The Motivation for Godliness, Part 1

One of the main reasons why the spiritual is subject to the material is lack of content. Dr. Tony Evans says we can't get to godliness if we're not content with God's goodness. The contented man is the man or woman who knows that God is acting on their behalf. 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.

Every day, we have the option to respond to our circumstances with either griping or gratitude. Today, Dr. Evans explains why the choice we make affects much more than the way we feel as he explores the motivation for godliness. Let's turn to 1 Timothy chapter 6 for today's lesson. We have defined godliness as a lifestyle that is consistent with the character of God. Godliness does not mean perfection, but it does mean growth in consistency, where we are both desirous and functioning in a way that reflects who God is, a visible demonstration of what He is like. We have explained that you can be religious and not be godly, like a baby with a pacifier who thinks he's getting something but getting nothing.

They're being faked out by something non-nutritional just because it feels good in their mouth. That's what church is for a lot of people. Because they suck on the pacifier of religion, they think they're being nourished spiritually, when actually they're being fooled and faked because there's no benefit that is accruing to them. Godliness is a lifestyle that is consistent, both desirous and functionally, reflecting the character of God. Your soul, whether you know it or not, is begging for godliness. It's begging to be filled with more of God. And because the soul is not being filled with godliness, you wind up with a starving soul, a soul that is nutritionally deprived of what it is longing for once it has been converted and the Spirit of God moves in it for experiencing more of God's presence in the soul. He has called the mystery of godliness, one of our previous sermons, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

To put it another way, all you need to be godly you already have. And he calls it a mystery not understood in the Old Testament, but has been revealed in the New Testament. But there's a problem.

It's a big problem. Because there is one thing above all other things that interrupts our move toward godliness. Among all the things that will hinder, limit, distort, deny our desire and pursuit of godliness, one thing reigns above all. And Paul tells Timothy, both for himself and both for the congregation at Ephesus, to make this point clear. Now, as we get into our study today, some of this will be a little uncomfortable.

Some of it will be a little stretchy. Somebody may even walk out, I don't know. But at least argue with the Word of God and not with me. He says you want to be godly because there is a high profit margin in it. At the end of verse 5, godliness is a means of great gain. The word gain means profit. A profit is the difference between your income and your expenses.

It's that gap that gives us our profit margin. He says the reason why you ought not to be small thinking when it comes to godliness is the profit margin is a whopper. Not only a good profit, he says it's a great profit. So anybody who's interested in making a profit, and I'm sure everybody here is, he says then you ought to be interested in godliness because with it comes a zinger, a high profit margin, great gain. But he says the thing that gets in the way is when you use godliness as a means of gain. The end of verse 5.

You see this a lot today. People using religion for money. Prosperity theology. Not prospering, prosperity theology. Where you're using religion for the monetary benefit you can get out of it. Look at all the things folk want to be blessed with and how much of it involves money. Either money itself, I want to raise, I want a better job, or things money can buy. I want a bigger house, I want a bigger car, so let me go to church to get my blessing.

Let me be more religious so that God will give me more money. So they use money as, or they use this camouflage of godliness for the financial benefit that will accrue to them. This thing called materialism, or what he calls in verse 10, the love of money. Not money itself, we'll explain this in a moment, but loving for it, and it goes on to say longing for it. Loving it and longing for it is the one thing that will black you from moving to godliness. Now I know I've upset some folk already, but stay with me here. Loving it and longing for it will put a stop to your move toward godliness.

So he spends his whole chapter dealing with this subject. Now I know many will immediately say, I don't love money. I date it, I fantasize about it, I scheme to get it, but I don't love money. Well, let's define materialism, the love of stuff, or money, or what money can buy. It is when the physical stuff has a greater priority than the spiritual. You are a materialist or a lover of money. I am a materialist or a lover of money when money or the stuff it can buy takes precedence over the spiritual. Or as Jesus said, when I don't seek first the kingdom of God and let all these things be added to me. My priority is flipped.

Well, let's break it down, break it down, break it down. You are a materialist that is a lover of money if you spend more time complaining about what you don't have than giving thanks for what you do have. You are a lover of money if your financial life is going up and your spiritual life is going down. You are a lover of money if you compromise spiritual principles to gain a profit. You are a lover of money if you're praying more for the growth of your cash than the growth of your character. You are the lover of money if you treat people better who have it than people who don't. You are a lover of money if you rob God of his tithes and offerings in order to pocket all you get for yourself. All of those are illustrations of people who love money because loving money is not a feeling.

