Chris Gordon 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 ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and for those of you that have listened the last nine years, you know the format, Monday�s recorded sermon of a sermon that I�ve preached here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Preaching Through Hebrews and the Weekly Radio Format

We�re in the book of Hebrews now, Hebrews 7. And the tie-in to Melchizedek, I�ve just been having a great time preaching through Hebrews. Tuesdays, I meet with my associate pastor, Tuesday Guy, we call him, and Pastor Steve and I talk about issues in the local church and current trends.

Thursdays, I like to talk about something positive, you know, what does the Bible teach about active obedience or confession or Christological truths, and Fridays, I usually critique people. But on Wednesdays, when the show airs on Wednesdays, we have authors, pastors, theologians, and people that ministries I admire and gain benefit from and want you to know about these particular men.

And so today, I want you to get to know a man named Pastor Chris Gordon. And I�m so thankful for Chris to be on the radio. Pastor Chris, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Hi, Mike. It�s good to be with you.

Thanks for having me. Well, our listeners, I don�t know if they know you and your ministry, but I want to say to the listeners to start with that I have a variety of podcasts that I listen to, but probably either number one or number two in the last year for time spent, people teaching me the Bible on my bicycle, which is lots of hours, I�ve listened to you, Chris, at Bounding Grace Radio, agradio .org, more than anyone else.

How�s that grab you?

Well, I�m still shocked people do. I�m thankful that the Lord uses a broken stick. What do they say? Broken stick to strike a straight blow. Is that the phrase?

That's exactly right. Well, the podcast can be, you can go to the website agradio .org, or there's a variety of different ways to get it. I just use iTunes. But Chris, I want to ask you about your preaching style, because since I've benefited, I think some of our listeners at No Compromise Radio could listen as well.

One of the things I appreciate about you the most when you're preaching is you see the big picture. And for instance, let me give you an example. You're preaching in John 9, and the man is born blind, and you make the connection to John 10.

Now, it's obvious if we say John 10 follows 9, but you make the connection about the good shepherd and the man in John 9. So tell our listeners about that connection, and then secondly, Chris, tell us how you see those connections and why it's important for you to make the connections when you preach.

Seeing the Whole Story in John 9 and John 10

Yeah, that's a great question, Mike. I think it's one of the challenges of preaching. Part of the problem is, and obviously chapter breaks and chapters and verses are very helpful for us, but I don't think people are able sometimes to see the whole picture, and part of the problem is they think, well, when chapter 25 moves to chapter 26, that's the separation, and therefore they don't really sometimes take in what the message of the Holy Spirit is to us as He inspired that, what He's showing us.

And something like even Mark's Gospels, it's building and moving on each narrative to show us a central truth and a central story. But the one you mentioned is really important. Here come these Pharisees just beating this man with the goal of condemning Jesus, and the abuse of those shepherds in Israel to that blind man is, you know, we typically stop there and look at that abuse and go after the Pharisees.

But the connection there is so beautiful, because what Jesus, the whole discourse there, the whole teaching on the good shepherd and that whole discussion of the shepherd and the sheepfold and all of that is in response to that abuse.

And if you miss that, I think you miss the power and the real effect of what Jesus is doing there to talk about His shepherding care, and that He's the one that Ezekiel prophesied, the coming shepherd that would come and rescue the people of the Lord.

Here He is, against this backdrop of the abuse of the Pharisees. You have to see both of these texts together as a great confrontation, and the answer of all of Scripture prophesied in the Old Testament, promised in the Old Testament, that the Lord Himself would come and shepherd His people because of these woeful, neglectful shepherds.

So you have to see that whole picture developing, that whole story developing, and that's a beautiful, I think, the one you raised there, that's a really good passage to make that point, that we have to be able to look at things in connection that way.

Chris, when I see that passage in your preaching through John 10, and how if a sheep could be lost, it seems like it could have been that guy, except the Lord Jesus is not going to lose one of His sheep, and tying it in, of course, that's an easy passage to preach Christ in and from, because He's right there.

How does your approach to preaching come to fruition when you're dealing with passages that, let's say, aren't in one of the Gospels, but maybe an Old Testament passage? I was listening to you preach Psalm 49 about the man who asked you to preach that psalm at his funeral.

How do you talk about the Lord Jesus in a message when you're preaching from Psalm 49, for instance?

Preaching Christ from the Psalms and the Old Testament

Right. Right. And just before we started this interview, I was working for Abounding Grace Radio on Psalm 90 that I preached a few weeks ago in the Escanio URC. It's the same thing where there, Moses, and I'll come back to your question about Psalm 49, but in Psalm 90, Moses is really describing the experience in the wilderness of judgment and death that happened to Israel as that whole generation died in the wilderness, and the problem of his own sin when he didn't howl the Lord's name and struck the rock.

