Training in Godliness

1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1 is where we will start tonight.

1 Timothy 4:1

We have been making our way through the book of 1 Timothy and it will not be long.

We'll finish 1 Timothy and it won't be long after that.

We'll finish 2 Timothy.

Timothy had been getting some instruction from Paul about some qualifications for church

leaders.

He had given some instructions on prayer and some instructions to men and women.

Then he led into the instructions on elders or overseers and then he talked about qualifications

for deacons.

So, we've talked about those things and tonight we are continuing on in 1 Timothy chapter

1 Timothy 4:1

4 verse 1 and he's given him more instruction.

So, let's pray and we'll get started.

Father God, we come to you, we thank you for your good word and I pray that it would be

a good word for us tonight.

It will if we listen to it and I pray that we would, that your spirit would just speak

to us and hide me behind the cross dear Lord, that I would do a good job to bring glory

to you and that we would understand your word tonight and I pray that you just give us a

good few minutes free of distractions and I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, in Timothy chapter 4 verse 1, now the spirit explicitly says that in latter times

some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons

through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seer.

Now this verse is not really clear exactly what he means here when he says the spirit

says explicitly.

Obviously, this was something that through the Holy Spirit God had revealed to Paul and

when that was and in what way that occurred, we don't know.

But we do have the message here.

The spirit says expressly or explicitly, some of your translations may differ there, that

in latter times or in later times.

Now what are those times?

Well some would say that this is speaking about something that's going to occur at the

end times and quite possibly it could be.

However, in the context of what it's saying there, it just says at some later time, at

some later time from when I'm giving you this message, there's going to be something that's

going to occur.

And what he says is that some will depart from the faith.

Now many would look at this passage and say, well in the end times there's going to be

a great departing of the faith.

And a lot of people who have professed Jesus Christ are going to fall away.

And that may be what that means.

However, it may be more of a broad instruction here saying, look, from the time you receive

this message onward, and whatever times come later than this, come after that, there are

going to be some who are going to fall away.

Some who are going to leave the faith.

They're going to depart from the faith.

Now since we've been going through the book of Hebrews for the last few months, we know

that that's a key theme for the audience of the book of Hebrews.

They're Jewish people who grew up knowing the law and were under the law, but then Jesus

came and rightfully so, they came to faith in Jesus Christ.

But those in the book of Hebrews were in danger.

And that's why we see those warnings in Hebrews chapter two, where he says, look, you're drifting

away.

And he tells them in chapter six, he warns them about falling away because they are those

who were in danger of doing just what Paul is speaking of to Timothy saying, look, there

are going to be some who will depart from the faith.

Now as we talked about in Hebrews, there are different interpretations of what that can

mean.

Some would say, well, those who are departing from the faith were never really saved.

But in that case, how can they depart from something they don't know?

So it appears as though they're departing from what they know.

That is some faith that they have come to in Jesus Christ.

And he says, look, there's coming a time later on that you're going to encounter and probably

still encountering that time now, and maybe more so as time goes on.

But there will be some who will depart from the faith.

But what is the reason for those who would depart from the faith?

Well, he says here that some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits

and teachings of demons.

Okay, so there's some false teachings.

There are things that are not true, that are not biblical, that are not good.

Now again, yeah, this could apply to some end times event that's going to occur.

But quite frankly, this can apply to any time throughout the history of God's word.

Because there have always been in the Old Testament and through the New Testament, the

commands of God, the word of God.

But there have always also been those who twist that, who teach something that's opposed

to the word of God, who teach something that is not of God, that is exactly the opposite

of what God's word says.

Now we see that in our world today.

We see many teachings, both from those who profess to be Christians and those who don't

even believe that God exists.

There are plenty in our world today that teach things that are not of God.

Where do these teachings come from?

Well, he says here that these come from deceitful spirits and demons.

So there's some spiritual powers at work, as we see through the scripture.

And I believe that those kind of spiritual powers are still at work today.

And still at work in the lives of people.

And people are hearing something from somewhere, but it's not coming from God.

