Gospel Threats (Part 3)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and here, real time, it's I think the second or third day of spring, and I'm looking outside to mounds, heaps of snow. There's so much snow out there. How does a radio host find time to ride a bicycle?

And weather like this, that's what I want to know. So you just sit inside and just eat a bunch of calories. I'm using that MyFitnessPal app, trying to count calories, and so far, it's been successful.

Lost a lot of weight, but the only thing I do all day is think about food, how hungry I am. Threats to the gospel. We're doing a little mini-series. By the way, just on a side note here, why is it that a lot of these seeker-sensitive churches and man-centered churches and emergent churches and wannabe churches, they have—okay, this is like our eight-week series.

And they have eight weeks on something, they've got a cool graphic, and they've got the graphic up in the church—I was just in a church in Santa Cruz, they had this, the big graphics up, and then every sermon series fits perfectly into that.

I mean, I think Mark Dever does a good job of saying, these are the passages I'll preach, and then he goes ahead and preaches them. But for most people who preach verse-by-verse, something comes up, you get slowed down, you speed up a little bit.

It's hard to plan these things out unless you have the mind of Mark Dever. Now, I'm not relating Mark Dever to the emergent or these wishy-washy sermon series at all. I'm just saying it's a hard thing to actually do, and so it just seems cheesy to me and corny to me to have these, you know, I've got this, this is the eight-part series, it's called such-and-such.

It's really cool, and there's good graphics, and I don't know, I just, I'm just now doing that. I just don't have the good graphic. So we're threats to the gospel, gospel threats. Number one, the church just assumes the gospel, and we're starting from the inside, working our way out, the threat within the church first, or potential threat, and then working our way to the world and how they want to silence the gospel, the gospel silencer.

That'd be interesting. You know what I need to do a show on sometime? I saw a pastor down in Florida. He preached this sermon, and I'm sad that he preached it because I wanted to come up with this idea.

It was such a good idea. There's lots of talk about family-integrated churches, right, family-integrated. I thought churches were family-integrated. Gentile-integrated churches, female-integrated churches, Jew-integrated churches.

I don't know, family-integrated churches. Well, family-integrated churches. I want to do a sermon entitled Church-Integrated Families. That would be the good show to do. Why? Well, some of my homeschool friends, and by the way, I have four kids.

One's in college. One's homeschooled, and two are in the dreaded public school. We'll see how that works. And you know what? If you're not careful, you fall into little ruts. You can fall into the rut of the homeschool movement, the family-integrated movement, the certain kind of birth-control movement, the birthing movement, the, I don't know, child-raising movement, some theological obscurity movement.

There are so many ruts to the side of the gospel road. The church needs to be very careful. And if you have personal convictions about some of these things, hallelujah, we like personal convictions at No Compromise Radio.

Always personal, always convictions, always in the reverse order. But anyway, I want to do something on that. The church-integrated family. You need to serve the Lord Jesus Christ as a family, and we can talk more about that.

Threats to the gospel, number two, making the gospel about personal appropriation. And number three, making the gospel the top priority. That is not the threat. That is what we need to do. The threat is not making the gospel the top priority.

The Gospel as the Church's First Priority

So here's the approach for today. It's kind of a fun approach. Here's the approach today. How do you choose a church? Well, that will tell me pretty much everything I need to know about this. Here's how people choose churches today, and it just shows you how far leadership has fallen.

Now, let me just make a personal confession, because I'm broken in this area, and I'm also wounded. Seeing Elko 90, that one didn't get too many hits. Beth Moore and Husbands, something up in the 3 ,000s of views.

The Broken and Wounded's at the 300s. So it's hard to be a dad. It's hard to be a husband. It's hard to be a man. I'm lazy. I've been affected by the fall. I'm sinful. I'm tired. I'm selfish. I'm self-righteous.

I mean, just fill in the blanks. I am all those things. I don't like it when I am. I struggle with it. There are many times that I have Keswick-style victories in my life. But honestly, it's hard, especially if you're a man.

What's affected you with the fall more than ladies is being lazy. And so you just default to things, and you just give in to things, because it's easier to just not fight with your kids and your wife for the right things, and just give in to what they want, because we're lazy.

