Title: The Discipline of Godliness
Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:6-10
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
Well, this morning I want to explore the notion of godliness. A few weeks ago, we looked at Paul's words in 1 Timothy 3.16, talking about Jesus Christ, calling Him the mystery of godliness. Of course, for Christ, godliness is truly godlikeness, and there is no one more like God than the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
But the Bible also calls on Christians to manifest godliness. For example, in 1 Timothy 2.2, the church is exhorted then to lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. And yet if you ask most Christians what it takes to live a godly life, they might struggle to give you an answer.
In fact, I have a friend, I'm going to call him Alan, and the reason I named him Alan is because no one in this congregation is named Alan, at least not that I'm aware of. But my friend Alan was saved in his 20s after being invited to church one Easter. He heard the gospel, he professed faith in Jesus Christ, he confessed a bunch of his old sins, and then he was baptized shortly thereafter.
His parents had bought him a Bible for Christmas one year, which he opened occasionally, but he ended up joining that church that he was converted in, he got married, he had a couple of kids, and then he attended regularly. Now on the outside, he seemed like a decent Christian guy, but on the inside, he was far from godly. His old habits clung to him like a noose around his neck.
He drank too much, he fought with his wife all the time, he yelled at his kids, he was sexually impure, he was biblically illiterate, he was spiritually dry. By the time I met him, he was on the verge of divorce, he had little love for God in his heart, and he couldn't understand why he had no victory over sin. On paper, he was a Christian, but he was not godly.
And so the question to consider is, why wasn't Alan more godly? Well, in his book by Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness, which I would actually commend to you all, another book to add to your list here, but this is a fantastic book, anything by Jerry Bridges is amazing. So just read Jerry Bridges' commercial for Jerry Bridges here. But he talks about this very thing.
He talks about the discipline of godliness, and this is from his book here. He says, We Christians may be very disciplined and industrious in our business, our studies, our home, or even our ministry, but we tend to be very lazy when it comes to exercise in our own spiritual lives. We would much rather pray, Lord, make me godly, and expect Him to pour some godliness into our souls in some mysterious way.
God does in fact work in a mysterious way to make us godly, but He does not do this apart from the fulfillment of our own personal responsibility. We are to train ourselves to be godly. But it then begs the question, how do we do this? Well today I want to explore this question and more as we look at our text in 1 Timothy chapter 4. So if you have your copy of Scripture, I would invite you to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4. Now to give a running start into our text today, Paul has already expressed deep concern over certain men in the church who were teaching strange doctrines, and they were turning people away from the truth and toward myths and speculations and fruitless discussions and so on.
In chapter 4, he returns to that problem and he points out the Spirit's emphatic warning that this kind of false Christianity will eventually lead professing believers to fall away from the faith. Ultimately, if you bathe yourself in error and falsehood and speculation and all kinds of superstitions, if you bathe yourself in error, you will eventually fall away. But the question is, well why does this happen? And he says because they're paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons as well as those who are, he calls, hypocritical liars who insist on subjecting believers to laws, customs, and superstitions.
So in other words, false Christianity. Later on in verse 7, Paul refers to these kinds of teachings as worldly fables fit only for old women. Interesting phrase.
But the overarching message here is that this kind of graceless, legalistic, superstitious, speculative religion does not ultimately produce what God desires for His people. And what is that? Godliness. Godliness.
It only produces false converts who eventually fall away. However, Paul is intending to offer here a corrective. And he does so by exhorting his young disciple, Timothy, to continue ministering God's truth to God's people in order that they would respond in earnest devotion and in true godly character.
And so we're going to pick it up in chapter 4 of 1 Timothy, starting in verse 6. Now again, the previous five verses, he's talking about these issues of false Christianity, legalism, things like that. He says in verse 6, in pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.
For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance, for it is for this that we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Now from this point on in this letter to Timothy here, the next couple of chapters, Paul is going to direct quite a few addresses to you.
He says you, such and such a thing. He's talking to Timothy, but he's encouraging him, he's spurring him on, but we also don't want to neglect the call to receive this ourselves. Obviously in the original context, Paul is talking to Timothy.
He's meaning also to talk to the church, but he's talking to all of us, but you're going to see a lot of exhortations, direct exhortations here. He tells the young pastor, in pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. This is one of the two main responsibilities of shepherds as we learn from Titus 1.9. We looked at that when we talked about the responsibilities of shepherds quite a few weeks ago, but Titus 1.9, just to refresh your mind, the purpose or the goal of ministry is to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.
It's a two-handed approach to pastoral ministry, and so he's focusing on that kind of thing, he's talking to exhort in sound doctrine and refute in contradiction, so he's talking about pointing out these kinds of things, and what are these things he's pointing out? No doubt he's talking about the required conduct of the church in chapter 3, verse 15. He's talking about the greatness of Christ in chapter 3, verse 16. He's also pointing out the error of the false teachers in chapter 4, verses 1 through 3, and so he's exhorting in sound doctrine and he's refuting contradiction, but by exhorting and training in the truth, Timothy renders himself to be a good servant of Christ Jesus.
