Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Okay, if we can open our Bibles, we're back in the epistle of 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 3, and we'll be reading the last three verses. So 1 Timothy chapter 3, and we'll be reading verses 14 through 16. From 14 through 16. Maybe this is the word of the Lord. 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 a 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 the angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. So brothers and sisters this evening what we'll be doing is we'll be looking at or meditating upon together the first two verses verses 14 and verse 15 and by God's grace we'll be looking or considering verse 16 next week. Verse 16 is a wonderful Christological verse that really it has beautiful truths and it's known to be or most theologians and scholars would say that it was most likely a hymn that was sung by the very early Christians. So that would be exciting but God's grace that will be next week. This week we'll be looking at verses 14 and 15 and the emphasis in these verses really is what the Church of Jesus Christ is. What is the Church? What is the church? Now, I suspect if I were to do a survey in the general population and ask that question, what is the church? I would suspect we'd get a flurry of different answers, especially for non-churchgoing people, from the people who perceive the church from the outside. They may say, you know, we see people getting dressed up and going to this place to do religious things. Others might say, look, it's the place where you get baptized or the place where you people get married. That's where they conduct weddings. Maybe others, again, would say something like the church is a building. It's normally a beautifully architecturally designed building with steeples and beautiful stone masonry with a big cross on top. And they're the sort of answers you would get from the world. But the major concern is that many professing Christians in our world today don't really know what the Church is. Now I'm not saying they will give superficial answers like we heard just before, the examples I gave. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying that many Christians who profess to be Christians have a small view of what the Church of Jesus Christ is. Their view's not quite where the scripture has it. It's not the view, it's not the value on the church that our God places upon it. And why do I say this? Well, a survey in America called, it was called the State of Theology Survey. I've got State of Theology Survey in America. It's a survey that's asked a series of questions to both Christians, non-churchgoing people, and churchgoing people. When Christians were asked, or professing Christians were asked, do you believe that worship on your own or just with your family in private will be a good or a valid replacement for regularly going to church, from the Christians only 34% answered no. That leaves 66%. 66% of professing Christians answered either I'm not sure or yes. And that's a concern. Because from the passage that we read here this evening, the church is incredibly important in our world and as Christians we need to value what the church is. So the Apostle Paul here is writing to Timothy and what we've done, we've been working our way through the book of 1 Timothy and we've seen the practical instructions that he's written. And in this passage, he opens up by saying he wants to come. His intention was to go and see the Ephesians, but just in case he's not able to come, he's writing these instructions so that they would know how to conduct themselves in the church of God. Now it's obviously Paul's intention, at least his desire to come, because we know that about three to five years earlier when he did meet with the elders in Ephesus in a place called Miletus, we know the account is in Acts chapter 20, Paul tells the elders at that point that it's very unlikely he'll ever see them again. because he knew that his life was not his own. He knew that at any moment through the persecutions that he's experienced, that his life can be taken away. So he has plans or desires, but those desires might not come to fruition. In fact, when this letter was written, it's very possible that the Apostle Paul was actually released from prison at that point, because he was in prison when you wrote the letter to the Ephesians. But it's possible he was released from prison for a short period of time, but then he goes back into prison in Rome afterwards. But when he speaks to the Ephesian elders, listen to what he says. This is in Acts chapter 20. He says, And now behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction awaits me. that imprisonment and affliction awaits, and indeed it does, because when he leaves the Ephesian elders, he sets sail to Jerusalem, because that's the end of his third missionary journey, and when he comes to Jerusalem, he's captured by the Jews, and then he's handed over to the Romans, and then he's imprisoned in Jerusalem, and then in Caesarea for a period of two years, and then he's shipped over to Rome for two years, where he's under house arrest. there. But because Paul, in his wisdom, he knew that there was no such thing as apostolic succession. That is to say that when he dies as an apostle, and the other twelve apostles die also, the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ, including Matthias, then there won't be anyone alive with the apostolic authority that Paul has. There won't be, because the apostles aren't replaced. They're hand-chosen by Jesus Christ once and for all. They're foundational for the church. So he knew that it's very important that he writes the instruction, and