What To Look For In A Pastor

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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

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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.�

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is

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Mike Abendroth, and you can email us info at nocompromiseradio .com. There�s a YouTube channel,

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No Compromise Radio, Facebook, and Twitter. I think that�s about all there is.

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I guess you could Vimeo or search for No Compromise videos.

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Oh, I know what you could do, bbchurch .org for sermons. A Tuesday guy is on there as well.

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By the way, if you live in New England and you are a pastor and need to take a vacation or a week off, we�ve got about,

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I don�t know, these days, five or six or eight men who would come and, not all at the same time, preach a

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Christ -centered, verse -by -verse message while you�re gone. It�s called New England Pulpit Supply, and on any given

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Sunday, we might have, I guess, some times there are none, and there could be one or two or maybe three or four men from Bethlehem Bible Church, trained and equipped, ready to go preach a verse -by -verse message.

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And if they don�t talk about Jesus, they will be fired. Can you fire people from membership?

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I guess you can. I think that�s called excommunication. Well, what do I have here in front of me? I�ve been thinking a lot about preaching lately, and I get emails from people, �We need to hire a new pastor.�

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In the old days, they used to say, �Would you come and be the new pastor ?� And then now I have to tell them, �You could move here.�

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Right? They want me to move there. They can�t afford the moving truck. But maybe you can afford the moving truck for just you to move here.

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I don�t know how much longer I�ll be here. I have no plans, exit strategy, other than a vague, �It�d be nice to retire in Santa Cruz, but I can�t afford retiring.�

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But it is Giving Tuesday. I just want you to know that on Giving Tuesday, No Compromise Radio received $0.

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Zero. Si. I saw, I think it was

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Tom Rainer, and it was, matter of fact, his website. You know, he�s a

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Southern Baptist, and he does research and writes articles, and probably a fine guy. He�s not, to me, it�s more interesting radio than anything else, and so sometimes

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I snoop around and find something. And this one I found, �When it comes to finding a pastor, what do you look for ?�

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And he interviewed or solicited information from a bunch of laypeople.

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I think, I don�t have it in front of me, but I think 60 different churches, 300 different laypeople responded, �What are they looking for in a pastor ?�

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Now I guess the question could be, you know, misleading in the sense that what does

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God require, or what does 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 require, etc.? These are what people are looking for, and so I just want to talk about this a little bit.

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I think maybe it might be a better show with Pastor Steve regarding this topic, but we�re going to have to give it a go on our own.

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And the first one is �Love of Congregation.� I don�t know what that really means. Does that mean love of the congregation?

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I love of congregation. Congregation. If we know that our pastor loves us, everything else falls in place.

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If he doesn�t, nothing else matters. And I think to a large extent that is true, and that love,

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I think, primarily needs to be shown by the preaching of the Word. There are other ways you can love your congregation.

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Someone asked me the other day, they said, �My mom�s in a rest home, rehab rather, and she�s going to be there for a while, and her pastor, a

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Lutheran pastor, either couldn�t or wouldn�t come and visit, and could I But I wanted to bless that lady, �Would you go visit my mom in the woods next door the rehab center.

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What am I going to say? No, I had a good attitude about it, and praise the

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Lord, and I loved going and felt great afterwards, and it was wonderful.

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And we talked about salvation, being born again through belief, I read John chapter 3, much of it, and it was great.

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Now, that's a way to love the congregation, but if I didn't tell the truth, it wouldn't be any good, right?

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I could say, I'll go visit, but what am I going to do? Give you some Aesop's Fables, or I say, well, you know, here's the latest book that Oprah's recommending, have you read that?

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I mean, I listened to the lady, and she talked a lot about her family, and the staff, and her rehab, and stuff like that.

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That's all, that's part of it, and it was great, got to know her better. But how can I really show love?

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And if I want to show love, Peter, when he was talking to Jesus, remember three times

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Peter denied the Lord, and our gracious Lord three times let Peter affirm his,

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Peter's love for Jesus. If you love me, feed my sheep, right? That was, there's a minor difference on one of those, but three times, that's essentially what

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Jesus is saying. If you love me, feed my sheep. And I think that's why number two, effective preaching, could really blend in with number one, love of congregation, because how can you love people if you don't tell them the truth?

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What else am I going to give them? I walked in on Sunday morning here to Bethlehem Bible Church, bbcchurch .org, and there were a lot of people.

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I don't mean like Texas, a lot of people, or California, but there are a lot of people, a lot of souls, a lot of people,

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I think, for New England. And I thought, what do you tell these people, right? What if it was left up to me and my own ingenuity, my own

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IQ, my own grasp of politics, current events, engineering, whatever it might be?

