The Cure For Falling Away – Discipline Yourself — Shane Idleman

On doing once a month. To go back many years ago, I felt a call to speak primarily to men, and that's what I did for many years. 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8, a lot of men's conferences, men's gatherings. We had some powerful times with God, but every time that happened, we were not in a hurry.

We were waiting on God. Many times up in a cabin, or a retreat, or a conference, no watches, no cell phones, and God, it doesn't move in five minutes or 20. Sometimes it takes some time to get our hearts ready, and so I wanted to do that with the men here at the church.

However, I was still working when we planted the church. Many of you know that, and then we had something called a baby, and then another baby, and another baby, and responsibilities have been, you know, pulling me in a lot of different directions, but finally got to a point now with Pastor Abram here, and we can preach on this topic of discipling yourself, or disciplines of a godly man.

So what we're going to be doing is going through the book, Disciplines of a Godly Man, and if you can't afford it, let us know. You can have one on your way out. Each chapter talks about discipline, and how important certain disciplines are.

Discipline towards godliness, towards marriage, towards purity, and the list is fairly long. And you know, guys, just shooting you straight this morning, I mean I always do, but this can be a little bit more real.

The Necessity of Spiritual Discipline

If you don't incorporate spiritual disciplines into your life, you will not succeed. That's how important this is. Your marriage may not last. Your walk with the Lord will peter out. Your devotional time will be minimized.

You'll just drift from God. Disciplines are so important. Why? Because that helps us stay the course, even when we don't feel like it. Discipline is everything. Ask an athlete, how important is discipline?

Ask an Olympic gold medalist, and I just kind of, I just wing it. How much more should we discipline ourselves towards godliness? Ask a Navy SEAL, how was boot camp? How was Hell Week? It's interesting, those guys, I'm reading a book written by one, and they go from 173 guys down to 13 by the time they graduate.

And the training is so incredible. But how much more for godliness? How much more? Because here's what happens. You can't just, you know, walk this, sit on the fence and hope that you get spiritual any more than you can try to lose weight and sit on the couch and eat donuts.

It doesn't happen. There has to be spiritual disciplines. So again, we're not going to be in a hurry. We're going to look at the Word. We're going to worship. We're going to saturate our hearts with both, and we're going to apply the Word of God.

And there's going to be times for prayer and discipleship. So next store, we're going to eat afterwards. But if you need discipleship, you need to get plugged in with some of the guys, we can point you in the right direction.

And it's really that iron sharpening iron and building those relationships. And I'm not sure if I'm going to do this, but I'm just throwing it out there. We might even have a Q &A next door. So if you want to ask questions, yeah, but what about this?

How do you deal with this? We might want to set that stage for Q &A where guys can kind of open up while you're eating next store. Upcoming topics, marriage, fatherhood, singles. For singleness, there's be a lot in there for you as well.

Friendship, purity, integrity, leadership, prayer, ministry. I mean, the list is incredible. So here we go. The cure for falling away. The cure for falling away. What is the cure? Discipline yourself.

Training Yourself for Godliness

You might say, well, Shane, I don't know about that. Well, let's just read Scripture. Our verse this morning is 1st Timothy 4 7. And if you have your Bibles, you can turn to 1st Timothy 4. I'm gonna actually be reading from the New American Standard Bible.

It's very literal for this very reason. But here's the verse I'm springboarding off of. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Discipline yourself. Your translation might say, train yourself.

And it's a big misconception we have in the church that the leadership is supposed to train you. And the children's ministry, did you know that? That the children's ministry is supposed to train your kids.

No red flags on that one, Craig? The children's ministry is not supposed to train the kids. You are. We are. Now, we'd love to come alongside and supplement and help and encourage, but the church isn't going to disciple you.

My messages, although they're important and they radically change lives, praise God for that, they either radically change lives or they really upset people. That's the options I have when I preach, and I have to live that life.

But you have to train yourself towards godliness. Your spouse isn't going to do it. Even listening to sermons. Really, did you know that listening to a sermon, as wonderful as that is, is not where the rubber meets the road?

Because you can listen, but not have it take root. Because where's the power of God's Word? It's in the application. It's in the doing of it. And I'll give you a secret upfront. Disciplines of a godly man.

I have not mastered them. I feel a little inadequate on teaching. Oh, here's how you do it. I mean, I'm still on the journey with you. But often, these things, these disciplines, you don't feel like doing them initially.

