Redeemer Live - January 19th, 2025 (Full Worship Gathering)

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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case, the scripture readings in there as well, and some notes to help you follow with the message later on. We open our services each week with a call to worship, where God, from his word, invites us into this sacred time and sacred space as we gather to worship together.

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And this morning, God calls us to worship from Psalm 75. Psalm 75.

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It's a very simple call to worship, but there's a phrase in it I want to highlight for just a second.

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So Psalm 75, verse 1, the psalmist says to us, we give thanks to you,

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God. We give thanks to you for your name is near. People tell about your wondrous work.

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Did you notice that the psalmist there says that we give thanks to you for, or because your name is near?

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The only reason that we can draw near to God in worship is because he has first drawn near to us.

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And so as we come to worship, we come with hearts and we come with minds, hopefully, that are drawing near to God in full response to the fact that he has drawn near to us.

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And of course, the greatest way that he's drawn near to us is in the person of his son.

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And so with that in mind, allow me to pray, let's commit our time to the Lord, and then we will continue in worship. Our Heavenly Father, we are so thankful to you for your every goodness to us.

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Thank you for the gift of the Lord's Day, that we're able to hit pause on the activities, distractions of the week, and be able to start the week in worship and in fellowship and drawing near to you.

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Pray that as we sing and hear your word read, and we respond to it in prayer, and we hear it taught, and see its promises in the table, and as we draw in fellowship with one another, may the

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Spirit would use all of this to deepen our love for Christ, to make us more and more like him and above all, may the

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Spirit would use it to glorify the Savior. So we ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

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Amen. Well, can I invite you to stand and let's engage in some singing together. Praise the

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Lord. He is so good to us that he has brought us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his

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Son. Let's worship this God as we proclaim God over all.

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A section at a time. We come to Psalm 68.

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Now, as we come to Psalm 68, it's one of the longer psalms, not the longest, but it's a pretty long one.

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And so to make this a bit more manageable, we're not going to read the entirety of the psalm like we normally do. I'm just going to read the first 19 verses.

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The first 19 verses this morning. We will pick up the rest next week, Lord willing. But as we come to Psalm 68, we come to a psalm that essentially gives voice to the fact that the

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God that we serve is all -powerful. And since he's all -powerful, he is worthy of all worship.

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So I want you to bear that in mind as we come to this psalm, that we are coming face -to -face with the

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God who has all power and who is therefore worthy of all worship.

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Psalm 68, if you grab one of the red Bibles that we give away, that's on page 504. Psalm 68 and reading verses 1 through the 19.

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Brothers and sisters, these are God's words to us. To the choir director, a psalm of David, a song.

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God arises, his enemies scatter, and those who hate him flee from his presence.

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As smoke is blown away, so you blow them away. As wax melts before the fire, so the wicked are destroyed before God.

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For the righteous are glad. They rejoice before God and celebrate with joy.

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Sing to God. Sing praises to his name. Exalt him who rides on the clouds.

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His name is Yahweh. And celebrate before him. God in his holy dwelling is a father of the fatherless and a champion of widows.

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God provides homes for those who are deserted. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a scorched land.

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When you went out before your people, when you marched through the desert, Selah, the earth trembled and the skies poured rain before God, the

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God of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. You, God, showered abundant rain.

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You revived your inheritance when it languished. Your people settled in it. You, God, provided for the poor by your goodness.

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The Lord gave the command. A great company of women brought the news. The kings of the armies flee.

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They flee. She who stays at home devised the spoil. While you lie among the sheep pens, the wings of a dove are covered with silver and its feathers with glistening gold.

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When the Almighty scattered kings in the land, it snowed on Salmon. Mount Bashan is

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God's towering mountain. Mount Bashan is a mountain of many peaks. Why gaze with envy, you mountain peaks, at the mountain

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God desired for his abode? Yahweh will dwell there forever.

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God's chariots are tens of thousands, thousands and thousands.

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The Lord is among them in the sanctuary as he was at Sinai. You ascended to the heights, taking away captives.

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You received gifts from people, even from the rebellious, so that Yahweh, God, might dwell there.

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Blessed be the Lord. Day after day he bears our burden. God is our salvation.

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Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it. Let's come to the Lord in prayer. Let's pray together.

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Lord, as we have read these words, we are freshly reminded of the fact that you are the

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God who possesses all power in heaven and on earth, that you are the

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God for whom nothing happens to him, yet you cause all things to happen.

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And Father, while that should be a terrifying thought for those who don't know you, while that should be a thought that strikes fear in the hearts of those who reject you, for us who know you, that is a comforting thought.

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For us who know you, that is a refuge in the storm, that is a shelter in the midst of the heat of this life.

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So Father, we thank you for your power. We thank you that you are ordering all things for the good of your people, that even as we just read, your power enables you to be our salvation.

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Father, help us that we will always remember our need for you, that we would never presume to think that we have power in and of ourselves.

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We have nothing that you have not graciously given to us. So Father, help us.

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Help us to embrace the need to be dependent on you. And more than that, help us to find joy in the fact that you are the

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God who gives us everything. Be with us as we continue to worship and as we come to the ministry of your word in a few moments.

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We ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Well, can I invite you to stand and let's continue in our worship by singing.

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Our service where we get to play the word of God.

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So we have a Bible, and I hope you do. Take it and turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. I'll join you there in just a moment.

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Before I do, a couple of bits of housekeeping, so to speak. First things first,

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I bring you the greetings of our elders at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona. I was out there Friday and Saturday for their

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Be Ready Men's Conference. We do that every couple of years. The theme this year was the war on men.

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Taking a stand. It was a great time of fellowship. People from all over the country literally came. So good time there.

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I got to spend some time with our elders as well. They absolutely love you guys. They are praying for Redeemer here in the

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Rogue Valley and can't wait. Lord willing to see us all soon. So bringing their greetings.

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Like I said, we were there for a men's conference, and it was interesting. Fellas, I want to speak to you for just a moment.

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Ladies, you get to eavesdrop. I'm speaking to the fellas for a moment. It was interesting.

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So the theme of the conference was the war on men. Some might object to that language and say there isn't a war on men.

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That's just being melodramatic. I'd argue the point with you, but that's not really the point.

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The reality is we live in a culture that at best wants to redefine what being a man is, and at worst just wants to get rid of manhood altogether.

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And as I was reflecting on my way home yesterday, I had a lot of time to do that. As I was reflecting on my way home,

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I was reminded of something that I heard years ago from a mentor of mine, and there was a version of this said at the conference.

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I remember being told as a younger man that our adversary has a number of devices.

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2 Corinthians 2 .17 tells us that we should not be ignorant of the devices, the schemes, the strategies of the evil.

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We've got a lot of them. And actually three of them that he likes to use, that my late mentor used to say to me, was that first things first, he'll try to deceive you.

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He'll try and tell you things that are not true. If he can't get you there, he'll use the weapon of what my mentor used to call deviance.

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He'll get you in the realm of your behavior. If he can't get you with deception,

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Am I an icon? Yeah, okay. If he can't get you in the realm of deception, and he can't get you in the realm of deviance, he goes for the weapon of distraction.

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Distraction. He makes you, my mentor used to put it like this, he'll make you too busy to tend to the garden of your own soul.

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As men, we are mission oriented. I think I even joked about this last week. Like, you present to us a problem.

