Myth-busters: Serving others is just serving others

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.'"

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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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.

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, take two.

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What is going on with me today, Steve? I don't know, I think it's too many energy drinks. I think maybe it's too many root canals done.

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Yeah, well, that'll do it. Allegedly. I actually have to admit that yesterday, while I was experiencing a root canal, they gave me a lot of Novocaine, so much so that my eye afterward felt affected.

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It like seeped up into my eye. And when they put that green thing over your tooth to guard the rest of your mouth, so there's no,

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I don't know, poisonous, hazardous, hazmat material going down your throat.

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And the guy was working through the microscope and he had these big eyes on some, some, what are those shows?

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Pixar eyes. I don't know, but my teeth are hurting right now. And I, and Steve, you gotta have your mouth open for such a long time and it hurts.

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And I just thought, Lord, I could easily freak out right now. Like wanting to just jump up. You know, have you ever been in an

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MRI tube and you just think, I could freak right now. I'm getting ready to freak. And so, only thing

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I could think of, here was the theology that entered my mind. I'm not saying God told me this, but the spirit of God certainly impressed upon my heart.

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Well, this is our subjective moment. Can we get a Eugene Peterson message going right now?

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But anyway, for whatever reason, I started to say to myself, Mike, if you pray for other people, you won't focus on yourself.

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So start praying for other people. That's good. Yes. I prayed that they would never experience such pain as I felt.

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Lord, I don't want to dwell on my own problems. So please, please bless others that they won't have to suffer as I'm suffering.

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Aforsiori arguments never seem to hold much water. Steve, we are continuing our series, common misconceptions that Christians often believe.

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And today's is, if you pray for others, you're actually praying for yourself. It was selfish praying.

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I hope God heard something in the middle of all that. That was weird.

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So anyway, today's myth is, remember, I give the myth and then Steve corrects the myth because that's his job here as a sheriff.

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Have you ever been called a theological sheriff? No, but this does sound correctional in nature, which -

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Oh! Have you ever been called a discernment blogger?

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Negative. No, I've never blogged. Discernment. I've never blogged, but we do have a No Compromise blog that the guys take care of.

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Do we? Yeah. Hmm, I've never even seen it. If you go to nocompromiseradio .com and then up the top it says, the gospel, guests, speakers,

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Twitter, Facebook, NoCo90, NoCoEver, and then it says blog. Blog, really? Yeah.

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Oh, well, I'm gonna have to go check that out. And see, I like black websites with black backgrounds and, you know, the church folks, well, we don't really want that, but since No Compromise -

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Is yours. Is No Compromise. Yeah, it's all black. Josh knows exactly what I want. Nice.

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I tell Josh, design me a website, and then he does, and then afterwards I say, that's exactly what

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I wanted. So it's just a reminder of the need for a savior because it's black, like our souls before salvation.

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Is that the myth? Okay, myth for today. Common myths that Christians tend to believe, sometimes because they're naive, sometimes because they don't think through issues, sometimes because they buy into what the media says, they read too many

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King James only blogs. I mean, it could be a lot of different things. King James only. I'm getting whacked by the King James only people these days.

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There's a nice King James scud. I know, I try to stay out of that fray because it sucks you into this black hole and you get nothing done except try to defend

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Westcott from being - The textus receptus is inherently inspired.

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Yes, but the person who said that smoked cigars and anybody that smokes cigars is defaming their body and therefore textus receptus defames your body.

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I mean, who argues like that? Well, yeah, it's the kind of chain illogic that one might expect.

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I call that six degree separation. Well, it's what fightin' fundies do, right? Remember Gail Rippling?

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Yes, I do. Her book. And I was glad to know that James White took care of that.

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No, no, no, was it James White? Yes, it was James White in his King James only controversy. And it was like, really, it was like reading an autopsy because he clinically dissected everything she said and it's really awesome.

