Oh, the church needs to be filled with forgiving people, because we're going to fail, folks.
We really are. But if you can forgive, you're free from that. You're free from the bondage of that bitterness. And you're free to be forgiven and know the blessing of God. But if you harbor an unforgiving heart, you have bitterness, who needs it? Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Perhaps you've felt the frustration and confusion when a friend said something unkind to you, or gossiped about you, or broke your trust by lying to you. Sadly, far too many of us have been hurt by those closest to us. But when that happens, particularly when it's between Christians, how should you respond? Bottom line, how can you honor Christ when you've been offended by someone in your church? For practical biblical answers, follow along as John MacArthur continues his current study here on Grace to You, titled The Anatomy of a Church.
And now here's John. What is God's design for the church? 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. Now we've already looked at several of these internal attitudes. We've talked about obedience, humility, love, unity, service, joy, peace, and thankfulness.
Self-discipline. Oh, how important it is that we as Christians understand the need to conform to a divine standard. I grieve when I see undisciplined Christians. I grieve when I see Christians who have so much leakage in their life. Oh, there's a line of obedience but they're always off it.
They understand it, they're just not that committed to it. Paul says it yet another way at the end of Philippians, the last chapter, the fourth chapter and the eighth verse. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and any praise, what? Set your mind on these things. Listen, folks, your self-discipline is a matter of where you put your mind, where you set your mind, where you set your thinking. Because as a man thinks in his heart, what?
So is he. And a pure life and a self-disciplined life is wrought by a life that is saturated by the Word of God. You see, the reason we teach you and give you the Word is so it's in there. And when you're confronted with temptation, the Spirit of God can draw you back to that Word that's planted there. The reason you are to read the Scripture and meditate on the Scripture is so that that Word may be resonant in your heart and then as David said, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin. And so your thinking must be controlled with the Word of God. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, says Colossians 3. So that's the source of self-discipline. Then it demands a commitment on your part.
And I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned that in Christianity, in our time, there is a lack of discipline. God hasn't changed His standard. God hasn't changed the narrow way or the narrow path. It hasn't changed at all. God's law hasn't opened up any more than it was when God originally gave it. And the standard of obedience is the same.
But Christians tend to have widened it themselves and created an artificial tolerance. And we have listened to the sirens of the world calling us off our course. Tragic. I had occasion to go up to Oregon. I took our junior high pastor with me and we went up to speak to 3,000 men out in the woods up there. We had a great time.
God blessed. Some men came to Christ. Others were encouraged in the faith and greater commitment.
Wonderful, wonderful three days. And Chris and I talked a lot about things up there and he told me some things that were quite astounding to me. In working with junior high young people that may help us to put a finger on where we really are in our Christian society. For example, he did a little survey at junior high camp this summer. Took 54 junior high kids and found that 9 of the 54 had never seen an R-rated movie.
45 had. He took 7th grade boys and out of 35 7th grade boys, 25 had seen an R-rated movie. That's 12 years old or so. 26 had been reading to one degree or another pornographic magazines and 24 out of those 35 go to Christian schools. And he went on to tell me about how many of them have in their home, home cable TV.
Where they watch filth pumped in wholesale on the movie channels and all the rest of the garbage that comes with it. I was really distressed by that. I was greatly distressed.
Let me tell you something people. You can't expose a 7th grade kid to an R-rated movie without it making an absolutely devastating impact on his life or hers. There's no way that a 7th grade mind can compute that without having negative responses. You can't look at 18 feet high naked people without remembering that imagery. And if you have your head in the sand so much that you think your junior high kid can handle that, you are wrong.
You need help. If you allow your junior high young person to go to an R-rated movie, you're contributing to their sin. You're jamming in their minds things they can't handle. If you allow them to sit at home and watch filth on a cable television station, then don't be shocked later on when they don't have any interest in the things of God.
And don't say, well we took them to church all the time. It's devastating. It grieves my heart to think that little kids, I mean that does not help a child. That does not help an adolescent.
