I'm really excited about tonight's message from the standpoint of tedium. Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you're going through certain passages, and I know you know that I try to make it exciting as we learn the Scriptures, but sometimes you're going through things that are just one list after another, after another, after another, and it's necessary. But it's like in this passage of Scripture that the Lord says, halfway through this book on instructions, I want you to stop and pay attention. It's kind of like what he's saying. What's it all about? Chapter 3 of 1 Timothy, verse 14, and we'll read down through verse 16, and 16 is going to be our text. These things write I unto you, hoping to come unto you shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now this next verse is a really exciting verse. I want you to enjoy tonight's message a little bit, okay? And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into glory. So as we get into this, as we're studying verse by verse on Thursday's True Sec, the book of 1 Timothy, this is our 11th sermon, our last one from chapter three, and we'll go on to other things. But halfway through this book, it's not halfway exactly by the number of verses, it's real close. It's like seven verses before the halfway mark. But after the third chapter, he comes to a point and says, I want to talk to you about something. And if you look at it just objectively, there's even commentators that try to say verse 16 should have been put into chapter four. Remember, the chapter headings and verses are not inspired. But anyway, it's definitely a change of topic. So let's have a word of prayer, and then we'll get into what God has for us. Dear Lord, I pray that I would be clear and that I would be empowered. I pray for your Holy Spirit to speak to us. I pray that we would, Lord, come away from this with an adoration for you. And bless this time in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, everything that Paul has just written, you know, we get through chapter one, that doctrine is very important. That's, I mean, if you remember, doctrine is named in this book something like 12 times. And he says, hey, make sure nobody teaches any other doctrine. And we dwelt on that. And then he talks about the controversies that happened toward the end of chapter one, where he has to turn over Hymenaeus and Alexander under Satan for the destruction of the flesh. And begins in chapter two to speak on how to pray and how it should be done in church and how the men should be always praying everywhere and the women have all these instructions and things that they should follow. And then in chapter three, we get into what should the pastor be like? I mean, we've just dissected the character of the pastor. And then we get into chapter three in verse number seven, like last week, and we get into these ideas of what a deacon should be like. All these comprise what I would call the apparatus of a church. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians that we should do all things decently and in order. That God in the same chapter says, and God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. The Lord loves organization. The Lord wants it to start on time, as an example. He wants it to progress. He wants the teaching, and as these that just turned in their reports, their book reports, preaching should be primary, right? Amen. We get down to this part, and sometimes, every once in a while, you start to lose the whole purpose of the church by studying the apparatus of the church. You start to look and you make this whole big deal about the structure. Well, this is the rules, we start at this time, we end at this time, and you know how I am, I'm pretty boring. So we have very little variation in our services, right? And we sing a song and we pray, we sing another song, you all sit down on that one, you know, you stand at the first one, you sit on the second one, right? And then we give announcements, take an offering, have a special, and we preach. Isn't that kind of normal? Now, I'm so boring that I don't even see a reason to change it and make it very, And I just feel like it ought to be done in order. But as it is in many types of situations, in church groups and organizations, when the organization becomes the center focus, the apparatus becomes the thing rather than the purposes for something else. You lose the purpose of a church by studying its organization. Oh, it's necessary, and we're gonna go back into that. Chapter four is gonna talk about doctrine, and then it's gonna go into the practice of a preacher. Chapter four is where we see how to ordain a preacher and the importance of it, and how Timothy was exhorted about his young age, let no man despise thy youth, in verse 12. And then in chapter five, we're gonna get into a really exciting passage about how to handle the widows in a church. Wow. And so on. Chapter six gets to some very exciting things. But we have more organization. So most of chapter two, most of chapter three, part of chapter four, almost all of chapter five, deals with the organization of a church. And the purpose is, is because Timothy was sent as a young preacher. to Ephesus, to a very important church, to a very serious church, to be its pastor, and he had to have that organization. I wanna point out that the organization is just as inspired as all