day. Beautiful. One of my favorite songs. Bud, you can add that to the list for my funeral. If you're around, you know. At this point, it seems like my funeral will be a bunch of music and nobody will get to speak. That is glorious. Beautiful. What a great theme. And we rehearsed that a couple of times today. The perfect wisdom of our God did the same thing. Moved from marveling at God the Creator, which is amazing, and then to think that that God who created everything is so wise, so powerful, so beyond frail humanity, would send the Lord Jesus Christ to become one of us and to die in our place. I give you praise as long as I have breath. And then after I have breath and I'm in heaven, I'm going to praise you some more. Beautiful. Why don't you bow with me and offer a quiet prayer in your own heart, giving praise to God for his great salvation. And then I'll speak on our behalf. Lord, we are amazed by you. We marvel at you. You are unimprovable. What you do is right. Whether or not we understand it, we submit to you in your sovereignty and your goodness and your wisdom. We thank You and we give You praise. We give You glory that the God who is without rival has humbled Himself. The Lord Jesus took on our flesh and then took on our sin and suffered the wrath that we deserve. Thank You. Lord, in response to Your great grace, we long to praise You. We long to serve You. To obey You. Our life isn't ours. It's bought with the blood of Christ. So we give You our praise today. We adore You. Thank You, Lord, for the gift of Your Holy Spirit who works in us individually. Who works in us corporately. I thank you for the gift of your church, that you haven't left us in a hostile world on our own, but you have united us to you, but also you've united us to your people, the church, the body of Christ, our family. Thank you for that. I ask again that you would use your word today to challenge and inspire us to grow us especially as we put our focus on our own personal growth. Might you meet with us today and make us less like our old selves and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm praying this with confidence because it's your will to do so. And because we are praying not on our merits but because of Jesus Christ. And so we pray in his name. Amen. Amen. I can't always make every introduction that I would like to make. Sometimes I welcome people just because you may not be familiar with them yet. Charity, I didn't know that you were back. Welcome back. It's good to see you and have you back. And then next to Charity this morning is Katie Longacre. And Katie has arrived. She'll be part of our school staff next year teaching in elementary school. and did not know you'd be here today, but welcome home. We're glad you're here. And then Adam and Casey, I had mentioned that you guys were transitioning and moving here and welcome home to you as well. And to those of you who have been here for a long time, we just, I love what God is doing in our church. I'm very grateful for it. And for those of you who are guests, whether you're from out of town or whether you're just dropping in this morning, trust that you will meet with the Lord while you're here and that He'll speak to you as He's spoken to me already today. We're going to be in first Timothy. Actually, we're going to be in first and second Timothy and in the book of Titus. Those three books we call the pastoral epistles because the Apostle Paul wrote them to young pastors, Timothy ministering Ephesus, Titus ministering on the island of Crete. And he told them how church should be conducted and why. So we'll be studying that together. Let me just say one more word as you turn in your Bibles. Actually, if you're using a pew Bible, 992 is where you're heading. Thank you to our teens. We had a large group that was absent last week. And to our teens and sponsors, Boulangeres in particular, providing leadership, you weren't here last week and we missed you. We're really glad to have you back. I'm glad looking up in the choir seeing so many of you back and serving today. Thank you for your ministry on our behalf. Not all of us can take a week like you did and go serve another church and serve the rescue mission, but I'm very grateful. I admire you for taking what is becoming a very short vacation. You only have a little while left, but you take that and invest it in the lives of others. And it's not a glamorous thing to do. Sometimes a mission trip that is overseas is so adventuresome and exciting. And you didn't get to get a stamp in your passport or anything like that. You went to North Carolina and you worked hard and you lived in some challenging conditions, but you served the Lord. And I'm very grateful to you for doing that. So thank you for ministering on our behalf. Look forward to hearing from you, I think, next week on that. Last week, we started a brief series that I entitled, Taking Aim at Godliness. And the idea is that we're not just kind of floating through our Christian life, you