Pillar and Buttress of the Truth

Well, there's sort of a cyclical pattern, if you will, that happens in history, if you pay attention.

I think you could probably put which phase that we're in, but I'm going to give you a bit of an oversimplification.

So, the cyclical pattern that happens, seems to repeat itself, is you have one generation who fights for some sort of cause.

Maybe a cause for truth. They own the cause, they understand the cause, they fight for the cause, and then that first generation wins the battle.

And then what happens is the next generation comes along, and they reap the benefits from it.

They don't maybe understand the cause, but they don't really ask many questions, they don't really care, they just live in light of that generation that went ahead of them, and so they enjoy the benefits of the battle that has been already won.

Okay, but then what happens? Then you have another generation that comes along, and what do they do?

This generation is the one that begins to question things. They don't just accept it, they say, okay, why is this done this way?

Do we have to do it this way? Can it be done perhaps another way? Can we do it better?

And sometimes these questions lead to good things. Sometimes they lead to terrible things, as we talked about last week, and what we're dealing with now, and the redefinition of marriage in our nation today.

What I want to tell you this morning is that we shouldn't be afraid of questions.

In fact, questions can help us sharpen our faith and strengthen our resolve.

So I ask that you turn to 1 Timothy 3 this morning. And as you turn to 1

Timothy chapter three, I have a good question to ask us this morning, and that question is this, so what?

So what? We've spent eight weeks now, this is our eighth week, talking about Christ's vision for the church, and the question today is, so what, right?

Is this the only way that we can do it? Is there perhaps a better way?

So what? If we don't do it this way, what does it really matter? And that's what we want to answer in today's sermon.

We really are concluding this series on Christ's vision of the church, and then next week,

Dr. Askel will be here, and then the next week, we'll be back in that book called Ephesians.

So I hope to show you today why having Christ's vision for the church is the only way for any local church to operate.

And we find ourselves this morning in 1 Timothy chapter three, and we're gonna read verses 14, 15, and 16.

I ask that you stand as we honor the reading of God's word. 1

Timothy chapter three, verses 14, 15, and 16.

Paul says, I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the truth 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.

Let's pray. Father, would you help us to understand this text? God, we don't wanna play games.

We look at our nation today, and it seems like year after year and decade after decade, you are so gracious.

You give us warning after warning after warning as the nation seems to drift further and further and further and further away from the truth.

Lord, I pray that your church would wake up all over the nation today. I pray for gospel preaching,

Bible believing, Christ exalting churches, that we would wake up. We wouldn't stay in our nice, warm, comfy beds and see the nation deteriorate around us, see the foolishness, the lies and deceptions of the evil ones, and stop trusting our heart or the culture that's decaying.

Lord, we would seek Christ's vision for the church. I pray Big Eva would topple and fall and that we would hear again from the

Scriptures. We would just do what they say.

We believe what they say. God, grant us the faith this morning.

In and of ourselves, we don't have it. In and of ourselves, we don't have the intellectual capacity.

We don't have the trust in you, but we need your Spirit to grant us that faith.

And even as Christians, we need the Holy Spirit to embolden our faith and to strengthen our faith.

Lord, may our faith today not be in what some man stands up here and says.

May it be in what the Scriptures say. Lord, would you help me to articulate the

Bible rightly? And I need the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, be in this place.

Our triune God, we know that you're omnipresent, that you are all places, that you're everywhere, that if we were able to Zoom to Pluto right now, you'd already be there.

If we could go galaxies away, you would already be there. If we could go to the depths of Sheol, you would already be there.

In the hottest places of hell, even your wrath is there. But we pray for a special manifestation of your presence in this place today.

We know that your Word promises it. And Lord Jesus, we know that you have promised in the text that was read at the beginning of the service today, that you have promised to build your church.

And we say to you, Lord Jesus, here we are, build us. Here we are, build us.

May we respond appropriately by faith in what your truth has for us today. And we pray it all in the name of Christ our

King, amen. You may be seated. I wanna start this morning's message with four preliminary matters.

Four preliminary matters before we get into the sermon. Maybe in another setting, we would take a whole sermon to go through these, but I'm just going to go through them succinctly.

And honestly, it's kind of a preacher trick to get in more points, but let's go to four preliminary matters.

I'm gonna go through these quickly though. Preliminary matter number one, verse 14, Paul says,

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things. So preliminary matter number one, this is

Paul's writing, okay? But this is written under the divine influence of the

Holy Spirit. So preliminary matter number one, this is what God says to the church.

This is Christ's vision for the church. So if someone were to say to you, well, what does Jesus say about the church?

And they say, you can only read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and you can only read the red letters. And that's all that Jesus has to say about the church.

