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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

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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.

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, straight from Seattle, the man who

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Ubers across the world and is the North American champion of diplomacy, Steve Cooley.

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Welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me, Mike. You know what, Steve? I think a lot of people, I didn't know this in life, there are gamer shows, like video game shows, and then

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I don't know if there are, are there board game shows? Yes, there are. There are even diplomacy shows. Seriously.

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So, you just, seriously, you just won the North American diplomacy tournament in Seattle?

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Yeah, I didn't go to the European and the World Championship, which was in just south of Marseille, France, on an island.

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Wow. Yeah. Well, Marseille sounds good, but I think it's pretty much non -Judeo -Christian, if you get my drift.

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Yes, I do. Well, they had to actually take a shuttle boat over there.

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It was like a 20 -minute ride and stuff like that, so. Oh, from Marseille, probably, in the ocean.

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Yeah. But I'm just like, okay, well, that sure sounds like it would limit your food choices, right? If you're on an island, a little island there, so.

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Maybe it's like the island of Dr. Moreau. Did you watch that when you were a kid? No, but I know about those kind of movies, you know.

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Oh, really? Yeah. So, I was thinking, speaking of movies, I guess this is our kind of a cultural kind of, you know.

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Sure. A personal update. I have, you just had some knee work done on your knee, and I have to get some done for mine, and they said, when we go in for the surgery and we repair the meniscus, we might have to put in a new

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ACL. There's some damage in the current one, but it'll be, they said, because it was

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Boston Sports deal, this is a game time decision, right? So, everything's cloaked in, you know.

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Well, at least they didn't say it's a coach's decision, right? We'll consult, you know.

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And I kept, you know, the first thing that struck me was, when I was a kid, I would watch Creature Feature with the host,

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Dr. Sanguinari, and all the stuff, and double Creature Feature. We love Dr.

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Sanguinari, Omaha, Nebraska. And I think I watched the show The Hand, right?

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So a man loses his hand, kind of like a physician or something, or upright man, and there's going to be a transplant, you know, a cadaver transplant of somebody's, you know, a deceased person's hand, and they were going to sew it on, you know, 1950s kind of thing.

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But the cadaver hand was from a murderer, and so they put the new hand on, and he would get these desires to kind of like choke people and strangle them with the new hand.

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So what kind of cadaver ACL might I get? Maybe it's going to be like a triple jumpers or something.

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Yeah. Or maybe, you know, a real basketball player. That, yeah, right. So you'll be dunking in no time.

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But what if it's like from a Jehovah's Witness or something? Will I start turning Aryan? I think I'm turning

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Aryan. Yes, I think so. Honey, I'm going to go hand out the watchtower floor. I know. Whenever I walk past watchtower people, you know, they're standing there giving their booklets out and stuff.

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You know, I want to go up and say, do you have any good news? And I've talked to them sometimes, but maybe

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I'll be nicer after my new patella. Sounds like really bad news. I know. Steve, have we done this show before on the

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TomRaynor .com Reasons People Leave a Church? We have done it? Yeah. Seriously?

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Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess that's out. Well, then what do you want to do today?

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Well, I thought we might discuss the finer points of diplomacy. Okay. Well, let's do something else while I'm figuring that out and scrambling.

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Tell me what you're reading these days, what you're teaching. I like to ask those questions. Well, let's see.

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Honestly, I've been reading a lot of the, been blowing through the last issue of what's the

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Ligonier magazine? Table proof. Yeah. Table Talk.

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Thank you. They did. They did. And I've just been reading the devotional section, but I started reading one of the other ones, the articles in there.

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They kind of are doing a, how would Satan attack the church from a screw tape letters sort of approach, you know, instead of just the regular screw tape letters and how to lead people astray.

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It's kind of how would we undermine the church from a satanic perspective? Well, let's talk about that just for a second, because we know that Satan, he is a real being and he is a live.

