Christian Obedience and the Lordship of Christ

Welcome to No Compromise Reading Ministry. I'm feeling better, just a tiny bit, a tad bit, a wee bit stuffy.

Twenty two days of COVID was a long time. I don't know what

I got accomplished. I don't know what I did besides I did read the scriptures I caught up on my

Bible reading program, so that was really good. And I normally say to myself for the

Bible reading program that I can't listen on audio because in my mind, that's kind of cheating.

I listen to the Bible on audio. And that's fine. I do it all the time and you should, too.

But for me to count in my own mind, this is self -imposed, legalistic, self -righteous behavior for the

Bible reading program that I'm doing this year. I want to actually read it with my eyes and without the sound.

But when I was sick, I thought to myself, I'm going to read it with my eyes and listen.

So it wasn't like I was just listening and walking around. I was looking and reading, sorry, looking reading and listening at the same time.

So I caught up on that. You think if you're just home for weeks on end, you could just get something done, write a book or something.

Didn't get that done. Seemed like I've written books in shorter time than that. It's just like foggy, mentally.

I don't know what I did. Oh, you know what I did do? I could do this because it was only a couple of minutes at a time.

I bought a speed bag, boxing speed bag. And so I would go down to the speed bag and work out for like two minutes, which is more timing.

It's not really a workout and just practice. So that's about all I did. So I learned how to hit a speed bag and I would get faster, hit it harder as the

COVID days went on. So I have a little remaining cough, but I've tested negative twice.

Back to preaching, back to working out. Worked out the last few days and about every bone in my body is sore.

Every muscle is just, oh, I've got to stretch. But I'm thankful that I could do that. Praise the

Lord. Even in some of my moments of doubt and fear and anxiety, kind of PTSD -ish, remembering what the old

COVID 16 day hospital trip was like. I mean, you know, the doctor comes in and I'm like, how am

I doing? Your COVID pneumonia is worse. You have to have a CAT scan. Next day, how am I doing? You need to be on Lasix.

Next day you come in, how am I doing? You need to be on high flow, 60 liters of oxygen. Next day, come in, how am

I doing? I think we're going to have to tap your lungs. By yourself, no one in there, no family, no wife, no kids, no church members, nobody coming in to put their hand on your shoulder and read you

John 17, nothing. So I was thinking when I got COVID this last time, a month ago,

I'm like, oh, brother, here we go again. At least I got to see my grandkids.

So I think I talked about that last week. Anyway, Mike Gabendroth back to new shows.

Thanks for Spencer's hard work of putting together. It was supposed to be like three weeks of interviews,

I guess, and then it turned into who knows what. But this is my sixth show that I've recorded since COVID.

So I'm very glad for that. I want to talk about lordship today a little bit.

And I don't mean lordship, salvation and the debate regarding that. You can read my article on Heidel blog from lordship to law gospel.

That's not the focus of my talk today. My talk, my little talk, my

TED talk. But I want to just talk about the lordship of Jesus. Now, it's kind of related in a little bit of a way, because if I say if someone says, so you don't believe in lordship salvation, you don't believe that Jesus is

Lord. I want to say to them, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Matter of fact,

I know you don't, because lordship and lordship salvation are different things.

Lordship salvation has to do more with what do we call on believers to do in light of the gospel presentation?

And do we say rest, receive and trust and believe? Or do we say submit, yield and surrender and treasure and stuff like that?

But is Jesus Lord? Today on the show, I want to make sure emphatically that you understand that I teach,

I think the Bible teaches, I think the confessions teach that Christians must live holy lives.

They, under the third use of the law, have all kinds of commands to guide and to direct.

They, the Christian, the Christians, have the spirit of God dwelling in them so that they are being sanctified and they respond with no to sin and yes to righteousness, that Christians, because God is holy, they are to be holy, that Christians out of gratitude because of their guilt and God's grace, they respond with gratitude to obey

God. The commands of God found in Ephesians 4, for instance, to the

Christian, those commands, since you are in Christ and you have all the blessings in Christ and you can look at chapters one, two and three, then you walk in a manner worthy of your calling.

