preserves his house and his people. So I invite you to turn to 1 Timothy 3, that's where we are in our sermon series from 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy 3, verse 14 to 16. Now I would ask you a question that has an obvious answer. Do you ever get weary and discouraged in your Christian service? And of course you do. There are times when you may even feel like giving up. I'm tired of loving my enemies. I'm tired of showing hospitality and not getting appreciation for it. Tired of doing my work hardly as unto the Lord. I want to have a break. Tired of training up my children when they don't seem to be listening. Tired of obeying my husband when he is inconsistent. Tired of loving my wife when she's hard to deal with. Tired of honoring my parents when they are unreasonable. Tired of putting up with other believers trying to love them. Tired of giving my tithe when I can't even afford to go out to eat. Tired of laboring in my prayer when God never seems to answer. The kind of discouragements that we can have following Jesus can be a very tough business. He told us very plainly that following him requires self-denial and sacrifice. He said in Luke 9, 23, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. He even said that you must hate your own life if you want to be his disciple. Make no pretense about it. Discipleship is a rigorous warfare. It is hard labor. It is a continual battle. Saying no to the flesh and yes to God's will in our actions and attitudes, both have to be challenged by the word of God. Wait a minute, you would say to me, I thought Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. How does this square with that? I thought he said. Come to me all you that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. How does this square with all this talk about self denial and warfare and sacrifice? In one place he talks about taking up your cross daily. And in another place he talks about rest and ease and comfort. Which is it? The answer is. It is both. The rest and ease are the great relief a guilty sinner experiences. when that guilty sinner trusts in Jesus Christ and is delivered from a guilty conscience. That is a huge resting place and place of relief. There is nothing more burdensome and terrible than to labor under an enlightened conscience that trembles under the threat of God's coming judgment without having, without repenting. Jesus calls sinners to come to him and be freed from this terrible burden. All who truly trust in Christ know what it is to have their sins forgiven, to be washed as white as snow in God's sight. Christian, you know what it means to have the hope of eternal life and the promise of a glorious inheritance. This that is the rest and ease that Jesus promised, and it is a very good thing indeed. But it's not what the world thinks of, is it? That's how you can say that, you know, he's overcome the world. And yet in the world, you're going to have all kinds of tribulation. Following Jesus still requires constant death to self with daily sacrifice and hardship. So much so that the Apostle Paul said, if there is no resurrection at the end, then we're of all men most miserable because of all the sufferings that we have. He said that that because of all the hardship he was facing every day in his service to Christ. From the day that he was called, you remember, God, we're told, began to show him all of the things that he would have to suffer for his name. He wasn't called to a life of relaxation and ease. Paul did not come to Christ to find ease in the world. He came in order that he might find forgiveness of sin and that he might attain to a glorious resurrection in heaven. That was his objective. And if that's your objective, then you can make sense out of the suffering of the world and have ease, even in peace in the midst of all the conflict. Because of the rigors of discipleship, though, there are times when you grow weary and discouraged in your service to Christ. But how would you like to have been in Timothy's shoes? Talk about the rigors of discipleship. Paul had told him as a young man to remain at Ephesus to deal with those who are teaching false doctrine in the churches of that city. There was a whole presbytery. There were multiple churches. The church at Ephesus is not just one congregation. Paul had been there for years, and people had come from all over the region. So they had elders in all the different churches that were little congregations that were ministering. Do you think, though, that the false teachers that were scattered around and that were beginning to promote things that were not according to God's word would have been kind to the youthful Timothy when he confronted them about their errors? Can you imagine what he had to do? Do you think the followers of these false teachers would have welcomed Timothy? Do you think that it would have been easy for Timothy to go into the churches at Ephesus where women were teaching and ruling and tell them that they must stop? Why did Paul write that? Because it was an issue. Do you think it would have been pleasant for him to show certain elders and deacons that they did not meet God's criteria to serve as officers? That they were men that were disqualified? Timothy needed encouragement to keep on going. Paul has already given him encouragement in this letter that we've seen. But now at the end of chapter 3, he brings him yet another encouragement, an encouragement that we all need as followers of Christ. This is an encouragement for you also, if you're in Christ. It's not just for Timothy in his day, but for us in our day. In 1 Timothy 3, 14-16, Paul reminds Timothy that all the hard things he has been called to do are for the sake of the house of God. the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. That is what we need for our encouragement. It is for the Lord and the preservation of his church that we're called to labor and suffer in this world. Listen, as I read this passage to you, this is the word of God. This is 1 Timothy 3.14. These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly. But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. the pillar and ground of the truth. 