the rest of the Bible. So we follow it, it's serious. And the Lord gave us in verse number 15, the whole key to the point of the whole passage, the whole book centers around verse 15. But if I tarry long that thou knowest how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God. Our work together is so vital. The Great Commission is so very important. but it's a problem among denominationalism that the organization becomes the key rather than the truth that is carrying the organization or rather the purpose behind it. It's like I've said before, I used to be a member of the National Rifle Association until its purpose became evident that they aren't really defending the Second Amendment, they're really existing for the purpose of existing as an organization. They raise money like crazy, like millions of dollars in order that they might have the apparatus and produce a magazine and several choices you could make. And then you go on and you wonder, what are they really doing for the Second Amendment? And they used to be the defenders. And they've lost that. We have the same problem with the Right to Life organization. I mean, there's some things that they are doing that they have to do, and really, in any organization, you have to exist. Somebody has to do the lights. Somebody has to have the office of a pastor. Somebody has to be the secretary. Somebody has to do this and that and everything else. But when that becomes the reason that you're here, then it becomes a movement that strays. And in all of the middle of this discussion that the Apostle Paul's having about how this is way a pastor should be in all of those qualifications, it can be sort of intimidating. You read all of that. And then the deacon and the deacons are all sitting in their pews, right? We got three deacons here and the deacons are all sitting in their pews and they're like, that's a long list. And if the apparatus or the organization became center focus, and we lose our purpose, then we should shut the thing down. And the Lord seems to indicate that right in the middle of all this. So chapters two and three deal with the organization. Chapter four is gonna get back to it after the first section and the second half. And chapter five is definitely about organization. We're gonna determine which widows should be supported by the church and which shouldn't, right? Sounds exciting, doesn't it? It's the apparatus. But in the middle of it, he says, let's stop for a moment. What's it all about? And you know what he does? He points not to some pie-in-the-sky cheerleading type of activity, as if I could, as mentioned several times already, the Great Commission, as if we could skip pom-poms and say, go, guys, go, bring those tracks out. The Great Commission! Well, the Great Commission is only important because of what is really to be center focus. But when we find this passage, he says, one of the greatest revelations of a list of things, not about an apparatus, not about an organization, or even the necessary things to keep it running, but he brings us right back to the Lord that we love so much. The person of Jesus Christ. So we begin in verse number 16 with the words, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. And really the words without controversy comes from a word that means to confess or without any kind of argument. I mean, this is what we're professing. Great is this mystery of godliness. The word mystery in the New Testament is not something that is hidden to us, but rather a reference to some things that weren't clear in the Old Testament that because of the timing in the New Testament are crystal clear to us today. So get that in your mind. There's like five mysteries mentioned in the New Testament and none of them are hidden to us. They are all things that were not revealed clearly in the Old Testament, but to us are very clear And he says, there's a great mystery. What does that mean? Something that wasn't revealed, but you could know it. And he says, great is the mystery of godliness, piety. And then he goes into this list and it's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. You know who should be center in your life from morning till tonight? The Lord Jesus Christ. You know who's going to lift your spirits out of discouragement? Not, certainly not the organization of the church. Certainly not counting how many John Romans we put together. What will lift you out of discouragement is that great Savior. who bore all of this at Calvary, who in Gethsemane's garden went darker and deeper into the despair of sin, looking straight into the guilt of your sin and mine, and in that dark and deep place where you have never gone that deep in your life and your discouragement, Jesus walked out of that garden and walked up to Golgotha and took your sins and then rose from the dead to conquer it. What a Savior! Your heart might be overwhelmed with the duties that are upon you, and you feel like you can't accomplish God's will for your life, and it seems too much, but I can tell you that if you'll keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, there isn't anything he's called you to do that you can't do. There isn't anywhere that God wants you to go that he won't pave the way. It doesn't matter how dark or impossible it seems. It's because we keep our focus on what is real, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. So the reason