How to Remain a Spiritual Pygmy (Part 6)

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'm sitting here taping shows again today in Massachusetts. And like always, it seems like it's raining out.

Another rainy day. I feel like I'm in Seattle. I wonder if we have any listeners in Seattle.

I do. If we do, I feel for you. It's raining again today.

It's cold and rainy. Middle to late April, and we are gonna have to spice things up.

We're gonna have to turn up the heat on No Compromise Radio. Always biblical, always controversial. No, I like provocative better.

I think we need to change that. Always biblical, always provocative. Always in that order. Before I get on the topic at hand today,

I was reading something about wild, hyper, extreme charismatics.

People who bark like dogs in the spirit. How do you like that? I'm just trying to find a Bible verse for that.

How people laugh like hyenas in the spirit, of course. Roar like lions.

I thought that's interesting. And one that I've never heard about, chirping like birds in the spirit.

Now, we have a couple of birds. They're fairly annoying. I think I'd like to sell them some lovebirds. They make annoying sounds.

But I never thought about that as a spiritual thing. So maybe I'll have to keep those lovebirds in my house. I thought

I would keep them in the house because my wife likes them. And therefore, if my wife likes them, then

I'll defer and be kind to my wife. But I didn't know it was a good illustration of how to be more spiritual.

I thought I was being more spiritual by saying yes to my wife regarding the lovebirds in the house.

I didn't know I was supposed to watch them. By the way, it reminds me of an interesting story. We got the lovebirds a couple years ago.

There's some lovebirds in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. And remember, she's going across the island,

Bogota Bay or wherever it was, and she's got the lovebirds and she's going to try to win the affections of that man.

And so they're in the backseat of her Mini Cooper or something. I don't know what kind of car it was. And so it was funny.

And so I got the video. I got a YouTube snippet of the birds and turned it up really loud.

One of the scenes where the birds are attacking people. And they're screeching and whining and howling and doing all whatever they do.

I don't think those are right words that go with birds, but whatever they were doing. And the birds that I had, real birds in the house, they wouldn't really be quiet.

And so I put the computer, the laptop, right up to the bird cage and then had all that murder bird chirp going on.

And my birds just quieted right down. They knew. They knew some kind of Hannibal bird lector, which

I've never seen that show, by the way. I have seen the birds though. So if somebody says to you, God's doing a new thing, brother, and it's chirping and laughing and roaring, you might want to question that.

See, if you say, where's the Bible discuss that? Then they'll say, no, God does new things. And see, they try to conveniently get out of it.

Actually, I just read, someone sent me, I think Pam sent me an email about some

North American evangelists in Argentina. Argentina. And they realized that the

Bible teaches you should be a child of God. And you used to be a child of Satan, now you're a child of God.

And what do children do? And so children drool and they do other things too. Maybe that'll be next.

God forbid, but they drool. And so when God does a great work in your life, the childlike attitude in response to what

God has done should be according to these crazies, is drooling in the spirit.

How about that? Let's drool in the spirit. And so it's like David. David was feigning insanity and he had all the spit coming out.

And so maybe that wasn't David feigning insanity. Maybe that was David walking by the fruit of the spirit.

Well, I just bring that up because A, it's kooky, but B, it illustrates a point. Once the

Bible's not enough, nothing is enough. Once you open Pandora's box to experience, drives truth, nothing will stop.

Anything goes. Everything goes. Like the song says in the Indiana Jones movie, everything goes.

So I think that was movie number two. I didn't really like the last movie that much. It was too supernatural maybe.

So today we're doing part, it seemed like 17, on how to stay spiritually immature. Part 1700 on how to remain spiritually immature.

And I think the one I started to talk about last time when we were wrapping it up was don't serve. If you want to stay a spiritual pygmy, a spiritual infant, don't serve other people.

What happens when you look at scripture, you'll see that when God shows himself to you and he reveals himself and he then saves you, there should be a response.

Now your response does not save. Your response is not salvific. Your response is not meritorious.

Your response is simply that, a response to the great things God has done. So when you look at the book of Revelation, it's got a wonderful template, the first 11 chapters, basically what

God has done. And then chapter 12, you see the text. Romans 12 .1,

a passage that's very familiar to you, listeners, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And so in light of chapter 11, in light of chapters one through 11, highlighting chapter three,

B, four, five, and the end of 11, the great mercies of God, because of those mercies, your response should be out of gratitude, out of thanks, out of grateful hearts to serve.

One man said, shut your eyes and think back through all those 11 chapters of Romans.

Mercy sums up all the first 11 chapters of Romans. Mercies upon sinners who do not deserve any at all.

