True vine, one that gives us life, one that sustains us, allows us to bring forth fruit. We've sung that He is our Savior. And we love to tell the story of what He's done for us. We've sung that He is a hiding place for us. A refuge. Hides us from the difficulties of life. Shelters us. The cleft of the rock keeps his hand upon us. Very beautifully, the new song that we learned today talks about him being an artist that is weaving a tapestry. And that tapestry sometimes includes threads that are dark and things that are hard, but they're all coming together to make something beautiful for his glory. The choir song sang of Christ as a miracle. God has become flesh. God and man united in one person. And then they sang that Christ is everything that we need, which is an amazing statement and so true. Christ is everything we need. The hope of glory for us. As we rehearse these things in song and in scripture reading, don't let your mind just check out. We're not just choosing words because they rhyme. Christ is so glorious. He deserves our praise, our adoration. And I'm going to ask you to bow your heads and spend a moment in private prayer. Just give thanks to God. Praise Jesus for being everything that you need, for sheltering you from the hardships of your life, whatever they might be. Thank Him that He gives you hope. Thank Him that He is your Savior. And if you haven't trusted Him as your Savior, He desires to be your Savior, if you'll but ask. Why don't you pray quietly. Give Him glory. And then I will offer a prayer of adoration on our behalf together. O Lord, You are magnificent. You are without rival in heaven or on earth. There's no one as powerful as You. There's no one as wise as You. There's no one as kind as You. We thank You, Lord, that You are our hope Where would we be even this morning? Where would we be without the Lord Jesus Christ? The fact that we assemble together today to sing and pray and study scripture. doesn't mean that we're good people. We are painfully aware that we're sinners. And the fact that you have worked in our lives to bring us to a relationship with you, and a relationship with each other, and the fact that we're here this morning and not hung over, not just in the dregs of sin, All of that says more about you than about us. Thank you. Thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, who in a great miracle became flesh, bridging the gap between holy God and sinful man. Thank you that He walked on the earth fulfilling all your commands. He went about doing good. Yet in spite of His perfection, we thank you that He went to the cross bearing the sin of man, bearing the wrath of God, so that we might be reconciled. He is our peace. He is the one that provides for our forgiveness and He gives us life. Jesus, thank You. We deserve to be Your enemies, but we are seated at Your table through Your great mercy. Now, Lord, as we turn our attention to the Scriptures this morning, and as I have the privilege of preaching the words of life, I pray that You'll help me to communicate with accuracy and with clarity. And I pray that You will do what I cannot and use Your Word powerfully in the lives of Your people. I pray that we will grow from this time, that it will be time that is well spent. I pray that you will meet with us, Holy Spirit. You wrote the scriptures. I pray now that you would explain them and apply them to us, so be our teacher today. And I pray that Satan will be frustrated by what happens here on the hill today. Help us, we pray. We need you so much. We don't gather on this Lord's Day out of habit. We gather out of love and out of utter desperation. We need You so much. Help us, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Please take your Bibles and turn with me to 1 Timothy 4. For those of you using a few Bible were on page nine hundred ninety two. And if you're using a few Bible might be because you don't have a Bible of your own and we would like to fix that. So just take a few Bible home with you and you can make good use of it and we can easily replace it. OK. That's our gift to you. Let me just mention very quickly that it's very good to be home. We were gone for a little bit over two weeks, and much of that time was spent in ministry. Got a chance to preach the Word, but also to hear a lot of preaching. I was at a conference in Colorado, and my family was all there. I enjoyed the fellowship, catching up with them. We hadn't been together like that since 2007. And we were able to get all my brothers and their children together. There was only one missing. My brother Dan's oldest daughter, Elizabeth, is on a mission trip in Japan for the summer, so she Skypes and talks to us a little bit. But we had a great time there. I heard such good preaching from the Word. Paul Sager, who is local, he's the director of VMW, Mission in the Area, he preached. Matt Olson is a friend of mine, former president of Northland was there, preached a very transparent and challenging message, and we got to hear from others as well. I got to see the Holrits there. Paul was doing a couple workshops, so we actually didn't get to spend a lot of time talking, but enjoyed getting to see them. Just had a really refreshing time, and then traveled up to Northland where I got to preach the word and fellowship some more. And I had a lot of drive time, got to listen to sermons and just be with my family. It was really good. But it is so good to be home. It's actually, it pains me. It pains me on a Sunday morning not to be here. I feel very much like this is where I belong. I'm grateful for