that it's important, I'm talking about the apparatus. Verse 16 tells us, because it's not our house, it's his house. The only reason we have to have the organizing of and choosing like the qualifications for a pastor and the qualifications for a deacon and the responsibilities before that of the ladies and all of this organization, the reason that it's important is because of Jesus. But it is not our purpose. Jesus is. It is a mystery. The mystery, it's a, It's an interesting thing, no longer hidden to you. You say, why? Well, in the Old Testament, they had things like Isaiah 7, 14, where it says, a virgin shall be with child and bring forth a son and call his name, right? Whatever, I'm misquoting the Old Testament. I'm confusing it with Matthew. And, you know, you had that kind of verse. And then you had chapter nine, verse six. where it says that His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, right? And all of this. And then you had other things like chapter 53 that talks about Him going to the cross and all of that. And then you had Psalm 22 and lots of passages. But you know what they did? They looked through a glass darkly. The Bible says we do, so there's still some things that are not clear to us. But as we walk into the advent or the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, We say, I can see now who Jesus was. I can see who the Messiah is. That's why in Hebrews chapter 11, it lists all of those that are the heroes of the faith, by faith Abel, by faith Moses, by faith and by faith and by faith. And then at the end of the chapter, it says that we, those that are past that time, living in our day, we have a better promise. What is that? It's the revelation that we know more than they knew. Like they had this much promises. They only had maybe at the time of Moses writing the Pentateuch, he only had five books written and Job was written too, but he only had so much revelation. But now we have a complete message. Right? So we come to this place where it was a mystery to those of the Old Testament, but it's not a mystery to us. We know who Jesus is. So please notice, as we see these amazing truths, I like the idea that it's in chapter three, verse 16. I think Brother Terry and I were talking about that, that if you go like Matthew 3.16, is the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ. John chapter, these are man-made divisions, not inspired. Chapter 3.16 of John, everybody knows. But did you know that even in 1 Corinthians 3, in verse 16, it talks about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, like chapter six, verse 19 and 20. And in Ephesians chapter three, verse 16, that he would strengthen you with might according to his spirit in the inner man. It's just an interesting thing. Colossians, and it goes on and it goes on and on and on and on and on. And say, where are these passages? I think sometimes the Lord does that because of guys like me that can't remember much. That he has to correlate it. But there's something else that is inspired that's unique about the construction of this particular list of six things that I want to share with you, but let me do this first. The first thing we see is his incarnation. God was manifest in the flesh. I like that word manifest. The English word comes from where you get your word fingers, like you get a manicure. It's a Latin word where we got our word, but it's the same kind of root word. It means that you can touch it, God. God is a spirit, he told the woman at the well in John 4, 24. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. But at this point, God, the unseeable, the untouchable, this God became tangible in that yonder manger that we celebrated last night. But notice who it was that became flesh. One of the greatest passages here in all of the Bible about the deity of Christ. Who is it? Read your Bible. What does it say? God was manifest in the flesh. An interesting thing that it doesn't call Him the lesser God. It doesn't call Him just the Son of God. But He is called the very God. In the first century, when they were handwriting, and you understand that until the press was invented there in Germany, there really wasn't type press, but everything was copied by hand for generations. And when, I mean, Gutenberg's press is like 1053 AD, and you realize that right from the very beginning of the copies that were there in the churches, and then the original maybe would stay at the Church of Colossae, and then they would make hand copies and send them to all the other churches. And within a few years, by like 135 in Antioch, we had a full complete list of the 66 books of our New Testament. And as these books were faithfully copied, the devil saw an opportunity. to corrupt the Word of God. Now, the Bible made a promise that He would keep the words of God available. You can read in Psalm chapter 12, where it says it'll be available from this generation and forever. He's gonna keep it pure. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation and forever. You have other passages, like the book of Proverbs 30, verse five, where it says that every word of God, not just the thoughts of God, but every word of God is pure. And we get to Matthew 5, verse 17, where he says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away, but the devil saw an opportunity. He went to these people that were down in Alexandria, and it was like a massive infection of Gnosticism from the teachings of Plato. It re-infused, they called it Neoplatonism or Gnosticism. And they began to question. The person of Jesus, was he really God? And with this idea of infusing in Christianity these wicked ideas of this Gnostic belief, they came up with the dualism that is common among Platonism, and they corrupted the Bible. They started to copy it with this in mind. A couple of those texts were set aside because they were so bad, and then copied later. They're even fabricated. And they have become the texts that underlie the critical text. Two texts. They call it Nestle and Alland, or B and Aleph, or they call it the critical text. These things have been from the 1850s when Mr. Tischendorf found supposedly in the Vatican, This text made him rich. He went on a circuit promoting it and he died a millionaire in the late 1800s. A preacher dying a millionaire in the 1800s. I don't mean the equivalent of a millionaire, he was a millionaire. He was a lion proud man. They took these two texts, just two, and they said they are superior to the group of texts that made up what we call the received text, the textus receptus. That's a Latin word for meaning received text. How many texts are there in the received text? Well, we know that Nestle and Allen combined them, two people that weren't even believers, Anglican priests who denied salvation, And they put these together and call it the critical text, but they came from two manuscripts. The received text came from 5,250, more than that, pieces or full copies of the New Testament, in the Greek language, that agreed with one another in their wording. And these people said, well, we like this new text because of certain reasons that I could go into. But then theology at the end of the 1800s, centered in Germany, with what's called higher criticism, started to say, well, we have the Vaticanus text, which was one of those corrupt texts, and we have the Sinaiticus text, one others, and then we have the Texas Receptist. Now wait a minute, how many texts are here? 5,250 plus. How many texts are here? One. How many texts are here? One. Right? Now, are you following me? So these bright, brilliant guys who just wanted their way to cut God out of the equation said, we're going to look at it this way. We have the Sinaiticus group of texts. They added an S. The Vaticanus group of texts. And we have another group of texts. The witness is two groups against one. How foolish. Like, in all ways, how dishonest and how blatantly unscientific. And they set aside the TR and they made fun, literally, by the old-fashioned propaganda methods of making fun of those who held to the texts. People like Dr. Scribner and Dean Bergan writing to defend this, saying, hey, this is ridiculous. What was the drive? Well, it was satanic because these were infected with Gnosticism. These two texts had an agenda to remove the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these were faithful. These over here brought somebody great fame, and so it must be the new, woke kind of way to live. And they started denying the miracles of God, liberalism, it's called modernism of their day. It's where the word fundamentalist came from. Because by the 1920s, there were men that were standing up like R.A. Torrey and others, saying this is not right. But largely, we have lost that battle. It's just people like us that still believe the truth. So, what's the result? Well, the old King James Bible is antiquated, they say. Full of archaic words that we can't understand. I don't know why you can't understand it. I've understood it since I was a little kid. Average intelligence. But if the words are archaic, then there's a little help you could have as a dictionary and find the answers. So they abandoned the old text for some modern ones. The problem is, what do you think, where do you think they got the modern translations from? The old TR or the critical texts? And you know what they did. So here's the deal. If you're sitting there today with an NIV, your NIV of this verse does not say God was manifest in the flesh. Your NIV verse right there is going to say beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great. He appeared in the flesh. If you're reading a New American Standard, that's one of their favorites today. By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh. So they take the Greek words hathios, God, and they replaced it with has. In our language, it would look like H-O-S. It's an interrogative, sorry, a relative pronoun that means who, like he who was manifest in the flesh. I just went through all that explanation just to tell you that's why we support this. It's not a crazy cult kind of idea. We're going to stick by the Bible because we're so dumb we can't think of anything else to do. but it's the intelligence of examining it scientifically that I say this all the time. When you need the accurate words, they're right here. And there's other reasons why that's true. The deity of Christ cannot be denied. Between this passage, 1 John 5, 7, and John chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, you cannot come up to any conclusion about God than the Trinity. God who was manifest in the flesh. Who? You either have to be a polytheist, meaning many gods, you believe there's lots of them, or you have to believe in the triunity of a God who reveals