The word that's used here, the word servant, is diakonos, it's the exact same word translated as deacon in chapter 3, speaking of the office of deacon, but here when we talk about pastors and ministers, usually we render this word as minister. To minister, to serve, it's the same word in the Greek here, but applied differently, and so here, as a servant, as a minister, a good minister is a servant of Christ who teaches God's truth to the brethren, to adelphoi, literally the brothers. That's the word that's used there, but it's no doubt a reference to the whole household of God, to the church of the living God, chapter 3, verse 15.
A good pastor, a good minister, a good shepherd is going to teach God's truth to the church, to feed them, but if you avoid calling out error, if you refrain from teaching the truth, the whole truth, mind you, you're not a good servant of Christ Jesus. No good servants, they obey the master. They do what he says, they say what he wants, they follow where he leads no matter the cost, and that can sometimes come at a high cost.
We're living in a culture in a day right now where telling the truth about a lot of things can get you into some hot water. I've had, and this is not a self-congratulatory thing at all, but just by way of illustration, I've had people tell me or thank me for being brave about speaking truthfully from this pulpit, and I think about that and I'm like, it's not brave to tell the church what you already believe. That's not brave.
Brave is to go and stand in front of the state house and tell the truth in front of people who hate the truth. That's brave. This is just our job.
This is not bravery. We should all be telling the truth about what God says in his word. That's just faithfulness, that's good stewardship, and so that's what every minister of the gospel is called to do.
But Paul goes a step further here. He conveys the content of an obedient ministry. What is the good ministry that we're supposed to be doing? What does it mean to be a good servant of Christ Jesus? How do we exhort the brethren? He says we're to exhort the brethren, the church, in such a way that both he and us, they, are constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.
This word translated nourished here is entrefo, which comes from the Greek word that refers to feeding, to feed. The Greeks used this word to refer to the training of their own children. That's how they referred to this.
They used this word entrefo as feeding and nourishing and rearing and bringing up their own children to become mature adults. So the way that a parent will train and bring up their children is the same way that the church is supposed to be reared and brought up in the truth of God's word. It specifically refers to a mental or a spiritual nourishment.
And again, Paul's applying that to all of us as believers here. But how are Christians nourished spiritually? Is it something that you can just pray down from heaven and it sort of fills you in sort of an electric, spiritual, mysterious way? Is it just some kind of a feeling that you get? Not at all. He says that there are really two kinds of nourishment, at least in this verse that he gives.
First kind of nourishment he refers to here is the words of the faith. The words of the faith. This is a reference to divine scripture.
This is talking about the Bible, the word of God. The Bible is constantly referred to as spiritual food in the Bible, in scripture. Just to give you, I mean, there's probably about 50 or 100 verses I was sort of thinking about this week, but I just zeroed in on just a couple of them.
Psalm 119, verse 103, how sweet are your words to my taste. Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Talking about the wonder, the sweetness of the word of God.
Jeremiah 15, six, he says, your words were found and I ate them and they became for me a joy and a delight of my heart. He talks about loving the word of God so much, looking forward to being nourished by the word of God. I just imagine Jeremiah before he goes to sleep at night, excited to wake up the next morning to spend time nourishing his own heart and his own mind in the word of God.
Or even Jesus says, man does not live on bread alone, physical nourishment for us, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, Matthew 4, 4, we are to be nourished and fed and built up and our soul should be fattened and built up and strengthened in the word of God. And so that's the first one. We are sanctified and nourished and transformed and trained through a steady diet of the words of the faith.
But then Paul adds another one, another thing that nourishes us. He says, number two, the sound doctrine which you have been following. What is sound doctrine? Literally, sound doctrine is healthy teaching, healthy teaching, which comes in the form of many different things.
Number one, clear biblical exposition, that's preaching and teaching. The Puritans used to talk about preaching like it was a big four-course meal. They would see themselves as feeding and ministering spiritual food to the church.
So clear biblical exposition. Number two, correctly devised theology. Theology, why does theology matter? Theology is not just for super smart people.
Theology is for everyone. Guess what? All of you are theologians in some form or another. What does that mean? Well, what you believe about God, about your own life and your sin and your nature, what you believe about the world, about the gospel, about Christ, what you believe, it's built on how you piece things together in your faith.
That's doctrine. That's theology. Now, we can either have good theology or bad theology, but all of us have theology.
Even the atheist has a theology. They don't believe that God exists. That's a theology.
It's horrendous theology, but it's theology. That's doctrine. And so, biblical exposition, how we understand and hear the Word of God, theology derived from the principles of God's Word, and then wise, godly application.
How do you take the truth of God's Word, rightly understand it and theologize it, and then bring it into your own life to obey it? The application of God's Word is highly important. You can't just read the Bible and say, wow, that's great, and then do nothing in it with your own life. You can't divorce yourself from the truth of what God is saying to you.
If God is speaking to you, you have to listen, and you have to follow suit. And so, sound doctrine is a right understanding and application of God's Word, and that will nourish you spiritually. It will feed you.