this is what we see in the epistles, and in particular in 1 Timothy, he writes instruction So that when the canon, when the apostles have all passed away and the canon of scripture is completed, the 66 books that we have today is the completeness of the canon, then the church at that point will have all she requires for life and guidance. It's sufficient. The Scripture is sufficient. And it's all that we require for life and Godness. And so what we've done in the last four weeks, we've had a look. Actually, we've been working our way through 1 Timothy for a while now. But in particular, the last four weeks, we were looking at the structure of the church or the leadership of the church. And in particular, we looked at two of the offices of the church. We looked at the office of eldership and the office of deacon or the deacons. And through our discussions over the last four weeks, we conclude biblically that the roles and responsibilities of the officers are different. However, when we looked at the main focus, what they're working towards, one of the primary roles is that the Word of God would continue to be preached and taught in the Church, because the Word of God has supreme authority in the Church of Jesus Christ. Now this evening in verses 14 and 15, I believe we see in these verses three fundamental truths. three truths that we find that inherit in the passage here, and by God's grace we'll examine those, we'll meditate upon them together, and we trust that the Lord will bless our time together. So what are the truths? Well, the first one is that the local church is the family of God. The local church is the family of God. The second The church is the dwelling place of God, that the living God dwells among His people. And the third is that the local church ought to, this is a function, this is what it needs to do, ought to guard, it ought to uphold, and it ought to proclaim the truth of God, that is, the scripture, the word of God, the Bible that we have, that's its responsibility. So let's have a look at the verses, verse 14 and 15. Paul writes, I hope to come to you soon but I'm writing these things so that if I delay you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. how one ought to behave in the household of God, referring to the church. Now in the New Testament we know that as we read through the 27 books of the New Testament, we know that the church is given many designations, many titles. We see that the church is the bride of Christ in Revelation 19. We see the church is the body of Christ, Ephesians 5. It's named the flock of God. A few weeks ago we looked at that passage in 1 Peter chapter 5. The church is the temple of God in 1 Corinthians. It's the people of God in 1 Peter chapter 2, and they're just to name a few. Here though, the Apostle Paul gives us another one. That the church is the household of God. Now beloved, I know that we've all heard this expression before. I know that we use it in our conversations, and I know that we may even use it in our prayers, but I want us to think about those words. That the church is the household of God. It's intimate, it's close, it's an endearing term. It simply means that the church is the family of God. That the believers that gather together, they gather as God's family. See, Paul doesn't unpack the richness of what it means to be the family of God in these short verses, but he certainly does in other places. In fact, throughout Scripture, we see the wonder of this mind-blowing truth. Think about it. That those who were enemies of God, those who rebelled against God, did the things that God hated and loved to do them, those who people who had no regard for God whatsoever blasphemed God in all their works and never had any remorse over their sins against a good and holy God. that these people would be brought into the family of God. That by faith, through the means of faith, in the resurrected Son of God, they would be forgiven of their sins and they would come into the family of God. Beloved, if we were only forgiven of our sins, that is an incredible mercy and grace upon us. But to say that we've also been adopted as sons and daughters of the living God, this is incredible. Paul says in Ephesians 2, when he uses the same expression, household of God, he writes, speaking to the church. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Once strangers, once alienated from God, brought into the very household of God, the eternal God who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. has adopted a people who are so unworthy, so wicked, so sinful like us, and has adopted them into his own family. And now he identifies them with his own name. You're my household. But this is an incredible truth. We ought to meditate on these truths daily. Because these truths ought to bring, they should give life to our souls. They should give spring to our steps. That in Christ, who is the only begotten of the Father, that he would die and in his death purchase and resurrection, purchase our forgiveness, purchase our redemption, and unite us into Him, because He is the only Beloved Son. He's the begotten Son of the Father. But in Christ we become the adopted sons and daughters of God. We are now included with Christ into the family of God. The scripture uses the language that Jesus becomes our brother. How incredible is this? Jesus becomes our brother, God the Father becomes our father, and we become heirs with Christ, enjoying all the blessings in the spiritual realm with our brother, our savior, our king, Jesus Christ. You become sons and daughters of the living God. This is incredible. And the beauty here is that the family of God, we know that within the family of God, within those who