Hebrews & Morality (Part 1)

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.

Scheduling, Books, and Israel Trip Updates

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It is today in real time, May 22nd, Friday, and we're preparing for our worship services this Sunday. A little shorter services, two services for extra spacing, and lo and behold, I get the notice this week on Monday that our governor said worship services are fine, and I'm in Massachusetts, so that was, I was quite pleased.

And then President Trump said church is open. I don't know how this will all play out. By the time you hear this, it'll be late June. Today, I wanna make one quick reminder, and then we'll get into the passage at hand.

If you'd like to go to Israel with us in 2021, that is February 24th through about March 3rd or 4th, somewhere in there, you can email me, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com. I'll send you what we have. We were supposed to have our flight prices, our package prices, our total prices in April of 2020, but then the whole COVID thing happened and we couldn't get that, so please be patient with us.

If you wanna send it a spot, send in $300, rather, for a spot, guaranteed. You can do that. $300 will guarantee you a spot. I have, I think, 10 more spots open, and if you wanna cancel, or it gets canceled, by October 15th, we will refund you 100 of your money.

Therefore, that's it. I think only one time, I could be wrong, but only one time have I ever had a problem at No Compromise Radio with any kind of product or money or getting what you paid for type of thing.

Maybe there are more, but nobody said anything, but I wrote the book, Sexual Fidelity. By the way, if you order Sexual Fidelity in the month of May or June, I will send you a free copy of Things That Go Bump in the Church.

So buy one, and you won't be able to tell the cart to do that, but I'll just put one in there, so. Anyway, that's Sexual Fidelity, and Things That Go Bump in the Church for free. Well, I sent out and kind of, I ordered a bunch of these envelopes that have, they weren't big bubble packs, but I don't know how much they cost, 60 cents each or something, and so they said this would be good for the book, and so I sent books all around the country in those little things, and no one ever said to me, oh, these damage it, or these are awful, and once in a while, I'll get a book from Amazon or some place, and it's even in a cardboard box, and it has a little frayed ear or something bent down.

Anyway, there's some guy in California. He said, the book's a mess, I want my money back, can't believe you send out such product, such cheap packing, and I said, I'm so sorry, I'll immediately refund your money, and let me send you a book and an extra book, too, for your trouble, and the guy was still mean.

I thought, wow, I just thought, well, I'll go above and beyond, it's not really that big a deal to me. Yeah, I make some money from the book. That's about the only book I've made money from. Sexual Fidelity, the other ones I don't think I have.

Oh, maybe I got some advances. Discovering Romans, we're still waiting for the royalties to pick up for the advance, but anyway. We'd love to have you go to Israel. We're still planning on going. I want to give you some lists.

Human Efforts at Holy Living Apart from Christ

I looked on the internet about holy living, how to live a holy life, and I've got five lists here, and I just want you to see if there's a theme. What do you notice? Holy living, because I know you, listener at No Compromise Radio, I know you're interested in holy living, so here's one site I found.

It said, seek wisdom, seek divine nature, live what you know that you may know more. So that's what they said. Now, here's another example from a different website. Get deep insight, do not cling to anything in this world.

Now, here's another website. Disconnect from the world, flee from temptation, obey the word of God. How to live a holy life, holy life. Here's another example. Be mindful of time, see every problem as an opportunity.

Don't give in to gossip, be kind to others, choose your best words when you speak, use your anger to create, not destroy, and think for yourself. And then finally, fifth list, different website. These are all different websites.

How to be holy, how to live a holy life. Embrace the reality that God wants for you. Excuse me, I had a cayenne, cayenne something, kombucha. Believe you can live the holy life, consecrate your life, follow continually, and participate.

What do you think? Some of those are pretty good, you know, the gossip thing, and you wanna follow, and how to live a holy life. What do you do to be holy? By the way, the first list was from a Mormon website.