It will build you up. It will satiate your spiritual appetite. But thankfully, it was this kind of sound doctrine that the Ephesian church was already sitting under.
They had a good teacher in Timothy and the other elders. They had good teaching. So that's why he says, this is the sound doctrine that you've already been following.
He's not telling them, go fix your doctrine, get another pastor. He's saying, listen, you guys are doing well. This is the kind of thing that will nourish you.
If you have good teaching, be encouraged. You're being nourished spiritually. So that's what he says to this church.
And so a good servant of Christ Jesus will focus their energy on exhorting the church in such a way. However, this goes beyond public ministry into the believer's private life as well. Verse 7, he says, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women.
This is essentially just a reiteration of what Paul has been saying throughout the entire letter. Again, he tells Timothy and the church to have nothing to do with, other translations will use this or render the phrase, refuse or avoid. Avoid these kinds of other things.
Worldly fables, and you get into some of the language here. The word is bebelos in the Greek, refers to something profane or vile, unhallowed, godless even. So that's the worldly.
And then the word for fable is muthos in the Greek. It's where we get our word myth. So worldly fables or ungodly myths.
He also talks about this in 2 Timothy 2.23. This is foolish and ignorant speculations that produce quarrels. But these are the kinds of teachings and the NIV actually translates this godless myths and old wives tales. Paul's not denigrating older women in the faith.
That's not what he's saying. But we all know what old wives tales are. They're fables that older women will make up and tell the kids.
They're fairy tales. That's the kind of idea. Paul says don't buy into that kind of stuff.
Don't buy into superstition. Don't just believe some tagline Christianity that you hear. Just because it's online or on a bumper sticker or on the front of your favorite book or whatever, it doesn't necessarily mean it's true.
It could be false. There's lots of jargon floating around in the blogosphere and in the Christian culture that's just not sound. It's not correct.
This is not the kind of stuff that nourishes believers. This isn't what produces godliness and maturity. And so the question persists then.
Well, how do you produce godliness in believers? How do you do this? Well, Paul gives us the answer in the second half of verse 7. On the other hand, so he's juxtapositioning all the godless tales and the old wives tales and all those other things. On the other hand, he says, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.
Now we know that the Lord can bring discipline and he does. I think about Hebrews chapter 12 where Paul talks about how he disciplines those he loves. It's actually a different Greek word.
It's pedia, which refers to training. But it's the same concept here. God disciplines us through trials and through adversity.
So that's certainly true. But Paul isn't talking about the discipline we receive from God. He says, actually, you need to do this to yourself.
You need to discipline and train yourself. And that's actually what this word means here. The word discipline in the Greek is gymnazo.
If you were to look at it written out on the page, it looks very similar to the word gymnastic or gymnasium. And it's actually where we get that word from. Gymnazo literally means to exercise or to train.
To train. In Greco-Roman culture, athletic competition was prized and even idolized. I mean, they really held high the standard of athletic ability and physical prowess.
Young men would strip themselves down and they would put on very small, tightly constraining clothes. Or sometimes they would even train in the nude. But they would train vigorously to discipline and sculpt their bodies and create works of art out of their own bodies.
We do that today even. And they would do so in order to engage in competition and to train and compete in order to win and become the best. It was intense training.
Even now as we speak, we know the Winter Olympics are going on. And we marvel at the dedication and training of these athletes. And I'll tell you, I think that's what's alluring about this.
It's not that all of us like to watch luge. I don't think anyone really cares about that, right? But what do we like to watch when it comes to Olympic events? Well, you get to watch the best of the best of the best do what they've spent their entire life training to do, and it's perfect. And it's funny because when they'll do something, they'll get like a 9.8 score and all that's somehow not perfect.
But when you and I watch it, we're like, that's perfect. But it's the absolute pinnacle of physical human achievement. They have trained for hours and days and weeks and months and years with a punishing schedule, extreme diet, intense study, inspiring determination.
I mean, these people overcome all kinds of odds. They spend their entire life to get to this one moment. I think about guys who run like the 50 meter dash or whatever that is.
It takes them like 10 seconds. You train your entire life for 10 seconds. It's amazing.
So we understand that. And they do all of this because they want that gold medal. They want that prize.
They want the reward for disciplining themselves to perfection. That's what they want. And we all, en masse, sit there and watch them do it and marvel, wow, I could never do that.
But Paul seizes on this metaphor of training, and yet he applies it not for the purpose of athletics, sports, but he applies it for something greater, godliness, godliness. The word is Eusebio. We saw this word back in chapter 2, verse 2, as well as in chapter 3, verse 16.
Many have translated this word Eusebio as piety, reverence for God. Others have called it devotion to God. I like how Jerry Bridges, in his book, he calls this devotion in action.
That's what godliness is. Devotion to God in action. John MacArthur calls this the heart and soul of Christian character and the aim of Christian living.
You want to know what that gold medal is for the Christian? Godliness. That's what he's saying. Going back to Jerry Bridges, he says, Godliness is devotion to God that results in a life that is pleasing to Him.
