We have a foundation of credibility to lay with our lives, and it's so very important. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. You know, they ought to look at your life and say, look, only God could make a life like that.
I mean, only God could do that to somebody. What a wonderful life. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. What's the mission of your church? Some say that churches should be politically active, striving for social justice, influencing the moral fiber of society.
But what does Scripture say? If you have questions about what the mission of your church should be and how you can help it fulfill that mission, you don't want to miss today's lesson. John MacArthur looks at the biblical calling of your local congregation as he continues his series, The Anatomy of a Church. But before we get to the lesson, John, you have a letter there that I'd like you to read. It tells a story of how God is using grace to you to make an immediate difference in people's lives, as well as to plant seeds of biblical truth that are taking root even years later.
So, read that letter from a man named Calvin. Well, you know, Phil, I always love to read these letters, and this is one that will be a blessing to everyone listening. The letter begins, I'm one of the many people who have been blessed by the teaching ministry of grace to you. When I was in grade school in the 1980s, my mom always had grace to you playing on the radio when she drove my siblings and me to school. We heard it so much that we knew exactly what time it was and whether we were late for school, depending on if we were hearing Pastor John's voice or Carl Miller's voice and the signature music at the end of the broadcast. I came to Saving Faith several years later, and by God's grace and providence, I was gradually reunited with your broadcasts. The deep historical and theological teaching has been a tremendous blessing to me for years. I've gained so much clarity on biblical issues. I'm so thankful to everyone at grace to you. He goes on to say my job involves hours in the car each day, which gives me the opportunity to dwell on God's Word through your sermons.
My kids have heard so much of what I've learned that they joke about Dad and his buddy John. Sometimes my 11-year-old daughter specifically requests that we listen to your sermons. Through your ministry, I've learned to study and love God's Word more and more. I just wanted to say thank you for your faithfulness in preaching the Word. It is eternally consequential and also multi-generational in its edification and blessing. From a thankful slave to Christ, Calvin. Thank you, Calvin.
That's wonderful news. The generational aspect of grace to you is influence. We all know God's Word is timeless. It speaks to people of all ages and in all times.
And of course, the Bible teacher's job is to get himself out of the way as much as possible and let the timeless truth of Scripture speak for itself. When you support the work of grace to you, you're taking part in something that is also timeless. You're connecting people with the always relevant truth of God's Word. Thank you for praying for the ministry and for giving as you are able, and know that we take the stewardship of funds very seriously.
Yes, we do. And thank you, John. Friend, to partner with us to help us take God's truth across the globe, call or write or go to gty.org.
You'll hear full contact information before we end today. But first, here's John with today's lesson. I'm reminded of Peter's words that I want to put you in remembrance of these things.
Not that you don't know them. You already know them, but I want you to be sure you remember them. You have to keep on track. You know, you start down the track and all of a sudden you go one way or you start to go another way.
You just keep laying that same track down again so we know where we're going. And so we've been looking then at the church and we've used the analogy of a body. We said that first of all, a church, to be what God wants it to be, has to have a skeleton. In other words, foundation, which gives it form. And basically, we've said that there are some non-negotiable bottom line foundational truths.
And we suggested five of them, a high view of God, the absolute priority of scripture, doctrinal clarity, personal holiness, and spiritual authority. And we tied those all together and that was sort of our skeleton. Now moving on from that into the second dimension of our analogy, we said that a body has to have internal systems flowing through it. Those are the life systems.
That's what gives it its life and capability to act and react. And in the church we have to have internal systems. And those I believe are right spiritual attitudes. And I gave you a whole list of those.
Let me just remind you briefly of them. Obedience, humility, love, unity, service, joy, peace, thankfulness, self-discipline, forgiveness, dependence, flexibility, accountability, growth, faithfulness, and hope. Now when the skeleton is right and the right kind of attitudes are flowing through, we're ready to move to dimension number three and that is function, or the muscles in the body. The body now has form and it has life. And now what is it to do? What is its function? What is the church's responsibility in the world? What are we to be about? Or in simple terms, what's our ministry?
If you were to mandate the church as to its responsibility, what would it be? That's what we want to look at now. And I call these the muscles. This is function.
