Grant Castleberry 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, a ministry. Mike Abendroth here, and as I regularly say, we are about the person and work of the

Lord Jesus who never compromised. It�s pretty amazing to think that Jesus said, �I always do what�s pleasing to the

Father.� And so while we started off maybe kind of a discernment ministry, it�s now about the

Lord Jesus and His Church and His servants and His pastors. And as you know, if you listen regularly, we have

Wednesdays reserved for guests, authors, pastors.

But before I introduce our guest, don�t forget, there�s the new book that I compiled out called Gospel Assurance, a 31 -day guide to assurance.

People said, �Ah, I don�t read devotionals, so I changed it to guide.� So maybe more people will read it.

It�s a bunch of Puritans on the topic of Jesus and assurance. And so the theme really is what

Spurgeon said, �If you focus on assurance, you�ll lose it, but if you focus on the Lord Jesus, the dove of assurance settles down on your shoulder.�

So it�s a book about Jesus and the doctrine of assurance. Today I have with me Grant Castleberry online on No Compromise Radio.

Pastor Grant, welcome to No Compromise Radio. And it�s great to be here. I feel like I�ve been following you and listening off and on to No Compromise probably since 2012, �13, somewhere in there.

Wow, how did we meet, Grant? So great to be on. Well, I�m glad to have you. How did we meet? I started following you on Twitter when

I was in the Marine Corps, and I think I maybe met you for the first time in person.

You know, we probably started talking on Twitter before this, but I think I met you for the first time at a ShepCon.

Okay, was I nice to you? Yeah. I think you recognized me from Twitter.

I think you�re like, �Oh, you�re Grant Castleberry from�, you know, because you and I had been exchanging messages for a while.

But yeah, you were nice. Okay, good. Well, Pastor Grant is the senior pastor of Capitol Community Church.

He�s been doing that for about three years. And I saw you, Grant, and I thought, �You know what, chiseled

Marine pastor.� You know, out of everybody that was there, you looked the part. And I thought, �Oh, if my daughters could marry men like you,

I would be very happy.� Oh, man, you�re kind. So, Grant, before we get into your current ministry, how was it being a

Christian and a Marine? Was it difficult? As people say these days, it�s more difficult to be a

Christian. Or was everything fine? Did you have a good chaplain, etc.? I loved it.

I absolutely loved it. And you know, interestingly enough, I don�t know if you know

Ray Merringer from your Master Seminary days. I do. But I was on this crux of, �Okay, do

I go straight into ministry, or do I go in the Marine Corps ?� And I went out and visited GMS, and my dad and I met with Ray.

And I told him just really my dilemma in discerning the will of God. And he just said, �Look, you definitely should go in the

Marine Corps first and learn how to lead and be an evangelist.�

And then he said, �Then, you know, get out and come to seminary.� So really, the

Lord really used him, and I decided to go in the Marine Corps, and man, it was just great.

The Marines trusted me in a way that they wouldn�t a regular chaplain. So I was just a regular

Marine officer, and that gave me lots of access and opportunities to present the gospel and to speak into Marines� lives in a way that they really respected.

Not that they do respect the chaplains, but the chaplains are also from the Navy, so there�s that, right?

But as a Marine, I was able to speak to them, and there�s also a lot of other believers in the

Marines. So I was able to connect with them everywhere I went pretty quickly, and we really encouraged each other and spurred each other on, so it was a great experience for me.

What was the hardest time, Grant, in the military where you thought, �Okay, I have biblical principles and I�ve got some kind of command.�

Was there ever a time you had to filter through those two and say, �No, I can�t, sir ,� or something like that? Oh, absolutely.

Pornography is, as you can imagine, rampant everywhere, and I had multiple times, even one time my commanding officer put pornography in front of my face and told me to look at stuff and things like that.

So there were definitely situations like that, mandatory parties that I had to attend, and all those things in which

I had a real opportunity to stand out as a light and just say, �No,

I�m not going to do that. My Christian convictions compel me not to look at that.�

So I had many opportunities like that. But we all face those opportunities in the world, so those aren�t unique,

I think, to the Marine Corps, although it is challenging when it�s part of your chain of command, and one of your officers in charge is compelling you to do something like that.

Grant, almost related, as we get now into the ministry that you currently have at Capital Community, you�re preaching through John, and by the way, listeners,

I think you know one of the best things you can do if you go to a church website, you�d like to check one out for a new church, maybe a visiting, your visitor, and you�re out of town or something, you need to check out a church.

