1 Timothy, in preparation for
a few things that we're doing as a church. 1 Timothy, chapter 3, starting
in verse 14, and I want to read the first verse of chapter 4. Timothy writes, I hope to come
to you soon, but I am writing these things so that if I delay,
you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God,
which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of
the truth. Great indeed, we confess, is
the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the
nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Now the Spirit expressly says
that in later times some will depart the faith by devoting
themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. Now,
I know I'm right there in the middle of a sentence, but there's
a purpose in going there because that is where Paul is landing. That's where Paul is landing.
And in the weeks to come, we will get there. But today and
in the next few weeks, I want to talk specifically about the
church, about the church. Because in our culture, we have
a grand misapplication and understanding of the church. And I've talked
about it for 20 years and I've talked about it for 11, almost
12 years now as a congregation. And I think that it's worth being
reminded what the church is. Sometimes we can understand what
things are by understanding what things are not. I'm not necessarily
a fan of that type of teaching, but in some instances it is very
profitable. It is profitable in the sense
that we know that what we see oftentimes is not what is biblical. But what do we see? We see people
coming to church. Now, we do come to church, right?
That's an obvious thing. It's not like we just hang out
in the ether and all of a sudden we hear this voice and it's our
pastor who has some type of psychic ability to talk to us. No, the
very word church is a misnomer anyway. It comes from the origin
of the word kirk, which means institution and so on. But the
biblical word ecclesia means gathering. And it's a very common
word that is used in the first century for any type of gathering.
If it was a picnic, ecclesia. If it was a church service, ecclesia.
If it was government, ecclesia. If it was a town hall meeting,
ecclesia. And so when we talk about the
gathering of the people of Christ, it's explicitly dealing with
getting together, physically, face-to-face, one-on-one. And
there are instructions in the New Testament, as we've seen
through the years, that we're going to be reminded of on what
we're supposed to be doing when we do gather. Now, if we do these
things, these are requirements according to the commands of
Christ, according to the doctrines of Christ. There are certain
things that are non-negotiable. For example, the Bible will tell
us in Colossians and Ephesians that we are to get together and
to sing praises unto the Lord together. And that those praises,
the songs that we sing, ought to be firm and have a foundation
of doctrine, of teaching. They ought to teach us something
and remind us of something concerning God and his character and his
work in the gospel concerning the person and the work of Jesus,
etc. So that when we sing, we're telling God of who he is. We
don't need to flatter God in our worship because God is not
flattered. God knows who he is and he is
the greatest of all things. That's what the word God means,
the greatest and highest of all things. So therefore, when we
return that which is about God to him, it is an honor to him
to hear of himself, to hear of his work of redemption, of his
wisdom, and so forth. Another thing that the Bible
tells us that we must do is we must be in prayer for one another.
We must be in prayer for the things that are imminent in our
life. We must be in prayer because
prayer, as we've already looked at in 1 Timothy, is one of the
primary ways that we show our submission and the necessity
of God's sovereignty over our lives and its circumstances.
Because as Americans, we're all little kings and queens. We all
feel that burn, we feel that edge of being in charge, of knowing
that we have rights and liberties, and we do, and we praise God
for those. But when it comes to the economy of grace and the
economy of the sovereignty of God, there is no king but Christ. So we come in prayer because
if all we can do is pray, we've done much. Because we have laid
it all in the hands of Christ. We have laid it all in the hands
of the very One who from His mouth spoke and all things came
into being as they are. And who orders all things as
a picture of showing that He alone can order salvation in
the very nature of creation through the sending of the Son to take
on the natural body of humanity and to live and to die. not just
as an example, but as an offering that paid a debt. We also should
be looking to serve one another. The scripture teaches that the
purpose of the pulpit is to teach the church about who God is and
what God has done, and to teach the church what the apostles,
according to Christ, have instructed the church since its inception.
So that we come together and we learn these things and be
reminded of these things to clarify and make distinctions on who
Jesus really is. To make distinctions on what
is it that we're really called to. What is this gospel all about?
What is grace? What does it mean when Paul says
we are justified by faith? And so on and so forth. We can
learn these things, but the next question is why? What difference
does it make? It makes a difference in two
ways. The first way is it makes a difference that we are to praise
God for His glorious grace. So when we learn about Him and
His work in salvation, we thank Him for it. That's the supernatural
outcome of our natural lives. Thank you, God, because we know
from what we have been saved. What is it? His righteous justice. Jesus Christ has taken that in
our place. And then we also learn that because we are recipients
of grace, because we are objects of mercy, then we are commanded
by the love of God in and through the apostles to love one another
and to serve Christ through our service to one another. That
in order to love Christ, we must love one another. And it's not
generally speaking, love everybody, though we do have that commandment,
even our enemies, even those knuckleheads who hate Christ
himself. We are to love them. We are to give when they are
in need. We are to help those around us
as we have opportunity when they approach us. We are to pray for
unbelievers and for false teachers and for everything else under
the sun that we may abhor. Because while God may abhor it
in his righteous judgment, God does not disclose divine eyes
to his people. We must love everyone as if they
may be a child of God. Even as I had a conversation
with my eight-year-old last week about angels, she just now realized
that angels took the form of people in the Bible. She goes, do we know any angels? No. And I explained to her, you
know, angels aren't just living down here like a neighbor, but
they may appear as a person to you. And we may, as the scripture
says, unawares entertain an angel. And then that opened up a different,
like what, sing a song or juggle or, I mean, no. I said, but it
wouldn't be someone you knew. Oh, so a stranger, a stranger
that I've never seen again, probably wasn't it. I said, no, that's
not the point. The point is this, you can't argue with that child
because it's always something different. But we come and we
understand that the scripture says we are to love one another
and to serve one another and that if we say we love Christ,
We must then serve and love one another. So the pulpit then teaches
the church to do the work of the ministry. So our gathering
together is compulsory. It is a command of God. It's
not something that we just, eh, come to church, eh, I went to
church, eh, did my spiritual thing. No, it's a command of
God. But it's not a command of God unto salvation. It's a command
of God because of grace. It's a means to which God's grace,
as Brother Trey so awesomely spoke by the Lord last week,
talks about that the scripture teaches us that the grace of
God is once and for all to the saints. It's an effective work.
