Keep On Keeping On

I want to take you to Bibles, and let's go to 1 Timothy again. If you're visiting today, we're going verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through the book of 1 Timothy. It's a unique book in that it is specifically addressed to a young preacher named Timothy.

Of course, the author was the apostle Paul, the esteemed apostle to the Gentiles. He has left Timothy behind at the local church in Ephesus, and he's, to some degree, giving Timothy on-the-job training. As you're pastoring and overseeing the church, Timothy, here's what I want you to learn. Here's what I want you to understand about how the church is to be fashioned or structured, and how she is to function. We call it the beautifying the bride, because that's what we are. We're the bride of Christ. Today, God's bride is organized into all these local assemblies all over the world. One day, on the day of glorification, we'll all come together as one bride.

But right now, you can't function that way. We are limited to time and space and the finite aspect of mortal bodies, et cetera, so we function in these local churches, that's what Grace Life Church is, and that's what the church at Ephesus was, where Timothy is. And he's receiving these instructions about the church, and these instructions are not just for Timothy, they're for every pastor of every church of every age. But now listen, while we're seeing these instructions to Timothy and to pastors, there's application, wonderfully so, to all of us who care about Christ and care about Christ's church. All right? We come now to a section that I'm entitling, keep on keeping on.

Keep on keeping on. Some years ago, my oldest grandson was about three years old, and he was helping me in the deer woods. And we were walking up a pretty steep embankment. Now, he's kind of a little fella, even for his age, and he was coming up through a place where some treetops had fallen. It was pretty rough. I mean, some of it was three foot over his head. And as we went up through there, he couldn't make it.

He'd get tangled up, and he'd kind of cry out. They call me Dee Dee. Dee Dee, I need you to help me. I said, no, you don't quit. You don't quit. He'd scratch and scramble and work, and he'd take another step or two and kind of look up at me, and I said, don't quit. And so he kept fighting his way through, and he got about through it, and he came to another problem spot, and he looked at me, and I said, what are you going to say? He said, don't quit. And sure enough, he made it all the way back to the four-wheeler, and we came back in.

Of course, I was trying to teach him something of a life lesson. You don't quit when you think you've got to quit. You keep going, and that's basically what Paul's telling Timothy here. Timothy, we don't quit. We stay with the stuff. We keep the faith, the sound doctrine of our forefathers, and we keep on keeping on no matter what's going on around us.

We keep on keeping on. Now, let's look at the text together. 1 Timothy chapter 4, beginning in verse 7. Paul writes to Timothy and says, But have nothing to do with worldly fables, fit only for old women. Now, how do you older ladies feel about that?

Well, I'm going to tell you what. You be a godly and principled older lady, and this don't apply to you. This is talking about weak, carnal, fleshly older women who are prone to superstitions and being driven around by their emotions. We'll talk more about that in a moment.

Have nothing to do with worldly fables, fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, for bodily discipline is only of little profit. But godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all men, especially of believers. So we'll use the phrase keep on keeping on as we outline the text, unpack the text, and find these four points. All right, Roman number one, keep on keeping on following a principled pattern for ministry. Timothy, keep on keeping on following a principled pattern for ministry. Here's his point, principled instead of a ministry that's built on faddish things. Principled instead of a ministry that changes emphasis every five or seven or eight years. Principled instead of a ministry that looks around and sees what the world wants and what the world's demanding the church do and become. Principled instead of following your emotions, what feels right or what looks like it would work or feels good to you. Keep on keeping on, Timothy, following a principled pattern to ministry.

Now, two sub points to put this under. Number one, A will be remember have the spirit of a shepherd. You're not a CEO. You're not just a manager in a secular sense, so you have to manage a lot.

You do oversee a lot. But Timothy, you are a shepherd. He uses the word brethren in verse seven, have nothing to do with verse six, rather. In pointing these things out to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you've been following.

I should have included verse six when I read the text earlier. But he uses the word brethren and the point is these are your brethren. These are your brothers and sisters in Christ that you are pastoring. You have responsibility for these brethren.

They're under your care. You're to be their shepherd. You have been assigned this task as an under shepherd of the over shepherd Jesus Christ. The church belongs to Jesus. They are Christ sheep and the pastor must remember that he is to be an under shepherd to shepherd them according to the will of the chief shepherd, Jesus Christ.

