Pastor Jaime Owens Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry.

My name is Mike Ebendroff and it has not occurred very often where I have

live guests in the studio.

It's always by phone now or Teams or FaceTime or I don't know

what's that old old way we used to do it.

Do you remember Jamie?

What was the first way we would do videos and and all that?

Skype.

Skype.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, anyway, I can't think.

My name is Mike Ebendroff, No Compromise Radio.

You can always email me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Don't forget the new book, King, is out and it's not about theonomy.

It's not about Christian nationalism or anything like that.

I thought to myself, if we could understand a king back in the Bible days like

Persians and Medes, Assyrian kings, if we could understand kings, I think we could understand

the king of kings a little bit better.

So you can get it on Amazon, King, How the Sovereignty of God Changes Everything.

Today in the studio, Jamie Owen.

Is it Owen or Owens?

I don't even know who you are.

Well, I'm a descendant of the inimitable John.

Too bad.

You can name your child Owen Owens.

Right?

People name their children.

If we have a fifth, I may consider it.

Thank you.

I know you have a son named Noah, but that's all I.

Remember from your bio.

There's a Noah, there's a Jackson, a Mercy, and an Audrey.

Awesome.

So excuse me for mispronouncing your name, Jamie Owens.

I'll never forget it now.

Thank you very much.

Jamie, we saw each other a couple weeks ago at the church that you pastor in

downtown Boston.

What was going on there?

What kind of event did you hold?

Because I found it quite interesting, and I think our.

Listeners would like it, too.

Right.

So it was a talk by Adonis Vidu, who's a professor at Gordon

-Conwell Theological Seminary.

And Matthew Barrett of MBTS puts on a talk every year around

ETS, and I think he goes to wherever the location is for the national conference, and

there's a theological talk.

And so he gave a talk on the Trinity and its practical uses.

How'd you feel about.

That talk, Mike?

Well, I just think if your name's Adonis, you better be handsome.

Did you have him, by the way, at Gordon -Conwell when you got your THM?

I did.

Not.

So I was just particularly looking at preaching when I was there for the.

THM, and so he wasn't part of that.

Okay.

Well, I was tired.

I've had long COVID now for—I'm still a little stuffy—about 42 days ago, I got it.

And so I've just felt I'm underwater, can't think that well,

fatigued.

I haven't had a nap yet today, but I think there's one probably on my schedule.

So I tried to pay attention.

I was happy to listen.

I was trying to figure out the Aquinas, Augustan stuff.

And so I guess overall, Jamie, I was just glad to listen and think to myself, you know

what?

I should probably study inseparable operations a little bit more and read his book.

That was kind of my takeaway.

Sure.

I felt like you had.

To have a certain vocabulary to really engage some of the conclusions there, like a

classical theological vocabulary.

And so I think it was above a.

Lot of people's heads.

Agreed.

And once in a while, I don't mind that, because it will force us to humbly say, oh, we

have not arrived theologically, and there's so much more to learn.

I did like the Q &A afterward.

Barrett was a little sick as well, but he asked really good questions, I thought.

And while I think Louis Ayers might be the smartest man in that building that night,

still as a Roman Catholic, I thought it quite funny that he was lecturing people like us,.

Pastors, on how to preach.

Right, right.

Yeah, you know what?

I try to spit out the bones, right?

So I thought, you know, his encouragement to preach a more.

Trinitarian sermons was really apt.

That was good.

Well, it was a year ago.

I should have probably called you and invited you.

I went to Harvard Divinity School and listened to Thomas Joseph White speak on the

Incarnation, a Roman Catholic scholar, and he's also in the Hillbilly Tomist

band.

Do you know that?

Well, I do now.

Yeah, they play the Grand Ole Opry.

Oh, really?

Yeah, they're very popular, and he delivered a really excellent message on the Trinity,

and it just kind of boggles my mind sometimes.

How can they be so good when it comes to Trinitarian stuff on the Hypostatic Union,

Incarnation?

They're so good with that, and then I think, wait a second, and the next chapter is praying.

The Rosary.

Oh my goodness, yeah.

How does that happen?

I don't know.

Yeah, this is a great book by Matthias Media, by Ray Gallia, called Nothing in My Hand I

Bring, and it really lays out the differences between Catholicism and Protestant Christianity, and so I would

commend that.

Thank you.

Speaking of which,.

You're in Boston, a lot of Irish people, and that means a lot of Irish Catholic people

here in West Boylston.

I think the census is 80 a Professor Roman Catholic belief, but probably only

30 go to Mass every Sunday or regularly.

What's it like.

In Boston?

Yeah, I think it's similar.

I think that many ascribe, I mean, downtown you have a melting pot, a lot of transfer folks who came in from

different parts of the country, and yet, I think as you pan out from

downtown and you move into greater Metro Boston, you'll have more and more Catholic

folks, and I get the sense that, as I was, I grew up Roman Catholic, very committed to the forms and the

rhythms of being there, but not really deep in what Trent said, or any of the actual

doctrines, and so I was, I think, a nominal Roman Catholic and just kind of droned on as I

went Sunday to Sunday with my parents, and so I get the sense that most people are like that.

