Living as Good Servants of Christ

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Please enjoy the following sermon. Well, brothers and sisters, I invited you to turn to 1

Timothy chapter 4 and verse 6. We're going to look today at verses 6 through 10.

But as I introduce the theme to us, I want to take you into history for a moment.

In the middle of the 1600s, almost smack dab in the middle of the 17th century, the

Lord saved a young baron, a Dutch man named Justinian van

Welts. And what's particularly notable about this baron, about van

Welts' story, is that he grew up with tremendous wealth and privilege. He really had it all.

As a young baron, he was the walking, talking definition of what it means to have a silver spoon in one's mouth.

And for the first 40 years of his life, he lived accordingly. He lived a carefree existence.

He possessed all the wealth that he would ever need. He enjoyed the respect and admiration of his peers.

He did what so many people do that have an endless supply or seemingly endless supply of money and time.

He threw himself into a life of sensuality and indulgence. But in the early 1600s, or the early 1660s actually, at the age of 40, he experienced something that was going to change his life forever.

Against all odds, this middle aged man, van Welts, came to a saving knowledge of the

Lord. He heard the gospel and he was powerfully saved by the sovereign hand of our

God. And it was not long after his conversion, this man became intensely invested in the advance of the gospel among all of the nations.

He would, where he had previously spent his life in vanity and pride, now van Welts wanted to spend his life seeking the lost at the farthest corners of the world.

And so he gave much of his time to pleading with the state church, the Lutheran state church at the time, that they might take an interest in preaching

Christ and him crucified to all of the nations. But instead of taking him seriously, the leaders of the state church responded in ways that, at least to us in our day, would seem very foreign.

They wrote him off as a dreamer. They encouraged him to stay put and to serve those who were before him in the

Netherlands. They used the parable of the good Samaritan to do that. They said, he found a man before him, so go and find a man before you in Netherlands.

They said that the great commission was given to the apostles and not to the church. And they went as far as to say that it was even satanic to leave the land that God had placed him, even though his desire was to make

Christ known. I don't know about you, I'd probably be discouraged if I were in van

Welts' shoes, but he wasn't discouraged. Instead, he did what few expected him to do.

He renounced his title as baron. He renounced his estate and all of his possessions.

He gave up all of his worldly comforts and he went to the lost on his own. At his own expense, he caught a ship that went to Dutch New Guinea.

If you don't know where that is, that's in modern -day Suriname, which along the South American coast is somewhere between Venezuela and Brazil.

And there he preached Christ and him crucified amongst the slaves and amongst the indentured servants that lived there for the three years that the

Lord gave him in this world. And in those three years, as he preached the gospel, we read that at the end of his life, he was in the jungle seeking to make

Christ known amongst those people. And he was attacked by wild animals and he was buried in a missionary grave on the other side of the world from his homeland.

But before his death, when someone asked Justinian van Welts why he was prepared to renounce everything, why he had given it all up to go to a distant land amongst a distant tongue, a foreign tongue to make

Christ known, he gave this simple answer. It's a stunning answer. He said, what is it to me, the title well -born, when

I am one born again in Christ? What is it to me to be called your grace when

I am in need of God's grace? What is it to me, this title

Lord, when I desire to be a servant of Christ?

And he added to those words, he said, all these vanities I do away with and everything besides,

I will lay at the feet of Jesus, my dearest Lord, that I may have no hindrance in serving him right.

This afternoon, that is the theme that I want to speak to you about. This theme of serving

Christ or to be more specific what it means to live as a servant of Christ.

This is not something that comes naturally to our flesh. Sadly, it is not something that has been modeled well.

I would venture to say in most Western churches where we are just all too enamored with comfort and the affluence and the opulence that we enjoy.

And yet in the five verses that are put before us today in the book of 1st

Timothy, I want to show you that as a Christian, you brother, you sister, that you are called to nothing other than to this, to live your whole lives as servants of Christ, to serve him, to be entangled fully into the affairs of your master, to devote all that is within you, all that you are to all that is his.

And I want to show you not only that he calls you to be a good servant of Christ, but he calls us to a lifestyle of discipline and of training that we might be constantly improving in our service to him.

You could say it another way. Today, as Paul writes to Timothy, as he's amongst the

Ephesian church, he is showing us that we must be. In fact, we all are some good, some not so good servants of Christ.

And he shows us how we must be good servants of Christ. So I'm going to put three truths before us.

We'll look beginning in verse six, and we'll start by reading this first verse and we'll consider what

I'm calling the first means by which we live as good servants of Christ. In verse six, we read this.

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.

Here's Paul lays out this idea of being a servant in Christ. The very first thing that he tells us about being a servant in Christ or how we are to be a good servant of Christ is this, that we must be trained in the word and doctrine.

