John MacArthur, senior pastor of Grace Community Church (GCC) in Sun Valley, California, was welcomed with a standing ovation upon his return to the pulpit Sunday night (Nov. 24) after multiple health issues kept him from being able to preach.
Over the past few months, MacArthur has had to undergo multiple heart surgeries and one surgery involving his lungs. The last time MacArthur preached was this past July.
John MacArthur Is ‘So Thankful to the Lord’
In his return, the 85-year-old MacArthur shared his gratitude for God’s providence throughout his life. MacArthur has served as GCC’s senior pastor for 55 years.
“I should go away more often,” MacArthur said jokingly after the thousands who were attending the Sunday night worship service stood and showed their thankfulness for their pastor’s return to the pulpit. “That was very, very thoughtful.”
MacArthur continued, “It’s been since July that I’ve preached here on a Sunday. That wouldn’t have been my choice, but I think as [GCC] just sung, sometimes our trials are blessings in disguise, and God has purposes that we would never have been able to fulfill if we weren’t put into some kind of stress.” The pastor added, “I can tell you, I’ve had three heart surgeries and a surgery on my lungs in those last few months, and I’m still here, so thankful to the Lord for that.”
“I have so much to be thankful for,” MacArthur said. “In fact, when people ask me how I feel, I say, I’m thankful. I’m just thankful I see the good and gracious and kind and providential hand of God in every vicissitude in my life, every hard experience, every challenge,” he expressed, “whatever that challenge may be, I see the good hand of divine providence operating in ways that would never have been possible were it not for the trial.”
“So I genuinely and truly am grateful, and I can be grateful because I know the outcome of everything. The outcome of everything is to the glory of God and the benefit of his children,” said MacArthur.
MacArthur told the congregation that he wants to make sure that he allows his “own heart to rejoice in the fact that God will perfect [him] and will bring glory to himself through” the trials God has allowed and continues to allow MacArthur to go through.
The pastor shared that through his recent health issues he has become even more thankful. “It’s in the trials, when you’re face to face with things that could easily overpower you and you have no particular control over them at all, that you find your faith is tested,” MacArthur said. “And out of that testing has come an immense amount of gratitude to the Lord.”
Then, before he began his first sermon since July, MacArthur said that God has “revealed himself in all these issues, all these trials, in so many ways that I can’t even begin to count.”
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