Be The Message

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 ministry, my name is

Mike Abendroth, and it is fall almost. Not technically,

I know, but it's good to be back in the studio. I have not recorded a show in the studio for a couple of months.

We've played some reruns, I try to get a few shows ahead, and the good side about that is

I can go on extended vacation, travel, speak. The bad side is if you don't do shows all the time, you're kind of behind on current events.

They're not so current. So today I'm just going to try to catch up on a lot of current events. It's still a little under the weather from the

New England summers. I came back and it was cold. Now you come back from California and you think it's going to be hot, which it is today, and catch a cold because it's too cool in New England.

It's a nice summer in New England. So before I get into the show today, nine -day

Israel tour and extension to Jordan, you can go with Bethlehem Bible Church and NOCO Radio and Omaha Bible Church, February 17th through the 25th, 2015.

So that's not that many months away. I believe October 1st is when you need to have your $200 deposit in.

You can send that to Bethlehem Bible Church. You can always write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com or if you want to circumvent the email going to Spencer, you can write to Mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

All right. So we'd love to have you go to Israel with us. My brother will be going as well.

Just a few things here on my desk. I have promotions for books. These are book promotions from other people, and they want me to promote their books.

And you know, sometimes you get the books for free. This is just, you can get the book if you want to pay.

And it says here on the front, here's the, let me give you the authors, then the subtitle, then the title, then those endorsers.

Carrie and Chris Shook, S -H -O -O -K, authors of the

New York Times bestseller, One Month to Live. So I assume they earned that spot on the

New York Times bestseller list. They didn't buy it. The subtitle of this book is

Taking Your Faith Beyond Words to a Life of Action. And you know what? I say good. Faith without works is what?

James says it's dead. It's muerto. It's kaput.

If you continually say, James 2, I believe verse 14, that you have faith and you continually have no works, then can that faith save him?

That faith can't save him. Faith without works is dead. So I like that part.

But the title is Be the Message. You're to be the message.

Now it shows a tree and one side of the tree has leaves. The other side of the tree has leaves that turned into birds and then flew away.

I'm tired of hearing sermons. I want to see one lived out.

That is the front page, one snippet, I assume it's by Carrie and Chris Shook in the book.

I'm tired of hearing sermons. I want to see one live out. Who is selling this book?

Let's soon find out. I'm trying to find a publisher and I cannot find a publisher.

I guess it must be self -published. It doesn't say on the side of the book. It doesn't say on the back of the book.

It does say Woodlands Church. That's all it says there. Praise for be the message,

Stephen Furtick says. When the life we live lines up with the words we speak, the world takes notice.

Carrie and Chris Shook lead us on an incredible journey to be the message and experience a relationship with God that changes everything.

That's Stephen Furtick. Rick Warren says, Carrie and Chris Shook give us a powerful guide on how to stop hiding behind our image and truly discover and live our authentic life message.

And there's a new campaign. Oh, they are founding pastors of Woodlands Church, Carrie and Chris Shook.

That's the church I guess is selling it. Live the sermon. Okay. Well, what do we think about that? No compromise.

Radio listeners. Of course, I am not promoting hypocrisy.

I don't like hypocrisy. I especially don't like it in my own life. We say one thing and we do another.

My kids went to a King James only fundamentalist school for a while when they were little. And I remember one of the teachers taught them the hippo critter song, hippo critter, hippo critter.

You say one thing and do the opposite. But there was a tune to it as well. So I really appreciated that.

I'm not after hypocrisy. We're to love what does Romans say without hypocrisy. Of course,

I am for pastors if they're going to be preaching Ephesians chapter four, talking about speaking truth and Galatians five and speaking truth and love, then we're to do that.

That's exactly right. Then we would do that. I desire my walk to match up with my talk.

I desire my conduct to match my creed. I desire my agenda to match my credenda.

I desire my behavior to match up with my beliefs. Now, not to give you an excuse, but it is impossible on this earth until we are glorified.

Isn't it amazing in Romans chapter eight in the golden chain of redemption, Paul speaks of glorification in the past tense as if it's already happened.

It is so sure to happen. If you are called, if you're predestined, if you're justified, you are going to be glorified.

It has to be done. And so all

Christians are hypocrites. All Christians know more than what they do. And so I'm not advocating on No Compromise Radio that I think, you know, what hypocrisy is good.

