-One of the most difficult things about the church is that it’s full of sinners. On top of that, if you were to find a church that was absolutely perfect, the moment you walked in the door you would corrupt the whole thing. 

-If you didn’t know, my dad was a pastor, which means I literally grew up in the church! And some of my biggest wounds from growing up were connected to church. I remember a moment where a couple other guys and I learned the word “pathetic,” so we took turns making ridiculous faces and calling each other pathetic until it got to 1 of the guys (the last one). As soon as we said he looked pathetic he started crying and ran to his mom (we were in middle school, so it was weird), his mom immediately came running over to us and started chewing us out, and the other friend and I made this face.

-Today’s text gives us a few descriptions of the church that are supposed to understand how we should live and function in the church.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

1. The Pillar and Foundation (14-16)

-We start with the verse that explains the story behind Paul writing this letter! This is supposed to be the warm-up song for Paul, he’s planning to visit Timothy and the church in Ephesus, but in preparation for that visit he’s sent this letter, covering how the church should organize themselves, and how the people in the church should live.

-So how should people conduct themselves in God’s household? Let’s think through some of the issues people may have that would make them start to question whether or not we should even engage the church:

-Church hurt: what do you do after someone that you trusted in the church hurts you, or even worse if someone in the leadership of a church hurts you? Friends, there have been FAR too many stories of abuse of power in the church over the last decade. And then throw in that at times people in churches can feel like they’re even more mean than people who aren’t! That’s a real issue! And at the same time, let me caution labeling things as “church hurt” because often it’s A church that hurts you, not the whole church.

-Disillusionment: what about someone who grew up in the church, seemed to bear fruit in their lives, but ends up just drifting away over time? Someone who is glad that church “works” for you, but they found it lacking. Once again, how many churches has this person tried?

-Betrayal: this connects to church hurt, but because there’s a different level of relationship that you go to with another Christian, betrayal in the church cuts even deeper than outside the church because it’s people that you think would know better than to be mean, right? One of my favorite verses from Paul gets to this idea in Phil. 4:2, and I’ve been saving this passage for today! Remember that Philippians was written to an entire church, and was read out loud to the church (just like we do each week). That means Euodia and Syntyche were sitting out in the pews when this was read! The whole church knew what was going on, can you imagine how awkward that would have been? And notice that these are Christians, he says they’ve contended for the gospel together, but something’s going on where they can’t get along. Friends, dysfunction in the church is the norm. It’s a bunch of sinful people who realize they need a Savior who gather together every week. You’re going to get hurt and betrayed. 

-On the other side, some people turn the church into a social club: nothing more than likeminded people gathering together without any need for the Bible. Far too many churches don’t realize that they stopped actually being a church decades ago and have just become gathering without any transformation taking place where there’s a refusal to change or grow to try reaching a new era. Like one of the things that’s been shocking to me is how many pastors I talk to who don’t keep reading after seminary!

-I would argue that all of these issues connect back to what we read previously in this chapter – if we take seriously the character of our leaders, it protects the church from a host of issues. If we actually take the Bible seriously and view it as the ultimate authority in our lives and in our practices, it will protect us from a world of hurt! The other piece that connects to this as being incredibly important is meaningful membership! Membership is the means by which our church remains accountable, it’s the way we commit to love each other, and the means God uses to continue passing down the faith to new generations, at least in our congregational polity (if you don’t know what that is, come to the new class Micah and I are teaching starting Nov. 9).

-Paul uses multiple phrases or words to describe the church in this section. What comes to mind when you hear the word “church”? Building, people, outdated, boring, judgmental. Paul doesn’t use any of those words, he starts by referring to the church as God’s:

-Household. This is a word I think we need to recover today! We often think of this as a nuclear family that drives into their house, closes the garage door, and doesn’t acknowledge anyone else around them. But that’s not only what it meant in the 1^st century. 

-A household was a willing association of people pursuing the common goal of the flourishing of each other. It included multiple generations living under 1 roof, some people who weren’t even biologically related, and all worked together for the household the function. You could also think of this as a small family business. And just like a household has various roles (father, mother, children), the church has various roles to be filled! But I think it gets to something that we’ve missed in our culture: we’re supposed to be so involved in each other’s lives, that it’s like we live in the same house. Is there anyone that would know you that well? Go back and listen to my first sermon on this book for some ideas about what that means! 

-But Paul goes on, not only is it a household, it’s also: church of the living God

-The word for church refers to a meeting/assembly, the regular gathering of God’s people. It also is a compound word that means the called-out ones. But there’s more: it’s the gathering, the called-out people of the living God.

