WWUTT 623 A Pillar and Buttress of the Truth?

The Apostle Paul said to Timothy that the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth.

This means that the church is the instrument God has chosen to hold up the truth and defend the truth when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of 1

Timothy, still in chapter 3, but we'll be closing out the chapter today as we look at verses 14 through 16.

The Apostle Paul writes to his servant Timothy, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness.

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

So this comes at the tail end of the instructions that Paul has given to Timothy about the structure of the church, how the church is supposed to operate from top to bottom.

He began the letter telling Timothy to teach sound doctrine and don't let anyone teach any different doctrine.

Sound doctrine, which is good teaching, right teaching that flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ, produces godliness in those who believe it and obey it.

So then he gave instructions as to what godliness was supposed to look like. Chapter 2, verse 1, the first thing that he says pertaining to godliness is that he desires all people to pray.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.

I recently read from J .D. Greer, believer you are chosen to pray, and part of that means that you have been sovereignly placed in certain situations where you can see where God is working among that people and cry out to God, Lord, fulfill your promise in this place.

It is upon each and every one of us to pray, and there's not anyone for whom you should not pray.

It says that all kinds of prayers be made for all kinds of people, lifting up their needs to our sovereign

Lord. Submitting to God in this way is a recognition of his sovereignty that he is in control of every situation.

It is considering somebody else's need ahead of your own when you lift them up in prayer.

It's not that it's wrong to pray for yourself. It's just more often than not, we kind of have this me and Jesus attitude about Christianity.

It's just me and my Bible, me and Jesus just kind of doing our thing, and that's not the Christian faith at all.

We are part of the church. It's what we've been talking about for the first three chapters of 1

Timothy here. Our working within the body of believers that are called out from the world, that are assembled in the name of God.

This is not a faith that you do by yourself. This is something that you do together with the brotherhood, brothers and sisters in the

Lord, growing together, encouraging and admonishing one another, growing into him who is the head of the church, and that is

Christ Jesus. So we do this together. We consider one another's needs ahead of our own, and we do that even through prayer.

Paul went on to give instruction specifically to men, what he expects of the men, exercising godliness within the body of believers, also what he expected of the women.

And then as he starts to inch toward the leadership structure of the church, he says that a woman is not supposed to be filling in those leadership roles, particularly when it comes to preaching and teaching.

That is for a man. A man needs to step up and lead in the church.

And so we have the qualifications for overseers in chapter 3 verses 1 through 7.

This is a person of impeccable character. He is a mature Christian, setting an example for the body of believers, but also showing himself faithful to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And everything Paul said at the start of the letter applies. That he must be sound in his doctrine, that he must not deviate from it in any way into myths and speculations, but he cherishes and loves and guides shepherds according to the truth of the gospel that was delivered by Christ himself.

And then as he's been appointed to that task, there are deacons that would help in the caring for the physical needs to be able to provide relief for the elder.

That's how we saw that very office established when we looked in Acts chapter 6, that the apostles said, hey, we shouldn't have to stop preaching and teaching in order to wait tables.

So appoint some brothers from among you who can fill that role as deacon, as being servants in the church.

And then the first deacons were appointed. So that deacon provides relief for the elder, but also service to the members of the congregation and serves as an example of sacrificial mercy work within the body of Christ.

And as he does this, he gains a good standing for himself. Verse 13, and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

And so it's right on the tail end of those instructions related to the very structure of the church that Paul says here in verse 14,

I hope to come to you soon. And we don't know in what capacity that was or where he was going to meet

Timothy if he was talking about coming to Ephesus or meeting him somewhere else, because Paul never did make it back to Ephesus again.

And so he does desire to see his beloved son in the faith, this young man who he raised up and discipled and appointed to these tasks who he trusted more than anyone else who worked with him in this missionary work.

I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.

And that's everything that we've talked about, the teaching sound doctrine, the producing godliness in the lives of those who are in the church, the very structure of the church.

