00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
You're not going to find a company
filled with CEOs, or a baseball team with only pitchers, or an
orchestra consisting only of cymbals. You need people filling
different roles. And it's a principle related
to you and your church, as you'll see next on Grace to You. They say that variety is the
spice of life. Well, we know that Jesus is building
his church with a variety of people from different backgrounds
with all sorts of personalities and gifts. But is that simply
to add spice, to keep things interesting, or is there more
to it than that? John MacArthur works through
those questions on Today's Grace to You as he's continuing a series
that's covering foundational aspects of the Christian life.
It's titled, Spiritual Boot Camp. And today's lesson focuses on
things that you ought to do, how God made it possible for
you to be an effective member of your local church. And now,
here's John MacArthur. How to function in the body of
Christ. Now, there's a very important
verse in the Bible that would be the place to start, and that
would be 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 13. For by one Spirit
were we all baptized into one body. The moment you received Jesus
Christ as Savior, you were placed into the body of Christ. Whether
we be Jews or Greeks, bond or free, and have been all made
to drink into one Spirit." When you became a Christian,
you were placed, and that's what the baptizing of the Holy Spirit
means, you were baptized or placed into the body of Christ. It's
like baptism means dipping somebody under or putting somebody into.
You were put into the body of Christ. became a member of the
body of Christ. That's synonymous with the concept
of the church. You became a member of the church
of Christ. You may not join a local church
yet, you may not have an official membership in a local church,
but the moment you were saved you became a member of the church,
of Christ's body, and that's one of the terms used for the
church. The Bible uses several terms for the church. It calls
us a flock, Christ is the shepherd. It calls us branches, and He
is the vine. It calls us subjects of a kingdom,
and He is the king. It calls us children in a family,
and He is the father. There are many metaphors for
the church, but one of them, and a very unique one, is the
concept of the body, that we are members of the body of Christ.
Now when we came into the family, we came into that body. And 1
Corinthians 12, 14 says, the body is not one member but many. So we're all part of the body
of Christ. Now this occurs at your salvation. So point number one is to understand
your salvation. It's very important that we understand
what took place when we were saved. Maybe a simple way to
approach this would be to have you turn to Ephesians and look
with me at chapter 2. Chapter 2 verse 11 says, "'Wherefore,
remember that you in time past were heathen in the flesh.'" Now that's specifically directed
to the Christians who were Gentile Christians. Verse 12 says, "'That
at that time you were without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope and without God in the world. Now that is a picture
of an unbeliever, without Christ, without God, without hope, without
promise, empty. But, verse 13, now in Christ
Jesus, ye who once were far off are made near by the blood of
Christ. You once were far off from God,
without God, without Christ, without hope, without promise.
But in Christ you have been made near, for He is our peace who
has made both one and broken down the middle wall of partition
between us." It's as if you and God were rebels and Christ took
the hand of God and your hand and brought them together. And
often, you know, someone who is mutually loved by two people
can succeed in doing that. Sometimes you have a mother and
a father who become estranged, and a child who is loved by both
of them can be the catalyst to bring them back together. was
a great story that came out of World War II. The French and
the Germans were fighting. The Germans occupied a farmhouse,
and the French were trying to take the farmhouse, and they
were shooting across a field at each other. And all of a sudden,
one of the soldiers screamed out, hold your fire, because
there was a little baby crawling across the field. Somehow it
had gotten out of the farmhouse. And, of course, the Germans saw
the little baby and had the same response. And the interesting
result of the story was that all the firing ceased, and some
newspaper reporter, when he wrote down the interesting article
in relation to that incident, said that a babe had brought
peace. In a real sense, that's precisely what happened with
Jesus Christ. He came into the world to bring
peace between those who were enemies, God and man. And the
reason we are enemies with God is because He is holy and we
are sinful, and that estranges us. And Christ comes and takes
the two parties and brings them together. He is our peace. And
the metaphor here is it's like breaking down a wall that was
between us. And it's not just talking about
between us and God, but between Jew and Gentile. Now further
on, it says in verse 16, He desires to reconcile both Jew and Gentile
unto God in one body by the cross. So Jew and Gentile are brought
together and then both of them in the church are brought together
with God. And the cross accomplishes this.