have been redeemed, there is no distinction in value. There's no distinction in dignity. There's no distinction in worth. So it doesn't matter what age you are. It doesn't matter what gender you are. It doesn't matter what color you are, from what ethnicity you come from, how much money you have, or how smart you are. You're all equal in the house of God. Paul speaks to this in Galatians chapter three. This is what he says. He says, there was neither Jew nor Greek. There was neither slave nor free. There's no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Can you imagine the religious Jews of the day if they heard Paul speak those words? How angry they would have become. What are you talking about? You're saying these unclean, uncircumcised Gentiles have become the children of God? They're part of the family of God? We are the family of God. After all, God spoke to us and he said to Israel that you are my son. Yes, yes, that's true in the Old Testament. But God always had a plan and his plan has always been that through the Jews all the nations of the world will be blessed in this way. You remember we've been going through the book of Genesis and we've seen how God has spoken that He would bless the people of all the nations of Israel. The Jews would be a blessing and we know that He's speaking about Christ who blesses all the nations of the world so that now the household of God, the family of God is not secluded to only one ethnicity. It's not only one privileged people of Israel. Rather, the book of Revelation tells us that he's gathering among himself a people, a household, family from every tongue, from every language, from every tribe, and from every nation. This is what God is doing in Christ Jesus. And so we know that if he's gathering people from all over the world, we know also that he's gathering people from many different cultures. And with those cultures comes a lot of freedoms. But beloved, Although there is a lot of freedoms, there are liberties in the household of God. There are also universal truths. Universal truths of how one ought to behave in the household of God. That's the language Paul uses in verse 15, where he says, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave. how one ought to behave in the household of God. This is universal. It means that there is appropriate behavior in the local church. There's appropriate behavior to be among the people of God and there's also inappropriate behavior. Paul is writing these instructions in this epistle and it's not left because it's not left the church to determine how to behave but rather because it's the household of God because it's the family of God because this is the people who are called by his name and he is the head through Christ Jesus he is the head of the church then we ought to obey the head as to how we ought to obey in his household And so we know a little bit about how that looks because when we talk about family, we all have families and we know that in a family there's a structure in a family. That we know that within the family that all are equal, not one is more valuable than the other. But there are roles and responsibilities and there's only one head in the family. There's one head who determines the family's behavior. He determines how the family acts and the things the family will do. And in the church, beloved, that head is Jesus Christ. That head is God himself. Paul says in Ephesians, he brings out this truth using a picture of the earthly family. He writes, In Ephesians 5, he says, wives, he's talking about the structure in the family. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Why? And he gives now an analogy. He says, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Christ is the head of the church. And as the head of the church, Christ has empowered his church, his people, with his Holy Spirit and he's given his word, his inerrant, infallible word to instruct his church on how to behave and how to conduct herself. in this world in a way that will be God-honouring. And that's why, within the context of the local church, the Bible, beloved, ought to be central in all the activities of the church. In all that we do, the Bible ought to be central. Because the Spirit of God is working among the people of God to make a people who look more and more like Jesus Christ. That's Christ-likeness. And through the living and abiding Word, He sanctifies His people and He accomplishes that Christ-likeness. Therefore, to be like Christ, one of the greatest virtues in Christ, in God, is what? God is love. So love needs to be present among the people of God. And it sounds obvious, because we're speaking about family. We're speaking about family. Can there be a proper, healthy, functioning family without at least love between one member to another? That's not even a possibility. Now, if that were the case, then you'd have nothing but strife. But God is love. And Christ demonstrated His love for us, a deep-rooted love, whereby He gave His life as a sacrifice for our behalf, right? So we ought to, as the family of God, ought to have a deep-rooted love for one another as we imitate Christ, the head of the church, in His love. After all, how did Jesus, what did Jesus say to his disciples about how the world would be able to identify who belongs to him? You remember the words? He says, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, by your love one for another, by your love one for another. So what does that love look like? Well, it's a selfless love. Christ was selfless in giving of himself for the sake of others. It's a love that considers the needs of others above our own. It's concern for the physical needs as well as the spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters. A love that compels us to forgive one another when one of us has wronged the other. It's a love that causes us or compels us to pray for our brothers and sisters. It's a love that compels us to bear each other's burdens. It's a love that rejoices when a brother or a sister is rejoicing. It's a love that cares for one another. And it's a love that does this. It especially does what the book of Hebrews chapter 12 tells us we ought to do, and that is to exhort one another every day as long as it's called today. Why? So that none will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. You see, in other words, our love, our deep-rooted love one for another ought to be concerned not only in our own holiness, that's a critical concern, but also in the holiness of our brothers and sisters, that we ought to be concerned that our brothers and sisters are growing in their love for Christ, that they're growing in their sanctification. And beloved, from the words of Hebrews, our brothers and sisters depend on us and we depend on them. It's a two-way reciprocal relationship and it's critical that we love one another in this way. But also what we find in this passage, in these verses, is the second point. And that is that the church is the church of the living God. That's what Paul says. It's the church of the living God. And as the living God, he dwells among his people. presence among His people. Too often churches act as if they're devoid of this very thing, this very reality. Beloved, it is the most glorious blessing to be in the presence of God. To have God dwell among us is the greatest privilege for any man. For any creature, it is to be in the presence of the Creator God, and He desires to be with us. Beloved, if God didn't presence himself among us, then what we have is simply just a human gathering of people. If God wasn't presence, if the living God didn't presence or dwell among His people, you know what we'll have? We'll have nothing different to any club or human institution. It would be no different at all. Sure, the catch-ups are nice. Sure, we enjoy the sharing of the meals and discussions and the caring environment. That is lovely. But beloved, I'm telling you, if the presence of the living God is not among us, It's all meaningless. It'll all waste and die. It'll all go away. But the fact is, God tells us through his word, through the apostolic writings, that the living God dwells among us. And we see wonderful examples of this and our hearts should rejoice. Our hearts should rejoice in this because as our brother explained to us only a few weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago, In one of his sermons, he said that the greatest privilege to a man or a woman, human beings, is to have God presence himself among us. And we see examples of this throughout the Bible. For example, in Genesis 28, when Jacob was leaving his father's home and he went off to go to the north, Paddan Aram, and he was going, he was fleeing because Esau was pretty angry at him, right? Because he stole his, his blessing. And on the way, he stops at a place called Luz. Now there's nothing special about Luz. This is just a place on the way in his journey. There's nothing special. The sun was coming down and he needed to sleep. So he stops in this place and as he sleeps, then he gets a dream, a vision from God. And then when he wakes up, listen to what he says. These beautiful words. He says, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. And he is praised. He says, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven. You see, he changed the name of that place called Luz to Bethel. And if you remember our study on the book of Genesis, Bethel means house of God. So what made Luz, what made Luz so special that he would call it the house of God? Well, it's the same thing that makes ordinary people just like us, the living, the church of the living God. It's God's presence, beloved. God's presence is the greatest blessing that we could ever experience. That's where the treasure is for the church. It's in the presence of God. You see, God created man for fellowship. Adam had fellowship with God in the garden. intimate love fellowship, his sin. He broke God's law. He was banished from the garden and he was banished from the immediate fellowship of God. But God always had a plan. to redeem the people. And we see this plan outworking throughout the Old Testament. Now, we see God's presence himself in the Old Testament, but we see that it's a different presence. So then the New Testament, we know that what happens is, for example, the children of Israel are saved from bondage in Egypt. And so they cross the Red Sea and they're on their way to receive the land flowing with milk and honey that God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yet they rebel against God and they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. But on the way, God gives Moses specific instruction to build something called a tabernacle. And a tabernacle is simply just a moving temple, a moving temple. But there's something special about the tabernacle. It's a place where God would manifest his presence among his people. But you see, although God's presence would be truly manifested among his people in a place called the Tabernacle, and the Jews would have known what a temple, the Israelites would have known what a temple was. They'd just come out of the pagan nation of Egypt. They had temples everywhere. But the difference is this. because they'd been there for 400 years, right? Not them personally, but their grandparents and so forth. They'd been there for 400 years. The temples they had in Egypt were temples to dead people. They're