July 23, 2017 PM Service - Denying Gods Goodness by Pastor Josh Sheldon

1 Timothy 4:1-5 and the Warning Against Apostasy

Please to 1st Timothy once again, as we continue our study of this letter to young Timothy there in Ephesus. This afternoon, we will look to the first five verses of this chapter. 1st Timothy 4, 1 -5.

Please stand with me as we honor God's word as we read it. Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 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 is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Amen. Please be seated. You know, one of the benefits I have received for myself personally as I've been studying this particular epistle, which I've read and I've studied at some level before, but not quite in the depth needed to present it in these sermons that I've been presenting.

The benefit I've received personally is a greater appreciation for just how much the Apostle Paul depends upon the doctrine, the fact, and all that is represented by creation. You recall back in chapter 2 when he was speaking of roles, or I should say he was writing of the roles in the church, and he likened it back to creation ordinances, to the order of creation and other things.

And I found here as we look at these verses that once again creation plays a prominent role in the Apostle's thought and the corrections that he's giving Timothy to make there at the church in Ephesus, and the basis he gives to him for making these corrections.

We come back once again to creation. Recall that Adam and Eve's order of creation was the basis for roles of men and women in the church. You recall that Eden was a temple where man and God communed together.

You recall how direct communion with God and man is restored by Jesus Christ who was our sacrifice and our mediator, and so implying that we, the church, are now the temple of God, the restoration of what was lost all the way back in Eden.

These creation ordinances, creation principles feed very much into Paul's thought, again and much more profoundly, much more strongly than I had at first realized. I used to just kind of not glance them over in a flippant way, but go through them too fast.

And now we find here in these five verses, with Paul refuting these hypocritical liars, the ones who are leading some others to devote themselves to deceitful spirits, to demonic teaching, Paul again harkens back to creation.

And here we're going to find in verse 4, which I'll read again in just a moment, we're going to find a great protection that we have in Scripture, to guard ourselves against wrongful, can we say, heretical teaching.

A way to keep ourselves from being misled by such, because they are all over, and they infiltrate into small churches like ours, Reformed churches like ours and others. It's very hard to constantly be on the guard in this world today.

And yet, with God's help, with His Spirit strengthening, and with the Scripture and these principles that Paul gives to Timothy, Lord willing we can maintain somewhat of a purity of our worship and our understanding of the Gospel.

Creation, Good Gifts, and the Guard Against Heresy

It's right there in verse 4, if you look at that again, just the first few words of it. For everything created by God is good. Against this, the heretics 2 ,000 years ago taught something like asceticism as a way to holiness and progress and sanctification.

And the great protection, the great guard that we have for ourselves is right there in everything created by God is good. And the question we ask when we hear something novel, when we hear something that isn't quite what we had heard before, and it makes us just a little edgy and you get that little nervous feeling, what does it say about God and what God has made to be received by His people with thanksgiving?

What does the teaching imply about the goodness of a good God who gave good things to His people? It's a very simple question. And I think it is really what Paul is doing here in these first five verses as he's telling Timothy how to refute these men, what the basis is, because God made good things to be received by His people with thanksgiving.

It's a great guard. It's a great safety net that we have. When we hear something like that, reading a book, hearing a new preacher, one who's getting everybody to say, wow, as sometimes happens, sometimes they need it.

Sometimes they're really great preachers who can edify God's people, whether we hear them in person or on the radio. And sometimes it just gives you that little bit of funny feeling. It's not quite right.

Ask yourself this, what is he saying about God? What does it imply about God and God's good gifts that He made for His people? Against everything created by God is good. The heretics who Timothy was to contest taught this asceticism.

Denying things. Asceticism is the practice of keeping oneself away from any pleasure that might tend to attract the person back to the physical world or so they are taught it will do. And so many of us, you know, we talk about ascetics.

You think of the hermits in medieval times going out into the desert to get away from the churches. It was growing more and more secular, more and more worldly. And so they would go off into the desert and they would eat crickets and they would eat honey like John the Baptist or something like this.

They were ascetics. It seems like just an odd thing, a fanatic thing to us, but it's more than that. It's far worse than that. What it is, what was happening there, what we need to be careful of in new teachings to us today is those things that deny that creation is good.

That deny creation is good because to deny that creation is good denies that the Creator is good. It denies what God said six times and the last time it was very good. He said it was good, it was good, it was good.

