Classic Friday: Thankfulness or Jesus (Part 1)

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.

Thanksgiving, Luke 17, and the Trap of Moralizing

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I�m sitting here in the studio today. In real time, it is two days after Thanksgiving. It was nice to spend Thanksgiving in New York City with my wife and a couple kids, a couple children, and it�s good to be back home.

But I heard some kind of rumbling sound. I thought it was the water heater. It�s the Keurig. I�m not a big Keurig fan, but at least they make them with Pete�s coffee, so I�m happy for that because I don�t bring my French press into the NoCo studios.

So after sitting and watching the Macy�s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I thought we need a NoCo float. So I usually don�t ask for money on No Compromise Radio, but I think I might have to start asking for donations for the NoCo float.

And if we don�t get enough money and we don�t get into the actual parade, then I get to use the money for NoCo purposes. Again, this is going to be delayed a little bit, but that�s okay because it�s going to be a biblical show.

If you had to pick the Thanksgiving passage of all time, the Thanksgiving passage of all Thanksgiving passages, maybe your pastor has even preached it during Thanksgiving weekend. He could have preached it before the Sunday before, he could have preached it in the Wednesday evening service.

Maybe you actually had a Thanksgiving Day service if you�re really godly. And then you had maybe the Sunday after Thanksgiving. This is the Thanksgiving passage of all time. Out of all the books of the Bible, out of all the chapters of the Bible, if you had to go to a passage so you could talk about Thanksgiving, what might it be?

Now certainly, if you went to 1 Thessalonians 5, it is God�s will for you to what? To give thanks. As a matter of fact, I�m going to look up that verse right now because I think that is apropos. 1 Thessalonians 5, it says in verse 16, �Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Now maybe that�s at the top of the list. You know, you say to me, if I was using the Heidelberg Catechism with guilt, grace, and.

Gratitude, that would work.

But remember, we�re asking for the no-compromise Thanksgiving passage of all time. Now, I think I should make a disclaimer, first of all. I�ve done what I�m going to preach against. I�m not going to do it anymore, but I�ve done it.

And so if you have a pastor that preaches this passage in this particular Thanksgiving way, on this particular Thanksgiving day plus two, D-Day plus two, Thanksgiving Day, Turkey Day, T-Day, then you need to be patient.

You need to be kind. There�s a way to approach a man who is just a man, right? The pastor is just a man, he�s not the mediator, he�s not the advocate. It�s one thing if Jesus would preach inappropriately, he would preach a passage out of its context.

But he always did the right thing, he always preached the right way, and so we stand in Christ Jesus and, you know, the list, theological list can go on, et cetera. Where is Ted? Ted no longer exists, I never hear from Ted anymore.

Our linguist friend, linguist friend, linguistic friend, Noam Chomsky friend. And so let me read you the passage and you will say, �Oh, yes, I have preached that.

I have heard that. I have taught that.

I have thought that. This is the passage of all passages when it comes to Thanksgiving. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee, that is, Jesus. As he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying, �Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

When he saw them, he said to them, �Go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus� feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, �Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner And he said to him, �Rise and go your way.

Your faith has made you well. Luke 17, 11 -19. What was the point of the passage? How did you teach that passage? How would you teach that passage? Now before I give you the answer on how not to teach it, and by the way, the way you think you should teach it is not the way you should teach it.

What you want to say, don't say.

This is a heads up.

Don't say this yet, because you're going to be wrong, allegedly. I should probably add the hashtag, �henno. Remember, that's the insider. If you want to be the no-co-insider, it's �henno because my grandmother, Nona, would always answer the phone, �henno.

And we'd say, �Grandma, don't answer the phone, henno. It's �hello. And so you know how people say, �hello like something weird happens, a weird theological aberration, some strange thing, �henno.

So when Rick Warren spoke at the Catholic Deal, I didn't say �henno because that's just par for the course, �henno. So before I answer the question in Luke 17, 11 -19, my name's Mike Cabendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can follow us at Twitter at NoCoRadio. For years, I sent out, for 20 years, I think I sent out four or five theological articles per week, just to a general list, anybody who wanted to be on the list, and about six months ago, I just stopped that.