The cross is the thing, the act which took away sin, and sin
was the wall, sin was the barrier between us and God. And so when
the cross is accomplished and we put our faith in Christ, the
barrier is removed, we are brought to God in one body. And so the
church is all one. If you love the Lord Jesus Christ
and you've been born again, you're one in the body of Christ. In
1 Corinthians 6, 17, it says, he that is joined to the Lord
is one spirit. So all those who are joined to
Christ are one in Christ. Now over in chapter 4 of Ephesians,
verse 17 tells a little bit about our life before we were Christians.
This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth
walk not as other Gentiles walk. How do other Gentiles walk? How
do unsaved people act in the vanity of their mind, having
the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God through
the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their
heart? They are past feeling. In other words, their consciences
no longer really control them. They have seared their conscience.
They've disobeyed it so long it has a little effect. So, that's
a picture of an unsaved person. He walks like the heathen in
the vanity of his mind. He's guided by his own thoughts.
His understanding is darkened. He can't really know the truth.
He is alienated from the life of God, spiritually dead. His
heart is blind. He has no feeling toward God,
etc. He gives himself over to evil things, to wild kind of
living, uncleanness, greediness, and all that. But you have not
so learned Christ. When you receive Christ, a whole
new life begins, and all of that ceases to exist in the newness
of life in Christ. So there's a tremendous transformation.
One other passage in Ephesians 2 to look at it, chapter 2 verse
1. Ephesians 2 verse 1 says, And
you hath He made alive who are dead in trespasses and sins,
Before you were a Christian, you were dead, not physically
dead, but spiritually dead. And when we talk about spiritual
death, we mean an inability to respond to God. I remember one
day when I was sitting over in my office, a little boy came
running in and said, please come down the street. My mother needs
help. Our baby sister just died. And
down here on Roscoe Boulevard, about half a dozen houses or
so, I hurried down the street and went in and there was a little
baby, beautiful little baby, I guess maybe about four months
old, lying on the bed, just as blue as it could be, stone cold
dead. And the mother was just sobbing
and sobbing and sobbing and there was no explanation as far as
she knew as to how the baby died. And she would kiss the baby and
hold the baby and nothing she could do would make that baby
live. because physical death is an inability to respond. And
it served to me as a good illustration because probably the strongest
of all affections in human terms would be the affection of a mother
for a child. That's the most basic kind of affection, the
strongest kind of tie, that mother tied to that very life that came
out of her own womb. But all the love she had and
all of that energy that she was giving to that little child was
totally unreceived because death is an inability to respond. It
doesn't matter what the stimulus is, it can't respond. Spiritual
death is the same thing. It is to be unable to respond
to God. It is to have God doing things
and God moving and totally be indifferent, unresponsive to
what God is doing. That's spiritual death, the inability
to respond to God. And that's precisely what Paul
is saying. Before you were a Christian, you were dead in trespasses and
sins. Your life was characterized by
the flesh, by the desires of the flesh, the desires of the
mind, verse 3 says. You walked according to the course
of the world, whatever the world said you did. You followed the
prince of the power of the air, Satan, and you were totally tuned
out to God, as if you were physically dead and couldn't feel the stimulus
of a physical Factor, so spiritually dead you can't feel the stimulus
of a spiritual reality. That all changed. Ephesians chapter
2 says in verse 4, but God who is rich in mercy for His great
love with which He loved us, and of course the whole change
was begun with God. It was His love and His mercy.
Even when we were dead in sins has what? Made us alive. What's the one thing a dead man
needs most? Life. And that's precisely what God
gives. And what does He mean by life? It simply means that
He turned on your spiritual sensitivities, and you became aware of God.
You were able to sense God. You now walk in the presence
of God. The scripture starts to mean something to you. Prayer
means something to you. A whole new dimension opens up
of existence, and that's because you became alive spiritually.
That is, you opened up to be able to sense God. So your salvation
then is an awakening into the realm of the presence of God.
