Church Contentment

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. Pastor Steve Cooley is here.

It's been a week since we've done this, Steve. Buenas tardes. Steve, anything new in your life?

What's the exciting happenings? Are you, you know, maybe our listeners do not know this about you. You play a strategy game called diplomacy.

Yes, I do. And there's really nothing new in that, but thanks for bringing it up. There's the world championship coming up.

Yeah, have you ever been a world champion diplomacy player? No, I've not. I've finished second.

I finished third. I finished fourth. I finished fifth, but I've never won. Have you won the national championship?

Yes, I did. What's the difference between the nationals and the world? The world's bigger. I used to play risk.

You know, Irkutsk, would that be a world or would that be a nation? That would be a province.

All right, Steve, here's what we want to do today on No Compromise Radio. We want to talk about the game of diplomacy and how it relates to the

Bible. Excellent. See? And you'll be able to talk the whole time because I have no idea. We want to talk a little bit about -

I think I can explain it. It's a prime example of total depravity. That's exactly right.

In force, in mass. Yes, it is. Ganging up on people. Do they do that in that game?

They gang up and take advantage? Once in a while, but it's usually more like when we were kids, we used to call it kill the guy with the ball.

You know, you take the leader down. That's the way the game is supposed to be played. Now, would it be a sin to feign a move in diplomacy, even though it really wasn't going to happen, but it would be a distraction?

It would be a deception? No, that would not be a sin. It wouldn't be. Okay. All right, just double checking.

I have that from the California Pope. Well, tell me how the Tuesday Guy Study Bible's coming along.

Well, it's just gone to the editor. We're very excited about it. It's got over 14 notes.

I think 14 .7 notes. That's good. We're revising it, though.

We might have to remove a few. Well, after Steve finishes the Tuesday Guy Study Bible, he's going to work on the message part two,

Tuesday Guy's message. You know, we need some background music if we're going to have a message moment.

Shouldn't we have something? You know what? I need to bring that computer here and have Josh hook up some cord, because we can have music in here, but I just have forgotten how to do it.

Maybe it should be something like by Barry Manilow or something. Who's that guy you were just telling me that was on the other day?

Neil Diamond. Some kind of official message moment song. Well, I just opened up the message

Bible, small B, and here it says, I know a man who 14 years ago was seized by Christ and swept into ecstasy to the heights of heaven.

I really don't know if this took place in the body or out of it, only God knows. I also know that this man was hijacked into paradise.

Again, in the body or out of the body, I don't know. So I want you to know the word hijacked is in the

Bible. That just has too much jihad going for it. I know. I don't think I like that.

I was hijacked to heaven. Jihad! It almost sounds like some rock and roll band, hijacked to heaven.

So Steve. That's quite bad. All right, so people can write in if they'd like to Know Compromise Radio. We get quite a few people who write in and we have a policy that we read every one of your emails.

Right? Pretty much everyone's read. Pretty, pretty much. I even respond to some of them.

So do you. Yeah. Yeah, and honestly, if you write a Tuesday question or something that says Mike and Steve, I always give it to Steve.

So I'm very thankful that you would write to Steve and then I would not have to answer that particular question. And then I forward it to Mike. Yes, yes.

And I say, good job. And then the next day is the next day. But one of our recurring questions, here's the topic for the day, topic du jour.

One of the recurring questions is, I'm at a less than ideal church. What do

I do? Can you recommend a church? So Steve, let's talk about that a little bit. And first, I think we should say that the people that are writing know that there's no perfect church.

Right? So let's first establish the point that there's no perfect church. Well, if there was a perfect church, don't mess it up by joining it.

Yeah, yeah. Don't show up because you're gonna mess it up when you show up. I mean, you think about the church, in all honesty,

Steve, when there are maturing people at the church, a local church, and there are mature people, then those maturing and mature people, driven by the

Spirit of God's power, are excited about evangelism. They do evangelize and tell people about Christ's free forgiveness.

The Spirit of God, at His pleasure, saves people. And then you get a bunch of immature, novice newbies who have all kinds of sin, and they bring all that trouble into the church.