And Moses is going through this really dark section there of description of all the hard realities of life that he experienced in the wilderness. And you come to the question, where's Jesus in this? I think a lot of the danger for a lot of pastors is that we just preach this moralistically, or we leave the condemnation in front of God's people and give them no hope or no answer.

But that's not what the Psalm ultimately does. Or Psalm 49, both of those Psalms, if you look at it carefully, they give beautiful answers in the midst of all of this distress, hardship, suffering, pain, death.

In Psalm 90, Moses asks a really important question, who knows the power of your anger? And I think we all have to say when we come to a question like that, well, none of us. It'd be a terrible thing to have to go through the full measure of God's anger.

Who has gone through God's anger? Who has faced that wrath for us? And we're led right to the cross. We're led right to the Savior. And it's in that Psalm that Moses says, you know, in Psalm 90, show me your steadfast love, O Lord.

That's the covenant word for God's unfailing, unchanging, everlasting love, His covenant love, and the covenant of grace for His people. And the answer's right there. So everything should, in some way, lead us to the foot of the cross and the person in the work of Christ.

In Psalm 49, you know, you're testing me here. I preached that a long time ago. It's amazing what we forget as pastors.

But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol.

I didn't want to try to quote the verse off the top of my head. I might have butchered it. But that point about ransom, and there it just stands out in that Psalm. The Lord, there's the gold nugget right there.

Grab it and go with it, right? There's Jesus. There's the story. There's the central story of all of Scripture in the midst of, again, the same sort of vanity under the sun of somebody's life who's wasting it and spending it in all the pleasures of life.

That question, again, comes out in that Psalm. That's the most thought-provoking question that leads us to ask, what is most important? And how can we be ransomed? How can we be saved? How can we be redeemed?

So everywhere, we're led to Christ somehow in any particular pericope or passage.

United Reformed Church, Confessional Identity, and Preaching Christ

Talking to Christopher Gordon today, pastor at Escondido United Reformed Church. Chris, tell me a little bit about your background. And specifically, I think a lot of my listeners probably come from Bible-type churches, Baptist churches, kind of modern evangelical churches.

And when they hear Escondido United Reformed Church, they might be surprised that there are evangelicals in any kind of church that starts with a U. And so some of our folks don't run in kind of napark circles or these kind of circles.

So tell us a little bit about United Reformed Church and what the Lord is even doing in the United Reformed Church at Escondido and then as a denomination or as affiliation, whatever you call it.

Right. Well, I appreciate your question, especially with regard to names. You know, there's been the whole approach of people wanting to hide who they are with names and not tell people where they stand doctrinally or with their history.

And I am a little bit, I have to say, I fight a little bit sometimes when somebody, you know, down at the barbershop and somebody says, hey, what church do you pastor? I'm like, oh boy, here we go. Escondido United Reformed Church.

You know, and I almost know what's coming. What in the world is that? You know, everyone's used to names like the movement or, you know, whatever. Mosaic. Yeah, mosaic. So, you know, then it is kind of an open door to say that we have a history and that we're not embarrassed about who we are.

But you're right, that name United typically to most people probably leads people to think of connotations of a cult. But no, we have a history. We're obviously a confessional reformed church. You know, we have a long history that goes back, obviously, all the way to the Reformation, but particularly as the Reformed Church has developed in the Netherlands.

And that's a long history we could go into, I'm sure, sometime if you'd like to. But the United Reformed Church is obviously out of a long struggle from the Christian Reformed Church with regard to the view of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, and those sort of struggles that happened in the mid -90s.

CRC was a church that was, I think, founded in 1857 and grew. It was a large denomination in the United States for a long time. But once those sort of liberal tendencies started happening, the United Reformed Church as a group of people came together and formed the United Reformed Churches in 1996.

And we have tried to maintain confessional integrity, holding the Word of God as high as we can, honoring that Word, proclaiming that Word, centering everything that we do around that Word in worship, and glorifying His name.

So this is something that in humility we're trying to do in our day. It's a challenge, because we live in a consumeristic culture, especially church culture, that, you know, it's basically about what people want, not necessarily what they need.

But our goal, every worship service as a church, is to lead people to Christ, to show Christ, to show His magnificence, His glory, to preach Him from all Scripture so that people would come to a saving knowledge of Him.

Well, when I go to your website of the church, escondidourc .org, and just scroll down, what's very prominent is, underneath some of the pictures and some of the more generic stuff, is creeds and confessions, and they are listed there.

Apostles, Nicene, Athanasian, Belgic, Heidelberg, and Canons of Dort. And so I like it that it's just there for all to see. We are confessional and Reformed, and I'm encouraged, as someone who's probably outside of your circles, at least growing up in your circles, to see that there are men like you preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with a very evangelistic heart.

