is everywhere present and always present with his people. But I was simply suggesting to you on the basis of some scriptures that we looked at last Sunday, that public worship constitutes in a real way coming into the presence of God. We thought about verses that talked about appearing before the Lord, and those are verses that had to do with public worship. And there is a sense, ladies and gentlemen, while God has been present with us all week, there is a sense in which we now appear before the Lord in a special way. And we looked at Psalm 100, in which we were told to come before His presence with singing. And so we began with that, the house of God is the place of God's presence. And that's on that by adding this, The house of God is the place of God's truth, the place of God's truth. And my, what a marvelous theme this is, and I hope that you appreciate the significance of what we're dealing with. Now, we are living in times, ladies and gentlemen, in which we are constantly told that there is no such thing as absolute truth. And I always have to laugh at that because as soon as someone says there are no absolutes, he has stated an absolute. And so he contradicts himself immediately, and you need to be on your toes and be ready just to nail him to the wall whenever you hear a person say that. There are no absolutes. Say, well, there must be because you just stated one. That's an absolute statement. There are no absolutes. And so be ready, be on your toes, and you'll be in a good position to answer that question. And then I hope you'll be ready to go on beyond that and give some other absolutes as well. But in this day in which truth is discounted and the possibility of truth is dismissed, you and I should have appreciation for this. We can come here to the house of God, and if the Word of God is preached, we are given then the truth of Almighty God. And oh, what a blessing it is to have the truth of Almighty God. I can't explain to you why the lights are flickering, but I'll tell you this. I can preach in the dark. I have done that before. And so if they go out, and I know, I see people looking up, and I know it's not because you're expecting too much from the ceiling, but it's because you're wondering about these flickering lights. So if they go out, I'll just continue, and I'll preach in the dark. Some of you will say, well, that'll be fitting. This man's been in the dark for years. But we'll all be in the dark together. And so let us, in these days, have a fresh appreciation for the truth of Almighty God. And the house of God is the place if the Word of God is preached. Now listen, you can go to some churches and not hear the Word of God. What a sad thing that is to have to say these days. But it's true. But if the Word of God is faithfully preached, you and I have the truth of God when we come to the house of God. And oh, what a blessing it is to have the truth of Almighty God. Now, here in his first letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul says there in verse 15, I want you to know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God And he's talking here about the church. I want to say a little bit more about this in just a moment. And oh, how very important it is for us to heed what Paul says here, and how very important it is for us to know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God. And Paul goes on to say, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. You see that? You have your passage before you there. Paul says, I want you to know how to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And he goes on then to say, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up to glory." Now, my sermon today has two points. And first of all, I want to talk with you about the church which displays the truth, the church which displays the truth. And then the second point is the truth which the church displays. So now do you have the two points? We're going to talk about the church which displays the truth of God. And then secondly, we're going to talk about the truth which the church displays. Now, notice how Paul here describes the church in verse 15 of this passage. He calls it, first of all, the house of God. And many translations will have the household of God. Now we're talking about The house of God is the place where the people of God meet. But the church is not this building. The church is not this building. And you and I need to be aware of that when we leave here today. We don't leave the church behind when we depart from these premises. Believers in Jesus Christ are the church. And when you go out this week, you're part of the church. and you need to understand that. But what a blessing it is to ponder what Paul says here about the church. He says, it is the household of God. We're part of God's household, part of God's household. Now, I can't stay with this too long, but I do just want to emphasize that we're part of God's family, part of God's family. I hope you have appreciation for this. I am, of course, aware of the teaching today which says that this is no big deal. This isn't such a great thing. We're all part of God's family. When we come into this world, we're part of God's family. And I say to you, my friends, on the authority of this book that I hold here before you, that we come into this world with a nature that is opposed to God, and we're part of a family all right, but it's not God's family. Satan has a family as well. You remember Jesus saying to the religious leaders of his day, you're just like your father, he said. And he wasn't talking about God. He was saying your father is the devil, and the devil has a family. And we come into this world as part of Satan's kingdom, as part of Satan's family. And now, here Paul talks about the church being the household of God. And, oh, my friends, what