A Pillar and Buttress of the Truth

The church is the weekly place of blessing, the weekly place of encouragement, the weekly place of comfort, the weekly place of fellowship, the weekly place of upbuilding. It's intended to be a blessing from the Lord. And when the Lord establishes a blessing, who are we to say it's not necessary for me? Do we need to go to church? Is it even necessary anymore?

Relevant? These are questions that are increasingly being asked, especially after many churches moved to streaming their services online. But as we are being challenged to stand firm this week on Renewing Your Mind, we must stand firm for the necessity of the church. Recorded at Ligonier's 2023 National Conference, a gathering of thousands of Christians over three days, Ligonier's chairman, W. Robert Godfrey, looked to Paul's words, who described the Church of the Living God as a pillar and a buttress of truth. But before we get to today's message, remember that this week only, you can request R.C. Sproul's hardcover book, Truths We Confess, your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org.

In this volume, Dr. Sproul outlines the truths of the historic Christian faith, the truths upon which you and I are to stand firm. Well, here's Dr. Godfrey from this year's National Conference. I was thinking about my dear wife. She's at home in California recovering from knee replacement surgery. She had hoped to be here with you.

She's recovering marvelously, but a six-hour plane ride with her leg down didn't sound so very attractive. And as I was approaching the subject of the church, I thought of how she has had to live her life sort of surrounded by ministers. Her husband's a minister.

Her two sons are ministers. Many of our friends are ministers. And you'll be surprised to learn this if you're not a minister that ministers, when they get together, talk about the church, and not always in glowing terms. Since most of us can't pastor at Briarwood, our churches have flaws and struggles, and apparently we're willing to admit sinners into membership. And so the talk about the church amongst ministers can somewhat get discouraging at times. And I have heard my wife observe about the church more than once, couldn't if God have found a better way. Now, she says that with a twinkle in her eye because she's a good Calvinist and knows that God's ways are always better than our ways, and that if this is the way God has chosen, it's the good way.

But we can be honest just a minute, can't we? The churches have problems. The churches can disappoint.

It's easy to make a list, isn't it, of what's wrong with churches. And we may need then a lecture, an address, a semi-sermon on the importance of the church for standing firm. God does not want us to be alone. He made that point in creation, it is not good that man should be alone, and He makes that point in re-creation. It is not good for us to be alone. It is not right for us to be alone. It is not God's plan for us to be alone. What did Jesus say?

We've heard it already in this conference several times. I will build my… right, not I will build a boat for you to be in the middle of a lake by yourself reading your Bible. I will build my church. And the language of Paul in Ephesians is almost extravagant, isn't it? The church, Christ's body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Wow! That's the greatness of the church. And then in Ephesians, Paul talks about the purpose of the church, that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the world. God has a purpose for the church. He has an intention for the church. He's going places with the church.

And He wants us to understand, first of all, what I think we need to call the necessity of the church. Let me read the verses assigned to me by top people in the Ligonier organization. I've tried as chairman of the board to find out who those top people are.

Ligonier is much better than the State Department in the secrets it can keep. So if I ever find out, I'll tell you. But top people have assigned to me 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 through 16. 1 Timothy 3, 14 through 16, God's own Word. I hope to come to you soon, Paul writes to Timothy.

But I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh. He was vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels. He's proclaimed to the nations. He's believed in the world.

He's taken up to glory. If I delay, that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. I don't think that's the best translation because of the current way in which we use the word ought.

Children ought to behave. That seems often to be a suggestion little realized. And so is Paul just making helpful suggestions to Timothy? If you've got nothing else to do in the church, Timothy, think about doing these things. Make these suggestions to folks in the church. I have tips for you, Paul's tips for slowly improving the church. No, it's really not what Paul is saying at all. He's really saying, if I delay, that you may know how one must behave, how it is necessary to behave in the church of God.

When Paul comes with his apostolic prescriptions, he is insistent on them. These are not options. These are not suggestions. This is not pious advice. This is the way it is necessary for us to behave, and so our ears should perk up. We should be eager and attentive for the apostolic witness as to how church life, church reality, church thinking ought to exist among us. And so the first point he's making here is church is necessary. If this is how we must behave in the church, then we must be in the church. And so that brings us all immediately to think about Cyprian, doesn't it?

