Preach The Gospel To Yourself (Part 2)

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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, my name is

Mike Abendroth, and I'm glad that you listen. I'm blown away by how many people download the podcast, listen on Facebook.

I don't think the tweeting is that big a deal. I don't think we tweet that much. She was just saying there's a show posted or something like that.

But anyway, I'm very, very happy and thankful, I praise the Lord that he would let us have this opportunity. Us, the royal we, the royal us, letting me have this opportunity, along with Pastor Steve and Josh and the rest of the folks who do everything from websites to respond to emails, etc.

I'm very, very privileged to be your host, and that's just not a cliché, that's just not trite, that's just not—I'm trying to think of another synonym for that kind of stuff.

It's not just running my mouth, as they say in Amarillo, not running my mouth.

It was interesting driving from Amarillo to Eugenton, Texas. Why do

I keep saying Texas? Kansas. Excuse me, you Kansas folks. It was very interesting to just see what was there, what wasn't there, and just driving.

You can go pretty fast too, especially with satellite radio.

I think we need No Compromise on satellite radio. I think that would be probably the cat's meow, don't you think so?

Alright, today we're going to continue with—there's something else I was going to say.

Something else. At the end of the show it says services at 10 .15

in the morning. That's not correct. It's at 8 .30 in the morning and at 11 in the morning, two services because we're all about church growth.

The first service we have Acid Guitar, and the second service we have Fernando Ortega.

He's here every week, by the way. I recruited him out of the high church that he's in, and he's here.

He's our worship leader—allegedly. Just kidding. Same services, Sunday morning, 8 .30,

11, and then the non -holiday weekend, non -first -of -the -month

Sundays we have Sunday night. Figure that one out. Alright, today we're going to talk about preaching the gospel to yourself every day.

Last time we got to part, at least reason 1, like 1A, and let's just review the gospel before we discuss the rest of this.

I did find this Harry Ironside quote. He was the pastor of the

Moody Memorial Church in Chicago from 1930 to 1948. The gospel is not a call to repentance or to amendment of our ways to make restitution for past sins or to promise to do better in the future.

These things are proper in their place, but they do not constitute the gospel, for the gospel is not good advice to be obeyed.

It is good news to be believed. Do not make the mistake, then, of thinking that the gospel is a call to duty or a call to reformation or a call to better your condition, to behave yourself in a more perfect way than you have been doing in the past.

Nor is the gospel a demand that you give up the world, that you give up your sins, that you break off bad habits and try to cultivate good ones.

You may do all these things and yet never believe the gospel and consequently never be saved at all.

Here's the point. The gospel is full of good news. It's a declaration of what has been done.

The gospel declares what God has done through his Son. That's what the gospel does. Now, the response to the gospel, certainly repent, believe, follow, trust, forsake, pick up your cross, all kinds of things like that are responses to the gospel.

The main response is repent and believe. But the gospel itself is what

God alone has done. God alone's saving. It's like when someone says, when were you saved?

Well, I know what they mean. They mean when I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, when

I was converted and responded with saving faith. But if you say this maybe to a person, this might stimulate some conversation.

Do you mean when I was saved in eternity past when the triune God agreed to send the

Son to die in my place in the covenant of redemption? Do you mean that salvation?

Or do you mean when Jesus, at the end of his perfect life, perfectly fulfilling the law of God, died on the cross and he said, it is finished, he telestai, he accomplished everything there needed to be accomplished when it comes to redeeming fallen mankind, the elect?

Do you mean then? When did I get saved then? Do you mean in glory when

God does the final salvation and that is he glorifies me? That word glorification, synonym for glorification is salvation, it's used in another way.

Or do you mean when God the Holy Spirit opened my eyes, gave me a new heart, opened my heart to respond to the gospel the day

I was saved and then I did respond in faith? Or when God is making me more and more in his likeness and in his image, reflecting more of Christ the

Son in my day -to -day sanctification? Which one of those five? Now see, the majority of those five,

I guess we respond to the third one when the Spirit of God, whatever number that was, when the

Spirit of God saves us, we respond with conversion. But the one that really has the most to do with us and it's really a cooperation, a synergistic movement that is to say

God the primary mover, of course in sanctification, but we do have responsibility, we do have to follow imperatives, we do respond.

