How to Remain a Spiritual Pygmy (Part 7)

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, a ministry.

Spiritual Immaturity and the Need for Growth

Mike Abendroth. Today we�re talking about spiritual immaturity, spiritual pygmyism, spiritual backwardness. I want you to be mature. I want you to excel, learn, grow, mature, and to honor the King of all kings.

Before we get into, I think, part 19 ,000 today on how to stay spiritually mature, I did have a copy of the Wall Street Journal article in front of me. It�s dated back to January 25th, but I thought it was interesting.

I think Casey gave me this. �Churches find end is nigh. So this has nothing to do with setting a date. By the way, if the world�s going to end in May, why am I trying to tape all these shows for the summer so when I�m gone for the summer, I have all of the shows lined up?

Why am I trying to do that? The subtitle is �The number of religious facilities unable to pay their mortgage is surging. So there�s lots of churches now that can no longer pay their bills, and so my first comment is, for those churches that can�t pay their bills, that will not teach substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection, the virgin birth, and the other fundamentals of the faith I�m not necessarily a fundamentalist, although there are some good fundamentals that are non-negotiable for those churches that don�t do that, I�m glad.

I�m glad they�re going out of business, and they couldn�t go out of business faster. And so as much as I could be as much as I would be able to promote churches that go out of business for not teaching the gospel, not preaching the free grace of God in the person of Christ Jesus, our great substitutionary high priest, then I�m glad they go out of business.

And so the sooner, the better, hallelujah, what a savior. But there are some churches that, for whatever reason, are not able to pay the bills, and certainly when the people in the church, when the congregation gives less because of those who in the congregation don�t make as much money anymore, and they have a bunch of laid-off people in the church, then it becomes difficult for churches.

It does say here that the top states where there are distressed sales of religious facilities California, 29, Michigan, 23, Florida, 23, Georgia, 19, Texas, 17, Ohio, 15, North Carolina, 6, New York, 5 and probably Massachusetts, zero, because there are so few churches here.

I think that is kind of interesting. Jesse Jackson said by the way, it says the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Nobody is being revered, and so I don�t want anybody called reverend. That�s not the case, and especially in the case of Jesse Jackson, I don�t think he I think he�s been disqualified from that title for certain.

Everyone has, and him especially. Churches are the next wave in this economic crisis, and I think that�s true. So see, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Let�s see, religious organizations may be subject to the laws of God, but they are also subject to the laws of economics, said Christian Mack.

That is exactly true. So if you know any good church buildings out there that are free you�d like to give away, especially in Massachusetts, let me know. I love free church buildings. So how do you stay spiritually mature?

If you want to write us, it�s info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Some people call the church. Some people send letters. Some people probably put, you know, do voodoo, hexes, send smoke signals. I prefer just sending an email.

That would be the best. But if you�d like to make a comment, that�s fine. If you would like to pray for us, we�d like that a lot. We probably are going to be expanding to some satellite radio. That will be coming up soon, the announcement for that.

And who knows, we might just be coming to a station near you, although I don�t really want to get caught up in the game because it�s much better where we�re small and the budget is small. And so I think the budget is about $25 ,000 a year, how about that?

So all right, and by the way, I think out of the $25 ,000, well, I don�t think, I know, I don�t make anything, although I get some free books from publishers, I take some free t-shirts and some free hats and some beanies and stuff like that.

So that�s my take, how about that? If you�d like to stay spiritually immature, then don�t delight in the Word of God. Don�t delight in the Word of God. Just brush it off as some boring old book. Let�s talk about that today on No Compromise Radio.

Delighting in the Word of God

Psalm chapter 1, �How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.

That�s the person who�s going to be blessed. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does he prospers.

What a great way to start the Psalms. How blessed. What a great way to introduce this wonderful book, the book of Psalms. How blessed. We�re not talking about a feeling here. We�re not talking about being happy.

We�re talking about, from God�s perspective, you�re a blessed person. Isn�t that good? Approved by God. A blessed person. That is a deep-seated joy and contentment in God, as John MacArthur would say.

You could even translate that word �blessed. It has a connotation and a note, a coloring of �envied. Jansen said, �As an expression of envious desire, and renders to be envied is the man. Can you imagine?

How would you like to be envied? Other people would say, �Man, his God is a great God especially back in these days, in the Bible days, Old Testament times. You would have all kinds of gods, Molech and Baal and a variety of other gods.