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I'm not trying to hear 20 minutes about why this is a problem. I need five minutes, at best, for you to tell me the problem, and 15 minutes to go fix it.

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This is how God has made us. That's not a flaw, despite what culture tells us. No, it's part of how God has made us.

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Here's the danger with that though. Our adversary knows, I mean, he's not, think about this.

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Our adversary doesn't have all knowledge like God does, the fancy theological term. He's not omniscient. He doesn't know everything.

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But he's been around a little longer than you and I. Which means he's had a lot of time to observe humanity and to know what works and what doesn't.

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And so if, as men, we are very much driven by tasks, missions, projects, and those sorts of things, what does he do?

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He'll just introduce a bunch of them. Keep you busy so you can't do the things that are most important.

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Brothers, I want to encourage this. I was just incredibly, richly blessed by the ministry of the Word and the fellowship and the conversations that happened.

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And I thought of our body, and particularly the men of our body. And I want to encourage us. Life is busy.

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Things happen. I get it. But brothers, do not let our adversary use the weapon of distraction on you.

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Make time for your own soul. Make time for fellowship with God's people.

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Make time for the private use of the means of grace, reading God's Word, praying, engaging in fellowship one -on -one with other believers.

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Don't allow yourself to get distracted. That's a weapon the adversary will use on you.

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And to be fair, this is true for women as well. So this is not a purely male problem. But I do want to speak specifically to the fellows for a second.

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Brothers, fight against distraction. Paul says something in 1 Corinthians 7, years ago, hearing my pastor preach through this.

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1 Corinthians 7, he's talking about marriage and relationships and all of those fun issues.

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And then he pauses and he says why he's writing. And he says, I'm not writing. I'm paraphrasing. I think it's 1

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Corinthians 7, I'm going to say verse 35, somewhere thereabouts. He says, I'm not writing to you to put a burden on you.

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He says, I'm writing to secure your undivided devotion to Christ.

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Brothers, let me encourage you. Jesus is worthy of undivided. Let me just use the word

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I just used, undistracted devotion. He's worthy of it.

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And here's the thing. You may think, okay, if you're saying that, but I've got so many things to do. I've got a family to lead. Here's the thing.

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If we rightly think of the Lord Jesus, if we have him front and center, we're going to talk about this in the message, actually.

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If you have him front and center, he doesn't become a distraction, no pun intended, from the things that we need to take care of.

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He actually gives us the power to do those things well. It would be like I don't have an electric car and I don't really think much of electric cars.

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That's a whole other conversation for another time. But it would be like me having an electric car, never plugging it in.

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Wondering why my car doesn't go anywhere. Brothers, don't become so distracted that you are disconnected from the source of the power that will enable you to live in a way that glorifies

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God. One of the ways that we seek to foster that is through our men's

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Bible study once a month. It's an opportunity for us to sit under the sound of God's word. It's very interactive. Try to encourage us to work our way through the text together.

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And so that's going to be happening tomorrow night at 7. So if you are available, I encourage you, make the time. Even if you're tired, come.

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You can fall asleep. I'm not going to be mad at you. But just come. Sit under the sound of God's word. It will be a blessing to you.

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All right. 1 Timothy, that's where we are. Continuing on in the sermon series that we have been in called

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God's House Rules, an exposition of 1 Timothy. And this morning we come to 1

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Timothy and chapter number 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. I'm short reading this morning, just three verses.

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Verses 14, 15, and 16. So 1

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Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 through to 16. If you grabbed one of the Bibles we give away, that's on page 1052.

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1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 through to 16. If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me as we read this portion of God's word?

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We like to do this at this point to show our submission to the word of God. In these moments,

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God is directly speaking to us as we read his word. So 1 Timothy chapter 3, beginning in verse 14 and reading to verse 16.

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Brothers and sisters, once again, these are God's words to us this morning. I write these things to you, hoping to come to you soon.

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But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living

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God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great.

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He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

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Jesus said that heaven and earth will pass away, but that his words, these words, would never pass away.

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Pray that they would find fertile soil in our hearts. Allow me to pray, ask for the Lord's help, and we will come to his word this morning.

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Heavenly Father, we come to your word now, asking that you would speak to us. Yes, you have spoken in the pages of your word, but we pray that that which you have said would be spoken to us afresh again by the ministry of your spirit.

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Help us to not just understand what these words say and what they mean, but help us to understand why they matter for us as your people.

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Father, it's usually our habit to pray for other area churches, but tomorrow, our nation inaugurates its new president.

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Father, we saw just how contentious this previous election cycle was. We saw firsthand just how dangerous it got at points.

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Father, we pray that as there is this official transition tomorrow, we pray that it will go well, first and foremost.

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Pray that there would be nothing that would cause danger to either the president or vice president who are coming in or any who are in attendance.

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Because of the weather, they've had to move it indoors, and that creates a whole other set of challenges. Father, we pray for this nation.

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Again, we are so polarized, and no doubt the incoming of this new president may not help matters.

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Father, we must be honest and say that we are not always the most deserving of your mercies, but we would pray for the mercy of peace in this nation as this new administration begins.

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That regardless of whether one is happy about the new administration or unhappy, your word tells us that we ought to pray for those in government.

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It doesn't say anything about liking the person in government. It says we ought to pray for them. And so, Father, we pray for incoming

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President Trump. Pray for his vice president, J .D. Vance. Pray for the administration that's coming in.

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We'll have to hit the ground running on so many issues. Father, we pray that you would give our leaders the wisdom they need to rule over as well.

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Father, may that even begin with their needed repentance. Because, Father, as a nation, we need to repent.

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But, Father, even in your common grace, you give leaders who don't repent wisdom to rule rightly. I pray that you would give our leaders wisdom.

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I pray that you would bring advisors around them who think clearly, who see needs and want to meet needs.

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I pray that we, as citizens, would submit well to our leadership, even when they do things that we don't particularly appreciate.

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Because, ultimately, your word tells us we are to submit to every human authority, not for their sake, but for the

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Lord's sake. So, Father, help us in that reality. Be with us as we come to your word now.

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We ask in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. What gets you out of bed in the morning?

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What gets you out of bed in the morning? For some of you, it's that socially acceptable addiction called drinking coffee.

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But, in all seriousness, seriously, what drives you to get out of bed on Monday morning and do what you do?

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Really, I'm getting at the question of, here's the big word, motivation. What motivates you to do what you do?

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It's kind of an important question, ain't it? It's not enough to just do stuff. You should probably ask, why are we doing this?

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If you aren't driven by some motivating principle, if there isn't some sense of importance to the work that you are doing, whatever that work is, let's just be honest, the chances are you're not going to do that work well.

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Yes, the Bible does teach us that there is inherent value in hard work and excellence. Those are values that I think are important regardless of how you feel.

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But let's be honest, for most of us, excellence and the thrill of hard work just isn't enough.

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So, again, I ask, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Maybe that's a little uncomfortable, so let me zoom out for just a moment.

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What should make the church get out of its metaphorical bed in the morning?

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What should be the motivation of the church? Why should the church do what it does?

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Is it cultural relevance? Is it cultural acceptance? Should tradition be our guiding star?

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Will we do what we do because other people have done it before? We've always done it this way.

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Are the felt needs and the emotional desires of our world, are they what should motivate us to action?

