Stand For The Truth (1 Timothy 3:15)
Are you ready and willing to share the truth with others?
Last week we learned about spiritual growth. That's a challenging topic. I've preached on it a few times and never feel like it's a good sermon. As the body of Christ, God desires spiritual growth. He wants us to become more humble and holy like Christ.
Today, we will talk about another basic expectation that God has for the church. If we want to be what God has called us to be, we must be willing and ready to stand firm in what we know is true. To the world around us, it sounds very unloving to hold to one truth at the expense of all other beliefs. But love demands we continue to hold onto what is true. This is also part of our purpose as the body of Christ.
The Church Holds Up Truth
To help us understand this, I want us to start by thinking about 1 Tim 3:15. As the church, we are called to be "a pillar and ground of the truth."
1 Timothy 3:15 (ESV) --- 15 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.
I like the way the ESV terms it as a "buttress." Buttresses are supports that keep a wall from being pushed over. If you were building a wall around your city, you wouldn't want a wall that is just one foot wide and twenty feet tall. You would want a mound of dirt or rock backing it up. That's what Paul says the church is. We are the rock that helps keep the truth held up. If we let the world change the truth around us, that truth is a matter of one's own opinion; we have essentially let that wall fall. Truth is lost in the sea of preference.
But is that what we do? Are we the buttress of the truth? When someone says or does something foreign to the gospel's truth, are we willing to help them understand it? Don't you wish it was just as simple as that? We've all heard the generalities where people claim to stand for and fight for the truth. The problem is that in our day, truth is a complicated subject. Too many people claim to know the truth. Who is right?
What makes your truth God's truth? Will you say, "The scriptures?" So do others. People have many verses to back up their beliefs, claiming that everything is in context. So, we are going to look at the truth, and we are going to talk about holding that truth up in a community that rejects it because that's what the church does. But it's not all cut and dry. It isn't easy it's.
1. Continually Standing In The Truth
We have already discussed the primary truth over the last year. We looked in depth at the truth of the gospel. But the gospel is not something we stop talking about. We need to hear the gospel repeatedly because the world around us tries to twist it, and we tend to forget it. To help us with our study, we will study 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15:1--2 (ESV) --- 1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you---unless you believed in vain.
Paul tells the Corinthians, "I'm going to remind you of the gospel which you have already received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to it." We need to hear the gospel repeatedly because, Paul says, we are being saved through the truth of the gospel. If we hold fast to it, we have hope of salvation. But if we let go of the gospel, our initial belief was in vain!
Think about what this means. The gospel is what we are standing in. Without the gospel, we do not stand at all. Letting someone come in and distort the gospel means we lose salvation. Our belief was in vain. If we let the world around us tear down the truth in the gospel, we will reject it, fail to hold on to Christ, and miss out on eternity. So what is the gospel?
1 Corinthians 15:3--8 (ESV) --- 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
This is the basic gospel message that cannot be denied. We stand in the truth of God's tremendous grace. God is not unjust, nor is his sense of justice distorted to our liking. He has demonstrated himself to be just and the justifier of those who will put their faith in Jesus. He demonstrated his love by sending Jesus to die for our sins, just like he said he would for thousands of years. He raised Jesus from the dead and let him appear to thousands of people so that there would be no doubt he was the Messiah and Savior of the world.
2. Willing to Defend Truth
After we have developed a firm grasp of this truth, we are called to stand in it, meaning we must stop moving away from it. There is no further revelation about salvation. Don't seek it. There are many different distortions men create. We could spend our whole time looking at the many different ways the truth was twisted, but Paul says our salvation depends on holding firm to the truth of the gospel. As the body of Christ, we know the truth, but we must constantly be reminded of it. After Paul reminds them to stand in the gospel and hold fast to their salvation in Christ, he reveals how men have failed to do this.
