Scott Wiley here, the executive director of Wisdom International. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. What began as a radio program in a single city has grown into a global ministry now in 16 languages. We're hosting a banquet to celebrate all that the Lord has done, and you're invited. Please visit wisdomonline.
dot org slash twenty five. That's wisdomonline. dot org slash twenty five. There's a link in the show notes. And now here's Stephen with today's message from Wisdom for the Heart.
Paul is emphasizing the spirit's productivity. Peter's emphasizing the believers. Persistent.
So you put the list together, and you have a balanced perspective for a growing Christian. On the one hand, you have the enablement of God. On the other hand, you have the commitment of the believer.
So this is the cooperation between your decision and God's provision. They grow up and live out together in your faith. I want to spend some time with you. Let's go back to the basics. I am convinced that if you got a group of Christians together and told them that you had the secret to spiritual success, they would lean in, breathlessly awaiting, you know, something deep.
Something innovative, something new. The truth is, as simple as it sounds, successful Christian living is experienced by those who never get over the basics. They never get beyond the fundamentals of the Christian experience. I have. Remembered as I studied along this line, one of those legends that comes from the world of football.
It was in 1960 when the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles fought it out. It was a devastating loss, devastating depending on who you were, you know, cheering for. Final sixty seconds of the game, Bart Starr throws a great pass downfield. Time's ticking down. They run one more play.
Time runs out, and they lose. That championship game is is now called the Super Bowl. But the following, my point is, the following summer, 1961, the Green Bay Packers gathered for their first training camp with their coach Vince Lombardi. The team. Was returning players; these are all veterans.
They'd spent, you know, most of their lives living, breathing, eating, sleeping football. This Lombardi walked to the front of the room, holding nothing more than a football in his hand, and the players leaned in, expecting, you know, some really amazing pep talk, you know, before the season begins, something fresh or new, and. Lombardi just held up the ball and then said to the men, "Gentlemen, this is a football." He wasn't trying to insult their intelligence. In fact, one of the players just sort of cut the tension in the room by by saying, "Coach, slow down. You're going too fast." Well, that opening line became then an annual tradition.
And for the next six years, until Lombardi retired, he began the first training session by introducing the men to a football. And after that, he would take them out on the field and walk through the basic rules of the game. He was convinced, and he convinced his players that success on the field would never happen. If they ever forgot the fundamentals, in fact, it's interesting that over the next six years they won the championship five different times. I think of the Apostle Peter in a passage like this one we've been studying, where it says if he draws us into a training camp, and with one word after another reminds us of the basics.
The fundamentals. I want to spend a little time before we address the Lord's table by taking you back to Second Peter one. He's giving us seven words that guarantee success, as it were, out on the playing field of life. If you think that's an exaggeration, let's go back to that inspired guarantee. It's in verse eight.
For if these qualities, these seven supplements, are yours and are increasing, they keep you; they protect you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we've covered the first four supplements so far, starting back in verse. Five, where Peter begins spelling it out.
So let's go back there and get a running start. Verse five, he writes: "Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness." Now for today, and steadfastness, add this one: godliness.
Now, if you're new to our study, we've made the point that. These supplements parallel, to some degree, Paul's list in Galatians chapter five. We call that the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and on nine of them. Paul is emphasizing these qualities as a byproduct of the Spirit's control in our lives. Paul is stressing what the Spirit does.
Peter is stressing what the believer does. Paul is emphasizing the spirit's productivity. Peter's emphasizing the believer's persistence.
So you put the list together, and you have a balanced perspective for a growing Christian. On the one hand, you have the enablement of God. On the other hand, you have the commitment. Of the believer, so this is the cooperation between your decision and God's provision. They grow up and live out together in your faith, your daily commitment to surrender to God, and God's daily empowerment.
Strikes me that you can't win a football game in the stands. Or in the locker room, you got to suit up and get out on the field, and that's the passion of Peter, who says, "Give all diligence." Literally, make up your mind, give it everything you've got.
Now, to add this supplement of godliness to your walk of faith.
Now, what does the word godliness mean? If you've been a teacher. No matter what grade you you know what it's like to have this volume of truth that you got to whittle down into the time allotted. This is a big subject, but let me let me simplify the definition. Godliness means to bring the presence of God into every aspect of your life.
Godliness is the determination. To bring the presence of God into every aspect, every experience of life. This is David, the psalmist, saying, "I have set the Lord before me in all things." Psalm sixteen, verse eight.
So that obviously affects your relationship with the Lord, doesn't it? But it also affects your relationship with others. One New Testament scholar writes that godliness is a Greek word that looks in two directions. One direction is vertical toward God, and the other direction is horizontal toward other people.