Just say the right thing, live like you want. We've seen some very big illustrations of what happens with mega church rockstar kind of pastors when they say things from the pulpit that let's say 80 % of the time, 90 % of the time are right with their style and their content, but then their lives, there's all kinds of other stuff going on.

So, you know, nobody likes that. We don't, we don't like it in other people, especially, I wish we wouldn't like it in ourselves mainly.

You know, it's easy for me to say, oh, that guy's hypocritical. That lady's hypocritical, but I want to hate my hypocrisy more than I hate anybody else's.

And we know compared to everybody else, we are the biggest hypocrites and especially those who want to study the

Bible and learn the Bible and sit underneath good teaching and probably those who listen to No Compromise Radio.

We understand that. But what does it mean to be the message? Okay. So live the gospel.

That's another thing that Michael Horton would call category error. And you need to read some of the books about Christ and, well,

I wish I knew the titles. Where's Horton when I need him? The one time I interviewed Horton on No Compromise Radio, it was live back in those days.

We still have everything here so we can do it live. And when Todd Friel asked me to be the Wretched Host, I can do it here.

He asked me two times this summer and I was in California both times. So we'll see if I get invited back.

Todd's got a new book, by the way, Jesus Unmasked. So Todd, I should interview if you just send me a copy,

I'll interview regarding that book and see if you can be the message, be the mask message. The mask messenger.

Remember watching Lone Ranger when you were growing up? So to be the message, what does that mean?

To be the message, to live the gospel? I did a radio interview not that long ago.

Matter of fact, it was this morning. And a caller called in and he, I believe his name was

Chris, he said something to the effect when regarding, in regards to the topic of leadership, that you have to, you know, exemplify the message and people will listen, kind of the

Furtick thing. People will listen when you walk the walk kind of thing and not just talk the talk.

Okay. I understand. I am sure in the military, people don't want to follow officers who say one thing and do another.

I understand that in corporate America. But for Christianity, we have to remember that Jesus Christ is the only one without spot, without blemish, who perfectly obeyed the law of God.

Everything that God commanded a person to be, Jesus was and everything is.

And everything that a person made by God is supposed to, whatever they're supposed to do,

Jesus did. You think of Jesus getting baptized and he's doing it to fulfill all righteousness.

That's why you have to permit this, John the Baptist. John knew full well that he was sinful. He himself was sinful and Jesus wasn't.

That's why there needed to be kind of a reversal in John's eyes. But we need to do away with the

Christianity that says the only thing about Jesus that matters is his death on the cross.

Well, I love his death on the cross and I'm glad that he died for sinners like me and like you.

But the life of Christ, Jesus is in the wilderness and he is tempted and he does not fail.

On the other hand, Adam, the first Adam, he's in the garden. I mean, can you imagine the garden versus the wilderness?

Adam was eating. Now, I don't know if he'd eaten anything before the temptation. Let's just assume that he had eaten some of the fruits of other trees.

Many scholars think that Adam was tempted early on in his life so that he would not have patterns of obedience that were established.

It's all conjecture. It's interesting, that's for sure. And it's no wonder that Satan, through people, is attacking

Adam and Genesis and breeding populations. And so,

Jesus is tempted in the wilderness and he does not yield to temptation.

He does exactly what Adam should have done and he should have said, well, this is what God requires. This is what

God says. And Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy and Adam should have been standing up for even quoting what

God had said. This is what God had said. So when we say, be the message, I affirm that you should try to live out the truths of Scripture, and not just be somebody that preaches to everybody.

There should be, as 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 show, that elders don't have to be perfect.

There would be no elders, but elders have to be people who are above reproach.

People meaning men, men who are above the reproach, husband of one wife, and temperate and prudent, and not wine lovers, not money lovers, managing their own households well, not pugnacious.

There's a whole list, not new converts, a whole list between those two chapters in the pastoral epistles of what the man must be.

And they don't say, be perfect. And I'm trying to find if there are any Scripture verses for be the message, and I'm not talking about the message

Bible. That would make it even more hilarious. We could combine all our themes, be the message.

I think it's more important for us is to proclaim the message. Messages are to be proclaimed.

Good news is to be heralded. Glad tidings are to be told. So just imagine back in the old days, and we've talked about this ad infinitum on No Compromise Radio, but I get this stuff in the mail and I have to talk about it.

I'm tired of hearing sermons. I want to see one lived out. Maybe that's why these churches love drama.