They just drag the whole thing down. That's terrible. And so actually, when we have people in the local church who are contributing to the problems,

I think, Steve, in one sense, that's a very good thing, because we have brand new Christians at the church, and although they're justified, and although they're regenerated, they have the

Spirit of God dwelling in them, they've got a lot of sin, consequences of sin to rethink and redo.

I gotta say, when I was 29, can you imagine how people thought of me the first three or four years of my Christian walk?

Yes, I can. Yeah, I can. Yeah, and you know, to protect Bethlehem Bible Church, by the way, we're thinking about new names, and here's one

I came up with. I think you'll like it. New name for the church, or new name for the radio? No, new name for the church.

It's the Church of Us For and No More. Well, I think that's exactly right, and you have to be, you have to have been a

Christian for 25 years, and you have to be a subscriptionist, and the Westminster Confession, you must subscribe to that.

Yeah, and if you haven't subscribed to Table Talk for at least 15 years, and been to six

Ligonier Conferences. Current roundtable member of Modern Reformation Magazine.

And a supporter of Grace to You, naturally. Yes. So, Steve, we know there's no perfect church.

Actually, the church will be perfect one day in glory, and we know Christ will have finished his work in the church.

Yet, what about the less than ideal church? What if you're listening today, and you wish you lived by Grace Community Church with MacArthur, or what's

Sproul's deal, St. Andrews? Yeah, St. Andrews. St. Andrews, or you were at a church where, maybe you wish you lived closer to Bethlehem Bible Church.

Which is what you should be thinking right now. People always say, basically, can you move?

We've had many writers, Steve, haven't we? Can you guys please move to, Johnny emails me and say, move to Idaho.

Somebody, who is it, Christy in Maine? Yes, she is. Would you please move up here? Yeah, and so - And we have other advice for them.

What would be our advice to the people that want us to move? Make us an offer. No, no, no, that's not.

Steve, if you did leave someday, we could still probably do this show via phone. Do you think?

You could be up in Maine or Idaho. I'm up in Maine. But what do we tell people when they're always asking us, and of course, they're kind about it, and it's kind of off the cuff, but we'd love to have you guys move out here.

We tell them what? Well, I wish we had an FAQ up on the site, because, and even if we did, it wouldn't work.

But - Nobody would read it. That's just the way that goes. I, generally speaking,

I list these three things, and I tell them in order. I would go to the Master's Seminary. Okay, but before you do that,

I wanted to finish this point. Oh, okay. Because this is actually something that you said that I stole. I know it's usually the other way around, but this is one of the first,

I know on No Compromise Radio. You like to tell them, at least you tell them this to me.

You guys should move to Bethlehem Bible Church area. Yeah, I do. Well, you're asking us to move. You should move.

Yes. Actually, do you know anybody that's picked up and moved to go to a local church because it was that important?

Yes, I do. And do you think that's a good thing to do? I think it's a great thing to do. We just had an older brother and sister just move back.

They left a couple of years ago for the warmer climes, and they got down there and thought they were moving to the Bible Belt, and they said, whoa, no

Bible teaching church here, and they moved back. I thought you were going to say no bueno. It's no bueno.

Well, actually, we do know of many people, especially after being at Grace Church for years, where John MacArthur's the pastor, where you'd meet someone and they'd say, yes, we lived in such and such a city.

We sold everything and moved out here because we think Bible teaching is that important.

Now, everybody can't move. We're not asking people to move close to this particular church, but could there be a more important decision for you to make?

I understand that if you're married and you're the woman and you want to make sure you are at a Bible teaching church, but your husband doesn't want to move and he can't get a job there, there are factors we understand.

But I think Steve would agree that a local church and having the, let's use some emergent terms, having the authentic relational community in a local church in a missional fashion is crucial for your growth.

Well, let me put it to you this way. Let's say that I had a regular, and by that I don't mean to denigrate it because I was a deputy sheriff for 21 years.

Let's say I had a regular job and I was looking at moving across the country. Did you ever arrest a pastor?

Not that I'm aware of. Nobody ever said, you can't arrest me. I'm a pastor. Okay, keep going. But let's say

I made $60 ,000 a year and I had the opportunity to move across the country and make $100 ,000 a year.

