Cutting Through the Confusion

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Don Filcek; 1 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Cutting Through the Confusion

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filcik preaches from his series,
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Blueprints for a Healthy Church, following the plan from the book of First Timothy. Let's listen in.
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Welcome to Recast Church. As Dave said, I'm Don Filcik. I'm the lead pastor here and I'm really glad that all of you are here.
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Otherwise, I'd be talking to an empty room which would be weird. But I'm also glad that you're here because I love you as this church.
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So, welcome to all of you and a special welcome to those of you that maybe are just checking things out. By checking things out,
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I mean maybe one, two, three weeks you've been here, maybe just a handful. If you have not yet filled out a connection card, then that would be your next step.
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You can fill that out. You received it when you walked in. You can turn it in at the welcome table out there. If you fill that out, give it to them.
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They will give you a free t -shirt there. It's just a way of saying thanks for sharing your information. We don't spam your inbox, but we will send you an email every week if you're willing to share your email address with us.
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And then also you received an offering envelope when you walked in just to inform you about how. We don't pass an offering plate here.
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If you choose to give, that's between you and God. But there's a slot out in that same table out in the entryway there.
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And you can put any gifts in that. Use that envelope if you want. You can recycle that envelope rather than letting it just sit on the floorboard of your car.
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And then until eventually you collect them up and throw them in the trash. You can recycle it if you're not gonna use that this morning. There's a basket out there to recycle those too.
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And then lastly, we have an app that we use here. It's kind of a newer thing for us.
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But the app is the primary way of communication. And so you can download that and use that.
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And that's the way you get information. You can register for different things and all of that through the app. We ask for you to do that.
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If this is your church, then jump on that and check it out. Familiarize yourself with it. And then today's our annual picnic at the park as Dave mentioned.
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All are welcome. And we're gonna find our way down to the Matawan Village Park right on Front Street. Go out to the road, turn left about a half a mile on the right -hand side.
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You probably won't miss it, especially as you get out of here. We'll all be down there after the service.
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And then lastly, Dan DeVries has set a table up out in the lobby. Dan has been on our board here in the past.
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His family's been involved here. His daughter's gonna be playing keys this morning. And their family's been really involved.
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And he is now raising support for a new ministry. He is, well, a new ministry that's an old ministry, right,
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Dan? But he's raising funds to be the Director of Sports Ambassadors. It's an organization that leads groups from the
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United States over to international contexts in order to play sports and bring the gospel into those contexts.
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And so an exciting ministry. He would love to talk with you about that. And he's gonna be at the picnic, so he can carry those conversations on over there as well afterwards.
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But during connection time, be sure to check that out if that's something that interests you and you'd like to talk with him more about his ministry. So this morning, we're gonna be looking at a text that stretches over two chapters of the
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Bible. We need a reminder that the chapter divisions are not original. So a guy in the
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Middle Ages set out to divide the Bible into easy chunks, so he divided it into verses and chapters, and he did okay.
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How many of you think that's probably a pretty big undertaking? Read the whole Bible, try to divide it up. He did fairly well. But I think there's gonna be value in taking the end of chapter three of 1
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Timothy together with the beginning of chapter four. The end of chapter three emphasizes the truth that the church needs to hold high.
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The real centrality of our faith is found at the end of chapter three. And that's a truth that we need to keep coming back to.
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And then chapter four gives us an example of the type of falsehood that easily seeks to creep in if we don't keep that truth central.
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And so I'm convinced that most, all of us at times in our lives have heard spiritual teachings that made our heads spin, that were confusing to us.
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As humans, we love novelty, we love newness, we love kind of to make things complicated, we like to complexificate things, if I can coin a complex word.
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So we like to make things confusing, and we like kind of the nuance of things. So we'll kind of dig in and conspiracies, and this and that, and Bible codes, and end times, and all of that kind of stuff that it's like, well, what do
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I really need to know? What do I really need to believe? And this is a text that brings us back to that core.
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It really is the core text of the book of 1 Timothy. And the text that we're looking at this morning exists to express the heart of our faith in simplicity and elegance.
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A portion of the text is even a hymn, an ancient hymn, and the structure and the way that it's written identifies that it's got poetic structure to it.
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It's an elegant word, and it is all about Jesus. And I commend this passage to you as a place to come back for anchoring and centering.
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When things in your life spiritually get complicated, and you begin to hear someone on the radio, or you begin to read a book, and it's like, this is confusing stuff, this is hard for me to wrap my mind around,
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I feel like I'm kind of out at the margins of my ability to understand these spiritual things that I'm being taught.
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When you begin to question what you know about God, when you encounter strange teachings that seem to muddy the water for you in your understanding,
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I thought this was a simple faith, and it begins to look like a complicated faith. I encourage you to come back to the text that we're gonna be looking at together this morning.