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Again, I ask, what should be the motivation of the church?

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Well, as we come to 1 Timothy 3, verses 14, 15, and 16, we're going to hear something of Paul's heart.

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And since Paul is writing by the inspiration of the Spirit, we're going to hear something of God's heart, if you will, about what should guide the conduct and the mission of the church.

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We're going to get to the heart of this question of motivation, not so much on a personal level, though I think it's a good question to ask, especially at the beginning of a new year.

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No, we're going to think about the church and what its motivation ought to be.

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Those of you who are new to our church, we have been working our way section by section through 1

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Timothy. That's what we generally do here. By and large, we take books of the Bible and we work our way through them section by section, letting the point of the text be the point of the sermon, the shape of the sermon be informed by the shape of the text, and the central theme, as I like to say, big

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C, big T, the Lord Jesus, let him be the central theme of every message. And so we've been doing that as we work our way through 1

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Timothy. And for a moment, I want us to kind of review, for some of you it will be a review, for some of you this will be new.

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I want us to think about the big picture of 1 Timothy. What is Paul doing?

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I had some interesting travel times yesterday. But one of the things

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I do enjoy about travel, especially when it's going the way it's supposed to, is I'm an aisle seat person.

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I don't like window seats. There are many reasons I don't like window seats. But one thing

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I do like about window seats is when you start taking off and you have that moment where you look out the window and you can just see, whenever you're flying out of Medford Airport, you can basically see

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North Medford from like a 30 ,000 foot view. And it's always fascinating. Wow, North Medford is a lot bigger than I think it is.

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I think it's good to do that with books of the Bible too. Sometimes it's good to just get the big picture of what's going on. For a second, it's going to be important.

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Let's think about the big picture of 1 Timothy. Paul tells us, very helpfully, he tells us why he wrote this letter.

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So look back at chapter 1 verse 3 real quick. So chapter 1 verse 3,

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Paul says, As I, Paul, urged you, Timothy, the younger man who's receiving this letter, as I urged you when

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I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine.

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Paul sends Timothy to Ephesus, this church that he had started, because in between Paul starting this church and this moment, some people had crept in with some new ideas about who

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Jesus was and what the Bible taught. And as they had crept in, they were introducing problems.

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And Paul sends Timothy, one of his, I like to say his special ops guys, and says, you need to parachute in here and you need to take care of this problem.

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Paul anticipates this to be a short thing. But in our text, actually, look at verse 15.

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So 1 Timothy 3 verse 15, Paul says, If I should be delayed, I'll say more about that in a moment,

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I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household.

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This book is written with the express purpose of laying out what should be the conduct and the mission of God's people.

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And Paul uses a number of perspectives, a number of landing points to get at this.

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And I'll put them up on screen so we can follow them. So in chapter one, Paul basically starts by responding head on to the threat of false teaching.

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The whole of the first chapter is devoted to that issue, dealing with false teaching. And note that he deals with false teaching, not by talking about the false teaching.

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He kind of does, but that's not his focus. His focus is to remind them of the gospel message that they had heard.

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And so we learned from Paul all the way back in chapter one, how it is that the church should respond to false teaching.

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It responds to false teaching with a commitment to the gospel that it has already received.

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So there's responding to the threat of false teaching with the gospel. And then you get to chapter two from verse one, right through to chapter three, verse 13.

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And Paul starts to deal with restoring God's order to the church. You see, we often think of false teaching as, okay, it's just bad belief.

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No, no, no, no. Belief and behavior are always connected. Where bad beliefs creep in, bad behavior will at some point follow.

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And so beginning in chapter two, verse one, all the way through to 313, Paul starts to reintroduce, starts to encourage

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Timothy, you need to restore God's order back to the church. Because apparently something had gone wrong.

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And so we spent a lot of time there. I'm going to re -preach all of those messages. You can listen to those on our website.

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But Paul starts by responding to the threat of false teaching with the gospel. He then seeks to encourage

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Timothy to get to the work of restoring God's order to the church. And this morning, we're beginning a section, section number three, if you will, that's going to take us all the way from 314 to 416.

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And in this section, Paul is going to remind God's people, he's going to remind Timothy, and by extension, you and I, of the centrality of, not the language

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I used, the gospel word. Reminding God's people of the centrality of the gospel word.

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Over the next few messages, we are going to be reminded of the fact that for us, there is nothing more central than the word of God, and not just the word of God in a generic, amorphous kind of sense.

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There's nothing more central than the word of God with the gospel at its center. And over these next few messages, not only are we going to learn that, we're also going to learn why we can't afford to allow any, here's that word

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I used again, distractions, to creep in that would deviate us from this gospel.

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I told you that the devil can't introduce deception, chapter one.

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If he can't introduce deviance, chapters two to 313, he'll start working on distraction.

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And that's what we're going to see in this section. He will try and bring in distractions.

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We can't afford that. And thankfully, God knows we can't afford that. And so we're going to see God's answer to that in the next few messages as we work our way through this letter.

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This morning, Paul is going to set the table for us in this theme of gospel centrality, of word centrality.

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He's going to set the table for us. He's going to, as it were, get down to brass tacks. Why does the church exist?

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Again, I'll ask that question. I'll start it with what gets us out of bed in the morning? Well, he's going to thankfully answer that question for us.

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And actually, he's not Paul answering it for us ultimately, is it? Ultimately, who's answering that question for us?

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God is answering that question for us. So what should drive the church in its pursuit of its mission?

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What should make Jesus' church, as it were, get out of bed in the morning? I put it to you that the church can only fulfill its

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God -given purpose when it loves and focuses on Jesus.

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That's my big theme for this morning, that the church can only fulfill its

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God -given purpose when it loves and focuses on Jesus.

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The church can only fulfill its God -given purpose when it loves and focuses on Jesus. Simple enough.

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Of course, there's going to be a lot for us to unpack as we think about this. The church can only fulfill its

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God -given purpose when it loves and focuses on Jesus.

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For the rest of our time this morning, I want to look at Paul's two facets of gospel -shaped purpose.

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Two facets Paul's going to give us from this passage. Facets that if we think about them rightly, they'll help us to think appropriately about our place as God's house.

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If we rightly understand what Paul is saying in these short verses, I think it will do a lot to help us think about our place as God's house.

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That's what Paul says about us in verse 15. We are God's household.

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But what does it look like to be God's household? That's what we've called this series, God's house rules.

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From this section right here, what does it look like to be God's people? Paul's going to give us two facets of gospel -shaped purpose that will help us to think rightly about our place as God's house.

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The first facet I want you to see, do you see that there in verse 14 and 15? I want us to consider for a few moments, number one, the essence of the church's faith and life.

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The essence of the church's faith and life. So verse 14,

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Paul says, I write these things to you hoping to come to you soon. But if I should be delayed,

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I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living

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God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Like I said, a few moments ago,

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Paul tells you up front why he wrote this letter. We don't have to try and figure it out. Some books of the Bible, you have to kind of almost read in between the lines.

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Thankfully, 1 Timothy is not one of those. He just tells you up front, why did I write it? These words here.

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But remember what I've said repeatedly, for those of you who've been regular with us through this series, that while Paul is writing to Timothy, he's not just writing to Timothy.

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If I can put it like this, he's writing through Timothy. Yes, he's writing to Timothy, but through Timothy, he's writing to all of God's people everywhere.

