The preciousness of the House

How the preciousness of Christ is imparted to the house of God.

Dana Congdon

Readings: John 15:4-7; 1 Timothy 3:14-16; Peter 2:4-8.

Perhaps you can see the connection in these three passages from John, Timothy and Peter. Indeed all three of theses passages touch upon the theme of the house of God. Often, when we talk of the house of God we talk about the doctrine of the house; outward matters which are necessary and important. Tonight however, I want to touch on spiritual matters relating to the house of God.

As you know, we can understand these things with our minds, but to live in the reality of them we need our Spirit open. The simple word which I want to relate to the house of God tonight, is the Word ‘precious’. Look again at 1 Peter 2 verse 6: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed”. And then again in verse 4, “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God”.

Notice in verse 7 that this preciousness is for those who believe and we immediately see who is precious; He is precious. He is our precious cornerstone and foundation. He is the only foundation for the church. Because the whole of our life comes out of that source. He is also the precious cornerstone.

Sometimes today, the cornerstone is put in the building at the end of the building as a ceremonial ritual. In the early days, the cornerstone was put in at the beginning because after the foundation was laid you placed the cornerstone and it had to be at a perfect right-angle, because the walls would be built from this cornerstone; if the angle wasn’t correct you’d end up with a crooked building.

We know that Jesus Christ is the measurement for the church and that He is our precioius cornerstone. We know that His preciousness is what gives value to the whole house of God. We’re all living stones, but how much value is there in us? Somebody here may be lápiz-lazuli, but I think most of us are just cheap stones. However, our preciousness doesn’t come from ourselves, our preciousness comes from the One who made us living stones. The value of this house is because of His preciousness in us.

The meaning of "precious"

I want to look at this preciousness. In 1 Peter 2 verse 7, I see that the Spanish versión which you have says, “He is precious”. In many English versions, it says the same. In the original however, the literal translation means a little more than this. It literally says, “to him who believes, is the preciousness”. In other words, because we believe in Him who is precious, this makes the whole matter of the house of God precious to us. It’s making a contrast: to those who believe in Him, preciousness; to those who reject Him, stumbling. Praise God that we believe He is precious! But this does something to our life. It brings a preciousness into our life. How wonderful this word ‘preciousness’ is!

Now, if something is precious, it means that it’s costly. But it also implies two other things: it is costly because it’s rare and hard to find and this is what makes it precious. So then, it is costly, it is rare, but yet another implication of the word precious, is that it’s fragile. Care has to be taken or else you can lose the preciousness. In terms of relationships, we would say the preciousness means a person is sensitive.

Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians, is talking at one point about the Holy Spirit and he says, “don’t grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you have been sealed unto the day of redemption”. Is the Holy Spirit precious to us? Well then, we should never grieve Him, because He’s sensitive, He’s valuable and so we must be faithful. If we lose the presence of the Holy Spirit, we have lost a treasure.

Abiding in Him

The house of God is precious. We want to have a look at it in a few different ways as we’ve already read. I wonder if you realise that John 15 speaks of the house of God? We probably all know this scripture: “abide in Me and I in you” and we probably realise how important this is for our own personal life. How precious is this abiding! He says, “you are in Me, I am in you. I am in my Father” and we see that there is this precious, abiding relationship. Do you know how precious this abiding is?

It is by the perfect work of the Lord Jesus in His death on the cross and His resurrection that we can now abide in Him and every Christian has this privilege, to be able to abide in Him. But because this abiding is so precious, John says that there is a condition for abiding. “If you abide in Me, if My words abide in you”.

Now, you all have the privilege of being able to abide in this intimate relationship with your God but not every Christian lives in the reality of it. Why is that? Because, to live in this abiding, there must be pruning in our life. To live in this abiding, we must obey His commandments. And to live in the good of this abiding, we must let His word abide in us.

Brothers and sisters, we would have so much more life in our assemblies if all of the saints truly abode in this relationship. How precious it is! But how sensitive we must be.

