Thank you for that excellent
song. Okay, let's go back to 1 Timothy,
the third chapter, and I want to talk to you about the church
of the living God. Timothy was a young preacher,
and here the apostle wrote two letters to him, 1 Timothy and
2 Timothy. And then he wrote another letter to another preacher
by the name of Titus. And those three books are called
the Pastoral Epistles, 1st, 2nd Timothy, and also the book of
Titus, addressed to preachers, not to churches. As you look
through the New Testament beginning with the book of Romans, of course,
You'll see, you know, like Paul's letter to the church of Rome,
to the church of Corinth, and so forth. But these three books,
1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and the book of Titus, are written to
preachers of the gospel, to give instructions as to how the church
is to be conducted, worship services, and the offices in the church,
and so forth, and so on. Now, the Lord had revealed the
gospel to Timothy through the preaching of the Apostle Paul. Evidently, Timothy was living
in Lystra. And the Apostle Paul went to
preach the gospel in Lystra, and God opened his heart and
revealed the grace of God to him. revealed the Lord Jesus,
the only Savior of sinners, and that by his substitutionary sacrifice,
sinners are saved and saved forever. And God dealt in mercy and in
grace with young Timothy, and the Lord saved him. And he began
to journey with the apostle Paul. He visited several churches with
the apostle. He was often in attendance with
Paul as he went about preaching the gospel of God's free grace. Now, Timothy, he's referred to
as Paul's son in the faith. Go back to the first chapter
and look at the second verse. Chapter 1 and verse 2. Paul writes unto Timothy, my
own son in the faith. He's not talking about his son
physically because he wasn't physically his father, but he
was spiritually his father. He taught him the gospel. God
used this man of God. He used the apostle Paul to preach
the gospel of the grace of God to Timothy. And the Lord opened
his heart even as the Lord opened the heart of Lydia further into
Acts chapter 16, and he believed the gospel. And as he followed
him around, helping Paul, being his companion, being his servant,
of course, Timothy heard the gospel over and over again. He
was under the tutelage, he was under the instruction of the
apostle. And God caused him to grow in
grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then
he himself became a preacher. And on one of Paul's missionary
journeys, and Timothy was with him, when they went to Ephesus,
the apostle said, I want you to stay here and preach. In fact,
if you're still in chapter one, look at the third verse. as I
besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into
Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no
other doctrine, that is, no other doctrine than the doctrine of
grace. No other doctrine than the doctrine of salvation by
the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't preach
anything else. There are a lot of voices, Timothy,
preaching works, a lot of voices preaching keep the commandments. I want you to preach grace. Grace
to begin with, grace in the middle, grace at the end, sovereign grace,
electing grace, redeeming grace, regenerating grace. I want you
to stick with the message of grace and I want you to further
instruct the saints here in Ephesus. Well, tradition has it that he
then became the pastor of the church at Ephesus. And sometimes,
as you read through the Pauline epistles, you'll find that Timothy
will visit him in various locations, but he pretty much stayed at
Ephesus until his death. He was a faithful servant of
God. It's interesting to look at the
name of Timothy. His name comes from a compound
word which means God and honor. And you can take that two ways.
God honored him. God honored him by sending a
preacher to him, by sending the gospel to him. Timothy, his mother
was a Jewish woman, that is, she had been converted, and his
daddy was a Greek. And Timothy grew up under the
instruction of his mother and his grandmother. whom Paul mentions
later in this epistle. He learned the gospel from the
lips of the apostle Paul, but he also had heard the gospel
from his mother and his grandmother. Moms, grandmothers, Make sure
that your children and your grandchildren, as the case may be your grandchildren,
your great-grandchildren, hear the gospel from your lips. Indeed,
if they come here and sit under the sound of my ministry or whoever
I have preaching from this pulpit, They're going to learn who God
is. They're going to hear who God is in His sovereignty, in
His authority, in His graciousness. They're going to learn of God's
election of grace. They're going to learn of the
necessity of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior
of sinners. They're going to hear how He
had to die on the cross in order to satisfy God's justice and
save poor sinners like us. They're going to hear that message
right here, but they also need to hear it from you, moms, and
grandmoms and dads and granddads, your children and your grandchildren
need to hear from your lips the same thing that they hear from
this pulpit. Be faithful in sounding forth
the word of God. You never know, you might be
talking to a young Timothy. You might be instructing one
of your grandsons in the gospel of grace, and then God will make
a preacher out of him. I'm sure his mother and his grandmother
had no idea. They had no idea what God would
make of Timothy. They just prayed, O God, save
him. O God, make Christ known to him.
