Open up your copy of the scriptures to the book of 1 Timothy. The book of 1 Timothy. We'll be reading this morning from the book of 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. Paul writes, 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 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 set our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. I have a vivid memory from my first years as a young Christian in mid high school. It's the memory of a vase with a dozen roses in the hand of my pastor, the man who preached the word week in and week out, given to his wife on their anniversary. I was close friends with his two twin sons, still am close with them. And I was in their home quite a bit in those years. And I watched their father engage with their mother. I watched their father engage with his sons. I watched their father suffer and struggle with back pain and the difficulty that that presented him in a variety of circumstances. And on that particular day, I watched their father honor their mother with those flowers on the occasion of their anniversary. And the images burned into my mind. It was on that evening when I was over there that I remember thinking to myself, I want to be a man who gives roses to his wife. if the Lord gives me a wife on our anniversary. I want to be a man who loves a woman. I want to be a man who loves one woman and makes her smile and makes her life bright. And it was in that example of that pastor, really that man, that Christian man, that mere man, that God was growing me. And so it is today that that legacy to some extent is realized in my own life. I wasn't around for their harder days or conversations, but he held out to me by way of example in his life, something that I ought to aim for. And he made a godly Christian man's life attractive to me. Well, Timothy is an Ephesus. Timothy is the original recipient of the letter that we are in the middle of. Husbands in Ephesus were not famous for spending money on flowers, by the way. Husbands in Ephesus were famous for spending money on prostitutes. The people in this city did not live for the glory of God, but for the glory of the local goddess, Diana. And every city and every place has its own local God or goddess, whether it has a physical temple or not. There is a place where the money goes. There's a place where our hearts go. This city of Ephesus was an upside down place, examples of godlessness abounded. And yet God was at work in that city. And you could see it in the life of this local church. And you could see it in the lives, in particular, as it ought to be, of those who were appointed as elders at the church at Ephesus. Christ's church, whom he calls in this letter, the household of God, the assembly of the living God, an outpost of heaven in this age as we await Christ's return, and a pillar and a buttress of truth. That is, if you will, a people who are themselves a building holding forth the truth of the gospel for all the world to see. not with her pillars and her structures, but with her very life, a display, a radiation of the very beauty of the glory of the gospel that saved her. And if you're just joining us, we are in the middle of a series through this first century letter to this first century church. It's a letter called, we call it First Timothy. It's the first letter of the Apostle Paul to his protege in this city at that church named Timothy. And a brief review will be helpful to us as we get back into the series after a few weeks off. In First Timothy, you may remember that Timothy was addressed with an urgent charge. wage the good warfare. And we said it was as though we opened the book under fire, like almost starting a movie, a war movie, and bullets are flying around, and it's an intense scene. Well, we open with an intense scene, and that makes sense. For it's the occasion of this letter that Paul is writing to a pastor in a city where the church is being built, every place where the church is built, occupied territory. where Jesus is setting up an embassy where people will come and be saved. Little localized rescue operations for the spread of his mercy and grace and gospel, and Satan hates the whole thing, and so we should not be surprised to find that false teaching lurks at the doors, and it always lurks within our own hearts and is a threat from without and from within. Fight the good fight, he'll say later. Wage the good warfare, he opens his letter. That's chapter one. Chapter 2 focuses on the matter of church life. It's as though we go inside the church where men should be found godly and praying, not punching one another. and where women should be found, not merely professing godliness, but studying the scriptures, not dressing to impress one another at church, but dressing modestly. Paul addresses men and women with their different kinds of temptations and vulnerabilities and the matter of church life. Chapter three, we turn to the matter of church leadership. church leadership. Crucial to a healthy church is the leadership of the church. Here we looked at the structure of the church, the qualifications for elders. And for deacons, elders we find. We also call them pastors. If you're new to church, you'll be familiar with the term pastor. Elder is another term in the Bible for pastors. We always find them in clumps. They're never alone. A lone pastor, you always find a group of pastors or elders. We at Heritage have a plurality. And