Proper Thinking About Your Past

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 Ebendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Looking Back at the Past Without Romanticizing Sin

Michael Ebendroth here. Hopefully by the time you hear this, the colonoscopy will be over and I don't have to be called Eben broth any longer. I saw at the store, because I knew I could only have broth, that they have, of course, organic, non-organic, but you've got vegetable broth, chicken broth, turkey broth, lots of different broths, and Eben broth.

What is going on here in my life these days? Well, glad to be alive. I hopefully will, in the next few months, have no more COVID symptoms. I don't think my voice is getting weaker anymore. It's getting stronger.

This is my fourth show that I've recorded today since I've been sick. I've never recorded four shows. Too tired, but now off we go. Today, I'd like to talk a little bit about the Bible. Oh yes, that's what you always say, I know.

I wanna talk to you about viewing your past correctly. Now, this is not gonna be in-depth, because, hey, it's 24 minutes, and you know me, I just try to figure out if I can talk for 24 minutes about a topic without preparation, and it shows.

I know that, ba-dum-bum-bum. Might even put a little Beatles song in there, Joel Osteen, a little extra stuff today. You never know what might come into the show today. I'm in Ephesians, and I'm in Ephesians 4, and it's interesting to me to watch what Paul does, and what Paul is trying to do.

You can hear me turn the Bible pages over. Paul is saying in chapter four, I mean, he's explained everything properly about the greatness of Christ, and he's the great one that's knocked down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile.

He's the one that went and had the Father's commission to go rescue sinners. We've seen this unfold. And in this practical section, this ethical section, that, of course, as I talked about last show, derives the power to obey to the Spirit of God, is responding to the sanctifying work of the Spirit with mortification and vivification.

Duplex gratia, Christ for us, Christ in us. You should know this as no-compromise radio listeners. I say it almost every single show. Christ for pardon, Christ for power. That's exactly right. And he is wanting them, in Ephesians 4, 17, to not live like you used to live.

That's what I wanna talk about today. I think it's wrong if we're always looking back at our past and kind of like rubbing our own noses in the middle of it, or are rejoicing in the sense that, oh yeah, we really did those fun, sinful things, and it wasn't that exciting and cool and I kind of long for those old days, and now it's just like dour and sour and nothing's fun.

There are wrong ways to look at the past, that's certain. But Paul says in Ephesians 4, now I say this and testify in the Lord. That's kind of a double up. That's like a truly, truly, verily, verily. You say it once, that should be enough, but I say this, right, apostolic authority, and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds.

They are darkened to their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity, but that is not the way you learned Christ.

He wants us to say to ourselves, in light of the grace of God, I don't wanna live like I used to. You might think there might be fun things that happened, and of course there were probably fun things, that's true.

But there are also other things, and hangovers, and headaches, and regrets, and shame, and sins that you did that you're like, I can't believe I did that. We don't wanna revel in it, and we don't want to completely ignore it because Paul wants us to remember, okay, don't act like you used to.

Don't be who you used to be. He has said in chapter four, verse one, I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called. This kind of activity, living like you used to live before you're Christian, it's not worthy of your calling.

You don't wanna walk the way you used to. And the thing that I wanna focus on, especially today, and maybe just initially today, it depends on how long I can talk about this, he's discussing the mind.

Before we think, oh, I used to do these horrible sins with my body, and I was sexually licentious, and I also drank too much, which was abusing my body, and I, you know, whatever it is that we would do with our bodies.

Okay, I'm not saying that that was righteous. I'm saying, of course, that's sinful. But what does Paul talk about? Okay, don't walk like you used to. Remember walking, it's a lifestyle. It's not like literally walking, but it's probably more than just living.

When you walk, it's one step, then the next, then the next. I mean, sometimes you walk without thinking about it. When I was really sick with COVID pneumonia, I would have to be deliberate and look down at my feet.