When you were saved, you came alive. Now part of that new life
includes you being incorporated in the body of Christ, a very
important concept. So your salvation then was a
great transformation. You belong to the world. You
were insensitive to God. All of a sudden, by the transformation
of salvation, you've been placed in the body of Christ. You've
been saved from deadness unto life. And you can sense God.
You can feel God. You know God. You walk in eternal
life. And incidentally, eternal life
isn't the length of time. Eternal life is a kind of living.
And that is the new life that comes in Christ. So you understand
your salvation and what it did. Now secondly, I want you to look
a little bit at this idea of understanding your position.
Now that you are in the body of Christ, now that you are a
Christian, what does that mean? Now listen to me. What it means
is that you are in Christ in the truest sense of the word.
Your position to begin with, A, is you are in Christ. Now,
I mean that in the most realistic sense. When God looks at you,
He sees you as it were incorporated in Christ. Everything about you
is in Christ, and that's why God can impute righteousness
to you, because He sees you in Christ. That's why God can forgive
your sin, because He sees you in Christ. That's why Romans
8 says you are a joint heir, because everything that comes
to Christ comes to you, because you are in Christ. So when you
became a Christian, you were made to be identified uniquely
in the person of Jesus Christ. That's a tremendous concept. In 2 Timothy 1.9 it says, who
has saved us, God who has saved us, called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior
Jesus Christ." God even had you in Christ before the world began. He saw you that way even then,
now manifest since Christ has come. In Ephesians chapter 1,
I think it's verse 6, it says this. God has predestinated us, verse
5, to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace," listen, "...through which He has made us accepted."
How? How has God made us accepted?
In the Beloved One. The only way God can accept you
is in Christ. And when you become a Christian
and you receive Christ, you literally become in Christ. You literally
move into Him, as it were, and His personality shelters you
so that God sees you in Christ. Ephesians 117 is really a prayer
that you would understand this. He says, I pray that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you
the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him, that
the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened, that you
would know what is the hope of His calling and the riches of
the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And what is the
exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according
to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead and set Him on His own right
hand in the heavenly places? Now what he's saying there is,
I pray that you will understand what it means to be in Christ.
It is to inherit all that is His of the riches and the glory. It is to inherit all of His,
verse 19, of the power, the mighty power which raised Him from the
dead. Every possession of Christ and every empowering of Christ
becomes ours because we're in Christ. It's a tremendous concept. And, of course, this is why we
say a believer, for one reason, cannot lose his salvation. There
is security there, you see. Your identification is in Him.
In Ecclesiastes, there is an interesting verse. There's a
lot of interesting ones, but one for our thoughts. Ecclesiastes
3.14. I just point this out because
I want you to understand how complete you are in Christ. I know that whatsoever God does,
it shall be forever." Now that's a good principle. If God does
anything, it's a forever thing. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should
fear before Him. Now when God does something,
there is nothing that can be added to it and there is nothing
that can be taken away from it. That's true of anything, and
it's even true of your salvation. If God saved you, that settles
it. It's total. It's complete. You're
not half saved, three-quarters saved, or saved to a point and
you've got to add a few little items along the way. If you're
saved, God did it. You can't add anything to it.
You can't take anything away from it. You became a total Christian
the moment you believed. You know, when a baby is born
into the world, it isn't born like a pollywog. Doesn't come in and
all of a sudden at three months, sprouts a right arm and then
all of a sudden at six months, a leg pops out and pretty soon
you got a little toad type thing. No, babies come into the world
from the time they're the teeniest little thing, they have all the
parts, right? They have all the parts. The parts just get bigger. That's all. When you become a
Christian, you're not a spiritual pollywog with just a squiggly
little tail, and as you mature, you pop out the new parts. You're
a total Christian. The only question is the process
of growing. Do you see what I mean? It's only a process of developing
what you already are because you are complete in Him. Colossians
2.10 says, for you are complete in Him. 2 Peter 1.3 says, you
have all things pertaining to life and godliness. You lack
absolutely nothing. There are no ingredients you
don't have. There is nothing missing. You are a totally perfectly
formed baby in Christ. Now, you need to grow and you
need to mature those parts to bring them to a place where they
can really operate for maximum effect, but no parts are missing. You are totally complete. That's
a very, very important concept. Now because we are in Christ,
God sees us then in fulfillment of all of His requirements. Christ came and fulfilled the
whole law. Since you're in Christ in the eyes of God, you also
fulfill the whole law. You are spiritually alive to
God, you're dead to sin, you're forgiven. How much forgiven are
you? He's forgiven you all your trespasses.