When I say preciousness, I’m not speaking of something that can simply fade away. This relationship of abiding is very durable. The Holy Spirit patiently strives with us. He prunes us so that we know this relationship is strong. Yet, we know as Christians that when we have disobeyed and have not come and consecrated ourselves to Him, how lonely the Christian life is without this abiding. We discover in hard and bitter experience that we can do nothing without Him abiding in us.

This passage on abiding actually has to do with the house of God. You notice, in Chapter 15 verse 1, He says: “I am the true vine and my Father is the vine-dresser”. What does He mean by “the true vine”? Israel called itself the vine of God. But Jesus called Himself the true vine. And as He talks about the church, He says that ‘everyone who abides in Me is part of My vine’. Now, when He says that He is the vine, He means that He is the root, He is the trunk, He is the branch, He is the twigs, He is the flowers and He is the fruit. He is everything! Is He everything in the church? Amen!

We live in that. We’re a twig. His life goes through us in the Xylem and Phloem cells and produces fruit. Is it our life? No, it’s His life through us and we abide in Him. Yet, He says this conditionally; if we don’t abide, if we’re fruitless, He cuts us off. This is a picture of how important it is to abide. His house is so precious. Or as Peter says, ‘He is the precious One who is building His house’.

Abiding is cut off by carnality. When we live a carnal Christian life, we cannot abide in the preciousness of Jesus, because the Spirit and the flesh are at war with each other. But if we walk by the Spirit, then we live in this precious abiding.

Peter is talking about this precious house of God and isn’t it interesting that Peter uses this word ‘precious’? In his letter, Peter talks about precious in several contexts: he talks about our precious faith, for example. Now, what is it that makes our faith precious as gold? We start out with faith but when our faith is tested it produces precious faith. He also talks about the precious blood. He says that God says the blood of Christ is precious. Peter loves to use this phrase ‘precious’.

Do you remember what else he says is precious? Spiritual sisters who have a humble spirit. Maybe the world looks at them and says ‘they look a bit funny, always wearing something on their heads’. But God looks at you and says, ‘precious, precious’.

God’s evaluation system is completely different from ours. I remember when I was going to seminary to study for the ministry. I had one professor who didn’t like this term ‘the blood of Jesus’. He was a liberal. He used to say, ‘people in the world don’t like this phrase’. He especially didn’t like the songs that we sang about the blood of Jesus.

The world doesn’t like the blood of Jesus. But we know that God looks at the blood and says, ‘that’s precious’. We can come to God because we know His precious blood. But have we considered how precious the house of God is? In God’s eyes it’s very, very precious.

The preciousness of God's house

I want us to look at that passage in 1 Timothy 3, because in this passage we see a beautiful description of the preciousness of the church. We’ll begin at verse 14: “I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I’m delayed I write to you so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” Paul is talking to Timothy about something very precious: the house of God, the church of the living God.

After all these years and the many things that Paul has been through, he still thinks of the church as precious to the Lord. It’s also precious to our Lord Jesus who is waiting for His bride to be made ready. When we look at the preciousness of this church, we have to recognize that the reality of this preciousness is rare today. The preciousness of this testimony of the living church is fragile. We must live daily before the Lord for His testimony to remain real.

I suspect most of you know that between 1 and 2 Timothy, a number of years elapsed. Most bible teachers agree that after Paul’s initial imprisonment, he was released and began to travel again. Later on, he found himself in prison again, and when he wrote 2 Timothy, he was right at the end of his life. He says that he has run his race, finished his course and fulfilled his ministry. He can see that there is the crown of righteousness waiting for him. However, he wants to speak to Timothy about an important matter.

When Paul writes 2 Timothy, we’re impressed by the fact that the church has lost some of its preciousness. That precious church which he described in 1 Timothy has now changed in definition. We look in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and we can see the new description in verse 19: “Nevertheless the firm foundation of God stands having this seal; the Lord knows those who are His and everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness. Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels but also vessels of wood and earthenware and some to honour and some to dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.”