It is God's blessing to the church and all the different parts of
how he continues to work in us by his goodwill and pleasure.
That's grace. And so being together with the
church is a means to which God's grace is administered to you.
A means to which you are prayed for. A means to which you learn
to serve. A means to which you put the
priority of your Christian life at the top. Not so that we can
plug into programs and things of that nature, though there's
nothing wrong with those things if they're not in lieu of what
is commanded. Nothing wrong with those, but
they are driven by necessity and talent, not any other purpose. These are not evangelistic tools
according to the scripture, but they can be incredible tools
to enjoy life together. and to connect with people. So
we do this, we come together, so that we as a people gather
together. That is what the church really
is. A people who are in covenant commitment with one another,
face to face, name to name, to worship together, to pray together,
to learn together, and to live together according to the gospel
of grace, sovereign and free. And so, two weeks ago when I
preached out of this text and we looked at where Paul is going,
teaching the elders of the church now, transmission to Timothy,
an elder, he told Timothy, I want you, the elder, to know what
it ought to be and how people ought to behave. And that's why
I'm writing this letter. And the occasion, for those of
you who haven't been with us or are tracking, you know, this
is week 31, I guess, of this text, you know, the occasion
for this letter was that there were a lot of people in Ephesus
who were upsetting the apple cart, who were causing a lot
of stress and problems, who were disturbing the peace of the gospel
by bringing in new ideas, philosophies, theologies. And we don't know
the details of that. Why? Because Paul never makes
a big deal about the details of false teachings. He just says,
this is the truth. These people aren't teaching
the truth. Here's a couple of examples. Now moving right along,
this is what I want you to do. What I want you to do is submit
to the scripture, submit to Christ through me and the other apostles
in such a way that your attention is not given to the falsehoods,
but your attention is given to the commands of Christ. Isn't
that crazy? I mean, you think about where we were in January
of 2020 as a church. We were going to have a members
meeting in the spring. We were going to start all sorts of new
things and ideas. And some of you were like, hey,
I want to do this and I want to be a part of this service
to the church. And then people started getting
sick. Then COVID happened and everything. We just sort of shut
down. And what happened when we shut down? And we didn't ever
stop meeting. Some of you met throughout the
whole thing, and that's great. But some of you didn't because
of obvious reasons. But the church as a whole, by
and large, was not gathering. The church wasn't being the church.
What happened? Ministry failed. I'm gonna say that again. Ministry,
what does that mean? The needs of the church failed. Your needs, my needs, all of
our needs. Now, we did our best. We did our best. But that's what happens when
things get out of focus. When we start looking at the
negative, when we start looking at the problem, when we start
looking at the issue and it consumes us and we don't follow the commands
of scripture according to unity and order and peace, what happens?
The very thing that we cannot let go, goes, doesn't it? I mean,
it's the same thing with health, my physical health. I don't know
why the Lord has brought me to these places. But God helped
me. God helped me. I have never suffered
the wrath of God on the cross. And believe it or not, that's
the most pleasant thing I can think of when I'm in pain, is
this is awful, but I haven't suffered the wrath of God. So
I can endure this. Now you think about it for a
minute. We get together as a church. We're doing the work of the ministry.
We are doing all that we can. And that's what God has called
us to, that we might meet each other's needs. Ministry is meeting
needs. Ministry is taking care of one
another. And what? Most importantly, as
I've already said, prayer. And this is just precursor thoughts
to the introduction, which is 80% of the sermon, then the segue
into next week, which will be a few minutes. That's what happens
when you have topical expansion of a text. Meeting the needs of prayer,
first and foremost. Then secondly, caring enough to put priority
to the church family, second only to your household. I think
about that for a second. If we're praying for one another,
and beloved, I used to be able to do it all in my head. I used
to get through preaching, and when we were packed out, I could
have 25 names and faces in my head that weren't here. And before
I went to bed that night, I would have reached out. I can't do
that anymore. I can't do that anymore. So I
write it all down. And I used to use note cards and I can't
use note cards because I forget where I put them. So now I have
a notebook and it stays on my desk and I don't move it. I did
move it a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't find it for three
days. And all I did was move from this desk to this desk.