The second list was from a Buddhist website. The third list was from the Kenneth Copeland Word of Faith teachers website. The fourth was from a Muslim website, and the fifth was from an evangelical website.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Certainly, some good advice. What do you think of that list, those lists? What do you think of this approach for No Compromise Radio? What's missing? Why are they the same, essentially?

How to be holy? If somebody asked you the question, how are you to be holy? They say, well, I'm a Christian, I'm struggling. I'd like to live a holy life. I don't really think I am right now, or if I am, I don't know that I am because I don't know what holiness looks like in a life, a Christian life.

Could you help me? What's a holy life? What would you tell them? What would you say to them? What's the Christian life? What's the holy life? Is it just a bunch of morals? I could put it this way. Is it law only?

Is that holiness? What if I said it this way? Does Jesus play a role in this? What about the Holy Spirit? Is there a role for the Holy Spirit? Does he have a role? Well, I'm in the book of Hebrews and I'm finally to chapter 13 where there's a bunch of concluding commands.

And if you just go to those commands and say, well, you know what? I just want the practical stuff. I just want daily living stuff. I just wanna know how to live out my faith stuff. And you simply go to chapter 13.

You're gonna be missing out on the motivation, the great high priest's description in Hebrews chapter one through 12. There's a reason why it's doctrine then duty. It's a reason why there's creed and then conduct.

There's a reason why there's credenda and then agenda. There's a reason why there is syndicatives and imperatives. There's a reason why it's gospel and then law. There's a reason. We aren't just supposed to obey, noodley.

That didn't come out right. That didn't come out right. Oh, yikes. What I mean to say by that is just, you know, nakedly, starkly, without anything else, a lonely, you know, sola, we just say, well, we're just gonna obey.

I mean, what's the difference between Christianity and then every other religion? Every other religion that's law dominating. Of course, law is good. We see law here at Hebrews chapter 13. There's a bunch of commands.

And without looking down at the Bible, we've got things from love, the brethren, to be hospitable, to remember prisoners, to honor the marriage and honor marriage in the marriage bed. Be content with what you have.

Remember your leaders, submit to them, obey them. There's a lot of things here. But my point is simply, if I were to ask you, what's more important, doctrine or Christian living? Most of the time, people are gonna say Christian living.

And sadly, and maybe some of you who are listening, you are sitting in churches where that's what you get. It's 15 ways. It's 10 methods. It's seven easy steps. It's three things not to forget. And that is the bulk of the message.

I know I can't use Hebrews as like the template. If you've got to have 12 13ths of doctrine and then one 13th of duty. I don't mean that, but there's a heavy emphasis on Jesus. Christian pastors should be talking about Jesus a lot.

Why? Because the father never tires of hearing about his son. The Holy Spirit actually helps us to focus on the son. Real Christians who have been saved from their sins love to hear about their savior.

And the motivation for the Christian living is not just obey, right? Can the law motivate? If so, to what degree? Anyway, it's like when Christian pastors get up there and they say, well, you know, here's the passage we're going through in the gospels.

Now here's three takeaways. And then the takeaways are just left there baldly, noodly, just by themselves without couching them in the person of work of our Lord Jesus. And it comes across as just moralism, as ethics not associated with the person Jesus.

And we're to proclaim Jesus and we're to talk to our people about him. And then of course, in light of who Jesus is, obey. And one of the things that's gonna happen is when you do talk a lot about Jesus and how he's the author and finisher of your faith, and he's your high priest, and he's your elder brother, and he's your savior, and he's your justifier, and he's the perfect God man, and he's truly God, and he's truly man, and he loves sinners, and the list goes on and on and on.

You'll say to yourself, yes, that's the motivation for my obedience. But you'll also say, my obedience doesn't keep me in. My obedience doesn't get me in. My obedience is done because I'm in. And then you have the law from Jesus, the high priest, versus the law from Jesus, the judge.

And therefore you've got to couch things properly. So my name's Mike Gabendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. And when you see law in the Bible, law's good, law's holy, law's right. But is it coming from the judge?

