Is your life characterized by obedience? So that there's a progressing maturity, there's a mounting degree of sanctification as you hear the Word and instantly and properly apply it, and you see growth?
So that when you reach the end of your earthly years, you will be reaching the climax of your spiritual life. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In today's smartphone culture, is it any surprise that churches are being reviewed on Yelp? That's right, you can rate churches from one to five stars based on criteria like music, preaching style, and sermon length. You can even read comments about a church's customer service, whatever that may mean. So how many stars would you give your church? More important, on what would you base your review?
How much should you care about how long the service is, or what the music is like, or what programs are available for kids? Consider that today as John MacArthur looks at the kind of things your church should be known for. It's part of his current series, The Anatomy of a Church.
And now with a lesson, here's John. Attitudes. And that is what I see as the internal systems of the church. First of all, and foremost, is obedience. An attitude of obedience. Now this is the overarching attitude of all attitudes.
This says, if God says something, I do it. Let me give you a second attitude. Humility. Humility.
That's another thing that we desire greatly to generate in the hearts of people. And this has always been a concern with me. Pride is a problem for me.
It's a problem for you, I know. Pride was a major problem for me. I think it still is.
But it used to be maybe more manifest than now. And I always thought, once I understood the things of God, that God should make me humble. It's very elusive though, because just when I say to myself, you're finally humble, it's gone.
So it's very difficult to nail it down. Very elusive. When you became a Christian, you weren't under any illusion, I hope, that the Lord was really in need of you.
Were you? I hear that. You know, if the Lord could just save this guy, he's got money, he's got talent. I mean, he's a great leader.
Wow! If the Lord could just get him, that's ridiculous. The Lord can get anybody he wants. But that isn't the issue. You see, basically, you've got nothing to offer. I don't care who you are. Neither do I.
Like the man in the 18th chapter who, when confronted with his $10,000 debt, couldn't pay because it says he had nothing with which to pay. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing to offer. Or like Matthew chapter 5, when we come to enter the kingdom, it says we come begging in spirit. We come as beggars, so destitute we can't even work to earn a living. We have to beg. We have nothing. We have not only nothing in our hand, we don't have any talent to earn it. So we only can beg. And that's the way we came in.
Bankrupt. And you want to know something? If we have anything now, it isn't ours, it's what God what? Gave us. The only thing I have to offer back to God is what He gave me, sanctified by His salvation and His spirit. And that's not to my credit, but to His glory. So what would cause me to be proud? We have endeavored to withstand the self-esteem cults, the selfishness of our own contemporary society, to point out the fact that God has called us to meekness and selflessness and sacrificing humility, and that's been a major emphasis.
And we've come at it from all different angles. We remember, don't we, Matthew chapter 10, where the Lord says let a man deny himself, take up his cross, forsake life and gain life. And where it says the same thing in chapter 16, 24 and 25, take up your cross, deny yourself, follow me, pay the price of self-effacement, self-humility, self-denigration, setting self below others. And we've gone in detail many times into Philippians chapter 2, which says let each man look on the things of others, not on his own things, esteeming others better than himself, always getting under and saying you're better than I am, I seek what honors you, I seek what lifts you up, I seek what meets your need. This is so important in the church. If you have in a church a fight for people to get into the places of authority, you're going to have the same chaos you had among the disciples, all of whom were seeking to be the greatest. And that's a despicable thing.
That we're all seeking as it were to be the least. And at the same time it doesn't mean that we undervalue ourselves because in Christ we are eternally priceless. But it isn't because of us, it's because of Him. Humility simply says this, you're more important than I am. That's all it says. It doesn't go around saying I'm a worm, I'm a rat, I'm a bum, I'm nothing, I'm garbage. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say I'm no good to anything.
You are. You're a value to God because you're redeemed and sanctified and given certain potential to serve Him. But what humility says is you are more important than I am to me. That's why it says that you're to love your neighbor as what? As yourself. You are to give to your neighbor the same devotion and commitment that you give yourself in meeting needs.