And that leads to a lot of other things we're going to say in a moment and that is that I don't have the freedom. No pastor has the freedom to pastor the church the way he deems his best or effective or to be successful. It's not my church.

It is Christ Church. I am the under shepherd. Being the steward of another another man's property. First Peter Chapter five verses two through four.

So speaks to this truth. Peter says, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily. Now here's the phrase. According to the will of God. So you're to shepherd these people according to God, whose people they are, according to his will, not the sordid game, but with eagerness. Verse three, nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you receive the unfading crown of glory. So remember, have a principled pattern.

Keep on keeping on having this principled pattern. And what is the biblical principle of the pastor? He's a shepherd under an over shepherd. He's an under shepherd under the chief shepherd, Jesus Christ.

Number two. The staff of the shepherd, the word of God, or rather be, I should say the staff of the shepherd, the word of God. If you're going to be principled in your pastoral ministry, you must be a word centered, a word saturated pastor. He says, if you do this, you'll be a good servant of Christ Jesus in verse six. Now, when I say the shepherd's staff, what I mean is the shepherd's staff is the word of God.

And that's what he's referring to here. And as he says, point these things out, he's talking about pointing out the truth of the word to the people. The shepherd's staff is the word of God.

Now think about it. In the ancient world, the shepherd always had a staff. Usually it was long and had a crook on the end. And that was staff was not just a symbol of his position. It was essential to his profession. Certainly essential to how he functioned as a faithful shepherd. Now, as an ancient shepherd, he would use that staff to guide his sheep. He would use that staff to guard his sheep. He would use that staff to protect the sheep.

He may have to beat a wolf off one night in the middle of the night. And he uses that staff to discipline or correct those sheep. And that's exactly what the pastor has to do with the word of God, is the word of God that is my staff to guide you, to guard you, to protect you, and to protect you, or to correct you rather, discipline you.

Look, I don't do this according to my views and my insights. The only authority any pastor has, rather, is the word of God. The word of God. Be principled, Timothy. Don't follow whims and gimmicks and emotions and what the majority feels like. You stay with the word.

Keep on keeping on principled in your ministry. Now, he says here in verse six, in pointing these things out to the brethren. Now, that phrase, pointing these things out, means literally to put under it. I picture my mind the placing of the word under your noses. The old adage of you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Well, that's sort of what's involved here. Timothy, your job is to keep placing the word out there. But they tell us that that won't work anymore, why you've got to be clever and creative. And you've got to bring amusements and entertainments into the church service or they won't come. Timothy, be principled.

Keep putting it out there. You can't make them drink, but the Holy Spirit will take it from there. I pray the Holy Spirit of God put spiritual salt on your palate so that you're thirsty for the living word of God.

The only thing that can feed you and encourage you and guard you and protect you and strengthen you and correct you when needed. Timothy, be principled. Stay with the word of God. Now, in this context specifically, this certainly means keep pointing out these things. The phrase he uses there in verse 6, keep pointing these things out, involves, keeps teaching the truth, the sound doctrine, the word of God, but also keep exposing and refuting the errors that are relentlessly trying to creep into the church. That's errors of doctrine and errors of teaching.

Now, particularly we know from back up in verses 4 and 5, one of the particular errors that the churches were dealing with in that day and then particularly the church at Ephesus was asceticism. People were always bringing into the gospel of grace works. And the reason why they always bring some works in is because we are so full of pride. We all want to feel like we've done something.

We've achieved something. So in this particular context, he said they're bringing in works like, well, if you're really spiritual and want to make it to heaven, you can't be married. You've got to remain single. And if you're really spiritual and want to make it to heaven, there are certain foods you can't eat. And that's probably the old Jewish dietary law teaching that came over into the church.

But don't stop there. There's all kinds of stuff, asceticisms. And it's alive and well in the Baptist and evangelical churches of today. There's always somebody coming along, writing a new book, somebody drifting into the church with their particular viewpoint, and they bring a bunch of rules and a bunch of legalisms in and say, if you're really spiritual, you've got to do this. If you're really spiritual, you've got to do that. If you're real spiritual, you've got to raise your kids this way. If you're really spiritual, you'll raise them that way. Now, these things may be fine and well, and they may not be evil.

They just don't make you more spiritual. And you must do what you feel like God's leading you to do. Listen to me, without condemning your brother who does not hold to that thing, because if it's not clear in the Word, you can't make it a law.