Paul has given these instructions to Timothy just in case he can't get to him soon and be able to give him that hands -on instruction,

Timothy has that here. And we are under the impression from the very beginning of the letter that the

Ephesians have fallen into some wrong teaching, that the elders have even strayed from the sound teaching of the gospel and have delved into myths and speculation.

This is something that Paul warned the Ephesian elders about, which we read in Acts chapter 20. He says that fierce wolves will arise from among you desiring to devour the flock of God.

And some of those elders did not heed that warning, that prophetic warning that Paul made and was moved to tears when he made it.

So this isn't just something he's saying off the top of his head, like, hey, you know, the patterns indicate that eventually some of you are going to fall into false teaching.

He foresaw that that was going to happen in the Ephesian church, warned them about it, and yet some of them fell into it anyway.

So because Paul has this belovedness for this church, of any church that we read about him planting in the

New Testament, it seems that he has the greatest affection for the church in Ephesus than any other church.

He sends to them his most trusted servant, who is Timothy. I have none like him, as Paul said to the

Philippians. And so this is the trusted teacher that Paul is sending to Ephesus to set things right again, not just in the preaching and teaching, but even the very structure of the church and the instructions to the body of believers pertaining to the exercise of godliness.

So that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, because the church is a family, as I already described it as being a brotherhood, brothers and sisters in the

Lord. I am closer to my church family than I am with my own flesh and blood brothers and sisters.

In Mark chapter three, Jesus' mother and brothers came to him and they stood outside and sent to him and called him and a crowd was sitting around him and they said, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

And Jesus answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers.

For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

And later in Mark chapter 10, Jesus said, truly I say to you, there is no one who is left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.

So we have received so much more from God when it comes to the brothers and sisters that we have in Christ, those whom we worship with in the church and regularly worshiping with in the church.

If you feel disconnected in your church, I would say to examine yourself first before you start looking for who the problem person is in your church that seems to be holding you back.

Examine yourself. What are you doing to forge those relationships with other people in the body of Christ?

Are you only showing up to church once or twice a month? Well, you're certainly not going to develop relationships that way.

Are you only going on Sunday? Do you only attend the worship service? You're not going to Sunday school.

You're not going to any classes. You're not going to any Bible studies. You're not inviting anyone over to your home or going to anyone else's home.

How can you be developing any of those relationships when all you're doing is going to church once or twice a month, if that, and sitting in your seat facing in a certain direction, listening to the and not having any interaction with the people around you, save for maybe greeting time when you shake hands and you say, hey, good morning.

Nice shirt that you're wearing today. These are the kinds of things that develop very surface relationships to the point you're only going to recognize people's faces, and maybe you catch a few names in there.

But if you actually want to grow real relationships in Christ Jesus, you have to have a committed, regular relationship and fellowship with your church.

And this is for all of us to do. You can't go to church on the Internet. I appreciate you listening to when we understand the text.

Thank you. Please tell somebody else about it. But this is just in addition to the feeding that you receive from your own shepherd, who would be your pastor, and the encouragement that you get from your own brothers and sisters in the

Lord. If I ever say anything that convicts your heart, well, that is only an admonition that I give that would be in addition to whatever admonishment you would receive from your brothers and sisters in Christ.

They're going to have much more of an influence on you and your growth in godliness, maturity and holiness than I'm going to have.

We have no relationship, you and I. I share with you what the word of God says, but I don't know you and you don't know me.

So you can't go to church on the Internet. I've said this before, repeating what Dr. Moeller has said.

The Internet is a bad place to go to church. You need to be with a body of believers.

And that's everything that Paul has been talking about here in First Timothy up to this point and still continuing on in the next three chapters of this letter.

That church is deliberate. It is intentional. It involves people and relationships. This is what

God has ordained for his church. You don't get to decide what the church is.

God has decided what the church is. We haven't even come up with this argument or this concept of Internet church until the last 20 years.