So you say, how do I pick a church? Well, I hope your church has a good youth group, that is to say, a Bible-teaching discipleship in accordance with 2 Timothy 2. I hope that's true. I hope you like the music at the church.

That's not the reason to pick a church, but I hope you like it. I hope you don't say, you know, our musicians can't sing our—I just said our again, sorry. Our pianist always plays out of tune, doesn't know the difference between black keys and white keys, et cetera.

Well, I hope that's true. People pick churches for those reasons. What's the music like? What about the location in reference to my house? Do I like the church building? What's the parking lot like? By the way, you should see our parking lot, and it's anti-seeker-sensitive right now.

Well, almost every day. Let's see. What else do people pick? Well, I like drama. I like uplifting services and uplifting performances. I like the big stage and the lights and the cool graphics and the interesting coffee bar.

I did go to an interesting church in Santa Cruz a while ago, and they had coffee bars there that were cool and just rope courses kind of thing, climbing walls. There's nothing wrong with any of those, but the primary issue is the gospel.

How do they handle the Bible? How do they handle the Word? Verse-by-verse preaching that certainly talks about the good news, since Jesus is the theme of the Bible. What about preaching? See, all of the Bible is important, but some of the Bible is more important.

Is it important to talk about how we shouldn't complain and slander and gossip? The answer is yes, but it's not as important as the triumphant indicatives, as Machen would say, of the gospel. Christ the risen King, both priest and sacrifice, Lamb of God, substitutionary atoning Savior, eternal God, Christ the Lord.

So how do you pick a church? It should be, well, how do they handle the book? So here's the thing. A threat to the gospel is making other things a top priority, and see how it just fleshes itself out in our lives.

I like comedy. I just don't like comedy skits during worship, because that just doesn't work itself. 1 Corinthians 15, it goes on to say, as I've repeated many times on this show, I deliver to you as of first importance.

And so if you would read C .S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters, I'm not a big C .S. Lewis theological fan. He's a great writer, and I think that's probably my favorite book of his, The Screwtape Letters.

You will see Screwtape do things like this. You make something that is a top priority a secondary priority. So if you were to say the gospel's rubbish, the gospel's wrong, the gospel's a lie, well, people wouldn't buy into that as much.

So what do you do? You just replace it with things. Jerry Bridges said the gospel is not only the most important message in all of history. It is the only essential message in all of history. And so we need to make this the top priority.

Where else can you find this as the top priority? Huffington Post, Slate, Fox News, Drudge Report, Politico. Where are you going to find this? Boston Herald, New York Times, Mark Stein. I mean, I don't know who you read.

I don't read all those. Sometimes I do. It depends if I like to read the link or not. Lancelot Link. Remember Lancelot Link? I remember Lancelot Link growing up. By the time this radio show airs, I probably will have been on this earth outside of my mother's womb for 53 years.

That's a long seven decades in my life, I'm telling you. And at this church now, going into the 17th year, how about that, 17th year. So if you're a man, just lead your families. Lead your families to a church that makes the gospel the top priority.

That is the center focus, even in heaven. Redeemed, redeemed is the Lamb. Technically, Revelation says, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. He is the focus of worship in heaven and should be the focus on earth.

If you call a church and say, how big is your youth group? What about your singles ministry? We got one this week, a couple weeks ago rather, seemed like this week. My wife's out of town. I got to take all the kids around, taxi cabin everywhere.

And so it seems the days are drawn out. How big is your singles ministry? Okay, maybe question eight should be that. Maybe 18, maybe 80, but I don't think you should ever ask it. How big is your singles ministry?

Well, we have a singles ministry in James chapter one, where we have the single people go serve the widows and orphans. That's our singles ministry because according to first Corinthians chapter seven, you have more time to serve others when you're single, because you don't have to worry about the needs and wants and desires of your spouse.

See that doesn't go over well, but it should go over well. How big is it? What do you mean? How big is it? I live in the country. That's the scam of all these, how big is your church questions, by the way, that doesn't even take into a factor where, do you live in Hong Kong?

