My wholehearted service to Christ and all of our wholehearted service to Christ is not to help God do what He otherwise couldn't do. It's to be a part of what He's doing. And so we shepherd with all our hearts in the best way we can, but when we run out of resources and we don't know what to do or what to say, we don't know how to take care of people and meet their needs the way they ought to be met, we have to lean back and say, but the great shepherd is the shepherd, isn't he? Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. If you were starting a church from the ground up, what would you need most? A reasonably sized building with comfortable chairs? A dynamic preacher?
Perhaps a well-stocked bookstore and maybe a coffee shop? Certainly those things could make for an inviting atmosphere, but how important are they to building a church? Well, today on Grace to You, John MacArthur looks at what is really required to build a church, and more specifically, who is responsible for building a church. It's part of John's study, the anatomy of a church. So follow along now as John begins the lesson.
Would you turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 13 verses 20 and 21? And I really want to use this verse as just a point of contact with truth to move us about some other passages in the New Testament that will enrich our understanding of the work of the Lord for His church. What does Christ do for His church?
Well, it's here in this passage that we get a glimpse of that as we begin to look at it. First of all, He is the Savior of His church. He is the Savior of His church. Secondly, in Hebrews 13, 20, He's the Shepherd.
It's a lovely, lovely thought. He is the great Shepherd of the sheep, it says. As the Savior, He loves and builds. As the Shepherd, He has some very unique and special functions, too. But first of all, we want to note that He's the great Shepherd. In contrast to all other Shepherds who are just earthly, He's the great Shepherd.
Psalm 77, 20 said of Moses, Thou didst lead Thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. And they were Shepherds, but not great Shepherds. Three times in the New Testament, it calls Jesus Christ the Shepherd. John 10, He's the good Shepherd. 1 Peter 5, He's the chief Shepherd. And Hebrews 13, He's the great Shepherd. Good Shepherd, chief Shepherd, great Shepherd.
And you know, in Scripture, I counted over half a dozen places at least where the Bible identifies ungodly peoples as nations with this title. They were as sheep without what? A shepherd. So if we are believers, we are sheep, what?
With a shepherd. You know, we were meeting a week or so ago with our men, and we were talking and discussing and trying to develop a way to do a better job of shepherding. And I come away from times like that because people say, you know, these people aren't getting involved, and these people aren't following through, and we're losing some people over here, and we've got folks we haven't seen for a long time, and we wonder where they went, and we're trying to track them down, and we have all of these sort of logistical issues to try to resolve.
And you go away and you say, oh Lord, how are we going to keep track of these people? They don't come for a few weeks, or where are they, or they're ill and we don't know it, or we hear about a tragedy, and we haven't talked to the people to find out if they're really moving along with the Lord, if their salvation is really genuine, and there's anxiety in the heart, and you worry about it. And I tell you, some of those times I go home and I find myself staring at the ceiling with my mind filled with the thought of, how can we shepherd the sheep? But we are comforted in this, beloved, that the great shepherd is shepherding his sheep.
I think sometimes we think if a person gets saved and doesn't get into a follow-up program, they'll lose their salvation. We've got to help the Holy Spirit along. You can't just leave people up to the Lord.
You got to get them in the program. We're not out of balance on that, as long as we understand we want to have all the tools, but the Lord is the shepherd, and I'm not going to worry about his sheep. I'm going to do all I can to be involved, but hey, they're his sheep. I want to be faithful to what he gives me, but listen, I can't maintain my sanity if I feel I've got ultimate responsibility. I mean, I'll give my whole heart to it, not because I think it depends on me. You want a perspective?
Get this perspective. I don't serve the Lord Jesus Christ, teach his word, or whatever. None of us do as elders or leaders of the church, pastors. None of us do that because we feel we're responsible for the church.
I don't know about you, but I do it because I want to be a part of what Christ is doing. That's all. You know something? He'll build his church with or without me.
That's right. Listen, if the gates of hell can't prevail against you, you think John MacArthur could? He'll build his church without me, but I lose, and my wholehearted service to Christ and all of our wholehearted service to Christ is not to help God do what he otherwise couldn't do. It's to be a part of what he's doing.