oh, I feel like I need more than just me and all of us do. Elders, by the way, are not some priestly class who does ministry for you. This is so important. just because there's a page about given to leadership in the church. We shouldn't think that this is the hired out ministry, but elders and pastors are there for the equipping of the saints for ministry. It's not a class of the super spiritual people who are godly on your behalf, like a kind of mediator between you and God, but they are godly before God and godly before you as models for what God is working in every one of his children. Deacons partnered to support the ministry of teaching and leadership on the part of elders. And in chapter four, which is where we arrived last time we were in the book, we arrived at what we might call the matter of church work. Pastors are theological watchdogs. This Sunday, examples of godliness we'll see. And next Sunday, public leaders. Godliness. Godliness is the subject for this morning. You know, it was good to have a few Sundays not preaching to be preached at before one preaches a sermon on godliness. You want a tender heart. And preachers have a high volume of word output. I will say, I don't wanna count the number of words I'll say to you in a year. It's obnoxious, but it's appropriate. It's what God has ordered. I would never say, how about God leads his people by putting a man in front of him and then he talks at him for an hour a week. No, no, no, this is an assignment from the Lord and we're all under the word. Nevertheless, when a man says too many words, sometimes he needs to stop talking and listen to the word. And I was blessed to listen to the word with you and now I'm blessed to preach this humbly with you. Godliness, the subject for the morning. What is it? A life lived like God is God and we are his creatures. How about that? A life lived like God is God and we are his creatures. Rightly ordered humanity. Not just outwardly ethical, but inwardly transformed by an actual relationship with the living God. Living as though God is God and we are his creatures and we actually know him. We'll explore a little bit more of that shortly. Why is it so hard? Well, we could answer that in many different ways. I suspect there may have been some hesitations on Timothy's part in the pull into godliness, for there is always a pull into godlessness. I count four misconceptions. That it's supposed to be easy. Oh, how we get discouraged when it's not. That it's not worth it. Can't see what it's for. That it's all you, that you're on your own for it. And then it's just maybe unappealing, not terribly helpful. Well, this letter was written to Timothy, a pastor and an elder. But friends, this letter is also written for us. I like the title, Elders as Examples of Godliness, in part because it helps us to discern the texture in the book. When we read these pastoral epistles, they're written to Timothy first, but they were written to be heard by the congregation. And when we hear it first to the spiritual leaders, it helps us to hear not only how, for example, in this sermon, we can grow in godliness, but what we need from our leaders by way of godliness. It was written for us to think of first Timothy one. He says Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the command our God are of God our Savior to Timothy to Timothy, but then notice in verse 6 where we were today. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ. So God through his spirit Jesus is spirit has given. through Paul, this letter to Timothy, who is to give these things, to put these things, to command and teach these things to the saints. And so that's what we do this morning. It was written to an elder pastor, but it was to be read out loud for all to hear because all need it. Well, we all know what it's like to pick up a sport for the first time. If you throw a football and it wobbles, like it does most of the time when I throw a football to this day, You might, if you're a kid, I've noticed this happens, you throw the football and think, I can't do it. Like you come either out of the box with all the skill to perform at the level of professionals, or you come with no skill. And the idea that trying again and trying again and trying again, that over time with training, one can grow, that idea needs to be taught. And maybe we need that. as well when it comes to godliness. That's what Paul does here. Look at verse 6. 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, there's that word again, yourself for godliness. Friends, godliness is not easy. First, godliness requires personal training. It requires personal training. Verses 6 and 7, as we've just read. I don't know if Timothy was a gym rat or not. We know he was frail. Maybe that's because he hurt now. It wasn't because he hurt himself. He had a difficult stomach. He might not have been a gym rat, but he would have known all about them. In every age where there have been humans, at least where there have been men, there have been body sculpting and exercise and athletics. And there was in the Roman world at the time. If you frequent the gym, you have either had a personal trainer or you have been pitched on personal training. I like personal trainers. A personal trainer directs your nutrition. That's one thing that they will do. What you put in your body, protein, calories, what kind, at what time and in what amounts. It's not much use to exercise if you're eating junk or if you're not eating the right food. They say it's 80% diet. I rummaged around the internet to see if that's true. I wasn't able exactly to isolate it. