Well, good morning. It's good to be with you again. Our text today will be 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 6 through 10. So if you would please turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 4. The letter of 1 Timothy was written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy, who is pastoring the church in Ephesus. Picking up in verse six of chapter four, we read, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, Godliness is a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. This is God's word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are not distant or far off, but rather that you are a God who is near, who is with us. Thank you that you have revealed yourself to us, not only in powerful deeds and actions, but also in words, Lord, through your scriptures. And Holy Spirit, we ask that you would be with us now illuminate the eyes of our hearts, help us to understand this passage this morning, and let that result, Lord, in our worship and trust and obedience. We ask this in the name of our crucified and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. In 1756, the Austrian composer Mozart was born. And just five years later, He was reading and writing music. He was a child prodigy. By the time he was six, he was writing his first compositions and touring, playing publicly. So he had this enormous musical talent and he spent his entire youth performing and composing music. But his earliest works aren't actually considered to be exceptional by the standards of musicians. Mozart didn't write his first masterpiece until he was 21 years old, which is still really young and impressive. But if you think about it, at that point, he had been full-time training and refining his skills for well over a decade. And he didn't produce his greatest works until he'd been writing music for well over 20 years. So it took decades of devotion to his craft to become what many consider to be one of the greatest composers of all time. And though he himself was clearly a genius, he considered his greatness to be derived from the diligent study of other great composers like Haydn and Bach. So there is no excellence without training. Doesn't matter what kind of, raw talent you have, it doesn't matter what your potential is, there is no excellence without training. And there are no shortcuts on the path to godliness. It takes effort. We don't like to hear that. We want things to be easy. We want instant gratification. We don't want to put in the work, but it takes effort. And the Apostle Paul here is urging Timothy to work. He's saying, roll up your sleeves, train yourself for godliness. Godliness, meaning devotion to God, serving and loving God with your whole heart and life. This word could also be translated as piety. And this is what we're created to do. This is what promises to deliver us the greatest joy. It's what promises to make us to be the greatest blessing to all the people around us. But it doesn't happen accidentally. As D.A. Carson says, nobody drifts into holiness. Now, to achieve any measure of greatness, any measure of success in any realm at all, you need both a plan and motivation. And that's what Paul gives us here. Paul is urging us to train ourselves for godliness. And he lays out the means to training for godliness, that is how we train for godliness, and then the motivation for training for godliness, why we train for godliness. See, if you only know the means to success, you know how to do something, but you don't have the motivation, it doesn't matter how good your plan is. Because if you don't know why you're doing it, you're not going to stick with it. It's going to become drudgery. But if you only have the motivation, you do have the desire, but you don't know what you're doing. If you have no guidance, you may get far, but not necessarily in the right direction. Having a goal without a plan is just a wish, as they say. So you need the means and the motivation, both of which Paul lays out here. So first, let's look in verses six and seven where we find the means. Chapter four, verse six, Paul tells Timothy, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. Now, these things is referring to the previous verses, so we have to step back for a second and get our bearings, get some context. Now, if you look at the beginning of the chapter, Paul is warning Timothy about false teachers, these people who are peddling demonic teaching. And look at verse three. These people are saying, don't get married, and don't eat certain foods. Now, in the early church, there was a heresy known as Gnosticism. And the Gnostic movement was kind of like a snowball religion. As it rolled along, it just accumulated different thoughts and ideas. So there were different flavors of Gnosticism, and they believed different things. But one of the central tenets of Gnosticism was that matter was bad and spirit was good. So the material, the physical world is bad, but the spiritual is good. And that meant that they thought that creation itself was inherently evil. But inside you, you have this divine spark that's just lost its memory of a heavenly home. So while we don't know who his opponents were specifically, he is fighting some form of this early Gnostic thought here. And you see in verse four what his rebuttal is. He says, everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, right? This is his response to this idea that the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. God made the world. So we don't have to be negative about physical things. We can enjoy good food. We can enjoy marriage. We can enjoy sports and puppies and nature and all of these things that God has made because God made them. So the physical isn't inherently bad. And Paul tells Timothy, to relay this to the church so that he's a good servant of Christ. And then he unpacks how to be a good servant, how he can be a good servant. First, in verse six, he says, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. So we have the words of the faith, the truths found in scripture, and the good doctrine. all the teaching that's affirmed by the Bible, including good and necessary inferences that can be made from scripture. So being in the word, this is the first means that Paul gives for training in godliness. Being in the word, that's how you train for godliness. That's how you become a good servant of Christ. See, if you want to be a good employee, you have to know what your employer expects of you. If you want to live a life pleasing to God, you have to know what God expects of you. So you have to live according to his terms. You have to live according to his revealed