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, received up in glory. Here, my Christian brothers and sisters, is a wonderful encouragement for you about the church. The conduct to which you are called is conduct as one who is a member of the house of God. Through Jesus Christ, God has actually brought you into his very own house, his very own family. As a member of God's house, you have God as your father. Who could ask for anything better than to have God Almighty as a father? As God, he is never without resources. He never slips. He never makes a mistake, never overlooks anything that pertains to the care of his children. He is the one who has all the strings of history. under His hand and His control, and who brings them all together throughout the ages to bring about the most blessed inheritance for His people. He works all things together for good, in other words. Yes, He is working to prepare His household for a blessed future and eternity, and you are part of that household. If you're a part of the Church of Jesus Christ, a household where there will be at last perfect harmony and beauty beyond your richest dreams. With God as your father, you're under his perfect love and care. He gives you instruction. as a father so that you can learn more and more of him and of his promises and more and more of how he wants you to live in his house. He nourishes you as a father with the bread of life, which is his very own son, whose body was broken and whose blood was shed to give eternal life to you. You are to feed on him by faith. He refreshes you with living water, which is His Spirit, who changes you and enables you to understand and to be radically transformed and to be sanctified in more and more holiness so you can live more and more as His child in His house, a child in the house that is delightful. He sends you troubles just right to refine you, to perfect you, to discipline you. And He sends you comforts and blessing just in the right proportion to encourage you along the way. How thankful you ought to be to be in the house of God, your gracious Father. By nature, you're a child of wrath. suited only to condemnation. You're unworthy to be his child, yet he has graciously adopted you and brought you in in all of your filth and uncleanness. In taking you into his house, he has to do a radical work of recovery. We have to be washed when we get to the door. We saw that this morning in Halifax. You have to have a bath. You have to be baptized, purified, washed, cleansed, so that you can be in his house as his child. You are in his house by gratuitous mercy alone and through no merit of your own. How thankful you ought to be to be in God's house. What a precious house it is. It has no equal. There is nothing that can be compared to the very idea of being a child of God. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God. How this love melts the heart of God's adopted children when they consider it. They need to consider it, and when they do, it warms their heart. And how it encourages them to strive, to live for the other members of God's house, and to live as the members of God's house ought to live. How will it help you to always remember that the church is not your house, but his house? What I mean, dear Christian, is that you are not the head of this house. God is the head of this house. That's very important for you to know. As a child, you ought to have the highest confidence in your father's wisdom. If He tells you to love your enemies, you shouldn't say, I don't think that's a good idea. You should love your enemies, because your Father knows. If He tells you to pray fervently, you ought to pray fervently. If He tells you to sanctify the Lord's Day, you ought to sanctify the Lord's Day. This is a place where we get tested, isn't it? You see, always, always God's people go away from that. In Israel, again and again, they would cast that aside. As His child, you ought to have the highest respect also for His authority. He is God. You are unworthy to be in this house. How unfitting it is, then, for you to contend with God, as if you have a quarrel with Him about how He's doing things or what He has told us. Instead, it is fitting for you to absolutely abandon your own selfish desires and to give up your own will to do His will without question. Was God's perfect son not heard to say when he was here, not my will, but your will be done? Did those words not fall from his lips even though he was called to do something of unthinkable difficulty, to bear the wrath and curse of his father, the pains of hell that were the dessert of his people and not something that he deserved? How unseemly it is then for us as adopted children, adopted sons to quarrel When we learn the father's will and to falter in our obedience, how proper it is for God's son to say without qualification, if that is what God wants, I will do it. You have been brought into God's house and he is the one who tells you how to live in his house. The Christian with such a mind of readiness to obey is far too rare in this world. The great mistake of the church has always been to forget that the church is his house and to start