Brothers and sisters, it is a life that is built, focused, refined, and obedient to the expressed will of God. That's what it is. And so the question is, well, do you want to please God? We always get this thing in our heads that God wants us to do something really big.
I've met lots of Christians who've said that. I feel like God wants me to do something amazing in my life. I remember reading a book about the founder of VeggieTales.
Say what you want about VeggieTales or even the people associated with it, but I remember reading and there was a point in his life where he was creating this empire. He thought that God wanted him to build the Christian Disney. That's what he thought God wanted to do.
And he got to this point in his life where the brand just blew up out of his control and he just crashed and he ended up leaving and sold it off to someone else. And now there's not even Christians anymore running the VeggieTales empire. Does God want us to go and be something big? Do something big for Him as though He needs us to do anything for Him? That is not the way that we please God.
Now, God might glorify Himself through something like that in your life. But if you want to please God, the solution, the answer is very simple. Be godly.
Be godly. Or if you want to take Ephesians 5.1, be imitators of God as beloved children. Well, how do we become godly? We need to train.
We have to train. We need to discipline ourselves. Discipline ourselves the way that the Olympic athletes discipline themselves.
And in the same way that you might say, well, I don't want to get up at four o'clock in the morning to go and jump into a pool and swim laps for five hours. Yeah, neither do I. But here's the thing. People often will say things like, when it comes to the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, that's a lot of work.
I'm not sure if I'm cut out for that. I'm not sure if I'm really very good at reading. I'm not sure if I'm really good at, I don't think I want to pray that much.
I get tired. I don't know what else to say after I've said the first couple minutes. We sort of dismiss the spiritual disciplines of our lives, and yet we will train ourselves for other things.
All of us, we train ourselves in our jobs. If you have any kind of career whatsoever, you have trained. Because how do you have a career if you haven't done the training? That's what orientation is.
When you get a new job and they have orientation, you know what that is? That's two weeks of training. And if you want to excel and go further, you have to keep training. And you do it because they pay you to do it.
But at a certain point, we recognize in terms of our careers, you know, obviously we've all had jobs of some nature. But if you have any kind of a career that you prize, at a certain point, it goes beyond just getting a paycheck. At some point, you start to take pride in what you do.
And you start to advance, not because they're necessarily paying you. Now, you might want to get more money from your job. But at a certain point, you're thinking to yourself, if I'm going to do this for 35 or 40 years, I think I want to enjoy what I do.
I don't want to get good at it. And so you train. We train for our jobs.
We train for our hobbies. We train for understanding culture, movies, entertainment, music. We train in that.
We train in terms of exercise. Some of you guys are in really good shape. I'm jealous.
But some of you train. You get up early in the morning and you go to the gym or you go downstairs in your basement and you work out or whatever it may be. Some of you, it's your diet.
You train in diet. You learn everything there is to know about food. You're experts in health and nutrition.
And you train and you sculpt your insides. Again, jealous of that. Some of you train in sports.
Some of you are really good athletes. Other skill sets. Some of you are amazing at cooking.
All kinds of things. We all have things that we train in. And even if a person doesn't say they have any of those things, well, guess what? You're also able to learn how to train yourself to be lazy.
That's work. To feed the flesh. Some people are very good at feeding their own flesh and they have a million ways to do it.
They train themselves to do it. But Paul says in verse 8, For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things. Now, it's important to know what Paul is not saying here.
Paul is not saying that bodily discipline, whether it's your physical body or just your earthly life, he's not saying that that's useless. He's not saying don't ever discipline your body. He's not saying that.
Bodily discipline is good. We shouldn't neglect the care and discipline of our bodies. After all, 1 Corinthians 6.19 says that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit who's been given to you, who indwells you, he's indwelling a flesh and blood body and a soul and a mind and a heart. Therefore, verse 20, glorify God in your body. It's important that we glorify God in our body.
What we put into our minds, into our bodies, into our hearts, into our ears, the things we see, the things we listen to, God gave you a body to use for his glory, so therefore take care of it and glorify God in your body. But recognize, brothers and sisters, that this is not the most important discipline to focus on. It's not most important to be devoted to physical training and diet and hobbies and recreation.
Sports are great, but if sports become your God, you've missed the mark. You've missed it completely. Bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness, he says, is profitable for all things.
All things, how so? Look at the second half of verse 8. He says, it is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Paul gives two realms where godliness is profitable here. First, he says, that it holds promise for the present life.
Living a godly life now serves many purposes. For starters, a life of godliness, it bears witness to the saving, transforming power of the gospel in you. If you say you're a Christian and your life bears no resemblance of the doctrine you profess, of the change of heart and change of life, forgiveness of sins, if it doesn't bear any fruit of that to the outside world, then it's not for anything at that point.
Nobody will ever know that you're a Christian if you don't have godliness in your life. Our new life in Christ, regeneration, should produce Christ-like living, sanctification. But even beyond that, a life of godliness provides a moral and a spiritual structure and stability that will ground you in wisdom, love, peace, and joy.