I could walk, I could walk 22 steps in the hospital, and before you know it, months went by, and I was up to 10 ,000, looking where you walk. That's kind of what's happening here. It's a pattern, and you need to be deliberate, and you don't wanna walk like you used to, in the futility of their minds.

Before body, before sex sins, before drunkenness sins, before any other kind of sins of who knows what, with emotional envy or anything like that, covetousness, it's with the mind. Now, Paul knows what Ephesus was like, and the temple of Diana, some call it Artemis, I mean, it was just bad.

There were men dressing up as women, women dressing up as men. I mean, nothing's really new. Homosexuality, you've got all kinds of temple prostitutes that would serve Diana and her worshipers. It was bad, and he's like, don't go back.

Don't go back to that, and he says, especially don't go back to walk like you used to walk in the futility of their minds, or for us, if we think about our old self, in the futility of our minds, a mind that's futile, your empty mind, your vain mind, your nonsense mind.

Don't go back to that, the futility of your minds, and aimless, wasn't going anywhere, oh yeah, self-pleasure, et cetera, but it was false, it was empty. This is the language of Romans one, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God, or give him thanks, they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

I'm not saying that people who are unbelievers are dumb, don't have high IQs, aren't smart, but I am saying spiritually, their minds are futile. It doesn't materialize into anything good, for as he thinks within himself, so he is, Proverbs 23, verse seven.

And of course, it's all about the mind anyway, isn't it? Because once the mind leads, and it does, then everything else follows. The way you live, the way you behave, what your body does, that's why repentance is a changing of your mind.

So these minds, and you could think back to Adam and Eve in the garden, and once they fell, and how do you take a God who's good, and kind, and benevolent, and then think he's holding out on you, and something's going wrong there, and how sin just affects, and infects, and you see the effects of sin.

Unbelievers have a defective mind, and one of the things that a defective mind does is it doesn't care about God's word, doesn't care what God says. We don't wanna go back to that. That was the futility of our minds, and we thought, hey, we're gonna get into heaven just because we're good, or when you die, there's nothing going to happen, all sufferings, in and of itself bad, nothing good can come out of it.

We don't wanna think that way anymore, the way we used to think, and Paul here tells you, dear Christian, along with me, that there's something to be said for looking back to your past, not reveling, not dwelling, not stopping there, obviously, because we're in Christ now, and there's an identity to be thought of, and that's in verses 20 through 24, obviously, but don't walk that way in the futility of minds.

The way we used to live was futile, and as Augustine said, the punishment of sin is sin, and there's just a cascading effect, there's a spiraling effect, and then it says, they are darkened in their understanding.

That's verse 18. So your mind's not doing what it's supposed to, and it's aimless, and doesn't work right, and now, you get what? You get a darkened understanding. That's the first effect of the futile mind.

Whoa, that's bad. Why would I wanna go back to that? Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart? No, no. I knew my idols well. I knew some things well, but I didn't know God.

My understanding's darkened, and I've got a calloused heart, dead and unresponsive to God and his word and the beauty of the sun. Rolling Stones had a lyric in one of their songs, whilst they still do, you'll never make a saint of me.

This is just the cascading, spiraling down hardness. They become callous, giving themselves up to every sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. You baptize yourself into sin and lust and pursuit of just self, and you don't even feel bad about it, right?

This callousing that we talk about, you're calloused. If you've got a callous on your finger, and you can actually get a knife out and start trying to cut that callous, and you don't even feel anything until you cut too deeply, but you want to go back to live a life where you didn't even really have any shame?

Probably conscience is so seared, you don't even think about it? No, no, no, we don't want to do that. We don't want to be apathetic about spiritual things, indifferent about spiritual things, passive when it comes to spiritual things, and we don't want to be the kind of people that we're giving over to sensuality.

We want to be giving over to who God is and what he's done. That word for sensuality is an interesting one. You maybe hear a pastor quote the Greek word, aselgelia, aselgelia. I don't know, aselgelia is not right.

That's how I always remembered it, but that's not right. Aselgelia. Sounds better when it's aselgelia. Shameless, unrestrained, lust of a nature that just so surrendered to it all, you don't even care.