That doesn't help a teenage kid trying to deal with all the struggles of life and developing sexual ideas and identity to expose them to that kind of stuff. And I'm not talking about some legalism folks. I'm talking about sin.
Just plain ugly sin. I mean what worse thing could the world do than parade in front of young eyes filth. And they're at it right now.
They're at it every way they can. And parent, you need to set an example. You say, well I never let mine go.
I take them. God help you if you do that. You say, well I don't know what he does. That's worse of all. You better know because that little life is a stewardship from God. And Jesus gave you that little life and if you're allowing that thing to be pumped up with garbage, you're going to be an accountable person for that. I mean 45 out of 54 junior high kids have been to an R movie. Shocking.
You say, well I can't help what my child does. You better. And you better never go to one of those things.
You better never go to one of those supposedly good ones where there's profanity. All that does is just keep lowering. It just attacks the standard, attacks the standard, attacks the standard, attacks. And the same thing with the music. It just keeps attacking it and attacking it until finally our rigid commitment to purity is broken down.
And it's all subliminally happening. And let me tell you another thing. If you go to an R rated movie, you're contributing to your own sinfulness. You say, well it's art. No it isn't art. It's garbage.
Just plain garbage. You say, well it has some social value. I mean it's a comment on our culture.
Sure. You think it's not going to be promoted that way? How else can they attract good moral people? And contribute to the devastation of their thinking. I mean there's no place in the life of a Christian for profanity that comes even out of a PG movie.
Let alone the nudity that comes out of those filthy things they call R movies. And if you go, you know why you go? You go because you've been so suckered by the world that you're a victim not only of the thing you see when you sit there. But you're a victim of their advertising technique that got you there to start with. And I'm strong about this because I feel so strongly in my heart. That you can't expect to cultivate godly thinking in people who are looking at massive images and incessant images of garbage.
Or who are fowling through filthy rotten magazines. You can't do it. We can't fight it.
I won't expose myself to that because I want to hold God's view of things, not the world's. And there's a sense in which you've got to isolate yourself. You say, well I mean you don't know what's going on. That's right. And I don't care.
I have a good idea what's going on. I've never been to an R rated movie and I don't ever intend to go to one. And I'm not interested ever to go to a PG movie or anything else.
I mean for me it's either Little Bo Peep or Forget the Whole Thing, you know. I've no interest in exposing my mind to the garbage of the world. Why would I do that? This is a time beloved for disciplined living. This is a time for disciplined living. This is a time to stop being a victim. Stop being diverted off course by the sirens that are screaming, come over here, come over here, we'll make you happy. We'll give you pleasure.
No place for it. And I'll tell you something, if you go to those things, then I don't care how often you're at church, you have not yet given your life fully to the commitment that God calls for. You haven't. At that moment, you've abandoned yourself from the disciplined path of obedience. And if you're rejecting this in your little mind, that shows me or you that you are in a battle and you're losing.
You're losing. And it isn't even a question of how bad it is. Because we're supposed to think not on things that aren't bad, but on things that are what?
That are good. Let me take you to a second attitude. This is the attitude of accountability. Accountability.
And I just want to go back to the basics again on this one. It is necessary that we teach the church that it has to exist in accountability. In other words, we're all accountable for each other. That most of all, we ought to be concerned about each other, not what color the carpet is or the wallpaper or not how this little program goes or that little program goes or whether we like this or that. We're to be concerned about each other. Go to Matthew 7 for a moment.
Let me see if I can't refresh your mind about what accountability refers to. In Matthew 7, I want to just mention two verses, verses 3 and 4. It says, And why beholdest thou the mote, or the splinter, toothpick, if you will, that's in thy brother's eye? You're concerned about this toothpick in your brother's eye. What does that refer to?
Well, it refers to some sin, some failure, something wrong. And you should be concerned. But it says, Why are you concerned about that, but not concerned about the 8x8 beam in your own eye?
