All right, so we're gonna start something new today in Sunday school. We basically finished up Jude around a month ago. I didn't do much with the benediction. I'm kind of saving the benediction for a Sunday morning service. My thinking now is that it would make a really good New Year's sermon on the first Sunday of the new year. So I'm kind of saving the benediction. And so we haven't done much with that. But other than that, we spent a good dozen weeks or so in the epistle of Jude. And then we had Jonathan's application of things the last three weeks with critical theory. And so we need to start something new today. And so I've been wanting for some time to take us through something of a introduction to our church kind of Sunday school class. You might even call it like a new members sort of class. This is something that we really haven't done over the years. There was one time, a good 15 years ago or so, if I remember correctly, that Pastor McKnight did this in a Sunday school unit. Just kind of took us through a new members orientation, but the entire congregation. And I thought it would be good for us to do that as well. Some of, many of you, you know, have been here for longer than I have. But we all have entered into the congregation at different times. We don't have any sort of formal curriculum for a new members class that we have people go through when they join. And maybe something like this can help me formulate a curriculum for that. It'll be recorded and so it's something that can be used in the future for new members if we're not actually meeting, we can give them the recordings of these Sunday schools. And I just thought it would be healthy for us to spend some weeks just thinking about what the New Testament says about the church and church membership, and then just orienting ourselves to our church, our beliefs, our distinctives, why we do what we do, those sort of things. And so, What I have right now is about eight topics in my mind that I want to cover over the course of about 12 weeks or so. I don't want this to go on too long. It could be that people out in the future listening to this are snickering right now. As they see this as one of 25 or whatever, I don't know. But hopefully we can keep it, you know, like our normal Sunday school units, about 12 weeks. I think it's eight topics. Here are the kind of things I'm thinking about that we ought to cover. I'm going to talk about the history of our church and go through that. I'm going to talk about the beliefs of our church and just kind of orienting our church and the lay of the land in North American quote unquote Christianity. Talk about the distinctives of our church, what is it that separates our church from other churches that may have a lot of things in common with us, but what makes us a little bit different. I'm going to talk about some ministry philosophy, just why we do what we do. We can talk some about, you know, our worship services, our music, why we de-emphasize the whole youth group scene and that kind of stuff, you know, and our family-centered, you know, that sort of thing. So why we do what we do ministry philosophy-wise. We'll talk about just church government in general, not to go through the entire book of church order like we did several years ago, but just in general, how our church is governed with elders and stewards. what is church membership, and then just talk through the various ministries of our church, the school, our foreign missionaries, the other organizations that we're a part of, or that we financially support, or prayerfully support, that we're connected to. And so, those are some of the topics that I've got in mind for going through over the next 12 weeks or so. And so this morning, by way of introduction, I want to set out the context in which our church ministers and the fundamental principle by which we operate. And so I've had us turn here to 2 Timothy chapter three. 2 Timothy chapter three, and I'm not going to take the time to do an extended scripture reading here, but we'll kind of read and comment through this passage. So 2 Timothy chapter three begins with this. This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. Remember that when the apostle speaks of the last days here in verse one, He's not talking about the apocalypse or something, right? When we talk about the last days in the New Testament, we're just talking about all the days since the incarnation, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. These are the last days. And so we know that if you want to cross-reference Hebrews chapter one, talks to us about how God and time passed, spoke through prophets, et cetera, et cetera. But in these last days, same phrase, he has spoken to us by his son. So when you see the last days in the New Testament, don't automatically think the apocalypse, something out in the future. Right now are the last days. We've been in the last days ever since the ascension of the Lord Jesus. And the head of the church, Jesus Christ, has omnisciently anticipated the times in which we will minister. So he says there in verse one that these days in which our church ministers, these last days, will be punctuated by perilous times, by by times that are difficult, that would be the sense of the word there. It will be difficult, a difficult context in which to minister. And that is not just true of the current day. That has always been the case in the life of Christ's church. It has always been existing in a context where there is this punctuation of difficulty in the world in which they minister. He goes through and he characterizes what these days are going to be like, and we'll get bogged down here too much if we go through every single one of these phrases and words that describe our context. You see, in general, verses two and three and four, and that list of vices, that's part of the difficulty, the culture out there that is prevalent with law breaking and rotting more and more. There are these three loves that will characterize the context in which we operate. Again, we're in 2 Timothy chapter three. And these loves are, verse two, lovers of self. And certainly we see that in our day with the self-esteem movement, lovers of self. And then that second word, covetous, is literally lovers of silver. So you got lovers of self and