“Here is the Church”
(1 Timothy 3:14-16)
Series: Reality Check: Keeping it Real at FBC
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
First Baptist Church Henderson, KY
(11-2-08) (AM)
- Take God’s Word and open to 1 Timothy, chapter 3.
We’re continuing our series through 1 Timothy and in just a moment we’ll begin reading at the very end of chapter 3, the last few verses, verses 14-16. Our series is entitled, “Reality Check.” 1 Timothy is something of a church administration handbook that ensures that First Baptist Church Henderson is keeping it real, making sure that we’re operating according to the Bible.
Now before we read the text and launch into our study let me take this opportunity to remind you to exercise your Christian privilege and duty to vote in this Tuesday’s election. Remember what we learned when we were in chapter two. 1 Timothy 2:1-2, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” If the Bible tells Christians to pray for their leaders, how much more should we elect good leaders?
We are a tax-exempt faith-based organization and so, as your pastor, I cannot endorse a political candidate. But I will encourage you as always to prayerfully vote for those most inline with your Christian convictions. Forget those who accuse you of being a “single-issue” voter. Every issue is important, but some are more important than others and God always honors your voting for the person most inline with your Christian convictions. Now, while we’re voting on more than the presidential election, let me speak to this matter briefly. I cannot tell you which candidate to choose and if I told you from this pulpit the one for whom I was voting it would give the appearance of an endorsement. But let me be clear on this: I believe there is a very stark contrast between these two candidates so if you ask me who I am voting for I’ll be quick to tell you who and why.
One more thing about Tuesday’s election: can I encourage you to do some special prayer and fasting either Monday or Tuesday? Take some time to really pray for this election—pray for those running, pray for those voting, and pray for yourself. Do some fasting—biblical fasting where you skip a meal or two—and spend that time praying for God’s will to be done. I’ll be doing that and I hope you will, too.
- Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
14 These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly;
15 but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.
- Pray.
Introduction:
We’re all familiar with the old nursery rhyme that you do with your hands, “Here is the church, here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.” But of course the church is not really a building, is it? We have said many times that the church isn’t really a building, but a body. It is not so much a physical structure as it is a biological structure. So I suggest this variation: “Here’s the church building, and here is the steeple, but what makes it the church is all of the people.” The church isn’t a building, but a body.
Now I mention this because our text this morning is at something of a halfway point in the book of 1 Timothy. You see in your Bible there that these verses occur at the end of chapter 3, dividing the six chapters of the book in half. And what we have here is something of a thoughtful pause on the part of the writer. Paul has just been talking about the roles and characteristics of various persons in the church; most recently, he talked about the pastor and then the deacons. And then at the end of chapter 3 Paul pauses and it’s like he catches his breath and says, “By the way, let me remind you why I’m writing this letter. I’m writing you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, in the church and oh, by the way, let me tell you about the church. And then Paul gives three necessary actions concerning the church. First:
I. Uphold the Conduct of the Church (14-15)
14 These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly;
15 but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God,
Paul says, “I’m writing that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God.” That phrase “house of God” is better translated, “household of God.” It refers to the family of God, God’s household. You all have your individual households. You have certain people living in your house and you’re a family. It’s your household. And then there is the household of God, God’s family. I’m looking out at the household of God, God’s family known as First Baptist Church of Henderson, Kentucky. So Paul says, “I’m writing Timothy so that you—and by way of extension, you and everyone else—may know how to conduct yourself in the household of God.”
So Paul is writing that we may know how to conduct ourselves in the church. And that’s largely what 1 Timothy is all about which is one of the reasons why I have been saying that this book is something of a church administration handbook. It talks about how we are to conduct ourselves in the church. Paul writes so that we may know how we ought to conduct ourselves in the household of God. We must know how to rightly relate to one another, whether it’s the role of teachers (chapter 1), the role of men and women (chapter 2), or the role of the pastor and deacons (chapter 3). The church is a healthy church when we conduct ourselves properly.
This means that we all recognize the unique individuality of each person and how working together we accomplish far more than we could accomplish individually because God has created us for community. We are a household and each of us has various gifts and talents to be used within the household for God’s glory. Each of us is important and we are stronger together than we are apart.