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Let this glorious passage about Jesus Christ be an anchor for your soul. Make sure that you remain in orbit around these central truths of Jesus Christ.
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And obviously, there's a lot to grasp in the Christian faith, isn't there? There's a lot to God's word, there's a lot for us to understand.
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But these central things are core. This passage, if trusted, if believed, simplifies so much for us.
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And so let's open our Bibles or our devices to 1 Timothy 3, verse 14, and we're gonna go over to chapter four, verse five.
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So 1 Timothy 3, 14, through four, verse five, and this is
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God's holy and precious word. So I'll give you a second to navigate over there, and then we'll read it together.
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I'd love for you to have the Bible open in front of you, whether that's on a device or a paper copy of it, your own copy of it, but then you can see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's holy word.
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So 1 Timothy 3, starting in verse 14. The apostle
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Paul, writing to Timothy, says this. I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living
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God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. But indeed, we confess, a great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness.
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He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.
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Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
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For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity that we have to dig into your word this morning.
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I thank you for a word that centers us on Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the one who simplifies and cuts through all of the confusion and complexity, the one who came to rescue us.
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So Father, I pray that from a place of that simple and glorious truth that he was manifested in the flesh and vindicated by the
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Spirit and all of these rich and deep truths that we see in this even short text this morning, that you would grab ahold of our hearts and help us to be elated together, joyful together as your household,
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Father. So much more than an audience, so much more than just a gathering under one roof this morning.
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We are the people who uphold the truth. We are your family. We are united in Jesus Christ.
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And I pray that where we don't love him as we ought, that even now in our singing, that you would move us emotionally as well as in our minds, that we would worship you in spirit and in truth.
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I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. And yeah, you can go ahead and be seated and get comfortable.
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If you would reopen your Bible or your device to 1 Timothy 3, 14, through the first five verses of chapter four, that would be great.
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And if at any time during the message if you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, you can take advantage of those. If you don't know where the restrooms are, they're out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need those at all during the time that we have together.
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And our goal is to focus the remainder of our time as much as possible on the written word of God, which is his self -disclosure to us.
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It is him telling us what he desires for us to know. And so Paul has written here in this letter, 1
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Timothy, we're looking at a letter from Paul to his understudy, Timothy. And he encouraged Timothy to stay in the city of Ephesus.
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You see, the church there was planted by Paul. He loved them. And then he had been moved on from that place in Ephesus, and the church got blown up.
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It got blown up by false teachers. It's completely in shambles by the time that Paul was writing 1
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Timothy. It's probably hard for us to imagine a church going through a split or going through false teaching or going through kind of frustrating times, but apparently it happens, okay?
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And I'm saying that facetiously because I know some of you in this room have gone through some pretty dark times regarding church difficulties and problems that you've had to face.
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But Paul, up to this point in the letter, has given Timothy instructions on how to reset the church. What are the fundamental things, and how should it be functioning, and what kind of values should they be holding, and how should they be moving forward?
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But now, in our text, he takes a breather, and then just takes a pause and says, hold on just a second, let's get back to the foundation.
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Let's lay out the deeper purpose of this letter. It is, here's the point, it is never sufficient for a church to merely do the right things.
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Well, the first couple of chapters have really been focused on doing the right things. But it is never enough for us to just do the right stuff.
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It is most important to do the right things for the right cause or the right reason.
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Did you hear that? It is most important to do the right things for the right reason. You see, here's the point, church.
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Nobody is going to be saved by doing the right things. Nobody's getting to heaven on the basis of doing the right things.
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But all will be saved or set straight, and all will be made right for the one who does the right things for the right person or for the right reason.
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The reason being Jesus Christ and his great life, his great love, and his great sacrifice that has grabbed our hearts in such a way that we are now loved and our feet are put on a firm foundation by which we then go out and act in a certain way, loving him and honoring him, not just doing good things.
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That is not the point. And that's the reason to behave well in the church.
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Jesus Christ is the reason to behave well in the church, and that really is the only motivation that's going to sustain a church full of sinners like us.
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The only thing that's gonna sustain us, the only thing that's gonna hold us together, the only hope that we have to continue on in love for one another is that our foundation is placed firmly and squarely on the shoulders of Jesus Christ who we have in common.
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So Paul has hopes of visiting Timothy in Ephesus, and he says that right here at the start of our text here in verse 14.
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He hopes to visit him. He's likely in Corinth at the time of this, and so he's across the
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Aegean Sea. They're separated by a lot of water, and he writes him, and he says,
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I'm writing you because what I have to say is urgent enough, and I fear that I'm going to be delayed.
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Now, you can imagine that travel and air travel today, do you get delayed sometimes? Most of the time.