It is a function because love is an act you do, not merely a feeling you have. So if you love money based on that definition of the spiritual becoming secondary to the material, if you love money, you have just blocked growth and godliness, which means you have stifled a greater profit margin. Because, he says, godliness, when done right—well, explain that in a moment—brings great gain. Some boys one day went into a department store and they wanted to be mischievous, and so they switched tags. They put the tags of the expensive garments on the cheap garments and took the tags of the cheap garments and put it on the expensive garments. So people were paying a lot of money for junk and a little bit of money for excellence because they had switched tags. Our culture has switched tags. They have made the valuable things look cheap and the cheap things look valuable, and we have spent our life into that which doesn't offer us great gain, but actually distracts us from great gain. Because the material has been made secondary to the spiritual. This can happen in church. Churches can get into this thing of putting down people who don't and raising up people who do. Because somehow, so often, our attitudes shift. Ecclesiastes 5.10 says, He who loves money will never be satisfied with him because it'll never be enough.

He'll want something more and more and more. One lady said, anybody who says that money won't bring you happiness doesn't know where to shop. Because there is this idea that I can pay my way or buy my way or have in my pocket enough to make me happy.

And yet when you look at the age of people who are committing suicide, you look at the fights of people as they go up, their marriages break up and all this other stuff, evidently the tags have been switched. And we have settled for less gain in removing ourselves from the primacy of godliness, a lifestyle consistent with the character of God. So if you really want to make a big profit, because I'm discussing here today great gain.

I'm not discussing puny gain. If you want to really make a profit, he's going to tell you how to do it. He says, here it is, verse number six, But godliness actually is a means of great gain, that's a high profit margin, when accompanied by contentment. If you want your life to be a high profit margin and not a wasted limited profit margin, then a marriage needs to occur between your pursuit of godliness and your contentment in life. Lack of contentment will stifle godliness.

The presence of contentment with the pursuit of godliness will give you a profit margin that will blow your mind. Dr. Evans will expand on that thought when he returns with more of today's message in just a moment. First, I want to let you know about a book Tony's written that goes hand in hand with what we've been learning today. It's an in-depth study of the attributes and characteristics that make the Lord who He is, called God Himself.

The more you learn about God, the more there is to worship. This book will deepen your sense of awe as well as your understanding of God's nature, His values, and His heart. And it's yours as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution in support of Tony's ministry. As a special bonus, but through tomorrow only, it will come to you bundled with all four full-length messages in Tony's current teaching series, In Pursuit of Godliness, a glimpse into the meaning and mystery of godliness that will give you the motivation and means of loving a life consistent with God's character. Get all the details and make your request right away at tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. We'll come back with part two of today's lesson right after this. It was my first time meeting Jesus in the Bible. That's what one student is saying after studying bibliology through the Tony Evans Training Center taught by renowned theologian, Dr. Tony Evans. These online courses feature compelling and exclusive video and audio teaching, plus an interactive scripture-based curriculum you can access online or through the mobile app. Sign up now at tonyevanstraining.org. Take a course with Dr. Evans and explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere.

tonyevanstraining.org. One of the main reasons why the spiritual is subject to the material is lack of contentment. Contentment means inner sufficiency in spite of external circumstances. Hebrews 13 verses 5 and 6 says that the contented man is the man or woman who knows that God is acting on their behalf. Contentment is not complacency. Contentment is being at ease where I am until God allows me to go beyond where I am.

It's being at rest where I am. We live in a world that has as its full-time job making you discontent. You don't have nice enough clothes, you don't drive a nice enough car, you don't live in a big enough house, you don't hang out with the best kind of people, and they are always comparing you with the Joneses in order to make you feel less content with where you are. Nothing proves we're discontent like the amount of bills we owe when we use money we didn't have to buy things we didn't need to impress people we didn't know.

So we accumulate this debt out of discontentment because the media and the Joneses have said, you gotta have it, you better have it, you need it, you want it, you need it now. So we raise children who are discontent because God has children who are discontent, who are never at rest where they are. 1 Samuel 2.7 says God makes poor and rich, and contentment has to be learned. Philippians 4, 11-13. Paul says I've learned to be content.

How do you learn? Paul says the way I learn to be content is that God would lift me up and then he would take me down. Sometimes I'd be doing good, sometimes I'm barely making it, and God let me go through the ups and downs to teach me to rest in him whether it was up or down.

