And I really believe in this matter of self-discipline that we as Christians need to get our act together. We need to start saying here is the narrow path and here is the way God wants us to walk and here we will walk.
And if we love pleasure more than we love God at any point in time, then we're gone off the track and we have not exercised self-discipline and entered into sin. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Six hours a day, six days a week, hundreds of miles in the pool, lap after lap of freestyle breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke, followed by underwater kicking drills and then add weightlifting and conditioning drills. That was the workout routine of American swimmer Michael Phelps. Amazing discipline that resulted in more gold medals than any Olympic athlete ever.
Well, consider this. If you're a Christian, you are chasing something far more precious than Olympic gold. You're chasing an imperishable eternal prize. So how's your training regimen going?
Are there improvements you can make? John MacArthur helps you evaluate the discipline in your life and in the life of your church as he continues his study, The Anatomy of a Church. And now here's John with today's lesson. I have a great desire that the church should be what Christ wants it to be. That is my great passion. I was being interviewed by a gentleman who's the editor of a magazine published by the Navigators and the title of the magazine is Discipleship.
It's a very fine magazine. He asked me what my real desire for the church was and I said my desire for the church is that the church would be what Christ designed it to be. That is the passion of the hearts of our elders and staff and I know of you folks as well. And so in order to kind of keep us on track and to pick up the things we've forgotten and to reaffirm the things we've remembered, we're going back through some of the basic elements of The Anatomy of a Church. What is God's design for the church? Some years ago when I taught ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church at Talbot Seminary, I had the students read a book called God's Forgetful Pilgrims.
That book is an interesting little book written by Michael Griffiths from England. And in the book, among many helpful things, he said this, and this kind of stuck in my mind, Christians collectively seem to be suffering from a strange amnesia. A high proportion of people who go to church have forgotten what it's all for. Week by week they attend services in a special building and go through their particular time-honored routine but give little thought to the purpose of what they are doing. The Bible talks about the bride of Christ, but the church today seems like a ragged Cinderella hideous among the ashes.
She has forgotten that she's supposed to be growing up to be a beautiful lady. He's right in many ways. The church as we view it in the broad terms across America, which is supposed to be the bride of Christ, is in a way a ragged Cinderella. And we need to reaffirm the non-negotiables, the essential elements of the church. We need to get back to what God designed us to be and that's what we're endeavoring to do in this particular brief series. Just touch base with major principles upon which the church must act.
We don't want to get into the situation of misevaluation. In other words, of evaluating the church by the wrong terms, the wrong principles. Gene Getz points out that this is done frequently in his book, The Measure of a Church.
He writes these things. Some say a mature church is an active church. They evaluate progress by the number of meetings held each week and the number of different kinds of programs going on. Some say a mature church is a growing church. As long as new people are coming and staying, they believe they are a maturing church.
As long as the pastoral staff is enlarging, they believe all is well. Some say a mature church is a giving church. As long as people are contributing financially to the ongoing program of the church and supporting its many ventures, they believe it is a maturing church. Some say a mature church is a soul winning church.
They say this is proof positive when people are bringing others. When we can account for regular professions of faith and regular baptisms, then for sure we have a New Testament church. Some say a mature church is a missionary minded church, a church that supports missions around the world, designating a large percentage of its overall budget to world evangelism. Some say a mature church is a smooth running church, a church whose organizational machinery is oiled with every degree of regularity. It is a finely tuned machine with job descriptions, eight hour days, coffee breaks, and punch cards.
Everybody does what he's hired to do on time and efficiently. Still others say a mature church is a spirit filled church. This is the church that is enthusiastic and dynamic. It has lots of emotion and excitement.
Everyone in it knows what his gifts are and uses them regularly. And finally, some say the ultimate mark of maturity is the big church with thousands coming to Sunday school and church every Sunday. Maturity to them is represented by a large paid staff, scores of buses that pick up children, multiple programs, a radio, television ministry, a Christian day school, a Christian college and seminary, and oh yes, a printing press to prepare its own literature. Unfortunately, says Goetz, some people really believe that what I have stated are actually biblical marks of maturity.
End quote. Well, nothing wrong with those things. Nothing wrong with active, growing, giving, soul winning, missionary minded, smooth running, spirit filled, big churches. But you could be all of that and be a cult.
