Chris Peterson Interview

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, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and Wednesdays, as you know, is a day to talk to guests, writers, authors, pastors, teachers, theologians.

And sometimes I have to call in the friend card, a friend who happens to be a pastor and a theologian and a

Bible teacher. And so I�m calling in the friend card today. Chris Peterson, Pastor Chris, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Thank you. It�s a great privilege to be here with you. Now Chris, you are serving alongside of my brother

Pat Abendroth. That�s correct. How do you get along with him after all these years? Well, we complement one another.

His weaknesses, my strengths, his strengths, my weaknesses, the Lord just brought us together in ministry to further the gospel.

You know, my wife jokingly says I�m kind of a helpmate for him, you know, in the best sense of the term.

So I just have appreciated him. He�s like a spiritual brother to me, for sure. Well, Chris, it�s interesting to me when

I think about complementing one another on an elder board with strengths and weaknesses like we would with our wives at home, strengths and weaknesses.

Many, many associate pastors, I don�t know what your formal title is, but you�re not the main preaching pastor.

They start off with good intentions, I think, and then there becomes an undermining, I�m going to take over,

I�m going to have people follow me, you�ve got something bad to say about the pastor, come and talk to me. And Chris, everything

I�ve heard from my brother and everything I know about you is the exact opposite. And I know it�s the grace of God in your life, but if you had to talk to some associate pastors and give them a little counsel on how to fit in in terms of the,

I don�t want to say hierarchy, because there are no hierarchies in 1 Timothy 3, but what�s a good strategy for other folks as they minister alongside of the one who�s preaching?

Right. I think ultimately we�re going to say it�s understanding your identity in Jesus Christ that really has to start there.

And that�s obviously going to keep us humble, recognizing that He�s the shepherd of the Church, we are servants on behalf of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and that�s the priority, so that keeps our hearts in check there. The other side of things is knowing the giftedness and the role that we have within the

Church. So I know that my gifts are in the areas of exhortation and encouragement, and so I come along to compliment

Pat and his ministry. If he preaches from the pulpit, I value what he brings each and every

Sunday to feed the flock. And my children, from the time they�ve been young, you�d say 3, 7, and 8, and grown up now they�re ones in their 20s already, praise

God that they have grown underneath Pat�s ministry, and that�s encouraged me to see that.

The other aspect I think is authority. When you look at Scripture, there is a high priority on the place of roles.

And I love to call them the �roles of grace� in the sense that the Gospel has procured in us a heart for loving the authority of God and loving the authority that�s displayed by God in His Church.

So God has given us a unique role within the Church, and we love to put that on display because He has graciously saved us, and that keeps a helpful check on our hearts as we work together in ministry, complimenting one another, but respecting those roles that God has given.

Well, Chris, that�s an excellent answer, and I want you to know that if you ever get tired of Pat or he fires you, you�ve got a place out here in Massachusetts.

I appreciate that. It�s so fun to be able to hang out with you and your brother around Shepherd�s Conference and other events.

Now, Chris, the Lord has, through your own study and through preaching and for overseas ministries and missions, has been working in your life specifically with the centrality of who

Jesus is and who you are in Christ and union with Him. I want to talk a little bit about when

I first met you early on, because it was almost the opposite. You know, we�re all born with kind of law hearts and we want to do things, and would it be fair to say, and of course

I�m not blaming your parents because I think that would be unfair. I really love your parents, but in your own heart, like when we first met and I put that fake cigarette in my mouth and you looked at me like�

You�re going to read that up. Yes, it�s a classic. Well, what happened was Chris was coming out to Los Angeles, and I�m going to go to school at Master�s, and Chris knows my brother more than he knows me, and so Chris came into the house and I had a fake cigarette that had a fake end.

The baby powder? Yeah, and the baby powder like I was exhaling, and Chris, you looked like your mouth was going to have to be picked up off the floor, you know,

Pastor Pat�s brother is smoking a cigarette. So tell me what�s happened in your life as you have now seen, by the grace of God, the uniqueness of union of Christ, and how has it changed your life and your ministry?

Sure. I think on one side of things, when we talk about the culture that many of us grew up in, there�s that fundamentalistic culture in which we think of the sin problem as greater on the outside of us than it is within us, and I think as we begin to study total depravity, we study the scriptures, we begin to recognize the sinful depravity of our own hearts, and that has a healthy sanctifying effect as far as trusting in the how -to�s, the list, the principles to try to engender sanctification and growth in our life.