You remember our study of 1 Corinthians how Paul severely reprimands the Corinthian church for the proud, boastful, self-centered, egoistic way in which they manifested their ecstatic experiences and sort of put on spiritual ribbons as if they were the more spiritual because they had the more profound ecstasies. Humility is that which God pursues in His church and that is an attitude that we must have. It means that I'm not going to get upset if something goes your way and not mine because you're more important to me than I am.
That's right. It means that I want to make sure that I set aside some of my priorities to make sure your needs are met. It means I say no to my own freedoms to say yes to yours. It means that I'm not going to violate your conscience. If meat makes you offend, I'm not going to eat any meat. If drink makes you offend, I'm not going to drink anything that offends you for the simple reason that the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness, joy, peace and the Holy Spirit as Romans 14 says. I'm not going to violate your conscience. I'm not going to make you stumble. I'm going to set my liberty aside.
I'm not going to offend you. I'm going to make sure that if you have a need, I meet that need. I see myself as one who must care for you, must love you. And if you drift from the flock, as Matthew 18 points out, I must go and pursue you and bring you back. That's humility. And it's something like what it says in 2 Corinthians 10, 1, the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
That's to be mirrored in us. And so it's always been my desire in the church that we would not only be in an overall sense an obedient people but that there be this flowing through attitude of humility and meekness and lowliness and self-effacement rather than self-seeking. So many problems come when people seek their own will, seek their own primacy, if you will, or seek to be lifted up. There are people who have to constantly be stroked, constantly be told how wonderful, how great they are, instead of giving their lives to encourage others, humility.
Well, you could say a lot more about that. That's always what I say when I've just run out of notes, right? Third, third attitude is love. Can't talk about humility without talking about love because only humble people love. Nobody loves but humble people. I'm not talking about the world's kind of love.
It's counterfeit. It's object-oriented. They see a nice object. They feel an emotional attachment. That's why marriages don't last because that kind of love is only an emotion and when the emotion is gone or attaches to somebody else, the relationship is gone. But I'm not talking about the world's kind of object-oriented love. I'm not talking about self-feeding love. To the world, love is great because of what I feel when I'm in love, right?
Not because what I can give. It's what I get. It's the thrill. And when the thrill goes, hang the relationship.
So that's the world's idea. But love, in a biblical sense, is completely different than that. It isn't an emotion at all. Love is simply an act of sacrificial service. Love is an act. Love is not an attitude. It is an act. Love always does something.
Read 1 Corinthians. They're all verbs. Love is kind. Love is patient.
All those are verb forms. Love is an act of service on your behalf that flows out of a heart of humility. And the heart of humility says, I care more about you than me, so love is the response. And that's why I say only humble people love.
Proud people can't love because all proud people want to do is feed themselves. The only love they know is a physical love. The only love they know is an emotional attachment to certain people. And if you're not one of those certain people, you're not gonna feel anything from them.
You may not even receive anything from them. They have that kind of love that really draws them to certain like-minded people that they really enjoy being with, but makes them indifferent to the needs of almost everybody else. You understand the difference? Love simply says, if you have a need, I meet that need. You see, when Jesus explained that you're to love your neighbor as yourself, and the question came to him, well, who's my neighbor?
I mean, how do I know who you're talking about? And then he told the story about the good Samaritan. What he was saying was, you're walking down the road, there's a guy laying there, beaten up, he has a need, you meet his need. That's all. Who's your neighbor? Anybody in your path with a need.
That's all. Who are you supposed to love? Anybody in your path with a need. How do you love him? Meet his need. You may never feel emotional.
You may never be attracted to the person. And we've tried to emphasize that all through the years, that we're called to a love that flows out of humility, and humility says, you're more important than I am. The classic illustration, and I can remember when I preached on John 13, and Jesus was there, and they were all arguing about who was going to be the greatest, and it was time to eat, and they already started eating, and it was a supper, and in those days you reclined at supper, which meant your head was about eight inches from somebody else's feet. And it was common courtesy to wash feet before such an occasion.