I heard about a guy who got a flat tire in front of a mental hospital. As he’s trying to put on the spare tire, the four lug nuts for securing the tire fall down a storm grate and disappear forever. The guy’s distraught; he doesn’t know what to do. He sits down and shakes his head trying to figure out how he’s going to secure that tire. There’s a mental patient from that mental hospital there who’s watching the whole thing. He comes up to the guy and he says, “Why don’t you just take off one nut from other three tires and put on the spare tire with those? That’ll hold you long enough until you get to a service station.” The guy says, “That’s a great idea!” Then he stops, remembering he broke down in front of a mental hospital and he says, “But you’re a mental patient. What are you doing here?” The guy says, “I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid!”
Well, what are we all doing here? Here’s the church. What are we doing here? We’re each of us using our gifts and talents to help others so that we are stronger together than we are apart. The synergism of a bunch of people conducting themselves rightly in the household of God is powerful. I thought of that as I walked around Friday evening and saw all of the folks working during our Halloween alternative. There were people everywhere! I counted: we had one gazillion people here. You couldn’t do something like that by yourself, but when people work together, using their varied gifts and talents together great things happen. Uphold the conduct of the church. Secondly:
II. Understand the Characteristics of the Church (15)
We’ve already noted that the church is the household of God, the family of God. There are two more characteristics of the church here in verse 15. Paul says the house of God is, “the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
First, Paul says the household of God is the “church of the living God.” The word “church” there is the Greek word, “ekklesia,” from which we get, “ecclesiology,” the study of the church. The word means, as we have been saying, “a community or assembly of believers.” And to whom does this community or assembly or family belong? They are the church “of the living God.” The living God!
Paul contrasts the One True God of the Bible with the plethora of false gods worshiped by man. In contradistinction to the false gods made of wood and stone, the church worships the living God, not a dead God, but a living God.
Do you remember the story in Daniel, chapter 6? The king of Persia, King Darius, throws Daniel into the lion’s den, but Daniel is miraculously delivered by God. Darius is so taken with this miracle that he issues a decreeing that everyone in his kingdom should fear and tremble before Daniel’s God, the “living God,” he says. That’s who God is. He’s alive! He lives. He intervenes. He is there. We may laugh at the worthless false gods of wood and stone worshiped by unbelieving nations in the Bible, but many Americans today are as guilty of worshiping similarly dead gods, a statue in the yard, a figurine on a table, a sacred something or another that hangs on the wall, but those things are dead and powerless. Our God is the living God. This truth gives us assurance of life after death. Because God is a living God we too may live through faith in Jesus Christ. More about that in a moment!
Paul also gives this characteristic of the church in verse 15: not only is it the church of the living God, but it is “the pillar and ground of the truth.” This simply means that the church collectively is the repository of truth. It is the storehouse of truth. When the church assembles together for corporate worship and opens the Bible, we read together of the truth. And how important it is to regularly learn together the truth!
Do you know how important it is to get the truth? We must always be about the business of dispensing truth here in this church, whether it’s in the baby classes, the young couples classes, or the senior adult classes.
Now I don’t really listen to country music and if you do, that’s okay. I find it kind of depressing. You’ve heard about what you get when you play country music backwards? You get back your truck, you get back your job, you get back your wife! Anyway, I was driving home from Evansville Friday evening and I was looking for a particular radio station when I stumbled upon a pretty popular song by Kenny Chesney. Now if you’re a fan of Kenny Chesney’s please don’t be offended I’m sure he’s a super guy and he sings well and all of that, but I hope you don’t get your theology from him!
I’m listening to this song, “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven” and while the tune is admittedly catchy, all I can think of is, “Man, what terrible theology!” Now don’t get excited, I’m not going to sing it, but listen to some of these lyrics:
Preacher told me last Sunday mornin’
Son, you better start livin’ right
You need to quit the women and whiskey
And carrying on all night
Don’t you wanna hear him call your name
When you’re standin’ at the pearly gates
I told the preacher, “Yes I do”
But I hope they don’t call today
I ain’t ready
Now, aside from the terrible grammar that makes country music so special, think of what these lyrics suggest. They suggest the popular notion that a person gets into heaven by living right. Hey, good luck on that! We’re all sinners. We can’t live right. That’s why we need a Savior. The song also suggests that you can buy God’s forgiveness:
Said preacher maybe you didn’t see me
Throw an extra twenty in the plate
There’s one for everything I did last night
And one to get me through today
Here’s a ten to help you remember
Next time you got the good Lord’s ear
Say I’m comin’ but there ain’t no hurry
I’m havin’ fun down here
I mean, this is laughable if it weren’t for the fact that many people actually think this way. You can’t cover your sins by giving money to the church. And then there’s this chorus, a self-centered, “Don’t bug me with religious stuff, I’m having fun here.”