And I was just kind of counting that and going, wow, that would be so great. Look at how much more money we'd have.

The first thing I ought to be asking myself is, is there a church that we can go to and worship? Because if there's not,

I need to say, listen, I need to say no. Why? Because what good is that $40 ,000 a year going to do if every

Sunday we go, I wish we could hear the word of God. Yeah, but there's a good church in most of these cities.

That's a big city and it's south of the Mason -Dixon line. There's gotta be a good church there.

I was there actually driving when I interviewed and I went past a lot of bad churches. A lot of Baptist churches and a lot of Presbyterian churches.

And that particular Presbyterian church that I drove by, I think they really love the United States because it's a USA church,

P -C -U -S -A. USA, USA. But Steve, isn't it true? Over the years of ministry, so many people we know will say,

I have an opportunity. It's not just good for money, but it's good for my career advancement. It looks good on my resume.

I actually want to go to a different part of the country to experience life or it's better for climate.

The Four Seasons. They make the decision and then what do they do? Then they try to justify their bad decision later, but they don't factor in this other stuff.

Yeah, honestly, I don't know how people can make a move without knowing the church that they're gonna go to.

I don't know how you can do that. And without really, it is more important than liking your new boss, liking your new job, thinking about how it's gonna buff and shine your resume.

If you don't have a church where you can serve, where you can listen to the word, where your family is gonna be fed week in and week out, you are being, may

I say, foolish. Steve, when it is time to move, and of course we're not against moving.

Unless you're moving away from BBC. Yeah, well that's true, that's true. When you have to move, with the internet these days, you can do almost all your research before you even get into the process.

And so here's the analogy I'd like to use. If you're not thinking carefully and you start dating someone as a single person, and you go, well, you know what,

I have some reservations about this, that, or the other, but who cares, I'm just gonna chuck all that.

Then the romance begins, the emotion begins, the love feelings begin, and then it's hard to think properly.

If you would have made those decisions early on with your parents' help, with the elders' help, with others' help, then you would have been guarded against these emotional decisions.

So too, when it comes to a job opportunity. Hey, there's a job opening, and such and such, we'd like you to do it.

Thank you for asking, I really appreciate it. I'll talk to you about it next week or whatever, and then go do your research.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be like going to court this young woman and really becoming involved in her, and then seeing one night, you know, something's a little bit off about her.

I think I'm gonna Google her and finding out that Patty Hearst was involved with the Sibianese Liberation Army, you know?

It's like, who knew? Who knows that Steve knows these words? And he just lets them roll off his tongue in such a fashion where I think he's quite familiar with these things, quite.

Yeah, they tried to recruit me. But Steve, if you say, well, I can't wait to get out of this particular position, there's something nice about moving on and moving forward, and there is an excitement to new opportunities,

I understand all that. But the first thing I would do is I would pull up churches there, and I would go to the website of those churches that looked okay.

And Steve, here's how I check out a church. The first thing I do, I don't check to see if they've got a relevant youth rock and roll ministry.

What? I don't check that out. I do. Yeah, I don't check to see if you can wear a casual dress.

Just come as you are. We're kind of a casual group here, no problem. I don't check that out.

And you might have a different strategy, which I'd like to hear about in a second. But I go straight to the sermon site, and I get to see what the sermons, the last 20 sermons, and you usually can tell,

Luke 5, Luke 6, Luke 6b, Luke 7, Luke 8, you know,

Hannah and her sisters, you know. Open up to Luke chapter 6b.

But then I get to see sequential exposition, and that, you know, I'm sure some cults do that too.

But that tells me that the church has a high view of Scripture, a high view of sufficiency of Scripture, authority of Scripture.

And then the second link I look at, then I'll hear from you, Steve, second link I look at is the staff, and then I look at where the pastor was educated.

That's how I choose the churches. Yeah, I was on a website here recently. One of our listeners was looking at a church, and I went to their website.

First of all, they didn't have any sermons posted, and I'm like, well, you know what? Sometimes that's just indicative that they're not too technologically savvy, or maybe they're small or whatever, or they don't really think that that's important.