There's something else there. I'll get to it. Maybe you've noticed already, but we're going to look at that first. As Paul writes this letter to Timothy, it's very interesting.

Something that we should observe is that up until this point, considering it is a very personal letter, it's between Paul and his young apprentice,

Timothy, you'd expect that he would address Timothy at great length, but he simply is not. In fact, in the first three chapters of first Timothy, we find that Paul uses that second person singular verb, speaking of you, you,

Timothy, he uses that you only three times in the whole of those three chapters. But in the second half of those three chapters, we see a remarkable shift.

It begins here in verse six with these words, if you. At this point, what

Paul does is he begins to escalate his references to Timothy as you, you,

Timothy. So whereas we had three references in the first three chapters, we now have 23 references in the remaining three chapters.

I think this is probably the most appropriate time to place an important qualifier here.

If you are maybe an astute student of scripture, maybe you've looked at this already and you've said, well, how can you apply being a good servant of Christ Jesus to us when the apostle

Paul is writing not specifically to the church in general, but to Timothy in particular.

Here we see this letter. It is to you, Timothy, if you do these things. And I really want to silence if there's anyone here that would have that doubt in their mind that this is for Timothy and not for us.

I want to ask you a few questions to show you that that would be a fatal flaw on our account.

Would God, I ask, would God preserve these words to Timothy, not only for him, but for all of the churches in that region and for all of the churches in the first century.

And then for every succeeding church in every succeeding century, if it were not intended to profit us, would he do that?

Are there principles, do you think, written here to Timothy that are so uniquely directed to him that the average

Christian couldn't possibly apply them to his or her life? Does scripture encourage us or forbid us from imitating other faithful saints?

I think when we begin to ask those questions, we begin to see it's crystal clear that these words are for Timothy, but they're also intended for us.

You might say they're for Timothy first and for us second. In the words of one Bible scholar, the description in this passage provides a positive example for all believers in contrast to the negative depiction of the false teachers that we've heard so much about in the last number of weeks.

And so as Paul writes to Timothy and to all of us by extension, in verse six, he writes, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

Here what Paul has in mind is that Timothy would instruct the church in everything that he has written up to this letter.

We did this review last week. What we'll do just a quick fly over again, that he would instruct the church in Ephesus where he had been left to instruct them in the warnings that he had provided in chapter one, in the instructions that he had given regarding worship and the role of the women in the church in chapter two, in the

God ordained qualifications of the leaders of that church in chapter three, in the role of the church at the end of that chapter.

And then as we dealt with last week, the warnings concerning asceticism and the harsh treatment of the body and the focus, frankly, on the wrong things.

And so Paul tells Timothy to do these exact things. And he uses that word, if. That Paul's, or that Timothy's status as a good servant is contingent upon him teaching these things to the church.

It's really interesting that as you look at that, what Paul is doing, it's implied here, is that one of the best things that Timothy can be doing is to be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

If you do the right thing, then you will have this status being a good servant of Christ.

And he, as he encourages him, it's really interesting that in Paul's mind, to be a servant of Christ Jesus is a desirable thing.

It is something that one should aspire to. That if one fulfills their life and their ministry in the service of God, then they are a good servant of Christ Jesus.

Now here, what Paul uses that word for servant is the Greek word diakonos.

I use that word because you'll recognize it. It's the word that we get our word deacon from. But he's speaking about more than just deacons.

He's speaking about what it means to be given fully in the service of Christ. To be his.

To have his priorities be our priorities. And I want to ask you, brothers and sisters, as we begin, do you desire to be a good servant of Christ Jesus?

As you pray, and as you go about your day, as you read God's word, as you come to be in the corporate assembly of the saints, when you go to church, or sorry, to work, excuse me, on Monday morning, do you say in your mind,

I want to be a good servant of Christ Jesus? Here, this is what

Paul is holding up as the ideal. I like what John Stott says about this. He says, I cannot imagine a nobler ambition than to be a good servant of Christ.

Another John, John Calvin says this. He says, it is the highest honor of a godly pastor.

And I'll just add here a godly Christian to be reckoned a good servant of Christ.

So he ought to aim at nothing else during his whole ministry. When you think about your life, is it your highest aim to be a good servant of Christ?

Or is it to obtain as much comfort as possible? As much money as possible?

As much acclaim, or achievement, or success, or whatever it might be?

I ask you soberly, as you live your life day by day, is it so that you will hear on that last day, well done, my good and faithful servant, with whom

I am well pleased. There really is no higher thing for us to aspire to.

Without a doubt, there is no higher calling than to be a servant of our Lord. And I want to show you this.