They're not really in tune with what the Church actually declares.

That's my sense of it.

A lot of young.

People at Tremont, and by the way, Tremont Temple Baptist Church, you can go online and access

Jamie Sermon's TremontTemple .com.

Around these parts, as they would say in Nebraska, if something's got, a church's got Temple in its name, it's

usually King James only.

Yeah, well, I can disavow you, yeah.

What do you preach from, by the way?

So, I preach at ESV.

Okay, all right.

And when you got there, what was the state of the.

Church?

So, I got there in 2015.

So, the way it came together is, I was an associate pastor at a church called Grace Harbor in Providence.

The senior pastor there was Kevin McKay.

He was an intern there in Washington, D .C. at Capitol Hill Baptist Church prior to my coming to D .C., and I also did

the internship there and was on staff for a couple years there.

And so, when it came time for a third year of being the assistant

to the pastor there, I declined because, you know, admin is not my passion.

Let's just say that.

And I'm not sure how they gave me a second year there after that, but I ended up landing as an associate with a

former intern, someone who was familiar and like -minded as far as ecclesiology.

And so, I was in Grace Harbor Church there.

And the senior pastor there, Kevin, went out to the Cape to preach.

And the senior pastor at the time of Tremont Temple, his son was good friends with Kevin, and they had a dinner together, the

three of them.

And Denton Lotz, who was the senior pastor at Tremont, said, hey, I've been looking for, you

know, a guy to serve with me as an assistant.

I've looked around.

I've gone to Gordon -Conwell looking.

I've put out on the internet some invitations to come and check this out, but I've not found anyone.

Do you guys know anyone?

And Kevin was like, yeah, I've got a guy.

And then also John Paul, his son, kind of at the same time said my name.

And so, Kevin came back to the church and said, hey, have you ever seen this church before?

And he pulls it up on his cell phone.

And I'm like, is that a cathedral?

Like, I had never known, never seen anything like it.

I mean, there's no Baptist church that looks like the inside of our building.

And I said, no, I don't know that.

He says, well, that's in downtown Boston.

They're looking for an associate.

Would you ever come and check it out?

I couldn't believe it.

So I went up and I met Denton in the office there of the church back in, you know, at the end

of 2014.

And despite some of the differences, which we'll get into, but some of the differences between he and I as far as

ministry, we kind of hit it off.

He was in his early 70s and I was in my early 30s.

But it all began there.

So, yeah, pretty unusual story, let's say.

The building is a wonderful building and so unique.

I first saw, I think I mentioned to you a couple weeks ago, I saw R .C. Sproul live for the

first time when he was there at the church, and I think there was another conference

someplace.

Oh, by the way, I also saw R .C. at Park.

Parkside is Alastair Beggs.

This is just Park Street, yes.

And it was the first time I met a woman elder.

I still haven't.

No, I'm kidding.

She was a very nice lady.

And so then the next day after the ETS Adonis Vidu Barrett deal, you had

the hymn sing.

Tell me about the hymn sing,.

Because I didn't make it.

Yeah, right.

So Crossway, I have a friend at Crossway that I just met in passing and

stayed in touch.

And then, this was several years ago, and then just recently got an email from him and

Crossway.

The new hymnal, the sing hymnal, that the Gettys, Keith and Kristen Getty, have put together and Crossway has published

and printed, they were looking for an opportunity at ETS to

introduce it to, I guess, the academic community and then whoever else was available.

And so we had a hymn sing together, and it was really great.

A lot of the folks were going to ETS and SBL, this other conference that was happening over the weekend, and then our church members and

then a number of other churches, and the word got out.

And so we had about, probably about 1 ,200 people in our sanctuary or meeting hall, which I normally

call it.

And, you know, the maximum capacity is 1 ,700.

We have two balconies, so it's just this massive cavernous space.

But we almost filled it,.

But it was close.

I'm sure you filled it with great singing.

Probably sounded.

Wonderful, all those voices.

That's right.

I mean, Keith Getty is just kind of a surprisingly great showman.

Like, he's just, the way that he wove the hymns together, and he would talk, and then he would weave in a

hymn, and he would walk us through the whole hymnal.

It was just, it was fantastic.

You know, the time was.

Great.

It was well spent.

Nothing like men and women singing praises to the glory of God in a building that, I think in my

mind, had pretty good acoustics.

Oh, sure, yeah.

I would agree with you.

Unlike the building that I'm in right now.

So you have to be careful that I don't covet.

Actually, that's one of the commandments, right, at the Tenth Commandment, is I'm not supposed to covet other people's buildings.

Don't envy me, my brother.

Jamie Owens is here in the studio today.

Give me a little of your background.

How did the Lord save you?

What were their circumstances behind it?

You know, it reminds me of Michael Horton, when some people say, well, you know, my testimony is not

fantastic.

It's not, you know, I was a prostitute, and then I got saved, or whatever.

But it's the Lord doing, and sometimes even the self -righteous that gets saved, it seems like it's

more of a miracle than the unrighteous getting saved.