What he had made was good and finally very good. And someone comes along and says no, it's not good. Don't partake of this. This will make you more worldly. Don't enjoy what God gave you to enjoy. Anyway, the message here this afternoon, the message here when we speak of asceticism and the foods that they were saying, they say keep away from these foods.

That's what they were doing. The message I'm going to preach to you this afternoon is not that being a vegetarian is wrong or that veganism is proper. I'm not going to extol to you the virtues of steak and all other manner of red meat.

None of that is Paul's point and neither will it be ours this afternoon. But there's a strong warning in these five verses for us. The church at Ephesus was being infected by this insidious teaching. The false teachers that we met all the way back in chapter one, they're using the law of God as the basis of their message.

Now we all need to have Scripture as the foundation of our message. Anyone who stands here who's not preaching to you from Scripture has no business standing here. We know that. But these men, chapter one verse four would tell us, they were devoted to what?

Do you remember the term? Myths and endless genealogies. They promoted speculation and controversy. They stirred people up but didn't put them back together again as it were. They brought disorder and confusion.

They taught with persuasion and confidence. But chapter one verse seven says they didn't know what they were talking about. They didn't know what they were saying no matter how confidently they made their assertions.

They were clueless. Today, the church today here in our country, we're surrounded by men and women who have parsed out the Scriptures and squeezed out of them things that would make the apostles' heads spin.

Bruce Wilkinson wrote The Prayer of Jabez, Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, and he bases this whole book and this whole idea of how to pray and how to get the prayers answered and have this wonderful blessed life, he bases it all on 1 Chronicles 4 .10.

The single verse of a single word spoken or a single sentence spoken by this obscure character in the midst of a long genealogical record. Rick Warren has his Daniel plan, 40 days to a healthier life.

One can hope that their pocketbook did well because I can't see any other benefit. I think they're much in line with the men in chapter one of 1 Timothy that Timothy was told to silence. The warning here is about being misled, about being taken off the path to godliness, being taken away from Paul's goal, 1 Timothy 1 .5, love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Let us beware of teaching that sounds good but in the end is a mangling of God's word. Let us be sure that the goal that we are being persuaded to pursue is God's goal for us. When Paul says the goal of the teaching is love that issues from a pure heart and the rest of it, what he's saying is as opposed to them, the goal of our teaching is these things.

And therefore the goal that we need to hear for, the goal we need to listen for, to make sure that a preacher is giving to us or a book that we found or a new way to accomplish something that is put forth as a biblical goal, is this what it leads to?

Love from a pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith. Verse one says that the Holy Spirit warns of the apostasies of the later times. There's some question as to whether this was a specific revelation by the Holy Spirit to Paul or whether Paul was referring to the scriptures as they then stood.

That's the way I see this. He's referring to the scriptures as he had them then. For example, Daniel 12 seems to warn of a time when people will run amok and give little heed to God's word. Deuteronomy 28 has the covenant curses which anticipate this huge falling away of God's people.

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of a time of tribulation and he said many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. That's Matthew 24 11. The epistles by Peter and John and Jude all warn about latter day scoffers and mockers.

Where does the Spirit expressly tell that these things will happen? In the word of God. In the scripture which he, the Spirit, inspired to us. The scripture is where we find the spirits express warning about these things.

So what is your defense against these kind of falsehoods? Remember that the heretics in Ephesus, these ones that we're taking not pot shots at, we're just following what the scripture says of them. They were persuasive.

We've talked about them before. They were probably handsome men, charismatic in their bearing, the way they talk to people, eloquent in the way they preach, persuasive in their rhetoric. What are we to do?

Well, your first defense, our defense really against all falsehood, it's already in your hands. Your Bible is where the word of God is expressly communicated. Your Bible. Plainly understood. Taken at its plainest meaning.

As so many preachers say so often, the plain things are the main things. And let's take them plainly. Because God gave us a word, as our brother Steve McSell, when he preaches here, makes sure that we understand again and again, God gave us a word to be understood.

To be obeyed, yes. To be understood. What's our first defense against the kind of teaching that was in Ephesus 2 ,000 years ago? Where does Paul send them? To the word. To the word of God, which is where the Spirit expressly speaks.

He said some will depart. Some, but not all, will depart from the faith. They will apostatize. The word means to stand away from something. Now notice here that it is they who departed from the faith.