This makes us move. The first one is preaching and teaching. And I combine those two because they both have to do with the proclamation of biblical truth. Preaching and teaching. A second function is evangelism and mission. Evangelism and missions. And I use those two terms just to give you a comprehensive perspective. Evangelism seems to speak of personal things and missions seems to speak of something very large.
And so since those terms are thought of in that way, we'll use them. We are to be committed to the fact that our church is not only for its own sake but for the sake of the world, right? You see, the ultimate goal of all ministry is that we would reach someone for Christ. And so we've got to be about evangelism, evangelism, evangelism. We've got to be about it basically two ways, by life example and by word. And as we've said so many times, people, it's our lives out there that make our testimony either believable or unbelievable. I mean, if we have a church where Christ is exalted, where people are living righteous lives, where they're dealing with their sin and honesty before God, where they're endeavoring to walk in obedience to his holy purposes, if we have that kind of church, then we're going to lay out a platform on which individual testimony can be believed.
It's what you are out there in the world. That's what's so wonderful. When people come here and they say, hey, your people live your message. Your people really do obey the word of God. That's so thrilling because that makes Christianity so credible, see. I mean, why do you think that instead of Satan just coming into the world and just blasting churches out of existence, he comes into the world and proliferates churches all over the place who have no credibility? Because that undermines the whole message. I mean, how many people say, oh, I went to a church over there. That was really some place. They have a lot of hypocrites there, so forth and so forth and so on.
They don't care about anybody over there. Why the pastor ran off and did this. He was crooked. He embezzled money out of the church and blah, blah, blah. You see, all that Satan can do to keep the church going in name and to corrupt it is done in a way that undermines the integrity of the message of the church. Satan doesn't want to eliminate churches.
He just wants to corrupt them so that there's no foundation on which individual testimony can be believed. And I really believe that we have been called to live a life in the community that is a life of evangelism. It's summed up in Matthew 5 where our Lord says, you are two things. You are the salt of the earth, Matthew 5, 13.
And if the salt has lost its savor, with what shall it be salted? You're the salt of the earth. I mean, you're just out there as a preservative. You're just out there as a deterrent. You're out there distinct.
You have a flavor different than they do. I mean, you're out there unique. And that's why, see, beloved, that's why we call people to a separated life. That's why we call people to a pure life. That's why I'm so exercised in my spirit that you live a godly, virtuous, holy, righteous life, not just for the glory of God from the viewpoint of you, but for the glory of God from the viewpoint of others who see and are drawn to that kind of purity, where you can be used as an example.
You're the salt. And then in verse 14, you're the light of the world. And if the light is hidden under a bushel, it isn't going to be seen. And the bushel, I'm sure, is an indication of sin or clouding of the testimony of your life. But if you're out there and you're shining bright and you're salt that's really salty, now you're going to have an impact on the world.
And it's by what you are before it is what you say, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who's in heaven. I mean, I'm amazed sometimes, you know, I meet a lot of people in a lot of interesting circumstances. And some of them are very embarrassed in the circumstances that they meet me because I say, oh, don't I know you? So I can't tell you how many people have tried to swallow a cigarette when they saw me. It's really funny, really funny. I mean, you know. Oh, I can be in a restaurant and somebody will have a drink and they'll get it up just a little ways and I'll just smile and wave.
And instant panic sets in. I didn't say a thing. I have, on some occasions, even gone over to a table and greeted them just as a reminder.
That there is, for Christians, a certain standard of life for the sake of those who watch us. I remember in a restaurant one time, sometimes when you go and you're waiting, there's a cocktail waitress who comes and this cocktail waitress came and she walked up and said, would you like it? No, you wouldn't, would you? And I said, no, I wouldn't.
You look familiar. And then it, oh, I have to apologize. You see, on she went with this story. But it was very interesting because in her heart she knew that she was completely out of sync with the reality of where she should have been as a Christian just living in the world. And it was embarrassing to her to see me and I thought to myself, it should more offend her that unbelievers see her doing something that's not like Christ than that I should see it.