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Yes, James works for the Lockman Foundation founded by a Mason. And therefore -

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James went to Fuller. Oh, there you go. And we all know that Fuller denies the verbal and plenary inspiration of the

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King James only. So, allegedly. Common myth today. Here's the myth.

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Serving other Christians is simply serving other Christians. Now, why is that so pervasive, do you think?

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Why is that a trouble spot? Is that like a hot spot? If you don't wear the right kind of shoes when you pedal on a bicycle, underneath your feet and your soles have hot spots.

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Yeah, well, I think it's a problematic statement, but I think it's the mindset people get into.

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Why? Because they want to feel like they're doing something for the body of Christ. And so they get into that kind of thinking.

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But ultimately what that leads to is when people let you down and they do, have we ever experienced that?

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You know, you personally, you ever had a Christian let you down? I let myself down pretty much most every day. But other

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Christians, if other Christians let you down and your thinking is, I'm here to serve those other

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Christians and then they, you know, they do desert you, stab you in the back, whatever they do, then, or even just ignore you, you know, and forget about your service, then what are you going to think?

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Well, those people are no good. What am I doing this for? And you're missing the entire point, which is that your service is not even primarily for those other people.

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It's primarily for the Lord. And if they, you're exercising your spiritual giftedness for those people, and if, or for the

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Lord and for his glory, and if the people benefit, good. But that's, it's an overflow more than the primary reason that you're doing it.

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That's excellent. We do acknowledge that it is the Lord God that we serve.

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Love the Lord your God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but love your neighbors yourself. We serve other people, but ultimately with an eye towards serving the

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Lord. And Steve, how many people have we noticed in pastoral ministry? Something goes wrong in ministry, and it often does because you're serving fallible people.

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You're fallible yourself. I'm fallible. And then people get burned because they put a lot of energy into their ministry, a lot of effort, sweat, toil, time.

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And then they end up bailing churches and doing some home church, which is no church. They just read a verse or two, sing a few songs and get to the yard raking or something.

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True, but I have to correct one thing, and that's what you said that I'm fallible. When I'm in this chair, I'm infallible.

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Do you know, that is the ex -cushionable chair. Yes, it is. You speak out of authority of a cushion.

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Cushionable. Yes. This is Don Cush and his rock concert.

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Don Cush. If there's anybody like over or under the age of like 50, they have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

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Get this, I'm in Santa Cruz this summer and a guy pulls up to the Santa Cruz malls, an outdoor walking area with certain shops and stuff, kind of like Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California and Pasadena.

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And he pulls up and it's Wolfman Jack coming out of the radio and it was an

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MP3 or something. The guy loves Wolfman Jack. And so I said to him, I said, that is Wolfman Jack.

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And he said, yes, it is. I listened to all his old shows. Cat. The Wolfman, Dead Though He Stood.

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Yeah, so we have Casey Kasem growing up, Don Cush and his rock concert. Wolfman Jack. We had Wolfman Jack. Who are some of the others?

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I never even heard, well, what do you mean? Yeah, disc jockeys. I mean, I remember Charlie Tuna and, you know, just different people.

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And then, you know, the whole K -L -O -S, 95 .5 K -L -O -S. I don't remember that. K -M -E -T.

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What did they do that? Twiddle -E -D, 94 .3 Twiddle -E -D, K -M -E -T. And then it turned into one of those

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Muzak stations, which was just horrifying. See, when I moved to Los Angeles, I thought it was pretty cool in 1983 because K -rock wasn't so popular in their new wave music.

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They were a little more alternative. And so I always loved K -R -O -Q. And I never listened to it. I bet you didn't.

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I sang an Elvis Costello song around the house the other day and the kids said, what are you singing? So anyway, it said -

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What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? I probably was singing that. Okay. And so, Welcome to the Working Week.

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Oh, yeah. Something like that. Yeah, that's a good song. So then I was thinking we had Don Kirshner's rock concert, this TV show at midnight on Saturday nights or something, competing with Dr.