Verse 4, or, How will you say to thy brother, Let me pull the toothpick out of your eye, and behold, an 8x8's in your own eye? I mean, it's hyperbole here. It's ridiculous. If it was a cartoon, we'd laugh.
It's silly. But what he's saying is, Look, how can you do what you need to do for your brother if you haven't got your own life together? Now, what this points up to us is very important. We have a responsibility to each other to take care of those things that are in each other's eye. We have a responsibility to deal with sin in each other, but before we can do that, we have to do what?
Deal with our own. Now, I believe accountability in the church is a very important thing. I believe we're all accountable for each other. But before I can be accountable for you, I've got to get my own act together. And accountability then has a reverse effect. When I realize my responsibility is to care for you, then I'm going to have to make sure I'm okay.
Now, let me put it into practical terms. You know somebody who doesn't come to church anymore. Think about it long enough, and you probably do. You know somebody who came for a while doesn't come anymore. You have a responsibility to go to that person and say, Look, you're forsaking the assembly. You need to be with God's people.
You need to be less committed to making money, the curse of laying up treasure on earth, and more committed to being with God's people. You say, Well, who am I to do that? I've got problems in my own life.
That's the point. Get your own life cleaned up and get the beam out of your eye, then go do that. That's why I say accountability is a self-purifying reality, see. As I become concerned about other people, I by by byproduct have to be concerned about myself because I can't deal with you until I've dealt with me. Galatians 6 says, Look, if a brother be overtaken in a fault, ye that are what? Spiritual restoring. So if he's in a state of disobedience, it's going to take one who's walking in obedience to help. So before you can help him, you're going to help yourself. So as long as people get into accountability relationships, it has a self-purifying effect.
You show me a church where people are not taught to care about others falling into sin, where they're not taught to restore others, and I'll show you a church where people are also not exposed as to their own sin. And they can hide it and cover it much easier. There must be accountability. And when I'm accountable for you, I'm accountable for me. So very, very important.
Necessary. Now let's go to Matthew 18 and see how this works out. If I've taken care of the eight by eight in my own eye, what am I going to do about you when you fall into sin? All right, verse 15 of Matthew 18 says, If your brother sins, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. So if he sins, you go to him.
That's the way to do it. A church has to have that kind of accountability. I mean, if you know somebody, for example, who has got a business, and you know they're not doing right, they're not treating employees right, they're not treating their partners right, they're being dishonest in their business, then you have an obligation before God as His child to go to that person who's a Christian and to say you are in sin. And you do it lovingly, but you have a response. You say, I can't do that. I've got my own problem. Then get your own problem straightened out.
You say, well, that'll take a long time. No, it's only as long as a prayer of confession. And with a pure heart and a loving spirit, you go to that individual and confront that sin. If you know somebody that's not being right and true to their partner in marriage, or parents that aren't being faithful to their children to do as they ought, or children that are not doing what they should to their parents, if you know someone who's out of line in any way in the church, it's your responsibility and love to go to that person. And you see, that's a self-purifying thing.
What it does is it purifies me before I can go. Secondly, if we all begin to do that, then everybody is looking at his own life and saying, boy, I want to be sure my life is right. Church really must have accountability.
Must. It doesn't matter who you are. I mean, in Galatians chapter 2, Paul went to Peter and withstood him to the face, it says in verses 11 to 14, because he was to be blamed and he nailed him in public. Really, I say in public because it's in the Bible.
Then everybody knew. Nobody's exempt, but elders or those who are really high are rebuked before all that others may fear. I mean, I received a letter this week, someone who called to my attention a failure in my own life, an irresponsible act in my own life, and something that I should have done and did not do, and brought it to my attention and I wrote them back and asked their forgiveness and thanked them for bringing it to my attention.
See, I want to know that as much as you want to know that. But if you don't tell me that, then you don't help me because I keep making the same mistakes again. I keep falling into the same trap again until you confront me with that. The church must have that kind of accountability. And I'm talking about accountability on this level where it really matters on the level of life purity. Husband, you need to hold your wife accountable.