If we go to Romans chapter one, it's interesting. J. I. Packer says of Romans that all roads lead to Romans.

If some people were to say that there is one book in the midst of all of the epistles that stands out as being head and shoulders above the rest,

I would venture to say that most people are going to say Romans. And so you'd think that, you know, if this is the pinnacle of the

Apostle Paul's life's work, you'd think that he would choose a title for himself that would be of high esteem, that he would come as Paul with great authority, with great dignity, with pomp.

But what do we read in Romans one and verse one? How does the Apostle Paul introduce himself? Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus.

When you think about introducing yourself, are you more interested in giving your title and your long list of accomplishments, of giving your

CV, of all of your experience and your education and whatever it is that you hold on to?

Or do you think of primarily as blank, a servant of Christ Jesus?

What's really interesting here is that that word servant, and not to comment too much on Bible translations, but it isn't even necessarily the best word.

It's the Greek word doulos from which we get the word slave. That Paul is saying that,

I am Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus. Is that our mindset? In Luke chapter 17, the

Lord tells us how we should consider our lives when he says, you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, you must say, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what is our duty. When we look at the life of Justinian von

Welz for a moment, I want to ask you, do you have the same impulse to say that I am a servant of Christ?

And then to go a little bit further, if you are in fact a servant of Christ, are you a good servant of Christ?

And how does one become a good servant? As Paul writes to Timothy, if we go back to first Timothy chapter four and verse six, he says, if you put these things before the brothers, certainly that is a condition that he must put the things before the brothers.

And it's said in that way because what Paul is telling him when he says put these things before is that it implies a certain gentleness.

That he is preaching the word, but as Paul would later say to Timothy in second Timothy chapter four, he is preaching the word with complete patience and teaching.

He's putting it before them. And if he does these, he is a good servant of Christ. But then he goes on to describe what characterizes a good servant of Christ.

He says, you will be a good servant of Christ, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

One of the ways, brothers and sisters, one of the best ways that we can be a good servant of Christ is to do the will of the

Lord, just as Timothy, as Paul would have Timothy to do. But it is also to be, to be well instructed, to be trained in the words of the faith and to be in possession of the good doctrine that we have followed.

Characteristic of a good servant of Christ is that one is trained in these things. John MacArthur comments on this.

He says, only by reading the word and studying it and meditating on it and mastering its contents can a pastor fulfill his mandate or can a

Christian fulfill his or her mandate. Timothy, he says, had been doing, had been doing this since childhood and Paul urged him to continue.

It seems like it's a fitting instruction at the beginning of a new year. And I want to challenge you in this respect.

If you were to evaluate your own life, your own relationship with the word of God, would you say,

I am well trained in the word of God. That I know

God's word, that I've come to understand it, that I've come to not only have a basic, perhaps a distant acquaintance with it, acquaintanceship with it, but I know

God's word. I'm convinced that most Christians are under the faulty assumption that the best and that the most that they can do or should do is simply to read their

Bibles every day. Now, don't get me wrong. It is good. It's important to read your

Bible every day. But is this what it means to be trained in the word?

I would suggest to you that it is a very one dimensional view of the Christian's relationship with scripture.

We should not view the act of reading our Bibles a chapter a day or five minutes a day or whatever the case might be, but reading it as a basic act, as the height of training in the word, but as the bare minimum of what it means to be trained in the word.

Instead of a one dimensional view, I want to put before you what I think is a biblical approach, which would be more of a five -dimensional view of what it means to be trained in the word.

But when we talk about being trained in the word, we certainly would include reading the Bible.

And brothers and sisters, we must do this. If you haven't already, we're reading a

Bible plan as a church. We invite you. We'll make photocopies. We'll get you on the plan. Within a few weeks, you'll be caught up.

But it's absolutely essential, brothers and sisters, that we be in the word and that we be in the word every day.

I think of the words of our Lord Jesus when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. And he said, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And how many Christians today go about their day fasting from the word for days on end?

A feast on a Saturday or a Sunday does not make up for a famine the other six days of the week.

And dear friends, I ask you, are you reading God's word? Does the sermon find you every day eating from the meal that the

Lord has prepared for you? But it's more than that. A second dimension might be this, to study our

Bibles. We read about Ezra in the book of Ezra, that he gave himself to reading and or to studying, to doing and to teaching all that was written in God's word.

And I'm convinced that probably many Christians today do not study God's word because they do not know how to study

God's word. But I would encourage you, this is why the Lord has given other more mature brothers and sisters in your life, faithful shepherds in the church, that you might know what it means not just to go to a book of the

Bible, to plop open a commentary and say, I read the Bible, I read the commentary and that's it. But to come and to mine the depths of God's word for all that it is.