So we end up trusting in the flesh and our list, so there�s that, there�s the culture that we�ve grown up in, at least

I grew up in. There�s another side of things, too, and I think as I begin to study Romans 2 particularly, where Paul underlines the nature of the works of the law written on our hearts, that even from birth we have this propensity to understand the nature of the law of works, which we�re going to, as we begin to study scripture, or biblical theology as it�s entitled, we begin to see the role that Adam had in the garden in which he was called to obey

God. Under disobedience he was cursed, and we begin to see that theme of the law of works played out in scripture.

We�ll see it in the statements, �Do this in order to live, and those who disobey are under the curse.�

In a sense, that�s written on our hearts, that�s part of what it means to be a human being, to be in Adam.

The problem is, Adam couldn�t do it, he failed. Only Christ could fulfill that law of works by perfectly obeying the law and taking the curse, as Galatians 3 reminds us, that He redeemed us from the curse of the law, that no one can be justified by the works of the law.

And we recognize that only Christ could do that, but because of our human propensity to understand the works of the law, �Do this to live, disobey, curse�, we fall into the trap of thinking that in our post -fallen state, in Adam, we�re fallen, that we can somehow keep that, that we can measure up to God by obeying, that He will accept us by our obedience, and when we�re disobedient, that He rejects us.

We begin to realize as we study scripture and the gospel comes to us that we can�t approach God through the works of the law.

Mount Sinai was raised up to help us understand that. Hebrews 12 reminds us that it was a place of fear and trembling.

So, by God�s grace, He opens our eyes to see that we can only approach God through Christ, that Christ had to fulfill the works of the law for us, in both its obedience and taking the curse.

And we find rest in there. But having said that, we fall into the trap, as Galatians 3 says, of bewitchment, in which we fall back into the trap of thinking that we can make

God happier as a believer, we trust in Christ, so it�s a post -Christ context I�m talking about here.

We fall into the trap of thinking that He�s happy with us when we�re more obedient, and He rejects us, that He�s going to punish us, that all the trials and sufferings in our life are because we�ve been disobedient.

And if we could just correct our lives, if we could find that secret sin and surface that, then maybe the

Lord would be happy with us again and would bless us. And that is the trap of the law of works as it�s creeped back into even our

Christian lives. You mentioned mission trips to India. They asked me to address that particular issue.

It fits in with the karma idea of you do well, you�re blessed, you don�t do well, you�re cursed.

And even for the Hindu religion, that�s creeped into this

Christian kind of thinking, a law of works kind of thinking. They asked me to address that particularly.

So I guess in answer to your question, yes, the fundamentalist culture certainly breeds some of that, but I would also add that because the law of works is written on our hearts as we�re born in Adam, there�s that propensity to live life, to think that way.

The problem is we forget the post -fall situation that we�re in, that we cannot approach God through the works of the law.

Adam failed, only Christ can do that. So it�s something that we all struggle with. It took understanding

Romans 2 particularly, and Romans 8, Romans 10, to grasp that reality that that�s an innate struggle that we have from Adam, but the answer is found in Christ Jesus.

So that�s really affected even how I�ve thought through counseling as people come in. What are they, what�s the real root to their struggle with parent conflicts, child conflicts, spouse conflicts, members within the body conflicts, really can be rooted in this trying to restore relationships through the works of the law rather than understanding the grace of God and the

Gospel. And so that�s my mission in counseling, is really to proclaim Christ, but to help them understand the nature of the works of the law in its proper place.

Mike Talking to Chris Peterson today, Pastor Chris Peterson, omahabiblechurch .org, if you want to go to the website there.

Chris, I pulled my Bible out and looked at Romans 2 when we started the discussion, because I knew we were going to go there.

Chris Indeed. Mike Isn�t it fascinating when we go, for instance, to Romans 2 .13, �For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.�

The knee -jerk response for almost every evangelical is to interpret that verse in what way, and then what way should we, how then should we interpret it rightly?

Chris Yeah, we almost treat it as just a hypothetical statement. I love to back it up a little bit to verse 6, just it complements that so well.

�He will render to each one according to his works, to those who by patience in well -doing.�

So it�s an endurance, it�s faithfulness, it�s obedience. �In well -doing, good doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.�

So we tend to just kind of push that off as just a hypothetical statement, if somebody could do this.

But because Paul roots that in verse 15, the work of the law written on their hearts, he�s arguing that this is, if you want to talk about the natural state of man, this was man placed into the

Garden of Ed. The core relationship with God was that they were called to, as the creature to the

Creator, to obey God perfectly, patiently, in well -doing. And even their motives are dealt with in verse 7, �to seek for glory and honor and immortality.�

And the reward that he would give, it says in verse 7, is eternal life. So, this isn�t just a hypothetical statement.

