That's how you deal with the wayward.

You don't pounce on them judgmentally.

You don't condemn them.

You don't wreak havoc in their lives by abusing them and alienating them and cutting them off.

You come alongside like a parent loving a child and understanding where the child is going,

calling them back, and you do it with tears of compassion.

Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil

Johnson. Webster's calls it sorrow for the sufferings or troubles of another. But where

biblical compassion is concerned, that definition doesn't quite cover all the ground. You need to

show compassion to, well, everyone, regardless of their circumstances. Of course, that can be a challenge.

What do you do, for example, when a fellow

believer is in sin? Do you confront him with truth, or do you embrace him with tenderness? And does it

have to be one or the other? What role should compassion play with those who attack others, or

so discard, or refuse to obey God's word. Find out on today's

grace to you as John MacArthur teaches you how to be compassionate in a truth-filled and biblical

way. Here he is now continuing his study called the Pillars of Christian Character.

There are internal systems in the church. They are made up of spiritual

attitudes that flow and carry the life of the church. And we've been talking about those various

attitudes. And there are many of them in the scriptures, and we're kind of taking them one at a time.

Spiritual attitudes like faith, which of course is a starting point, obedience, things

like humility and love and unity and forgiveness and two very important spiritual attitudes,

joy and thankfulness, very, very essential in the life of a church that its people be filled

...