know, grateful for what Christ has done in the past, but kind of blissfully unconcerned about what's happening in our own personal lives. We are aiming at something. And specifically, we are taking aim at godliness. Studied last week from the text I've had you open to, if you want to read it with me again, 1 Timothy 4, verses 7 and 8 say, 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 for the life to come. So he says, aim at godliness. Work toward it. Engage yourself. Train yourself to be godly. And a very quick review of where we were last week. The three main points were spiritual growth requires intentional effort. You don't just become godly by osmosis. You don't even just pray that you'll become godly as though God's going to slip godliness under your pillow while you sleep. It requires intentional effort. It requires personal responsibility. Paul told Timothy to train yourself to be godly. Young people, your mom and dad can't make you godly. Your husband, your wife can't make you godly. Your pastor can't make you godly. You need to train yourself and be personally responsible to progress in your walk with the Lord. Then spiritual growth results in godliness. All of that came from 1 Timothy 4, verses 7 and 8. The key concepts that, whether you were here or not, I think it's healthy for us to review. Your justification, that is determining your standing before God, whether you go to heaven or hell, whether you are His enemy or His beloved. Your justification was instantaneous. You don't become saved in a justification sense. When you trust Christ, it's instantaneous and it's monergistic. That is, God is working alone. God accomplished it without assistance when you repented of your sins and trusted in Christ. So God did it all. We listened to the piano this morning playing, Jesus paid it all. Jesus did everything for your justification. In contrast, your sanctification, your spiritual progress, Your transformation into Christ-likeness that is not instantaneous. There's not a prayer you can pray and it happens easily. Even if you throw a stick in the fire, you make a decision, you raise your hand, you come forward and add an invitation. Some preaching almost gives the indication that there is some decision and a surrender that now you are sanctified. I wish it were so easy. It's a struggle. It's a battle. It is progressive and it is synergistic. And that is, it's not God working alone. It's God and the Christian working together. There's a synergy. So you cooperate with God in your growth as He enables you by your spirit. I'm not saying you do it yourself. But I'm not saying that you're passive. You're an active participant in your spiritual growth if you are going to grow. You stop just waiting for it to happen. Stop hoping that it happens. I intended to move on to another text and I was excited about getting into Titus 2 another of my favorite passages but as I thought about I figured well. When we're talking about aiming at godliness, we probably should take some time to define it. I said last week, as I often do, I don't have time to unpack this, but it's bam, bam, bam, and I gave you four points and we kept on running. Well, this week, before we go any further, I want to say, if we're to train ourselves to be godly, if we're taking aim at godliness, let's take some time from the Scriptures to define what godliness is. So we'll be in 1st Timothy for the most part, also a little bit in 2nd Timothy and Titus, specifically because Paul mentions godliness and ungodliness so often in these rather short books. Today I want to study together What godliness is and I'm warning you ahead of time. This is one of those messages in the words of Bill Bruce. I'm taking 10 pounds and trying to shove it into a five pound bag. All right. There's a lot of information coming at you today. And I just said to kind of get ready. This is a topical message. My preference is to preach a message where like last week I'm on two verses and we're just going word by word explaining what the text says. This is a topical message. We're studying the topic of godliness. In order to preach a biblical topical message that means you have to do instead of just doing a study on one text an expositional study on one text we're doing an expositional study on several texts. So I'm not just winging it. We actually have to kind of do the spade work in a lot of different places not in just one place. It's hard to preach a good topical message and it's hard to listen to a good topical message because we're turning in our Bibles a lot and we're moving all over. But we need this. It's going to be good for us. So get ready to turn and get ready to try to stay engaged even though we're moving around quite a bit. What is Godliness? Well, we could just come up with our own definition. But I think if we're going to understand it well, we can lean on some other people and eventually see what the Scripture has to say itself. Many people use Vine's Expository Dictionary. Vine's is a good