The Means to Godliness

The reason why so many Christians stay so defeated is their souls are out of shape. Dr. Tony Evans says if we want to spiritually shape up, we've got to follow God's exercise plan.

It is going to require a decision to engage in a workout program to get rid of the flab on your soul. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. While cleanliness may be next to godliness, it'll take more than just a bit of scrubbing to clean up our lives. Today, Dr. Evans explores the means God has given us to become more like Him and the benefits we'll enjoy along the way.

Let's listen. This is a story about a man named Jed. He's a poor mountaineer that barely kept his family fed. But then one day, while hunting for some food, up from the ground came a bubbling crude. Oil, that is. Black gold.

Texas tea. Instantly, Jed Clampett, Ellie Mae, Grandma, and Jethro became multimillionaires. They relocated from the hills to Beverly Hills, and now they were living in the lap of luxury, no longer poor and impoverished. They now had access to all of the fineries of life. What kept our attention week after week after week, those who grew up on the Beverly Hillbillies, was their struggle to leave hillbilly thinking and hillbilly living back in the hills and not transport that old life into their new reality.

They were now living large, but they were acting small because they were still functioning as hillbillies in a place that offered them so much more than the life they left behind. Everyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior has been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. You have been transferred from a place of spiritual impoverishment to a place of spiritual riches.

You have been removed from the kingdom of Satan and have been seated on the right hand of Jesus Christ in heavenly places in the spiritual realm. But all of us know the struggle it is to leave the hillbilly spiritual life behind and partake of the new spiritual realities that have been afforded to us. In fact, we all know what it is to bring the old life into the new reality, the old way of thinking and the old way of living into this new spiritual wealth spiritually that has been made available to us. 1 Timothy 3.16, the mystery of godliness, that is, this transfer that has occurred from the Old Testament to the New Testament, a mystery is something that was hidden in the old that has now been exposed or revealed in the new, and this mystery is the person of Jesus Christ, Christ in you, the hope of glory. This mystery is that in the Old Testament, God was with them.

In the Gospels, Jesus was among them, but you and I now have Jesus in us. And the goal of this mystery, the goal of this reality is the production of godliness in the life of God's children. That the whole point of this salvation experience is to make us godly men and women. We define godliness as a lifestyle consistent with the character of God. Godlessness is a lifestyle inconsistent with the character of God. Godliness does not mean perfection, but godliness does mean consistency, that it becomes normative for us to pursue godliness, to be godly, and to recognize when we are not godly. That's God's goal.

The question on the floor is, how do I get there? How do I arrive at this place of godliness where it's not a theory or a theology, but a reality? How do you become godly?

We know He wants us to be godly. We know there's a mystery, Christ in you. We explain that mystery using the illustration of a washing board and a washing machine. Before washing machines were created, there was a washing board, and you put your human effort forth to get your clothes clean. With the advent of the washing machine, you no longer had to produce clean clothes of your own. All you had to do was deliver it to a power called the washing machine. Whether the washing board or the washing machine both had the same goal to make clothes clean, but they now had a different power. The power with the washing board was your human effort.

You had to scrub. The power with the washing machine is a motor built in to produce the cleanliness that your human effort was trying to produce with the washing board. What God is saying now is that I have given you, built into you, a washing machine so you no longer have to try to produce godliness by your own washing board. That is not by human effort, which He makes the law of Moses, but by supernatural enablement, the washing machine, the power source.

So the question is, how does this machine work? How do I get this cleanliness operating in my life so that I am indeed becoming godly? That is, a lifestyle consistent with the character of God progressively. In chapter 4, Paul says in verse 6 of 1 Timothy, In pointing out these things to the brethren... So, Timothy, as you pointed out to the church at Ephesus, Tony Evans, as you pointed out to the church at Old Cliff, In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of sound doctrine which you have been following, but 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 the promise for this present life and also for the life to come. He says if you want to be godly, you must discipline yourself for it. Discipline yourself for godliness. The Greek word for discipline is the word we get our English word gymnasium from.

It's the same word. You go to a gym to get in shape. You don't go to a gym to create muscles. You go to a gym to build the muscles you already have. You don't go to a gym to create a heart.

You go to a gym to work out the heart that you already have. So the gym is designed to develop your physical attributes that you already possess. He contrasts your gym experience for the physical body with your gym—the word is gymnasium— your gym experience for your spiritual life. God wants you to get your soul in shape. And getting your soul in shape through spiritual exercise is your gym's responsibility. The reason why so many Christians stay so defeated for so long day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, is their souls are out of shape. Just as the body, when the body's out of shape, you're going to huff and puff going up the steps. You're going to have flab where you don't want it.