mostly pharaohs who had died, and after they died, they were deified as gods, and they would then worship them. In the eyes of the people, they saw them as gods. But they were temples of dead people, yet in the tabernacle. They had the only true God presence himself among them. They had the living God presence himself among these people. But this is why I say that it's a little bit different to what we experience now, because there was still a distance. That distance was, our brother explained this for us maybe a few, a couple of months ago possibly, And that difference is simply this, that although the people in the camp, that were surrounded in the camp, and the tabernacle had a central location, they could see the tabernacle from a distance. Remember, there was probably a million plus people. They could see the tabernacle built, and they could see it from a distance. They couldn't see inside because of the high curtains. And they could see the glory cloud of the Lord that they could not enter into the immediate presence. God. Why? Because that was reserved for a particular people, the people from the tribe of Levi, and more in particular the priests, and more in particular again the high priest. Only the high priest was able to enter into the holy of holies, and only enter once a year into the immediate manifested presence of God, and he enters with blood in his hands. Blood of a sacrifice that was sacrificed on behalf of the people of Israel in the camp who drew near in faith. And he would sprinkle that blood on the mercy seat and come back out until next year. You see, only the high priest was able to experience that immediate manifested presence of God. But in Christ Jesus, our great high priest, he's entered into the heavenly throne. The tabernacle was a type or a shadow of what the heavenly reality was. He enters into the heavenly tabernacle and he enters with blood. but not the blood of an animal, the blood of His own sacrifice, His own blood. And once and for all, He cleanses the sins of His people forever. And by doing that, He purchases His people and makes them priests with Him, so that they can enjoy the immediate presence, the real presence of God. This is incredible, and this is what we're talking about here and now. We're talking about the presence of God among His people, among His church. The church is the place where God dwells. Paul speaks to this in 1 Corinthians 3. He says that we are, the believers, those who are found in Christ, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He'll go on to speak in Ephesians 2, the passage that I referenced earlier, but if I continue, he says, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grow into a temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together into, here it is, a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." Did you hear that? The church is being built into the dwelling place for the living God. That is the greatest privilege. That is the greatest privilege, that God would commune with his people, that God would actually presence himself with people just like us. for us as His people to know Him, to be able to commune with Him, to worship the living God, to hear His voice speak when His word is preached. And it all happens in a special way when the people of God gather in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the household of God. This is the household of God. And he's not a God who stays aloof or distant or far off. His real presence is immediate for his people. And we must give an immense or have an immense appreciation for this beloved. How can we be unmoved or indifferent of this amazing reality? How can we be unmoved and indifferent about the gathering of the saints when we gather as the body of Christ together? How can we just look down on those events or not have them in the way that they ought to be? Christians ought to act like the most privileged people on the planet. They have the immediate presence of God among them and they are called by his name as his family. This truth ought to govern everything the church does, so that when we recognise who we are in God, we ought to be on our knees and we ought to worship him. We ought to praise Him. We ought to give Him all the honour, not only when we gather as saints together, but in our lives, in our thoughts, in our actions, in all that we do. God is present with us, and we ought to show Him praise and worship, not because we're compelled to do these things. It ought to be the very greatest desire of our hearts to do these things, because of our love towards Him And this leads us to the next point that we have. And that is if God is the head of his church, and he is, he's also given his church instructions on how he ought to live. and how it ought to function and the duties it ought to carry out. And so then we go to the next point that we have which leads us to that the church is the pillar and the buttress of truth. This is the way Paul speaks. He says this is the pillar and the buttress of truth. Now you know the Apostle Paul on several occasions in the Word He gives analogies, so he'll look at something, he'll have a picture of something, a reality, where his writers can understand and know a picture of something, and then he'll link theological truth to that. A good example, I think, would be Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6, as I said earlier, Paul was in prison in Rome, and he was under house arrest, so more than likely, more than likely, he would have had maybe a Roman centurion guarding his cell. And so as Paul would have looked at the Romans in Shun, it's very possible he would see him dressed in all the soldier's garb, the helmet and the chest plate and all