1 Timothy 3:14-16 | Guidance and Godliness

If you have a Bible, you can go and grab it and turn to the book of 1 Timothy. We're continuing to work our way through the book. In the last two weeks, we were able to see Paul's instructions for different church leaders or servants, people that either lead or facilitate ministry in the church. And now, he kind of summarizes some of these instructions in these last three verses of 1 Timothy 3.

So we're going to be looking at 1 Timothy 3:14-16. If you don't have a Bible, you can use a pew Bible in front of you. If you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to keep it. We'd love for you to have a copy of God's Word that you can own and read for yourself. So we'll be looking at 1 Timothy 3:14-16. And it says this:

I write these things to you, hoping to come to you soon. But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great:He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. — 1 Timothy 3:14-16 (CSB)

Lord, we know that the mystery of godliness is great because your Word says so. And yet we know that our darkened minds cannot see the light of the truth of your Word, unless your Spirit illuminates our hearts and our minds with your glory. So we ask even now this morning for supernatural strength to be able to see, not just hear, but see that the mystery of godliness is great. We pray, Lord, that you will help us to do that in Jesus' name. Amen.

Mysteries are back. There are movies after movies after movies coming out now about 'who done it'—Sleuth, Poirot. Even *Blue's Clues* continues its weekly grind as it shells out mystery after mystery. And human beings, we all love mystery. We love seeing secrets that entice our curiosities, then get unveiled in dramatic reveals. I wonder if you knew that the Bible also has a mystery, that it talks about a mystery that was hidden for ages, and in its unveiling is actually the secret to life itself?

Paul actually looks at this mystery, this unveiled truth, as the reason why you and I should care about all the stuff that we do as a church every single Sunday. That the normal, mundane, week-to-week, structural, biblical-type stuff that we do is actually important because of the eternal mystery of godliness itself. So we're going to try to unravel this mystery this morning. So here's the main idea: We are to magnify the mystery of godliness, the mystery. That's what Paul wants us to do.

And we're actually going to walk through this passage backwards. We're going to start with the mystery, what the mystery is. Then we'll see how that truth about the mystery impacts our understanding of the church, and then lastly, we'll see how that understanding then affects what we do—our conduct. So we'll look at the mystery, the church, and then the conduct.

The Great Mystery of Godliness

Let's start with point number one: the mystery, the mystery. Let's look again at verse 16.

And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great:He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. — 1 Timothy 3:16 (CSB)

Paul talks about this mystery, this obscurity regarding godliness. See, there aren't many things in life that are certain, but Paul states it in a certain way: “Absolutely, this mystery of godliness is great.” What comes to mind when you think about a mystery? You know, my mind goes to either *The Hardy Boys* or Agatha Christie or *Scooby-Doo*. And all these mystery stories follow a similar plot: There's an inciting incident that no one can explain, where there are secrets; it's unexplainable. And then there's a journey to uncover the truth. And then finally, at the end, there's a reveal and a resolution. It doesn't matter if you're reading Poirot or watching an episode of *Scooby-Doo*, all these mysteries follow a similar plot.

It's actually similar with Scripture as well; it follows a mystery's plot. The Bible begins with an overview of how God created the world, how He created humanity to steward and care for the earth. And instead of obeying the Lord, we as humanity rebelled against Him and sinned. And as a result, the world is fractured and broken, and humanity was condemned to die. But the mystery of the biblical story isn't about who's at fault or 'who done it.' There's no dramatic unveil where the bad guy blames the meddling kids. We know from the beginning who's at fault: it's Adam and Eve.

They tried to hide and cover themselves with fig leaves, but the all-knowing God can see right through whatever botanical barrier they put up. We're the ones who are guilty and have committed the crime. There's no game of hide-and-seek in the biblical story. The mystery of the Bible doesn't come from the problem; we all know that the problem is sin. The mystery of the Gospel doesn't come from knowing who's at fault; we know it's ourselves. The mystery of the Gospel comes from a promise, specifically in Genesis 3:15. When God condemns the serpent in Genesis 3:15, who deceived Eve, He says this:

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. — Genesis 3:15 (CSB)

See here, God gives a promise, or a seed, or a mystery. God promises that a seed will come, a child of the woman who will destroy the serpent, who will put an end to evil and an end to suffering. See, the mystery of the Gospel isn't from the problem or the people, but from this promise: a solution to sin. The question, the mystery of godliness, is how is God going to do this?

