2024 Summer of Interviews: Sufficiency of Christ with No Compromise Radio’s Mike Abendroth (Part 1)

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

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, my name is

Mike Abendroth, and I was pleased to be on Daryl Updike's podcast the other day called,

What Are We Even Doing Here? And we talked about the sufficiency of Christ, and so we're going to play part one today of that interview.

You can always find him at WhatAreWeEvenDoingHere if you type that in for podcasts, but it's my pleasure to be on with Daryl, I hope you're encouraged and edified here on this podcast about the sufficiency of Christ Jesus.

Hello and welcome to the What Are We Even Doing Here podcast, a podcast that seeks to answer the question of, what are we even doing here from a biblical perspective?

We are part of the Christian podcast community, you can check out this and many other great podcasts at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

My name is Daryl and the word of God says from John 19, starting in verse 28. And after this,

Jesus, knowing that all was finished, said to fulfill the scriptures, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there.

So they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his ghost.

And that is the word of God. That is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. This last one, these three words, it is finished,

Greek word to tell us that it is finished. Jesus has accomplished what he came to do.

It is finished. And we are to trust in his finished work, in his life, in his death, in his resurrection.

And he is coming again. And today I have a guest whose podcast

I've listened to for the past several years. It is No Compromise Radio, and our guest is

Pastor Mike Ebendroff. Not Mike Eben broth. Even though last week he was drinking some broth, at least on his show he was talking about drinking some

Eben broth. I went, Daryl, first of all, thanks for having me on the show, and I appreciate your ministry and desire to have

Christ exalted in those verses you just read. It is finished.

You think about the work that the Lord God gave the Son to do. And I remember Jesus said,

I always do what's pleasing to the Father. And that was in his life, and then capped off at his death.

And as you said, te telestai, the debt has been paid, paid in full. If you and I went out for lunch, and you said,

Mike, I'd like to buy you lunch, and you'll say, I've got it covered. I've got it taken care of. Everything's done.

I'll pay for it all. And that, of course, is what the Lord has done for us, but not just for a meal, but for all our sins.

And so I'm glad to be on the show. And last night, a wife was using broth for something to add to a stew or a soup.

And I thought, oh, that brings back bad memories of drinking so much broth. My name's Mike Eben broth.

Well, Mike, thank you for coming on the show. And like I said, I've listened to your podcast for the past several years.

I think I found it, I was listening to Iron Sharpens Iron radio, and I think you were a guest on with Chris Arntzen, yeah, probably like two, maybe three years ago.

And then whenever I hear a podcast that has a guest on that recommends something, then I go and I download that, and I just keep adding podcasts to my listening list.

And I drive for a living, I do carpet cleaning, so I'm always in the van, and I always have new podcasts to listen to.

But I make sure that I listen to yours. And I missed it when it wasn't coming out for a while.

And then you were, I think, replaying some old ones for a while. Well, those old shows aren't as reformed.

So if I said anything that was Arminian, or Sosinian, or any other kind of Indian, I know that there's room for growth in all of us and maturation.

So Fridays are reruns on the show, Monday's the sermon, as you know. And I'm just upset,

Daryl, that you've only listened to a few years. I mean, you've got another 10 years to catch up on. 10 years, yeah.

Well, I also, I think, first saw you in a video, I was researching something about Anne von

Skamp, because somebody that I know was recommending her. And I was like, no, no, no.

And I was trying to find some resources to send them. And yeah,

I stumbled across one of your videos about her. Well, we're going to do some more videos. But the drift now, maybe it's a purposeful, positive drift.

But the old days used to be, what's Anne von Skamp saying, you know, I fly to Paris and make love to God? Or what's

Beth Moore saying? Just kind of crazy, kooky theological things. And while I still do that once in a while,

I hope we've graduated on NOCO Radio to things that are of more ultimate importance.

And I think about duplex gratia, right? Christ for us, justification, Christ in us, sanctification, law, gospel, not confusing the two, and especially standing for the

Christian that we receive God's law from a father right through the hands of the son,

Merrill controversy stuff, so that we're not damned if we don't obey, guilt, grace, gratitude, theological covenants.

But it's mainly if I had to summarize it now, instead of me saying, we never compromise, and at least we don't want to compromise, you shouldn't either.

That's true. But I want to talk about the one who never compromised. And as you read earlier on,

Darrell, to start the show, the Lord Jesus, can you imagine never compromised, tempted in every way, but never looked at a woman with lust, never wanted to covet, never tried to steal, never told a falsehood.

And the list goes on and on and on, not just what he didn't do, but positively loving

God, loving his neighbor, loving his enemies. And so I've tried to rescue the show, or redeem the show, from this discernment type of thing maybe to let's talk about the

Lord Jesus, but I didn't want to lose the name, right? I don't want to lose my 12 followers who know us as NoCoRadio.