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What would I tell these people? Do better, be good, be nice. Here's moralism.

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I mean, I don't even know what most congregations expect. What do they expect on a Sunday morning from the preacher?

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Maybe to stand by the door and be nice, that's fine. Maybe to give some comforting presence,

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I guess that's fine. But what are they expecting? For me to get up and talk about how they should be virtuous for sheer virtue's sake or for sheer morality's sake?

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That's medievalism. That's Romanism. That's evangelicalism. Here's some things to do so you can be virtuous, and you can be better, and you can do good things.

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And of course, the imperative, if it's in light of the indicative, I have no problem with that. Even last

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Sunday, talking about earnestness, the responsibility that Christians have to be earnest in their faith and in their love for the

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Lord and in their love for their neighbor, earnestness. We're not antinomian, we are earnestnomians, earnest law keepers.

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So, love of congregation. Yes, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments, and the commandments, of course, for the

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Scripture's description of preachers and elders and bishops and overseers, you have to preach the

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Word, right? 2 Timothy chapter 4. Preach the Word, in season, out of season.

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Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience, and doctrine or instruction. Or instruction.

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Our, our, or. How do you pronounce those things if you're from Nebraska? That's the question.

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They're all R. Just the letter R. Love of congregation and effective preaching.

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Here's what it says under effective preaching. I don't have any expectation that my preacher be one of the best in the world.

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I just want to know that he has spent time in the Word each week to teach us effectively and consistently.

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Okay, that's a pretty good quote right there. Now, we might be able to talk about effective preaching, making sure that the

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Lord Jesus is talked about, right? Christ -centered preaching, talking about the gospel, that is, the person, the work of our

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Lord Jesus, not some kind of abstract noun gospel, but the gospel is good news about Jesus.

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So, talking about who Jesus is. And you can do that, of course, from Genesis to Revelation. And you must do that from Genesis to Revelation.

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Effective preaching is Christ -centered preaching and spending time in the

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Word to teach us effectively and consistently. And that's really what we're after. Lots of times, I would gauge my week based on the quality of the sermon in terms of my humbler, oh, no, in my rhetoric and my oratory.

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I mean, I knew I studied the text and could understand that and try to convey it, but how did I deliver the message, right?

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The art and science of delivering the message. I had the science down, I think, but the art, and I didn't think

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I did very well. But I was just after consistently, week in and week out.

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You know, you might not even remember hardly any sermons your pastor has preached, but aggregately, put them all togetherly, the

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Spirit of God working to change your mind, right? Repentance is to change your mind, and therefore, that consistent factor is important.

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As Elizabeth Elliott used to say, and my wife says, faithful, not fabulous. So, in light of the promises of God, we want to be faithful.

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We don't have to be great. Now, when you think about this, effective preaching,

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I don't have any expectation that my preacher would be one of the best in the world. That is an interesting thing to talk about because with the

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Internet, you can listen to the best preaching in all of the world at any time you want.

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And I have apps on my phone that I can listen to. I like to listen to Chris Gordon, Abounding Grace Radio.

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I like to listen to S. Lewis Johnson. I like to listen to Sinclair Ferguson.

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There's a lot of, I mean, over the years, I've listened to so many preachers, right? I've probably listened to 2 ,000

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MacArthur sermons in my life, mainly with cassettes driving around Los Angeles.

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Whoever I thought was the best, I could just listen to those, and you can do the same thing. So now, what do you do when you compare your pastor with those hotshot radio hosts?

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What if your pastor is the hotshot in his own mind radio host? But you understand my point.

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You can't say, well, you know what, my pastor…I guess you could say it, but you ought not to say, my pastor is faithful.

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He preaches Christ every week verse by verse, but, you know, he's not like fill -in -the -blank. If he does fill -in -the -blank sermon outlines, maybe you could say that.

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That's a different show. Your expectation is he's faithfully proclaiming

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Christ. And when I ask students, preaching students and pastors, when

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I go, you know, it sounds like I'm a big shot around the world and do these preaching seminars, I like to ask them, who's your favorite preacher?

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And I'm really after Jesus Christ should be the favorite preacher, because that's in line with the book that I wrote, Jesus Christ, the

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Prince of Preachers, and we rarely think about Jesus as the greatest preacher. But then I also like to hear some of the men give different preachers that they think are the best.

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And I've heard people say O 'Conrad, Mbui, Sinclair Ferguson. People say…who do they say?

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Lloyd Jones. I don't know. Some people say Piper or whoever they say.

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But the ones that I'm most intrigued by, after they say Jesus, is something like this, well, you don't know who this person is, but he's my pastor and he's been there for 25 years just faithfully preaching.

