The Purpose of Ministry (Part 2)

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 Avendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, I'm in the street. I don't know what happened,

I just took a drink of Pete's coffee, and a cat got my tongue.

I don't know what was going on, maybe that was a Starbucks curse or something. Maybe it was the Dunkin' Donuts curse.

It was interesting being in California for quite a while this summer, and I didn't see one

Dunkin' Donuts. I didn't see one Dunkin' Donuts. And then I got off the plane at Logan, and the very first thing you see when you get off is the double

D, Dunkin' Donuts, and there are the people there getting super large extra family jugs of coffee with 900 packets of sugar poured in.

It was quite a shock coming from California where you could, I don't know, what are the things that they put in their coffee?

Probably some little hemp products, or some vegan sugar, I don't know.

I'm gonna do a show on that whole vegan deal. People with the stores there, the grocery stores, some of the smaller organic stores and whole food kind of stores,

I'm telling you, people, it's a religion. That's what they think about, that's what they do, that's how they identify themselves.

It is a major religion, and my friend Paul, he was a butcher in one of those stores years ago, and it was interesting because people would talk to him about he was a killer and all this stuff.

I don't even think he really killed the animals. I think he got the product already killed and then cut it after that.

But Paul, if you'd ever kill a lamb, let me know so I understand it better. So back to No Compromise Radio today.

What are we talking about? What's going on? Is there a new direction to No Compromise Radio? Is this softer?

Is this kindler? Is this general, more gentle? Absolutely not. No way, Jose. What we wanna do here is just talk, plainly talk about scriptures, about Christ.

And as we talk, you may say to yourself, this is not really like other talk shows.

And I like Charles Stanley better and David Jeremiah's Cadence better. That's fine.

That's okay by me. I'm not trying to compete with those guys. I'm trying to compete with John McArthur.

That's not true either. A lot of the shows that you hear on radio stations, including this one, are sermons written and performed and executed and preached by really first -class

Bible preachers, gifted men. Maybe the most gifted in all the world.

That's why they're on every radio station. Since I can't compete with that, we just try a different approach.

And so part of that approach is we're local. So if you don't have a good church in Central Massachusetts, you know where to go.

You get to know me as time goes on. Maybe you don't like to listen to me very much. Although lots of people

I know, just if they're in the car, it's on WV &E. If they're in the car, they listen.

If they're at home, it just stays on the channel. And then, you know, maybe they're gonna tune in RC Sproul at four o 'clock, but they get me at 3 .30.

That works out great. Some I know don't agree. Some don't like, but I think they still listen. When I heard one man say a couple of weeks ago,

Gary George filling in for Tom Krause on Engage in Your World, Jim, a Roman Catholic, called up, and Gary gave him, in my opinion, too much time to talk, but too much time to proselytize.

And he said, oh yeah, Gary, you're super nice and kind. You're not like that hater at No Compromise Radio 3 .30.

Well, I don't think my Catholic grandmother would think I was a hater, and I have high self -esteem, so I'm fine.

It has nothing to do with hatred. I can't think of a Roman Catholic that I hate.

I know lots of Roman Catholics. I can't really think of one that I hate. I hate the Roman Catholic system.

I hate Roman Catholic doctrine. I hate anything that promotes a

Jesus that needs to have something added to him, and so that's a whole different subject.

But anyway, I try to be nice. I try to tell it like it is. Remember, if you think this is the way

I am as a pastor, in one sense, I'm person, and I'm consistent throughout my life as a person, but there's different hats.

So I'm different as a pastor. I'm different as a dad. I'm different as a husband. I'm different as a next -door neighbor. But as No Compromise Radio has a theme, that theme is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

We just want to tell it like it is, and so far, we're very, very happy that we have listeners, that we have...

I'm gonna get on Facebook in a while, rail against Facebook, but people... It's on Facebook and Twitter, blah, blah, blah.

We're happy. So I don't deserve anybody to listen to me, and that people do, I'm glad.

So today is part two about church growth. That is to say, vision statements. What do we want in a local church?

And here's what I said last time in case you missed it. Colossians 1, verse 28. If it was good enough for Paul, it must be good enough for us.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Paul said, here's what we're doing, Church of Colossae. Myself and Timothy and my comrades, our job is, our privilege is, our duty, our calling, is to preach

Christ Jesus, is to proclaim Christ. And as we do, you will mature. And we want everyone to mature.

Just not one, just not two, just not the bishop, just not the deacon, but everyone. If you're in the local assembly, we want you to grow.

