Classic Friday: Pastor Mark Axelgard 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.

Interview with Pastor Mark Axelgard and Cape Cod Bible Church

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and occasionally I have guests actually in the studio. They sit in Pastor Steve�s seat, and we look at each other, and if they give the wrong answer, I kind of give, you know, the little sign underneath my chin, like, �That�s a bad answer or I give a thumbs-up.

And today�s one of those days, but not for the bad answer. I have Pastor Mark Axelgard here today in the studio in No Compromise Radio. Welcome to the show, Mark. Thanks, Mike. It�s good to be here.

When did we first meet? We met the Sunday before I began pastoring Cape Cod Bible Church. My family and I rolled into town the night before. Everyone was sick except me.

Oh, I was going to have you pray or something. Are we going to have you out to our lunch?

Yep, and you graciously said, �We�re not doing that anymore because I don�t want you to get my whole family sick. So I showed up, and the reason we showed up was we wanted to thank your ministry here for filling the pulpit those six months between the previous pastor�s retirement and my coming on as the pastor.

I remember that, Pastor Mark, and it was really�well, hopefully it was beneficial to the folks there, but it was beneficial to our guys, too, because there�s only one pulpit, right? And if I�m in town, I�m usually preaching, and so to send other men out to preach.

At another church for six months while you�re going to seminary? That�d be great.

Yeah, you don�t get better at preaching by not preaching, so I�m glad we could serve you in that way.

So how many hours are we away from each other? You�re down at Cape Cod.

We�re two hours away? Two to two and a half, depending on how traffic-y it is. Okay.

Well, the purpose of the show today is I want our people to get to know you, and I want them to understand a little bit about the ministry. Many people visit Cape Cod, right? So if they need to go to a church on the Lord�s Day, which they should.

Yep. By the way, let�s talk about that. What�s the attitude of Sunday morning worship and Lord�s Day on the Cape? Down Cape.

Yeah. I mean, I can�t speak to really the whole culture of the Cape. I haven�t been there that long, per se. I mean, it�s New England, and so you have just a shallow church culture in general out there.

And by shallow, I mean anything between heretical and just seeker-sensitive kind of ministry. But at Cape Cod Bible, you know, the attitude towards the Lord�s Day has always been cultivated to be one of it�s very important.

It�s not something to be considered trivial. The church isn�t something you just plug into your life when it�s convenient, but your life revolves around the church. And we�re actually teaching through that right now in our ecclesiology series.

So it�s getting even stronger, I hope.

That is great. What�s your favorite thing about New England or the Cape so far?

That�s tough. I mean, coming from Florida, we really like the seasons. So we did the reverse migration pattern. Everyone seems to be moving down to Florida. But my wife grew up just outside Buffalo, New York.

I grew up in Tennessee. So we both missed the seasons from our time in Florida. So we really love that. We�re not super big beach people. We weren�t even beach people in Florida, but there�s so many ponds, little hikes.

I mean, it�s a great place to raise our kids. And I think my favorite part, if I can just shamelessly plug the church, is our church. The people are so sweet. They love the truth. You know, we�re the only ones with kids, really.

But we�ve got about 30 sets of grandparents. You know, it�s great.

That is wonderful. And I think through the center now of the Cape is that bike trail, right? 25, 30 miles or something like that. Do you ever go on that? They keep extending it.

Yep. So it�s at least 25 miles. It might be even more than that now.

I rode from, I think, oh, I don�t know, someplace in the center all the way up close to P-Town. But I didn�t go to P-Town.

I turned around before I got there. It�s a good place to avoid, especially this month.

And if somebody, Pastor Mark, walked into the church on a Sunday morning, besides the little Steven Furtick microphone and the blue lights and the drama team, what would they find there on Sunday morning?

Yeah, the fog machine is it? I�m just kidding.

We don�t have any of that. Probably a lot of what you�re going to find here at Bethlehem Bible. We�re going to be preaching the Word. We�re going to be singing the Lord�s praises together and exhorting one another to continue faithfully serving Him as we await His return.

So I�ve been doing a series on the church, but that�s not normal. Normally, we�re just working through a book of the Bible. So I�ve taught through Titus since I�ve been there. We did an extended series on the Psalms, and then I�ve been in Matthew for about two and a half years.