And you say, you give them that great theological term that I love so much, baloney. No, this is what

Jesus says. Because though Paul is writing this, he's writing it under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit. And so this is God's word. Preliminary matter number two, God's word is clear.

Okay, this is God's word. Preliminary matter number two, God's word is clear. Verse 15 says this way, if I delay, so Paul's saying,

I'm writing to you, so that if I delay, verse 15, you may, what?

Not guess, not wonder, not try to figure out, but what?

You may know. So this is God's word. Number two,

God's word is clear. We don't have to guess what our

Lord wants for his churches. Thirdly, third preliminary matter, there is an ought to our responsibility to the local church.

Look at verse 15. If I delay, you may know how one, what? Ought to behave in the local church.

This word for ought, it's used in the gospels when it says things like Jesus must go to Jerusalem to die.

So this is not an option or a suggestion for us. There is an ought here.

It is our responsibility. Verse 14, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things, these things, okay, that Paul is writing about.

That is, for example, just a quick review. Worship in 1 Timothy 2, church officers in 1

Timothy 3, public scripture reading in 1 Timothy 4, how to take care of the elders in 1

Timothy 5, and on and on and on. These things are to be known, they're to be understood by God's people, and they ought to be, they must be implemented rightly in the local church.

This is God's word. God's word is clear. There is an ought to this. And then fourth preliminary matter is, and maybe this one's a little bit out of order, but knowledge produces change in the believer.

As we absorb the truth of scripture, we are changed. So Paul says, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave.

In other words, knowledge affects behavior in the life of the

Christian. Make sense? So it's God's word. God's word is clear.

There's an ought, and knowledge produces change in the believer.

Now, there is more that we could say, but these are the presuppositions, if you will, that we come to the text with, okay?

And what we are attempting to do today in this message, this final message on Christ's vision for the church, we are trying to answer the question, why does

Christ's vision for the church matter? Why does it matter? Like, why are you willing,

Brother Quacho, to die over these truths? You may have some places today that seem not to be concerned about Christ's vision at all.

You may have other places today that articulate that they care about Christ's vision for the church, but really, all that is just in the abstract.

It's not actually being applied in the day -to -day life of the church and in the worship of the church.

And so what happens is, you can look at those... I caught myself, I gotta be careful.

Alex says I can't step outta here or I'm outside the frame. So if you ever see me go this and then just come right back,

I'm trying to stay in the camera because we're live streaming again. But the point is, you look at other churches and you say, well, they don't have

Christ's vision of the church, and it seems that God is working there, right? They're growing, they seem to be baptizing folks, they're doing ministry, they seem to be flourishing.

And so then you ask, then why does it matter so much? Why are we going to care so much here about Christ's vision for the church?

Why are we willing to stake everything on Christ's vision? Well, I'm gonna give you three reasons from the text today.

Why Christ's vision of the church matters. Why it is of paramount importance.

Number one, Christ's vision for the church matters, number one, because biblical

Christianity is lived within the context of the local church. That's a lot to say.

What I thought I would do this week instead of alliterating these points is to try to make them very, very tangible. I want you to grab onto them,

I want to be very, very practical for you. And that is, Christ's vision for the church matters because biblical

Christianity is lived within the context of the local church.

I know that you live in Arkansas, I know that you live in the Bible Belt, I know that you're running to people all the time and say, you don't have to go to church to be a

Christian. And they just kind of live their life and they've made Christianity into just only this individual aspect.

But I'm going to show you here from the text, from the Bible, why that's wrong. Look at verse 15.

Paul says, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave. And then here's a very important word, in, in.

You may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.

We'll come back to that in just a moment. Which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

First, let me just mention here, there are three glorious titles for the church.

The household of God, the church of the living God, and a pillar and buttress of the truth. You will not find these three titles applicable to any other institution on the planet.

They are not applicable, okay. As important as the home is, and as important as godly homes are, these realities together are not applicable to the home.

As helpful as parachurch ministries may be and can be, these realities are not applicable to missions organizations or seminaries.

They're not applicable. They're sure not applicable to the government, right. They're not applicable to the state or nations or even local magistrates.

They're not even applicable really to denominations. It is only the local church that is truly the household of God, the church of the living

God, and a pillar and buttress of the truth together. Now I said that biblical

Christianity is lived within the context of the local church. And so now let's go back to verse 15 and let's flesh that out.

Paul is addressing Timothy here, but the implication of the text of course is that Timothy is to instruct the local church at Ephesus in these realities.

So let's do the work. Let's do the hard work. Let's put our minds on and let's do the hard work of looking at the text and studying it.

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.