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Sanguinari's Creature Feature or something. Why don't we have John Gershner's rock concert?

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Wow. Don't forget, this band is gonna sing about how you're an enemy. Even rats are better than humans.

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Rats act like rats and humans are worse than rats. That's the name of the band.

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John Gershner, he's here, live and in studio. I'm your co -host. The myth today is serving other

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Christians, is simply serving other Christians. We want your mind to think to yourself,

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I'm serving the Lord Jesus's body. Remember, Jesus isn't in your left ventricle.

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He's not in your A -order. He's up in heaven. And so who's on earth?

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His body is his bride. And so you serve the body of Christ. I love how Jesus answered

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Satan and said, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Does that mean you're not supposed to serve other people?

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No, but it means that you're supposed to serve God primarily and certainly you will serve other people, even as we read in, you know, 1

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Corinthians 12 and other places that deal with spiritual gifts. What are we doing? We're employing it for the benefit of others.

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You know, that's one of the funny things about spiritual gifts, the way it's practiced in so many churches today is what's the focus on?

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I mean, people, you know, people are, I've been to those kinds of charismatic. Survey said. If those kinds of charismatic, wacky services and everybody is,

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I would call it, it's like self -worship. Everybody has their own self -contained, you know, units and they have no idea.

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They're completely oblivious to what everybody else is doing because they're too busy worshiping. Steve, isn't it strange?

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You are a new Christian and there's something in you that says, I want to love other people. I've been loved because of the gospel and therefore

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I want to love. And then you go to one of these spiritual gifts, seminars, questionnaires, and fill out this thing so we can figure out what your spiritual gift is.

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And the whole thing, like you said, tends toward, I need to know about me so that I can serve others.

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And it falls into that third commandment, the erroneous third commandment, that you've got to learn to love yourself before you learn to love others.

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What is it that you like? What brings you fulfillment? Well, you know, when

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I took that survey, when I was at Grace Community Church, I found out that my gifts were apostleship and profit.

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Wow. So I don't know if you can start calling me the sent out one if you'd like, but other than that.

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You know what's so funny to me is before I got saved, I was never a teacher at all, you know, and it never would have occurred to me to be a teacher.

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And then, you know, you get saved and the Lord just changes things. And I don't know, some people probably still don't think

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I'm a teacher, but that's neither here nor there. How about Matthew 25?

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I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in.

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I need to close, you clothed me. I was sick, you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.

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Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you are thirsty and give you something to drink?

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When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, are needing clothes and clothe you?

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When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply, I tell you the truth.

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Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine. You have done it to me. There you go,

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Matthew chapter 25, verse 40. When you do something out of love for the

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Lord, you do it for other people, essentially you do it for the

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Lord because that's your motivation. That's the intention. That's the heart's goal. And if you don't know what your spiritual gifts are, you do know that they're for the common good as Pastor Steve was talking about, first Corinthians chapter 12.

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So go serve other people. I remember Steve back in the old days, that old slogan, God doesn't care about your ability, just your -

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Availability. See, you heard that same thing. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like the football coach routine, you know, of Christianity.

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You know, all the little slogans and whatnot. I mean, you leave those kinds of meetings and you just want a bumper sticker.

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I don't know what that is. You do, I think Lane Kiffin wants more than a bumper sticker right now. You had to go there.

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Steve loves USC football. And for many years, he's been on top of the, in Nebraska, we'd call it a dog pile, but in New England, they're not dog piles, they're pig piles.

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Pig piles. Yeah, why are they called pig piles here? I really couldn't tell you. In Tennessee, we call them gomer piles.

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You've never even been to Tennessee, have you? I have been to Tennessee and I studied at the

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Stephen Olford - Oh, that's right. Center for Expository Preaching because there was a class from Southern Seminary that we took there.

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And when they picked me up at the airport there in Memphis, I said, do you mind taking me? And the guy said, across the river so you can say you've been to Mississippi and Arkansas.