I can handle it. We have a foundation of credibility to lay with our lives. And it's so very important. And so he sums it up, doesn't he, in Matthew 5 16 when he says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. You know, they ought to look at your life and say, look, only God could make a life like that.
I mean, only God could do that to somebody. What a wonderful life. And so we lay a foundation of evangelism. Then beyond that we need to talk.
We need to speak. We need to proclaim the message. I mean, we need to be ready to speak, to give an answer for the hope that is in us. To proclaim Jesus Christ, we need to have our lips unsealed. Someone once said that most Christians are like the Arctic River frozen over at the mouth. And it's unfortunate that in many cases that is true.
For some reason resistant to speak. Oh, how we ought to be as eager to speak about the Lord as we are to speak about some other mundane, inane thing. And so that we understand the responsibility to evangelize, to witness, to reach out. Part of that is having people that we know who aren't Christians. And that's hard for some of us.
Very hard. Because our world is narrowed. Someone said it's like a pyramid. The higher you go, the fewer people you know that aren't Christians. And then too, as we proclaim, we want to make sure we have the right message. And that's why we spend so much time articulating the gospel here. Making sure you understand the terms that Christ has given. That's why when we get to the rich young ruler we spend time seeing how Christ evangelized. Or the Sermon on the Mount.
What did he call men from and what did he call them to? And what are the real biblical terms of evangelism? Because I know full well the churches of our country and our world are filled with people who aren't saved but think they are. And so we are committed to evangelism. Now beyond that to missions.
I mean that's a worldwide view. To reaching way beyond here to whatever God would allow us to do across the globe. I received a letter this week from a pastor in the Philippines. He said, I've been hearing about your church. I want to build my church as God would have it built.
And could you send me some help so that I can begin to move in the right direction. And we have people now strategizing and setting a vision for us to reach as far beyond our own walls as we possibly can. Worldwide as much as the Lord allows because he said to go into all the world didn't he? And we want to go as far as we can go. As far as our resources allow us to go. And what we're doing here is training up people here so that we can go more effectively.
And we're committed to that. To going. To preaching. Baptizing. Teaching.
As far as we can go. There's a third of these functions. And you know this one well so I'm not going to spend a lot of time worship. Corporate worship. We are called to corporate worship. We are those who worship the Lord in spirit.
Who have no confidence in the flesh Paul says to the Philippians. We're true worshipers John 4. Who worship the Father in spirit and truth. We have been called as those who are like priests to offer our bodies living sacrifice to God in a holy act of worship. Spiritual sacrifice. We are worshippers. We are a priesthood to offer up sacrifices unto God says Peter.
We were talking the other day in one of our staff meetings about the concern we have. There are many people who come to the worship service but how many of them really worship? How many hearts are really lifted up to God? How many hearts are filled with praise and adoration?
Then how many are thinking about when it's going to be over or what they're going to do today or where they're going tomorrow or whatever. And we get so blasted and bombarded by the cleverness of Satan's media in the world. We see images of pictures in our minds and we hear jingles of commercials and we're blasted by the things that we continually see passing before our eyes. And to try to sit down and get the clutter out of there and to meditate on the things of God you'd almost have to go into a monastery to filter your brain clean again. So how hard is it for us to come and to really think of the songs we're singing and to hear the psalm when it's read and calls us to worship and to meditate on the things of God that come through the teaching and the preaching.
But we need to cultivate that. We need to be a worshipping people not just here. This is just a catalyst to get us to worship at all times. We worship best when we respond to God in willing obedience so that obedience is the basic definition of worship. We obediently offer Him praise. We obediently do what He says. Obedience and worship synonymous in a sense become then a way of life rather than just an exercise on Sunday. But I believe we're called to draw near unto God.
You know what that means? To draw near unto God. Hebrews 10 says draw near unto God. James talks about drawing near unto God and He'll draw near unto you.
What great thoughts those are. I mean when do you really draw near unto God in an unhurried way? I mean when do you just let your heart and mind ascend as it were in the words of the hymns and in the words of Scripture or in times of deep devotion and prayer. When do you meditate?