To really and truly seek, not just to read it, but to study it, to know it, to know its contents.

Another thing that we see in scripture is this, Bible memorization. That it was

King David that said, I've written your word on my heart that I might not sin against you. We see it in the life of our

Lord when he was tempted by Satan. When Satan sought to misquote scripture, he would quote scripture back to him, that he had it at the ready.

And we do have it. I don't have, do we have one? I do. We have our, it's somewhere back there.

We have our bulletin. Every week we're seeking to memorize scripture together as a church.

Would you consider doing that? To meditate on scripture, to chew on God's word like the cow chews the cud.

So that we would sit there, even if it's taking a post -it note, writing a verse that you're seeking to memorize, put it in your pocket, pull it out from time to time and meditate upon it.

And none of these four things are good if we do not seek to be appliers of God's word.

That we would not only be hearers, but doers of the word also. I think of a story, for those of you who know me well, you know that I love the

Puritans. There's a story about Thomas Goodwin, who is probably one of my favorite Puritans, who went to hear another brother, a man named

John Rogers, who was preaching in his weekly lectures. And as Rogers was teaching, at this time he was dealing with the subject of the scriptures.

And he wanted to admonish his hearers. And so Thomas Goodwin, sitting there in the audience, is listening in.

And John Rogers, acting the part of God for a moment, he says this. And I want you to think about it.

Does this apply to you? I have trusted you so long with my Bible.

You have slighted it. It lies in your houses, covered with dust and cobwebs.

You care not to look into it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my

Bible no longer. Imagine what that would be, if the Lord should bring a persecution like we saw at the beginning of the third century, where they sought to burn every

Bible. You shall have my Bible no longer. And then acting the part of the people, he removed the

Bible from the cushion that he had, and he fell before his knees, and he pleaded, O Lord, whatever thou dost to us, do not take our

Bible from us. Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods.

Only spare us the Bible. Then he addressed the people as from God, say you so.

Well, I will try you a little longer. Here is my Bible for you. I will yet see how you will use it, whether you will love it more, whether you will observe it more, whether you will practice it more and live more according to it.

And what was interesting is that as Thomas Goodwin was sitting there in the congregation, listening to John Rogers preach these words, he noticed that all the people around him began deluged with tears.

And at the end of the service, Goodwin got on his horse and he recounts that as he went there, he thought about these things.

What are we doing with the Bible? That God has spoken to his people.

That we have the complete knowledge of his special revelation to us in this book and we have slighted it.

And there on his horse, he wept on the neck of his horse and said, O Lord, help me.

Help me to know, to treat your Bible right. Brothers and sisters, what are we doing with God's word?

Are you trained in God's word or are you a perpetual novice? Always drinking milk, never ready to move on to solid foods.

He says as well that it's characteristic of a good servant that they be trained in good doctrine.

As Paul speaks about good doctrine, he's referring to the ability of one to possess a sound knowledge of what the

Bible teaches on various matters. To help explain this,

I will use contrast for the sake of clarity. I have an acquaintance. Unfortunately, you hear quite often about this acquaintance.

It's just the nature of the relationship and the individual. But in his mind, it is almost always wrong to seek to systematize the teachings of Scripture.

He would be fully against it. So that a church, for instance, having a statement of faith, that would be wrong.

To have a confession of faith or historic confession of faith, that would be wrong. Perhaps even sinful.

Instead, what his approach is, is this, that he will pick up the Bible and he will read it.

And whatever it says on that given day, on that given topic, that that is true. So he will read, for instance, a passage of warning.

Warning Christians not to fall away or to be careful lest we fall away. And he will say, on that given day, it is possible to fall away.

And then as he comes to another passage that speaks about the eternal security of a Christian, he will say, well, there is security as well.

But if you ask him, well, why don't we put those two verses together and see what the whole Bible teaches on the whole subject?

He will say, no, that is wrong. We cannot do that. We must take God at his word. Well, not only is that a contradiction, but it makes the

Bible itself contradict itself. That everything in the

Bible that the Lord has given us fits together. And therefore we should not object to this idea of systematizing theology, because some people get it wrong.

But we should seek to know, we should know that the Bible does have its own system, that it is in perfect harmony with itself, that there are no contradictions, and that we should seek to discern and submit to the

Bible's own system. How many of you, brothers and sisters, are studying theology?

Even just at a basic level. It does not require expensive systematic theology texts.

It doesn't require that you have a PhD in theology. But when was the last time perhaps you took your

Bible, you opened it to the beginning, you took a notepad, you took a pen and said,

I'm going to look up every passage that speaks about the character of God. Or that speaks about one of the attributes of God.

Whether it is the love of God, or the grace of God, or the wrath of God, or whatever it might be, and I'm going to seek to understand this aspect of God.