thinking and acting like it is our house. See people like that, like they think they own the church. Sometimes those are the leaders in God's house who have acted like the church belongs to them instead of God. The way God designed it, ministers and elders only have a delegated ministerial authority. It's not for them to come up with their own doctrines, but to teach only the Word of God. It's not for them to add or take away from what God has commanded, to say, oh, I don't think this commandment is really suited to us today, and pull this out and add that in. We're to uphold what He says. Their authority is not their own to do that. It's not for them to determine how God is to be worshiped, but only to worship as God has appointed. And what about what abuses there have been? Jesus criticized the leaders of God's house in his day that they had taught for doctrines the commandments of men and had made the commandments of God void. And you see that all the time. They had altered the doctrine of salvation that excluded their disciples from God's house so that making them twice as much children of hell, Jesus said. They actually had fortified people against salvation, was what they were teaching. The New Testament church has not been much better. In the Roman church, the whole world, they went completely from the form of church government. They altered the form of church government, adding popes and cardinals and all kinds of officers instead of retaining what God had given us. And their worship, they changed the worship so that priests pretended to have power to reconcile men to God with their priestly ceremonies. And God didn't even have priests in the New Testament because Jesus is the high priest. And he has offered the sacrifice, the only one that is needed. All this led the church into a terrible period of darkness. before the Reformation. But many Protestant churches have been even worse. Protestant leaders have even claimed the authority to determine which parts of the Bible are God's Word and which part are not. which part should be blotted out and which parts should be received. This is a complete breach of the authority that God gave them, which is only a delegated authority. There have been moderators in the United Church that have denied the resurrection. This is not even uncommon. A recent survey found that the vast majority of Protestant leaders deny that Jesus Christ is without sin. They're uncomfortable to have a Lord Jesus Christ who is without sin. This is reprehensible, and there are a multitude of other lesser errors. We see men claiming to themselves the power of prophecy, even when their so-called prophecies are not supported by true miracles. and when they even admittedly make errors in their prophecies. We see leaders changing the requirement for an elder to allow men whose homes are not in order or allowing women to teach or rule in the church. We see leaders allowing disciples to the communion table who do not have a credible profession of faith. They don't fence the table at all. should have been disciplined from the church. But I say the leaders of the church have no authority to do these things. It is not their house. It is God's house. It is the house of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the error that corresponds to leaders acting like the church belongs to them is the people, the members of the laity acting like it belongs to them. This is a great error in the modern market-driven church. The market-driven church, the church is controlled and designed from the bottom up rather than from a hierarchy down. The church is treated like a consumer product that's shaped according to the desires of the consumer and what they want, what appeals to them. This turns things around backwards. The problem the New Testament addresses is how men can be made acceptable to God. The problem that the market-driven church that it focuses on is how God in his house can be made acceptable to sinners. It's exactly backwards. We want to make the church acceptable to sinners. No, sinners need to be made acceptable to God. If sinners want a God who has no wrath in this package, then God is packaged without wrath. If they won't come to church unless there's entertainment and people singing for them, then entertainment is provided. If they don't like the government God has established for His church with elders and deacons, then new shepherding groups are organized in addition to or instead of the government that God has provided for His people. Or they bring in a CEO model or something like that. If they don't like preaching, then other forms of communicating truth are substituted. But all of this is to forget what we're talking about. The church is not the church, our church, he's the head of the church, it belongs to the Lord. If you forget, as verse 15 says, that it is the church of the living God, it is to forget that. It is the church of the living God. Pagans serve dead gods. And you know what the great thing about dead gods are? The great thing about dead gods is they don't care what you do in their houses, because they're dead. If you serve a dead god, you can make up all the rules for the house. You can decide how your god is to be worshiped, how he's to be served, and what he requires of you. Of course, the only problem is that dead gods can't save you. And although they may promise eternal life and many other things, they can't deliver on their promises. But we serve the living God who has a definite will. There are things that please Him and there are things that anger and displease Him. He blesses and He curses because He lives. Now I want you to think about this because it says it's the