Paul does not talk about what we did. He only talks about what God did for us. He uses those mercies as a great moral dynamic and spiritual incentive.

And so then he says, in light of all that, we'd like to have, Paul says, I'd like to have you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

Now, most sacrifices were dead sacrifices, and most sacrifices were not willing sacrifices.

The sacrifices in the Old Testament, they weren't willing, and they were drug over to be killed.

I remember S. Lewis Johnson talking about his trip to the stockyards when he was 13 years old.

And he said, they went over to the area where all the pigs were chained together, and they would take a chain and pull the pigs to the man who stood there to slit the throats of the pigs.

And the pigs knew ahead of time what was going on with all the blood and the squealing and the oinking and everything else.

And they did not want to go, and they would dig their hooves in, their cloven hooves into the dirt and into the mud to try to stop the flow of their bodies up to the executioner.

And so they were unwilling victims. He said, then he went over to where the cows were, and the man stood straddling this barn area, this little entryway, and the cows would come in, and the sledgehammer would come down, one after another after another, all day long.

And S. Lewis Johnson said, that made quite an impression on a 13 -year -old boy, the unwilling sacrifice.

And of course, Christ Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, as Hebrews talks about Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice.

He was the ransom, the high priest and the ransom, both, the sacrifice and the priest.

And he was a willing sacrifice. And so we have this great God. If you call yourself a

Christian today, you have been saved by the grace and the mercy of the great triune God. Your response should be,

I'd like to present my body, a living and holy sacrifice. That is to say, I will respond with total commitment, and it is reasonable, it is logical, it is spiritual.

I've been bought with a price. Jesus paid for me by purchasing me on the cross, and I might as well now respond with the only way to respond and that is humble, grateful obedience as a human sacrifice, as a living sacrifice.

You're not a dead sacrifice. You're a living sacrifice. The divine mercy of God and all his sovereign distinguishing grace is the basis for your response.

And so Mike Abendroth today, we're on No Compromise Radio. We get lots of emailers, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

If you'd like to email us a question, it is about time for me to go through all the questions again that Ray and that Tim have answered and just pull a few on the radio and we'll answer those out loud so you, the listener, get to know what the writers, the questioners, the tribunal would say.

And again, most of the time, it's pretty positive. I'm very happy for that. Maybe a couple negative ones that I received and some we don't agree, but that's okay.

Actually, somebody came to the church on Sunday night and they said, when we first started listening to you, we didn't like what you said about, and in my mind

I said, it's gonna be about Joyce Meyers, Joyce Meyer. And then they said, about Joyce Meyer.

And see, I'm clairvoyant. It was the drooling in the spirit that happened the night before. And then they said, yeah, but then we considered what you said and we don't listen to Joyce anymore.

And I said, I see why people like listening to Joyce Meyer because she's more masculine than most pastors in America who are men these days.

And she speaks with authority and she speaks with boldness. She just happens to speak lies and deception with boldness, but I see why people like that kind of style.

So we get people, that is to say, who like the show, who don't like the show, and people even come and visit. So if you are in the area and you're a member of a church, great, stay there.

Unless it's an apostate church, then leave. It's not a church, but if you've got a good church, stay there and maybe you can come on down on a

Sunday night and visit us. First Sunday of the month, don't come down because we won't have a service, but any other

Sunday we usually do, short of holiday weekends. I urge you, therefore, and I ask you the question if you're listening today on No Compromise Radio, does this summarize your life?

Does this summarize your life? One of serving the Lord. You exist to serve the

Lord. Now that does not mean you have to quit your job. That does not mean you can't be a good father or a good mother or a good child.

This is something that's a both and, it's not an either or. A living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God.

I mean, this is as logical when you think about God's grace, responding to his grace with gratitude.

By the way, that's the Heidelberg Catechism, isn't it, three sections? Guilt, grace, and gratitude.

You are guilty in Adam and your own sins find you guilt -filled. The grace of Christ Jesus, free, sovereign, distinguishing grace, and then you have the response of gratitude.

So if I said fill in the blank one, three, five, seven, your answer should be nine. And if I said sin, salvation, fill in the next blank, it should be service.

And what happens to you when you begin to serve other people? You begin to grow and you begin to be more patient, more kind, you begin to be more loving, and that is a great way to mature.

People who are mature in Christ Jesus do serve and have served. Show me someone that's immature in Christ Jesus and I'll show you someone who's not been serving other people.

Jesus, the great servant, the suffering servant, Isaiah would call him, he is the epitome of our service.

He is our example. And certainly, without pushing it too far, it would be true to say

WWJD when it comes to the service of Jesus. What would Jesus do? And Jesus would have us also, through his apostolic messengers, tell us to serve like Jesus.