Again, to go back to our one -dimensional view, I think that we've become so focused, I have my

Bible reading plan, I need to read my Bible today, but are we going beyond that so that we are trained in the word, that we might be good profitable servants?

I think that for many Christians, especially in the church that I am familiar with here in the

West, that they are completely clueless in so many areas of doctrine, of sound doctrine, and are sometimes even heretics unaware, because they've never taken the time to understand what the

Bible teaches about any particular subject. It does not take long.

One can say, what does the Bible, I have 45 minutes, what does the

Bible teach about baptism? And with a concordance in your hands, and a Bible to look up all the references to baptism and say, this is what scripture teaches about baptism.

Brothers and sisters, we must love God's word. We must seek to understand it.

We must seek to understand the doctrines that his word teaches. You've heard me quote from John Wesley before, probably one of my favorite quotes from John Wesley.

We don't have some things in common, and if he were alive, he might let me know that. But I still appreciate his work.

And one of the things that he has said is this, he said, I want to know one thing, the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore.

God himself has condescended to teach the way, for this end he came from heaven.

He has written it down in a book. Give me that book. Oh, give me that book of God at any price.

Give me that book. Is that our heart towards God's word? The next thing that we see in verse seven, we read this, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths, rather train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

We should not only be trained in the word and in doctrine, but that we must train for godliness.

It's not enough to have sound doctrine, but that this doctrine must translate into sound living.

In contrast to the good teaching that Paul has in mind in verse six, we see that in verse seven, believers in Ephesus were giving themselves over to irreverent, silly myths, as we read it there.

In first Timothy four, we saw a little bit about those irreverent, silly myths. If you look there with me, that they were myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that he is by faith.

And we see from Paul's vocabulary, just how foolish these myths were. The words that Paul uses for irreverent could be translated as worthless or even godless and profane.

It speaks to the kind of pursuit that rather than pleasing God, brings disrepute or dishonor to God.

Whereas the word silly myths, literally it means, and some of you, if you have a King James version or an

NASB, you'll see this, myths characteristic of an old woman. Rather, I think you have old wives fables, would be the way the

King James translates it. Old wives tales. We must not devote ourselves, if we're to be profitable servants, to silly myths, to old wives tales.

And some people will say, well, who would give attention to those things? And if you can believe it or not, probably some of you are familiar with these things.

Maybe you've heard me talk about them on a Thursday evening, but they're actually a growing number of Christian media channels that devote themselves almost entirely to catering to people's interests in these things.

Myths and old wives tales. I think of one podcast in particular, where in this ministry, these pastors embrace accounts of Bigfoot, and aliens, and mermaids, and mothmen, and other ghouls.

And they shoehorn these concepts into their biblical worldview and into the biblical worldview of their listeners.

So that eventually they say, at the end of every episode, it seems, well, Bigfoot is real and Bigfoot is a demon.

And that is the closing line in every one of these podcasts. Now surely you'd think that, but this is on the fringes, right?

This is on the far reaches of maybe the Christian ethos.

And I wish that were true. But in fact, these channels have millions of views and tens of thousands of subscribers.

And they aren't Christians from the hyper charismatic wing either.

But probably most of the Christians, if you were to ask them to identify themselves, would call themselves conservative, evangelical, and even reformed

Christians. Because these are reformed pastors that are teaching this. Now what is so bad about that?

Well, I'll tell you what they're doing. They're disseminating the same errors that the false teachers were disseminating in first century

Ephesus. They were promoting, certainly for the interest of the people, for the intrigue of the people, myths and old wives tales.

And we know what happens. That these myths and these old wives tales, they go from being interesting.

And then sometimes there's an infatuation with it. And soon they dispel or they remove

Christ from his rightful place at the center of our theology. And we become interested solely in the tangential things.

And I think that in the lives of those podcasters, I've seen that. Irenaeus once said about this, speaking about this devotion to myths.

He said, this devotion to myths is worthy of being mourned over. These people perversely pull to pieces the greatness of the truly unspeakable power of God.

They separate themselves from the church. They give heed to old wives fables.

They are truly self -condemned. When we try to import these worthless myths into our

Christian worldview, we treat God and his word with contempt. And so we ought to, as often as we can, put away all things that truly before the

Lord we would deem worthless. In Psalm 101 verse 3, the psalmist says,

I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away.

It shall not cling to me. Now, one of the things that I think about, and I think of those of you who are familiar with biblical counseling, is you would never tell someone to, for instance, if they're struggling with something that they're seeing online, don't do that.

Just don't do it. Don't think about it. Don't go there. Just nothing. Put it off, right?

As soon as we tell someone to put something off, we know it creates a vacuum that invariably will put on something else that is unhealthy, that is unprofitable.