And as you grow, you'll say no to temptation more often. You'll say yes to righteousness more often.

You'll be more thankful. You'll be more joy -filled. How would you like to be more thankful? How would you like to grumble less?

Be more content. Serve better. Serve more with an eye to the glory of Christ.

To have more peace and to have more patience and to have more love for Christ Jesus as you see

Him in the world. Well, of course, the answer is, you love all those things. And so the way to get that is through growth.

You need to grow in Christ Jesus. And so Paul says, we wanna have everyone mature.

I think some translations are perfect. But mature, if you look at 1 Kings 8 and some

Old Testament uses of that New Testament word, it means wholly devoted to Christ.

And that's what we're after. We want you to be wholly devoted to Christ. And we know positionally you are, but we want you to flesh out who you are practically.

And so today on No Compromise Radio, we want you to grow. And we want you to be in a church that wants you to grow.

And if you're not getting the word preached, you're getting journey songs during the sermon. Well, there's a problem.

And see, here's the issue. Who determines what goes on at a worship service? Who is the final authority for what honors

Christ in a church? Who determines that? Well, if it's congregational voting, then they're going to determine something else.

Maybe they're a mature congregation, so they won't. If it is, what, a vocal minority, maybe it's the trustees, the people who control the money, who have the money.

There's all kinds of issues like that. Who runs the show? Well, we believe that the

Bible tells us who decides what's going on. It's not statistical experts like Barna.

It's not pragmatists. Does it work? It's not church history. It's not a creed. It's not denomination.

It's not the Puritans. It's not the Congress. The Cambridge Declaration says, the Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all

Christian behavior must be measured. Including, by the way, success. We have our marching orders clearly found and our job is not tampering.

Our job is obedience, Spirit -enabled obedience in response to who we are in Christ Jesus.

The goal of the local church. If you go to a church, let me tell you what your goals aren't.

Your goals aren't two services, more people, bigger buildings, 53 acres of land.

By the way, a lot of this land that we bought just recently, you can't build on it, but you could sure shoot a lot of ticks on it with your paintball guns.

That was never a goal. That was forced upon us. None of these things are bad. Two services aren't bad. More people aren't bad.

New buildings aren't bad. That's not bad, but that's not the goal. The goal is maturity. The goal is not financial gain, popularity, applause, bigger platform, lots of people.

No. The goal at Bethlehem Bible Church, actually the goal of No Compromise Radio is

Christ Jesus proclaim so that you may grow. So that you may grow.

That's what we're after. I want you to grow in Christ Jesus, to think biblically, to think critically, to agree with me in everything

I say. I can't believe after like 500 shows we're still on the air.

Manny at WV &E, you need to write him a letter and say, Manny, you've got a lot of courage to keep that guy on the radio.

But I guess bad publicity is good publicity, as Mick Jagger once said. What is the goal?

One word, maturity. That we may present every man complete in Christ. I mean

Colossians 1, verse 28 in the NAS. And when you have a goal, and when you have a motive for something, that's going to determine everything else.

If your motive is we want a lot of people, then you need to bring in the marketing experts. If your goal is financial gain, then you need to bring in the people that know how to raise money.

But if your goal is growth in Christ, then you need to proclaim Him. Interestingly, Him we proclaim.

And so Paul says that's the goal. Because one day, Paul knew as an apostle, and one day pastors as well, will present the churches to God.

And they will answer to God on that great Bema judgment seat of Christians for rewards.

2 Corinthians 5, 10, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

So we want to have everyone presented as mature.

So for you, you say, well, I'm just a nobody. Look at the text, every man, every man, every man, every creature, every creature, every creature.

And we're not talking about all creatures of our God and King some St. Francis of Assisi, we're talking about people, all kinds of people, every people, not just the spiritual elite, not just those who've had an experience, not just Jews, but Gentiles too, not just males, but females too, not just old, but young too.

We want everyone to be mature. And of course, what was going on back in the Colossians day, the book of Colossians day is there were some people who thought they had the inside dope and they were

Gnostics and they had the insider elite info. Paul said, no, every man, if you're listening, you need to grow.

That's what we're after. Now I could be kind of rude and say, if you don't want to grow, you need to go.

We need the seats. But I'd rather try to convince you that you do need to grow. And that isn't it time that you left kind of the infantile

Christianity behind? Isn't it time that if you're listening today, that you really get back to reading your

Bible, that you put first things first and the glory of God and the honor of God and reading his word.

You're not going to grow without the Bible. You're not going to grow without good Bible teaching. And here you are stuck at some church and it's watered down.