Living a godly life, it actually stabilizes you. I know you've probably met people, and maybe you are these kind of people. You've met folks who their life is just in constant chaos.
Everywhere they turn, everywhere they look. Now, I'm not talking about calamity when things happen to you. There are times, brothers and sisters, where the bottom just drops out of your life and you're in free fall.
And that's of the Lord. But I'm talking about individuals, so their life is in chaos, but it comes by virtue of them never taking any disciplines at all to organize their life. They're just reactive to absolutely everything, including their spiritual life.
They make no preparation for themselves spiritually, so when things happen to them, they're just like ships on an open sea, back and forth. And James 1 actually warns us against being like that. But a life devoted to God will affect your marriage, your family, it affects your finances.
If you learn how to do finances biblically, you'll do better, generally speaking, financially. Your service, how you serve in the church and abroad, your habits, even your goals, your community. Every part of your life will be impacted positively by a life devoted to godliness.
It's not going to be wasted, beloved. Despite the effects of the fall, the Christian way of life, exemplified by godly believers, is the surest means of human flourishing. There's all kinds of discussion right now in the open forum, around the world, about culture, about countries, about nations, and sovereignty, and all kinds of stuff like that.
And there's this idea, and I'm not going to get in, I don't want to wade into politics, but again, politics tends to wade into our territory here. When we talk about American exceptionalism, that the American way of life is somehow best, and that gets debated all the time. But really what the attack against American exceptionalism is, is they're attacking not just the way that we're trying to live our lives as citizens, they're trying to attack the foundations which they deem to be inherently Christian.
A Judeo-Christian morality that was the foundation of much of what was in our nation's history. That's what they're going after. And they're saying, oh, that's not the only way to live.
Oh, look at all these other nations that are flourishing. They're doing great. And they point to atheistic countries, and they point to countries that have savagery in their history.
But the bottom line is, if you look at what actually produces flourishing, not just financial flourishing, I'm talking about families, children, growth, development, education, health. If you look at all around the world, freedom, Christian values, Christianity, the way of godliness is the surest means of human flourishing in the history of the world. Nothing else even comes close.
Why was the nation of Israel so blessed and dominant for that season of time when they were obedient? It's because they were following God's plan. They had a system of justice. They had a system of fairness and equity.
They understood what it was to worship God and serve Him in their way of life. Again, God's providential chastening aside, a life of godliness is better than a life of sin and laziness. Just read Psalm 84, which I covered a couple weeks ago.
But not only does godliness hold promise for the present life, it also holds promise for the life to come. Because think about this with me. In heaven, you will only be godly.
You will only be godly. You will not be sinful. You will not be fleshly.
You will not be degenerate. In heaven, standing before the face of the Lord, you will only be like Him. And so the more you pursue godliness in this life, you'll be more prepared for the life to come.
John Stott says, godliness prepares us for eternity. I love that. Focusing on living a godly life here, it gets us ready.
I think about it this way. I stole it from somebody else. I don't remember who I stole it from.
Otherwise, I would attribute this to them. But it's a sense in which when you go to heaven, you want that shock to the system to be as minimal as possible. If you're living for yourself and you're just barely a Christian, you are because God has saved you, but you don't focus on godliness, when you finally get to glory, it's going to be hard to swallow.
But if you're used to being godly, if you desire to see the face of Christ, when you finally do, you'll rejoice even more. Now again, that's just an illustration. That's not a theological statement.
But you know what I'm trying to say. If I want to see his face and if I want to be in heaven, I need to get ready to go there. I want to be ready for heaven as much as humanly possible empowered by the Spirit.
I don't want to just be here anymore. I want my mind and my heart to be thinking heavenly. And brothers and sisters, that's hard, isn't it? But that is the goal.
That is the goal. And so if godliness prepares us, not only for life here, but also for the life to come, then our focus needs to be disciplining ourselves for the purpose of godliness. Now, you might be asking the question, well, how do we engage in this discipline of godliness? Because I don't see Paul giving a numerical list of what to do in the next verse.
He doesn't tell us in that moment, does he? He doesn't expand it here, but I do believe that Scripture does tell us what we are to do. The kinds of things that Scripture emphasizes. If you read your Bible, you'll see the emphases jumping out at you.
In many places, the Bible tells us that we know God, again, only through Jesus Christ. And so to be devoted to God is to live a life of Christlikeness. And I want you to follow my train of thought here.
In 2 Corinthians 3.18, Paul writes this, we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, listen to this, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. He's drawing a connection here. Beholding the face of the Lord and being transformed into what we see.
All right? In other words, beholding Christ will eventually translate into becoming like Christ. To say it another way, the more that we see Him, the more that we desire to be like Him, and by the Spirit's empowerment, we do become like Him. We see this elsewhere in 1 John 3.2. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be, but we know that when He appears, in other words, when we see Him someday, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is.
And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him, listen to this, purifies Himself just as He is pure. So the same concept, we see Him, we desire Him, we desire Him, we desire to be like Him. And so how does this connect to disciplining ourselves for godliness? Well, remember that all this brings us to this one big idea here that our lives are built to revolve around Christ.