1 Corinthians 15:12 (ESV) --- 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
Do you see what some people at the church in Corinth are saying? They claim that the dead are not going to be raised. What? How could any Christian believe that? Paul begins to explain how the resurrection is an essential element of the gospel's truth. Those who are in Christ will be resurrected. If not, there is no salvation. Nor is there a good reason to suffer and struggle through this life. We might as well do all we can to have the best life because this is it. But the truth is that there will be a resurrection to eternal life for those who put their trust in God.
He wants them to stand in that truth and not let anyone take it away from them. We aren't going to look at all of his arguments. That's not the point. The point is that Paul stood for the truth, he wanted the Corinthians to stand for the truth, and he also wanted us to stand for the truth. So, he spends the rest of Chapter 15 defending what Jesus has revealed in the gospel.
This is of first importance for us as the buttress of truth. An attack on the gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection for our salvation is a battering ram against the wall. We must stand firm in this truth.
3. Be Prepared
Attacks will always come upon the truth because we are constantly tempted to believe a lie. That's what Satan is constantly trying to convince us of. He's been doing that since the beginning. So we have to be ready for whatever he throws at us. Paul finishes defending the gospel and gives the Corinthians some instructions.
Notice his words near the end of this letter.
1 Corinthians 16:13--14 (ESV) --- 13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.
He wants the Christians to be prepared for everything that might come their way. That's good advice. Let's break it down.
Watch Out!
The first phrase for us to look at is "watch out." As the church of Christ, we uphold what is true. The fact that Satan is working to prevent that means we have to ensure that what we believe is true. We have to watch out for contradictions and discrepancies. We cannot stand in grace if we hold fast to what is untrue. If teachings that we like to hear, we aren't following the will of God.
If we are standing in the grace of God, Paul says we need to be watchful. That means paying close attention to what we believe, and we need to pay attention to what other people say.
Peter warns of the same thing in his letter.
1 Peter 5:8--11 (ESV) --- 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Peter's words hit home. If we can resist the deceptions of Satan and hold fast to the truth, God will provide everything we need to finish the race. It's going to be long and painful but so worth it. We have to prepare ourselves by staying on the alert.
When I was about two weeks away from moving here, hurricane Dorian was just off the coast of Florida, and I was in Minnesota. The size was a category 5, and the path directly hit West Palm Beach. I was watching the radar and keeping up to date on the news. Why? Because I cared about the people in the path of the storm. I ended up leaving Minnesota early and coming home to prepare, but God stopped the storm over the Bahamas, and we were primarily untouched.
God wants us to watch when a storm of false teaching comes in our direction. As soon as something false shifts in our direction, we need to be ready. Are you aware of the false teachings that are spreading among our youth? Do you know what false teachings have permeated traditional churches of Christ?
"Stand Firm"
Next, he says, "Stand firm in the faith." These words tell us to be stubborn about our faith in God. We have to be immovable in our beliefs about God and Jesus. Do you believe what the Holy Spirit reveals is reliable and can be trusted? When men and women around us refuse to believe what the Bible says, when they provide complex and twisted logic to justify their views, we can put our faith in the words we read in the Bible. Don't drift around to different teachings that have no basis in the Bible's teachings.
Are you standing firm in the faith, or are you still shaky? Is it possible that you are standing firm in something untrue? There have been times when I've been stubborn about something I was wrong about. It seems like once a month, I'm upset because I can't find something, and it's only getting worse as I get older. It's horrible now that we moved to a new place. But when I first married, I would get so aggravated with Jenna because I assumed she had moved everything. I would get to the point of being very angry over something minor. You all might have heard my floss story. I accused her of moving the floss and found it right where it's always been. That has happened so many times that I have started spending ten minutes relooking at the place where I thought a tool or device was. I've stopped trusting my eyes and started being a little more humble about it.
Is the truth about God and Jesus like that for you? Do you think you know the truth and get angry when people try to tell you something different? Have you humbly stopped to consider what is true? It's essential to stand firm in the faith, but we must be sure that what we believe is the faith God calls for us to have. That's what we want to stand firm in.
