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FBC Travelers Rest sermon from November 24, 2024 by Pastor Rhett Burns
We can turn in your Bibles to First Timothy chapter four. First Timothy chapter four will be in verses six through 11 this morning. After this morning, we'll put a little, you can put your bookmark in First Timothy and we'll come back to First Timothy after the first of the year.
The next several weeks will be devoted to our Advent series, Knowing Christ. And then we'll be back in First Timothy in January. But this morning, we're in verses six through 11. And this passage is closely related to the passage that we saw last week.
And of course, that makes sense. It's just the next paragraph. It's the next paragraph in Paul's thought. But last week, we read about Paul's warning against the dangers of asceticism. Asceticism being the belief in practice that we can take the high road to godliness by means of abstention.
We saw that it was religion expressed purely in the negative and that it had demonic origins, that it struck at the fatherhood of God, the work of Christ on the cross, and hindered the work of the spirit in our hearts.
This is all we saw last week in verses one through five of chapter four. We saw how people tend to use this outward aesthetic religious practice, practices as a fig leaf cover for their real sin, thinking that their stringent practices in a few areas of life will earn them God's favor or expunge their guilt for their sins in other areas of life.
Then we saw the affirmation of God's good gifts to us, the affirmation of God's creative world, that every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if received with prayer and thanksgiving.
And so we saw that God gives us earthly things like marriage and food for our joy, for our delight, and for our good. Now, one potential danger of that message from last week, there's a ditch we could fall into on that side of the road.
One particular danger is to then overcorrect from that aesthetic danger and then go into the ditch on the other side of the road, which is throwing off all wisdom, all caution, all discipline, steering out of legalism and into license.
And by license, I mean that antinomian, that is anti-law way of life that shows no regard for constraint, no regard for discipline or obedience. And so what we're gonna see in verses six through 11 here should be a guardrail against steering our lives into that ditch.
Should be another guardrail for us. And so let's read 1 Timothy 4, verses six through 11. And God's word says, but if you, not but, if you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed.
But reject profane and old wives' fables and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that is now and of the life which is to come.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end, we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of those who believe these things command and teach.
I want us to focus on four words in this passage, mainly. We're gonna go through the whole passage, but I want you to really focus on four words in verse seven. If you don't remember anything else, remember these four words from verse seven.
Exercise yourself toward godliness. Exercise yourself toward godliness. This is the heart of the passage. This is the heart of the whole letter that Paul is writing to Timothy. We've said it countless times since we've been going through 1 Timothy.
The theme of the book is church order for godliness. And Paul repeatedly and in many different ways returns to these instructions saying, watch your life and doctrine closely. In other words, be godly.
In fact, 13 out of 15 mentions of the word godliness in the New Testament, 13 out of 15 of those are found in what's called the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Nine of those 13 are found in 1 Timothy.
Godliness is the theme that Paul is writing on. Godliness is what Paul is emphasizing for the church in Ephesus, and he's emphasizing towards Timothy as he leads that church. He wants them to be godly.
But we need to understand what godliness truly is. Kent Hughes, in his commentary on 1 Timothy, notes that godliness is not some static, stained-glass windows, pristine, inactive piety, but rather that godliness is active.
He says it's kinetic obedience to God that rises from a reverent awe of God. That is, godliness must be lived out in the real world. It's not simply upturned eyes and folded hands. Rather, Hughes notes that godliness is Isaiah-like action that has a man, all struck by God, rise from his face, saying, here I am, Lord, send me.
It's awe, and then action. For only God-struck doers of God's word can rightly be termed godly. And so one who just merely sits around waiting for the Lord to come back isn't necessarily being godly.
Rather, he or she, according to station in life, according to the strength that God's given them, should actively be obeying God in order to be rightly called godly. Godliness is active. Godliness is lived out.
Godliness is not passive. And this is why verse seven tells us we must exercise yourself towards godliness. You can't sit around and wait for it. It doesn't come upon you like a thief in the night. When you least expect it, no, godliness comes to those who train for it.