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And I think back to the, to the fall where Satan was trying to get Eve and did get her to doubt the goodness of God, right?

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See, he, he's going to give you everything except this one thing. And since he won't give you that one thing, then how bad he must be.

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And so he's, he's making people doubt the goodness of God and he's lying, right?

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And remember, Jesus said, you're like your father, Satan, this, this liar.

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And I wonder how Satan's, I mean, we can't know for sure, right? But I wonder what some of his ploys are these days when it comes to local churches.

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Anything pop into your mind? Well, I think the number one is, you know, convince the, convince the leaders of the church that the

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Bible really isn't relevant and not what the people need. Steve, this makes good radio.

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I look at Colossians chapter one, verse 28, him we proclaim. And you and I talked off air about other things.

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What if it doesn't work though? Right? So isn't that kind of like a regular theme with people?

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Let's say it's spanking. I know the Bible says that I should spank my child, but I've tried it. It doesn't work.

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I know the Bible says, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church. I tried it for two days, you know, it didn't work.

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How pragmatic, I mean, there are some things in life that are fairly pragmatic, but what about this particular case when it comes to church growth and church ecclesiastical programs and Sunday morning liturgy?

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Well, I think if the goal is to pack men, you know, to make sure that you've got a growing number of people showing up every

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Sunday, then preaching the Bible will not, might not be the best way to go. Steve, when

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I'm preparing, let's say you're in John 17 or I'm in Hebrews nine, sometime during the week, maybe it's early, maybe it's later, maybe it's throughout the week.

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I say to myself, in light of what I've studied in the text, how am

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I going to package this in such a way or frame it or outline it so that the people could hear it and understand it in a simple fashion?

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Does that make sense? Yeah. My framework is this. I ask myself, how does this preach? Okay, good.

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So, I guess what I'm thinking about is when you exegete the text, it's not the same thing as exegeting the audience.

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That is to say, my priority is what's the text say and mean, but I still think, oh, there's a grandma there, there's somebody struggling with cancer, there's somebody that's lost their husband.

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And so, I then try to think about what I've learned from the Lord to tell the other folks.

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But I think what happens is, don't you think that people want to exegete the congregation first and then they go find a text that might work or a program that might work or a rock and roll that might work?

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What would reach the most people? In other words, I might not even have good intention, I might think, what would help the most people to hear this week?

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You know, where are most people struggling in their lives? Steve, when we think about like the regular principle, how scripture regulates how we worship

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God, it always strikes me as very, the

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Lord is very concerned about how he is to be worshiped. He does not like us to make stuff up.

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He doesn't want strange fire. He doesn't want strange fire, Leviticus 10. I mean, Uzzah actually thought that, you know, his hands were more holy than the ground type of thing, you know, and he didn't want to drop that.

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They were carrying it wrongly to begin with. And by the way, David was outraged after Uzzah died.

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And what was he outraged with? You know, who was he outraged with? It wasn't

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Uzzah. It wasn't Uzzah. Boy, that is amazing. And by the way, thankfully for David, a man after God's own heart, he did more good in his life than he did bad.

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So therefore he's earned heaven. I mean,

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I thought about this week when I was about to study in Hebrews. Okay, David, I mean, he sinned other times too.

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He sinned there. He sinned with Bathsheba, of course. He sinned when he killed Uriah. He sinned other times,

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I'm positive. Why would we ever think, you know what, but he did so many good things that those other things will be weighed out in the balance of –

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Well, I know why. You know why. Because it comforts us, makes us feel better about ourselves, right? Gives us hope even for unbelievers, you know, they do a lot of good.

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Maybe there's somehow that God's going to squeeze them in. That's right. So back to kind of regulating worship.

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Do you think, and I don't know if this is true or not, because I'm talking out loud and we're just making this up as we go. Do you think that entertainment in worship, consumeristic, kind of appealing to the consumer, making sure things aren't boring, rock and roll music with strobe lights and all that stuff.