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, or maybe it just needs to get said because diet is the harder thing to keep up with. When you're at the gym with your trainer, you've got a person right there holding you accountable. When you're on your own with the nachos or with the menu and a Dr. Pepper and free refills, your personal trainer is not there. So you've got apps where you can keep track and whatnot. In any case, diet's super important, and a personal trainer will help you with nutrition. If you're disciplined with your diet, you're likely to see results. Well, Timothy was to train himself in the words of the faith in sound doctrine. He was to train himself, to nurture himself on the words of the faith and sound doctrine. And the church is nourished with words. This language of good doctrine or sound doctrine, you'll remember is where we get the language of healthy church, soundness or healthy. A healthy church is a church nourished on the word, nourished and fed on the word of God, sound. words comes from the idea of health. The healthy church is nourished on good words, not silly myths, but sound words, not sugary treats, but the substance of scripture. Jesus himself said, as you'll remember, man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, which means friends that at Heritage, we give ourselves to words. I need to put it that simply, don't I? We're a people who give ourselves to words. We sing words that mean things. We preach sound doctrine. I pray with God's help. And we work hard at getting words right because the health of the church hangs on her words. The church is not a social club, although I love socializing. with you, and socializing isn't at odds with what we actually are in the first place, and that is a book club or a Bible club. And there's socializing that happens, but it happens around the book. And when it happens around the book, it multiplies the book's strength for our godliness. There's a second kind of training that a personal trainer helps with. It's exercise, go figure. A personal trainer will put that nutrition to work through exercises and regimens. Verse 7, train yourself for godliness. Train yourself for godliness. These things are connected, by the way. These aren't like two entirely separate things. Listen, listen carefully. In chapter one, he speaks about the law laid down, not for the just, but the lawless and disobedient. He ticks off a list of godless sins, the unholy, profane, those who strike their fathers and mothers, murderers, sexual immorality, those who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and then to just capture it all. And whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I've been entrusted." There's a connection between sound doctrine, training in it, and Godliness. Chapter 6, he says, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus and the teaching that accords with godliness. So our training and our nurture in the sound words is step one on the way to our training in godliness. This idea of training is helpful to us, isn't it? It's helpful to me. It tells me that the matter of growing in godliness and God likeness is hard. It encourages me to know that it does take time so that while there aren't always immediately apparent results that in the course of time God does work through these words to grow a man. And it takes discipline. Like so many things that take discipline. These things don't come naturally to us. Training in godliness. Here's D.A. Carson on our natural drift. People do not drift toward holiness, he writes. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance. We drift toward disobedience and we call it freedom. We drift toward superstition and we call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation. We slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism. And we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. Oh, how we have to be careful. No wonder in chapter one, Paul warns against those, even by name, who have drifted from the faith and have made a shipwreck of their faith. Indeed, godliness takes work. Well, how can we protect ourselves against this drift? Train yourselves for godliness. He doesn't give us the specific regimens, the specific exercises. We certainly know what it is not. We are tempted to fill in the blank here in the wrong way. We need only to go back a few verses. Look with me to verse 1 in chapter 4. This is the guess and the approach of some on the ground at Ephesus to godliness. He speaks about the teaching of demons, verse 2, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods 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's received with thanksgiving, for it's made holy by the word of God in prayer." So one approach to godliness on offer in that church was the constriction of human appetites, the protection of the Christian in the church against sin by the walling off of the church from the indulgence of particular appetites, be that an appetite for certain food or drink or the appetite for sex that God has put in all of us, but with boundaries, but with both. There is sin and abuse, and yet these appetites are God-given, and they're a gift from God. And through the means of the Word of God, objectively, in prayer, subjectively, these