You know, one of the biggest practical challenges I have as a pastor is people coming to me saying, basically, how do I become a better Christian? I've got things in my life that I want to overcome.
I just don't know how. How do I become a better Christian? You know, I want to overcome lust and porn.
How do I overcome this stuff? I've got a bad temper, and as a Christian, I want to get over this thing. How do I get over my anger problem? I want to be a better spouse. I want to be a better parent. I want to overcome this addiction to alcohol or pot. I want to start controlling the things I say.
My mouth gets me in trouble. I want to be a better Christian. I just don't know how. And so, basically, what you're saying is, I want to become more godly. I want you to remember two words. Don't ever forget these two words. How do you become a better Christian? How do you overcome these things? How to become the person God has called you to be and be a more godly person?
You ready? Here are the two words. You train and you trust. You work hard. You make a concerted effort to discipline yourself and overcome these things. And, number two, you trust in the power. Look, you've got a resource living in you that those fellows out in the world don't have. You've got the Holy Spirit living in you. And you trust in that power of the Holy Spirit. You train and you trust. And Christians generally fall on one of the two extremes.
Either they say, I'm going to train hard. I'm going to grip my teeth and try harder and overcome this stuff through my own power. That's a bad extreme. The other extreme, and some of you hyper-graced people are into this thing, I'm not going to try at all. Because if you try, that's legalism.
You're going back under the law. I'm not going to try. I'm just going to let go and let God. Modern grace preachers and the deeper life movement, they teach this kind of stuff.
One modern grace preacher, and if I told you his name, about 80% of y'all would recognize his name. He says this, quote, effortless change. It sounds impossible, yet that's what the Word of God reveals about how the kingdom of God works.
It's just effortless. That's unbiblical. It is not effortless. I can give you 50 passages in the New Testament that talk about exerting yourself. Things like Jesus said in Mark 9, if your hand calls you to sin, chop it off. Your eye calls you to sin, gouge it out.
That doesn't sound effortless to me, does it you? Run from sexual immorality, 1 Corinthians 6, 2 Timothy 2. Fight, stand strong in the faith, Ephesians 6.
Fight the good fight of faith. Run the race, 2 Timothy 4. Put forth every effort, 2 Peter 1, 3. Resist Satan, 1 Peter 5. Labor, work hard in the Lord. Run the race hard, Hebrews 12. Over and over and over again, the Bible is saying this is not effortless.
You better exert some stuff. In fact, I love the Pentecostal movement. I love the baptism of the Spirit.
I love all that good stuff. Can I tell you the biggest danger in the Pentecostal movement, and it's not weirdness, it's not whatever. The biggest danger is do you think I can come forward, have some kind of experience with the Holy Spirit, and then that's it. Problem solved.
Problem ain't solved. I believe in the encounter of the Holy Spirit, but that's just the beginning of therapy. The Christian life is a life of training and exerting and discipline and working hard. We see that in 1 Timothy 4. We've been going through 1 Timothy. Now, 1 Timothy 4, verse 7, Paul is talking to a young man. I'll tell you what, this has messed me up this past week because I was kind of thinking, yeah, I've done pretty good.
Pastor, a good church, a good solid church. I've done a lot. I'm 50, 51 years old.
Then I did some research. The apostle Paul was about 55 years old when he wrote this. The guy had already won the world for Jesus Christ, planted churches, the greatest missionary in human history, and he was about my age.
I started feeling really bad about myself. You know, I always read these things, and Paul seems like some old guy with a long beard writing his stuff. He's my age when he's writing his stuff, whatever. All right, so he says to this young man, 1 Timothy 4. Timothy, refuse godless myths fit only for old women. On the other hand, train yourself for the purpose of godliness, for bodily training 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 saying and deserving of full acceptance. For this, we labor and we strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of believers. Look at verse seven. Paul says, hey Timothy, if you're going to get godly, refuse godless myths fit only for old women. We're not quite sure what Paul means by that, but I do remember like when we go visit senior citizens in their homes, these sweet little old ladies, they'd have these like little statuettes of cherubs, you know, guardian angels, and a little poem about a guardian angel, and a little frame poster of why was there only one footprint because that's when I carried you, and they'd have all these like sweet sentimental, you know, like one paragraph devotional things, and the apostle Paul seems to be saying to Timothy, that's not going to help you get to be the person you're called to be. The Christian life does not consist in putting up angel posters around your house and a sweet little devotional thought.