How in the world did the church function without the Internet? Well, it was because of what

God said the church was, not what the people decided that it was. And so Paul saying,

I'm saying all these things to you now so that you know how one should behave in the household of God, the family of God, these brothers and sisters that we are to be to one another.

And it is important that you develop those relationships, grow them, that we may be of mutual benefit to one another.

This household of God is the church of the living God. And then Paul says here at the end of verse 15, a pillar and a buttress of the truth.

In other words, the church is the instrument that God has chosen to hold up the truth like a billboard.

This is that reference to it being a pillar. So you're holding up the truth for everybody to be able to see it, to hear it.

The gospel of Christ proclaimed God has chosen the church as his instrument to do that very thing.

And then the church is also a buttress of the truth. So God has chosen the church as his instrument to defend the truth, defend it from the wolves, defend it from those who are trying to come in and devour the flock of God, defend it from those who would blaspheme the name of God.

We heard about a couple of those individuals already at the start of the letter in chapter one, verse 20, where Paul talks about those who have made a shipwreck of their faith, among whom are

Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

And so this is part of the job of the church to be able to defend against those who would otherwise blaspheme the name of God and do this in view of the world that many would be led astray by this false teaching.

But the church is the one that is standing on the truth, presenting the truth, holding it up like a pillar and also defending it like a buttress from those who would try to malign it or misrepresent it.

One of the jobs of an overseer of a pastor is listed in Titus 1 .9.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it.

There's the very application of a pillar and a buttress of the truth right there. And the pastor is the one who stands at the head as a representative for the entire congregation as an example for the church on what this means to give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it.

And so this is what the church is supposed to be in the world, a pillar and a buttress of the truth.

I've heard many say that, hey, if it's God's word, nobody needs to defend it. It's God's word. He can defend it fine himself.

Well, the way that he has chosen for his word to be defended is through the church.

So, yes, you do need to know doctrine. You need to know theology. You need to know the truth.

You need to know how to articulate the gospel and defend it from those who would otherwise attack it or misrepresent it.

This is one of the jobs and responsibilities of the church. Now, there are some people who are not going to be as gifted with speaking or with debate or with argumentation, but at least be able to know who you can take a person to.

Well, I don't know how to explain this to you, but this individual over here, he might be able to explain it better than I can.

And so we have even members of our own congregation that will bring an unsaved friend to church because they've already got the ball rolling a little bit on sharing the gospel with them.

But there's some things, some questions that their friend is asking. They don't know how to answer. Pastor Gabe might be able to.

So they'll bring them to church and then talk with me after the service. And I hope that I'm able to answer a few more questions for them.

But I don't know everything. And certain areas of doctrine and theology,

I'm not as well versed in. So I have no problem with being able to say to somebody, hey, I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that question. But let me point you to a person who is a little bit more versed in that particular area and might be able to provide that answer for you.

That may be somebody I personally know or a teacher I can direct them to online. So the stuff that we have on the

Internet is great, but it is a complement to what we should be receiving as our as our primary fellowship within the church, the body of Christ, the assembly of believers that God has called out from the world and has purified for himself through the blood of Jesus Christ.

And this is what Paul goes on to explain in verse 16. Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness.

Remember, we talked about this yesterday when one of the qualifications of a deacon is that he must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

And it's very regular that the faith Christianity, this that we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ is described as a mystery.

And I used Romans 16 to explain this yesterday. Let me pull for you another passage from Ephesians one.

That's where Paul is sending Timothy after all the church in Ephesus. So here is what Paul has said to the

Ephesians about this mystery. God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

That's Ephesians one, nine and 10. So there's another area where Paul is referred to the gospel as a mystery, but it is a mystery revealed.

It was a mystery until the cross, until Christ rose from the grave and then told his disciples how he fulfilled the things that were written in the scriptures.

And then their eyes were open to understand, according to what we read in Luke chapter 24.