This is how you respond to God's grace. This is how I respond to gospel proclamation promises, the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And so therefore, you ought to be holy, obey God's commands, follow his imperatives, a matter of fact, follow

God, surrender to God, submit to God as Christians. That's a sanctification category.

Obey. Christians must obey. Now, if they don't, they don't lose their salvation.

If they don't, it's not necessarily that they're proving they're not Christians, because if you're a

Christian, that can't happen. I mean, sometimes people aren't Christians. That's true. First Corinthians chapter six.

You don't keep your salvation by obedience. You don't get your salvation by obedience. But out of gratitude as fruit and evidence, you respond with obedience for many reasons, but for today, because Jesus is

Lord. Jesus is Lord. And I've been working through the gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, and I'm in chapter six and I see

Jesus with the Pharisees on the Sabbath and then healing the man with a withered hand on the

Sabbath. And he says in chapter six, verse five, that Jesus said, and I'll read the verse here from the

ESV, Luke six, five. And he said to them, the

Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. And so when you're

Lord of the Sabbath and you think about the esteem that the Jews have for the Sabbath, Mosaic laws, esteem for the

Sabbath, think about how important the Sabbath is and even the creation ordinance and then a

Mosaic law and ten commandments, fourth command. If Jesus is

Lord of the Sabbath, that means he's Lord. This is a proclamation of divinity.

And in the original language, the Greek language to emphasize things, since there are no yellow highlighters or bold fonts, it's got the word kurios, our

Lord first, Lord of Sabbath, Son of Man.

Jesus is Lord. Matter of fact, as First Timothy states, he's the

Lord of Lords. Out of all the Lords lording, he's the Lord and he's

King of Kings. Out of all the Kings kinging, he is the King. He, Jesus, is

Lord. He is in charge. He is the master. He is the ruler. I'm not trying to say something irreverent, but he would be like the boss, if you will, to understand that.

He is in charge. Jesus is Lord. Why is my pen not working?

I wanted to write that in my notes, just popped into my mind. He's in charge.

He's Lord of the Sabbath. And of course, these Pharisees, these religious legalists accuse

Jesus of being an antinomian. That's kind of fascinating. Do you ever think about that?

Was Jesus ever accused of being a legalist? I don't recall.

Maybe, but I doubt it. But regularly, often,

Jesus was accused of being antinomian, anti -against, non -law, against the law, licentious, relaxing the law, disobeying the law, not being under the law, not doing what the law commands.

And it's the same thing here. Some of the Pharisees said, why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the

Sabbath? Remember, they were picking some of the heads of grain and they were rubbing them in their hands.

And so the Pharisees are thinking, this is like threshing. This is like cultivation. This is like production.

This is stuff that we're not supposed to do on the Sabbath. We're supposed to be resting on the Sabbath. And of course,

Jesus shows up and he didn't say, yeah, they did it.

He, like a good representative, like a good leader, like a good federal head, like a good last Adam, he defends his men, the disciples, probably more than the twelve, because later out of these disciples, he calls the twelve in chapter six, verse twelve.

And so Jesus talks about David when he was hungry, goes to the house of God and he eats the showbread, the bread of the presence.

And only the priest could eat that, remember? And Jesus is saying,

I'm a greater David. Matter of fact, I'm so great. I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. And of course, we realize that the

Sabbath is for a blessing for men and women. The Sabbath is for rest.

And of course, Jesus is going to heal someone really on the next Sabbath to show that he's going to be the one who brings in not just temporal rest on a day of the week on Saturday, but eternal rest.

And we're going to see in weeks to come that the tie in between I'm going to give you rest for your weary soul in Matthew 11.