-This is intentionally contrasting the buildings of the dead gods (like Artemis in Ephesus!), hold on that thought!

-The last description of the church is: pillar and foundation of the truth. This may have been referring to one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world that was in Ephesus: the temple to Artemis. This is a replication of it, but in the original, those pillars were each about 60 ft. high, and the temple was about as big as a soccer field. And this ancient wonder has nothing on the wonder of the church!

-Pillar: lifts high the truth, foundation: supports the truth. And this should cause you to ask the question: what about the Bible? Isn’t the Bible our pillar and foundation of the truth?

-I love the way John Stott summarizes it. The ultimate source of truth is the Bible! But friends, the church is supposed to be the place where truth is both modeled and proclaimed! In Titus, Paul actually says we’re supposed to adorn the teaching of gospel with our good works. So the way we live is supposed to show the world truth.

-What is that truth that we’re supposed to proclaim? A specific confession, that Heb. 4:14 tells us is centered on Jesus. But what’s interesting is it doesn’t say to hold onto Jesus, it says to hold fast to our confession.

-Gospel message- a subversive fulfilment of all the stories of the world. We are supernatural creatures, we have a desire to find and define our place in the world, but all those stories are just a story, unless they connect to the 1 true story. Paul seems to continue his contrast with the cult dedicated to Artemis in Ephesus, but unlike that cult, Jesus is the true one who’s great. He subverts their cult by calling a mystery great, but then fulfills their desires for the worship of a god by pointing them to Jesus.

-Lots of debate around these 6 lines. It’s clear they’re intentionally connected, the question is how and why are they connected?

-Some say 3 pairs of 2, others say 2 pairs of 3, others say it’s correspondence. What makes most sense to me is the pairs of 2 and the correspondence, comparing Christ’s earthly work to the spiritual realities of that work. So he was manifested earthly, taken up spiritually, vindicated, just like the world believes spiritually, angels spiritually see and that message is sent to the world.

-Everyone agrees that this was a liturgical element used by the early church to confess truths about Jesus. Friends, the church has been using phrases like this forever to help believers confess and remember truths about who Jesus is. That’s why we recite a confession together after communion, that’s why we will use things like catechisms or creeds, because that’s how the church has held on to the truth through the centuries.

-And remember that Paul has just compared the spiritual realities of what Jesus did with the earthly realities, now he goes on to talk more about the spiritual realities:

• The Spirit vs. the spirits (4:1-3)

-Not all spiritual activity is good! There’s a difference between the Spirit of God and the deceitful, lying spirits. There’s been an increase in interest in spiritual things over the past few years (mostly because the belief in naturalism (that this world is all there is) has just fallen flat for so many people, one of the best questions you can ask people who are trying to live for themselves is: how is that working for you?) A fascinating book that traces this thinking is ‘Strange Rites’, which early in the book says is the story “of how more and more Americans…envision themselves as creators of their own bespoke religions, mixing and matching spiritual and aesthetic and experiential and philosophical traditions”

-“Later times” starts now. The church has been in “the last days” since Jesus ascended into heaven 2,000 years ago. The best way to think about the time period we live in is the already and the not yet. Christ has already come and defeated Satan, sin, and death, but we do not yet see the full implications of that reality. We will someday!

-We can get the appearance that everything is going smoothly at this church from reading this letter. They’ve got their church leadership figured out, they were planted by Paul, but this section reminds us that the church has always had conflict and tension! Because we still deal with the realities of sin.

-Depart from the faith: what do you do when people abandon the faith they once believed in and proclaimed? This text should comfort us! People will leave their faith. I think of pastors that I looked up to when I was growing up, or friends that I had who no longer follow after Jesus, and it breaks my heart! But I know that’s reality, and I know we’re at war: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

-Deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons: just because someone claims to be speaking on behalf of God doesn’t mean they are! 

-This is why it’s so important to be saturated in God’s Word. I’ve talked to a number of people who have asked me questions about something they read/heard that just felt off, and they were able to tell because they’ve spent enough time in the Word! 

-Hypocrisy of liars is someone who isn’t following the truth, someone who knows the right thing to do but refuses to do it. He also says their consciences are seared, they can no longer feel that what they’re doing is wrong, they just go along with the flow.

-Paul talks about this in more detail in Rom. 1. Notice how he describes their connection to the truth: suppress it! How does that align with Paul’s description of the church? Remember last week I shared the example Edwards gave on the conscience being like a sundial, it only works when it’s used under the correct light. If we aren’t holding fast to the truth, if we’re just chasing after our own desires our lives will be completely out of whack.