Now here's what you might expect in evangelicalism today or in Bible Belt Christianity today.

You might expect an as there and not an in. In other words, you might expect if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave as the household of God.

Why might you expect that? Because this is what you hear all around. You don't have to go to church, you need to what?

Be the church. Don't go to church, be the church. Friends, these two realities are not at odds with one another.

Are you to be the church? Yes, but you can't be the church without also being in church, right?

You must be the church and you are to be in church. These two truths go together and that's why

Paul doesn't say that he's trying to tell you how to behave as a church, but in the church, okay?

Theologically true. We are the church. Believers do need to know how to behave as the church.

There is much instruction in the Bible that teaches us how to behave as the church. Christians are the church.

We're to be the church in this world. I'm not denying any of that. But let me reiterate, we don't pit these truths against each other.

They are both true of the Christian life. We are to live as the church and we are, verse 15, to be in the local church.

So we see that Paul is talking about in the church. He's saying the

Christians need to know, why would he say this? Why would Paul say Christians need to know how to behave in the church, in the household of God?

Because there's no understanding, there's no New Testament Christianity apart from being in the local church.

This Greek word translated household. Some of your translations it may just say, it may say house of God or it may say household.

That's because the word can mean either one of those. It can mean like a physical house or it can mean like a family.

And I think it's best understood that we don't exclude either definition actually. So remember this, the early church they would gather in these physical houses, right?

And it is as though that Paul is reminding the church here that when the church gathers, it's no longer that person's house, right?

So let's say that something terrible happened or let's not use something, let's say something wonderful happened.

Something wonderful happened and we're in a building project and there's something that happened and we just couldn't meet in this building one

Sunday. And so we said, you know, okay, we're just gonna pack in like sardines and we're gonna meet at the Nelson house.

And when we did that, when we gathered as a church, the reminder would be, this is no longer the

Nelson house. It's God's house. And we have to conduct ourselves in God's house the way that God has commanded us in His word.

And then of course we have the family aspect, not denying that when the family assembles, that is the local church, when the family assembles,

God is there in a special way. The local church is not ultimately then a building, certainly it is an assembled body.

That's why we could meet here, we could meet in the parking lot, we could meet in somebody's home and we're still

Perryville Second Baptist Church and God is with us in a special way when we assemble for the worship of God.

Brian Chapel notes this, the Sunday gathering is an assembly of the living God. That's what the text says.

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God. God's presence, friends, in the local church is a special way like no other place on this earth.

Therefore, believers need to know how to behave in the church. Not just as the church, but in the church.

There's no understanding of Christianity in the New Testament that does not involve believers participating in the church.

I feel like I just wanna hammer that. There's a quattro, you're beating a dead horse. No, I talk to people almost on a weekly basis that don't understand

Christianity this way. Church is good, church is fine, but church is optional. What's important is my relationship with God.

Amen, your relationship with God is important. However, you don't express that relationship with God according to the

Bible. If the Bible means anything, you don't express that relationship with God only individually, but within the context of the local church.

Paul says, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God. So let me put it this way. I'm not being snarky, I'm not being rude. Let me just put it this way.

You can have any idea of Christianity that you want in the sense that no one's forcing you to have a certain view of Christianity.

You can have an idea of Christianity that rejects the local church. Of course, you're here

Sunday, so probably not many of you like that, though there may be some. So you can have a understanding of Christianity that rejects the local church.

You can have an understanding of Christianity that says the local church, it's optional, it's no big deal.

You can see the local church if you want to. You can see the local church as a decent idea or something that you'll try to be connected with and involved with when you can and if you want to.

And if you want, you can even dismiss the local church altogether and you can just say the local church is just, it's just full of a bunch of self -righteous, pharisaical hypocrites.

You can have any of those visions about the local church that you want. You have the ability. No one is stopping, no one is stopping you from saying whatever you want about the local church.

But you need to, you need to hear me. You can downplay the church.

You can tell everyone else that what you are practicing is Christianity.

But I'm just gonna tell you, if you're practicing Christianity separate from the local church, you're not practicing

Christianity. You're practicing a religion that you just made up. It may look like biblical

Christianity. You may use the same language. You may talk about justification. You may talk about Christ.

You may talk about salvation and regeneration and maybe even election. You may talk about all these things.

But if what you are practicing is separated from the local church, the Bible doesn't know what you're talking about.

This is the truth of the Scriptures. Do you see why Christ's vision for the church matters so much?

Because biblical Christianity is lived within the context of the local church. You don't define

Christianity and neither do I. It's the Bible alone, not your mind, not your feelings, not your experiences, not cultural preferences, not what your aunt says, not what your cousin says, not what your next door neighbor says.

