Boasting (Part 2)

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No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

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Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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

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Number two, if you consider God's choice as sovereign, you will never boast in people. If you consider

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God's choice as sovereign, you will never boast in people. Now first he says, think about your humble origins.

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Now he's going to give a theological statement. And this theological statement has the same design as the cross.

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And that is to make you think that's not how the world does it. And God gets all the glory. Now, for those of you that don't like this following language, it's in the

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Bible, I don't know what to tell you. And you'll see three times in this verse, verse 27 and verse 28,

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God has chosen. God is sovereign and he chooses. God by definition chooses.

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Verse 27, look at these three times where God chooses. This is not salvation.

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This is God choosing this kind of person. We're not talking about some kind of election. We're talking about the general decree of God's sovereignty.

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He just chooses these kind of people. Verse 27, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

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And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despised.

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God has chosen the things that are not that he might nullify the things that are.

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Corinth, you're not mighty, you're not wise, you're not strong, you're not noble, nor did you just stumble into this relationship with Jesus.

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One day I was walking around and I was in the temple, a temple taught prostitution was going on. And the next minute

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I thought, oh, by chance, by luck, by fortuitous fortune, I'm now following Jesus. God has chosen.

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He didn't stumble into anything great. God chose them to hear it. He has a purpose for that.

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Why? Because if he picks the great people, the church grows. Everybody goes, what? The great people grew the church.

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And if he picks the losers, the nothings and the church grows and the word, like in Acts 12, multiplies, everyone says,

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God is great. James is dead. Peter's in jail. And the word increases. The first God has chosen,

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God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, to shame the wise.

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Now, by the way, if you read this like I first read it, to shame the wise, to make them feel guilty, kind of the pangs of subjective guilt.

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No, this is eternal disgrace, eternal shame. That one day on judgment day, there will be plenty of shame.

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And that's what he's talking about. Look at the second one. God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong.

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That's his plan. Pick the low. Pick the despised. Pick the weak. Pick the sinful.

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And the base things of the world. The low born, low birth, despicable people he chooses.

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God has chosen the things that are not. This is the wildest one, the non -existent.

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All right, here we go. This word means the nothings. God has chosen the nothings of the world.

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How's your self -esteem doing? The nothings. He chooses the nothings.

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I think forget seeker -sensitive church services. We're going to start something brand new around here. It's called the nothing service.

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If you're a nobody, please come. Boy, they're going to be lined up down 110, aren't they, for that? He chooses the empty set people.

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He chooses the null people. And of course, think about what

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Paul is doing. The Corinthians glorify men. Oh, this is

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Socrates. This is Barnabas. This is Plato. This is Paul.

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We'll follow all them. And Paul says, the inspired word of God through Paul, they're nobodies.

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I did some study. When a man of rank among the Hindus speaks of low caste persons, he calls them in Hindi those who are not.

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They're not scholars and Brahmins. They're not even merchants or workers. They're the lowest on the rung of the caste system in India.

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They're untouchables. That's the idea here. God picks the people who aren't even in the caste system in India.

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And you want to know the wildest thing? Here's your interesting point of the day. To emphasize this,

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Paul doesn't even use personal pronouns. He uses a neuter. He doesn't even call them people.

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You see what's going on here? Look at verse 27. Things, things, things.

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Three times in verse 27 and two times in verse 28. Things, things.

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He chooses its. It's like having people in your home and their servants and you call them the help.

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No personal pronoun. It's like when you see a bunch of people killed, people say that that's the body count.

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So little value. They're not even individuals. Why does he do this?

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That he might nullify or render inoperative the things that are. So we're going to boast in the right kind of person.

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The God man. John Newton knew it.

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Listen to this. Young Christians think themselves little. Growing Christians think themselves nothing.

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Full grown Christians think themselves less than nothing. That's 1

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Corinthians. So if something happens, nobody goes, wow. It was my pastor,

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James Boyce. It was my pastor, R .C. Sproul. It was all these things. No, it was

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God and God alone. By the way, that's why I. All right, let's just be frank.

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Just between us. I'm turning the tape off. I'll go for hyperbole and then

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I'll back up. Self -esteem doctrine that's being promoted today is satanic.

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It's sinful. That's not a hyperbole. It's horrible. Feel good about yourself.

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Promote yourself. I found a few just horrible illustrations of this in the last 10 years.

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That takes the boasting away from God and puts it on a creature. By the way, a finite creature.

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By the way, a sinful creature. Whitney Houston's song, The Greatest Love of All, has a line, learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

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How'd that work out for her? If you receive worship, do God and God alone.

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It is a rare person that can accept that without going haywire. Show me a celebrity that receives self -worship from eight years old and I'll show you somebody who's in drug rehab and suicide and everything else.

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Peter McWilliams, author of Love 101. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

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Who else is more qualified to love you than you? Who else knows what you want precisely when you want it and is always around to supply it?

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Now, Paul would take that person by the throat and say, have you ever heard of a Skolex?