things are set apart and made holy, and they're the rightful part of every godly Christian's life, if God grants such a thing as marriage as an example. So one way to approach godliness that might feel disciplined, that might feel hard and therefore like it's what God wants is asceticism. the restricting of ourselves from certain behaviors, from this or that, and we can all drift into this. License on the one side, and sometimes it's called legalism on the other side. It was on offer there in the first century, and it's always a threat. It rises from the human heart, mine and yours. But that's not actually the way to godliness, although it might have looked it, and although those who were committed to it might have felt it, it's a kind of fake protein It had the label, but it wasn't even just fake and not nutritious. It was actually poison. It's part of why Paul urges Timothy to instruct some not to teach a different doctrine. No, those who would give themselves to this kind of approach to godliness, he even connects it to God. They miss God himself and his goodness in his gifts. Well, what is it to train ourselves for godliness then? It's going to involve exposure to God himself, which can be hard because we do not naturally want exposure to God himself. But in salvation, God makes us to want exposure to him. We have a reflex that we are drawn into him. And as we feed that reflex, it grows as we grow in the knowledge of him. discipline or training and godliness involves the regular engagement with God through his word. It involves the regular engagement of God through prayer, both of which we see highlighted across this book sound doctrine, sound doctrine and prayer and prayer and both of which are to be engaged by every Christian individually, but not just individually, but corporately. which means training in godliness is yes, opening up the scriptures daily. Maybe I'll put a parentheses in daily because we don't get a command daily, but we are told that we don't live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, there's no command to. Eat bread every day, and yet we do it because we know we need it. And as we do it, we grow in our hunger for it. Well, same is true with the Word. Give yourself to it. Set aside time to open the Word of God. Pray as you do for an encounter with him in the Word that he's given. And I pray he'll meet you there. Maybe it is the case that you haven't had a daily time set aside to open the scriptures and to hear from God's word. And maybe it's the case that over time you're, maybe early on that was something you felt guilty about and it was bothered by, maybe you've gotten used to it. It's possible that like anyone malnourished and underfed, your body, your soul has learned to accommodate. and you've lost a feeling for God. Well, I would encourage you that even if you don't at the moment have a hunger for God, the hunger you know you ought to have, that God can give it to you and he'll actually do it through his word. So open up the scriptures. Maybe delete Facebook and Instagram and Hootsuite off your phone like I have to do sometimes. So maybe put the phone somewhere else. I have it in a drawer sometimes in my house. Find yourself in a desolate place like the Lord Jesus himself was to open the scriptures and to pray. And if all that's new to you, or if you need a kick, tell a Christian friend, I need a kick. So I need a plan. Let's talk about this. I need you to ask me about it and pray for me that God will give me a hunger for himself through his word. And I pray that he'll do that for you individually. But guess what? There's a corporate dimension to this too. And this is an aspect that God uses in a far greater measure than I think we give him credit for. For many of you, it's a habit to go to church on Sunday morning, and that's a biblical habit. Don't forsake meeting together as is the habit of some, for you need the encouragement from the scriptures and the saints when you come here, all the more as we see the day drawing near. It's from Hebrews 10. And when we come here and we put ourselves under the word, God is at work as we hear his word. It feels a little less, like a little less work, although it's work to listen to a sermon, maybe perhaps my sermons, a little less Abe, he moves around. It's a little less work. It feels more passive. Listening to a sermon is not a passive engagement. But be encouraged that in the first century, did you know that these saints didn't go home with a copy of the Bible? They may have some memorized, but they probably didn't feel guilty for not having their daily devotion, if you will. It's a stewardship we should give ourselves to. No doubt they were in the scriptures. I don't know what the pattern exactly looked like, but what they were doing was getting in the room together and opening the word and praying it and singing it and reading it and hearing it preached. Even next week, Paul will tell Timothy, you immerse yourself in these things and you publicly read and you publicly preach the scriptures. Here's my point. God will use your individual daily prayers and scripture reading and I pray you give yourself to it. But if you don't, Keep showing up. And if you do keep showing up because every week I'm fully convinced that he is using the preached word. Even as you sit there and look at me and hear the words I'm preaching and as much as it's faithful to scripture, his spirit is using it to change