O Spirit of God, work in the heart. And you heard the apostle
preach. And all the things that he had
been taught by his mother and his grandmother started to come
home to his mind, but moreover to his heart. And he believed
the gospel. He believed the gospel and became
a faithful servant of God. How blessed it is when God calls
a sinner into his family to know how God saves sinners and to
know the God of the Bible. It's a blessed thing. So the
Lord honored Timothy by teaching him the gospel. And I would say
to you children, if you have parents, if your parents bring
you to the house of God, they bring you to assemble with these
people, they bring you to hear the message of Jesus Christ in
the name of the crucified. Oh, how honored you are by God
to sit under the message of redeeming grace. Not every child has the
opportunity to hear what you hear. Not every boy, not every girl,
not every young person has the opportunity to tune in their
ears and hopefully their hearts to the message of God, who He
is in His greatness, in His power, in His omnipotence, in His omnipresence,
all the attributes of God, and to find out how God can be a
just God and a Savior. Not everybody has this privilege,
but you do. You do. Oh, how God honored Timothy.
And he not only honored Timothy by revealing the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ to his heart, but he honored Timothy by calling
him into the ministry. A mom, a grandmother, Women who
know the gospel, when the Lord saves a grandson or a granddaughter,
oh, how thrilled they are. But when the Lord calls a grandson
into the ministry to preach the same gospel that they heard and
believed and that they shared with the grandson, oh, how thrilled
they were. God honored Timothy by putting
him in the ministry. And as we read beginning chapter
three, if a man desire the office of a bishop, of a pastor, he
desires a good work. It is a good work. It's a blessed
work. But this word, this name Timothy
also means one who honors God. And that's exactly what Timothy
did in his preaching. After all, he said under the
instruction of the apostle Paul, and as you read through the epistles
of Paul from the book of Romans through, I presume the book of
Hebrews was also written by Paul, you find him always honoring
God. He honors God. He honors God
the Father in his electing grace, in his predestinating grace,
He honors the Son of God in His redeeming grace, in His reconciling
grace. He honors the Holy Spirit in
His regenerating grace, in His revealing grace. God was honored by Timothy just
as He's honored by every preacher of the gospel. And when I thought
about His name means honored by God or one who honors God,
I thought, how fitting that this is this man's name because God
sent him forth to honor the Lord. That's why we're here today,
is to honor God. We're not here to honor the preacher. We're not here to honor any of
you. If the Lord is pleased to reveal
the gospel to you, to break open your hard heart and reveal Christ
to you, we're not going to honor you. I watched a little bit of a service
from another congregation in another county of Kentucky. I was asked to give my opinion
of the service and of the preacher. And it was a baptismal service.
And a man was baptized, then everybody stood up and applauded
and said, way to go, way to go. No, that's not honoring God.
That's honoring man. If God's pleased to do something
for your heart and in your heart, and I pray that He will, oh,
how burdened I am that the Lord will do a work of grace in the
hearts of all who hear me preach, not only here but those who are
watching. We will never congratulate you
because the work of salvation is a work you had nothing to
do with. It's a work of God. and we'll
thank God for you. We'll praise the Lord for His
grace. We're not gonna congratulate
you and say, you know, it's about time you came around. Let me
tell you something, if it's left up to you, the time would never
come for you to come around. It was God's appointed time when
He came to you in free grace, in revealing grace, in revealing
Christ the Savior to you. So how fitting that this man's
name is Timothy. He is one who would honor God
in his ministry. And then here in verse 15, the
apostle, as he writes this letter, he says, if I tarry long, if
I'm delayed, many times as a pastor, a preacher, Maybe I intend to
visit somebody or go somewhere or whatever, and I tear it along. Things interfere with my schedule.