Guess what follows Matthew 11, Matthew 12, where the same account happens with the

Pharisees, the rubbing of grain with the disciples and healing the man with a withered hand. And Matthew goes on to talk about, you know, understanding mercy and understanding kindness regarding the

Sabbath and what God is giving. Back to the point at hand,

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is Lord.

And that's what I want to focus on today is the Lord ship of Jesus for all the talk we do here on the radio show and the pulpit about grace and the goodness of God and gospel truths and how preaching is a means of grace and how it is not my duty to try to show you from Scripture somehow that you're not a

Christian to take away your assurance. I'm to preach law and gospel on Sunday.

And when I preach gospel in no wise, in no way, in no manner, am

I trying to get you to live a licentious life? Matter of fact, I'm trying to motivate your obedience by telling you about who

God is because we preach law gospel to believers. Holiness and godliness and your obedience as a

Christian is crucial. But the motivation you get, the animation literally is from good news is to be reminded about the person and the promises of the

Lord Jesus. Now, I might emphasize one thing over another, but you've never heard me say obedience is irrelevant.

Our obedience is irrelevant when it comes to salvation. That's true, because we couldn't be obedient enough to be saved.

But as a consequence, as a fruit, as an evidence, our obedience is important. I mean,

God guides us through his word and for his glory and for our good, just like Solomon back in Proverbs, Proverbs two, my son,

Proverbs three, my son, four, my son, five, my son, I think six, my sons or my son, seven, my son, my sons, something like that.

Here, I want to give you wise counsel so you do these things. Not that if you disobey, you get kicked out.

Not if you do these things, you'll become my son. But since you are my son, here's how you should live.

Obedience doesn't earn salvation. Nothing earns salvation. It's grace and grace alone.

And we don't keep our salvation by obedience, but we obey.

And when we obey or when we strive to obey, when we're sorry, we don't obey.

By the way, that's something that's very important. I heard somebody challenging Christians in a sermon.

And how do you know you're not a demis? Was one sermon from the same pulpit was preached a sermon about.

Well, I don't think that that's irrelevant, but the demis thing is I never heard.

Are you sorry when you don't obey? Who do you think put that sorrow in your life?

Do you think CNN did that? Do you think Satan did? Would you like to obey more? Would you like to honor the

Lord with your life? Would you like to have more fruit and evidence? Does it bother you when you don't? Do you ever repent and ask

God to forgive you for some of those things? Instead, it was just, hey, if you're not doing these things, you could possibly be a demis.

OK, that statement's true, but other things need to be said because it's

Rome that took away assurance. Rome's the one that challenged assurance all the time. Once you convict people, then you give them the balm of the gospel.

God's people, you want to preach law and gospel convictions. Good obedience is good. Law is good.

Commands are good. Imperatives are good. But as I say, if you're a good mom or dad and you discipline your child,

I hope after discipline, you love them. And after the rod comes comfort, forgiveness, grace shown, reconciliation.

And so we're not just whacking people. If you say to yourself, I love that preacher. And when I listen to him, I don't even know if I'm saved.

That's bad preaching. And you know who I'm talking about. Jesus is the

Savior. And we respond out of gratitude with works, with obedience, with fruit, with evidences.

And consequently, we honor God. And when we don't, there's discipline.

There are hardships, but we're not kicked out of the family. Jesus is

Lord. He is in charge. And Jesus is in charge and is

Lord over everything. So let's tease this out a little bit.

Since Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and Lord of all, Lord of lords and King of kings,

Revelation 19. Jesus Christ, the Lord, confess

Jesus as Lord. Name above all names, Lord. If Jesus is

Lord and he is third class conditional, since he's Lord, that means he's Lord of what?

Let's think of some things that he's Lord over. How about this one comes to mind for me right at the top of my list?

Not because it's the first, but it's because what I just thought of. Health.

Jesus is Lord of my health. I guess he could have given me different DNA.

So I wasn't so susceptible to cancer. The aneurysm thing could have given me stronger aortic walls.

Jesus is Lord. And he's Lord over your family's health, your children's health, your parents' health.