In the same room, still couldn't find it, couldn't find it. You
see, so don't think you have to be a super person with a super
mind to minister to people in prayer. Write it down, just write
it down. Who are we praying for? We're praying for the top of
mind next fire that comes on social media. Beloved, that's
not ministry. Yes, pray for those people. That's
a great opportunity. But there needs to be an intentional
prayer for the church family. There needs to be an intentional
interest in our congregation with itself. And we're going
to talk about that today. Look at Paul. What does he say?
I hope to come to you soon. Why was Paul's interest with
Ephesus? Because that's what Christ commands.
That's what Christ does. He presses our hearts that Paul
was suffering. Paul was stressed out. Look at
all the pastoral epistles. Paul is most likely in prison
during all of them. Paul is suffering. Paul is sick.
Paul's body began to fail when he's writing Timothy. He's in
prison. And he's sick and there's a person
amongst the body, amongst the churches of Asia Minor, Palestine,
which is where all this took place. The churches amongst Palestine
who are what? There are people amongst these
who are ministering to Paul. Who are they? The Ephesians?
The Philippians? Others like that. They're concerned with
Paul. Why? Because Paul is sick and in need. What does Paul tell
them? I appreciate your interest in me. I appreciate your desire
to help me. I appreciate your concern for
me. It makes me joyful that God Almighty,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has imposed in your heart a concern for me.
Because, see, that's what God the Spirit does. That's what He does. And so Paul's not only here,
but other places. When he couldn't go, he sent
someone else. He sent Epaphroditus. He sent Timothy. He sent them
places. Why? Because he couldn't call them.
He couldn't check on them. We live in such a way, technologically,
that we never have to not know what's going on. And this isn't a sermon about
hiding from the church, but it's what we do naturally, right?
You know, we don't have to tell everything, but beloved, I need
your prayers for my physical health, and so does my wife. She's not well and has not been. We need prayers, and God's purposes
will stand. Anything else we need, I promise
you, we'll let you know. If you see me digging holes or
doing any outside work or climbing or lifting, shoot me. Please,
maybe that wasn't coot, I shouldn't have said that. Come over there
and slap me with a rake or something. but Paul had an interest. He
wanted to be there. He didn't want to just write
a letter, send a note, make a telephone call. He wanted to be there because
there's something different about face-to-face interaction. There's
something different when I text you and you say, everything's
good, just pray for us. Okay, I'm going to do that. When
I say, what do you need? And you go prayer only. And that
is true. And it may be what you need,
but when we're standing together, it's a lot easier to say, pastor,
I don't have any shoes. It's a lot easier to say, you
know what? My lights have been shut off. It's a lot easier to
say my marriage is in shambles. It's a lot easier to say I am
in so much sickness that I can't cut my grass. You see? It's easier to say I
haven't eaten in a week because I don't have groceries. It's
easier to say. It's easier to say I just need
to talk to somebody because I'm losing my mind. Paul teaches us, not just through
command, but by his own life, that being together is the point.
It's the reason that the letters were written. There are some
who can't be, but most of us can be. Beloved, we need each
other. We cannot survive this life in
this world without God's people. and you are needed, whether you
know it or not, you are gifted, whether you know it or not, there's
somebody who God has ordained for you to minister to in some
experience that you've had or for some gift or some treasure
that you may obtain for their purpose, for God's purpose in
their life. So here we have this, I hope to come to you soon, but
I'm writing you, Timothy, so that you, if I am not able, if
I do delay, you will know how to teach the church how one ought
to behave. That's the purpose. And then he calls the church,
I don't like the way this is translated, the household of
God. But it doesn't matter, I'm not gonna split hairs, but let's
just say the house of God and the symbolism of the temple,
the symbolism of the pillars as we talked about, we see that
God dwells with his people, God dwells in his people. This is another reason why the
local assembly is the local assembly for a reason. While we're in
covenant relationship with each other. Because when we are together,
Christ is with us. He's with us when we're separate
too. But the emphasis of the Bible teaches us that where two
or more are gathered together, He is there with us. In other
words, when we are praying together, our Lord is together. We are
not just gathering together so that we can see how each other
bathe and dress nicely. We're gathering together so that
we may, in Christ, be one body because he is our head, as we'll
see, as we've already seen. This is all review. The church
of the living God, the gathering of the living God, the house
of God. If we remember what Paul taught in Hebrews, we see that
God put a manager, Moses, over the house of God, but there is
one true builder and it is Jesus Christ, the head. The house of
God is not a building, it's a people. the family of faith, the church
of the living God. But my emphasis today is going
to be on this specific thing, which I've already taught, but
I want to reemphasize it. Why? Because we've got two families
coming into membership in two Sundays. First Sunday of August. We've got others who are petitioning
for membership as well. And it's not flippant, it's not
a thing that we take lightly as a church family. People are
welcome to come and hang out and be a part of our congregation
and the public services all they want, but there is a level of
intimacy that they will miss. But to be a member of the church,
it's a special thing. The scripture teaches us that