He says, Timothy, it's a lot more than that. You have to fight the fight of faith and discipline yourself for godliness. In fact, Raymond Edmond says this, ours is an undisciplined age. The old disciplines are breaking down. Look at this, we need the rugged strength of Christian character that can only come from discipline. Your two minute sermonettes preached to a bunch of Christianettes won't do it in these last days. There has to be strong God driven discipline. And so here's what Paul says, look, now that you're saved, Timothy, and I say to this to y'all, if you're a born again believer, now that you're saved, you've got to have a goal in life.
What is your goal? Right there he says, your goal is to become a more godly person. What does that word godliness mean?
I like Jerry Bridges, he wrote a great book called The Pursuit of Godliness. He says godliness is a devotion to God which results in a practical life that is pleasing to him. Another author said this, godliness is the character and conduct that is the result of our view of God. Watch this, how you view God will determine whether you pursue godliness or not. It's how you view God. If y'all think God is this nice old grandfather sitting in heaven, he's got a touch of dementia, he just wants us all to get along with each other, well you're going to live like hell, it doesn't matter because he's just a sweet old God, let's just do whatever we want to do.
If you view him as a consuming fire, the God of the universe, the holy God, the God of righteousness, the God of purity, if you view him as that holy righteous God, that's going to determine how you pursue godliness. Does it make sense? It all goes back to your view of God, but you got to have a goal in life. You can't stay where you're at. There's got to be this goal and this goal is godliness.
That's your goal. I was reading about a guy named Angelo Siciliano, he was 97 pounds, got beat up all the time. He said he was at a beach one time just laying on the beach minding his business and this you know he's a skinny kid there and this bully came up and kicked sand in his face and he said I'm done, I'm through with this. So he found a picture of the Greek god Atlas and Angelo put the picture of the Greek god Atlas on the wall in his house and he said I'm going to become like that and he started working out and getting stronger and stronger and became really the forefather of the modern bodybuilding movement and they called him Charles Atlas. He said I want to be like that Atlas. What he saw, what he looked at, that was his goal, I'm going to become like that. I think we have a picture of him right now. It's hard to find, I went online, I said we got to find a picture of him so people can kind of see but all the pictures of him were shirtless and I didn't want to pull another James River so we got one with him with a shirt on.
So that's Charles Atlas. What he saw is what he became. Spiritually Jesus needs to be your poster on the wall. I want to be a man of integrity like Jesus. I want to walk like Jesus. I want to serve the world like Jesus. That is my goal.
I want to become like him. Paul says to Timothy, listen to me, I want to be a better mother. I want to be a better father, a better employer, a better employee. I want to be a man or woman of holiness, of integrity. That's my goal. Jesus is my poster. He is the epitome of godliness. That is the goal of the Christian life, is to become more like Jesus, that is to become more godly.
Have you noticed this? Look at this chart. I shared this chart with you before. I don't know about your walk with Jesus. Here's my chart of my walk with Jesus. I fail.
We all fail. When you got saved, you turned from your sins and gave your life to Jesus. You thought that was the end. That wasn't the end. That was just the beginning. I repented of my sins. I was part of the fall.
I got saved. For the last 40 years, I've been trying to grow more and more like Jesus Christ. Have you noticed this?
It's not a straight shot. Have you noticed that? You have these seasons where you're just blowing and growing. You're walking with Jesus. You're growing in the faith. All of a sudden, you fall back a little bit. Then you start walking with Jesus Christ. You're seeing spiritual growth. These habits are being broken. Then you fall back. See, it's not a straight line. We have seasons where we're growing.
We have seasons where we fall back. But if you're pursuing godliness, the overall trajectory is upward. I want to become more and more like Jesus.
How do we do that? Look, I told you this story. Some sermons I preach at you. Some sermons I preach at us. This is one of those sermons I'm preaching at all of us. Man, I just want to become more like Jesus. Seriously, I want to become a better pastor for y'all, a better husband, a better father. I want to grow.
