In the Household of God
Dave Baxter, Speaker
1 Timothy 3:14-16 | October 13, 2024 - Sunday Evening,
Lord, we do, what a beautiful prayer for us this evening. Show us Christ. God, plant Your Word down deep in us and cause it to bear fruit. O God, reveal Your glory through the preaching of Your Word. So teach us, instruct us, encourage us, equip us, remind us again tonight, Lord. We pray for Your blessing on the preaching of Your Word and on the hearing. We make our prayer is Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, last evening my wife and our kids were over at one of our neighbor’s houses for a little neighbor gathering and we were sitting around chatting towards the end of the evening, and one of the neighbors says to me, so, “Are you ready?” And I said, “Ready for what?” And they said, “Well, aren’t you preaching tomorrow?” And I said, “Oh, yes, well, thank you for knowing and thank you for asking.” It’s always good to be reminded just in case I wasn’t. I was, but it’s one of my little fears being a pastor here at Christ Covenant, more I guess towards the beginning of my time but not totally gone, that you’ll show up for a worship service and walk in and have somebody come up and slap you on the back and say, “Looking forward to your preaching tonight” and you didn’t know you were preaching tonight.
I’m thankful that’s not happened. That’s one of my fears.
Another fear that I have related to our worship service is, particularly as a pastor, is that I would come in and maybe a few minutes before realize that one of our children is missing, unaccounted for. Maybe one child in particular is missing and unaccounted for as has happened from time to time, more in the earlier years, and that we would not be able to locate said child until the worship service has already started so things are getting going and you’re still looking and you sort of imagine how this… I imagine him wandering out onto the stage from somewhere to participate in the service.
I usually imagine that involving a microphone or an instrument of some sort. You sort of think to yourself, like how would that go? What would I do at that point? How would I respond? And probably, I don’t know, head for the parking lot and text Rachel, “You should do something.”
But I really do, I feel very confident that Nathan, Kevin, whoever was up here, would handle things just fine.
But maybe if you’re a parent in here, you’ve probably had a moment like that where you’re conscious of your child’s behavior or concerns about your child’s behavior, how they might behave in church. It’s a pretty typical parental experience when it comes to church.
In our text tonight, Paul is telling Timothy about that, concerns for behavior in the household of God. Now he doesn’t mean quite what I’ve been talking about. He’s not talking about running in the halls or down the aisles or climbing over the pews or whether you should bring drinks into the sanctuary or not. As I understand, kind of first century church layouts, they probably didn’t have pews to climb under or balconies to throw things from, so it at least makes me think parenting was somewhat easier in those days.
But here’s what Paul says, and it really is sort of a purpose statement for this letter that we’ve been going through in our evening services together. He says, “Why am I writing this to you, Timothy?” He says, “I’m writing these things to you so that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. I’m writing these things so you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.”
Which is really where we’re going to start in our outline this evening, that word “ought.” That there is an “ought” in the household of God. There’s an “ought” to how we order ourselves or conduct ourselves, or how we ought to behave in God’s household.
So first we see an “ought.”
And then secondly we’ll see an “is.” There’s an “is.”
An “ought,” an “is,” and then finally we’ll see a “was.”
Actually, if you read through the text, you’ll find the outline embedded there. The words sort of jump out at you, “ought,” “is,” and “was.” So you’ll see it then as we read together.
Let’s do that now. Look with me at chapter 3, verses 14 through 16, our text for this evening. Chapter 3, beginning in verse 14, and look for “ought,” “is,” “was.”
Paul says:
“I hope to come to you soon, 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, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”
I already mentioned that this passage comes as something of a purpose statement for this letter to Timothy, why Paul is writing these things. Some have suggested that it’s sort of a turning point for the letter. You can probably get that sense there.
But Paul says again, “I’m writing these things to you so that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.”
Now it’s not the point of this sermon then to go back and sort of repeat what those “oughts” are and the way that we ought to behave; that’s been the content of the last several weeks. But the focus of this sermon is not really what that “ought” is, but rather that it is in the household of God.
