Church Life is Shaped by the Gospel (1 Timothy 3:14-17)

In 1 Timothy 3:14-17, we see that the churches life is shaped by the Gospel.  

Church life is shaped by obeying God’s Word.  Verse 14 tells us why Paul was writing, so that Timothy, and the church, might know how to have things in order. Paul isn’t wiring advice from one friend to another, he’s writing Scripture as an Apostle. And we must listen and obey. A Gospel shaped church is a church that knows the Bible, and preaches, prays and sings the Bible, a church that obeys the Bible and is shaped by the Bible. A church that will compare what the world says and what the Word says and follow the Word no matter what the personal, corporate or cultural cost. A church shaped by the Gospel is a church shaped by the Bible.

A Gospel shaped church remembers their standing before God. Paul describes the church as the household of God, the church of the living God. What a mess we get into when we forget that the church is about God and not about us! When our preferences and our desires take precedence over the designs and desires of God. There are all sorts of good things that the Church can be doing, all sorts of things that people within the church think it probably should be doing, but since it’s God’s household, He needs to be the One who has the final say. The church is the pillar and buttress, or support, of truth. God’s truth, not our truth. A Gospel shaped church remembers it’s place before God.

And finally a church shaped by the Gospel will be filled with people who know Jesus. It seems as though Paul changes subjects or gets confused here doesn’t it? He says ‘great indeed is the mystery of godliness,’ and then starts talking about a person. But godliness is simply knowing and growing in your relationship with Jesus, and this only really happens in the midst of a local church. So Paul doesn’t change the subject from church, to godliness to Jesus. Those three are one! We need to know the Jesus who walked on the Earth, the greatest and most real man there ever was. We need to know the Jesus who was vindicated at His baptism and in every miracle by the Spirit of God. We must believe in the glorious Jesus who was seen by angles, and who has been believed upon in the world as the Gospel spreads, the Jesus who will return from Heaven just as He arrived there. The Gospel shaped church doesn’t believe in a safe Jesus, a plastic Jesus, a Jesus who above all just wants us to be happy, a Jesus with perfect hair. The church that has it’s life shaped by the Gospel believes in the Jesus of the Bible.