So it isn't somebody you know who struts around wearing a halo and people who and ah about how you know godly they evidently are. This word godliness refers. Vertically to a spirit of reverence and horizontally to a spirit of humility toward others.
So godliness is this word that that kind of flavors life. It perfumes all of life, every area of life. That's how Paul uses the word. By the way, over in First Timothy two and. Verse two, where he writes that we might lead a godly life in every respect, in every area, you bring God into the picture.
So what that means is that godliness is not compartmentalized; it's comprehensive. It asks the question: How would God handle that chore? How would God fulfill that assignment? How would God speak to that customer? How would God treat those employees?
How would God talk to that teacher or fellow student? See, true godliness is not restricted to one area of life; it affects every area of life. Nobody can say, "Well, you know, I'm godly on Sunday," but just wait till Monday; the gloves come off. No, it's every aspect. I was really convicted a few years ago when one of my adult children said to me, "Dad, you're the most sanctified man I know." Until you get behind the wheel, I had to take him out of the will for saying.
Now, the convicting truth is that godliness reaches even there. Lord, help us. It's bringing God and His Word into the center of every aspect of life, and it includes, in that order, to begin, to think through, to live by His Word and the Lord Himself in daily conversation. Billy Graham often talked about his father-in-law, Doctor. Nelson Bell, a surgeon, a medical doctor.
He ran a 400-bed hospital in China as a medical missionary, often facing incredible financial needs, pressure from the government, demands, huge staff, emergencies. Billy Graham said his father-in-law would rise every morning around 4:30 and spend two hours in Bible reading and prayer. Didn't do any correspondence. Nothing related to the hospital demands that faced him. Just those basic fundamentals that built godliness.
And Graham would write that everyone seemed to know and sense that he was applying the word of God in every area of his life. It's a great working definition, by the way. Godliness is applying. God's word to every area of life. That doesn't mean fundamentals are easy.
That's why we call them spiritual disciplines and not entertainments or delights. They bring delight, but they are disciplines. They're difficult. Developing habits take time. An effort, and it doesn't mean that your life will get easier with others.
With an attitude of humility, it doesn't mean that every enemy will become your friend, and they're all going to stand there in awe of that godly guy or gal they work with or go to school with. Pursuing godliness doesn't automatically mean you're going to please everybody. Daniel Henderson, we've had him here to speak at our annual church leaders conference, our Shepherds Three Hundred and Sixty conference. He wrote a book that he gave away, and I've been reading it on the godly life. It's a very convicting, challenging book.
But he adds this humorous anecdote about an inability to please everybody. It's about a family who sold their home in the city and moved out to the country. They bought a ranch and decided to raise some cattle.
Well, after they settled into their their new location and bought thirty, forty head of cattle, a friend came to to visit them. As he drove underneath the archway there at the entrance of the ranch, he noticed the name was really long. In fact, it was so long he couldn't read it. And you know before he got through it, so he asked about it, and the father, his friend, said, "Well, I wanted to name it the Flying W, but my wife liked the Susie Q, our sons wanted the Bar J, and our daughter wanted the Lazy C.
So we decided to make everybody happy, and we named it the Flying W Susie Q Bar J Lazy C Ranch." The visitor looked out the window and asked, "So, where are all the cattle?" The father replied, "None of them survived the branding." No matter how hard you try to please, everybody something's going to suffer. That's the point.
Now there are only a dozen or so times this word appears in the New Testament. You might think it would be on every other page. It isn't, and I've studied all of them. But let me just sort of pare it down. Almost all of the usages are by Paul and Peter.
Paul gives us a little insight into the meaning of the word godliness in First Timothy six, where he contrasts. The ungodly, false teacher, with the godly believer, in an interesting way, writes this in verse five. False teachers are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of material gain. By the way, they're still alive and well teaching today. But godliness with contentment is great gain.
We brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
So, in that context, the opposite of godliness is an attitude of ingratitude. The corresponding attitude toward people would be jealousy and envy, wanting what they have.
So, another way of essentially assessing. Whether or not there is growth taking place in in godliness is to ask yourself: Are you growing more content with what God is allowing, or disallowing? Are you spending less time comparing your life with others in the church around you? Let me put it into these three statements: Growth in godliness. Will choose to focus on what God allows you to have.
Secondly, growth in godliness will continue to believe God's love in what He does not allow you to have.
So it's going to choose to focus on what God allows you to have. It's going to continue to believe God's love. And do you doubt that? When he does not give you something good, he doesn't allow you to have it. And then, third, growth in godliness combats coveting what God has allowed someone else to have.