And you don't have to go much further than John chapter 13 to see the humble service of Christ Jesus.

Or even the pinnacle of his humble service, Philippians chapter 2, 1 to 11.

And so if you're a Christian today, God has given you a spiritual gift. I like the passage in 1

Corinthians chapter 12. Now to each one, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the common good. And so you're not giving your gift for yourself, you're giving your gift for the common good.

And that is why it is important you use it. Verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 12, all these are the work of one and the same spirit, and he gives them to each one just as he determines.

So if you've received the sovereign gift from the sovereign spirit, and I would not, if I were you, on No Compromise Radio today,

I would not try to fill out a spiritual gift questionnaire. First of all, the questionnaires aren't inerrant.

Second of all, the questionnaires are often charismatic, putting all the gifts together, signed gifts, speaking gifts, and service gifts, all together like they're all for today, not knowing the place and the time for the confirmatory gifts of the signed gifts.

And they're also, these spiritual gift questionnaires, they're usually very psychologically oriented.

And so you don't need to do that. Just find an opportunity to serve. Look around, go to your pastor and say, hi, pastor,

I'm new here today. I've been saved by the grace of God. I've been obedient in the ordinance of baptism. I'm a member of the church, and I'd like to have something to do.

Start me off at the bottom. And so whether it's cleaning the toilets, or working in the nursery, or raking the yard, or doing the spring cleanup, or I don't know what you're going to do, but something, if the pastor has any sense, that you're not gonna be teaching, you're not gonna be handling money, and people and money, you're not ready to do that yet.

Your stewardship needs to be worked out in the gaze of the elder board and the pastor.

So it's interesting, 1 Peter 4, verse 10, as each one has received a spiritual gift, employed in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

So see, you've got guilt, grace, and gratitude, and you want to be a good steward with what

God has done for you. And now he has purchased you with a price, and therefore you ought to say,

I've been ransomed by God. I've been bought out of the slave pit of sin. I want to serve other people.

There's an old illustration in the Baptist Challenge. Will you please tell me in a word, said a Christian woman to the minister, what your idea of consecration is?

Holding out a blank sheet of paper, the pastor replied, it is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet, and to let

God fill it in as he will. I think that's pretty good. I think that is excellent.

And so if you speak, let him speak as it were, the utterances of God. If you serve, let him do so as by the strength which

God supplies, so that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. What I was saying earlier is true. Listen to this regarding Christ's words in John 13, 15.

I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. And as he says that to the apostles, by implication, that is good for us as well.

This is how you serve. And when you serve, this is fascinating, by the way, if you're listening to No Compromise Radio, and you say it's time to spice it up a little bit.

Well, maybe I can spice it up with this mental spicer -upper, how about that?

This mental, what do I want to say? Some kind of catalyst? I'm looking for a word, but I can't figure it out.

Where is Cooley when I need him? Listen to what John Gershner said. We have an opportunity,

John Gershner, by the way, was R .C. Sproul's mentor. You can hear it in the way they talk as well. Maybe they both were smokers,

I don't know. We have an opportunity on earth to do something that you can never do in heaven.

So what can you do on earth that you can't do in heaven? Well, I'm talking about righteous things.

Certainly, you can sin on earth, you can't sin in heaven. By the way, you ever think about heaven? No free will in heaven, you will not be free to sin even if you wanted to.

Even if you could, you wouldn't be able to do it. No free will in heaven. Will it still be heaven? Absolutely, of course it will.

What can you do on earth that you can't do in heaven? Gershner said we have an opportunity on earth to do something that you can never do in heaven.

You currently have an opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven. Ah, laying up treasure in heaven, you can't do that.

But once you're in heaven, you can only do that on earth. Gershner said, be Christian theological capitalists.

Be Christian theological capitalists. In heaven, you enjoy your treasures, but you cannot add any more to what you have.

Only on earth. Well, that is great advice from John Gershner.

By the way, I remember John Gershner in 1992, Ligonier Conference in San Diego. And he pretty much rocked my world with a message called

How to Escape Hell. And then he said, I'd like to amend that topic. I'd like to amend the subject today.

And it used to be called How to Escape Hell. The new amended topic is How to Possibly Escape Hell.

If anyone tells you how to escape hell, and you need to burn that book, How to Be Born Again, you cannot be born again unless by the sovereign spirit of God.

Okay, that was my John Gershner moment. How about that? How about this church bulletin board? Work for the

Lord. The pay is not much, but the retirement plan is out of this world. You know,

God is faithful. And when you serve, even if you're never noticed, I'm sure there are people at Bethlehem Bible Church, I try to encourage people.