But that's what was happening. Outside of Scripture, they were bringing a bunch of rules and laws. All right, now, verse 6, he continues on, point these things out to the brethren, and then you'll be a good servant. If you keep on keeping on being principled in your pattern of ministry, you'll be a good servant of Christ Jesus. Now, notice, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of sound doctrine.

Now, that phrase constantly nourished is the present active tense of the verb, which means this is continuing action with no end. Timothy, you're to keep on keeping on continually nourishing yourself on the faith and sound doctrine. This isn't something you just did while you were studying at school. Of course, Timothy didn't go to a formal school. He was trained on the job by the Apostle Paul. But he's saying, Timothy, this is something that is, that marks the pattern of your work as a pastor.

Keep on, Timothy, nourishing yourself. Now, when he says on the faith, that doesn't mean like believing on Jesus. It's a different context, rather, and meaning. It means that body of doctrine that was once for all delivered to the saints on which we base our faith, the faith, the teaching, the true doctrine of Jesus Christ. Then he uses the word not only of the faith but of sound doctrine. The word doctrine always means teaching. So one is the body of doctrine you hold to in teaching means keep on teaching it. Hold to it, teach it, hold to it, teach it, hold to it, teach it. Keep on keeping on having a principled ministry. That is, you're constantly nourishing yourself on the Word of God, the true doctrines of the Scripture, and you're constantly giving those things to the children, to the children of the church. Now, what's the point? The point is, especially for young preachers, there is the ever-present pressing.

Pressing may be too light of a word. Pushing, influencing to veer off pure sound biblical teaching and add on stuff from the world in your teaching. That is, add on the latest fad, add on the latest fashion. And that's the kind of thing, and he talks about old women in verse 7, that's the kind of thing that was trendy in that day.

And the older ladies were more prone to be drawn into that. Now, let's go to Roman numeral 2. Well, first of all, let me say this last part of verse 6. He said, which you have been following. By the way, he says, Timothy, this has marked your life ever since I've known you. You're constantly going to the Word of God.

You're constantly nourishing yourself. You're constantly wanting to take the true doctrines of Scripture and teach it to the people. Now, just keep on doing that. Being where I am in the ministry after these decades of ministry and trying to help younger pastors, I think one of the things the Apostle Paul is alluding to is, Timothy, I would have never left you in charge if this didn't already mark your life. Now, make it keep on being the mark of your ministry.

Keep on keeping on pursuing a principled pattern for Christian ministry. Now, Roman numeral 2, keep on keeping on rejecting trendy false doctrine. Timothy, keep on keeping on rejecting trendy false doctrine. You say, pastor, just in the last week or two, you've emphasized protecting the church from false doctrine.

We've heard most of that. Yes, but Paul keeps saying it again. So if Paul says it again, I have to preach it again.

Because I don't get to preach what I want, I go with the text. So he hits it again here, but this time he picks on the old ladies in the church. Now, when I say old ladies in the church, when he mentions old women in verse 7, I don't know that they're actually in the church. They just may be folks associated with the church. It may be common in the culture, but likely some of it was creeping into the church.

And what was creeping in verse 7, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. This means they're ludicrous. They're silly.

They're not worthy of being listened to. Silly old nonsense. So there's all kinds of variety. And this seems like a different kind of false teaching than the asceticism that he was mentioning earlier. So maybe there's a multifaceted element of false teaching all around. And Timothy was to keep pushing that away. Now, when he says old women here, I think he... And in the balance of biblical truth, what he's talking about is not women in general, but those unprincipled, those carnal women, those women that are controlled by fleshly emotions, which is the exact opposite of the manly principles he's charged Timothy to stand on. Can I say to you again this morning that women are unique creations of God. And that women are infinitely superior to men at being women. And men are infinitely superior to women at being men.

I don't care what this godless culture teaches. God made men to be men, and He made women to be women. Hey, we're not backing up on that.

Hey, I'm not taking one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny half back step. We're going to raise our boys to be men. We're going to raise our girls to be women.

The way God describes it. If that's not what you want, you need to find another place to raise your kids. Because that's the only way to raise them. And if they get confused along the way, we lovingly unconfuse them. Amen? Kind of ludicrous, wicked, vile nonsense in our culture.

Three-year-old child, little boy thinks he's the girl, and mama starts giving hormone treatments. This is pure rebellion against the Creator's design. This is wickedness.