How could you gauge the God? You�d gauge the God by, of course, Scripture, but you�d say, �Well, that guy�s got a good life. Therefore, he must have a good God. The man who delights in the Word, he is a man who is so blessed by God, others realize it and they would be envious.

This is righteous kind of envy. But do you notice the text here in Psalm 1? It�s a conditional blessing. It�s this particular man, not the other kinds, this particular man who fulfills these conditions that he delights in the Word.

And he is blessed, and he is, actually, it�s a plural, �blessednesses a plural in the Hebrew. Oh, the blessednesses of that man. Oh, the blessings for that man. Oh, the happiness, now that doesn�t quite work, it�s the blessedness that God would bless.

Can you imagine if we realized what we were owed, what our debt was in terms of a sin debt, and yet God blessed us. Blessed is that man, the man. It�s like you�re sitting in Foxboro Stadium watching the Patriots and the camera starts up very high and then it slowly zooms in to a section, section 35, then to a row, then to a seat, zooming in on that one and no other kind of person.

That particular man, out of all those other men, that woman, out of all those other women, they are the ones blessed by God, and they are the ones who delight in His Word. How do you get blessings? By coasting, by laying back and letting God, I never liked the way they said that.

When people say, I mean, maybe you�ve got a speech impediment, or maybe you�re from the South, I�m not saying people in the South have speech impediments, but probably some do. But it�s G-A-W-D, I don�t think that�s how you say it, I think it�s G-O-D, God.

I don�t think it�s G-A-W-D, I think it�s G-A-W-D, no, it�s God, okay? So the people who are blessed by God are blessed through the means of the reading of the Word, the delight in God�s Word. You are not going to have this blessing through osmosis, no, you�re not going to get it through your parents, some religious ceremony, some having to rub off from others, not through sacraments, not by the church.

The blessed man, the blessed woman, is the kind of person that has made a biblical Holy Spirit resolution, energized by the Spirit of God, to be determined not to run their life or be guided in their life by emotions and experiences and opinions and thoughts and the whims and the waves of popular secularism.

No, no matter what, we�re going to delight in His Word. His delight is in the Law of Yahweh and He meditates on it day and night. If you delight in something, you meditate on it day and night. Kidner is right, whatever really shapes a man�s thinking, shapes his life.

The delight is in the Law of the Lord. Can you say that? Well, the first thing you should say is if you�re not delighted in the Law of the Lord, why don�t you ask the Lord to renew your desire for the wonderful, sweet honey of God�s Word?

And so you don�t want to say to yourself, �Well, I just have the burden of Bible study. Kirkpatrick said, �It is no irksome restriction of his liberty, but the object of his love and constant study.

True happiness is to be found not in ways of man�s own devising, but in the revealed will of God. The delight of the Law of God, meditating on it day and night. Can you imagine the delight? You ever find delight in someone or something?

Actually this is a word used of a man delighting in a woman. Shechem delighted in Jacob�s daughter Dinah. King Ahasuerus, remember he had a big beauty contest? And he wouldn�t bring the ladies back unless he delighted in them.

And he found something intrinsically in those ladies that he delighted in. And it�s emphatic to this day when you think you�re going to meditate and ruminate over love letters. When my wife sends me a love letter, I don�t read it just once, I scan it, I don�t skim it.

I just ponder, think, and kind of just chew it over and over and over. I delight in those things. I�m not going to just say, �Well, you know, whatever. Psalm 119 gives us a hint of this, �For I delight in thy commandments.

Psalm 119, �The commandments which I love. 119, �Oh, how I love the Law. 119, �I love thy commandments. 119, �I love thy precepts. 119, �I love them exceedingly. Why don�t you read Psalm 119 and say, �Lord, give me that kind of love for your Word.

I want to be a blessed man. I want to be a blessed woman. I want to delight in your Word and ruminate on it day and night. Do you see that in Psalm 1, verse 2, �Meditate day and night. That could be translated meditate or it could be murmur.

You can imagine someone pacing back and forth, talking under their breath, and that�s really the picture, pacing back and forth, having the Word of God so in you, so in your mind that it just kind of, you�re mumbling, you�re talking about it, you�re talking to the Lord about it, replying in your mind, musing on it.

Not just intellectually, but you want to obey, you�re preoccupied. Actually, I�m shaking my head back and forth right now. If I didn�t have one of those good mics, you could hear my voice getting louder and softer and it�s a habitual tense, it�s imperfect, over and over, reading, over and over, hearing, over and over, studying, over and over, memorizing the Word of God.