How did you do that? Go back again. Remember those two words I gave you? You train and you trust. You see that in this passage. Look at verse seven. On the other hand, train yourself for the purpose of godliness. Look at verse 10.
For it is for this, we labor and we strive. Now, Paul talks about the training right here. Timothy, if you're going to be the person God has called you to be, first of all, Timothy, you train.
Do you see that in verse seven? Train yourself to be godly. That word train, train yourself to be godly, is gunnazzo. We get our English word gymnasium from that. Just like you go to the gym to work your muscles out, you spiritually go to the gym to become a more godly person. Same word.
It's interesting. The word gunnazzo in Greek literally means to exercise naked, to exercise without any clothes on. Look, I believe in taking the Bible literally to a point, and at that point, you don't take it literally. Don't go to the gym tomorrow and start exercising without all of your clothes on, exercising naked. They'll kick you out. Unless it's Planet Fitness.
They seem to hit like every freak show in the girls' locker room there. At any rate, what he's saying is, just like you go to the gym to train physically, you go to God's gym to train spiritually. You train. Do you see that word, we labor, verse 10?
That word is kopos. It literally means to work to the point of fatigue. The Christian life is not always easy. You work to the point of fatigue. Verse 10, for this we strive. The Greek word is agonizo. What English word do you get from that? Agonize.
If you're going to follow Jesus Christ and pursue holiness, it is not always easy. You train. You work to the point of exhaustion. You agonize. Do you see this? You train to the point ... Do you see this?
You train. Then he says to Timothy, but then you also trust. Look at verse 10. For it is for this we labor and strive, look at this, because we have fixed our hope on the living God. God says, you're not on your own.
I'm not saying you go try to earn this. God is saying, it's not you, it is we. I am with you. My spirit is with you. My power is with you.
Chad, I know you messed up, but I'm going to come alongside of you and we're going to work on this thing together. Isn't that beautiful? You train and you trust. We see this all over the New Testament.
Let me give you some more examples of this. Philippians 2, 12 through 13, Paul says, look, work out, not work for, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That's training.
For it is God who is at work in you both to will and work for his good pleasure. That's trust. Work out your salvation, you train, but it's God who's working in you. You trust in him. Colossians 1 29, Paul says this, for this I toil, struggling, that's training, with all his energy that he works within me. That's trusting. You train and you trust. 1 Corinthians 15 10, but by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace toward me did not prove in vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. I worked harder, Paul says, that's training, but it wasn't me. It was the grace of God working in me. That's trusting.
Isn't that beautiful? See, this is different than a Deepak show for a self-help seminar. What's that one guy that goes to the airport and they charge us all the money, whatever the big, you pay hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go to a Tony Robbins seminar.
That's not what this is. No, you train, you work hard, but I got something Tony Robbins don't have. I got the power of the Holy Ghost working in me. I train and I trust.
That's how we pursue godliness. Okay, train, but what do you mean? If the Christian life is like a gymnasium, we're in a spiritual gymnasium. If I go to a physical gym, there's going to be workout machines and a regimen that I do. What kind of exercises does God have in his spiritual gymnasium?
Now, I want you to see this. There are two, I guess, exercises. Number one, there are spiritual disciplines. I want you to jot this down. These are some very basic spiritual exercises.
You know what I mean? If you go to a gym, here's your workout routine. The Bible has a workout routine. It's just very simple spiritual exercises. One, just a daily quiet time. If you just do this, if you're not doing this now, if you'll wake up five to 10 minutes earlier every day and just spend five or 10 minutes in the presence of God, I'm just telling you, your pursuit of godliness will go through the roof.
Daily quiet time, that's one of those disciplines. Another one is just intaking scripture. You hear the word of God preached and taught. You memorize the word of God. You love the word of God. Instead of listening to your hippity-hop country trash music all day long, you start listening to good godly sermons and good godly worship music, that whole scripture intake.
That's another one. Number three is prayer, just spending time talking to God. Another one of those spiritual disciplines is what you're doing right now, church attendance. This is a spiritual discipline. It's not easy.