Wife, you need to hold your husband accountable. It isn't right for you to tolerate their sinfulness. Lovingly, they should be confronted.
Lovingly. And so you go, what if they don't listen? Well, verse 16 says take two people with you, one or two people. And if they still don't, tell the whole church. And what happens when you tell the whole church? The whole church goes after. That's our responsibility, accountability. And it keeps the church pure.
It's a self-purifying thing. I remember when we first were committed to doing this, when we came to Grace Church, a couple of pastors said to me, You'll wreck the place. MacArthur, this is my first pastor at Wright. And they said, You don't know what you're doing. You can't go into a church and do that. Have everybody looking around for everybody else's sin.
You can't do that. You'll wreck it. I said, Well, we'll do it because the Bible says and we'll let God decide what happens to it. My job is not to try to build the church. Christ said he'd build the church.
I'm not going to compete with him. That's not my job. My job is to try to do all I can to make sure the people in the church understand what the word of God says and live it out. And then we'll see where God takes the church.
And early in those years, I had a wonderful illustration. A wife called me. She said, My husband just left. He went to shack up with another lady. I said, Do you know the lady's name? Yes, he's over there. He's going to live with her now.
She left his home and kids. I said, What's her name? She told me the name.
So I went to the phone book, looked up the name and got the phone number called and he answered the phone. And I said, This is John at the church. And it was a shock.
I mean a real jolt. And I said, I told him I was calling, you know, in the name of Christ. Calling him to obedience to get out of that place before he sinned a sin against the Lord and his wife and his church and go home. And a little while later, and he said he would. And his wife called me and said she was there.
And the next Sunday when he saw me, he embraced me and said, Thanks. I didn't want to be there. I was tempted. I didn't think anybody cared. See, it didn't alienate him at all.
Pulled him right in. Because that's what we need. You see, for a Christian, that isn't what we want to do. That's what we don't want to do, right? The things I want to do, Paul says, I don't do.
The things I don't want to do, I do. It's the flesh. So when accountability is not invading someone's private personality, it's helping them in their battle with their own sinfulness. See, that's what we ought to be concerned about.
Accountability. That's why we come to the Lord's table, you know, to get our lives right, get the boards out of our own eyes so we can help other people, so we can restore each other in love, so we can provoke one another to love and good works. It comes down to the one anothers of the scripture. I mean, are you exhorting one another, praying for one another, loving one another, teaching one another, edifying, admonishing, all those one anothers?
They're all over the place. Praying for one another. That's the life of the church.
That's the flow-through stuff, see. One final, very brief. You can't deal with this one without the next. And that's forgiveness. The church cannot survive unless there is forgiveness. That's another necessary attitude because we are human and we fail.
I mean, that's the way it is. I do and everybody else does, and we're going to fail. But if you can't forgive and you can't forgive particularly the one who fails you or who sins against you, then you've got a cancer in you and there's a cancer in the body of Christ. In Matthew, go back to 6 for a moment, and I will refresh you on the disciples' prayer. Verse 12, And forgive us our debts, and every sin committed is a debt owed to God which could only be paid by the perfect sacrifice of Christ. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. In other words, you forgive us as we forgive others. If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. In other words, if you don't forgive, He won't. Now, this is not talking about redemptive, eternal forgiveness. This is talking about parental, temporal forgiveness.
Redemptive, eternal forgiveness is ours in Christ, but that parental, temporal, for here and now kind of forgiveness that keeps the clear lines of fellowship open and pure and blessed comes to us only if we forgive others. So if you don't forgive somebody, I don't care what they did to you, if you don't forgive them, then you have a cancer in you. I believe that an unforgiving heart is the reason for an awful lot of tragedy. In fact, I think the body catches the soul's diseases and that there are many people who may be dead and may be dead actually of real cancer because they had such an unforgiving spirit.