Well, it still fits the show, because what you're doing is when the law and the gospel gets mixed up still in many evangelical churches, and many even popular solid preachers are still mixing law and gospel, we can't compromise with law and gospel.

So we still have to stand on what the gospel is, it's done. And then as you said, vivification from there, sanctification, vivification, we live now in light of what has been done for us.

So we can't compromise with any hint of law that comes into the gospel.

No, it's been done. It is finished. Absolutely. Well, I'm going to steal that and start putting that into my repertoire.

There you go. One of the hot buttons that I have lately, and you know this, Daryl, is the topic of sanctification.

And of course, that ties in with duplex gratia, Christ in us, and we think about His Spirit, the

Holy Spirit in us, and union with Christ. What I've noticed with evangelicals is if I say, what is sanctification?

Most everyone these days, and it's probably because they've been taught this from the pulpits as well, they get law and gospel wrong, but they also get sanctification wrong, consequently.

What do they say? They say, well, it's my holy living. It's my faithfulness, my obedience. I am for holy living, obedience, faithfulness, law -keeping for Christians, obeying

God. I'm not, you know, I'm not an antinomian. I'm not wanting rebelliousness or anything like that. But sanctification, properly speaking, strictly speaking, is the work of the triune

God, a supernatural, sovereign work, His alone. That's why we call it monergistic, mono, alone, erg, work.

God alone works. God, thank you for sanctifying me. God, please sanctify me.

Not, we sanctify with God, we're co -sanctifiers. And then what has happened is we've lost the language of sanctification.

People say, well, isn't there any response? Well, that's the right question. Is there a response to God's sanctifying work?

Yes, He enables us, just like you said, Daryl, to live to righteousness, vivification, and to say no to sin, mortification of sin.

So that's what God enables us to do. And the fruit of that, the evidence of that, the consequences of that, the results of that sanctifying work is obedience.

But sanctification isn't obedience, strictly speaking. I know most people use that word and throw it around, but now

I'm kind of in my own auto correct mode where I might say sanctified, but I really mean holy living.

And so that's an important topic. I mean, what could be more important than after we're saved, we want to live a life pleasing to the

Lord. How do we do that? Is it possible? Who is the one who's sanctifying? Right, and even the verse, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

It doesn't stop there. It goes, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do. But oftentimes it's, oh, you got to work out your salvation, but it's

God who's working in me to will and to do. Absolutely. Let's keep those verses together.

What God has put together, let no man separate. Amen. Or for you, since you quoted King James, let no man put asunder.

I didn't even realize I quoted King James. Wow. Well, unless there's another translation of John 19 that has ghost for spirit.

Did I say ghost? No. You said ghost, didn't you? I might have. Maybe I just went into like autopilot.

Well, sometimes I like to be fancy. I switch, right?

It'll say, I've got something memorizer in my mind, and that's one of the reasons why public scripture reading is difficult because I live in the

New American standard world, but I've been preaching out at ESV for quite some time. So I have to alt tab back and forth.

Yeah. So do you want to just give our listeners like maybe a brief history of how you came to Christ, how he drew you to himself?

Sure. I'd love to. There's a little kid song called Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder. I began to climb.

Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder. I grew up in Omaha, and I'm thankful for some of my background, not for all of it, but I did learn at the

Lutheran Church. It was a liberal Lutheran Church. I did learn that Jesus was the only way that he was

God. God is triune. The Bible is written by God, not men primarily, right?

They're men moved by God. I learned that what Jesus did was true when it comes to touching the leper or casting out demons.

I just accepted all that, and it was taught to me from a young age. I never was told you must be born again, though, because the church

I was at, being born again, was being baptized as an infant, and I was. So why be born again if I'm already born into the family through baptismal regeneration?

Went on a mission trip and some backpacking trips with other Christians at the Lutheran Church, and I would never say

I believe in other gods. I met a girl in California, the lady that actually introduced me to my wife, and she, this other lady, said,

I have a leader, a religious leader. I said, oh, that's good. Who's your religious leader? And she said, Jesus.

Would you like to see a picture of him? And it wasn't some second commandment violation with some

German -looking Jesus. It was an actual man standing next to her named John Rogers, this cult leader who calls himself

Jesus. Well, I knew that was false, but demons can believe. They shudder. I had a false faith, a faulty faith, a damning faith, and my father died in 1989, and I remember picking up a

Bible while he was dying, thinking, I know the answers are in here, but it's an undecipherable book.

I can't figure it out. I could tell you Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but I need comfort. I need hope.

Where do I go? So I just kind of tossed it to the side. I didn't slam it down, but just, I don't, I can't understand it.

And I began to think to myself, I have to figure this out. I have to figure out life, death, heaven, hell.