Come on. Cyprian, that great leader, teacher, theologian, martyr, preacher of the ancient church in the middle of the third century, Cyprian in the North African city of Carthage, who declared famously, he who will not have the church as his mother will not have God as his father. He who will not have the church as his mother will not have God as his father.

Even more famously, he said, outside the church there is no salvation. Hmm. Hmm. What do you think about that? Now, Cyprian is no Paul. I know Paul, and Cyprian was no Paul. But, Cyprian was a very wise man. And this is a phrase that resonates and challenges, doesn't it?

We need to pause and think about that. Is it true there is no salvation outside the church? Well, it's interesting, at least to me as a historian, that the Westminster of Confession of Faith knows about Cyprian and refers to Cyprian in chapter 25. It says, the visible church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is ordinarily no possibility of salvation. Now, the wise fathers at Westminster said, we should add this word ordinarily because there are times when people are absolutely prevented from being in the church, if they're too ill to go, if they're on a desert island, but ordinarily.

And that means pretty much for all of you here, you look pretty ordinary to me. Ordinarily, you have to be in the church to experience salvation. The Belgic Confession, even better, says, thank you, those of you who laughed, Article 28, we believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved, and there is no salvation apart from it, no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, regardless of his status or condition, but all people are obliged to join and unite with it. Now, they said this so strongly in the tones of Cyprian because there were some nobility who thought, church is very good for common people, but not necessary for me.

And the Reformed were always good to say, what's good for the common folk is good for the nobility. But even more they make this point because there were people who said, if I go to church, I'm opening myself up to persecution, to possible arrest, to martyrdom. And this Confession is saying, even then you have to go to church because it's the gathering of God's people, and it's where the means of grace are ministered to build us up in the faith, to keep us connected to Christ, to encourage us, and to strengthen us. So, the necessity of the church is a strong point for the Bible and for our theology, and in some ways equally important for our well-being. God establishes things as necessary to help us.

He doesn't do them just to make us suffer. The church is not the weekly place of suffering, or it shouldn't be. The church is the weekly place of blessing, the weekly place of encouragement, the weekly place of comfort, the weekly place of fellowship, the weekly place of upbuilding. Now, it may also be the weekly place of challenge.

It may also be the weekly place of a measure of confrontation. But it's intended to be a blessing from the Lord. And when the Lord establishes a blessing, who are we to say it's not necessary for me? There's a wonderful phrase in the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 98. It's a question dealing with idolatry, but the great phrase that I find so memorable and can be applied so many other places than just in relation to idolatry is where the Heidelberg Catechism says, we must not be wiser than God.

Isn't that a great phrase? How often we should think that. If God has said something, we shouldn't be wiser than what He has said. We shouldn't try to outthink Him.

That's not a path to success. When God has told us something, we should say, you are wise, Lord. We accept your revelation. We accept your truth.

We accept your institution. We accept the blessing that you have promised for us in that institution, the necessity of the church. That's the first point I think Paul makes here. And then he goes on to talk to Timothy about the nature of the church. Now, he doesn't say everything about the nature of the church here, but he uses three phrases that get at three important aspects of the life of the church.

You notice what he says here. First of all, the church is the household of God. Secondly, the church is the church of the living God. And thirdly, it is a pillar and buttress of the truth. And so, I want to think with you a little bit about those three pictures or those three images of the church.

And as we think about these things together, I'd ask you to do two things as we go along. Think, is this what the church means to you in your own heart and experience? Is this what you expect of the church? Is this how you understand the church? And then ask yourself, is this the character of the church to which I go? Is this the character of the church to which I go? You may have to do some improving of you, or you may have to go home and make some suggestions of improvement at your church in the nicest sort of way. Well, let's think about these things. First of all, Paul is saying the church is a household.

What does that mean? Well, probably the way we would more frequently translate it into our world and our experience is to say the church is a family. The church is a family. Is that your experience of the church? Do you think about the church? Do you experience the church as a family? Now, what are characteristics of family?

Families are people who are bound together and who care for one another, who provide for one another, who love one another. Is that what the church is for us in our experience? I had a friend who had been in the church for a number of years and was sick and at home for a couple of months.