That's one of the things I love about AG Radio. I can tell your desire for people to know who the Lord is or to use the language of Galatians, that He would make Himself known to them. Talking to Chris Gordon today on No Compromise Radio.

Chris, I found out about you through R. Scott Clark and probably some Heidelcast or Heidel Blog or something like that, and then he was on the radio with you. Scott's been very helpful to me personally and theologically.

How did you meet Scott? And then I want one kind of insider story about Scott Clark that people wouldn't know about that you can tell us. Some kind of little Gnostic information, some kind of little nugget that we can take that I could use against him.

R. Scott Clark, Westminster Seminary, and the Fear of Men

You're going to get me in trouble here. I have to—you should have given me some time to think about that one. I'll have something by the time I'm finished with this answer. I attended Westminster Seminary from 2001 to 2004 in California here, and Scott was one of my professors.

And of course, one of the mistakes that I think young seminarians make is idolizing men too much. So, you know, you look at these men and think they're just, you know, holy and perfect and everything is just great with them.

And you're so thankful for them, but you don't really get to know them on a personal level the way you want, I think mainly because of your great reverence and respect for them. But after I took a call in Linden, Washington, I was there eight years and came back.

I really connected with Scott Clark, and he attends the Escondido URC, and he has been the greatest blessing to me. I mean it. The support, the encouragement—I was a little nervous of coming back and preaching to my professors, again, for the same reason I just said.

There they are sitting out in the congregation, Michael Horton, Bob Godfrey, Scott Clark, Josh Fanny. They're very brilliant men. And I thought, am I going to be critiqued endlessly? How are they going to treat me?

What am I going to do? I remember my wife used to tell me to stop looking at them while I'm preaching.

I'm just interrupting you for a second, Chris. I hope our listeners can let that settle in a little bit, maybe a little Selah moment. You stand up to preach, and those are the guys sitting there listening to you preach.

If you're not preaching for the Lord only, I'm sure that would just paralyze you.

Well, yeah, you have to get over the fear of men. I remember somebody told me—it was Dr. David Lachman years ago. He's another wonderful friend. And he said to me, he said, hey, they put on their pants one leg at a time, just like you.

But yes, so Scott has been a huge, huge blessing and help to me. And it's one of the real, I think, blessings of being down here is that if I am struggling with something exegetically or I need help, I have been able to call Scott.

Scott is the most accessible theologian I've ever come across. I mean that. He makes himself readily available to anyone who needs help. Including Baptists like me. He's spoken really highly of you. But I think that just shows what kind of person Scott is.

Sometimes he gets beat up unfairly online, and it really bothers me. They don't know Scott Clark. Scott Clark has been a wonderful mentor and support to me, and I'm really grateful for our friendship.

One of my best friends in the ministry. So, okay, now you're looking for some dirt?

Well, not really dirt, but just something that's interesting. You know, I know about the football, I know about some of that stuff, but just a story that would make me go, oh! And it can even be a story that would make me think, I like him even better now.

Well, okay.

Scott rides an Indian motorcycle. Did you know that?

I did not know that, but I would be—.

With all the leather and everything. But don't—see, now, I probably shouldn't have said that.

You didn't want that known. Does it have that little, the frills that come off, and like the little, you know, the little bells and stuff, or just—it's totally Indian. Yeah, I'm envious of that.

I am envious of that Indian motorcycle. That's a beautiful bike. And he comes cruising around on that thing, and it's impressive.

Now, that time that he rode it into the chapel at Westminster Seminary, Escondido, as the sermonator, how'd that all work out for him?

Well, that's true. I haven't seen that moment, but I'm sure it's happened somewhere.

No, that was Chuck Swindoll that did that, I believe. But not at Westminster. Tell us a little bit about your strategy for preaching, Chris, in terms of the home church there at Escondido. Are you preaching through books of the Bible?

Do you have themes? What do you do? I'm a big believer in book preaching. I have tried to maintain and do that my whole ministry. I've been through a lot of the books of the Bible. I've been in ministry now, preaching for 15 years, and I don't really see how people can do it any other way.

I'd be—I would be a mess if every week I was trying to figure out what to preach. And I don't—I mean, God inspired books. He gave us books. I don't know why we wouldn't take that kind of approach. But one of the benefits is that I have noticed that with book preaching, the congregation becomes very aware, and they seem to really—they love the approach of knowing where they're going, of engaging a book, of studying the book every week, whereas if you're jumping around topically, I don't believe that's as healthy for the life of the congregation or what the Lord's calling us to do.

So preaching whole books, right now I'm going through Acts in the morning. I'm already in chapter 20, so that has been great for me. I've never preached through that book, and I've been very blessed by that.