See all of those have to do with salvation. And so when people say, when did you get saved, there are a lot of times you got saved.

I don't mean you got saved, you lost your salvation, but eternity passed, Calvary, the day you were converted, every day since in terms of progressive salvation, progressive sanctification and glorification.

So when it comes to the gospel, we need to preach it to ourself every day and we looked last time about the first reason, we looked concerning the first reason, is that it gives you motivation.

So lots of us become unmotivated for all kinds of different reasons. I just drank one of those little energy drinks and it said, be careful of a niacin flush.

So if you see me in the show, start to experience a niacin flush. I'll never forget the first day, my brother -in -law,

Steve, he's a weightlifter and all that kind of stuff and all kinds of supplements in Santa Cruz.

This was 20 years ago, I've been married 23 almost, shortest decade of my life.

And he mixed up some niacin with water and I drank it. And talk about the flush, wow, that was amazing.

Those were the days. So does the gospel motivate if God has saved you from all your sins, even in the future that you'll commit?

Doesn't that make you want to sin? Paul says in Romans 6 .1, what should we say then in regards to justification by grace alone, through faith alone, free grace, salvation,

Romans chapter 3, Romans chapter 4, God justifying the ungodly, Romans chapter 5, demonstrating the love towards us that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. That's a demonstration of that. So Paul says it motivates because it doesn't give you spiritual lethargy or spiritual anemia.

May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

And Paul is saying, this is inconceivable. This is inadmissible.

This is incongruous. You can't do that. It should motivate you to obey after all that God has done for you.

Shouldn't you want to respond with obedience? It's not that God saved you from future sins too, so go ahead and live the way you want.

God loves to forgive. You love to sin. Sin it up, boy. No. Paul says, may it never be.

Don't even let it cross your mind. May it never be. Fourteen times

Paul uses that, may it never be, in his pastoral, excuse me, in his epistles.

This is a Greek idiom for no way. NEB translates it, no, no.

The J .B. Phillips translation, what a ghastly thought, RSV and NIV, by no means.

And for those of you with the King James Authorized 1611 version, the only translation ever used properly.

Just kidding, fine translation, superfluity of naughtiness. God forbid, as one commentator said,

Paul repels with horror. Not that sinning for a

Christian is impossible, but just morally, it should be repugnant. God did all this, sin no longer has any legal claim, we're free from condemnation.

By the way, that is the opposite of justification, condemnation. And so we have a sin -filled life before we're saved, continuing in sin, characterized by sin, and then we're converted and we still live the same way?

No way. Lloyd -Jones says, what is the business of grace? It is to allow us to continue in sin?

No. It is to deliver us from the bondage and reign of sin and to put us under the reign of grace.

That is why you should preach the gospel to yourself every day. That's why you should believe that the gospel's true and keep on believing.

Paul says in Romans 6, verse 11, the first imperative, 148

English verses so far. Chapter 1, no imperatives of Romans. Chapter 2, no imperatives.

Chapter 3, no imperatives. Chapter 4, no imperatives. Chapter 5, no imperatives. And so far in chapter 6, no imperatives until 11, 611,

Romans 6, chapter 6, verse 11, on the 149th verse we have an imperative.

The first thing to do. Here's the motivation. You preach the gospel to yourself because it motivates you to say no to sin and yes to righteousness.

Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Have you considered that today?

Knowing? That's a holy life, is knowing, considering, thinking,

I'm dead to sin, I'm alive to righteousness. John Stott said, a born -again

Christian should no more think of going back to the old life than an adult to his childhood, a married man to his bachelorhood, or a discharged prisoner to his prison cell.

That's a good way to think about it. You let a guy out of prison and he says, no, I want to go back. When I was having my home

Bible study at Grace Church, well, it wasn't at Grace Church, it was under Grace Church at my home, I don't know what that little click was, but that's all right.

In my home, there was a man, his name was Denny. And Denny showed up and Denny was homeless, he lived in his car or truck,

I think it was. And he was an auto mechanic and he would just sleep out in the mechanic's yard, he had permission from the owner to do that.

And so Denny smelled like a homeless person. And I remember Denny was kind to me and he was glad to hear he didn't have to be baptized to go to heaven and we tried to work through some of those issues.

And then over time, maybe over a year, a year or two, Denny met a lady and Denny got married.