Can't think of anything worse than not having that have happened. But no one there was hired to do it. There was no servant, and none of the disciples would do it, because they were arguing about who was the greatest, and none wanted to do that, stooped down and be a servant. So the Lord took off his outer garment, put a towel around his waist, washed their feet, and gave them an unforgettable, profound lesson. Then he said to them, you're to love one another as I have loved you. How would he just love them? By feeling emotional? No, the only emotion he felt was probably disgust.
They were sickening, so proud and selfish. It wasn't emotion. It was just that that was needed, and what he's saying is when you see somebody as a need, you meet it. Somebody in your path with a need, and you do that instantaneously, spontaneously, and involuntarily, almost like a reflex, because you have a humble heart, because you have a humble heart. A humble heart will always manifest itself, and it doesn't manifest itself by someone walking around in ragged clothes saying, I'm a worm, I'm a worm, I'm a worm.
Very often that's a false form of pride. That's the beguiling you of Colossians 2.18 with false humility. No, humility, humility doesn't go around articulating its humility. Humility can always be seen because humility acts in service to those in need. Humility considers others better than itself, and it turns into love immediately. And love is an action. Keep it in mind. 1 John says, you say the love of God dwells in you.
I'll ask you a simple question. You see your brother have a need. If you close up your compassion toward that need, how dwells the love of God in you? Because the love of God moves out to meet need. It is not an emotion. It is service to one in need, and if you say you belong to God, 1 John 2, 9 to 11 says, and you don't love your brother, you're a liar, because God produces in a Christian true love. So that's an attitude, love, love, love.
And it isn't the attitude of emotion toward people who are attractive. It's the attitude of serving people with need. I got a letter this week that illustrates that I thought it was really great. Dear Pastor John, this letter is a long time in coming, but finally I'm taking the time to write. At last May, my husband and I had the opportunity to fellowship at Grace Community Church, and I want to tell you from a visitor's point of view about your church and congregation. We come from a very large church, too.
And our motto is, the church where love is. Never in my life, though, have I felt as welcome as I did at Grace Community. The people were terrific. They treated us like royalty.
Everywhere we went, people surrounded us to welcome us. I met one gentleman, and he gave me an early morning tour of Grace Community Church. Then, during the break between first and second service, I met another man. We talked for quite some time. He asked me if I'd like a tape of the morning service.
I said, of course. A few weeks later, not just one tape arrived, but the whole series on Jesus teaching on divorce. Many of my friends have listened to this six tape series and have had many questions answered that they had asked for years. I just thought you'd like to know how wonderful your congregation is.
God bless you and yours. Isn't that great? I happen to know those two folks. The first person that gave him a tour really didn't have time to do that because he has tremendous responsibility.
The second person that sent him the tapes didn't have the money to do that either. He did it anyway. But see, that's how love acts, because love flows from a humble heart. And love seeks not its own, but the comfort, satisfaction, and joy of others. And it's always been a part of this church. I pray, God, it always will be. That we have flowing through us an attitude of love, selfless love that flows out of a humble heart.
Let me give you one final point. Unity. Unity. Something else that has always been of great concern to me is unity. Jesus prayed in John 17, O Father, that they may be one as you and I are one, that the world may know that you sent me. Jesus answers my prayers.
I'd like to answer his, wouldn't you? He prayed for unity. In the truest sense, the application of that text is to the unity of the believers that exist in the common eternal life that comes to us in redemption. But the extrapolation from that is that he desires not only a redemptive unity, but a unity in terms of life and purpose in the church. And Christ really desires the unity of his people. That's why in Ephesians 4 and verse 3, the Apostle Paul calls to the Ephesians and says, Do this, endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Right? He doesn't say generate the unity. You already have it.
Just keep it. Do all you can to maintain unity. And I think that's such an important part of church life and that's why Satan so constantly attacks it. Have you ever noticed how many churches split? How many people leave churches because they're unhappy?
How much divisiveness there can be? I was up at Mount Hermon this weekend. A lady came to me the first two or three days and said, Please, I have to talk to you. Please, I have to talk to you.