The word almost has no meaning to us except to see some strange guru squatting somewhere. We don't understand what it is to meditate. But I believe we are we function in worship. We function in worship. Paul said to Timothy you know let the holy men lift up their hands in prayer and let the church come together for that expressed purpose of praise. We are to be a worshiping people. There's a last function that the church must be given to that I want to talk about this morning. We'll finish it next time and that's prayer. And I don't need to say much about this. I just need to remind you.
I just want to place it in your memory. I don't want to gild the lily except to say that I believe beloved I believe this with all my heart. Prayer is the hardest spiritual exercise we engage in for two reasons.
Reason number one it's hard work. It's hard work because it's selfless. True prayer extends to embrace the kingdom of God. Thy name be hallowed.
Thy will be done. Thy kingdom come. It extends to embrace the kingdom of God. And it extends to embrace the people of God. Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses. Lead us not into temptation. There's no I in the disciples prayer of Matthew 6 9 to 12. It embraces the kingdom of God and His glory. It embraces the needs of His people. And so prayer is unselfish exercise. Only unselfish, only humble people can abandon themselves to embrace the will of God, the kingdom of God, the needs of people. And when Paul says in Ephesians 6 18 praying always for all saints with all prayer and supplication. He is calling us to the kind of prayer that turns outward from us to embrace God's glorious purposes and the needs of God's people.
And it's selfless and so it's limited to selfless people. It's hard work because you are there and you are pouring out your heart on behalf of God, on behalf of God's redeemed people, on behalf of His purposes and their needs and you're beyond yourself. We find on the other hand prayer very easy when it hits us. When we have a disabling injury or when we have a debilitating sickness in the family or when we lose a loved one or when one of our children strays from the Lord or when our kids are making decisions about who they're going to marry or about when some tragedy comes in or we're caught in some dishonest deed or some immoral act and immediately because we are at stake we find ourselves rather easily drawn to prayer on our own behalf. But that doesn't demonstrate the strength of prayer that demonstrates the weakness of prayer.
The strength of prayer is to abandon my life in unceasing prayer on behalf of the extension and glory of God in His eternal kingdom and the needs of His redeemed people beyond myself you see. And that's why it's so hard. I mean I don't have any question that in Luke 11 I could be the guy banging on the door getting the bread if I was hungry. And I'd bang all night till a guy gave me the bread to get rid of me. The question is can I bang on the door all night for the bread for somebody else?
That's the question. I mean we can have a Sunday night deal and have ice cream and you'll have 3,000 people over there gobbling up ice cream. You can call a prayer meeting and you have to get binoculars to find the folks. You see because prayer is so selfless.
It's an embracing of things other than ourselves in its purest truest sense. I'm not saying you don't pray. I'm not saying I don't pray. I don't pray as I ought to pray.
And we all feel like we don't, don't we? We're going to have a monthly prayer meeting on a Wednesday night each month and we're going to call the folks to prayer. And I believe God answers prayer. I said on an interview on the radio in Chicago that one of the benefits of growing older, and there are some, is that you begin to have a longer list of things that God has demonstrated in His power to answer prayer. And the older you get, the more you see God do things that only He could do. And the longer that list becomes, the more confident you become in your prayers. So I think older people pray better than younger people, at least in that sense, because they have the track record of the proving of God's response. The second reason that prayer is difficult, not only because it's selfless, is because it's so private. It's so private. And this is a sort of like the selfless idea, but when you pray, you pray all by yourself and no one knows.
And so you've got to have the self-discipline and the strength to do it without peer pressure or approval. I mean, there are a lot of things we do because we know people will know we did them, right? I mean, we go to Bible study because people will say, he goes to Bible study. And we read the Bible because somebody's going to say, hey, I've been reading so well, I've been reading so and so. Well, the other day I read so and so.
And you read it just so you could make sure that when the conversation came up, you could say you read it. You see, prayer is difficult, first of all, because it's selfless. And secondly, because it has no visible rewards. And you don't have any peer pressure. Nobody sees you perform. And we perform much better when we know people are going around. Listen, I really prepare for sermons because I got all these people listening. I find it much easier not to pray. In Acts 6, 4, it says the apostles gave themselves continually to prayer in the ministry of the word. I find it much easier to give myself to the ministry of the word than prayer because I don't have a whole lot of choice about the ministry of the word.
