Lordship, Discipleship and Evangelism

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.

The Evangelical Dilemma and Formulaic Evangelism

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Today is, I think, Wednesday, January 2nd in real time, but in no-code time, when is this, Steve?

In no-code time, nobody knows. It�s just kind of we spin the wheel on no-code time.

We know we should get a little wheel here and spin it, and if we ever run out of things to say, and it just tells us, you know, �Slam Richard Baxter. That�s one of the wheels, you know.

Or, you know, �Pretend like it�s 2017. Oh, yeah. That�s good. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Steve, I have all these binders, these three-ring binders of real paper that I had back in seminary days, and I used to have, you know, green binders, red ones, all different shapes and sizes.

But I don�t know how many years ago, when Tracy was here as a secretary, I asked her to just make them all nice and all the same color and everything else. And I pulled out one of my articles found in one of those binders in my theology class called �The Evangelical Dilemma.

So, we want to talk about that a little bit today.

Well, at least it�s not Jingle Bells or something. I was looking for one here, and I�m going, �I can�t really tell what that says.

Well, because it�s going to be so easy for you. You�re good at this, and I mean that. I just say something, and then you can play off of that, and then I play off of what you played off of when you played off of me.

I�m confused. Okay. This was in the soteriology section. Okay, that I�m familiar with. Yeah. Okay, so far so good. And I actually handed this out to the Bible study 25, 30 years ago, and he was talking about formulas in evangelism.

I don�t think it was 30 years ago, by the way. 30? Oh, no, I was married 30 years ago.

Yeah, 20, 25. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, out of motives that we think are really good, you want people saved, and you want to preach the gospel, and you want them to go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light and have their sins forgiven.

I mean, I think a lot of bad evangelism stems from ignorant, immature, or good motives, but they just do it poorly, right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So, it says here in the Evangelical Dilemma, �From there, we reduce the message to a concise formula.

So, you have this motive of wanting people to have eternal life, and then it turns into a formula. For instance, the evangelical process is cut down to a few basic questions and answers as follows. So, this is the distillation.

We talked about distillation and fermentation on the last show.

So, this is kind of more like the sales pitch, though. Yeah, right. Okay.

Uh-huh. Keep it simple, stupid kind of thing, right? Got it. Yeah. All right. So, let's just pretend that you're an eager—I'm hiding this from your sight—you're kind of an eager person, you want to go along with it.

Great, Pastor Mike. What do I do next? Do you believe you're a sinner? Yes, I do. Do you believe Christ died for sinners? Absolutely. Will you receive Him as Savior? Yes. Then you're saved. I am? You got it right.

You got it right. You know why I got it right? Because you looked ahead of time? No, those are in your FOF notes. Oh, okay. See? Nice. See? And then the last thing I'm supposed to say to you, yes, the Bible says you're saved.

Wow. Bad move.

That's a bad mojo there. Well, I mean, did you ever do that? Did you ever like—because I remember distinctly somebody who, you know, somebody and I were evangelizing a person with brain cancer. And as soon as this person said, well, you know, I believe that, the other person I was with was welcoming them into the family of God, hugging and, you know, telling them that we would know them in eternity and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm like, really? Did that person really just—I mean, how do we know? Right?

I know. Yeah. Well, it's the same thing with kids, is it not, where you'll talk to children and they have a positive response to the gospel. I don't know if they're having a positive response to the gospel because the Spirit of God is, you know, convicting them, or they just want to please me, right?

As pastor, preacher, dad, whatever it is.

Well, this isn't true of me, but it could be true of you, you know, where you can be persuasive and convince somebody to just say yes, right? I mean, you have a sales background way back in the day. You can drive somebody to yes, but what does that really mean?

Does it, you know, me, they just want to naturally say no, but—.

Well, that's probably why we're a good team. Yes. You're the no man, I'm the yes man. And with kids, I would always—I mean, I was taught this, so then I would teach it to others. When kids make a profession of faith, I mean, they're not saying, I just accepted Buddha in my heart, right?

