Those ancient builders in Greece and Rome really knew what they were doing.  No, the roofs are no longer there, but the foundations remain, and many pillars.  Lots and lots of pillars.  Yes, some have toppled and shattered; many remain standing.  Isn’t this a picture of the church?  All the church has been through over these two millennia.  All that believers have been through.  All you and I have been through!  Chipped, cracked, yet still standing, stable, standing on a firm foundation, with a true cornerstone, a cornerstone that will never not be true.

It tells us something significant when Paul writes that “the church of the living God” is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (3:15).  Now, God is always the pillar and foundation of the truth because God is truth, and rejection of God is rejection of truth.  Truth must have a foundation: the trueness of truth.  How do we know today is Sunday?  How do we know it is August?  How do we know it is day and not night?  How do we know we are awake and not asleep?  We don’t ask such questions because the answer is obvious: it just is.  The answer is the same with God: He just is.  God never is not.  This is the essence of what is true: what is true is never not true; if it ever were not true, truth would cease to be truth.  In our age, it’s fashionable to think of truths as coming and going.  “That’s so ten years ago!”  Nobody wants to go around in the fashions of ten years ago, let alone thirty.  In the world, there is fashionable truth and the truth we’re not supposed to talk about—“who thinks that’s true, anymore?”

Truth, to be true, must have a true foundation.  The only true foundation is what always is and never is not.  That can be said about nothing except perhaps some highly abstract principles of mathematics, theoretical matters.  It has always been my impression that the most brilliant mathematicians were always after something else, something more, someone more.  The only true foundation is what always is and never is not.  That can be said about no-one except God.

The church exists to glorify God.  From God, through God, for God.  The church glorifies God when each believer lives like the little mirror of God’s glory he or she is.  Arise, shine, your light has come; let your light shine!  As we reflect God, we reflect the foundation of the truth; as we live for truth (which is life for God), God causes us to stand as pillars of the truth.  God is the pillar and foundation of the truth, and the church, faithful to God, is the pillar and foundation of the truth.  True living, true rejoicing, true hope for a true future—it all depends upon these pillars, and these pillars depend upon this firm foundation.

This firm foundation is made known to us in a most powerful way in Christ.  Paul writes that “the mystery from which true godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh” (3:16).  Did you hear that?  The mystery is not it but he.  The mystery from which true godliness springs is a person.  Godliness—Paul has instructed the church to pray for those who govern so that we might all live in godliness and holiness (2:2).  Godliness does not come by good governance, though good governance can help promote godliness.  True godliness springs like water, deep waters, cool waters, clear waters—true godliness springs from a mystery.  You and I might think of a mystery as a thing: a mystery novel, a mystery to be solved.  Paul speaks of this mystery from which true godliness springs as a person: Christ.  Now, Jesus does plenty of mysterious things, and says things that still and always will sound mysterious to us, but the point is that Jesus is mysterious because he himself is the mystery.

Paul writes in several places about Jesus as a mystery, the one who was hidden but is now revealed, made known.  A mystery isn’t just something we don’t understand or need to do some brilliant sleuthing to solve, like some Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, or Scooby Doo.  A mystery is hidden.  The best place to hide something is in plain sight.  Edgar Allen Poe understood this in his short story “The Purloined Letter.”  Beloved, what I mean is that the people of God have always had the Word of God, yet before Jesus came among us the Word was hidden, veiled.  We know, sadly, that the Word seems to remain hidden to too many out there, but he is no longer hidden to us.  What God has hidden, people can see only by revelation.  Let’s keep bringing people so that they also might see.  God will help them to see.  God is a God of revelation, revelation for salvation.

The mystery, Christ, is no longer hidden from us.  This doesn’t mean that you or I have solved the mystery.  I’m no mystic, but I agree with mysticism this far: the holy mysteries are not there to be figured out.  They are given to be lived, experienced, to draw us in and reshape us, to give us new cause for wonder, joy, and praise.  Jesus Christ is our mystery of godliness.  I can’t figure Jesus out: God and man; fully human and fully divine; all the divinity, pleased to dwell in Jesus?  No, I can’t figure him out, but I can experience him, and the experience of him is life changing.  Godliness, me?  No.  I’m not there yet, but I want to be.  No, I’m not striving as vigorously as I ought, but I trust that the mystery of godliness is at work in me and will have his holy effect in me.  Hallelujah!  Amen.

The mystery is a person.  The mystery is the Word.  The mystery is love.  Mysteries aren’t solved for the sake of knowledge.  Mysteries are resolved for the sake of closure, completion, reconnecting what was broken, what was missing, like a puzzle.  That is what God’s love does.  That is why God gives grace.  This is why God sends Jesus Christ to live, teach, suffer, die, and rise for us.  This is why God gives us the Holy Spirit.  Love.  Reconnection.  Completion.  The cosmic jigsaw puzzle of this life and of our lives.