those who minister so faithfully in my absence, but it's just good to be home. I welcome Nancy Ball this morning. I was so glad to see her. I said, welcome back. And she said, I haven't been here two weeks. So welcome back to you. Really good to see her and praise the Lord for allowing her health to rally. And we have such interest in what the Lord is doing in Ghana. And we're trying to see this latest project move forward with the church plant and the hostel opportunity. near the campus, and Wah hopefully received information about that, pray about that, and I'm so excited to see the Lord allow us to establish another ministry in such a strategic place. And Nancy, I assured her this morning that what the Lord is doing in Ghana is never far from our minds and often in our prayers. But so are you, and we're so glad to see you back here fellowshipping with us. I can't greet everyone by name, and you wouldn't want me to, but John Cormacan is so good to see you. We have prayed for God to sustain you physically and spiritually, and he's answering our prayers. It just feels more like our family is back together when you're here. And we'll keep praying for you, but we love you and so glad that you're back. It brings me a lot of joy. In spite of my tears, it brings me a lot of joy to have you back. This evening, we have our monthly praise service, and let me encourage you to come back for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's just so good for us to be back. I love our new schedule and I love that we get some extra time with family and for rest and for fellowship if you choose to use it that way. And actually our change of schedule didn't delete any services. It added one and that one is tonight. It's just good for us to be together and I implore you to come back tonight fellowship with us After the service, we have a snack, so we're going to have some fellowship with some hot dogs and just some good time together. But beyond that, tonight, we get to hear a report from Paul and Kathy Horowitz about how the Lord is working through them. You know, we have the privilege of kind of being home to many missionary families. And I love what God has called Paul and Kathy to do. The doors he's opened for them are staggering to me. I just I'm amazed by it. You hear me pray the prayer of Jabez, that the Lord would kind of enlarge our borders and give us more influence. And the way the Lord has enlarged the borders of the ministry of the Hulrich family, and through them our church family, and ultimately it's the cause of Christ. It's amazing to me. I love hearing about it. And tonight I'm very eager to be here and just to rejoice at what God's called them to do and enable them to do so. I trust that you'll be back tonight both for that report and some good fellowship together. And it's just good for us to be with our church family. So plan on being back for that. I am going to be preaching several messages on the topic of personal godliness, and I'm doing that for several weeks. And I'm going to be preaching expositional messages, but from from a variety of different texts today. First, Timothy, chapter four, and then some of my other favorite texts in the weeks ahead. And I'm actually preparing for our next book study. Some of you are wondering what we're going to do next. I'm eager to get into the book of Daniel. And we spent some great time in Ephesians and the New Testament. And now I would like to change testaments and get to another portion of scripture. And I'm really excited about preaching Daniel. That will probably start in about six weeks, something like that. But in the meantime, I'm burdened to preach some texts that address us personally. This is a confession that I need to make to you. Nothing bad, but often when I preach to us, I'm so focused on what God has called us to do corporately. I preach messages that talk about us as an assembly, you know, the burdens that we have, the mission we're called to, the culture of grace that we desire to have here as a body. And I'm not going to stop doing that because I'm very burdened about Killian Hill Baptist Church as a corporate entity. But Killian Hill Baptist Church is comprised of a bunch of individual Christians. And you don't just need to hear messages about our church, you need to hear messages about your individual private life, your own walk with God. And I want to preach some messages that I trust will help you in your own pursuit of godliness and will help me in my own pursuit of godliness. I need them as well. So we'll take some time over the next several weeks to just study spiritual growth, aiming at the goal of godliness. If you ever heard someone say, I would give anything if only I had the ability to do such and such. I've heard of a man that had just listened to a concert by a master pianist. And the man kind of thoughtlessly said to the pianist, I would give anything to be able to play like you play. And the pianist with some pointed honesty said, well, you would have to give anything to play like I play because I gave anything. I gave everything to play like I play. Why is it that some people excel and others really struggle? I mean, excel in, say, music. You know, we have in our church, we have some really, some really capable musicians. What if I were to say to the Goresland girls, you know, you are so lucky to be able to play like you play. Kathy Holritz and others others who play in our ministry. Kathy Thacker. You guys are just so lucky. I think deep inside they would probably want to retaliate a little bit. It's not just luck. You know, they