This is a description of man in his state. If you backed it all the way up, back to the

Garden event, in which he was called to relate to God in this way, the failure, as you mentioned, not understanding this text, where the dangers that it can lead to, is when

I, as a Christian, think that I need to approach God based upon this principle of the works of the law, which

Adam was placed under and he failed. But Paul�s point is that we can�t approach

God through this. In fact, verse 20 of chapter 3 says, �By works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes knowledge of sin.�

At face value, it looks like he�s contradicting himself. In one sense, we�re called to be doers of the law to be justified.

And then he says we can�t approach God through the works of the law in chapter 3, verse 20. But when we understand the context, as he�s addressing the high calling of God�s law and the standard that man has been placed in Adam before God, we are called to obey perfectly and to reward eternal life.

But we failed. That�s the whole point of Romans 3. Failed in Adam. He disobeyed.

He fell under the curse, and we fell under the curse in Adam as well. And so the only hope that we can have is not through the works of the law, which is written on our hearts so we understand the principle, but it is through faith in Jesus Christ who fulfilled that.

Well, Chris, when you�re talking to married couples and they�re having some kind of struggle and maybe it�s selfishness or whatever it might be, relate to us as listeners because many of us are married.

Kind of just, you know, give me the no -co version of this. Beat it into my brain. You bet. Where do

I go? How does this make me think, �Oh, that�s the right way to analyze this so then

I can repent of what I�ve been thinking.� So glad you asked. To the rubber meets the road. That Hebrews 12 really opened my eyes to the practicality of this, where the

Hebrew writer addresses Esau, who failed to obtain the grace of God.

And he responded out of a heart of bitterness, the text says a root of bitterness, that springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.

And then no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau. And as I was looking at that text, I thought, �The root of bitterness is directly opposed to the grace of God, and it leads to trouble, defilement, and sexual immorality.�

And I was seeing in these relationships, bitterness at the root of a lot of the sinful struggles that were going on in these relationships.

But as you look at the context, the Hebrew writer says, �You have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and a tempest.�

And he begins to underline the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, Mount Sinai, in contrast to Mount Zion, of which we approach

God through grace because of the mediator, Jesus Christ, who has brought us to God.

And that really opened my eyes to, okay, how do I explain this to a couple who are struggling in their relationship, and at the root there is bitterness?

If you think through the principle of the works of the law, Paul says in Galatians 3, �Do this to live, and those who don't do, they're under the curse.�

So, when I begin to think of my relationship with God that way, that's going to translate into my relationship with others.

And that's by...it's a default, because we're image -bearers. So it would go something like this. I'm looking at my spouse, and I have expectations, law.

And I understand the nature of the law, Romans 2. I judge others. It shows that I have the work of the law written in my heart.

I have expectations of right and wrong. And when my spouse offends me, I understand the nature of the work of the law needs to be exacted.

And it would look like if she fails me, or he, depending on who the spouse is here, there needs to be consequences, so that those expectations are met, justice is served, fairness is brought to bear in the relationship, and when they've been faithful, there is reward and blessing.

And that's just the principle of the work of the law, as it's displayed at Mount Sinai, and ultimately is rooted in the covenant that God made with Adam.

So my ministry is to help them understand, when they're making statements of, but she did this, or he did that, to help them understand that this is the work of the law that's at play here.

We are saying, I will not accept you, I cannot have a rewarding relationship unless you meet the terms of the law, which

I've established by my own expectations. And to help them understand that we can't approach

God that way, when we've failed His law, when we've disobeyed, as 1 John 3, verse 4 says, sin is lawlessness.

We come underneath the curse of the law, and the only way that we can have a relationship with God is if He condescends to us, which

He has in Christ, and fulfills the requirements of the law, both in its obedience and in its curse.

And we find, by faith, a resting in Jesus Christ, and we're, out of His grace, reconciled to God in a loving relationship with Him as a father -child.

And so, really, as they're making comments, out of their heart the mouth speaks, you know, Jesus says,

I'm looking for those works of the law statements, rewards, consequences, to help flesh out for them that they're living underneath the shadow of Mount Sinai, and they have forgotten the grace, through the

Mediator Jesus Christ of Mount Zion, that brings hope and restoration. When they grasp that, it turns that relationship into a relationship of service, self -giving, ministry, because they're fulfilled in Christ, who has fulfilled it for them on their behalf, not based upon their efforts to pay one another back, which is just manipulation, and there's no hope there.

It's hopeless. It may work for a time, until we fulfill those expectations again. And that principle can be applied from members within the body, to parents, children, children to parents.

It's amazing how practical it is. Chris, excellent answer and response at a very practical level.

It's true even for a believer who is married to an unbeliever. Aren't they able, because of who they are in Christ, to even have joy?