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Melody Beatty, author of Codependent No More, has a chapter entitled, Have a

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Love Affair with Yourself. Don't you see how strange this is? By just looking at one verse, verse 29, we're not to boast before God.

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And looking at one other verse, the positive side, we're to boast in Jesus Christ. Boast in the cross,

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Paul says in Galatians chapter six. Doesn't all this kind of just fade into where it should be? And that is the lunatic asylum for people who want to feel good about themselves.

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I've gotta get my esteem up. No, your esteem needs to go down. Because when you go down, the humble

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God exalts. And those who exalt themselves, what does God do? He humbles them.

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William Carey knew 1 Corinthians chapter one, and here's his tombstone, the great missionary.

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William Carey, born August 17, 1761, died

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June 1834, a wretched, poor, and helpless worm on thy kind arm's eye.

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Self -esteem is a different religion. Self -esteem is sinful.

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There should be no esteeming self. Philippians chapter two says you should esteem what?

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Who? Others more than yourselves. You don't need self -esteem.

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Low self -esteem will not lead to any serious problem in life. You should not build self -esteem in your kids.

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And the Bible says, show me the last days, and I'll show you a day where difficult times come, where people will be, at the top of the list, lovers of themselves.

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And don't say something bad to your kids, because you might emotionally bruise them.

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One person said, regarding this whole self -esteem issue, the Christian church is the major culprit doing the wrong things about self -esteem.

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Stir it up within deep feelings of guilt in people, referring to people as miserable sinners.

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When Lee Strobel says, Madonna's got a problem, and it's a lack of self -esteem, I don't know what to do. You should love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is, you should love your neighbor as yourself.

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There's no three commandments there. Love God, love your neighbor, because you love yourself. As much as I love myself, that's how

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I'm to love my neighbor. That's exactly right. It's not, I've gotta learn to love myself before I can learn to love my neighbor.

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Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men.

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And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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Friends, don't ever forget it. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

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And Spurgeon even knew it a century ago. Poverty of spirit is an absence of self -esteem.

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The world today says, Romans chapter seven, wonderful man that I am. Paul says, wretched man that I am.

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I hate the doctrine of self -esteem because it destroys evangelism. If people think they're good, well, then what do they need the gospel for?

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Let me get all my needs met. And then I think of when Jesus said, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

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I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. How about these words to those who want their self -esteem?

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Jesus said, he who loves his life, what? Loses it. And he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal.

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That's why I say it sounds like a different religion. If anyone wishes to come after me, Luke nine, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

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Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it. At a tax gathering,

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Luke chapter 18, beating his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner.

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Now, I'm not trying to say you ought to say to your kids, you know, when they make a basket and look over at you at the basketball game, you're a wretched sinner.

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You don't do anything right. I don't think if you're in sales, you walk up and say, would you like to buy this

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Xerox machine? And I'm a really a wretched sinner. You can if you want though.

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If you replace kind of self love with self hate, even you're still focusing on self.

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Brownback said, whatever our worth may be, whatever our capacities we may have, whatever may be accomplished through them, as we recognize it, everything of worth finds its ultimate source in God and depends on him for life and meaning and fruitfulness.

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The appropriate response is not self esteem, but adoration of the God who is the source of all.

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That is why the wisest man who ever lived, Solomon said, it is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glory to search out one's own glory.

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We don't even want to think about ourselves. We want to be other oriented. That's the idea like John the Baptist. You say, yeah, but Jesus died for me.

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That proves my self worth. How many times you hear that? Well, God don't make no junk. I always hear people say it that way.

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He don't die for no junk. Don Manzette has a good illustration.

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Listen to what he says. A recent television newscast reported the arraignment of a serial killer who had killed nine people.

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The judge set his bail at $5 million. Nine people dead, $5 million.

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Would we use the same sort of reasoning to conclude that this man should feel good about himself and regard himself as a very valuable human being since the judge set his bail so high?

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He's worth $5 million to society. And here it is.

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The $5 million bail obviously does not reflect the value of the murderer, but the severity of his crime.

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Similarly, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is not a statement of our worth, but indicates the depth of our sin and guilt before God.

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And here in 1 Corinthians, Paul basically says this. When you preach the cross and it saves people like this, like them and like us, people stand back and they can scratch their head all they want and say, human strength did not build that, wisdom did not build that, money did not build that, ingenuity did not build that,

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IQ did not build that, Jesus Christ is building the local church. If you look at verse 29 in 1

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Corinthians 1, here is the purpose, here is the result. When God chooses a strange way to save through the cross and strange people to save us, what is his ultimate intention?

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Verse 29, that no man should boast before God. That boasting is gone, glorying in self is gone.

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And Paul had to remind the church of Corinth that a lot. Verse 21 of chapter three, let no one boast in men.

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2 Corinthians 10, let he who boasts boast in the Lord. 2 Corinthians 11, make sure you boast the right way.

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And look at this passage here in verse 29, I love it. That no one should boast in his presence. You know what that is?