you. Week in, week out and to fill you. This here being in the room together is a matter of spiritual discipline. This is one way in which God is training you. for godliness. And I pray that as you look back in your life over years, that unless you have been hardening your heart in hearing the word, which is possible by the way, that God has increasingly softened your heart to hear the word and conformed you into the image of his glorious, beautiful son. And I'll tell you that you don't feel as godly as you should be, and that's appropriate. Neither do I. But there are so many lovely, godly saints in the room. And I pray he's at work in you. I know he is. I was talking to my brother this last week. This last month, he had some travel, and he's out of the pulpit. He's a preacher as well. We have a similar pattern. We're just talking about how the month went. And he said he had to drag himself into his study, and his heart wasn't there, and just felt spiritually flabby, to use the imagery of training, personal training. And then it occurred to him that he'd fallen off the wagon on daily prayer and scripture, and really hadn't been disciplined in his repentance from sin, and acknowledging and confessing sin, And no wonder. And it might be that you don't know what you're missing. You're intermittent at church. You're intermittent in your Bible reading. And you don't feel like the Christian man or woman that you ought to be. And maybe you're right. And maybe it's that you need to give yourself in discipline and training to those ordinary means of grace God has given to us. Prayer and the Word and gathering with his people. My brother recognized that in part because he had a taste for God. and a love for the training. And if you've ever had a personal trainer or just trained yourself, or if you go running at five in the morning like some of you clowns on a Strava or Instagram, thank you Dan Rundle for your morning tweets with pictures of yourself and your little map. I'll never do it. I'll never do it. But as you do it, isn't it true that you get used to it and that you have a hunger for it? And what was painful is still painful, but for some reason you love it. It's that way too. It's that way too with scripture. So give yourself to the words, nourish yourself on the words, train yourself for godliness and see what God will do. How incredible a thing it is that God would take a sinner like me, a sinner like you, and that we could even presume to say that God is at work to make us something like himself. Don't miss, don't miss, don't miss the training. And thank God our personal trainer is the Holy Spirit. And that we have the help of each other. No silly myths, friend. No spiritual sugary teaching. It doesn't help. It's all poison. We don't need to merely wall ourselves off from appetites. We need to open our hearts up and our affections up to God himself. Now there are some things that are hard and they're worth it. There are some things that are hard and they're not worth it. Frankly, godliness comes with costs. Jesus himself promised that he not, that persecution would follow for righteousness. It's a promise. Pursue godliness, you're going to get hurt. But the promise included more than that. He said, blessed are those of you who are persecuted for righteousness. Friends, godliness is worth it. It may not feel worth it, and that may be one reason why you're lax in your training, but friends, it's so worth it. And so number two, godliness is powered with a promise. It's power with a promise. We'll start in verse seven. Have nothing to do with these irreverent silly myths. 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. It deserves full acceptance. Full acceptance. Partial commitment won't do. Not just full acceptance of the training program, full acceptance of the promise that it holds out. All in. Why? Because we're talking about life here. We're talking about life. And Americans get life. A better life is why we Americans are obsessed with exercise and nutrition. Not all Americans, of course, but enough of us. It's a hallmark of our particular culture. Diet fads and home and gym exercise programs abound. P90X to the ab flex. I almost improv'd and made you raise your hand if you ever bought an ab flex, but then I... exercise pastoral discernment and decided to pull that one. And I know some of you do P90X, and I won't call you out, and that's a good thing that you're doing it. I found this quote interesting on Wikipedia. Every preacher's brainstorming partner. As with most fitness products marketed to homes, advertisements often emphasize that the thigh master could be used while doing something else. It occurred to me this is true. The infomercials featured people watching television and exercising with the Thighmaster at the same time. Hey, I guess that's better than just watching TV. The Thighmaster holds out a certain promise for this life. The joke, but of course all physical training holds out a certain measure of promise for this life. The Bible is happy to affirm that. Making a god of your body? Bad. Exercise? A given, even. It holds out promise for this life. Here's what training for godliness holds out. Verse 8, promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Holds out promise for the present life. Godlessness. Godlessness is a life suck. Who wants to work with the kind of person described in chapter one? The lawless and disobedient, the ungodly, ungodly