didn't slip in the shower, hit their head and wake up able to do what they do at the piano. They put in a ton of effort, years and years and years and years. I was corresponding with Rebecca this morning. And Rebecca is on the mission trip. She feels lousy. She's sick. In the last few days, she's been given some pieces to get ready on the piano, so she's feverishly trying to get a couple of pieces ready. And then she and Carrie are getting ready for church this morning, and they're told that they're the accompanists. And they haven't prepared for that. She says, pray for me and carry. You know, we were playing. We're not ready. And I just wish I could disappear or something. And I replied back to her. I said, honey, I'm praying for you. And remember, this is why you've been practicing your whole life, not to perform, but to minister. And and you're you know, you've been getting ready for this. I will pray for you. But you've been getting ready to serve the Lord in this way. And I couldn't do that. You know, they asked me to accompany. I could pray for a musical equivalent of the gift of tongues. God, help me to play notes I've never learned. But I really wouldn't be confident that that prayer would be answered well. All right, we look at people that excel in sports. You know, I've been watching the World Cup for the last month. I've really enjoyed that. I had a friend from college who wrote an article, actually for the New Yorker magazine, and he said, you know, you watch them and they're so proficient, it looks like the ball wants to go to the right place. You know, like there must be some kind of magnet that just makes it go 50 yards and land on the next guy's foot. The ball doesn't really want to go there. They've just labored so hard for so many years. I enjoyed watching Paige play when she was finishing up her high school career. And I get to see her play a little bit at college. And if my girls were to look at her and say, oh, Paige, you're just so lucky. It must be in your genes. Well, you know, there might be some level to which athleticism or musicality is a gift and is genetic, but the reason she can play like she plays is because for years her family has been training to that end. And my family has not been training to that end, so we're not going to have the same level of proficiency. Excelling is not just a matter of DNA or good luck. It's not just random. Excellence is never an accident. You don't see a beautiful building and gorgeous architecture and say, wow, that was fortunate, as if those pieces just kind of came together. We don't watch a play and see a beautiful performance and compelling drama and say, wow, how did that happen? It took an incredible amount of work. Well, when I talk to you about Christian growth, I think many Christians pray for Christian growth. God, help me to control my temper. Make me a better parent. God, I'm so tired of struggling with lust, and I pray that you'll just take it away. And we pray for godliness, but then we have a sense that we're going to go to bed, and God is going to sneak it under our pillow like the tooth fairy. You pray for godliness and just magically It appears. Well, that is not the way the Bible describes spiritual growth, Christian growth, progress in your maturity in Christ. What role do you play in your Christian growth? You actually play a very active role. You are part of the equation. Recently, among Christian leaders and writers, there's been kind of a controversy about the role that the Christian plays in his own growth. And there's a man named Tolian to vision. He is the grandson of Billy Graham. He's now the pastor of a church in Florida where D. James Kennedy had pastored. And he's a nice guy. He's a good writer. He actually was kind enough to endorse one of the gospel meditations books. I like the guy a lot. He is so burdened about the role of grace that he argues against the role of the law and he argues against the role of human effort. And he kind of says, you know, Christ has done everything and Jesus plus plus nothing equals everything. And what we need is not more work and not more endeavoring, not more law. We need just grace. And I appreciate what he's saying. But it's certainly open to be misunderstood, and it can result in this passivity. It can result in what we call antinomianism, which means there's no law at all. You just, you know, because of grace, you live however you want. Well, that's not what the Bible teaches. I think he's arguing against one error, but he's he's kind of swinging the pendulum to another error. We are not passive in our Christian life. The idea that. You know we're aiming at a target of godliness. How many of you have had an opportunity to stand at an archery range and take target practice. We're aiming at this on purpose. I've had the opportunity to do it myself. I've worked with kids at camps who are working at hitting a target. And frankly in my experience it looks less like that and more like that. When kids are working at it, the safest place you can be is just stand in front of the target. Your life is fine. You don't stand behind them, beside them. Arrows are going every which direction, but we're aiming at a target. I want to talk about aiming at the target of godliness, taking aim at godliness. And it doesn't just happen. You don't just hit the bullseye. You're going to miss the target altogether at times. You're going to hit various places around the target. I've seen targets like this that almost have lost any shape or color. They're just tattered because of the effort of shooting again and again and again. We're taking aim at godliness. We want to do better than we're doing personally. The first message comes from 1 Timothy 4, verses 7 and 8. One of my favorite passages of Scripture because it's so vivid, it's so important, but it's so memorable in the way Paul expresses himself. 