these things. And so what he does is he links what he sees that the soldier wearing so he could be protected in battle and says, hey, the Christian ought to be protected in the war, the spiritual war that we live in day in, day out against the enemy. And then he then builds the truth on these things. So I think it's very possible that Paul's doing the exact same thing here and now in this passage. You see, the people in Ephesus would be able to identify, I think, what Paul is saying because he's relating to something that they've seen in their city before. You see, the church of Ephesus was well known for a temple. And the temple was called the Temple of Artemis, or the Temple of Diana. And so this was a huge, lavish temple, and it was reconstructed and became one of the seven wonders of the world. But it's a huge structure that you would see, and all the Asia Minor would know if it's Ephesus because of this structure. Beautiful, splendid, it had a beautiful marble roof. but it also had, it was dedicated to the goddess Diana, but it also had 127 big 18 meter long pillars that were coated or, is that the word? Plated, plated with gold. So just imagine 127 massive pillars holding up this massive structure, this massive roof of marble, and it was all holding that up, and those pillars were all coated or plated with gold. You see the Ephesians thought Diana would be a goddess that would bless them with prosperity. That's what their idea was. And so they built this temple to a goddess that would give their city prosperity, that she would give them favor. So their mentality was, let's build her a temple and let's not spare any expense. We'll pay all that we have. We'll show Diana or Artemis that we're not sparing any dollars or any expense or any effort or any architecture. And we hope that she does the same for us, that she would show us favour and bless our city with prosperity. So people, as they walk from a distance, they would see the sun reflecting against the gold pillars and immediately they would know what that structure stood for. That structure stood for Artemis, for Diana, and that structure stood for prosperity, wealth and affluence. That's what it stood for. So Paul is saying that the church is the pillar and the buttress of truth. And I think what he's saying here is this, that as the church, people ought to know, even from a distance, what you stand for. And like you see that structure and you know what it's good for, do you as a church stand for truth? Do you uphold the truth? Because that's your duty as a church. That you stand by upholding. As a church we uphold and we guard and we protect and we proclaim the truth, which is the Word of God, which is the Scripture. And I believe Paul is addressing the lack of this. The lack of the church in Ephesus. is doing these very things, because he wasn't guiding the scripture all that well. We know that, because in chapter 1 of 1st Timothy, isn't Paul speaking to Timothy and saying, you have false teachers among you. You've got false teachers among you, and you need to deal with this problem. These men are devoting, they've foregone the sound doctrine and they're devoting themselves to what? To myths and endless genealogies, he says, which promote speculation rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. These men have elevated their own views and their own opinions and their own ideologies, their ideas above the infallible inherent God-breathed world. That's not the example that the apostles had given. Let's open our Bibles to 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy and we'll read from chapter 1 verse 16 through 21. And it reads, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. When he received honor and glory from God the Father and a voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have, listen to this point, 19, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you would do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place. It continues, until the dawn or day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart, know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So what's Peter saying? We saw him. Peter is a disciple of Christ. We saw. We saw with our eyes. We experienced with our ears. We know and we saw Christ. He saw Jesus in the mouth of transfiguration. His glory was shown. He says that I would... He's proclaiming here that you're better to trust the sure word of God rather than human experience. In other words, what he's saying is this, I trust the Scripture. I trust the Word of God above my own senses. This is the confidence that the Church ought to have in the Word of God, as it upholds the Word, as it guards the Word, as it proclaims the Word of God. We ought to guard it from wolves, because Jude says, contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints. That's the body of faith that he speaks about, as it's been handed down in scripture to us here and now. And after Paul exhorts the Ephesian elders, and he exhorts them to shepherd the flock in Acts 20, knowing that most likely he'll never see them again, he farewells them. And probably what in his mind were the last words he gives to the Ephesian elders, he says this, And now I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. It is the Word of God that must be central to the local church of Jesus Christ. Because it's the Word of God that builds the church. Beloved, if the Word is absent, then we end up in error. If the Word is absent, what we end up with is human fabrications or man's opinions. And as I said before, that man's opinion is of no worth. The church's light, which the church ought to be a light unto the people, unto the nations, the church's light will dim