And you wonder why your spiritual life is watered down. I mean, duh. I say you demand from your pastors, you preach the word or we're gone.

How can we help you? We'll give you money to get trained. We'll give you money for resources, but you need to preach the word of God or we're gone.

Where are those men today? I'll tell you where those men are. Those men are few and far between.

And those men aren't good Bible teaching churches. I want the dads. I want the husbands. I want the men.

Where are the leaders? And if you're saying, well, if I leave this church, my wife's going to get really upset because she has friends here and she has a ministry here.

And my kids really like it. But that thing is watered down from the pulpit in a nice way, in a kind way, in anything but a no compromise style.

But in a gentle, loving father way, you need to lead your family out and then into.

Where are those kind of men? Those are the kind of guys that I like. Forget Braveheart with Mel Gibson. I'm looking for those kind of men who say the goal of my family's spiritual life is maturity.

First, God saved my family, every one of them. And then we want to grow. If you see someone who is not fully grown, but they're an adult and they have some kind of disease and they've been racked with something that inhibits their growth and they're super small, you know that there's a problem.

There's been some kind of immune deficiency or some, I don't know what the technical terms are for when people are dwarves or whatever the technical term is.

I want to make sure I'm politically correct on that one because I'm not trying to slam anyone. If you're listening today and you're short, that's not my point.

But you would admit if you were, there's been some problem. The body hasn't functioned rightly.

And so if you spiritually have not grown and you're an adult, you should be an adult in Christ, but you're an infant, it's time to grow up.

It's time to grow up. Haven't you said that to your kids sometimes? You know, it's just time to grow up. It's time to put off some of those childish things and leave those things behind.

You don't need your blanket anymore. You don't need your little safety toy. Remember kids when they have those?

My sister had something called the ha -ha. She couldn't talk and so I don't know if you say blanket and it comes out ha -ha to a one -year -old, but she took her thumb and kind of wound it and dug it and she punctured part of the blanket so she could get her thumb through it and then suck her thumb when the blanket was still attached to her thumb.

So that was pretty smart of my sister. And so she called that her ha -ha and of course, you know,

I'd throw it behind the couch or something and she'd say, mine ha -ha, mine ha -ha. Where is it?

Oh, if you think that's bad, you should see what my brother Pat did to her. But anyway, isn't it time to throw your ha -ha away?

How about today? If you're driving down the street and your wife is the leader of your family because you are creating a vacuum in your family because vacuums must be filled, let's not blast ladies for leading the family.

I know they do suffer with that propensity because of the fall, but it's because the men won't lead and men, your job is spiritual maturity.

If I heard one Journey song during a sermon, that would be it for me. I'd look down on my family and I'd say, it's time to go.

And we would stand up, we wouldn't make a scene, we wouldn't be mean, we wouldn't be ungodly and we would just get up and out we would go.

That would be it, why? Because I am responsible, fully responsible, 100 % responsible for the maturity of my family.

And you don't mature when you have a Journey song parsed. That's not going to do it.

I want my family to become wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, all their devotion to the

Lord. And that comes through the proclamation of Christ Jesus and His word. That's exactly where it comes from.

By the way, No Compromise Radio today, we're talking about maturity and how it's time for especially

New Englanders to grow up. It's time for us to say, do you know what? We're at this church because we like the music, but that's pretty infantile when you think that the preaching is poor, but we're sticking around for the music.

I have just two words for you, grow up, grow up. It's time for you to leave that church.

If in fact it even is a church, I know it's tax free. I know it's nonprofit.

I know you say you love Jesus and there's probably Christians there. Maybe your pastor is a Christian. By the way, my point is not, there's only one good church in New England and it's

Bethlehem Bible Church. That's not the point. There are lots of churches who proclaim

Christ Jesus. And a lot of them are small. And a lot of them wouldn't have a vision statement that would rack up to the accentuate, accelerate people who want fancy vision statements.

I also want you to grow up for this reason, so that you don't get fleeced by some leader.

So you don't get fleeced by some leader. Do you know flock fleecers? They like immature people because they can manipulate them.

They can extract money from them. If you have a mature person in Christ, try to fool them.

Try to fool a mature person with a Ponzi scheme of here's a couple

Bible verses and then we'll throw the Bible away for the rest of the sermon. Here's a couple of verses from the message and then now we'll give you some therapeutic moralistic deism.

Try to do that to mature people. They won't do it because they can see through it. I want people mature here.

Actually, I want people so mature here at Bethlehem Bible Church, that if I do start going off the deep end in some tiny little nuance, some little compromise, it could lead to a bigger compromise.