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Those of you here in our very first message, I said that sometimes people call this, the next book, 2

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Timothy, and the next book, Titus, the pastoral epistles, I think it's one of the saddest naming jobs in history.

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And I say that because for a lot of people, they hear that and think, great, doesn't apply to me, I'm not a pastor. I would much rather we call these the church epistles, the church letters, because actually they're speaking to all of God's people.

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Yes, this has special importance for Timothy, but it has importance for all Christians. Like I said,

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Paul seems to write with the understanding that I'm going to come in person at some point.

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Hey, at some point, Timothy, I'm just going to tell you things from a distance. I'm going to be in Ephesus to kind of help you deal with some of this.

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But as happens in life, plans are made to go wrong sometimes. You know, things don't always go the way you'd like them to.

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And so Paul rightly acknowledges, you see that there in verse 15? Or 14, he says, I write these things to you, hoping to come to you soon.

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But if I should be delayed, and that if there is a genuine if, it's in the likelihood that I'm delayed.

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If something happens and I can't make it. Know what he says in verse 15? He says, I have written so that you will know how people ought to, here's a good word, conduct themselves in God's household.

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The idea of conduct is pretty interesting when you start to dig under the surface. This word here, it carries this idea of living in line with principles and ideas.

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It presupposes that there are some things you should know. And as a result, you're going to live in light of those things you should know.

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I need to pause there. That's actually too good for us to just kind of move over quickly. Let's take a moment here. Let me ask you a question and give you a second to think on it.

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I'm going to ask you a question. Take a second and think on it. Is there a right way for a church to behave?

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Is there a right way for a church to behave? Is there a right way for a church to conduct itself?

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Now, you may be tempted to quickly say yes. But before you do, let me ask another couple questions and see if I can make this more confusing than it needs to be.

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Are there rules of conduct for churches? Are there rules of conduct for churches?

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Here's another question to think about. Do you know what those rules of conduct are? If that sounds kind of technical, if that sounds like, wow, that's a lot to think about.

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Yes, that's exactly what I'm going for. Because, again, we may be tempted to say, especially in a church like ours where we take the

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Bible seriously, we take teaching the Bible seriously, we may be tempted to just say, oh, yeah, of course there is. Now, I say that.

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There are lots of Christians actually who may be tempted to say, no, there isn't. But, you know, as long as, look, you love

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Jesus and you figure it out, like, you know, some folks do this, some folks do that.

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Who am I to judge? I mean, look, as long as you love Jesus, it is what it is.

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Now, let's be clear. There is a kernel of truth to that statement, so let me not be too dismissive of that.

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Because the reality is, as a brother I met this week said, I love the line actually, it's kind of burned into my brain now.

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You know, good and godly Christians will disagree on things. So, yeah, there is a sense in which, okay, yeah,

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Christians will do things differently. There is a sense in which we could say, if you want to be provocative, there is no right, one right way to do certain things.

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We may have strong opinions about what we do, which is fine to a point, but there's no strict, if we're honest and we take

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God's word seriously, okay, there are some things that we can agree to disagree on.

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So, let's use some practical examples. Maybe this will help. Should a church use a hymnal or put words on a screen?

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Pick one. Now, you may need to ask, okay, what's the wisest? What fits our purposes best?

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And I do think there's conversations to be had one way or another. But let me put it this way. Are you sinning if you go to a church that only has hymnals?

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No. Are you sinning if you go to a church that only has words on a screen? No. Should we have chairs or pews?

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Now, before you answer that question, make sure you have the right kinds of pews. Not all pews are built equal.

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My church in London for years had pews. They were some of the most uncomfortable chairs. And finally, the church just tore them out, and now, from what

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I understand, they just have chairs. Is there any moral value attached to having pews?

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One of my favorite churches in the world, Grace Community Church, they have pews. Our church here, one of my favorite churches in the world, has chairs.

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Does it matter? No. Bible on your phone or Bible on an app?

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I mean, I have strong opinions about that subject. But at the end of the day, are you sinning one way or another?

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No. So we recognize that there are lots of things that, okay, we may do differently. You may have preferences one way or another.

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That's one thing. But even, to quote my friend I met this week after that, good and godly

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Christians disagree. Doesn't that imply something, though? Think about that phrase.

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Good and godly Christians disagree on this. What does that imply? Doesn't that imply that you have a standard by which you can determine who is a good and godly

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Christian? Okay, Kofi, where are you going with this? Land the plane.

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Let me try. Can I put it to you that when it comes to the essentials of what a church is, when it comes to the most basic things about what makes a church a church, can

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I put it to you that there are actually rules to this thing, that there are some things you can and can't do, that there are some things that are actually black and white?

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Sorry, we're not going to have a conversation about that. That's not right. That there are certain principles and ideas that are supposed to guide our conduct and where they are absent or, worse, rejected, we need to have a conversation.

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You see, the church doesn't just do what is reasonable. The church doesn't just do what some earthly organization tells us to do.

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Worst of all, the church doesn't just do what it feels. As I told you, I was with our elders out in Gilbert, Arizona, this weekend.

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Got to spend some time with one of my favorite people on the planet, Pastor Dale Thacker. He's the executive pastor over there at Redeemer.

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I call him the chief because he's very scary and very in charge.

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He's not. He's actually a believer. I just like to poke fun at him. But my brother

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Dale has a statement that he likes to use. It's kind of blunt, but I grew up in East London.

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We like blunt. He and I get on so well. He has a statement he likes to say when people will be like,

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I just don't like that. I don't like the way that makes me feel. He'll say, tell your feelings to shut up. And what he's trying to get at, he's not trying to be rude.

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I know Dale is really rude. What he's trying to get at is just because you feel something should be that way, well, no, we as Christians are given something a little bit more substantive than how you feel.

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We're given this word of God. You see, the reality is the church conducts itself according to certain principles.

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Essentially, Paul doesn't say what the principles are, but I think he implies them. And I think he implies them in the descriptions he uses for the church in this passage.

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So again, look at verse 15. He says, But if I should be led, I've written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, number one, which is the church of the living

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God, number two, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

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Paul uses three descriptions for the church, and each of these three descriptions are worth thinking about for just a moment.

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Because I think in each of them, he gives us a little bit of an understanding of what the principles and ideas are that should drive the essence of who we are.

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So for a moment, let's look at these. First of all, notice that Paul says that the church is

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God's disciplined family. The church is God's disciplined family. So look at the passage again, verse 15.

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I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household.

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If you're the Bible -marking type, which every Christian should be, in my opinion, that's just my opinion, throw a circle around that word household.

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Have you got some way in your app of marking that? Mark that word household. It's an interesting word.

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We use a sort of root or a fruit word from that, if you will, all the time.

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So we talk about the economy. That's where this word comes from. It's where the…excuse me, that word comes from the word that's used here for a household.

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The word literally just means the rule of the house, if you will.

01:00:01

It speaks to the fact that a household in the ancient world, a household was a orderly structure, that there was a rule, a law that governed the household.

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A household in the first century wasn't just a mama, daddy, and a few kids. Actually, the households could be really large, and they could include people who were not blood relatives like slaves and servants and assistants and those sorts of things.

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In the New Testament, when you hear that word household, the word that comes to mind is structure, order.

