Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - A Personal Tribute to John MacArthur - How He Impacted My Life and Ministry | Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

"I loved John MacArthur. He was my friend, my mentor, and my pastor. Hard to put into words.Although there are a number of words that you could employ to describe him, no word encapsulates his life and ministry as - faithful.Nothing about him was passionless. He was a great man. A hero. And yet, so normal and kind.Grateful he is in glory. He ran the race and now he joins the crowd of witnesses.A life well lived." - Jonny Ardavanis

Hey folks, my name is Johnny Ardevanis and welcome to Dial-In. I wanted to hop on here today and talk about just my gratitude for the life and ministry of John MacArthur. I loved John MacArthur and he has had probably over anyone other than my dad, the greatest influence on my life. When I think about his life and ministry, I think of four words probably in particular, that he was bold, he was faithful, he was kind, and he was gracious.

Some of my favorite messages from Pastor John were on the topic and theme and subject of heaven, and it's amazing to think that as of yesterday, Pastor John's faith has become sight. Growing up, my mom used to refer to Pastor John as our spiritual grandfather, and that he was trusted and that he taught the word of God. I knew his voice growing up my entire life.

And just a little bit of context, both my grandparents came to know the Lord in the early 70s and shortly thereafter started attending Pastor John's church. My dad came to know the Lord sitting under Pastor John's teaching. When my dad was 14 years old and then later on was ordained by Pastor John, Lord sitting under Pastor John's teaching when my dad was 14 years old and then later on was ordained by Pastor John,

was installed by Pastor John at my dad's first church. I remember my dad used to have this suit in his closet and he said, this is the suit that Pastor John bought me because J-Mac had found out that my dad only had one suit and would wear that suit all the time and he said, Scott, you need a nice suit and he took him out and personally bought him a suit. I had seen him a few times growing up

when he would come out and visit and my parents would walk through some difficulty, ministerially speaking, he would come out and encourage and challenge my parents and tell my dad to stay faithful and to press on. And anyways, I had known his family. John's son, Matt, is one of my dad's best friend and I'd been around him a little bit,

but I grew closer with him really six-ish years ago. I went to Hume Lake in 2017 to work there at the camp and during 2020, when COVID hit, I started this podcast. If you know the story, I was like shut down in my cabin, no one could do anything. It was like 15 days to slow the spread. Then I started teaching through the Gospel of John on dial in because there was nothing else to do

and I just wanted to kind of force myself to study. And after maybe a few of those episodes, I got a text from an unknown number that said, hey, Johnny, let's talk life and ministry. And I said, who's this? And I got a response that said John MacArthur. And I thought someone was messing with me. Even though I had known him

and I'm really good friends with his grandsons, it was definitely not on a, I was not on a level where I expected him messing with me. Even though I had known him and I'm really good friends with his grandsons, it was definitely not on a, I was not on a level where I expected him to text me. And I said, of course, would love that. And I said, he said, do you have any time to hop on the phone today at three o'clock? I was just looking through my text messages with him yesterday and we talked for an hour.

And the next week he said, hey, would love to have you come down, drive down from Humalak to Santa Clarita, I'll spend the day with you. And I spent time with him. We drove around, we talked life and ministry. He asked me how I prepared sermons. And I said, listen, I wanna be a preacher.

Is this the okay way to do it? And he was like, well, what's your process? And we talked about that for a while and he was really encouraging. I drove back up to Humalake. I kinda had driven down and then drove back up that same day. And then the next day he said,

hey, I would love to spend more time. And he was always so kind and said, I'm so sorry to even ask you to make the drive again, but would love to spend some more time together. And I was like, of course. And I drove back down and that's when the conversation began about working at the Master's University. And he said, hey, I would love for you to be here

and for us to be able to spend some time together. And it was just a no brainer, but I said, hey, listen, I still love camping ministry. I need to be around the lost and I wanna be in an evangelistic setting as well. And he said, I would want that as well because John had spent the summers in the seventies preaching at Hume Lake.

And so he created a structure where I was able to come to Master's University during the school year, but then have the freedom to travel and preach and do camping ministry in the summer. And he said, you need that, you need that. And he always encouraged me to be myself because I even had disqualifying conversations about like, hey, I don't know if I'm buttoned up enough to be here.