Can't they have a joy -filled life? Yes, many pains, many difficulties, it would be very hard to live with an unbeliever, but there can still be joy as a fruit from what the

Spirit does through Christ and in Christ, right? Exactly, because they've been united with Christ by His grace, through faith, they have everything that they need in Jesus.

That's why, when you read the epistles, it amazed me that before Paul or Peter would deal with the issues, the sin issues that need to be surfaced, the divisions in the

Corinthian Church, Galatians, the issues of fruitfulness, the lack of fruitfulness in Galatians chapter 5,

Colossians chapter 2, he starts with the supremacy and sufficiency of what they have in Jesus Christ.

It's as if we need to be reminded of who we are in Christ and all that we have in Him, which frees us then from trying to find our identity, again, in the works of the law, based on what

I do or what my spouse does. And in this situation, he's describing, yes, we're free to serve.

Our spouse becomes a mission field to proclaim the glory of Jesus Christ, because we're fulfilled in Him. Now, having said that, boy, that works in the law.

It's like a worn record. It's scratched deep. And so there's that immediate knee -jerk reaction, even in our dispositions towards one another.

I don't even sometimes think about it. I'm not going, oh, I'm responding in the works of the law here, as I'm frustrated with my child.

It's a knee -jerk, it's an attitude that comes across as, I was offended, and this needs to be dealt with in order for me to have a right relationship with my child.

But when we remember the gospel, as Paul and Peter keeps reminding us of the gospel and who we are in Christ, it changes things around.

We're able to serve and to minister and to promote Jesus Christ, rather than use one another to find satisfaction in ourselves.

Talking to Chris Peterson today on No Compromise Radio. Chris, is there a particular book written by an author that is especially helpful for our listeners, or do you need to write that book?

I think God's telling me, in light of your pastor's sermon two days ago, to write a book on this subject.

That's funny. That is so funny. It's a great sermon, by the way, I would highly recommend it, Sufficiency in Scripture.

You know, the journey that I took, obviously, reading through the epistles and just seeing this theme of weaving in the gospel.

Why does he keep threading in the gospel? It's like we're going to forget it between these two chapters. I need it, even for the power to put off and put on and live in light of the new man that we are in Christ, rather than the old man.

So, definitely, the epistles help us out if we step back to look at the method that the apostles use as they're writing.

But some helpful books, as far as a foundational level, not necessarily very helpful to the lay person, but it's just the journey that I took.

Art of Prophecy by William Perkins really challenged me in light of preaching, in light of the law and gospel.

And ironically, it's not prophecy as we would think about it, it's preaching, as he would describe it.

Murrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher was really helpful in light of articulating the law of works and the gospel.

Fountain of Life and Method of Grace by John Flabel, again, very helpful. But for a modern -day reader,

I found most help in the book, Counsel from the Cross by Dennis Johnson, who leads

Fitzpatrick. Now, I think the one aspect that I would love to see is actually how to take these life situations and lay over it the works of the law to help a person understand why he's relating to the other as they are.

So it flushes out the need for the gospel. And I think that's where maybe someone could come along and write.

Just how to use the works of the law, how to show it. It flushes out our sinfulness and drives us to the gospel.

Chris, I don't know what Sinclair Ferguson will address, but I saw on pre -order now on Amazon, there's a book by Sinclair Ferguson, I think out in December, January, something about the

Merrill is still relevant today or something, the Merrill Controversy. And I thought that would be an excellent book.

Yeah, indeed. He has a three -part, I think, audio you can get online about the Merrill Controversy for those that are interested in that.

Chris, we've got about a minute to go or so. Are you happy or sad that the

Nebraska Cornhusker Idol has fallen and now people can show up now on time on Sundays or something after Saturday?

Oh, well, it again reminds us, right, it's really spiritual with that, but it reminds us that our ultimate rest and hope is in Christ.

But it's going to take some time to rebuild. Well, I remember when I would, and I'm a

University of Nebraska alum, Nebraska would lose and I would be sick, literally, mentally for days.

And I thought, that's what happens when you worship idols with clay feet. Absolutely. And then we have an

Omaha Bible Conference. I just was there a few weeks ago, and we need to have it on a Saturday when it's an away game.

Otherwise, no one would attend. What does that say for Omaha Bible Church? I think there are sinners at Omaha Bible Church still.

Yes, well, indeed. It also says that Nebraska doesn't have many sports to follow. That's right.

Now, last question. I got 20 seconds. You're going to get into bicycling like Pat? Oh, no, baseball is my theme.

It doesn't quite fit with that. All right. Chris, thanks for being on today. Chris Peterson, pastoring at Omaha Bible Church, Master's Seminary alum, and a man who understands the difference between law and gospel.

Thanks, Chris, for being on the radio show today. Oh, you're welcome. My pleasure. 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 6. 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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