Aren't you thankful that nothing and nobody interferes with God's
schedule? He does all of His deeds, all
of His works are done on time regardless of men's opinions
or regardless of what men may do. And under the inspiration
of the Spirit, Paul writes to Timothy and he says, if I'm delayed,
if I tear along somewhere else, I want you to know how you need
to behave, how you need to govern the church and the things that
you need to set before the congregation that is entrusted to you. Well,
what is that congregation? It's a local church. And as I've
said before, a local church is not the building, it's the people, the people. This is the house of God. It's
the house of God because this is where God comes to dwell with
us. He abides with His people. Where
can God be found? On His throne of grace, sure. in His providence and by His
power. God is found everywhere, right? He's found everywhere. He's omnipresent. But He is especially present
with His people and with us individually and with us as we gather together. This is the house of God. This
is the church of the living God. In the Bible, the church is called
a spiritual kingdom, a royal family. We're taught that this is the
pillar and the ground of the truth, a local church is. And our one design and our one
purpose for existing is to uphold, maintain, and set forth the truth
of God. That's why we exist. This is
not a gathering place where we can come and have fun together.
This is not where we come to be entertained. This is where
we come. Our purpose in gathering this
morning is not to build up ourselves. Our purpose in coming together
is to honor the God who made us. He made us physically, He
made us spiritually. That's our purpose in coming
together. You say, well, you know, sometimes I leave and I
don't feel good. I don't feel like the service
was for me. The service is not for you. The
service is for God. The service is to honor Christ.
That's why we're here. If you're here with any other
motivation, if you're here with any other purpose, you've got
the wrong purpose, you've got the wrong motivation. This is
where the family of God gathers to honor the Lord in spirit and
in truth. Oh God, warm our hearts with
the word of God. Indeed, I want something to be
done for us. I want the Lord to warm up our
cold hearts. I want him to instruct us, but
I want him to show us that our business is to honor the triune
God, Jehovah. That's what we're going to do
forever in heaven, isn't it? You say, preacher, I want to
go to heaven when I die. Me too. Do you know what heaven
is all about? It's not about you. It's not
about you joining with family members who passed away years
ago. It's not a great big family reunion
as in a physical family reunion. It's a spiritual family reunion
around our elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven is
a place of worship. Would you be happy there if you
go? I'd be happy there. Night before last, I was thinking,
Lord, sure, we'd be wonderful just to be in the presence of
the Son of God and to be free from sin. A couple of us were
talking about this morning. It'd be good to be done with
these earthly things, mainly our sin. The sin that troubles
us is unbelief. I think there in Hebrews chapter
12, Paul talks about the sin that doth so easily beset us. I'm persuaded this is the sin
that besets all of God's people, all of the days of our earthly
pilgrimage. We don't believe him like we
ought to. We don't believe him like we want to. Oh God, give
us a stronger faith in thee. And I want to be where faith
is exchanged for sight. That's where I want to be. And
one day I will be. We will see Christ face to face
with Christ my Savior. That's what we sing. That's going
to be the situation for all of God's people. Now let me just
say a couple of things here. First of all, We are thankful
for every true local church, every church of the living God. I know there are many groups
who meet together, many religious organizations who meet together,
but in reality, there are only relatively a few groups that
are that biblically can be called the Church of the Living God. I was reading, as you know, unless
you've been in a hole somewhere, the Pope passed away recently. And I was reading some of the
things that he wrote, and he said, he said, he believed that
many religions will lead you to heaven. Hmm, that's interesting. When the Bible talks about one
way and one door. Let me tell you something, there
are many religions out here, that's for sure. And if you don't like what you're
hearing right in this location, If you hunt the internet enough,