That's why they're called disciplines. Does an athlete feel like getting up at 5 in the morning and going on a four-hour or four-mile run and then exercising? And do you feel like getting up and coming to church?

And that's really why many people aren't here this morning. Many men who actually need to be here. I texted dozens. We sent out emails. Why is the majority of men not here? Because it's hard. There's snow out.

It's a good excuse. There's ice on the road. I didn't see any, but there is. And I'm not minimizing that. I know there's people who can't make it. I don't want people to feel bad at all. But we all know that it takes a little bit of effort to lead our family in prayer and lead our family in devotional life.

It's fighting the flesh the entire way. There is a struggle. There is a fight. So that's gonna be our key verse. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Train yourself. We will equip you. We will help you.

We will encourage you. We will motivate you. We will uplift you. But ultimately, the responsibility falls back on our shoulders to train ourselves towards godliness. Now, here's an interesting fact about this.

As many people are actually disciplined, but often in the wrong areas. We have no problem watching media. We have no problem going to work. How many people are very disciplined in going to work? Well, Shane, I have to.

I have to get paid. Well, yeah, I know. You're disciplined in that area. You're disciplined in certain areas. We just have to reprioritize our disciplines and really prioritize what is important. Well, you have to remove things that are not important.

You have to add things that are so important into your life. And that will be godly disciplines. The guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier have guarded it every minute of every day since 1937. Did you know that?

The tomb of the unknown soldier has been guarded every minute of every day. The extreme standards required of them are put in place to prevent them from getting complacent. I thought, wow, how much spiritual truth here as well.

God often puts these things in the Word of God for us to apply so we don't get complacent as well. If you're always striving towards spiritual disciplines and training yourself, you will not get complacent.

See, the problem isn't that we raise our standard way up here and we miss it. We lower it and we hit it. And so this area of spiritual disciplines, it's so we don't become complacent. Shane, when is prayer ever enough?

Never. Have I prayed enough? No. Am I convicted often? In the Word enough? No. There should be a sense of not being complacent. Have you ever met those people? They've arrived. Oh brother, I don't need church.

I've read the Word many times. I don't need to do that much anymore. And they've grown into a complacent setting. And also, I was reading an article that said that Olympic athletes spend four to eight years training in a sport before they even make the team.

How much more spiritual disciplines? How often do we discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness? Let me explain what godliness is. It's doing the will of God with the right heart. Because I can do the will of God with the wrong heart, and it's not as effective.

Doing the will of God, God's way, with the right heart. That's godliness. Obedience, if you want to get a simple term. And like sports, we play like we practice. Who probably practiced better Thursday, the Cowboys or the Bills?

It's the only game I've watched in a while because I was stuck there. And it was interesting. We play like we practice. And men, let me remind you, I know some here are single, some of your kids have grown up, but you set the spiritual climate of your home.

You set the spiritual climate of your home. And here's my struggle this week on this message, was I want to encourage. I do. I want to encourage, but we also need to be real. We need to talk about things that are going on.

And if you look, you know, the mass shootings that are going on. If you trace how many of those kids come from fatherless homes or detached homes. The rape, the increase in rape in our nation, motivated often by displaced anger.

All these elements that are arising are often due to fatherless homes. But we can also be home, but still be absent. Absent spiritually, absent physically, of course, but absent spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

We are called to discipline ourselves, and then that affects the spiritual climate of our home. Yes, we trust in God. We know that God has got our children, but God calls us to this wonderful task. And I've noticed, I'm sure you have too, that the way the father often goes, the home will go as well.

Now, there are women who have praying, and they're contending, they're leading their family because men have dropped the ball. But often it's the direction of the father's spiritual health that will determine the thermostat of the spiritual thermostat in your home.

Leonard Ravenhill said, today's church wants to be raptured from responsibility. I have to say that again. Today's Christian men, we want to be raptured from responsibility. And this is radical. This is a little hard for people.

We're called to deny ourself, to pick up our cross, to follow Him. I've got to structure my life. You have to structure your life in such a way that discipline, godly disciplines, build and encourage and strengthen your life.

And most men think it's about work and earning a paycheck. Isn't that what we think is the priority? I actually think that's way down on the list. The priority is your relationship with God and building those spiritual disciplines into your own life.

Falling Away Through Wrong Influences

So now let's get to 1st Timothy 4. And actually I was just going to, primarily in the book that you're reading, he just goes off of train yourself for the purpose of godliness, but I wanted to look at the context, which is so important.