Let’s notice the comparison: in 1 Timothy 3 as Paul describes the precious house, he says it is the church of the living God. The church is defined by its owner, it has been gathered by its owner. In the original language the church means ‘called out ones’. So, the church of the living God means called out to the living God.

How wonderful to have an assembly together where the living God is in the midst. When people say ‘whose church is it?’, the answer is ‘the living God’s’. How do we know? Because His presence rules there. When people come in to the midst they sense the presence of the living God. The preciousness is that we don’t just say ‘the church of God’, but we say ‘the church of the living God’.

What a wonderful testimony. God is alive. How do you know? Visit the church and you’ll meet with the living God. How precious is this testimony. But notice how it defines the church in 2 Timothy; it’s called ‘the large house’. You notice in verse 20, “now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels but wooden and earthenware vessels, some to honour and some to dishonor.”

When Paul writes this there had been a change in the church. The church was growing but here, it wasn’t called the church of the living God. Now, it’s defined by its size. In the Greek, it says: ‘the mega-church’. Now, it’s just a large house. Whose house is it? There it is also defined by the vessels within it. When you go to the large house, which is God’s house and these are God’s people and praise God that there are some vessels of gold; there are faithful people, they overcome. But there are also vessels of wood; these are all mixed together in God’s house. It is still God’s house, but something has been lost.

Let’s think about the second part of the definition in 1 Timothy 3:”the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth”. Now this is a wonderful thing. In the church of the living God, because the presence of God is there, the fire of his glory and holiness is in its midst; there is a pillar of truth in the middle of it.

Now what does that mean? First it means that the truth of the gospel is shared in the house. But it means more than that. In this precious church of the living God there is a standard in the assembly, God’s holiness, God’s righteousness, God’s mercy and love; it’s a standard in the assembly. Now if you go to the assembly and you live carnally, then you’re exposed by the light.

Young people who dwell in such a living church, know the standard, they have the pillar of truth in their midst. It’s not just doctrine, but the lives of godly people being lived out. If you read in Ephesians chapter 4 as Paul is talking about the new man, he says that when you came to the Lord, something happened to you. What happened to you prevents you from living in the ways of the old man. What happened? In chapter 4 verse 20 and 21, “but you did not learn Christ this way, if indeed you have heard Him and been taught in Him just as truth is in Jesus”.

You discovered the truth in Jesus and that Lord who is in the middle of our life and indwells us sets the standard by which we know right from wrong. By comparison we have the large house, where there is no pillar and standard of the truth. But there are examples: when you have gold vessels, people can see the Lord in that servant or you can see the preciousness of the Lord in that silver vessel. But when you look around you also see people who are just wood. Because there is no standard in the midst, people do whatever they want.

Today, brothers and sisters, we don´t say this to criticize, but most of what we see in the church is ‘the large house’. People love the Lord, but some preciousness has been lost. The preciousness of the Lord’s presence in the midst, His throne over the meetings.

Thank God, in the large house there are some precious brothers and sisters of gold and silver. Paul was exhorting Timothy; as the church was going that way he was saying ‘you must overcome, you must flee from these things’. You must prepare yourself as a precious vessel to the Lord.

Likewise today in the churches, we see many large houses but within these there are many people who are overcoming and remaining faithful to the Lord. We can never criticize such people because if they overcome, they will receive their reward. God puts such overcomers in many different places that you and I would never guess.

These people are faithful; but how difficult are the times that we live in. While the people are slipping further into darkness, they are holding up the standard of Jesus. They pray for revival and sometimes the life increases but it soon goes back down again.

We realize how precious that standard is in our midst. Here is a third description of this church of the Living God. It’s found in this statement: “and we agree; great is the mystery of godliness”. You know this precious text which speaks about many things concerning the Lord Jesus. But what is the essential meaning of this passage? This is the mystery of godliness: Jesus was a man, who came to earth but He lived by a heavenly life and for that reason He was vindicated and transformed in glory.