In the past, the churches of Christ have made a name for themselves by focusing on "false teachings" in the world. We have proudly condemned the innocent in some cases. That's not what the church is called to be. If we aren't careful, we will forget the gospel and make it about not being like others. We need to watch out for false teachers from the outside, and we need to watch out for the deceptions of Satan from within.
I'm not talking about people having opinions or disagreements about complicated or ambiguous sections of scripture. I'm not talking about men standing firm in their thoughts instead of God's revealed truth. But we have to look out for Satan's deceptions. He wants to distract us from the truth to accuse us.
"Act Like Men, Be Strong"
I love this phrase. It's great because it flies in the face of feminism. Those who believe the truth need to be ready to fight. They need to see that giving up is not an option. As the church, we need to be strong against the sinful and destructive arguments of the world.
But don't take this the wrong way. He's not telling us to fight with people. He's telling us to fight against lies like strongholds over people. The people aren't the enemy. Satan is the enemy, and his lies are what we aim to defeat.
2 Corinthians 10:3--6 (ESV) --- 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
The church cannot be a buttress for the truth if it is unwilling to argue against what is false. We are here to spread the truth and stand against those who deny it. To do that, we need to be brave and bold. We need to stand up to those who deny the truth in the scriptures.
"Love"
To back up that last sentiment, notice how he follows that statement: "Let all that you do be done in love." It's as though he calls for us to fight but doesn't call for us to hate people.
Who here likes to go against what other people believe? In the last month, a revival at a Christian college in Asbury, Kentucky, has swept the nation. People are excited about it, while others are up in arms over it. It's been fascinating to see how it all started and how people responded. The guy preaching taught about love and asked Jesus to move through the pews and for the Holy Spirit to bring about a love that's not hypocritical. That sounds like a pretty reasonable request to me. What happened next was that the kids stayed. They refused to leave and stopped praising God.
From a big-picture perspective, we want our college campuses to spark a love for God and not a continuation of atheistic immorality. So this is a great thing. It's great to see people seeking God. How do you respond to that or react to this denomination seeming to have a spark of life? Is how they act and teach different from what we understand the scriptures to say? Absolutely. Their teachings on salvation are far from the truth. As we watch the live stream, so many red flags go off in our minds.
But is God calling for us to argue against them? I've seen people try. Friends of mine have talked about them having zeal without knowledge, or they bring up scriptures to refute the validity of what's happening. They get criticized for that. They are called "party poopers." Paul says, "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." We can't back down from what we know the scriptures to say. Please don't believe that their teachings are correct because they seem to have success.
The real question is, "How do we speak out against them?" Remember, "Let all that you do be done in love." Even in our arguments, we must be mindful of what is helpful for other people to hear. There has been a lot of buzz about how we should respond to the politically correct nature of our society. We need to be ready to uphold the truths we read in scripture and to love people who are enemies of the truth. Speaking the truth about issues has to be done, but it must be done in love. Those who speak without love aren't following Christ.
What Should We Do?
In this section of 1 Corinthians, we have seen that we aren't just here to agree with everyone and make everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside. We aim to believe the truth and defend it when it is distorted. We know that people who believe in a lie will not enjoy the benefits God is offering to his children.
Study and Discuss
When we have a firm grasp of the truth, we must be willing to share it with people so that they, too, can be saved. We must be watchful and bold when something false is presented to us. Paul tells us to stand in the grace of God. We must remember that the gospel is worthy of our continual attention. It's something for us to remind each other of often.
Pray
To stand in the truth and defend the truth to others, we need God's help. God offers himself and his Spirit as a source of strength and encouragement. If we are willing to open up to him about our struggles, he will give us the encouragement we need. If we are willing to look for opportunities, he will provide them.
We also need to take time to pray for our brethren who go through struggles with evangelism daily. Paul often asked his brethren to pray for him to speak clearly and with wisdom. We need to pray for each other in this. Pray that we understand the truth, have the boldness to share it, and have the skill to do so with clarity.
Let's pray right now.