And it's interesting, Paul does this. He says, have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths to put off, but then he gives something for Timothy and for all of us to put on.

He says, rather, train yourself for godliness. When you think about worthless things and then training yourself for godliness,

I want you to think, what is the number one thing in your life that, at this very moment, is distracting you, that is keeping you from training for godliness?

Do you not see that it's very likely something that is worthless? It's very likely something that it may be in and of itself is not a bad thing, but it becomes a profane thing when it takes the place of a much better thing, of a good thing.

That some of us, the best thing that we could do, I know I spoke on this a few weeks ago, this is not a theme in my mind necessarily, but some of the best things that probably some of us could do is go to the

Kudo kiosk at the mall and say, here's my phone. I want that dumb phone.

Give me the dumbest phone you have. That will be mine. And I'm gonna love that phone and I'm gonna live with that phone.

To blow up your television. Bring it to the farm and we'll shoot it with a shotgun. I don't know, right?

He says, rather, train yourself for godliness. And he uses a

Greek word, the Greek word gymnazo, which informs our English word gymnasium.

So what Paul is telling Christians to do then is to cast off that which is worthless, that which is pointless, that which is profane and old wives tale, and go to the gym as it were.

Discipline yourself and discipline yourself for this purpose, for godliness. Paul loves this language, these illustrations of the gym and of athletics and of sports.

So if you think, for instance, that I use too many historic illustrations, maybe Paul used too many athletic illustrations.

But in 2 Timothy 2 and verse 5, he tells us that an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

In 2 Timothy 4 .7, at the end of his earthly life, Paul tells Timothy, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith. In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, in verse 24, he says, do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?

So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self -control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly.

I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others,

I myself should be disqualified. He uses athletic illustrations in Galatians 2, in Galatians 5, in Philippians 2 as well.

And what he has in mind here is exactly what we would think about a gymnasium. It is exercising.

It is disciplining. For those of you who enjoy going to the gym, there are some times when you wake up, you have an appointment with the gym at six in the morning, seven in the morning.

I'll tell you at 530 in the morning, the last thing I want to do on a minus 30 day is get up and go to the gym.

But we discipline our bodies. We discipline ourselves for the purposes of our health or whatever it is.

And what Paul has in mind here is disciplining ourselves, training ourselves, not so that we would have chiseled abs, but so that we would be godly.

That we would be like Christ. That our lives would be characterized by personal holiness.

If we were to evaluate your life, not based solely on your profession, but on the fruits of that profession, what would we see?

If we were to evaluate your schedule and the way you order your affairs and the way that you structure your time and the things that you love most, that you prioritize most, and the things that you frankly don't, what does it tell us about you?

Here what Paul has in mind is this, disciplining ourselves for the purpose of godliness, hungering and thirsting after righteousness until we are satisfied.

It's a present imperative verb, meaning it's something that we're actively, presently engaged in.

And he tells us why it's important. Because in verse 8, he says bodily training is of some value, but godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life that is to come.

There are some people, I'm sure you know some of them, who they spend their whole lives thinking about meticulously about what they put in their bodies, what they eat, what they drink.

They've got those water bottles with all the notches that tells them how much water they have to have every half an hour.

They have the smart watch that tells them how many calories they burned. Oh, my heart rate was a little bit off today. Sometime between 10 and 11, it seemed to have a higher resting heart rate.

They go to the gym. They work every part of their bodies. They tailor their whole lives to looking the way they want to look, feeling the way they want to feel.

And what Paul is saying, he's not talking about the neglect of the body. He's not going to take us in another direction of asceticism.

He's saying that that is of some value to take good care of yourself. Physical training is of some value.

But when your body dies, all of the benefits of that work die with it.

It becomes dust like that. But for those who discipline themselves for godliness, what does he say?

But it has promise for the present life and for the life to come.

You probably are not struck by the profundity of that enough.

You know, we often think about life in this world, life on this side of glory.

And we think to ourselves, well, you know, my mind goes to that picture of the hearse pulling the

U -Haul, right? And the phrase that goes along with that meme is, when you die, you can't take it with you, right?

There's nothing that you've never seen a U -Haul with a hearse because you can't take any of your belongings with you.

That is true. I do think, however, that we take that principle and we apply it too broadly.

And what I mean by that is this. There is something that you will take with you when you pass from this temporal life into glory.

And what does Paul say it is? Look again with me in verse 8. That this godliness is a value in every way because it holds promise for this present life and also the life to come.

Have you ever thought that every Bible verse that you memorize today, in your glorified mind, that verse will still be there?