If you count the local church as optional or insignificant, then whatever it is you're practicing, it's not

New Testament Christianity. And I would hope that you would be greatly alarmed to have a divergent view of Christianity than does the

Holy Spirit, right? Like we can all agree on that, can't we?

That if your view of Christianity and the Holy Spirit's view of Christianity are two different views, then your view is wrong.

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. That's the Spirit of God says this to the churches, which is the church of the living

God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Can you say whatever you want about the church?

You can come, you can not come, you can dismiss it altogether. You can play around with the church.

You can even say what you're practicing is Christianity, but let me be clear, Biblical Christianity is lived within the context of the local church.

All persons and things outside of Biblical Christianity will perish eternally in the lake of fire.

Will you take a moment right now to assess your life? This is why

Christ's vision for the church matters, because Biblical Christianity is lived within the context of the local church.

This is the church of the living God. Think about that for just a minute. The living

God. That is, there's life nowhere else, only in the living

God. Are you a Christian according to the standards of the book?

And if not, you must be warned. You may have the same language, you may do some of the same things, but you're in a very dangerous situation because you defy the living

God. But at the same time, this warning this morning comes with an offer of mercy.

If you'll lay hold of Christ today by faith, you will be saved. Will you make your calling and election sure?

Now to our second point. I think I've beat that horse sufficiently. Why does Christ's vision for the local church matter?

One, because Biblical Christianity is lived within the context of the local church. Number two, because the local church is the promoter of truth to the world.

Because the local church is the promoter of truth to the world. Now we get on these fun words.

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.

We were doing family worship one night. I won't call out the child. It's just a funny story, so I gotta say. We were doing family worship one night.

We said, what is a buttress, right? I mean, like, come on, y 'all. I mean, when's the last time you used buttress in everything?

You have a cup of coffee and you just, the word buttress flowed out of your mouth. It probably didn't happen.

I was like, what is a buttress? Kids are looking, looking, looking. One bright young child says to me, it's like a butler, but a girl.

Oh, so you have a butler and you have a buttress, right? Is that right?

Okay, no, that's not what a buttress is. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Listen to James Bannerman.

He says, the very object for which the church of Christ was established on the earth was to declare and uphold the truth with all its spiritual and saving blessings among mankind.

That truth which exhibits at once the glory of God and in harmony and connection with that, the salvation of the sinner.

For this thing then, the church, was instituted. And this thing, or the declaration of the truth, must therefore be, in its nature and importance, paramount to the church itself.

Friends, every local church, look at the text, every local church, remember, this is written to Timothy. While Timothy is at Ephesus, he's instructing

Timothy so the church at Ephesus will know. And he's saying here that every local church, not just Ephesus, every local church is a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Both words, let's talk about those for just a moment so that you don't go home and think that a buttress is a female butler.

Both words have the idea of support. They're architectural words.

They should bring to our minds the idea of holding up. What does a pillar do?

Holding up, holding up the truth for all to see. So a pillar holds it up and a buttress reinforces it.

That's the idea. Some translations say support or ground or foundation. The idea is supporting what's going.

So a pillar holds it up, a buttress reinforces it. Now listen, the church, this is where Rome is wrong.

Roman Catholicism. The church does not determine the truth. That's not what we're saying.

That's not what Paul is saying, right? So Roman Catholics, they place the church in authority over the scriptures.

Wrong, no. Paul is saying here that the church upholds, doesn't determine the truth, but upholds the truth and supports the truth and reinforces the truth.

The truth birthed the church, similar to children and parents.

Children don't birth their parents. Parents birth their children. And so it's not the responsibility of the child to determine who their parents are.

They can't do that. That's already happened. It's the parents who birth the children. It's the children's job to uphold and honor their parents, similar to the church.

The church doesn't determine the truth. The truth determines the church. The truth birth the church.

And it's the church's job now to honor and uphold and uplift the truth to the nations.

You need to ask yourself this question then. Very important question. Does Perryville and Perry County and Conway County and Yale County and Faulkner County and Saline County and Pulaski County, do these counties, does this area, does this town, does this place in central

Arkansas, does it need to see the truth? Does it need, do we need the truth here?

Is that just out there for LA, right? Is this just Los Angeles that needs truth? Or just Milwaukee, or just New York?

It's just other parts, you know, we have a mission connections with churches in Mexico. It's just Mexico that needs the truth, right?

No, friends, we need the truth. We need to see the truth right here of the inerrant and infallible scriptures and the truth of the coming judgment and the truth of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and the truth that embracing

Christ in repentance and faith actually brings about transformation for the sinner. We need the truth here.

That's why God has a church here. Because the healthier a church is, the more clearly it promotes the truth.