And he would be like, well, preach the word and be yourself. And he always encouraged me to not try to fit a certain mold. But anyways, when coming there, I was so grateful. And just a couple of highlights from my time with John, I was so grateful and just a couple of highlights from my time with John, I was glowing away by just how gracious he was with his time. There was a number of different moments

where I'd be with him and he would just have a line of people and you almost wanna be like, hey guys, he's gotta get somewhere, but he would stand and greet people and shake their hand. And I remember after chapel one time at the university, students said, hey, we got some questions for you, we need a few minutes and he said, let's pull up some chairs and I remember

checking back in a few hours later and he was just sitting in that circle talking to them, answering their questions. I loved sitting with him at basketball games because people know him for his boldness in the pulpit but he was also a competitor, he loved to win and he would kind of give me elbows during the game and say, this guy, he needs to drive the lane, drive the lane,

or that's a horrible call, you know, to the refs. And I love that side because as much as, you know, one of the things that most people will say that know J-Mac is that he was down to earth. He was a normal guy. He was a jock. He was an athlete. And so he loved being at the athletic games

and that's often, you know, some of the stuff that we would talk about. It wasn't just like life and ministry and preaching. It was, did you watch the game last night? And he was just a cool guy, but I was so greatly impacted by him. I remember asking him on one occasion, hey, should I go preach at this location?

It's a little bit outside of maybe our vein. Would you be okay with this? And he was like, I don't care where you go, preach the word. Even in this podcast, you know, and in writing my book, Consider the Lilies, I had kind of wrestled with, hey, should I wait until I'm older to do that type of ministry, to do a podcast, to do a book?

After all, I haven't been pastor for very long, but he encouraged me and said, do it now, you know, press on and dial in wouldn't exist in the format that it does today outside of the encouragement and I would say the pressure from Pastor John. Those first videos that I recorded ever were with him, those interviews with him, and I just kind of inundated him with questions.

He spent hours with me, and then he would help kind of broker the relationships. He said, you should get this guy and consolidate this content. So I was so grateful for that. I wrote down just a couple other things, amongst other things. I know that after I film it, I'll be like, ah, you know, I missed this.

But even when my daughter, Scotty Jones, was going through a tough time, he was always reaching out and asking me how she was doing and praying. I think even a couple friends have said, you know, when I'm online right now, you just see different people saying, hey, when my wife was going through a difficult time,

or when my mom was dying, the first person there at the hospital was Pastor John. He's known for his public persona, his preaching, but he was a true shepherd. And I just wanted to acknowledge my gratitude for his life and ministry. I've seen even in recent years some of your heroes, the heroes of kind of the contemporary church culture fall into sin. And when I think about his life, I think of that word faithful. He would text me at times after listening to my sermons in the last couple of years, and he would just always say, stay faithful. And he wrote me a letter for my 30th birthday. And the verse I was just

looking at in his Philippians 1.6, that he who began a good work in you is going to carry it on to completion. And I think that's the reality for Pastor John's life. He began a good work and a man who gave his life to the Lord and who had a 56-year ministry. And in light of the life that he lived, I just want to pray that I would become a man like John MacArthur, who loved the Lord, loved the Scripture, loved the people of God in the local church. And I would encourage you to live a life like him.

You know, Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. There's an element where you live and watch a guy who's living and striving for the glory of God and you go, I want to live like that. And when I look and reflect upon the life of Pastor John, I go, man, I want to live like that. I'm sure there's other memories and other favorite sermons that some of you guys have that have been exposed to his life, his teaching, preaching, and ministry. Maybe put those in the comments so other people could be mutually encouraged. It's been amazing just in the last 18 hours since he went to

be with the Lord, just the outpouring of people expressing their gratitude from all over the world. And I'm thankful for the way that the Lord used his life. And truly, maybe just final thing, I've always been shocked by the way that his ministry, as massive as it was, he always just accredited to the mercy of God and God's kindness. It was never something that he found his identity in. He was just the best and the coolest guy, so normal and so humble. And I want to be a man like that,

so I just wanted to acknowledge my gratitude to the Lord for making and using John MacArthur.