It is they, the ones who were misled, they are the ones who stood apart from the faith that they claim to be following. It is they who devoted themselves to false teaching. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, that doesn't seem so bad.

They're only mistaken, and we all make mistakes, right? And we do all make mistakes. But this was worse than a mistake. You see, they weren't just exploring or trying something out. And the teaching that was presented to them, it appears that they just sort of took it.

And we understand then that there's a great responsibility for the leadership of this church to vet the men who will stand at this pulpit and, Lord willing, persuade you of things, persuade you to pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord, persuade you to reach after the prize, which is Jesus Christ, persuade you to obey the gospel, to love your wife, to obey your husband, these sorts of things.

Yes, we should be persuaded. These people went beyond that. They weren't just exploring or trying something out. It appears that they didn't think with discernment. They didn't think, can I say, can I speculate, with their Bibles open.

They were devoted to this teaching. They devoted themselves to the teaching continuously. This was their practice of life. And what was it? This asceticism. They were being taught to abstain themselves from things that the Bible does not prohibit, to keep themselves from things that the Bible does not say they must keep themselves from.

They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. We could even say it this way. The Spirit expressly says in Acts chapter 10, for example, or in Jesus' words in Matthew 15, 11, that food in and of itself has no spiritual effect on you.

It might be presented to you as a matter of self-control, which sounds okay. I mean, self-control is, is it not, a fruit of the Spirit? But if we keep it paired to what they actually taught, it's more than that, because what did they also forbid?

Marriage. Something, again, which the Word of God everywhere commends. See, many things seem neutral. They seem to be a matter of indifference. The fancy Latin word is adiaphora. Adiaphora, a matter of indifference.

You can go one way or the other. It makes no big impact. So it's adiaphora if we sing four or five hymns during our morning service. It's adiaphora. Actually, it's my responsibility, one of my duties, one of the authorities I actually have as pastor to say we're going to sing six or seven hymns in a spiritual sense, in the ultimate context.

It's adiaphora. It's a matter of indifference. It's of no consequence to us if we pray three times or two times or five times in our worship service, as long as we do pray. And while the Bible does give us freedom in many things, allowing us to choose what suits us, ultimately we have to agree, we have to understand that nothing is finally a matter of indifference because everything we do somehow says something about the glory of the God that we worship.

But within the wide bounds and parameter of Scripture, we do have freedom. And these foods are one of them. These heretics in Ephesus were teaching to abstain from foods, and that usually means abstain from meat.

That's normally what it means. And we're going to eat just vegetables because it's better. They might have even been taught that those foods would be healthier, though I'm sort of reading a bit of 20th and 21st century culture into that idea.

They might have been taught that men didn't eat meat until after the fall. Have you heard that before? That nothing died until the fall, and it wasn't until after the flood, actually, that meat was okay to eat.

Maybe they were convinced by their teachers. Remember, Timothy's charge is to silence these teachers. Maybe they were convinced by them that only sensual worldly people ate steak or meat because that was more luxurious and more carnal or something like that.

What's really going on here? Is it just a matter of we're going to shrug our shoulders? Listen, if we wanted somebody to come in and talk to us about proper food consumption, we would do it on a Friday or a Saturday.

We wouldn't call it a worship service, and he can present the facts and show us calories and nutrients and all these things. That's one thing, and I probably would never condone that. We're all smart enough to figure that out on our own and for each family.

But to do that from the pulpit, to do that as a teaching from Scripture, to tell you, for example, if you want to get closer to the image of Jesus Christ, here's the way, and to present something like this, that's something a bit more serious.

They are really calling evil what God called good. They're calling bad for you what God made to be good for you and means for our good. Does that sound too harsh to you? Does that sound too harsh? I mean, after all, it's just food we're talking about, right?

It's just food. No, that's not right. Listen to what Paul says they were devoted to. If you're thinking, what's the difference? You can eat carrot or celery if you want. Come on, what's the big deal here?

They were devoted to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons from the pit of hell through the mouths of heretics to the spirits of apostates. It's not a matter of indifference. It's a matter of the greatest severity when someone would teach God's people that something that God made for your good, that a good God made and called good and gave to his people because he's good, to call it bad, to tell you to keep away from it, which is tantamount to calling it bad.

You see, food itself, contra the Ephesian heretics, contra anyone today who is falling into their teaching, food itself is a diaphora. Forbidding it is not. Food itself has no real spiritual significance.