I think Anton LaVey and Satanism's right. No. And so they say, I believe in Jesus, and I know I'm sinful, and I just accepted Him, I believed in Him, whatever language they use. Then I just smile and say, that's wonderful.

Keep believing. That's what I just keep, you know, that's my only response. And my biggest problem, Steve, happened when I was a new pastor, and you'd get a dad or a mom, somebody at the church, an aunt or someone, and they would say, my daughter just became a Christian, you know, and the daughter's like 15 or whatever.

I'm like, oh, great. So then I would just say, oh, that's good to hear, you know, let's just keep encouraging them to keep believing. I mean, what do you do? I don't know, because the parable of the soils are true, you know, it's there in Scripture, and some, Luke 8, receive with joy and then have no fruit, and they've proven that they're not a Christian.

Well, there's water. Water prevents me from being baptized. There you go. You know, we should do a show sometime on just difficulties of new pastors, and maybe it has to be Baptist pastors, because when that question comes up, you know, my last two kids got baptized when they were five and eight at the last church, and now I've got my new five-year-old or my new eight-year-old that, you know, he'd like to be baptized too, then what do you do?

Well, I think we can do problems from a, you know, for a new pastor from a Presbyterian standpoint too, but it might be harder for us.

That might be harder, you know. My baby's been baptized, so why can't they have communion? Oh. I thought you were going to say werewolves of London there for a second. Now, I like this first page, the evangelical dilemma, because I don't want a conversion shtick and irreducible minimums when it comes to evangelism.

You don't see any of that in Scripture where there's just this kind of one way. There's one message, and there's one response to that message, faith, repentance slash faith, however you want to put it.

But it's just, you know, it's not canned, right? When you watch Paul and Peter and others evangelize, it's just they have different ways. So anyway, I don't like the canned deal, and so I like that page one.

But here's the interesting thing. What do you think of this, Steve? A second serious omission is a missing emphasis on the lordship of Christ, a light, jovial mental assent that Jesus as Savior misses the point.

So far, so good, right?

Light mental assent. I mean, Jesus never framed it that way, you know. Hey, it's easy, buddy. You know, just thanks for believing. See you later.

I've never actually remembered it saying a light, jovial mental assent, but I kind of like that. That's almost like Westminster Confession, faith, personal, perpetual, entire, obedience.

Will you receive Christ? And the answer shouldn't be, sure, why not?

What's the harm in that, right? Yeah, kind of like, was it MacArthur who talked about some Hindu, you know, that accepted Jesus and believed, and now he has one extra God, you know? Why wouldn't he accept him into the pantheon of other things?

It costs me nothing. Now here it says, Jesus is first Lord, then Savior. The New Testament always places his lordship before his saviorhood. Do we present the full implications of his lordship to people?

He always did. Now, I think maybe in my old days, I would not even blush when I read that, but what does it mean he always places his lordship before his saviorhood? Does that mean you have to make him Lord in order to be saved?

Is that a condition that has to be met first?

It sounds like, you know, it sounds like that's what, you know, you have to convince somebody that he is Lord in order for them to believe that he's Savior, because if they don't believe that, then they're done.

See, that's kind of weird. Even if we don't look at this from some type of, you know, marrow controversy outlook, it just, okay, I have to describe he's Lord first, but would that mean he's your creator and therefore you owe him obedience?

Is that what he wants? It's present full implications of his lordship to people.

I don't know, but I do know this, that plenty of people get saved and then mature in the faith, and this seems to be like, well, wait a minute, they've got to start at a certain level of maturity, and if they're not up to that level of maturity, it's impossible for them to be saved.

Okay, so I think you're thinking rightly, Steve, and why I believe this section isn't as good as I used to think it is because of the next paragraph. A third defect in our message is our tendency to keep the terms of discipleship hidden until a decision has been made for Jesus.

Our Lord never did this. The message he preached included the cross as well as the crown. He never hid his scars to win disciples. He revealed the worst along with the best, then told his listeners to count the cost.