The healthier a church is, the more prominent the truth is. Proverbs 23, 23,

Proverbs 23, 23 says this, buy truth and do not sell it.

Buy truth and do not sell. What does that bring to your mind? Truth is costly.

Let's put it in these terms. It does not take much work to gain weight, does it?

Eating good, or others put it, no, wait. By eating good,

I was meaning like eating a lot of food, not eating healthy. Eating poorly, let's put it this way, eating poorly, it's easy.

It's easy to eat poorly. It's easy to eat poorly because it's cheap. So too is purchasing lies.

Purchasing lies is cheap and it's easy. It doesn't require much work.

It doesn't require mental work. Just eat whatever it is they're feeding you. Just eat it up.

Whatever it is the media says, believe it. By the way, on either side, right?

I mean like CNN or Fox. You don't wanna think, you just wanna, just whatever it is, whatever the media says, just believe it, that's easy.

Don't think critically. Don't think logically. Don't read.

Don't study. Don't pray. Accept the candy of what passes for worship.

Accept the watered down nominal Christianity. Don't question it.

Stay asleep in your bed, nice warm blanket. Don't let those preaching the

Bible make you uncomfortable. This is the state of Christianity today.

But this is not the purpose of the church. The church is to buy the truth.

It is to do the hard work of knowing the truth and publishing the truth to a lost and dying world.

It is to be a pillar and buttress of the truth. And then Paul says, look at verse 15.

Little words are important sometimes. I'm understanding it this way from verse 15. He says, which is the church of the living

God that is the church at Ephesus, a pillar and buttress of the truth. A pillar. You know why I think he says a pillar and not the pillar?

Because the idea is that all local churches are a pillar and they are to be doing their part together.

It's not one local church that upholds the truth all on its own, but it's all of Christ's local churches are pillars together.

And when these pillars come together, think about the temple of Diana that was in Ephesus and all the pillars that would be holding that, that giant building up.

Think about all these local churches that are pillars of the truth. And when they're all doing their job together, the truth is shining beautifully.

And you tell me right now, if in this nation, that's what local churches have been doing. Have they been shining and holding for the truth or have they been overcome and enamored by what the world holds out?

I was at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee.

And the people on the platform, they kept saying, we would disagree about something.

No, that's not right. We don't need a hand. We need truth. We need truth. We need truth. And they say things like this. The world's watching.

No, no, no. No, the world's watching. Friends, what we have to keep in our mind more than anything else is that God is watching.

And we want to uphold the truth to a world, not because we want to offend the world.

Like if that's your deal, repent. If you're like, man, I can't wait to offend the world today. Woo. That's not our attitude.

No, no, our attitude is we want to uphold the truth because we love God and we love those in the world.

So let me say this. I'll go through these quickly, but it's our job as a local church to make sure that our little pillar here in Perryville is shining beautifully so as to shine forth the glory of Christ.

So let me walk through these five ways when it comes to the truth, five ways that we need to do, five things that we need to do.

I've borrowed these from, really I borrowed and adapted and added here from William Hendrickson.

But first, the church must digest the truth. That is, if we're gonna be a pillar and buttress of the truth, we have to eat it.

We have to believe it. We have to buy it. We have to embrace it. We see the

Scriptures not as a game. The Bible's not a game, just full of nice little stories for children or not full of mythology.

But we see it as the ironclad truth of God. We see the Gospel as the truth that Christ is

King and He came to give us life, a ransom for sinners, that He was our sin bearer on Calvary, that He fulfilled all righteousness and that we are sinners deserving only of wrath and only of hell, but that Christ has paid our pardon and that He has brought us back to God, satisfying the demands of the law by His work.

We must embrace this truth by faith. We must digest it. We must repent and believe the

Gospel. Secondly, we must distribute the truth. We digest the truth. We distribute the truth.

You guys know I couldn't get fully away from alliteration in the whole sermon. That is, we must teach it to one another.

We teach it. We sit under qualified pastors. We teach it in our homes.

We must distribute the word of God to one another. We teach the word of God. We digest it.

We distribute it. Secondly, thirdly, we demonstrate the truth. Our lives show forth the truth of God to one another to a lost and dying world.

I remind you again of the text, verse 15. If I delay, you may know how one ought to what?

Behave, how one ought to behave in the household.

In other words, listen very carefully then. The truth does not just affect our minds and it does not just affect our hearts.

It affects what? Our behavior. We no longer say, that's just the way

God made me, right? Well, God just made me a serial adulterer.

That's just how I am. No, the truth comes in and it changes us.

It affects our behavior. We don't merely digest it. We don't merely distribute it, but we demonstrate it.