Setting it forth as a means of sanctification does have great spiritual significance. In the wrong way, but great significance. As with most heresies, of course, it didn't stop there. Along with food, they forbade marriage.

Now marriage, again, like what food you will eat, what suits your palate because of your physiology, your biochemistry, because of the way you're raised, your special needs for one or the other, none of that has any real significance.

You all figure it out for yourselves. But it doesn't stop there. When it's set forth as a scriptural teaching, when it's set before you as, let's say this is a better way to get to Christ, seven steps to greater strides of sanctification or something like that, it never seems to stop there.

And they forbade marriage too. This matter of choice, you may marry or not as it suits you. Did you know you have freedom in regards to marriage? Get married or don't get married. Do as you will. God gives you the freedom.

Now, there are, according to Scripture, certain aspects of the relationships between men and women and certain products that men and women can have that can only be done within the confines of marriage, and there we have no freedom.

If we wish to proceed in that way, you must be married. No choice. But within those parameters of Scripture, you have freedom. And someone who tells you, I forbid marriage, oh no, we can't get married because remember what Jesus said about how disadvantageous it would be when he comes back to find yourself married and all these other things?

No. That's not just a silly little error. That's not just a mistake. That's putting before you and saying, this is bad. Don't do that. When the Scripture says, on the one hand, you have freedom to do it or not.

On the other hand, if you do, you enter into an honorable estate which God holds high. It's not matters of indifference. The heresies don't stop there. They start talking to you about food. Do as you will with food.

Do as you need to do with food. They start talking to you about marriage. Do as you will. And if you will to marry, do it the way the Bible says. It's that simple. What's happening here in Ephesus, I fear what happens so much around us today, even within the church, is what's happening in Isaiah 5 where men call evil good and good evil.

They call light darkness and they call darkness light. Rick Warren has his Daniel plan, 40 days to a healthier life. Has anybody read that? Have you seen that book? Are you familiar with the title? Thank you.

I could only read the intro. I could only really glance through it. He seems to rely quite a lot on Daniel chapter 1. You remember Daniel chapter 1? Have you ever heard of the Daniel diet? What he says is, okay, if we eat like Daniel, then we'll be healthier.

We'll be more biblical. You'll be more sanctified. And by the way, then he tosses in Daniel's prayer life, which is exemplary. But I sort of feel like it's a concession just to make the book seem more holy, seem more sanctified.

And so the Daniel diet, keeping away from the king's food, the rich foods, the meats, if you will, the pastries, the desserts, ignoring the fact, by the way, that the scripture says that after 10 days, Daniel and his three companions were, I can quote it for you, fatter in the flesh than the ones who ate at the king's table.

You see, it's not a health diet that Daniel was on. It was a refusal to take the unclean foods and plus the imagery that that would have of him and his three friends to everyone else. And it was God intervening and miraculously making him look what in that day was the better look through foods that should not have accomplished that better look.

It was God's intervention, honoring Daniel and his friends' faithfulness to him and their unwillingness to give in to the Babylonian culture of the day. Is this a matter of indifference when somebody takes that and says, here's the Daniel diet?

You'll be healthier, you'll be happier, you'll be more sanctified, or you'll lose weight, you'll be like Daniel, you'll be able to pray more consistently. It's a terrible mangling of the scripture. Ultimately, it's a calling good, but the scripture in that case doesn't call evil but doesn't agree with what is being purported.

There's no prescription for our diets. It was never presented that way. So never mind what the Spirit expressly says. Give you a whole prayer life out of an obscure line in the midst of a genealogy, give you a diet out of a prophetic book where we're supposed to fall down in awe before a God who could do that for those boys in that day.

They were young at the time. In 10 days, through those foods, and say, what a God Daniel served. What a God I must serve. That's the conclusion we should have after reading Daniel 1, not the rest of this gibberish.

Never mind what the Spirit says. Let's sell books. Let's hit people at their weak point. Today we would call that body image, and let's wrap it all up in the guise of biblical instruction towards the image of Christ.

Hypocrisy, Seared Consciences, and the Role of the Church

The men of Ephesus were no different than our false teachers today. They were and are hypocrites. Chapter 3 of 1 Timothy gives the necessary character traits of pastors and deacons. Everything a pastor should be that we covered last week, these men, these false men, were not.