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But imagine what it would have been like back then, and so he has really good cause to believe it's gonna take him a while to get back to Ephesus and connect with Timothy face -to -face, and he says, this is so urgent,
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I had to send a letter with a courier because I don't feel like, it's so pressing and so important that it can't wait, and there's a chance that I'm not gonna make it there in time, and I want this to be solved.
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So in verse 15, he summarizes what he has said so far. He has written so that Timothy is clear on the way that a church ought to behave.
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He says, that's what I've said to you so far. And hear me carefully, church, or rather, hear Paul carefully, or rather, hear
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God carefully through the Apostle Paul, there is a right and a wrong way that a church ought to behave.
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Ought is a right and wrong kind of word, is it not? You ought to do it this way.
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This is the right way to do it. Followers of Christ have a pattern set for them in scripture for how they are to work together in the church.
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These are patterns set down for us. Are we a church? If we're a church, then these patterns are set down for, this is how a person, generic, ought to behave in the household of God, says
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Paul. Are we a household of God? That these are things that we have to take on. And that's the way that all of Paul, I mean,
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Paul's letters are very clear that these are ought to things in the church. And the three titles that he gives to the church at the end of verse 15 may very well correct some of our thoughts about what we are here in this gathering this morning.
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Are you an audience? Are you merely a group of individuals who decided to come under the same roof into the same building this morning?
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Is that all that we are? Or is there a deeper mystery to what we are in this gathering, church?
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It says in the text, in verse 15, we are the household of God.
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Meaning that we're family. Paul is not saying this merely to add flavor and kind of like just kind of flowery language in the text.
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No, everything that he's putting down, he's putting down with purpose, with intention. And he's identifying what a church actually is to be so that we and his original readers are reminded of what
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God brings us into when he saves us. What does he desire for us to connect with?
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We are not an audience. We are brothers and sisters in the household of God. This implies a bunch of things.
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You can imagine like what does it mean to be family? It implies commitment. It implies love for one another.
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This implies a deeper connection than merely occupying the same building every Sunday morning. Think about all that it implies if we are indeed the household of God.
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The love, the care, the compassion, the mourning with those who are mourning and celebrating with those who are celebrating and growing in faith together, growing in community together, growing in service together.
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And further, he goes on to say, yes, we are the household of God, but we are also, he calls the gathering, the assembly of the living
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God. Now, assembly is a redundant word when you're defining church because the word church means assembly.
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So the church is the assembly, but what do we assemble for? What do we assemble under? And the emphasis in this designation is the living
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God, the God who is working among his people. We don't worship a statue that doesn't go anywhere, that doesn't do anything, that we have to pick it up if it falls over.
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We worship a living and active God who is on the move, the one that works among us.
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This is an important reminder as we consider why we are called to be in a local community of believers. We are gathered together by his sovereign design.
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We receive in this gathering what we cannot receive in front of a screen sitting in our own living rooms.
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We receive the opportunity to grow together in community and service. And lastly, the church is, so it's the household of God, it's the assembly, the gathering together of those who acknowledge the living
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God and then lastly, the church is defined as something that's kind of unique and different. The church is a pillar and a buttress of the truth.
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The church is the truth place is the way that you ought to think of it. In a world devoid of the truth, the church is necessary.
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We are needed more today than ever. We are the supporters of the truth. A pillar, of course, you know, holds something up.
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And a buttress, maybe you don't really know what that is from architecture, but the flying buttresses were really impressive in the
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Middle Ages where there was basically pillars on the outside of a building that spanned to basically support that structure from the outside, keeping the walls from falling outward.
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And so the buttress was a support in architecture, particularly of cathedrals in the
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Middle Ages. The church holds up and supports what, does the text say? The truth.
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We support the truth. And our core value of truth, which by the way, recast, I think most of you know, is an acronym for our core values, which is replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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And that truth is not last because it's least, it's last because it ties everything all together.
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It is the fundamental thing that we hold to is that the word of God is the truth. We value the truth and we seek to always uphold the truth, which is found in God's holy word.
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So what are we this morning, recast? What are we when we gather together? What are we when we spread out to our community and what are we during the week?
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We're a family. We're an assembly of the one true and living God. And we are those who lift high the truth.
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We are those who support the truth, proclaim the truth, talk the truth, believe the truth, live the truth.
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We are truth people. And verse 16 is here to make sure that all of the how we ought to behave of the previous couple of chapters is connected squarely to the truth that we believe, the truth that we are to be upholding, the truth that we are to be supporting.
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If we are not connected to this truth that we find in verse 16, we, hear me carefully, we cease to become a church.
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If verse 16 is not believed by us, is not endorsed by us, is not lifted high by us, then we are something other than a church.
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We could be a good social club and grow in community. We could be a good deed society and grow in service.