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Fog machine. Fog, oh yes, fog machine. Gotta have it. You know, ours is broken, by the way. Could you get that fuse fixed?

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I will. Okay. Do you think those things fall into any category of it's against the regulative principle, it's a strange fire, it's we're making up worship because we've got the wrong person in mind, like the pew sitter versus the

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Lord? Well, I sure think, you know, I mean, most sermons, so -called sermons that I listen to, they violate the regulative principle just on the basis of them not being from the

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Bible. You know, I mean, preach what your congregation wants to hear.

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Preach, I mean, Paul said that, right? I charge you, you know, I solemnly charge you. Yeah, yeah.

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Solemnly, that's right. Yeah. Well, remember, we used to teach Haley, if you ever meet a pastor, you, and she was like three or something, you go up to them, preach the word, preach the word.

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And so we have the word to preach, but I think all too often, Steve, people look at the congregation, they think, you know what, they've got to just get them through another week.

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They want to hear stories. They want to hear application. They want to have things to do. And therefore, they preach to them, essentially, moralism, which is no gospel at all.

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You know, two things happen there too. One is I think it makes the preacher exceptionally lazy, right?

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Because he just gets to pick a topic and then just talk about it, right? Whatever comes to his mind on Saturday night when he's in the park watching some concert or whatever.

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But I think the other thing is, to me, it would depress me if I was a pastor of a place like that.

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And I think, you know, we were talking earlier about a different situation, but I think some of that, we see this borne out.

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There's been an increasing number of pastoral suicides, and I can't help but wonder if that's part of it.

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You know, if we don't focus on Christ, if we don't focus on his word, if we don't faithfully give the people what

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God commands us to give them, how can that not be depressing to us? Because we're not fulfilling what we're supposed to do.

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Steve, in my mind, as I begin to think about categories and law and gospel, let's say we meet someone and they're struggling with suicide.

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They could be a clergy member, right? We struggle with sins like everybody else struggle with sins. And I'm sure, you know, there are pastors that struggle with that or have difficulty and backgrounds that are awful.

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And so, I mean, we are not exempt from that. But let's say somebody's struggling with anything in life, and we then want to help them.

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And I think our help all too often is we simply just give them more to do, right?

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We just give them more law. And let's say somebody said, well, I struggle with pornography.

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I meaning them, not me. They struggle with pornography. Okay. Thank you for telling me.

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I want you to get the XX browser installed. I want you to have an application installed on all your outlets, accountability groups.

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I want you to read the Bible in the morning and pray and, you know, take cold showers. I mean, you give, that's all law.

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And I don't think there's anything wrong with law. But I think if that's the only thing we keep giving people, no wonder people get depressed.

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Because if they just keep seeing how far they fall short, and there's never any good news, there's never any hope, there's never any

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Jesus, there's never any union with Christ and the Spirit dwells in you. All the law in the world won't make you feel any better, right?

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All the obedience in the world, Brent. Yeah. A bunch of disobedient, lawless people, let's say they're

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Christians. And so what's the answer? This morning, I'm going to give you another sermon. And we're going to look at the life of David, and you're going to see seven exemplary attributes of David's life that I want you to start working on.

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So that you can be a man after God's own heart. What are we doing? I find it fascinating and wonderful and just thrilling when you go to Romans, let's say, chapter four, you have both

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Abraham and David chosen by God to have Paul write about when you can look at Abraham's life.

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You know what? I'm going to bless God. I'm going to bless the nation through you. All right. Hey, Hagar, come over here.

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I mean, from the get -go. You know what? Please don't kill me. This isn't my wife.

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She might look like it, but she's my sister. If only I had the faith of Abraham.

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I know. By the way, I think to myself when I look at Abraham and David, Abraham's the father of the faith.