How'd I get on all of that this morning? He said, Timothy, there's a bunch of silly stuff coming into the church, and it's only fit for old women who don't know God. You say, what do old women who don't know God talk like? Well, I've got some groups in town I can let you sit around and you'll find out what old women who don't know God talk like. And I'll be honest. At Grace Life Church, I do not know of one woman or group of ladies in our church that I would... And I mean this with all... And I'm trying to cover for myself, because if it was there, I'd tell you. I don't know of one lady or one group of ladies that are not principled and mature in their spirituality.

I am a blessed man. But you understand, Timothy hadn't been here long. I've had 40 years here. So Timothy had some things like that to deal with. Now, so the application for us today is whatever the latest happening trend is, Timothy, don't be sucked into it. Reject the trendy false doctrine that's always creeping in.

And trust me, I've been at this a long time. Every five to eight years, there's a new one that floats through. And I begin watching many of our seminary professors and our college leadership and our leading pastor, they say, whoa, this is the next big thing.

And then five or eight, 12 years later, that one's kind of faded out. Oh, here's the next big thing. There's only one big thing, and his name is Jesus Christ.

He's the same yesterday, today and forever. And we don't need to dress him up in the latest fashion to make his gospel effective to save souls and build the church. I'm not going to go into this deep, but I've talked about this before, and that's this new thing called the social justice movement. And there's some good brothers and sisters who have embraced a part of it, and I think they're going to be fine. And I'm not saying they're heretics, but I would say it's unwise.

I don't think it's best. But the social justice movement came out of the world. It didn't come out of the church. It came out of basically a radical feminist professor, one of the early starters of this movement. And she helped develop the theory called critical race theory, which among other things teaches that you are programmed to be a racist by your culture. So when you're born as a white person of European descent, you're automatically full-born a racist.

There's nothing you can do about it, which is radically unbiblical. And then another theory is called intersectionality, where it says you take all the things in your life that are inherently there because of your station in life, and you add all the intersections of those things. Like, for example, if you're a female, if you come from a minority or whatever else, all of those things intersect, and it puts you at a great disadvantage.

You're a victim, you're oppressed, just by nature, just by how you came into the world. And this stuff is going around, and what they're saying is you must learn from us, God-rejecting, God-denying secularist, how to understand the injustice in the culture. You must use our theories to identify these sins.

Now, they wouldn't use the word sins, but as it comes into the church, we'd be good to use that. You must use our theories we God-rejecting, God-denying secularists came up with. And if you don't act on it, and probably the way we say you're to act on it, then you're not Christians, you don't care, you're bigoted, you're a discriminator, you're just a misogynist and all the other words they tag on you because you didn't fall in lockstep with what we were saying. Now, again, there are varying degrees, I understand that, and here's the argument that comes up, but pastor, they're only using this in the church, they're only teaching this in the schools to be an analytical tool.

It just helps us analyze the injustice in culture so we can help address it. That's exactly what the German higher textual critics said about 150 years ago when the Germans decided, the German scholars said, you know what, we ought to take the Bible and analyze the Bible just like we analyze Shakespeare's writing, and just like we analyze Homer's writings and all the other ancient writings. We can take the Bible, assume our authority over it, and dissect it to see what's real and what's not real, to see what's authoritative and what's not authoritative. And some of our godly pastors and men of 150 years ago said, wait a minute, wait a minute, that came from the world, that's not from God. They said, don't get upset you old timers, don't get upset, we're only going to use this to analyze the text.

It's just an analytical tool. And I'm telling you, history is unequivocally clear. We lost denomination after denomination after denomination, school after school after school, and church after church after church, and as we begin to decide, the Bible's not fully authoritative, we're authoritative over it. We can decide which parts are of God's authority and which parts are not of God's authority.

It was a Trojan horse, and so in many places, this is going to prove to be a Trojan horse. So, I'm talking about this again because Paul is challenging Timothy to not be led astray by trendy false doctrines, and us in the church today, this is one of the latest, trendiest false teachings trying to creep in. James 3.15 shines some light on this. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but it's earthly, natural, and demonic. There is a wisdom, a wisdom that does not come from God, and it's a demonic inspired wisdom. 1 Corinthians 3, 19 and 20. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God, for it is written He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness, and again, the Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless. Notice that. You take the world's wisdom, and God says it's foolishness, and it's useless.