And finally we sat down and we spent about 40 minutes. And she unbeared her heart to me. She said, Oh, I'm in the midst of a church split.
The whole church is splitting right down the middle. And I said, Why? Why?
And she looked at me kind of blank. I don't know. We can't really figure it out. We don't really know why. Somehow it doesn't even matter why. There's so much division and so many personalities pitted against others that none of us really know the reason anymore.
Isn't that incredible? Just splitting. She said, What should I do? I said, Be a peacemaker. Do anything you can.
Do anything you can to keep it together for the sake of the testimony of Jesus Christ. Well, some people are saying it's God's will. Well, it isn't God's will. Do you all believe the same? Yeah, we all believe the same.
It's just personality conflict. That's so tragic. So tragic. I remember Patricia and I one time were at a Bible conference with the daughter of Dr. Criswell at Dallas First Baptist who is a very accomplished soprano soloist. And we were talking about church life and she was saying that she calls him daddy. It's hard for me to imagine that term for Dr. Criswell, a man of such dignity, but he is her daddy. And she said, Daddy went through a terrible thing where a man came in and was on the staff of the church and tried to gather a faction and split the church, a great church like that.
She said he was so overwrought in his heart. He could see it coming. So after one Sunday when he was particularly exercised about that, he called up some construction company unilaterally acting without consulting the board or anybody. He said, I want before next Sunday kneeling benches installed in every pew in this church.
And so in came the crews. And by the next Sunday when everybody came, they had flipped down kneeling benches. They're still there to this day in the First Baptist Church of Dallas. And he got up and he said, in the 45 years pastored of George W. Truitt who preceded me and in the 35 or whatever years that I've been here, there has never been a split in this church.
And by the grace of God there never will be. And he called those people to pull down those kneeling benches and took that entire church of thousands of people to their knees in prayer. And God brought a healing in that congregation. Now that brings God glory, doesn't it?
That honors his name. And I believe that the enemy is ever incessantly trying to divide the church. And I thank him and praise him that in the 25 plus years ministry of this church there's never been a church split. Oh, you have picky little things and some folks would get upset and they want to leave because the color of the curtains isn't right or because something didn't go the way they ought to have it go, they thought.
And very often they might be right, but humility and love doesn't act that way anyway. And so we have endeavored to somehow cultivate in the heart of God's people and in my own heart as well unity. Satan wants to shred things.
It just never stops. He either wants to get into the staff, someone who's unhappy and cause a faction there and I bless the name of God for the sweetest unity we've ever had in the history of this church on our staff. And we keep an eye out because we know the enemy always wants to sow discord, always.
And every once in a while somebody comes along, you know, and they want to make a little discord about this or that. We just ask God, give us a congregation full of peacemakers who want to make sure they maintain unity, not sow discord. And even if they're right, just because you're right, you don't always have to get the platform, do you? Sometimes you could say, God, you and I know I'm right, but let's set that aside and seek unity. And nobody's perfect.
There's going to be cause for disagreement. But bless God, when we get on our knees together we can seek to maintain the unity, the spirit, and the bond of peace. This is the desire of the New Testament writers, Corinthians 1, 10. 1 Corinthians says, I beseech you, brethren.
And Paul is really pouring out his heart to the Corinthians by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not for me, not for my sake, not for the sake of my reputation or anything else, but for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, speak the same thing. Let there be no division among you. Be perfectly knit together in the same mind and the same judgment. He says in the next verse, I hear there are contentions among you and I can't stand it, he says. I can't stand it. Is Christ divided, he says?
It can't be. Christ is not divided. Philippians 1, he says you ought to be striving together for the gospel, unity, attitudes. Do you see them in your life? Is your life characterized by obedience so that there's a progressing maturity, there's a mounting degree of sanctification as you hear the Word and instantly and properly apply it, and you see growth so that when you reach the end of your earthly years, you will be reaching the climax of your spiritual life in terms of dedication. And what about humility?