And that's the meaning of the word exercise in verse seven. Some translations go ahead, and they translate the phrase as train yourselves for godliness. Train yourselves. So you can picture an athlete training for competition, putting in the work.
And that's our model for godliness. We must put in the work. We must show up. We must train for it. I think Philippians two, verses 12 and 13, really help us kinda get a picture of what we're going for here.
There Paul writes, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.
And so here in Philippians two, we're told to work out our salvation. That is, we're to put in holy effort, train, to exercise ourselves towards godliness. But don't miss the second part of that. For it is God who works in you.
We work out what God works in, and we can't work out anything that God doesn't work in. And so that's partially the error of the aesthetics. The aesthetics, they were all in on effort, working out your salvation by outward means, but they had it backwards.
They forbid what God permitted because they were trying to work for their own salvation. They were trying to do it in their own way. But true godliness is rooted in God's grace. Grace is the lifeblood of godliness.
We see it in First Corinthians chapter 15, verse 10, where Paul says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace is my grace. His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which is in me.
Paul worked harder than everybody, he said, but it was not him, but it was the grace of God that worked within him. Grace fuels godliness. So this morning, I want to exhort you towards training for godliness by God's grace, exercising yourself towards godliness by God's grace.
If you miss the by God's grace part, it's going to go sideways. You're going to try to work your way to God by the sweat of your own brow. It's not going to work. You're going to end up feeling guilty about that and in despair.
You can only get there one way, and it's by the grace of God. So don't miss grace. And by grace, I don't mean the cheap version of it that just, that so often permeates Christian culture, the kind of grace that sweeps in under the rug as if it's not a big deal.
No, I mean real grace from God, the work of his spirit that strengthens your soul and produces the real fruits of godliness in your life, the real grace that actually deals with real sins and puts them away, far away by the blood of Jesus.
See, the mistake of the aesthetics was thinking that this real fruit of godliness could be produced from the outside in, meaning the outward practices could somehow lead to true inward godliness, but the teaching of the Bible is that godliness is inside out.
That is, everything proceeds from the heart. Now, this does not mean, as some pietists today would suggest, that only the heart matters, and we never apply what's in our hearts out in the real world. But it does mean that we must first cultivate godliness in our hearts, because what proceeds from our hearts proceeds out into the real world.
And so we must cultivate true godliness. And so I want us to see from this passage, we use Kent Hughes' metaphor and kind of breakdown of the passage, where, verses six and the first half of seven, we see the diet for godliness.
Do you use that metaphor? And then, verses second half of seven through 11, we see the discipline for godliness. So you can think about an athlete. He has his diet and he has his training. I want us to see both of those in this passage.
Let's begin with the diet for godliness. Verse six says, if you instruct the brethren into these things, you'll be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed, but reject profane and old wives' fables.
We see here that the good minister of Jesus instructs the brethren in these things, and these things, that two-word phrase there, what is that referring to? Well, it certainly refers to the previous paragraph where he's talking about the dangers of asceticism, but it most likely refers to the all of Paul's letter so far, everything that he's instructing on.
So his instruction to teach no other doctrine from chapter one, his instruction to avoid fables and endless genealogies, his teaching to love and to rightly use the law, his explanations of the gospel, his charge to Timothy to fight the good fight, his instructions for prayer and worship, instructions for men and women in the church, including who may and may not teach and exercise authority, the qualifications to hold church office, whether pastor or deacon, the instructions for how one ought to conduct himself in the church of the living God, and the mystery of godliness that you find in that ancient hymn there, the end of chapter three, all of this is in view, and Timothy will teach all of these things, that he'll be a good minister of Jesus Christ, and he and the church will be nourished, well-fed, strengthened by the doctrine which they have carefully followed.