Now, think about that for a moment. 2 Corinthians 4, 4. In whose case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So here are people whom the Bible says have natural, earthly, demonic, quote, wisdom, end of quote, who the Bible says their thinking is foolishness before God, and whom the Bible says their teaching is useless in the eyes of God, and whom the Bible says the God of this world, Satan, has blinded their minds. They can't understand the truth, and yet we in the church are to sit at their feet and say, teach us about justice.

You've got to be kidding me. Let's go back in history. Who are some of the people who said, let's rise up. Let's let the disadvantaged, let's let the oppressed rise up so we can help the disadvantaged. We have the wisdom and the theories.

We know how to fix this now. You know who two of the greatest leaders of that kind of movement were? Lenin and Marx.

And they were two of the most bloodthirsty, brutal, murderous, and executionist the world's ever known. That's because when you try to fix something in the wisdom of man, it always turns around on you. It always turns around on you. So much to say.

Let me show you how their world's approach to fixing injustice is so foreign. Listen to what your pastor says, so foreign to God's wisdom about these things. 1 Corinthians 7, 21 and 22. Paul writes to the church at Corinth and says, were you called while a slave?

Do not worry about it. But if you are able also to become free, you'd rather do that for he was called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord's freed man. Likewise, he was called while free is Christ's slave.

Here's the point. The Bible in no way embraces slavery. What he's saying is in this culture in this day, like the entire world, by the way, about 50% of the population were slaves. And he's saying Christianity is not about some secular emancipation project because if Christianity led a movement like that, what would happen? The totalitarian Roman regime would crush the slavery vote and kill countless thousands of slaves.

It'd be a slaughter. He said, by the way, if you can be free, be free. And Christian principles were embraced always destroys slavery. But this earth is not going to be free of injustice until the just King, Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords returns from heaven and he bears sway on this earth. And if you give yourself to every social evil between now and then, what you'll find is you don't have time for the gospel anymore, which is Satan's ploy all along. So he says to these people in this culture context, in the sovereignty of God, if you find yourself as a man's slave, don't make it the pursuit of your life to be emancipated. Try to, if you can, like Paul helped emancipate Onesimus from Philemon being his master and Onesimus being a slave. Christianity always leads to that conclusion. But in the meantime, we have to function in a fallen world. And we are about something bigger than just social justice and social reformation. You see, if you take 1 Corinthians 7, 21 and 22, there's no way on earth that fits in the social justice theory of critical race theory or intersectionality.

It don't fit. It just blows their mind. They can't grasp it.

They're not supposed to. The Bible says these things are spiritually discerned. We're not of the world, and we are not to sit at the feet of a godless world and say, now teach us how to better the church. It makes me full of righteous indignation just to hear the notion that the church is to submit herself to the godless wisdom of the world to be a better church.

We are not. We submit ourselves to our King of Kings and our Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, and to his infallible word. And that does make us the best agents to bring justice and good in the society, but only as an overflow of our primary work, and that's the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the only real emancipation of any man.

It's such an emancipation. It's such a victory that even if a man finds himself the slave of another man in Jesus Christ, he's free as a bird. You know, some of the things I preach is for the pastors who listen to my preaching. So basically, these social justice warriors of our day basically say that they have superior wisdom over the Scriptures alone. And in effect, they say, leave your Bibles at home, come sit at our feet, and we will teach you wisdom, and then you'll have superior virtue like we have.

The social justice movement is a flower on the stem of radical feminism, postmodernism, and neo-Marxism. It has a secular worldview point. Now listen, it always comes in little by little. Oh, we still hold to the doctrines of the faith. We still hold to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. But right there, I've got a big problem. If the Scriptures are sufficient, why do you need the wisdom of the world, especially when it comes to something as foundational in God's wisdom as justice? I don't need the world's wisdom to know what justice is or looks like. Now, have we seen this before?

I challenge you. Go study the social gospel movement of the 1960s and 70s. Here's what they say. We've got to meet social needs in the community. Of course, the church is concerned about social needs in the community, but they begin to embrace a secular definition and a secular game plan to prove to the world we care, we love, we're concerned, and we saw denomination after denomination after denomination.

We saw school after school after school, and we saw church after church after church. Listen, lose the gospel because as the social gospel, it didn't start out, it started out as social work more or less. Then it became a social gospel because slowly their theology changed to match their practice. And soon they begin to teach salvation includes Jesus plus meeting the needs of the culture.