Now, we understand that this was the way of our Lord Jesus Christ but do we also realize that this also defines our walk in the church of the Living God? How do we live in the church of the Living God? By our own strength? No. The world would be able to understand that. In the world, there are some very strong people. They say ‘I will do this, I will do that, I won’t do this, I won’t do that..’ But there’s no mystery in that. We are human flesh, but we’re living our life by another power. They can’t see this power but it’s the life of Christ within us.

Brothers and sisters, I can testify to you that I was saved because of faithful brothers and sisters in the large house and I became a pastor in the large house. I don’t know if I was gold or silver but I wanted to be faithful to the Lord. However, the church was organized by human organization. Many of my messages came out of my own human ideas and sometimes if you’re a very clever preacher you’ll get many people who come to hear you: perhaps they think you’re very deep or particularly entertaining.

But then after ten years, God showed me the preciousness of the house of the Living God and I went and joined myself to a small group of people who wanted to live according to this testimony. I was amazed because I was seeing something brand new: I saw simple brothers, ministering the word out of the life of the Lord. Not from the mind, but from the burden of the Lord.

I saw that I had to learn a whole new way of ministering. I had to throw out all my old sermons. If we want to be the church of the Living God, how do we minister? We must minister out of His life. How do we pray? How do we worship? How do we teach Sunday school? How do we preach the gospel? It all has to be out of His life.

Now, I have tried doing all of those things out of my own strength. But now I want to live out of His life. This is the mystery of godliness: when somebody looks at you -you may be a carpenter- and they think ‘oh, he’s just a carpenter’, but then you open up the bible and suddenly you’re Peter the apostle. They say, ‘how can a carpenter know so much of the bible?’ Well, you just tell them ‘it’s the mystery of godliness’.

When you see people who are living by His life, don’t you think it’s a mystery sometimes? How can life come out of the least of the sisters? Sometimes we’re praying and seeking the Lord together and some of the brothers are praying with loud voices ‘Oh Lord, come and be with us, tell us what to do’ and then some dear sister says ‘I’m impressed by this scripture here and she quietly reads the scripture, everybody waits a second and then we say ‘That’s it! That’s it!’. Then of course, the brothers with loud voices take over again: ‘Praise God! Lord, we stand on this verse…’ etc. etc.

What is the mystery? That God can use any brother or sister. For this reason we have to value one another as precious. Don’t criticize your brother. If you know brothers and sisters who go to the large house, then I say two things to you: firstly, be very precious to them and secondly, if you desire to be the Lord’s testimony, it’s very costly to maintain it.

For the last twenty years I’ve been travelling around the house of God all over the world. But do you know who I work with? Do you think I go and speak to the adults? No, I’m too young for that. For the Chinese you have to be 70 before they listen to you. Brother Christian, brother Stephen, they speak to them but I speak to young people. I’m just a young man, 62 years old. I play my guitar, try to sing and then I speak to the young people! But for these last 20 years, this has been my blessing.

I want to tell you something: God chooses an assembly of people and He says ‘I want you to be the church of the Living God’. He calls these people together sovereignly by His will. They go through the cross, they go through the struggles. But when I look at these young people, I see that God is raising up a precious generation. Why are they precious? Because they grew up in the house of God.

Now, addressing the older ones: you and I, we didn’t grow up in the house of God. We grew up somewhere outside, in the large house. We had to make many mistakes but our young people, who love the Lord, they know the Lord and it’s almost like instinct. They know when something’s right and when something’s wrong. They’ve been living with the standard in their midst. God prepares them to serve Him by being in such an assembly.

How was Timothy prepared to serve the Lord? On Paul’s first missionary journey, Timothy probably got saved. When Paul went out on his second missionary journey, he came to Derbe and Lystra and the brothers said something like this: ‘have you seen our young brother Timothy? God is doing something in this man. He has something. He’s a brother with character.’ Paul looked at him and thought, ‘God is raising up a servant’.