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We could be a philanthropic society that gives really well to the community or something like that. But we are not a church without the central and fundamental capital
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T truth that we see in verse 16. In this truth found in verse 16, we find the church's purpose, the thing we must have in mind when we think let's get back to what matters most, verse 16.
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The thing that cuts through all of the messes and all of the heartaches and all the difficulties and all the pains that you may have ever experienced at the hands of the church or at the hands of religious people or at the hands of those who said that they are followers of Christ.
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Cutting through all of that. When we hear about charges of hypocrisy, anybody ever heard that the church is just full of hypocrites?
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Good answer to that. But hey, have you considered Jesus Christ? When you hear a new secret
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Bible code that reveals that the end is gonna be in May of 2022. But hey, how about Jesus?
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Or when you hear about that new Christian fad about trying to figure out your guardian angel's name so that you can get him under your control and get better access to God or whatever strange doctrines or strange teachings that you might hear out there.
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What about Jesus? What about the one who ascended? And sits at the right hand of the
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Almighty on high for us. What about him? To clarify the start of verse 16 and to really cut to the chase, you look at verse 16 there for just a second.
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Paul is saying this. I'm gonna paraphrase it while you're looking at it in your translation. Unquestionably great, that's the word.
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Indeed is kind of unquestionable. Unquestionably great is the revelation.
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It says mystery. Mystery is a word that means revelation here. Unquestionably great is the revelation of the way that God makes us into good worshipers.
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Unquestionably great is the way that God changes a life. Unquestionably great.
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Well, in the text, mystery means the revelation of something that was previously hidden.
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Godliness means good worship. It literally is the prefix good attached to the word worship.
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Godliness and good worship. Not just singing songs. When you hear the word worship, do not think songs.
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Think a life lived for the worth of God. Identifying his worth in all that we say and do.
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And great indeed means unquestionably great. Paul here is acknowledging that the interface between what we believe and what we do is key.
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And it is awesome, great, and amazing to see how he works to change rebels against him and to those who worship him well with our lives.
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And I don't think, the apostle Paul, I'm surprised that he didn't go into his own testimony here.
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It's so close to that that, I mean, we're meant to think that, right? Paul, the apostle, who was in direct opposition to God, the furthest you could get from good worship, he was in opposition to Jesus Christ.
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You know, that whole on the road to Damascus to arrest him, some Christians, put him in jail, maybe even have him put to death.
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Bright light, the voice of Christ meets him, he commissions him, saves him, and says, you're gonna go to the
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Gentiles. Paul's life radically changed, converted from a direction against God to completely the opposite direction.
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Do you think that's, how many of you would just say that in Paul's life, his jaw was probably still on the ground from that kind of a radical transformation?
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When he says unquestionably great, he was thinking about the way that God had transformed him, the way that God had changed him.
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Unquestionably great, the way that God can take somebody who's a rebel against him and turn them into a good worshiper for the name of Jesus Christ.
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Paul was an example of this, and this is the truth that changes us. He says, here's the truth that produces that unquestionably great revelation, bringing a person to good worship.
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He says this first, Jesus, he was manifested in the flesh.
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Well, this is talking obviously about the incarnation. Think Christmas, but think deeper than most of us go during Christmas.
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He loved us enough to come dwell among us, to live here in this mess with us.
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Jesus manifested in the flesh. The God -man come among us to rescue and redeem us, one who could put their hand both on God and on humanity.
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He was manifested in the flesh. Second, he was vindicated by the Spirit. Well, that might take a little bit more, that might be a little bit more confusing to us.
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When did that happen? What does that look like? Well, at his baptism, the Spirit was there validating and vindicating him in his ministry, launching him out.
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At his resurrection, the Spirit was there vindicating him. The tomb is empty, and in his miracles throughout his life, the
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Spirit was there vindicating and endorsing him, saying, see, this is the one. Jesus was vindicated by the
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Spirit, manifested in the flesh. He was seen by angels. Well, when? When, I mean, do they see everything?
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Are they, they're finite beings too? They're not in all places at once. When was Jesus seen by angels, and what's the significance of that?
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Well, at his birth, who made the announcement? The angels singing to the shepherds.
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At his resurrection, who made the announcement that the tomb was empty to the ladies who came there to anoint his body that morning? Angels. At his ascension, at his ascension, who told the disciples, quit gawking at the sky and get back into Jerusalem?
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Who was there to tell them that? Angels. All of the angelic servants of God beheld the
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Son of God in glory. He has not merely received the acclaim of humanity, but he has received the acclaim of heavenly beings as well.
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He's manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by the angels, and he was and still is proclaimed among the nations.
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This speaks of the universal mission of Jesus Christ. He was not just come for the Jews only, not just merely a messenger to the 12 disciples, but he gave us this mission to carry the message of his salvation to other nations as well.