That is not the gospel. That became their social gospel, but it was a lie. Then we had before that, about 50 or so years before that, we had the liberation movement, liberation theology. Later it became in one segment known as black liberation theology. What was the key of black liberation theology?

We've got to free the oppressed, and Christianity, they would say, says Jesus plus liberating the oppressed. Wrong. Wrong.

It always comes in slow, but it's a Trojan horse. So this is all I'm going to say, and I'm going to move on, all right? Social justice, the movement, broadly speaking, built on critical race theory and intersectionality, these are things that were dreamed up and written by Satan himself, birthed in the world's wisdom, and it is no help to the church being the church. So Paul tells Timothy, in your context, you've got all kinds of fake stuff, false stuff drifting in and out.

Timothy, keep rejecting trendy false doctrine. So if you're young, now when you're my age, I'll be 60 in February. So if you're 40, you're young. And can I just say this tongue-in-cheek, because some of you know my personality, and it's kind of quirky.

You're stupid. Because when I was 40, I was more stupid than I am now. And you're only wise if you say to yourself, I'm 40, and I'm still stupid in some ways. Because I've seen a couple of trends. When you get 60, you've seen four or eight of these trends, and you begin to learn.

You begin to see it from a distance. Say, wait a minute. I'm going to say this again. I know it's gotten my, literally hundreds of thousands of my videos now are going all over the world in social media, and I just thought I was talking to my church, but it's just the truth. Not just Southern Baptist, but the schools depend on enrollment for their money. The more kids they have, the more money they get, and the kids want this stuff.

The young students. And so they bend and twist and turn and contort and work and strive to say, oh, we hold, we hold to the orthodox doctrine of the faith, but we're going to embrace a little of this too. Can't do both.

One of them will start dying. Mark my words. Well, Paul says to Timothy, Timothy, there's old junk coming into the church that's so foolish, only unprincipled, lost, carnal, fleshly women think it's wise. I'm just going to use this right. Well, this dates me so well. Have any of you ever seen the silly little funny movie, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken? Now, come on. Have you seen The Ghost and Mr. Don Knotts?

Go home and watch it with your grandchildren. Do you remember the ladies society that's on there? Remember there's this haunted house and it has a spirit or vibe about it, and the ladies would all get together and they'd hold onto the gate and they'd do some sort of mantra.

Hi-ya-hoo-ya! They'd all just kind of quiver and shake. That's what Paul's telling Timothy. This is the silliest, stupidest stuff, just like old women who don't know God chase after everything out there.

Well, let's move on. Let's go to Roman numeral three. Timothy keep on keeping on pursuing godliness. Pursuing godliness. In verse seven, he says that the last part of verse seven, on the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Instead of chasing the next fad, the next trend, the next gimmick, the next nonsensical teaching that only ungodly older women would be thrilled about. Instead of chasing that, the contrast is, now you, Timothy, you'd be disciplined to walk in what true godliness really is. The word discipline here, when he says discipline yourself, is a word they would use in the athletic environment of the day.

And athletics was huge in the Greek world, like it is today. So they understood that. And so he's saying, Timothy, practical godliness requires a proper cultivation of the mind. Keep putting into your mind true doctrine.

Keep nursing yourself there. Don't chase this nonsense. There's gonna be an endless number of new, trendy, fashionable things come along, and the pastor, and especially the younger pastor, is gonna be exceptionally, or rather, especially tempted to be drawn away by these, because they promise success. They promise results.

They promise numbers. But he must discipline his mind to ignore and refute all those other notions and stay with the stuff, to keep his bearings firm on the course of sound doctrine and sound practice in his own life and in the church, just as his mentor Paul had done. As the apostle Paul gets toward the end of his life, a couple of statements come out from Paul's life, and he says, this one thing I do, this one thing, I don't wait for the next thing or the new thing, this one thing I do, because you know why?

The one thing that matters never changes. Then as Paul ended his life, he said, I've fought the good fight. I've finished the course.

Here it is. I kept the faith. I didn't get pulled off into nonsense. Now, Timothy, you do the same thing. You keep on pursuing true godliness. And he says here in verse eight, as we continue on, he says, because bodily discipline is of little profit. Now, when he says bodily discipline, what is he referring to?