And Paul’s choice of metaphors here is instructive for us because households have an order to them, or at least they should, particularly Christian households, or the household as God has designed it to be. So you might think of passages like Ephesians 5. You might think of a passage like Colossians 3, where Paul lays out an order, roles and responsibilities, ways of relating within the Christian family as a household.
So then if relating God’s Church, framing God’s Church as a household then implies that it has an order to it as well, that is, a way to live, an authority structure. Right and wrong ways for us to conduct ourselves. There is a way in which God would have us to conduct ourselves within His house. Which, of course, that’s true in a general sense. There’s a broader reference here to all of life, a way of living, a way of living that conforms to God’s Word in all areas, at all times. That God is concerned with the conduct of our whole lives.
You can think of another passage like Ephesians 5 verses 8 through 10, just before Paul comes to those household instructions. He says there “walk as children of the light and try to discern what’s pleasing to the Lord.” So in every way, in every place, at all times and circumstances, there is an “ought” to all of life as members of God’s household.
But it’s also important to note more specifically then what these things are that Paul has in mind that he’s telling Timothy, he’s been writing about, in the letter so far. You’ll recall he’s written about how doctrine is to be preserved and false teaching, and teachers to be dealt with. How the teaching of God’s law is to be handled. He’s written about who’s to preach and have authority in the Church, about the roles of men and women within the Church. He’s written about appropriate prayer and dress and particularly within the context of corporate worship. He’s written about qualifications for the offices of elder and deacon.
So this letter then again affirms first of all to Timothy and then through him to that little church there in Ephesus, but then of course to us tonight, that the Church and its organization and leadership and its teaching and doctrine, authority, its roles, and especially in its worship, it’s not a free-for-all. It’s not something up for our re-invention or re-casting. No, God has given us an order for His Church.
For many of us, no doubt, this series has been and Lord willing will continue to be, a good reminder, some good reminders of what that order is, what it looks like, how it is that we ought to live that out together.
Perhaps others of us have encountered some things that for us are new, or maybe there have even been a few moments of oh, that’s why we do it like that here.
But hopefully, either way, it’s encouraging to see together that the reasons we organize ourselves the way we do, the reasons we worship the way we do or preach the way we do, that these have biblical precedents, which is of course our aim as a church, that we would root all that we do in God’s Word.
But I want to make two more observations before we move on from that, because there is a lot here so far about the internal ordering of the Church. We need to see and to remember that this letter is not suggesting an inward-focused church to the neglect of things like evangelism or mission. That is, that it’s not about being interested in order over outreach. Not in Paul’s mind at least.
This is not like a worship committee versus outreach committee kind of competition here. This is not sort of a wrestling, tag team, battle royale with Kevin and Nathan over in this corner and you’ve got Eric and Mike over in this corner ready to go at it, as interesting as that might be to see.
No, we need to remember the context of this letter as it was written. This letter was written in the first century. It’s not written to a very large congregation in some well-established denomination in a highly Christianized culture. No, it’s written to this little fledgling congregation in a highly pluralistic environment dominated by Roman idolatry. This little congregation could not have depended on church transfers for its growth or even its survival. It’s still very much an evangelize or disappear kind of moment for this church. That’s the context.
Remember also what’s already been written. You could just look at the very beginning of the letter. Paul starts out this way, chapter 1, just in verse 15. He says, “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world in order to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
You remember that Paul personally knew in a very profound, deep way the transforming grace of God for sinners in his life and that he has much as anyone burned with a passion that others, other sinners would come to know and share in that same grace and mercy that he had found in Christ.
Or maybe again chapter 2, verses 3 through 5, where Paul reminds us that God, our Savior, desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
So this is how the Gospel will be actually promoted. That is, that we’re not to have some churches that are really big on order, that care a lot about preserving pure doctrine, about guarding roles and training up officers and pastors, and then some other churches that are just more concerned with reaching the lost and engaging the culture and being a light and winning a hearing. No, these things are not pitted together, against each other, that is, in God’s Word, or in God’s economy. Actually, rather, they work together. They fuel and feed one another.
So we need to be reminded tonight that this “ought” for God’s household is for Gospel promotion. It’s for Gospel promotion. We also need to be reminded that it is actually a gracious provision. This “ought” for God’s household is for Gospel promotion and it’s also a gracious provision. That is, it’s not a burdensome weight here to just bog us down. It’s given to us by God, the God of grace. And if it’s given to the Church by God, then it’s given to us in grace.