we're rubbing up against here is this glorious truth that the church consists of believers in Jesus Christ. And believers in Jesus Christ have been rescued from the clutches of Satan. Believers in Jesus Christ have been transferred. You're not in the same family. You have been taken out of Satan's family and God has adopted you into his own family. And now he looks upon you, brothers and sisters in Christ, as his own dear children. And the Apostle John could not get over this. He was astonished by this. I'm thinking of 1 John chapter 3 and the first verse or two there where John says, what kind of love is this that the Father has bestowed upon us? It's like John was saying here, I'm familiar with various kinds of love and I'm impressed with various kinds of love, but what kind of love is this? that the Father has bestowed upon us, that we, we, you and I, should be called children of God. Oh, wouldn't to God that I could convey to you the greatness of this. This is some kind of love. that God would pluck us out of wrath and condemnation and make us part of his own dear family. And when you take the word Father upon your lips to address God, oh, my friend, you are taking upon your lips the most glorious word imaginable. God is the Father of those who believe. Father, what a blessing that is. And so he says here, the church is the household of God. Now, he goes on. to say, and we're looking here at the church which displays the truth of God. He says not only that the church is the household of God, but look, it is also the church of the living God, the living God. Now, you know that there are many religions, and various religions have their various gods. And it is true. It has always been true throughout human history, and it remains true today. Various religions call various things God, but there's only one living God, only one living God. And Paul says, Timothy, you, by the grace of God, are part of this household. And this is a real thing. God is living. And you are in association with the living God, the living God. Well, what a blessing it is to be part of the church of the living God. This is no dead thing here. This is living. It's real. It's true. It's genuine. Because God lives. God lives. And then he goes on, and this is really what I'm anxious to drive home to you from this particular text. The next thing that he says about the church is that it is the pillar and the ground of the truth. The pillar and ground of the truth. He's describing here the church. We're looking at the church which displays the truth of God. And we're going to think about the truth which the church displays, but we're thinking now just about the church which puts this truth on display. And Paul says to Timothy now, Timothy, you are part of something that is enormous and massive in its significance. You're part of the church. And the church is the household of God. And it's not – and God is living and he's real. And the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Now, for a long time, I wondered about that, the pillar and ground of the truth. And I asked myself, what does Paul mean here, the pillar and ground of the truth? And you are familiar with pillars. You have seen buildings which have these huge pillars, and you understand these pillars. Timothy, to whom Paul was writing here, was familiar with pillars. Timothy was pastor of the church in Ephesus. And Ephesus was the city where there was a temple to a goddess named Diana. And that temple, the temple to the goddess Diana, had these massive, huge pillars. And Timothy, I say, would have immediately understood what Paul was saying. Those pillars in the Temple of Diana, there in the city of Ephesus where Timothy was pastor, supported and upheld the building, upheld the roof. And Timothy would have understood Paul to be saying, Timothy, it is the task of the church to uphold the truth of God just as those pillars hold the roof of that temple. So you and the church there in Ephesus are to hold up and support the truth of God so that it will not fall to the ground. And I suggest to you that the next thing that Paul says here, the ground of the truth, is really saying exactly the same thing. Now, some translations will have foundation, and I think that that's probably the correct translation. If I were translating this verse, I would write the pillar and foundation of the truth. And what Paul does here is he's saying the same thing in a slightly different way. You know what a foundation does for a building. It holds the building up. It holds the building up. And Paul says the church holds the truth of God up. It upholds the truth of God. Picture it like this. There are always those who are anxious to dash the truth of God down to the ground and into the dirt. But the church holds the truth up so that it cannot be dashed to the ground. And I say to you, my friends, that part of what we're about What we are primarily about here at Emmanuel Baptist Church is to hold up the truth that we have received so it doesn't fall to the ground. It doesn't fall to the ground. Now, there are many today who want, they are, they are devoting. Listen, we are living in a society in which many today are fanatically devoted to seeing the truth of God fall to the ground. They don't like this message that I'm preaching. Are you and I devoted to holding it up, to holding it up? There are those who wanted to fall. There are many today who say, oh, I'd love to see, I'd love to see Christianity fall to the ground. And they're quite open about this, and they express their hostility quite openly. They say, I hate Christianity. I hate what it stands for. I hate this message about sin and about judgment. And I hate this message about having to be saved and there's only one way of salvation. People hate this today. And to our shame, there are many of