But were you unrighteous,.

Self -righteous?

What were you, both?

I'd say I was both, yeah.

So, and it's interesting that at the preaching of the Word, when I was saved, that, you know, you had both of those

scenarios in the story of the prodigal son, older and younger.

I felt like I was a combination of both when I came to Christ.

But I'll back up a little bit.

So I grew up Roman Catholic, very devout as far as, you know, always there on Sundays, sometimes

confession on Fridays, and catechism as a child, where we would just go to class,

basically, and some nuns would hammer us with, you know, questions about Jesus, and every answer was God

or Jesus.

Did you ever get hit by them?

No, I never got wrapped in the knuckles or elsewhere.

My father, interesting story, he grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and he was in a Catholic school,

and they just unmercifully would beat him, unmercifully.

And then he was, at one point, as he as he got older, a custodian in one of the schools,

and as an act of rebellion on the final day, he clogged all the drains, turned all the

water on, and walked out.

That was his goodbye to the Catholic school.

Anyway, so what was I getting at?

Unrighteous, self -righteous, Route 15.

So I, you know, I was a worldly kid.

I would say I was, you know, in some ways, I grew up playing sports.

I was an Eagle Scout.

I was involved in the Boy Scouts.

I, you know, I was pretty moral outwardly, I think, and then when I hit 15, I was a freshman in high school, and then,

you know, sin awakened, and I, you know, I had girlfriends, and drank a lot of beer, and played football

and sports in school.

I kept things together academically from an outside veneer,

and yet inside, and kind of, you know, my partying tendencies and my

desires of the flesh kind of took over during high school.

The same kind of thing into into college, you know, maintaining a veneer of morality, while at the same

time, just indulging in other ways, perhaps secretly to some.

And so it was it was my junior year in college when I was, I was at the local gym.

I was, I was there at Gold's Gym, and there was a attractive girl up in the treadmill.

And so this is back in the day where you could talk to a woman at the gym.

I don't, I don't go to a gym, you know, anymore.

But I know that, you know, you attain instant creeper status if you kind of look in the direction of a female.

But anyway, so I went up there and walked next to her in the treadmill, and conversation was flowing, things were

going well.

And then at the end, there was a little hook that I didn't anticipate.

She said, Oh, my dad's a pastor in town.

Would you come in here and preach?

And so I guess it was kind of missional fishing for converts on the on the gym

floor.

And so a couple of weeks later, I ended up at Grace Gospel Church in Swansea,

listening to the preaching of the word, listening to her father preach, and I felt like his preaching was

textual.

His preaching was, I don't know that I would say that it's expository preaching, but he in some way exposed

the text.

And I began to for the first time in my life, feel that God wasn't a far off that he didn't just kind of make the world

and walk away from it.

And through a series of months after that, I kept going, I would drive the 40 minutes from Bridgewater State College,

where I lived in a dorm with a bunch of athletes drinking and partying, I would drive the 40 minutes down to Swansea.

And I would go to church and I would see her and I was there for all the wrong reasons.

But the Word of God, Lord began to draw me by spirit because I began increasingly to feel

that my lifestyle, my lifestyle and my desires were opposed to God, that God is holy, that he was

very much close to me, and that my life was really

wretched towards God.

And over time, the Lord drew me to himself.

And then it was Father's Day of 2005, I was I think a little hungover from the night before I

drove.

It was beginning of June 14th, perhaps of 2005.

I drove, made the drive a little under the weather, but I sat in there and he

used a canvas of Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son, this painting you've seen, it's an

old man hovering over his son who's frayed, part of his heel is gone and his shoe,

and he's been in the pig pen of sin.

And as he preached, you know, it's interesting as somebody who preaches now, I look back at the sermon itself and,

you know, I was focused on the younger son, you know, who essentially went to Vegas and blew

his inheritance on prostitutes and everything.

The older son really wasn't mentioned in the sermon much at all.

But I knew myself to be the younger son that I'd wasted my life, that I had

lived in rebellion against God.

And I couldn't believe, I could not get over the fact that the father ran to the son.

It's just, it's still to this day pierces me, the idea that we deserved to be

destroyed in our sin, we deserved far more than a cold doorknob on our return, we

deserved complete destruction for the ways that we rebelled against the Holy God.

And yet he ran out, the picture is this incredible seeking that, you know, Luke's

gospel is highlighted, that he came to seek and save the lost.

And I couldn't believe it.

And so it was undeniable that I was at the same time aware of my

rebellion and my sin against the Holy God, but I was also overtaken by the love of God and Christ Jesus.

And I was undone, and I repented and trusted in Jesus Christ on that day.

And my life will never be the same.

That is wonderful.

I never get tired of hearing testimonies of God's grace.

Sovereign grace, right?

He was the one running, right?

We were running the other way.

Incredible.

I love that.

And then you were probably learning and growing and attending church,

studying your Bible.

When did the turn come when you...

I can't talk!

It's Monday, it's my day off, I'm gonna plead I don't feel well.

How about call to ministry?

Let's just put it like that.

