Church Unity (Part 2)

No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

The Darkened Mind and the Progression of Sin

It's not that people are stupid. It's not that they don't have higher IQs than we do. But the mind that is made to receive the revelation from God and respond with worship and praise and honor that says, I will worship and praise and honor myself.

God gives them over to a what kind of mind? A depraved kind of mind. For as a man thinks within himself, so he is. Show me someone that's an unbeliever with a futile mind and I'll show you a lawless, immoral person.

That's what Paul's after here. Show me someone who says, I'm not going to use my mind to exalt the triune God. I'm going to exalt myself and everything else and I'll show you someone that has unbelief leading to lawlessness, then leads to immorality.

And that's exactly what Paul says here in Ephesians chapter 4. They've got a defective mind. Sin leads to more sin. The punishment Augustine said of sin is more sin. So look at what verse 18 says. By the way, as we read this, I hope you say to yourself, I'm glad this isn't me anymore.

I'm glad it's not me driving down Santa Monica Boulevard and I was going to church, coming home from church one day and a guy who I wish I knew his name to this day, I'd forgotten his name. He looked at me and everybody was going around telling their conversion stories and are you a Christian?

Are you not? And I said, I'm a Christian and he looked at me and he goes, you are? I wanted to just punch him because he made me look bad in front of other people, but he knew my lifestyle and it starts with the mind and when the mind goes, then it turns to lawlessness and immorality.

And look what happens. Verse 18, being darkened in their understanding, doesn't that sound like first Corinthians? They can't discern because they don't have the spirit. The first effect is they're darkened.

The second effect is they're excluded from the life of God, alienated. There's a source for that because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts. Their hearts are calloused.

Our hearts were calloused. Verse 19 and they having become callous have given themselves over to sensuality. See it starts with the mind. The mind goes and doesn't worship God with heart, soul, mind and strength and then it turns into immorality.

For the practice of every kind of impurity and then don't, aren't these words haunting to you? With greediness, with greediness, it's never enough. These people have become callous. They've lost all sensitivity and they rationalize sin all as long as no one gets hurt and they give themselves over.

This is not God with a gun to the head, sin more, sin more, sin more. These are themselves. They have a mission. They're sold out. They have 110 involvement into this with greediness. After all, idols demand sacrifices and if the idol is a false God, then that false God has to be worshiped.

The Spiritual Person Discerns All Things

Back to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. So, Bethlehem Bible Church, since God has saved us, because God has made you alive in Christ Jesus, this isn't us. This isn't biblical wisdom. This is worldly wisdom that says we're going to follow people.

We're going to split. We're going to run our own way. We're going to do things like we used to do. And the fourth motivation is found in verse 15, if it were not for the grace of God you would never appraise things properly.

You wouldn't appraise things properly. Verse 15. Isn't this fascinating? The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. Now before you go, oh, that's great, nobody can judge me, I've got a verse, judge not lest you be judged.

Well, I got a return verse, I'm judged to be judged by no one. Let's take a look at this. The spiritual person, the natural person, no spirit. The spiritual person, indwelt by the spirit of God, a Christian, judges all things.

By the way, this is not a great translation because the word isn't really judge. It's to investigate. It's not crino, it's anacrino. It's to investigate. It's to examine. It's to discern. The spiritual person examines all things.

But is himself to be examined by no one. Now let's think about this. If unbelievers can't understand the things of the spirit, they don't accept them, they think it's folly, they can't spiritually appraise, could they look at your life and say, you're holy, you're godly, you're walking in tune with the spirit, you're a Christian.

Could they look at your life without a decoder ring, without a way to analyze, without some kind of standard, without illumination, could they look at you and judge your life with an investigative judgment that says, you are a Christian and you aren't a Christian.

You're a growing Christian. You're an immature Christian. You're some kind of Christian struggling with this sin. Your issue theologically is this. Your problem philosophically with religion is this. Can they do that?

Well, the text says they can't. Because they don't have it in them. They could say, you know, you call yourself a Christian and you're living with your girlfriend, you ought not to do that. They could say that, but with this deep investigation, this examination, they can't do it.

Because how do you draw a conclusion about discernment without the spirit of God? I just put my elbow on this thing and closed my eyes for a second, I almost fell over. Wouldn't that have been an emphatic point?