You could be all of that and be a cult. That isn't the heart of it. That isn't the guts of it. That's why we're backing up from the flesh to talk about the anatomy that's behind the scene.
What's in the inside? So often when pastors come here, they want to know about that external stuff, but we want to tell them about that internal stuff. That's the real issue. We're talking about not activities. We're talking basically about attitudes.
Attitudes. The life systems that flow inside the church. Those are key.
Those are key. Now at first we talked about the skeleton, didn't we? We talked about how important it is that we have affirmed the non-negotiable, foundational, shaping form of the church. Those things like a high view of God, the absolute priority of Scripture, doctrinal clarity, personal holiness, and spiritual authority. We said those are non-negotiable skeletal formation concepts.
We have to have those. And then after setting the skeleton in place, we said the church has to have certain internal systems. That is like a body has flowing through it the systems that are its life, so the church must have flowing through it certain systems. These are attitudes.
And you see, that's what we're really after. We don't want the church to be mechanical. We don't want it to be an external routine, a ritual, a performance. Lest we hear from God the same thing the people of Israel heard through Amos the prophet who said, I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not even listen to the sound of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. And Hosea saw the same truth. He said, What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?
For your loyalty is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth. For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Or the words of Isaiah, What are your multiplied sacrifices? To me, says the Lord, I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity in the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals. Appointed feasts, they have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them, so when you spread out your hands in prayer, I'll hide my eyes from you.
And when you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. In other words, Israel was guilty of having external religion without proper attitudes. And that's what we're looking at. I really believe that the heart and soul of the ministry is to lay that skeletal foundation and then spend your time trying to create in people right heart attitudes. That's what makes the church a beautiful lady.
That's what builds the church up to the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ. Now, we've already looked at several of these internal attitudes. We've talked about obedience, humility, love, unity, service, joy, peace, and thankfulness. I want to consider three more, and this isn't going to get us through, but I do want to look at these three, and I feel very strongly about them. This is number nine in my list.
I don't know how yours adds up. But this is a very essential attitude. Let's call it self-discipline. Self-discipline. Self-discipline. Oh, how important it is that we as Christians understand the need to conform to a divine standard, to live the disciplined life.
You know what self-discipline is? It's saying no to sin. It's saying no to sin. Saying yes to good or to righteousness. That's not too complicated a definition, and yet it captures the truth. The disciplined life understands the law of God and says no to anything outside the bounds of that standard.
Now let me illustrate this to you. Open your Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 24. And Paul picks a metaphor which is very familiar to us in this athletic society in which we live. It is the metaphor of a race, something we all understand. In verse 24 he says, Know ye not that they who run in a race all run? And in a race, everybody in a race runs.
That's pretty clear. But one receives the prize. Now in a race, everybody runs for a prize. So run that you may obtain.
Now you have to run to win the prize. That's the reason you're in the race. So we as believers have been called to a race, as it were. And that metaphor is used in several places in Scripture. We are running a race not only here, but elsewhere in the Word of God. That same imagery is presented to us. And as we run this race, we have in mind that we are running to win. Now what is necessary to accomplish that goal? Well verse 25 helps us. And every man who, and the old English says, strives for the mastery, competes in athletics, is temperate in all things.
What does that mean? Self-discipline. He's self-disciplined.
He's got himself under control. And that is the substance of dedication to victory. I mean obviously a guy cannot get in a race to win who's 30 pounds overweight. I mean there is a tremendously obvious discipline involved. When we think about the hours and hours, daily and weekly and monthly and yearly, that athletes put in to get to the level of victory, it's staggering. Victory in athletics on a world level demands an incredible price. It is not uncommon for athletes like that to train six to eight hours a day for five to ten years of their life and even more.
Tremendous amount of dedication. They literally push themselves past the point of any pain. They know what it is.
We talk about second wind. They know what it is to go beyond second wind. They know what it is to go beyond the point of pain. And even will tell us that there is a euphoria beyond pain that only the athlete can experience. I've had enough athletics in my background to experience something of that euphoria. You talk about a high, there's an incredible sense of freedom, an incredible sense of energy that comes beyond the point of pain.
It's hard to explain to someone who's never paid that price in an athletic endeavor. But Paul is saying, look, I'm in a race, and he's talking about a spiritual race. And he says, in that race, I know that I want to win, and in order to win, I've got to get myself under control. So further, he says, I run, verse 26, not uncertainly. In other words, I really know where I'm going. I stay on course.
