The Motivation for Christian Obedience (Part 3)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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I have with me here today, not the Tuesday guy, not the Wednesday guy, but the Thursday guy. Whoa. Welcome to No Compromise Radio.

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Like, is this going to be like a full week? You know, I mean, you know, Tuesday guy. Next Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

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This is going to play, and you're on every day because we're making up for lost time because I live in a transactional world.

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If I do this, then God will do that. Man. So what am I getting for this? A lot of ratings.

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Maybe people at the Shepherds Conference might say, are you the Tuesday guy? Maybe you could get a little at Tuesday guy, sorry, at the

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Tuesday guy. You know what was funny was to be down in Florida, and I was at the Founders Conference, and other than Travis Allen, nobody knew me.

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Absolutely nobody. I mean, there were like 1 ,100 people there. Nobody knew Steve or the Tuesday guy, nobody, you know,

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I mean, even at G3, there were people, you know, I mean, Fred Butler and Phil, the

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Johnsons and, you know, other people. And then some, some random people would hear me talking and go, are you the

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Tuesday guy? But in Florida, it was like, I was just, I was less than nobody and it was, you know, it's fine.

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I'm used to being nobody. I told you not to bring your autograph pen because nobody was going to know you.

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I set up a booth at everything and it wasn't - Really? Yeah. Oh, well, did you check with the union stewards there?

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I think the mafia has got a big presence in that town. They were like, no co, no co.

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I'm with no content radio. Yeah, exactly. They knew that right away. When I went to the

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Orlando Ligonier Conference, Ligonier Orlando Conference last year, I mean, the reason why we know people is not necessarily the show, although there's some people from the show, but we've gone to school, we've been, you know, fellow congregants and church members and deacons together and other things.

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So we know a lot of people. And we go to the Shepherds Conference a lot, but then you go to Orlando Ligonier Conference, I knew like five people.

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Well, it, you know, like at the Ligonier events, it wasn't like I would know a lot of people, but I'd usually wind up, we would run into some people that I either went to school with or knew from grace or something like that.

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Just a few people. But, you know, like I said, this two years in a row at Founders where we're just like, nobody knows me at all.

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It's fine. It's fine. It's really, it's really fine. I thought it was funny because one of the books that they actually pumped was by Evan Burns.

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Oh, yes, because he's actually published with Founders. Yeah. So I thought, you know, from the pulpit, they were actually pushing his book and I'm like, yeah, well,

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I already bought it in your bookstore. So yeah. Well, I should have said to them, he sent me a personal copy.

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I don't know if that's the one I endorsed, gave a puff to, or another one. Wasn't quite sure. I think, well,

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I brought it in today so we can check, but I think you did. So yeah, he had a bunch of nobodies endorsing the book.

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Well, it fit perfectly because it's nobo, nobodies instead of noco. And you're teaching these days, home groups on Friday, Sundays, you're ready again to do

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Sunday school? What's it going to be? Do we know? Well, I... Why don't you do the Christianian and unbelief thing?

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Yeah. I think I'm going to. And then, I mean, I'm starting to read, I started reading a book, the

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Trinity, one of the Trinity books up there, because I had it on my Kindle while I was down in Florida.

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I probably read 20%. I don't really know how I feel about that book yet because it's not really, it's not getting too meaty yet.

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And I'm like, I need more. Who wrote it? Oh, it's called like,

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Enjoying the Trinity or... Michael Reed. Yeah. Delighting in the Trinity. And it's okay. You know, but it's not just like,

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I mean, what I need is the constant repetition of the truths of the Trinity, you know, to...

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What not to say. Yes. How not to say it. Yeah. And kind of how to think. I mean, because I want to teach through Barrett's book, and I'm just like, well, maybe baby steps

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I'll read this first. Steve, who said, I read this recently, they said, most pastors and theologians cannot talk longer than two minutes about the

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Trinity without falling into heresy. I think that was Jesus. I think it's true whoever said it.