And this mystery isn't just something that theologians have debated about in recent years. It's front and center in the story of the entire Bible. Throughout the story of Scripture, you see example after example after example of people wondering how exactly God is going to fulfill this promise. In fact, in Exodus 34, when God reveals his name to Moses as Yahweh, God identifies himself this way. And just listen if you can see the paradox in what God says here in Exodus 34:6-9.

The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. — Exodus 34:6-7 (CSB)

And Moses immediately knelt low to the ground and worshiped. Then he said, “My Lord, if I have indeed found favor with you, my Lord, please go with us, even though this is a stiff-necked people. Forgive our iniquity and our sin and accept us as your own possession.” God reveals his personal name for the first time in human history to Moses. And as he does, he reveals himself as a merciful and loving God. And at the same time, he reveals himself as a just God who does not let the guilty go unpunished. And Moses' response is, “Have mercy on us. Have mercy on us. Forgive us our sin.”

And the question that comes up when you read a text like that is, how does that work? He forgives the guilty; he doesn't let the guilty get off the hook. He forgives the sinful; he will bring on the consequences on the sinful generation after generation after generation. This mystery, this paradox about how God would show mercy to guilty sinners, remains unanswered for generations. The mystery of godliness asks, how can God show grace to the godless? And so this inciting incident, this sin, leads to a journey throughout the Old Testament to discover how God would fulfill his promises. Until the reveal.

See, the mystery gets uncovered. That the mystery of godliness that Paul talks about here wasn't a plan. It wasn't a method for us to fix ourselves. It wasn't some hidden secret or some hidden city. It is a person. Jesus is the mystery of godliness that gets revealed. And it's Jesus who Paul uncovers as he hoists up Christ as the only solution, the person who is the mystery of godliness revealed to us.

Now, in order for any mystery reveal to be truly satisfying in any mystery story, it has to be unexpected. It has to be something that you didn't see coming and yet feels right at the same time. If you watch a mystery movie and you figure out who the murderer was in like the first 15 minutes, it's just a boring movie. You can check out; there's nothing enticing; it's not fun. It needs to be unexpected. And that's exactly what Paul plays on here. He plays up the shock of this mystery with a poem of paradoxes, contrasts, to highlight the level of unexpected absurdity of the arrival of Jesus.

And so I know most of us grew up in the church, and most of us have heard the Gospel growing up. You can probably hear the Gospel story over and over and over again until it just kind of fades into the background. I want us to just pay attention to what Paul is doing here. Just think about every aspect, every facet of Jesus, as he turns it from angle to angle, and just think about just how crazy of an idea this is, this unexpected absurdity of the arrival of Jesus.

First, in verse 16, it says that Jesus was manifested in the flesh. That the almighty, holy God took on flesh. That Jesus comes as the image of the invisible God. God is not visible. You cannot see Him until Jesus shows up. John 1:18 says that:

No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him. — John 1:18 (CSB)

Jesus is willing to stand up in John 14:9 in front of the crowd and say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” That the almighty, separate, holy, immaterial God takes on matter. He becomes a breathing, living, human being. That God, the Son, is divine in nature, adds on himself a human nature. Fully man, fully God, and dwelt among us. That He Himself would come and dwell among His people.

Second, he was vindicated in the Spirit. He was vindicated in the Spirit. The word for vindication, that word is the same root word for righteousness and for justice. The idea here is that Jesus was justified or made right in a legal sense by the Spirit. Now when we think about justification, the first thing that comes to mind is our own sin. We're standing before a holy judge, and there's no defense that we can give for our own sin. We deserve to be guilty and punished and go to hell forever.

And so when Jesus pays the penalty for our sin, his blood payment on our behalf, and he makes that court payment on our behalf, then that guilty sentence is cleared, or we are justified. We are declared righteous in the court's sight. But why would Jesus need to be justified? Why would Jesus need to be vindicated as this verse says here? It's not because Jesus was a sinner. We know that Jesus was sinless. He lived a perfectly sinless life that you and I could never live. If Jesus had just lived his life as a normal dude going around and died and stood before his Father in heaven, his just Judge would have no problem granting him entrance into everlasting life. So why does Jesus need to get vindicated by the Spirit?