I go to the church site, and then I, before I even look at leadership, I go to sermons, and I see, �Oh, is there a pattern ?�

I mean, a one -off topic or something, fine, you know, Christmas or whatever, but I want to see if there�s a series, verse -by -verse,

Lectio Continuum. And so when I go to CapitalCommunityChurch .com, I find the current series,

The Gospel According to John, and of course all of us know that John is about the Lord Jesus.

Here�s my question, Grant. You come from the military, a lot of law there, �Do this, don�t do that.�

How do you balance that when that�s maybe in your fabric, the warp and woof of your life, and of course our consciences are law only?

Now you�re talking about the Gospel, the good news about Jesus. Is that, do you ever have to work through that tension?

I came out of the law environment, I�ve got a law conscience, and now I�m talking about the Gospel. How does that work?

Yeah, well, you know, obviously just being transformed by grace enables you to understand grace and constantly being in the

Word of God, you�re constantly confronted with the reality of God�s graciousness and mercy to us, and that we don�t deserve our salvation or even a ministry, right, 2

Corinthians 4, you know, that we have this ministry by the mercies of God. So just being confronted with those realities, and of course facing your own sinfulness every day, you�re reminded of the truth that you need grace and mercy.

And even in the Marine Corps, you know, Marines do stupid stuff all the time. And there is that factor of, okay, you know, this is what the

Uniform Code of Military Justice says that you deserve and all those things, but in this situation, look,

I want you to have good behavior. We�re going to extend mercy. We�re not going to drop the hammer on you. So there are certainly instances, even in the

Corps, where you could have that aspect of mercy displayed.

But you know, just my own experience, it�s reading Galatians, it�s reading

Romans 3, you know, �By works of the law, no man will be justified in his sight.�

It�s being reminded of those truths of grace and Christ�s work for us.

Grant, great answer. What�s your favorite part so far, as you�ve preached through John, you�re up through John, at least according to the website, maybe you�re into chapter 8 now, what�s your favorite part so far you thought, �Oh, this is so amazing ,� or, �I can�t wait to tell the congregation this.�

I�m sure it happens every week, but if you had to boil it down to one thing, what�s most impressive to you so far?

Well, I would have to say I love how, in the

Gospel of John, not that the other Gospels, the Synoptics, don�t do this per se, but I love how

John orients everything vertically, and how there�s that vertical switch that happens,

Nicodemus, John chapter 3, �You must be born another, and you must be born from above.�

It�s this reality of God bringing about salvation. John chapter 4,

Jesus is speaking about the living water to the woman at the well, saying, �Look, I�ve got water you don�t know about.�

Of course, she thinks it�s physical water, and Jesus is bringing it vertical, talking about the

Holy Spirit, the new work of life that He brings. And then, you know, the disciples come to Him at the well, and they�re asking about food, and Jesus says, �I have food you don�t even know about.�

And they�re, again, thinking physical. He�s thinking vertical, spiritual.

�My food is to do the will of my Father who sent me.�

So on and so forth. So yeah, I think John just has that glory element, that transcendent element that gets to the heart of the character of God, and really, just as the prologue says, that Christ has revealed the

Father to us, He has made Him known, the one who is at the Father�s side.

So just seeing the glory of God and the character of God displayed in that transcendent element has just been awesome for me personally, and just has been energizing for the preaching as well.

The Church has responded well. They�re loving the Gospel of John. Oh, it�s so good.

Man, it�s so good. They�ve responded well, and of course, right now, I�m actually still in John chapter 7, and, you know,

John chapter 7 is about, as you know, just unbelief. It begins with the unbelief of Jesus� brothers, the unbelief of the crowd, the unbelief of the religious leaders, and just facing and tackling this reality of unbelief in the world.

You know, why don�t people believe in Jesus? Why don�t people receive this free gift? And just tackling that is so relevant, and people are so just fascinated by that, and it cuts right across the grain to the 21st century.

So it could have been written today in terms of its application. So it�s been marvelous, and getting right to the heart of Christ just inspires worship as well.

So it�s just been very, very doxological, getting people to worship

Christ. So yeah, it�s been a really, really great thing for me and the congregation.

This month, we�re pausing on John, and I�m doing a series on the family for what we�re calling �Family

Month.� And in the morning, I�m doing five messages in October on God�s design for the family, and then

Sunday night, I�m doing a parenting seminar called �Parenting and the Fear of the Lord.� So that�s what

I�m doing in October, and then November, I�ll jump right back into John chapter 7.