No one from the church noticed she wasn't there. Is that the way a family ought to be? Now, we all know churches make mistakes, but is there a life of caring? Is there a life of knowing? Is there a life of connection? Is there a life of providing? One of the wonderful things in our church, and like most wonderful things, it's not always done wonderfully, but one of the wonderful things in our church is that deacons are supposed to visit widows once a month to see how things are going.

That's a lovely thing, isn't it? To be sure that potentially the weakest and neediest among us are being cared for, being remembered. What are the ways in which the life of a family are being manifested among us? Now, a family has a structure, doesn't it?

Mothers, fathers, children. churches have structures, pastors, elders, deacons, members, and in that structure we all have responsibilities. Family members all have responsibilities. Church members all have responsibilities.

And part of that is to care for one another, to know one another, to provide for one another. Abraham Kuyper I thought very helpfully said the church is both an institution and an organism. It has a formal structure of the institution, but it also has a living reality of connectedness amongst all the members of Christ. We are a body and a family and a connectedness. And in a world of such alienation, in a culture with so much family breakdown, how important it is that the church be a family and therefore provide a place particularly for people who may not have much connection to earthly families, but confined in the family of God a place of love and care and connection. We have to be the family of God, the household of God. We also have to be, secondly, he says, the church of the living God, and he uses that Greek word ekklesia, which I think in this context speaks particularly of the idea of gathering. I thought Dr. Reeder was going to take my whole message in his wonderful emphasis on the importance of gathering. If at all humanly possible, you can't stay home and watch it on a screen.

Of course, here we sort of ask you to come and gather and then watch it on a screen. Putting that aside, how important it is to gather and particularly to gather to worship? I think it's very purposeful that Paul says the church of the living God, we gather to meet with the living God. I think that may be one of the hardest things to help Reformed people keep clearly in their minds as they worship, that they are not just sitting there looking at the speaker. They are not just there looking at the pastor, but they are there meeting with the living God, that God comes to us and He speaks to us in the reading of the Scripture, in the sacraments of the church, in the sermon, and we speak to Him. That's why we pray.

That's why we sing. We're speaking to Him. And that gathering is a crucial part of the church that God has established. And then thirdly, Paul talks here about the church as a pillar and buttress of the truth. Some of our Roman Catholic friends have tried to say, well, this should really read a pillar and foundation of the truth. You see, the truth rests on the church. The church is prior and the truth is secondary. There was a church before there was a New Testament. First glance, it's maybe a decent apologetic argument.

It doesn't hold up. In the first place, this word doesn't really mean foundation here. But much more importantly, wherever the church exists, it exists because of the priority of the Word. It exists because of the Word made flesh. It exists because of the Word that has been preached and only then because of the Word that is written. But it's the Word that creates the church, not the church that creates the Word. Now were we clapping for the Word or for Rome or for… it's okay, it's okay. The church is the place where the truth is supported.

That's what this image says. The church is the place where the truth is supported, the pillar and buttress, the pillar and help of the truth. The church is the place where the truth is taught and learned. So it's important the church be a family. It's important that the church be a gathering. But it's also important that the church be the place of truth, where truth is growing. This is part of, I think, the reason for the Lord's wisdom saying we should gather one day in seven because we live in a world where we're surrounded by lies, aren't we?

Lies, lies, lies coming to us all the time. And we need a place where we can go and say, here's the place of truth, here's the place of love, here's the place of worship, and here's the place of truth where the real message of God can be communicated. Paul in 1 Timothy talks a great deal about teaching and doctrine and truth and about the dangers of errors and deception and lies. It's clear that for Paul is that truth is an absolutely necessary constituent part of what the church is.

And that's why we always have to ask is, is my church building me up in the truth? That's what Paul says is necessary for us as Christians. It's necessary for Timothy's work as a preacher. And so in 1 Timothy, the focus of the letter is on ministerial responsibility. But I've sometimes called 1 Timothy 2 Ephesians because Timothy is the minister to whom Paul is writing in Ephesus. And so to sort of balance 1 Timothy, we can also turn to Ephesians to see what Paul writes to all of the Christians in the Ephesian church.

And he says to all of the Christians in the Ephesian church, put on the full armor of God. It's not enough for the minister to be faithful. The people have to be faithful. It's not enough for the minister to preach.

The people have to listen. Calvin famously defined the church as the place where the gospel is preached and heard. You can have a preaching station, but it's not a church. In a preaching station, the gospel can be preached, but it may not be heard. That brings me, of course, to Amy Semple McPherson.