Not because of who Jesus is, but because of what Jesus does for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that:

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5:21 (CSB)

See, Jesus wasn't justified because he was sinful. He was justified because he became sin for us. Jesus, sinless as a human being, dies as though he was sinful. He is condemned on our behalf on the cross. He bears the punishment of sin, the wrath of God, and he dies. The perfect justice of God was satisfied because his punishment was poured out on Jesus. The punishment that you and I deserved was poured out on him, and Jesus died as though he were guilty, as though he were sinful.

And so then how does Jesus get vindicated? How does he get justified? Well, Romans 1:4 says that:

and was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. — Romans 1:4 (CSB)

By the resurrection of the dead. That the way that the Spirit kind of lifts up Christ and vindicates him is through his resurrection. That if Jesus stayed dead, he would stay condemned. Okay, so think about this. If Jesus were on the cross, dying as though he was a sinner. God pours out his wrath on him and he dies and he stays dead, then that means that Jesus is perpetually paying the payment of sin every single day. That he continues to pay. He continues to experience the consequences of sin in his life. God, Jesus in that case, would be enduring the wrath of God for all eternity.

But you and I know that Jesus paid it all on the cross. He said, “It is finished.” That Jesus doesn't need to stay on the cross or continue to make payments for sin over and over again. This is a one-time payment that covers everything for all time, and the proof, the evidence of the vindication of this payment, the proof that this payment cleared, that the check could get cashed, so to speak, that the payment is complete, is in Christ rising from the dead. Jesus, in his godliness, completely paid for the punishment in such a way that you and I will never have to suffer a single drop of God's wrath. And this Holy Spirit in Jesus' resurrection declares him to be vindicated. You see, if the crucifixion is a payment for sin, then the resurrection is the payoff. It's God declaring to a world that the payment is complete. That Jesus is the complete payment for sin and he can rise in glory. He is vindicated in the Spirit.

Third, Jesus is seen by angels. Jesus is seen by angels. Whenever you see angels in the Bible, whether it's Gabriel or Michael or all these dudes, they're participants. They're doing things. They're sent by God to deliver messages to people. They're either praising the Lord or going down into the earth to communicate things to the followers of God. They are messengers of the Lord. They're the ones who are delivering these messages to God's people. And yet, when it comes to Christ, they're not the ones delivering the message or the ones that are receiving the message. They're not witnessing. They are witnesses.

That when it comes to the Gospel, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, the angels don't get to participate in salvation; they only get to watch from the stands. Peter tells us this in 1 Peter 1:12:

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—angels long to catch a glimpse of these things. — 1 Peter 1:12 (CSB)

The angels only get to see a little glimmer of the glories of the mystery of godliness that you and I have a front row seat to.

Fourth, Jesus is preached among the nations, the nations—the ethnic peoples of the world, the Gentiles. Those are pagan barbarians who do not worship the true God. They're now able to receive the truth of the Gospel. The veil is torn too. God's presence is readily available to all who hear it. And this is unlike any other point in human history. Every other part of human history, if you wanted to join the people of God, you had to join the nation of God. You had to join the nation of Israel. But now, it's not about you immigrating into Israel, it's about Jesus coming to you. That Jesus meets you wherever you are in the nations, whether you're in Papua New Guinea or Serbia or Russia or Ukraine or the United States or Canada, wherever you are, the message of Christ is now made available for you. It's a promise that you can receive.

Number five, Jesus is believed on in the world, in the world. Whenever you see that word "the world" in the Bible, it's never good. “Don't fall in love with the world, with the flesh.” And yet this earth that's been in perpetual rebellion against God, the world that we read in Scripture to be wary of, to not love the things of this world. But those in the darkest places of this world are now coming to trust in Christ. They are crossing the chasm from unbelief to faith in Christ, in the person of Jesus.

And last, they are taken up in glory. Jesus is taken up in glory. Last time humanity tried to ascend to heaven, the story of Babel, God results in confusing their languages and scattering them throughout the planet. And whenever humanity has reached for glory, the Lord has had a funny way of knocking them off their pedestal. Nebuchadnezzar looks at his great works, even the great statue that he built for himself and boasts to himself in the book of Daniel, only for God to replace his mind with the mind of an animal. He spends years out in the lawn just chewing grass for years before finally coming to his senses and praising the God of Israel.