Boom, boom, boom. I'm tired of hearing sermons. First of all, what mature

Christian says that? I am tired of hearing sermons. Well, I'm tired of hearing sermons that say, just be the message.

I'm tired of hearing moralistic platitudes, moralism that says, go out there and do these things and don't give me a reason to do them.

The cross don't give me the ability to do them. The Holy Spirit don't give me motivation.

So I need, as Machen said, the triumphant indicatives of the gospel, statements of fact of what

God has done. And then in response, the Spirit of God, working through the Word of God, helps me act in light of the gospel.

It never asks me to live the gospel. So my son, Luke, who's at the

Master's College now, boy, that is traumatic. Not to send your son to the

Master's College, but to send kids to college too this year. It is, it's hard.

It's hard on the pocketbook too. New computers and new, I don't know, phone plans, all kinds of stuff.

Now, I'm digressing, by the way. This is Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at NoCompromiseRadio .com,

or Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. We'd love to have you go to Israel with us. So we're talking about, be the message

Kerry and Chris shook. Now maybe this is satire, and on the inside, it says exactly what

I'm saying. Well, that'd be nice. But I don't think it is, because we're having people say,

I'm tired of hearing sermons. Well, I want to hear biblical exposition. Isn't that really a sign of a

Christian, a mature Christian, a Psalm 1 Christian, where I meditate on His law, Torah, instruction of God day and night?

That's the blessed man. How blessed is that man? It's very unique in the

Hebrew in Psalm 1 .1. How blessed is that man? So if you go to a football stadium, a soccer stadium, a cricket stadium, and there are 80 ,000, 100 ,000 people there.

But the camera zooms in on one person seated in Section 235, Row U, Seat 6.

That man, see that man right there compared to everybody else? That man is the blessed man, the one who meditates on God's law day and night, on God's instruction.

God instruct me, teach me about you, teach me about what I'm to do in light of that.

And so, I don't ever want to promote a book that says, I'm tired of sermons. I want to see one lived out.

Yes, it is good to see the sanctifying, maturing, transforming work of the

Holy Spirit in any sinner, especially in a leader. Don't you want to see a leader's life glow, for the lack of a technical evangelical term, a leader's life show love?

Why did I just say glow? Mr. Glowworm. Oh, that's Mr. Sandman. You see, now,

I was watching a YouTube the other day with this old 60s stuff, and I forgot the name. If Steve were here, he'd know. Mr.

Sandman. Mr. Sandman. Whoever those three ladies were that sang, what a kind of compelling song.

But the only way I think of it is with the Halloween movie that I saw, and I was scad in 1978, probably.

And so, to be the message. I want you to love sermons. I want you to love sermons to tell you about who

Jesus is. Actually, think about your poor pastors, including me. We're sinful people, and we can never live up to the message we preach.

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. The only way you could attempt to do that, I guess, is if you were going to be a

Keswick, and you can kind of redefine sin, maybe some Wesleyan perfectionist, redefining sin and holiness and all that.

And then you could say, well, I haven't sinned in 20 years, or whatever the length of time is. But really, deep down in our own hearts, forget our spouses and our kids' hearts and how they see us, and see us when we do what we're supposed to, and we don't do what we're supposed to do, and vice versa.

I'm tired of having to live out the message. Should I say that? Well, I know that doesn't make it any better, but I want to talk about who

Jesus is. And He's different. He's other. He's alien. That is, He's not like me.

He's from a different place. Oh, yes, He's fully man. I'm not trying to say that He's not the God -man, the

God -man. But be the message. This is very, very popular these days.

And so don't ever forget, this is back to NOCO 101, we have statements of fact about God, their indicatives, and we have imperatives in light of the indicatives, things that we're told to do.

And those things have to be put together. If we ignore the one at the expense of the other, oftentimes it's easy to see

Ephesians 6 chapters, verse 3, for the most part, indicatives. The first imperative in Ephesians is in chapter 2, around 10 or 11.

Don't forget you're a Gentile. But just typically that's the way it works. Romans 1 to 11, not too many imperatives.

First imperative in Romans is, I think, chapter 6, verse 11. Maybe it's 14, but I think it's 11.

And same thing with Hebrews 1 to 10, generally, you have indicatives and then you have imperatives after that.

So that's the flow of the Christian life. That's a paradigm you need to learn. If you need to learn paradigms, it should be things like theology, drives methodology, drives doxology.

That's a paradigm you ought to learn, theology, methodology, doxology. And you also ought to learn indicative imperatives.