A couple of thoughts here. He could be referring to the asceticism that he mentioned in verses four and five, people denying marriage and people refusing to eat certain meats. That's a bodily discipline. He may be referring to that, or he could just be referring to bodily disciplines like an athlete embraces, or he could be referring to both. But he says here, bodily discipline is of little profit.

No, not no profit, but of little profit. So he's probably referring to actual physical athletic discipline, because I don't think he'd say a little asceticism is good. All asceticism is bad. So he says, it's good to have some exercise and some bodily discipline, because in the Greek world that became a god. They worshiped the body. They worshiped their athletic achievement.

It became an idol. He said, it's not all bad, but don't go that far. It's of little profit. But he says in verse eight, godliness, on the other hand, is profitable for all things. Then he talks about this present life. And isn't it true, the disciplines of godliness sanctifies everything else.

When you're disciplined to keep Christ first, when you're disciplined to walk in the Spirit, when you're disciplined to hold the sound doctrine, not being led astray. It kind of makes everything else fall in its right place. It keeps other things from getting out of their proper place and becoming too important.

It prevents idolatry. It's been my habit this past year as I do my walking was to listen to the Bible. I wanted to listen to the Bible all the way through this year until my phone broke and I got a new phone.

And they always tell you when you get a new phone, everything on your old phone will download to your new phone. Never has yet. Never has yet! Then my family gets it and says, dummy. It comes on there somehow.

I don't have to get it on there. So lately, I hadn't had my Bible listening program because it didn't get over there from the other phone. But I've noticed that, I don't know if you've noticed this, but I'm geared in such a way that I can get into physical accomplishment if I'm not careful.

You know, organizing something, strategizing, achieving a task. That's a good gift if you keep it under the Spirit. And so going out there walking and listening to the Bible, it just helps me understand physical stuff is good, but God's truth and godly discipline is better. It keeps things in perspective. It prevents idolatry. Look at the rest of verse 8. Bodily discipline's a little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, sits and holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. True well-being depends upon the disciplines of godliness because that's when we begin, listen, that's when we begin to apprehend and grasp the abundant life. Some of you may be generally saved, but you know very little about the joys of the abundant life because you don't practice godliness.

As he says in John 10, 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I come that they might have life, they might have it more abundantly. The abundant here means a surplus. It means you have the life everybody else has, but something's been added. There's a spiritual dimension to you since you've been saved, and it fills up the sin hollowness in your life. As you enjoy the sin of the world, it gives you pleasure for a while, but then it leaves you empty. The abundant life's not like that. It fills you, and it doesn't move.

It doesn't flow away. It stays with you. Then you get more and more and more until you're glorified in heaven one day, and it goes all the way into eternity because it never ends. You're going to have the abundant life and enjoy it. Exercise yourself in godliness, Paul says. We do reap what we sow, but listen, in Jesus Christ, you reap while you're sowing, and you reap what you sow.

He says it's good for this present life. You'll find your marriage works better. You'll find your emotions are more in track. You'll find your thinking's clear.

You'll find your relationships are better. You'll find everything just gets better if I walk in the disciplines of godliness. And you get that, and you get heaven too. So the disciplines of godliness are better than any other discipline. Verse nine, he says, it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance.

That is that it's so foundationally true. Christians know this, that to chase after the things of God and discipline ourself in our thinking and our lifestyle to be godly, this cultivates a communion and a fellowship with Christ. It helps us be about the mission of Christ and the purposes of Christ.

Let me scoot on to my final point here. Keep on keeping on, Timothy, hoping in and holding to God our Savior. Hoping in and holding to God our Savior.

Isn't that what he says in the last part there? Verse 10, for it is for this we labor and strive. In other words, here's why we do this laboring and striving to be true to God and walk in true spirituality and honor God in this life. Because we fixed our hope on the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially believers.

That phrase fixed our hope there means to anticipate and almost always to anticipate with joy. He says, we are a people who's been changed by the power of the gospel, and so now our highest pleasure is this anticipation that one day we'll be like Jesus and be with Jesus forever. And we'll have those unending pleasures of learning the beauty, the wisdom, and glories of God forever.

So we can endure stuff down here, the stuff of following Jesus down here because our hope is fixed on him when we get with him there. We can keep on with everything else that God's called us to do. We can keep on keeping on and being principled in our ministry. We can keep on keeping on refuting the false doctrine that comes into the church.