You're righteous, you're a child of God, you're God's possession,
heirs of God, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies,
you're heavenly citizens, you're servants of God, you have new
life, you're free from the law, crucified to the world, you're
a light to the world, victorious over Satan, you're cleansed,
you're holy without blame, you're free, you're in Christ, you're
secure in Christ, you're possessors of peace, you're one, you're
in grace, you're in fellowship, you're joyful, you're spirit
indwelt and led, you're spirit gifted, you're empowered for
service, and you have love. Now, that's pretty exciting,
isn't it? That's who you are. In the eyes of God, that is your
position. Since you're spiritually alive
to God, live the life. Since you're dead to sin, don't
give sin any place. You see, what you are positionally
before God, how God sees you may be different than how you
behave. I remember when I was a little
kid, some neighborhood kid, he got me in some bad influence.
He got me to think it was kind of a neat deal to smoke a cigar.
So I smoked a cigar and I thought, boy, this is really living, big
time deal. So then he decided he'd show
me how I could steal things from the dime store. I was really
a great kid, I just got in bad company. But anyway, so we wound up stealing
some stuff from Sears. As we were leaving the store,
we got caught by the store detective. And they put us in jail, in the
city jail, while they called my father, who was playing golf
with some deacons. And poor guy, he didn't know what was going
on. Anyway, he came to the jail, he thought it was a mistake. And he had the deacons
with him, they were coming back. Couldn't be my son, so anyway,
he comes and I'm in the cell there, sitting there. So my dad
arrives and he bails me out of there. And you know, I remember
going to church, and my dad was a preacher, so everybody knew
who I was. The word got around about me being in jail. Didn't
do a whole lot for my family's image. But anyway, people used
to say to me, oh, how could you do that? Don't you know who your
father is? My mother would say, don't you
realize, don't you realize how you've dishonored our family? How could you, a pastor's son,
do that, people would say. Well, you see, the point was
I wasn't living up to my position, you understand? Because of who
I was, there was a certain level demanded of me, and I wasn't
living up to it. Now the Scriptures give us both sides. There are
many Scriptures on our position, and there are many on our experience
or our practice. And we need to have both. You
need to be consistent. There is a certain position that
we have as Christians that we are to live up to. And the tragic
thing that occurs in a Christian's life is often your practice doesn't
match your position. You know, and what the Holy Spirit
is saying to you is, what are you doing acting like that? Don't
you know who you are? Don't you know who your Father
is? So your practice needs to match your position, but your
position is perfect. You are in Christ, and your position
secures you forever. Spiritual growth has nothing
to do with your position. Your position is already perfect.
Spiritual growth occurs in the area of your practice to match
your position. So that's a very important thing.
All right, then, understanding your position. Your position,
first of all, is in Christ. Secondly, since you are in Christ,
you are also in the body of Christ, the church. You have a very important
position there. At the center of the church is
Christ, the Spirit of Christ. Christ rules in the church. through
evangelists and pastor-teachers." And this is giving you the organization
of the church in a circle fashion. The Spirit of Christ rules through
evangelists and pastor-teachers. Their ministry is to equip the
saints. The saints then are equipped
by the leaders of the church to minister. When the saints
minister, the body of Christ is edified or built up And the
result of that is that the elect are added. People are saved.