you'll find somebody who's saying what you want to hear. But I've
got news, and of course he knows better now, but I've got news
for everybody. There's only one truth that will land you in glory,
and that's the truth of the gospel. of the free grace of God to sinners
through the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ. No other way. You can say, well, you're just
being too narrow-minded. The Bible says, our Lord Jesus
said it's a narrow way. He said, many are on the broad
road that lead to destruction, but there's a narrow way and
few there be that find it. Oh, God, show it to me. Show
him to me, because he said I am the way, the truth, and the life. Years ago, I never will forget
it, we were to meet. I was pastoring in Texas. We
were to meet together, and I may have told you this story. I'm
forgetful, you know, you gotta cut me some slack. I may tell
you the same story again. I'll act like you're just not
hearing it for the first time. But anyway, as I'm on my way,
Nancy was with me and Susanna were on their way to the preaching
place where we gathered for service every Sunday, and there was a
beautiful place up on a hill. I thought, that'd be a good place
for a catfish restaurant. That's what I said, because it
already broke ground. I guess I had catfish on the
brain or something, because I like We had a couple of catfish places,
but I love fish. So anyway, that's what I said. So we got to the meeting place
and got to talking with a couple. And this dear lady, I told her,
I said, did y'all see where they broke ground for something up
on that hill back down the road? She said, yeah. She said, oh,
how I hope it's a church. I said, what do you mean? She
said, it'd be a beautiful place for a church. I don't know what
kind of church, but it would be a beautiful place for a church.
I said, you mean another goat pasture? You mean another place where
a false prophet can get up and lie to people and tell them salvation's
up to you? Is that what you want? I don't know why she got offended,
but she did. It turned out to be a catfish
restaurant. And it was a beautiful building. Don't be swayed, don't be deceived
by big, beautiful, so-called church buildings. You see, the
church of the living God is not a building. It's not a building,
it's a people. And it doesn't matter how many
people there are. Maybe a husband and wife meeting
together this morning. Maybe just one person who gathers
with us by the internet and they love the gospel of grace. You
constitute a place where the Lord gathers with you. The Savior
said, Lo, I'm with you always. I'm with you always, even to
the end of the world. When you moms, you ladies are
washing your dishes and you're thinking about the things of
God, you're not by yourself. The Lord's with you. When you
fellows are out working in your garden or working in your job,
wherever it might be, and you're thinking about the things of
God, He's with you. And even if you're not thinking
about Him, He's with you anyhow. That's the faithfulness of the
Lord. I'm thankful for every true local
church. But don't be deceived. Most of
these so-called churches, they're no more than a goat pasture.
They're feeding people briars and weeds. In other words, a
false gospel that makes it all dependent upon you. But here
and there, the sheep of the Lord will find sweet grass, the pasture. The sweet pasture that the Lord
opens up to us. And he says, now, eat to your
fill. Here's the true word. And then let me say this, where
there is a true church, remember, it's made up of sinners saved
by grace. I'm a sinner saved by grace,
so are you. Don't wear your feelings on your
shirt sleeve. So-and-so hurt my feelings this
morning. Well, I'm so sorry. What are
we going to do about it? Nothing. We just forgive them
and say, that's all right. Somebody offends you, could be you needed offending.
I don't know. I don't know the circumstance,
but just remember, we're all sinners saved by grace. Now,
all of God's people, the church of the living God is made up
of sinners redeemed, both, price paid, sinners called by God in
quickening grace. You say, well, I don't think
so-and-so's a Christian. Who made you the judge? Our Lord said, man went out and
sowed good seed, sowed the gospel, and wheat sprung up. But then
the evil one came along and he sowed tares. And here come the disciples along
and said, whoa, there's tares growing there. Lord, you want
us to just rip them up by the roots? He said, no, don't do
that, lest you root up some wheat, because you can't see the heart. That's none of our business.