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And I said, yep. How did he read my mind? I think he had the spiritual gift of travel.

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We want you to serve the body, but if you're in the nursery and you're changing diapers, or if you're setting up chairs, if you're doing things that aren't so glamorous,

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Steve, walk our listeners through that so they can be re -energized in their ministry.

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Well, it's just so amazing because what do we think? I mean, I think we've all been there at some point or another, maybe you're there right now where you think, well, my ministry isn't that important.

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Well, what do we learn by reading about spiritual gifts? You know, it's this idea of if a hand thinks it's not important, well, it is.

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If a foot thinks it's not important, well, it is. Why? Because we all make up the body of Christ. And, you know, here, using that analogy,

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I like to ask people this, you know, well, let's just say you view yourself as the little toe of the body of Christ.

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And they go, okay, I'm the little toe because all I do is stack chairs, or I do this, or I do that. And I go, now, just imagine this.

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How would you like to just go to the doctor and say, I'd like to have my little toe chopped off? Nobody would voluntarily, you know, you know what?

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Just for fun today, I'm gonna go in and have my left toe cut off. I think that's a Showtime movie or something like that.

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You get your little toe cut off to be in the club. I mean, nobody would do that. And if we understood rightly, the body functions best when everybody is doing their function, when they're working to the best of their capability.

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I mean, just, you know, again, just imagine that the left toe either leaves or won't go with the rest of the foot.

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Well, we'd think that was really weird, you know? Steve, both of us have been given the privilege to preach and to teach.

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And so maybe we're the mouth of the body or something like that. And we get lots of folks saying, thank you.

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And we're more visible, right? When you see a person's body, most of their body's covered up, but their face isn't covered up.

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I really, and honestly think to myself on quite a regular basis, that there are people in the church who are serving behind the scenes, faithfully as stewards, glad that they're saved by the grace of God, wanting to respond with a gratitude to pour out their heart in moving ministry and behind the scenes teaching

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Sunday school or whatever it might be, who are going to be rewarded to a much greater degree than I will be rewarded because their ministry is more steadfast.

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I already get my praise on her, so I'm not gonna get it later. And a variety of those things. And so if we had no helpers here at Bethlehem Bible Church, what would become of us?

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We'd have no church. I mean, we'd be preaching and everybody would have to sit on the floor and they'd go, this is really dumb.

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What happened to the chairs? Well, there's nobody to stack them. There's nobody to set them up. We lost our little toe.

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I think we'd probably just be watching the snow melt out there because there'd be nobody to shovel the snow. There'd be no sound system.

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All these things wouldn't happen. And you bring up a good point about heaven and rewards and stuff like that.

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Well, what does James say? That teachers are gonna undergo the stricter judgment.

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It's not the people who serve behind the scenes that are gonna get whacked for their failure to do the right things.

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It's going to be those who have to handle the word accurately. And when we fail to do that, obviously we don't do that knowingly, but there's a stricter judgment for us.

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Christians are built to serve, equipped to serve, saved to serve. I hate to use that slogan, but it's true.

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That's good though. Saved to serve, it's true. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done,

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Jesus, after he, the servant, comes and cleans and washes the feet of the sinful disciples.

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Well, we're getting to a real practical point here. If you're not serving in the local body, the answer would be?

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Well, you should probably question your, maybe you're new, maybe you're just naive, maybe you're a brand new

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Christian, maybe moved in the area so you don't have a ministry yet. If you don't want a ministry, and if you don't have a ministry, and you put those two together, then it would be fair a question to ask, how could

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I be a Christian without serving others? Yeah, I don't want to be part of the body of Christ. I guess the safe part though, is that way the body of Christ never loses anything.

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You know, if you're not serving and then you just disappear, then. Right, there are no useless members in a body of Christ, but if you're not part of the body, you're not a

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Christian, then you're not a member. Right, exactly. So how about this, Steve? When we say to ourselves, well, no,

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I won't do that, I'll do Philippians 2 .30, because Epaphroditus almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the service you could not give me.