the church is a pillar. holds up the roof, holds up the
structure, and buttress of the truth. The buttress, I tried
to explain it the way of a load-bearing wall holds up the structure. Ruby and I were sitting in the
truck week before last, and there was an old building made out
of cinder block in Statesboro, and she's sitting there, and
she goes, how many bricks is that? So she does the math. And
then we get the average weight of the bricks, because you wonder
how much that wall weighed. It was like 60 tons. Crazy. Wow, if that fell down, how does
it stand up? All the other walls, and the
structures, and the trusses, and the roof, and everything
holds it together. The church is like the wall that
holds it all up. Holds what up? The truth. So today, we're focusing on the
church as the buttress of the truth. the thing that holds the
truth up. I want you to think about this
for a second. Because here's where a lot of
us go. In the academics, like myself, we get really, oh yeah,
the truth. Pull out the systematics. Pull
out the Greek. Let's get busy on holding down
the truth. Let's staple that stuff to the
floor and lay on it so the wind doesn't blow it away. And that's
a good, zealous, appeal. It's a good thing to want to
hold fast to the truth of the gospel. It's a necessity. The problem comes is when people
think they can ignore the commands of Christ in unity and peace
and obedience at the cost of what they think is divine zeal
at the antithesis of obedience for a doctrine. Now, I'll explain
that a little bit clearer as I go on. Simply put, there are some people
in this life who go, well, you don't have justification right,
and I hate you. Demonic. Let me say that again. D-E-M-O-N-I-C. Three syllables. That's not my
interpretation of that. That's the Lord Jesus. through
the Apostle Paul. It is not of the flesh when we
hate someone who's wrong. And the church is not called
to that. That is not buttressing the truth.
Buttressing the truth is acting like Jesus and holding to true
doctrine. Both and or none at all. I want
you to hear that. And beloved, it's not just in
the church, is it? We see that type of behavior everywhere.
We see that type of behavior in political points of view. We see that stuff
in economists. We see that. I mean, I'm a fanboy
of quantum physics. It's not healthy for me. I promise
you it's not healthy. Don't go. It's just fun to consider
crazy stuff like that. And there are zealots and angry
people in every discipline. but they cannot be part of the
local family of faith. People who are angry, bullied
zealots concerning the things of God
cannot be part of the family of faith. Pastors included. Pastors who beat the pulpit,
scream and yell, like I've done before. Many times through many
years and seasons. But it must not be. because scripture
teaches us otherwise. The Spirit says, for one, in
later days, expressly, see this is Paul, he's being very careful
to remind Timothy that God the Spirit is working through his
writing, that it's not just Paul's own interpretation of things,
but it's God himself writing through this letter. Some will
depart from the faith in this way, by devoting themselves to
deceitful spirits. See, a deceitful spirit will
tell you that you're doing the work of God when you're ignoring
the commands of God. A deceitful spirit will tell
you that you don't have to worry about true doctrine because you're
loving one another. You see, it goes on both sides,
doesn't it? So we're never flippant, but we're not belligerent. It's okay. It is okay because
God is sovereign. And if we follow the prescription
that the Scriptures show us, the prescription of Scripture,
that's funny, that the Scriptures show us, we will find peace and
we will see God's resolution of these things to the praise
of His glory beyond any human wisdom, beyond the sharp pastor
who can organize people well, or the great teacher who can
bring peace and unity in all circumstances. God doesn't share
His glory with man. except through the man Jesus
Christ, to the praise of it. So there's a lot of Ps that will
come out of my head today. The point of the church, the
power of the church, the picture of the church, all this stuff.
It just comes so easy. Alliteration just comes so easy. But they're
not outlined, so don't worry about writing them down. But
what is the point of the church? What is the point of the church?
When Paul talks about the church being the buttress of the truth,
what is the point? That's it. A display of the wisdom of God.
In Ephesians chapter 3 we see that the manifold wisdom of God
is displayed to the principalities, the powers of this present age,
of the heavenly places, which according to Ephesians 6 is the
devil and the demons, the fallen and non-elect angels. And so
we see very clearly that the point of the church is to show
God off. Just as the psalmist writes,
the heavens declare your glory, and the work of your hands, so
does the body of Christ declare your glory. Not in the systematized
reality of gospel theology, but in the reality of living as gospel
recipients. I think I preached it this way
some eight years ago, that what Paul is trying to simply express
in Ephesians 3 is that the devil knows the power of God in redemption
because the church is. The church exists. and the church
beyond all that which is prudent and rational and logical in the
eyes of most people in the world does and behaves in such a way
together in love and unity that baffles. You mean that man said
that to you? You mean that person did this
to you? And y'all are still friends? We're not friends. We're siblings. We're not friends. We're connected
in the blood of Christ. were friends also." That's a
weak word compared to brothers and sisters. The point of the church to display
the wisdom of God, the power of God in the church is His effectual
grace that before the foundations of the world God determined,
decreed, etc., whatever word you want to put there in your
theological envelope, to create the world and its infinite measure
to create a people for himself to show his power in redemption. Now think about that for a second.