So if we have 1st Timothy 4 up on the screen, verse 1. But the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will fall away from the faith. Now, well, let me just keep reading and then I'll go back to that.

Here's how they're falling away. They're paying attention to deceitful spirits. I put in brackets there, that's influence. And they're paying attention to the doctrines of demons. That's their beliefs.

By means of hypocrisy, of liars, seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron. That's a powerful text right there. He's saying that in the last days, the Holy Spirit of God expressly says, which is an imperative meaning, it is so important to realize this, that people are going to fall away from the truth.

How? By paying attention to wrong influences and wrong beliefs. It's interesting, you've watched before, those are listening later can go on, if you go to shaneidleman .com, a couple of those people I've debated on Fox News.

It's interesting, when you talk to them, they've drifted from truth. They embrace LGBT agenda, gay marriage, some of them even abortion. They really dumbed down the Word of God. I mean, I would say every time, every time I talk to these different individuals, they're always telling me what somebody else wrote, not what the Bible says.

Well, you've got to read these articles, Shane. They make a great case on why Paul was probably not talking about gay marriage in a relationship that's together. You've got to read these journals, these articles.

You've got to read this book, Shane, by this such-and-such who is actually a false prophet. So see, they're being influenced by the wrong beliefs that make sure everything is grounded in God's Word.

Now, it's interesting, some will fall away from the faith. Now, I taught last Wednesday on, can I lose my salvation or are you eternally secure? Now, this one verse, though, if I'm gonna lean towards a person losing it, this one verse is a tricky one.

I mean, that says that those in latter times will fall away from the faith. But the big question is, are these people seeking? Are they seekers of God or are they solid believers? Now, I'm not going to explain my position.

Again, you can listen to Wednesday's message. I believe that many people who are not sealed with the Holy Spirit, who have not given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee, they can, if they don't have that, if they're just seeking, if they're contemplating God, if they're in church and they're wondering, you know, if they've never fully repented and been born again, that these many people will fall away.

The Spirit expressly says that in the last days, many will fall away from the truth of God. So, again, it doesn't matter what side of that debate you're on, the bottom line is people will fall away. And don't we see this a lot?

America, even, we had, and now, of course, Scripture is applicable to the whole world, so we can't look it through the lens of America, and that's often what we do, sometimes on prophecy and different things.

But there's going to be a massive falling away from the truth, and that's the context of discipline yourself towards godliness. You can't trust on others to lead you to Christ, you have to get into the Word and let the Holy Spirit of God direct you.

So the first step towards falling away, are you ready for this? And this happens all the time. I counsel men on a weekly, sometimes monthly basis, so I talk to them, it always starts here. They've fallen away from their marriage, they've fallen away from their walk with the Lord, they've fallen away, some have become apostate.

Here is the first step that he points out. They pay attention to deceit. What I mean by that is deceitful spirits influence them, and the doctrines of demons spew out false teaching. So a person who disciplines themselves towards godliness and God's Word, no matter what's coming against them, they're in God's Word.

They're falling forward, they're getting back on track, they built their house on the foundation of Jesus Christ, like we sang, oh the sure foundation of God's Word, and they're disciplining themselves, and they're fighting just like a soldier.

That person doesn't drift. It's the one who listens to deceiving spirits or wrong influences, and this is why I make a big deal about entertainment, guys. What we are watching, what we are watching is influencing us.

Anybody watching conspiracy theory videos? I'm not gonna go into all the different conspiracy theories out there, but that's influencing a lot of people. Some things might be right, some things might be, I don't know, but what's influencing you?

Media choices. What about friends and relationships? I actually had somebody tell me, and I invited them to this, and they're Christian, but the reason they're not walking with God is all of their best friends are not Christians.

And this person is vacillating between, because these, I think our close friends have, they better be believers. Hey man, let's get together, and they're influencing you, unless you can influence them.

Now, I meet with people often that are not believers, but they're not who I, what's the term, you know, remove your ball cap with, or open up to, or allow them to influence me and my buddies, and who I hang around with, and go this place, and go that place, and these relationships and friendships that will draw you away from Christ.

They'll want to go watch the game and have some drinks, and not be in God's Word. They'll pull you away from God. And also, we have to worry about the influence of the flesh. Now, none of these things are new, amen?