And so we�ll be picking that back up in a couple weeks. Okay. Okay.

That�s wonderful. I know you have been to seminary and you haven�t been out really that long. Is there any, I mean, what�s the biggest thing you�ve learned outside of seminary? And I don�t mean it�s a new revelation about the eternal sonship of Jesus or something, but something practically or, I don�t mean pragmatically, but have you learned?

That�s a dumb question. Have you learned anything? But what have you learned?

The Pastor's Own Sinful Heart

Yeah, I�ve learned and relearned the same lesson that I was taught really the very first week of seminary. We would have these, we called them campus chapels. So we would all get together as seminarians and our professors who were pastors would sit there too, and we�d get, just get to ask them questions.

And the first question that was asked was from one of the guys graduating. And he said, what will, to our professors, what�s been the greatest challenge in ministry? And without hesitation, John Anderson, who was teaching Greek at the time said, I don�t have to hesitate.

It�s my own sinful heart. And so I�m learning that every day, every week, that the greatest challenge to the ministry is myself and battling myself and my own weaknesses and immaturities helps me humbly shepherd the people that God has entrusted to me to shepherd.

Wise words, Mark. I look back on the 25 years that I�ve been here at the same church, Bethlehem Bible Church, and I mean, I knew it to be true, right? I understand the scriptures regarding this, but to think how immature I must have been 25 years ago, and I�m sure pride and self-righteousness, and I�m sure that came across in my preaching.

The people here have been super patient with me, and I�m thankful for that.

Yeah. I�ve told many people this. I considered the training I got to be second to none. I mean, we were very well trained in the Word, how to rightly divide the Word. Lots of pastoral theology classes, and so I�ve consistently said there hasn�t been anything I�ve faced ministry-wise that I haven�t gone, �I know what the Bible says about that, and I even know what the ultimate conclusion or result should be.

The issue is, as every pastor has to figure out, is the wisdom of when to push the gas, when to hit the brake, how to navigate your own heart. Am I fearing man by pulling back? Is this patience, or is this unfaithfulness?

I mean, again, it�s your own heart that you�re trying to navigate, and that�s a never-ending battle.

Speaking of hitting the gas mark, yesterday I was doing some filming for American Gospel. There�s a new series called Sanctification Arts. It�s on sanctification, and the guy who was filming me, Ben, he has a Tesla, and I was asking him all about it, and he said, �You want to drive it

So yesterday, right out of this parking lot, I took a left. Talk about zero to 80 in seconds. It was so fun. So anyway, you�re talking about hitting the gas. There�s no gas to hit in a Tesla, but there�s an accelerator, and they move.

Yeah, and if you don�t know the roads, you might crash quickly.

Well, he�s got that special device that will, up to 70 miles an hour, keep you on the road. You don�t even have to put your hands on it. It�ll go around a corner or everything.

I�m trying to think of a witty ministry illustration to plug in there, and I got nothing. It�ll come to you tomorrow.

Yeah, on my way home. Mark, I always enjoy listening to people tell me about how the triune God saved them in circumstances and all that. If you had to give a couple-minute testimony on how God saved you, what did He use, and how did that happen?

From Sunrise to Conversion

Yeah, well, I think, and when I think about testimonies, some people have the Paul on the road to Damascus, I just call them lightning bolt experiences. You know exactly when and where and exactly what Bible passage opened your eyes to the beauty of Christ.

And other people have testimonies that are more like sunrises. I think I�m borrowing John Newton�s illustration here, but

You can borrow John Newton anytime you want.

Yeah, I need to give credit to somebody, because I definitely didn�t come up with this on my own. And I would say mine is definitely more like a sunrise. I grew up in Tennessee, and it�s a very Christianized culture where everyone goes to church.

Most people profess Christ, but it�s kind of like ministering in Jerusalem when Jesus was there. Everyone thinks they know God. Very few people actually do. And so I prayed prayers, and I signed cards, and I went to summer camps and did rededications.

And I don�t actually think I became a believer until I was 16 or 17. And we had moved down to Florida, and all my idols had been removed. Yeah, lots of providential things led to us moving down there.

And at some point my junior year of high school, I went from hating our Bible class in the Christian school where I was, hating my parents, hating everything about what had happened, to getting in arguments with my mom about going to church, because I just wanted to be with God�s people, loving the truth.