resource to have on your computer or on your shelf if you can. Describing the Greek word for godliness, Eusebia, it says it means to be devout, denotes that piety, which, characterized by a Godward attitude, does that which is well-pleasing to Him." So we have in there the idea of devotion. We have in there the idea of piety. But the last two lines are especially helpful. It's characterized by a Godward attitude that does that which is pleasing to Him. Jerry Bridges has a book called The Practice of Godliness. I recommend it to you. Anything Jerry Bridges writes, you need to read. He's just really, really helpful. He says that godliness is devotion to God. You see that same idea from the previous definition. It's devotion to God, which results in a life that is pleasing to him. And you see there's some overlap. There's the idea of devotion to God, esteeming God, seeking God. But that trickles down into real nitty-gritty life where we are pleasing Him. Sometimes I think people say, well, you know, I'm godly. I love God. I love to sing about God. Yeah, but does that affection for God actually work down into your life when you go home this afternoon? Or when you go to work tomorrow? Or when your child frustrates you on Thursday? Does it make a difference in your life? Is your life pleasing God? I will admit to you, and you've heard me preach long enough, that when I'm preaching of what Christ has done for me, I'm moved. I'm amazed. I'm emotional to think of what Christ has done for me. And I glory in Christ's work. Does that make me godly? Well, not unless My affection for God is actually working itself out into the way I live. Do I strive to please Him? I was reading a quote by a man named Kevin DeYoung this week. And he says, sometimes people can be so amazed. They're amazed at Christ's generosity. They're amazed at their own sinfulness. And if we're not careful, we can fall into the trap that the more aware I am of my sin, the more godly I must be. Well, actually, that's not true unless I'm fighting my sin. You know, I can't just say, wow, I am so terrible. Praise Jesus. I'm terrible? Praise Jesus for His mercy in paying for my sin. But didn't we sing this morning when we sang, O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, there is a beautiful phrase in that hymn that says, He breaks the power of cancelled sin. He sets the prisoner free. He doesn't just pardon my sin. He breaks its hold. So now I don't just glory in the fact that I'm such a mess. I glory in the fact that Jesus paid for sin's penalty, but He also broke its neck. So I don't have to just shrug and say, well, I'm really sinful. Godliness means I'm pursuing sinning less. We put it this way. You're not going to be sinless, but you should be sinning less. I want to please God. Not just praise God, if you put it in those terms. A couple other helpful definitions. J.C. Connell in New Bible Dictionary says, it is a personal attitude to God and the actions that spring directly from it. So we're seeing these same ideas. And he really captures the words I think that are so helpful to us. Godliness is both an attitude toward God, but also the actions that spring from it A friend of mine, Jim Berg, years ago, I don't even remember where I found this from him, but in listening to a sermon or a class, I thought he boiled it down to some practical application. He said, Godliness is living as though God is all that matters. Worldliness is living as though the world is all that matters. That's pretty practical. So is it the way you live or is it the way you think? Yes. It's your attitude affecting your actions. So let's boil all that down. For me, this is kind of a helpful synopsis. Godliness is a God-centered attitude, fearing God, that results in God-pleasing actions. That is, obeying God. So it's not just trying to do right things. And it's not just having warm thoughts about God. But it's thoughts about God that affect my life. my actions, my decisions, my words, my thoughts. It's godliness. Now let's get to work and see if our study of Scripture doesn't bear out that that's a pretty healthy definition. Point number one of five. Turn back to 1 Timothy chapter one. Point number one, and I've tried to word these very carefully, trying to be accurate. Godliness is produced by sound doctrine. Godliness is produced by sound doctrine. Paul is speaking about the law and how good it is and that it's laid down to point us to God and to explain to us. And then he lists out these sins It talks about, just jumping into verse 10, I know we're in the middle of the passage. Verse 9 speaks about the ungodly. It says, "...the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." Okay, so ungodliness, wicked living, and he unpacks some examples of that, is contrary to sound doctrine. in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted." So he says godliness is consistent with sound doctrine. Ungodliness is contrary to sound doctrine. And the point of this, sound doctrine puts us on the road toward godliness. We're not just talking about some theoretical idea. He says you want to become godly, you need sound. Doctrine pastor Timothy you preach sound doctrine because that's the only way people will grow in Godless Look at the end of the book in first Timothy chapter 6 Starting to wrap up the book and he says if anyone teaches a different doctrine than and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness." He's puffed up. He's arrogant. Reject that person. But he says, there is teaching about Christ that is according to godliness. It works in collaboration with godliness. Teaching produces godliness. If we turn over again to Titus 1, we see the same idea. Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth. You would circle truth, and now here's what he says about the truth. The truth which accords with godliness. Godliness is produced by the truth. It's produced by sound doctrine. That matters. It means that sound doctrine is practical. As a pastor, sometimes people will make comments and they say, you know what, we're going through all these doctrinal studies, hard books like Ephesians. We're digging into verse by verse study. And it's fine to teach doctrine, but when are you going to give us something that's practical? Well, that's just mistaken thinking. Nothing is more practical than truth about God. Nothing is more practical than doctrine. When I was first in pastoral ministry, I was asked to speak at a camp to junior hires. So you've got to figure, that combination, it's camp, and people are going to expect messages that are very, you know, rah-rah, keep your attention, and it's junior hires. So the guy asked me, you know, what are you going to preach on? And I told him I'm going to do a series, I think I had eight opportunities, I'm going to do a series of messages on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And he kind of laughed like, yeah, good one. What are you really going to do? I'm going to preach doctrine to them. I don't know. I don't know if that's going to get them raising hands. I don't know if it's going to get them down the aisle throwing a stick in the fire. But it will change their lives. Doctrine is practical. Change that rests on emotion or guilt or pressure rather than doctrine is short-lived. Have you ever been that? Have you ever made a decision and you're like, man, absolutely, yes, I will never sin again. And then you go home and you're like, wow, that really didn't work out. Sound doctrine is practical. And if we look at it from the other direction, right living must be rooted in right doctrine. Nothing transforms a life but the truth of Scripture. There's no shortcut. And I say this is the defining point. You've got to embrace this as absolutely true. It's true for our church. Our church is going to be a doctrine-preaching church. Pastor, don't you want to help people? I want to help people not just for a day or a week. I want to help people for the rest of their lives. And only doctrine gives the kind of foundation that can do that. We're ministering in a school. Why don't we just help people change their behavior? We don't have time to teach them doctrine. If you don't teach them doctrine, you're not going to change their behavior. Not in a lasting, God-honoring way. It's affecting you as parents. I don't have time to teach my kids what the Bible means. I just want them to stop hitting each other. I understand. But while you get them to not kill each other, teach them the doctrine that will change their lives forever. Forever. It's true in your own life. Guys, this is not that complicated. You say, man, I would really like to grow as a Christian. I feel like I've been in a lull. I feel like I've just been kind of dry. What's the secret? How am I going to grow? If you want to take notes, I'm going to give you a secret. It's powerful. You need to read your Bible. You need to come to church and hear the Bible preached. You need to expose yourself to Scripture. You want to grow, you need to understand and assimilate Scripture. And I chose the word assimilate, or assimilation, very specifically. I don't mean just apply it. I mean make it part of the fabric of your life. You need to be a Bible quoter. A problem comes up, and you've heard me say this before. Again, Jim Berg would say, If when you're sorting through a problem, you're not quoting King James English, you're leaning on your own understanding. We've amended that to say you're allowed to quote ESV English. But you should be thinking in Bible terms. You're praying Bible. You counsel with Bible. And you're not just saying, man, I'm glad I learned the Bible as a kid or as a college student. What are you learning now? When's the last time you gained insight into Scripture and you're growing in your knowledge of the Word? If you're not growing in your knowledge of the Word, you're not growing in godliness. You're not. There's no other way. I don't know, Pastor, there's a YouTube video and it really inspires me and it makes me