In fact, you could say that the same grace that grows the Church also governs it. I’ll say that again. The same grace, because it is grace that grows the Church. It’s grace that turns sinners to see and to savor Jesus Christ, to enter into His Church. It’s grace that grows the Church, and it’s the same grace that grows the Church that then governs it as well.
Now I have to make a bit of a confession as a pastor. I don’t know if this will actually shock you or not, but I don’t personally find the PCA Book of Church Order something I reach to often from my shelf for devotional resource in the morning to just sort of warm up my heart and my affections for God. But I wonder if you ever, if I ever, stop and give thanks to God for His book of Church order, that He’s given us an order, an “ought” for His Church, graciously, for the light that God reveals to show us how we ought to live together, how we ought to relate to one another, that He’s not left it up to us how we ought to be led and governed to figure it out, or how our ministries should be conducted, or how we ought to worship together.
Do you give thanks to God for the “oughts” of His Word? We should, brothers and sisters, give thanks to God that He has not left us without clarity or without direction, without order, that He’s not left us without “oughts.” There’s a gracious “ought” for the household of God.
Next we see that there is an “is.” There is an “is.” We see what the Church is and therefore what it is to do.
Look again at verse 15. Paul says, “I write these things that 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 truth.”
See the household of God is the Church of the living God. It is a pillar and buttress of truth.
The phrase “living God” is a common Old Testament designation. It really emphasized the distinction between Israel’s living God, Yahweh, and all the other lifeless idols of the nations that surrounded them. Then it’s picked up as a common reference in the New Testament as well and you find it, of course, in this verse here.
Then given the context again of this little church in Ephesus in the midst of a very pluralistic, idol-worshiping culture as it was in the Roman Empire, and it’s easy to see why this idea is so powerful, that this church, that this little church among all the peoples, all these supposed gods, and you can imagine the landscape they would have navigated, actual idols sitting around, and that it’s here in this little church, this is where the one true living God makes His residence.
Of course, we know that God is always omnipresent, that He’s everywhere, He’s never limited but a particular physical space. But isn’t it incredible that He makes Himself known and present in a particular way in the local gathering of His people as a church, the local gathering which is actually what this word behind church means. We have it here in the Greek, ecclesia. It means, in its original, assembly. We read it as “church” here.
But listen to how Robert Yarbrough catches the significance of that. He says this: The Ephesian congregation with Christ in its midst constitutes a divine dwelling place, an assembly, where the living God is known and worshipped and it’s striking that Paul would view the numerically modest presence of at most surely just a few hundred believers at Ephesus as a locus of the presence of the living God in a Roman world dominated by such a contrasting religious consciousness.
It is astonishing. But it’s not true just for that church in Ephesus. It’s true for every true assembly of God’s people, every congregation of the living God as they begin to spring up all around the Roman world and then down through the ages, even to here tonight, to Christ Covenant Church. It’s true, Christ Covenant Church. Does that amaze you tonight? That the living God of all the universe makes His presence known in a particular way in the world and to us within our assembling, within our gathering here together?
Let me just share one other quote to sort of flesh that out a little bit more. This is from John Stott. It’s very helpful. He says: When the members of the congregation are scattered during most of the week, it’s difficult to remain aware of this reality. But when we come tougher as the Church, ecclesia, assembly of the living God, every aspect of our common life is enriched by the knowledge of His presence in our midst. In our worship we bow down before the living God. Through the reading and exposition of His Word we hear His voice addressing us. We meet Him at His table when He makes Himself known to us through the breaking of the bread. In our fellowship, we love each other as He has loved us and our witness becomes bolder and more urgent. Indeed, unbelievers coming in may confess that God is really among you.
Just a quick word of application. Granted, maybe this feels a little out of place at a Sunday evening worship service. After all, you are here on a Sunday evening for corporate worship. But it bears repeating here that we should not underestimate the significance, don’t underestimate, the significance and don’t neglect being present at the gathered assembly of God’s people to worship Him, week after week, week after week, no matter how mundane it may seem. At times there is simply no substitute for this gathering in the Christian life.
