Good morning, brothers and sisters. It is good to be with you again this year.
We have held so many young people’s conferences here in Toronto that my former students now have gray hair. Thank you for your prayers as we prepare for this weekend.
I want us to look immediately at several Scriptures. Let us begin with John 14:1-2, a very familiar Scripture.
Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in Me.
In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
Then, in John 15:4-7:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, unless ye abide in Me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for apart from Me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Then turn to 1 Timothy 3:14-16.
These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly;
but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves 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:
He who was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen of angels,
Preached among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory.
Now turn to Revelation 21:2-4.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.
And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away.
Finally, turn to 1 Peter 2:4-8.
Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame.
For you therefore that believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve,
The stone which the builders rejected,
The same was made the head of the corner;
and,
A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence;
for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
I suppose you have realized that these five portions of Scripture all have to do with the house of God.
I recently took a trip to Russia and came back with this one thought on my mind. I have gone to Russia several times to minister in the heart of the country, near Siberia. They ask me to come and help them teach the Word, but indeed, I find that when I go, they help me.
The work of God is very young in the two cities I visit. These works began after the Iron Curtain fell in 1993, so most of the Christians are new Christians. The work itself is very young, and you can see God’s hand moving sovereignly in their midst. It is fascinating.
They have no prosperity. They do not have homes of their own; they live and share apartments together. The government is persecuting them.
While I was there in April, I was speaking at a retreat. At the church building, policemen came wearing masks, arrested thirty-seven of them, and took them to jail. The police harassed them, took their fingerprints, and released them the next day.
I saw many of those thirty-seven, because they were students in their Bible school. I was with a group of Americans who were very afraid of this persecution, but the young Christians in Russia were not afraid at all.
When I asked them how they were doing, they said, “Praise God. Why should we fear? We are in the hand of God.”
As I observe them, every time I go, I try to give them whatever I can of Christ that I know. But I have also noticed that they have some things that we are missing.
Since my return, this one thought has been in my mind: the preciousness of the home of God.
In English, we have a saying: you might have a house, but you do not have a home. We Christians talk very much about the house of God. It is a concept. For some people, it is even a building.
Now, in Russia they do not have a building. They rent movie theaters that smell like tobacco and alcohol. They have no outward house, but they know the preciousness of God’s home.
Sometimes, with all our prosperity and all our buildings, we have lost the preciousness. We may know the doctrines of the house of God, but I was convicted of how much more we need to understand the preciousness of God’s home.
When you read these Scriptures, you can see the preciousness of God’s home. You see the word precious used a number of times in 1 Peter 2.
We see the secret of the preciousness of God’s home. It is because there is a precious Cornerstone in that home. It is the preciousness of the presence of the Lord Jesus that makes this home valuable.
The word precious in the original language means something that is very expensive. It means something that really cost somebody a lot.
Maybe we think it is a little strange that this word precious comes from the apostle Peter. Would you define the apostle Peter as a precious brother? He was a little rough and tough. He was a good brother, but Peter saw something. He saw the preciousness of the Lord Jesus.
When Jesus said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church,” Peter saw something. Now, as he writes this letter, he reflects upon this rock upon which the home is built. His thought is full of how precious that stone is. It gives value to the whole house.
Peter uses this word more than anybody else in the New Testament. In 1 Peter 1, he speaks of the precious blood. Do we realize its value? He also speaks of our precious faith, more costly than gold. Later, he speaks of the precious promises and of sisters who are precious because they have a gentle spirit.
Peter is evaluating everything in terms of the preciousness of Jesus. The more we are built upon that precious stone, the more His preciousness comes through.
Let us think about the preciousness of God’s home, that we might understand it and evaluate it properly. How precious is God’s home? Notice that I am not using the word house. I want it to be personal to you.
Let us think about the Scriptures we have read. In John 14, Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places.” That Father’s house is fulfilled in Revelation 21.
Whenever a voice comes from the throne in the book of Revelation, it is God’s estimation, and it is very important. When the New Jerusalem comes down, what does God say? What is His central thought?
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.
Man can dwell with God, and God can dwell with man—so intimate, so one. In that preciousness, He wipes away every tear and takes away all sorrow.
We think of the Father’s house being prepared for us. It will be precious. The tabernacle of God is with men. Can you imagine fellowshipping every day and seeing God face to face? He speaks to you by name. We have eternity. We will see Him every day, and we will never think that this grows old.