Our holy lives show forth the glory of God and the power of God in the Gospel and the grace of God in the

Gospel for transforming sinners. Fourthly, we defend the truth. How is a church to be the pillar and buttress of the truth?

We digest it, we distribute it, we demonstrate it. Fourthly, we defend it. The church has been stewarded with the most precious of gifts.

Not a wonderful building, not even people in the seats, not a stage, not a piano, not a guitar.

The church has been stewarded with the most precious gift of all, and that is the gift of the truth.

And we stake our lives here. Friends, I'm gonna tell you, there are certain things in our world today that are not worth your giving your time to, but this ain't one of them.

This is worth giving our lives to and giving our lives for, the truth.

In verse 15, the word buttress is a noun, pillar and buttress of the truth.

In 1 Corinthians 15, 58, we won't turn there, but it's used as an adjective, and that's where Paul says, be steadfast.

That's the same word. Steadfastness here is the same idea. The church must remain steadfast.

We do not allow the truth. Friends, think about our conduct, think about our actions, think about our words.

We don't allow the truth to be diminished. We don't allow the truth to be diluted. We don't allow the truth to be distorted.

Every generation has particular temptations to compromise, compromise here, compromise there, compromise anywhere, but we must remember this sacred responsibility that we have at Perryville Second Baptist Church.

We must defend the truth at all costs. Pick whatever analogy you want.

I was born in Texas. Remember the Alamo, right? We gotta stay here, we gotta fight.

You can't win. Santa Ana and his army, they're gonna overthrow you.

You can't win this battle. So what, we gotta do it. Why, for the greater good, for the glory of Texas.

That's what they would say. So they fought and they defended and they died.

Friends, take that analogy to the defense of the truth in the church. We must defend the truth no matter the cost.

The world will overrun us. The government will kick us out. They'll shut us down, they'll burn us down. They'll kill us, they'll burn us at the stake.

They'll take our money, they'll put liens upon our homes. They'll take from our bank account.

They'll destroy us, they'll hurt us. No, we defend the truth at all costs because Christ is worthy.

Then finally, we digest the truth, attribute the truth, demonstrate the truth, defend the truth, finally, declare the truth.

Here I mean it is every local church's privilege and obligation to declare the glory of Christ among the nations.

Declare, not just live it out. Well, I'm gonna live the gospel. No, no, you don't live the gospel. Jesus lived the gospel.

What you do is you live out what has happened to you because of the gospel and then we declare the glory of Christ among the nations.

So think about verse 15 again, a pillar. A pillar holds something up. What is the church holding up?

The church is holding up the truth. I wanna build a pillar so high in Arkansas that they can see it in Argentina, right, whatever.

Like, I wanna build a pillar so high that we look at this and the citizens around Perry County and all the counties that I mentioned in central

Arkansas and even the United States, they look and what do they see here? Not Quatro, not the church, not us per se.

What they see is Christ because that's what the church is doing. Calvin notes, the reason why the church is called the pillar of truth is that she defends and spreads it by her agency.

She defends and spreads it by her agency. So as we digest and distribute and demonstrate and defend the truth, we're also declaring this truth for all to see and we must be intentional in our taking the truth to the streets, to the streets, to the literal streets.

How do you do evangelism? What great ideas do you have about evangelism? Trust me, I was stuck in this loop for a long time.

What's some great ideas about evangelism? Well, maybe we could get this guy to come in and he'll stand on one leg and he'll juggle chainsaws and he'll eat cotton candy while he's doing it and he'll turn around and sing

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and that will attract so many people. Or we just do this.

We just go tell people about Christ. Pshew, right?

We go knock on a door and we say, hey, listen, we're from Perryville Second Baptist Church and we're out here telling people about Christ.

Are you born again and do you know what it means to be born again? You say, boy, that, that, that will make you uncomfortable.

Yeah, I don't got nothing to push back against. You're right, amen, it will make you uncomfortable. Made me uncomfortable.

That's what evangelism is. We go and we tell people about Christ. We preach at harps, we preach in the streets, we preach in the parade, whatever.

We just tell people about Christ because Jesus is worthy and we want people to hear that their sins can be forgiven, that they can be restored to a right relationship with God, they can be free from their sins, they can be transformed by the power of the gospel if they will repent and put their faith in Christ.

But they ain't gonna do that if they don't hear. And they ain't gonna hear unless they have a preacher. And there ain't gonna be a preacher unless the church sends them.

Why does Christ's vision for the church matter? Because the church is the promoter of the truth to the world. I remind you again, this is hard and costly work.