And that is clear by the things that we see so many people in our culture and society

leading us and telling us to do and arguing for these days.

The issue of abortion is a big one.

It's amazing to me that there are so many people that would lobby for the murder of

unborn children.

That's what it is.

They don't like to use that word, but that's what it is.

That's what abortion is.

To kill a life, and they would deny that it's a life, but it is a life by the power of God,

by the grace of God.

It is a life that is conceived and that life should not be taken.

But yet there are many in our world that would preach things that abortion is okay.

And many other crazy teachings that we see in this world of things that are okay that

we are to accept.

Homosexuality and all this crazy stuff we see in our world about men and women wanting

to transition into the other sex and all these bizarre things that our world would say to

us, this is good and this is okay and this is right.

But the things that our world calls good and okay and right are things that God's word

calls evil, sinful things.

And so we need to understand that these kind of demonic teachings, that these deceitful

spirits are at work in our world today.

And they have deceived many people.

Even some who profess to be Christians and maybe genuinely are.

But even too many times now we hear professing Christian leaders preach and promote such

things that are not of God's word, that are clearly sinful in the word of God.

And so Paul tells Timothy, look, there are going to be hard times that are going to come

at a later time and there are going to be some that are going to depart from the true

teachings of God.

Why?

Because there are going to be false teachings that are going to come in and they are going

to believe these false teachings from these deceitful spirits and these demons.

So there is false stuff being taught all around our world today, both inside the church and

outside of the church.

And so we have to be on guard that we know God's word, that we are not those who are

deceived and fall away from the truth of God's word.

He says here in verse two, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.

So these deceitful spirits and these demonic messages that are coming, they are coming

through hypocrites with no conscience, essentially is what he's saying.

There are some who don't know right from wrong.

When your conscience is seared, there's no conviction there.

Now you may remember when we started 1 Timothy, back in chapter one, a couple of times Paul

said, talked to Timothy about the importance of having a good conscience.

And we talked about that when we were in those chapters.

But the contrast here is that, okay, God calls his people to have a good conscience, but

what about these who are preaching all this junk?

Well, they have a seared conscience.

That is, they are so far gone that what maybe they used to consider or think or be convicted

was wrong.

They are no longer convicted of such things.

Their conscience is seared in such a way that they can teach these crazy false teachings

and not think twice about it.

And so they're hypocrites.

That is, they're putting on a mask.

They're pretending as though they are somebody, maybe even a spokesman of God.

But really all they are is a mouthpiece of Satan in promoting false teachings and lies

and things that go against God's word.

And so oftentimes what we see in our culture today, what our culture calls good, God's

word calls evil.

And what God's word calls good, our culture calls evil.

So we're in this cultural clash.

And this is really nothing new.

I believe this has probably existed for Christians throughout the generations.

There's always this clash.

There are always those who are coming against the word of God and the teachings of God and

who Jesus is.

And so we are just some Christians in the line of many other Christians and others who

will come after us who will have to face these battles and take a stand for God's word and

God commands.

Verse three.

So here are some of the teachings he's talking about here.

They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received

with gratitude by those who believe to know the truth.

Now he gives a couple of examples here of some of the teachings that Timothy might experience

and those around Timothy might experience things that they may hear.

So these false teachers, these hypocrites with the seared conscious, what are some of

the things they're teaching?

They are forbidding marriage and demanding abstinence from certain foods that God has

given us to enjoy.

Now these are two particular examples and maybe these aren't the kind of things that

we're up against today, but regardless of whatever the false teaching is, there's always

going to be some false teaching.

There's always going to be somebody who comes onto the scene who claims to be some kind

of religious guru or who claims to be Jesus himself.

There are people throughout the years, even recently, who are walking here today who have

claimed to be Jesus in the flesh.

There's one guy I believe he goes by the name of Lightning Amen and he claims to be Jesus.

I think he's still alive in California and he teaches all kinds of crazy stuff.

And if I'm not mistaken, maybe one of the things he teaches is forbidding marriage.