church of the living God. Wouldn't it make a difference if you were more mindful of the fact that God is alive? If you remember that he is there observing you, would you not think twice before doing something that would offend him? And wouldn't it encourage you to a greater readiness to deny yourself and your service to him? to know that he is there observing you, that he's watching you, that would encourage you to sacrificial service. Wasn't it the sure knowledge that Jesus was watching that strengthened Stephen when he gave his testimony in defense of the gospel before a hostile crowd that stoned him? It was because he knew Jesus saw him. That was why he was able to do that. It's not just a negative thing that you're going, oh, he's going to judge me. But it's like he's pleased with these things. Did Paul not say that he carried out his ministry as in the sight of God, seeking to please Him in all things and to maintain a conscience that was void of offense before God and man? What a great privilege it is then to be a member of God's house, how it ought to affect the way that you live, just to know that you're a part of God's house, the living God. But there is yet more to be said about this house. You also need to see the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. This is one of the finest excellencies of the church. How about to stir up your devotion to her to know that? Out of all the places of the world. It is in God's house that the truth is found, that God has chosen here to place His truth. You won't find it in the corporate world. You won't find it in the university. You find it in God's house. Because of man's fall into sin, the whole world is a place of darkness. Because we refuse to listen to God in the Garden of Paradise, He has blinded our minds so that we believe the lies of Satan. We have been delivered into a maze of confusion from which we can by no means extricate ourselves. And what is worse, in our pride, we don't even want to know the truth. God calls those he has chosen out of darkness and he causes the light to shine in their hearts so that they might believe the truth. As it says in Colossians, he has delivered us out of the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of his son. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. As he told Pilate, for this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should do what? Bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth, he said, hears my voice. The church is made up of those who hear and believe the voice of Christ as he has been revealed to the world and as God has given us record of him in the Bible. That's what the church is, the people who hear his voice, who are of the truth, rather than the people that are not of the truth. To the church he has given his word, and his word is truth. The church is the one institution in the world where the truth of God is preserved, propagated and received. This is why the church is called the pillar and ground of the truth in verse 15. It's important to understand that biblically speaking, the church is not only an organism, it is also an institution established by God. Sometimes you hear people say, the church is not an institution. That's not true. It is an organism, but it is also an institution. A lot of modern Christians want to deny it. But we have already seen in Timothy how God ordained a government for his church, setting forth qualifications for officers that are to serve and giving them duties of ruling and teaching. The purpose of the institution is to proclaim the truth. That's the big focus of the institution. In Ephesians 4, we're told that he gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for what? The equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of faith and the knowledge of God, till we come into the truth and the unity surrounding the truth, not a unity that sets aside the truth or says truth doesn't matter, we'll have unity without the truth. That's not the truth we're talking about. The apostles and prophets job was to give us God's testimony and to give us God's word so that we could have that testimony preserved of what is true. God made them to be infallible witnesses of all that Jesus did and said and to declare that what. the things he did, what they mean to us. God confirmed what they said by signs and wonders which they were given to perform to show that they were God's official witnesses. By the apostles and prophets, he gave us truth, his truth, and we have words recorded for us in the Bible which he gave to us. Now he raises up. That was apostles and prophets. Now, ever since they have gone on, the first generation has gone on, he raises up ministers to preach the Bible to us. The minister's words are not infallible, but his words are confirmed by the infallible scriptures, so that we consult the scriptures to see if what we're being brought is the word of God. The apostle's words, you see, are confirmed by signs and wonders, but the minister's words are confirmed by the consonants with the scripture, by agreement with the scripture. God has promised that he will always have a church where the truth is found. No doubt there are false churches, but there will always be, always be true churches where the word of God is truly preached and upheld. Make no mistake, though, the church is far from perfect. She herself is not the truth. She is the pillar and ground of the truth. In other words, to her the truth has been given and it is for her to preach the truth for the edification of God's house as well as to gather lost sheep who hear the truth and believe in the preaching of the gospel. And because she has such a great