The Motivation for Christian Obedience (Part 2)

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry we have with us again after a long absence.

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Tuesday guy, it seemed like you just were here yesterday. Well, you had to lure me back. I think, actually,

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Steve, we�re going to play this show on Wednesday. What? Yeah, because we�re going to record two or three shows today, and so we have to play it on Wednesday.

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I think we might own Twitter if we do that, because everybody will be like, �Did you know the Tuesday guy was on a

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Wednesday show ?� It�ll shatter all kinds of paradigms. Everybody will go out there. They won�t even be able to drive.

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Have you recorded your matron men Saturday mornings with the other men? You know, most of them,

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I think I have, but I�ve never done anything with them. They�re just sitting on a disc somewhere. I wonder if our listeners might like those.

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I don�t know. What, $1 download? Do you think that�ll work? Just mail me a donut.

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The kids showed me something the other day. You can type in somebody�s name and net worth and it pulls up.

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Well, there�s another, Michael Abendroth, and his net worth is $8 million, but the website shows my face.

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The kids are like, �Dad, you�re holding out on us. What do you mean we can�t order soda at the restaurant

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I wonder if what�s -her -name�s going to get a hold of this and you�re going to be featured. He�s living the millionaire lifestyle.

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I did also hear that that website that is a clearinghouse almost for speakers, right?

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If you want Joe Osteen, it says, you know, $10 ,000 to $20 ,000 per gig. Does it have you on there?

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No, no. Not that I know of, but it said David Platt, $10 ,000 to $20 ,000, Driscoll, $10 ,000 to $20 ,000, whatever the numbers were.

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I know Platt was on there. And somebody who would be against charging money up front, right?

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It�s one thing to get an honorarium. It�s another thing to charge up front. They would be against charging up front. Their name was on there, but they just put their name on there.

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That�s cool. Maybe. So maybe Platt�s not really on there. I have other issues with Platt, but maybe they just thought he�s a big speaker and we might try to make some money off of him.

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Huh. Well, I mean, that does seem like a lot. I mean, can you imagine?

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Yeah, I can only come to your church if I get $20 ,000. Wow. That reminds me of the story.

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Obviously, we�re going to talk about somebody controversial, but Jerry Falwell, the original Jerry Falwell, and he had a big deal with being home with his children on their birthdays.

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And he would always make sure no matter what, clear the schedule. And one time he overbooked, and I heard it was like a 16 -year -old son�s birthday, and he overbooked.

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He was supposed to speak someplace. You know, you�re a pastor, you�re a president of the school, et cetera, a politician. And he said, �You know what, son?

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I�ve double -booked this. I will cancel my engagement because I always promised to be home on your birthday, which

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I�m glad to do. But they told me they would give me $10 ,000 to come and speak. And I can do one of two things.

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I�ll go and speak and give you the $10 ,000, or I�ll be home on your birthday.� And the kid said, �I want you home on my birthday.�

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Well. I know. I know.

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That could be a whole show. Before we get into the show today, tell us what you�ve been preaching through.

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I was out of the pulpit for, I don�t know, four months. What were you doing then when I was sick? I mean, it�s funny because initially not knowing how long you were going to be out, but I�m like, okay, what do

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I do? Well, I finished John and then I was like, okay, I�m going to do some one -off messages.

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I mean, I would just pick texts based on just something I wanted to preach or something

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I hadn�t preached before because I was trying to delay. I didn�t want to read.

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I didn�t want to start Acts until I read some stuff. And then I was just like, it just kept getting longer and longer.

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And I�m going, I guess I have to start Acts. Well, I�m not saying your older preaching was bad.

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I mean, we all learn and grow. That�s true. But there were a few sermons there toward the end. I hated almost to come back because you were on such a homiletical role.

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I thought, Pastor Steve has taken a preaching pill. And I think that�s the best you ever preached there toward the end. Well, thank you.

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I mean, I think, you know, two things. One is, you know, we grow. But secondly, I think you�ve, in the parlance, you�ve coached me up, you know, so.