In John 15, Jesus is trying to help the disciples understand that God’s house is not a building like the temple. The many dwelling places in the house of God are connected with abiding in Him, because the same word for dwelling place in the original language is related to the word abide.
He says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” Right now, on earth, this is such a precious reality. I am afraid many Christians just take it lightly. But this reality of Christ abiding in us is such a precious thing—what a costly thing.
There is something about preciousness that must be noted: something precious can easily be lost. It is not that the relationship itself is fragile, because in this abiding relationship there is pruning. It is a durable relationship. But to live in the reality of this abiding life, there must be constant communion. There must be hourly dialogue.
Even when we are wrestling with God over something, do not walk away from the Spirit. Although, in one sense, every Christian abides in Christ, the abiding reality in our experience causes John to say, “If ye abide in Me.” We have a choice whether we want to abide in this unbroken communion.
I think it is a very, very precious thing. When you are abiding in this reality, people can see God in His home.
But I want to focus on the preciousness of God’s home as our assembling together. Peter is talking about the spiritual house that God is building.
There is a man in New Zealand who has made a tremendous model of Herod’s temple. I have been studying it in my spare time, and you realize how much care was given to every detail of priestly duty in that temple.
There were many furnishings and utensils in the temple, and they were all made of precious materials. They were all handled with great care. The priests entered, cleansed themselves, and went through the prescribed washing before they ever went in to serve.
Those priests and Levites did everything with such care. But this was only an outward house. How much more precious is God’s household.
We come to Him as living stones. As living stones, we lay ourselves against that precious Cornerstone. We find our value as we are built around that Cornerstone. How precious is the home of God?
Throughout the history of the church, this preciousness gets quickly and easily lost. The externals begin to be emphasized. Even the seven churches in the book of Revelation had lost something of that preciousness.
How did they lose it? I want to give us a little comparison, to encourage us not to lose the preciousness.
In 1 Peter 2, one translation says, “To you who believe, He is precious.” Everything to do with Christ expresses this preciousness.
As we look at this house of God—the building of living stones together—we want to go back to 1 Timothy 3. These few words in Timothy speak regarding the preciousness of God’s house.
Paul wrote this book in the latter part of his ministry. The Lord had already been using him for years as a wise master builder, seeing the church of God built in several cities.
Do you think Paul had become cynical about the house of God? Did he look at the church merely in an external way, looking at people and saying, “We have to shake that brother up,” or, “We need to tell that sister to stop talking”?
I have to admit that when I went to school to study for ministry, we studied 1 Timothy, and our dear professor taught us that this book was a minister’s handbook. You have to pick elders and deacons, and you have to get more contributions from rich people. He tells you how to do it. So I never liked the book, because I never read the manual. When I have a computer, I just make mistakes.
But I realize now that Paul is handling the household of God with very tender fingers. The center of this book is right here in these verses in 1 Timothy 3.
Why did he write the book? Verse 14 says:
I write so that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God.
In English, we see that a distinction is made between a house and a household. Already we understand: he is trying to teach us how we should conduct ourselves in the home.
Then he speaks, in a few words, concerning the essence of this home of God. Let us look at three definitions:
I will define these by means of comparison. About five years later, perhaps at least five years later, Paul wrote 2 Timothy. Already, the preciousness had been lost. Can you believe it?
Paul has to change his mode of instruction to Timothy because, in 2 Timothy, a certain preciousness has been lost in the home. Put your finger in 1 Timothy and turn to 2 Timothy 2. Let us read verses 20-21.
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor.
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.
From 2 Timothy, we see that ever since the days of Paul, there are two houses existing as the church upon earth. In 1 Timothy, there is the home of God, the church of the living God. In 2 Timothy, there is the large house.
Something has happened. In 1 Timothy, we see the very definition of the home. How is the home defined? It is God’s. His presence is there. God is speaking, God is loving, God is convicting, and God’s light is there.
But in 2 Timothy, the house is defined by its size. Literally, the Greek says “the great house,” the mega house. This is an interesting matter regarding the present-day church. These are Christians, built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, but the house is defined by its size.
If we dig a little deeper, it is not only defined by size, but by the vessels that are in it. In the large house, praise God, there are some vessels of honor. Hopefully, these are the vessels who minister in the house. They are servants of God who have kept themselves holy and speak the Word of God in truth.
But something is still lost, because everybody knows the house as Brother So-and-so’s house. It is known after the pastor or the worker. Something has been robbed. It is not God’s house; it is Brother So-and-so’s house. Something has been lost.
