've got a bigger problem than love tanks. You are going to be judged because you have not loved the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you've committed so many sins, it's impossible for you to pay the debt of even one.

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And you haven't loved your neighbors yourself either. These image bearers of God, you haven't loved them. So that's why we have a

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God who can actually provide payment for those sins, and His name is Jesus Christ.

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And Jesus, the eternal God, cloaked Himself with humanity and came and lived among His people, perfectly obeying the

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Mosaic law, lived a righteous life, so He could credit that righteous life to our account. And He's got enough righteousness because He's God to credit that righteousness to as many people as would believe.

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And Jesus, Lord of death, is raised from the dead. The Father raises Him, the Son raises

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Him, and He raises Himself from the dead. You don't need your love tank filled. Actually, you need your self -love tank emptied.

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What I'd like to do today is siphon out the love tank that you have for yourself.

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We are idolaters. Just admit it. I love myself, and I'm a self -idolater. That's why 1

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John 5, verse 21 says, little children, guard yourself from idols. Your biggest problem is you.

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It's not your dad, it's not your mom, it's not your sister, not your grandpa, not your grandma, not any of these other people that didn't fill up your love tank properly.

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No, your problem is you. You live for yourself. Christian psychologists are empty, and their self -enhancing message doesn't do you any good.

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So what you need to do is get back to the Bible. If you have a faithful pastor, faithful elders, faithful leadership team at your church, and they are really born again, and they believe that the word of God is inspired by God, is profitable, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient, then go to them and say,

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I've got a problem. How do I not focus on myself so much? And if they're good pastors, they'll probably say, let's find a ministry for you.

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Let's find a ministry for you so you can be tired in the work of the Lord, and you're so tired pouring your life into other people that you can't think about your own love tank.

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Let's replace your thinking. You think for self, now let's think for other people. You've been worshiping yourself all these years.

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Let's worship God by serving these other people. That's what you need to do. You don't need to read books by Trent and Bradshaw and Minnerth and Meyer and Dobson et al.

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You don't need those. You say, well, that's not being nice. Friends, do you like your life the way it is now?

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I'm codependent. I can't, you know, I'm basically hooked. I'm not hooked on phonics. I'm hooked on misery.

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I'm hooked on myself. How horrible. I want your eyes to be off of yourself.

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That is the problem. And God has designed you in such a way that you will have problems if you focus on yourself.

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So recognize that as a problem. Instead of masking the pain with drugs and codependency meetings and AA meetings,

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NA meetings, codependency meetings, you know, and it's everybody else's problem, look to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we do. You don't need a false fellowship group with other people who have your same problems.

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You need a fellowship group that's found in a local church where you're good at one thing and somebody else is weak and you can help them.

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And where you're weak with these psychological issues, someone else is strong. You can have hope if you do it

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God's way. Proverbs 28, 13. Read it and memorize it. James 1, 13 and 14.

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Read it and memorize it. 1 John 1, verses 8 and 9. Read it and memorize it.

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My name's Mike Abendroth and I'm a codependent no more. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.