And so all that to say is there was a marked difference in the trajectory of my life from running away from the Lord to, even though I had all the right vocabulary in one sense, there was a directional distinction at that point.

And so I don�t know exactly what date, what time, any of that, but I know that since junior year of high school, at some point I�ve been striving to follow the Lord, loving His Word, loving God�s people, being burdened over my sin, and that�s ultimately led me into ministry.

We read Don�t Waste Your Life my senior year of high school, and that kind of rocked my world a little bit. If I wish I had a chapter on ecclesiology, it would have saved me a lot of heartache in.

Those first few years. But I can think of other chapters that should have been in there, but that�s it. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I was ready to jump out of planes for Jesus in Afghanistan and stuff, and it was just nothing about, you need to be affirmed, you need to be trained. No, that was in that book, but it�s still a good book.

It kind of reminds me, Mark, when Radical came out by Platt, and you�re like, oh, yeah, I think, you know, I just need a little bit about how can a mom at home with four kids be radical? Because she could be.

And then Horton came out with the book Ordinary, and so I was much happier with Ordinary than I was with Radical.

Yeah, and the celebrity culture and American evangelicalism doesn�t help with that. Well, now you�re a celebrity. You�re on the radio show. I know, first time.

You�re on the radio airwaves. Mark, I think it would be appropriate if we talked a little bit, because there�s folks listening probably that are struggling with this. Pastor, early speaking, if someone came to you and said, I�m concerned I might not be a Christian.

I mean, I believe that Jesus is the risen Savior. I believe He�s coming back. I know I was a sinner. I ask Him to forgive me. I don�t do things perfectly, but I have a desire to serve and love God and obey and do the one another�s.

But I can�t think of an exact time where, from my perspective, the lights went on. I know God makes us alive. We were dead, then alive. There is a time in God�s economy where that�s true, but I don�t really sense that.

I don�t know it. Am I really a Christian?

What would you say to them? Yeah, I would say. I don�t know when I was saved either.

I thought you were going to say, well, if you�re not a Christian, then I�m not either. Yeah, yeah.

You know, I would simply encourage them, you know, the scriptures don�t say that the distinguishing mark of a Christian is knowing exactly what day and time and place you were saved. Yeah, that�s good.

So, you�re using a standard that the scriptures don�t hold you to. And then I just walk them through 1 John, and I break 1 John down into three basic tests. You can break it down into as many as seven or eleven, depending on who you�re reading.

But, you know, the doctrinal tests. So, if they believe what the scriptures say about Christ, that He is the Son of God, that He did live a human life, that He did die, that He was resurrected for their sins.

You know, so there�s the Christology test. There�s the progression of sanctification test. So, you�re not, my mind just totally went blank. This isn�t being nervous on the radio. No, that�s okay. You call it the test of obedience, but is your life progressing in terms of its holiness?

And that can be a tricky one to navigate because as you grow in your understanding of the Word and of sinfulness and of the glory and the holiness of Christ, you see more sin in your life. So, that can often be confusing.

But so long as someone isn�t denying their sin and saying, I�m not a sinner, and they�re grieved over their sin, and they�re striving, albeit perhaps in immaturity, perhaps they�re not using the means of grace that the Lord has given them.

So long as they�re striving to be conformed to the image of Christ, that would be another test.

Yeah, before you get to the third test, don�t you think, Mark, even as you�re talking, I�m thinking to myself, 1 John, you know, we don�t want to deny that we have sin because then the truth isn�t in us.

Right. And then chapter 2, if anyone does sin, well, we have this great advocate, the righteous one, the Lord Jesus. So, even a sign of a Christian is that when we�re sinning, and we might be sinning a lot, but we�re still then repenting of our sins, going to the Lord for cleansing.

Right. And of course, even David, he writes some psalms and then sleeps with Bathsheba. Right. Then he hated it, Psalm 51, Psalm 32.

Yeah. And that�s where these three tests, you know, they don�t exist independently of one another. So, you know, and that�s kind of the cyclical nature of 1 John anyways. He�s weaving these tests in and out of each other.

So, yeah, if you solely focused on the test of progression in your holiness without a biblical understanding of Christ and the gospel, then you�re going to become a self-righteous Pharisee. So, those two things have to go together.