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So Epaphroditus almost lose his life for the work of Christ because of the

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Philippians couldn't get everything done for Paul. So there you have it. You put these things together and combine them and say to ourselves,

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Epaphroditus served Christ while he was ministering to Paul. There you go. I like that.

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I mean, even at the, I was just thinking, you know, one of my favorite sermons ever, archipists take heed to your ministry, you know?

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And so what's the point there? We don't even know what his ministry was. You know, it's not really clear there, but here's what we know.

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Everybody has or should have some kind of ministry and it's important for us to fulfill it, whatever it is. I mean, just think, if you are, if your job is a nursery, you know, you ought to think not only

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I'm doing this for the glory of God, but I want to be the best nursery worker that I could possibly be.

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I, you know, I want to change diapers in the best possible way, not just get the job done. I want to do everything to the best of my ability.

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Why? Because if everybody functions like that, the church can be a very powerful weapon in the hands of the spirit, if we're functioning in that way.

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When you have more than a vertical, excuse me, more than a horizontal view of ministry, verticals included, then these kinds of things come into play.

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This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

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For our brothers, for the people in the church, for those that we fellowship with each and every

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Sunday and maybe during the week too. But that's, we ought to be willing to put ourselves out for the people that we're supposed to love.

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Steve, how can a view of ministry that looks past people, sinful people, and looks to the sinless

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Savior, how can that spur people on to serve with joy? I read

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Psalm 100, serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful singing. You know, you approach the

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King's throne and you got a frown on your face, you're pretty much dust. How can you serve other people with joy knowing you ultimately serve the

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Lord? Well, first of all, I think it comes from having a right view of yourself. If you understand where you would be if left to your own devices and you understand the grace of God in your own life, then that gives you a motivation right there.

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And you're able to overlook the weaknesses of the people that you are serving.

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Maybe they don't give you the big pat on the back. Maybe they don't give you the big gold watch after 50 years of faithful service in the nursery or whatever.

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The point is, if you're doing everything for the glory of God because of what

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Christ accomplished for you and the grace that the

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Holy Spirit exhibited upon you by causing you to be born again, then it just transforms your thinking.

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You're not worried about getting the plaudits of man, you know, the applause of man or anything else.

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You're just focused on one thing. On judgment day, you just wanna hear whatever your ministry was, well done, good and faithful servant.

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You wanna be his servant. Steve, we have been given such an opportunity to serve other saints.

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And I just know that if I keep my eyes on the people and myself,

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I'm gonna be let down. Isn't this gospel ministry? Doesn't service tie in with sanctification and we fix our eyes on the

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Lord and His soon return? And when people then say to me at the door, you don't preach as well as Chuck Swindoll, then

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I can say to myself, do you know what? I need to love these people even though I might not like them. I can serve with joy and I can serve them even though I don't like them.

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Now, most people don't say that, I think. I think it's fair to say most people at the church like me, but I'm sure there's some that don't and they say we serve

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Mike anyway even though we don't like him. Well, and the comments at the door are pretty funny to me sometimes, but the key issue is whether people are throwing roses or bricks at you, that's not the issue ultimately.

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The issue is, and you know this, is what is, if the Lord is happy with a sermon, if the

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Lord is pleased with the way you change diapers, stack chairs, taught a Sunday school class, whatever it was that you do, then you're way ahead.

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And if people get angry with you or whatever, or they're disappointed with you, or you didn't fulfill their needs, well, that's just reality of life, right?

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People are never happy. And so that can't be the standard. We do all that we do for the pleasure of God.

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Church bulletin boards sometimes are pretty kooky, but this particular one I like. Work for the

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Lord. The pay is not much, but the retirement plan is out of this world. And there it is.

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Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio, myth number seven -ish, and it is when you serve, the truth is when you serve other people because of what

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God has done for you in Christ, you're really serving the Lord. What a blessing. 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.