That's the message we have to announce to the world, that every man has a hope of glory. to be clear, or simply that the person would be turned off by the conversation. That's a common scenario. We've all been there.
But that doesn't have to be the case. God has given you amazing power so that you can overcome fear and be a bold witness for his Son. John MacArthur looks at that power today as he continues to show you that if you're a Christian, you literally are complete in Christ. That's the title of John's current series.
And now with a lesson, here's John. In the Old Testament, the Jews knew Messiah was coming. They were told that. What they never really fully knew was that the Messiah would not only come, but that he would live in the very bodies of his people. What they didn't know was that your body and my body would become the temple of the living God. They didn't know that.
That was a mystery. And that's the message we have to announce to the world, that every man has a hope of glory. Glory manifest now and a hope of future glory with God by virtue of Christ in us. Paul prayed in Ephesians 3 19 that we would be filled with all the fullness of God, that all of that available resource and power would be used. That's our message. That's the subject of the ministry, that the hope for man's honor now and the guarantee for man's honor or glory in the future is the indwelling Christ.
He is power now and he is the guarantier of future security with him. In Ephesians 3 17, it says Christ dwells in our hearts, the living God. I mean, I can't even fathom that principle.
The longer I think about it, the more unbelievable it becomes. Back in John chapter 6, and our Lord was talking in 56, I think, he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, now listen, dwells in me and I in him. Jesus said, if you will partake, and he was talking about spiritual partaking, if you will partake in my death, if you will accept my death on the cross for you and believe in my atoning blood, if you will accept the sacrifice for sin that I make on the cross, then I will come and live in you. What a phenomenal reality. That's our message, people.
That's what the world needs to hear. In John 14 17, even the spirit of truth whom the world can't receive because it sees him, not neither knows him, but you know him for he dwells with you and shall be in you. The Holy Spirit is going to come and be in you. In John, same chapter, the 23rd verse, John 14 23, he says, if a man loves me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him. If you will accept my cross in John 6, if you will love me and obey me in that act, then I will come and live in you and dwell in you.
Fantastic reality. In Romans chapter 8, it tells us, you are not in the flesh, verse 9, Romans 8 9, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If you're a Christian, he says, the Spirit of God is in you, the Spirit of Christ is in you, and Christ is in you.
Three different ways he says it. God lives in us. What an incomprehensible reality. One other thought, 2 Corinthians 6 16, I can't resist this, I love it. He says, you are the temple, 2 Corinthians 6 16, you are the temple of the living God. Now listen, you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Emphasis on the personal pronouns. I will dwell in them, I will walk in them, and so does Paul say, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives, where? In me.
Just staggering. That's the subject of the ministry, and that is the hope of glory. And what do you mean by the phrase, the hope of glory, Paul? I mean that all the glory that could ever be will only be yours when Christ is what?
In you. The only hope a man ever has for glory, now, future, anytime, under any condition, is when Christ dwells in him. God wants to live in you. That's the message. So we see the source of the ministry, the spirit of the ministry, the suffering of the ministry, the scope of the ministry, subject of the ministry. Verse 28, let's look, the style of the ministry. And this is simple, the style of the ministry. Verse 28, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom.
Stop there. The style of the ministry, what is it, Paul? What's the style? I mean, how do we do it? What's the mode?
What's the method? Here it is, he says, preach. Katangelo literally means to proclaim. It is the language of mission. It refers to declaring a completed truth, a completed happening. And it is a general term for Paul's proclaiming mission. What is the style of our ministry? You say it's just to sneak around and don't say anything and just live the life.
No, no. It's to open your mouth. It's to proclaim.
You've got to live the life too, I'm not denying, but you've got to open your mouth once in a while. Talk a lot about example, and example is important, but nobody's going to follow you into the kingdom unless sooner or later you open your mouth. So the style of the ministry, Paul says, we proclaim. It isn't formal preaching necessarily in this term. It is simply speaking the truth.
And it has two components. It has a negative warning. It has a positive teaching.
It has an end in mind. Wisdom be imparted. How do you impart wisdom?
How do you proclaim wisdom? By negative warning, by positive teaching. Warning and teaching. What does it mean to warn? Admonish, Nuthaitao in the Greek, you know the word, we've discussed it many times. What is warning?
Let me give you a biblical definition of the Greek word here. It means encouraging counsel in view of sin and coming punishment. It's just what you do with your kids. Keep that up, kid, and you're in real trouble. That's warning.
It's Nuthaitao. It is encouraging counsel with a view, I should say, in view of sin and impending punishment. Admonishing. We've discussed it from the standpoint of 2 Thessalonians 3, 14, and 15.