himself. as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God was manifest. There isn't a doctrine in the Bible, friend, that is more complicated than the incarnation when God became man. There's no doctrine more important. Without this manifestation of the Lord coming here, then our salvation would be undone. If Jesus were just a man and He were not God, His sacrifice has nothing to do with us. I mean, even if He were sinless, and He was, and that's important. And if He were just a man, maybe He could give His life, one, for the life of one individual. That's what it would be equal to. But He's not one man. He is God in the flesh. He is called the theanthropic. Those two words, anthropos and theos, brought together in a theanthropic. You say, why do you say it that way? Because it's a unique thing that'll never happen again. 100% God and 100% man joined together, but not mixed to create a new nature. He's immutable in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but immutable as man, 100% man. Exhibited the characteristics of God while He was here. And He exhibited the others of man that were sinless while He was here. And the Gospels are records of that back and forth characteristics. But He did it that He might provide salvation. One of the commentators I'd like to read quoted Major Ian Thomas, a great evangelical preacher of the past, and he's gone to heaven some years ago. When he was really getting old, he happened to be traveling through our area, and I found a friend of mine when I was a teenager, and we went down the road to find this little church where he was preaching. I'm glad I came. I went two nights and heard this man preach, and by that time he was in his 80s, in the 1980s. But he says that Jesus had come as he came to be what he was, both God and man. He had to be what he was to live as he lived, wholly dependent as man on the Father. That's the way he lived, to show us an example and other reasons. He had to live as he lived. He lived absolutely wholly and a perfect life to do what he did. That is to ransom man's soul and provide that sacrifice. That's the biggest point tonight, so let's hurry through the rest of them, right? God was manifest in the flesh. We see the incarnation. Number two, we see a vindication. He said He was justified in the Spirit. Here, the word justified means to vindicate, to approve. The world may not approve of the Lord, and they won't. They will reject Him, they will slander Him, they will slay, and they killed Him. but he was justified in the Spirit. God approved. He was there at his baptism when the Spirit gave a witness as a dove lighting upon him. The Spirit was there when he went and he was tempted in chapter 4 of Matthew, in verse number 1. He was there when he cast out devils by the power of the Spirit in Matthew 12, verse 28. And in John 3, 34, the Lord says He has the Spirit without measure. Without measure. In other words, without limitation, the Spirit's presence was with Him. He was both God in the flesh and man dwelling among us, but He had the presence of God with Him in the Spirit of God. And that Spirit said, He is right, vindicated in the Spirit. Jesus was declared to be holy, and His declaration was sworn, when He can find no greater, He swore by Himself. Right? We have to find something bigger than us to swear by, but there's nothing greater than He. And He swears by Himself. He is the Spirit. In 1 John 2, verse 1, He is called Jesus Christ. He's the Advocate. And that's the same Greek word, perikaletos, that we find in John when the Spirit or Comforter has come. Comforter is perikaletos. A combination of both the Spirit and the Father and the Son. His vindication justified in the Spirit. Notice thirdly, the observation. It says He was seen of angels. Angels were at His birth, and angels were ministered at His temptation, and they ministered in the Garden of Gethsemane, and they were there at the resurrection to announce it, and they explained the ascension as the men looked up gazing. Yeah, you men of Galilee, why stand you here gazing?" They were very interested in the ministry of Jesus. Angels announced his birth. Angels were involved in every part. But Jesus is central focus of all the angelic hosts of all ages. In 1 Peter, the Bible says in 1.12, it says, unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Now listen, which things the angels desire to look into. The angels don't understand redemption. They don't know the feeling of our falling into sin and then finding the answer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, I don't know that too many Christians really live with the reality of it. We live as though we carry the weight of the world. Well, everything's a problem in my life. Are you saved? Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be happy about that. And we're happy for a minute. And then the problems of life. Somebody better come and help me. Right, I'm serious about this. It's as if the problems, the temptations you're facing are too big for God. It's as if the burden that you're carrying is too much for God. And if you're not supposed to be carrying it, quit carrying it and get right with God. But the fact is that if it's God's will for you to do what you're doing today, then friend, listen to me, God has the power. God has the ability. God has not left you without the help that you need. An angel's desire to look into this. And Jesus is far exalted above the angels. You just need to read the first chapter of Hebrews, verse 4 and following, that He is ascended as so much better than all of the angels. You say, why are they picking on angels? Angels are greater in some ways than you and I, but we are not going to become angels. Can you say amen? We are not physically related to angels. They were created as servants in heaven to do the will of God and mankind, we were created in the image of God with a soul, with this idea that we have then a will to choose. Seeing of angels, yet all that he did to purchase, he did this to purchase man's freedoms from sin. All we know is because of the work on Calvary, he was seen of angels. Now, next one's exciting. You know what it says there, preached unto the Gentiles. The news about Jesus Christ has been proclaimed around the world. Amen. Before his coming, there was a wall of perdition between the Jews and the Gentiles. It looks as though we are excluded as Gentiles unless you're Jewish by nationality or ethnicity. Maybe you would have been considered outside and alien to the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody who has had a wall of partition, as Ephesians 2 talks about, between the Gentile and salvation. Even the Jews in their pride looked at Gentiles as if they just called them sinners. We're Jews and they're sinners. Y'all sinners. Amen, that's what we are. Salvation is of the Jews. And the Lord said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. All that partition broke. You say, when did it break? Well, they're hanging upon the cross in Matthew 27, verse number 55. It says, Jesus gave up the ghost. And he was there right outside of the walls of the city of Jerusalem on Golgotha's Hill. But back inside the city, up on the Temple Mount, a little walk away, it's not that far, you can walk it. You go up to the Temple Mount, and there was the temple that Solomon, not Solomon, Zerubbabel had rebuilt. And Herod had expanded, and there inside of that temple was a big thick curtain, they said was a foot thick. And it separated the priests that could come into the holy place. And beyond that curtain was the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat. And there it was the holiest of all. It represented the presence of God. Man could go in there only through the blood, if they had the blood of the sacrifice one time per year. And the high priest was the only one that was allowed. Read Leviticus chapter 16 for the instructions. And in this day, when Jesus gave up the ghost, the Bible said, without the hands of man, that one foot thick curtain rent by itself from top down to the bottom. A miracle. And it represented that because of the blood once applied by the eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the wall of partition is gone. And they're made a way for millions, millions to come to Jesus. Boy, if you don't know Christ, that's the most important thing. Believed on in the world. This is not all the world, but He's been believed on in every part of the world. Man, I go around the places I've been, and somebody asked me recently, and we added, I've been to 27 world capitals. Woo! Right? And in the traveling that I've done, and mostly because you land and you take off from capital cities in most of those countries. And you know, everywhere I've gone, you know what I've found? That the gospel has been already there. I know there's some remote places that might still need the gospel that has never had the gospel. But in our day, what we're doing is really reseeding the dead fields, the fallow fields, the ones that once used to burn, like England, fervent for the gospel, and places like Moody's Tabernacle that thundered out the word and they called it a soul trap. People had come in unsaved and they couldn't get out until they got to the cross. of Jesus Christ. And those places used to burn hot and the revivals of Wales and the preaching of Scotland and those of Ireland that were part of that. I mean, the burning fire and fervent heat of the British Isles that now has grown cold and churches have closed and the hearts of people are turned to paganism and wickedness and vile sin. So now the once revival place looks like Sodom and Gomorrah. In our day, our task is reseeding the ground that has been made fallow. It's going to the war-torn places where Satan has gotten victory and stirring it up for the person of God himself. But he was believed. Doesn't matter how many people disbelieve, it doesn't change God. Amen. I mean, he doesn't change. You say, I don't believe in God. It doesn't matter. God is still God. They say, I don't really like the Bible. It doesn't matter. You're still going to stand before a holy God. Well, I believe something else. That's wrong. God is right. And it'll always be that way. He's believed on in the world. But what does that mean? There's hope for everyone. There's hope for everyone. There's hope. You say, my children are wayward. There's hope for your children. You say, I've got an unsaved friend. There's hope for that friend. What about you? You say, my soul might be lost. There is hope for you. You can come to Jesus today. Glory to God, isn't this good? And the last one is received up into glory. Christ was rejected and crucified on the earth. But what a different, a different reception he got in heaven. There he was given the great welcome and also