That sounds excellent. Sometimes on Sunday nights, I�ll do the same thing. We�re talking about parenting, or we�re talking about marriage, and just over and over and over going through those things.

The world constantly sells us on the destruction of the family and parenting, and so good for you that you�re reinforcing those truths.

Grant, what are you going to do when you get into chapter 9? We, you and I, both go verse by verse and kind of slow, and then all of a sudden, here�s this one sweeping account of this man born blind full of tragedy, sarcasm, irony, humor, and out of anyone, if he needed a good shepherd, it�d be that man.

His parents aren�t good shepherds, the religious people aren�t good shepherds, but finally in chapter 10, there�s a good shepherd.

How many weeks do you think it�s going to take you to get through chapter 9? One or more? Well, looking at my history,

I�ll probably say it�ll definitely be more, because I tend to move fairly slow, and maybe that�s just because of my, you know,

I�ve been a senior pastor for three years, so that might be due to my inexperience, but yeah, it�ll be interesting to see.

I�m looking at it right now. You could do one kind of an overview, and then go back and kind of...

Yeah, my guess is I�ll probably do two to three messages, and I have done that before where I do a broad overview, and then

I did that in John chapter 4 with the woman at the well. I did a broad overview, and then I went back and picked up some themes, you know, the theme of worship and the theme of the living water, so I could see myself doing something like that in John 9.

Nice. This is just a joke, but I�d throw out the question anyway. It�s just meant to be humorous. Maybe you�re just taking a month break in October to focus on the family and parenting and other things like that,

God�s design for the home, because you�re trying to figure out, should you or should you not preach John chapter 8, verses 1 and following.

Yeah, yeah. What would you do there with John 8 and 1 and following? Well, I tell people all the time that if it�s in the

Bible, of course, then I want to preach it. I want to be careful not to tell the people, �Oh, you know, we cut and paste what we don�t like.�

But at the end of the day, Grant, if John 8, 1 and following is not in the best manuscripts, then how could

I spend 50 minutes preaching it like it was really in the Bible? Same with Mark 16.

I think it ends in verse 8. How could I preach the rest in a whole sermon and then get up in the pulpit and not give folks the living word?

And so probably what I would say is, see how the end of 7 connects with 8, 11, whatever the verse is, if memory serves.

And this is, of course, the heart of Jesus. And this is something we could see

Jesus doing. And it�s not in the best manuscripts, and therefore you can get a little picture here of what

Jesus might have looked like. But now let�s get to the main passage. I just couldn�t preach it as if it were the

Bible if I was convicted that it wasn�t, and I�m convicted that it�s not in the text. But hey, this is my show, so you�re not supposed to be asking me the questions.

If I come on your show� You never know what you�re going to get. No, no. Here�s my plan with that.

I think I�m, you know, obviously the, you know, it was in the

Texas Receptus, and then, you know, you�re talking about the later manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, I think is the other one.

You know, so it�s not in those and some of the other manuscripts. So, you know, there�s real questions about the authenticity of those verses.

But I also think, for whatever reason in the providence of God, it has been put there, and I do think that that probably happened.

Again, I�m probably with you. I probably think there�s a good likelihood that John didn�t write it, but I also am not persuaded 100 % that he didn�t.

So my plan is to simply explain that and then preach the passage.

So that�s where I�m at right now. All right. Well, we could probably do a

Twitter poll. I�m just kidding. Talking to Grant Castleberry today on No Compromise Radio.

Grant, tell our listeners a little bit about the ministry there at the Church. What will they expect if they�re going to visit?

I don�t mean casual clothing and blue lights and fog machines, but I guess what

I�m asking is, I mean, this is the direct question, what kind of liturgy would they expect?

Style, etc.? Yeah, so our liturgy, you know, I would say the prevailing theme is that we want to worship

God in His holiness, and we want to be awakened by the

Holy Spirit through the Word of God to who He really is and to worship

Him. So we definitely desire that it be about Him, that it be

God -centered and not be centered on man and man -felt needs.

And so, yeah, you�re not going to see the smoke machines and the blue light and all that stuff because we�re not there to try to entertain people.

We�re there to facilitate the worship and honor of God so that people encounter

Him in the worship. So you�re going to come in. There�s going to be a simple call to worship from the

Psalms. There�ll be two hymns. Then we have a scripture reading.

Right now we�re reading right through the Psalter, so we�ll be in Psalm 29 this week.

And then we have a few announcements and a pastoral prayer.