godly. You need the Word. Get into it yourself as you're reading Scripture. Get into a good book that will teach you about it. Alright? Some people might fear that I'm being legalistic to say, get to church. Well, Pastor, we're here. I know. And the next time we meet, come back. We have Sunday school at 1145. Stay. Wednesday night, join us. I know. What are you talking about? I'm talking about exposing your life to the Scriptures as much as you can. Why? Because the Scripture will make you godly. There's no shortcut. There's no other way. Godliness is produced by sound doctrine. Now, I warn you, godliness may be professed without being possessed. Let's look at another text. 1 Timothy 2. Just in passing. First Timothy two starts by talking about prayer it says in verse two we should pray for kings so that we can lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way. So what we're praying for is the ability to live a godly life. Now we jump down to verse 10 talking about how women live how they how they value their lives how they even present themselves in their dress and attire. But it says don't just don't just cover yourself with garments or jewelry. But you should be dressed, so to speak, verse 10, with what is proper for women who profess godliness, and that is with good works. Did you see that? If you profess godliness, your life should be characterized by good works. You can't say, man, that guy is so godly. He just has a foul mouth, a bad temper, You know, that lady is so godly. She loves Jesus. I mean, she's a gossip and everything, but if you profess it, you need to show it through a life that's characterized by good works. Otherwise, your profession is bogus. Bogus godliness has no works. Okay, we just read that in 1 Timothy 2.10. True godliness has a work a system, a collection that has fruit that proves that the godliness is present. So we're not just talking about labels. We're talking about real life change. You see that again in 2 Timothy. I told you we're turning a lot. Turn to 2 Timothy. A lot of these passages might be familiar to you kind of independently of each other. And we're kind of weaving them together to learn about godliness today. 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul is bemoaning the wickedness of the world in which we live. He's talking about sinful people. It's another one of those depravity lists. Let's just jump in in verse 4. These people are treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And then all these people that are living such wicked lives, it says in verse 5, they have the appearance of godliness But they deny its power. He says avoid such people. He says there are some women who profess godliness and it doesn't result in good works. He says there are false teachers, wicked people. They're living like the devil. And then they have an appearance of godliness, but it's powerless. Don't settle for bogus godliness. A reputation for godliness. True godliness is life changing, not impotent. It's powerful. Here's what he's saying. He's not saying that true godliness has power to do miracles. True godliness has power to heal the sick. True godliness has power to change your behavior. That's the power. The power to actually make a difference in the way you treat your wife or your co-workers or your children. True godliness Makes you nice. There are a lot of people in church. They're like, I love God. I'm committed to the Bible. I'm just kind of hard to get along with. I'm kind of cantankerous. I'm kind of difficult. Godliness is powerful. It changes you. If you're cantankerous, it softens you. If you're soft and spineless, it strengthens you. But it's not impotent. It makes a difference. 1 Timothy 6. We've already seen verse 3. If anyone teaches a different doctrine that does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he's puffed up. We've already been there. Now jump down to verse 5. All these false teachers, they have envy and dissension, slander. Verse 5, constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. He's criticizing false teachers. He says, there's these people, they're divisive, they're wicked, they're schismatic. And beyond all that, they think godliness is a means of gain. In other words, they have a profession of godliness And they think that godliness is a way to become wealthy. They think that godliness is gain. And he's going to turn that idea on its head in verse 6. It's not that godliness brings you gain, but true godliness with contentment is great gain. Bogus godliness says that gain is godliness. And he says, no godliness is gained. He just flips it right around. There are people that say, if you're godly, you'll be wealthy. Have you ever heard something like that? If you're pleasing God, your life will be easy, you'll get promotions, you'll have a beautiful house, nothing will go badly. Is that what the Bible says? Actually, the Bible says that all who will live godly will suffer persecution. The idea of the prosperity gospel is an old heresy. It's rampant in our day. There's a lot of preachers saying, you know, a Joel Osteen type message. A T.D. Jakes type message that say, you know, if you're godly, life is easy. Paul says, no, life might be hard. But if you're godly and content, that is true gain. All that to say there is There are professions of godliness that aren't real. Godliness is produced by sound doctrine. Godliness may be professed and not possessed. But contrary to that, true godliness is transformational and tangible. True godliness makes a difference in your life. Three. First Timothy chapter four. For a moment. First Timothy four. The spirit expressly says in the latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons. Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. who forbid marriage and require abstinence from food that God created to be received with Thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with Thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word and prayer. If you put these things before the brothers you'll be a good servant of Christ Jesus being trained in the words of the faith of the good doctrine that you have followed. have nothing to do with irreverent silly myth rather train yourself for godliness. And he says godliness is valuable for time and eternity. OK. Here's the here's the trick. And we need to look at the entirety of the record of what God has said about godliness. We've said that there are some people they claim to be godly and it doesn't work out in their life. He says that's on the other hand There are ungodly people who are very strict. In fact, they're stricter than Scripture. They think godliness is shown by not eating meat that God allows, by not marrying, though God allows it. And they have all of these legalistic, truly legalistic ideas. And they say, well, if you're, you know, the more miserable you are, the holier you must be. He says, don't give time to any of that nonsense. We're talking about true godliness. Godliness begins in your heart. It's not mere behaviorism. You're not more godly because you're really hard on yourself. You're not just trying to change your actions. Godliness isn't sour asceticism. That's the idea that you just avoid anything that brings you pleasure. You like a certain food? Stop it so you can be godly. Why would you do that? He said, this isn't godliness. This is Pharisaism. It's nonsense. However, the godliness that begins in your heart does come out in your habits. 1 Timothy 5.4. We haven't been here yet. 1 Timothy 5. Start reading in verse 3. Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God." So he's in the middle of a saying that kids and grandkids should support their parents, especially a widow. And he says, to do that is showing godliness and is well-pleasing to God. Godliness begins in your heart. I really want you to understand this. I feel like I'm not explaining things well today. Godliness begins in your heart. Not just your conduct. You don't just follow a bunch of rules. It has to be transforming your heart. That's why I say it's transformational. But, if godliness is changing your heart, it will also change your habits. It will work its way out. See, the one ditch on one side is to say, just follow rules and do externals. No, that's not godliness. The other ditch is to say, OK, so just have a good heart and don't worry about externals. That's not godliness. True godliness begins in your heart, but it's shown in your conduct. Even things like taking care of your parents, as one example. It shows itself. Godliness isn't merely theoretical. It wears working boots. It's visible. It's even winsome. And what I mean by that is people see it. You can't say, I'm really godly. I mean, nobody knows that except for Jesus. But I really am. That's not the case. You show godliness and you want to be You want to be recognized, not in a hypocritical way, but you want to be recognized as a godly person. Okay, somebody may say of me, oh, Pastor Chris, he's a good communicator. I want to be godly. Well, you know, that person is really smart. But are you godly? Really makes good decisions, really good with money, good leader. Are you godly? And what about your life is making people think that? If your heart is becoming godly, it should show itself in your behavior. It works its way out. Obedience isn't legalism. It's not legalistic to say I really want to obey Scripture. God, with Your help, by Your Spirit, through Your grace, help me please You in my conduct. We talked a lot today about pleasing God. And again, The ditch is to say, well, I'm pleasing to God. I'm acceptable to God because I'm in Christ. I'm justified. Right? But I also want to live a life that is pleasing to God. I want Him to be a proud papa. I want Him to say that person has not only declared righteousness in Christ, but he's becoming righteous because he's pursuing godliness enabled by my Spirit. Very easy way to say it. Godliness works from the inside out. It can't go outside in, but neither will it stay inside. It will work its way out. I've been to 1 Timothy 4 quite a bit. Let's jump ahead to 1 Timothy 6.11. Paul is wrapping up this first epistle. But as for you, O man of God, Flee these things. He's talking about all kinds of lusts. All kinds of temptations. Flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Did you get that? He just said flee these temptations, but pursue godliness. Godliness is a positive pursuit. I will wrap up soon. Don't check out on me yet. Godliness is a positive pursuit. We've already noted from last week, it is attained by Spirit-enabled effort. 