01:00:40

Family, there is an order to how the church runs. There is a discipline.

01:00:46

We hear discipline as someone imposing discipline on someone, but in the Bible, it's actually the other way around most of the time.

01:00:53

Discipline starts from within by the Spirit of God teaching us what we ought to do. There is a discipline, a way of conduct to how the church runs.

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It might seem cute to keep things lighthearted and unstructured and not really have any goals or expectations for what you're doing, but actually, actually, yes, the church is a family.

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Sometimes you'll hear this in the way people talk about church. Oh, I don't like X church.

01:01:27

X church doesn't feel like a family. Okay, well, what do you mean by that? You don't want to just dismiss what someone says.

01:01:32

I think it's okay to ask what they mean. Well, what does that mean? Oh, it's just way too much structure, way too much like everything has to be right.

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Like in a family, you just kind of do what you want. Actually, that's not true, is it? I have two kids.

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My son turns five in May. My daughter turns one in March. If I have learned anything, it's that either you impose order or they will impose disorder.

01:02:10

So we have to tell our kids when they go to sleep, when they can get up.

01:02:18

Tell them what they can and can't eat. Rosie's at that phase right now, my daughter.

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She's at the phase where she just wants to stick everything in her mouth. She can do that.

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Am I going to let her, though? No. Yes, it's a family.

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I love my kids. I can't wait to get home and be with them. I love my wife.

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I love my household. But guess what? If the household has no order, if the household has no structure, guess what?

01:02:57

That doesn't help the members of the household catch it. It hurts them, doesn't it? We recognize that.

01:03:03

But for some reason, I'm going to do my best not to turn it into a rant here, but just bear with me for a moment.

01:03:09

For some reason, when it comes to God's household, where we appreciate structure and order in our households,

01:03:17

I say that now I know culturally there's a whole gentle parenting, which, okay, that's a debate for another time.

01:03:24

You know, like, we don't tell our kids what to do. You know, educationally, the whole unschooling thing has become popular in the last few years where, you know, we just kind of let them figure it out.

01:03:31

And that's kind of a broad brush I know. There's a bit more detail to that. Yes, I understand that culturally that may not be popular.

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But I think common sense and the way God has made the world tells us that order and structure are kind of necessary, even in something as intimate as a family.

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When Paul uses this language of a household, I think he's telling us something about the nature of how this household works.

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Yes, there should be warmth and vitality to our relationships as the people of God. Yes, we shouldn't treat each other in a cold and detached and unloving way.

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Absolutely. We're commanded explicitly multiple times in the Bible to love one another.

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But that love, again, is like my house. My house has a front door.

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My house has walls. My house has a roof.

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It keeps certain things out. And it takes care of the people who are in.

01:04:31

And Paul says this language of people conducting themselves in God's household, he's saying essentially know what your role is in this place and conduct yourselves accordingly.

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The church is the church, I would argue, when it maintains a good balance between structure and order and warmth and vitality.

01:04:58

So the church is God's disciplined family. Okay, Kofi. What else? Not only is the church

01:05:05

God's disciplined family, do you notice in the passage that the church is God's called out gathering? Because look at the language he uses, verse 15.

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I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living

01:05:24

God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

01:05:32

Church is one of those words that we use a lot. In fact, we use it so often, I think sometimes we can lose the gravity of what that word means. The word that's often translated church in your

01:05:40

Bible actually is a very general term. It just means an assembly.

01:05:47

It means a calling out of people. That's literally what the word comes from, actually. I try to avoid

01:05:53

Greek in sermons, I almost slipped there. It's the word for out and the word to call.

01:06:01

Called out. In other words, you call people out for the purpose of gathering. In fact, in the New Testament, not in the

01:06:07

New Testament, but in the world of the New Testament, this word was used for when the law -making body came together.

01:06:12

So it would be like when Congress gets together. That word was applied to that.

01:06:21

Casual get -togethers would often be described with this word. In fact, in Acts chapter 7, if you're taking notes,

01:06:26

Acts chapter 7, the deacon Stephen, excuse me, in his sermon, refers to the nation of Israel who were gathered with Moses as the assembly in the wilderness.

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That word assembly in Acts chapter 7, same word for church. Now, of course, the major way the

01:06:44

New Testament uses this word is for the gathering of God's people. Whether it is the gathering of God's people out of the world, what we call the universal church, the fact that every believer who has placed their faith in Lord Jesus is part of this invisible, but very real entity that exists where all

01:07:01

God's people are a people together. Or the New Testament uses that in a more local sense.

01:07:07

That this invisible, to quote Mark Dever, the invisible church makes its footprint in time and space through visible local churches.

01:07:21

Okay, Kofi, why is this important? Where are you going with this? Well, I'm glad you asked. Have you ever heard people,

01:07:27

I hear it a lot in this valley, have you ever heard people say the phrase, I don't go to church, I am the church? Or I don't have to go to church to be the church.

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Can I be honest with you? There's lots of ways to attack this. There's lots of ways to ask what's going on when people say this.

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Can I just give you, let me just get to the bottom line for me. When I hear that phrase,

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I have to tell the person who's saying it as lovingly as I can, with all due respect, sir or ma 'am, that just doesn't make sense.

01:08:05

It just don't make no sense. I know that's bad grammar, but I hope it gets my point across. Think about it.

01:08:11

If the church is a calling out, this is a gathering, if it is an assembly, catch this, how do you assemble by yourself?

01:08:21

I mean, I was going to make a comment, maybe not the wisest, I'll leave that alone. But, suffice it to say, most normal people recognize you can't gather with yourself.

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You're just there. The church is called a gathering.

01:08:39

And it's a called out gathering. Notice the one who calls the gathering is not us, by the way.

01:08:45

Do you know what Paul says? Look at it again. Verse 15, this is God's household, which is the church of the living

01:08:51

God. The grammar there points to the fact that the church belongs to the living

01:08:57

God. The God who lives is the one who has called the assembly.

01:09:09

As it were, he has called the meeting. Well, think about that.

01:09:14

If God is the one who has called the meeting, if God is the one who has called the assembly, who gets to govern what happens in that assembly?

01:09:27

So, if you know a redeemer, if you ever say, oh, we need to have a meeting, they'll be like, okay, great. You called the meeting, so you chair it.

01:09:35

Because that's how that works. Well, if God is the one who has, as it were, called a meeting of his people, then he is the one who gets to determine what happens in that meeting.

01:09:47

If he is the one who has called out this gathering of people out of the world to be with him, just like he did with Israel out of Egypt.

01:09:55

Remember that in the Egypt narrative, in the Exodus? Multiple times God says to Pharaoh, let my people go, which we all know that part.

01:10:03

We all tend to forget the other part. So that they may worship me. In other words, hold on.

01:10:08

For a moment, let's think about this. Have you ever wondered, those of you who, like me, grew up on the Prince of Egypt, or you've actually just read the

01:10:15

Bible, when God says that, let my people go so they can worship me, couldn't they worship

01:10:25

God in Egypt? I mean, God is invisible. He doesn't need temples.

01:10:30

Maybe in Hans Acts chapter 17, surely you could worship him anywhere. Why does

01:10:36

God have to explicitly say multiple times, let them go so they can worship me? Weren't they already worshiping him?

01:10:46

You ever thought about that? Let me give you my theory. It's a theory, but let's test it out.