As godliness grows, it's revealed by the spirit of contentment. Godliness and contentment then are like twins who grow up together. There is another. Text that gives us a little commentary on the meaning of godliness. First Timothy chapter four and verse seven, Paul writes, "Train yourself for godliness." For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way.
What Paul does here is he takes us on a field trip to the local gymnasium. By the way, every city in Paul's generation had a gymnasium in. In full swing. In fact, young men whom we would refer to as high schoolers were required, as part of their education, to spend time every day in the local gymnasium.
Well, the word here for train, train yourself, is from gymnas, which gives us our word gymnasium or gymnasium. One author writes, "This word has the smell of the gym in it." The sweat of a good workout, where you pump iron until your muscles burn, but then you do another rep or more, where you run laps until your feet are like lead, and then you choose to run another lap. The apostle Paul is using that word in defining godliness and effectively telling us to bring that kind of determination into the gymnasium where we are training in godliness, where it's a daily regimen. It's the basics that are part of every day. Let me draw from Paul's analogy.
Some obvious conclusions. Three of them. First, godliness is not a weekend hobby; it's a daily workout. Second, godliness isn't an afterthought; it's pursued with single-mindedness. And then, third, godliness isn't an easy target; it's hunted down by those who can't live without it.
Don't overlook the fact that Peter is writing Christians and telling Christians to add this supplement, which is another way of saying it's possible to be a Christian and not be growing in godliness. We might get close, we might give it a shot every so often. That's not the passion Peter wants to build into us. Before we get out on the gridiron of life, I have read that 69 million Americans have a gym membership. I won't ask for a raise of hands.
The average cost is about fifty-eight dollars. Fitness clubs now are raking in about thirty billion dollars a year. Last year, Americans spent eighty-seven. Billion dollars in sports apparel.
Now, obviously, buying a membership in a gym, buying an outfit isn't the same thing as getting fit.
Well, growth in godliness is the same thing. A membership in the church doesn't make us spiritually fit. Buying a Bible doesn't make us spiritually fit. Downloading a Bible app. Hey, look at what this thing can do!
Man, I can put in a word and it gives me the whole. That doesn't make you spiritually fit. Growth in godliness is actually getting into it, working out in it. These basics of personal Bible study, Bible memory. How long has it been since you've memorized a verse of Scripture?
Praying. What does your day look like? Surveying. Financially investing, looking for gospel conversations—these are the basics, and you will never get past them. The question is, will we pursue them?
I don't care how old you are or how long you've been a Christian. The basics make all the difference in your life. One more verse. Peter is going to mention this a little later on in chapter three. We're going to get to it before the rapture, perhaps, and I want to spend some more time on it.
But he's going to talk about how God, at the end of human history, following the final judgment of all the redeemed, is going to literally dissolve the universe in a ball of fire, and he's going to recreate it. And I believe we're going to be able to watch it as he repeats Genesis chapter one. Brand new earth, brand new universe, which we will inhabit forever. In light of that, he uses the word godliness. Peter writes this: since all these things are thus to be dissolved, burned up, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of godliness?
Now I take great encouragement from that. It's challenging. It's also encouraging, and lets me know that we're not going to be on the playing field forever. The battle's not forever. Time will eventually run out, as it were.
But the scoreboard is already determined. It ain't going to change. It's settled forever. You, the believer, win. Completely, irreversibly, eternally.
Amen. Amen. So, in light of where we're heading, don't leave behind the basics. Develop them. Grow in godliness.
In light of that day, this is how we're to live. This day. Pray with me. With your heads bowed for just a moment, where is that area or areas where God's Spirit would say to you as a believer, "Let's get started. Let's get a fresh lap going." And I want you to think for just a moment of what that would look like.
What that would look like tomorrow, maybe today. For just a moment, think it through, and ask for God's enablement as you make a fresh commitment. Father, thank you for this inspired reminder. It's easy to forget the simple fundamentals, overlook the basics. To look for shortcuts, to avoid the sweat of a spiritual workout in your word, bringing you to every aspect of life.
So, thank you for this reminder, this challenge, this invitation to grow into your likeness. We thank you, Lord Jesus, as we prepare for this table of the model you gave us as a man, the God-Man. Your perseverance, your faithfulness, your responses, your words, your actions, your sacrifice—you went all the way. To the end of this great plan, you endured the cross, despising the shame. You bore in your body on the tree our sins, so that we could live in righteousness.
We thank you, Jesus' name. And everyone said, "Amen." That was Stephen Davy, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline.org.