We can also try to elevate ourselves in all sorts of ways. We can try to lift ourselves up with a reputation or a wealth or intellect. James 4:6 tells us clearly that:

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. — James 4:6 (CSB)

But Jesus, the God-man, doesn't pursue glory. We read that in our call to worship this morning that he humbled himself, taking on himself the form of a servant and dying on the cross. So instead of pursuing glory, he humbles himself, and the result is that he is taken up in glory. The humiliation in his death results in his ascension, his rightful place in the heavens.

Each description of Jesus here highlights the contrast between what we would normally expect about how life works and what Jesus himself does. Not only does each line highlight an inconceivable, seeming paradox, the poem itself also pairs. Do you notice that in the six lines? You have the flesh, you have the Spirit, you have the angels, you have the Gentile nations, you have the world, and you have glory. This whole poem is full of paradoxes. Paradox after paradox after paradox.

And all of this contrasting, all of these paradoxes between like the flesh and the Spirit, between the world and glory, seems unbelievable. The crazy news is that's true. It's completely true. Are there things in this life that may seem unbelievable to you? Here's one thing that we're all tempted to not believe, that may seem the craziest of all to us: The Gospel is actually for you. It's easy to think about the Gospel being true for maybe someone else. You hear some dramatic story about someone who gets saved from gang violence and then comes to know Jesus, and you're like, “Yes, sounds like Jesus would do that.” But what about yourself?

The good news of the Gospel Paul's highlighting here is that the mystery of this godliness is great. It is greater than any pagan god. It is greater than your sin. The mystery of godliness, Jesus Christ, is able to cross the greatest chasm of paradox to reach for you in your sinfulness and bring you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. It doesn't matter how much guilt you feel, how condemned you feel you are, no matter how deep in the sea of sin you may be, God's grace is able to reach for you and pull you into his loving arms because the mystery of godliness is great. That's the good news of the Gospel that we have. If you're not a Christian, you don't trust in this good news. That's good news that's available for you. You can turn from your sin and trust in Jesus. And you may say that is crazy, that doesn't make any sense that holy God would die for me. And the good news for you is that the mystery of godliness is greater than even your own suspicions or cynicism. Jesus died for you.

The Church: Pillar and Foundation of Truth

And it's because this mystery of godliness is so great that we need to care about the church, about the church, which brings me to point number two: the church. Read verse 15 again with me.

But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. — 1 Timothy 3:15 (CSB)

The church is the house of the living God. It's a temple in which God dwells. And Paul specifically identifies the church here as “the pillar and the foundation of the truth.” The pillar and the foundation. Now, some will take this to mean that the church carries some kind of authoritative role in dictating what the truth is. For example, historically Christian institutions like the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church will claim that the church (capital 'C') has the authority to make edicts on behalf of the kingdom of heaven because they are the pillar and the foundation of the truth. And there is a sense in which that is true for the church.

Every true Gospel church is an embassy of the kingdom of heaven. You know, embassies in the capital that are literally the land of a foreign nation, that act on behalf of the kingdom. Every true Gospel church is an embassy of the kingdom of heaven. We absolutely make declarations of the truth on behalf of Jesus Christ. Whenever I stand behind this pulpit, I open up God's Word and I try to preach God's Word, we are able to say, “This is the Word of the Lord.” And we mean that. Whenever our church makes pronouncements on someone's salvation through baptism or the Lord's Supper, or gives someone public affirmation of their faith through church membership, we believe as Jesus himself talks about in the church that “whatever we bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, whatever we loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.”

But here's a difference: When we speak what this text is talking about being the pillar and foundation of the truth, what we don't mean is that we can produce new declarations. In other words, we can't try to fill in the gaps on behalf of Jesus. We can't make some new development or new dogma and declare it and canonize it as though it is the Word of the Lord. The Catholic Church tries to make declarations in these councils that come out as a result of the Bible. They are not as authoritative as the Bible. The Bible is more authoritative. We cannot produce new declarations. We can only protect and pronounce what God has declared. In other words, the job of the church is not to say new things; it's to protect old things. We don't pass new laws; we can only protect what has already been said. We're an embassy; we're not Congress. We don't pass new laws; we protect the ones that are already there.

In other words, the reason why the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth isn't because we get to determine who Jesus is. We're the pillar and foundation of the truth because we preserve who Jesus is. We get to pronounce together as a church that what the Bible teaches is actually true. The moment that I start preaching out of step with what the Bible teaches, the moment that our church starts to accept truth that isn't foundational in the Scripture, then we are no longer the pillar and foundation of the truth because there is no truth that we possess. In other words, what determines the truth isn't the church. We support the truth by protecting and highlighting what the truth says. That makes sense. We're a megaphone; we're not the speaker.