Of course, there’s providential hindrances. There’s times and seasons and contexts, circumstances, in which by God’s providence we’re limited from our ability to be present here. But otherwise we should be present. Otherwise we cost the church by our absence. Perhaps we certainly cost ourselves. Might we even cost those unbelievers who might come in to join us? We are the assembly of the living God.
Paul says that as such the Church is a pillar and a buttress of truth.
Now if you’re like me, it’s easy whenever you hear that word “buttress,” and then I was thinking about this, I’m like, I don’t know how often do you actually hear that word “buttress.” Probably not very often. But if you’re like me, whenever you hear the word “buttress” perhaps you think immediately of the Notre Dame cathedral and those flying buttresses that sort of surround that great building and structure and help to hold it up and support it, given it strength. That’s not a bad image here.
But this word could also be translated as “foundation.” Buttress could be translated equally as foundation, though it might be apparent why the ESV translators didn’t choose to use that translation here, at least one reason, because we certainly don’t want to conclude that the Church is the ultimate foundation for the truth, as if truth depends on the Church for its existence . Jesus Christ said “I am the truth.” It’s in God that the truth is and always has been and always will be, and that ultimately the truth is the foundation of the Church.
But that’s not what Paul’s really talking about here. He’s not talking about ultimate foundations of truth and Church. Rather, he’s talking about the Church’s work and role in holding up and holding out the truth in the world. As a foundation, or a buttress then, the Church is to hold up the truth, it’s to hold up the truth, to be a foundation for the truth in such a way that it’s not shaken, that it’s held secure and preserved.
Remember again the way this letter started. Paul instructing Timothy. He says, “I urged you to remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.” Later on towards the end, he writes chapter 6, verse 2 through 4, he writes to Timothy. He says, “Teach and urge these things and if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,” remember that word, “he’s puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.”
Then he ends the letter this way: Oh, Timothy, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and the contradictions of what’s falsely called knowledge for by professing it some have swerved from the truth.
You see, beloved, the Church is to hold firm, hold firm to faith that’s been passed down to us, the word of truth against error, against attacks, against manipulation, of course, from those outside the Church but from those within as well. And yet that doesn’t mean that how we’re to go about that as we take and we sort of hide it away in order to keep it safe, not like Gandalf telling Frodo about the ring, “keep it secret, keep it safe,” but rather like a pillar the Church must hold it up high, hold the truth high, hold it out. Elevate it in a way that it is seen and known and heard in the world around us. So again you can see the evangelistic impulse here.
Friends, this is what the Church of the living God is to do to be a buttress, to be a pillar, but notice this. It’s what the Church is to do because it is first and foremost what the Church is. And that is such a powerful word here, is.
I wonder if like me you get discouraged sometimes. You know, when you look around the world and you look at the Church in the world. Maybe it can be a temptation, depending on where you look, what stories you read, that it doesn’t always look, the Church, like a pillar and buttress of truth. But I hope for you, friends, that this is, as it is for me, a good encouragement for us tonight, because God isn’t first and foremost providing a job description for the Church here. It’s not first and foremost a job description, it’s an identity that He’s giving.
And why is that so significant? Because a job is something you can start and stop, you can pick it up and put it down. It’s not something that is inherent necessarily to who you are but an identity, an identity is who you are.
So it’s true that the Church, and every local church must strive for this, to buttress and to pillar the truth as it were, but that’s because that’s what the Church is, and that will never change. So when you read another discouraging or disappointing story about deconversion, about doctrinal drift or moral failure in a Christian leader, or maybe you see another denomination that seems to be coming unmoored and adrift in theological or moral error, we just need to be reminded, Paul himself said expect these kinds of things. This is not a surprise.
Literally, in the same, look actually at chapter 4, verse 1. Look at that. Paul says now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. There will be departures. Paul said this would be the case. God through His inspired Word tells us, and yet that does not change what the Church of the living God is.