1 Timothy 4 says we're training, we're exercising. 1 Timothy 6 says we're pursuing. That word pursuit is important. More times than not, in the New Testament, The word that is used for pursuit here, pursuing godliness, is used of persecution. Pastor, you want me to persecute godliness? No, no, no. When Christians were persecuted, what did that look like? When Paul was persecuting the church, what did it look like? Do you remember when he got letters that gave him the authority to chase people to other cities and to grab them and to bring them back? Persecution was a pursuit. It is a tireless, relentless, cruel chasing from one town to the next town. We are going to track you down. It's the same word that he uses to say you should have that kind of dogged desire for godliness. You pursue it. You have a relentless quest. Titus 2.12, and we're actually going to be there next week, but he says grace teaches us to renounce ungodliness and to live godly lives. We're actually involved in the process. It's very important for us to understand the second point. Godliness isn't merely an ethic of avoidance. A lot of people that grew up in very conservative churches, like ours, a lot of fundamentalists, for all the good things we learn, sometimes we can learn that godliness is an ethic of avoidance. What do I mean? Well, what are godly people like? Well, first off, they don't smoke or drink or cheat or lie. And they don't and they don't and they don't. And as long as you don't do those things and you avoid certain things, that makes you godly. Christian virtue is not just about avoiding bad things. It's about embracing good things. You're not just running away from temptation. You're pursuing righteousness. Holiness is not just being separated from sin, it's being separated to God. So I'm not just saying, God, help me not to do something bad. God, help me to do something good. Help me not to be proud. Oh God, make me humble. We saw this in our study of Ephesians where it would say, put off sin, but put on Christ. So stop lying, but speak the truth. Stop stealing, but work and give. We don't want an ethic of mere avoidance. There's a lot of things you have to avoid. But deep Christian growth is actually pursuing what is right. 2 Timothy 2.22. A similar passage. Paul writes to Timothy, he says, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace. You flee one thing by pursuing another. And it's another one of those points in the message where I wish I could just preach this for a while. You flee temptation and pursue godliness. You flee temptation by pursuing godliness. Sometimes you say, man, I'm really struggling not to do that thing. Yeah, but what are you replacing it with? What are you chasing after? I'm trying not to be so covetous. Alright, but are you cultivating in your heart a delight in God? You don't want to just displace covetousness. You want to replace covetousness with a desire for God. The best way to pursue purity is to be chasing it, not just running away from sin. You think of Joseph when he's tempted by Potiphar's wife. You say, what did he do? He ran. Yeah, but he didn't just run. He ran after God. How can I do this sin in the sight of God? I'm not just afraid of temptation. I love God. And you're pursuing You're actively moving toward righteousness, not just running from sin. Again, godliness is not an accident. It's a pursuit of mercy. Let's get to this last point. Godliness is a result of the Gospel. Everybody turn here. We've flown by so much Scripture. But now we come really to the root. And all of this could be kind of devastating if we didn't end here. In 1 Timothy 3.16, Paul has just talked about the church. And he said the church... look at the last lines of verse 15. The Church of the Living God is a pillar and buttress of the truth. The Church has been entrusted to hold up the truth of Scripture. And now he says in verse 16, Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. The mystery of godliness. It's not that godliness is a mystery. The terminology mystery in the New Testament means it's something that God had not revealed until now. God has revealed to us. We're talking about revelation. We just finished talking about the truth that the church is holding up. Those are synonymous terms. The truth that we are holding up is the revealed mystery about godliness. What is the mystery about godliness? What has God told us is necessary for us to