The diet for godliness is the nourishing word of God as taught in the doctrine of the church. This is where godliness comes from. True godliness is rooted in God's word. True godliness is fueled by sound doctrine.
Therefore, the doctrine of the church is important if we are to be godly. We must know what is true and what is false about God and the world. We must be fluent in God's vocabulary and his words and how he teaches about the world and about himself.
We should be able to tell just the basic outlines of the history of the world, which means we must be familiar with the whole Bible. We should be well-acquainted with his attributes. We should be able to talk about the basics of the doctrines of man and God and sin and salvation in the church and our place in the world.
This is why we're going through the Baptist faith and message on Wednesday nights, because we are nourished by God's word and the sound doctrine of the church, but also know that it's not enough. It's not just about knowing the doctrine.
I mean, the demons know the doctrine. They shudder. Knowing's not enough. We must be doers of the doctrine, doers of the word to be godly. And so see the end of verse six where it says, we nourish in the words of faith and of the good doctrine, which you have carefully followed.
We must know the doctrine and carefully follow the doctrine. In other words, we must obey it. But knowing sound doctrine, or by knowing sound doctrine, you can then filter out what is false, what is not edifying.
See verse seven, it says, reject profane and old wives' fables. And so part of the diet for godliness is rejecting the bad teaching. It's rejecting the junk food. It's rejecting that which is not edifying, which is not real.
So it's a lot like dealing with counterfeit, right, if you deal with counterfeit money, the best way to spot a counterfeit $100 bill isn't to be an expert in the counterfeiting process, which constantly changes to be an expert in the real thing.
And so be an expert in a real $100 bill, you'll be able to spot the fake. In the same way, we wanna be experts in the real Bible teaching, in the sound doctrine of the church, which church has held to for ages and ages, so we can spot the fake.
We can reject the junk food. We can reject the false teaching. We can reject the things that don't seem to fit, that don't seem to rhyme, that don't seem to, things that just seem off. We can cast that aside.
Continue with that metaphor of physical training. An athlete's gotta know what to eat and not eat. He doesn't eat Snickers and potato chips all day long. He's gotta get his protein and his veggies, right?
Same way with us in our spiritual lives. Reject the profane and old wise fables, the endless genealogies, the trivial matters, that Paul warns about. We need to stick to the diet of God's Word and sound doctrine.
Feasting on God's Word. So let me ask you, do you read the Bible every day, or most every day, regular? Do you read the Bible regularly? I would say that a daily or a regular practice of reading God's Word, intake of God's Word, listening to it, and a regular practice of Lord's Day worship, those are the two things that you'll see more spiritual fruit from than just about anything else.
Not that any of the other spiritual disciplines and things aren't good, but the foundation, daily or regular intake of God's Word and Lord's Day worship. I'm not saying you shouldn't do anything else, that if you'll only read your Bible and come to church, that's all you need to do, far from it.
What I'm saying is that if you truly want to be godly, that is, to be like God out in the real world as you go about your ambitions and your duties, then you can't skip the regular intake of God's Word and the regular meeting for worship with God's people.
They're the foundations of which all other godly disciplines are built. So let me encourage you, read the Bible. Not just a couple of verses and then somebody else's two pages of devotional thoughts about it, none of it, just read the Bible straight up, regularly.
You'll see a ton of fruit from that. Prioritize meeting with God's people on the Lord's Day. You'll see a lot of fruit from that in your lives. That brings us to verse seven, second half of it. In verse eight and following, where we find the discipline for godliness.
Exercise yourself toward godliness. Paul contrasts this with physical training. He says, for bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that is now and of that which is to come.
See, physical exercise does the body good, but only temporarily. You'll still get old, your muscles will atrophy, your metabolism will slow down. Eventually everything breaks down and eventually you die.
Part of life in a fallen world. Physical pursuits are good, however. It is good for you while you are on this earth and in fact, physical often images the spiritual and there's a relation between the two because we're both body and soul.