Giving themselves over. Nope, nobody's even putting a gun to your head. You just do this on your own. I mean, that's just what sin does. You don't care, you're not embarrassed. You don't care what other people think.

I mean, this is basically what we have today on social media and the world. This is exactly opposite of what Jesus did, is it not? Ephesians 5, two, and walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us.

An offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Jesus gives himself up for the world. He doesn't give himself over to all these sexual, sinful, wanton, no embarrassment or shame type of activities.

God gives over people to their lust. Romans chapter one, of course. What God does, the son, he gives himself for the world. There is a surrender there, giving yourselves, give into it, right? But for the Lord, it's for the exact opposite.

It's amazing. We live in such a wicked world and why would we wanna go back to that? Why do we wanna go back and practice impurity with greediness? Do you see what he says there? That's amazing in verse 19.

Greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Yeah, somebody, what do you do for a living? Oh, I do such and such. You know, what do you do for a living? I'm just greedy for at all costs to gratify myself.

When I think of somebody greedy, I think of maybe somebody drooling, right? That's kind of a bad picture. Maybe you drool for a nice ribeye or something, Tomahawk ribeye. What do those cost now, 80 bucks?

I did that, said Joe Biden. You drink salt water, you're just still thirsty. You just can't have enough. I want more and more and more and more and more. Insatiable. Hey, you know, we have our kind of our own morality, but right now I just want what I want.

And you just see hardness, ignorance, alienation, darkened, given up, given over, giving in. You don't want to be what you used to be. Paul is painting a picture that everyone would understand. They're living in the world that's so corrupt.

They have friends that do this. They have acquaintances. They might be married to somebody who does it or have a child or a parent, and they could be tempted to fall back into it, right? Aren't we all?

But why? Don't walk that way anymore. Their minds are broken. Remember your mind used to be broken and now you have a renewed mind. So don't do that. Remember it used to be darkened in your understanding and now the Spirit of God illumines scripture and you understand life and death and heaven and hell and Jesus, the triune God, judgment, angels, invisible spiritual warfare, mysteries of the universe, election, covenant of redemption.

You understand all that. Alienated from the life of God. That's what he talked about earlier in chapter two, right? No promises, no hope for us Gentiles, no Israel, nothing. Alienated from the life of God.

That's the last thing you want in the world. Ignorance that's in them. We didn't have any idea. We didn't know. We didn't care. Maybe give us a little inoculation of knowledge just so we think we can get out of hell and then it's all due to the hardness of heart.

No, no, we don't need to do that. We need to run from that. Given over to sensuality, greedy, practicing every kind of impurity. Yuck, makes me sick to think about it. Thankfully, in many cases, we start to become older and we forget and I don't even remember some of that stuff, thankfully.

Some things I remember. Some things I'm glad that I forget. And I'm even more glad, along with you, that God doesn't hold any of those against us. We're Christians and that's been dealt with. And you think about what did Jesus die for?

He died for our sins. And as I look at this, I think, you know what? All the sins of my mind, he paid for. All my ignorance in terms of just, I just purposely don't wanna know about God. All those sins paid for.

A hard heart, hard to the love of God, hard to loving other people, loving self, just calloused, forgiven. Sensuality, I'm given over. I mean, it's just like, for many people, it might be in high school, but others, it's just you get to college and it's just like crazy bill.

All paid for, greedy to practice every kind of just gross impurity, paid for. Then he says, but that's not the way you learn Christ. Today on No Compromise Radio, we're trying to just think a little bit about our past.

How to properly think about the past, what we once were. We don't wanna live as we used to. We're no longer in Adam. We're alive to God, we're in Christ Jesus. And we were taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, Ephesians 4 .21.

There's a big contrast. We might have learned, as John Kirshner said, Diana, if we were at Ephesus a certain way, but we didn't learn Christ that. We're new creatures, right? We've been born from above.