That the gains that you make in godliness, in seeking the

Lord, in knowing him, it's not that you'll be more holy than the next brother or sister in glory, but that you will take those gains with you into eternity.

That if you're going to invest in something that truly has an eternal reward, it is in godliness.

It's not in our bodies. It's not in our possessions. It's not in our degrees. It's not in the acclaim that we have from the world, but it is in our likeness to Christ.

And are you cultivating that likeness to Christ? Perhaps this is why

Paul makes such a big deal of godliness in the pastoral epistles. In 1

Timothy 2, in verse 2, he talks about leading a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

In chapter 2 in verse 10, speaking about the women in the church, he says, this is how a woman professes godliness.

In 1 Timothy 3, he talks about this is the mystery of godliness. In 1 Timothy 6 and verse 11, he says, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness.

He brings up godliness 12 different times in these two letters. And it's because of this, because it's what we're going to take with us.

Calvin says in this, there is no reason why you should wear yourself to no purpose about other matters.

You will do that which is of the highest importance if you devote yourself with all your zeal and with all of your ability to godliness alone.

Oh, that we would be good servants, not because of our giftedness, but because of our godliness.

That people would look at us and say, well, Shane's a great preacher or a long -winded preacher or whatever kind of preacher.

So -and -so is so good at this particular thing. He's so eloquent.

He's so intelligent. She's so whatever the case might be. But wouldn't you have, if when you step into another room and people were to speak about you for a moment, they said of you, when

I'm with that person, I just want to be more like Christ.

I just want to be more devoted to God. Not even that they're seeing you, but they are seeing what your life points to.

The whole thrust of your life. I'm a servant of Christ.

I don't care what that guy on TV says. I don't care what the social media influencers do or act or whatever they are.

I belong to Christ and I want to be like Christ. And if that is all

I have, I have all that I need. If you're to have that,

Paul is saying, you must be actively training, pursuing after that.

Are you keeping alert to the areas of your life where there is the greatest need of sanctification?

You know, sometimes we keep a list of things that need to be done around the house. Do you have a list of things that you need to deal with in your own soul?

I remember the first time I spoke with our sister Amy about sanctification projects.

I said, wait, what is that? A sanctification project? Yeah. She said, it's where you see an area of your life that needs sanctification and you make an intentional plan and then you pursue sanctification in that area of your life.

People do that. That is amazing. That is brilliant. Brothers and sisters, do you have in your life an ongoing sanctification project?

Something where you're saying, I am not happy with my speech at work. I am going to put that sin to death.

I'm going to mortify that sin and I'm going to vivify righteousness in its place. That I have this bad attitude at school or whatever it is.

I'm going to put that off. I'm going to intentionally deal with it and I'm going to put on gratefulness.

I'm going to put on diligence. I'm going to put on joy and peace in its place. The Lord said in Matthew 24, who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master sets over his household to give them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is the servant when his master comes, sorry, when his master will find him so doing when he comes.

Are you seeking to be a servant that is characterized by godliness? Now if I preach those first two points in the sermon and I left it at that, this sermon would be worthless.

It would be 51 minutes of legalism.

I want you to see what Paul says next in verse 9. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living

God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

A good servant of Christ is not only trained in the word. He's not only, she's not only training in godliness, but a good servant of Christ is striving, is training, is going with the hope of the gospel.

You will never be, you cannot be a good servant of Christ apart from being found in Christ.

And you cannot persevere as a servant of Christ without having your hope steadfastly anchored in Christ.

In verse 9, we see another one of Paul's trustworthy sayings. This is his third now.

As I've been taking you through, I hope you've been with me. We've been counting them. We saw them in 1

Timothy 1 .15. It is a trustworthy saying worthy of full acceptance that what? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom

I am the foremost. In chapter 3 in verse 1, he deals with another one. It's a trustworthy saying.

How does it go? The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

And then he goes on from there. Every time Paul gives us a trustworthy saying, it's because it is accompanying something that is monumental.

It might be a familiar saying, but it's familiar because it is important.

Now, some will bicker back and forth about what is the trustworthy saying?

Is it verses 7 and 8? Or is it verse 10? I think that you have faithful scholars on both sides of that issue.

But I am inclined to go with the many who say that it has to do with verse 10.

This is why we train. This is why we toil and strive. This is why we do what we do.

Because our hope is in God and the gospel of God and nowhere else.

And I want you to see the language that he uses here. Because again, I think it describes the training that we are engaged in.

He says toil. This is interesting. This is a word that frankly, the translators of our

English Bibles have had to toil with to translate a word that is strong enough to convey it.

It means working so hard, so vigorously that it brings you to the point of bodily exhaustion.

It is giving everything that you have, all that you have towards one thing to toil.

This is why we work with all of the energy that he powerfully works within us.