The Church is One Foundation is one of my favorite hymns. I’m glad we get to sing it again together here in just a few minutes. Rachel and I sang it with the guests at our wedding, in our wedding. It’s hanging on a piece of art in my office wall. I couldn’t help but think these lines seem so appropriate and fitting here from that great hymn: “The Church shall never perish, her dear Lord to defend, to guide, sustain and cherish is with her to the end. Though there be those that hate her and even false sons in her pale, against the for or traitor she ever shall prevail.”
There’s an enduring “ought” to our life together in the household of God and we’ve seen a reminder her again of the enduring nature of what the Church is. Underneath all of that, we need to see this, that there is a “was.”
Look at verse 16. In fact, He was. All the Church is built on is who Christ is and what was done by and through Him, and we want to look at Paul’s summary of that in just a moment, but notice first that Paul describes this “ought” as the mystery of godliness. What does he mean by mystery of godliness here?
When I was a kind, there was a show called Unsolved Mysteries. If you’re around my age, mid-20s, something like that, you probably remember that show, or maybe you do. If you do, you probably remember the particularly creepy music of the title sequence and the intakes and outtakes of commercials. Maybe you remember Robert Stack. You remember that guy? You probably remember his voice if you know the show. You could not have a better voice for a show like Unsolved Mysteries than Robert Stack. He was made for that.
But this show was all about mysteries, particular mysteries that no one had solved yet. Sort of cold cases and such. People hadn’t figured these things out. I mean, that’s the title, Unsolved Mysteries. They were mysteries that were unsolved.
Well, this is not that kind of mystery. Now in the Bible, this word’s not for something for things that haven’t yet been figured out by someone but something describing the things of God, particularly as it pertains to God’s plan of salvation in Christ, that had previously been hidden but now have been made clear through Christ’s coming.
The same word shows up just in a similar phrase, just to back up in verse 9, where Paul says that the deacons must hold the mystery of faith with a clear conscience. Tom covered that in his sermon last week. There Paul is essentially referring to the content of biblical faith, specifically as that centers on the person and work of Jesus. So the Gospel, the Gospel content.
And the mystery of godliness here certainly includes the same thing. It includes the content of biblical faith, the content of the Gospel. Or again, what it is that we as Christians believe.
But here probably another dimension at play as well, because the word for godliness includes the idea of devotion, of devotion that’s animating our worship of God, our love and affection for Him, and the kind of practical outworkings of a life that’s changed by Him and changed for Him, lived before Him.
So it’s what we believe but also how the truth of what we believe actually shapes the way that we live. Or as one writer says, it’s piety in action.
Notice Paul says great indeed we confess, we confess. This mystery of godliness is expressed in a confession. A summary of some essential truths shared by all Christians within the Church. Non-negotiables. These things are not up for personal opinion, not open to differences. Altogether, if you’re a Christian, we affirm this truth, this truth about Jesus, that He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.
Many scholars believe that this was an ancient hymn or creedal confession or part of one at least that Paul includes here to summarize and articulate in a helpful way this summary of the life and person and ministry of Christ. I think it’s good to take it that way. You can certainly hear and feel sort of the lyrical nature of the phrases as you read through it, though honestly we don’t really lose anything if it wasn’t.
But assuming that it is, there’s several takes, scholarly takes, on how you can arrange the words and understand the different phrases here. probably three primary views, maybe some variations on those themes perhaps. But one suggestion has been a straightforward chronological reading. So you start with the first phrase depicting really the incarnation there, manifested in the flesh, reading through to the last phrase regarding the ascension, taken up in glory. So that’s one possibility, chronological.
A second approach is to take them as you sort of see the ESV maybe presents it here as really two three-part stanzas. So you’ve got manifested, vindicated, and seen; that would be stanza one. Then stanza two, proclaimed, believed on, and taken up. And read this way, you could read stanza one then as regarding the work of Christ accomplished in His earthly ministry in the form of His incarnation, and then two His resurrection, which would be referred to here as His vindication, and then being seen by angels, so the witness of angels present throughout the life and ministry of Christ all the way up unto His resurrection and ascension. So stanza one the work of Christ accomplished, and then stanza two would begin again with what flows from that completed work, or the continue work of the risen Christ. Namely you had the global witness of the Gospel proclaimed among the nations.