Jesus is sovereign. He is Lord. And so how do we respond knowing that?

That's a good question that we need to work through. How about he's Lord of your good health?

If you're young, I mean, most of my listeners are too young. They're 60 year old people, probably mostly male.

Oh, we have a lot of ladies listen to. I don't think I get that many teenagers listening unless they're listening with their mom and dad, but maybe there are a few.

If you're a teenager that you listen, your mom and dad doesn't have any idea who No Compromise Radio is. Would you write me,

Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com and tell me how you found out about the show and tell me a little bit about your story and I might send you something free.

Something, something free. Jesus is Lord. He's Lord over your state of singleness or marriage.

Let's talk about the singles right now. I'm sure they who those who are old enough and don't have the gift of celibacy want to be married for lots of reasons and to have a spouse and to have a companion, to have someone to live life with, to have intimacy with, to have children with, to just enjoy life with and all the things that come with marriage.

But it's hard for most young people to submit to the Lord and his timing and in his goodness and in this sovereign hand.

And therefore, instead of making marriage an idol, we look back to the Lord and say, help me just rest in you.

If you're married, you think, well, I think I might have married the wrong person. Some people have said that to me.

And and in the human sense, it could be true in the sense that they didn't, this is going to sound bad, but it just came to my mind, that the person, they didn't get to know them, they just kind of romantically head over heels in love and they didn't get to know their family and all the other things that you should kind of looking for.

What are you looking for in a spouse? Maybe they were carnal and they weren't looking for someone except that they were pretty or handsome or whatever.

Jesus is Lord. When you said, I do, it was God's will for you to marry that person.

He's Lord over how many children you have. Maybe you and your wife can't have children.

I've met people and that's the case. And they would love to have children and they can't. And I'm sorry.

I'm sad. The fall is awful. Sin is awful.

But could they still have joy? And of course, the answer is yes. And Jesus is Lord. And so they have to submit to the

Lordship of Jesus instead of getting mad at God. How could you, God?

There are different responses to understanding Jesus is Lord. All right.

How about this one? Money. Is Jesus Lord of your money? If he's

Lord of the Sabbath, he's Lord of all. And if he's Lord of all, he's Lord of your money. And if we were to look at your checkbook, your bank account, your

Zelle transfers, your Venmo, your Bitcoin stuff.

Is Bitcoin going to go to 12 million coin? As R .E

.M. would say, it's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel, what, fine. I should play that on here, but I lost my

Apple Music for somehow upgrading to a phone. Grumble, grumble. Who needs music?

I guess I'll have to get Spotify now. Finally, after all these years, my kids say I'm backward, but that's true. Back to the money thing.

If we look at your money, would we say Jesus is Lord? He's Lord of my money.

What you spend it on, what you don't spend it on. And something that I rarely do, but could cut to the chase here.

Sacrificial giving to the local church. You thought I was going to say no compromise radio question.

If you give to NoCo, you're one of the 12 people. Thank you. I appreciate you. But if you don't give to your local church, you should stop giving to NoCo.

Local church. You give to the Lord Jesus through the local church. You don't even really give to the church.

You don't give to the pastor. You don't give to the elders. You don't give to the board. You don't give to the commissioners. You don't give to the trustees. I don't care who's in charge.

It's to the Lord Jesus. You write the check. It says Bethlehem Bible Church. But I say it's like I'm handing the money to the

Lord Jesus for his kingdom. And if you throw in the fiver or the 20 every once in a while and you have a regular job and let's just say you're making 80 grand a year, 100 grand a year, 120 grand a year between you and your wife or whatever the number is, let's just say 100 grand.

People can make 100 grand now fairly easily. And if you're only making 50, you're like, yeah, easier for you to say.

But my daughter's out of school. The wages are going up. And so let's just say it's 80 grand.

And you say, you know what? I give five or ten bucks once in a while. Can I ask you a question?