So when you teach Sunday school, when you teach from the pulpit, when you evangelize, you give both, here's who

Jesus is, and here's what he's done. And that should provoke a response, and here's the proper response.

And so that's how you preach the gospel. It says here, it's unleash your church's potential, mobilize your church to take the challenge.

Well, I'm going to tell you right now, if we want to try to live the message, we're never going to do it.

We are never going to do it. I mean, just think about it practically in your life. When an unbeliever says to you,

I don't want to go to church, there's too many hypocrites there, basically what's your only response? Okay, the no -co response is, one more won't hurt.

One more won't hurt, so you might as well come along. But a more informed biblical approach, a mature approach, would be this.

It is true, every Christian is a hypocrite, and every unbeliever is a hypocrite.

But we at our church regularly, often, always, every

Sunday, you're going to hear about the only man who was ever born of a woman who wasn't a hypocrite.

He's an amazing man. Everything he said was true.

He always did the right thing in every circumstance. He never did the wrong thing in any circumstance.

He always had the right motives. I mean, think about that for a second. Just the killer of the motive.

Do we ever have a pure motive in our lives, ever? And here

Jesus Christ, the God -man, eternal Son of God, cloaks himself with humanity, and our church tells people about this

Jesus. That's your only hope for the unbeliever. Hey, we're going to bridge gaps, and you can now listen to us because we're trying to really live out the message.

Frankly, in most of these kind of churches, the gap between knowledge and life is huge.

Why? Because these kind of churches are all imperatively driven, and so they don't talk much about the indicatives.

Oh, they do some, and yeah, Jesus died on the cross, and raised from the dead, and da -da -da -da -da. But it's not taught in depth.

It's not the depths and the riches and the knowledge and the wisdom of God. It's not expository preaching and going through Ephesians 1, 12 weeks, mining the riches of the scripture.

And so without that anchor, without that rock, without the bedrock of the indicatives, then people can't live out the imperatives.

Right? Husbands love your wives. Now, that's probably told in every church, including Mormon churches, is

Christ loved the church. Let's do a 10 -part series on how Christ loved the church. We'll call it a marriage series.

See who shows up. If you have a marriage series on communication, sex, conflict resolution, who wears the pants, love languages, then you'll pack that thing out.

Oh, have a conference in your church about Be the Message. It'll pack it out. Have one on the Trinity.

See how many people come for that one. So, Be the Message by Carrie and Chris Shook.

Be the message, taking your faith beyond words to a life of action. So, I like the part about,

I want to have a James kind of faith. Rahab had that kind of faith.

Abraham had that kind of faith. Isn't that what James talks about in James chapter 2?

It says here, Dear Pastor. See, they're writing to me. Carrie herself is writing to me. Every pastor wants to see his church move beyond just hearing a sermon.

They want to see their congregation live out their faith beyond the walls of the church. A church member who is really being the message will experience incredible spiritual growth and invest substantially more time and energy in their church.

Challenge your congregation to move beyond just words about God and truly experience him more.

Be the message is a nationwide campaign built to do just that. Help your church experience

Christ. Well, I think I'm just going to have to pass on that one, Mr. and Mrs.

Shook. It says, You are the gospel. You are the gospel.

God's call to you is simple. It says it right here. You are the gospel.

Be the message is their story of waking up to the gospel. Not just the gospel of words and sermons, but the gospel of intention and action in people.

They discovered a profound secret. You are the gospel. That is not true. I'm not the gospel.

Oh, hi, my name is Mike Ebenroth and I'm the good news. I have good news for you. It's all about Mike Ebenroth.

Friends, on bad days, maybe even some good days, that's what I want to say. That's what

I want to tell people. Look at me. And it's not in the godly Jim Elliott way.

Hey, do you want to see the life of someone who receives the blessings in favor of God?

That's what I am. Whatever I have in my life that's good, it's because God has given me these things. God takes care of his children.

But for me, I'd want to say that I am the good news. That's why we have to kill that. That's why we have to mortify it.

That's why I have to crucify it. That's why there's so much in the Bible about that very thing.

We aren't the gospel. But the gospel is what Jesus did. He lived a perfect life.

He died a substitutionary penal death at Calvary, was raised from the dead as the father confirmed his son's great substitutionary work, upholding the law of God and the justice of God, demonstrating the love of God.

And the response is to believe. You aren't the gospel, but Jesus Christ's life and death is.

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

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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

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