lovers of money. And then down in verse four, lovers of pleasure. And so just to pick out three out of that list, these three loves out there in the world, of self and money and pleasure. And yet, what makes it particularly difficult to minister in this context is, verse five, that there is a form of godliness. That there is a prevalence of religiosity. And people think that they are okay. And there is a general mindset of spirituality, that things are okay. But what happens there out in the culture in which our church ministers, this lawless culture that has a form of godliness, what they do is they deny, they resist the power thereof. And what is the power of true godliness? The power is the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation. The person of Jesus Christ, that's what gets resisted. And you've experienced this in conversations or in life out there in the world that, in general, People don't mind you being religious, and you being church-going, and you being moral, and you even being a monotheist, or you believing in absolute truth, but once you turn the conversation to Jesus Christ, and the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, and the true gospel, that's when you get resistance. There's this form of godliness, but there's a denial of the power thereof. The great head of our church has anticipated this context in which we minister. And so you keep reading down through there, and you come to verse 13 eventually. And he says, and so these evil men and seducers, it's going to get worse and worse, deceiving. being deceived, there's this snowball effect, there is this rotting of the culture in which we are ministering. So how is a young preacher like Timothy to respond to this? How is he to minister in these difficult days? where there is this lawlessness, yet this prevailing religiosity that resists the gospel and Jesus Christ. How do you minister in a time like that? Well, verse 14. He is to continue in the things which he has learned and been assured of. He's not to compromise with the culture. He's to continue down the old paths that are laid out for him. You know, the wisdom of the day is that desperate times call for desperate measures. And you've got to do something new in order to win this culture. What worked 100 years ago doesn't work now. You can't do what you did then. It's got to take something new. They've got a shorter attention span now. You've got to do something new. They're so addicted to visual and not audible, and so you've got to do something new now. The great head of the church anticipated the times in which we lived. And his counsel to his church is not to go off to fads or to new approaches. The counsel to his church is to continue. It is to continue. Not compromise, but a continuation. A continuation in what? Continue in what? Well, you keep reading the sentence there that begins in verse 14. and you eventually find that he's to continue in verse 15, the holy scriptures. That's what he's to continue in, the holy scriptures. Why? Because of what the end of verse 15 says, first of all, they are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. And so there's one reason for continuing in the Holy Scriptures. They are the only means of making people wise unto salvation, of opening their eyes to the truth about themselves and about God and about the gospel. They are, the scriptures are the seed of the new birth, Peter says. The effectual call of God does not just come out of thin air. It comes as the scriptures are being ministered. It is the scriptures that have life. The word of God is living and powerful. It's able to discern, it's sharp. And so, continue in the scriptures for that reason. And then verses 16 and 17, another reason for continuing in the scriptures. It's because these scriptures are God-breathed. They're given. by inspiration of God, and you understand the wording there. We're not talking about inspiration as in like a poet gets inspired or something and has this, you know, like, oh, this eureka moment, the light bulb comes on and he has this flurry of writing, okay? We're talking about God breathing out the words of Scripture. All Scripture is God-breathed, and it is profitable. And it's profitable for four things. And each of those four words there are connected with the last word, righteousness. So the scriptures are profitable for doctrine in righteousness, reproof in righteousness, correction in righteousness, and instruction in righteousness. And so there's four words, the word doctrine there. The word doctrine refers to the fact that there has to be this teaching of what the standard is. Righteousness is God's standard. So there's the doctrine, there's the teaching of what the standard is, and then there is the reproof, and that is the convicting of men and women of how they have fallen short of the standard, reproving them, the conviction that comes when the scriptures are taught. And then there is correction, and so that is the raising up of the corrected man for for meeting the standard again. So there's the teaching of the standard. which then brings conviction to the person, and then there's the lifting them back up off the ground, again, with the scriptures, the correction, and then there is the instruction, which is the child training, the pedagogy, and the coaching that comes, again, through the holy scriptures. And so they are coached how to keep the standard from now on, right? So there's the teaching, That's what the standard is. Convicting of ways that you've fallen short of the standard. The correcting and the raising back up once you've been convicted of falling short. And then there's the coaching of maintaining the standard from now on so that, verse 17, the man of God may be perfect, complete, whole, arriving at the goal, at the finish, right? The man of God may be whole and complete, thoroughly furnished, throughly furnished, equipped for every good work. So, the sovereign of our church has omnisciently anticipated the difficult context in which we minister. His counsel to us is not to look for some new approach because desperate times call for desperate measures. His counsel is to continue, to continue in the holy scriptures because they are able to make you wise unto salvation and because they are profitable so that the man of God may be