If you take nothing else away from this morning, think this, my life is built to revolve around Christ. I'll truncate that even smaller for you. Philippians 1.21 Paul says, to live is Christ, and to die and be with Him is gain.
But listen to this, to live is Christ. Is that how we think about our lives? I was challenged by this this morning. To live is Christ.
To be like Him, to know Him, to be wrapped up in Him. And so if that is the central focus of everything, again, godliness is godlikeness, and we only know God through Christ, and so it's Christlikeness. Then this informs how we actually train.
How do we train and discipline ourselves for godliness? Let me give you a couple. There's four I want to give you just for our purposes this morning. Number one, knowing His Word.
And by knowing His Word, you see Him by faith. Very simply, very just on face value. You open up to the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
You quite literally, you see, you read stories about Him. In your mind's eye, you see Him. You hear Him speaking.
You see what He does. You see how He responds. You see His life, and then in comparison in conjunction to your own, you see Him by faith.
And then you read the epistles. You're reading all the doctrine about Christ and from Christ. You read the Old Testament.
You see the stories of lives of believers pointing to Christ. So wherever you are in your Bible study, I don't care, even if you're in genealogies or if you're in Leviticus, it doesn't matter where you are. Understand and study and understand and know that all of this is pointing ultimately to the realities in Jesus Christ.
When Jesus met the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He said, the scriptures are speaking about Me. This isn't a book about an abstract time and an abstract place about somebody else. This is all built and sculpted and pointing to Jesus somehow.
Some things are more explicit than others, but it all points to Him. And so if that's true, if in the Bible we see Christ, we hear from Christ, are training them to be nourished on the words of the faith, which we saw earlier, right? Nourished on the words of the faith, which is Scripture, and on sound doctrine. In other words, we learn Christ.
We learn His Word. You want to be closer to Him. You listen to what He says.
You see Him engaging in life. And not just how He lived when He was here. Read the end of the book.
Read what happens when He returns. See that part of Christ as well. See the life to come.
And so we commune with Him. We train ourselves diligently to study and know His Word and understand the precepts, the doctrinal precepts around His Word. That's number one.
Number two, we also need to commune with Christ through prayer and meditation. Prayer and meditation. What is that? Well, we talk to Him.
We share with Him. We confess our sins to Him. Let me ask you the question.
When was the last time, and answer in yourself honestly, before the Lord, when was the last time you confessed sins to God? You actually, in your prayer life, you specifically, you didn't just say, oh, I'm a sinner in general. When was the last time you actually told Him something you know you did and you need to be forgiven for? I mean, in truth, how often do you sin? I mean, for me, it's daily. It feels like hourly.
Minutely. How often do you sin? The frequency to which you are sinning should be the frequency to which you're asking Him to forgive your sins. Again, you're not wearing your heart on your sleeve.
You're going to Him. Communing with Him. But also, in your prayers, you're considering His words.
You're praying Scripture back to Him. You're finding your comfort in the Lord. Doesn't 2 Corinthians say that He is the God of all comfort? Any comfort you need is found in Him.
We're very good at trying to find comfort outside of Christ, somewhere else. But we need to get really good at training ourselves to find our comfort in Him. Asking for help.
Lord, I'm in a trial right now. I need your help. That's a great prayer.
To ask Him for help. To cry out to Him. To worship Him.
To praise Him. When was the last time you prayed and thanked Him for something in your life? Or praised Him for who He is? And then meditating. Now, meditation has been hijacked by the pagans lately.
But biblical meditation is you're turning over God's words and God's truth in your mind and heart. You're meditating on verses. You're meditating on concepts.
You're meditating on doctrine. What does this verse mean? And you're turning it over. Memorizing it.
Rehearsing it in your mind. Applying it to your life. Biblical meditation is not just good.
It is essential. What does it mean for us to hide God's word in our heart that we might not sin against Him? That's what that's talking about. Biblical meditation.
Commit to the discipline of prayer and meditating on God's word. And then number three, we're also called to guard our minds. 1 Peter 1 13.
And to guard our speech. Ephesians 4 29. Number three, guarding our thought life, which ultimately affects guarding our speech.
How do you speak? Have you disciplined your mind and your tongue? James talks about how we can discipline a lot of other things, but the discipline to tame the tongue, boy, that is hard, isn't it? I just personally, I wrestle with that. I really struggle with that. Because I talk for a living.
Right? But it's very easy when you're talking all the time to just let your brain turn off and the flesh turn on and just speak whatever is coming out. It is difficult to train and tame the tongue, but the Bible says that we must. Well, how do you tame your tongue? Well, you have to tame your thoughts too.
You got to tame what you think about. You have to discipline your mind. Gird your mind.
That's what Peter says in 1 Peter 1 13. To gird your minds for action. It's like you have all this loose fabric that's tripping you up when you walk.
You got to grab all that loose fabric and bind it up and put the belt of truth around it so your legs can go free and you can walk and you can live. Do that with your mind. To think and discipline your thoughts to not let your thoughts wander into sinful things, but to focus on the things that you're supposed to be thinking about.