What a joy. And so we shepherd with all our hearts in the best way we can, but when we run out of resources and we don't know what to do or what to say, we just don't know how to take care of people and meet their needs the way they ought to be met, we have to lean back and say, but the great shepherd is the shepherd, isn't he? I was told yesterday of a lady who gave birth to a child in our church.
She died, and the child is premature on life support systems and time period without oxygen to the brain, all this, and the father's left without a wife and with a child like this. And you say, well, what do you say? And you sort of stumble around, and then you fall back on the fact that the great shepherd shepherds the sheep, doesn't he?
That's where human resources come to an end. But the Lord is the great shepherd, chief shepherd, good shepherd. As such, two things we look at that he does. First, he equips.
He equips. Notice in verse 21 that the great shepherd of the sheep through means of the blood of the everlasting covenant makes you perfect in every good work to do his will. The reason he perfected us in salvation is that he perfected us in salvation. The reason he brought us to saving perfection in himself was in order to cause us to do his will. He's perfecting us to do his will. He's equipping us to do his will.
Oh, it's so wonderful. He uses the word to shape us and mold us into his will. Given scripture, it says in 2 Timothy 3 16, for what purpose that the man of God may be perfect, equipped, thoroughly furnished to all good works. And so he's given us his word. And then he's given us gifted men, Ephesians 4, and he gave some apostles and prophets and evangelists and teaching pastors or teaching shepherds for the perfecting, for the equipping of the saints. So he gives the word, and he gives us the word, and not only the word, but some uniquely gifted men of God who can pour that word into us.
Then he gives us teachers. And then according to 1 Peter 5 10, it says after you've suffered a while, the Lord make you perfect. He gives us trials in which the word can work, right? In John's Gospel, chapter 15, it says the word is like a knife, and it prunes us. You see, it's when I'm in a struggle, when I'm struggling with sin and struggling with suffering, going through anxiety and pain and grief in my life, when I'm going through the troubled times, those are the times when I see boiling up within me the ugliness of my own sinfulness, and I learn to hate sin more. Those are the times when I may question God and doubt, and I learn to hate my own doubts and my own sinfulness more. Those are the times when I'm driven to my knees, and that's good. The times when I want to draw an eye to God, and that's good.
The times when I long for heaven and deliverance from this world, and that's good. And so suffering works a good thing. So the Lord brings the suffering. We bring the word. Preachers aren't supposed to bring the suffering.
Don't get confused on what your duty is. The Lord will take care of that. You bring the word. And so the Lord equips, builds up, strengthens. He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit. He says, you shall be my witnesses after the Spirit's power comes upon you in Acts 1, 8, Judea, or Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth. And you'll go forth, He says in John 15, and bear much fruit. And out of your belly, in John 7, will flow rivers of living water. And so He's equipping His church.
Boy, it's so wonderful. We have training classes. We've been talking about this.
We have discipling. We've got to be involved in evangelism. And all the time we're working as hard as we can work. We're remembering in our mind that the Lord is equipping His church. He's doing it through the word, through trials, through the power of the Spirit of God.
Oh, that's so wonderful. And it isn't up to us. We're doing our best because we want to be a part of what He's doing.
See? I can't think of a greater privilege. In Ephesians 5, 29, a verse that normally is used to speak of marriage, but really, perhaps more than anything, speaks of the church. It says, no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord, the church. The Lord nourishes and cherishes the church.
Two beautiful words. Nourish means to feed. And cherish means to warm with body heat.
It would be like a, it would be like a nursing mother. The term cherish is used of a nursing mother in First Thessalonians 2, 7. And it's as if the Lord takes in His beloved and nurses and nurtures and warms.
It means to warm with body heat, to melt or to soften. And here's intimacy. The Lord comes and shepherds us, feeding us and warming us and melting us down to reshape us. Beautiful thought. Beautiful thought. He's at work.
He's at work. That's a comforting thing. When I've run out of resources, when I've run out of ideas, when I am frustrated in my mind, I say, Lord, how do we get people more committed? How do we get them moving along, more equipped, more faithful, growing, maturing?
Lord, we need new ways to do it, new levels of commitment. And I'm comforted in the fact that He's doing it. He's moving His church along. He's equipping His church. He's nourishing, cherishing His church.