This is hard and costly work. As we seek to be the pillar and buttress of the truth, we will encounter people mocking us, we will encounter people persecuting us, we may encounter trials, we will sometimes feel overburdened and underappreciated.

People in our area will even ridicule us and make fun of us and call us judgmental and mean and unkind.

There'll always be a temptation for the church to take the easy route. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,

I need to, I'm gonna just not say anything. I don't wanna ruffle feathers. I don't wanna be so radical.

I don't wanna be so serious about the word of God. But listen to these sobering words from Matthew Henry. When the church ceases to be the pillar and ground of truth, we may and ought to forsake her.

Sobering. When the local church loses sight of who she is and fails to carry out the charge from her

Lord to be the pillar and support of the truth, then she has ceased to be, at the very least, a healthy church, and it may actually be that Christ has already removed her lampstand and the church is just entertaining people on their way to hell.

We don't believe the book of Revelation enough when Christ threatens to remove the lampstand from local churches.

And we think anywhere in the country today that has the word church on it, then it must be blessed by God and be a true and healthy local church.

It's not true. How does a church ever get to the point where it was once a church and now it's a synagogue of Satan?

That's not, that's from Revelation, right? That's what Jesus says. How does that happen?

Here's how it happens. When you fail to be a pillar and buttress of the truth. Why is this important?

It may be hard work, but every labor is worth it for the glory of God. Why? Because Christ is worthy of a healthy church here.

Why does Christ's vision for the church matter? Biblical Christianity is lived within the context of the local church, and because the local church is the promoter of the truth to the world.

And finally, thirdly, because Christ's vision for the church magnifies the mystery of godliness.

Christ's vision for the church magnifies the mystery of godliness. Verse 16. Come behold the wondrous mystery, right?

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He, that is

Christ, was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believe on in the world, taken up in glory.

I know some of you, if you've known me for any time at all, you're like, boy, that looks about like 12 sermons. Maybe, but not today.

A lot of ink has been spilled on these verses, on these words, on this verse. And in truth, this verse certainly deserves more time than we're going to spend on it.

But let me say here that what we see in verse 16 is an early doctrinal statement, an early creedal statement.

Perhaps it's a song some commentators think about Christ. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the

Spirit, seen by the angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

Christ, what it's teaching us is, is Christ is the Son of God, equal with the

Father, of the same essence of God the Father and God the Spirit. And the Son of God took on human flesh.

He came to fulfill all righteousness. He fulfilled the law of God. He knew no sin.

In His flesh, in His body, He bore our sins on the tree. He was made to be sin on the cross.

On the cross, God punished Him in our place as our substitute on Calvary.

He died and He was buried, but He was vindicated by the Spirit. That is, He rose again on the third day.

The angels declared His glory. Here comes Mary coming to the tomb. Where is He? The angel says to her, what are you talking about?

He's not here. He's risen like He said. His glory is declared at the tomb and the apostles declare

His glory among the nations. And by this message, sinners were converted and believed upon Christ.

And this Jesus ascended into heaven. And He's seated right now at the right hand of God, the

Father Almighty, and He is King of all, and He is coming again to judge the living and the dead. 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.

The true mystery of godliness is the person and work of Christ. Christ's vision for the church matters because Christ's vision magnifies the mystery of godliness.

That is, it is Christ's vision for the church that magnifies who? Christ! When we have

Christ's vision for the church, who we are upholding and magnifying is the Lord Jesus.

A church not submitted to Christ's vision is ultimately proclaiming something or someone other than Christ.

To a decaying world. And whatever a church may look like on the outside, if it is not proclaiming

Christ, it is not a church. Listen carefully.

We are prone to think the Spirit of God is moving in places where Christ is not being heralded as the supreme treasure and glorious King that He is.

Let me give you some examples. We hear of a church with a big youth group. We think, oh, that church has a big youth group.

God is working there. Or we hear of a ministry feeding the hungry or clothing the homeless, and we think, oh,

God is working there. Or we hear of maybe a recovery center, and we see that people are getting over addictions, and we think, well,

God is moving there. Or maybe we see a lot of songs and dancing and people falling around, and we think, oh, certainly

God is moving there. But friends, listen to this. The only place that God is moving, the only place, there is not another place,

I can't be clear enough on this, the only place that God is moving in the world today is where Christ is preached.

Nowhere else. 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.

If any of the examples I just listed, if in any of those examples, Christ and His glory are not being proclaimed, sin is not being repented of, and truth is not being bought, and lives are not being transformed and conformed unto

Christ, then God is not moving. Simple. This is not to throw cold water on anything happening in the world today.

That's not the goal. The goal is not to so much focus on throwing the cold water.

The focus is on to take our eyes away from stuff and put them on Christ.