That would have been a sign for you to pay attention to this sermon. Pastor just slew himself in the spirit while he was preaching. Nancy, by the way, I love you. If I'm tired, you must be exhausted. I'm glad you're here to worship your Savior today in spite of all that.

We love you. We can't be judged by unbelievers when it comes to spiritual things because they're incapable of judging. But we're capable of judging. We have the standard. We have the Word of God. We have divine wisdom.

We can make correct assessments because we have the objective standard called the Word of God. Number five, if it were not for the grace of God, you would think you could instruct God, verse 16a. First, you wouldn't accept, then you'd think it's foolish, then you couldn't understand, then you couldn't appraise things.

But for us, it's all the flip side is true for Christians. We do accept, we welcome the truth. We think it's wise, not foolish. We can understand spiritual things. We can appraise things. And if we've received all these things, then just get in line.

Why be prideful when every one of these has been received? And then Paul says, if it wasn't for the grace of God, you'd think you could instruct God. Verse 16, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?

From Isaiah chapter 40. The ignorance of an unbeliever now turns to arrogance. It's not just ignorance, but it's arrogance. And people say things like this, and you can tell they're wanting to instruct the Word of God.

This is akin to Peter saying, Jesus, sit down, shut up, and let me tell you about your future. And what did Jesus say to Peter? Get thee behind me, Satan. This is the unbelieving mind that says, I'm going to tell you who you are, God, and I'm going to fashion a God in my own image out of my little idol-making factory called the heart.

And I'll tell you. And people say this. Well, and they're talking to you about, you know, the God of the Bible. Well, my God is like this. Well, my God, he wouldn't elect people before foundations of the world.

Well, my God wouldn't damn people. Well, my God wouldn't just have Jesus as the only Savior. And I think, your God is nonexistent, and it's a figment of your own imagination because there's only one God, and you're trying to instruct God.

God, I just, you know, you're just too righteous for me. You're just too holy for me. You're just too just for me. What does the world do? I'll tell you who you should be, God. I'm sick of all the holiness.

I want love. And not, by the way, not agape love. I want the love that is sentimental, sappy, superfluous. When we were unbelievers, we thought we could teach God a lesson or two. Corinth, you used to tell God who he was.

You used to pick the gods that you wanted. I'll never forget the one time I... First time I went to India, I met a young man, and I needed directions. I was lost someplace. I was by myself, and I told...

He said, well, what are you doing here? And I said, I'm here to teach the Bible to other pastors. And he said, oh. He said, that's good because, you know, it's spiritual and everything. And I said, are you a Christian?

He said, no, no. I said, well, what gods do you worship? Now, he's about 25 years old, and if you're a 25-year-old young man, what gods do you worship? I'll tell you what the three gods were. I don't know the names of them anymore.

These were the gods, the sex god, the money god, and the strength god. And I said, see that sun up there? The one God in the universe made that sun and put it up there. And then he said, the street that you're looking for is right down over there.

We've come from a position of, we used to tell God what he could be like, and then now we really are instructed by God. And Paul's saying here again, big picture, show me a fractured church, and I'll show you rival people and rival parties following truth in their mind proudly.

So be humble and say, everything I have, I've received from God. I'm no longer what I used to be. By the grace of God, I am this way, and I should act in concert with who I am. My position in Christ Jesus should flow out into its practice.

Can we use these verses for evangelistic knowledge ahead of time? What will the unbeliever respond with? What is he capable to respond with? Of course, we can. But I don't want to run there too fast. Who has understood the mind of the Lord so to instruct him?

You can't figure God out unless he tells you. And he's told us through the Spirit of God in chapter 2. This was us. This was you. And I can just sense, I don't use this in a mystical way, but I could just feel Satan driving this kind of theology that says, we're going to just tell God what he's like.

Did God really say? Did the God of the Bible really say that? You can just feel the God of the world, the powerful evil one, driving this kind of thing. Sometime, we don't have time to read them right now, but I like Job 38.

Who's the one who really should be asking the questions? People or God? Job thought he would instruct God. Can you imagine? Okay, class. I love teaching Sunday school classes and other classes. All right, everybody come in and here's the goal of the class today.