complete and completely equipped for right living. And so, turn back to another passage, this time in 1 Timothy 3, and let's link up this with what we just saw. 1 Timothy 3.15. So he's writing again to this young pastor, Timothy. He speaks in verse 14 of hoping to come to him shortly, but he's not sure how long it's gonna take for him to actually see him. Right now he's in prison, and so he's not exactly sure exactly what this is gonna look like. And so, in case I tarry, in case it's a long time until I get to see you, I'm writing to you so that, verse 15, you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God. And so, how to behave yourself in the house of God, it's not really talking about your deportment. I mean, I do remember when I was a child, a pastor, using this passage on a Sunday evening to talk to the young people of the church, and one of his applications was, we don't run in the sanctuary. We want to behave ourselves in the house of God so we don't run in the sanctuary, right? And that is, that's a wonderful application, but It's not quite what the verse is about. It's not talking about not running in the sanctuary, don't chew gum during the worship service. It's not talking that kind of stuff, okay? What it's talking about, behaving in the house of God, is what is the purpose of this church, which is called a house of God? What is the goal and the aim? What is the foundation? What is the principle by which we operate? So, he talks about the church as a house. The church is a house of God. The house of God, which is the church. So the church, these called out people, not the building, but the people, and they're gathering together corporately, is the called out people who belong to the living God. And they are like God's house, they're like a house. Okay, you can picture a house. Okay, so the church is like a house. It's the pillar and the ground of the truth. Now that's a difficult metaphor to put together in your brain. So you've got a house and you've got a pillar And the house is the pillar and the ground of the truth. What does that mean? And you've heard me go through this before probably. Let's start backwards here, the word ground. The word ground here is a pretty rare word, but the root has to do with a seat or a chair. The adjectival form of this word, you turn the word into an adjective and you get the word steadfast. Like 1 Corinthians 15, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. That's the adjectival form of this word. So we're talking about, does this make sense? The church is the place where the truth is seated. The truth has its seat in the church. If I told you that this week I'm going to the seat of American government, you would assume that I'm going to Washington D.C., and maybe even more particularly, the Capitol building. That's where the seat of American government is. All right, the church is where the truth is seated. As a man walks through this world, exposed to all of his deceptions and disillusioned and coming away with the cynical question of Pilate, what is truth? He ought to be able to find it here. This is the place in every community where the truth has its settled seat. The church is the seat of the truth. It's where the truth sits. And we always want to be a gathering of believers that therefore makes much of the truth of the Holy Scriptures so that it can be truly said of us that this is the place where you come for truth. Truth. Now this is other word here. The church is the pillar of the truth. When you and I think of pillars, we think of architectural design, where you have the pillar, and the pillar holds up the weight of the roof, and you need the pillar in order to hold the weight. But is that what Paul's saying? So the church is holding the weight of the truth on it. Seems kind of backwards, actually. The church is built on the truth, not the other way around. So what does he mean by the church is the pillar of the truth? And the way to get at this, I think, is to think about pillars in scripture. The temple had two pillars out front, remember them? There's these two 53 foot high pillars out front of the temple. Were they holding up the roof? They weren't. They were just there with nothing on top, just a pillar. The pillars had names. One of the pillars was named Joachim. The other one was named Boaz. The pillars were not holding anything up. They were just there, conspicuous to everyone who would go to the temple. They'd see these giant pillars. Timothy is pastoring at Ephesus. Ephesus has a temple dedicated to Diana. That temple had 127 pillars in it, each one dedicated by some prominent person in the Roman Empire. And the pillars did not hold the roof up. They were just there, just ornate pillars, probably with an inscription of the person who donated it. Because folks are folks, and that's what people do. That's what rich people do, right? So they've got an inscription, they've got some sort of ornateness to it, some kind of expense to it, there's a wow factor to each of those pillars, 127 of them in that building. Again, they didn't hold anything up. So I think the idea here is that the church is supposed to be displaying the truth, conspicuously displaying the truth. It is the pillar of the truth. So what is the church's relationship to the truth? First, that the church is the place where the truth has its seat. And you ought to be able to find the truth really easily every time you gather in that church with those called out people who belong to God. And second, the church conspicuously displays the truth. So through the preaching of that truth, through the living out of that truth, through the one another ministry that is following that truth, the church conspicuously displays the truth. It's where the truth has its seat and where it's where the truth is displayed. That's the purpose of a church. So, our sovereign has sovereignly anticipated our times. They are difficult times. The church has always existed in a difficult context. These last days have been punctuated by difficulty all along. His counsel is to continue in the holy scriptures, and he calls us to be the place where the truth finds its seat and where the truth is conspicuously displayed. And so may God help us always fulfill that purpose as a gathering of the Lord's people here in Darlington, Maryland.