So I was like, well, I'm not really gonna judge them based on that. Hide it under a bushel. No. But if I were moving across the country, that would be a major problem.

But then I looked at their statement of faith, and it was fascinating to me because I agreed with most everything, and then

I got down to church governance, and it was deacons. They have no elders. And the deacons are on there for three years stints, and they must be approved by a majority of the -

I do. Yeah, a majority of the congregation, and then it was - I second that. Now, they stress the importance of membership.

That was all good. But then the search, here's where things really started going cockeyed, was they had a search committee, which was some deacons and some lay people, and then -

Some rich people. Here was another thing I didn't like. The senior pastor, you wouldn't like this at all, can only be out of the pulpit two weeks a year.

Wow. I wouldn't like that at all. And I'm going, who puts all this in their statement of faith or constitution or whatever they called it?

I mean, it was down to the fine, fine, fine points, and there were some kind of questionable things

I thought in it. Steve, I'm just mulling on that whole two Sundays a year deal. I know that's a whole other show, but that is crazy.

Just think - Two Sunday - I mean, basically that says he'll never have three weeks of vacation, right? You get two

Sundays off. Honestly, Steve, and maybe this shows my weakness, but every few months that go on that I'm here almost all the time, and then after about three or four months,

I begin to feel this - Prone to wonder. No, I just, you know what

I feel like? I just feel like I need a rest. I need a Sabbath. I just need to get away for a

Sunday to kind of clear my brain out. And I don't even need to say, oh yeah, it's been three months.

I just kind of get that feeling where right about now, it's almost time for the summer. The weeks roll in and the weeks roll on, and you know what it's like, that you don't get any days off.

You know, there's a technical day off, but mentally you don't ever get days off. And you know what? That'd be kind of nice, by the way, if all the congregants of the church could stop sinning and stop making decisions and stop doing anything foolish.

And have no needs. Yeah, and having the effects of the fall not affect them on Mondays. It'd be awesome. I would really like that.

It'd be great. But anyway, it's nice to be able to get away once in a while and just kind of refresh and recharge your batteries.

Back to the topic at hand on info at nocompromiseradio .com. That's where you can write us. How do people stay content in churches that are less than ideal?

For whatever reason, they can't move. And now they need to just buckle up and stay there for the long haul.

The church is, it's not heretical. They do maybe some exposition, but it's weakly done,

W -E -A -K. No. Steve, what would you tell someone? How can, you could actually sit there sinfully pining away for God's providence to not giving you the hand you're dealt.

Well, the easy thing to do would be kind of a Fred Flintstone at the quarry, which would be go in, clock in, do your job.

In other words, show up for the service and then go home, clock out. But I would submit that a better way to go about it is to be involved and serve at the church.

You know, kind of make, as much as one family or one person can, make a difference in the church.

Whether it's, you know, hey, you think you can teach something, so start a Bible study if the elders will let you.

Or, you know, whatever you can do to fill gaps in at the church.

Kind of be the caulking, as it were. That's good.

I think that might be a new book. Spiritual caulking. The silicone caulking.

The underbelly, I'm not good with that stuff. You're good at that, though. Thank you. Yeah, what's the best sermon title you've ever given?

I don't know. Come on. I don't, you know, if I had more vanity and I have enough, but if I had more vanity,

I would make, like, a list of my top 10 sermon titles. Oh, yeah, see, now that would be a good show.

I'm doing spiritual gifts now in First Corinthians 12 to 14. I have no idea what to come up with.

That's a tough one. Those three chapters. So it was the Pretty Weak Spiritual Gifts 101.

Well, I didn't want to say it was pretty weak, but pretty weak, I think, is complimentary. Oh, yeah.

Well, that's what Paul was trying to tell them. This is the basics of spiritual gifts. You guys think you're in graduate school, but this is 101A.

All right, one of the things I would say to you, if you're at a church that's less than ideal and you can't move someplace else, a better church is not down the street.

Oh, Steve, I have to tell you, somebody visited the church the other day, and I said, oh, how'd you find out about the church?