I know something you don't know and I'm going to teach you. I might not say it that way, but that's what we do in Sunday school, right? I'm the teacher. I know something you don't know, I teach you. So can you imagine having God listen to Job, listen to Job, listen to Job, listen to Job, and then God said, now it's time for class, Job, and I have a few questions for you.

And if you get a few right, maybe I'll answer you some other questions. But I'm asking you the questions. This is the way it should be. Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man.

I will question you and you make it known to me. Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determines its measurements? Surely you know. Who stretched the line upon it?

Or what were its bases sunk? On what were its bases sunk? Who laid its cornerstone? Satan driving the unbeliever, using false preachers, false prophets to deceive the unbelievers, blinding them, snatching the truth from them.

The Mind of Christ and Unity in the Church

And number six, the sixth motivation designed so you can stay humble, realizing we've received everything, realizing who we would have been without the Spirit of God so that we can stay unified is found at the end of verse 16.

And you'll see the contrast here between natural man and spiritual man. If it were not for the grace of God, number six, you could never understand God's thoughts. And now said positively in the verse, verse 16, but we have the mind of Christ.

We're not this way. We're not stiff-arming God. We know exactly what God is thinking. We don't know everything he's ever thought because he's an infinite God. But we know everything that he's told us, everything that he wants us to know.

The scriptures are sufficient. We have the mind of Christ. You can think what God thinks. And we talked about this last week. I've been married for 21 years now, and there's lots of times I have no idea what my wife is thinking.

More times than not, she's looking at me and she said, I have no idea what you're thinking. How do I know my wife's thoughts? The main way I know, the only way I really know, is when she what? Tells me.

And God has told us. He has given us his revelation, and we know. And we know what it says about unity and lining up under people. We have the mind of Christ. And I say this with all due respect, but I think it makes the point.

Jesus isn't schizophrenic. Jesus isn't schizophrenic. So why would we, the redeemed people of God, who owe God love and duty and honor and worship, and our minds are meant to receive revelation, why would we act schizophrenically in the local church, everybody following everybody else?

I've said many times before, if the elders operated like the Church of Corinth, what would we have? Answer, chaos. Can you imagine, we say, well, you know, the way I like to make decisions is I kind of need a little burning in my bosom.

I need to have a peace about it. I need to kind of feel good about it and confident. And can you imagine Dave Jeffery saying that? Let's make a decision, you know, should we sell the church or not? Should we church discipline someone or not?

Well, you know, there's kind of an open door to do it. Maybe we should take that open door. How do we make decisions as a church? How are we all lined up? This church is more diverse than Wes Boylston is.

What explains that? Why is that? Why do we have a congregational meeting here on Sunday nights? Some of you still won't come because you think it's town hall. And we get up and nobody stands up and yells, hollers, gossips, slanders, or talks behind people's backs.

Why is that? Because we aren't unbelievers. We don't act like natural men. Oh, we sin. But we don't act that way anymore because we've been bought with a price and the spirit of God illumines our mind and we have one single standard, the mind of Christ.

True? And so Paul says, line up under the mind of Christ. We used to follow our father as unbelievers. Father Satan. And now we follow our father who is always in concert with the son, who is always in concert with the spirit.

If you don't believe in the Trinity, I ask you to read 1 Corinthians chapter two where you'll see the father, you'll see the son, the Lord of glory, and you'll see the spirit of God over and over and over.

One God in three persons, co-equal, all showing himself to us so that we line up under him. Show me a church that's unified and I'll show you a church by the grace of God that lines up underneath the word of God.

This is the authority. Show me a church that starts to split and I'll show you people that say this is the authority, but really following people is the ultimate authority. Now, let me just say this before we close.

Evangelism, Apologetics, and the Glory of Christ

This verse in verse 14 is helpful in evangelism, isn't it? I'm not saying you can't think about this with evangelism. When you go preach the gospel to someone, if the spirit of God is not working in their heart, what can you expect right off the get-go?

Wonderful. You're going to expect what? They won't accept it. They'll actually reject it. They're gonna think, first of all, it's foolish and then I'm foolish. And then they're gonna say, you know, I just don't get it.

What about that verse? Well, what about that verse? I used to go to Gold's Gym in North Hollywood and I started to evangelize this guy and he said, I'd believe if I could just figure out these verses how they go together.