And the one that�s most often neglected is a love for the church. And this is where he talks about loving your brethren. And so, you just have this, I call it a supernatural desire to be with God�s people, to love God�s people, to fulfill the one another.

And again, you have that link to the obedience. And if you can say, I love Christ, but I don�t love his church, then your Christology is also failing in that sense. So again, all those three link together.

And he brings all those things together in the first five verses of chapter five.

As you�re talking, Mark, I�m thinking to myself of R .C. Sproul. And someone went to him, and they were concerned that they weren�t maybe a Christian because they, as a Christian, were sinning. And he said, do you love Jesus?

They said, yes. Do you love him as much as you should? No. Do you love other people? Well, yes, but I wish I loved them more. Do you want to love them more? Yes. And then R .C. said in a kind of kind, grandfatherly way, well, who put that love for other people and the love of Jesus in your heart?

Satan, right? Or I always add CNN. Yeah. And so we see, I�m not after strict kind of, and I know you�re not either, perfectionism and Wesleyan perfectionism, but that desire. And you think, okay, these are some of the new appetites that I have because I�m a new creature in Christ Jesus.

And now circling back to that initial question, somebody says, I don�t know if I�m a Christian because I don�t have that Damascus Road experience, as you called it. Don�t you think, Mark, if you�re self-righteous and you�re kind of living a clean life, there�s less of that experience of, oh, light goes on, my whole life changes externally.

The unrighteous people, oh, they�re prostitutes and terrorists and fornicators and adulterers and homosexuals, and all of a sudden God regenerates them, they�re washed, they�re sanctified, they�re justified, and they are just completely different, not just internally, not just status before God, but also the way they live.

But for the self-righteous or maybe a homeschool kid or somebody grows up in the church at 16, there�s already the externals kind of there. We read the Bible, we go to church, what needs to happen is.

The internal. Would that be fair to say? Yeah. I would just divide it into this two categories, fruit that can be faked and fruit that can�t be faked. So, there are things that externally can exist in the life of a believer and an unbeliever.

An unbeliever can abide by the principles found in Proverbs and experience the blessing of obedience to a degree, but unbelievers don�t mourn over their sin. They might mourn over experiencing the consequences of their sin, of the humiliation that might come from being exposed in their sin, but they�re not grieved that they�ve offended the Lord.

And so, we always say, listen, even when it comes to pastors, elders, we just taught on this at our church, it�s not that there�s no sin in a pastor�s life, but that he leads the way in what repentance looks like.

And so, you can look at a pastor and say, that man knows he�s a sinner, he knows how to confess sin, he knows how to put sin off in his life, and he leads the way by example of showing others how to do that same thing.

Preaching Weakness Without Making Yourself the Main Point

Mark, as I�m listening to you, I think about pulpit ministry, because that�s the major part of our ministry, preaching. When I was in seminary, maybe I got taught wrong, or maybe I just heard it wrongly, maybe I didn�t even understand it.

It seemed to me that I walked away to seminary thinking, when I preach, I should never show them weakness, and I don�t want the pulpit ministry to turn into, this is my experience with my sin and my repentance and what I did and how I didn�t measure up, and I�m here to proclaim the Word.

Yes, throughout the week, God preaches to me all week, I repent, I ask for forgiveness, I�m thankful. But up in the pulpit, never let them see any kind of weakness. Over the years, though, I thought, I don�t get up there every week, but I try to say enough to let the people know, I too am a sinner justified by God, and He�s working on me, and I struggle, and I�m up preaching, yes, but there�s a reason why the Lord�s Supper is served to me last and on the floor, because we�re all, I don�t mean this in a funny way, but we�re all in this together.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it�s a loaded phrase nowadays, but...

You can�t say journey, you can�t say that, we�re all in this together, why can�t we all get along? What are your thoughts about how, or what�s your philosophy on when you�re preaching, would you ever say to the folks, you know, this is an area that everybody seems to struggle with, and I want you to know I struggle with it, and even this week,.