Great comfort. Secondly, as shepherd, He intercedes for His church. Just like a shepherd would go out and fight off the wolf, the Lord Jesus Christ fights off the adversary who comes constantly before the throne of God to accuse the brethren. He comes before the throne of God to accuse us as He did to accuse Job.
And Jesus comes to our rescue and defends us. He is our defender. He is our intercessor. He is our advocate. He is our empathizer. He is our sympathizer. He is our high priest.
Oh, what a great thought. And you see Him in John 17 as He prays to the Father. And He says, Oh, Father, I pray not for those that are in the world, but for those that You've given unto Me that they may be one.
Oh, Father, I pray that they may be one with Me as I am one with You. And He prays for His own in that marvelous passage. And you see continuing through the New Testament His high priestly work. 1 John 2 says, If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. In other words, when you sin and the accusation of your sin is brought before the throne of God, Jesus stands as your advocate and says, Father, that sin is paid for. That sin is paid for.
My blood paid for that sin. And that's why no sin can be charged against God's elect. Is God going to charge it against you as His elect when He has elected you? Is He going to charge it against you when He has justified you already? Shall God that justified you once charge some sin against your account? Is there information He didn't have or a higher court than God? Shall Christ condemn you who bore your sin in His own body on the tree?
Shall He who perfectly expiated all your sin have some sin that He will hold against you, not on your life? And so there is that ever, ever interceding Christ. So He intercedes for His church. He talks to the Father about our needs too because we have many needs. He is not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. He knows exactly what we go through and so He's able to succor us or help us, it says in Hebrews 2 18.
He is a perfect high priest, Hebrews 7 25 says, whoever lives to make intercession for us. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was overcome with fatigue.
He slept. He was taught. He grew. He was loved. He was hated. He loved.
He hated. He was astonished. He marveled.
He was glad. He was sad. He was angry. He was indignant.
He was sarcastic. He was grieved. He was troubled. He was overcome by future events. He exercised faith. He read scripture. He prayed all night. He poured out his heart over the pain of men and he wept when his own heart ached. He's been there, sympathetic, empathetic, and defending us.
Great thought. He is our faithful high priest. Always interceding. And so we see him then as shepherd on the one hand feeding in a nurturing kind of cherishing kind of relationship to equip his church to do his will. And in another sense, he intercedes on our behalf, making sure there's never anything against us.
His blood keeps on cleansing us from all sin. 1 John 1 9. Savior of his church. Shepherd of his church. Thirdly, he's sovereign of his church. He's sovereign of his church. Look again at the text and notice the word Lord.
92 times kurios is used in the New Testament. And we may discuss various shades of meanings of the word, but one thing is very clear. When it is used in the New Testament in reference to the Son of God, it means sovereign one. It means controlling one. It means one who is in complete authority. He is the Lord. He is the Lord. He is the sovereign in his own church. It tells us in Ephesians chapter 1 that God has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all and all.
He is in charge. Colossians chapter 1 says essentially the same thing. In verse 19 it says it pleased the Father that in him should all divine fullness dwell. Therefore, verse 18 says he's the head of the church.
He's the beginning. He's the protodocus, the preeminent one that in all things he might have the preeminence. So the concept of Lord has to do with the fact that Jesus Christ is the sovereign one. Now that manifests itself in the church again in two ways that I want to emphasize for you. First, he rules his church. As the Lord of his church, he rules his church.
Let me tell you something folks. If anyone asks you who is in charge of Grace Church, you tell them Jesus Christ. And that is not being said facetiously. Jesus Christ is the head of his church. Ephesians 5 23 says he's the head.
The word used there is kephale. It basically has to do with a sort of the idea of being first or being prominent or being supreme or being the determiner. The one who's calling the shots, the sovereign is the idea again. He is the head of his church. That's repeated several places in the New Testament. And as the head, he has the authority in his church. He rules in his church. You see him in Revelation 1 and he's moving among the candlesticks each representative of his church.
And he's trimming the lamps. And he's coming with bronzed feet and burning penetrating eyes as he searches out the sin that needs to be crushed out of his church. He is the Lord of his church. That is why in Matthew 18 where you have the discipline process and sin being dealt with there, it says when two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them. And it isn't two or three in a prayer meeting. It's two or three witnesses who confirm the sin of someone in a discipline. The whole passage is about discipline and he says don't hesitate to do it because when you've called together the right witnesses and affirmed the sin, you don't need to hold back because I'm there in the midst doing it with you. So you're only binding on earth what's already been bound in heaven and you're only loosening on earth what's already been loosed in heaven. So you act in behalf of Christ.