And I did all my homework. I gave him this big sheet and he goes, well, that's pretty good, but what about these verses? And then what about these verses? And it's over and over and over. So what's the only thing that's going to help you in your evangelism?

Science, rationalism, empiricism? No, you give them the word of God. There's a crusade given to those, excuse me, a survey given to those who are training for Billy Graham crusades in Detroit. And this was a question asked, what is your greatest hindrance to witnessing?

9 said they were too busy to remember to do it. 28 said they felt the lack of real information to share. 12 said their own lives were not speaking as they should. But the largest group, 51 of the people, what's your greatest hindrance to witnessing?

51 said their biggest fear is how people would react. What are they going to do? So I might as well clear it up right now. Unless the spirit of God's working, they won't accept it. They'll think it's stupid.

They'll think you're stupid and they can't understand it. But God has told us to give the good news. The Great Commission to preach Luke 24, repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations, starting in Jerusalem.

Because God saves through the preaching of his word. I'd go so far to say in my evangelistic teaching that you need to remember in light of this verse that there is something more important than saving souls.

When you evangelize and you say, at the top of my priority, why am I going out today? Well, I don't wanna look good. I don't know that. I want people to get saved. If that's the top priority you have, you've failed.

What is the ultimate goal in evangelism? In spite of how people respond to me, I'm going to preach, here it is, for the glory of Christ Jesus. And I'm gonna talk about him and I'm gonna talk about his work.

I'm gonna talk about his person. I'm gonna talk about how he's a great miracle worker, how he is virgin born, fully God, fully man. I'm gonna talk about his death, his burial, his resurrection. And if Jesus Christ is happy with my message, then I will come to just live with rejection, rebuffing, stiff-arming, and a lack of understanding.

But when God wants to open their eyes and quicken them, they will be quickened. If you say to yourself, I gotta ask the question, like yesterday at the funeral service, so many of those Special Olympic families came and I was so pleased.

Just saw, I said to somebody, I think it was Ray, I said, there's not gonna be that many people come to my funeral. Ray said, I met this guy, he was a big shot corporate America guy and he influenced thousands of people and 40 show up to the funeral.

And here little Blake, 18 year old kid, influencing so many people. And if my question to those friends of Blake is this, I need to get you saved, then I might water down the gospel because man's propensity is to reject, not to accept, to think it's foolish.

So let me craft it in a way that can penetrate better. But if I ask this question, how is God glorified the most? How is God glorified the most? By telling those people that love Blake, there's one savior of sinners.

This is the gospel. You have no other hope outside Jesus Christ and him alone. The crucified savior who rose from the dead and calls you to repent and believe. And let's ask God to save people through the message preached that they think is foolish, that they can't understand.

But when the spirit of God attends, he takes Corinthians and turns them into saints. Every single one of those Corinthians that was a Christian, they were the same way. Every one of those Corinthians didn't understand, they were natural, they didn't accept, they thought it was stupid and they got the stiff arm.

They were stiff arming God and they said, I'm gonna teach you God. And then God makes them alive. So if I save people, I've got to fashion my message. But if I know God saves, I need to be faithful to deliver the message.

I never want to have some kind of evangelism outreach program. We come back here and we say, now let's talk about it. How many people did you lead to the Lord? Well, that's gonna be bad because what you're gonna end up doing is saying, this is how I chopped down the message to make it more palatable so people didn't think that the foolish message was so foolish.

When people say, I believe, you know what I say? Hallelujah. And then I go, let's just see, time will tell. Good job, way to go, way to believe, keep on believing. Apologetics, my friends, the main place for apologetics is to strengthen Christians.

Pastor, do you believe in apologetics? Yes, I do. For Christians, archeology, prophecy, history, that's good for you. But show me a person who's a natural man who says, I won't accept the spirit of God.

I won't accept spiritual things. I think it's all foolishness. I don't wanna talk about forgiveness and all that and say, well, I've got a couple archeological digs I'd like to show you. Friends, the word of God is the power.

The gospel is the power of salvation to all who believe. Corinthians and BBC as well. Unbelievers always and only get saved through the preaching of the gospel that can turn natural people into spiritual people.

And people have been turned into spiritual people from natural people. Ought to say, we have received everything. Let us now line up under the word of God and not be prideful and cause divisions.

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.