And they said, well, we listened to Tuesday Guy. No, they said, we drive by the church all the time.

It's one of those drive -by deals. We drive by the church all the time, and we wanted just to go on a date today to date another church.

We have our own home church. We're there, but once in a while, we like to just go on dates together as a married couple and we date another church.

We just go out on a date, and so today we dated your church. Steve, I've never heard that in my entire life.

I'm pretty dumbfounded by that. I mean, you dated, I forgot to tell you that story. That's good no -compromise fodder.

I think your advice to buckle in and buckle down to serve is excellent advice. I would pray for the pastor.

If you are thinking, well, my pastor doesn't preach like MacArthur, therefore it's not ideal, then you've got a problem.

You need to pray for yourself, and the pastor needs to pray for you more. But if it's, well, you know what, I just want it a little more imperative -driven, a little more exhorting, not as much as a relational

PowerPoint dressing up like John Knox and doing a first -person sermon on justification by faith,

I think if you pray for the pastor and encourage the pastor, one of the things that I think people could do, and I'm not asking for books, although Steve is, is there are certain books that have changed your life and ministry model for your mind and for your heart.

Why don't you buy some books for your pastor? Even if somebody at the church here, Steve, gave me a bunch of books from the other view, from the other side,

I love Norman Geisler, here's a bunch of Geisler books, chosen but free. Pastor, we love you, and we love the church, and we disagree on this, so I want to try to convince you.

Here's 10 books on this other topic. I would think that was pretty classy. Yeah, especially if I could look at them and say, did you read all these books?

And they said yes, because the answer's probably going to be no. Yeah, the answer's going to be no, and I'd like to have my copies, the original edition in vellum, so I could sell them on eBay faster.

But we do want to keep you content in a local church, because short of, you know, you're a husband, and you don't want to pull the trigger, because it might upset your spouse and your kids, but if you really need to stay at the church you're at, you're out in a rural community, you're out in the middle of nowhere, you're at some army base someplace, and you can't choose to move, then you have to realize that God is sovereign, and living in light of God's sovereignty should keep you content, because God could have put you someplace else.

Yeah, and another quick note, too, is, you know, a lot of times people are like, they don't want to drive, you know, so if it's not within eight or 10 miles, that's just too far, and I'm going,

I think you need to be willing, if there's a good church within half an hour, 45 minutes, or whatever,

I think, you know, which would I rather do, go to some lame church that's close, or drive a little bit further,

I'd make the drive. Steve, but I already drive an hour every day to work, and then an hour back. So what?

You know, again, I just say, what's more important? So, that's the Al Mohler School of Counseling.

So what? Remember Al Mohler's School of Counseling? What is your problem? What does the

Bible say about your problem? And why are we here? Yeah, would the Bible say, well, you know what, that's just too far to drive, why don't you just take the easy way out and go to a really weak -sauce church?

Isn't it true, Steve, that you can supplement your learning with resources now, books, radio shows, certain podcasts?

Yeah, but may I also say that that may never take the place of church. You have to be involved in a local assembly.

There is no, you know, well, I did church on the internet, or, you know, we watch our

TV on TBN, or, you know, whatever. Okay, everybody put pause on now. We're gonna wait for 15 seconds.

Go to your rooms, your kitchen rooms, and get yourself a little matzah, and bring it back in and break it, and we're all gonna partake together.

And now a little Welch's. A little Welch's. My kids said to me the other day there was a Welch's drink in the house, and they said, do you know who,

I think it was Luke who said, do you know who, do you know who Welch was? I said, yes, he was a Methodist pastor who didn't want to take wine for communion, so he invented a way to keep grapes from not for many.

Many things I do know, this I did not know. You didn't know that was Welch. So we're gonna talk at all about how to find a church?

We're gonna have to do that next show. So give me some humor, give me some comedy. You've got 27 seconds to thrill me.

Okay, so, today we just are tipping, we're dipping our toes into the deep end of local churches.

If you're at a church, what we don't want you to do is what? What we don't want you to do is just move across the country randomly, or just grumble about your church.

That would be really bad. Absolutely, stay tuned for next week. We'll talk more. 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 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.