Titus -- Lesson 3

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Titus, a short, yet power packed book. How does the Gospel undergird all ministry?

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We're looking at the book of Titus, and it's fascinating to me that in the book of Titus, Paul, writing to his protege, his legate, his spiritual son, there's trouble in Crete because of the false teachers.
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So how do you deal with trouble? Well, elders. That's how you deal with trouble in the local church. The elders, they're the ones who do it.
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And see, the elders, they live lives commensurate with what they've been taught regarding the gospel, to live in a manner worthy of the gospel,
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Ephesians 4. One type of thing. The unbelievers, they're going to live immoral lives. They have immoral doctrine.
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And so the counterpart to that is men who have been saved by the
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Lord Jesus Christ, they have been specially called, that is gifted with these qualifications, and they run the church.
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They lead the church. They elder rule. They rule the church.
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You say, I don't like elder rule. Okay. For you, people that have to make it a little softer because you're the opposite of tone deaf.
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You are politically correct enough that everything has to be softened because if they don't rule, they lead well.
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The text says they rule well, so I'll just use rule. But okay for you. And Paul gives qualifications.
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First exhortation is select. I want you, Titus 1 .5, to appoint leaders, right?
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Set things in order. Things are out of order, and now set them in order and pick elders.
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That's where we are right now. Chapter one, gospel laced. Chapter two and chapter three, everything in light of the gospel.
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And these are the men that God says to choose through Paul, the apostle.
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Above reproach, that's the first one. People have accusations thrown against them all the time, but they don't stick.
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They're not true. Otherwise, you could just get rid of people by accusing them. And I've certainly had my accusations.
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I'm probably still accused of things. I just don't hear much anymore. Spencer filters all.
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I've been called Stalin, Unabomber, Hitler.
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No pull pots yet. Pull pork. It's so cold in here.
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Oh, brother, my back hurts. Above reproach.
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This is kind of the overarching qualification. Above reproach.
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It doesn't say sinless. I mean, otherwise, there'd be no leaders. Husband of one wife.
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There's a variety of arguments about that, but these men are to be one woman, man.
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Not one woman, one woman, men. They are tied up and involved with and in love with, and their affections are toward only their wife.
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Children are believers. Children are faithful. Pistas is the word. Lots of times this word is used for saving faith, but most commentators would say,
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How can you ask for men whose children are saved because that's a sovereign work of God?
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They are to be behaving rightly, not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.
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So Paul is looking for these qualifications to rule the church that Christ has purchased.
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These dads, these husbands should have lives that are lived well enough that they don't have to go around saying to the other sheep,
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I can't deal with you now because I have to deal only with my children because they need the extra help because they are insubordinate and rebellious.
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That's what, for an overseer, verse 7, as God's steward must be above reproach.
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Notice how he says it again. The overseer, that title might be elder or he's actually older, but here, this is what he does.
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He's an overseer. He's a bishop in the right sense, the New Testament sense. He must not be arrogant or quick -tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain.
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This overseer is a steward. He's a manager. When you're a steward, you take care of other people's stuff, and you do that properly.
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And this is God's church, and so you take care of God's people. And you don't sit by wine for a long time.
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It'd be hard to think properly. You don't want to be greedy because you're going to be around money, and you're going to be around poor people, and you're going to be around rich people, and so just don't be greedy.
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Let's say you want to be in ministry. I'm cracking my back now. This doesn't count for a yawn.
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Sometimes I want to crack my back so loudly that you can hear it on the radio. Verse 8, but hospitable, a lover of good, self -controlled, upright, holy, disciplined, lover of strangers, sober -minded, the right type of thinking, the right ordering, the right priorities.
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You don't want to act in a way that's going to make the Lord look bad.
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He must hold firm to the trustworthy word, verse 9, as taught, so that he may be able to do two things, give instruction in sound doctrine, that's the first, and able to rebuke those who contradict it.
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So these two things, one positive, one negative, describe what the elder does teach.
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He gives instruction, and he teaches. The ESV study
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Bible says, it was common in the ancient world to emphasize one item in a list by placing it at the beginning or end, and giving more attention than the other items.
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This ability to teach is a distinguishing mark of a pastor or elder, and he is to teach sound doctrine.
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He needs to hold fast the faithful word. How do you do anything in the local church without teaching that undergirds everything?
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You, according to John Calvin, want to do the right thing.