have godliness? And now he starts singing a hymn. Literally, he's singing a hymn. We believe that the rest of verse 16 is an early church hymn that extols the person and work of Jesus. It talks about Jesus. It says, He was manifested in the flesh. He was vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels. He was proclaimed among the nations. He was believed on in the world. And He was taken up to glory. Now honestly, I've come to that passage many times, and I say, now that is a beautiful statement of the work of Christ. Why does Paul call it the mystery of godliness? I've told you before, I'm kind of audacious enough to want to edit Scripture and say, you know, that was a little confusing. You're talking about godliness and then you're talking about Jesus. Now which is it? The revelation about how we become godly has everything to do with the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christ's person and work were revealed to make us godly. We have in there the Incarnation. Why did Jesus become a man? Why did He take on flesh to make us godly? And although He was persecuted in His flesh, He was vindicated by the Spirit to make us godly. He was humiliated in the sense that angels looked on Him. I mean, you figure before He became a man, the angels were worshipping Him as a Spirit. But when He took on flesh, the angels are watching and wondering. They announce His birth. They minister to Him at His temptation. They minister to Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. They watched Him die. He was vindicated through the resurrection. He was preached not just to the Jews, but He was preached to the nations, to the Gentiles. A universal message. He was believed on in the world. People came to faith. And then He returned to glory. He was exalted. Why did He do all of that? So that we could be godly. Oh, you mean so that we could be saved? So that we could be godly. He's not just aiming at heaven. He's aiming at the changing of our character and habits and lifestyle now. Jesus did all He did in part so that I could become godly. This matters. He says this truth in Revelation is great. And he's probably not mumbling at this point. He's like, this is great! This is awesome. What Jesus has done To make me godly is awesome. And so any growth that is not rooted in the person and work of Christ is mere moralism. You say, wow, we're just trying to get people to behave. Islam gets people to behave. Mormonism has rules of behavior. But the Christian gospel changes people from the inside out. So we focus on Christ. Our work in pursuit of godliness is made possible by Christ's work and our work is motivated By Christ's work You get that last point. It's motivated by Christ's work What we mean by that is if Jesus did all that to reveal to me how to be godly. I better get serious about this Godliness is a result of the gospel They haven't done that justice, but I have to leave it there. Vincent's Word Studies. Marvin Vincent says, The contents of this truth, from 1 Timothy 3, 15 and 16, or the mystery in Christ, it's Christ revealed in the Gospel as the Savior from ungodliness, the norm and inspiration of godliness, the divine life and man causing Him to live unto God as Christ did and does. What Christ has done enables and motivates us to pursue godliness. Concluding thoughts then? I know we've had a mouthful of study today. There is no godliness without God. You say, well, I'd like to be godly. You're not going to be godly unless you are devoutly growing in your walk with God. You don't just desire godliness, you desire God Himself. It's not just virtue or growth. It's God. When you meet Him in the Bible, listening to it, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, meditating on it, as you're studying God, the results of such time with God will be godliness, or we might say God-likeness. If you haven't yet trusted Christ, you need to do so. All that Jesus did in coming to earth, the work that He did, the victory He won, His ascension, He did so that you could be accepted by God in His righteousness. And so you could please God as you learn His virtues. So we come where we usually come. The answer, ultimately, is the Lord Jesus Christ and the glorious Gospel. If you don't know Him, I urge you today to say, Jesus, save my soul. I repent of my sin. I trust You. Save me. If you already know Him, pursue Godliness. I pray, Heavenly Father, that You would use Your Word today. I thank You for the attention of Your people to what is a very packed message. There's a lot of information that's been presented. I pray that You'll help people to make sense of it. Forgive my frailty, but allow Your Word to stick. I thank You, Lord, for accepting me because of Jesus. But I also thank You that the work of Jesus makes possible my godliness. So I don't only have to confess my sins, but I can rejoice that sin is not resistible. You've broken its power. Grow us in godliness for Your own glory, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.