A Church that Welcomes the Truth

Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

2 Timothy 4:2–4

We need more pastors and teachers in our churches today who will preach the whole counsel of God without fear. We need pastors who are prepared in season and out of season... who correct, rebuke and encourage. But we also need churches who will listen to and welcome the truth.

Sadly, some churches have turned away from the truth and refuse to hear it. Some churches won’t put up with sound doctrine being preached from their pulpits. Instead, they gather teachers and preachers who will preach what their itching ears want to hear.

Don't let that happen at your church. If you want your church to be a place where the whole counsel of God is preached… then do your part as a church member to welcome sound doctrine and sound preaching. 

How do you do that? Let me give you a few ideas:

1) Encourage your pastor more than you criticize him. When you think he preached a bad sermon, say nothing. Chances are he already knows. But when you think he preached a good one, go out of your way to encourage him and tell him what it meant to you. 

2) When your pastor preaches a difficult passage of Scripture and handles it biblically, thank him! Let him know that you want to study hard passages of Scripture and have them carefully explained.

3) When you hear other church members complain about sound doctrine being preached, support your pastor! Have his back. He may very well be risking his job to preach God's Word. If you want him to keep preaching courageously, then support it!

I am very thankful to be in a church that does all of these things, but I know that not every pastor is as blessed as I am. You may not be able to change the climate of your church overnight, but you'd be surprised how much impact a single church member can have. Be that church member for your pastor and for your church. 

A Firm Foundation

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.

Titus 2:1

You’ve probably heard of a certain famous leaning tower located in Pisa, Italy. What you may not know is that it’s actually a freestanding bell tower built for a church, the Pisa Cathedral. But when they started building it over 850 years ago they chose a poor foundation. The soft ground underneath the structure consisted of “ a dense mixture of clay, sand and shells” and couldn’t support the structure’s immense weight. (https://www.history.com/news/why-does-the-leaning-tower-of-pisa-lean) Over time the ground began to settle; and the tower began to lean. Today it leans nearly four degrees toward the south. It’s low side reaches a height of 183 feet 3 inches, while its high side is over 2.5 feet taller at 185 feet 11 inches. People come from all over the world to see the famous leaning tower.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa)

It seems to me that many Christians today are like that tower. They have not built their lives on the bedrock of sound doctrine, but on a mixture of concrete truth and the sand of error. So, they lean... in whatever direction the world pushes them. 

This is why Titus is instructed to be sure that he is teaching sound doctrine. It is so very important for our ministers to pour a solid theological footing for our people to build their lives on. It is so very important for individual believers to take time to review the basics of gospel truth and shore up their spiritual foundations, lest they should become a leaning spectacle for the watching world to see.‌‌ 

It can be tempting for preachers to try to come up with some new teaching instead of preaching the old truths. It can be tempting to go the way of the world and try to ensure that everyone leaves church feeling better about themselves as though the purpose of a sermon were to give everyone a self-esteem boost. But that isn’t what Titus is supposed to do. He is supposed to lay down the firm, unshakeable foundation of God’s old truth. And, he is to rebuke and encourage people as needed to keep them in that truth. And he is not to let himself be despised or silenced or ignored.

This is good advice for all of us as we share the gospel with the world around us. Don’t even think about adjusting the gospel to try to reach your friends and family for Jesus! You can't lay any more firm foundation for them than the old truths contained in God’s Word. They may ignore you. Tell them the truth anyway. Give them sound doctrine. They will choose whether they build on it or not. Your job is simply to lay it down before them.