You want to stay in bed. It's rainy outside. We have now come to the point in American Christianity with being a radical follower of Jesus Christ means you go to the church in the rain.
We're now to that point. Spiritual discipline, going to church is one of those disciplines. Journaling. My wife is great at this.
I'm getting better. What I mean by journaling is it's not weird. I'll have my little phone with me and if I hear something in a sermon or the spirit of God speaks to me, I'll just jot that down on the notes thing on my phone when I get home. I've got a notebook and I put these things in just because I don't want to. If God thought it was important enough to tell it to me, I need to think it's important enough to write it down and not forget it. That's journaling. The discipline of sharing your faith.
I want to get better at that. I want to get to the point where I'm the guy that I'm disciplined myself when there's a lost person and the spirit of God is prompting me, I just start sharing my faith. Chad, I'm a little bit nervous about doing that.
I don't want to share with a lost person. What if I scare them off? They're already lost. Where are you going to scare them off to? Hell number one? Hell number two?
Or hell number three? Just start sharing your faith. The discipline of giving. I talked to several strong Christians and I asked them about what happened when they got saved. They said, when we got saved, the pastor gave us two things, a Bible and tithing envelopes, the day we got saved. There's something about that discipline of giving. Jesus said this, where your treasure is, what? There's your heart.
Your heart's going to be right there. When I say train, number one, I'm talking about spiritual discipline. Number one, I'm talking about spiritual disciplines. When I also say train, I mean also in the moment disciplines.
Now here's what I mean by that. Discipline means you get to the point where when that person cuts you off in traffic, where you should go, I just bless him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just in those moment disciplines.
In the past where something didn't go your way, you automatically complained. Now I'm now in these in the moment disciplines. Something hits me and I just keep my mouth shut.
You know what James says? When you learn to handle this, you'll learn to control the rest of your body. It's very interesting. When I am flipping through the TV or I'm online or I'm going down the interstate and there's an inappropriate billboard for the bikini waxing service or whatever and I see that commercial coming up, I turn the channel or I turn my eyes.
That's what I mean by the in the moment disciplines. In fact, I heard Stu Weber talk about this years ago. He said, y'all remember when there's that assassination attempt on Reagan? He said, if you analyze the video, it's a very interesting video.
Reagan is walking to his limousine. You hear pop, pop, pop, pop. He said, if you put it in slow motion, he said, I homed in on one really young secret service agent.
He could not have been on the job that long. When the guns start popping, he said, it's very interesting. For just a moment, you see him start to pull back because that's human preservation. That's instinct. That's instinct. A lead projectile is coming your way. Instinct says, you get out of the way.
He said, in a millisecond, his training overcame his instinct and he jumped toward the bullet instead of away from the bullet. You're going to live the kind of life where your human instinct says, look at that picture. You have now trained yourself to look away.
Look at that online. No, I've now trained myself to look away. When Paul says, Timothy, exercise yourself to godliness. Yeah, there's some spiritual disciplines you pursue. As you go about day by day, allow the Holy Spirit to be your instructor and teach you how to overcome the instinct and be the godly man God's called you to be.
Here's my question. Why should we pursue godliness? I mean, don't you think it'd be easier just to live like the devil? Do whatever you want to do.
If it feels good, do it. I mean, why live a godly, disciplined life? Is there any value to this? Paul answers this right here. He says in verse eight, godliness is profitable, watch this, for all things, since it holds promise for the present life.
Do you see that? And also the life that is to come. He says godliness is good. Timothy, I know it's a challenge, I know it's struck, but I'm just telling you, pursue godliness because it holds promise for the present life.
That's practical living. Listen, you will be a better parent, you will be a better spouse, you'll be a better student, you'll be a better employee if you're a godly man or woman of integrity. Life is better. I'm just telling you, if you're a decent employee now, 100% guarantee you, become an even more godly employee and you'll actually become a better employee. You're a parent right now and you think you're doing okay, you pursue godliness, you'll actually become a better parent. Godliness, a lot of y'all are dealing with anxiety.