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Here's what it says. There are some fickle persons who easily suffer themselves to be carried away to various kinds of doctrine, while others are cast down by fear or moved by any occurrence to forsake the defense of the truth.
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Paul therefore enjoins that those persons shall be chosen who have cordially embraced the truth of God, and holding it firmly, never allow it to be wrested from them,
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W .R., or can be torn from it. And indeed, nothing is more dangerous than that fickleness of which
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I have spoken, when a pastor does not steadfastly adhere to that doctrine of which he ought to be the unshaken defender.
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In short, the pastor, in a pastor there is demanded not only learning, but such zeal for pure doctrine as never to depart from it.
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John Calvin, that is true. That is true. And our generation, of course, says preaching is outmoded and out of date, and exposition needs to be replaced with drama and entertainment and everything else.
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And Paul tells Titus, you be a teacher. You step in that pulpit, and you give gospel preaching, biblical preaching.
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You depart from it. What do you depart from is the word, and what do you depart to is the reformer's language, falsehoods, vanities, impostures, errors, and deceits.
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But not only do you teach the right thing, you've got to contradict those that don't.
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So you pick elders. How do you set everything in order? Remember, it's a backdrop against false teachers. You've got to get people to teach the right doctrine, and people that will stand up and expose those who contradict the doctrine.
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This is part of teaching. You cling on to sound doctrine, and then you expose those.
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This is an expository preaching, exposing those who teach the wrong thing.
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It just has to be done. This is what God has said. And the elders need to know doctrine well enough so that when we see fake things, they can say, oh, emergent church, new perspectives on Paul, tax on substitutory atonement, why the family -integrated church goes overboard, what about conditional immortality, what about psychology and sufficiency of Scripture and counseling.
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All these things this man must know. Why? Because it's the
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Lord's church, and these things are important. You don't go to a doctor who just knows a little bit.
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You want to go to an expert, don't you? You've got two voices. Gather the sheep, warding off the wolves.
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That's what you need to do. And by the way, if you're at a church that does both of those, there should be as much encouragement for the one as for the other.
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Typically at churches, they will be all applauding you for teaching sound doctrine, but the minute you stand up and say something negative about a particular person, that is going to be very interesting.
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Well, besides this, selecting elders, Paul gives the second outline point, silence.
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Select the right elders, silence the false teachers.
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Probably Judaizers, other false teachers, they're going to try to attack the church.
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And Paul says to Titus, you know what?
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You need to silence these people. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
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They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain. What they ought not to teach.
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One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.
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This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and to the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
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To the pure, all things are pure. But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
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They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
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These false teachers are the mirror opposite of the elders.
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As the elders have the right kind of family life and doctrinal life, these false teachers are the exact opposite.
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And they come from the circumcision party, especially.
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And these people are insubordinate, and they are deceivers.
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They don't want to submit to leadership. And they want to distort and deceive, and they must be silenced, gagged, bound.
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They have to be told to shut up. You have to shut them up by teaching the right thing. These people upset families.
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They're in for shameful gain. They're greedy. They just turn households wrong side down.
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Luther, if I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except that little point which the world and the devil are, at that moment, attacking,
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I am not confessing Christ. However boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.
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And to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point.
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These particular people are cretins, and they are liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.
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They are decadent people. And Paul quotes a historian to prove the point.
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Polybius wrote, It's almost impossible to find personal conduct more treacherous or public policy more unjust than in Crete.
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Cicero said, Moral principles are so divergent that the Cretans consider highway robbery honorable.
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Epimenides is a Greek poet and native of Crete. And here,
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Paul uses Epimenides, quote, It's a prophet of their own.
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This testimony is true. And what do you need instead? True, sound doctrine.
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And teach them. Not Jewish myths. We don't even really know what some of these fables and commandments of men might be.
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Judaizers, external things, unscriptural added things to the
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Bible. To the pure, all things are pure.
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These false teachers corrupt everything. But the background probably of food laws,
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Paul uses a little spiritual jumping board here, a jumping off board. They're so concerned about all their purity, but it doesn't work.
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It does the opposite. And they can say they know God all the time, but their deeds prove the opposite.
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It's just like when people profess faith, but their deeds prove the opposite.
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Now, they're not believers. They're disqualified. They're exactly opposite of the elders. So what we're doing on No Compromise Radio is we're looking at Titus, working our way through Titus.