So whatever time I have for that kind of thing, it goes to some Twittering. And for those of you who don't know Hootsuite, you ought to know Hootsuite, because then you can just type in the stuff, schedule it, and then go about your day.

Go off to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I'm telling you, that kind of thing, it's a bad way to start Thanksgiving Day. Now, I have it set. I just have the wife of all wives, and she got up at six, and she brought the lawn chairs down.

She saved the spots right there on 41st Street, and we just sauntered on in. Well, we had to push and shove to get up there, but I just brought her, like, some oatmeal and some tea. We just sauntered in at nine o 'clock, and then we could see Gene Simmons at ten o 'clock, when the highlight of the parade is Gene Simmons.

He's the only guy I recognize. There's all these young singers and stuff, and I don't know any of them. You know, my daughters, they knew who the people were, but I had no idea who these people.

Were.

None. So, we're back to topic here, Luke 17. How do you teach this passage where the ten lepers are cleansed, and only one comes back to thank Jesus? So, let's talk a little bit about hermeneutics first, because that helps us, right?

It's not going to do you any good if I just tell you the answer. We need to figure out, how do you get to the answer? And so, hermeneutics tries to understand authorial intent. Hermeneutics tries to figure out what God has said in holy writ.

Hermeneutics tries to determine the meaning of the Word of God. And so, we have God who speaks, right, in nature, natural revelation, general revelation. And God also speaks through His Son, but in these last days, of course, we just have His Word, apostolic messengers.

We have scripture.

And so, we need to figure out what God has said. If God speaks in other ways, we need to figure that out, but we need now to take our responsibility and figure out what God has said. So, hermeneutics, if you had to simply describe it, it is the science and art of biblical interpretation.

And so, you have these principles that you learn in hermeneutics, and then you use the principles to do the actual exegesis. So, when you really start to interpret, you're doing exegesis, but you're using principles and rules that you've learned, which are called hermeneutics.

Bernard Ram said, the rule book is written, now let me back up, hermeneutics stands in the same relationship to exegesis, that a rule book stands to a game. The rule book is written in terms of reflection, analysis, experience.

The game is played by concrete actualization of the rule. The rules are not the game. The game is meaningless without the rules. Hermeneutics proper is not exegesis, but exegesis is applied hermeneutics.

So, what we're after is, what does the Bible really say? What's its normal meaning, its plain meaning, its literal meaning? I didn't say wooden literal. We have one sense of understanding scripture, Tyndale said, and that is the literal sense.

And so, you can imagine with hermeneutics, there are pitfalls and hindrances of wrong hermeneutics. There are errors when it comes to Bible interpretation. Now, there are many of them, but let me just give you a couple, so we see Luke 17 with the proper lenses, our lens.

Why Spiritualizing Bible Stories Misses the Point

So, if you have a Matthew 28 sermon, the angel has rolled the stone away. Remember, Jesus has been raised from the dead. You might hear sermons about rolling away the stones in your life. You know, you've got anxiety stones, you've got kidney stones, you've got anger stones, you've got doubt stones, and you need to roll those away.

That's spiritualization. David picks up five stones, speaking of stones, and God had David slay the giant Goliath. And you've got Goliath-sized giant problems in your life, don't you? And God will help you slay those giants.

You probably got some things in your life that need a little attention. And so, your walls need to be rebuilt. And you preach Nehemiah because God helps Nehemiah rebuild his walls, and you've got some walls in your life that need rebuilding.

It's pretty stormy in that boat on Galilee, and Jesus, of course, calms the storm. And I bet, if I know you, especially you know co-listeners, that you've got storms in your life and they need some calming.

This is called the error of spiritualization. You spiritualize the topics. Now, I know, I know, I'm trying to be nicer as I get older. There are topics of anxiety and doubt and fear and other things that the Bible does address and the Bible does speak to.

But we don't want to take the wrong verses and turn them into something that they don't mean to make our point. That's what cults do. That's what false teachers do. And so, if we're going to talk about Thanksgiving, we should go to 1 Thessalonians and talk about thankfulness.