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And praise God that that's coupled with the next statement. He is indeed proclaimed among the nations, but he has been believed on in the world, amen?
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Believed on in the world. It is not just that he has been proclaimed, but he has also been believed.
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He has been trusted. People from Africa and Asia and Australia and Europe and the Americas believe on Jesus Christ, despite all the cultural differences and the language differences and all of the upbringing differences.
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Believed on. In the world. Glory, glory, glory.
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This one is unique. This one is different. Believed on all around the world in diverse cultures.
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And lastly, he was taken up in glory. And this is clearly about his ascension, but it's also a reminder of where he is now.
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Where is your Lord? Where is your King now? He sits at the right hand of the
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Eternal Father talking to God for us until the time of his return.
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Oh, that's exciting to me. Okay, in the dark times of my life, that's something you can hold onto.
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In the tough diagnoses, in the difficult family things that you go through, in the pain and the suffering and wayward children and all of the pain and heartache of trying to reconcile with your parents or whatever it might be.
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And I just know that there's just a whole host of difficulties that we face as humans. From illness to broken and sick relationships.
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Real infirmity or sin that we've caused on ourselves. I mean, sometimes we're our own worst enemy.
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You know what I'm talking about? Some of you are here just feeling guilty for being in church with the things that you did this last week.
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I know that that's true. I know that that's true of us. I know what we're made of. I'm made of the same stuff.
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This one sits and pleads on behalf of his people to his father, direct access.
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For you and for me. There is so much of a push,
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I think, in our culture today towards complexity and confusion. Do you feel it? I wouldn't be surprised if everybody in this room isn't confused about something that you read this week.
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Or else you're not reading. Satan has his strategies.
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I think in every generation, in every era, he tweaks it a little bit. He figures out what works and then moves the dial a little bit.
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And I don't doubt for a second that one of his greatest strategies right now is just inundating us with information that's confusing and complex.
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I think that's a major strategy of Satan. But there is a simple way to cut through all of that confusion.
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There are a lot of intricacies to the Bible. Hear me carefully. And they are worth exploring. We can make the study of eschatology, which is the study of end times, the study of soteriology, how
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God saves us, the study of hamartiology, the study of sin, or bibliology, the study of inspiration.
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And there's all of these ologies surrounding Christian theology. And all of those are worth our time.
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But when things get too complicated and they get complex and our minds begin to melt down, we should feel free to shelter in texts like this one.
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Take a break and take a pause and come back to the center. There are so many systems of thought.
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And then further, there's all the false teachings. So you can get inundated in good stuff. Do you know what I'm talking about? You can get overwhelmed in the good stuff.
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The truth can be overwhelming to our system at times. But then there's all the false teachings and all the narrative that we see on the internet.
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And there's all kinds of religious conspiracies, political conspiracies, all kinds of things that we can grab ahold of that are reward for your attention starting as soon as we step out of here.
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And all of it must come back to the Christ who was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the
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Spirit, seen by the angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the nation, in the world, and taken up in glory.
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And all of it swirling around the gravity of one. All of our lives intended to swirl and be captured in the gravity revolving around the one.
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What is his name? That was, do you know his name? What is his name?
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All right, that's a good Sunday school class right there. The kids would have answered better than that in the start.
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I'm confident of it. Let's try that one more time. What's his name? Jesus. His name is
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Jesus. He is the center of it. And I would suggest to you that Satan's strategy would love for you to have a more eccentric orbit.
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Do you get what I mean by that? He would love for you to get an orbit that was far outside of the reach, still revolving around Jesus, but getting further and further to the point where it's easier and easier, and eventually that gravity breaks and you just sling off into space.
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Do you get what I'm saying? So keep coming back to the center. And that's one of the reasons I even just say, don't read your
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Bible every day because Pastor Don told you to. Read the Bible because you need Christ. Read the
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Bible because you need to come back to the center of what it's all about. Day in and day out.
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It is not enough for me to hear or to preach a message once a week. My orbit gets off.
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It gets wider and wider. Is that making sense? Is that metaphor connecting with you? I need constant recorrections to revolve closely around my
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Take those opportunities that you have. Feed yourself with the word throughout the week.
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I fear the reality, by the way, when we talk about Jesus being manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the
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Spirit, seen by the angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory, I fear the reality that I can read those words without being moved.
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I fear that for you too. That this unquestionably great confession of our
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Lord and Savior can be met with academic precision and description. What does it say of us?
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That these truths do not cause us to burst out in gladness like our favorite football team scoring a touchdown.
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I think I've joked with you guys before, but I've got a scar on one of my knuckles from a Michigan touchdown. Jumped up and hit the ceiling, and it was a rough ceiling, and it scraped the knuckle, and it's still a scar there to this day.