Now, we know that Timothy was greatly helped by travelling with Paul. But he found his calling and his gifting and his experience in the house of God. The brothers were saved when Paul passed by the first time, but then they grew in the life of the Lord and so did Timothy.

I don’t mean to be critical, but I went to seminary to learn how to serve God. Why? Because I wasn’t in the house of God. God’s tool for raising up a servant is for them to live in the house of God and learn how to serve among God’s children. But in the large house we don’t have an atmosphere for them to learn in. So when I felt called to preach, they immediately sent me away to seminary and I can say with a clear conscience that some of my professors were gold vessels; they were an example to me of godliness. But I also had some professors who were wooden vessels.

I went to a large seminary and probably half of the students were not called to serve God. In fact, when I was there, half of the students were studying because they didn’t want to be called to serve in the army in the Vietnam war. If you went to seminary you were exempt from the army. But among my fellow students there were some gold vessels and some of them are still serving God today, still gold vessels. I’m glad that I can still have fellowship with them.

The Lord’s way however, is to raise up ministry through the house of God. This makes a precious vessel. Do you see the preciousness of the house of God? It is the church of the living God. There is a pillar of truth in the midst. In such a place, it’s harder to get away with sin. If somebody is living in open sin, then it is going to be exposed. So if you want to sin, you can go to the big, large house where nobody knows who you are. But if you want to live a holy life, come before God’s truth and let His life be your standard.

When I used to read 1 Timothy, I always thought it was a book of instruction. I didn’t understand how precious this book was. Because in the first epistle Paul is telling all of us how to be servants of God. I want to finish by mentioning three things that Paul describes throughout the book. These are things that are precious to God and are practically unheard of in the large house.

Paul does three things: Firstly, he tells Timothy to set the house in order. You and I know that order is precious to the Lord. Paul says to Timothy “in case I’m delayed, tell the people how they ought to conduct themselves in the house of God”. If we don’t have order, then we don’t have the house of God. So, Timothy and also Titus in the letter that was written to him, these brothers are told to set things in order.

God’s life has order to it. You know this letter to Timothy: in chapter 2 he says, ‘let’s talk about prayer. Now, this is the way we should pray: brothers need to pray and then sisters need to pray being covered’. This is order. In chapter 3, concerning the raising up of bishops and deacons, this is the order: a person cannot be a bishop if there’s no order in their own house. This makes sense to the life of God; an orderly home life and an orderly assembly life. If a man’s life and house is out of order, then how can he be part of the order in the house of God?

We can’t impose this in a legalistic way. The enemy is battling for our children and sometimes even those who are elders and are faithful, because their children have free will, they choose to turn away from the Lord. We can’t disqualify such a leader but we need to have mercy in this evil day. If we see the testimony of his life, that he has things in order, this is what’s necessary.

Paul continues and says ‘when it comes to the widows, this is the way it should be..’ and then in chapters 5 and 6 he talks about elders and then finances and how these should be ordered. The house of God is a place of order.

In the U.S. there are many churches and often things are out of order: often the women are above the men, the teenagers are in rebellion and things are completely out of order. But in God’s precious house, there is order.

There is another word: have you noticed the word ‘godliness’? Throughout the letters to Timothy, Paul talks about godliness. We saw the mystery of godliness, but it is also mentioned on various other occasions. Godliness is a precious thing; true, spiritual piety. A genuine desire to live in such a way that is pleasing to God. Paul mentions it in a number of places, even in prayer.

In 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 2, he mentions that we should pray in order to live a quiet life in godliness. In verse 10 he mentions that women should live in godliness as is proper. In chapter 4, verses 7 and 8, Paul talks about the importance of godliness as a discipline and spiritual exercise in our life. Then in chapter 6 verse 11, he talks about fleeing from certain things and pursuing righteousness, godliness, faith, love and perseverance. This term godliness may be out of fashion, even in the great house, but God desires godliness in His house.