Thank you. Sister Amy used to take a chair out on a street corner, and she would stand up on the chair, and she would close her eyes and raise her hands to heaven and pray. And she said, without fail, when she opened her eyes, there'd be people standing around.

And she'd preach. It wasn't the church. It was creative, and I think there were people converted, but it wasn't the church. The church is where the truth is taught and heard. And just as the ministers must faithfully teach it, the congregation must faithfully hear it and embrace it and receive it. The church must be founded on the truth. And just as these three images that Paul presents help us to see what the church is, we can see by some reflection, I think, how churches are tempted to depart from what the apostle is picturing for us in these words. What happens to a church that ceases to be a family? You know, there are false churches.

I don't want to shock you. As you drive through Orlando or you drive through your hometown, you're going to see various buildings with the word church out in front. They're not all churches. They're not all churches the way the apostle is describing churches. It is possible for churches to become false churches where the gospel is not preached at all.

It's also for churches to be corrupted in various ways. What happens when a church ceases to be a family? Well, I think as I look at things as a historian, when they're not faithful as families, they can very easily become clubs. Now a club can be a nice thing. A club can have some of the comforts of a family. A club can feel comfortable and familiar, maybe even welcoming, but a club is a drop-in, drop-out association. I can take it or leave it. I can go or stay away.

I don't have much responsibility. Better churches have become like that because people don't see them as a family where there's a connection that must constantly be renewed and affirmed and experienced. And clubs like that become very ingrown. This is a place where I go to meet people like me because that's where I feel comfortable with people like me. I probably shouldn't feel comfortable with people like me, but maybe you know what I mean. Is your church a club?

Is it ingrown? Is it full of people who don't have much commitment but feel somewhat comfortable with one another? Clubs are just individuals that come together and then depart.

These are individuals who are stuck with one another. What happens to gatherings for worship if they become corrupted? If families can become clubs, then gatherings can become theaters. Now Calvinists have a long history of being opposed to the theater, maybe more opposed than we should have been, but we could debate that another time. But churches must never become theaters.

What are theaters? They are places where we come as individuals, are entertained, or have emotional experiences of one sort or another, and feel that we've been part of a crowd, but go home just as much an individual as when we arrived. We may sit in seats and go, wow, was that ever great. But as Aristotle would have said, we've just had some kind of emotional catharsis. We haven't met the living God. We haven't worshiped. We haven't gathered to focus on God. We've gathered to focus on me. Well, you haven't focused on me.

I've focused on me, and you've focused on you. One of the besetting sins of our age, I think, is turning church into theater and thinking we still have a church. This is where we have to ask, is the reading of the Word of God important in our gathering, or do we find that kind of boring, not entertaining? Is prayer an important part of our gathering, or have we concluded that's kind of boring? Do we choose our church because of its music?

See I'm almost done so I can be really obnoxious. Or do we choose our music because of our God? I'm not saying that solves every issue.

I'm not saying that at all. I am discouraged to hear certain people say, that church has great preaching. I would love to hear that preaching, but the music just isn't to my taste. Have we made the church a theater? Then thirdly, the church which is to be the pillar and buttress of the truth, that's almost the image of a schoolhouse, isn't it? We don't want to turn the church simply into a schoolhouse, but a place where truth is central where teaching and learning take place has at least some similarities to schools. But that dimension of the church can be corrupted into becoming a temple where literal pillars and literal buttresses evoke a feeling of reverence that convinces people they've had a spiritual experience. Some years ago I was reading Robert Dabney, we're not allowed to quote Robert Dabney anymore.

He's been canceled. And Robert Dabney was a sinner unlike the other authors that we read. But this thing that Robert Dabney said is profoundly true. He said, many, many souls are in hell today because they could not distinguish animal feelings from genuine spiritual religious feelings. If you go into a beautiful church building with stained glass windows and you hear beautiful music and you have a deep reverence settle on your soul, you may be in a church, but you may be in a temple, which is not a church at all. If the feeling of reverence that satisfies your soul is derived from the robes worn by the clergy and the color of the stained glass window, you're probably in a temple and not in a church, or at least your heart is looking for a temple and not for a church. And we have to ask ourselves, are we listening to the apostle? Are we pursuing those necessary things that make up the real church of our Lord Jesus Christ, that place where we gather in love with the family, that place where we gather in faith to worship with the people, that place where we long to be instructed and be growing in the truth? Is that what we're looking for? Is that what we're longing for? Is that what we're pursuing? Is that what we'll be restless for until we find it? Now, not every place in America has a perfect church.