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So it might have been Calvin. I did. We should start doing that for discipleship class.

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We just have to talk for three minutes about everything you know about the Trinity, go. Yeah. You can't do pregnant pauses.

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We'll just go, you know, we'll just do chicken scratches for all, you know. Arianism.

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Utiquitism. Adoptionism. Sabellianism. That would be funny. That actually is pretty good.

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I started the book by Adonis Vidu on the God of inseparable operations. And I, and you know, he's

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Gordon Conwell. Vidu. Uh -huh. Yeah. I don't know. Sounds Hindu. How'd you like to be named

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Adonis? Not very much, actually, if I'm being honest. I think I would go by Don or something, you know.

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No, no. You'd go by Donny. Yeah, probably. But not by Adonis.

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What do you like to do in your spare time? Oh, I just sit by the pool. What if you didn't lift weights or anything and you were named

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Adonis? I'd have to get to the gym. I know. Seriously. You have to live up to your name. Yeah. Right? That's a

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Hebrew name thing. Today we're talking for the third time this week about motivation for Christian living.

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Steve, I found that quote there about the law, can it motivate us? Here's a

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Michael Horton quote. The law, God's command, never does more than that. Never does more than command.

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Whether the Decalogue or Paul's teaching on the fruit of the Spirit, such moral instruction can guide, that's the third use of the law, can tell us what our gracious Father calls us to do, but it can never animate our hearts or motivate our hands.

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That is why obedience is the fruit of the Spirit. Who said the law is like the

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GPS, but it can never get you anywhere? You need the engine to drive you there. I think that's a good illustration, and the engine is the personal work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ sent by the Father and dwelling us. I don't know who said it, but I endorse that.

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I would be the nobody who would endorse that. I'd sign that. Could we use maybe the language of a sailboat and the sail and the furrows and the wind and driving it?

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I mean, you can, I guess, have a sail, but it's not going to do anything for you if it's not windy. Yeah, I mean, you could see the destination, you know, where you want to go, right?

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That's the law. You know, there it is over there. But, you know. How do we get there? Here's a good quote by John Owen.

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I give you the quote, you give me like word association. Okay. Okay. While by faith we contemplate the glory of Christ as revealed in the gospel, all grace will thrive and flourish in us toward a perfect conformity unto

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Him. We look at the Lord Jesus by faith and by grace we want to obey and do what

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He says. Well, I mean, I like what he says, towards a perfect conformity, right?

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Because we're never going to get there. Toward one, yes. Right. Unlike that guy the other day that we talked about that, you know, absolute surrender, perfect unreservedly.

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I mean, isn't that our hearse is our, why is it, you know, to take a little rabbit, not much of a rabbit trail, but one of the reasons we long for heaven besides the fact,

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I mean, the central feature of heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. But when we think about heaven, we think about being sinless.

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And like right away as I think about that, it's not, it's not incredible or unbelievable to me, but it's like I can almost feel a weight lifted off my shoulders, you know, as I just think about that.

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Because all the guiltiness that the law, that my conscience, that my heart, you know, all the guilt that these things generate, gone.

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I mean, there's just a weightlessness even to the thought, right, of being actually literally sin free.

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I mean, I'm positionally sin free right now, but my position doesn't always match my thought, you know.

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I'm not always thinking, oh, I'm sin free. I was reading the other day with a sanctification topic in mind, that the last element of sanctification is our physical death.

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Because that ushers us into glory. Well, that's right. Yeah. That's right. I mean, Spurgeon said something to the effect of, you know, the greatest moment of our lives is our death, you know, because that's when we're ushered into the presence of Christ.

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And you know, I think that's true. Right. Well, I think sometimes, Steve, let's say there's someone our age and you're sitting down having a nice meal with your wife at a restaurant on a romantic island and you die of a heart attack.