will, which means you have to know and understand the Bible. But the Bible doesn't just tell us how to live a life pleasing to God. It doesn't give us a checklist and say, good luck, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. First, the Bible tells us who God is and what he's done for us. It tells us that the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God created us to be in fellowship with him. But we've all gone astray, and rather than serving God, we end up serving our own lusts and desires, whether that's money, or sex, or power, or just comfort. But God doesn't just leave us to serve these harsh masters because none of these things actually end up satisfying us or fulfilling us. Instead, he sent his son to take on human flesh. This is what we're celebrating tomorrow and Christmas, right? That Jesus came, dwelt among us, and then he died for our sins. He paid the ransom price, freeing all those who believe in him. from their servitude to these harsh masters, and rather enabling us to serve God. So we're no longer slaves to our sinful desires, but can be servants of Christ. And that's the message of the Bible. That's how you can initially become a servant of God. We're talking about being a good servant here. So a prerequisite to being a good servant is that you're a servant in the first place. So first, you need to trust Christ. Stop serving other masters and serve God. And then to be a good servant, to grow in godliness, to train yourself for godliness. It still is not just a matter of jumping through certain hoops or checking certain boxes. But rather, it's something that we get through the means of grace, through God's word. You see, because the Bible is God's word, as we read it, we are coming in contact with the living God. We're communing with Christ. We're being conformed to his image by the Holy Spirit. So the Bible is the primary means that God uses to strengthen us. The Bible is the primary means that God uses to make us godly. And verse six, being trained by the words of faith, could also be translated being nourished by the words of faith. So just as food nourishes the body, scripture nourishes and strengthens our souls. So treat your Bible intake the way you treat your food intake. That means reading regularly. You don't eat enough in one day so that you don't have to eat for the next week or for the next month. You eat every day. So set aside time to be in God's word every day. The opposite of preparing and planning and scheduling Bible reading isn't spontaneous, wonderful Bible reading. It's oftentimes no Bible reading at all. This also means that we want to have a balanced diet. Now, some of you may think having a balanced diet means having the same number of cookies in each hand. But you have to eat different food groups in order to get all the nutrients that you need. And it's the same thing with scripture. All it takes to become a Christian is the gospel. But as A.W. Tozer said, nothing less than the whole Bible will make a whole Christian. Paul says in his other letter to Timothy that all scripture is God-breathed. He says it's breathed out by God and it's profitable for teaching for correction, for reproof, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Do you believe that? That all scripture is profitable? Does your Bible reading reflect that you believe that? Be intentional and systematic about reading all that God has to say to you. We're coming up on a new year and Bible reading plans can be helpful here. There's no rule that says you have to read your Bible cover to cover once in a calendar year. In fact, it can be good to vary the pace at which you read. Sometimes we want to just feast on scripture, taking as much in as possible, while other times it can be profitable to study it and meditate on it, savoring it like a dessert. But the point is, we need to be intentional about taking it all in. What's going on right now is another way we take in scripture. Listening to the preached word is a spiritual discipline. It's not just a passive activity. What you're doing takes work. Took some forethought the night before, getting a good night's sleep so that you're alert and awake. takes attention to detail, to hold me accountable, to make sure that what I'm saying aligns with what the word says. And it takes a receptive heart that's willing to be influenced by God's word and eager to apply it to our lives. One final way that we can study God's word is through memorization. The Psalmist says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. internalizing God's word gives you power over sin. The psalmist doesn't say, I've stored up your word on my shelf, or I have your word on my phone. He stores it in his heart. And what's your heart? Your heart is the source of your character. So if you can get God's word into the source of your character, it's going to produce godly character. This is how we train for godliness. So we've seen and considered a few ways that we can positively heed Paul's charge to train for godliness by being in the word. And then negatively, we see, he says, to avoid myths. So look in verse seven. He says, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. So what are the myths that he's warning against? Well, remember what the false teaching is that he's dealing with, this Gnosticism, has to do with people teaching that the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. The spiritual is divine. We get further confirmation of this in chapter six. Turn with me to chapter six, verse 20, same book. There, Paul says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. The Greek word for knowledge here is gnosios, where we get the term gnostic. The people were claiming to have a secret knowledge that led to salvation. And part of this secret knowledge, part of the claim, is that only the soul is good. And Paul is saying, don't listen to these people. This is spiritual junk food. Reject it. Avoid it. And while it may seem like this ancient heresy is irrelevant to us today, this physical spiritual divide is not so uncommon. You see, what were the Gnostics claiming? They were saying only what's inside you matters. So your soul matters, your thought life matters, but your physical body doesn't matter. So one conclusion that the Gnostics drew from this was that your physical body shouldn't determine your sexual preferences. Sound familiar? We're dealing with the same stuff today. And the Gnostics also claim that salvation just comes from within. They said you have a divine spark in you. And if you just look inside yourself and find the real you, if you realize your inner divinity, that's how you can be