and sinners for the unholy and profane, those who strike their fathers and mothers or for murderers for the sexually immoral. And he goes on. And in chapter six, If anyone teaches a different doctrine and doesn't agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, if he doesn't, he's puffed up with conceit. This is ungodliness. And he understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth. Imagining that godliness is a means of gain and godliness is only a matter of gain in this life in their mind. It's utilitarian. Oh, scary, scary people. How many of these characters are actually happy? Who would want to be married for somebody who craved a quarrel, who loved the friction? Oh, they exist. I exist. Sometimes I, You just have to listen to me, apparently love the friction. It's the nature of ourselves and our own sin in our godlessness. We are sometimes in our flesh, even though we have the spirit that we can relate with some of this, even if it's not full, full blown. Who would want to work with that person? It provides promise for this life. The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce recognized this past week, 75 businesses, as the best places to work in the state, and substantive interviews, surveys, and engagement with employees at these companies was worked out. So it's not like, you know, they interviewed the boss, rate your company, we trust you. No, it's like a report card, one friend said, on the company, and a huge achievement to make it to that list at many, many levels. Well, three, get this, Someone do the math for me on this and then email me this week. Three Heritage members accepted awards on behalf of their companies at this event. Given the number of businesses in the state, given the number of churches in the state, I think that's a testament, a humble testament to God's work through his word in training men and women for godliness. to yield promise for this life in fruitfulness in the workplace. I pray that if you're a boss, that you're good to work for, and that you're happy, that you're a good spouse, that you're not a liar or a perjurer or engaged in an affair on the side. And if that can be said of you, that is that you aren't those things, but you're a good boss and spouse to whatever extent praise to God for the promise that he keeps. Godliness holds out promise for this life, but it also holds out promise for the life to come. That's a curious statement. I take it. I take it that godliness now is a kind of preparation for the life to come. It's the start of what comes into completion in the life to come. And in some measure, perhaps there is some way in which we taste things we wouldn't otherwise taste for the way that godliness was worked in us here. That to me is a bit of a mystery, but it is at the very least to lay beside bodily training, which we're so good and committed to good at and committed to next to training for godliness, which is immeasurably more valuable. than what we give ourselves to in this life. Give yourself to physical training and your studies and whatever else you work hard at. Train yourself for godliness. It holds out a very great promise. Indeed, it is powered with a promise. It's powered with a promise. Now, does this mean, we've got to ask this, does this mean that godliness in this life is a ticket to the life to come? It holds out promise for this life and the life to come. Is it a ticket for the life to come? That we have to be like God in order to be with God. I pray you have a clear answer to that one. It's one reason we have verse 10 for to this end godliness. We toil and strive. because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe. Third, godliness, my friends, flows from a person. It flows from a person, verse 10. To this end, godliness and all that promises, we toil and we strive. We toil, we strive now. Why? So that we will have hope, No, because we have already set our hope in the living God. And therefore we toil and we strive. Our hope is not in ourselves. It is not in our own ability. It is not in our family heritage. It is not in our church here. It is not in our preacher or our elders or our closest and most encouraging Christian friends. We have set our hope in the person of the living God himself. And that's the way a church grows in its health. When each of its people's hope is fixed squarely on its God and not in its church, but in its God. The God who has life in himself fills us so that we overflow in life to one another. Not the God who is an idea, not the God who is a system, not the God who is a philosophy, not the God who is a way of life that works. We set our hope in a living person, the living God himself, and it is a sturdy and it is a secure hope. This is the beginning and the end of godliness. And Paul won't let Timothy miss who God is. For godliness begins with staring him in the face, which is why we read Excuse me. In chapter 1, he's speaking to Timothy concerning his calling, concerning God's mercy, and he says to the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God to be honor and glory forever. Amen. And toward the end of the book in chapter six, he'll say, he who is blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to him, this God be glory and honor and eternal dominion. How long? Forever. Paul has held out before Timothy and Timothy holds out before his church. And we today hold out before each other the glory of the eternal God, immortal, invisible, the only God who dwells in unapproachable light. And it's in gazing into his face and it's an exposure to who God is in himself that we're drawn into his glory and changed by it. Spurgeon put it this way. Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God, the more of God will be seen in you. And so friends, hear this. We are not a church that emphasizes the God of good news without emphasizing the God who makes us godly. because we are not so cruel as to suggest God saves us from the penalty of our sin without rescuing us from the power of sin that keeps us from him and our full enjoyment in him. We're a church committed to the good news that saves us, that produces in us, that makes possible in us godliness. But equally as problematic, We are not a church, that is if we were. We are not a church that emphasizes godliness without emphasizing the God who makes it possible. Oh, how hellish a church that would be. Have you been a part of a church like that? I pray I don't drift there in my preaching, in my own emphasis on my own heart. A church that would emphasize godliness, being like God, without God. hopeless because you don't have anything in yourself that can be like God. It's only through exposure to God and all of his glory that you can be drawn into that glory and be changed. Now, does the living God extend salvation to every person? Because it kind of sounded like it, doesn't it? That's what it sounds like in verse 10. We have set our hope in the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe. In a given sermon, there's usually a moment where we need to pause and tool around and get clear on something. And this is a passage that's worth a few moments along those lines. Does this mean that God saves all people? Two insights will help us here. It may sound like there's a general salvation and then a specific kind of salvation, a more special kind of salvation. First, In Rome, Caesar was the savior of the whole world, as in he was unrivaled and his reign was not confined to his own. But Christians proclaimed Jesus as the savior of the whole world, and so do we, as in Jesus is the savior of all people in the sense that he is the only savior that is. That's the first helpful contextual qualification. And the second one, it has to do with this word especially. And I hate to point out a word that's not a very good translation, but grammatical work has been done to show that, especially in terms of how we hear it, isn't the best way to hear this original word. It sounds like he saves one group and then saves another group, especially. Does Jesus's blood cover the sins of those who do not believe is a question that's asked sometimes. I don't believe he does. That word especially should better be translated in other words. It's a way of narrowing the field of what he means while emphasizing the universality of Jesus's saving work. As in Jesus saves men and women from every tribe and language and nation. He's the only savior that is. And he saves specifically those who believe. So what are we to take away from this? the sheer saving sovereignty of God. Christianity, friends, is not about us becoming like God unto salvation. Christianity begins with God becoming like us to save us. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. It's a trustworthy saying. Paul hasn't forgotten it. He's got a whole paragraph embedded in chapter one where he speaks of God's mercy twice on him as a foremost of sinner. God saves, in other words, the worst kind of people, a blasphemer, persecutor, an insolent opponent. He doesn't save those who are neutral toward him. He saves those who are insolent opponents of him. But I received mercy, Paul writes, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, what overflowed for me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I'm the foremost. He saves the worst kind of sinner, and friend, he can save you. I pray you believe. If you haven't believed on Jesus because you felt unworthy for him, you're just about there because you have to get that. You have to get that you aren't godly and that you're not worthy of God. You have to get that you're an insolent opponent of God at base in order to be able to acknowledge your great need for such a thing as a cross, which God has provided. And it's often on offer for you, for those who believe. At Heritage, our hope is in the living God. We toil and we strive to be like him, not because we are on our own in this, but because we know him. And because it starts and ends with him, we want friends to give him the credit for all that he works in us. Timothy would need to remind his people of this. Listen to how he would remind the rich about this in his congregation. It's beautiful language. He says, as for the rich in the present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to, here's the language, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may lay hold of that which is truly life. It's like Paul is applying what he said in today's verses and showing Timothy how to speak to those with with incredible wealth concerning where the source of true life is and where their hope must be. What would give Timothy the clout to say such a thing to such people? Well, there's a final misconception that godliness is unappealing, that it isn't basic to the work of eldering. Yes, it's unappealing to the world, yes, but perhaps even in the church, we feel that godliness could be