On Christ. Because only Christ is worthy, and it's only the preaching of Christ that furthers the kingdom, and it's only the preaching of Christ that saves sinners and sanctifies

God's people, and it's only Christ who is worthy of a healthy church. And if we're proclaiming anything else, anything else, if we're proclaiming the

Republican Party, if we're proclaiming the Democrat Party, if we're proclaiming whatever else it may be, and not

Christ, lock up and go home. This is

Christ's church. Let me tell you the good news.

God is working in our world today, and He's working through this message of redemption found in the person, and behold the wondrous mystery.

In His marvelous love and grace, Christ has given Himself as a ransom for His people.

He has paid their debt. He has rescued them from the frozen depths of hell, and He's sanctifying

His church even today for His glory. He promised to build His church, and He's building His church, and God is moving.

God is moving. Where? Where is God moving? Show me where to go, and show me what that will look like.

Show me where God is moving, because that's where I want to be. And I'm telling you, God is moving here. Are you being arrogant?

You're trying to tell me that God is moving here? I don't see any wild dances, and I don't see people coming up to the steps, and I don't know,

Quatro. No, no, no, God is moving here. How do I know? Because Christ is preached here. God was moving in Isaiah.

In Isaiah chapter six, when He proclaimed the Word of the Lord, and what happened there? Nobody believed

Him. But God is moving. Why? Because He was proclaiming Christ.

Where Christ is proclaimed, God is moving, and that's my point. God is moving in the church today, and Herman Bavink encourages us.

Christ, as King of His church, will see to it that on earth, there will always be a gathering of believers, however small and unimpressive it may be, which confesses

His name and finds all its salvation in Him. Oh, friends, here's what God is doing in the world today. You ready for it?

Unroll, like drum roll. Boom, the church. That's what God is doing.

The church. That didn't impress me. It's what

God is doing. Local churches all over the planet.

The house of God. The church of the living God. Pillars and buttresses of the truth. I hope to come to you soon,

Paul says, but I'm writing these things to you 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. This is what

God is doing in the world today. The local church. So that's the question for us today.

This is the wondrous mystery. This is Christ's vision for the church. Christ redeeming sinners, putting them in local visible congregations that are upholding and declaring the truth to one another in a lost and dying world, that are digesting the truth, distributing the truth, demonstrating the truth, defending the truth, declaring the truth.

Whatever vision it is that you have about Christianity, friends, please, if it doesn't align with this, then it is ultimately phony and powerless.

So that's the real question today. Will you align your life with Christ's vision for the church?

You've heard this. Sometimes I say stuff so much and I'm afraid you're getting tired of it. Please don't get tired of this. You've heard it.

We've spent eight weeks on it. But listen, let this ring in your heart right now and believe it.

Christ is worthy of a healthy church in Perryville, Arkansas.

He's really worthy. The lamb that was slain is worthy to receive the full reward of his suffering.

I don't know what's going on in your heart right now. I don't know what it is that you're thinking.

I don't wanna know. I don't want that power, right? But I need you to see that you have a real and serious choice before you this morning.

And this is not something... Now, I have done something damaging to your soul if you neglect this.

And that is, you can't leave this building today and say, well, no one ever told me.

No one ever told me about what God is doing. No one ever told me that local church was important. No, you know.

So the choice before you this morning is this. It's not something to take lightly. You have to count the cost and you have to consider this this morning.

Is following Christ worth it to you? Will you give your life to Christ's vision for the church?

This will take the giving up of certain things in your life. Well, he's not saying

I gotta give up anything. No, I'm telling you, you will give up things. It will take the adding of other things to your life.

This will take a true Holy Spirit -wrought repentance. This will take discipline and work.

But right here's where it starts. Putting your faith in Christ. Trusting that he is all that the

Bible tells us that he is. And he's worthy of all that the Bible tells us that he is worthy. And that he alone is our only way to God.

That he alone is the way to eternal life. Will you trust a God like that? Will you place your faith in a

Christ like that? And will you be part of what God is doing right here? Christ is

King. Father, I thank you for your word.

Lord, help us to believe this truth about your local churches.

So many of us have the local church way down our priority.

Father, by your grace, would you change that? Some don't love the church because they don't love

Christ. They've made up of religion. They've made up their own

Jesus. Some have entered in this room like that and they'll leave this room like that.

And they don't even believe that what they've heard today is even talking about them. They're so deceived.

But I pray that it wouldn't be the case. And I pray that even this morning, that they would see that they've made an idol out of whatever it is that it is and that they would repent of it.

They would cast it down and they would come to Christ believing that his mercy is more than their sins.

They will trust him. He will forgive, in Christ's name, amen.