We popularize the message and promise fun. Now what I do believe, where the author here is correct, we don't want to popularize a message and promise fun and have it be the Joe Osteen best life now. Right.

Right. I mean, nobody here at No Compromise Radio, you know, the staff behind us and the film crew and all that, they wouldn't even... Steve just waved. He waved to an imaginary... At the studio audience.

I mean, listen, this place is packed out today.

Hey, by the way, you know, it's kind of like, remember TBN, and you could just show up and go watch Paul and Jan Crouch. Just, you know, why didn't we ever do that back in Los Angeles? I don't know.

That would have been epic. Yeah, that would have been fun. Well, I can tell you why, sort of, because if it was in Orange County, the traffic would have just been horrendous. That's right. But you raise a good point, though.

Why don't we ever pack this place out, you know, with a live studio audience? You know, we probably could.

How would we pick out of, you know, the googles and the gaggles of people, you know, wanting to come here?

How would we pick that? I'd suggest we have some kind of lottery.

Okay, that's good. And do you have to actually buy a ticket, or is this just, you know, we're comping people? Yeah, we're comping. That's cool. What do you think we could fit in here? Maybe a hundred?

Set up chairs and we'll see what... Oh, okay, how about this? Let's call the Shepherds Conference Big Wigs. I know some people there, so do you, and why don't we have a little booth? Why don't we pay for a booth, and we can kind of do radio, you know, out on the patio by the little coffee shop.

What's that coffee shop called? Caffeinatics? I don't know. Shake Shack. Coffee and steak? No, it's something with an S, I think. Shakers. There are not many shakers out there, by the way. Shekinah. Shekinah.

Well, yes, but see, I never knew that because I just look at it and interpret it with my New Englandese, you know, Shekinah.

I'm not sure how that works. You come out and you're just like all aglow from the caffeine. Maybe... Is it Glow Beans? Is that what it is? I mean, come on. I don't remember. There's something. Coffee.

Coffee Shack.

Coffee Mug. I don't know what it's called. MacArthur Blend. It's The, and it starts with an S. I know that. The... Survey. Staple Singers. The... Steam Foam Milk. Saskatoon Warriors. No. Okay. Anyway, what we're talking about on No Compromise Radio is evangelism.

And if you evangelize, we're happy for that. And if you just boil everything down to a low common denominator, we're not happy with that. But here, he's talking about discipleship. And, of course, we don't want to have cross without the crown and, you know, only giving the crown and only talking about theology of glory.

But this language, I think, just lends itself to how much of a disciple do you have to be in order to believe? That's really the question. And maybe this author doesn't mean that, but that's my question for you.

If you're evangelizing and you're turning people into... Oh, there it is. I knew it. Staple. Staple House. Now, why would it be called that?

I don't know. There's the church. There's the steeple. Look inside. There's all the cheaple. They're all having coffee inside Staple House.

You know, the best part about that place is I know some of the guys that work back there, and I only do this when it's proper. But when I'm there to teach a class at the Master's Seminary, the doctoral stuff, they always say, you know, I get a free lunch and free coffees.

And I just say, put it on Austin Duncan's tab. That's kind of nice.

Just wait until Austin Duncan finds out about that.

And then they've got the special Grace Grill. That's what it's called. Oh. And you can get food now. You know, we couldn't get that seminary, but now you can get food. And I think I got a salad and a bunch of other stuff.

And since I knew it was on Austin's tab, I got like 19 sodas to go. Nice.

And I just said, put it on Austin's tab. Yeah, but back in the day, it was like all about raiding the vending machines. That's all we had was vending machines.

I know. So when it comes to evangelism, I'd like you, listener, to be very careful that you don't set up things prior to faith. That is to say, if you tell people they've got to stop sinning before they can believe, if you tell them they have to have Bavinck's view of the Lordship of Christ in order to be saved, if you say they've got to understand the intricacies of the Trinity in order to be saved, any kind of language in order to be saved, that is something beyond faith, you've abandoned Sola Fide.