And if you�d like to grow, God�s way to grow is through His Word. And this particular writer says day and night, constantly, regularly, unbrokenly, the Bible, the CDs, the tapes, the Bible .is application, savoring with great gratification the Word of God.

And again, you�ve probably, if you�re a Christian, have had that feeling, but maybe you have the same old, same old kind of mentality, then read Psalm 119 and say, �Lord, give me that desire that I once had, because I would love to have your blessing.

I would love to delight in your Word. And you know the great thing is, think of somebody in your life who delighted in the Word of God and meditated upon it day and night. Maybe it�s your grandmother, maybe it�s your spouse, maybe it�s one of your favorite preachers, but when I think of someone meditating on God�s Word day and night, I think of Christ Jesus Himself, meditating on the Word of God day and night.

He�s in His Father�s house, His parents can�t find Him, and He�s doing His Father�s business. And Jesus is at the synagogue often, and He is the One. And by the way, when you fall short in delighting in God�s Word, you have an advocate, and you have one who never did anything less than delighted in the Law of God.

And so, for us today on No Compromise Radio, I want you to grow, and the way you grow is the Word of God. So you don�t grow through experiences, you don�t grow through Heaven is for Real books that are full of fake stuff.

You grow through the Word of God. And so you need to get a good Bible, why don�t you get yourself a good study Bible, get yourself an NAS, get yourself an ESV, get yourself a MacArthur study Bible, an ESV study Bible, and begin to learn.

Why Christians Need Discipleship

Well, the last, I think last for today, the last way that you can remain a spiritual pygmy. By the way, when people say, you know, what about innocent pygmies in Africa, innocent pygmies in Sri Lanka, what if they�ve never heard the Word, what will innocent pygmies do?

Well, innocent pygmies will go to Heaven, even if they haven�t heard the Word, even if they�ve never known about Jesus Christ. But sadly, there are no such things as innocent pygmies, because the fall is universal in Adam, and everyone in Adam has fallen, and so everyone is in Adam, and so they need Christ Jesus.

That�s why we have to go preach Romans chapter 10. People have enough to damn them in general revelation, with the sun and the moon and the stars, but they don�t have enough to save them, so they need people like you to go preach, you to go tell them the good news.

It doesn�t do anyone any good to say, let�s not go there to make them more damned. No, you need to go there, and that is the history of Christian missionary movement, to take the Gospel into the four corners of the earth.

We�ll start in Jerusalem, and we�ll work our way outward. Well, the last step in not growing is never be discipled. Never be discipled. If you don�t want to grow, then don�t be discipled. Now what is discipleship?

Now with many biblical words, there are nuances, because context can change the meaning. Same word, same spelling, same everything, except it can have a different definition. And so sometimes, I believe it�s John 6, 66, some of the disciples of Jesus followed him no more.

So a disciple could be a temporary false follower. You could say make disciples in Matthew chapter 28. Go therefore and make disciples. That is the key verb there in the Great Commission of our Lord Christ Jesus, and it means to go out and preach the Gospel so God saves people.

So make disciple could be equivalent to becoming a Christian. When you first become a Christian, you are made a disciple of Jesus Christ by God�s sovereign means. But also disciple could be growing in grace, could be learning, could be maturing.

And so that�s the context for today is discipleship. Now many things in the Bible, by the way, we�re No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, Twitter, Facebook, and I don�t think we have MySpace.

I don�t really look at MySpace too much. Here�s what we do with the discipleship. This is why it�s good. With Bible study, you can show up to a Bible study and you don�t have to do any of the work. You can audit the class.

You can come Sunday morning and audit the sermon. You can come Sunday night and audit the sermon. You can come Sunday school and audit the Sunday school lesson. You can do about anything you want anywhere when it comes to spiritual things.

And of course God knows that you failed. God knows you didn�t do anything right. God knows you didn�t care. God knows you didn�t apply yourself. God knows you took the easy way out. But humanly speaking, no one would know who is really trying to apply the Word and who isn�t.

And so there are lots of things that you can just audit in your life. James 1 .22 says, �Don�t do that. Be doers of the Word, not merely hearers, or only auditors. Acroyotes, don�t be an auditor, but be a doer of the Word.

And so here�s why I like discipleship and a lot of the stuff I�ve just had in my brain and some of it I�ve stolen from people. Tommy Nelson is an excellent discipler. Discipleship means you can fail and discipleship means you can succeed.