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He's my favorite pastor. Now, that's really the way it should be. It doesn't mean like this is, you know,

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I'm in the good old boys club and you need to love your pastor. When you do get close to your pastor and you realize he's just a sinner just like you, right?

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Simult, justus et peccator, simultaneously just and sinful, sinner.

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And, you know, you realize, good thing he's pointing me to the Lord Jesus. But he's the one that's there, that visits my mom in the rest home.

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He's the one that's there, that does the officiating for the weddings and baptisms and other things. And he's just kind of there, right?

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He's far from perfect, but he's just there. And every time he gets up in the pulpit, whether that's Sunday school, evangelism class,

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Bible Institute class, preaching class, men's breakfast, Saturday outreach, rest home ministry more formally,

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Sunday evening, Sunday morning, whenever it is, he's going to open up the Bible and say, this is what the Bible says about the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and this is how you should think about him and act in light of these triumphant indicatives.

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And that's really what we want to have happen. And if you are listening today and you're at Bethlehem Bible Church, then you can ignore this advice.

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But if you are listening today and you're at a different church, and your pastor's faithful, and he preaches verse by verse, and he tells you about Jesus, and he tells you about how you're forgiven in Christ, and what the great last

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Adam did, the Lord Jesus, you ought to be very thankful. And I think you should praise the

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Lord that he would give you such a man, sinful and frail as he may be, but that he would be determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even the crucified one.

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And you know, pastors receive gifts throughout their ministry, and if you want to give your pastor a gift, that's fine.

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But if you wrote him a note, right? I didn't say email, I didn't say text, there's something about a handwritten note.

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And you wrote him a note and said, you know, I often think of you and pray for you, and this is what

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I think, and this is why I'm thankful, and this is why I thank the Lord for you. I think that'd go a long way to encourage the pastor to keep on faithfully proclaiming the truth.

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I think that's effective preaching, right? Whatever fruit comes from our preaching, we know it's the

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Holy Spirit, and he sovereignly will superintend his Word, and it does not come back void, and it softens, it hardens, it convicts, it grants joy, it saves, it sanctifies.

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The Word of God does all these things as the Spirit of God is pleased to do it, and that is through donkeys, men from Nebraska, and everything in between.

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Love of congregation, number one. Number two, effective preaching. What we're doing today is we're looking at Thomas Rainer's What do you do if you want to pick a pastor?

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And by the way, if you're out there and you're looking for a pastor, go to the website where this guy's preached, and don't listen to like one or two sermons.

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You know, in the old days, you'd send in one or two of your cassettes. Of course, do you send in bad ones or good ones? Well, you send your very best.

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I mean, who wouldn't? I don't blame people for doing that, but you send your best to these churches so they can listen to the messages.

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And what I always tell people to do is, why don't you, the church that's looking for a new pastor, why don't you ask for the latest ten messages?

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And yeah, it might take you a while to listen, but this is a big decision. You just can't all of a sudden say, well, I'll listen to one message and hire a guy, or one message and we won't.

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But ten messages. If you listen to a man over ten messages, you can say things like, well, we've heard the best and we've heard his worst, but we've heard him faithfully proclaim the

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Scriptures. We have an idea of how he preaches over a two - to three -month period.

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And of course, sometimes that man's spiritual walk that week, or trials, or sleep, or health, or health of the rest of the congregation, there are all these other factors, mitigating factors on how well he might deliver it, but does he deliver the goods?

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And sometimes the plating on the food is better or sometimes it's worse regarding the spiritual food, but it's still the

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Word. Give me the Word. Preach the Word. And that's exactly what he does. A small w, the

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Bible, and a capital W, the Word of Christ Jesus, the Incarnate One who's been raised.

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That's a good thing to do, the last ten messages. And if you need to speed them up at double speed or 1 .5

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speed, I guess you could, but that would be an important thing to do. If you're on a pulpit search committee, you ought to listen to the last ten messages, and then you can get an idea.

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And you can then hear, is it important for this man to talk about who Jesus is?

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Is the gospel important? Can I hear distinguishing categories with law and gospel and justification and sanctification and faith and faithfulness and ground of salvation slash fruits of salvation?

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Does he know the categories? Because categories are important. Does he know nomism, antinomism?

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You'll be able to sense that, and he might not talk about any of those in his sermons because he's in a different text, but you'll get that.

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You'll get the feel, if you know what I mean. You'll sense it because he'll either say it or you'll understand by what he doesn't say.

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Lots of times I listen to sermons and I think, what was he not saying today? Because that will help me understand what he's trying to say.

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I know that's a weird way to put it, but hey, I'm from Nebraska. Love of congregation, effective preaching.