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In his, before his face. It's like if you say, you know, I built this church and you rush up into the presence of God and you get right up close to him in heaven and say,

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I built Bethlehem Bible Church. Let no one boast before him, in God's face.

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No pastor, no congregation, no group, no denomination, no religion, no person, no class, no boasting.

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Churches shouldn't boast in their numbers, assets, buildings, cash, pastors, education, community service, diversity, programs, growth, or hatred of self -esteem.

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No boasting. I have to tell you when

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I go out overseas and I think I've told you this story before. If anybody ever asks me, how many people do you pastor?

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How big's your church? I just, I can't stand it. And sometimes pastors ask me the question, how big's your church?

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So I just lie. I just say 3 ,000. And I don't even smile or anything.

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I just say 3 ,000. And you know what they start doing? Wow, I better listen to you. I'm gonna have your autograph.

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Do you write any books? You can just see the credibility level grows. And then I think, well, I can't let this go on too long.

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So I'll say, I don't know, a couple hundred, 300.

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I used to go look at that book every single week when we were growing 10 years ago and thinking, yeah, we're growing. Then I thought, that's so stupid.

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God is causing the growth and I'm just doing what? Acting stupid is what I'm doing. I don't contribute anything.

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I'm just a mouth person. I thought, you know, I never, people show me the numbers now, but I never wanna go look.

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Tom, could you go get that and just come show that to me? Just kidding. 3 ,000, and I always use the same illustration all the time.

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I use Dan Rathbun's father, who's blind and has been for 30 some years. I don't know how many years he's been blind. So when you meet

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Pastor Rathbun over in Lowell, how big's your church? And what if he said, well, 70 or 80?

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You can't teach me anything. It's nothing. Numbers mean nothing.

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Faithfulness means everything. And God's after, even if the numbers increase, then that's all the

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Lord's sovereign doing anyway. We have to not to be boasting. Oh, we're growing.

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Oh, we gotta get a bigger building. If God wants to do a work, then we boast in the Lord. Look what

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God does. Abendroth tries to run them out and they still come because they want the word of God. Let's boast in God.

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Can you imagine standing before God in heaven and telling God how good you are and how you need a high five and a little knuckle kind of explosion because you kind of work together well?

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By the way, that is why I'm so anti -church growth in terms of human manipulating church growth.

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How do you get people to come? Well, give the visitors a free oil change. If you're a visitor today, sorry, we'll give you maybe a few cookies on the way out and a handshake.

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Just this kind of manipulation to kind of grow the church. I don't want the church to grow unless it's growth given by God.

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Do you? If the Lord could shrink us down to 40 or grow us to 4 ,000, but I don't want to change the way we do things because then if we change the way and tweak it, then people will go, yep,

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Mike, Dave, Pradeep, and Steve are pretty smart. I've made a conscientious effort, even in the last two months, to preach harder because I know if you've got soft hearts, you want hard preaching because you like to have soft hearts all the time.

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Bragging in front of God that we built the church so that no flesh, verse 29, no

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Jew, no Gentile, no person at Corinth, no person at Ephesus, no person here, no person in India, no person in South Africa, nobody brags in the presence of God.

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And just think about a modern king for a second. Our king 2 ,000 years ago, running up before King Herod and talking about yourself, talking about what you've done and how you're going to go about doing it and your past and everything else.

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You know what happened to you? If you went up to the king and you began to brag, if I was a king, here's what

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I would say. If we were short on worms, I would say, cut his tongue out. Paul says, when you think about God's greatness and God's grace,

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Christ's life and death and resurrection for you, church, stop boasting yourself and boast in the

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Lord. Fast from boasting in yourself.

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Paul says to the church at Rome, where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?

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Of works, no, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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But the good news is Paul doesn't just go negative. Verse 30, he turns positive.

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He turns it into a positive argument, not just what not to do, but what to do and to show how great

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Christ is, to show what Christ has done, how often he's done it, what he's done for us.

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But we're gonna have to see that next time. Any credit for our exalted position in Christ must go to God.

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And we must sing with Thomas Hastings. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross

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I cling. Naked come to thee for dress. Helpless look to thee for grace.

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Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I. Let's pray.

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Our Father in heaven, you are so great. You are so wonderful. We're thankful that you have loved us with an everlasting love.

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That your love sent Jesus Christ to die for us. His love made him go.

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And Father, it's not that you love us now because your son died for us, but you loved us before and that's the reason you sent your son for us.

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Father, help us to somehow balance between thinking about ourselves, thinking about others, thinking about you.

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Lord, consume us with your glory. And then we'll be able to love our neighbor as ourselves. Thank you for washing us.

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Thank you for cleansing us. Thank you for not keeping us naked. You've given us the perfect righteousness of your son,

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Christ Jesus. And now by the power of his spirit, the Holy Spirit, help us this week to boast in you.

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Replace our self and vain boasting, bragging. Help us to boast in Jesus Christ, the wonderful savior of sinners.

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In whose name we pray, amen. 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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

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