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Why? Super excited that Michigan scored. When's the last time we had that kind of enthusiasm for our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? For the things that he has done to bring us into his family.
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And listen, I recognize that it's Don up front making you feel guilty or something like that, and that's not my heart.
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That's not my goal. It's just really what's going on in our hearts, and this is a great corrective force.
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It's a great time for us to think these things through. Maybe we've become a little too familiar with the holy. Maybe we've forgotten to take our shoes off, and we don't even realize we're standing on holy ground.
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Maybe we forget that we are the caretakers of the glorious truth of the only one given by which mankind can be saved.
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Or is it just that we've become hard to please? Or the flip side of that, maybe, really, the hard is that we're too easily pleased.
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Got an iPhone 11. That's all I need. Or whatever it is for you, right?
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What is it that really grabs your attention? What is it that really gets you going? Too easily pleased?
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Maybe that's the issue. Too easily impressed with the things of this world that Christ fades into the background in light of the things that capture our attention and our hearts most.
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Church, recast. Jesus is everything. Recast.
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Did you hear me? Jesus is everything.
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He's everything. Is he your? And so against this unquestionably glorious reality of the one who came here to save us and lead us into behaving like we ought, a relationship with him leads us into behaving as we ought.
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Not behaving as we ought so that we can relate to him. You get that wrong and you end up cleaning yourself up to try to enter his presence.
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He says, you didn't do a good enough job because you never do. You can't clean yourself. You come to him for the cleaning.
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You come to him with your mess. You come to him with your filth. You come to him with the embarrassing things that he already knows about you.
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You can't hide it from him. So why try to hide? Just bring it all in your mess in your arms and say, take this from me.
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And that is where you receive the power to go out and behave as you ought.
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Paul expresses here in the text, starting in chapter four, disdain for those who would confuse people with a contrary message to this glorious, glorious, unquestionably great mystery, this unquestionably great revelation of the way that God changes a heart through the gospel.
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On the heels of this glorious truth, Paul reminds Timothy that we ought not to be surprised in verse one when false teachers arise in the church.
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It was predicted, he says, the spirit predicted this through Jesus and even through the apostle Paul himself.
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The last time that Paul ever spoke with the Ephesian elders, now he's speaking, you remember he's writing to Timothy, but prior to this, in Acts 20, verses 29 through 30, and you could jot that down and look it up later, but his last conversation with the
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Ephesian elders, he said, wolves are coming. Wolves are coming, prepare, batten down the hatches, they're coming for the sheep.
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And they did. And some will depart from this glorious central teaching about Jesus and instead devote themselves, it says in the text, really harsh words, devote themselves to deceitful spirits and their wicked teachings.
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And they will be enticed through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. Strong, strong language.
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Crazy strong statements. Paul is showing us a picture of a person that we don't want to believe exists.
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Many of us are naive enough and optimistic enough to not believe that people like this exist.
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Who know the truth, who will reject the truth in exchange for some other personal gain that they might receive.
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This is a person, he's defining and describing a person who knows the truth, knows
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Jesus, but intentionally connects themselves to false teachers. Might be for financial gain, might be for some kind of clout or some kind of notoriety or out of embarrassment of Jesus.
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It could be a whole host of different things. But they are devoted to teachings that oppose Jesus Christ.
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And it says in the text, their consciences are seared. Now, you may have some notion of what a seared conscience is like maybe one that doesn't function or doesn't work or something like that, it's been burned and so now it doesn't work.
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But I have a feeling I'm gonna teach this in a way that many of you have never heard and I read enough commentaries this week to think
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I'm standing at least not on my own strength on this point, but I think that other scholars, I mean, not other,
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I said other scholars, I'm not a scholar, I'm a pastor, but scholars actually hold to this too and that's a seared ought to be translated branded.
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Branded, well, why does a ranch brand their cows? Demonstrate what?
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Ownership, ownership. The image of a conscience in scripture, by the way, to define that for us a little bit more in the text to understand what's being branded, what's being seared.
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Conscience in scripture is that feature of humanity, it's apparatus that we all possess that serves as the interface between belief and behavior.
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When you say you believe something but you behave in a different way, your conscience starts to kind of feel guilty within you, it starts to well up within you, that's not what you said you were gonna do, that's not what you're supposed to be doing.
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And all humanity has that. But as such, that interface, that conscience is either owned and driven by the
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Holy Spirit for the believer or it is owned and driven by Satan. Now, we like to imagine a more gracious and generous approach to it, so we like to imagine it as an angel on one shoulder and the devil on another, that's kind of the way we view a conscience, right?
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And sometimes this guy's whispering in this ear, sometimes this guy's whispering in this ear. But here in our text, these false teachers, it says, have aligned themselves so thoroughly with evil forces that their consciences are branded by Satan, they're owned, their consciences are owned and driven by Satan.