I mean, the Bible does express how important, excuse me, it is to be thankful. After all, don't the unbelievers show themselves to be unbelievers, Romans chapter 1, because they did not honor God nor give Him?

That's right.

Thanks.

So, we don't want to spiritualize issues, because that'd be bad hermeneutics, and we don't want to moralize issues. We don't want to make a moral out of non-moral stories, okay? We want to do something though, don't we?

I mean, come on. You know, in every seeker-sensitive church, you know deep down because you're wired like I'm wired, and that is we have a works-do list, don't list hangover from the fall. We are still battling our Pelagian ideas that we do things, we earn things, we get things done, and that makes God really happy with us.

And so, moralizing has its proponents, and we are its proponents, right? We want to do something. And so, going back to David, he picks up five stones, and he is super courageous, and you know what? What's the storyline with David killing Goliath?

Lack of faith because he picked up five stones and not one? We never hear that part, now, do we? It is David was, let's see, he's courageous, and you ought to be courageous, too. That's moralizing. That's taking the story and saying, you know what?

Hermeneutics thrown out the window, applied hermeneutics, which is exegesis, now tossed out the window as well, and so if you, you know, you say to yourself, Nehemiah, he's a great leader, and he wanted good things for the people, and pastors need to be good leaders, and they want good things to happen there, Boaz was kind, you be kind, Ruth was kind, you be kind, I mean, the list goes on and on.

You find a Bible character, here's how it typically goes. You find a Bible character, and you see something that they don't do, and you're glad they don't do it, and then you say, you shouldn't do that either.

And so, same thing, you find a Bible character, they do something that they should do, it's a virtuous thing, it's a good thing, and then you say, oh yeah, you should do the same thing. That's called moralism.

There's lots of reasons why moralism is bad, but one of the reasons it's bad is it's not Christian. Oh yeah, I'm forgetting about depravity when it comes to moralism. David was depraved, Adam was depraved, Abraham was depraved, Moses was depraved.

These people are sinful, and of course, if you read the Bible long enough, you'll see their sins. And we also forget about sovereign grace when we think of moralism, and so, I love MacArthur's Little Bo Peep preaching.

Back in the day, he would do this every Shepherds Conference, I don't know, I've probably been to 20, 25 Shepherds Conferences, something like that. You think I figured it out by now? Shouldn't just one do the trick?

And MacArthur, to show the error of moralism, would do the Little Bo Peep preaching, and his point was this. You don't need the Bible to teach moralistic little ditties, sermonettes. You don't need the Bible to do it because you can use anything else you want, like Little Bo Peep, and she has lost her sheep.

Did you know people all across the world, all across this planet, they're lost? They're lost, and you don't know where to find them. They don't know where they are, you don't know where they are, they're lost everywhere.

But they'll come home, oh, they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 17, we are not like many peddling the Word of God. We don't want to be deceitful people. Have you ever bought something in a marketplace downtown on the streets of New York, and you buy it and you think, wait a second, that's not a Tag Watch, that's a fake, that's not a Movado, that's fake, I don't even know the names of these watches anymore, practically.

I did walk down Park Ave, and I walked down Madison Avenue, and we realized really quickly that we couldn't afford to even go in the shops, who shops there? We don't want to be sloppy with the scriptures.

Jesus Is the Point of the Gospels

And so, back to point here in Luke 17, Jesus cleanses the 10 lepers, and one comes back to say thanks. That's what people use to say you should be thankful. That's the passage that pastors, I've done it before, I looked at my old notes, I did a Thanksgiving Eve service, I don't know, I don't do those now because it's nice to share the pulpit, and see, that's a good moral story too, share the pulpit, be nice, train up other leaders.

Oh, that's actually biblical. And I've taught it wrongly before. So Jesus heals the 10 lepers, and one comes back to say thank you. And the point of the passage is, what we say to the people, is you ought to be thankful.

Unthankfulness is a sin, thankfulness is righteous, it's the response of a person who's saved. Now, what I just said was all true, see, that's the rub, it just sounds so good, it sounds so right. You give 100 evangelicals, who even listen to No Compromise Radio, and you give them that passage and say, how would you teach it?