the great position. Hebrews says he sat down at the right hand. of the throne of God. That's got to be interesting to see God sitting next to God, sitting next to himself. The I am in a way that we cannot comprehend. And this heavenly glorification is what awaits those who have believed. Going to heaven one day to see Jesus. That all this world, as we sang in that first song, and the devil tries to get you to think that there's no hope. And we have a hope. And we have a coming of our Savior. You know, I've been thinking more and more, Josh, as I turn 50, that it isn't long before I'll be 70. I just have that in my head. And won't be long, I'll be buried. If you're hearing you're older than 70, that's not a statement about your age. It's just the reality that if you go from 50 to 70 and 70 to 90, I hope you live that long. What is your life about? And then you wake up and you'll say, that was the shortest experience. Seems like it now, doesn't it? Can you believe in May we're gonna have our seventh anniversary of this church? Just like that. And then we'll see Christ. And when we see Him, it really won't matter what you did with your life except for what you did for Jesus. If you don't know Christ, you need to get saved. So let me draw this to a conclusion, but I want to point out something. Can you look at these six things objectively? And look at the first one that God was manifest in the flesh, deals with his incarnation. And look at the last one where he was received up into glory. We'll call that number one and number six. He added together, it's a perfect number seven. And they deal with the same subject, the incarnation and glorification of Jesus Christ. If you add the number two, the second one there, where it talks about justified in the spirit. He may have been rejected in the earth, but he was seen there. And we deal with his acceptance of God in heaven in the second one. But look at the fifth one, believed on in the world. He was also accepted in the world. Number two and number five, you add those together, what do you get? Another perfect number. And then look at the middle two, number three. Observed in heaven, seen by angels, preached unto the world, observed in this world as well. And we notice the observation, and we can add three and four together to another perfect number. Notice that all these things, the Bible, It is a wondrous book. And you may read it and never notice these things, but it is a wondrous book. How much time do you spend with it? It's got things in there that'll enrich your life, that'll deliver you from problems, that'll carry you through trouble, that'll take you to heaven. How much time do you spend in it? So, as I began, the apparatus. We need to have qualifications for a pastor, don't we? And for a deacon. We need to have some instructions for how we should conduct ourselves in the house of God. But the organization is no good if there isn't the person. And we're gonna go into some instructions on the ministry and how to conduct the ministry in chapter four and verse five. But all of that only matters because of him. It only matters because of Jesus. So what does that mean to me? That we should adore him. I like that word adoration. Because we should be in love and worship the Lord Jesus Christ. We should worship him. When's the last time you got on your knees in your house and got a hold of God? If you're not saved, you should receive salvation from him. Without a doubt, you're missing everything if you miss him. In the context of the New Testament church workings, everything we do in the church is because of Him. So why are you doing faithfully the little cleaning job you've been assigned? Because great is the mystery of godliness. I'm saved. I know Jesus, and I'm doing this because it's part of His work. Everything we do in the apparatus. So why are you dressing right, you women, in chapter 2? because I want to please Him. Right? I adore Him because great is the mystery of godliness. What is the motivation of your service and your holy walk with God? Sometimes I think we just look at life in such selfish eyes, we are feeling what I feel like doing today. How do I feel like? If I feel like worshiping God, if I feel like not worshiping God, if I feel like going into my own secret sins, or if I feel like behaving myself. Hey, His eyes never fail to see everything we're doing. He sees right through our charade and sees our heart. and knows the motivation. And friend, it better be because of great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Is he your focus, your center? He's the center of this book, but is he the center of your heart? Is he the center of your mind as you go through your day? Is he the reason you're disciplining your children? Is he the reason that you'll read your Bible together? Is he the reason that you carry gospel tracts to tell others about him? And if He isn't, it's a good time to throw away the apparatus aside and to make sure you have the main thing right in front of you. Let's pray. Help us, Lord, because as the song we sang tonight, we're so prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God we love. Take my heart, O Lord, and seal it. Lord, we are so filled with ourselves and not filled with the person that you are. Help us to instead love you, adore you, and live for you. Bless this invitation, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.