Abiding on the precious Stone

One final word; this is the word that is translated ‘good’ in English. In chapter 1 verse 18, “this command I entrust to you Timothy my son in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight”. Also notice in chapter 3 verse 1, “This is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a good work he desires to do”.

Now in our translations, this word is translated as ‘good’. But the original word means more than that. In the original Greek, there are two words for good. One word means good in contrast to something bad. You might say: ‘How was that McDonalds hamburger?’ and someone could reply ‘it was good’, meaning that it wasn’t bad. However, this is not that type of ‘good’. This word means something that’s good in terms of a high standard. One of our English translations says, “he who aspires to the office of overseer desires a noble work”. This word ‘noble’ (good) appears 18 times in Timothy. What does this tell us? It means that there are some things in life, that when they’re done, they’re noble deeds, they’re important, they’re precious.

As an example, ‘fighting the noble fight of faith’. Now that is a good fight. Hold on to your faith; your faith is noble, it is precious. Fight that fight! ‘Now if somebody wants to be an overseer, this is a noble desire’. You know, an elder has to lay down their life. In the eyes of the world, there’s nothing noble in the church; you know that we weren’t called because we were noble or rich or educated or intelligent. God just chose ordinary people; but He makes them noble in the house of God.

If you follow the verses in this passage, you’ll see that deacons are also to be noble, the women are to be noble. This is a noble life that we live. In the eyes of the world it’s foolishness, but brother and sister, your life is precious to the Lord and you need to recognize the nobility of your calling. If you’re called to play an instrument in the worship, this is a noble calling. If you’re called to teach the children, don’t think that this is nothing; no, it is a noble calling. If you’re one of those people who helps by arranging the chairs and setting things up, this is a noble calling.

My wife and I used to be part of another assembly outside of New York, for twenty years. There was one brother who was a policeman. He knew how to share a testimony but if you asked him to share something from the bible, his tongue got tied up and he found it difficult to share. But he had the most noble job: every Lord’s day, as the people came in to break the bread, he was the brother who met you at the door and shook your hand and said ‘God bless you, welcome!’ Everybody remembers this brother, because he truly did this as unto the Lord.

Everyone who is serving in the house of God is doing something noble. May the Lord help you. We are doing something that’s so precious to the Lord. God has sovereignly joined you together. He desires His living presence to be in the midst. Be sensitive to Him. Don’t let your carnality remove Him. His testimony is not automatic. He dwells in the midst of a people who are willing to pay the price. He dwells among people who want Him more than anything else.

Does that describe you? Do you desire His presence above all else? Even if it’s a correcting presence or a rebuking presence? And of course, when it’s a rejoicing presence then we want His presence above all else. We want His standard in our midst. We want every brother and sister to understand and live by the mystery of godliness. This is the noble fight, this is why the Lord has joined us together.

Remember those in the large house. Many of them are faithful to the Lord and the Lord has called them there. But it is very difficult. It’s not time for us to judge. I tell you a mystery –you know this is true- there are some people who think they are the testimony of God. They have the doctrines right, they have the outward form right, and they’re proud to be the house of God. But they’re not the house! I’ll tell you something else: there are some people who are set up completely wrong: maybe they still have a denominational title above the door of the meeting place and maybe the setup doesn’t quite reflect God’s order, but their lives are humble before the Lord and you can sense His testimony there. This matter of the preciousness goes beyond our intelligence; it’s a matter of spirit.

I am so happy to be here with you and I exhort you in the name of the Lord, not to be proud because of success, not to get so busy building the house that we obscure the precious cornerstone. Without this choice, precious cornerstone, our assembly has no value. We are living stones and we need to be set upon our precious foundation.

May the Lord help us in these last days. When the enemy sees something precious being built, he tries to come in like a flood and divide what God has joined together. May the Lord have mercy on you. If you desire His preciousness above all else, then any attacks of the enemy will only result in greater glory for the Lord.

Synthesis of a message shared in Temuco, 2006