task as to be the bearer of God's truth in the world, what urgency is laid upon her to fulfill her calling in the way that has been instructed, has been given to her as the house of God. Timothy was therefore urged by Paul, for example, to not allow false teachers to continue to teach falsely, to uphold qualifications for officers in the church. If these errors were to go unchecked, the truth of God would soon fail to be known in the world by the church. If you don't believe it, just look at the churches that once held to the truth and then departed from the truth. There are legion, you can find them all over the place. How did they get there? But of course it is impossible, it is impossible for the church to utterly fail. God has promised that there will always be a church to uphold the truth in his world. But we must understand that the way God works in preserving his truth is by raising up those who continually work to reform the church. It doesn't just happen. When he does it, he raises up people to uphold the truth that have to fight the battles and lay hold of the truth. He does not work mysteriously preserving his church in a metaphysical realm somehow, but he raises up concerned members of his church who love the truth and labor to see that it is maintained in spite of all kinds of opposition that they may receive. You have to stand against the tides. That means that you and I are urged by this passage in Timothy to recognize how important it is for us to be faithful and to take our place in God's church, conducting ourselves always according to God's will in what we believe and what we practice. There are many times when God's truth has seemed to be almost completely hidden for a time because of the church's unfaithfulness. Our goal is to make the truth of God known by word and deed, and by the grace of God, We will do that. We will do that to his help. How you ought to engage all your powers to see that the Church of God continues in your own life. And that and in the life of the church as a whole, that that we're bearing witness to the truth. There is no place for indifference among those who love God's house and the truth that she has received. But there is one aspect of the truth that especially is given to the church. That aspect is spoken of in verse 16. It is the mystery of godliness. The mystery of godliness is a mystery that is raised by the church's very experience. When God first called Abraham, he gave him and all the church a promise. He said, I will be your God, and you and your seed will be my people. In other words, he promised that Abraham and all who joined the ranks of the church would be godly. The word godliness that Paul uses here when he talks about the mystery of godliness means religious. in the good sense of truly connected to God, rather than alienated from God. Your religious is one that is connected to God, you see, godly, you see how that would work, rather than alienated or estranged from Him. That relates to what we saw before. The church is God's house that He loves and cares for, and brings to a glorious inheritance. That is our God, He is our Father, and we are His adopted children. But do you see the great mystery in this? The mystery of godliness is this. How could God make a godly people out of sinners? Out of corrupt, defiled stones, how can God make a living church? He did it, but how could it be when fallen man lay under his curse and was totally unacceptable to him? How can you make a church out of that? Out of those building materials? Just look at yourself and everyone that you know. If you're honest, you know all about the wicked thoughts that rise up so often in your heart. You know about the failed duties. You know about the cold heartedness that you so often, too often have toward God. Yet He takes people like you as His own people, and they become godly. How can He make them godly? This was a great mystery that had no solution until God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. Before God came, I mean, before Jesus came, God continually promised His people that He would make them godly. and that already they were accepted as his people, and that he was their God. How could he be their God and they his people? Just how this would be done remained a mystery. In the daily sacrifices and all the bloody service of the tabernacle, God showed something of it, that there would be shedding of blood for remission of his people's sins, but for all those years, it was not clear. How would that be? What blood would be shed? Not the blood of bulls and goats. What should this be? It's the mystery of godliness. What would accomplish the purpose? But Christian, now God has revealed the mystery to His church. And all who see and believe the mystery obtain the forgiveness of sins and are made members of God's house forever. The mystery of godliness is that Jesus Christ came into the world to make the house of God godly as only he could do. No one else could bring us to God. God has revealed the mystery of godliness to the church now. This wonderful, precious truth cannot be found anywhere else. It has been given to the members of the house of God in the word of God. That's the ones to whom it has been revealed. We have the oracles of God. We are the pillar and ground of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we carry and hold up to the nations. We are called to receive the truth about Jesus, to proclaim the truth to the nations, to pass it on to the next generation. In a poetic way, Paul summarizes for us who this Jesus is. First, he says that God was manifested in the flesh. This is how the Son of God was able to make the church godly. He had to come