When did you say, I'd like to preach?

It's a daunting task, but Lord,.

Would you use me to preach?

Oh sure, yeah.

So I was about two years in the church as a police

officer, and I would sometimes even work the shift during that time, and the doors were open where I would sit with my full

uniform, my radio on, and I was able to sit in the back and listen to his preaching.

And I have to go on calls or whatever, and I really just admired good preaching from the very beginning.

But it wasn't until about two years in that the youth pastor, and there was a college -age

minister as well, they would often at times invite me to share my testimony with

either the youth or the college students.

That happened a few times where I was able to kind of give a testimony of faith.

And then there was a time when the college pastor was sick, and he asked me to just share a little

devotional, and so it wasn't like preaching per se, but it was like share some thoughts, some devotional thoughts from the Word.

So I began to really enjoy that.

It was a little nerve -wracking from the very get -go, but I enjoyed it.

And probably about six months after I had shared my testimony with

the church, at the beginning of one of the services, the two pastors invited me

out to have a dinner at Not Your Average Joe's in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

And both of them encouraged me to just quit my path of policing.

I wanted to be a state trooper here in Massachusetts or go into the FBI or ATF or something.

I did some internships during college to just consider going all in for

ministry, and I thought they were crazy, and that I felt like there was very little job

security and all that.

You were right on that.

Exactly.

But I took the year and prayed, and I was tasked with teaching a Bible study to the college students, and it was

assigned to me that I would teach the book of Revelation, believe it or not.

That might kind of show you some of the discernment of those who called me to ministry here.

But I grabbed John MacArthur's Things to Come.

We were deep in MacArthur.

I had a MacArthur study Bible.

I had the Gospel According to Jesus, which actually changed my life very early on.

And I'd gone to a Shepherd's Conference in 2008 and just fell in love with expository preaching.

And so that was three years after my conversion when I started to really drink from the fountain of some good preaching and

read some good stuff.

And so, yeah, I was influenced that way.

And after that year and the members of the church encouraging me on, I resigned

from Swansea Police and enrolled at Southern Seminary, and I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and started my

MDiv there.

Nice.

Now, when you were in law enforcement, LAAR enforcement, did you have your

hat down low, like a typical statey, like a state trooper would?

Did you have that look?

I had a bit of a, you know, I was a bit gung -ho from out of the Academy, and I was basically stopping anything

that moved.

And I would give mostly just verbal warnings, but that's how I got to know the community and how they got to know me, and so I

stopped everybody.

In fact, I pulled over the senior pastor who preached my conversion, the sermon where I

was converted, and I just let him sit there for a while and had the spotlight on him, and it was nighttime, and I just let him cook there for a little

while.

Although we laughed about it later.

Well, my approach is this, when I'm pulled over, hands ten and two,

and I just usually say, Officer, I want to give you a hundred excuses,

but I should not, and so I think you should tell the truth.

I'm guilty.

And then I usually get off, because they never hear those...

That's a good law gospel man right there.

Very clear on the law.

They are like, not guilty.

I mean, you are guilty, okay.

So what was the wildest story?

You pulled somebody over, and they pulled a gun out, they tried to run, you did the DUI

test, and they tried to tackle you.

I mean,.

Give me a wild story.

I'll just give you the one wildest night that I had, and there were two incidents.

It was pretty interesting that in a small town of Swansea, about 20 ,000 people over 25 square miles, that this happened

in the same night.

I was, we had four sectors in town, and so I was the far sector from what's called Route

136, which is where there's a lot of, you know, there's some businesses over there, and where I was pretty quiet.

You know, it was about two in the morning, and so it was in someone else's sector, but we all went to this

call.

There was somebody who was harassing a woman at a gas station.

There's a little Dunkin' Donuts inside the gas station, and apparently it was boyfriend -girlfriend.

The boyfriend had apparently stolen some kitchen knives and some silverware, and had

stolen them from her house, and he was accosting her there.

And so I showed up, and as I was getting out of my car, I parked kind of a certain

position where we kind of had the whole place covered.

I was walking in, I saw a fellow officer I'd gone to the Academy at Plymouth with, and

he was, as I heard over the radio, he had given a false name, and

his true name was betrayed by the girlfriend who gave it to us, and then we ran his name, and then there were warrants for his

arrest.

And so the wily guy that I went to the Academy with, who was just a scrawny guy, but with a big attitude,

he said to the guy, hey Calvin, and he wasn't close to him.

He knew his real name, and then the jig was up at that point.

Calvin knew that we knew who he was, and he knew he had warrants, so he started to run as fast as he could

towards the highway.

And so, you know, John shouldn't have done that, my friend, because he should have had him like buttoned up before

he told him who he was, but I guess he just wanted to chase after somebody that night, and so there we were.

We started to sprint, and this guy had a triple fat goose.

You ever seen those jackets?

They call them triple fat.

They're like these big down jackets.

They used to call them triple fat goose jackets, big puffy jackets.