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I never slept around on Kim, right? It's all this. So I must be doing better. I'm even better than our old

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Abraham. I'm good to go. I know. I'm going to teach a preaching class in New Hampshire soon,

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N -E -C -E -P. If you went to NECEP .org, probably you can find it. So if you've got a pastor, you want to treat him or something, it's kind of like a tune -up, polishing school for pastors.

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Coming up in October, I get them all there, and let's just say there's 20 students.

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And I each want you to prepare a sermon on the life of David and seven characteristics in your life that you should emulate that were you found in David's life.

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Here's what we would find, Steve. And I know you already know this because we talk about it all the time. No seven, not one of those 20 men would have the same exact seven.

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Now why is that? Well, you know, I could say because scripture is multifaceted.

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It's so rich. It's so wonderful. You could say that, but give me the answer that I know is right.

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Okay. Why would they all have seven different principles? Because they're not, well, first of all, they wouldn't be all coming straight out of a text, right?

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In other words, there wouldn't be a passage that they would be preaching through because there is no passage that you can look at and go, here are the seven characteristics of David that we should all seek to emulate.

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So you're pulling it from a bunch of different places and you're going to skip over some and that other people think are more important, you know, so it's going to be kind of a matter of opinion, right?

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You know what happens, I think, Steve, is if you went to Romans and I said to those same 20 guys, here's

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Romans 3, 21 through 26, and I want you to come up with a sermon outline.

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They'd be more similar, right? I don't want any application. I'm not talking about, you know, this is for junior high kids.

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Just tell me what the text says and means and give me an outline of the text, right? When you think of that ladder of abstraction, not how we're going to preach it to people necessarily, but what does it mean?

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I think that, you know, that'd be pretty close, right? If they were skilled preachers and they knew exegesis hermeneutics, but when it comes to these, you know, the life of David, the life of Elijah, you know, the life of these people, and we have this exemplary preaching that is follow examples, the data is so, so large, they just run around and try to find things.

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They told me to preach, dare to be a David, and so I thought, well, I'll just go to the Bathsheba scenario and so I told everybody so that you will kill your girlfriend's husband and then marry her.

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Boy. So, what we're trying to say here today is, since we've already done a show on the other thing that Steve had, we're just talking, and generally speaking,

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I think, Steve, many people think the worship service is for the people.

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That is to say, yes, he's calling us to come worship God, in that sense it's for the people, but in terms of the

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I toward worshiping God, the object of worship isn't the people, right?

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We might be subjects of worship in terms of I'm addressing the people, but the object of the worship has to be the people.

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Pete Well, I mean, think about all the things you've talked about, whether it's the music, whether it's, you know, the TED Talks, whatever, you know, all these different things, what is the focus of them, and the focus is not on the glory of God, it's not on exalting the

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Lord Jesus Christ, it's on the people. Making sure they like the music, making sure that they're interested in the talk, making sure that there's something practical that they can take away and do, and, you know, you just go, okay, well, what is church all about?

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What is the purpose of church? If the purpose of church is to get together and make sure everybody's entertained and not bored and, well, then, you know, we're wasting our time.

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I know, that's right. Mike Ebenroth with Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Steve, as you know, and if people have listened to your preaching or my preaching or the show, you would quickly realize we want people to live holy lives, and there is a call to holiness.

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Romans chapter 8, predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, we want that, we want progressive sanctification, yet, not a but, but yet, there's something to be said for showing people who

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Jesus is every single week, even though sometimes there might not be a direct, these are three things

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I have to do. Now, there might be three things to be reminded of, right? That's an imperative to be believed, to focus on, right?

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We can talk still imperatively, like 2 Timothy 2, remember Jesus Christ. That's my favorite imperative.

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But, you know, you look at the gospels, you look at Matthew 28 chapters, and there is an imperative for the church, that is, you know, the apostles, then the church, the

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Great Commission. But the rest is, we just want to remind you who Jesus is. I think that's what's lacking in many church services today, a good reminder of the

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Lord Jesus. Well, let me ask you this, you know, just a theoretical question. Do you think if we could get the congregation to love the

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Lord Jesus Christ more, they would sin less? I think they could.