in human flesh in order to represent human flesh. Without him, we have no godliness of our own that is acceptable to God. We were fit only for condemnation. But when he came, he took his place as our head and he represented all of us before God. And he is pure and holy and righteous as our head. He fulfilled all the righteousness that God's law had required of us that we could not fulfill. He was the obedient son, even to the point of submitting to death on the cross. And in dying on the cross, he took the penalty that all the rest of the ungodly members had incurred by their sin. He took the whole penalty for that. It was impossible for him to die without coming in the flesh. But that's exactly what he did. And so we have the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh. We are made godly because the Son of God came in human flesh. But since he appeared in the weakness of human flesh and even submitted to such a humiliating death, how do we know that he was God? In the second line, Paul tells us that Jesus was justified in or vindicated by the Spirit. The words can be translated either way, okay? He was justified in the Spirit or he was vindicated by the Spirit. It could be translated both of those ways. In other words, the Spirit showed us That Jesus was truly the son of God. The Holy Spirit took that job by the Spirit of God. What did Jesus do? We're told he cast out demons. He healed the sick. He cleansed lepers. He made the lame to walk. He caused the blind to see. He calmed the storm. He fed the multitudes. He raised people from the dead. By all this, he declared to be the Son of God, who had come in the flesh by the miracles that the Spirit gave him to do. But above all these things, it was by the Spirit that he was raised from the dead. And Paul says to the Romans, by that he was declared to be the Son of God with power. It was by this mighty resurrecting act that he showed that though he was cursed on the cross, that by his virtue, he overcame the curse for the sake of all the people that he represented when he was raised from the dead. He was raised again to show that his sacrifice was fully accepted of God. And so he was vindicated by the spirit. But the Spirit's work did not stop there, in that after His resurrection and ascension, Jesus also sent the Spirit with power to confirm the word of His apostles and to baptize all His disciples so that they might believe on Him and so that they might walk in the truth. How earnest we ought to be to make sure that the truth of God, which which God so carefully confirmed to us through Jesus Christ, that that truth be maintained in the church and that it be faithfully proclaimed to all nations. In the third line, Paul says that he was seen by angels. The angels that were next to him in heaven were all the more thrilled to behold him when he was manifested in the flesh. The world was sleeping, but the angels rejoiced. They are creatures too, and they were able to understand his grace and love more when He appeared in human flesh than they could have ever otherwise understood it. They look on and see what Christ does for His church. See how the angels beheld Him. They announced His conception. They rejoiced at His birth. They ministered to Him in the wilderness. They ministered to Him in His agony in the garden. They were heralds of His resurrection, the first to come and tell, and they were witnesses of His ascension, the angels accompanying. If those who are already so much nearer to Him than we are rejoiced in His coming to earth, how much more should we delight in His appearing who are the ones who stand in need of His saving work? In the fourth line, Paul says that he was preached, Christ was preached among the nations. This is an aspect of the mystery that is so often spoken of in the New Testament, that God is not only reconciling Israel to himself, but the entire world. Consequently, Jesus saw to it that his church carried the message into the world, all the world. The mystery of godliness is for both Jew and Gentile. Our God is no mere national or local deity. He is the lord of the nations and the king of kings. We have a gospel for the entire world to tell them how they can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. And in conjunction with this is the fifth line of Paul's poem that he was believed on in the world. that those who are in the darkness of idolatry and their philosophies and their vain imaginations and their corruptions, that those who are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise should become godly like Abraham. that they should have godliness, the mystery of godliness. God had promised Abraham that all the nations would be blessed in his seed. And what a wonder it is that they have been blessed. Here was a poor Jewish carpenter who died in shame. Why should the Gentiles who sat in the darkness pay any attention to him? nothing but the mighty working of God in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel could cause them to believe. Their eyes had to be open to things that they could never see before. And this is in itself a great miracle, that so soon after he was manifested, the apostle could say to the Colossians that the word of the truth of the gospel, which had come to them was in all the world, bringing forth fruit, just as it had in them. So we see that not only the angels who are already so near to God were delighting in the truth of Christ, but also the Gentiles who are so far away from God were delighting in the truth. This brings credence to this message. How great is this mystery that God has revealed to us, how we ought to rejoice. A lack of zeal for the service of God can always be