My people notice it. My elders notice it. People talk to me about it and they say, with all due respect,

Pastor, what's going on here? I want people to say, based on that last sermon that's got the lost video clip and the journey song, that does not help me let my heart be wholly true to the

Lord, my God. That's not helping me in that endeavor. You say, Mike, what's going on with this journey thing? It just drives me batty that people would do something like that.

I just cannot get it. When I hear that journey song, I think about prostitutes is what

I think about. And there's some people think that's what that song's about. Why conjure that up in my mind?

Number two, I don't even like journey. When I was about 18,

I went to go see journey. They were so bad. I walked out on them. So maybe you like journey. I don't know, but I can tell you this for sure.

I guarantee you this, that journey will never be the introductory song to no compromise radio.

And you say, Mike, you're just a flaming hypocrite because you play mirror in the bathroom, some English ska band in the front of your show for your bumper music.

Well, friends, A, I am a hypocrite. B, I don't want to be a hypocrite.

C though, I'm not a hypocrite in that area because this is completely different. This is bumper music for a radio.

Now I don't have bumper music before I get up and preach. You know what?

Speaking of getting people into the church, I just was at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. They have bumper cars. Why don't we just turn our whole parking lot into bumper cars for the kids?

And we say, come to church. And then afterwards, if you can endure the sermon, you get bumper cars for the afternoon for the kids.

That would bring them in. I know how to get people to this church, but that's not what I'm after. I'm here to preach

Christ Jesus, obey Him, and then the people will mature. I want their maturity. I want them to grow up.

I want them to say, do you know what? I am mature in Christ Jesus. And as a mature person,

I know how to deal with temptation. I can counsel other people. I know how to evangelize.

I know what to do to go visit someone on their deathbed. I know how to give the gospel to a child in the

Awana group. I know how to confront someone in their sins. I know how to pray for someone.

I am fully grown. Don't we want that? When MacArthur had 600 people at the church and the news reporter said that Grace Church was a church of 600 pastors, that was back in the 70s probably, early 80s.

That's what that writer was talking about, a church that had a bunch of mature people.

That's what we're after. If you're a man and you come to Bethlehem Bible Church, you better put your boots on.

I was gonna say, put your boots on, baby. Those boots are made for walking. That's just what they'll do. Hey, but it's a radio station.

What are you gonna do? I want them to be ready to lead. I heard my friend say to a visitor just recently in conversation,

I was told that they had a conversation and he said, we're here at this church because they teach the

Bible and they are instructing men to be leaders of the family.

That's right, that's what we want. I want leaders. I want godly leaders, mature leaders, so that you disciple, so that you give, so that you reproduce, so you sing well, so you give to the glory of God a lot.

I'm not making people, I'm wanting them to be mature so I get more money. But when Christians give unto the

Lord, you show me somebody who's a good giver and I'll show you they're maturing and they're realizing they don't own the money.

They're just stewards. If you have children today, don't you want them to grow up?

Don't you want them to be mature? Don't you want them to learn how to function in society and are able now to navigate the world, a car, pleasure, how much time for pleasure, how much time for work, what to do for recreation, what to listen to, what not to listen to?

Or do you want your kids walking around at 17 years old, walking over to a marble that's on the floor and putting it in their mouth?

Isn't that what babies do? They just put anything in their mouth, golf balls, dog food.

I won't mention who in my family growing up would just crawl over to the dog food area. It was when you kind of put milk in the dry dog food.

And then you'd say, hey, have you been eating that dog food? And then the little kid would smile and you could see a little bit of gooey milk come out of the corner of their mouth.

We want you to grow, Him we proclaimed. You need to hear about Jesus Christ's life and death every single week.

You need to hear about how Jesus Christ's apostles proclaimed the truth to the local churches for their maturing, for their response to this great grace, for glorying

Christ Jesus. Well, today's No Compromise Radio. And today is just maybe a spleen sermon.

We just kind of let it all hang out. I have all my notes here and everything, but you know what? I didn't really even get to my notes. And you said, oh, we could tell.

Well, you probably could. I want you to learn. I want you to grow. And if you can find other radio stations and shows that make you grow more, hallelujah, what a

Savior, because I'm not the only guy. I'm just lowly on the bottom, but I want you to be equipped for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ.

That's Ephesians 4, verse 12. Everybody likes a show where they restore old cars, they restore old houses.

The gospel and gospel proclamation restores old sinners into new saints.

That's what we want, No Compromise Radio. Info at nocompromise .com. 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 six. 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.