The Gospel message of Jesus Christ is the diamond that we hold, that we value, then the church is like the prongs that hold the diamond in place. In other words, our job is to display the truth. We don't determine it. The church plays a pivotal role in the kingdom of God. Every single Sunday we are proclaiming eternal edicts from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We are taking this mystery of godliness and we are bursting it wide open for everyone to be able to see it. That means that we don't have the right to change the message. We can't twist it to whatever we want. If we did, our word would carry about as much authority as a mailman who rips open the mail and starts writing his own letters and replacing things.

It doesn't change anything. It's not authoritative. See, and the church, even the way that Paul views it here, is more than just a postal office. It's God's household. It's the family of God. The church is the people of God gathered around the Word of God for the glory of God. It's in this church that the mystery of godliness is revealed. It's part of who we are. You see, there's another part in Paul's letters where he talks about this mystery of Christ. In Ephesians 3, let me just read it for us. He says:

The mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have briefly written above. By reading this you are able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. This was not made known to people in other generations as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: The Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. — Ephesians 3:3-6 (CSB)

Quick pause. He says that this mystery was not made known before. So you may get jealous of Israel getting really cool experiences, like seeing a pillar of fire in the desert or watching the sea split or being able to conquer in Jesus' name. He's saying that this mystery is something that no one in the Old Testament got to see. What is this mystery? He says in the next sentence, he says this, the mystery of Christ: The Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body, and partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. That's his 'ta-da' moment, that the Gentiles, the nations, the people that did not believe in Jesus. They're totally apart from Israel are now members of the same body, partners in the promise in Christ, in the Gospel. That the mystery of Christ, this Gospel, is revealed not just in our words but in who we are.

We believe this, right? The church isn't a building, but it's a people that's gathered together, the people of God, Jews and Gentiles, people from every walk of life brought together in one body. This mystery of the Gospel is displayed through the church. Every single one of you is a member of this church, a faithfully attended. This gathering, this Sunday, is the dramatic reveal. This is the moment where you get to see God's glory displayed to a dark and dying world, the unfathomable result of Christ's grace. I think about anybody who knows you well should be able to hear this good news of the Gospel and see you sitting in these pews, representing an eternal kingdom of heaven, and be asking the same question: “How in the world are you here? What did you do to deserve this?” And that exactly, that difference between who you are and who Christ is displays the glory of God to a watching world. I mean, how amazing it is. All of us made it here.

Our Conduct Reflects the Gospel

It's because the church, the pillar and foundation of the truth, is made up of the people of God that our conduct as the family of God matters. It brings me to point number three: the conduct, the conduct. Paul is delayed in verse 14, verse 15. Paul's primary concern isn't just about the people's understanding, but their behavior. Look at what he says there again in verse 15.

But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. — 1 Timothy 3:15 (CSB)

What you do in the church matters because when you live in God's house, you live by God's rules. And every single thing that we do plays a part in displaying this mystery of Christ. So we find out how we are to live, how we display this mystery in the Bible. That's why every single instruction about how the church should operate in the Bible isn't just some random footnote or sometimes read, read instructions about how the church should operate. It sounds like reading a printer's instruction manual—just random instructions. Someone worked really hard on it, but it's of zero interest to you. The reason why these instructions matter, the reason why he takes the time to talk about what to look for in pastors, what to look for in deacons, how to pursue holiness and love your neighbor, how the church ought to be structured, why we should care about baptism and the Lord's Supper, the reason why we care about all of those things: we understand that the church as an institution is a reflection of how God is as our Father.

If you have a church that's disordered, then it's a reflection upon the Father of the house. It reflects poorly on Him. Disordered church reflects poorly on Christ. I mean, we could think of example after example after example in the world today of churches that are disordered like that. That don't follow God's commands. As a result, they make Jesus look bad. And so Paul is saying that our behavior should reflect our Savior. Christians don't just care about what gets done, we care about how it gets done. “They will know us by our love for one another.” Our conduct must reflect our confession of faith. Which means our week-to-week behavior, the way that we interact with one another, is a direct reflection of the Gospel.