And so he, as part of getting married, had an apartment.

It wasn't that he was totally broke, he saved up enough money and moved into an apartment. And they, on their honeymoon, after their honeymoon, they went back to an apartment.

But it was so large in his mind, so big compared to a truck, that he couldn't stand it anymore mentally and emotionally.

And so Denny and his wife moved back into the truck and stayed at the mechanic place in the back area there.

See, that's incongruous to me. It's like, well, you finally get into an apartment, you want to move back to your car to live.

I don't know, maybe it was a big sleep. I mean, it wasn't that big of a truck, I saw the truck. No bathroom, no running water, not like you're living in an

RV or something like that. And so it is motivating to think of the gospel so that you don't run back to that sin.

It's motivating to say, you know what, in light of who God is and what He's done, I want to live a holy life, not to please

God by position, but I want to honor my Father by doing the right thing, just like a son would want to do to his father and for his father on earth.

Not to earn his last name, he already has the last name of the Father, but to live in light of that name, conduct befitting an officer.

James Boyce, the first step in our growth and holiness is counting as true what is in fact true.

The key to living the Christian life lies in first knowing that God has taken us out of Adam and has joined us to Jesus Christ, that we are no longer subject to the reign of sin and death, but have transferred to the kingdom of light.

That's the issue. So today, we're looking at preaching the gospel to yourself.

You don't move past the gospel once you're saved. This isn't just for people for evangelistic use.

The gospel is for Christians as well. Jerry Bridges said you should preach the gospel to yourself every single day.

Now today, if you'd like to email us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. By the way, we're getting tons of emails now that I have access to the

Google server. Remember for about six months, I couldn't get any emails, and I kept saying, why don't you send me an email?

No one would ever do it. I should have started saying, why don't you send me some money? People are so naive, they probably would do it.

But then I would realize I don't have any emails. So finally, I figured out no email, and then we've got that problem corrected.

But I will say we're now getting lots of emailers, and I'm very glad to get them. If you have kind of a life and death question, should

I leave the church that I'm at? How do I confront so -and -so? What do I do? Do I leave the church? How do

I talk to the pastors? Then I'll probably personally answer it. And if it's something about free will, then

I'll give that one to Ray. If it's something that has to do with Tuesday Guy in any way, shape, or form,

Steve gets it. Matter of fact, I get lots of emails that talk about Tuesday Guy. So far, I think I've only received one emailer that said,

I don't listen on Tuesdays. I thought they were joking, but I think it's not really

Tuesday Guy's fault. It's probably my fault because it becomes a laugh fest on Tuesday.

But see, here's what happens. Here's a little inside information. Steve and I were friends before he became a pastor, and we're still friends.

But what happens is, just like with marriages, you think, I've got to go do something fun with my wife. The trials and tribulations and pressures of a married couple with kids, finances, health, relationship, neighbors, in -laws, all that stuff makes you just want to get away and remember why you like each other.

Go out on a date. Go do something romantic. Go to Walmart and shop the incense aisles or something.

You can get good incense at this Walmart here, just north of Amarillo. And it's the same for Steve and I.

So, Steve, we have to deal with all these issues in the local church. Some of them are very, very wonderful issues.

And people getting saved, and people getting baptized, and saying no to sin, having victory over pornography, and wanting to evangelize, rejoicing in the

God of their salvation, beginning to teach other people, saying no to sin and yes to righteousness.

I mean, it is wonderful, and that's one of the reasons why I like being here for now into my 16th year, where I get to watch these people have their lives changed,

God changing their lives through the preached Word, the Spirit of God applying the Word of God.

And they're just different people, different people. When I was in Kansas, I thought, no wonder

I say different, because I'm from the Midwest and they all say different. That's interesting, that's for sure.

They become different. So, here's the issue. When Steve and I get together on Tuesdays, it's kind of time to have some fun.

We have enough difficult things to go through, so this is kind of like our date on Tuesdays. Oh, I think

I told you I got an email the other day that said something that I said was sickening. I think it was about an old hymn.

He lives, he lives, Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me, he talks with me, along life's narrow way.

He lives, he lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how

I know he lives? He lives within my heart. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Well, I know people like the song. It's okay, I guess, if you like the song and have a lot of memories.