The response to that proclamation, believed on in the world, and then taken up in glory. So that could be glorified in His ascension or possibly in His return, or perhaps through the witness and believing the witness of Christ around the world that He is the risen Lord, that He is the Savior for sinners. So there would be then a second view.
A third common view is to be read as three sets of couplets. As an example of that, Andreas Kostenberger put together a helpful summary of this version, saying most likely the hymn consists of three couplets, each of which links an earthly and heavenly reality.
So the first of the three couplets presents Christ’s work as accomplished through the form of His incarnation again and then His resurrection, an earthly reality, a heavenly. The second shows it being made known, first to the angels and then to the nations. So a heavenly and an earthly. Then the third depicts it as acknowledged, believed on in the world and earthly taken up, received into glory, heavenly in His ascension.
So those are three common approaches, but hopefully you can see really that regardless of the approach you take, none of these introduces elements that are really contrary or foreign to the Gospel story, the central core components. And actually several of the references remain largely unaffected, regardless of which view you take. In fact, hopefully you can see that the same contours really emerge in each of Christ’s coming, that He came, born in the incarnation, the miracle of miracles, that the Word, that God became flesh and dwelt among us.
Then the dying and the rising of Christ again by the power of the Holy Spirit, which was to vindicate all that Jesus said about Himself, who He was and what He would do. As Romans 1:4 says, He was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ our Lord.
There’s the universal witness of that work. Angels witnessed Him and all that He did. Again you see them there at points throughout His life, throughout His earthly ministry, and then there in heaven as He returns. He was seen by angels. And His disciples witness about Him to the world and still are, proclaimed among the nations.
Then the glorious reception and the acknowledgement that Jesus is who He said He was and that what He did, that His life and death accomplished what He said it would, that He is believed on in the nations and taken up in glory.
Friends, this is the mystery of godliness. The once hidden but now revealed source and secret and power and example of all true godliness, and it is great, indeed. It is the revelation of the truest picture of what God is like, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. It’s the confession, the content of faith, without which godliness is lost. And listen to this, it’s the animating power of every practical dimension of godliness in the form of changed lives, of our changed lives as believers in Christ.
And here one more thing to see tonight. Great things about church order we’ve seen, but no church order will ultimately make any difference if this confession gets lost, if this hymn quits being sung, if it’s central gospel message quits being savored, if it quits being shared, there is no church order, no church polity. No matter how much it may fit with what the “oughts” of our church order that we’ve seen from Paul as he lays them out here or in other places in the Scriptures, will on its own preserve the godliness of the Church if we shift from this confession.
It is the source, it’s the foundation of all our godliness. Without it, the household of God just becomes a building for godlessness. But if we move away from this confession, as we close, if we move away from this confession, we move away from godliness. If we move away from this confession, we move away from grace. And if we move away from this confession, we move away from God.
Which is why, friends, beloved in Christ, tonight the Gospel for us can never become old news, why the Gospel must always be for us good news. Why it must be the news that we savor and share the most.
So the question for us, is it for you, is it for me, is it for us, is that the case tonight?
Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness, Jesus Christ. He was manifested in the flesh, He was vindicated by the Spirit, He was seen by angels, He was proclaimed among the nations, He was believed on in the world, He was taken up in glory, and because He was, because He was, the Church is a pillar and buttress of truth.
Because of that we ought to order and to live our lives and our worship accordingly.
Friends, what a privilege it is to be in the household of God. It’s a glorious calling to be included in that number, to be drawn and to be members of God’s household, but it’s a privilege and a calling that is ours and ours only in and through Jesus Christ. He is the Church’s one foundation.
So with that in mind, let’s pray and then let’s enjoy standing and singing about that great one foundation, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Father, thank You again for Your Word tonight. Minister to us. We thank You for Your Church, we thank You for the revelation of Your Word, for teaching us and showing us, revealing us, sending it down through the ages, through the inspiration and the preservation of Your Word, how we ought to order our life together as Your Church. But thank You most of all tonight for the Lord Jesus Christ, for all that He did and accomplished and continues to do in the world and will do when He comes again for the preservation, the bringing in, the glorifying of all the saints He died to secure. We thank You for Jesus tonight even as we sing of Him. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.