It's to be done gently, but it's to be done firmly. We see it used in many, many New Testament passages. Every Christian has the responsibility. I'm telling you, every Christian has the responsibility to admonish. In Colossians 3, 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all of you, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. That's just a responsibility all of us have to warn each other if there is sin.
In Romans chapter 15, verse 14, I myself am also persuaded of you all, brethren, that you are also full of goodness, filled with knowledge, able to admonish one another. We are to warn each other. If there's a sin in the life of a believer, we're to warn them lovingly, gently. We have that responsibility. Every pastor has that responsibility.
That's my responsibility. He says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 12, we beseech you, brethren, to know them who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. We have to warn you. We have to warn you about your sin, about false doctrine, about the consequences of disobedience, about the consequences of spiritual laziness, about missing the will of God.
We have to warn you as we would warn our children if we loved them. And the second aspect on the positive side is teaching, imparting positive doctrine. Now, we do both of these. We impart positive doctrine and we warn. We're to teach the Word of God. And notice what you're to teach, all wisdom.
Don't leave anything out. Wisdom means spiritual principles. On the basis of spiritual principles, we warn men and we teach them. So what is the proclaiming that we do?
It involves warning and teaching. Whether it's to an unbeliever, what do you say to an unbeliever? You know, if you keep living the way you live and you keep rejecting God and Christ, I want to warn you, my brother, of what's going to happen.
And that's warning. And then you need to say to that same unbeliever, let me teach you what you need to do. The same two things apply in the church. If you see a Christian sinning, you warn and then you instruct. So those two things are part and parcel of the style of the ministry, which is to talk, to speak, to proclaim, to announce, to declare a mission.
And that mission has two parts, and that is to warn and to teach. And this was style with Paul. He always did this. And he usually connected the two. He would usually teach solid doctrine and then on the basis of solid doctrine, he'd warn them. He'd say, now that I've told you this truth, here's the way you better act. So for the man of God, his life style is dictated. You know what we all are people? You're ready for this? We are all proclaimers.
That's right. Some of us stand up here and proclaim this way and talk to big crowds of people. Some of us go out there where we are and small little groups of friends, family, and we proclaim where we are, but we all proclaim. We all are mouths for the Lord to warn and to teach.
Very vital. Taking it to my own heart, I know what God's called me to do. He hasn't called me to stand here and tell you my opinion.
He hasn't called me to tell you who to vote for, what you ought to do to protest the current economic situation, et cetera, et cetera. You know what he's called me to do? To proclaim.
That's the style. To proclaim what? To proclaim the mystery of Christ in you and all that that means, all that that means for your life. And in doing that, to warn you and to teach you.
Now what's so beautiful about this? He says, whom we preach. Now listen, warning whom? Who does it say? Warning every man, teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present what? Every man.
Who are we supposed to teach then? Only the elect. No.
It's really pretty obvious, isn't it? Everybody. Everybody. Everybody.
Every man. Listen, let's get to be proclaimers. If everybody just went out and said, this is be a proclaimer week, I will open my mouth.
Not just leaving little tracts on the table and scurrying away. I will speak for the Lord. Just let's make it. I will proclaim with my mouth week.
This week. And I will warn about negative behavior and I will teach positive truth. Now this, I could go on from here and talk about a lot of things. That's what the preacher always says when he's out of material, right? Because in my heart, I would like to apply this to the pastor.
But I'm going to set that aside and just leave it with the application to you. But oh, does it have application to the man in the pulpit to teach everybody the Word of God and all of it in all wisdom? We need to get all the Word of God.
That's why we should have an answer for every man who asks us, whatever the question might be. Well, let's go to the seventh point, the sum of the ministry. The sum of the ministry. When it's all said and done, what does it add up to?
What is the goal, the objective, the sum of it all? Verse 28, the end of the verse. Well, let's read the whole verse. Whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man, here it is.
What's the next word? Perfect or mature in Christ. What's the goal of the ministry? The maturity of the saints, isn't it? Ephesians chapter 4, he gave to the church some apostles and prophets and evangelists and teaching shepherds for the perfecting of the saints, Ephesians 4, 12. To bring people to maturity, we want to build people up.
We want to bring them to maturity. This is what the Holy Spirit is trying to do. Galatians 3, 3, having begun in the Spirit, are you made perfect by the flesh?