If you don't love your neighbor, if you don't care for your brother and sister in Christ, if you think that's not your problem, but that's not your business to know how people are doing, if you think that you could walk through church week to week and just have a 'me and Jesus' type relationship, then you are disobeying 1 Timothy 3. This is a responsibility that all of us have in how we interact with one another. But more than that, it's not just about our conduct in terms of our day-to-day, it also applies to our conduct as an institution, how we work as a group, our structure of our church.

The big SAT theological word for that is ecclesiology—*ecclesia*, church, the study of the church, the doctrine of the church. We all talked about this the entire chapter of chapter 3, about ecclesiology, about qualifications for church leaders. His expectation is that if a church were to be out of step in this manner, then the church would do something about it. That the doctrine of the church would take action, the congregation would actually do something. In other words, our conduct applies to our construction or framework, the skeleton on which our church is built, how we make decisions, how you promote leaders, what we decide to confess is true, and the commitments we make to each other—all of that matters.

Conversations about church structure or polity or ecclesiology are not wasted conversations. It's not nerdy, obscure theotalk; it's actually essential to the church's work. Our doctrine of the church is not the same thing as our doctrine of salvation, but our doctrine of the church protects our doctrine of salvation. In other words, how we live as a church protects the Gospel, helps proclaim the Gospel. The doctrine of the church enables us to see people who are teaching false things about the true Gospel, be able to look with clarity and be able to discern that that's false and say it.

We proclaim what's true through the pulpit, through our statement of faith, through the truth that we confess to each other from God's Word, through the conversations that you have with one another. As you listen to God's Word, as you give God's Word to other people, you are able to rightly discern and recalibrate each other's hearts. The people discern and uphold and exalt what's true. The doctrine of the church enables us to be clear about what Christian living looks like. We do that through our church covenant and our weekly life together, that every church member's spiritual life is every church member's spiritual responsibility.

In other words, you talking to someone after service today has a direct connection through the Gospel that's going to save you for eternal life. It is that important. It is that essential that the way that you conduct yourself in the life of the church has a direct connection to the salvation that you have. The doctrine of the church enables us to properly address deception, whether it's through sin or false teaching. Anything that threatens to distort the mystery of godliness that is revealed to us, it allows us to have the mechanisms to be able to speak as a church and say that is a false Gospel.

Part of the reason why we practiced membership, I was talking with Alan last week about some horror stories in the church's past of little like hordes of people that would try to storm in and take over the church. Alan made it sound like you're standing at the door, guarding, preventing wolves from being able to come in and devour the sheep. I think that's absolutely right and good and true. We could have been a very different church if those people came in and just randomly decided to take over. The way that we protect what's true, the way that we protect our flock, is through the Gospel that we preach and the membership that we hold.

People can't just come in and automatically become members of this church. They have to profess what's true. We have to validate their confession of faith through the Gospel that they profess to the truth that we teach and believe. We expect people to hold the line. They actually be able to walk in step and that actually protects the Gospel. When you talk to people that claim to be Christian, like I do, and they say that they're a Christian, you usually have to ask four or five more questions before you figure out what they actually are. You don't need to ask that question here. If someone's a member of our church, we know exactly what kind of doctrine they're confessing. We know exactly the Gospel that they believe. That clarity of what the truth is, what the Gospel is that we believe, is precisely what makes the church potent.

People are able to know the Gospel that we preach because every single Sunday we say it. People know what our church members believe because every single week we believe it. We know the church covenant. We know the statement of faith, and as we do that, we guard the Gospel, and that responsibility doesn't ultimately fall on me. It falls on all of you. We have this job of guarding this Gospel by remembering Christ, by holding on to the mystery of godliness. Don't trust in the greatness of Artemis or the world or anything else. Trust in the greatness of the truthfulness of this mystery of Christ. And every Sunday as we gather together, as we confess the mystery of godliness, that the truth of godliness is great, that Jesus is glorious and worthy of our praise. Everything that we have, we are, and we do comes from Him. As we do that, we get to shine glory into the darkness of this world. That's our mission as a church. That's what we exist to do. We're here to say that Jesus is a great Savior who saves despicable sinners. There is no more for heaven to give. And now we have the privilege as a church of being able to give our all back to Him. Let's pray.

Lord, even as we think about your Word about this mystery of godliness, we know that Christ is great and that we are not. So we ask, Lord, that you would help us not to become more competent, independent people, but that you would increase our dependence on you. Help us to see your greatness and let that motivate us to be passionate about the things that really matter. I pray that you will help us to do that in Jesus' name. Amen.