And, and so this mystery has been revealed to us through the word of God. And it is through our belief and obedience to the gospel that it produces in our hearts obedience, which is itself a mystery.

How can you, how can you fathom or explain the production of godliness by believing the gospel?

Well, that in itself is a mystery, but nonetheless is a proof. It's an evidence in the heart of every believer who has heard the gospel and obeys it, that godliness would be developed in their lives, the fruit of the spirit.

And so Paul provides this hymn here, which is the confession of the mystery of godliness.

And he says, verse 16, great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness.

So this isn't something that Paul has come up with, at least not in this letter anyway. And then, you know, it's teaching

Timothy something that he's then going to go teach Ephesus. He's reminding Timothy of something, a confession that the church holds and has been repeating and singing in the churches everywhere.

And that hymn goes like this. He, Christ, was manifested in the flesh.

He was vindicated by the spirit. He was seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory, basics of the gospel that are articulated in this particular hymn, which is also kind of a creed.

He was manifested in the flesh. That speaks of his incarnation. Jesus Christ is very

God, and he is very man. He is not God who appeared as a man, but he is

God in human flesh. He wasn't just a man who proclaimed God, very

God and very man. He was manifested in the flesh. He was vindicated by the spirit, and that is a reference to his resurrection because he lived a godly life.

Remember, we're talking about the mystery of godliness here, which was manifested in his flesh because he lived a perfect godly life.

He was vindicated by the spirit. He was risen from the grave after he laid his life down for the forgiveness of sins.

He was seen by angels. This simply means that the victory was proclaimed, so he accomplished everything that he set out to do.

It is finished, and the angels testify to it. That's what the reference is in line three there, and then line four.

He was proclaimed among the nations. In other words, the Gentiles themselves even came to believe.

This isn't something that was limited to just the Jews, but it is the fulfillment of the gospel of Christ that would go out to all the world as prophesied in the

Old Testament. Jews believed and also Gentiles, God reconciling them both to himself through the work of Jesus Christ.

He was believed on in the world. The key word there being believed, meaning that this ministry work has been effective.

It's not just that Christ died, that he was raised, that it was testified to by angels, that he was proclaimed even among the

Gentiles, but there are those who believe the testimony of this gospel that has gone out into the world.

And then finally, he was taken up in glory. Now, some would argue there that this is a reference to his ascension, but if we're going through these things in a chronological order, then that would actually appear somewhere around line three or line four.

So why is it that taken up in glory or his ascension into heaven is at the very end? Well, because I believe that this isn't just a reference to his ascension to heaven, but that it is being stated that he is there at the right hand of the throne of God and his enemies are being placed under his feet.

As Paul talks about also in Romans chapter 16 until the day comes that the full number of believers have been actualized and will be delivered to God, which

Paul talks about in first Corinthians 15 as the purified, completed bride of Christ.

So I think that's even being referenced there in taken up in glory. So it's not just that Christ was ascended into heaven, but that he is there in heaven seated at the right hand of God being glorified in all things and will be glorified all the more in all things at the end of all things.

And our belief in this message is not just a state of mind, but it actually produces in our lives a change and a progressive change, which we call sanctification growing in holiness and godliness as we obey the message of our great king, the gospel of Jesus Christ, our

Lord God. We thank you for the salvation that we've been given in Christ when we were but nothing dust deserving to be returned to the dust, wiped out, obliterated and nothing more because of the sin and rebellion that we had perpetrated against you.

Yet you, the great creator, considered us the creature and our need for a savior and sent your son to die for us so that through him, through faith in him, our sins would be forgiven and we would have eternal life.

As we hear this message and we believe this message, work it through our hearts in such a way that it produces in us godliness, that we would live the way that you desire your people to live, in honor of you, in worship to you because of all the great goodness and gifts that you have shown to us through Jesus Christ.

Name above all names, King of kings and Lord of lords, glory hallelujah.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a

New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.