I live in downtown Hong Kong versus I live on the farm in Kansas. A thousand people live in my town. Oh, I have a thousand people at our church. Well, okay, good for you. I'm impressed. Quit talking about it.

Quit running your mouth about how many people go to your church. You say, Mike, you're just at a small church. That's why you say that. Probably true. Okay, I admit it. If there were thousands of people here, I would think I would tell myself through the distinct voice of my wife, Mike, don't talk about that.

Mike, don't talk about that. It's like the guy coming into the triumph, riding up to the Senate, the Roman gladiator, the Roman general, and the guy standing behind him. You're just a man. You're just a man.

You're just a mortal or something close to that. How big is your youth group? Who asks a question like that? I mean, really, stop asking questions. Here's what you do. You call a church. I mean, obviously now you just go to the websites and you can check things out.

If you call a church, say, hi, my name's Mike. I just want to learn a little bit about your church. We're new to the area. Can you tell me what the gospel is? See what the secretary says. See if she knows what the gospel is.

Now, maybe she's a temp. Maybe she's this. Maybe she's that. But maybe he's that. Just see what they say. What book of the Bible is your pastor preaching through right now? Boy, that tells a lot. And if you get one of these hokey deals, well, we've got really a new series.

The new series, it's a six-part series. It's really cool. It's flashy. By the way, I'm trying to think of some of these dopey series that some of the churches in the area are doing because I would just name them.

But I can't think of them right now because I have enough work to do on my own. And what else could you ask? Do you have a statement of faith? Is it online? Something like that. All right. Time for Pete's Coffee.

Success-Driven Churches and the Call to Faithfulness

So far, so good. I wonder if they make Pete's... What's that kind of coffee? The Keurig deal. Do they make Pete's Keurig? I think they've got to. Keurig Pete's. I think that would be good. All right. Threats to the gospel.

Oh, I'm going to be treading on thin ice here. Do I want to do that one now or not? Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it. Threat to the gospel number four. Trying to make the church successful. Success-driven churches.

In other words, picking popularity over faithfulness. Picking popularity over faithfulness. Friends, Christians love the world's acceptance. They hanker for it. They jones for it. Am I allowed to say that on No Compromise Radio, jonesing for something?

They want the world's applause. Will we ever get it? Should we ever get it? The gospel in and of itself, when properly understood by an unbeliever, isn't it offensive? Friends, here's what I want to get to in this segment of No Compromise Radio.

Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, 90 seconds, 90 degrees, sharp angles, no-go, 90. See how we do that now, how fast we can do that? Where's Steve when I need him? First Corinthians chapter four talks about stewardship.

See, friends, we are stewards of the gospel. We don't own the gospel. We didn't come up with a patent on the gospel. We didn't invent the gospel. We don't have rights to the gospel. We are under the gospel and the king's authority who gave us the gospel.

We are stewards. And stewards need to be found, what, famous, noteworthy, influential? I'm not mad at people who are Christian celebrities. I'm only mad at them if they try to become Christian celebrities.

If for whatever reason God thrusts someone into the national spotlight or international spotlight and they're faithful, I don't care. Maybe God thrust them in the spotlight because of their faithfulness.

It's fine by me. But what we found these days, whereas it took 30 years of behind-the-scenes ministry, okay, maybe 20, for a James Boyce or a John MacArthur or people like that, J. Vernon McGee, I mean, I'm starting to think of some older ones, they were mature by the time they were thrust in the spotlight.

They were wise to some degree. They had people around them to tell them they're just immortals. But today with internet, today with cool graphics and the right web team, today with the slick presentations, you have people who are instantly famous who aren't ready to be famous yet.

And so think of this in the secular culture. You have people like Britney Spears and, I was going to say Justin Bieber. What's Bieber's first name? Bieber. What's Bieber? I can't remember Bieber's name.

Kevin Bieber? Justin Bieber? I don't know. I don't care. This is a disintegration of a young person's life right before our eyes because you're not meant to be worshipped, fame, fortune, dollars, agents, success, applause, adulation, affection.

So what do you do with all that? It just crushes people. It crushes people. It can't handle it. So anyway, the same thing happens now with some of these Christian celebrities because they've propped themselves up and they're not wise enough and old enough and have enough people around them to keep them where they need to be.