And many people hate us for it, many people ridicule us, think we're too legalistic or whatever, but we can keep on keeping on. We can keep on keeping on because we fixed our hope in Jesus Christ. Then he says he's the Savior of all men. In other words, our God is the Savior of all men.

He's trying to tell you how wonderful and great our God is, so he's worth serving now and he's worth hanging on to for our life with him there later. He's the Savior of all men. And the word Savior here when he says Savior of all men, you got to understand the word Savior in the Bible doesn't automatically always mean eternal redemption. And it doesn't mean that here. God is not saving all men eternally through Christ Jesus.

That's universalism. That's false doctrine, clearly not taught in the scriptures. However, he does have a saving provision for all men that is active now. Matter of fact, since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God in unmerited grace and mercy has been actively saving men since then. All men.

In two aspects. In one aspect, he's temporarily providing for them right now, even though they don't deserve it as rebellious sinners, but temporarily he's providing for all men, is he not? When you wake up in the morning, you have oxygen to breathe. That's God actively saving you today.

When you woke up today, you probably ate something to nourish your body. That's God actively saving you. Those are common graces. He's saving all men. And on and on and on and on, we could go with all the faithful provision of God for sinners who don't deserve it. This is the God we fix our hope on, the God that is so gracious and so loving and so faithful that for all of these generations, since Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden, he keeps extending saving provision to men continuously.

He's actively doing that. But not only that, not only for a temporary time is he giving provision to all men and saving them in that sense, temporarily also he's saving them by holding back at bay the wrath and retribution that their sin deserves. That's another way he's actively saving all men right now. Romans 2 5 says, But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. In grace God undeserved, God is presently actively laying up and storing up your judgment and your wrath that your sinful heart and sinful deeds have earned. But for now, in a saving provision, he's laying them up against you, not casting them down upon you. He's actively saving you from the wrath you right now deserve. You must be ever grateful that he is almighty for the weight of your sin is such that there is already a mighty store of wrath and retribution pressing hard to come upon you and mighty Jesus with arms stretched wide, nail prints in his hands, holds back the wrath of God from immediately raining upon us all. But one day, at the Father's instructions, he will release and unleash the torment of wrath. So Paul says, Timothy, keep focusing on this God, who is such a wondrous goodness in saving provision that he keeps providing, keeps providing for you. Listen to me, when you breathe through the night a saving God provided that breath.

He could remove in any moment he wants. And right now, saving God of infinite holiness and justice has been radically offended by your sin and mighty Jesus is holding back the wrath of God. At least up to this moment. Until the day the Father says, my son, release the justice due. But up until that point, he's saving all men. Then he ends the text, he's the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Now here it doesn't mean one type of saving in contrast to the other.

Here it means one with something else added. So right now, all of you who are believers in Jesus Christ, you're also being saved. You're also being saved like all men. God keeps giving you breath. He keeps giving you oxygen. He keeps letting you have the sunshine. He keeps giving you the rain for your crops. He keeps allowing you to have jobs and a body and a mind to work those jobs. On and on, like all the men of the earth, all of those who believe on Jesus are presently being saved by this daily provision of God.

In addition to that, he saved you from the loss that other men now know of no communion or fellowship with God. Through Jesus Christ, we have the Spirit's indwelling. We have the Word of God.

We have the fellowship of believers in our local church. We have the love of the brethren. We have hope in Jesus Christ. We have all those additional things he's granted us.

Those are saving gifts. We've been saved from living a life without the God and the blessings of God, if we're believers in Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, and here the display of the full measure of grace and mercy comes forth. Thirdly, he saved us by granting us eternal redemption. We have all the salvation everyone else is experiencing, plus our sins are washed away and we will go home to be with God forever in heaven. Eternal redemption. So, he's saving all men, but boy, he's especially showing his saving power for those who believe in Jesus Christ.

They have the saving provision and temporal withholding of wrath all other men have, but they have far, far, far more. So Timothy, here's his point. Timothy, keep on keeping on and being faithful, pursuing godliness. Be principled in your ministry. Keep refuting on false doctrine.

Why? Because we cast our hope on this God, the living God, the Savior of all men, but especially all of us. Who are believers. Now, what's my word to you this morning? Are you listening? Two words. Don't miss this. Wake up. Don't miss this. Here's my word.

Two of them. Don't quit. Don't quit. Keep on keeping on with what matters.