Does that reveal God's lordship over your money? Well, I think the answer has to be no.

We're not under Old Testament tithing principles. We are under generosity.

We are under Second Corinthians chapter eight stuff where it's just we're generous and we see how generous Jesus was to us and we realize we even have the ability to work because of the

Lord, we have the job because the Lord and we are to give first fruits and we just need to give sacrificially.

I don't know what that number is. If it's eight thousand a year, let's just use 10 percent off gross just for sake of argument.

I know that leads down all kinds of rabbit trails. Then I think, oh, I would look at that person and I don't look at who gives here at the church, but I'd look at that and I'd say, oh, how much do you give?

I give 10 percent of my money, net gross, whatever. I think Jesus is

Lord because you realize the Lord is telling you through his scriptures. It's, you know,

Second Corinthians eight is red letter in the sense that Paul has been sent by Jesus.

So I'm essentially reading the words of Jesus, right? These are this is an apostle sent by Jesus. Jesus said, go say these things.

Right. And so the money thing is big. I don't know what it is here at the church, but probably at most churches and ours is probably like that.

A lot of people don't give sacrificially. Many do. And the 25 to 35 percent that do pretty much carry the budget of the church.

Sacrificial giving shows that you realize Jesus is Lord. How about what you watch or don't watch?

I get convicted by this. I mean, Kim and I want to watch something good on Netflix or some documentary or something on Hulu or whatever, and then we start watching it.

And all of a sudden we're like, uh, this this isn't going to be good.

We shouldn't be watching this. We shouldn't be listening to this. How much more when it comes to people that watch pornography?

Is Jesus Lord of your eyes? I think the answer has to be yes.

How about is Jesus Lord when it comes to the priority of Lord's Day worship now?

I'll probably talk about this church tomorrow at worship service tomorrow, and the people that are there, they have the priority.

Most important thing that you can do, like the doing part, is

Lord's Day worship. Dads, my

M .O. was, and I don't do everything well, but this was right. Praise God. It's never are we going to church today?

It's which church are we going to? And that's whether I'm a pastor or not a pastor. Where are we going?

That's that's a question short of being sick, short of having COVID. I missed two weeks in a row not having having

COVID. Man, that was brutal. That's brutal. And watching things online. I mean, if you're a shut in, OK, fine.

If you're sick, OK, fine. If you're home taking care of your sick child, fine. But on a regular basis,

I understand why some churches don't like to have things posted, because it's just it's just not not not right.

So my point here is not videos on Sundays and YouTubes on Sundays of the services.

My point is priority of Lord's Day worship with the saints in person in a place where there's a real pastor, not a video screen.

Lord's Day worship, Lord. Get it,

Lord's Day worship, the Lord, and he calls us to come and worship. How about serving other people?

Does that reflect the Lordship of Jesus in your life? Work, how much you work, what your attitude is at work.

Do you steal at work? Do you cut corners at work? Do you work too much? How about your time?

And the list goes on and on and on. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is

No Compromise Radio Ministry. And I just wanted to say today that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. That means he's

Lord. That means he's God. And we want to live underneath the Lordship of Jesus by submitting to him, surrendering to him and obeying him.

That's those are categories of sanctification. And therefore, licentiousness is sin.

Lawlessness is sin. Ungodliness is sin. And when we sin, we confess and we repent.

And we have a desire as Christians to obey God because he has saved us from our guilt and Adam and are consequently our own sin.

He has graced us in Christ Jesus when the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all men, Titus chapter two.

And we respond with gratitude. And that gratitude is, yes, thankful attitudes.

But that gratitude is then shown by obedience. Christians must obey.

Not to get into heaven, not to stay into heaven, not to have standing before God.

Because God is our father and our father has said for our own good and for his glory, obey, flee immorality, serve other people, encourage one another, preach the gospel to unbelievers, pray, et cetera.

So I hope that clears up the fact. I'm going to entitle this show Jesus is Lord. Therefore, obey or something like that.