What is the discourse in your mind day in and day out? I'll tell you, if your mind is right and pure and true and godly, your speech will follow because Jesus says it's out of the heart that the mouth speaks. So number three, to discipline your thought life and your speech. To think and speak like Jesus.
And if we could add a number four. Number four, discipline yourself through denying yourself. Self-denial.
I'll tell you, it is a lost art. We don't do it anymore. There was a generation, probably many generations, that would practice delayed gratification.
That was a thing. Well, what does that look like? Well, how about this idea? This will blow your minds. Don't buy something until you can afford to buy it.
But we don't do that, right? I want it now. And now it's on our phone. You got an Amazon cart? I don't even have to wait.
I push the button, it shows up tomorrow. Pay later, right? We don't think on the terms of saving and working and preparing and denying ourselves and going without. I'll tell you, the greatest generation, I mean, my grandparents' generation, they waited.
They disciplined themselves in that way. Delayed gratification. But that's just on earthly things.
Remember, that's of little consequence. What about spiritually? What about in your own life? Do you deny yourself? Do you resist the flesh? Do you say no to sin? Jesus said, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must, not should, not could, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Well, guess what? That takes practice.
That takes training. Titus 2.11, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. He has come for the purpose of instructing us.
He saved us. But now that we're saved, he instructs us to deny ourselves, to deny the flesh, to deny ungodliness and to live righteously before him. Of course, there's so many more things we could add to this training.
We haven't even talked about serving, the discipline of giving and discipleship and evangelism. There's a whole other sermon here for the discipline of suffering. As soon as suffering comes into our life, the first prayer we pray is, oh, Lord, get rid of it.
I don't want it anymore, please. But we don't actually consider, and I say we meaning me and you, don't consider the value of suffering and self-denial. Some of the most godly Christians I've ever met have suffered profusely but have been trained and grown by it.
I marvel at that, honestly. I wish I knew how to suffer better. And of course, now that I've said that, it's probably going to start happening.
But we are to discipline ourselves in such a way. How do we view self-denial, the suffering? How do we view trials and adversity in our lives? Do we see it as, oh, God's hurting me? He's taking it out on me like an abusive dad. Is that what he's doing? Or is he actually disciplining us for the purpose of godliness? Is he disciplining us because he loves us and because it produces fruit? It produces self-denial.
It produces humility. It produces reliance on him. Train ourselves.
But again, these four basics of Bible intake, prayer and meditation, controlling and disciplining your mind and your speech, and then self-denial. These things, they lead you into everything else. But I want you to remember the exhortation here.
Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Verse 9, Paul refers to this notion as one of his trustworthy statements deserving full acceptance. He's got several in the pastoral epistles.
He's got three here in 1 Timothy. We looked at them in chapter 1, verse 15. Chapter 3, verse 1. And now in chapter 4, verse 8. He's got another trustworthy saying in Titus 3, 8. And he has a fifth in 2 Timothy 2, 11 here.
These are these core, essential, cardinal truths. These big truths that he focuses on. This one is the purpose, the disciplining yourself for the purpose of godliness.
But then we see the emphasis needed here on the godliness of the Christian life. And look at verse 10. Talking about godliness, he says, it is for this we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
Here, Paul talks about this strenuous exertion of the ministry. And he uses these two words synonymously. The word labor is kapaiō.
It literally means to grow weary. And then strive is agonizomai. It's where we get the word agonize.
It means intense exertion. So these two, these labor and striving, the working to the point of growing weary and the agonizing. Several places in his letters, he expresses the exhaustion of ministry.
I mean, you'd think that Paul was just constantly burning himself up for ministry. If you want to look these up, Galatians 4.11, Philippians 2.16, Colossians 1.29, and so on. These are the kinds of verses he talks about the labor and the hardship and the striving of ministry.
But I actually think the sentiment goes a little bit deeper in Paul. I don't think that he just viewed ministry apart from his own personal walk with God. I think he saw these as completely connected.
In fact, that is what drove his ministry. Just listen to what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 9. He says in verse 24, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Then he says this, Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.
They do it then to receive a perishable wreath. He says, But we an imperishable one. Therefore, I run in such a way, not as without aim.
I box in such a way as not beating the air. But listen to this, I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. Oh boy.
If that isn't a call to come up a little bit higher, I don't know what is. And I'll tell you, these verses scare the daylights out of me. To discipline ourselves so that we can run well.
Paul saw his ministry in line with his own life. He recognized that if he was languishing spiritually, his ministry would struggle as well. But if he was growing in godliness, his ministry would flourish and thrive.
Not in terms of outward numbers, but in faithfulness. And so he engaged in that, that personal spiritual discipline, so that he was able to effectively minister to other people. And he says something very similar in 2 Timothy chapter 2. Just listen again.
He tells Timothy, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. I've always thought that was kind of funny. Hey Timothy, let me encourage you.
Suffer with me. Let's go suffer, brother. But he does.
Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.
