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Strong Tower Radio

Mike Lambert

The Church of the Living God

Fresh manna fell to the ground as a gift from God while the Israelites were in the wilderness.

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the master baker himself.

How the Israelites must have anticipated the taste and the smell of each morning's delivery.

Just like the Israelites, you too can now enjoy the taste and smell of fresh manna.

Today you'll be listening to Mike Lambert, pastor of the Holland Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Over the past few weeks, we have been discussing how we can be faithful followers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And today I wish to kind of wrap up this theme with the subject that we have entitled The Church of the living God.

In the Bible it says that God's church on earth is the house of God.

The other part of it in our study today, it's not only the house of God, but it is the pillar and the ground of truth.

It's the house of God and it's the pillar and the ground of truth.

This picture, this parallel twofold picture of God's church is God's truth and is ever a blessing to the church.

Men may misunderstand and even hate the truths of God, but the truths of God remain a blessing.

Truth brings blessing to the door of the church, even though some in the church may not welcome it.

Some might think that the truth curses them, but the truth as it is in Jesus, the purity of truth is no curse, unless men make it so to themselves.

Nothing can benefit this 21st century generation like truth can.

Nothing can better the morals of mankind.

Nothing can stop its wars or heal its feuds.

Nothing better and nothing nearly so well as the simple truths of God that are given to His church.

Therefore, the church of the living God should be very bold for truth.

You and I are the pillar and the ground of it.

Truth is our foundation and is the world's main hope.

Take away truth and the world's brightest star is quenched.

So let the church of the living God, the household of God, live and maintain truth.

And 1 day it will triumph and the church will be crowned with immortal glory.

Our Father in heaven, we want to thank you now for the privilege we have in our worship to open the sacred scriptures.

Lord, we bow our heads now and ask that you would fill us with your spirit, that you would give us wisdom and understanding and help us to practically apply in our own lives that which we consider.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.

1 Timothy 3, where we are in, we're going to be considering verses that are kind of right in the middle of the Apostle Paul's first letter to his younger protege, Timothy, and he has been given, Timothy, advice on how to be the district leader of a group of churches that he had responsibility over.

The Bible says, these things write I unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly.

So the Apostle Paul and the younger Timothy are separated at this time.

He writes this letter giving him advice of how to be a good pastor for the churches, and he says, it's my desire, I'm hoping, I'm planning on it, we've got it scheduled, that I'm going to be in your area shortly and We can meet together, we can pray together, we can study together.

But then verse 15 says, but if I tarry long, if something comes up, and I don't make it in time, if I tarry long, that thou mayest know something.

Know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God." And that phrase, behave thyself, has the idea of how you're going to live your life in connection with the house of God, the living Church of God.

And so he gives a few highlights here, but I find very 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.

And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.

It gives the idea here, 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.

And so, we have this picture here of the church of the living God.

The Apostle Paul is telling Timothy, you have the privilege of being part of the church of the living God.

And the saints in church today, guess what?

What does it mean to be faithful followers connected to the church of the living God?

Well we have some pictures about the church here that I think will give us some insights.

First of all we want to look at the word church And towards the beginning of this year, so almost a year ago, we covered this idea.

If you were to look up this word church, anybody in our audience today, what is the Greek word for the word church here?

And it's a compound word in the Greek language.

Klesia, the root word there, is kleo, which means to call.

So you put the 2 words together, what is the church?

So I want to talk a little bit about this definition of the church to start out with because the apostle Paul says to the younger Timothy, you're part of the church of the living God.

And Recently, at least in my life, I've had friends from around the country who are a little bit discouraged with the church.

And I don't know if you have ever been discouraged with church.

I hope my comments today from God's Word will be of some help.

Yeah, the church member was upset with some of the other saints in the church.

And he was going on and on, waxing eloquently and very loudly about some of the things in that particular church.

And he and I had talked about different things similar to that before.

And I said, Lord, help me to say what I need to say to the guy.

He has a misunderstanding on what the church is.

And so, when he finally was done, I just decided to take an angle.

I didn't know if it was going to be the best angle or not, but I just told him, I said, you know what?

The church is made up of people and people have problems.

If we could only get people to stop coming to church, then the church would be perfect.

And he slowly shook his head and said, okay, pastor, I see what you're saying.

And you remember this from probably almost a year ago.

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The Church of the Living God

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