us who wear the name Christian that get nervous about this. And we try to tone the message down, make it more more acceptable to our society where we don't want to offend anybody. Well, I don't want to offend anybody. I mean, I'm the sweet, cuddly guy, and I want you to like me, and I want to like you. I want to say, I'm okay, and you're okay. I want to say that. But I can't say that if it causes the truth of God to fall to the ground. And so this is what we're about as a church. We're to hold up the truth. Now there's a lot of feel-good religion today, my friends, where people just come to church and the pastor has just kind of thrown the truth out the window and he says, well, I'm not going to preach that kind of thing. People don't much like to hear that. Come down to church and we'll all feel good together. But what about the truth? I read the other day a quote from an old Puritan who said, the man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself. The man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself. Now, what would you think if you were to go to a doctor and the doctor in his test that he performs on you, finds that you have a serious disease. But he says, well, you know, this person will be upset, he'll be unhappy, this is going to cause him distress, so I'll just ignore the truth. Would you like a doctor like that? No. You want a doctor, and you'll say to the doctor, tell me the truth. Tell me the truth. I want to know the truth about it. And the doctor has your best interest at heart, and he tells you the truth. And, oh, we need the truth of God today, even when it stings, even when it hurts, even when it goes against the latest opinion poll. Well, here's the church, then, which displays the truth. The church is the household of God. God is living, and she's the church of the living God. And she's the pillar and ground and support and foundation of the truth. Turn with me to the next thing, which is the truth which the church displays. And Paul goes on here now, after describing the church and calling the church these various things, he goes on to say there in verse 16, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Now, I would dare say most of us have a very long time, but probably would find ourselves hard-pressed to explain it, and I hope to be able to help us down the path of understanding. of this particular verse. Paul is talking now about the truth which the church puts on display. And let me characterize this truth in three ways. First of all, I would tell you that this is great truth. This is great truth. Look at what he says there in verse 16, and without controversy, great, great, great is the mystery of godliness. Now, we haven't talked yet about the mystery of godliness, But before we talk about it, let's just settle it in our minds. Let's fix it in our minds that this truth that Paul's about to describe is great, great. I wish it were possible to get people today to see how great is the truth of God. We are so enamored with and captured by, so absorbed with trivial things. You young people, I tell you, our society is after you. Our society wants you to think that this pleasure over here and this rock star over here and this movie star and this athlete, it's not just young people, it's true of all of us. Our society wants us to say, oh, these things are great. You take the greatest thing that you know in this whole world, The greatest, let me put it like this, the greatest thing this world has to offer, and put it beside the truth of God, and it is minuscule. It's like a grain of sand compared to the rock of Gibraltar. The truth of God. Oh, that's the great thing. That's the great thing. And what a sad thing it will be when people finally go out into eternity and it hits them with full force. I went all through my years on earth down here focusing on a little grain of sand and the trivial things of life. I pursued the trivial things and I ignored the great thing, the great thing. And oh, how many are going to have to say that in eternity? I fiddled with the little things, the trivial things, and I ignored the great thing. Here's the great thing. The great thing is the truth of God. And so that's the first way that Paul characterizes it here. He says it's great. This truth which the church puts on display, it is great. Choose whatever you will and say, this is great. I will say to you, the truth of God is greater. The truth of God is greater. And here's the second way that Paul characterizes this. He says, it's the mystery of godliness. It's the mystery of godliness. Now, we have to inquire here about the word mystery and we have to inquire about the word godliness. What's he saying? Well, we think when we hear the word mystery of something that is quite different than the word mystery in the Bible. The word mystery in the Bible, refers to truth that you and I would not know if God had not revealed it, but God has revealed it, therefore we can know it. That is a mystery in the Bible. Truth that we would not possess if God had not revealed it, but God has revealed it, and so we do possess it. Now, my friends, this is a mystery. God has revealed truth. Let me say to you that the church, that the truth which the church displays is not truth that she has invented. I sometimes get the impression that some people think of Christianity in these terms. They think, back some centuries ago, some people said, we're having a conversation one day, and somebody said, well, you know what, we need a new religion. And the other said, you know, that's a good idea. And let's just move our coffee and our nachos and all of that aside here and get a pad and let's talk about this new religion." And they sat down and they drafted up here a statement about Christianity and came up with the doctrines and that's how Christianity got started. No. My