-I just read a Recent study this week that traced the decline of college students claiming to be transgender, which peaked at about 7% in 2023 and has dropped almost in half since then. How much of this is because of a denial of the truth, of continually pushing against what God has revealed? So instead of having consciences continually aligned the Truth, people continue chasing whatever high they’re feeling in the moment. And not just with gender, you could say the same thing about food, or possessions, or money, or experiences, if it’s not something that’s done with thanksgiving to God, it will sear our conscience.

-But in contrast to suppressing the truth, or having a seared conscience, what about when people go too far the other way and add to what God has demanded? That was another issue Timothy faced! Forbidding marriage and demanding that others abstain from food.

-And I’ll be honest, this way of living is tempting! It’s easier to add more boundaries to protect us from even getting close to crossing the line. But that becomes a problem when we demand others live the same way we do. When I grew up, Christians weren’t supposed to celebrate Halloween. So we (and most of my friends) literally hid in our house! We’d shut lights off, hide in the basement, close all the blinds, and then if anyone knocked we’d just wait for them to realize we weren’t coming. What a missed opportunity! Instead, we as Christians have nothing to fear because we have Christ living in us, we should look for ways that we can redeem what the world offers us, shining as lights in the darkness. 

-What legalism does is try to deal with all the externals without addressing the real issue: sin inside. There was an article that was written shortly after the news came out about Josh Duggar molesting multiple girls (and since then it’s gotten even worse and he’s now in prison). And think about what the Duggars projected: no tv, no dating without chaperones, modesty at all times. But what gets missed in this is sin isn’t something out there, sin isn’t something you can hide away from like my family grew up hiding in the basement during Halloween, sin is something in here, something that we need to be delivered from! And I get the impulse to want to protect! I have 5 children that are various stages of development, we try hard to make sure they don’t see or hear things they shouldn’t, but you know what: they’re all sinners! They are going to do terrible things, which is why we need to continue pointing them to Jesus.

Which is where Paul goes next:

• Thanksgiving (4:4-5)

-Everything created by God is good. What did God create? Everything – except sin. Sin cannot be redeemed. But the things God has given to us (food, drink, friends, even resources and possessions) are given as gifts to be enjoyed.

-This helps us avoid both the excess of something and the avoidance of something. I heard a retired pastor preach at a church I was at onetime, and he referenced a movie, and then apologized because he said he knew he wasn’t supposed to watch movies. 

-Believe it or not, God isn’t a killjoy who wants us walking around with frowns and grumpy all the time, never having any fun. He wants good for us, and He’s given us the world to enjoy! Like have you ever just sat and watched a sunset? It’s gorgeous, and it’s gorgeous because God likes beautiful things! Have you ever eaten a delicious meal? God didn’t need to make food taste good, we could have gotten our nutrition from the sun like a plant, but God gave us taste buds and a world full of food for us to enjoy, to receive it with thanksgiving.

-All these gifts are for our good, and I would argue that this means nothing is outside of the realm of redemption for Christians, assuming it’s not inherently sinful. This verse says things are sanctified, that means they’re made holy, through the Word and prayer. We’ve talked about food and movies, but we could extend that to something like yoga (stretching), reading Harry Potter, politics, school choices, marriage.

-What makes Christians unique is that we’re able to enjoy all these gifts without worshipping them, that is they don’t control us. Similarly, in the church we understand that people are going to have different boundaries or areas where they’ve been convicted of something that maybe we haven’t, things that are in the Christian liberty area. For example: alcohol. Is it a sin to drink alcohol? No, not by itself. But if you’re prone to addiction or you can’t drink in moderation, then don’t drink! And your church family should be able to help you with that. Or what about money? Believe it or not, we don’t all make the same amount of money! Not only that, but I’m also guessing that we don’t spend our money the same way! Like I know people who place a high priority on buying organic food. Meanwhile, we shop at Aldi and only get organic if it’s the only option! But we do drop some good money on coffee! That’s something that’s important for us, and as Paul says here, God says it’s good, and it’s made holy by the word of God and prayer! So drink more coffee!

-Friends, let’s hold fast the truths of the gospel! The truth of what Jesus did in our lives, because that will protect us from chasing after the wrong spirits and help us to receive all of God’s gifts as good, and even better this gives us an outline of what we can pursue together! We don’t have to be afraid of the world, we instead receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving, and even though we’re all very different people, we can live together in one church sacrificially loving and caring for others who may not act exactly like us. Friends, welcome to the church! When you’re sinned against, be quick to forgive. And when you sin against someone else, be even quicker to apologize! It takes all of us dying to our preferences to allow us to live as the church.