So the good thing about discipleship is that you can either fail or you can succeed. And so that, especially for men, that brings out the manliness of men. That brings out men wanting to say, �I�m going to take that hill.

And we can either not take Hamburger Hill or we can take Hamburger Hill, but we�re going to die trying one way or the other. If I look at surveys, �Leading Your Church to Grow�, back a couple decades ago when church growth first was hot, and I look at a survey of hundreds of pastors on how to make the church grow, 12 factors I�m going to yawn right now, that is not fair Bible knowledge, personal devotions, worship, witnessing, lay ministry, missions, giving, fellowship, lifestyle distinctive, attitude towards religion, social service, social justice.

Sadly, the missing jewel there of growth is discipleship. We need to train the next generation so they can reproduce. That is a goal that I have at Bethlehem Bible Church, �Ladies, They Can Disciple Other Ladies.

Chapter 2 of Titus and 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 2, we see the mandates for male discipleship, capable of reproduction, committed, competent Christians who can reproduce and multiply. Of course, through the God-ordained means by the Spirit of God and His power.

Spiritual reproduction, another term for that, is discipleship. Here�s how MacArthur just finds it, �Find someone you know who knows more about the Lord and a walk with Him than you do and learn what you can.

Find someone additionally that knows less than you do about the Lord and His word and walking with Him and tell them what you know. Listen to what Ian Bowne says, �We are constantly on a stretch, not on a strain to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel.

Men are God�s method. The church is looking for better methods. God is looking for better men. That is so true and it is through discipleship. Just watch our Lord Jesus Christ. Watch how He trained the disciples so that they would bear much fruit.

That�s John chapter 15, �You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in my name He may give to you.

You can either succeed or you can fail. What makes discipleship so good is it�s very personal. It�s not the pastor and then 500 people listening, although that is in a sense discipleship. But mentor and to be available and have time spent with each other is great discipleship.

First Thessalonians 2 .8, �Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our lives. And so this requires modeling, this requires understanding people because the text says in Hebrews 13 regarding leaders imitate their faith.

So back to the army model, the military model, �Come and see, come and follow, come and be with me and then deploy. Or another one is, �Tell them what, tell them why, show them how, do it with them, let them do it and then deploy them.

I think that�s pretty good with discipleship. Tell them what, tell them why, show them how, do it with them, let them do it and then deploy them. That�s exactly right. Titus chapter 2, �Likewise urge the young men to be sensible in all things, show yourself to be an example of good deeds with purity in doctrine and dignified.

The problem with discipleship though, it causes trouble. It has the possibility to cause trouble. And if you just listen and audit, nobody really cares. But if you show up and don�t do your work and you get exposed in a group of 10 guys, why didn�t you get that homework done?

Why didn�t you memorize those verses? Why didn�t you read that book? Why didn�t you do such and such? �Well, I was playing Call of Duty and I�m into games. By the way, that�s the bane of growing up.

That should be another one. If you�d like to stay spiritually mature, then play video games as a married man for lots of hours a day. What are you thinking? I have no idea what people can do. I�m not saying you can�t play some video games at all.

It�s fun. I get together with the kids and there are different game applications on the iPhone and on the iPad. I�m not anti-game, but I am anti-game for men who can�t control themselves for hours and hours and hours and hours when they have a wife, when they have kids, when they have ministry, when they have one life to live, and they�re sitting there consumed with themselves taking over the world one digital Nazi at a time.

I know games are fun, but just everything in moderation. That would be a good start. What happens is if you show up and you�re accountable to learn and you don�t do what you�re supposed to do, then you could fail, but if you show up and do what you�re supposed to do, then that disciple can commend you and congratulate you and tell you that is a good job.

In discipleship, I expect something to be done and I expect leaders to be tough and there are going to be some collisions because the people that don�t want to do and want to stay in charge, the old established people, they don�t like it when you say, �Here�s what we�re going to do.

And there�s a demand. A Holst said, �You can always get a crowd if you demand very little and put on a show. Cheap Christianity goes out the window with discipleship. So I could go on and on about discipleship.

Mike Abendroth here. We�ve done a long series on how to stay spiritually mature. I want you to grow up and you keep your eyes on Christ Jesus and you keep your eyes on men if you�re a man who focuses on Christ Jesus.

That�s the heart of church discipleship. God bless you.

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.

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