friends, God has revealed this truth. It's revealed. The truth that the church possesses is not truth that she's invented. It's truth that God has revealed. And Paul calls it now the mystery of godliness. And what is this mystery? What does he mean here when he talks about godliness? Well, you look at what he goes on to say in verse 16, and it's obvious that he's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you agree? God was manifested in the flesh. That has to refer to Christ, right? So Paul says, the truth that the church possesses is truth that God has revealed. It's mystery. And it pertains to godliness. And what he's saying here, I think, is this, that the truth that God has revealed in his Son Jesus was for the purpose of bringing us to God. for the purpose of bringing us to God and making us godly people. And my friends, this is what the work of Jesus Christ is all about. Jesus Christ came to bring sinners to God and to make those sinners godly people. He says this truth that God has revealed has to do with godliness. And then he goes on here to give us a brief summary. Most Bible commentators think, as they look at what we have here in verse 16, that Paul is using a fragment here of a hymn. He's quoting part of a hymn with which he was familiar, a hymn that was commonly used in those days, and that could be. But here Paul gives, in verse 16, a summary of the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, God was manifested in the flesh. That's the incarnation. He was justified in the Spirit. Now, what does that mean? Well, there are some who look at this and they say, this wasn't a very good hymn because the cross of Christ is not here. I will tell you, it is here. Jesus was justified in the Spirit. Let me say that that word justified means that Jesus was vindicated, vindicated by the Spirit, vindicated. And I'm saying to you that if you had been standing there at the foot of Calvary's cross looking at Jesus as he died, seeing the blood streaming down, you would have said, just as far as outward appearances, were concerned. You would have said, this could not possibly be the Son of God in human flesh. Look at Him. He's dying there in shame and anguish and agony. He's coated in blood. But oh, my friend, if you had been standing there outside the tomb on the Lord's day after Jesus died, And you had seen that stone rolled away and you had seen Jesus Christ raised, Paul says in Romans chapter 1 and verse 4, by the power of the Spirit of God. You would have said that Jesus who was hanging there on the cross the other day is exactly what he claimed to be. He is God in human flesh. He was vindicated by the Spirit of God. He goes on to say he was seen by angels. Oh, my friends, here's how great is this mystery of godliness. God in human flesh, God in human flesh working to bring us to God and to make us godly people was the center of the attention of the angels. The angels were fascinated by it all. They were fascinated. The second person of the Trinity, there he is now, lying in a stable in Bethlehem in human flesh. And the angels were fascinated. And here He is hanging on that cross, and people are marching there around the cross, and they're casting insults. And these angels know that this One hanging on that cross can, with a mere word, turn all these people to sinners. And they are amazed and astonished that the Son of God would hang there and endure all of that. They observed it all. My friends, what I want to say to you is that the very angels of heaven today are fascinated by things which bore most of us. May God help us. May God help us. And the angels look at us and see what we're fascinated with, and they say, what silly people. What silly people. They've got this great mystery of godliness. And here they are. You've seen children, haven't you? Here you go out and buy one of these mega toys at Christmas time. And it's got everything. And the child, and it costs a bundle of money. And the child takes it out of the box and looks at it for a minute and starts playing with the box. And you say, what a foolish child I have. And the angels look at us. Here we are, we've got the great mystery of godliness, and we're over here playing with this and dabbling with that, and the angels say, what foolish children God has. What foolish children. They're more interested in these other things than they are the main thing. He goes on here to talk about this mystery of godliness, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Here's the truth which the church displays. It's the truth about Jesus. The truth about Jesus. The truth about Jesus. And Emmanuel Baptist Church is here by the grace of God to display the truth of God. And the truth which we display is the truth about Jesus. May He be much on our minds. May He be much in our hearts. May He be much on our lips. The truth about Jesus. And Paul says here, This truth is without controversy. He means this truth is undebated among those who really know Jesus Christ. God's people don't debate on whether Jesus ought to have priority. And if you debated whether Jesus should have priority, you don't have it. You don't have the truth of God. in your life and in your heart. If there's any question in your mind, my friend, about the place of Jesus, Jesus then does not have you. He does not have you. This truth is about controversy. It is the common confession of the church that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the church which displays the truth. This is the truth which the church displays, the truth about Jesus. May we in these days have a greater love for the house of God as we think about this. When we come to the house of God and open the Word of God and find the Lord Jesus there, we are face to face with the truth of God. The church, the house of God, is the place. of the truth.