So physical pursuits are good, but they're limited and they're temporary. Godliness lasts forever. Godliness is profitable for all things. Godliness is profitable when things go well for you in this life, the promise of the life that is now.
So that all the good things of this temporal life, they're imbued here and godliness is profitable for those times. It is profitable for the life which is to come, which is eternal life. For only the godly will inherit eternal life in Jesus.
And godliness is also profitable for times of hardship. When we labor, verse 10, when we labor and suffer reproach. For when we suffer afflictions, whether from life in a fallen world, from suffering disease, suffering persecution, suffering from the sins of others committed against this, whenever we suffer afflictions, we will act in accordance to our hearts.
And so if our hearts are godly, then our godliness will shine through in those afflictions and will bring glory to God. Our godliness and suffering will fill up what lacks in the afflictions of Christ that Paul talks about in Colossians 1.
That's always been a puzzling passage for me, talking about what's lacking in the afflictions of Christ. And what's lacking? I mean, there's nothing atoning, there's nothing of atoning value that's lacking in the afflictions of Christ.
What could Paul be referring to there? I think it's the fact that the crucifixion happened in time and space and in history, like a particular time in history, such that 2 ,000 years later, Christ has already died on the cross, we couldn't physically see it.
And so when people, when Christians suffer with Christ in this world now, and they suffer well and faithfully, they're giving a visual witness to the sufferings of Christ whom we suffer with. And in those moments, our godliness is profitable to us and to them as they see faithfulness and the hardship by Christ.
Now, what does it look like, though, to train for godliness? Well, it looks like cultivating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, contentment, diligence, generosity.
It looks like taming one's tongue and speaking words that build others up. It looks like worshiping God with reverence and awe. Godliness entails the cultivation of all of these virtues. Remember, it's positive.
It's religion in the positive, not in the negative. It is a cultivation of these traits of godliness, these traits of God. It also entails putting away sin, greed and envy and avarice and malice and short-temperedness and biting words and gossip and hatred and strife and lust and laziness and the like.
So there's this putting off of the old man and putting on of Christ. We read about this in Colossians chapter three. We put off and we put on. It's not enough to just put off those sins, though. We actually put on and cultivate the virtues mentioned above.
In other words, godliness is a particular, positive way of life that follows Jesus. Godliness is large-souled living. You need a fat soul. And you get one by feasting on the rich food of God's Word. And it cultivates godly character in your heart and your soul.
And it cultivates these virtues in your heart and your soul. And they live out in your life. Let's end with verses 10 and 11. For to this end, we labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.
These things command and teach. Life is full of hardships and sufferings. We fight our way through them on the way to godliness. We may be betrayed, we may be hurt. Our names may be sullied. We may face grave illness.
We may face unexpected loss. We may be mistreated. And the circumstances of our lives may just be the regular kind of horror that we face in a fallen world. But we can meet all of these challenges with godliness because we trust in the living God who is our Savior.
And so let me close with this exhortation. Trust in the living God. And let your trust in the living God cultivate virtue that comes out in your lives. Trust in the living God. And because you trust in him, live like him.
Train yourselves for godliness. And in the hard times, your godliness will shine through like the noonday sun, giving the light of Christ to all around you. Let's pray together. Our Father, we see in your word that we are to be godly.
And Father, we ask that you would give us grace to be godly. But also recognize that in any group of people, there's gonna be those of us who are dealing with various sins. We look at our lives and we look at the standard of godliness and we look at our lives and we see a big gap there.
We see just how short we fall of that standard. And we confess that we haven't been godly. We've been worldly and we've been selfish. Father, our only hope is Christ. And so we come to you now asking that you would forgive us of our many sins, that you would set our feet up on the rock that we might walk with you from this point forward, obeying your word and exercising ourselves towards godliness in the days ahead.
And so Father, we ask you to give us strength. We ask you to have mercy on us and to give us grace. That you may be glorified in our lives. And we ask all of this in the name of Jesus.