In 1 Timothy 3, we see that the church is the pillar and support of the truth. This has much to say regarding the truth of the gospel, but it also has much to say regarding the standard of holy living.
In the house of the living God, it is as if there is a pillar of fire. There is light. Light exposes darkness, speaks for the truth, and bears testimony. There are standards.
When young people grow up in such a house, they understand what is right and what is wrong because the standard is there.
In the large house, there is no such standard. There may be a brother, or brothers and sisters, who are living as gold vessels, and their testimony becomes the standard in the church. But there are also vessels of earthenware and vessels of wood.
You can be anything you want. As long as you are a Christian and have been baptized, you can come—no problem. Young people have a problem. They can go with young people who love the Lord, or they can go with young people who love the world. Families have a problem. Some leaders love the Lord; some leaders are worldly.
A young person has to overcome. They have to flee these things in order to become a useful servant of God. They have to learn the truth before the Lord, often without the help of the house.
The third matter of definition is the mystery of godliness. Verse 16 is not something completely separate from the context of the household of God.
When somebody looks at the household of God, they should say, “We see godliness.” That is such a mystery. How can people be godly? The mystery is Christ in you. The godly life you live is His life through you.
In the home of God, leaders do not lead out of themselves, but out of the Lord. People do not minister the Word merely out of their brains, but out of the Lord. Members of the body do many good works, but not out of themselves. It is the life of the Lord.
Here is the mystery of godliness: God can take sinners and transform them into godly people.
In the large house, there is a lot of ministry, a lot of works, a lot of planning, and all kinds of things. But much of it is simply done out of human flesh.
Do you see the parallel with the matter of abiding? If a Christian wants to abide in Christ in reality, he has to live a life where the cross works on his flesh all the time. To abide in Christ means that the pruning work is always present.
A Christian can live carnally. They can live for their own life, with not much of the cross in their life and not really abiding close to the Lord. Yet they may be happy because they discover that God blesses even His carnal children. But they lose the preciousness.
In church life, we see the same thing. Here is the home of God: precious, with a standard, because God is there. Then there is the large house. Unless the Lord can deal with people by the work of the cross, they remain carnal as a group.
Christianity, for the most part, has fallen into a large house. But the Lord’s heart is always yearning for preciousness—the recovery of preciousness. He is waiting to see His bride. He is not interested in our intelligence or our work. He is looking with His eyes for the bride that has His life operating.
In a large house, there can be great blessings, especially when people go according to the Word of God and when there are servants who are vessels of gold. God blesses.
But let me tell you the difference. In the large house, they have blessings because they are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. The preaching may be the preaching of the Word of God. When they worship, they may be blessed in their worship.
What is missing? Something precious: the Cornerstone. They have the foundation of Jesus, but not the Cornerstone. In the home of God, you have the Cornerstone of Jesus.
What does that mean? It means that the life of Jesus in the church assesses the conduct of the whole church and all of its affairs.
Today, a cornerstone is largely symbolic. In ancient days, when they built a house, they laid a cornerstone in the corner. It set the straight line for the rest of the building in both directions. It had to be very precise, very costly, and very precious. If its angle were even a little off from ninety degrees, you would end up with a wall going far out of line.
In the home of God, there is the precious Cornerstone. What is that practically? The large house may have the blessing of God, but the preciousness of God is His enthroned presence.
Let me put it another way: in His presence, there is blessing; in His enthroned presence, there is preciousness.
I know of no church that does not say, “Jesus is our Head.” But the group, the assembly, that truly wants Jesus to be the Head has a lot of decapitation in store.
The only way the Lord can be the practical Head of the church is for us to know the true work of the cross. This is the preciousness that Paul sees in the home of God.
By the way, in Russia they have this preciousness, though they do not even know it. They are simply being led by the Lord because they do not have traditions yet to lead them. When they gather together, the Lord is surely there. I pray for them as they get larger, lest they lose the preciousness.
This is a very, very important issue. I want to spend the last few moments in 1 Timothy, because we find in 1 Timothy three different words that are not popular, even in the large house.
What are these words?
Let us take order first. Paul says that we should know how to conduct ourselves. Everything should be done decently and in order.
In chapter 2, Paul shows the priorities of prayer. We may pray for somebody who is sick or somebody who needs a job, but first he says to pray for government. There are priorities.