communicated as snootiness or put us elders at a distance from you. Maybe it's easier to laugh at the ungodly on the edge joke than it is to, maybe it's easier to participate in the, what's slander or gossip, but maybe it's clouded in other language and terms and prayer than it is to rise above it. It's hard to be above reproach. It comes with costs even in the church. It would for Timothy in this church. But it was more than just a qualification. It was basic to his persuasion as an elder where he was at. Perhaps Timothy underappreciated the power of an upright life for his ministry at Ephesus. Verse 11, command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. Godliness, fourth, spreads through a pattern, spreads through a pattern. Timothy was probably, oh, 37 years old. Yours truly is 37 years old. I think Leonard announced that it was my birthday when I turned 37 back in January. Did anyone hear that? I turned 37 on a Sunday and he said, happy birthday, Trent. And I heard it from where I was at, but I heard other people didn't hear it. And so as I was walking down these stairs, I said, happy birthday to me. And in any case, he called it first and then I called it. I'm 37. Timothy was 37 years old. If you're 15 years up on me, maybe 10 years up on me, frankly, if you're a year up on me, it might be hard to respect me. Can I say that? It might be hard to defer or take my lead. And I'm not the only elder who's young. We've got a whole span of ages, largely I think from early thirties to early sixties is about the range. Maybe it's gone a little younger. It's certainly gone a little older at times and then across that spectrum. But it's generally the case, and I can testify to this, that you get 10 or 15 years up on a guy and he's kind of got to prove himself. Let no one despise you. I suspect Timothy was in a position of being despised by some in his congregation. This is not a license to despise the younger who are among leadership here. It is merely to acknowledge a social reality given the nature of sin. What is Timothy to do about it? Is he to assert his position? Is he to call on his rank? Is he to demand followership? Is he to ignore those who despise him? No, he's given a strategy here. His role as an example will gain him a hearing and is itself a form of teaching. So here's some takeaways. It means that spiritual leadership is more than talking or doing or deciding, but it is at base. It is also being. We do not merely talk people into growing into godliness as elders, but we walk them into godliness as elders. Youth is not a disqualification for leadership, granted that the man is the right kind of man. The congregation will not look down on somebody that they apparently, by virtue of his life, they look up to. And that's a challenge in such a large congregation because there are so many of you. Shepherds need to be visible and present. Their example needs to be seen, corporately and individually. Godliness is for everyone, not a special class. Elders are not godly for you, they're an example for you in which you follow. And godliness is socially cultivated. Your relationships with one another and with leaders are a part of how God will cultivate godliness in you. None of us are alone. And get this, godliness is actually possible for every Christian. We just need to say that it's God's work. It's not a human achievement, but in God's kindness, he saves us and then he gets to work on us. And one of the ways that he does that is through the example of elders. So back to that, let me speak to our elders in closing. Men, the 17 of you, through our speech, we show how a person speaks when they believe God hears every word and when they believe Jesus died to forgive every sin of speech. Men, through our conduct, our lives show how a person lives when Jesus is for us the king of ages, the king of his kingdom that will last forever. Through our love, we transmit the very heart of God to those around us with tenderness and concern and interest in sacrificial services, those who have first received mercy and overflowing grace. And through our faith, we show how trustworthy this God is. We believe every word that comes from his mouth by God's grace. And through our purity, we reflect the very purity of God. And in all of this, we set an example for the believers with the hope and with the prayer that over time, the water level is always raising on the work of God to make his people godly. And for to this end, friends, we toil and we strive. All of us toil and strive in congregation, an elder on behalf of an elder team. We toil and strive for you because we have set our hope in the living God. As we pray, you will. This saying is trustworthy and it's deserving of full acceptance. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this word concerning godliness, what it is and how it comes about. And father, we pray, even as we read these words, and I pray, even as I speak these words, that you would do what only you can do to make us more like yourself. And we give you all of the credit and all of the praise for it. Father, as we have sung, we are compelled by joy, compel us by joy to fight the sin that turns our gaze from your glory. For your Holy Spirit dwells within us and his present arms us for victory. Let death and hell against us rise. Through death, we'll gain eternal joys. All powers of hell will bend the knee before my great King of glory. In his name we pray, amen.