1 Timothy 4, we can jump in the new paragraph in verse 6. Paul tells Pastor Timothy, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of faith of the good doctrine that you have followed. Now, here's our text. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. 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. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive because we have our hopes set on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Timothy, train yourself. Exercise. Verse 10 says toil and strive. Strive for what? Strive for the goal of godliness. Persimmon 4 verses 7 and 8, we're going to unpack together for a few moments this morning. I start with this first point, first statement. Spiritual growth requires intentional effort. Probably no surprise to you that I found a way to put the word intentional in there because I rely on it too much. I need a source deliberate. Purposeful, thoughtful. Because I'm a word nerd, I was thinking it's not only intentional effort. It's intense effort. Spiritual growth requires effort. It's something that we have to labor for. Something that we're working at. Now verse 7, before he commands Timothy to give his energy and passion to pursuing the goal of godliness, he says, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Instead, train to be godly. It's kind of an either or. This is very instructive for us, I think. You can either spend your life focused on silly myths and irrelevant questions. You know, you're talking theology, but you're just you're just kind of playing a game. You're treating the Bible like it's a football to be kicked around and and it's a game. You're trying to win an argument with people. Says Timothy. Stop wasting yourself, your time, your energy, your passion on pointless controversies. And we're so used to Scripture that we read through a statement like that. And, you know, we kind of nod in assent. But Paul is urging Timothy, Timothy, you have a choice to make. You can either devote yourself to nonsense or you can devote yourself to godliness. Now, which of these do you want? He's going to use the analogy of physical training. OK, so we might say to someone who is training to be an Olympic athlete, you can either play around and be a media darling or you can be serious about your athleticism. You can either enjoy all kinds of junk food or you can get serious about what you're endeavoring to do. But you're not going to be able to do both. Sometimes what Satan needs to do to us, what he tries to do to us, he doesn't need us to deny the faith altogether. He's just happy if he can get us distracted by a bunch of nonsense. Stop wasting your time and energy on pointless controversies. And I give just a general categorization when he talks about these things being irreverent. All right, he says some of these things, some of these things are actually they're sinful, they're worldly. All right, there are discussions that it's not only that it's a waste of time, it's actually just sin. The whole the whole topic is is ungodly, blasphemous. But then he says there's also some things that are silly. There are these silly myths, these stupid controversies, and they might not be sinful in themselves, but They're worthless. They're pointless. Says Timothy, stop giving your time. To that sort of nonsense. I appreciate people who communicate online. And, you know, we live in a world where we're blogging is a reality and there's so much good things that are written. You know, if somebody says, oh, Christians shouldn't engage in blogging, that's like saying Christians shouldn't use the phone. It's the world we live in. All right. There's a means for mass communication and it's fine. But having experienced That arena myself, sometimes there can be really profitable spiritual conversation there, and then sometimes it can just be chasing your own tail and giving attention to silly myths. And Paul says, Timothy, we've got bigger fish to fry than those sorts of that sort of nonsense. Stop wasting your time and energy on pointless controversies. And now, in contrast, rather train yourself to be godly. Rather, train yourself for godliness. Invest your time and energy on spiritual disciplines. The Greek word for train in verse 7, train yourself for godliness, the Greek word is goumnadzo. And not all Greek words make a lot of sense to us, but that's when you can easily see the idea of gymnasium or gymnastics. This is an athletic reference. He says, Timothy, you need to train yourself, discipline yourself, exercise yourself for godliness. And the main point of this is that godliness is going to require your exertion. It's not going to be an accident. It's not going to be good luck. You don't just pray to change. You pray, but you also work to change. I mean, wouldn't it be ridiculous if somebody who's overweight says, you know what, I'd really like to lose weight. Please pray for me to lose weight. Okay, God, I pray that you'll help this person lose weight. But is that going to happen in your sleep? You just keep eating the same things you've been eating. God, please help me lose weight. Munch, munch, munch. No, if you're going to lose weight, you're going to need to alter your diet. You're going to need to exercise. It's not going to be any fun. I mean, you