The power of God to do that which no creature can do. In uprightness,
in innocence, Adam and Eve could not stand in righteousness. That
was the intention of God. To show no creature can do what
only he can do. We could talk about the church
as we stand before God and as we stand before man. Who are
we before God? Paul even talks about it, the
mystery of godliness. This is the mystery of godliness
that Jesus Christ in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen
by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world,
taken up in glory. This is the segue into this,
some people are going to depart from the faith. After he's already
told Timothy, thus the elders of the future churches, what
a leader ought to be and how to qualify and measure a leader's
qualifications concerning their oversight of the church and their
service to the church. You notice that, right? There are two offices
in the church, the office of teacher-overseer, who prays and
teaches and oversees the instruction to the church in order to do
the work of the ministry, and then the office of deacon, who
engages the love of Christ in the church in practical ways. without which the church isn't
truly living according to Christ. This picture of Christ that is
the head of the church, this is a picture of Jesus Christ
who is the eternal God who gave himself over to be crucified. The eternal God who stepped out
of glory and took on humanity. He created a woman named Mary
according to the prophecies. and created a womb and in her
womb created a zygote and in that womb he made himself a body
and he was born into the world. This is unbelievable. And here is the God-man born
as an infant. Growing, learning to walk, learning
to read. But yet completely and fully
and truly and always God in every sense and in truly and fully
completely and always human. The church is the picture of
Christ. Marriage is a picture of the church. The position of the church before
God, we are pure, we are free, we are perfect, we are sanctified,
we are set apart, we are justified, we are beloved, we are saved,
we are redeemed, we are adopted, we are holy. Because Christ is
our righteousness, He is our holiness, He is our sanctification.
There is nothing left for us to be that Christ has not already
credited to us. So now here's the juggle, right?
Here's the struggle. Oh, I'm holy? Yes, because of Christ you are. I still sin, absolutely, but
you're not guilty before the Father of those sins because
your guilt has been put on Christ. That's why it's so horrible when
we willfully sin against Christ because He's already died for
these things. As Paul would say, it like sets Him up to shame
again. But there's no condemnation before
the Father. The church is pure. For those who are born again,
for those who have been given to the Lord Jesus, for those
who have been granted faith, for those who have whatever adjective
that you want to use out of the apostolic writing, it will show
you this. This is how we are before the
Lord. But then also before man, we are to exhibit even to the
devils the love of Christ. Passion and zeal, as I've said
earlier, are not always from God. They must be arrested. How do I know if my zeal and
boldness is of God? If it's arrested by the command
of humility, calmness, quietness, meekness, and service. I don't know if I can repeat
all those again, but if it's arrested by the Spirit of God
in those ways, by the commands of Christ. That is the doctrine
of Christ, not just who He is and His salvation, but what He
asks of His people and what He has promised to do in us imperfectly
in this life. And I say imperfectly because,
beloved, I don't care how good we're doing. It only takes a
second for us to realize that we still have a flesh. We could
love everything all the time, walking around singing like a
Broadway musical from the 50s. And then, boom, flush it all
down the toilet. That's why we know that we stand
before God in this promise that there is no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus. No matter the motive or the mission,
when our words and our desires and our actions violate the clear
instruction of scripture, it is of the flesh. And when it
is of the flesh, it is not of the spirit of God. It is of the
spirit of the world. OK. And that instruction, as we see
it in the New Testament, even with the most heinous of people,
look at what the Corinthians were doing. I mean, beloved,
if our children acted like Corinth, we'd go to jail. You know? I mean, there'd be
some problems. Yet what did Paul say? Paul said,
I'm going to come down here with a stick and I'm going to beat
y'all's butts. I want to call you mature, but
you're not. You're children, you're babies in the Lord and
you're not living according to grace. You're not living according
to the gospel. You should be ashamed, not celebrating. But
he never condemned them. Even when we dismiss someone
from the fellowship of the church because they refuse to submit
to the simple instruction of being patient and peaceable.
Because none of us are without sin. But when people want to
disrupt life and make demands and make conditions on obedience,
we cannot fellowship with them. And we have that blessing from
the Lord to say, OK, you go your way and we're here when you're
ready. We love you. We desire to see you reconciled. And we understand the church
is a church of praise. As I said this morning, as we
open up, we are to praise God for His grace, for His glorious
grace. And our praises and our prayers
are in vain if our lives and our affections are not following
after the gospel. Beloved, let me tell you something.
Suffering hones this in us. When we stress out, when we suffer,
it really sharpens that up. Because we learn to pray simply. We learn to just cry out to God
in desperation. But there are people in the church,
and the church is about people. And the church is about being
around people who are not like us, who sometimes don't teach
like us, or think like us, or live like us, or think like us,
or worship like us. But beloved, let me tell you
something. There are all sorts of people in the church, and there are specifics
that I'll talk about now as we segue into the actual message
of this morning. The buttress of the truth. The
Lord shows His wisdom in our lives and the truth of Christ
in doctrine. Who are among the gatherings?
Well, there's a whole big list that I could come up with, but
let's just keep it simple. Let's say that there are several,
and here's some that I want to focus on this morning. When we
gather together, amongst us are definitely the regenerate people,
people who have been born of the Spirit, who profess Christ.