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I think they would. I think they should. I think they ought to. I mean, if they were, if we had a church that was completely consumed by Jesus Christ and his glory, you know,

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I think there would be a lot less sin, right? I mean, I think about my own life. When is it that I sin the least, at least in my own mind?

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When do I sin the least? It's when I'm just enthralled and consumed and, you know, just, it seems like Christ is just my every thought.

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That's when I'm sinning the least. Right. And I, and you and I agree on most everything in theological realms and ecclesiological realms.

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Why I pause for a second, Steve, is because I was thinking law gospel. And of course,

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I know you would agree with me if you're told and shown and displayed through preaching in the

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Bible, the glories of Christ, your response is to love. When you first said love, I was thinking, oh, that's more law.

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You know, if I just have to love more, but I think I know what you mean. Am I right? Yeah. I'm not, I wouldn't, you know, here are the six ways to love

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Jesus more. I'm just saying the more we put him on display, the more people are just enthralled and enthused and just, you know, fixated on Jesus Christ.

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You know, it, well, let's put it this way. The more we're thinking of him, focused on him, the less time we have to entertain the wickedness that enters our minds.

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That is so true. Colossians 3, set your mind on things above, right, and where Christ is and seated and you know, your life is

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Christ and then all of a sudden three, five, the turn there is. So in light of that, in gratitude and in obedience, then live a holy life.

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That's right. That's amazing. I was preaching Matthew 15 last week and you were gone, you know, doing your secular winning the national championships of the world and everything.

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But I seriously, all week long, I was captivated by and enthralled by in a very worshipful way, the way

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Jesus was acting, not just to the Pharisees, because I think I got that down before, right?

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How he just blisters them, but how he was dealing with that woman, the Syrophoenician woman, the

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Gentile woman up in Tyre and Sidon. I thought, man, this is the Jesus, you know, what was

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MacArthur's book, The Jesus You Don't Know or something, right? Or You Should Know. Yeah.

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That you don't, that you wish you knew, but you didn't, but I just, I was thinking about Jesus all week and how he was dealing with this lady and how he showed everyone what her heart was like, because he, along with the spirit and the father gave her a heart of worship and she just accepted everything that he was the savior.

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He had, he was the Lord, he was the son of David, et cetera. And that made me think, you know what? I want to honor you.

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Well, you know, I want to, I want to love you. So anyway, Mike Ebendroth, Steve Cooley here.

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We got another minute or so, anything else? What was your purpose statement on that? I know.

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So that, I did say at the end, you know, we're saved by the grace of God and he's the one that gives

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Lydia a new heart and opened her heart. He gave the Syrophoenician woman a new heart, et cetera, et cetera. The father drew him, the spirit's convicting.

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So, I just want you to remember, Christian, that your legal standing before God is based on the work of Christ and don't go running around thinking that therefore your legal standing is based on fruit and evidence.

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Just don't confuse the two. And somebody came up to me after church service and said, I really needed to hear that.

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And that told me this particular lady had a rough week and she was on the treadmill and she thought the more

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I perform, the more God loves me. And it's so easy to think that way. That's how I default. It's so easy to think that way.

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Yeah. And so she said, I was so glad that my legal standing before the father is based on the work of Jesus.

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Because then it's fixed. It's perfect. He cannot love you more and he cannot love you less.

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He loves you completely. If you had to stand before God based on your own merits,

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I mean, you've got two options. Self -righteousness or like, I'm just depressed. Yeah.

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Well, for me it would be depressed, I'd be just like, I'm smoked. If you've got topics for us or if you've got, what, plane tickets for us or like Broadway plays for us.

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Or just, you know, some lovely compliments you'd like to shower upon us, we'd be. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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Oh, October 11th and 12th, 2019, R. Scott Clark coming to Bethlehem Bible Church. Register bbcchurch .org.

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There you go. 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 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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