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And that was good. I sit at home thinking, uh -oh, you know, there�s all these new people that have come the last four months and they�re waiting for the pastor to show up.

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And then I show up and they�re like, uh. But anyway, praise the

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Lord that you filled in. I think I said it the other day and I thought, oh, that�s kind of a good little, not a line, but true.

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While the church missed me, the church didn�t miss a beat, thanks to you. So. Wow. I mean, it did,

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I�m sure, in ways that you can�t even, or I couldn�t even measure. But, you know, the

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Lord blessed and we, a lot of guys really helped me out too. I mean, Andrew and Corey and some of the other guys really pitched in,

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Pradeep, you know. So very thankful for all of them. I�m sorry to interrupt you. You gave me a t -shirt and you asked me if I�d wear it today.

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So I�m wearing it today and it says, �The government is not God.� And it�s got a lion down here. What�s up with this?

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Why am I wearing this? Because my brother Rashad sells those and I bought you one while you, you know, and I gave it to you when you got out of the hospital.

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I got one for me and for you and for Janet and, you know, so.

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Okay. I�m representing. If today, if this was like wretched radio, TV, we would all see, but they can�t see right now.

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Rashad, I didn�t know you had a brother named Rashad. Oh, brother in Christ. Yes. Yes. I mean, it�s funny.

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You get to know somebody via the internet and you meet them once or twice at a conference, but it�s just like you�ve known them.

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You know, I also saw him down in G3. His parents were there as well and it was a lot of fun. Of course, they were all enamored of, you know, can

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I say this? The current, I�ll just say the current celebrity pastor. I won�t, I won�t spill his name.

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I just will say he�s from Canada and I�ll leave it at that. Oh, okay. But yeah, it�s kind of hard.

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That�d be a tough route to get to a celebrity status. Yeah. I wouldn�t, I wouldn�t trade places with him. I mean, honestly, while he was going through all that,

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I just thought, man, better you than me, bro, because I don�t know if I could do it. I really don�t know.

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I love the Christians that I know in Canada and have been to Saskatoon a couple of times ministering there and with Pastor Steve Flippen and his leadership team, but it makes me not like Canada.

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Again, I don�t mean the people, but just like the government that controls Canada. That is just�

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Well, I mean, there�s so much going on, you know, in the Western English speaking world right now that�s inexplicable to me.

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I mean, from New Zealand to Australia to Canada, you know, where we just look and go, I pretty much thought we had the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom of speech and the right to, you know, fill in the blank and all those things are imperiled.

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I know. I thought if we had a constitution, the constitution would protect us against petty tyrants, right?

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So that�s why we have the constitution because we say, well, you�re in leadership and you have to tell us all this stuff. No, no. The constitution says we can do this.

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Well, a man the other day, whom I�ll not identify, said the constitution is always evolving.

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I noticed that. I know. Today, with Pastor Steve here in the studio, we want to talk a little bit more about how are we motivated as Christians to obey, kind of buckle up, better do this or else.

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God loves me more when I have my devotions. He loves me less when I sin. How do we motivate as Christians?

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That�s going to be kind of part two today. How do I motivate? Well, you know, even as you were talking,

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I�m like, I think the key, rather than sola bootstrapsa, you know, which is the common –

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I mean, even if we don�t think of salvation as something I do myself, we think of sanctification as something

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I do myself or something I�m responsible for or something maybe the Holy Spirit aids me in or maybe the

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Lord Jesus aids me in. But certainly, I�m the man when it comes to, you know, the captain of –

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I�m the captain. I forget that we are in Christ at all times, right?

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Not just when we get saved, but as we are being saved.

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In other words, as we are being conformed in the image of the Lord Jesus, we are in Christ.

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It is in Him we rest and, you know, what�s our motivation? Our motivation is, well, we�re in Christ.

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Gilgray�s right. Gilgray. I mean, you know, we were saying this here a minute ago, but I don�t need somebody –

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I really don�t. Sorry, people do this from time to time, but I don�t need somebody to make me feel guilty.