I don't know. I could parrot things, but I don't know personally. And my wife, who was just a friend of mine at the time, she said, well, there's a thing called

Christian radio, and you can learn the Bible on radio instead of driving around LA, listening to punk rock and sports talk.

Why don't you listen to the Bible? So I started listening to the Bible taught. And I remember one time, Darrell, to fast forward, convicted of my sin, knowing

I needed a savior, and they were having an altar call. And I wanted, I couldn't go up to an altar call.

I mean, it was recorded weeks earlier. There was no altar to go to. There's no altar anyway to go to in a

Protestant church. But I remember trying to move up front to the, to the dashboard, right?

I wanted to make some, I didn't know it was simple rest and believe and trust and accept and receive.

I knew the word believe, but I wanted to show my faith. I remember almost trying to scoot up to the front by the defroster, right, to show that I wanted to believe.

And the Lord, through reading the Bible and through Christian radio, saved me. And that was in 1989.

And after that, I just had an insatiable appetite given to me by the Lord to know the

Bible. I thought I'm going to know this book when the pastor said to me, Mike, here's the

Bible. Pat was sitting there, Marcy, my mom and I, and the pastor said, here's, here's the Bible.

What do you want me to say about your dad from the Bible at your dad's funeral? I just said,

I'm, I'm hurting. I don't know, pick what's best. But deep down, that was a real pride crusher for me because I don't like to be put on the spot like that.

I need to know. So even with bad motives, I thought that'll never happen to me again. If somebody hands me the

Bible and says, what's this say, or tell me something about it. I don't mean perfectly, but I'm going to know that book. So I just began to study, read, listen.

I went to a bookstore, and I was looking for some type of intro, boot camp, 101

Christianity. I couldn't find it. I'm like, what is going on here? I just would like to learn the Bible. Anyway, got plugged into a local church and began to learn and grow and, and then went into gospel ministry.

But the short of it was, I wasn't looking. God brought trials into my life that made me think about eternity, life and death, and then my own life and death, sin and hell.

I realized I was a sinner by the convicting work of the spirit. And then that same spirit through the preacher of the word made me alive.

Right. He made me alive, gave me a new life. And while I was rich in sins, Ephesians 2, 1 to 3,

God was rich in mercy and trusted in Christ in 1989. Amen.

Thanks for sharing that. Thanks, sir. I like to, I like to hear people's, their stories, you know, and I know testimonies aren't the gospel, but it's a tool that we can use.

But thank you for sharing that. And what I like is you were listening to Christian radio and then eventually you're making

Christian radio. Well, isn't that, isn't that the wonderful thing was something is, is touching to us, meaningful, important.

We've received something that, that is, that is good like that. And it's no different than a grandpa who teaches his five -year -old grandkids, scriptures and the

Lord Jesus. And then all of a sudden that same grandkid, he grows up and he's a grandpa. And he says, you know,

I want to do that exact same thing. And it was so valuable for me to learn from the radio and now podcast or whatever.

I thought I'd like to do that. I first did it for the local church here. I don't know who would ever listen, but it started getting some traction and, you know, it's not that popular, but in our circles, many people listen.

I was on Todd Friel's Wretched Radio for a while substituting. So that gave NOCO a little bit of a boost.

And if anybody listens, great. If nobody listens, great. I do, I get articulate things and, and I know the, the, the

Lord takes care of the depth of our ministry or the breath rather. And we just want to respond with being faithful and talking about Jesus.

And so I, I've traveled the world because of No Compromise Radio, people listening, have me come and speak, meeting friends like you.

And so I'm very, very thankful. Amen. And we're, we're thankful for you and for your ministry and we're thankful for Christ.

So let's, let's talk about Christ and the sufficiency of Christ. So sufficiency of Christ, you know, we, we hear that often a lot, but we don't often hear it taught well.

So what is, when we refer to the sufficiency of Christ, what is, what does it mean when we say

Christ is sufficient? Sure. What I try to do sometimes when I'm learning or teaching is

I want to use contrasts. So let's say I don't know the Latin root of, of root of sufficiency.

I don't know it's etymology. I just think, okay, what's the opposite word that will help me as I try to define it.

The opposite of sufficiency is deficiency. You're either sufficient or deficient. And when we think about what the

Lord God does, Christ the son, if we think about salvation and then sanctification, is

Christ sufficient or is he deficient? If he's deficient, we need something else. We need maybe more than one thing similar to there's only one

God, because if there are two gods, well, we'll give one God 50 % worship and the other 50%.

I mean, what do we do? And similarly, when it comes to salvation and having sinners redeemed and reconciled, is

Jesus sufficient? Is he adequate? Is he all we need? Or do we need something else, someone else?

And so in the category of salvation, I think is Jesus sufficient?

Well, he has to be. Who is sufficient enough to take care of Adam's original sin that was credited to our account?