Listen, let the Spirit do His work and He'll make you perfect. That indicates that that's His ministry. The end of the book of Hebrews in 1321, He says, the Lord Jesus make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight. That is the objective of the ministry, not just to bring people to Christ, but to bring them in Christ to maturity so that they also can reproduce, so that they also can proclaim in all wisdom, so they also know something they can tell somebody else.
Very, very, very important. In Philippians chapter 3, and I'll just give you a couple of verses deleting some here, chapter 3 verse 12, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after. He says, I haven't arrived, Paul does, but I'm sure going that direction. What is perfection? Let me give you a simple definition. What is maturity in the Christian life?
What is the point of perfection to be like what? Christ. Anybody there?
No. Anybody going there? I'm in progress. I'm on the road and the closer I get, the further away it seems. You say, John, how do you get there?
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, 2 Timothy 3.17, and is profitable for doctrine, instruction, correction, reproof that the man of God may be, what? Perfect. How do you get there? You get there because you take this book and you make it a part of your life.
This is it. This is your food. The child matures because it eats. The Christian matures because he feeds on the Word of God. That's the goal. The goal is to bring people to maturity.
Now, think about it. Here is Christianity making an absolutely cross-cultural, cross-time statement that is staggering. And the statement is this, that in Jesus Christ, there is the capacity for perfection for every man in every age in every society.
Incredible. Walter Lippmann said this, as yet, no teacher has ever appeared who was wise enough to know how to teach his wisdom to all mankind. In fact, the great teachers have attempted nothing so utopian.
They were quite well aware how difficult for most men is wisdom, and they have confessedly stated that the perfect life was only for the select few. End quote. Bologna. End quote.
Bologna. Paul says, we will preach and warn every man and teach every man in all wisdom that we may present what? Every man.
Perfect in Christ. Listen, the Lord Jesus Christ can perfect every man. Not every man can master every art. Not every man can master every craft. There are those who are blind. There are those who are deaf. There are those who cannot speak. There are those who are retarded. There are those who are unlearned. There are those who are unskilled. There are those who are weak. And some of all of those make up the body of Jesus Christ. There is one reality for every man. Jesus Christ.
And he, someday, will make them all like himself. Credible. Lastly, we've seen the source, the spirit, the suffering, the scope, the subject, the style, and the sum of the ministry. And you say, John, you mean to tell me I got to do all that? That's my ministry?
Yeah. You say, how? Number eight, the strength of the ministry. How are you going to do it?
Do you think you can pull it off? The strength of the ministry. The strength of the ministry. You say, John, how am I going to do it? Verse 29. First, for this I also labor.
Point one. If you're going to do it, you're going to have to what? Work hard.
You say, yeah, it kind of looks like it. The word labor means to toil to the point of exhaustion. Sometimes people will say to me, John, you're working too hard. You're working too hard.
You're going to run into problems. And my thought in the back of my mind is always the same. Oh, no, I'm probably not working hard enough. You see, Paul says, for this I also toil to the point of exhaustion. I know a little about that.
Probably not like Paul. But I know what it is to be weary and well-doing. I know what it is to be dead, flat, tired. And I know what it is to work. I also know what it is to not work. I'll tell you one thing. I would rather, like David Brainerd, I would rather burn my life out and be dead having spent myself for the Lord than try to pace myself and be unable to accomplish what God wanted me to accomplish.
He's in control of my life. And the ministry is work. I remember, never forget the lady who said to me in a golf course one time, you're a smart young man. You ought to go into ministry. I said, really? She said, yeah, you don't have to do a thing and you make a lot of money. I said to her, it's interesting you should say that I am in a ministry. Let me tell you a few things.
Wow. Paul said, I work hard. I got scars all over my body. I've been stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, slept in the craziest places, been in prison, been in stocks. I've fought against fornication among the Thessalonians. I've fought contention and more fornication and fanaticism and litigation among the Corinthians. I've fought vice and heresy among the Colossians.
I fight legalism among the Galatians and I beat my body all the time to bring in the subjection. I work my fingers to the bone to earn my own living and the living and everybody who travels with me. This isn't easy.
And I'll tell you something, folks. If you think that you can accomplish any ministry for God without working at it, you're wrong. It takes work. It takes toil. It takes just plain effort.
And you push if you're going to do anything. Paul pushed his body, taught hours and hours and hours during the day, every day for three years in the school of Tyrannus from one to five. And then they went back to work in the evening when it was cool. And after that, he went from house to house in the middle of the night. And then the rest of the night, he stayed up crying about him, he says in Acts 20.
He did it for three years. The word striving there, striving, he says, high labor, striving is the word. The English transliteration is agonizo, agonize.
