“Jesus Teaches: On Obedience”
Luke 6:46-49
July 20, 2025
Last Sunday afternoon we became aware that John MacArthur was ill, in the hospital, and not expected to survive past a few more hours. Indeed, Monday evening he entered his heavenly reward. Faith was made sight. Tuesday morning the elders gathered to pray, as we do each week, and as we settled into our meeting, we began with stories and reflections of this man who has impacted us so deeply.
I did not know John MacArthur and only met him once very briefly. I have been impacted greatly by him through his writing ministry, through the Shepherds’ Conferences that I attended many times, and through one of the men he trained at TMS — our beloved Pastor Keith.
Like many of you, my exposure to John MacArthur began through his radio ministry and then a few tape sets; he taught me “Spiritual Bootcamp” (the basics of the spiritual disciplines). On most weekdays, in my first years of college, I would go out to my car at lunch, turn on my radio, pull out my sandwich and listen to J. Vernon McGee and John MacArthur unfold the meaning of the Word of God. Those were days of great growth for me spiritually — days that the Lord used significantly in my life. I expect you have similar stories.
This week, I opened my Bible to study the next passage for preaching this week; it was the final section of the Sermon on the Mount, a passage that is short and powerful. And I realized that this same passage in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount was the basis for the very first sermon John MacArthur preached as the pastor of Grace Community Church (Feb. 9, 1969) — “How to Play Church.” As he began his more than 50-year ministry there, he began with the words of this text, saying:
Our text is a warning to those who are comfortably entrenched in the church, or who think they’re comfortably entrenched in the church but who in reality are not. This is not a warning to outside people. This is a warning to us who are involved in the church to be sure that it’s real. And I think it only fair to begin our ministry here that we stop and really approach this with a sense of sobriety and earnestness, to understand how we stand in view of God right now as individuals.
Along with the call to self-examination it’s also a clarification of the gospel — what genuine faith in Christ is…
Be spiritually discerning — authentic faith is obedient faith.
Last week, Jesus gave the illustrations of His principle and then concluded with the principle; this week He will begin with the principle and then illustrate it. His instruction offers four tests of authentic faith…
- A Question About Authentic Faith (v. 46)
- An Explanation of Authentic Faith (v. 47)
- An Illustration of Authentic Faith (v. 48)
- An Illustration of Inauthentic Faith (v. 49)
Download the rest of this sermon on Luke 6:46-49.
The audio will be posted on the GBC website by Tuesday.
Words of Grace 