watch the people on The Biggest Loser, and they're not just taking a pill. They're sweating and working and crying and it's misery. Do you know the only thing more miserable than what they are doing to lose weight? Doing nothing and living with the consequences. So they exert themselves. You're not just trying to be a better athlete or a better musician or a better student, you know, pray for my grades. Baby, I will pray for your grades. I will pray to my daughters, I'll pray that God helps you on this test. But you'd better study. You'd better work. You'd better endeavor. I'm praying for you to grow in godliness as an individual Christian. But my prayers will not be effective unless you are exerting yourself. Paul tells Timothy, you train yourself, discipline yourself, exercise yourself in order to be godly. Let's say the word comes from gunado, it describes energetic effort, but it's also an imperative. We are active participants in our growth and godliness, we're not passive recipients. We play a part. We're commanded to do something. Do you remember in Ephesians? We often talked about how the first three chapters of Ephesians are filled not with imperatives, but with indicatives. What Christ has done. Those are statements of fact. We have three chapters of that, and they're related to our justification. But then chapters four through six are filled with imperatives. They are related to our sanctification, our growth, our obligations. Because of what Christ has done for us, we are commanded to respond with some intentional effort in order to progress as Christians. Let me try to clarify that for you. I'm going to throw some big words at you, but it will be helpful, I think. If you are born again, if you're saved, you've trusted Christ, your justification That is, God declaring you to be righteous in spite of your sin because of the Lord Jesus Christ, his righteousness credited to you, your sin to him. Your justification was instantaneous. And monergistic, you're not you're not becoming more saved, the the whole error of Catholicism is they believe that justification is a progress You are working with God. You're trying to obey. You're confessing. You're doing penance. Hoping to be justified. That's not what the Bible teaches. Your justification was accomplished in an instant. And it's monergistic. God worked alone. Mono. By Himself. The energy came from God. He accomplished it without assistance when you repented and trusted Christ. And I often say the only thing I contributed to my justification was the sin. OK, I brought the sin to the table. Jesus did everything. My sanctification, that is now that I am spiritually alive. Now that I'm in Christ. my daily walk, my obedience, my conformity to the image of Christ, becoming less like Chris and more like Jesus. That is progressive. And you can tell progressive is contrasted with instantaneous. There is no instantaneous sanctification. You don't pray some power prayer and all of a sudden your sin is taken away. You don't just come to the altar and kneel And, you know, pray some prayer to bind the demon that is tempting you and like, wow, I'm I'm past sinning. It's going to be progressive. And it is synergistic. OK, that is. You're working together with God. You were passive in your justification, you received it entirely by grace. But you are active in your sanctification. You cooperate with God in your growth as He enables you by His Spirit. Grace justified you without your help. But grace enables you to be being sanctified as the Holy Spirit empowers and enables you. Look at the text again. Where are we getting all this? Timothy, train yourself for godliness. Get busy. Participate. Engage. Train yourself for godliness. One of my favorite authors is Jerry Bridges. He writes for The Navigators. He's written many books that are influential. The practice of godliness, he writes this, God does in fact work in a mysterious way to make us godly. I'm not saying that sanctification is monergistic in the sense that it's only you. It's synergistic, it's you and God working. God does work, but He does not do this apart from the fulfillment of our own personal responsibilities. We are to train ourselves to be godly. OK, so I've used the phrase in the past, it's diligent dependence. Diligently, I am training myself, what does that look like? I'm in the word, I'm confessing, I'm praying, I'm getting to church, I'm studying, I'm fellowshipping with other believers, I'm fighting my sin. I'm not just hoping it goes away, but I'm taking steps to see it lose its effect in my life. And I'm doing all of that praying, God help me so that my labors are not in vain. I'm not only diligent as if I'm sanctifying myself. But I'm not only dependent as if I'm waiting for God to do something for me that he's commanded me to do. You know, we use I've used the analogy of athleticism, I've used the analogy of weight loss. We could use the analogy of looking for a job. OK, somebody says to our church family, pray for me to find a job. And we will pray earnestly that you find a job. But we're also expecting that you are pounding the pavement, you're you're working out, you're putting out applications, you're networking, it would be ridiculous for you to say, pray for me to get a job and then you sit home by the phone and just wait. Diligent dependence in every area of life. except justification but certainly it's true in our sanctification. Godliness, like all excellence, is not an accident. It requires effort. King James says exercise yourself. That should be the NIV and the ESV say train yourself. The