Because you have not, we have not, exercised the body sufficiently in order for it to be in spiritual enough shape to handle what's being thrown at us and producing sinfulness in us. Now, one thing is true about working out. How many here know you need to work out?

Most hands are going up. One thing you know, and that is there's a big difference from intending to do it and doing it. We work up intending to get on the treadmill, intending to go to the gym. But all of a sudden, the thought of that extra 15 minutes or 30 minutes in bed overrules our recognition that we need to work out and the intent to work out. So let's get this straight. Your workout regimen for godliness has to go beyond good intentions.

It's got to go beyond good desires. It is going to require a decision that you want to engage in a workout program to get rid of the flab on your soul. Unfortunately, most Christians are satisfied with one weekly workout on Sunday morning.

They will come in for a workout session on Sunday morning. But you know that if you have a trainer and you go once a week, but then the rest of the week you do opposite from what the trainer told you, you just wasted your workout session once a week. So what most of us do is go to a spiritual workout session on Sunday and then go to the donut shop on Monday, canceling out whatever workout routine we did on Sunday, turning it into merely a religious exercise. Now let me say a word before we get to the gym. We're going to get to the gym here, but I want to say a word about godliness, verse 8.

Bodily discipline is only profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds the promise of this present life and also for the life to come. He says for you to exercise to go to the gym for the working out of your soul is better than going to the gym and working out your body. He says physical exercise, gym, is profitable for a little, but on the other hand, the reason why you need to go to the godliness gym is because godliness is profitable or beneficial for every aspect of your life or what he calls all things, your finances, your relationships, your marriage, your parenting, your career, your debts, your physical health. If you get this gym workout right, it covers everything.

If you just go for the body, it only covers the body. So first of all, we get ready to give you the exercise. God's got a little workout program for you. If you get this workout straight, it will make you better everywhere because it's going to affect godliness everywhere. Dr. Evans will offer some practical godliness exercises when he continues our message in just a moment. Stay with us.

We invest in our marriages, our children, our callings with great expectation. When you get to the harvest, don't give up then. Don't stop praying.

Don't stop working. Don't start asking the Lord and seeking the Lord what he would have you to do. And don't stop believing God for the blessing of bountiful harvest in your life. In the new Lois Evans Legacy Bible study, Seasons of a Woman's Life, daughters Crystal Hurst and Priscilla Shire help you navigate all the seasons of your life in a way that honors and pleases God.

Request your copy of Lois Evans' book and the DVD series and workbook with your gift to the Urban Alternative. Visit tonyevans.org to learn more about how you can get the Seasons of a Woman's Life Bible study package. And I want to quickly let you know that the lesson you've been hearing today is a message from Tony's new four-part series called In Pursuit of Godliness. It's a brief but insightful look at what godliness is all about and how the Lord has provided us each with the ability to move closer to him and in doing so to experience a more outstanding and rewarding way of life. It's a valuable collection of messages, and to make them even more beneficial to you for a limited time, we're making these lessons available bundled along with Tony's popular book, God Himself. In it, he explains that most of us don't stop often enough to consider who God really is and why he's worthy of our devotion. Well, this book is a journey through his attributes, revealing aspects of the Lord's nature and character that will probably surprise you. In a marriage, intimacy grows as spouses get to know each other.

The same is true in our relationship with God. So don't wait. Make a donation online at tonyevans.org and let us send you this double resource package as our investment in your growth. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or reach out to our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 for some in-person help. That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat our contact information for you after part two of today's lesson.

Here's Tony. You and I, if we're going to become godly, must learn to practice Jesus' presence. Everything good comes from God. No matter how small it is, no matter how large it is, it is derived from heaven. And it is to be received, you ought to reject anything that's good, it is to be received with thanksgiving. In other words, God must be brought to bear on everything good in your life. And you are to, watch this, set it apart. That's what sanctify means.

You are to set it apart with the Word of God and prayer. You are now in the gym of godliness. Let's take food. Mostly everybody here, every time you eat, you bless your meal. Lord, thank you for the food I'm about to receive, and the mercy to our bodies, in Jesus' name, amen.

We call it the blessing. What we are saying is, I recognize this is a provision for you. I want you to use this provision in me for my physical well-being and for my nutritional support so that I have the fuel to function. So you set it apart. You sanctify it, and you bring that meal underneath God.

The problem is, we do that with food, but not with everything else. What he is saying is, I want you to bless the Lord God, or what I'm calling, practice Jesus' presence. It means bringing Jesus to bear on everything. Acts 3, verses 12 and 13, says godliness comes from Jesus. Jesus is the dispenser of godliness, and Jesus is in you.