And then there are also some who profess Christ, who are not
born again, but they profess Christ. And then there are others
who are interested in spiritual things and they're just sort
of, they don't know where they stand. They don't know, they
don't, where do we see that? That was the majority of the
New Testament gatherings in the public eye. Many, when the apostles
would teach, and the elders would teach, and the apostles were
there in Jerusalem and Antioch and other places, there was always
a crowd that gathered around, and I like to call them, you
know, they might have been nosy, they might have been interested,
they might have been seeking something spiritual. Nosy folks. Interested folks. There's probably folks that are
political. Yeah, that church is preaching my politics. I think
I'm on the list a little bit. No. You won't like the politics
of grace. Because they disavow any political
standing. Because we're not of this world. Self-righteous folks are part
of the church. Folks that are like, you know what? I'm a godly
influence. I'm going to go straight in that church. Yeah. You ever
met some? Yeah, unfortunately. And we've
been those people before, right? Some of us. I can't say all of
us, but I mean some of us. I've been that person in my 20s.
I'll tell you what. Let me have that pulpit two Sundays.
I'll straighten that trash out. God should have struck me with
lightning. Burnt my left ear off. What happened? I'm not even
going to tell the story. You got a toilet I can clean?
I've never preached again probably. Suspicious folks, they like to
come to the church, they like to gather with the church. Hmm,
something going on down there. Hmm, I wonder what. Here's our motto in that, mind
your business. See, being a pure and holy people
is about the work of Christ. Being a righteous gathering is
about the work of Christ. We tolerate, and I say that word
very loosely, but we tolerate each other's sin to a degree
until it imposes a bad reputation or division in the context of
the local assembly. We are not to condemn each other. Christians cannot be judgmental. And the very ones who will say,
well, Jude such and such, Mark and Mark again. You're not an
elder. And you don't have oversight
of the church. It's not your business. Mind your business. And when God appoints you an
elder of the church, then collectively we can make a decision on how
we handle issues like that. Privately, to save face with
the world and to give glory to God in our actions and behaviors
and how we reconcile differences and reconcile behavior peaceably
and in love. And then there are sometimes
people with self-interest, like charlatans. They want a platform. I'll go to that ministry, I'll
get a platform. I'll go to that ministry, I'll get a position. I'll go
to the ministry, I'll... They're charlatans. But ultimately,
we need to focus on the fact that in all of these things,
there are only two groups of people. There are the regenerate
people and the unregenerate people, that's it. There are people who
are born again who belong to Christ and believe, and people
who say they believe, but they don't. And that is always going
to be the case. Nothing will change that. And
we do a fair job, I believe, of really spending time with
people and talking with them and getting to know them, and
more importantly, getting them to understand how we operate
as a church family and what our polity is all about and what
we expect. And I've not talked about that over the last few
years just because it's just been like a tornado. We're going
to start talking about that a little bit more because the instruction
here requires it. What is it to be a church member?
We do a fairly decent job of seeing that someone's profession
is not superficial, that they really do believe what they say
they believe. And we're also patient with those
who don't understand everything. But we don't compromise. We don't
have false gospel professors as a part of the church membership.
We're not going to do that. That would be silly. Nah, I don't
believe the gospel like that. Well, come on in anyway. Kick
your feet up and call yourself a brother. That doesn't work.
But what does work? The testimony alone of Christ
and His work and the gospel of free and sovereign grace as we
articulate it in a simple way. And then secondly, to become
a member of the church, not only do you have to, in some sense, profess
to be born again and believe the truth, but you have to be
willing to submit to the instruction of the scripture in everything. In everything. And for some people,
they go, oh, I hear what you're saying. Now, you're going to
tell us how to dress, and tell us what to look at, and tell us what
to read, and tell us what to eat, and tell us what to drink, and
tell us what not to do. No, we're not. I mean, raise your hand
if you've ever been told that. from this pulpit. I've had private
meetings where I've said, that's probably going to hurt you. That's
probably going to destroy your marriage. That's probably going
to wreck your finances. That's probably, there's a difference
in shepherding counsel and wise counsel versus dominating. Let the Word teach us. What does
the Word teach us? We are to submit to the Word
of God in all matters in peace and unity, seeking good, believing
all things in love. Love is not easily provoked. We're to bear with one another
in love. This is not a conditional matter. Well, I'm going to bear
with you until X, Y, Z. I'm going to bear with you unless
X, Y, Z. No. You who are born of God by
grace, who God in His mercy sacrificed His Son in your place, are going
to bear with each other. Is it easy? It is for me. I don't know what y'all's problem
is. No, it's not easy. It's not easy at all. It's the hardest
thing we will ever do. And you know what the hardest
thing is? You know what holds it all up? Like if all of this
stuff was all of this impossibility to get along with people and
to love people, if it just stayed from the neck to the top of the
head, you know what that lever that holds it all in? Pride. Pull it out, let it go. It's
pride. The truth. The church buttresses
the truth. The church holds up the truth
in both our lives together in unifying, reconciliation, and
living, and ministry, and doctrinal positions. And anytime we see anything out
of the ordinary or falling away in any of those areas, we gently
come back as elders because that's our responsibility as elders.