And so then it's trouble. Well, 1 Corinthians chapter 4 says this, this is how one should regard us, Paul writes, regard us who? Regard us apostles, as servants of Christ of the mysteries of God. Servants of Christ of the mysteries of God.

So think about this. We are to be stewards. I'm quiet here because I was just looking at the Greek text, honestly, as I was reading this to make sure of a certain thing that now I don't know. Paul wasn't a freelance operator.

Paul was told what to do. Spick said, no matter how extensive the powers of oikonomoi, the Greek word for steward, they are not the owners of the treasures of truth and grace that are entrusted to them.

As they administer these treasures, they must remain aware of their dependency and of the accounting that they will give. This has been given to you. It's a ministry given to you. We think of service.

We think of subordination. We think of under authority when we think of the word steward. We have to be stewards and stewards must be found faithful, not successful. I remember when I first got to the church 17 years ago and we started to have an increase in a lot of things.

The ABCs of Christianity. We had increases in attendance, in bucks, and in cash. Not in building, so I had to change that to bucks. And so I remember going in, looking at the attendance thing. Every week it would go up and I remember just going to that attendance thing.

Now they have a thing that they send here now for attendance and how many cars are parked and first service, second service and all that stuff. I usually look at it, but I just look at it because do we go back to one service?

Do we stay at two? Do we go to three? Do we get new land? What do we do? And I think my heart's pretty good with that, but early on it wasn't. It was, you know what, since I have come to this church, since I started preaching, since I have been doing X, Y, and Z, look at what is happening.

And sometimes God blesses a church with taking people away, taking money away, running out people that don't need to be there. So it says in verse 2 of 1 Corinthians 4, again, thinking about how we have a thread of the gospel where the church, our individuals in the church, probably mainly pastors, they want to be successful and popular.

They've got the popular deal going on. I mean, who wants to be unpopular after all? But that is irrelevant. I remember MacArthur said pastors, men in seminary, you can either choose to be popular or faithful.

You only get to pick one. Which one do you want to be? 1 Corinthians 4, verse 2 says, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found what? Trustworthy, that they be found trustworthy, that they be found trustworthy, that they be found not popular, famous, cool, hip, trustworthy.

If you have a steward that's supposed to take care of your financial things, what do you want them to be? Famous? Well-known? No, you want them to be what? Trustworthy. Do you want them to be eloquent or trustworthy?

Popular or trustworthy? Cool-dressed or popular? I meant to say trustworthy. You want them to be super-smart in and of themselves, a lot of initiative, or do you want them to be trustworthy? 1 Corinthians 4, verse 17, Paul sent Timothy to minister to them, and he was beloved and faithful.

Epaphras, beloved fellow, bondservant, and a faithful servant of Christ, Colossians 1, yeah, Colossians 1, 7, faithful, tichicus, beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord, Colossians 4.

That is what we're after, faithfulness. If churches would just focus on faithfulness and not success, at the great performance review, the bema seed of Christ, it's not going to be how many people were at your church.

You know, this whole Southern Baptist movement that also is in other churches as well, not just in Southern Baptist churches, all the baptisms and all the Lottie Moon funds and all the missionaries that we've sent out, I like funds, I like offerings, I like baptisms, I like sending missionaries out, but we are supposed to be faithful.

Now, oftentimes when we are faithful, it is the Lord's method then to use from a platform of faithfulness to increase numbers. I understand all that. Interesting, Charles Hodge said, ministers have no authority, excuse me, have no arbitrary or discretionary authority in the church.

They are not like Aristotle or Plato, the originators of their own doctrines or the teachers of the doctrines of other men, but simply dispensers of the truths which God has revealed. That is why pastors just need to discharge their duties.

Well, we're going to talk more about faithfulness versus popularity and success and numbers on the next special miniseries. See the cool graphic? Close your eyes and imagine a cool graphic, and then we'll continue.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, info at nocompromiseradio .com, or you can get us at Facebook, or you can get us through iTunes, our tune-in radio, or others.

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

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

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.