All of a sudden, as he runs, all these kitchen knives are falling out of his jacket, and then I see

my partner pulls out this 20 -inch Maglite from his

belt and throws it at the back of this guy, which was clearly not a good

thing to be doing, but it missed, and that was good.

But I passed him up, and then on the other side of Route 136, this

guy, Calvin, lifts up his hands like he's gonna punch my partner and punch me,

and so that was when I was able to use my taser for the first time.

So I pulled it out.

I said taser, taser, taser, and I let one go, and the hooks come out.

It's like these, it's like a little gun that throws hooks, and he gets zapped, and he's like a piece

of bacon kind of frying on the sidewalk, and then John jumps right into it, but all these wires

from the taser, they start wrestling, and there's this bird's nest happening, and finally we're able to, you

know, handcuff this man, and a huge rock of crack

falls out of his pocket, and so it becomes like this drug distribution charge on top of everything else, and so it was

one of the most exciting things that I've ever seen in the small town of Swansea, you know, you're able to carry that through.

But later in the evening, I got called to my sector called

Ocean Grove, and there were, it was four in the morning after we had processed all this stuff, there were two

men fighting.

There were over six feet tall giants, and they both had baseball bats, and they were like swinging these bats at each

other.

Apparently one of them had stolen, they were brothers, and one of them had stolen a car rim from the other one's yard, and now they're having their

fight over it, and I pulled up, and I said, hey drop the bats, and

they started to walk towards me with the bats, and I started to, you know, I was a Christian

at the time, but I started to, I used words that I regret at this point, but I had pulled out my weapon and pointed it at them, and I said if you don't

drop those bats, and you can guess the rest, and they kept walking towards me, and as I

look back on it now, I think I was probably justified to fire my weapon, because here

the six foot four, these two brothers, they're like twins, they're massive guys, they're coming at me with metal bats,

like they're gonna, you know, come at me.

So my partner, the same guy, pulls up, and just in the nick of time, and pulls out his

weapon, and they finally kind of give up and drop the bats.

We had to interlock two handcuffs for each guy, because their shoulders are so wide.

Wow.

And so we made those arrests, and so that was the.

Wildest night that I've ever had, policing.

Well, as I said off -air, my associate pastor Steve, LA Sheriff,

retired, and he was a beat cop for a while, and then he worked at Supermax, and

I would always say to him, well, I'd say things like, you know, how could I survive if I ever had to go to jail for the gospel?

And then I asked him what's the wildest thing he ever saw in jail, and he said,

I was making the rounds, and I looked in the cell, and this guy was eating his arm.

Oh my goodness.

I said, what did you say?

He said, I said, stop it.

Jamie, I know you were an intern at Capitol Hill.

I did go to Weekender years ago, maybe 18 years ago or something.

Give me something behind the scenes that I don't know about Mark Dever that's interesting,

encouraging, something you learned behind the scenes, maybe.

One interesting thing about Mark.

Is that he just walks constantly, so you may have heard the word peripeteet or peripatetic, you know, he

walks and teaches.

I mean, most of the times when I've, you know, memorable moments or receive wisdom from Mark,

it was because we were just walking down the mall or walking around.

It would just be throughout the day, he would just come in and out of the office and just take people for walks, so it's just an interesting dynamic how much

he walked and how much he talked, and that was the context for a lot of his personal one -on -one discipleship.

One other thing, too, is that he was just so constant in discipleship and sharing the gospel.

He would go to the same restaurants in the neighborhood, and he would know everyone's name in the restaurant, the

store, the drugstore, wherever it is, wherever we go, and he would know them all by name, and

he would seek to share the gospel with almost everybody, and it was just so—I think the thing that stands out about him, one would be

his trust in the sovereignty of God in his own life and in the lives of others.

I think that was a huge impact on me, just trusting in a sovereign God was a theme in his ministry and life,

but also just his evangelism.

I mean, he was just a consummate evangelist, and he would model it for all of us, and so yeah, that

was memorable.

That was fun to go to his house at the Weekender because I was the senior pastor here, and so I got to go there

and just kind of see behind the scenes.

I, to this day, love that old video where it's Mark and James MacDonald

and Mark Driscoll, and they're busting his chops for having only one service in one building,

and not multiple services and all that.

Did you see that video?

Oh yes.

That's like a cultural icon, iconic moment.

And I think maybe my other favorite Mark Dever story is, we're at the Shepherds Conference, and

they did something—I mean, I've probably been to 30 of them over the years—they did something different, though.

They had Moeller, Mahaney, Ligon Duncan, and Mark Dever

upstairs in what they call the J Building, and you needed a special ticket, like these underground

tickets to go, because you could only, you know, only 200 people could fit in there or something.

And so it was after the conference that night, maybe 9 p .m., and so we go up into this

special, you know, Gnostic ticket thing, and

somebody asked Mark, or somebody asked someone a really difficult question, asked the

panel, like super hard, you know, out of the 46 views of Baptism for the Dead and First Corinthians, which one's

right?

It was something like that.

Wow.

And Dever said...

Well, we don't know the answer to the question, but we have an Apostle here, certainly he knows.

C .J. Mahaney, self -proclaimed Apostle.