We just need reminders, because you're fighting against the influence of the flesh. That's why discipline, the core definition of discipline, is to do something I need to do, even when I don't want to do it.

There you go. We could have ended this early. Doing something that is important to your spiritual health, even when you don't feel like it. Now, praise God when you feel like it, but often, we don't. And then people are getting their information from this, I just talked about this earlier, apostate authors.

There are many books out there. Be careful who you read, be careful who you listen to. They are apostate. They are denying the essentials of the faith. And people, they'll send me books, Shane, you've got to listen to this.

I know you don't really believe it, but you know, listen to this. He makes a great point about hell that might not even exist. Universal, universal salvation. And there's a one that, Netflix had a movie on an African-American pastor, black pastor, who just left the faith completely and believes in universalism.

How does that happen? Well, if you listen to the interview, or you listen, he starts saying things like, I just don't, I just don't think God would do that. I can't see how a God of love would have any type of punishment at all.

We're just all universally saved. Guess what, even the devil and demons? I mean, there's so many scriptures that go against that, but see what I think, what I feel, what other authors have written. Everything must be sifted through the Word of God.

The sermons I preach, the books I write, you better sift it through the Word of God. Does it line up with Scripture? Also, those who are perverting the grace of God. So you've got to watch out for these people, too.

Hyper-Grace, Legalism, and Holiness

They're perverting the grace of God. They will, they'll preach all about the love of God. It's only about the love of God, and they actually encourage people in their sin. The God's grace, they say, is bigger than your sin, and it is, but you still have to repent.

You still have to acknowledge the depravity of sin and the destruction of sin, and they will, there's teachers out there, it's all about grace. They actually call it hyper-grace, which means you can live any way you want.

God's grace will cover you. Who am I to judge? Who am I to tell you that, how can you even be pastors? Who am I to judge? Who am I to say anything negative? Who am I to do that? Well, you're a spokesperson for what God's Word says.

Yes, preach love and mercy and grace, but be careful of those who pervert the grace of God. But there's also something we have to be careful of. It's called unwarranted self-denial. Unwarranted self-denial.

So on this side, you have the hyper-grace. Right, man? Just do it however you want to. There are churches in this valley. I gotta be careful. My wife warned me not to be too critical. But I've emailed them.

I told them, hey, listen, you've got a guy in your church who's bringing his girlfriend. Well, brother, let's just hope he gets saved by the Word and through worship. No, you go to him. No, no, no, no, no.

That's not our job. God's grace is bigger than that. We're just gonna love him. We're gonna love him through this. Yes, but confront him first and say, hey, by the way, this is not right. But you see how that's not healthy?

And so there are many churches that are very weak, spiritually, very weak by the moving God's Spirit because they're allowing things they should not be allowing. They know, for example, if there's a couple and they're living together in blatant sin and they want to serve in children's ministry, they want and like we're not gonna say anything.

But sometimes we love people enough to tell them, hey, we love you enough to tell you the truth. And we've, there's over the years, there's probably been a half-dozen people we've talked to and we don't say, no, next Sunday you cannot be here.

But we say, hey, here's the course. You know, you come here a lot now. You want to get involved. And we know this about your lifestyle. Is there anything, you want to get married today? And many times they say, you know, can we plan getting married?

Let our parents know. We're gonna do that in a few weeks. And see, they're willing to work with you. You know, get out of here. You know, get out of the church. You're not sin-sniffing. But at the same time, you're holding to God's Word.

Many, some of you don't know, but we've had people come, a couple guys come that are gay. And they are struggling through that. So am I gonna say, hey, next Sunday, I don't want to see you until you repent.

Or are we gonna say, you're welcome here, but we can't affirm that lifestyle. You're gonna hear things that are difficult. You know, see, it's that holding to God's truth, but also having the love that underscores that, those words and those actions.

And then we have, on this side though, the churches or groups. This is where the word legalism comes in. Have you heard the term modern-day Pharisee? You know, I've heard said that often. This group puts conditions on your relationship with God.

And the church is very dead. It's very by-the-book, rules only, no relationship. Don't do this. Don't do that, or you're gonna be in trouble. And they put all these rules on you. And that's what Timothy goes on to say.

If you have your Bibles, you can look at the next verse. Actually, I already read it. We can have it up on the screen. Verse 2, by means of hypocrisy of liars, seared with the branding iron. Then it goes on to say, oh no, it does say that.

A hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience, as with the branding iron. And then verse 3, I don't know if we have that up there yet. Men who forbid marriage, and they advocate abstaining from foods which God had created to be grateful.

To be grateful by those who are shared for all. Now how would that apply today? Well, back in Paul's time, what's happening is they're saying, you can't get married. You can't eat these foods. And so you're putting all these rules on it.

Now granted, you meat lovers out there, you can use this one. And I'm serious. When I talk on this topic, even in my book on feasting and fasting, I don't go to full extremes. Because God, you should enjoy all things that He's created.

Now there's meat and dairy issues and different things. Be careful. Moderation, clean meat, dairy, if you want. Just my two cents. But there's people out there, and I'll get the emails. You kind of tell them, no meat, no dairy, ever.

You know, look what's doing to the environment. But be careful. Be careful, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from certain foods. And how that fits today is, churches will add rules to their list.

You can't do this, and you can't do that. And basically, it's Jesus plus these other things. And you have to watch out. Many cults, have you heard that saying, they drank the Kool-Aid? That came from a cult, where they killed themselves by drinking Kool-Aid.

Jim Jones or David Koresh in Texas, Waco, Texas. Or you have that Baptist Church. They're not, shouldn't be Baptist. I don't remember the name of it. Where they'll actually picket funerals of fallen soldiers.

And they'll, what is that one? Westboro. Westboro Baptist Church. We have that in the video now. Thank you. But those people should be called out. You see, that's on the other side. That's on the other side.

And they'll rejoice in any type of calamity. 9 -11, or people being killed. They'll rejoice in that calamity. Why? Because it's God's sovereignty. We should rejoice in everything. See how perverted it is?

So you have both sides you have to watch out for, and not fall into either trap. But I like what he said here. Hypocrisy of liars seared their own conscience with a branding iron. This is why many value the spotted owl or the eagle over the unborn.

Do you ever just lose your mind? Not in a bad way, but just like, Lord help me. Please be coming back soon. We're outlawing plastic straws, but we can kill a child at nine months. We have lost our mind.

Our conscience has been seared with a hot iron. That's what he's talking about here. These things that are so outrageous. But I'm gonna pick up again in verse 3. Shared 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 gratitude.

For it is sanctified by means of the Word of God and prayer. So back to what he was saying here. If God has created something to be enjoyed, enjoy it. Don't try to put different rules and regulations on it.

Now fasting, there's a season for fasting, going without for a season. And here's the thing you need to know about sin. Sin is often a good thing that's been perverted. Is it not? Sex? Good thing? I hope so.

More head shaking? Okay, good. I don't know what group we had here this morning. But good thing? The enemy perverts it. Food? Good thing. The enemy can pervert it. And for some of you, alcohol? Once in a while?

No big deal. Nobody knows. I mean, it's just, you can take it or leave it. Other people? Don't touch it. Perverted. It can turn into drunkenness. So many different things we have to watch out for. One aspect of the word legalism is you have to worship God on a certain day and follow these regulations.

Men who control us by rules and regulations. Now here's a key, you have to remember. Holiness, and people call me a holiness preacher. I don't know what that means. But I preach holiness because the Bible preaches holiness.

Without holiness, no one will see God come out from among them. Be separate. Be holy. Be set apart. But holiness is not the way to Jesus. Jesus is the way to holiness. Did you catch that? Many people are being holy as a way to get to Jesus.

But Jesus is the way to holiness. Once we surrender our lives to Christ, we're filled with the Spirit, we want to live holy, God-honoring lives until the day we die. Yes, it's challenging. Yes, it is.

It is the hardest thing we've ever done. We're in a fight. We're in a battle. And I'll tell Brandt here and Ronnie here, I tell worship leaders a lot and pastors, you want to be anointed with, you want your worship to be anointed, live holy lives.

Because worship, preaching flow out of the holiness in our own lives. You think a worship leader who's been looking at porn, cussing out a spouse, doing things they shouldn't be doing, is going to, the Spirit of living God is going to move boldly through them during worship?

Or a pastor? It doesn't work that way. Holiness, the highway of holiness. It's in the Bible. There's a highway to holiness. There's a highway to hell, ACDC sang about it. And there's also a highway to holiness.

Isn't it amazing how strong the mind is? I can still sing the lyrics to that song 30 years later. And then verse 6, in pointing out these things to you, in pointing out these things to the brethren, Timothy, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ, constantly nourished on the words of faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.