down when we give our own opinions rather than predicate all we do, and all our activities, all our teaching, and everything we proclaim from the sure word of God. To depart from this truth, it will end up in only man-centeredness. appeasing our own flesh rather than glorifying God. And that's a devastating thing that's happening all too often in the churches today. Many churches are promoting innovation. They're promoting more creativity. They're saying, look, church is very boring. We want to change this. We've got to make it more exciting for people to come. I'm not suggesting there's only one way to do church faithfully. I'm not saying that at all. But I am saying this. And I believe Paul is saying this as well. that the church ought to have the scripture as its foundation, that it must be front and center, it must be the very thing that holds every activity together. It ought to be the scripture and the scripture alone. The word When the Word is not guided, we find that error creeps into the church. And what we see is when the error creeps into the church, we have devastation, we have splits, we have disunity, we have all sorts of trouble. And we need to make sure, by God's grace, that we always hold true to His Word, and we hold His Word and allow His Word to be the glue that does everything, the power that keeps us together. Because if his word is present, everything else flows from his word. Jesus said, I will build my church. He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And he is building his church. Brothers and sisters, he's building his church one brick at a time. and he himself is the cornerstone. And that's the interesting thing because in verse 15, the word we have or Paul uses for buttress, it really, buttress means like supporting columns or reinforcing walls to keep to keep the structure together. We know the pillars, what pillars are. They also keep the roof on and keep the structure together. But also the word can also mean, the word translated by Trist, can also mean foundation or footing. So in other words, it's what the church is built upon. So when we sit back and say, what did Paul mean? Did he mean the buttress which is normally on the side of the building that holds the structure together, holds the roof and the structure, or is he talking about the footings or the foundation which is underneath that holds the church together? We don't know exactly what he means here, but it's both. Because the scripture says that the church is built and predicated upon Jesus Christ who is the cornerstone. Jesus Christ is the epitome of truth. He is truth incarnate. So the church is built on the truth of the word and the church also upholds and proclaims the word of God. So it's both. Either way, the Church stands for the Word of God. And it's this truth that Jesus has mandated for His Church, both for the holiness of His people, And examples we have of this where the Word is the power of God into making His people more like Christ. We have examples in Psalm 119. Mike has been taking us through Psalm 119. I'm not sure if we've gone through the whole book yet or the whole chapter yet. But one of the portions reads this way. It's like a question. How can a man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your Word. And a few verses later, we read, your word is a lamp to my feet and a path and a light unto my path. The word of God sanctifies. The word, the living and abiding word of God creates in us Christ-likeness. It's essential for the church so that Christians become more and more like Jesus Christ. It's also, we read, of course, in 2 Timothy, we read, So we know the Word of God in the Church of Jesus Christ matures the believers into Christian maturity, so they can become more like the image of the perfect Son, Jesus Christ. But the Word of God also is how God gathers His sheep. It's how God gathers those who are lost at this point in time, but are elect in Christ, so that when we proclaim, as the church proclaims the truth of the Word, then the lost sheep here, and by the Spirit of God, He regenerates the soul and brings these people into His kingdom. The analogy Jesus gives is, my sheep hear my voice, and what they do? They follow me. And John 10, he says that in John 10, and so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10 7. So it's essential for the church to uphold, to guard, and to proclaim the word of God. Because if we do not do that, if we don't do these things, then what we're doing is we're forsaking the power of God and we're substituting that power, the power to save, the power to sanctify. And we're substituting that by human strength and human opinion, which is corrupt. And it falls, it's temporal, and it's worth nothing. We've been called into the fame to enjoy being sons, adopted sons and daughters of the living God. And God lives among his people. He's the living God that is present to himself among his people. The church is where God dwells. And we as a church ought to be preserving, we should be guarding his word. We should be proclaiming his word. We should be preaching and teaching his word. because the Word of God is what we've been given to do all these things. So may God give us the strength and the courage to live this way, that these would be our convictions, that He would protect us from error and from distorting His Word, that He would protect us from the compromise that sets in when we put down His Word or we don't consider it as we ought, or if we don't place His Word where it ought to be, as the supreme authority over the church because God has spoken and his word is from the very being of God. It's the heart of God revealed to his people. May God bless his word to our hearts. Amen.