01:10:53

I think that, in my opinion, God says that. Why? Because it's not enough for God's people to worship him.

01:11:02

They needed to worship him without the distractions of the culture around them. And I think my theory holds because think about this.

01:11:12

We've all heard the story of the golden calf, right? Exodus 32. Where did they get that idea from?

01:11:19

You ever thought about that? Where did they get the idea? Remember, because they say, if you read Exodus 32, I preached a sermon on Exodus 32 at this church.

01:11:26

You can find it on our website. I might preach it again. Actually, it was an okay sermon. In Exodus 32, when they build this thing, they don't say we're building this calf to worship another

01:11:37

God. They say that this is Yahweh, the one who was out of Egypt. Where did they get that from?

01:11:43

Because they were around Egypt. That's how Egypt worshiped their gods. God had to take them out from there.

01:11:50

This is my theory. Why? Because if they were going to worship him rightly, they needed to worship him on his terms, not Egypt's terms.

01:11:57

Okay, Kofi, where are you going with this? Simple. The God who calls us out as his people, calls us out as his people so that we may live in the way he wants us to live, not the way we think he should be worshipped.

01:12:15

More to be said about that, but I don't want to linger too long. The church is God's disciplined family.

01:12:23

It's his called -out gathering. Thirdly, the church is God's truth -driven temple. The church is

01:12:29

God's truth -driven temple. Look at the end of verse 15, so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living

01:12:40

God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

01:12:49

The Bible is a very clear book, but sometimes it is made even clearer by just knowing a little bit about the world into which it's written.

01:12:58

This is one of those passages where that might help you a little bit. We saw in chapter 1 verse 3 that Timothy is in Ephesus.

01:13:06

In Ephesus. Ephesus was home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. If you know that language, in classical history, there were these seven different items.

01:13:18

Some of them are still around. Some of them have been lost to history. Seven different places and structures that are considered to be architectural and cultural wonders.

01:13:26

One of them was in Ephesus. Ephesus was kind of like Medford and the

01:13:33

Rogue Valley a little bit in that the town proper lived in a valley, and there were hills that surrounded this valley.

01:13:44

Just outside of Ephesus on one of these hills was a large and imposing temple to a goddess called

01:13:51

Diana, also known as Artemis, also known as Aphrodite. This is an impressive structure.

01:13:59

History tells us that it was known for its 100 nearly 60 -foot pillars.

01:14:06

And those 160 -foot pillars held up a solid marble roof.

01:14:14

In fact, history says that when the sun would hit it, you could see it for miles. I put it to you that when

01:14:27

Paul employs this picture of a pillar and a foundation, Timothy would have said, if he looked out the window,

01:14:36

I don't know if he did this, but he would have thought to himself, yeah, I think I get that. I think he's being highly intentional.

01:14:47

That just like those pillars held up that polished marble roof that called people to worship this false god, the church functions in that same way.

01:14:58

It is a pillar and a foundation that instead of supporting a lie, it supports the truth.

01:15:05

And it does this in two ways. First of all, the church holds up the truth before watching.

01:15:10

Well, that's what that language of the pillar is meant to represent. The church is the pillar of the truth because it's

01:15:16

God's vehicle for his truth being seen in the world. The only way in which people hear the truth is through the church proclaiming that truth.

01:15:27

And so the church has a responsibility to hold up the truth before a watching world.

01:15:33

But not only does the church have a responsibility to hold the truth before a watching world, the church also has a responsibility to hold up the truth in the face of attack.

01:15:45

That's the other side of this. He says the pillar and foundation of the truth. Foundation maybe isn't the best word for this original

01:15:54

Greek word. It might be better translated as a buttress. Those of you who are architecturally or engineering -minded,

01:16:02

I am not. But I'm reliably told by people who are that to support walls, in some cases, you build buttresses to hold them up, to support them up.

01:16:13

That buttresses, I'm reliably told anyway, are protective features. I think that's kind of interesting.

01:16:23

Why would Paul use his language of, yes, the pillar makes sense because the church holds up the truth, but how is the church the buttress of the truth?

01:16:29

How is the church the defense? Oh, that's a good word, ain't it? Defense. The church is called to defend the truth.

01:16:38

Why? Because the truth is under attack in every age. And if the truth is under attack in every age, then the church in every age needs to be the one who defends that truth.

01:16:52

Again, running out of time, but there are loads of passages we could look at where the church is explicitly commanded, even in this letter, to defend and protect the truth.

01:17:08

And when you put those three pictures together, the disciplined family, the called -out gathering, and the truth -driven temple, when you put all those together,

01:17:17

I think we get something of the essence of the church's faith and life. That the church conducts itself according to God's word, according to His structure and order.

01:17:26

That the church worships as God has called it to worship, not as it devises. And that the church is called to lift up and defend the truth before a world that would seek to attack it.

01:17:41

That's the essence of the church's conduct and mission, the essence of the church's faith and life. But if we ended there, if our sermon just closed there, at best, that would be a sort of, you know,

01:17:55

I could end it with just a big rah -rah, you know, let's go fight the heathens out there, which, okay, there may be a time and a place for that.

01:18:03

You know, kind of do my best braveheart, even though I don't have a Scottish accent, and, you know, try and, like, you know, don't ever take our freedom, and all the rest.

01:18:10

You could go down that road. But Paul doesn't. Paul doesn't end there.

01:18:18

This is not a pep rally from Paul. Paul does not do all bluster and no substance.

01:18:27

You see, why should the church be this? Because, you know, so far we've talked about what the church is. But why should it do this?

01:18:36

Let me rephrase the question. It's not a good question. A better question is, why can the church be this?

01:18:44

What will give us the energy to be this kind of people? Well, that's worth thinking about, actually, in our second point, which is the energy behind the church's conduct and mission.

01:18:57

The energy behind the church's conduct and mission, verse 16. Verse 16 says, And most certainly the mystery of godliness is great.

01:19:06

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in the world.

01:19:23

Verse 16 might be one of the coolest verses in the Bible, if for no other reason. In fact, I'm not sure if you knew this, but it's one of only a few places, we have maximum two or three in the whole

01:19:32

New Testament, where a song is quoted, where a hymn is quoted. It's almost universally accepted that the words that Paul quotes here, and in fact, in the

01:19:43

Christian standard Bible, if you have a print copy in front of you, do you notice how they've kind of blocked it off as almost like a verse versus just a standard way of rendering it?

01:19:54

It's because they're recognizing that it's almost universally understood that these were stanzas, these were verses from an early church hymn.

01:20:05

That these were words, here's what Paul says there, he says, And most certainly, not the best way to translate that, sometimes they can say by common confession, or by common agreement, that's probably a better way to look at this.

01:20:19

He's basically saying, everybody knows this, and quotes something that everybody knows. If I can just pause for a moment, this is why you don't want bad music in church.

01:20:33

This is just a side point. It's not my main point, but while I'm here, this is why you don't want what I heard one person call 7 -11 songs.

01:20:40

You know what I mean by 7 -11, seven words 11 times? No, good

01:20:47

Christian music, I would argue, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, the Psalms, I would argue that good

01:20:54

Christian music actually teaches. Again, that's a whole other conversation for another time.

01:21:00

I've actually preached on that subject, so I won't labor the point. But Paul quotes this hymn from the early church.