It's very much like Paul's words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, where he says, a man who engages in athletic endeavor knows that if he is to win the crown, he must engage himself, and then he uses the word naminas, according to the rules. He's got to stay within the law. He's got to stay within the limits.
He's got to stay on the course. He can't cross the line. He can't go out of the circle. He can't get out of bounds.
He can't leave the track. In other words, whatever the conformity of that event demands, he must stay within it if he's to be victorious. And that's what Paul is saying. I want to win, so I give a maximum effort. And the verb used here of striving for the masteries includes self-discipline, self-sacrifice, great effort. And then that comes about by self-discipline and encompasses the idea of staying within the rules. And then in verse 27, it all comes together when he says, I literally keep under my body. I literally keep it under control.
I beat it into submission and bring it into subjection. He says, lest that in preaching to others, which is my race, I myself should become disqualified by some sin. In other words, I don't want to be sinning and lose out on the spiritual victory any more than an athlete wants to be sinning against his body and against his training and lose out on a physical victory. And these athletes do put out a tremendous amount of energy, a tremendous amount of effort. I was talking to the Miami Dolphins and I went down to do a Bible study with them and I took them where I want to take you right now to Ephesians chapter 6. And they were just about ready to go down to the Colosseum to put on their armor, to go out and lose, as it turned out, to the raiders. And just the whole process of them, some of their ankles and legs were already taped up and they were ready to go and do battle.
And I took the occasion to share with them the fact that they had spent years of their life and tremendous hours and tremendous energy and tremendous time to come to a peak of athletic performance. And in the peak of that athletic performance, they would then go down and they would put on their armor and they would go out and they would do battle and they would do it to obtain a corruptible crown, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, they do it to obtain a corruptible crown. But I suggested to them that there was another far more important warfare than that, a spiritual warfare for an incorruptible crown, for an inheritance eternal, laid away in glory that never fades, that there was a warfare far more important than any football game in all of their life. And there was for that warfare an armor far more important than shoulder pads and chest pads and arm pads and helmets and hip pads and all the other stuff that you wear. There was a different armor, a vital armor if they were going to know victory in the spiritual warfare. And I introduced them to verse 11 of Ephesians 6, Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
You've got to have your armor on. I said to them, You're no more going to go out there and fight against the LA Raiders in your gym shorts than you ought to go out to fight against the enemy of your souls unprepared. For we wrestle, it says in verse 12, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. We are in a battle, and the battle isn't really with men. Men are only the pawns and the playthings of the unseen demonic world. The real battle is with demons.
I know that well. I will never forget the battle with the demon-possessed girl one night as she kicked and screamed and threw furniture around a room. I'll never forget walking in the room and hearing her say, Get him out.
Anybody but him, not him. Don't let him in. And it was coming in a voice other than her own. And I realized the demons knew who I was. That's a frightening thing. When she started saying, you know, not him, not him, my human reaction was fine.
I'm gone. Then I began to realize that if they didn't, if they knew me and didn't like me, I must be on the right team. And I stood in the power of God against that situation. And we spent hours of agonizing effort there until God, in His grace, by her confession of sin, stepped in to purge and purify. But from that time on, I've never had a question about where the real battle is. I know where the real battle is. It's a serious battle on a spiritual level that is unseen. And men, as I said, are pawns and playthings in the hands of demons. And we have to understand the seriousness of the warfare, wrought really against Christ and all who belong to Christ. So we have to put on the armor, it says, to be able to stand. We have to be ready for this effort. I want to just point out two elements in verse 14.
First, we must have our loins girded about with truth. The Roman soldier wouldn't have thought of going into battle with his tunic just as gathered material flying around. In a hand-to-hand combat for life and death, he would have become very vulnerable.
He could have easily been pulled down by it or it could have gotten in his way and caused his own death. And so he would put on a belt and pull it all tight and gather it all together so that it wouldn't be loose at all, but tightly pulled around him. And the apostle says that is the belt or the girdle of truthfulness or sincerity. It's really commitment that he's talking about. He's talking about self-discipline. He's talking about the person going into battle serious about the battle, pulling your act together, getting all the loose ends in.