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And the picture there is a devil on both shoulders. A devil on both shoulders.
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I might even be giving different advice. But both options enticing you away from Christ.
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Having a seared conscience is not equivalent to having a conscience that doesn't function, no, it's having a conscience owned by the wrong master.
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A conscience that is driven and guided to where a conscience seared doesn't even any longer feel guilty or wrong for doing wrong.
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Because the only voices and the only things driving it are wrong. So pause for just a second and think about the buildup here.
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These false teachers devoted to the demonic, their consciences, it says in the text, are owned by Satan, they are hypocritical liars according to verse two.
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So what do you expect their teachings to be like? It sounds pretty bad, right? How many of you are just like, okay, is this gonna turn into human sacrifice?
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Maybe they're promoting ritual abuse. I mean, what are these people teaching? Like, I mean, my goodness, how bad can this teaching be?
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They forcing kids to listen to Cardi B? I mean, what in the world are these false teachers doing? That they're just, they're told these terrible things.
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Is that, that probably wasn't so good. No, look at, look at verse three.
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It's surprising, it's shocking. What they're doing wrong and what they're teaching wrong is a bit shocking to our system, especially as harsh as Paul is for them.
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They're forbidding people to get married, they're saying don't get married, you can't get married, and they're requiring abstinence from various foods.
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Okay, Paul, what's the big deal there? Just let them do their thing and you do your thing and isn't the gospel gonna overcome that anyways?
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Just let it go, Paul. Like, you get what I'm saying in that? That doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
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It seems so tame compared to the buildup, but Satan's messages, hear me carefully, church, Satan's messages come with subtlety and confusion.
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They divert attention away from Jesus Christ. They focus our attention away from the freedom that we have in him and instead draw us away into spiritual schemes with the goal of giving authority and power to those in charge.
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There's all kinds of reasons why a spiritual teacher wants to tell you what to do and what not to do.
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And a lot of it has to do with their own ego and their own power. If I make this beat, you guys dance to it.
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There's power and there's ego and there's authority that's all wrapped up into this. And Paul follows the theme of food to the end of our text, which we're gonna follow a theme of food right to the picnic.
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So this works out really good, because the theme of food carries forward. God created food to be received with thankfulness, says
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Paul. And now there's a retreat center down in Marcellus that I've gone to a few times.
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I had a sabbatical. I went and spent a couple of nights there. It's called the Hermitage. Have any of you heard of the Hermitage? I've been there a few times and I really like it.
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It's a property set aside, I think it's like 60 acres or something like that, and wooded and fields and trails and all kinds of stuff.
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But it's set aside for solitude retreats. They have a really unique policy that would drive some of you nuts. Even when
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I say it, your skin's gonna crawl. It is a silence property. You don't talk while you're there.
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You even eat a meal together with people without talking. Anybody just creeped out all of a sudden, like can you imagine sitting across the table from somebody that you don't know, eating food and not talking at all?
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By the way, if you don't like the sound of people eating, like if that's a hangup for you, don't go there.
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Or pack your own meal. Like you don't have to eat there on the site. Like I mean, you can pack your own stuff.
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But yeah, if you don't like the sound of people eating. But they say this, the reason I'm going there is they say this statement before every meal.
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So there is like prayers and then they do a morning devotional and then there's talking at those, but it's only like responsive readings and stuff like that.
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And aside from that, they say just don't, just respect others with your silence as you encounter them on the trail or whatever.
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But they make this statement before every meal and I love it. They say food is God's love made edible.
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And then you go through the line and you eat. Food is God's love made edible. How many of you are glad for some tasty food?
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God's love made edible. I love that statement. It's always moved me to give thanks in a more profound way.
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More than just my routine prayers, you know, that I learned when I was a kid or something like that. Or even just the perfunctory,
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God thanks for the food, amen. This is God's love to us shown through our taste buds.
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Awesome. But still in the context of food, Paul gives us a general teaching to counteract those who would require
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Christians to adopt a specific type of diet based on their spiritual intentions or whatever.
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Everything created by God is good. And we need not reject anything that can be received with thanksgiving.
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Speaking of food, don't get too carried away with that verse. But the food itself is made holy, he says, at the end of our text in verse five, it's made holy by God's declaration through his word that it's holy.
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And it is appropriated to us as holy by our prayer of thankfulness. So it doesn't mean that by praying you make the food holy, like as if,
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I always joke with my kids like, oh, you ate a potato chip, that was poison, we didn't pray. Anybody else joke like that?
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Like it's like, oh, it's poison, we better quick pray because you don't eat before you, some of you are getting it, some of you aren't, but that's not what this passage is about.
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Like, okay, if you pray for it, then it's healthy and it's good, if you don't, it's like, I mean, I've prayed over some blueberry pie recently that God, please just take this and turn it into broccoli in my system.