liberated. That's how you can be set free. You don't have to go far today to hear that advice. G.K. Chesterton commented on this recurring idea throughout history that you just need to look inside yourself for salvation. He said this, of all horrible religions, the most horrible is the worship of the God within. That Jones shall worship the God within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the inner light. Let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in a street, but not the God within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the inner light, but definitely recognized an outer light. Bare as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. We have a religion that's external to us. It's been revealed to us. God has spoken to us in scripture. And it's based on historical events. It's based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, not just subjective feelings or mysticism. And while our inner experience of salvation can certainly confirm to us those events and those truths, we're not ultimately putting our hope in some subjective inner experience. And more broadly than just rejecting Gnostic thought here, Paul's teaching us that we can and should draw lines in the sand. We need to reject anything that's unbiblical. Christianity is not a salad bar religion where you can just kind of pick and choose anything that seems appealing and add it to our beliefs. because godliness is at stake. Following these myths, listening to the false ideologies of the world does have consequences. Turn the page to 2 Timothy 2.16. There Paul says, using the same language, but avoid irreverent babble. for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Irreverent babble leads to ungodliness. Following false teaching doesn't just slow your progress or stop your progress, even, in your training for godliness. It reverses your progress. It negates your progress. It sends you in the wrong direction. Your life will be influenced by the ideologies that you buy into. So we've seen how the means for training ourselves for godliness, positively by studying God's word, negatively by rejecting myths and false doctrines. Now Paul gives us the motivation for this training. He tells us why we actually ought to train in this way. Look at verse seven, back in 1 Timothy 4, halfway through verse seven, He says, rather train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Paul's using athletic imagery here. The word for training is gymnasia. You probably hear the word gymnasium in that. Paul is saying, get in the gym. exert yourself, pick up the pace. You don't get in physical shape without taking personal responsibility and putting in the work. Personal responsibility, right? He's saying train yourself for godliness. So there's a component of personal responsibility here. But when you do work, there's a payoff. We all see a link between working out and being healthy, feeling physically good. having energy, having more mental clarity even. So bodily training is of some value. That's clear. That's the given in this statement. And as an aside, then, it's good to work out. Take care of yourself. Right? We're psychosomatic beings. We're enfleshed souls. So there is a physical component to us, and we are blessed when we take care of that physical component. And Paul may actually even be taking another swipe at these false teachers here who are neglecting the body. But this isn't his main point. His argument here, he's making an argument from the lesser to the greater. He's saying, you'll work out. You'll push yourself. For whatever reason, whether you want to look good, or you're an athlete training to win a competition, or you're a grandparent who just wants to be able to play with your grandchildren, Whatever it is, you'll push yourself physically, right? You'll exert yourself maybe to the point of discomfort, to pain, your lungs might be burning. So if you'll push yourself physically, how much more should you push yourself spiritually, which promises a far greater reward? Our spiritual well-being, our godliness, depends on our training, which we've seen as our studying of the word. So the question is, what's the payoff? Well, our text says that it's a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. So we have benefits here and now, and we have benefits into eternity. Now we get the peace and courage and boldness that come from having a clean conscience. We get the joy of the Holy Spirit, We get to bless others when we're godly. We bless our families when we're godly. We bless our friends, our workplaces when we're godly. Proverbs 12, 26 says, the righteous is a guide to his neighbor. Are you training yourself in godliness so that you can be a guide to others? Do you want to benefit the people around you? Do you want to be a leader? There's a reason that the elder qualifications are primarily character related. You have to be godly in order to lead and guide others. And then in eternity, we get all of those benefits, right? You get still the blessings of peace and joy and courage and boldness without any of the mixture of the present pain and suffering we have in this life. But in addition to that, we also get rewarded eternally for our devotion. See, our works are something that we actually get to take to heaven. Revelation 14, 13 says, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. And then the greatest blessing, the greatest privilege, the greatest joy is seeing God. Hebrews 12, 14 says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. So godliness blesses us now and it blesses us in eternity. And that's because the age to come has broken in and invaded this age. The benefits of eternal life have come into the here and now. Serving God is not a matter of just delayed gratification, right? Giving up some sort of instant gratification, instant pleasure here and now so you can get hopefully someday a piece of pie in the sky. No, serving God is a matter of giving up counterfeit gratification for true gratification now and in eternity. When the Europeans started to settle North America, some of the more savvy, forward-thinking merchants, before they ever crossed the Atlantic, started to send ahead and trade and do business in the new world. Christian, your business is godliness, and you are trading and transacting in another world, in eternity. You profit from it here and now, but you are also setting up for yourself a future estate for when you finally get there. And verse nine emphasizes all of this. When Paul says, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Paul uses this phrase repeatedly throughout the pastoral epistles just to underscore and