The church is to be the pillar that holds up the truth.

It is the solemn responsibility of every church to lift up the truth and hold it high,

and really with it to smash the ideological fortresses of Satan's lies.

We have a stewardship of truth not to be tampered with, not to be depreciated, not to be misrepresented,

not to be abandoned,, not to be misrepresented, not to be abandoned, and not to be

altered.

Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

A great preacher once said, the church is not perfect, but woe to the man who

finds pleasure in pointing out her imperfections. Christ loved his church, and let us do the same.

The question is, why does Christ love the church? And how can you cultivate that same kind of love for your own church,

even if there are people in your congregation who are difficult and maybe even hurtful? John

MacArthur answers those questions today in a lesson called Why I Love the Church. So now here's John

with the lesson. I love the church. I confess to that. I am the church. So now here's John with the lesson.

I love the church. I confess to that. I am an inveterate and incurable lover of the church.

It thrills me beyond anything and everything to serve the church. It is the supreme joy of my life

to labor for the church. To spend my years on behalf of the church, I wouldn't trade

for anything.

And there are some reasons why that is true, and I will share a few of those with you, and

we'll look at some texts to undergird them.

First of all, I love the church because the church is being built by the Lord himself,

the immutable, sovereign, faithful, omnibident Lord of heaven, whose word can't return void

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