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You know, like, could you just change it molecularly to be nutritious? But I don't think that's really how it works.
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But this means that we know that all food is acceptable by what God has revealed in his word and he's declared it acceptable.
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So how many of you are gonna enjoy some pork later that they couldn't have enjoyed in the Old Testament, but the word has released us from that through the book of Acts?
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I see some hands raising, it's like, hallelujah. Anybody like some bacon? Anybody like some shellfish?
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You like some different kinds of foods, right, that they couldn't eat in the Old Testament, but God has released us, why? Why is your conscience okay eating bacon?
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Your conscience is okay because God's word has said so. Without that said so, we'd still be eating something different for lunch.
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We wouldn't be having pulled pork. But here's what you need to understand. If you are not convinced that God made it good, whatever it is food -wise, and you're not convinced that he's revealed that in his word, and if you cannot be moved to thank
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God for it, then it should not be consumed by you. You shouldn't be eating it, you shouldn't be drinking it.
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And I wanna point out that honest thankfulness, this is key in this, honest thankfulness to God ends where sin begins.
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Honest thankfulness to God ends where sin begins. In other words, there is a sin of gluttony.
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There is a sin of drunkenness. And so I, personally, I know that I could not, with sincerity of heart, without a gluttonous attitude, give
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God thanks for a sixth piece of chocolate cake, or for a fifth can of Coors Light, or whatever it might be.
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So we started with the purpose of the church, and we ended talking about chocolate cake and food.
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Like, I would completely understand if somewhere you got lost in this glorious hymn to God, and now we're talking about food.
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So let me explain the flow of the text before we come to application and we wrap things up. The purpose of Paul's writing, he says, this is urgent.
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I'm writing you, and I'm not just coming to you, Timothy, and telling you these things because it's urgent. Because the church is vital.
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It's the protector of the truth. What kind of truth? That truth is all surrounding Jesus. It is all about him, beginning to end.
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But some have followed and are teaching wicked doctrines. Doctrines that lead people away from the central truths of Jesus.
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Like telling people they can't get married, or that they can't eat tasty food like bacon.
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And so, the application is, let's go eat tasty food, the end.
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Just kidding. Although that will be, we are gonna apply that here in a minute.
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But the application should be the one that eclipses everything else in the text. The one glorious light that puts out all the candles that you don't see any other sources of light except for the one
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Jesus manifested. Jesus vindicated. Jesus seen. Jesus proclaimed.
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Jesus believed on. Jesus taken up. Make much of Jesus this week in your thoughts.
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Make much of Jesus in your speech. Make much of Jesus in your workplace, and in your neighborhood, and among your friends.
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Make much of Jesus as you rise in the morning. Make much of Jesus when you go to rest at night and lay your head on your pillow.
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Make much of him every hour in between. Make much of Jesus. Recenter yourself this morning on Jesus.
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It's all about him. Cut through all the confusion, cut through all the complexity, and recenter your life on him this morning.
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We take communion every week for that very purpose. That's what it's there for. I hope you've been, if you've been here for a while, I hope you're taking advantage of that and you're recognizing what it's for.
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Every week we come together and we take communion, and we do this to remember the centrality of Jesus Christ, our
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Lord, who sacrificed himself for us. So during this next song, and only if, only if you have asked
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Jesus Christ to be your savior and king, and let me encourage you to come to one of the tables. Take the cup of juice to remember his blood shed for us.
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Let's take the cracker to remember his body broken for us. And then go out from here with a renewed commitment to make it all about Jesus.
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Proclaim him in both word and deed. And if you've not yet asked him to save you, come and talk with me after the service or at the picnic, and I would love to introduce you to my savior and king.
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His name is Jesus. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for Christ.
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I thank you for the centrality that we see here in this text of bringing all of the instructions, all of the ought to behave back to the foot of the cross, back to the place where we are established in a righteousness given, a good worship that you give to us through your son.
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I confess that I have not thought of him enough.
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I have not thought of him highly enough. I have not been moved in my emotions. I have aged and I have grown cold in terms of the fire.
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I can get more enthusiastic about football or basketball or Olympic medals or technology or a new
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TV or a sweet ride or my house or a sunny day.
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Only as much as that resonates with anybody's heart here, Father, I pray that you would convict them as well and draw us all deeper, closer, more firmly connected to Jesus today.
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Would you move in our hearts as we take communion and remember his great and glorious sacrifice for us, the pain and the suffering, the angst and the anguish that he experienced on our behalf to set us free.
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Thank you for Jesus. I thank you for his sacrifice. And I pray that you would make all of our lives combined make much of him.
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I'm convinced that we would be a powerful force in our community here in West Michigan if we just grasp this one central thing,