Now, this is basically a simple look at the structure of the
church. The heart or the head of the church, Christ, the Spirit
of Christ. Through the evangelists and pastor-teachers or the elders
of the church, the saints are equipped. Once the saints are
equipped, they begin to minister. Once they begin to minister,
the body gets built up. And when the bodies build up, the elect
are added. People are saved. Now, that's the structure of
the church. Your task is to be equipped. so that you can minister. For when you minister, the body
will be built up and other people will be saved." Now that's a
simple look at the organization of the church. Our part then
is to submit to teaching and leadership. That's John MacArthur with a
reminder about how God desires you to function in your local
church. Along with being the Bible teacher
on the broadcast, John is president of the Master's College and Seminary,
and today's lesson is a part of his current series on Grace
To You titled, Spiritual Boot Camp. John, I know you're committed
to studies like Spiritual Boot Camp, to verse-by-verse teaching
from God's Word, in part because it changes lives, it gives people
eternal hope. That's certainly true for two
listeners who wrote to Grace to you recently and whose letters
I know you have there right in front of you. I do, Carl, and
they're very encouraging. First one from Renee. Dear Pastor
MacArthur, I'm not much of a radio listener while driving, but I
came across the radio station 105.1 back in February, and your
study on winning the private war against temptation was on.
I had been struggling with alcohol since about 2001, and the struggle
had gotten progressively worse. I was calling in sick two or
three times a month. It's only by the grace of God
that my employer had not fired me. Your teaching prompted me
to get on my knees before God and cry out for help and deliverance.
And He has answered in a tremendous way. Our God is an awesome God. Your message could not have come
at a better time. I was in a very dark place and
even had thoughts that death was the only answer to end my
chains of bondage. I praise God and thank Him every
day for breaking that bondage. Your sister in Christ, Renee.
Renee, bless your heart. Thank you so much. What an encouraging
letter. And that is the power of the
Spirit of God and the power of the truth to break that bondage.
Another letter comes from David. Mr. MacArthur, I became a Christian
at 12 years old and was raised in a Christian home. Until age
35, I attended a very Arminian church and didn't know of the
doctrines of grace even though I had taught from the Word of
God since I was 18 years old. Several years ago, while I was
preparing to teach at my church, I was introduced to Grace to
You, and I began listening with amazement. The more I listened
to your sermons, the more I realized all that I had missed in Scripture.
I relied heavily on your teaching as I prepared the teacher's packets
for our nine coordinated adult Sunday school classes. Years
later, I learned that those lessons helped hundreds of people understand
the truth of grace. I continue to thank God for your
preaching ministry. Your obedience to the faithful
preaching of the Word has been a great example to me in my work
as an elder of our church and a lay minister of the Word. signed
a servant of God, David. You are a servant of God, David,
and it is my greatest joy to give the truth to someone who
will spread it like you have. Thanks, John. Now, Fran, let
me remind you, when you give in support of Grace To You, you
help minister to people like Renee and David all across the
world. To become a partner with us,
call our toll-free number or visit the website gty.org and
make your tax-deductible donation today. You can also mail a gift
to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, California,
91412. Or express your support when
you call 1-800-55-GRACE. And again, you can donate online.
It's quick and easy at gty.org. And even if you're not able to
give today, you can still support Grace To You and help encourage
believers worldwide with the verse-by-verse teaching of God's
Word for decades to come. And now that happens when you
make Grace To You a part of your life insurance policy or estate
planning, helping unleash God's truth to your children, grandchildren,
even great-grandchildren. For more information on legacy
giving, call 1-800-55-GRACE or go to the donate page at our
website, gty.org. Now, when you're online, gty.org,
make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources
there, including blog articles by John, daily devotionals, and
more than 3,000 of John's sermons, all free to download in the mp3
or transcript format. That website again, gty.org. And now for John McArthur and
the staff, thanks for joining us today. Please invite a friend
to join you right here tomorrow for another half hour of Unleashing
God's Truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You. Spiritual gifts are crucial to
the life and health of a church, so how do you know what your
gifts are and how to use them? Find out on tomorrow's Grace
To You.
How to Function in the Body, Part A
Series Spiritual Boot Camp
You’re not going to find a company filled with CEOs... a baseball team with only pitchers... an orchestra consisting only of cymbals—you need people filling different roles. John MacArthur shows you how that principle applies to you and your church.
| Sermon ID | 813151629593 |
| Duration | 28:55 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.