I know there's a time for chastisement from the word of God, time to
rebuke. There's a time for discipline,
and most of the discipline can be done from the pulpit, just
preaching the gospel of grace. But we're not in charge of God's
people. He'll take care of everything.
And if there's a hypocrite in here, well, I remind you that our Lord,
his treasurer in that first church, he was a Hellion, Judas. He betrayed the Lord. And the
Lord didn't discipline him. He could have, because he knew
his heart. He even served him the Lord's
Supper. And some churches say, well,
that's the time for discipline. If somebody's misbehaving, we
just won't serve them the Lord's Supper. That's none of your business. It's the Lord's Supper. It never
has been called your supper. It never has been called the
church's supper. Just remember, the Lord will
judge things in the end, and He'll sort everything out. I
tell you what we need to concern ourselves with, and the first
thing I concern myself with, how is it between me and God? I don't have time to judge anybody
else, I don't have time to size you up, and I don't have the
ability to see into the inner recesses of your soul. I have a hard enough time with
myself, much less getting in your business. The first church had Judas for
a treasurer, the Church of Jerusalem. You're talking about a bunch
of racists. A bunch of racists at the Church of Jerusalem. Go
preach the gospel to the Gentiles, them dogs. You bunch of racists. but they were converting. The church at Corinth, they were
plagued with division, strife, incest, disorderly worship, drunkenness
at the Lord's table. And what that sounds like to
me? A bunch of sinners. All the churches of the New Testament
were assailed by troubles within and troubles without. You say,
well, I'm not going to come to this church anymore because of
this reason or something else. If you think the pastures are
greener, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence,
go ahead and jump over there. And you're going to find out
if they preach the gospel, there's still a bunch of sinners. You
ain't going to find a perfect church. And if you leave here,
we will not be either the worst for it nor the better for it. See, we're just sinners saved
by the grace of God. I wish that'd sink in. What is, what are we? We're the
house of God. It's the spiritual house, the
church. built on a sure foundation, Christ
Jesus our Lord. He's the rock, we build on him,
don't we? 1 Corinthians 3.11, other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.
And there's one door into this house of God. Christ said, I'm
the door, I'm the door. This is a house built by the
Lord, not this building, but all of us, the true people of
God. This is His house. And I'll tell
you what, since we're His house, He's certainly welcome here.
Lord, come. You're welcome here. We honor
You. We bow our knee to Thee. and it's the church of the living
God. It's God's chosen church, God's redeemed church, God's
regenerated church. It's where we bless the name
of the Lord. And you know what he says about
this, the house of God, the church of the living God? It says here
that the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth,
the pillar. Years ago, big pillars that stood in front
of large buildings had inscriptions upon it. And when you walked
up, you could see the inscription of whatever the message was,
whatever went on in that building. Well, we're the pillar of the
truth. There's something written on us. What is it? It's the message
of free grace. It's the message of the blood
and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're a pillar
of the truth. Paul said, we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, our Lord. Our message is not by works of
righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy
He saved us. We're mercy beggars, are we?
I am, you are, I hope. And the church is the ground
of the truth, the bastion of the truth, the support of the
truth. We uphold the truth. Our Lord
said in His Sermon on the Mount that the church is a light on
a hill. This is a dark area, dark in
religion, dark in outward wickedness. Here's the light. The light shines
from here. It's on the sign out there, the
Word of God. Anytime people want to come to
here, you can invite them to come and say, come and hear of
the Lord Jesus Christ and God's great salvation. Oh, there are a lot of religions
in the world, but only one that will take you
to glory. That's the religion of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're the church of the living
God. Thank God for His grace, for
His mercy. Let's sing a closing song. If you would, get your hymn books.
And let's sing 186. We'll sing just the first two
stanzas. The church is one foundation. 186 verses 1 and 2. Come on back
tonight. I'll preach to you again. Let's
stand together.