emphasize important sayings that were likely floating around as maxims or proverbs in the early church at the time. Now here, it's not completely clear. It could potentially be pointing forward to verse 10, but it's more likely pointing back to verse 8. If you look, verse 8 sounds very much like a maxim, whereas verse 10 kind of starts with an intervening comment for to this end we toil. So he's pointing back saying we train ourselves for godliness first because it holds promise in the current life and in the life to come. And then in verse 10, we see the second reason for training for godliness. We strive for godliness because our hope is in God. See, the strength to strive and toil isn't something that we just muster up, that springs up from within us naturally, but rather it's something that we get from looking to the infinite reservoir of strength who is the living God, who is the savior of all people, Paul says. Now, what does that mean that God is the savior of all people? Well, what it doesn't mean is that God saves everyone without exception, right? That all people are saved, that everyone goes to heaven. The rest of Paul's letters, the rest of this letter, the rest of scripture is very clear that the unrepentant will suffer eternally. And not only that, but if universalism is true, universalism meaning everybody goes to heaven, if universalism is true, then the next phrase actually doesn't make sense when he says, especially of those who believe, right? Because there would be nothing unique or special about the salvation of believers. So what does he mean? Well, we can get some positive insight into this if we turn back, look at chapter two of this same book. In verse three, we're going to see a parallel statement that God made, that Paul makes, referencing God as savior to all people, and then the rational response that God requires. So look in chapter two, verse three. Paul says, this is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So we see God's stance or his salvific posture to the world. He desires all people to be saved. And then we see the rational response required. coming to the knowledge of the truth, or in our verse in chapter four, believing, especially of those who believe. Believing is what actually cinches salvation. See, the people Paul is combating through the letter are claiming that only an elite few can be saved. You have to have this special knowledge to be saved. But God freely offers salvation to everyone. to all people without distinction. You don't need any special qualifications. You don't have to have insider knowledge. You don't have to have your life together. It doesn't matter if you are a valedictorian or if you feel like you've wasted every day of your life up to this point. You just have to recognize your need for him as a savior. So God is the available Savior of all people, without distinction. But he's the actual Savior of those who believe, who are trusting in Christ's life, death, and resurrection on their behalf. Because at the end of the day, while we are striving for godliness, we are not saved by our godliness. See, our devotion to God could never live up to his standards. We have a perfect and holy God. So in order for us to be in fellowship with him, one of two things had to happen. Either we'd have to ask God to lower his standards so that we can meet them, or we need a substitute. We need someone else to pass the test for us. And that's what God offers to us in Christ. See, it's Christ's godliness, not ours, that saves us. It's because Christ was perfectly devoted to the Father. Jesus's entire life was substitutionary, not just his death. Jesus's entire life was substitutionary, not just his death. See, when you trust in him, your sins are forgiven for sure because he died for you. But you also receive the merit of his righteous life because he lived for you. And his entire life was one of self-denial and singular devotion to God. He said, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So think for a second about how Jesus was devoted to God, just constantly exercising this piety that we're striving for, right? Jesus lived by the word of God. When tempted by Satan, he said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus was not afraid or slow to reject false doctrines for the sake of pleasing man or finding favor with others. He told the Pharisees to their faces that what they were teaching were man-made commandments that flew directly in the face of God's commands. And when choosing between comfort and safety on the one hand, and agonizing and serving God on the other hand, Jesus went to the cross, dying a gruesome criminal's death. But he did so knowing and trusting in the promise that was guaranteed for his devotion to God. And this is why we can have true hope. Because we know that we can be accepted by God in Christ. This is where we can find motivation for ourselves to continue in endurance and training for godliness. Because when we look to Christ, we see his devotion. When we look to Christ, we see him love us and give himself for us. When we look to Christ, we see the security that we have in him and the certainty of the reward that faithfulness to him promises. That's how we can find motivation to press on. in our training for godliness. So where is your hope? Is it in Christ? Then train yourself for godliness. Strive and toil so that you may receive all the promises of God in this life and in the life to come. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are our Savior. Thank you for Jesus, who is not only the solution to our problem of our ungodliness and that he died for all of our sins, he represents us. as perfectly righteous, but also, Lord, that he's the source for our ability to grow in godliness, that you've united us to him by faith so that through our union with him, we may be conformed to his image in true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. So, Lord, we ask that you would bless our training to this end. Forgive our indolence, our spiritual lethargy, our proclivity to just seek out comfort, to not really push ourselves when it comes to growing in godliness. Make us to be diligent and disciplined. Bless all of our time in your word. In this coming week, in this coming year, Lord, help us to study your word. Help us to train ourselves for godliness. Make us to be discerning. Help us to be quick to identify and avoid any false teaching and false doctrines. And by your grace, Lord, we ask that you would give us greater faith, both in your promises to the godly and greater confidence in Christ and his finished work on our behalf. And we ask this in his name, amen.