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I do that plenty. I wake up in the morning, we�re talking about our friend in the hospital, and you know what? It�s just been going through my mind constantly.

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You know, I�m praying for him. I�m praying because I believe that as long as there�s life, the Lord can do whatever

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He wants, right? I mean, He can keep him alive for years, decades. I mean, who can say?

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But I also just think it�s just been a great reminder to me of how blessed I am, even that picture

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I showed you of my two grandsons. You know, I get to see these kids all the time.

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I get to watch them grow. I get to watch them be raised in godly homes, and I�m like, �I don�t deserve any of this.�

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You know, so what�s my motivation? And I mean, do I fall short? Yes, all the time. But my motivation is just gratitude.

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I just look, and I just think, �I didn�t want any of this, and you�ve granted me all this, and to be grateful for it.�

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I mean, I could just go on a gratitude tour. You know, that could be the rest of my life, just telling everybody how thankful I am.

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Stephen, I heard that G3 was this new thing in conference. I thought it was Gratitude, but I think it�s something else.

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Yeah, I don�t even know what it stands for. I haven�t really memorized that. Sometimes, you know, they give you these little cool things like G3, and you�re like, �Okay,

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G3, and I have no idea what it�s about.� You know, I think it�s Gospel Cubed or something. I don�t know what it�s for.

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Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q &A 35. Okay. All right. So we�re talking about motivation for sanctification, but let�s ask what is sanctification, right?

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Good, yeah. Sanctification is the work of God�s free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die to sin, mortification, and live unto righteousness, vivification is what they would call that.

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It�s God�s work. Well, I think maybe when we think about holy living, that�s the first thing that goes wrong.

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We don�t even know what sanctification is. Right. I think it�s all on us. That�s right. And tell me, Steve, don�t we often think as Christians, here�s our model of sanctification.

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If I do this, God then will respond. Yep. It�s a transactional deal.

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God will love me more. And, you know, you said that earlier, and I�m like, okay. And again, here�s the problem.

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Can God love me more than he does? When he transferred me into the kingdom of his dear

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Son and really sees me as he sees his Son, can he love me more?

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And the answer is, can the Father love me more than he does right now? No. Can Jesus love me more now than he did on the cross?

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No. I mean, does Jesus love me less now that I was rude? I mean, these are just absurd ideas.

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But this is our life. It�s a transactional, legal temper. I do this. Okay, let�s talk about this one,

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Steve. For the most part, I would imagine you, like me, like me, like me, yeah, like I, like me, get up in the morning, we read our

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Bibles. And it�s good to do that. For the rest of the day, I have kind of a lens to see through things.

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But is my day more blessed because I�m, or does God love me more because I�ve read my

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Bible first? Will my day go better if my Bible reading is done? What if my day goes worse, but at least

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I have enough, you know, today I read, it�s the 3rd of February. Well, I mean, just imagine that. You get up and you read the

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Bible, and then your day goes downhill, and you�re like, well, that didn�t work. I�m not doing that again.

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It�s the punishment of the Amish, you know, you go read your Bible for five hours. Here�s a

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Horton quote. Christians today are often encouraged to obey God so that they can get something out of it.

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If I do this, God will do that, many reason. But Luther insisted that the gospel, now when I say gospel,

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I mean the Lord Jesus, right, good news personified incarnate rather, including the part about human helplessness and God�s omnipotent grace, needs to be so clearly preached,

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Luther said, that those who hear it will not need to be coaxed, harassed, or frightened into obedience. The gospel not bear commands is the motivation for thanksgiving.

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If we are unclear about this point, we cannot have thankful hearts. Well, I mean,

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I think we say this fairly often, in light of my sin, you know, what do

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I deserve? And so, if that�s the lens through which we look through life, then how could we ever respond in anything other than gratitude?

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Now, will we respond in ways other than gratitude? Sadly, yes. But, you know, at the end of it, if we're sober -minded and thinking rightly, how can we think otherwise?

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Well, we can't. Because in light of what I deserve, in light of what I've done, you know, if I were

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God, how would I treat me? And holy smokes, it would be bad, it would be sad times.