Everything a pastor is, everything Paul says, this man who desires this good work, this noble work, he must be of this character. These others were completely the opposite. They pretended to be right, but it was a facade.

It was an act. They were hypocrites. Where a pastor or a deacon was to be the husband of one wife, the false teachers were promiscuous, which might explain the prohibition against marriage to make, well, never mind that.

They're hypocrites, owned by the one for whom they speak. Paul said that they had seared consciences. Searing is a brand of ownership like what you see in the Western shows when the steer gets branded for that particular ranch's brand.

It shows who owns it. Their consciences had been given over to Satan, the father of lies and the master of the hypocrite's act or art. That's what it was. It doesn't mean it was cauterized and therefore the nerves were damaged so nothing could get in or out, though that has some merit to it.

No, it's a brand of ownership. It's showing to whom their consciences, their way of life, from whom their teaching came. Demons from the pit of hell. How do we guard ourselves? How do we watch out for our teaching?

Well, one of the great attractions of Reformed churches generally is we have a high view of the history of the church's common assent to what the Scriptures mean. Now, we're not ruled, for example, by the Puritans, but we hold them in high regard.

Why? Because their teaching is held up. Because we can read what they said and we can take it back to the Scripture and say, that's a good explanation of that passage or that verse or that word. That helps me.

I understand God better. This passage, the whole Scripture, makes more sense because of that teaching, that book, that commentary, that theological analysis, whatever the case is. In our tradition, we hold the history of the church high.

Not as high as Scripture. Not nearly as high as Scripture. Nothing approaches that. But we have a high regard. You all know what I mean by that. That's a guard. That's a protection that we have. More important than that, the common consent of the members of the local church.

It's you, the members, nation of priests, the holy priesthood, here at Providence Bible Church. You're part of the guardrail against wrongful teaching as you know the Word, as you hear and discern the errors, as you in a godly way confront the errors.

You know, the Bereans really are our example. Anytime we're talking about something like this, Acts 17 is a good place to go. The Bereans are our example. We follow them, the Berean example, when we hear with circumspect and discerning ears.

Now one thing that's often missed there, if you want to turn there to Acts chapter 17, there's something in that. As I brought them into my notes for an example for you, I want you to see. Acts 17, 11 is where it says, they, the Bereans, they received Paul's word with all eagerness.

You see, the preaching of the gospel of God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ sounded good to them. And you can almost hear them talking to each other. They say, hey Mordecai, this sounds great. Let's get baptized and forgiven.

And sure is the answer. It does sound good, but let's make sure that that's what the Scripture says. Let's be sure he's right. They heard it with all eagerness. This was sounding good to them. Though it's much higher than simply presenting the Daniel plan or the prayer of Jabez or any of these other things.

He's preaching, Paul's preaching Christ to them. But even at that, even with this wonderful good news that all the Scriptures that they knew, the Bereans were Jews, all the Scriptures that you have point to this great event and person.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who died for your sins. And the Bereans said, this sounds great. Let's slow down. Let's send Paul away with a good handshake. Say, you know, get yourself a room for a little while.

We're gonna mold this thing over. We're gonna open up the Scripture without you there because it's a little too intense. We're gonna look it over ourselves and see if these things are right. And praise God.

Hallelujah. They said, yeah, these things are right. And a lot of them were converted. We miss too often that they slowed down, that they're unwilling just to jump into something. In the second half of verses, the second half of verse 3 and then verses 4 and 5 is the protection we have from the wrongful teaching.

If we take this in conjunction with the Bereans who slowed down and thought it through, not just thought it through with their minds, with Scripture opened, it helps us. A lot of what we deal with today is more subtle than false asceticism.

Health, wealth, and prosperity gospel still entraps people with empty promises. Liberation theology still has its appeal. Promising deliverance from all the social ills of this life. Nothing to say about the life to come.

The heresy in Ephesus has 2 ,000 years ago had a broader application than just ascetic abstinence. Listen again to what Paul says they were denigrating. It was marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Marriage, Food, and the Goodness of Creation

You see, I said at the beginning, creation plays a large role in Paul's thought much larger than I had at first realized. See, God created these things. The word is ktizo, ktizo, K-T-I-Z-O sort of, to create.

It's only used of God's work of creation. What God created for our good, they say, no, it's bad for you. If you abstain, you'll be better off, you'll be more holy, you'll be more sanctified, you'll lose weight, be healthier, happier, have your dream.