King James says exercise. ESV and NIV say train. New American Standard says discipline. The point is you have a part to play. And this training describes basic spiritual disciplines. There is no silver bullet that makes your fight with sin go away. You know, there's no book you can read or seminar you can attend. Or prayer you can pray that is the magic key that everybody's been missing. OK, it's like the promise of losing weight, you don't have to work, you don't have to die, you just take a pill and the pounds will fall off. It's not going to happen. In the same way, if you're going to exercise yourself for godliness, this training looks like what? It looks like scripture reading, meditating on scripture, memorizing scripture. You're praying. You're coming to corporate worship so that you're taught the Word and you're encouraged in fellowship. You're fighting your sin. You say, man, that sounds a lot like work. It is. It's a lot like work. We are actively participating in this pursuit of godliness. You're saved by grace alone. Justification. But that grace enables you to work for your own maturity. OK, so you look at people in the church and you say, man, I admire that guy. I admire that family. You know, they're so lucky their kids just their kids love the Bible. Their kids are serving the Lord. They're so lucky. They've been laboring for that. They've been praying for that. They've been training for that. And their work is not sufficient. They need God to help. But it wasn't an accident either. So stop looking back and musing and wishing and engage. Work for what you are saying that you desire. I have to move more quickly and I can because these points are a little bit simpler. Spiritual growth. requires not only intentional effort, but it requires personal responsibility. We're focusing on one word here. First Timothy four, seven, he says, Timothy, rather train yourself for godliness, train yourself. Reflexive pronoun. Only you yourself can pursue godliness. It's not saying yourself as apart from divine assistance. You know, you have to do this. God won't know. We've already determined the fact it's cooperation. You work out as he works in Philippians says. But it is this. Timothy, you train yourself for godliness. Paul is writing Timothy. I can't make you godly. Timothy, earlier in the letter I mentioned how you have a godly mom and a godly grandma. Thank God for them. They can't make you godly. Killian Hill Baptist Church cannot make you godly. I can't make you godly. If you're going to grow in grace, it's going to be because you have taken responsibility for yourself. You train yourself to be godly. Now, that's that's convicting to me because I know that my spiritual progress is ultimately my responsibility. That's convicting. But can I be honest with you? It's also somewhat liberating for me. Been a pastor. Long enough to have heartbreak as people are turning away from biblical counsel, they're going, you know, they're going the way of the world, they're choosing sin rather than Christ, and it breaks my heart and There are times when I beat myself up and somebody somebody has has departed from the faith and I beat myself up and I said, man, what could I have done to stop that from happening? There are parents and they have wayward children. They're like, what did we do wrong? To some point, you say, God, I'm not the parent I should be, I'm not the pastor I should be, I wish I were perfect, but ultimately, I'm going to do what I'm commanded to do and leave the results up to you. And the fact that some under my ministry are growing really isn't to my credit, and the fact that some under my ministry are struggling isn't to my blame. They're responsible to exercise themselves to be godly. I can't make you godly. I can teach you the Bible. You know, the church can plan together on how to disciple more effectively, but ultimately it's you yourself who is responsible for your own spiritual progress. I think there's a degree to which you are as obedient as you want to be. I know that's not entirely true. We aspire to sinlessness, and Paul would say the things I want to do, I don't do, and I'm conflicted. I get that. But there's a sense in which your your aspiration to be holy has to turn into perspiration to become holy. And to some degree, you're about as mature as you want to be. Was on a mission trip when I was in college. I was on a mission trip to Mexico and I ended up staying in the home of a Southern boy that didn't speak Spanish at all. It was kind of a unique situation But you know he tried to reach out to people with cracks and things and I'm in his car And I'm listening to this song and it was a Christian song and you know pretty redneck in Mexico it was surreal, but We're going along on these bad roads in this car and I'm listening to this twang going, you are what you are because that's what you want to be. And I'm sitting there going, that is the craziest thing I've ever heard. And 25 years later, I'm still saying it. And to some degree, it's true. Your walk with Christ is about as vibrant as you want it to be. You hear me ask for God to do what I can't do. I'm gonna pray that all the time. God, do what I can do. But now I'm also urging you to do what I can't do. Train yourself to be godly. You say, I wish I were more godly. Stop wishing and start working. Prayerfully. Spiritual growth results in godliness. The whole point of this is Christ likeness. Paul tells Timothy eight times in this book to pursue godliness. I can't break all this out right now, but it's a spiritual thing. It's very