Nourished by the Word and Sound Doctrine

So Paul, I like this verse. It helps me out a lot because he says, in encouraging you and saying these things, you are actually a good servant of Jesus Christ. Now a lot of you know this, some of you don't, but I either have a reputation as they love the sermons or they hate them.

I mean, I just, a friend of mine was just at a wedding and the person said, I disagree with everything that Shane says. Or I don't like what he says. You know he's wrong. And he's there like, why'd you even have to go up and say that?

But see, there's the, because it, the preaching like this, it stirs the heart. It either draws us to Christ or pushes us away. That's not a, it's not a lukewarm type of message. It's a message that cuts straight to the heart.

Either you want more of Christ or you don't. If you do, you love it and your heart beats more for it and you want, that's what I need. If you don't, then you hate the message and you want to get out of the church.

Don't, that just drives me crazy, people say, because their heart's not right. So it's interesting. In pointing out these things to the brethren, you'll be a good servant of Jesus Christ, constantly nourished on the words of faith.

So I want to ask you a question this morning. What is nourishing you? That word nourishing means it's something that is necessary for growth, for health, and a good condition. In the fitness area, they call that nourishment.

Food, nourishment from food. Foods that nourish. Foods that are good for growth, health, and good condition. Right? I'm not gonna give my baby Captain Crunch. Same thing spiritually. What is nourishing you?

Is anything nourishing you? In other words, what are you doing that is leading to spiritual growth, to spiritual health, to walking in alignment with God's will? Are the things you're doing building you up spiritually or pulling you down?

This is where the rubber meets the road. That's why spiritual disciplines are so important. So here he gets into the cure for falling away. He just said, many are going to fall away from the truth. They're gonna believe deceptive spirits.

They're gonna start to, they're actually gonna start to believe, and I've seen this a lot happening, mainly in hyper charismatic circles, where they start to believe their own thoughts over the Word of God.

Well, the Spirit told me, well, I need to be doing it. Be careful. Be very careful. This should be guiding you, because I don't know about you, but yes, the Spirit of God speaks, but so does my flesh.

So does the enemy. He plants those fiery darts. So you got to discern. I'm talking about that tomorrow for those who can make it on seven keys to understanding the prophetic, talking about prophecy in 1st Corinthians.

And it's been an eye-opening study, because it's not just the Holy Spirit that will plant thoughts. You yourself can plant thoughts. Like, I just think I'll stay home today and make a fire. I don't need to get into the Word today.

I've got so much to do, and the Holy Spirit told me to tell you this, or different things, and we just need to be careful in this area. But verse 7, I'm gonna get off on a rabbit trail, so let me get back in course.

Verse 7, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. Now let me, here's your translation, let me break this down. But have nothing to do, nothing to do with worldly fables, or have nothing to do with profane and ungodly chit-chat that wastes time.

That's what it means in the Greek. Pretty close. So they're sitting around, have you ever, sitting around, that's why I can't go to my high school reunion anymore. Hopefully nobody's watching. This is a waste of three hours.

Remember when you did this? No, I don't, and I don't care to know. That's way, way, way back then. And they just sit around, and people, friends I know from way back, it's like, I'll go to minister to them, but I'm like, you still live in 1980s, 1990s, and you just, or you sit around with people, it's the same old chit-chat.

The story, and it's like nothing edifying, nothing building, nothing that builds us up, and now I believe that the media has crept in, has taken a lot of that responsibility. Well I've spent an hour before on YouTube, like I just wasted an hour.

And I know my kids waste a lot more, because of the things we're allowing to enter homes and nourish us. So, but have nothing to do with ungodly chit-chat that wastes your time. Anybody convicted at work about this?

That happens very easily. On the other hand, okay Paul, what do we do? On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Train yourself for the purpose of godliness. So the image we have here is of a man who from the get-go was listening to the wrong voices.

He's listening to false beliefs, he's listening to friends he shouldn't be listening to, he's telling himself things he shouldn't be telling, he's not in the Word of God, he's drifting from the truth, he's listening to idle chit-chat, he's wasting his time on the media, he's just living this kind of this carefree life, going back and forth between two opinions.

Paul says stop it, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things since it upholds the promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

So by disciplining yourself toward godliness, not only are you benefiting physically, you're also benefiting spiritually. It has a double whammy there. It's coming together. Now I've heard people use this against exercise.