Who is sufficient enough to die for sins, not his own sins, but for others' sins?

And then furthermore, that would only bring us back to point zero. Who then is adequate or sufficient to perfectly obey

God's law, earning righteousness for others? Jesus didn't have to earn righteousness for himself.

He already was righteous. He had inherent righteousness. So is Jesus sufficient?

And I think he takes care of Adam's sin. He takes care of my sins. He takes care of earning perfect obedience from the law, and I receive those through faith, but I receive them by imputation, by crediting, by him reckoning those things to me, even though I never did them.

Even though Jesus didn't sin, he took my sins on him. Even though I didn't perfectly obey,

I received Christ. So when I think of sufficiency, Daryl, it's a great question. The first thing I think of, are there other ways of salvation?

And that's why when we think of John, well, there's salvation in Acts 4. There's salvation in no other.

John 14, I am the way, the truth, the life. Because only this God -man, right, it just keeps expanding.

For us to have a representative, he's going to have to be truly man. And for us to have someone who can perfectly obey and perfectly be raised from the dead and conquer sin and death and hell, he's going to have to be

God. So we're going to have to have that God -man, truly God, truly man. Who could do that? Who is sufficient?

Only the Lord Jesus. Then in sanctification as well, is Jesus deficient?

Is he sufficient? And this could lend itself, Daryl, and I don't know if you want to get there, but this lends itself to how does a

Christian grow? How does a Christian mature? How is a Christian holy? Is it Jesus or is it

Jesus plus maybe pragmatism, maybe business principles, maybe

TED Talks, maybe psychology, maybe philosophy? Is it Colossians 2,

Jesus plus something else? Is it asceticism? How do we live a holy life before God who saved us and now we want to respond with gratitude and live a life worthy of the calling,

Ephesians 4. Jesus is not only sufficient and adequate, never deficient when it comes to salvation and all we need, and when it comes to holy living, he's never deficient.

He's always sufficient and adequate and provides everything we need via union with him for Christian living.

And then he's also, lastly, sufficient for making sure we get to heaven. His spirit, the Holy Spirit, seals us to the day of redemption.

We would never make it without him, the Holy Spirit. We would lose our salvation, but Jesus' sufficient work also says to the disciples and now to us,

I'm not going to leave you. I know you want me to be here with you. I'm going to give you another just like me. You can trust me.

He'll be there. And while I'm just in a body now and will leave, this spirit, he will be dwelling in you and he'll make sure you're conformed to me and he'll make sure you're ultimately glorified.

So Jesus is sufficient to glorify us. Amen. That's beautiful.

And that people need to hear that, you know, people, I can never, I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing what you just said, that Jesus is enough.

Because I often forget that he is enough. I often forget to just trust and rest.

I'm trying to be enough, you know, to please, you know, people to please God. When I can't ultimately please completely anyone, but Jesus has satisfied

God. He has made it. I just recently was, I did a sermon on Romans 8, 31 to 39, and God graciously, how will

God not also with him graciously give us all things? And one of my points was, what else do we need?

He's given us Christ. There's nothing else to give. We've been forgiven. And it's by his work and not mine.

And that's how we can know that God will never leave us or forsake us. You know, and Paul goes on there to say, he will never, we can never be separated from the love of God in Christ because he's given us

Christ. And it's, it's beautiful. And, and people need to be reminded of that constantly. Totally.

That's why Daryl, as you know, on the Lord's day, we talk about ordinary means of grace. And the first one is the preaching of the word, right?

Proper preaching and the right preaching of God's word. We have consciences, they're law.

We live in a world with highways, they're full of laws. Maybe people's marriages are laws.

Work is law. Do this and you get a paycheck. And it's just our default. Our default is legality.

And that's why when we go to worship on the Lord's day, we hear about the Lord. But sometimes people don't want to hear about him.

They want to hear about what they need to do. I need four extra laws and I need to do these other things.

And then God accepts me or I feel good or whatever, but it is incumbent upon all pastors.

Certainly you can talk about laws, but in the right context from the hand of the son and from the father, not the judge.

So I just think, you know what, it's hard to talk about Jesus sometimes because it's easier to preach with a law heart to law people.

But that's why Paul corrects us and says in Colossians 1, 28, with an odd grammar,

I would say we proclaim him or proclaim him. But Paul says him, we proclaim with the emphasis on the

Lord Jesus or Paul with 1 Corinthians 2, 2. I already knew ahead of time what I was going to do.

I made a conscious, deliberate decision. I determined ahead of time. So when I saw your faces,

I wouldn't change or I heard a story about certain kinds of weird sanctification or gods that I would change.

No, I already knew ahead of time. I don't care who you are. I don't care your circumstances. I don't care that there's a bunch of people up on the top of the hill that are temple prostitutes that come down on Friday for worship, quote unquote.

I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even the crucified one. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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