Have you abandoned yourself for the sake of others so that out of that humble heart comes loving action and do you at all costs and at all self-sacrifice seek by making peace to maintain the unity of the Spirit? This is what we're after. This is what we're after. And I believe this is God's will for us. Let's bow in prayer. Father, I ask that you would start with me, rekindle in my heart the dedication to obedience. Help me to, by the grace of the Spirit of God, experience the humility that looks on others, not on myself, and sees others better than myself. Help me to make sacrifices in meeting needs for any in my path whose need I am able to meet and seek nothing in return. And at all costs, Lord, with my action and my tongue, may I be a source of unity and not discord. For if there's not humility and there's not love and there's not a pursuit of unity, then there's not really obedience either.
And I would be guilty, as all of us would, of hearing the truth and not applying it and becoming hardened and stagnant, cold. I'd like all of us to sort of covenant together in our hearts before God. You pray silently for God to give you a heart of obedience.
No matter what the price. For God to break your pride and humble you, give you love that reaches out to those in need, and make you a peacemaker who seeks at all costs the unity of the body. If you found it difficult to pray for those things, it only says how hardened your heart has become.
If you were unwilling, all the harder. You have heard and not obeyed, and now you have developed habits of disobedience so hard to break. And perhaps you must pursue in intercessory prayer a breaking of spirit, the launching of a new habit of obedience.
That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson here on Grace to You is from John's study titled The Anatomy of a Church. John, going back to what you said today about unity in the church, certainly there are plenty of opinions on how leaders and other members can cultivate harmony in a local church. But what would you say is the best approach, the most effective strategy for cultivating true unity among believers? Well, I think true unity occurs when everybody essentially is tuned to the truth. You know, it's like that old illustration of the 400 pianos. A guy had 400 pianos in some piano school, and he was trying to tune the 400 pianos to each other, and it was impossible.
He pulled out a tuning fork, tuned all 400 to the tuning fork, and they were automatically tuned to each other. I mean, it's just an illustration of the fact that when everybody's on the same page in terms of the truth, it's a stunningly organizing, unifying reality. Everybody rallying around the same doctrine creates unity. I've been at Grace Community Church, and the doctrine that we've been teaching is now what everybody believes and affirms and owns and loves and embraces. And as a result of that, the unity is amazing because we all rally around the same truth.
To try to create sort of an artificial affection, an artificial kind of emotional unity without a core of sound doctrine that anchors your life and establishes your convictions is very, very elusive, very, very hard to do, and at the end is superficial. So true unity comes out of sound doctrine. That's why in all the letters that the apostle Paul wrote, he starts out by talking about doctrine, and then he moves to the practical things like unity. This and a whole lot more on the church and the life of the church is contained in a book called The Master's Plan for the Church.
That book has been translated into all kinds of languages, circulated around the world. The Master's Plan for the Church goes great with the current series, not only for pastors and elders, but for any believer who wants to understand what the church is supposed to be. It's a softcover book available today from Grace to You. You need to go through this book, The Master's Plan for the Church. Order a copy today. Thanks, John. Friend, this book clearly shows what God's Word says your church should look like.
And as John said, it's also a great complement to his current series. To order The Master's Plan for the Church, get in touch with us today. You can purchase your copy by calling 800-55-GRACE or by ordering online at gty.org. This book is a great resource, and not just for pastors, but for anyone who wants their church to be what God intends it to be.
The Master's Plan for the Church costs $13 and shipping is free. And remember, you can download John's current study, The Anatomy of a Church, in eight free audio downloads at gty.org. Transcripts of those messages are also free to download. And while you're online, be sure to check out the thousands of other free resources available at our website. That includes the Grace to You blog, previous broadcasts of this program, John's sermon archive—there are more than 3,600 sermons, all available free of charge in MP3 and transcript format. All of that at our website, the address one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff. I'm Phil Johnson with a question for you. If your obituary were written today, how would you be remembered? Be here at the same time tomorrow as John looks at a trait every Christian should want to be known for. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