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You know, you're doing something pleasurable and then you die. It will still be from pleasure on earth to heaven, some infinite gap of reality and transcendence and otherness and this alien, wonderful alien, you know, reality.

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No body yet, but still to be in the presence of the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord. But then

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I also think of our friends and other people. My mom, she's on her deathbed.

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She's not doing something pleasurable. She can barely breathe. She's under, you know, she's got morphine. She's got oxygen, sweaty, just looks awful and slowly breathing, slowly breathing.

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Is she going to die this breath? And that goes on for two hours. She finally exhales her last breath. We're waiting for her to take that breath again.

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She never does, and she's in heaven. From the worst place on earth, you're on your deathbed to the exalted place of heaven because of what the

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Lord has done. That's got to be that moment of opposites, of extremes like no other.

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Yeah, it's incredible to even think about. I'm just getting a little choked up because we just experienced so many difficult moments over the last several months.

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I know. I thought about that as well, Steve. And then we keep getting these baby pictures of the newborn's birth and their entrance into the world.

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And it's wonderful. Somebody said to me the other day, now I'll put this in context.

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Somebody said to me, you know, basically, and nicely, it's going to sound worse than it was, but basically he said, you know what?

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If Mike can't marry us, would you be able to do it? And I said, yes.

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I said, you know, I actually, I've done so many funerals. A wedding would be lovely, you know, it would be great.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. We're talking a little bit about motivation for holy living and the doctrine of sanctification.

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Steve, two days ago, we talked some about why would we want to try to give assurance to someone on their deathbed like we both just did this week, yet try to take away assurance while we're preaching on Sunday morning?

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What's the disconnect? Why can't we have the same attitude in both places?

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I mean, the people we're preaching to are dying. Right. It is a mystery because if life is a vapor, which scripture tells us it is, and we don't have any idea when that vapor is going to disappear, then why wouldn't we always treat people, you know, we are dying men preaching as to dying men, right?

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Right. I mean, yes, it's more real at the moment because you can see the oxygen monitors and all that other stuff.

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It's eminent, but it's no less true. I mean, wouldn't that be interesting if we could sort of...

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If the Lord were to reveal where everybody, you know, as we're preaching... How many days? Yes. Oh, we can see over their head how many days they have left.

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Yes. Oh, that's scary. I mean, wouldn't that be scary? You know, if you look around and you're going, all of a sudden you see somebody young and you go, six?

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What? Oh, yeah. Two. You know? Zero. How could you turn to anybody else other than him? You know, you'd be looking right at him and go,

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I hope you're right with Christ. You know, I'm going to give you the gospel again. And there has to be...

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And that's one of the things, you know, there are multiple things.

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I'm going to talk about preaching here for a minute. There has to be that urgency, right? And part of that comes from having studied the passage and having been convicted of the truthfulness of the passage and having, you know, really,

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I'll use a word I don't even like to use, but wrestled with it and kind of done the best I can within limitations of my frailties and time and my laziness and everything else to do the best

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I can to understand the passage. But I want to convey that in a way that doesn't put the congregation to sleep, right?

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But in a way where they feel that urgency, where they want, you know, they want to get what I'm putting down, right?

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And you know what? They deserve it in the sense that, this is crass, I know, but they've paid your plumbing bills so you don't have to go be a plumber.

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They paid your business administration bills. Absolutely. And I feel that burden, but you know, and you know this too, the number one burden

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I feel is every time I just think, I go, I pray,

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I'm like, Father, you know, that I should have done more. You know that I'm limited. You know that I'm, you know, but dust, but by the power of your spirit,

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I pray that you would use my efforts to organize this, to study it, to work on it, to think through it, to help these people, right?

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That they might see Christ exalted, that they might have a better view of Jesus than they had before they came in.

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That's right. I'm not trying to come across as some great guy or the standard or anything like that.

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The Lord has worked in my heart the last few years, especially since prostate cancer. I don't always, but Steve, I regularly think, if this is my last sermon, it better be about Jesus, right?