Is it coming from the father? Is it coming through the hand of the Lord Jesus? Think about it. The motivation for the Christian life. Here in the fifth gospel, we call the epistle to the Hebrews. He, the writer, wants the people not to go back to Judaism.

And maybe what we could say today is, don't go back to whatever you used to be, an atheist, an agnostic, a pantheist, a panentheist, a Muslim, whatever it is, works righteousness within a quote-unquote Christian organization.

Don't go back. And if you're in, if you're trusting in this Jesus, live a holy life, persevere. Sanctification is good. The sanctifier works in you. And of course you respond with good works. You are assured of God's love.

And therefore you don't have to think to yourself, I better not do anything. I'm paralyzed because if I do something wrong, Lee, I'm in big trouble. God loves Christians. And of course there's a different love that God has for unbelievers.

It's a generic creative love, love of a creator. But here, his bride, he loves his bride and his bride is in Christ. And so he loves you as much as he loves his son. Therefore, when you look at these sections, Colossians one and two through three, four, through chapter three, verse four, or Ephesians one, two, and three, and then four, five, and six, just make sure you realize what's going on here in these sections and understanding what's the difference between expository and exhortatory.

You could put it that way. What's the motivation for obedience? What's the power for obedience? What's the motivation for perseverance? What's the power for perseverance? And you're gonna see that it's the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And then you see these commands and the commands could never do anything except show you the way to go, but the motivation is behind it. Walter Marshall said, God does not drive you along with whips and tears or by the rod of the schoolmaster of the law.

Rather, he leads you and draws you to walk in his ways by pleasant attractions. The love of Christ, of course, is the greatest and most pleasant attraction to encourage you to godly living. Second Corinthians chapter five, verse 15.

God is holy. God has expectations for you to live a holy life, but not to stay in and not to be in, but because you are in. Do not let these exhortations simply become, do more, try harder, try more, try even more, try even more harder, try even more harder hard.

I mean, don't let it do that. Jesus Christ is important for justification and he's important for sanctification. If you're like the person who says, I just have to rummage around in the Bible and scurry around and I just wanna find things to do, God is my life coach.

And B-I-B-L-E, basic information before leaving earth. You are gonna be in big trouble. You are gonna be in so much trouble. The book of Hebrews is a good book to show you the excellencies of Jesus and then how you should respond and what God expects.

And it is really, really important that if you see the supremacy of Jesus to Aaron, to Moses, to the prophets, to angels, that you'll say, you know what, this is my God. He's the one that saved me. And the least I could do is to obey him in these areas.

I want you to spend time thinking about obeying these areas, but not at the expense of Jesus, who in this book is portrayed as author, apostle, captain, Christ, finisher, firstborn, God, heir, high priest, Lord, mediator, shepherd, son, and surety.

Jesus is so great, there should be a response. And what's that response? We see a bunch of things here at the end of chapter 13 that would be what people call concluding exhortations. Some think it was some kind of an appendix, kind of tacked on and the writing style and the abrupt nature is so different, they would say, than the rest of the book that the writer of Hebrews didn't even write this.

I don't think that's the case. Say, well, there's no transitional word. So, yeah, but it's talks about God as a consuming fire. Now let brotherly love continue. Yeah, there are obligations for the Christian because of their adopted sonship or daughtership.

Is daughtership a word? I was reading John Owen this morning and there was a word I wish I would have written down. I can't remember it, but I never saw the word in my life. Started with a T and it looked like civilization, but it wasn't quite that.

Living by faith. You've seen these people in chapter 11, living by faith. You are to live by faith. And he moved from chapter 12 to chapter 13, thinking about serving God and thinking about Sinai versus Zion and thinking about this consuming fire and then making sure now we treat others.

Maybe 12, much of 12 could be about the first great commandment, loving God. And this is talking a lot about loving neighbor. Here are concluding commands and we've got the high priest's legacy and thoughts and ideas included.