I can't help it. I think there's a correlation between the filth that we're living in as a culture and this anxiety that we're dealing with. You become a more godly person, 100% guarantee you, it's going to overcome that anxiety. Proverbs 28 one says, the wicked flee when nobody's even chasing them, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. Practically speaking, life is better when you pursue godliness. Paul says, it holds promise for the present life and he says this, it also holds promise for the life that is to come. Now listen to me, you don't earn your salvation. You're saved and you realize you're a messed up person that deserves hell, but you're saved as a messed up person that deserves hell, but that man hanging on the cross 2000 years ago died in your place, he took your hell for you and you turn from your sins and you trust in the resurrected, living Jesus Christ, you are saved at that point. Listen to me, you tell me you're saved but you have no interest in godliness, you're not born again. You tell me you're born again and you can live like the devil and you can violate the law of God and live like a pervert, the rest of the world, but I muttered some silly little prayer when I was eight years old, you are not born again. The apostle Paul himself says in 2 Corinthians 9 21, I discipline my body, I keep my body under subjection so that I myself am not disqualified. Paul himself said, I want to make sure I'm this godly person that God has called me to be, I understand eternity is at stake, I'm going to continue to pursue godliness because the moment I don't pursue godliness, at that moment I need to ask myself, did they truly give my life to Jesus, am I truly belonging to him? Does it make sense? It holds promise for the present life and the life to come. You know that great theologian, Jocko Willink, you ever heard of Jocko?
He's a former navy seal, he does a lot of leadership stuff. I love this quote, he says, discipline equals freedom. Watch this, I want to become this godly person, I want my mouth to stop getting me in trouble all the time, I want to overcome this lust problem, but I can't. You're a slave. Paul is saying the same thing, Timothy, discipline equals freedom. You begin to discipline yourself to be the godly man that God has called you to be, you'll have the freedom to overcome these temptations, the freedom to live a righteous, godly, holy life, discipline yourself. So many of my brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ are slaves.
You're dealing with the same mess year after year after year. You think you're free to do whatever you want to do, you're not free, you're a slave. And Paul says discipline yourself to godliness, Timothy, that discipline brings freedom. In fact, I wish I could play a musical instrument, all my life I wanted to play a musical instrument. And I really, back in the 80s and I guess early 90s, I got obsessed with a lot of these guitar players like Eddie Van Halen, and I always wondered how could Eddie Van Halen stand on a stage drunk and stoned and yet played this music, this complex music perfectly.
Do you know how he could do that? He had disciplined himself through the years on how to play guitar, he had disciplined himself to the point where it was just instinctual and we didn't want to play the guitar, he'd play the guitar. And Paul says to Timothy, I want you to discipline yourself where godliness is just so instinctual that lust doesn't entrap you anymore, your temper doesn't entrap you anymore, you now have freedom because you've disciplined yourself to godliness. In fact, I love this great quote from Donald Whitney. Donald Whitney says this, godly people are disciplined people, it has always been so. Call to mind heroes of church history, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Susanna Wesley, George Whitfield, Lady Huntington, Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, George Mueller, they were all disciplined people in my own pastoral and personal Christian experience. I can say I've never known a man or woman who comes to spiritual maturity except through discipline, godliness comes through discipline. That's what God's called you to do.
So let's start winding this thing down. A couple months ago I did a little sermon series on the fact that we are soldiers, remember that? That we are Christian soldiers. That as followers of Jesus Christ there's a war going on out there right now.
How many of you can verify that? There's an intense battle going on out there. You're soldiers and I got bad news for you. The closer we get to the second coming of Jesus Christ, the more intense the battle is going to get. And if you don't live a godly, disciplined life, I'm just telling you the battle is going to knock you down more times than you're going to be standing. In these final days we need men and women who are soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ and as the battle gets more intense, being a disciplined man of God, that's going to be more and more imperative. In fact, Jay Adams says this, the fact that so many of us seldom to think about our lives, our problems, our decisions in military terms, in other words we don't look at the Christian life as a battle, that accounts for a great deal of the flabbiness we see in the modern day church.
You're in a battle. The Jewish historian Josephus was fascinated by Roman soldiers. They were the ultimate fighting machine. In one of his writings, he addressed why Roman soldiers were so effective. He said, quote, they conduct military exercises every day with the same intensity of an actual battle.