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Faithful to the text and, you know, understanding what's going on with law, gospel, et cetera, et cetera.

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And I want it to be Christ exalting. We proclaim Christ. Him we proclaim, Colossians 1. And I was thinking about that.

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I got home from California and I was preaching, I was doing this series on Jesus, one message from each gospel, and I was thinking that, what if this is my last sermon?

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And then all of a sudden you go, it basically was, right? Except for the grace of God. And you think, what am

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I going to do? This is my last sermon. And how do I want the saints to feel? Convicted?

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Fine. Desire for holy living? Fine. But also reminded of the father who's generous and compassionate, who sends his son, who's gracious and loving, and at his own cost lays down his life for us.

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That's how we have to talk to people on their deathbed. And by the way, they've all got a number over their head.

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We just can't see it. And I think, you know, here's what

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I would say. What a blessing it would be for the law preachers, I'll call them that, if they could look out one

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Sunday morning and see that number over the heads of their congregation and go, what am

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I doing? I'm heaping conviction upon these people and what they really need is to see

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Christ. Steve, I am positive and it still dwells in me, but I am positive.

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The reason why I was such a legal preacher, I'm not going to blame my seminary or anybody else.

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I was a legal preacher to a large degree because of my own self -righteous legal spirit.

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And I thought I could do, if the Bible says, love your wives, I think I can kind of do it. If the Bible says this. And so that's how you preach to people.

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And I'm sure I'm far from being completely humbled yet. The cancer and the COVID lung that did a number on me in a good way.

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But when you realize I'm weak and struggle and I'm the pastor, what do

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I need to be reminded of? When Scott Clark calls me and says, in the hospital, Jesus loves you, he'll never leave you nor forsake you.

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You can trust him. Why would I then not say that to the congregation?

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Aren't they just as weak as I am? Aren't they just as struggling with things as I am? We need to, it was

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Rome that took away assurance. How are we now Roman Catholic preachers, functionally, by trying to take away assurance?

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I don't want that to be the case. Well, we do have a confession after service on Sunday. So if there are any besetting sins that you need to confess, you can come up.

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Oh, and even that, right? Tell your leaders all your little tiny sins. So in your big ones, especially so that we can hold it over your head.

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I'm thinking, you know, whatever your sins are, friend, I'm in the front of the line. It is true. I'm studying the passage,

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Steve, in Ephesians 3, and Paul was talking about himself and he said to me, though I am the very least, he uses a weird word, and I'm the leaster.

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It doesn't even make sense, but I'm, you know, the leaster of all the saints grace was given me to preach to the

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Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. That's what he did. That's what I want to do. And I think, you know, just like when he, in Romans 7, you know, when he's talking about the things he doesn't do that he wants to do and the things that he does that he doesn't want to do.

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And I think, you know, as he's visited by the Holy Spirit, as he's writing the scriptures and he's given these things, right?

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And then he's just like, then the moments where he's not writing the scriptures, when he's just like living his regular life, he's like, man,

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I am such a loser, right? And isn't that kind of the sense that we have when we were in the pulpit?

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And, you know, I mean, do you ever feel closer to the Lord, right, then more dependent on the

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Holy Spirit than when you're in the pulpit? And the answer is probably not, right? Maybe in the hospital,

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I don't know, but then, you know, a few hours later or whatever, you know, you get, if I could use this word, kind of carnal in your thinking, you're like, what am

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I doing? I mean, what kind of hypocrite? And that's what Paul's is like, in light of what

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I know, in light of what I've experienced, how can I be doing these things? How can I be saying these things?

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How can I be, you know, even thinking this way? What is wrong with me? Steve, you have a lot of grandkids,

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I don't, but I have kids and you have kids. And when they were little, one moment they could be serving mommy a drink and just going out of their way to pick up their room.