And then strive. This does not have to do with striving after or earning something, but to strive actually, if we look at it carefully, it means to bear reproach.

We're working. And as we're doing it, we are bearing reproach.

We are being insulted. The same word is used in Matthew 15, 32, where we read, let the

Christ, the King of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

It is that word revile. And so it is toiling. And in the midst of that toiling, it is being revived or sorry, reviled.

Why would anyone bear the insults and the reproach of men?

Why? Why would anyone in a given situation, not only bear the reproach of their enemies, but bear the reproach of those who once called themselves your friends?

Why do we do what we do? Why do you leave your life as a barren and go across the world to be around, at least in the world's eyes, worthless slaves and indentured servants?

Why do we get up in the morning and labor tirelessly day after day after day?

If it's because you think you're going to earn God's love, you're going to fail. It is because we have our hope set on the living

God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

It is because God is enough. It is because we have a confident, dependent, steadfast trust in him.

I want you to think about Paul's example here for a moment. In 2

Corinthians 11, you might say, are we just picking proof texts here?

Listen to the first words out of his mouth. Are they servants of Christ? They say they're servants of Christ?

I am a better one. Oh, please, Paul, tell us. Why are you a better one? What makes you a better servant?

He says, I am talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews forty lashes lest one. Three times

I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day

I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And I ask you the question, what sustained Paul's ministry? 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.

Some might say, is that a universal salvation that he's talking about? Is Paul a universalist? No, he says especially of those who believe.

Particularly. We actually see, I think, a hint here of particular redemption, that many are called but few are chosen.

Don't you see that everything we do, we do because our hope is set on God, who saved us in Christ.

And in Christ we have the perfect picture of a servant, if anyone in this world was trained in the word.

Was it not our Lord, who at the age of 12, as he was outside the temple, the people said in amazement, they said, they heard him and were amazed at his understanding and answers.

The crowd said of his teaching, he teaches as one who has authority and not as the scribes.

In scripture we read about his unparalleled godliness at his baptism.

He said that he had come to fulfill all righteousness. He passed through the wilderness for 40 days, like the nation of Israel for their 40 years, tempted by that ancient serpent, the devil.

And yet he did not fall into sin. In the garden, not in the garden of Eden, but in Gethsemane, he submitted to the will of his father, even though it was the will of his father to crush him.

He was tempted in all things and yet without sin. And it really was true of him, what the people said about him, he does all things well.

And it's a lamb that was led before its shearers, he opened not his mouth, but he went to that gruesome cross on Calvary.

And this was promised long beforehand, Jesus, the Christ, the suffering servant of God, poured himself out unto death that he might deal with the otherwise impossible problem of our sin, of man's alienation from God.

Can't you see that our greatest motive is also our greatest example, that it is

Christ who is the perfect servant. We do everything we do because of Christ, because of what he has done.

To the extent that we are good servants is to the same extent that we are like Christ.

And yet it is not in our imitation of him that we are saved. It is in this that he is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that he has purchased us by his own blood.

So that we, everything that we're singing before this sermon is true, that he is our hope in life and death.

That the motto of our lives is all glory be to Christ. That we get up in the morning, we not only read our word, but we love, read his word, but we love reading his word and studying his word.

We meditate on his word, not because it's a discipline we're trying to keep, but because it's his word.

We seek godliness so that we can be like him because he has enabled us to be.

Like C .T. Studd said, if Christ be God and died for me, there is nothing too great that I can do for him.

That we have a glorious inheritance with him. That we have a hope, a steadfast hope that is beyond the trials, the comforts of this life.

Brethren, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is. Do you believe it?

That it is the greatest privilege in all the world that we have been ransomed by God.

That we might be servants of Christ forever. If you and I are going to embrace one job title in this world, let it be this.

I am a slave of Christ. I have been bought with him, bought by him.

I have been bought with a price and so I will glorify him in my body. That nothing you do will ever enable you to earn salvation.

Everything that needed to be done, Christ has done already. But now we are free to serve him.

If you're here in this room and you have never, you're not a believer, you've not repented of your sins and believed in Christ, my prayer and the prayers of dozens of people around you is that you would turn to God.

That you would repent and believe in Jesus and be right with him and spend your life doing the only thing that is worth doing.

Living as a servant of Christ. And brothers and sisters, if you are already a servant in Christ, then join me.

Join me in seeking to do his will, to be trained in his word, to love his word, to pursue godliness with all of our might, to use the words of Christ, to hunger and thirst after it.

Trusting that nothing that we do will ingratiate ourselves with him, will make us worthy of him, but everything that we need is found in Christ now already.

So let's pray together. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.

If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our

Instagram at Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website graceedmonton .ca.