01:21:08

He quotes this hymn that God's people would have known. These weren't just platitudes put to music.

01:21:17

These were reflections on the truths that God's people believe. And you know the beauty of this?

01:21:24

You know what all these words have in common? They're all about Jesus. You see, the energy that propels the church, catch this, is not the threat of the law.

01:21:37

You know what I mean when I say that? It's not try harder, do better. You're making Jesus look bad, you slackers.

01:21:46

Now, there is an element of truth to the fact that, okay, the church's witness can kind of make Jesus look bad.

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It's not wrong to say that appropriately. It's not wrong to say, you know, we should be seeking to excel and do better.

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Paul himself would do that. But notice that that's not where you start. That's a therefore conversation.

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You know what I mean when I say a therefore conversation? You say that after you've laid an appropriate foundation.

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That's not your foundation. You see, the foundation, the energy, as it were, that propels the church, catch this, is a greater vision of the person and work of the

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Lord Jesus. That's what propels the church to be what God has called it to be.

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And in a sense, that should make perfect sense, shouldn't it? Let me think about this. If Jesus is the head of the church and we are

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His body, if Jesus is the vine giving life to the branches that are united to Him, if Jesus is the husband of the church and we are

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His bride, if all that is true, it is only right then that the church's health or the church's lack of health is tied to its growing knowledge of and love for the

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Lord Jesus. The Puritan John Owen put it like this in a work he wrote,

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Reflections on the Person of Christ. He said this, quote, that Jesus is the foundation of our religion, the rock whereon the church is built, the ground of all our hopes of salvation, of life and immortality.

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All is resolved into this, namely, the representation made of the nature and will of God in the person and office of Christ.

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If this, the person and work of Christ, fail us, we are lost forever. If this rock stand firm, the church is safe here and shall be triumphant hereafter.

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It's only as we truly understand who the Lord Jesus is that we're able to be the people

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He has called us to be. And in particular, just for time's sake, I'm going to try and summarize it. Paul focuses on two aspects of Christ's person and work.

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First of all, he deals with Jesus's earthly ministry for us. So again, look at verse 16, and most certainly the mystery of Godliness is great.

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First of all, he was manifested in the flesh. Jesus took on humanity for us.

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As John 1 .14 says, that the word became flesh and he dwelt among us, he tabernacled among us.

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Just as the tabernacle in the Old Testament was the visible representation of God living with His people, Jesus in becoming a man,

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He is the perfect representation of God among us. And that makes sense if you understand the story of the

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Bible. Man sinned in the garden. God told man that if man sinned against Him, man would be punished.

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But here's the thing, a finite man can't pay the debt that sin incurs before an eternal

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God. Those of us who, I would argue the Bible teaches, eternal conscious torment for those who reject the

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Lord Jesus. You ever wonder why it has to be eternal? An illustration

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I heard years ago that helped me with this. If I kill a cockroach, what happens?

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Well, it's dead, but in terms of consequences, I mean in terms of like actual consequences, nothing.

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It's a cockroach. Well, I'm getting there.

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If I kill an animal, depending on how I kill the animal, the consequences are a little higher.

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So if I kill, if I walked into your, those of you who have pets, and I decided I don't like your pet, so I'm going to take care of that.

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I apologize. Please don't start crying. That's actually,

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I can actually suffer jail time for that. Not a whole lot of jail time actually, but some.

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Why? Because unlike the cockroach, there's a little more value attached to that.

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Tomorrow is the presidential inauguration. I mean, we already had two attempts on the incoming president.

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If someone decides to try and make it a lucky third and they succeed, how would it want to be that guy?

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Chances are he's probably never going to see the outside of a JSL ever again. Well, yeah, if the

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Secret Service doesn't find him first. Why? The magnitude of the person you've committed the act to determines the nature of the punishment.

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If a finite being sins against an eternal God, how much punishment would make that right?

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Only an eternal punishment would. But here's the thing. You've still not made it right.

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You could punish the person. You've still not made it right. Only one who was a man, yet was also infinite, could make it right.

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And so the Lord Jesus took on flesh, the Bible tells us, and that he took on flesh. Do you notice Paul doesn't mention the cross in this?

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You'd think he would. Well, this song that he quotes doesn't mention the cross. But that's implied in the fact that he became a man.

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That's why he became a man. Why did God become a man?

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Well, God became a man to redeem sinners. So Paul doesn't have to say

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Jesus died because that's implied in the fact that he became a man. Jesus died, but he didn't stay dead.

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You see the second line there? He says he was manifested in the flesh. He was vindicated in the spirit. Literally, he was declared righteous in the spirit.

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What on earth? Who are these early Christians singing? Let me ask you this way.

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Who raised Jesus from the dead? And all three of them.

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The Bible says all three. Jesus said, remember, I have power to lay down my life and to take it up again. The Bible also says that the

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Father was the one. Romans 8, 11, if the spirit of him who raised

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Jesus from the dead, the Father. And the Bible also says that Romans 1, 4,

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Jesus was appointed to be the powerful son of God according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.

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1 Peter 3, 18, Christ suffered also. Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God.

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He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the spirit. When Paul says that Jesus was declared righteous by the spirit, that he was vindicated by the spirit, here's what he means.

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That Jesus died. Now, if Jesus died, well, okay, he's gone the way of all the earth.

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Everyone dies. Ultimate statistic, one out of one people die. But the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, the spirit was bearing witness that this one here, he's not like everyone else.

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The fact that he rose from the dead, think about it. Lots of people got resurrected in the Bible, actually. But all of them died again.

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This one was resurrected, never to die again. The spirit testifies.

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He declares him to be the righteous one. His sacrifice is accepted.

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And we know this because he was raised from the dead. He was manifested in the flesh.

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He was vindicated in the spirit. He was seen by angels. Some debate about what this means. I take this as a reference to his ascension.

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So Jesus rises from the dead by the power of the spirit. And as he rises from the dead, eventually he returns to heaven.

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And the Bible makes us to understand that Jesus left this earth, and he went back to heaven.

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But he didn't just go back to heaven. He went back to heaven to where heroes welcome. Because the Bible tells me,

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Hebrews 1 verse 6, God, actually, the author of Hebrews is quoting the Old Testament. But the author of Hebrews says that as Jesus enters into glory, that he says, let all

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God's angels worship him. But there's another layer to this.

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Because, yes, Jesus goes back to heaven to a hero's welcome. Heaven receives him as the champion who overcame sin, death, and the grave.

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But here's the thing. They weren't the only angels watching that happen. Even fallen angels had to acknowledge the most cosmic of elves because of Jesus.

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Colossians 2 .15 tells us that he, God the Father, disarmed the rulers and authorities. And in that context, he's speaking about spiritual rulers and authorities.

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He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly. He, the Father, triumphed over them in him, referring to Jesus.

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So Jesus' ministry culminates in his ascension, which is technically a part of his earthly ministry.

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It's the end of that ministry. And as he goes into heaven, heaven receives him as the champion who won.

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Hell has to look at that and say, oh, we got beat. It wasn't even close. That's what

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Jesus did. And catch this. He did that for you, Christian. Where our humanity only condemns us to death, his glorious humanity gives us life.

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That where death for us is the end of life, in a sense.

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In Christ, death is just sleep preparing us for that day of resurrection when the

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Bible says we will be resurrected just like he was, Philippians 3, verse 10. That whereas there was no victory for us and hell had the final say, in Christ, that order is now reversed.