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And the next minute they act like a complete little brat, like, you know, you think you're schizophrenic or something, some kind of, you know, demonic or something.

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And of course, we know it's sin, it's not those things. But we love them just the same. We might discipline them, and there's discipline in the

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Christian life by the Lord when we sin regularly and often. But He still loves us. That's not going to change

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His love. Why do we have a view of God that's less than a view of a sinful human father or mother?

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Steve, I was thinking about deathbed stuff, Psalm 23.

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Why is it so comforting to people? I mean, it is for thousands of years, one of the most comforting passages in all of Scripture.

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While I'm not against law, it guides, it convicts the unbeliever. Is there a law in Psalm 23?

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It's just all about the Lord. Not one law. Why is it? Why is it good on the deathbed? Well, that's why

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I always give, you know, three, four takeaways when I preach the road, because I don't want people to just be comforted.

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My takeaway number one, notice there's no law in this Psalm. Therefore, we have to insert law.

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Takeaway number two, if you have not memorized this Psalm, you shouldn't call yourself a Christian. But isn't that,

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I mean, it's, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down.

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He leads me. He leads me. It's just... Can't you see the danger, though, in that much comfort?

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Well, to talk about earlier things off air, Horatius Bonar said, that's not our problem.

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We tell everybody about God and his nature and character and give the gospel of good news. And if people want to run with it and act licentiously, then that's on them, not on us.

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Well, like I said, I mean, the idea that somebody would come to faith, that they would be caused to be born again by the

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Holy Spirit, and then the Holy Spirit would suddenly, I guess, abandon them so that they could run lawlessly forever, you know, to their own destruction.

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I don't believe that's what the sealing of the Holy Spirit is, right? I mean, the idea of a seal is, he's with you.

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He doesn't leave you, right? I mean, isn't that the promise? Possession, protection, ownership.

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Yes. Steve, I have a lot of authority in life and by the authority given to me by the

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Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Bethlehem Bible Church and the NoCo Radio Empire. I now pronounce you

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Dr. Steve Cooley. Oh, man. Thank you. And the reason why is, as Martin Luther said, hence whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between law and gospel, him place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture.

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Ooh. Dr. Cooley, how's that sound? I like it. I like it.

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My head is inflated. I suddenly need a size 11 hat.

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Do you know your hat size? Yes. Seriously, how? Do you have a cowboy hat? What do you mean, how? I don't know my hat size.

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I was in the army. Oh. I didn't know that. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I knew that, but I didn't know that was the connection.

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Oh, yeah. I mean, listen, like my boot size, which was really odd.

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I don't wear this in anything else, but it was 12 and a half narrow, okay? It took like two and a half months for the army to find 12 and a half narrow boots.

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So I was in... So I mean, everything has to be exact. The army doesn't mess around with that.

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So your head is seven and a quarter, it's seven three quarters, it's eight and a quarter, whatever it is. They've got a hat size for everything.

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They've got a shirt size for everything. They got pants size for everything. They've got it going on. My boots, it took a while.

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I mean, I went up actually having to buy jump boots in the PX because I was tired of...

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I mean, if you could imagine, I was wearing tennis shoes, tromping around in the mud in Alabama. That was not that much fun.

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I think after this week, there'll be 3000 extra pairs of hats and shoes as the army is kicking out all the unvaxxed.

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Law, baby, law. I'd just like to be a chaplain and think, well, you know what? I really can't take this vaccine or maybe

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I've got a medical condition and then they're like, well, too bad. Well, I wouldn't want to be a chaplain right now anyway, because if you're preaching the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, you've got a target on your back.

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Amen. Well, today was part three and the final part on motivation for the

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Christian life. And the motivation is the Lord himself. It'd be good to talk about him regularly from the pulpit, don't you think?

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Be great. His life, his death, his resurrection, and what faith in him means to the believer, which is everything.

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Amen. Mike Abendroth here with Steve Cooley, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday guy, nocoradio .com.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.