Memories. That's interesting. Oh, I have to tell you another story about my

Kansas friends. Since they're friends, I can bust on them, Eric and Caleb and the gang. I guess

I should mention Zach, too, but he was out of town for the conference. Thanks a lot, Zach. They have something called, on Sunday night, they have a carry -in dinner.

And so Eric said, we don't have potlucks because the ladies of our church cook so well, there's nothing lucky about it.

So I thought he was going to say we call them pot providences like we do because we're Calvinistic and they're, I don't know.

They're friends. Anyway, they said, with a little accent, of course, too, carry -in.

It's C -A -R -R -Y dash I -N. Carry -in. You just carry in your meal.

And by the way, the carry -in meal, we had all kinds of food, all kinds of tater tot casseroles. All right.

There wasn't one tater tot casserole, but they looked like it. I had some kind of broccoli bacon salad.

I was kind of in the mood for a salad because I'd had so much other stuff the day before. Actually, a great steak. Ray's wife brought a great steak.

What's her name again? I forgot. But anyway, back to the point at hand on NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Carry -in. And I thought, the way they said it with their accent, it was like the synonym for a vulture.

Carry -on. Carry -on. We were going to have a special vulture meal in the

Dust Bowl of Kansas, Hugoton, Kansas. But it was carry -in, but the way they said it was carry -on.

So anyway, I don't know if you've ever had vulture or not, but I thought I was going to get it, and I was going to eat it, and I was going to have a great illustration for No Compromise Radio that I've had vulture.

And I figured it would probably taste good, just like shrimp cleans up all the stuff in the bottom of the ocean. It tastes pretty dandy, though.

It tastes pretty good. P -U -R -D -Y. Pretty good. So, back to the point at hand on No Compromise Radio.

If you know the gospel and are known by the gospel, that is to say, the

God of the gospel, and God has given you new life, and you're born again. You're born from above.

You are a Christian because God caused you to be born again. He gave you faith. You're not saved because of your faith.

You're not saved on account of your faith. Nowhere in the New Testament are the words saved on account of your faith or saved because of your faith.

They're not to be found anyplace. But you're saved through the instrument of faith, which is not meritorious.

You're saved by the means of faith, and it's not meritorious. You're saved by Christ Jesus' work.

You're saved by the triune God's work. If you're saved by God, and it is through the instrumentality, the non -saving instrumentality of faith, that's a saving faith, not just knowledge of God, not just a scent of God, but a trust in God, knowledge, a scent, and trust.

If that's in fact you, then you can say to yourself, I need to be reminded of that every day.

Every day you need to think of the gospel. When you think of God, you should be thinking of the gospel.

The gospel of God, the good news. Paul wasn't ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of salvation, and it is also the power of sanctification.

It motivates you, and that's what we've been doing here in Romans chapter 6.

Secondly, the gospel should be preached to yourself every day. You should preach the gospel to yourself every day, or listen to someone preach it.

That'll work too. It's because if there were days in heaven, it would be preached to you every day in heaven.

So it's a foretaste of heaven, in other words. I know there are no days, per se, in heaven because time is going to cease, but the gospel will be presented before you every single day in heaven because Christ Jesus, the lamb standing as if slain, will be there, and you will see him.

He is the centerpiece of heaven. That is the issue. We're looking at Revelation chapter 5.

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense.

Bowls, rather, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you are slain, and by your blood you ransom people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priest to our

God, and they shall reign on the earth. Christ Jesus is going to be the one there.

Remember the thousands of thousands of angels sang with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wisdom and wealth and might and honor and glory and blessing.

To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor, glory and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said,

Amen, and the elders fell down in worship. Why should you preach the gospel to yourself every day? Are you bored with it?

Well, you won't be bored with it in heaven, so you might as well get used to it today. When you're saved, it's because the gospel is preached to you.

But as you're sanctified, keep preaching the gospel to yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself so that you will be sanctified.

Preach the gospel to yourself so you get a little foretaste of heaven. These kind of clouds floating around and all that stuff, and your dog in heaven,

I'm not going for that. We're talking about Jesus, the centerpiece of heaven. My name is

Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Go to www .nocompromiseradio

.com. If you go to .org, I think it's a different deal. You can check that out yourself as well. Different.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Thanks for listening. Part 3, next time. 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.