Great truth. He rules his church and he rules through a plurality of godly men as he always had and that's why we have 50 some elders at Grace Church and we have one goal. Our single goal is to do what Christ wants us to do. Now we know a lot of what he wants us to do because it's written here. And where the book doesn't speak and where we don't have information in the scripture itself to speak to a certain issue, it's up to us to discern the mind of God prayerfully, thoughtfully, patiently, to wait till God unfolds to us the thing he wants to do.
And that's why we've always been committed to the fact that everything we decide, 50 plus men, is unanimous or we don't do it. It's unanimous because God only has one will. It's up to all of us who are as it were under shepherds of Jesus Christ to know what that will is. It's up to us to know what Christ wants to do in his church and we will seek his mind till all of us come to an understanding of what that mind is. Christ rules his church. I don't want the responsibility nor does any human who thinks clearly.
It's bad enough to have to answer for your own life without having to answer for a whole host of others. And so we seek the mind of God through prayer till the Spirit of God reveals his will. But he is the ruler of his church and the only thing we want to do is discern his will.
That's all we want to do. We want to discern his will. That's why we go by this book.
That simplifies it. Secondly, as we think about the Lord Jesus Christ in his church, he not only rules his church but he teaches his church. He teaches his church.
That's part of his ruling. He has authority to exercise in all matters and he has authority to reveal in all truth. He's our teacher. His will is revealed through his word. His will is revealed through human instruments.
But he's the teacher. In fact, he said to the devil, he said to the devil, in fact, he said to the disciples in the Gospel of John several times that this would be the case. In John 14, I believe it's verse 20, he says, you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. You're going to know these things. You're going to know a lot of things.
How are you going to know that? Verse 26, the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he'll teach you all things. He'll bring all things to your remembrance.
Whatever I have said unto you. Verse 26 of chapter 15, when the Comforter has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me. He'll tell you about me. He'll tell you what you need to know. Chapter 16, verse 12, I have many things to say to you.
You can't bear them now. Nevertheless, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he'll guide you into all truth. He'll not speak of himself, but whatever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will show you things to come.
And he'll glorify me, for he shall receive from me and give it to you. So see, the Lord keeps the controlling place. He rules and he feeds and teaches his church through the Word and the Spirit, through the Word and the Spirit, through the Word and the Spirit. And so when we go to the Word of God, we see what's clear in the Word and we draw on the Spirit. That's 1 John 2, 20 and 27. It says we have an anointing from God.
We don't need human teachers. We have an anointing from God. That is earthly, worldly teachers outside the kingdom who don't know the Word of God. We don't need that kind of wisdom because we have an anointing from God, and that anointing is none other than the Holy Spirit. So we have the Word of God and the author, the Spirit of God, pouring truth through the gifted men of God, and thus Christ is leading his church. I'm not here to give you my opinion on anything.
If I ever do that, you run me out of town. I'm not here to give you my opinion on anything. I'm not here to talk on social issues that aren't relative to the Word of God.
I'm here to open to you the Word of God that you may know the mind of God and the heart of the Savior that He may teach His church. And I've said this before. I say it again. I'm only a waiter. I didn't cook the meal. I'm only supposed to deliver it without messing it up.
And get it to you hot. Lastly, He's not only the Savior who loves and builds His church and the Shepherd who equips and intercedes for His church and the Sovereign who rules and teaches His church, but He's the sanctifier who purifies and glorifies His church. He's the sanctifier who purifies and glorifies His church. Look at verse 21. The ultimate goal is to work in you.
Oh, that's so good. You see, it's so good to know that He's at work in us, isn't it? He's the sanctifier. He's the one setting us apart from sin. He's the one purifying us. And also, He's the one leading us to give Him glory forever and ever. He's the sanctifier, purifier, glorifier. Oh, you know, we get concerned.
And you do, too. You see somebody that's a Christian, but there's sin in their life, and you just worry about it, and you want to see them out of that, and you confront them, and maybe the discipline process goes on. And we talked today about a guy who just keeps getting into sin, and then he says he's going to stop, and then he keeps in it again, and then he comes out and again.