This, this, and that. Yeah, and you know, I think we�re always in danger as Christians when we learn something new of swinging that pendulum so far the other direction that now we�re imbalanced, and so maybe the guys who taught you or the perception you got, you know, they�re looking at some pastors who are just full, you know, opening their closet and letting all the dirty laundry hang out in the pulpit, and that�s inappropriate and unwise, and so maybe they swung it so far the other way, they�re like, never ever do that ever, and then you got guys on the other end, you know, who never say, you know, they won�t admit their sinners in the pulpit, and you know, so the guys swung the pendulum the other way, and you know, just personally, you�re going to guard against, you know, making yourself the illustration in every sermon, I think you know that.

We want Christ to be the main focus. However, I preached a sermon last fall just on biblical gratitude, and it was just kind of my reflections coming out of really the most intense part of the COVID season, and I was going to title it Why I�m Thankful for COVID, just because my heart was raging so much throughout that whole thing with the government restrictions and just providentially all these things that the Lord is bringing into, forcing us to ask questions we never had to ask, make decisions we never had to make, and that makes us uncomfortable, and we don�t like that, and so I just told our church, listen, I want to preach to you about how I battle ingratitude and discontentment and a complaining heart, and let�s look at the scriptures together about what biblical gratitude is, how to fight discontentment in your heart, and then I just broadened it to say, COVID exposed this in my heart a lot, my attitude towards the government, my attitude towards everything in general, and I said, so it was kind of my hybrid mixture of, I�m a sinner too, but I�m teaching you now how I battle this in my own heart.

So, just trying to be a faithful example of I�m a sinner, but I also am an example to you of how to battle that sin.

15 I think that�s wonderful. People already know we�re sinful anyway, right? And so that�s why, and we talked in the hall earlier with Pastor Steve, this whole multi-campus thing, you don�t get the pastor this week, you get a beamed-in video hologram.

I don�t want to sin in front of the people that I�m called a shepherd, but I inevitably do, and that�s why I think to myself and I try to remind them, that�s why I�m preaching Christ Jesus every week.

Amen. Because I cannot be the standard. My shoulders are not big enough to do it. We all, of course, need saving grace, and we need sanctifying grace, and, you know, I�m good at sinning, I�m good at polluting myself, but I need the triune God�s help in this particular area.

I preached Ephesians a while ago, Mark, and I was in chapter 5, �Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church. And I�m telling the congregation, this is an imperative, right? This is what God calls you to do, probably a present imperative, you know, present active imperative.

And I, in the old days, I think I probably would have been really sweating, thinking I have to preach this sermon for the Lord, to God�s people, with my wife sitting in the front row. But this particular time, and it�s not because I�m great or anything, I just thought, I might as well just be humble.

I said, this is what God calls us to do, and here�s what Jesus did for the Church. And you think about love, sacrificial, what�s best for the other. This is true agape love. You just look at Jesus in the Church, and you just watch and marvel and wonder.

This is, in fact, selfless love. And I am called to love my wife like that. And I said then to my wife in the middle of the sermon, �Honey and I looked over at her, �I want to do this. I�m glad I have the power to do this.

And many times I�ve fallen short, and I just want to say, �Please forgive me. I don�t do that every week. I hardly ever do, but I felt that was really appropriate, and I can humble myself in front of the congregation.

Do I love my wife like Christ loved the Church? I want to, but I don�t.

Yeah, never perfectly. Yeah, I mean, it�s, you can even go to Romans 5, you know, when did Christ love us? It wasn�t when we were perfect. And, you know, that has so many implications for tiffs in the Church, times of intense fellowship, right, where you�re just trying to help people, not manage their relationships, but biblically reconcile.

And a lot of times, this is super popular in the culture right now, of saying, you know, if you disagree with me, or if you interrupt my peaceful serenity in any way, I�m just going to cut you out of my life.

And a popular phrase in the Church is, �I love you, but I don�t like you. Well, how does Christ love us, right? And how am I called to love my wife? Well, okay, honey, you sinned against me, and I forgive you, but we�re never going to talk again?

That�s impossible in a marriage. Well, it�s also impossible in a healthy local Church. You can�t say, �I forgive you, but we�re not going to be.

Friends anymore. That�s just We�re out of time, Mark. Thank you so much for being on. CapeCodBibleChurch .org. Pastor Mark Axelgard, CapeCodBibleChurch .org. Great job today. Thanks for being on the radio.

Thank you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.