practical. It's doctrinal and it's positive. And you have to study it out in the book yourself. But he's not saying, Timothy, make yourself miserable and go after asceticism where you're resisting all kinds of normal joy. He's not saying that. He's saying, Timothy, dig into the Word, apply it to your life, fight your sin, but pursue godliness. And he compares it with physical fitness in verse 8. Says physical exercise is beneficial now. Some of you might need to underline that it actually is beneficial to take care of your body. It's a good thing. It's a godly thing. Take care of your body. That's profitable now in some ways. But the contrast is spiritual exercise or godliness is beneficial both now. Because ungodliness is so hard. All right, not just saying godliness is profitable in the age to come, he says godliness has benefit now because ungodliness is tough. Life is hard when you're fighting against God. But he says beyond that, spiritual exercise will have benefit for the life to come. So you work out your insights. You pursue your Christian growth the way you pursue physical health. How are they similar? Because both of them require work, not just wish. Require consistency. Say, man, I don't feel like jogging today. I know. But you work at it requires discipline, it requires self-denial, it requires perseverance, you don't jog once and get in shape, you keep at it, you have to be relentless, you pursue it. It's often painful. For whatever reason, I've been jogging for years, and with some degree of proficiency. And then lately, it's just a grind. It is a grind. I went jogging yesterday with Greg, and a mile in, I'm saying, man, you run on ahead. I am dying here. And I'm trying to figure out, is there something wrong with me? Am I sick? Or have I just allowed myself to slack off a little bit, or gain a little weight, and now it's really hard. It's not any fun. But I'm going to keep doing it because I don't like the alternative. So you keep at it even when it's not a lot of fun. I ask you, are you more focused on your temporary health and appearance or on your eternal soul? Exercising is fine. But Paul says, Timothy, your body's going to die one way or the other. more profitable than taking care of your body and your appearance is taking care of your soul. You get up in the morning and you spend time getting glamoured for the day. You take care of your face, your hair, you might work out, you might exercise. Good, do all that. Are you paying any degree of that much attention to your soul? Because your soul lasts forever and your body is going to fade away. Take care of your inner man, not just your outer man. Let's close with a few final thoughts. Effort is sufficient. It is not sufficient. It's not enough, but it is essential. I hope you understand the meaning of that statement. Your effort is not sufficient to make you godly, but it's essential. It is part of the process. So what are you doing to battle your anger or your pride or your laziness or your lust or your gossip? Man, I wish I wasn't fighting with temptation as well. I wish I didn't keep failing. Stop wishing. What are you doing? You know, I had somebody call me once a pastor, I'm really struggling with with loss and Internet and I need some help. I want to pray together, but I also want you to give me some help. And the person is being tremendously helped because they asked for help. What steps are you taking to change your critical spirit or your sour attitude? You say, man, I'm such a negative person. I'm so critical of everybody. I hate being that way. OK, pray about it. But what are you doing to change and what steps are you taking? What discipline, what exercise, what training? How are you endeavoring to increase your understanding of Scripture? You see people get up and teach the Bible like, man, I wish I understood the Bible like they do. They're not lucky. They dive into Scripture and study. So do that. How are you cultivating your prayer life? It doesn't just happen automatically. You say, I don't know, I fall asleep. So what steps are you taking so you don't fall asleep? Stand up. Walk. Pray with somebody. Do it on purpose. What are you doing to improve your family relationships or to help your children grow? I wish my kids loved church the way other kids loved church. And what are you doing to assist with that? Philippians 13.4 says the soul of the slugger, the lazy person, craves and gets nothing. While the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. What's the difference between people who are excelling and people who are stuck? Both of them desire progress. But only one of them is actually pursuing it. Hope is not a strategy. I can't remember where I read that. I think it was in a military book. Hope is not a strategy. You know, what are we going to do to fight the enemy? Well, I hope that they... That's not a strategy. Exercise yourself. God, forgive us for our spiritual laziness. Enable our spiritual exercise and make us more godly for your glory. God, help us. We need you to do what we can't do but help us to do all the many things you've already commanded us to do. Let's bow in prayer. Thank you Lord for this practical and very vivid memorable text. I pray that you would use it in my life again as you have in the past. Use it in the lives of the members and friends of Killian Hill Baptist Church. We long to grow. And we realize it's not going to happen without some serious and intentional and intense work. Help us to train ourselves for the purpose of godliness. And we will give You the glory for that in Jesus' name, Amen.