I'm not acting or talking clinically. I just know that the body catches the diseases of the mind. And guilt is the severest of all diseases. And an unforgiving heart creates bitter, bitter, bitter feelings and also guilt as well. So if you will be forgiven on a daily basis by the Lord to know the clear and sweet and pure fellowship that He wants us to have in this life, it will be because you forgive others also. And my goodness, who are you not to forgive, right? Who are you not to forgive? You remember the parable in Matthew 18 of the man who owed 10,000 talents and he came and said, I don't have it.
I don't have anything to pay. And the man said, I forgive you everything. And then he went out and found a guy who owed him 18 bucks and strangled him and threw him in jail and said, Stay there till you pay me. And the Lord was saying, who are you who have been forgiven an inestimable, unpayable debt and you won't forgive somebody else 18 bucks? It's Ephesians 4, 32. Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Listen, we ought to forgive because we've been forgiven. We've been forgiven so much we can forgive so little. Oh, the church needs to be filled with forgiving people because we're going to fail folks.
We really are. I mean, I'm going to do things that might irritate folks and folks are going to do things that irritate each other. You're going to have a problem maybe with somebody in the church or something. But if you can forgive, you're free from that. You're free from the bondage of that bitterness. And you're free to be forgiven and know the blessing of God. But if you harbor an unforgiving heart, you have bitterness.
Who needs that? Forgiveness, such a beautiful thing. So, self-discipline in my life, accountability for others, and when they do sin, I want to be there to lift them up and I also want to forgive them even if they've sinned against me. Even against me. And where you have a church that doesn't forgive, you have terrible problems.
Terrible problems. By the way, only humble people forgive, remember that? Only humble people who are not so proud as to say, Boy, you did that to me. Nobody does that to me.
But who get down and say, Hey, you're more important than I am anyway. And I want to love you in the love of forgiveness. Well, there's more for next time. You're listening to Grace To You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson is part of John's study titled The Anatomy of a Church. John, going back to what you said about accountability being an essential aspect of life in the church, one way that accountability can be practiced is through discipleship relationships or in a small group of some kind.
And now, while those can be good strategic means for pursuing holiness, I know you would also say that they have inherent limitations. So talk about that for a moment. Yeah, I'd love to talk about that because I think people overestimate the value of accountability groups. You hear that all the time.
I'm in an accountability group. That's fine. I'm for that. I think that's biblical. I think it's right.
I think like iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. I think confessing your sins, your faults to one another is essential. I think praying for one another. I think being open, being honest is part of the process of living in the church, stimulating one another to love and good works. But the limitation is that you can select the information you give in that environment.
You can choose to say whatever you want to say and leave out the rest. Where you have to win the battle in pursuing holiness is in the private world, in your own heart, the place where no one knows what is going on. Sin, James says, conceives in the heart as a result of lust in the heart. You have to win the battle in the heart. You have to have a pure heart because out of it are the issues of life, as Proverbs 4 23 says. So guard your heart. Guard your heart. Have a clear conscience.
It all starts on the inside and eventually what you are on the inside will for certain show up on the outside. Yes, thank you, John. And friend, if you ever feel that you're losing the fight with sinful thoughts, John has written a book that can equip you to fight temptation like never before.
It's called The Vanishing Conscience. To order a copy, contact us today. The Vanishing Conscience costs $11 and shipping is free. To order, call 855-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org.
The title of that book again, The Vanishing Conscience. To get a copy or perhaps a few extra copies to give away, call 855-GRACE or visit gty.org. And if you're benefitting from John's teaching, perhaps it was instrumental in bringing you or someone you know to faith in Christ, we'd love to hear your story. Your letters are more important to us than you might think. So write to us at Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412.
You can also email your note to letters at gty.org. And be sure to contact your local radio station to let them know how Grace To You is strengthening your family and thank them for carrying this broadcast. Knowing that you are listening is a great encouragement to them and to us.
Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace To You Television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378. And be here tomorrow to learn how to guard yourself against temptations that can lead to broken relationships and ruined families. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace To You.