In this part of his letter to Timothy, Paul gives us a sort of creed in miniature (3:16).  Our creeds are like the basic outline of our faith, the floorboards of our belief.  The creeds emerged for a reason: there was all manner of teaching in the early church, some straight from the wellspring of true godliness, much of it from elsewhere, rapidly going off track.  Paul began his letter by urging Timothy to keep teaching the true faith, so that the faithful would remain strong pillars upon the firm foundation.  A strong pillar won’t do much good on a weak foundation.  There in Columbia Lakes, framing, roofing, and siding happen quickly.  What takes much longer is the site preparation, getting the foundation right.

In giving Timothy instruction regarding prayer, regarding the responsibility of men, regarding qualities of elders and deacons, Paul has been painting a picture of strong pillars on a strong foundation.  Once more, he takes up what he had been saying about the teaching that comes from elsewhere, the teaching that is not from God: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (4:1).  Beloved, in this world, those later times are always here.  I do not say we are in the end times.  Are things bad?  Yes.  Have they been worse before?  You tell me: my memory only goes back about forty-five years.  I didn’t live through the Great Depression or the Second World War years.  When I was born, the Beatles broke up, No Fault divorce became a thing, and the government was scaling back in Vietnam.  Remember, when you begin to wonder about the later times, that God is also patient, not wanting any to perish but all to come to salvation.

“Deceiving spirits” still cause us trouble.  In our enlightened, rational age, there aren’t many with any regard for their reputations who would talk of the teachings of demons, but Paul knows what he’s talking about.  I suppose there are those who will teach things that are clearly repugnant—church of Satan, anyone?  Most, however, will teach things that win people over bit by bit—things that seem right, that feel right, or at least not wrong.  The demons won’t come ugly, beloved.  Consider how the church’s message has undergone shifts in emphasis over the centuries, even over these last few decades.  This is touted and taught as progress, commendable, praiseworthy.

In Paul’s day, the hypocritical teachers were bent on imposing laws, rules, restrictions in matters where God has given us liberty, liberty under His law.  In our day, these restrictions don’t have to do with holy and unholy food—though I will say Takis are clearly unholy.  In our day, I’m sure that the hypocritical teachers don’t regard themselves as hypocritical: they may well believe they’re heeding the higher law of the higher love, love without limit, love without rules, love without discrimination, love without choice or judgement.  Only, what is love without choice?  Bound love, enslaved love, chained love.  Such lyrics might work well in songs by the British boys on the radio, but God’s love sets free.

Paul urges Timothy to teach sound doctrine, teaching for life, health, and blessing.  Sound doctrine is the firm foundation for stable pillars in the temple of God’s godliness.  To teach sound doctrine, Paul writes, is to “be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed” (4:6).  This faith of ours is about truth, receiving it, holding onto the truth, following it, and handing on the truth to the upcoming generations: fathers and mothers of good conscience, good faith.  Good teaching promotes love for the truth.  Good teaching educates us in the way of godliness.  The church does not define truth or godliness: that’s for God.  The church teaches and defends truth and godliness: that’s for each and all of us.

Godliness is not a word we use often, but it’s a word to keep close to our hearts, like a locket or an heirloom pendant, something we want over our hearts all the time.  The world doesn’t have much use for godliness, but God has great use for it.  Paul’s words to Timothy are really words for us all, not just elders, but every Christian: “train yourself to be godly.  For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (4:7-8).  When we aim our daily living, our desiring, our choices, our devotion, to godly living, we can have every confidence, all faith, that God will be with us in this intention.  There is always approval for those who exercise their bodies for improved health.  How much more approval in heaven, and in the church, for those who aim for healthy souls.  A healthy soul is a blessing here, for so many! and gives us great assurance of eternal life.  Indeed, God permits healthy souls to begin to taste that life even in this life.

How shall our souls become healthier?  By holding to the truth, teaching the truth, loving the truth.  By loving God who is Truth, and by loving one another and every neighbor in Spirit and . . . truth.  By accepting Christ’s invitation to receive the mystery of his life: his life for our life, the food and drink that nourish our souls, food and drink that build healthy souls.  “That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe” (4:10).

From this table, Jesus holds out to you the assurance of salvation, love, grace, life.  We can do nothing to deserve it: he does not give us here our daily pay.  He gives us his gift: constant, life-giving fellowship, here and hereafter.  The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose, / I will not, I will not, desert to his foes; / That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, / I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.