So you teach contentment not by always having it all, but by barely having it all and learning to be okay there. It reminds me of the story of the New York businessman who wanted to get away from that hustle and bustle and he just needed to be by himself and get some rest. So he flew to Mexico and went to a little Mexican town far away, you know, from all the high-tech stuff. And he went out, walked on the beach, just wanted to relax a little bit, came across a Mexican fisherman. The Mexican fisherman was having a siesta right there in the middle of the day, so he struck up a conversation with the Mexican fisherman. He said, tell me who you are.

He gave him his name. He said, what do you do? He said, oh, I fish. He said, well, are you off today? He says, no, I went out fishing this morning and I've caught my allotment for the day, so I'm just kind of chilling right now. He said, well, you just caught your allotment for the day? Yeah, and then I'll come back out tomorrow and I'll catch my allotment for tomorrow. Well, how many fish did you catch? He told him.

He said, well, you know, I'm an investment guy in New York. Based on what you told me today, if you would double your workload, then what you could do is you would have a greater profit. When you did that long enough, you could buy additional boats. When you did that long enough, then you could build your own cannery. When you did that long enough, all the other fishermen would then have to come to you. When your cannery got big enough, then I could connect you in New York with folk who do that, who would expand your market share.

When they expanded your market share, then you could go public with your new business. Mexican guy said, well, and then what I do? He said, well, then you could relax on the beach and chill.

He said, well, isn't that what I'm doing right now? Because we live in a world that wants to make us discontent. But those, verse 9, who would get rich fall into temptation, harmful desires which plunge men into ruin. Verse 17, instruct those who are rich. In one verse, he says, folk who want to get rich. In the other verse, he says, tell the folks who already are rich. If I were to ask a show of hands, but I ain't trying to embarrass nobody, how many folk in here want to be rich? If you told the truth in shame of the devil, probably the majority of the hands would go up. If I ask another group to raise your hand who already are rich, probably fewer hands would go up, because most people probably don't believe they are rich.

First of all, let me make you feel good before I take you down. First of all, God is not against being rich, because he says, instruct those who are rich, and not only instruct them, but watch this at the end of verse 17, he says, which God richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. So if you are rich, however we define it, and I'm getting ready to find it in a moment, it's okay to be rich if you're legitimately rich, and God expects you to enjoy being rich.

So God is not against being rich, and if you are legitimately rich, he says, God wants you not only to enjoy it, but to enjoy it richly. Because we need to determine who's rich. Most people define rich, or usually can't define it, because they're measuring rich against the standard of somebody who makes more. So if one person makes $100,000 and another person makes three, the three is rich, the hundred is not.

One person makes three, another makes six. The six is rich, the other not. Because it's a moving target in the world.

It's not a moving target in the Bible. So we're going to find out who the rich folk are here today. Because the issue is not money, the issue is godliness, but he knows that money, materialism, gets in the way of the pursuit of godliness, or can get in the way when you love it.

Not when you have it, but when you love it. Now, who's rich? Here it is. Here it is. Hold on. Verse 8. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. Godliness with contentment brings great gain.

Stay with me. And if we have food for our stomachs, clothes on our back, covering over our head, shelter, with this we should be chilling, at ease, at peace, calm. In a recent conversation, Dr. Evans recalled how God opened doors, leading to a path that would ultimately better prepare him for the work that lay ahead. Well, I was so excited about learning the Scripture, studying the Scripture, that I decided to go to seminary, and I planned to go to Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana.

We went up there, found a place to live. I had been accepted, and so that was where we were going to go. Until a professor named Doug McIntosh asked me one day, had I ever considered Dallas Theological Seminary?

And I hadn't. I thought it was going to be too difficult to get into there, even though I had studied from many of the professors of DTS in some of my courses in college. So he said, if I pay your application fee, would you at least apply? And, you know, I did apply. I didn't expect to receive anything because it was late in my year of graduation, so it would have been too late to be accepted.

But when he paid and I applied, they provisionally accepted me. And then in consultation with my wife, it was decided that it would be better for me health-wise as well as community-wise because Winona Lake is a little small community as opposed to Dallas, a big city, urban city, where I could interact more with the reality of issues of the day. And because I was acquainted with so many of the professors there through my study and the reading of the books, we decided to go to Dallas. So in 1972, we got in our green nova and drove from Atlanta to Dallas Theological Seminary to continue our biblical training. Dr. Tony Evans, reflecting on 40 years of God's faithfulness to the ministry of the Urban Alternative. Some activities in life are of fleeting significance, while other pursuits can return benefits that go on and on. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans will explain why practicing godliness falls into the latter perpetual rewards category. I hope you'll join us. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.