We gently come back and we re-instruct and we realign and we peaceably
keep everybody else out of it so that we can fix it and get
it to where the person who has caused an offense is reconciled
without damage. I mean, think about it. Who among us has not sinned?
Don't raise your hand. No, it's not okay to be harsh
with one another and to do things according to the flesh because
we think we're zealous for righteousness. There's one group of people in
the New Testament that did that often, and they were the Pharisees.
And Jesus says this of them, that they were dogs, broods of
snakes, whitewashed tombs, Empty vessels? Worthless? Unclean? Children of Satan? So what does the church do to
hold up the gospel in life and in truth? we hear the word. He who has ears, let him hear.
How many times have we heard the Lord say these things? In
John chapter 10, we see that the scripture teaches us that
those who have the spirit of Christ will hear the words of
Christ. So when you test, and see it's
hard when it's not completely verse by verse contextual, isn't
it? You have to, in some sense, you have to put a lot of trust
in what I'm saying. You have to agree with it in
a way that's trusting me. But I call foul on that. Trust
me as I'm faithful to the text. So if I'm using a verse out of
context in such a way that it creates not what that text is
saying, then you learn it rightly. He who has ears will hear the
voice of his shepherd. He will hear the truth when he
knows it, when she knows it. The believer will hear and go,
wow, that resonates with the Spirit of God in me. And then
when the conscience, when our conscience says this doesn't
resonate, we test it based on scripture, not based on our conscience.
Our conscience is a warning light on the dash of a car. If something
starts blinking, we could have the perpetual left on, the blinker. If something else is blinking,
it could be that our oil pressure is down, or it could be that
our engine is about to blow up, but we just pause a minute, we
look at it, and we go, oh, it's time for an oil change. We don't
turn left over the cliff and go, oh, my car's in a mess, ah,
and just blow everything out of proportion because a light
comes on. We check it. Our conscience is the lie, we
check it. What am I upset about? What do I need to do about it?
What does the word of God say? Okay, I don't follow my conscience,
I follow Christ. Ridiculous people will say that
their conscience is their guide. Proverbs says that's foolish. Jesus says the heart is wicked
and deceitful above all things. So the church upholds the word
because it can hear it, the truth. And we'll hear the full word
of truth. We'll hear the teaching. So what
I'm saying, according to Paul's writing to Timothy and Paul's
writing to other places, will resonate with you as truth because
the spirit of God that you have is the same spirit that I have.
And even though it may aggravate our senses and it may upset our
pride, we eventually will open that lever and let that pride
go. Beloved, it's a killer. It comes before the fall. We'll hold fast to the word of
which is life. Philippians chapter, oh goodness, I could read the
first two chapters of Philippians right now. I won't, but I'll, you should
do that. Paul talks about holding fast
to the word of life so that in the day of Christ, he says, I
will be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Okay, Philippians chapter one,
verse three. I thank my God and all my remembrance
of you always in every prayer of mine for all you making my
prayer with joy. Why? Because of your partnership
with me in the gospel from the first day until now. And I'm
sure of this, that he, Jesus Christ, who began a good work
in you, will bring it to completion in the day of Christ. It is right
for me to feel this way, Paul says, about all of you, because
I hold you in my heart. I love you, for you are all partakers
with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and my defense of
the gospel and my confirmation of the gospel, for God is my
witness. See, they stole it from Paul. How I yearn. What is he saying?
God is my witness. That I stand on the theological
foundations of this truth. Blah, blah, blah, blah. No. As
God is my witness, how I yearn for all of you with all the affection
of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that all
of the love that you have for each other will abound more and
more with all knowledge and all discernment that you may approve
what is excellent and so be pure and blameless in the day of Christ,
filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ
to the glory and praise of God. And we could go to Colossians
and Peter and everything else and look at all those things.
The church is the buttress of truth, not just in its doctrinal
purity concerning theological things of salvation, but also
in its doctrinal purity concerning the things of Christ and his
nature and character as the example of Christian living as a people
together for his glory. And when Paul tells the Philippians
that they may be blameless in the day of Christ, he's not talking
about their salvation. He's talking about that they
don't have to stand before Christ and go, boy, I was a knucklehead
my whole life. What a waste. Well done, my good and faithful
servant. Paul goes on to say to the Philippians
that I want you to know what has happened to me served to
advance the gospel. There are people who are now
preaching the gospel and that everything that's happened to
me has been taught and throughout the entire Imperial Guard and
all the rest that my imprisonment is for the sake of the Lord.
And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord
by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without
fear. Then he says, but some indeed preach Christ out of envy
and rivalry, others out of goodwill. The latter do it out of love,
knowing that I'm put here for the defense of the gospel. The
former proclaim out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but
thinking to hurt me in my imprisonment. What then? What are they doing
really? Only in every way, no matter
why they're preaching, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ
is proclaimed and in that I rejoice. Hurt me if you want, preach the
truth. That's what he's saying. The body of Christ defends the
gospel even in suffering, even in turmoil, even in division
by holding fast to love and unity as well as the truth. That's
what Paul's teaching us there about the Philippian church. And we stand and buttress the
truth also because we will have a full understanding as we learn. Paul would tell the church, I
referred to this in my opening statements in Colossians chapter
3 where we're supposed to put on and do as we gather together. Put on then as God's chosen ones,
Colossians 3.12, holy and beloved. Put on compassionate hearts. Put on kindness. Put on humility,
put on meekness, put on patience, bearing with one another. I don't
want you to take my word for it, listen to the scripture.