traced back to a lack of rejoicing in the precious truth that God has given his church regarding reconciliation through Jesus Christ. Six, that he was received up into glory. Here is a part of the mystery that has had too little attention in the modern church. Jesus has ascended into glory and taken His seat at the right hand of the majesty on high. But very often today, this message is truncated. Instead of going out as ambassadors of the King of Kings, who has all authority in heaven and earth, we have gone out as those looking for a few recruits for Jesus Christ. That's not the way it should be. Instead of declaring to the nations that the reason for their troubles is because Jesus reigns and is angry with them because of their impenitence, we have presented Jesus as a politician who is looking for a few more votes so he can have an opportunity to carry out his policies and make things better in the world. The truth is, He already reigns, and He laughs at those who plot against Him, thinking they reign, and they need to be told so. In the true gospel, we urge men to be reconciled with God, lest he be angry with them and destroy them. Our urgency is not for Jesus who needs more votes, but for the sinner who will meet Christ in judgment if he does not repent. That message has been distorted and twisted and turned upside down in our day. The church has been given the answer to how sinners can be reconciled to God in the mystery of godliness. What glorious things God has made known to his house. What glorious things about the son through whom we have reconciliation with God. How fitting it is for us to hunger for more of this truth, to give all diligence to maintain it for our posterity and to labor to proclaim it faithfully to the world. Let each of us, according to our calling, conduct ourselves appropriately as the members of God's blessed house who have been given such a glorious salvation with such precious truth. This will get you spurred on to service in the Lord. You are God's household, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. What manner of persons ought you to be with such a privileged status? Here is something to pick you up when you're dragging. Here is something to keep you running, even when you're already running. What sacrifice could be too great to make for the house of God? Please stand and let's pray. Oh Lord our God, how wrong it is for us to get weary in serving you, to get weary in sacrificing when you have bestowed on us such a blessing that we should be the children of God, that we should be part of your house. that we who are corrupt and rotten and useless stones should be brought together as a living temple to our God, with Jesus Christ as the foundation, the cornerstone upon which all is built. We praise you for the mystery of godliness, for this whole edifice was completely Worthless, it is completely worthless apart from him. He is the one who is our righteousness. He is the one who made atonement for our sin. We would be nothing without that. And we see, Lord, how easy it is for stupid modern Christians to set that aside, to set Christ crucified aside and to look to have a house for God that is not founded upon Jesus Christ. the one who answers the mystery of godliness, the one who shows how sinners can be godly. And I pray, Lord, that you would thrill us with this truth and with the preciousness of it and of the need of it, and that we would go forth proclaiming it faithfully among the people that we know and among the nations. And Father, we pray that you and your Son would be honored and glorified when this message is proclaimed, that there is salvation in no other than in your Son, Jesus. We pray, Father, that you would give us boldness and courage that we might go forth, because we are the pillar and ground of the truth in the world. The truth is not found in other places. We pray then that you would help us to preserve and uphold the truth. Guard us, Lord. Guard our children. Don't let them be stupid. Don't let them go away from the truth. Don't let them compromise. Don't let them set it aside. Don't let them harden their heart so that they become wretched and unbelieving and corrupt. Father, we ask you, we plead with you, have mercy on us. Visit us with your powerful spirit and bring grace and salvation to us, O Lord, that we may continue in your grace, that we may walk in the truth, that we may uphold the truth. May your ministers also raise up ministers who will proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ without compromise. who will uphold all the things that you have spoken and not be embarrassed or ashamed about this or that teaching, this or that commandment that is so common to be ashamed of in our day. Every day has had those things that the church was ashamed to speak of. But Father, we pray for faithfulness. We pray for dedication. We pray that we would remember that it's not our house, but it is your house. It's not our commandments, it's not our doctrine, it's your commandment and your doctrine. Father, may we maintain and continue as the pillar and ground of the truth, which you have given us the privilege to be. Work in us by your spirit, work in us by your grace, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Our song of blessing is Psalm 25C. God's blessing and grace, don't you? Definitely so. You can't do anything without them. So receive now the blessing of the Lord our God. God be merciful to you and bless you, and cause His face to shine upon you, that His way may be known upon the earth, His salvation among all nations. The mystery of Godliness shining forth to them through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.