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You can follow us at NoCoRadio. And you can go to the
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Facebook if you like. And you can go to NoCompromiseRadio .com.
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That'd be a good place to go. Or you can go to iTunes or any place else.
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I just got something from Minnow Knight about the social gospel that was funny.
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I said, you put a word in front of the gospel, it messes it up. And he put full in front of it. Full gospel.
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Shots fired. Oh, man. Paul is teaching
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Titus. Here's what you do. Get the right kind of elders, and those elders are going to silence these false teachers.
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Number three, school. The third command undergirded by the gospel that you want to obey, if you would like to honor the
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Lord Jesus, is to school. School, that can be a verb, can't it? Come on, get my alliteration right.
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School. I mean support. I mean disciple. And that's what chapter two talks about, is discipleship.
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This is how the church should be instructed. There's some false teachers that need to be schooled.
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Now you've got to school the people that are there. But as for you, Titus 2 .1, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
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Older men are to be sober -minded, dignified, self -controlled, sound in faith, in love, in steadfastness.
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Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They're to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self -controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
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Likewise, urge the younger men to be self -controlled. There are different groups here, and in light of the
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Lord's return, that will be the motivation that we'll see, they need to live in a way that's in contrast to these false teachers, these rotten teachers, these unwholesome teachers.
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There's right behavior for those that are believers. Right behavior doesn't save you, but once you get saved, you should try to do the right behavior, what accords with sound doctrine.
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That's the key. If you know the gospel, and you've been known by the gospel, the
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God of the gospel, how should you live? There's a transforming grace. There's a saving grace that also transformed.
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It is according to, accords with, sound doctrine. Sound, healthy doctrine.
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Proper doctrine. Right? Not just attitudes, but the way you live as well.
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Older men. There's dignity, and there's a sobriety, and there's a faith.
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And when it comes to older women and younger women, there's training, and there's instruction that's given.
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Certainly, it's not just, well, husbands need to know, and wives and ladies, they don't need to know anything, they just need to be doers.
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No, it's all tied in, discipleship. Wives have their role, husbands have their role. And here, it's practical, working at home.
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This is the day -to -day place where the lady would care for their homes, their husbands, their children, and supporting the husband's leadership, submissive to their own husbands.
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That's what it says. For gospel living, maybe you could call it. What I mean, gospel living is,
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I don't mean you can live the gospel, because I don't think you can. But living a life in commensurate with the gospel,
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I do believe in. As much as I whack people for living the gospel, living a life commensurate with the gospel, that's biblical.
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It's right here, it's Ephesians chapter 4, as I said earlier. The doctrine of God, adorning that, ordaining that, ordaining the adornment of the discipleship, producing committed
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Christians who are capable of reproduction. That's pretty much discipleship. So you train up others, somebody that knows more than you, somebody that knows less than you, find both, get to know both of those.
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This, my fathers, glorify that you bear much fruit and prove to me, my disciples. John 15.
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Eight, looking for the right kind of men and women.
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It's part of the great commission, make disciples of all nations.
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Right? Discipleship gives part of your own lives, but also your own lives in a hand -on way.
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Just like modeling in Hebrews 13, imitate their faith.
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As some would say, come and see, come and follow, come and be with me, deploy. Or tell them what, tell them why, show them how, do it with them, let them do it, deploy them.
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Paul says, be imitators of me. Well, we're going to have to stop here because 24 minutes goes by quickly.
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If you would like a different format for No Compromise Radio, it used to have to be 24 and a half minutes because of our radio schedule, but we're not on radio anymore.
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It just was too expensive. And didn't want to keep doing that. Don't ask for money at the show, but when you don't ask for money, you don't get money.
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Well, that would allow us to do 60 minute shows, 45 minute shows, just whenever we're done, we're done kind of shows.
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We have a variety of those options now in No Compromise Radio. So you can write and let me know. I want to do this for the
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Lord. And when He's done with me, in life, He'll take me home. But when the show's over, the show's over.
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But I'm doing this for you as well. So if you are benefiting, great, tell your friends or write in or say, keep the format the way it is or whatever it might be.
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So my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Read the book of Titus. It goes by quickly.
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I want to say 46 short verses of behavior anchored in the
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Gospel. What's that noise you say? That is my iPad. And we are iPad preachers these days.
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Aren't we? I wonder what Paul would have thought of that. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.
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