Why were Roman soldiers the most lethal fighting force the world has ever seen? He said they exercised every day. Do you know the word he uses there? It's the same word that Paul uses right here, Timothy, exercise yourself unto godliness. Man, I'm tired of Satan destroying families, testimonies, and men and women in this church.
I'm tired of it. I want an army of bold, confident, strong, disciplined men and women who are in the word of God. You are in prayer. You have disciplined yourself to godliness that can stand toe to toe against the forces of hell when they come against you.
But I'm telling you, this spiritual flabbiness is not going to do it. In these last days, we're going to have to become more and more disciplined. I asked a special forces guy a little while back. I said, man, what is the key to the effectiveness of the special forces? He says this, in the special forces, we practice something so many times that we in a crisis happens, you don't even have to think, you just respond.
That's it. For those of you who are Civil War buffs like me, I was reading about General Thomas Jackson in the Civil War. Jackson would take on forces two times as large as him and really in the Battle of Chancellorsville three times as bigger than him.
His forces were just basically rural farmers. His biographer talked about why he created or how he created such an effective fighting force. And I love he said, listen to this. He said, his key was discipline and constant drilling of his forces. He said that the soldiers had been drilled to the point where quote, the soldiers legs and arms obeyed before the order had passed from the ear to the brain until obedience became an instinct.
Did you hear that? They had drilled themselves that they had already obeyed before the command went from the ear to the brain, it became instinctual. Enemies going to keep throwing his message.
He's going to keep tempting you. In these last days, it's going to become more and more intense. And Paul is saying to Timothy and cross assembly, you all are soldiers discipline yourself to the point of godliness that where something happens, you know what the Word of God tells you to do and you do the opposite. You drill yourself to the point, cross assembly, that when you see that commercial or that billboard, you change the channel or you avert your eyes, you don't even think about it, it just becomes instinctual. Someone talks bad about you, gets in your face, cuts you off in traffic, you pray for them, you don't think about it just becomes instinctual. Train, but you also trust.
Say it again till somebody gets it. Greater is he who lives in you. That devil who lives out there in that world. You rely on that. It's not just me training, it's the power of God working in me. In the end, don't ever forget this, your salvation is not your responsibility.
It's your response to his ability. God began the good work and he's going to carry it on to completion in Christ Jesus. You all receive that? Stand with me right now. And in a weird day, church has gone off the rails in America. If y'all notice this, we just gone weird and crazy in the church in America. In these last days, I'm praying for a revival of holiness and godliness and integrity and cross assembly. The Bible calls you saints of the most high God.
That means y'all are separated, you are separated, you are set apart. Father, in the name of Jesus, make us bold, confident, holy, godly, men and women. Father, may our lives be lived in such a way that when the world just sees us, they're drawn to you, oh Father. But Father, we admit to you in these last days, we can't stand on we're just not that good, God.
If you don't give us the power, we can't do it. And so Father, in these last days, we just trust in you to work through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. In these dark, desperate times, we simply say, God help, we just need you. We need you. We need you. Hey, does that echo in your heart? We need God.
You can't do it. Hey, can you just sing this to God right now? Just pray to God right now. God, I need you. I need your presence.
I need your power. Let's sing this as a prayer to the Father right now. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Come on, lift us up. I know with you all things are possible. I'm calling on the God of David who made a shepherd boy courageous.
I may not face the life, but I've got my own giants. Oh God, my God, I need you. Oh God, my God, I need you now. How I need you now. Oh rock, oh rock of ages. I'm standing on your faithfulness.
Come on, let's sing that again. Oh God, my God, I need you. Oh God, my God, I need you now. How I need you now.
Oh rock, oh rock of ages. I'm standing on your faithfulness. You put forth some effort and you trust you rely on God.
You know there's another passage that talks about that? Joshua's about to go take on armies and literal, not figurative, literal giants, literal demons, and God says to him, you train. You refuse to be afraid. You trust. I'm going to be with you everywhere you go. And I say to you right now in this crazy messed up world, which is Hebrew for cross assembly, be bold, be strong, be strong. Y'all don't be afraid and y'all don't be terrified of anything.
Why? Because the God of the universe, His Spirit is going to go with you everywhere you go. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we pray, Amen and Amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.