Remember Jesus in Nicodemus, you must be born again. We learned about Jesus, but we learned about him personally. And we've been taught about him personally. What was taught to us when we got saved, what was taught right away, put off and put on.

That's what happened. It says in Colossians, a parallel passage to Ephesians 4, but now you must put away all anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another.

Here's the punchline. It's not a punchline, but here's a key. Seeing that you have put off the old self with his practices and have put on the new self, the old man, the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

That's right. There we have it. You, Christian, along with me, often only hear put off, put on, don't lie, tell the truth, don't be bitter, be forgiving, don't steal, make sure you work, don't have corrupting words come out of your mouth, but only for edification, don't lie, tell the truth, et cetera.

Fine, say all that, but before you say all that, you need to be reminded that you've put on the new man, that you have put off the old man. That's not who you are. You're a new creation. You need to learn and be reminded that you're a new creation in Christ Jesus, and before there's any kind of ethical response, you need to remember who you are.

Paul knew that the Ephesians need to be reminded what Jesus did for them, what Jesus did to them what Jesus did in them. Now, the English in Ephesians 4, 22 and 24 sounds like it's a command, put off, be renewed, put on.

No, no, that's already been done to you. You need to live like a Gentile. No, no, you need to live like you've learned something. You've learned Christ, and when Christ does something to you, i .e. saves you, your minds are no longer futile anymore, and you respond with faith.

He did put that off. Faith says he did put off. He did cause me to put off. He did cause me to be renewed. He did cause me to put on, and we, as John Owen said, let faith look on Christ in the gospel as he is set forth dying and crucified for us.

Look on him under the weight of our sins, praying, bleeding, dying. Bring him in that condition into thy heart by faith. Apply his blood so shed to thy corruptions. Do this daily. The Spirit alone brings the cross of Christ into our hearts with its sin-killing power.

It's by faith, even sanctification, by faith, and we all with unveiled faith, 2 Corinthians 3, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

We are worked upon, and we believe that, and it is an ongoing thing to live by faith, not just the initial Christian life, but the Christian life. Now, this doesn't just start off, you get saved, and then you move on to other things.

I've been crucified with Christ, Galatians 20. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

My stomach is saying, it's time to eat, and I can't go home to eat. Lee Irons, everything we need with regard to sanctification, victory over sin, empowerment to obey, the powerful work of the Spirit, all these things are found in Christ.

Christ is the storehouse, the treasury of sanctification. He is the fountain of the springs of living water. Therefore, we can only enjoy these benefits of sanctification to the degree that we hold fast to the head to Christ himself by faith.

R .S. Gerhardus Foss says, faith has become the root of all Christian holiness, since at every point of our striving for improvement and conformity to God, it fills our hearts with the thought that all this cannot ever be the ground on which we stand in God's judgment.

It teaches us true humility, which in the covenant of grace is inseparable from true holiness. Thus, faith is not solely something that accompanies sanctification, but something that permeates it, and that properly seen is the heart of everything in our holiness that is pleasing to God.

That's amazing. As we're thinking about who Christ is, and we're walking by faith as Christians, we're realizing nothing we do is the ground of our salvation, just fruits, just evidences. We remember, oh, Jesus is praying for me.

He's working on me. He started a work. He's going to finish a work. And because of that, I want to respond with obedience, and I want to respond with don't lie, tell the truth. I want to respond with work, don't steal.

Those are good responses. We need to think through first, you know, I'm not like I used to be, and I'm in Christ now, not in Adam any longer, but in Christ, and all the power of the old Adam, broken. Power of the new Adam, I have, and I have the Holy Spirit.

My name's Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Fourth show I did today, feeling pretty good. That means I did six in the last two days, so that gets me for next week, and then the week after that when I'm out of town.

Maybe I'll see some of you in California. Maybe I won't, you just, one never knows. Make sure you're in the long line for the autographs, and for the blessings, anointings.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth 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.

If you'd like to learn more about Bethlehem Bible Church, 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.