He's in and out, and here we are again, needing to go back through the discipline again. And you become so grieving in your heart over these kinds of things, and the only comfort you have that if he belongs to Jesus Christ, he is the purifier of his church. It may be that he'll purify his church with removal. It may be he'll purify his church with the death of a believer who's unfaithful, as in 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 John 5. It may be that he'll purify his church by strengthening that Christian and drawing them into holiness. That's for him to do. But his goal is to do that. That's what it says in Ephesians 5.
Listen to what it says. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Why did he do that?
Why did he do that? They might sanctify, set it apart from the world and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. He wants his church pure and clean in order that ultimately he might present it to himself a glorious church.
That's the glory of the church. He purifies it to bring it to glory, that he might have a church which is without spot, without wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish. And so he's the purifier and the glorifier. He purifies, ultimately he glorifies. And glorifying is simply ultimate purification, isn't it? And someday we will be to the praise of the glory of God. And through Jesus Christ, the God of peace will receive glory forever and ever. Amen from us. Christ purifies and he's at work purifying, purging. Oh, that's so comforting to know that and bringing us to glory, bringing us to glory. And when we get up there, folks, we'll all be perfect, without spot, without blemish.
Well, I hope it's as hopeful to you to hear these things as it is to me, that we're not alone in this deal. And let me say it again, what I said earlier, it's a key thought. Listen, we're not doing what Christ can't do, folks. We're not building the church because he needs us to build it. If Grace Church blew up today, I don't expect it. If it did, Church of Jesus Christ would move ahead. If I dropped dead and every one of our leaders did, church would move ahead. He does not need us to build his church. He does not need us to church. You say, well, why are we working so hard?
I'll tell you why. Because there's no more marvelous, thrilling, glorious, joy-producing, soul-satisfying function than to be a part of what Jesus Christ is building for his eternal glory. So, encouraging reminders from John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson is from John's study here on Grace to You, called The Anatomy of a Church. Now, John, I know one goal of yours in this study is to help listeners understand their responsibilities to the local church, and where do they fit in. With that in mind, talk to that believer who wants to make a stronger contribution to church, but he's struggling to know how to go about that. How does a person know where he or she fits in to the anatomy of a church?
You know, this opens up such a very large subject to deal with. There is chaos across the quote-unquote evangelical world as to what the church is. For many people, the church is a spectator event.
It's a music and light show. For other people, it's kind of a sacerdotal, sacramental, ritualistic experience. For some people, it's kind of like meeting all your friends and having a great time and hearing a little sermonette for Christianettes.
This is a great concern to me. Here we are believers in Christ, placed by Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit into the church in which we exist in shared common eternal life with other believers, and we really don't know what to do when we meet. We don't know what's right. We don't know what's appropriate. We don't necessarily, in all cases, even know whether people are Christians.
They're there. Understanding the church is critical. We are the church. You as a believer are part of the church. That's why we've done this series called The Anatomy of the Church.
In three weeks we've gone over this. You need to hear this material on the skeleton of the church, the internal systems, Christ the head of the church, the muscles, the flesh of the church, the whole thing. This is who you are. You need to be the church, and you need to be in a church that understands that. The series, The Anatomy of the Church, all eight lessons in MP3 are transcript format from our website.
That's right. Thank you, John. And friend, if you're not sure where God has designed you to fit into your church, I encourage you to download these messages and dig into Scripture's timeless instructions for believers like you. To download The Anatomy of a Church, get in touch with us today. You can go to our website, gty.org, and there you can download all eight sermons from this study free of charge.
It's a great study to review at your own pace. Look for it at gty.org. Also, at the website, check out the Grace to You blog, where you'll find numerous series of articles on the church that will supplement the study that John just finished, titles such as The Faithful Church, The Dead Church, The Corrupt Church, and more. That website again, gty.org. And to dive even deeper into Scripture's blueprint for your local church, order a copy of John's book titled The Master's Plan for the Church.
It's reasonably priced. Shipping is free when you order it from Grace to You. When you order it from Grace to You. To get The Master's Plan for the Church, call 800-55-GRACE or visit gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378. Then be back on Monday as John launches a week of messages that help frame your thinking as Election Day approaches here in the United States. Don't miss it. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