You're not kidding about the thing. I mean, you're going to do what needs to be done. And I really believe in this matter of self-discipline that we as Christians need to get our act together. We need to start saying, here is the narrow path and here is the way God wants us to walk and here we will walk. And it isn't easy because all along the path the voices are calling to us to divert.
And if we love pleasure more than we love God, if we love self-satisfaction more than we love God at any point in time, then we're gone off the track and we have not exercised self-discipline and entered into sin. And so you see the apostle Paul saying this is a war and you better be serious and you better pull up your tunic, cinch it together in an act of real commitment to victory. And then he goes on to talk about the breastplate of righteousness. A Roman soldier wore a plate over his chest to protect his vital organs.
And obviously if he didn't have this, he was tremendously vulnerable to an arrow that could fly into his chest, to a knife that could be thrust in fatally. He wanted his armor and the armor is righteousness or holiness, doing what's right. Self-discipline to God's law or we're vulnerable. We're in a race to win and we've got to be disciplined to win and we've got to have a life that is lived in obedience to God's will in a matter of purity. That's what Paul is calling us to. He says it another way in 2 Corinthians 7, 1, he says, having therefore these promises, it's as if he is saying God has given you so much, dearly beloved. God has given you so much that you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty in chapter 6 verse 18. I mean all that is ours in being sons and daughters of God. Seeing that you have all of these things, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness and the fear of God.
I mean let's get the belt on and let's get the breastplate on and let's run the race to win the thing. Let's keep the rules and stay within the limits. Let's give a full wholehearted effort. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, looking at the crucial role that discipline has in the Christian life and in the health of your church. Today's lesson here on Grace to You is from John's study called The Anatomy of a Church. And now John, what you said today about self-discipline and fighting sin, that brings up a question we received on our Q&A line, and so let's play that question now and then John, you can respond. Hi John, I'm Melody, and my question is, if you have a member of your church and somebody that holds a position in the church, and they are in sin and have asked for forgiveness, but yet continue to stay in that sin and it's open to the people of the church, what are the steps that the people or the elders or the deacons of the church supposed to take in order to try to restore that person? And what kind of, what things should happen in order to try to get that person back on track?
And if they don't get back on track, what should the church do about that too? Thanks. Hey, thank you, Melody. That is a big question.
Let me give you as concise an answer as I can. First of all, the Bible is very clear that there is a certain fitness for spiritual ministry. And the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy talks about vessels unto honor and vessels unto dishonor. A vessel unto honor is fit for the Master's use. A vessel unto dishonor is unfit for the Master's use.
The standards are very high. Not perfection, but holiness, virtue, integrity, character, godliness, a love of the Lord, a love of righteousness. Those must characterize every believer, and certainly every believer who is in a position of any kind of leadership in the church is to model those things for the rest of the congregation. What do you do when that doesn't happen? You remove that person from leadership. You confront that person's sin. You go through the process of Matthew 18. Seek repentance. If they don't repent, take two or three witnesses. Seek repentance again. If they still don't repent, you open it up to the leaders of the church and the church. If they still don't repent, you put them out. So everything is to call that person to repentance. But certainly they need to be removed from leadership. That's why James says, stop being so many teachers. Theirs is a greater condemnation.
If you're in leadership, the potential for condemnation is public, and you want to put the right people in leadership. Thanks, John. And friend, if, like Melody, you want to ask John a question, call our Q&A line, and you might hear John's answer on an upcoming broadcast. And be sure to let us know how you're benefiting from Grace to You when you contact us today. The number for our Q&A line is 661-295-6288. You can leave a message with your Bible question, and John may answer it on a future broadcast. The Q&A line number again is 661-295-6288. And if these broadcasts have helped you better understand Scripture, or if these broadcasts are helping you become more like Christ, we'd like to hear about it. Send us an email at letters at gty.org, or you can write to Grace to You, P.O.
Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Also remember, all eight lessons from John's current series, The Anatomy of a Church, are available in MP3 and transcript format. You can download them for free at our website, gty.org. And that's just a fraction of the free resources that are available to you. You'll find the Grace to You blog, video of John's various television appearances, there are over 3,600 sermons by John, and more.
They're all free to download. Our website 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. What is one of the most vital, yet most difficult responsibilities that you have to people in your church? Find out tomorrow when John returns with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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