I try to say thank you. After meals, I walk through the kitchen on purpose and say, thank you, ladies.

And there's some guys in there serving, thank you, men. I try to go out of my way to encourage people.

But I'm sure there are people I don't get to encourage. And so for all those who are listening, you know who you are. Thank you for your ministry.

Well, that part's true, but what if I can't get around? What if they just feel nobody notices? Listen to God's faithfulness in Hebrews 6, verse 10.

God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown as you have helped his people and continue to help them.

How about that? That is great. Amreev said, the only man who ever got all his work done by Friday was

Robinson Crusoe. That's pretty good. How about the

African missionary who was asked if he really, really liked his assignment? This one of the classic quotes of all time. I've used this for 20 years.

He said in great shock, do I like this work? No, my wife and I do not like dirt.

We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse.

But as a man to do nothing for Christ, he does not like. God pity him if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it.

We have orders to go and we go. Love constrains us.

Friends, if you're listening today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, you will be impoverished. It'll be your own fault.

The kingdom of God will go forward, but you will be impoverished, spiritually impoverished if you do not serve other people.

If you don't say, I'm going to love my neighbors myself. I don't even know if I like these people, but I'm going to think to myself, what's best for them and therefore

I'll serve. We are too easily swayed by talk like this.

Well, I don't want to overdo it. I don't want to burn out, you know, my age and my stature. I think 1

Corinthians 15 contradicts that. Therefore my beloved brethren, verse 58, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord. Going beyond, overdoing. These are the requirements and I'm going to overdo it.

I'm going to overdo it. Why? To earn heaven? Of course not. But because you've had great guilt and now you have had greater grace and you want to show your gratitude.

I think you need to die with your boots on, serving the Lord. God has richly graced you, so you richly serve other people.

And I don't think many excuses are going to work if you say I'm not adequate. Well then, who is?

But your adequacy in ourselves, no, but our adequacy comes from God. 2 Corinthians 3, 5.

Say, well, I'm really weak. Well, that's the whole point. You're like a jar of clay in 2 Corinthians 4.

Say, well, you know, I don't really have time. Well, if you care about holiness, you've got enough time.

People make time for things and people they love. You've got enough time. You've got 168 hours in a week, just like everybody else.

Matter of fact, when I need something done by someone, I usually pick a really busy person because I'll know they get it done.

They will not sleep. I remember one of that, well, here's a good thing you can do that I used to have to do all the time.

I probably should still do it, is I would have to pray that I could operate on less sleep. Working full -time, going to seminary, teaching the

Bible expositionally every week. Besides being a father and a husband, I needed to work on less hours of sleep.

And so going to bed at two and three in the morning and getting up at six, that was rough. But I don't know what to tell people when, as it's happened in the past, a guy told me he used to work 14 hours a day and he had no time to serve.

Well, this is what he needed. You deal with different people differently. Some you need to help and some you need to come alongside of.

But the unruly, 1 Thessalonians 5, says you rebuke. And so that's exactly what I did. I told him to tell his excuses to the

Lord, not me. If you work 14 hours a day and you don't have time to work, well, I mean, time to serve, that is your problem.

That is your problem. Jesus said, come and follow me and you need to have the right priorities.

If you say I'm married, I've got too many kids, I'm a single parent, my husband is my ministry. Well, your husband is your ministry, but other people are too.

I don't know what my spiritual gift is. Well, stop wasting all your time trying to figure out what your spiritual gift is and serve someone.

Go to your local church and say, what around here is done not well? And instead of complaining about it,

I'm gonna try to shore that up. I'm going to try to go over there. There's a leak over there in the boat.

I think instead of me saying, there's a leak in the boat, somebody fix it. I hate leaks. Can't believe my last boat

I was in, there wasn't as many leaks. These people sure are unloving here with all these leaks.

Why don't you go patch the hole? That's what you should do. That's exactly what you should do.

Don't come up with all the excuses. If you say to yourself, well,

I don't know if I really can do these things. I don't know really how to do them. I think you can.

Now as to the love of the brethren, Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4 .9, you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

You can figure out a way to love other people. And if you say you can't, and it's true, you're not a

Christian because 1 Thessalonians 4 .9 says that Christians are taught by God to love other people.

And so pray for opportunities to serve. Pray for opportunities to serve the body. Pray for the heart of Paul to work by burning out.

Be the first to volunteer. Go ask people. One man said, some people remind me of blisters. They do not show up until the work is done.

Volunteer for the hardest jobs. You'll make time for things you love. And if you think about other people as you would serve the

Lord Jesus Christ, serve them that way, then you're gonna be having no problem. Don't be a spiritual pygmy.

NoCompromiseRadio .com. 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 bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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