Don’t you know that
Everybody wants to go to heaven
Get their wings and fly around
Everybody want to go to heaven
But nobody want to go now
Where in the Bible does it say we “get wings and fly around” in heaven? Where does it say we’re going to wear a halo as he sings later? That’s just goofy. Now, this isn’t a rant about country music nor is it a rant about Kenny Chesney. I’m sure he’s a nice guy and his mother loves him. You all are smart enough not to get your theology from the Bible. But do you see how a song like this speaks for our culture? Do you see why the church is necessary? We are the church of the living God and we are the pillar and ground of the truth. Let’s get our truth from the Bible!
So the Bible says uphold the conduct of the church, understand the characteristics of the church, thirdly:
III. Uplift the Christ of the Church (16)
Verse 16 is the crown jewel of everything Paul says about the church. He says, “and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness”
“Without controversy” is a phrase that means, “Beyond all question.” Paul says let me tell you something beyond all question, something every Christian will confess.” And then Paul uses the phrase, “the mystery of godliness” which simply means, “the truth about Jesus Christ.” The word “mystery” there is a word Paul uses to describe that which was previously hidden but now made known to all. That’s the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember from last time? In the Old Testament we have Jesus Christ concealed. In the New Testament we have Jesus Christ revealed. Jesus Christ is the mystery of godliness. So Paul goes on now in verse 16 and gives us six truths about Jesus Christ.
First, “God was manifested in the flesh.” That’s incarnation. God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. John says this in his Gospel where he refers to the Son of God as the “Word.” He says in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” That’s incarnation.
Then Paul says that the Son of God was, “Justified in the Spirit.” A better word here is “vindicated.” The Son of God was vindicated in the Spirit. It refers to God’s stamp of approval on the person and work of Jesus Christ. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, people were like, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” You know, “Who’s this guy?” And the Bible says that God vindicated His Son at moments like after His baptism where a voice from heaven said, “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.” That’s vindication.
Thirdly, Paul says the Son of God was “Seen by angels.” I really think there’s something of a chronology here. God comes to us in Christ. That’s incarnation. God justifies His Son during His earthly ministry through vindication. Then Christ is seen by angels and I think contextually this refers to His resurrection. The Bible says there are angels there at Christ’s resurrection.
Then, the Son of God is “Preached among the Gentiles.” That’s proclamation. The Son of God is preached among the Gentiles. The Greek word translated Gentiles is better translated, “nations.” It’s the word “ethnos,” referring here to all kinds of ethnicities, all kinds of people. The Gospel is preached among the nations. Let us never forget the God of the Bible is a missionary God. Remember the mission He gives us in Acts 1:8? We shall be his disciples in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the utter ends of the earth.”
Then we read that the son of God is “Believed on in the world.” That’s transformation. If we believe that Jesus is who the Bible says He is, God in the flesh, the one who came to us to take care of our sin problem, to die on the cross for our sins and that he rose from the dead we will be saved. But believing in Christ includes a turning away from our sin. That’s repentance.
Given our present political climate with catch phrases and sound bites, I saw a church sign this week that read, “Repentance: Change we Need.” I like that! That’s what it means for Christ to be “believed on in the world.” Saving faith includes repentance. That’s real change, change we can believe in! You want hope? Real hope? Don’t turn to a mere man, turn to Jesus Christ.
Paul ends this passage by telling us that the Son of God is, “Received up in glory.” That’s exaltation. God raised Christ from the dead and then raised Him up to the right hand of God the Father and He shall reign forever and ever.
Incarnation, vindication, resurrection, proclamation, transformation, and exaltation!
- Stand for prayer.
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