If I show up here on Sunday, I haven't got anything to say, I'm in real trouble. But I cannot pray and no one will know. Oh, eventually you'd know.
But you wouldn't know right away. And that's why prayer is such hard work. That's why the Bible talks about travailing in prayer.
Because it's something that, first of all, is selfless, and secondly, has no visible rewards on the spot in terms of the affirmation and the approval of people. I thank God for those selfless people who pray. And I pray God that we'll have more of them in our fellowship.
We have a little group of people that pray on Monday. A little group of older people. They're getting older all the time, but the Lord isn't letting them die.
Because I don't know who'd take their place. It's a handful of people they've been praying for years, over ten years. And they pray. And God hears and answers their prayers.
And we cash in on their faithfulness. God help us to be faithful in our prayers. As I've said in the past, prayer is the nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence.
I don't understand how it works. I just know God hears and answers prayer. And the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, says James. And I want to be that righteous man who prays because I want to see God do all He can possibly do and give Him all the glory. So we must be committed to prayer. And Paul couldn't have said it any more clearly than he said it in 1 Thessalonians 5 and he says in verse 17, pray without what?
Ceasing. We say, what does that mean? Well, it simply means that you pray all the time. Which is to say you live in God consciousness. That your whole life is offered as a prayer. All the time you're aware of God. All the time you think, you act, you respond, you talk, aware that God is there. Every act of life, every thought of life is offered as a prayer. As if to say, I'm going to do this.
Is this all right, Lord? Oh, I see you in that. In other words, you interpret life as if you were looking through the very mind and heart of God.
It isn't that you go around mumbling with your eyes closed. Prayer is just a way of living in the conscious presence of God. So that everything is offered to Him. Everything is communed with Him. Prayer is two-way thing, you know. You hear His voice. You feel the leading of the Spirit of God. You offer Him your petitions and your thoughts and your joys and your problems. It's living life in a God conscious way.
And so our functions are very foundational. Preach and teach. Evangelize and extend to the world. Worship. Pray.
I'll give you the rest of them next time. Let's pray together. What can we say, Lord?
What can we say? You have blessed us so much. You've blessed us with salvation.
You've blessed us with the Word, the Spirit. You've blessed us with the assembly of your redeemed and beloved people. You've blessed us with friends, with family, with life partners who love you. You've blessed us with a wonderful place where we can fellowship and worship. You've blessed us with beautiful songs we can sing. Instruments to which we listen which cause our hearts to rejoice. You've blessed us with the beauty of your creation which we who are redeemed alone can fully appreciate as a gift of your love.
Unlike the world who thinks it's some cosmic accident, you've given us so much. Father, it's our desire as Grace Community Church to function as you would have us function. Preaching, teaching, evangelizing, worshiping, praying. Right back to those basic things. And to know that it isn't so important what the programs are, it's only so important what we do as individuals to be faithful in these areas. Thank you for sharpening our focus in these days. May we be faithful to respond as we see the truth. We pray in Christ's name.
Amen. John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, showing you how to help your church be what God designed it to be. Today on Grace to You, John continued his series, The Anatomy of a Church.
Friend, going back to something John mentioned before the lesson, we're able to broadcast lessons like the one you heard today because of the support of listeners like you. To partner with us in this far-reaching and life-changing ministry, contact us today. You can mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace to You, P.O.
Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412, or call us at 855-GRACE. You can also donate online at gty.org. Remember that supporting your local church comes first.
We always affirm that. But we're grateful for anything you can give after that. Again, to partner with us, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And if you're benefiting from this ministry, keep in mind it's a great encouragement for John and the staff to hear how Grace to You has had an impact in your life. To share your story with us, mail a note to Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412, or you can email your letter to letters at gty.org.
And be sure to mention the call letters of this radio station anytime you get in touch. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson with some questions for you. Where are you in the discipleship process? Are you being discipled, or are you discipling someone else, or maybe both? Bring those questions to tomorrow's lesson. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