He dispenses out godliness. Over the holidays, over the Christmas holidays, I was sick as a dog. And so I went to the 24-hour Walgreen, and I said, I think you have a prescription here for me. Now, you have to understand, three things just happened. I called on the doctor because my human efforts couldn't fix me.

Not because I wasn't sincere, not because I didn't try. I just didn't know what to do. But I called on a professional who could understand what I was going through, who knew the cause and the cure. He picked up the phone. He called the pharmacy. He told the pharmacist what to get off the shelf that had been manufactured by the manufacturer in order to give to me, to reverse what was going on inside of me so that I would be healed.

So I had three realities working at the same time. I had a manufacturer, I had a doctor, and I had a pharmacist. If you know Jesus Christ, he is the great physician, but he's connected to the manufacturer, God who knows what you need, the pharmacist of the Holy Spirit is to deliver what Jesus has prescribed from the manufacturer called God in order to deal with the mucus of ungodliness in our lives.

These computers are networked. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but you say, well, do I talk to the Father? Do I talk to the Son? If you stay preoccupied with Jesus, he'll make the contact with the pharmacist and the manufacturer. He says if you abide in me and my word abide in you, then you will experience what I have to offer.

But you can't get the benefit of my pharmacy if you're still hanging out with fables or worldly myths. When he called in that prescription and the pharmacist wrote it down, that prescription carried authority with it. It carried power with it because it had written down the name of that which was to deliver me. But the power in the prescription was realized in me when I took the medicine that was prescribed. What was written had power, but it was not transforming until I took advantage of it. I want you to begin, me to begin, us to begin, practicing Jesus's presence as part of our lives, well, how? By bringing him in on everything that is good, because that's what it says. Everything good comes from God, and it becomes sanctified. Now, you say, well, what's that got to do with my ungodliness?

Everything. Because, you know, when you're lifting weights, you begin to get, whoa. When your soul is starting to lift up Jesus, if I be lifted up, your soul begins to get swole. So what happens when you get swole? Old stuff don't fit. So when you start getting swole, old stuff don't fit. Why? Because you're breaking out of your clothes. You're breaking out of your jacket.

Why? Because muscles are now taking over. If you swell your soul through increasing your relationship with Jesus Christ, with a regular workout routine, by bringing him to bear on everything good in your life, because guess what? Guess what that means? That means you're going to be praying all day. Because anything good you're going to be talking to God about, or anything you need, you're going to be bringing Jesus in on. Jesus will not be just there for meals or just there for Sunday. And when you bring beside it the biblical truth or biblical principle, that's why it says sanctify with the word of God in prayer, when you bring those two together with Jesus Christ and you're doing it all day long, that means you're working out all the time. And your soul is becoming swole.

So ungodliness won't fit no more. Dr. Tony Evans, with some encouraging insight on the benefits of practicing the presence of Christ. And he'll come back in just a moment to wrap up today's lesson. But first, don't forget to take advantage of the special resource package I told you about earlier, the four-part audio collection In Pursuit of Godliness, which contains the full-length message you heard today, including portions we didn't have time to share on the air, plus Tony's popular book that explores the Lord's nature and attributes called God Himself. These powerful resources can be yours as our thank you gift when you visit tonyevans.org and make a contribution in support of Tony's work here on the radio and around the world. You can also let one of our resource team members assist you day or night by calling 1-800-800-3222.

That number again, 1-800-800-3222. Every day we have the option to respond to our circumstances with either griping or gratitude. Well, tomorrow Dr. Evans will explain why the choice we make affects much more than the way we feel. Right now, though, he's back to wrap up today's message. You have all, if you've accepted Christ, have a membership in God's gym. The way you work out is to bring Him to bear Jesus, to practice His presence all day, every day. Sometimes it'll be one minute, sometimes it'll be five minutes.

Sometimes it'll be extended, sometimes it'll be 30 seconds. Sometimes you'll speak it, sometimes you'll just think it. But He'll be brought to bear all day, all day and everything.

He's just all over the place. So now what you're doing is building a relationship and not just executing a religion, because you're bringing Him to bear. And then you recite the biblical principle. You recite the biblical truth.

You sanctify with the Word of God as you talk to Him in prayer. And now He's everywhere. He's all over you. He's riding you. And you start to get swole.

And some of the old stuff doesn't fit anymore. God's got a gym membership for you. Oh, by the way, it's open enrollment. Anybody who wants to get in, there's a membership spot for you. Oh, by the way, it's not only a gym membership, it's not only open enrollment, but the price has already been paid. And so right now, through Jesus Christ and the price paid on Calvary, enrollment is there for the power of God's Word to be operating in your life with prayer by practicing His presence on every good thing in your life swelling your soul so that godlessness has to shrink. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.