It would bring life to our prayer meetings if we understood God’s priorities. What if we gave ourselves to pray concerning God’s burden for Toronto and for the world? Even as Jesus said, “Seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” We spend all our time praying for all the rest.
Brothers, this is God’s house. Lift up holy hands without wrath or disputing. Imagine coming to prayer after a difficult day at work, angry about one matter and disliking another brother. We cannot pray in that condition.
Watch how you conduct yourself. It is important. The matter of submission is important, even if it is not popular in the large house.
Listen, you need elders. But if an elder cannot manage his own house, he cannot manage the household of God. A leader may be called an elder, but if he is carnal and cannot hold his own home, this is not proper conduct in the house.
There must be order in matters of charity, widows, the treatment of elders, the procedure when something is wrong, and the use of riches. Timothy is to tell the people how precious the home of God is and how they should conduct themselves.
Disorderliness and rebellion cannot be in the house of God because the standard of truth rises high.
The second word is nobility. You may ask, “Where is that?” There are many places where a translation uses the word good, but it is a stronger word than our English word good.
For example, 1 Timothy 3:1 says:
Faithful is the saying, If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
This is something higher than good. It is something with virtue in it. In the house of God, you find truly noble people.
We do not have time to look at every use of this word, but it must occur twelve or thirteen times. It speaks of fighting the noble fight, bearing a noble testimony, and teaching noble doctrine. There is nobility throughout these pages.
There is nothing more noble than life in the house of God. We would get excited if we found out that the prime minister was going to visit this congregation. He would come in dressed in nobility, and we would all look up. But every brother and sister here is more noble than that—if only we lived up to our noble calling.
The third word is godliness. Godliness is throughout 1 Timothy—eight times. Many Christians do not even know what godliness is.
What is the difference between godliness and nobility? Nobility is the virtue of your outward acts of service. Godliness is the internal integrity of your walk with God.
Where does Paul start with that? He starts with Timothy, the worker. Then he runs godliness right down through the elders, through the deacons, and through the widows.
In the house of God, godliness is a means of great gain.
I yearn for the Lord to recover the preciousness of the home of God. We so easily lose it. We become outward, busy, and strong. We start looking around for vessels that we can follow.
But here is one last thought: God’s seminary for training workers is the precious home.
A young brother or sister who wants to serve the Lord will learn more under that standard of truth in the home of God than they would ever learn at a Bible school.
I went off to a Bible school to learn how to serve God. I learned options, but I did not have a standard to live by. Nobody spoke about godliness. These things I had to learn afterward.
I am not against the knowledge you can learn at a school. But the context of training is the home of God. The large house does not have such a training place, so it exports its young people elsewhere.
Where was Timothy trained? He was saved on Paul’s first missionary journey—not even in a big place, not in Antioch. He was saved in either Derbe or Iconium.
What do you know about the churches of Derbe and Iconium? They were little gatherings of saved people. But on Paul’s second trip, when he went to Derbe and Iconium, the brothers said, “Have you noticed Timothy?” The Lord had taken hold of this young man’s life, and he was a noble servant in Iconium and Derbe.
Who taught him how to be a noble servant? He was taught in the living testimony among his people.
Now, I have to admit, Timothy was whisked off to Paul’s seminary. He started carrying Paul’s suitcase, but he got an education walking along with Paul. Yet a worker’s character has to be built in the home.
This is why it is never a difficult burden for me to come to this youth conference. I look for those who have been raised in the house of God and have character. I pray that God will raise them up.
This generation may be among the last generations of servants before the Lord comes back. They have developed some character. May God raise them.
You know how quickly life goes by. You get married, you get a job, and you get busy. Unless you fight the noble fight, you stop serving.
But God wants to move in these last days, and He is waiting for such young people.
God’s home is precious. It cost Him a lot. It costs us a lot, and it is worth it. There is no place better to be than the home of God.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God,
Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
A day in His presence is better by far than a thousand elsewhere. God loves His home, and He is making it permanent. He is building you and me into this home.
Lord, You know in our hearts how we long to see Your home in reality. We have a deep awareness that Your longing is greater than ours.
Lord, we repent of all our shallowness and of accepting the standards of the large house. We want to live under the pillar and support of the truth, where Your enthroned presence is known every time we visit the home.
Oh, Lord, abide in us and enable us to abide in You, that You might have Your home. You are the way to that home. We come and bow before You.
Strip away from us all carnality. We know that that which is precious can be lost, but we know also that that which is precious can be gained. Oh, Lord, have mercy. We pray in Jesus’ name.