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And by the way, if you are a Sunday school teacher or you're a mom or dad and you teach your kids the Bible or you're a pastor or a

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Bible study leader or anything in between, both of these should apply to you as well. Preaching the

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Word of God, small w, capital W, and by doing that you'll love the people.

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You know, there are other ways to love people too, but that's the main way, right? If you love me, feed my sheep.

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And of course, that's the one, quorum deo, the audience of one that you're thinking about is the

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Lord Jesus. Number three, when we think about how to hire a pastor, these laymen, these laypeople, are there laypeople now?

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Are there lay cisgenders or there are lay dysphoria genders? This is a crazy world, isn't it?

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It's crazier by the day. I feel bad in one sense that I say to myself, well, at least

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I'm 58, won't be around that much longer as the place just goes chaotic. But I have kids and one day hopefully grandkids.

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Speaking of which, children at least, my kids, my children should be in town for Christmas.

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I'll have Luke back on for No Compromise Radio. Luke is no co -junior. You can follow him at Twitter now, by the way,

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Luke Avendroth. I think I'm going to have him speak at the

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Christmas Eve message, evangelism. I told him his message should be entitled,

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It's Nice to Be Nice. It's good to be good.

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He told me he was going to do something from John 1, so I said, okay, fine. But that's going to be good just to have the family back.

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I probably like Thanksgiving maybe more than Christmas because in one sense, you just see all the crass commercialization of Christmas and they start putting out

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Christmas stuff like right after Valentine's Day. But Christmas, it's almost better now because that's when the family's around, right?

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So Thursday for Thanksgiving, I was around church family and I was very thankful for that, but here's the family, family.

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Anyway, number three, strong character. What do you look for in a pastor? Strong character.

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No pastor is perfect, but I do want a pastor whose character is above reproach on moral, family, and financial issues.

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Well, I think that's excellent. If you look at Titus chapter one, you'll see above reproach, I believe twice, for elder qualification.

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And remember, if you're thinking pastor, elder, overseer, bishop, what's another word for elder?

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They're all for the same person, just different duties and different descriptions. And I don't mean bishop like Episcopalian bishop, but bishop in 1

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Timothy 3. And Titus, one kind of description. Anyway, above reproach, people can say things because they can say whatever they want, but it doesn't stick because it's not true.

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That's what above reproach is. If the text wanted to say sinful, there would be no leaders.

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And of course, every leader has his weaknesses and his struggles and his trials, and that is why we have a plurality of elders.

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Those weaknesses can then be covered by other men and their strengths, and then you don't have one guy at the helm, and you get the best of his best and you get the worst of his worst.

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I mean, I remember R .C. saying, I know my theology's not perfect, but I just don't know where the errors are, because if I knew where the errors were,

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I would fix them, right? I would change, I would repent. And I feel that same way. I think that same way.

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I know even from the last 20 years, different nuances in my theology have evolved, have matured, and I think about things differently than I used to.

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I mean, here's one, it's a big one, one Adam to Adam, right? Federal headship.

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I see the world through two people, two public people, Adam and the last Adam, Adam in the garden and then

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Jesus. And I never thought that way early on, but I think that way now. And when it comes to strong character, we have,

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I don't know how I got on that Adam thing, but anyway, back to the moral character. You can say things about people, but they don't stick.

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And that is a qualification, because if they did stick, then it would put a blight on the church and the people and all that.

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So we're not asking, oh, I know, we're not asking for our pastors to be perfect, because they never could be.

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But they should have an evidence in their life that they have been born again and that they are mature.

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And 1 John 2 talks about children, young men, and fathers in the realm of spiritual maturity.

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And you've got the children and they just know their daddy, they're young men, they understand how to discern the evil one, and then the fathers have this really close relationship with the

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Lord. We want to have strong character. And I think if you are on a search committee and you don't look over the qualifications of elder, then there's something wrong.

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I've always found it fascinating when you talk to potential pastors and elders and you ask them, do you think in your own mind that there's enough evidence of the

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Holy Spirit's work in your life that you are qualified for 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1 qualifications for an elder?

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I mean, you ask that to a guy, I mean, what's he going to say? Well, yeah, but you know, this is the

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Lord's work in my life. If you would have known me before I was saved, if you would have known me as a new Christian. Most of the time when people think they should be elders, they shouldn't.

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When they think they should not be, but the Lord's working in them anyway, those are the kind of men that you want.

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So on No Compromise Radio today, we just looked at how do you hire a pastor? What do you look for? And this wasn't a bad list.

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I think I might do another list a little bit later, but this love of congregation, effective preaching, and strong character.

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I might change up the order a little bit and we've changed a few things, but that is a good list. And if you want to hire a new pastor, maybe

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I could help out. Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Let me know. 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 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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