On our evening service, we spend some time going through the Confessions, and then I'm preaching through the book of 1 Samuel.

Excellent. Well, one of the things I've loved about your series in Acts is just to be reminded, not once, not just twice, but three times, the conversion of Saul, or Paul, to Christ himself and how that must have encouraged the New Testament church there.

Tell our listeners a little bit about that, because as I ask you these questions, basically you, the preacher, preach, and they get to hear you preach a little bit and get to hear from your heart about that.

Tell our listeners why that's so encouraging for the New Testament church, and even for us now, 2 ,000 years later.

The Conversion of Saul and the Mission to the Gentiles

Well, I mean, what a story. Here's this man who is persecuting the church, dragging Christians off to be killed, would call himself the chief of sinners. And here the Lord chooses to take down this man and make him the great apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

What a remarkable display of the Lord's power, His mercy, and the mission of the church. And he sets out this guy, who was the chief persecutor, as one of the chief examples, so that he would be a great encouragement to all of us, right?

That if, and I think this is exactly what the apostle would tell us, calling himself the chief of sinners, if he can save me, he can save you. And he cares to do it to the ends of the earth. This is how wonderful his evangelistic mission plan is, to go out to all the nations.

But to see that, see that power displayed in somebody who is the chief persecutor of Christianity should be a great encouragement to us today, because I think Christians are living in a lot of fear today.

We look out at all the hostility. Obviously, we're in a changing culture that at one point accepted Christianity. Well, that's quickly changing. And I think Christians are retreating and in a lot of fear, especially as we see some of the other dangers, you know, and the threats with other religions, right, that hate Christianity and that hate who we are.

And who knows, we may be, I would think we're going to be legislated against soon. Well, welcome to the first century. And here the Lord puts this man on display for us and takes him down, blinds him, shows his power over somebody who was this hostile to the faith and converts him, and here he is.

We know him as now the Apostle Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles, preaching Christ to the ends of the earth. What a wonderful encouragement to the Church today.

Yeah, as I was listening to you preach through that passage or those passages, it was encouraging to me because I think we need to be reminded regularly as pastors, especially and leaders in the Church, what 1 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Timothy regularly call the Lord, and that is God our Savior, that God is still saving.

And you brought that point forth very clearly, so I'm thankful for that. Chris, what are you reading these days? The interview is about over, but is there anything that you're especially reading that our listeners might want to know about?

Reading, Devotional Books, and the Gospel in Africa

Oh, I'm always in books. I'm a weird book reader. I pick up books, and I'll read three or four chapters, and then I'm grabbing another book, and I constantly have a stack by my nightstand. But yeah, there have been some wonderful—just for devotional reading, I was going through Ryken's little book on Solomon, which has been—it's just a basic devotional work, and I've really appreciated that.

Some of those devotional works are very helpful to sort of stir up your heart.

Right. Well, I can tell you're a lot younger than I am, because old people like me, we don't have books by our nightstand, because you just fall asleep. Well, that does happen, trust me. We don't have much time left.

Chris, tell our listeners, how did you get onto the continent of Africa? When I first heard it, I thought, he means country. But you're talking about Abound in Grace Radio is broadcast on the continent of Africa.

What's that all about?

Abounding Grace Radio on the African Continent

Yeah, that's been a wonderful open door that the Lord has given us. We were contacted—I did actually a radio interview a while back, a few years back, and a man heard the interview, and he called me right away, and he thought that Abound in Grace Radio would be good for a project that they're doing.

They were building a huge transmitter in Zambia. This transmitter would be omnidirectional, and it would go out to the entire continent, which is just remarkable. Not shortwave. To us, that sounds, well, that wouldn't be very effective.

Who listens to shortwave in the U .S.? We have to remember, it's Africa. You don't have much. This is one of the ways that they actually do listen to radio, and we've seen a lot of response from it. Yeah, this open door was given through a Christian broadcasting company here in the ministry here in the U .S., and we have been airing with them now for probably over two years through Zambia.

What a blessing to think that the gospel is shot out this way. I always think, what if the Apostle Paul were sitting in front of a microphone in Athens and could preach? Wow. What would he do? He would love that.

What an open door, and that's how I feel with Africa. The response has been a real blessing.

Well, Chris Gordon's been our guest today on No Compromise Radio. He's the pastor of Escanito URC and the host of Abounding Grace Radio. And I almost called our listeners congregation. Listeners to Tenoko Radio, you're gonna love agradio .org, so go there and check it out.

And I think you've even heard from the man himself, his tenor, the tone, the object of his faith. And so, Pastor Chris, thank you for being on No Compromise Radio today.

Thanks, Mike. It was a blessing to be with you, and Lord bless your ministry.