And I'm saying, no, I'm not mad, I mean, because I'm busted myself. How do you bust yourself? Maybe that's moralism, maybe that's spiritualization of the passage of the radio show. This is the longest 18 minute introduction that I can find.

What do you do? How do you solve the point? What is the main point? Some call it the importance of gratitude. Others say, quote, we should each be truly thankful for what Jesus has done for us. What would you say?

The leper was thankful, you ought to be thankful too. We have to watch out for the trap of moralism. And it's especially dangerous in narratives, it's especially dangerous with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Gospels, which are all about Jesus.

If I had to ask you, what's the point of John? You should say Jesus. Now, if you don't say the deity of Christ, okay, that's fine. But just think even more generally, if John is about Jesus, Matthew, what's Matthew about?

Who's Matthew about? Hmm, you're right, Jesus. Mark?

Jesus. Luke?

Hmm.

Jesus.

How about this one?

It's a trick question.

Acts.

What's Acts about? Remember, written by Luke, and you call it the Acts of the Apostles? Nah, not the best title. The Acts of the Holy Spirit, better, but the Acts of Jesus would be probably the best way to put it.

And you can look at the book of Acts and read through it to see if you agree with me after you read it. So, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, the Gospel of Mark.

Remember, they're not really, that's, that's, that's, it's not really wrong to say in the sense of, you know, catch somebody in a sin if they say it that way. But it is more right, it is righter, it is more better.

See Ted, we're missing Ted. It is the best to say, the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, according to John. Or if you're high church, St. John, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to St. Matthew, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to St. Mark, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to St. Luke.

It is about Jesus Christ. And so every one of these books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and I, of course, I know you're going to say in light of Luke 24 and John chapter five, that every book in the entire Bible is about Jesus.

We can talk about to what extent, but we understand that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are about.

Jesus.

And we get the genealogy up front when it comes to Matthew. Luke doesn't give us one, I mean, Luke doesn't give us, yeah, that's correct. Luke doesn't give us one right away, but then we get one. Mark doesn't give us one because Jesus is a servant and servants don't necessarily have these wonderful genealogies.

John, we have a genealogy. Did you know there's a genealogy in John? Yes, it's from the divine perspective in the beginning was the word. And so remember, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John are all about Jesus.

They're about Jesus. And so that should tell you hermeneutically right up front. It's not about, it's not about, it's not about me. Now it is about my response. These things are written so that you might believe that is true, but they're not about.

You.

They're about Jesus. They're about Jesus so that you might understand who he is, that you might believe in him, that you might respond with following and respond after you've believed in him with obedience and all those kinds of things that you might love him and everything else, but they're about Jesus.

So if Matthew is about Jesus, Mark is about Jesus, Luke is about Jesus, and John is about.

Jesus.

We read what Jesus does in Luke 17, how he heals 10 lepers. Why do we default to the moral? That story is thankfulness.

It's about Jesus.

Now next time on No Compromise Radio, we're going to respond to this question. What does it tell us about Jesus? And so we know, first of all, this is about Jesus. You know, we always joke about Sunday school and kids and, you know, if there's a junior church, by the way, our junior church at Bethlehem Bible Church is in fact, that messages about Jesus to young people until they're old enough to sit still and go back with their parents.

I'm not one of these junior churches wicked, no, because you have the oxygen comes down and you give it to the parents first and we have brand new Christian parents. We have unbelieving parents, unbelieving Christian parents, and they just come and they don't know how to train a kid.

So we'll take your kid for a little bit, give them the real message of Jesus, and then we want to get them back with the parents right away. But I digress. These stories are about Jesus. These narratives are about Jesus.

Guess what your sermon should be. I hope when you teach from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they're about Jesus. And so next time on No Compromise Radio, we're going to look in depth at Luke chapter 17.

What does the passage, the thanksgiving passage of all time, teach us about the Lord Jesus.

Christ?

My guess is it teaches us something so great about Jesus that you'll want to respond with praise and honor and maybe, maybe later down the line you'll want to respond with thanks.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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