Right.

I thought that was so classic.

A few other things before we wrap up the show.

Fun books that you've been reading, good books, what's on your desk

now to.

Read outside of the Bible?

Sure, I've gone back to Augustine, reading Confessions right now, just working my way through it.

Just a companion, constant companion.

I'm reading a Kevin de Young book, it's a small little booklet on the Nicene Creed

that, I mean, you could sit and probably read in one reading, but it just takes the kind of

contested phrases in the Nicene and just kind of gives a Trinitarian theology, and I've been reading that for

a couple days with my.

Devotions, and I really appreciate that.

I picked that up, I don't know why or where, but I read that and I thought, this is such a great little

book.

It's simple enough that you could give to a layperson, but deep enough that I, I mean, not that I'm the deep person, but, you know, this

is what we do.

I thought, I loved it.

It's just a great way to phrase things and to say things.

I thought, this might be my favorite Kevin de Young book.

Oh, really?

That's great.

Yeah, I mean, I think we more recently at Tremont, we've become

more confessional in the sense that we've, we recite the Apostles Creed monthly,

and I'm considering, you know, including the Nicene and moving more in that direction, and so this has been helpful

for me to look at it up close.

What statement of faith do you have?

So we have, we have a statement of faith that was probably written by one of the pastors of the church.

It was quite solid.

There are some nebulous kind of parts of it.

I don't think it's as detailed as it needs to be.

I'm thinking of moving towards the New Hampshire or considering some other historic statements that I think will be

more helpful for us as a matter of reform, so we've not gotten there yet, and I think if we do that, we have to do some robust

teaching on the statement, and we've been pretty busy, you know, with reform on church governance more recently,

and, and so we've not gotten to.

That yet, but yeah.

I think the New Hampshire is a good confession, solid, and it's almost like a, I don't want to

belittle it, but it's kind of a good halfway house, maybe to the 1689 or something like that, you know, you're on your way,

or you could keep it the rest of your life, right?

It's, I think we had here, it was a Baptist General Conference Church, and we

had, you know, ten points or something like that, you know, these are the ten things we believe, and

we ended up leaving the Baptist General Conference because, well, we're Baptist, particular Baptist, not

General Baptist, and back in the day, they started to embrace a bunch of El Hibal stuff, and

women pastors, so then, I'm sorry to say, we

took the 1689, and we kind of edited it, because

from my old theological viewpoint, I wasn't quite there in certain spots, maybe on the law and stuff like

that.

I think I was kind of maybe New Covenant back then or something, and so that we edited the confession.

It's a humble move.

You know, I look back in life, and I'm sure you do too, how kind the Lord

is, and generous, and patient with people like at least me.

What a doofus.

So many mistakes I've made in ministry, in my life, in what to do, and it's,

you know, back to that song, you know, grace greater than all my sins.

So I would not recommend anyone to write their own confession.

Know what I recommend?

Change as much as we did.

You know what?

Maybe people want to change a little bit on congregational polity, or maybe they want to change something on

Sabbath, maybe those things, but we tampered with things that we ought.

Not to have tampered with.

I see.

I got a question for you.

Yeah, sure.

I am aware that you wrote a book called Cancer is Not Your Shepherd or My Shepherd.

Correct.

And I wonder, from a ministerial standpoint, having walked through that

difficult time of cancer, has that changed the way you minister to others.

In your church, and in what ways?

Well, thank you for the question.

It could be probably ten shows, because it's probably the story of my recent

life, and what I mean by that is, I was in sales before

I became a pastor, and sales, if you're gonna be good at it, you have to be a self -starter, and I've been a

disciplined person pretty much my life, even before I was saved, German and just get things done, and

I probably, looking back, Jamie, thought as I was pastoring, why don't these people

read their Bibles more?

I read my Bible.

Why don't they stay away from pornography?

I do.

Why do they have such a hard time ministering?

I'm serving.

Why aren't they sacrificial givers?

I am.

And I mean, I would admit it probably then, but looking back, I had those thoughts.

And then what happens is, I got prostate cancer in 2015,

and then I got leukemia in 2021, or whatever the time was,

and when I first got cancer, with prostate cancer, I was preaching through Hebrews, and so it was a revolution.

And the revolution was Christ -centered preaching, because that's what Hebrews is, you know, there are the warning

passages, you've got ten imperatives in chapter 13, etc., but here's a bunch of

people who are struggling, their possessions are being taken, persecuted,

all they have to do is go back to Judaism and just imagine how warm and wonderful

the sights would be back at the temple with the gold and the marble and the incense and the trumpeters, and

now no more persecution.

They're huddling in the basement, as it were, or in a cavern or in a cave, and

as Sinclair Ferguson would say, but you have everything because you have Jesus.

And so to preach Christ every Sunday and have the takeaway, the

application be, here's the beauty of Christ, was different for me, and coming from a very

kind of law -heavy, I didn't even really understand probably three uses of the law or anything like that,

and so between Hebrews and cancer, it really broke me.