And following the pastoral prayer, we have one more hymn, and then we have the sermon.

Normally the sermon is about between 40 and 50 minutes. I think this past Sunday I went 54.

It was a little long, but we have the sermon. And then depending on how much, you know, just kind of what we�re doing that week, we either do one or two hymns of response afterwards, after the message.

And then that�s benediction, and that�s the service. Sounds like my kind of church.

That is wonderful. I was preaching through Ecclesiastes 5 last week, and he�s talking about guarding your steps before you walk into the house of the

Lord, and don�t talk too much, and you get the idea of the creature, creator distinction, and God�s holiness.

And, you know, I think it just takes away, Grant, all the kind of consumerism that�s there.

We don�t consume God. We don�t pick and choose. We�re there to worship. Thankfully, because of Jesus, we�re no longer blasphemers, but we worship.

And anyway, that�s good. Let me ask you a couple more personal questions. You have been married to Grace Anna for,

I don�t know, 13 years or so, and I think she might be known to some of our listeners for her father�s radio ministry, gospel ministry.

Tell us about that, and do you have to live in the shadow of, �Well, my dad would do this, my dad would do that.�

My godly dad would be more humble. Yeah, you�re speaking of Karl Brogy.

So, Karl Brogy is my wife�s father, and it�s kind of an interesting story.

My parents helped plant a church in Beaufort, South Carolina, and my father was subsequently killed in a

Marine Corps plane crash, and four years after that plane crash is when my wife�s dad,

Karl Brogy, was called to pastor that church, and that church started a radio station, and my grandparents essentially funded the money for the radio station, so the radio station was dedicated in memory of my father.

And really through those events is how I met the Brogy family and Grace Anna. But yeah,

Karl is a formidable figure, an expositor par excellence, really in the old -school

Dallas Seminary fashion. He�s very much influenced by Pentecost and Walvoord and Ryrie and a lot of those figures that you know from Dallas Seminary.

But yeah, he�s really held the line and stood for truth and been faithful at that church,

Community Bible Church, for 32 years now, and he has a radio ministry called

Search the Scriptures, which I think broadcasts up where you are, up near, around parts of Boston, so I think some of your listeners could hear him there.

But yeah, it�s been a tremendous blessing to have him just as a model.

I served on his staff for a year as a pastoral intern, and just somebody to go to, especially with pastoral questions on how to handle different issues, so it�s been just a tremendous blessing to marry into that family and to have him as my father -in -law.

Grant, when I was on the local station here, as you alluded to, he�s on up here in Central Mass, especially in Worcester, and the station asked me if I would interview him for,

I don�t know, some celebration of Search the Scriptures, or I don�t know the details.

But I met him and I interviewed him, and now I get to interview his son -in -law. So see? Works out well.

Wow. Providence of God. I know. We only have a couple minutes left,

Grant. Tell me what you�re reading these days. I love to ask pastors what they�re reading, because sometimes I think, �Oh,

I should be reading that, or the folks that I�m broadcasting to, they need to get that book, too.�

Anything good that you�re reading that�s exciting? Well, I�m doing a dissertation on Martyn Lloyd -Jones.

So basically, all my spare reading is spent on Martyn Lloyd -Jones.

But I would just encourage your listeners, if they haven�t read anything of Lloyd -Jones, to pick something up.

I�m trying to think what the most accessible thing would be. There�s a book called

Revival that he did, which was really good. Right now,

I�m working through his sermons on Ephesians, which are excellent, just really excellent.

He just has a way of really connecting the logic of the passage and taking that logic to application and ultimately to worship.

There�s a reason why people refer to him as one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century. So that�s been really fun, doing that research, and also beneficial to me.

But yeah, Faith on Trial is another one I would recommend from Lloyd -Jones.

Is that a little Habakkuk book? Faith on Trial is

Psalm 73. Oh yeah, that�s right. There�s another one on Habakkuk that he did.

I�m trying to remember the name of that one off the top of my head. But Faith on Trial, man, that is just solid gold.

I mean, I would trade anything in a modern Christian bookstore for that one book, Faith on Trial. Psalm 73 by Martin Lloyd -Jones.

See, when people talk like that, Grant, then it motivates me to go get the book, and our listeners as well. I really appreciate you, your ministry,

I�m glad the Lord providentially brought us together. CapitalCommunityChurch .com.

Pastor Grant, thanks for being on the show. Hey, it�s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

And just, Mike, respect you immensely and tremendously, and thankful for your ministry. And keep on.

Amen. God bless. 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.