What about spelling Bavinck? Whenever I'm going to do a tweet and say Bavinck, I'm like, okay, Bavinck. How do I spell that? Uh-huh. See, that's why we say it's Jacob Arminius, because if we ever had to do the Herman Zun deal, who would ever be able to spell his real name?

I like the Latin stuff better. It's way easier. Now Calvinus, and Calvin, that's pretty easy. Yeah, that's not... But Jacobus Herman Zun or whatever his name was. That's too much. I know. Let's just go with Arminius.

So, Steve, talk a little bit about that. Why is it so crucial that we don't have antecedent requirements to saving to faith?

Because we're altering the gospel. You know, I mean, the gospel isn't some, you know, like we've just been talking about, it's not some six-step process or whatever. It is believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Now, do I need to explain who he is in order for somebody to believe? Yes. Do I need to tell them that he's God in the flesh? You know, yes. Do I need to say that he's truly God and truly human? Yes. I need to tell them these things.

But ultimately, I can't, you know, I'm not giving them a follow-up quiz to make sure that they, you know, comprehended everything that I said, but if they seem to give, if they seem to believe, then, you know, then we've done what we're supposed to do anyway, and then we trust the Holy Spirit will convict and sanctify.

If somebody said to me, I don't believe Jesus is Lord, well, then I can show, okay, God the Father, you know, you don't make Jesus Lord. God the Father did, and He recognized Him as that, and here's what lordship is, and here's Colossians 1 and how He creates things and upholds things, or Hebrews chapter 1.

I'm not saying we can't do that. I'm just saying that if we have some extra hoop to jump over in order to believe, then who measures how big that hoop is or how tall that hurdle is, because it's then only in the eye of the evangelist, because in real life, whatever these hoops are, they need to be perfect, because God only accepts perfection.

That's why we have to say believe in the perfect one, because if your cost of discipleship and your antecedent things are not perfect, you're not getting in.

The Object of Saving Faith and the Lordship of Christ

Now, let me back up just a little bit here, and let me ask you this. Let's say somebody's been attending the church, you know, you've been here for 22 years. Somebody's been here for 20 years, been listening to you, you know, preach and teach, and they walk up to you after a Sunday service, and they say, you know, Pastor Mike, I've just pretty much come to the place of my walk where I just don't believe that Jesus is Lord.

Now, would you say that's a different situation?

Yeah, that's totally different, because if what you're doing now is you're denying something that's critical to the object of your faith, and so if you've got a defective Jesus, a Jesus that isn't Lord, you've got the wrong Jesus, right?

And now we're going to evangelize the person, and I'll remind that person, here's what the Bible says about who Jesus is, and it's non-negotiable. You can't pick and choose. He's Lord, or He's Savior, or whatever.

And that's exactly an astute observation, Steve, because those things are not…we're not tampering with the gospel. How would I explain this? You know me well. How would I get out of this little deal? I'm just kidding.

No, I mean, that's just completely different. It's sola fide. But now if you're saying Jesus isn't Lord, and can I believe in a Jesus that isn't Lord, that has nothing to do with this lordship debate or the Tulian deal or anything else.

You've got the wrong Jesus. I need to inform you about the right view of the object of your faith so that you can.

Simply trust. Well, and I think maybe the point I want to raise is just that it varies a little bit. You know, if you're talking to an unbeliever or a new believer, and they're not really certain where they are with something, well, that's one thing.

If you're talking to somebody who's been a professing Christian for an extended period of time, and they've sat under good teaching, and then they say, well, wait a minute. I don't know if I go for this whole deity of Christ thing.

I don't know if I go for this whole Jesus is Lord thing. I don't know if I really believe that, you know, every sin is going to be punished. I mean, aren't there some sins that God's just kind of okay?

Well, it's different categories, and that's the only thing I want to raise here. No, that's totally right.