And I thought, if I, in my basement, am in need of

kindness and mercy and grace to help me in time of need, as Hebrews 4, 16 talks

about, yeah, 4, 16, don't other people?

And so if I need that, I need to give that.

And so it was a real revolution for me to say, you know what, I'm weak,

my problem isn't unrighteousness per se, it's self -righteousness, and so I need to present the person and work

of Christ to encourage, to lift up guilt, grace, gratitude,

Christ for pardon, Christ for power.

All that started happening right around there.

So to answer your question, how did cancer fit in?

On one hand, this part you would understand very easily.

When you go through a trial, somebody else goes through the same trial, it's easy to talk about it.

You can talk cop talk to people who are cops because you just have that common bond and that identity.

And so now I can walk into anybody's room with cancer and there's automatically this

identification.

I know what it's like to hear, I have cancer.

Right.

And so the Lord has used that.

I just was talking to a student the other day, I said, are you sure you want to be a pastor because you're gonna have to suffer?

And I don't know how you're gonna have to suffer, it might not be cancer, but that's just the way God works, is he molds and he

shapes and he disciplines and he trains, Hebrews chapter 12, and so whatever it might

be, it's just gonna be a humbling process.

I hope, Jamie, that I'm more kind to people, patient.

People, I think, at church might think that it's because I'm getting older and softer.

Maybe I am, you know, grandfatherly type of thing, but I really think it's a theological thing, where I

realize...I read this Thomas Goodwin quote, and I was at the Shepherds

Conference and I read it, and I just started breaking down, crying.

Probably people thought I was weird because it wasn't a moment where everybody else was crying, it was just me.

And basically it was, when you have a child, Mercy or Noah,

my children, and they're sick, you give special care to them.

Right.

You love the other children just as much, but my wife would make a little spot on the couch for the sick

child, and she called it a nest, and pillows, blankets, special food,

attention, while loving the other children, specially loved.

And Thomas Goodwin was talking about children of God in the crucible of suffering, and how God,

you know, from our perspective, I mean, he's omnipresent, obviously, but he's good, close, and attentive,

and he cares, and that really helped me.

And so now when I preach, I don't want people to say, how could I even be a Christian after that sermon?

And now I want them to say, that was encouraging.

So when I hear someone at the end of the service come up to me and say, Pastor, that was encouraging, that's what I

want them to say.

They don't have to say it to me, because preaching, I think, somebody used to say it was a means of grace.

Sorry for the long answer.

I know it's my show, but.

So is that an endorsement of the Gentle and Lowly book that you just gave?

This is not a.

Discernment podcast right now.

No, I know.

I would endorse it, except just toss out the stuff on passability and a couple

other things here or there.

But I think that book is important for folks, especially coming from a heavy law background that I was

involved in.

I think it's a good antidote and a reminder that out of the 89 chapters of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke,

and John, only one place does it say, here's what Jesus is at heart, and He's gentle and.

Lowly.

Praise God.

Thanks for sharing that.

Were there any members that were here

prior to 2015, and then that change that took place with Hebrews and the Cancer, that have said to

you, hey, there's something different about your.

Ministry now?

They have.

I mean, I'm reticent to say it, because then it's gonna sound like I'm somebody, and I don't want that

to be the broadcast today, that I'm broadcasting, oh, look at me.

But they regularly say it.

I want to be the recipient of Paul's admonition, let your progress be, you know, made evident to

all, right?

We should be learning and growing.

You as a pastor, when you see someone learn and grow, you say, way to go, I see you growing, and you're serving more, you've got a

better attitude, you're praying more biblically, whatever it might be.

And so, should we not expect ourselves to learn and grow as well?

And so I think people see that.

I think they approach me more now.

In the old days, maybe I was more unapproachable, just because they probably thought I was just gonna

hit him over the head with a Bible verse.

I mean, I still give them Bible verses, but I probably hug, if it's a man, I'll probably hug him just as

much as I give him a Bible verse.

Great.

Some balance.

Well, in the old days, if somebody's had a big problem, let's say with pornography, and they've come in here to this very room,

and I'd probably get after him for, if we met for an hour, I'd probably get after him for

about 55 minutes, and the last five I'd probably tell them that I love them and God loves them, too.

Now, if I think the person's really a Christian, it'll be much more, this is who the Lord is, here's

who you are in Christ, you know, like in First Corinthians chapter 6.

There's law there, don't be deceived, flee immorality, glorify God with your body.

In chapter 6 verses 9 to 20, three imperatives.

But there's all kinds of indicatives, and here's who the Lord is, and by the way, you've been washed, you've

been sanctified, you've been justified, union with Christ, resurrection of the body, you've been redeemed

with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.

So probably for 50 minutes, I will talk about their identity in Christ, how

important that is to make them want to flee sin, and then the last five minutes, it'll probably be

my finger to their sternum like a dad to a son saying, now don't you do this again.

Right.

So, actually sometimes I've really done this finger to the sternum.

Have you?

Uh -huh.

Not even to my own, but to theirs, like son.

This is, you got to run from this particular sin.

I like that robust pastoring.

Hands -on.