And if one has a complaint, if one has a problem, if one is
hurt, if one is angry, if one has been, you know, maligned,
forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also
must forgive. And above all these things that
I've said to you, you must put on love, Paul says. Because love is that which binds
everything together in perfect harmony. Well, I don't have to
love... Yes, you do. You have to love
the unregenerate church goer. You have to love the sinner because
that's who we are. And let the peace put on love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the
peace of Christ rule, rule. Hear that word rule in your hearts. How is it that we can have doctrine
ruling our hearts to such a degree that it cause hatred for other
people? If we know that we have been
saved by grace, if we know that the Lord Jesus Christ has said
it is finished on our behalf, if we know that God the Father
has satisfied His righteous judgment against us in Jesus Christ and
His flesh, then how in the world are we able to sit there and
know that it rules in our hearts and hate someone else who may
or may not even have that peace? I believe that the true gospel-aware
believer who is growing in grace and is not a baby in the crib
in diapers being nursed, when they examine the doctrines of
grace, when they examine the gospel of grace, they are more
compassionate with unbelievers and people who are wrong and
people who are lost than they are with believers. I believe
it should be that way. But sometimes it's not, is it?
They don't love. Beloved, we can't let that be.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Why? Teaching
and admonishing. That's a warning. One another. In all wisdom, singing psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts
to God. And whatever you do in word and whatever you do in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God the Father through There's a lot there, but I think it's
a good cap on the end of this reality that we are the buttress
of the truth. In truth, and in life, and in
deed. Two things that we do not conflate, clarified even more so last Sunday.
We don't conflate our righteousness imputed with our growing in grace. They are two very distinct things. And there are many of us who
will never really grow up a lot in grace, and so those who are
mature endure and teach and gently persuade. Lest we become self-righteous.
We do not measure a man's regeneration by the tenacity of his personal
ambition to live pure. But by all means, because we
have been made righteous in Christ Jesus, that is our drive. And
that is part of what the pulpit does. So the church is the butchers
of the truth and beloved. The people of Christ and covenant
should be your go to people. We should be each other's go
to people. For prayer for needs and not
everybody to everyone else. But there needs to be relationships
in the body that are formulated. Well, I don't have those yet
because you're not available enough to the body at large in
order for those relationships to be born and growing. There's nothing more fake than
a greeter at a door. There's nothing more disingenuine
than a, welcome to worship everybody, hallelujah. Take out your Bibles
and turn to this and fill out the card and let's do this and
let's do that, hallelujah, we love y'all, don't even know you
are. You see, I'm not mocking that, you know how I am, I get
comedic when I do silly things like that. What's genuine is we're together. We're here. And that outside
of our homes, we need to have prayer and ministry with each
other on mind. The first in our preparations,
the first in our priorities beyond the household that we live in.
Because that is our covenant together. That is the point of
Christ and His gospel. And it's not that we don't do
anything for anybody else, but we don't neglect. Feeding your
neighbor's children while your children starve is not okay. Clothing the county next to you
while the people in front of you are naked is not okay. Let
us minister to each other as we also minister to the community
around us. And beloved, I have a lot to talk about in our next
members meeting, which is going to be in October after service. And I want to strongly encourage
everyone to be in attendance because there is a lot that I
need to say and a lot that we need to talk about as a church
intimately for the good of our future, for
the good of our ministry, for the good of your joy. And so
as we end our service today, know that I'm teaching and instructing
for many purposes, but most importantly, that you would not neglect the
body of Christ. That you would not neglect the gospel and the
instructions therein, but that you would also not live in a
place of constant guilt because you are doing all that you can
do at the moment. Know that you are not judged,
but know that you are loved. And I love you with all the affection
of Christ, and I pray that in the teaching of his word, he
will teach us all how to love each other in that way and that
we would become a more intimate and glorifying body to display
the grace of God in the lives of one another. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for the
gift of grace, for the gospel, for Jesus Christ, the righteous,
who is the perfect Perfect person, the perfect human, the perfect
lamb. The obedient son. The redeemer,
the savior, the better bridegroom, the living water, the bread of
life, the one who comes down from heaven to give life. And
Father, in our greatest of lives, if there were millions to live,
we would never, ever, ever stand in righteousness that belongs
to ourselves. We would never, ever, as we know from your word,
be able to live according to your commands. But Father, we
live righteous before you because it is not of our own. We stand
righteous before You because the perfection of Jesus is credited
to us. Therefore, You have passed over
our sins and placed them on Him. His blood has satisfied righteousness. And by grace, we stand and are
saved before You this day. So, let us hear the words of
instruction in the tender way in which Your Word brings it.
that we may grow into a people that display the truth in our
lives as well as in gospel distinctions. And Father, that we may be patient
and loving and gentle and prayerful in every circumstance, especially
when things are not going the way that we think they should.
Let us worship you again and continually in Christ Jesus,
in whose name we pray. Amen.