And there's another category. Here's a category where someone says, I'm really distraught. I've been a believer for 10 years, and there's some areas of my life that I can see that Jesus has lordship over, and I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus, and I'm just different now.

But there are some areas in my life where I continually struggle with the same sins. Maybe it's self-righteousness. Maybe it's greed. Maybe it's a lack of contentment. Maybe it's, you know, lust, and I'm having a hard time getting over those, and I'm different in other areas, but I'm not different here, and it doesn't seem like Jesus is exercising his lordship over my life in those areas.

How can I call myself a Christian?

Now, what would you say to that person? Well, I'd say stop listening to Steve Camp.

Oh, well, he blocked me on Twitter anyway, so what does it matter? Yeah, what does it matter?

What does it matter? Well, you know, I would say, well, I would not want to minimize... He's still groaning. I would not want to minimize anybody's struggle with sin, okay, because that is a serious issue, and I'm sure that people, I mean, these are the kind of things that can keep people awake at night.

What I would say is you're not alone. The apostle Paul, basically, I think, my opinion of Romans chapter 7 is what we're looking at is Paul describing the wrestling that he does, and it's, you know, probably to a lesser degree in my mind.

You know, I don't think Paul was maybe as sinful as I am or other people are, but the sin that remained. As a mature Christian. Yes, still just, you know, fretted him no end because he's just like, I just want to be delivered from all this, right?

I just want this over. I love Jesus, and I'm tired of denying him and, you know, not obeying him, and that's exactly the right attitude, right?

Romans 7, Indwelling Sin, and Progressive Sanctification

Yeah, and wouldn't we tell that person, Steve, did you think this way before you were a Christian? Did these sins bother you like that? No, you didn't like the consequences of your sinful behavior, but it wasn't like you're sinning against your Savior and your Lord and your Master and your Redeemer.

And, friend, let's go back to who Jesus is and what he's done and how he loves sinners, and I would explain to them the justus et peccator, you're simultaneously justified, and you're still sinful. And so this is the struggle of sin.

And I know you're saying, wretched man, that I am, but, friend, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Let me remind you of this person.

And, you know, maybe there are some, I mean, if we talk about the specifics, maybe there's some practical things that we can advise them to do that might be helpful. And, you know, it's good and right to seek to put an end to sin, but the reality is nobody's going to completely put off sin while we're here, because that's who we are.

You know, the basics, we've said this many times, you're not going to have a single day where you're going to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.

You're just not going to do it.

I know. Well, for me, Steve, if we get away from this spiritual discipline where you have sanctification that's progressive and it's just always going up, those kind of people that live underneath that system.

I mean, I believe in progressive sanctification, but we still struggle with things. I mean, when I got saved, swearing, I stopped racism. I completely became—I wasn't a racist. I repented of that. But I struggle with self-righteousness.

I struggle with lust. I have to train my eyes to look at, you know, the right things in life when it comes to the opposite sex. And I had to do that before I was, you know, when I was a new Christian, too.

Does that mean I'm not saved?

It's so funny when you say, you know, the eyes, because I'll find myself, like, even thinking, because I'll go, you know, don't look or look away or do whatever, and I'll go—then I can even hear a voice in my head going, you hypocrite, you know, you actually told yourself not—and I'm like, yeah, I did, because I don't want to, you know—so I mean, this whole debate is raging in my head, and I'm like, boy, these are stupid debates.

And by the way, there were none of those debates before I became a Christian. No, none of them. I mean, maybe you didn't want to look at a girl in front of your current girlfriend because she might whack you, but you were only afraid of getting whacked.

But I do that, you know, obviously, I do that now when I'm alone, you know, and I'm like, I just don't need that in my head, you know, and I don't—so. Amen.

The Believer's Ongoing Struggle with Sin

Well, we are thankful that for the sinners out there, you have a Savior, and His name is the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He said in John chapter 3 applies, that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're saved, to use Pastor Cooley's clothes in Elko.

Amen.

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 bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.