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If I was a human judge, how would I treat me? Sad times. Steve, we're talking about the motivation for obedience.

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Why is this so important for older Christians? And I'll set it up a little bit. When you're a new

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Christian, basically, for me, it was, here's a Bible verse that tells me what to do. I want to do that.

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Right. Now, it really was out of gratitude, but you just tell me, you know what, you should probably give 10 % of gross your income to the local church.

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I'm like, okay, write the check. It was just like immediate, and here's what I want to do. I didn't have a problem with porn, but if somebody would have said, don't look at porn, you know,

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I would say, okay, I'm not going to look at porn. But what about as the years go on, 10 years you're a Christian, 20 years you're a

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Christian, 30 years you're a Christian, why is that unsustainable outside of the gratitude model?

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Christian obedience, unsustainable without gratitude. Well, because you've basically turned it into kind of a checklist, and so you're like, well, you know,

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I'm pretty far down the list. I'm doing pretty well. I think I'm smoking this whole sanctification thing.

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By the way, yeah, we don't really watch R -rated movies, right? Yeah. Well, we just fast forward the things now.

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Doing well. Yeah. I don't smoke cigarettes or drink and don't look at porn.

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I think I'm kind of right up there. Don't gamble. You know, even with all the proliferation, all these gambling places, you don't see me in there.

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I don't watch that much TV, but I watched a lot of football in the last four months. You can imagine if I don't feel good sitting there, even in the hospital.

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I tried not to turn on the TV all day until the nighttime, just to kind of give my mind a little break, but I did watch football.

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And you can imagine over those four months, I watched less football than ever. That's right, because you were busy.

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Oh, man. I think it was until the Alabama -Georgia game or something like that.

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I hadn't watched a full college football game the whole season. Not one, not SC Notre Dame, nothing.

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I'm just like, I don't have time. I could feel your pain. When I first got to the church, we had elders meetings at 8 to 9.

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That was really bad, by the way, because I was a young pastor, and I'm sure I had things that I needed to work on, but sometimes they got after me at 8 o 'clock in the morning.

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And then I had to teach Sunday school at 9, and then I preached at 10, and then I preached again at 6 p .m.,

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and I would go home so tired, I thought, finally, I get to read a good biography. Too tired to read a biography.

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I just ended up watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentaries. So I know what that tired's like.

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Yeah. The whole idea of an elders meeting on Sunday morning.

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I mean, at least I'll give credit to the churches where they have meetings like that in the afternoon or something.

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You go, okay, that's better. Right. Who needs to get whacked right before the sermon? Yeah. At least let me finish, and then you can whack away because I'm...

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And you know what the funny thing is, and we're getting kind of off topic, but... Which is fun. I mean, who's a bigger critic of your own messages than you, right, or me?

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I listen to myself preach, and I go, you know, the

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Word was taught, but that was really bad. I mean, you remember when

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I came into you when Sunday morning was right before you were ready to physically to go back into preaching, and I just looked at you and I go, this is gonna be a disaster this morning,

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Mike. I mean, I'm just like, I go, I know this passage, I just have no idea how this is gonna turn out, which is not normal for me to feel that way.

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And I said either under my breath or out loud, it'll be your best sermon ever. You did say that. Well, there is a sense that, you know, we try to do the best we can in terms of study, but the

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Spirit of God is the one that has to wield the Word in the people's hearts.

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Today we're talking about motivation for Christian living. Steve, there's that story of Sinclair Ferguson, and he was supposed to be preaching on knowing

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Christ, and he got confronted, speaking of the confrontations of elders before the thing, before the service, and they pulled him to the side and they said, you've been preaching to us for two hours and you've not given us one law, one thing to do.

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I was thinking about this last night, just oddly, but I was like, you know, imagine here's a message like from Isaiah 6.

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Well, what am I supposed to do with that? And you can go, you know, be holy even as I am holy, but that's not the message of Isaiah.

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The message of Isaiah is behold your God. I mean, you know, be in awe of the Holy One, just like Isaiah was, right?