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That's Jesus' earthly ministry for us. And what's the result of that work? Well, there's now

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Jesus' present ministry through us. So the way this breaks up, you've got this in our

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CSB, it has it as just one block of six lines. I actually like the way the NIV has it.

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The NIV has it as two blocks of three lines each. I think that's a better way to reflect what's going on here.

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The first three lines, what Jesus does. Well, what

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Jesus did in his earthly ministry. The next three lines is what Jesus does through his church and his present ministry.

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So look at that fourth line. He was manifested in his flesh, number one. He's vindicated in the spirit, number two. He's seen by angels, number three.

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Number four, he is preached among the nations. This all -conquering champion who has returned to heaven to a hero's welcome.

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He commits to the church the announcement, the proclamation of his victory.

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In fact, we use this language of preaching the gospel. You know that that didn't start with us. That was a word picture from the ancient world.

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When kings went to war and they won a victory, there were people in the army who were tasked with basically going to all the nearby towns and villages and announcing the victory of that king.

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And that is what the ruling and reigning Lord Jesus has called us to do as his people.

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Heaven's champion basically tells us, go tell the world I won. For any other human being, we call them arrogant, but here's the thing.

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How can he be arrogant when he actually did it? The church proclaims

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Jesus among the nations. Look at the next line, believed on in the world. So as he's preached, men and women, boys and girls from all the nations come to find faith in him.

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You see this, right? At the beginning of the church, Acts chapter 2, Peter preaches and people from— you ever wonder why

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Acts chapter 2 goes out of his way to tell you that people from this nation, this nation, this nation, this nation—why? Because the announcement of the king's victory has gone forth, and now the nations are coming to him.

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And so as he's preached among the nations, he is believed on in the world. Finally, it says that he's taken up in glory.

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There's some debate about what this means. I personally land on—when he uses this language of taken up, maybe not the best way to put this again.

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Maybe a better way to put this is that he is lifted up in glory, that as he is proclaimed, as men and women, boys and girls from every tribe, nation, and tongue believe in him, as that takes place,

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Christ is exalted in all of his glory. That is what should get the church out of bed in the morning.

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And it saddens me—let me just say this as I close. It saddens me to look at the church, even in my own theological camp, at times, and to see people who have lost sight of this reality, for whom the good news of a risen

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Savior and a sovereign Lord is not enough. And so they get excited about politics.

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They get excited about taking dominion. Those of you who know what I'm talking about, you probably have a good idea who

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I'm talking about. That when you want to talk about the gospel and Jesus, you say, oh, we've talked about that enough.

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We need to start talking about this thing here. This needs to motivate us. It saddens me.

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I mean, it angers me too, but it mostly saddens me. And the reason it saddens me is very simple. If we have

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Jesus, shouldn't that be motivation enough? One of my favorite books was written by a man called

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Frederick Leahy. He went home to be with the Lord years ago. The book was called, Is It Nothing to You? Subtitle, The Significance of the

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Work of Christ. Is it nothing to you? Here's the danger.

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It can become nothing to you. You've heard it so many times. I've said this before in the life of redeeming.

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I'll say it again. I've been around church long enough to know. You can hear these things again and again and again and again and again and again.

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It's like, yeah, I know that. It's old hat. I need something new. No, you don't. Just be honest.

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No, you don't. The good news of this Jesus who is given for us, the good news of a

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Savior who did everything we could not do and empowers everything he calls us to do, that should be enough.

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And it saddens me at times when Christians lose sight of that reality. We would do well to be reminded of the fact that a simple

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Jesus is infinitely enough for the world's even most complex problems. And if anybody tells you otherwise, forget their podcasts, forget their

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YouTube channels, forget their text messages and Patreons and all the rest of it. Throw that in the trash.

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That's where it belongs. In fact, it might be too good for the trash. Why? Because Jesus and the simple proclamation about who he is is enough.

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This, that's why I gave this message the title I gave it. This is the heart of God's house, the ruling, reigning, and victorious

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Lord Jesus. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this, Jesus. We thank you for the fact that he has done all.

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He has done everything. That there is nothing that we can add to the work that he has done. All we have is the wonderful privilege of announcing the victory that has already taken place.

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Father, help us that we would find satisfaction in that alone. That we would not be tempted by this thing or that thing or other things, but ultimately, the good news of Jesus given for us would be enough.

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Father, we thank you for this table that is before us that reminds us of the fact that Jesus is indeed enough. As we come to it now, may the sweetness of the

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Lord Jesus be even sweeter to us today. I ask you in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

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Well, as we come to the Lord's table, as we just heard a moment ago, we come celebrating a risen and victorious

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Savior. I think one of the great tragedies about the Lord's table, if I can just say this for a moment, is that in so many churches when we celebrate the

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Lord's table, it's a very dour, very somber event. Yes, it should be taken seriously. But as I like to say often, you probably heard me say it enough and maybe wonder why does he always say that?

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But we don't come to mourn a death. We come to celebrate a life.

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Because, yes, he died, but he didn't stay dead. Yes, he died, but that death opened up the pathway to life for every single one of us.

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And that's why we partake of these simple elements. There's nothing amazing about them from a human perspective.

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There are much more grander meals you could eat. But no meal is as spiritually nourishing as this meal.

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Because as I believe the Bible teaches that Christ is present with us in a special way as we come to this table.

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And so as the elements are being passed out, allow me to lead us in a quick prayer of confession, and then we'll partake together. Our Father, as we have just heard,

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Jesus is more than enough. And yet,

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Father, how tempted we can be to substitute other things, or even worse, to add other things alongside

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Jesus as though he has equals. As we come to this table, we come reminded of the fact that we are not enough, that we are insufficient, that there is no one else that we could go to except you.

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And as we come to you, you give us food for the journey. You nourish our souls through your word, through prayer, and through this simple table, and that even as in your humanity you ate with sinners, in this moment you are eating with us once again.

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So, Father, we thank you for this table. We come acknowledging our unworthiness in and of ourselves, but we also come rejoicing that you have made us worthy.

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You are our invite to the table. And so as we come, we come with open hearts.

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We ask in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Paul says, For I received from the

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Lord what I also passed on to you on the night when he was betrayed. The Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it and said,

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This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

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Let's eat together. Paul goes on in the same way also.

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He took the cup after supper and said, This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

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Let's drink together. And so Paul says,

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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

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And even as we proclaim his death, we find pardon as a result of that death.

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And I invite you to receive this assurance of that pardon that we have received. Matthew chapter 11 says,

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Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is burden. If you are trusting in the

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Lord Jesus, can I encourage you that you have found rest for your souls? Yes, this world is wearying and it is tiring.

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But guess what? You have found rest where it truly matters. And I invite you to stand and let's sing as we conclude our worship gathering this morning.

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To worship with you today.

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Please stay after we're dismissed and enjoy some fellowship together. As we conclude our worship gathering this morning,

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I invite you to receive the blessing of the Lord. Reading once again from Numbers chapter 6,

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May Yahweh bless you and protect you. May Yahweh make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.

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May Yahweh look with favor on you and give you peace. The Lord God's people said,

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Amen. Lord willing, see you either Monday night, fellas, for our Bible study. If not, Wednesday night at 7.