So don't forget about one to 12 and just say, well, I need to get the practical stuff and here's where I go. The first thing he says is very fascinating. Let brotherly love continue or let brotherly love remain.

Now here's the link, here's the hook between 12 and 13. 12, there was a whole lot of shaking going on, right? And things weren't remaining. Shaking of the earth, but also the heavens and removal of things that are shaken.

Things that have been made, shaking. And then it says, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. There's our link word. Some things aren't remaining. Some things are like the kingdom.

And therefore there are some other things that need to remain. I think sometimes if we say the world's going to end, Jesus is going to come back, what should we do? That's a fair question. Why bother?

Why do anything? Well, Jesus is going to come back and there's going to be some shaking. Haggai 2 .6 tells us that, as we saw in chapter 12. But here's all these commands. Why bother? Well, because we want to honor the triune God.

We want to glorify him. And what we do while we're on earth, we still want to do that. We don't say we're going to take a pass, especially when we don't know when this is all going to happen. Many people have lived whole lives longing for the return of Christ, who could have just coasted, but they didn't know when the Lord would return.

So they acted like they were responsible sons and daughters. First Peter 4 .7 -10, the end of all things is at hand. It could be similarly said here. The end of all things is at hand. So what? Go on top of your roof and set up a camp.

Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

As each of you has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. Well, maybe you feel fine, maybe you don't, but it's the end of the world as you know it.

Therefore, here's how you respond. Because you're a daughter, because you are a son. Well, my name's Mike Gabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. If you have Jesus as your high priest, you want to show gratitude toward him and obedience toward him and thankfulness towards him.

You'd like to live a holy life. But the difference between your holy life and anybody else's holy life, even though we saw those five lists are the same, the difference is simple. The difference is there's a reason for your obedience.

You have a motivation. And by the way, you have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you to help you to obey. What are we looking for here? I'm looking for Hebrews chapter 13 in the message paraphrase. And I wonder how it would read.

Stay in good terms with each other. Held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it's needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it. That part's good. Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them.

Sure. Look on victims of abuse as if it happened to them and happened to you. Honor marriage. Guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.

Don't be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us I'll never let you down, never walk off and never leave you, you can boldly quote, God is there ready to help.

I'm fearless no matter what. Who can or what can get to me. Appreciate your pastoral leaders. Make sure you don't take things for granted and go slack and working for the common good. Be responsive to your pastoral leaders.

Listen to their counsel. They're alert to the condition of your lives and work under the strict supervision of God. Contribute to their joy of leadership, not as treachery. Why would you want them to make things harder for them?

That's the message. Okay, what else do I have? I have some other things I wanna talk about. Well, I can put it this way. We can talk about this. Let brotherly love continue. Is that just a command there in and of itself?

And then we move on to the second one about hospitality or is let brotherly love continue the overarching command. You show Philadelphia love if you show hospitality. You show Philadelphia love if you remember those in prison.

You show Philadelphia love and more if you are having your marriage bed undefiled, which is which. Of course, it's true, but I think it's just a statement. Let brotherly love continue. It's hard to love other people.

It's hard to love other Christians. It's hard to love other Christians when you're getting persecuted. You're kind of forgetting about that. And I think that's really what the writer of Hebrews is trying to do.

Don't forget about other Christians. You've got enough problems and troubles as problems, troubles, than you've expected, but that shouldn't take your eye off of other people. When you think of the Lord Jesus, you could say about him, he had his own troubles, but that never deflected him or made him turn away from the needy people that he served from lepers to people who are bent over to people who are demon possessed, mutes and the rest.

If you wanna write me, you can. Mike Abendroth is my name. Mike at nocompromiseradio .com. You'll probably hear this midsummer. Welcome to 2020, the summer of 2020. In the year 2525, if man were still alive.

Closing Announcements and Ministry Information

Don't forget Israel. You can email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Say, please send me some Israel information.

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.