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He's like, Isaiah didn't go, well, thank you, Lord, I understand, you know, now got the picture.

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He was like, I'm undone. I'm unholy. The world is unholy. I'm surrounded by unholy people.

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You know, it's like, blah. And I'm supposed to give you three things, three takeaways.

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Steve, even if Jesus didn't say in John 13, if I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you.

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Even if he didn't say that, and of course, that was good and right for him to say it. I'm not questioning that. But for theoretical sake, for theory's sake, what if he didn't even say anything to those guys and just did that?

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Do you think they'd be convicted? We ought to do this too? Yes. Of course. Yes, absolutely.

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And you know, I think, you know, there are probably churches, and boy, I hope we never get to this point, that do this whole foot washing thing.

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No, not under our watch. Right. But I think, you know, people who do that are missing the big picture, which is, here is the creator serving his creatures, you know, in a very explicit, very demeaning way to him, right?

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In that culture, there's nothing worse than the feet. And, you know, scrubbing somebody else's feet, it's just like, how low can you go?

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I don't even like my own feet. Right. Let alone somebody else's, right? And, you know, to do that was just such a display of humility.

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And, you know, so when he says, do likewise, serve one another, love one another.

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I mean, you wanna see how you love one another? Here, here's how. Amen. When you were talking about the feet and all that stuff, it just forces me to go back to Romans 10 and the quote from Isaiah, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the law.

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Right. Who preach the law. Sorry. Well, even they're beautiful too.

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Right. But here the text is the gospel. But the point there, you know, to the Jewish listener would be what? They'd be like, feet, how can feet be beautiful?

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That's right. Steve, tell me a little bit about the law versus the gospel in terms of, since we're looking for motivation,

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Jesus motivates us, his service, his love motivates us. But does the law, the nude law, the pure law motivate us in any way, shape, or form?

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Doesn't it just accuse or excuse us? It doesn't, it can point us, but it doesn't give us any engine to go do it.

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Do you think that's a fair statement? Doesn't give us any, you know, gas in the tank.

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No animation in the law. Yeah. Well, I feel that's,

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I'm trying to see if it's a trick question. I mean, it doesn't... It just commands. Here's a law.

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Obey. Yeah. And it doesn't motivate me except that, you know, those areas where I'm falling short and I'm like, well,

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I need to do that because it's the right thing to do, like evangelize, right? Right. But you know, it's evangelism from the

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Father's request and privilege to do. Yes. And here's the Spirit of God is convicting you to say, because of what the

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Father's done for me, I'd like to go evangelize. Exactly. So I... I didn't mean to try to trick you.

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No, no, no. But I think, you know, what does the law do? It makes us feel guilty, right?

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I mean, ultimately, and therefore, how do we get that relief? You know, it's like waterboarding.

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I posted this thing the other day, kind of making a joke out of waterboarding. Forgive me for that because that's just how

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I think. But it was about baptism, but it looked like waterboarding. Oh, I saw that.

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That guy was rough. Yeah, and... Gives Baptists a bad name. But here's the point.

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You know, the law is like waterboarding. And you want... You need some relief, right?

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You need to breathe. You need something, you know? And so I think there are plenty of preachers out there who just want to leave you submerged and basically tell you, go and sin no more.

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And you're like, uh -huh. You know, you just... You need that relief.

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And the release comes from believing in Christ, from looking at Christ and thinking,

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He did it all. He fulfilled everything I'm supposed to do and that I don't do.

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That's my... You know, that's the relief. That's what we need as Christians.

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It's easy to bury somebody in the law. I mean, I could do that. You know, let's do a 60 -part...

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How's your prayer life? Yeah. We'll just every week come in and just bury people, you know? Well, we got some examples from the

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Old Testament. We're going to embarrass you this week, you know? What about Daniel in his prayer closet? You know, let's...

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I mean, we could do all those kind of things. Is that gospel preaching?

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That's law. Well, if the law comes from a gracious father, it changes everything around versus a judge.

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All right. See, that was fast. 24 and a half minutes. Super fast. 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.