The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Then he says, consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. But look at the metaphors here.
A soldier in active service, an athlete in competition, and a farmer before the harvest. All three of those examples, those positions require serious discipline and training and labor, don't they? If you're a soldier, you train. I mean, you get the snot beat out of you in basic training.
Some of you guys have been in the military and the police force. You know it's hard. It is taxing, not just on your body, but on your mind too.
It breaks you down. Same thing in athletic competition. You train to the point where you can't even lift your arms and your legs anymore.
To your arms and your legs are jelly. And you're taxing your mind in the same way. A farmer, they work hard from the time the sun comes up to the time that the sun comes down.
They're just always working. The farm never stops. So they never stop.
It's the same idea. But here's the thing. Paul didn't train for no purpose.
He wasn't training for a physical war. He wasn't training for a medal. He wasn't training for some food.
He was training to pursue godliness. And why should anyone pursue godliness? Because God first pursued us. He came for us.
Paul says we do it because we have fixed our hope on the living God. I love that phrase, to fix our hope. It's another way of saying you're trusting in God for eternal life.
That's what that's saying. Fixing our hope on God. That all of my hopes, all of my dreams, all of what I want in this life and the next is all focused on God, the person of God.
And so therefore we don't grow weary. And so in the end, we don't discipline ourselves for godliness because it saves us. You're not working to get into the kingdom, beloved.
That's the wrong gospel. It's not even gospel at all. To work and work and work and then you'll get there.
No, it's quite the opposite. We discipline ourselves for godliness because he's already saved us. Because our new address is already fixed.
We just have to move there. Disciplining ourselves for godliness trains and focuses the hope that way to him. It's already done.
And so godliness is our devoted response to grace. We have a living God the Bible says, who is the savior of all men. Anthropos in the Greek is literally peoples.
He doesn't mean that God is saving all people indiscriminately. That contradicts the call of the gospel. Everything else in scripture denies the universal nature of salvation.
We don't have a universal gospel. But it is to say that God is the savior of all people. Speaking of the sufficiency of the salvation.
In other words, Jesus is not just a Jewish savior. He's not a European savior, an American savior. He is the world's savior.
God through Christ is the sufficient savior of people of every tongue, tribe, and nation around the world. So he is the sufficient savior for all people. And yet, Paul is saying, he is the efficient savior for believers.
For those who have put their faith and their hope and trust in him. Those who've trusted in the finished work of Christ on the cross. That's who he brings to glory.
And so if that's where we're going, then what do we do here? We train ourselves. We discipline ourselves for godliness. Again, the motivation is not pick yourself up by the bootstraps.
The motivation is I see Christ. And I want to see more of him. And I want to know him.
And I want him to change me. And I want to be like him. I want to live with him and rest in him.
And so how do you do that? You grow closer to him. And you discipline yourself for godliness. And maybe there's someone here who doesn't know what I'm talking about in terms of this relationship with Christ.
That Jesus gave himself. When we talk about him being the savior of all people, he gave himself as savior because all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And yet Jesus came to earth.
He condescended from heaven to earth. Lived here perfectly. And then gave up his life as a ransom.
As a sacrifice to pay for our sins on the cross. And on the cross, the wrath of God was satisfied in him. Forgiveness for sins was accomplished.
Payment was made in full. And our eternity in heaven was secured. He died on the cross and was buried and resurrected.
Demonstrating victory over the grave. The acceptability of the sacrifice of the son to the father. To blaze a trail to glory, giving us new life in him.
And so we're called to turn from our sins and trust in him. And the Bible says if you repent of your sins and you believe on Christ, you will be saved. And if you are saved, if you have been saved, then your charge is to reorient your entire life around following him.
Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Heavenly father, we thank you. Lord, your word cuts like a surgical knife.
Like a scalpel. Lord, none of us are left unscathed by it. But Lord, how sweet it is to our taste.
How wonderful it is to touch even just the hem of your garment, O Lord. To hear your words ministering to us, O Lord. We long to see you.
Right now we do see you. It's as though it's in a mirror and dimly lit. And yet one day the Bible tells us that we will see you face to face.
We will behold your wonderful, radiant face in glory. And the Bible says, O Lord, that we will be like you. Lord, that's our heart's desire.
We want to be like you. We get so tired of this flesh. We get so tired of the corruption of this world.
The fallenness of humanity. We want to be like you. We want to see you.
But Lord, you tell us that not only does this desire to be like you, not only will this serve us in heaven, but it also serves us here. So Lord, as we are heavenly minded, let us also be earthly good. Let us have a focus here and now to bring you honor and praise and glory.
Lord, let my life be transformed in such a way where you are pleased. Lord, let our lives be transformed. Let us be godly.
We can't do it by ourselves. We can't muscle our way through. Spirit of God, you are the only one who can enable us to live righteously before God.
And so we entreat you dwelling within us to have your work accomplished in our lives, in our minds, our thoughts, our hearts and our deeds. Will you please conform us to the image of the Son? You promised to do so for which we thank you. And we pray all these things in Jesus name.