Well, interestingly, and I know you know this as a dad, but now I'm

kind of like the grandfather, but to many people I'm a dad, right?

So these 30 -year -old men, 40 -year -old men, I could be their dad.

Sure.

And so going, I could be your dad.

So don't you ever...

I'm a little old for you.

So there is that.

And by the way, I'm encouraged by you, as we probably should wrap up the show, that you've been there for a long time,

and that, you know, a typical pastor three years and they're out, there's something to be said.

Obviously God can move us around, and people that move around are not ungodly, that's not my point, but

just to stay there.

I've been here 28 years, and it's just to see the fruit of people getting saved, and their children

getting saved, and their children getting saved, and so just stay the course.

If I were running the world, or just to encourage you as a father to a son, just stay the course.

Just stay there.

There's nothing bigger, there's nothing greater, there's nothing, you know, move up to more people attending.

No, no, what a privilege it is to just be able to feed God's people, preach Christ every Sunday.

I mean, what else would we.

Want?

Yeah, man, you're encouraging me, that's wonderful to hear, yeah.

We have everything we have, we have everything we need and more with Christ.

I know, and.

Don't we have the greatest, I know I'm gonna say it's a job, but we have the greatest job in the world.

Seriously.

I mean, yeah, there are difficult things, and you know, you get gray prematurely, and all these, you know, and

suffer, but it's like, this is the best.

I remember, I was listening to John MacArthur in person, that's where I attended church for a long time, and

when I first heard him, I said to myself, I didn't say, I want to be a pastor, I said to myself, I want to

know the Bible like that guy.

Manly.

You know, I'd have my differences with John over the years, I have differences with my wife, but what I really loved about John,

not ashamed of the gospel, going to preach it, I don't care what you think in terms of, you

don't like me to talk about sin or whatever, I'm just gonna proclaim the truth, in season, out of season,

you never thought to yourself, oh, he's gonna get up and do a book review today, and I thought, he knows the Bible too, and

he knows the Lord, I want to be like that.

And come to find out about eight years later, I was a pastor.

What was it, Bunyan, who Spurgeon, I'm looking at Spurgeon's mug right now on the wall here, said about

Bunyan that he, prick him and he bleeds bib line.

I know.

I want to be that man.

Part of my testimony, Jamie, is at my father's funeral in 1989, he was

55, 6 '4", 240, boxer, tough guy, and he died, and

the pastor, Lutheran pastor, handed me the Bible at the dinner table with the rest of the family, and

said, what do you want me to say about your dad from the Bible?

I don't have any idea, so I just, I knew I know how to deal with people, and I just said, I'm just too distraught, I can't think, you know,

whatever you think's best.

But inside, I said, I'm never gonna be embarrassed again if somebody in that regard, if somebody hands me

the Bible, I'm gonna know what's in it.

So I started reading the Bible kind of out of pride, I'm gonna know what's in this book.

I could tell you Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but I don't know where, how it goes together, so I went to a store,

a bookstore that basically sells, you know, Kenneth Copeland, Hagen, Word, Faith

stuff, looking for, like, an intro to Christianity, because I need to figure out what's in that

book.

I will know what's in that Bible, and I meant it for pride, but the Lord meant it for good,

so.

Now I generally know what's in the Bible.

I can tell you that there's a scarlet thread of redemption that runs from Genesis 315 all the way to

Revelation 22.

How about that?

Amen.

Some head crushing all the way through.

Whenever I ride my.

Bicycle outside, I will regularly see dead animals, and my theology of bicycle riding

would then tell me, I'm just, you know, one foot away from getting hit by a car, and I'm dead, so be careful.

Enjoy God's creation.

And regularly I'll see snakes that have been run over, and it typically is their head that's run over,

and it is a good reminder, riding the bicycle, seeing the

evidence of God's crushing.

And you think about thy kingdom come when Jesus said, boys, pray this way.

I want your kingdom to come, Lord.

And that's one commentator said, war -like language, battle language, because I want

Satan's kingdom to be crushed and destroyed and toppled, and I want the advance of

our kingdom.

And one by one, as people come to knowledge of the Savior, and then ultimately,

kingdom comes when the King comes.

Yeah, I was thinking about that verse in.

Matthew where it says, you know, Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail.

When do gates come at—when do gates move?

They don't.

So I think it's a picture of the church waging war, storming the

gates of hell.

There's this forward kind of idea there in that image.

Gates don't move.

The gates of hell.

We're storming the gates of hell.

We're gonna destroy.

Yeah, so.

There's this awesome image there.

I like that.

Well, police officers like battle stuff, right?

Ammo, weapons.

Are you carrying today?

Nothing, no.

I figured.

There'd be enough guns in this office that we'd be all set, all covered.

I.

Usually carry, but not today.

Jamie, thank you for coming on No Compromise Radio today.

I appreciate you, and we're gonna go have lunch and get to know each other even better, but thanks.

Keep preaching the Word, and as Colossians 1, 28 says, make sure you proclaim Him.

Thanks for being on.

It's been fun.

Thanks, Mike.

Great to be here.