That's specifically about food, but it could apply to marriage as well. Marriage, like food, was made by God for our good. Genesis 2 credits God with both of these. Providing a creation that will feed the man that he made, excuse me, will feed humankind and marriage.

The foundation of all relations between a man and a woman. The only context for children and all that leads up to them. Marriage is the basis for households and for society. How dare anyone seek into a church and prohibit what God provided for the good of people.

And not just the church, all the world benefits from marriage where marriage is held in any state of honor. Little as it is in many cases, but still something God created for good. So here's a question we can ask ourselves when considering this new diet or 40 days to a healthier you or seven basic principles to a better employee.

Ask yourself, does it claim scripture as its basis? And if so, beware. Commentaries and theologies are helpful as men of education and knowledge help us understand God's word. But these how-to books are of another type altogether.

I don't throw them all out. I don't say that they're in and of themselves as a class of literature. Wrong. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, slow down like the Bereans did. Take a look at it and be sure you know what you're being taught.

Look and ask, what does it say about God's good gifts to me? And proceed with discernment. Proceed with your book, God willing, get help from it. Find the answer you're looking for. The book is here and open.

And as it's doing good for you, follow it, but keep this one, this book open at the same time. Ask yourself whether it calls something, anything other than what God does. And that's really what I just said a moment ago.

You know, one of my personal beefs is with Proverbs. Men too often will present them as ironclad promises, guarantees, or laws, when what they are is observations on generally the way things work. They're guiding principles given to us by the wisest man who ever lived, saved Jesus Christ himself by Solomon.

But they're only principles. Raise a child up in the way he should go and he shall not depart from it. Boom. That's it. If I do this, he or she will be that when all it is is a principle. If you raise your child in a godly way, if you teach them about Christ, if you raise them in the fear and the admission of the Lord consistently, the general principle is you will have a godly seed and they will not depart from it.

Is it a guarantee? Heavens no. Ask yourself if the scriptures aren't already expressly clear. More often than a method, what we usually need is simple obedience and determination to do what the word already plainly says to us to do.

You see, it's a creation principle. Not an ordinance as we had in chapter 2. The principle is simply that God created everything good. He did it and he gave it to us for our enjoyment and for our good.

And ultimately, it's all for his own glory. But where Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 31, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. He means the way we partake of God's good gifts in this life now.

As you partake of vegetables, if you like vegetables, if you're convinced that you're better off with them, take them. Enjoy them. To the glory of God who gave them to you. If you're like me and you like to see a big pile of vegetables with a big piece of steak and a big lump of mashed potatoes on your plate, enjoy it.

And give thanks to God for it. Because for both of us, for all of us, that's the reason he made it. He gave it for our good so that we give thanks to him, the good God who for our good gave us good gifts.

Sanctification by the Word of God and Prayer

Well, the last two verses give us some direction. Any swamp we wander into can be exited by following this compass point. Everything created by God is good. We talked about that. Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

It is sanctified, say some of our translations quite well, by the word of God and prayer. Do you want to grow in holiness and sanctification? Is this going to be too simple for you? Do we need to get a book and follow a procedure and get 40 days to get to this other point?

Here is something that Paul says right here in the scripture. The Spirit expressly says, the food you take, the marriage you are in, the job you have, the children, your parents, sanctified by the word of God and prayer as we give thanks to him for it.

What is the purpose of all these good gifts? That we give thanks to him and as we give thanks to him, the activity for which we give thanks, the food for which we give thanks is sanctified. And as it's sanctified, are we not growing in sanctification?

As it's made holy by the word of God and prayer, as we take this holy food, as we enter into this holy marriage, as we go to our holy job because it's sanctified by God, do we not become more like that as we truly from our heart acknowledge that it's God who gave it to us?

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Paul's no less exhaustive of everything created by God is good. And the reason for it all, to grow in holiness and sanctification, give thanks.

Give thanks to God for it. We're not especially vulnerable here to fads and crazes and part of the reason is that we're small. Part of the reason is we're intimate with each other. We know each other so well we can challenge one another.

We tend here to be biblically knowledgeable and conservative which makes us suspicious of anything not written by someone who hasn't been dead for at least a couple of centuries. All things we receive in faith with thankful prayer are made holy because when we thank God for them we're fulfilling his purpose in them.