It's an athletic word. You can be a lazy Christian. You can be a lazy pastor. You can be a lazy missionary. You can be a lazy Sunday school teacher. You can be a lazy helper in the church.
You can be a lazy anything. But I'll tell you one thing, you'll never fulfill the Word of God in your life and you'll never maximize your ministry. It takes a maximum effort for the years of your life to fulfill the Word of God in your life. So he says, high labor.
Say, I'll tell you something. It sounds a little bit self-generated. It sounds a little humanistic to me. Well, he didn't get to the rest of the verse. Striving according to what? His working, which what? Works in me mightily.
I'm not alone in this. Sure, I have to work hard. Sure, I do. But you know what? The only way I can work hard is in his energy, is in his power. And I find that, as Paul said, remember he said, every morning I am renewed with fresh strength.
Remember he said that? I know it day by day, Christ's power by his Spirit is at work in my life and he gives me an almost supernatural energy. There are times when I don't feel that I can do it, and yet I do it. And when it's done, I know that the resource came from outside of myself, because God gave me the power.
I work hard from the human viewpoint, but it would all be absolute ashes. It would all be burnt out nothing if it wasn't the energy of God energizing me. So that when anything is accomplished, it isn't because I worked hard, it's because he did it. He energized. He gave the power. He gave the resource. Now you can sum it all up in your own mind.
There it is. He states his credentials as a minister and calls the Colossians to hear and believe and obey what he said. And then he says, believe and obey what he says. And he gives us a tremendous look at the ministry, and all I can say to you is you've heard it, and I trust you'll apply it. Father, thank you for our time. We pray, Lord, that we might be as faithful as those who set the pattern for us as the Apostle Paul and others to fulfill all of the features of the ministry that you might be pleased, that you might be glorified. Give us a continuing sense of our own unworthiness and uselessness so that we always have joy in anything that you do through us. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. John is pastor of Grace Community Church, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and he has been our featured speaker for over 53 years now.
He's titled our current series, Complete in Christ. John, I'm sure we have listeners who go to church, they pray, they read their Bibles, and they really try to fight the temptation to sin, and yet they're not experiencing the joy or the power that you're talking about that comes from being complete in Christ. So what would you say are some of the most common reasons that people struggle and lose hold of their joy? Do you have any practical encouragement for people like that?
Yeah, I think the simple thing is to go back to this statement, your word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you. Look, your conduct and your behavior is a product of your thinking. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So whatever's dominating your thoughts shows up in your life. So it's about what dominates your thinking.
And of course, that's the battle today, right? Because our thinking is blasted incessantly in ways that in past generations people would never have comprehended. They would never have comprehended 35 years ago that you could have a device in your hand that would blast you non-stop every waking hour with things that you really didn't ask for and steal your concentration and your Christ focus. So the battle is more challenging these days, which I think is why God has raised up so many ministries like Grace To You in media format so that believers can counter the onslaught by being able to access things that are going to build them up in Christ. So I want you to be encouraged that the battle is the Lord's, that He is sanctifying you.
It may seem slow at times, but the speed of that sanctification is directly proportional to the time that you think God's thoughts and have your affections on things above and not on things on the earth. And that comes from spending time in the Word, deeply in the Word, listening, reading, understanding divine truth. We are so thrilled to be doing this series on Complete in Christ because he gets to the heart of, really, the Christian life.
And I want to remind you one more time about the new study guide on this series. 250-page, in-depth study titled Complete in Christ. Perfect for devotional use or Bible study use. Any group of people will find this a tremendous tool in a sort of a group opportunity for studying the Word of God. Simply order a copy of the Complete in Christ study guide or order a dozen for your Bible study.
Whatever you want, we have them available. Contact us today. Yes, this is an ideal resource for digging into the person and work of Christ.
There's no subject more amazing or more life-changing than that. To order the Complete in Christ study guide, contact us today. Call our toll-free number, 855-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. The Complete in Christ study guide includes a question and answer section at the end of each chapter that's great for prompting discussion in your home Bible study. Again, to pick up a copy of Complete in Christ, the study guide, call 855-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And when you get in touch, make sure you let us know how John's teaching, whether it's a lesson from Complete in Christ or some other series, how it's strengthening you spiritually. Perhaps you've found help to think biblically about your trials or someone you know heard the gospel on one of these broadcasts and came to saving faith. We love those kinds of stories, so email yours to letters at gty.org, or send your letter to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. And our email address one more time, letters at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to join us tomorrow. When John looks at how the Apostle Paul cultivated love for the church and how you can do the same, it's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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