Are you ready? Not every place in America has had Dutch settlers, okay, okay. Sometimes we do have to find the best we can find in the area where we live. But are we committed that we need to be part of a real church somewhere? And are we committed to finding the best church that most honors Christ that we can? I'm fascinated by the way Paul summarizes the faith, summarizes the truth, summarizes what he calls godliness here in 1 Timothy 3. The word translated godliness is a little tricky to translate. It's godliness that initially sounds just like piety, perhaps, but it's deeper than that.

It's genuine religion, and that includes piety, but it also includes truth. And how does Paul summarize that godliness, that genuine religion, that pious truth for us? Many commentators think he's quoting a poem here that was used in the church, maybe a confession that was used in churches. Some commentators get carried away and think it might have been a hymn. But since Paul was a psalm singer, okay, I'm just seeing if you're still paying attention. But look at this poem, this confession. I must confess I'd read it many, many times before preparing for this message, and it never grabbed me.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and poetry is grabbing me more. But this time through, I realized how really wonderful this is. He was manifested in the flesh. This is about Jesus, of course, it's about our Savior, and it's giving expression in profound ways to who He is and what He's done and what it means for us. He was manifested in the flesh. He was incarnate. He was vindicated by the Spirit. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness to be tempted, but the Spirit had already filled him at his baptism, and the Spirit supported him every step of His way. He was seen by angels. I think that's referring particularly to the resurrection. Who first saw Him at the resurrection?

The angels. Here's godliness. Here's true religion.

Here's piety focusing on Jesus, manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, and then proclaimed to the nations. The truth has to be carried out. The truth has to be made known, and He was believed on in the world.

Isn't that glorious? Not only did He do all the saving work. Not only was He preached far and wide, but He was believed on.

What an encouragement. What a glorious, true religion this is. And it's only in light of His saving work joined to preaching and to faith that He's taken up to glory.

Now, they could have said He was taken up to glory right after He was seen by angels, right? But this wise confession hesitates to say that because it wants us to know that the glorification of our Christ is indeed primarily in His work, but also in His being preached and in His being believed. I love it when Paul writes in the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians that Christ will return to be glorified in His saints.

Isn't that shocking? We are going to glorify Him. Doesn't He return to glorify us? Well, both things of course, but a constitutive part of the glory of Christ is that He has a church.

His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Do you want to stand firm for Christ? You don't have to answer.

It's a rhetorical question. Do you want to stand firm for Christ? You must stand firm in the church.

You can't do it alone. You must stand firm in the church, which is the family of God, the gathering of God, the school of God, so that we'll experience all of that blessedness of drawing ever closer to Christ and being part of His glory. Let's pray together. O Lord, how amazed we are that You are so concerned for us that You have given us Your own dear Son to be our Savior, and You have called us to be His body in the church.

We can't fully fathom what that means in all its profundity. But we hear Your call, and we pray help us to be faithful parts of the church. Help our churches to be faithful. Bless our ministers and elders and deacons that they may carry out faithfully the work that Christ has given them. And bless all of us as members of Christ's church that we would be faithful, loving in the family, believing in the gathering, and learning in the teaching that Christ might indeed be glorified in us, and that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known in the world. Hear us and help us beyond all that we can even begin to ask, O Lord, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen. What an important reminder, especially today, that if we are to stand firm for Christ, we must stand firm in the church.

We can't do it alone. That was Ligonier's chairman, W. Robert Godfrey, speaking at this year's national conference. What does the church believe? What is the Christian faith? The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most comprehensive answers to those questions.

And today we'll send you R.C. Sproul's commentary on that confession for your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. This volume contains both the text of the confession and Dr. Sproul's insightful commentary.

So request yours at renewingyourmind.org or by calling us at 800 435 4343. Without the gospel, there is no church. So to faithfully stand firm, we must know the gospel and rightly defend it when it comes under attack. That's tomorrow as Burke Parsons joins us here on Renewing Your Mind. R.C. Sproul.