But you always see these people that claim to be some kind of spiritual guru or somebody

from God and they've got this revelation of this new message or a better understanding

of the word of God that's going to reveal something that people have missed through

all these years and they come up with all this crazy stuff.

And so obviously Timothy was experiencing this.

One of the things he was up against people saying, hey, you don't need to get married.

Marriage is bad or you don't need to eat certain foods.

Now certainly we see that idea throughout scripture.

In the Old Testament, particularly, there were some foods that were unclean.

And then we see in the New Testament the idea of some people didn't want to eat food offered

to idols.

But we also see that God kind of removed that whole clean, unclean thing.

And God said, look, I give you things to eat.

And so we don't have to worry about those types of things.

But there are certainly people who will come with all kinds of false teachings.

Now maybe it's for forbidding marriage.

Maybe it's saying don't eat certain foods or maybe it's some other crazy off the wall

thing.

But we have to be on guard that we don't fall into those traps.

And we may say, I'll never fall into something like that.

But yet people do.

And so we're people.

So we have to be on guard that we don't become one of those people.

You guys may remember, I remember when I was a kid, there was a guy out in Waco, Texas.

Oh, what was the name of their group?

Branch Davidians.

David, David Koresh was his name.

Y'all might remember that.

And they had this compound out there.

And I don't know what all kind of crazy stuff he had taught.

But all these people believed him and it was just a bad deal.

And you see people like that spring up and people listen to those messages and they fall

into those traps and those lies.

And so, hey, that's why we come and read God's word.

We pay attention to stuff like this.

So our antennas will go up and our red flags will go up when somebody comes and teaches

something.

And when somebody says something you're not sure of, we'll go check it.

Maybe what they're saying is right.

But then again, maybe it's not.

Maybe it's not right at all.

And when you check it with scripture, there's your instant answer.

This person is not of God.

What they're teaching didn't come from God or the word of God.

But he says that God created the things, speaking of the food here, God created to be received

with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth.

Okay, so those who believe and know the truth won't believe the lie.

That's why it's important for us to know the truth.

We don't have to know all the lies that we may encounter.

We cannot know.

There are likely millions of lies and false teachings that we could encounter throughout

our lifetime.

We don't have to know what the lies are.

We just have to know the truth.

And when we know the truth, we'll know the lie.

When we know the real, we'll be able to spot the counterfeit.

That's how counterfeiters that are able to tell what counterfeit money is.

They don't spend a lot of time necessarily looking at counterfeit money.

They spend a lot of time looking at real money.

And that way when they see what's fake, those who are trying to spot the counterfeit money,

it jumps out to them because they've seen what is real so much that the fake is easy

to spot.

And that's not how it needs to be for us in God's word.

We need to know the truth of God's word so well that when we hear something that's opposed

to that, that we know instantly.

That's a lie.

That's not the truth of God's word.

We want to be those who know that truth and stand on it.

All right, verse four.

For everything created by God is good and nothing should be rejected if it is received

with thanksgiving, since it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer.

Now this verse right here, we have to be careful of because I suspect that there are many and

maybe even some of us who would use a verse like this to justify a lot of things.

What does it say here?

For everything created by God is good and nothing should be rejected if it is received

with thanksgiving.

All right, so if God made everything, that means I can partake of everything that God

has made.

And as long as I say, God, I thank you for it, it's good.

Well, let's take a couple of steps back here.

There may be a lot of people, for instance, who would use marijuana in an inappropriate

way that might look at this and say, well, this is a plant that God made and it grows

in the ground and so it must be good.

Well, in some way it is good.

There are lots of things that God makes that grows that are good.

There are certainly some good uses that we could see medically, but then there are also

lots of ways for something like marijuana that people don't use it in a legitimate way.

They use it and abuse it in a totally illegitimate way that gets them high as a kite.

And that's not a good place to be because when our mind is not sharp, then we open ourselves

up to all kinds of crazy things.

A beer, for instance, it comes from natural ingredients that grow in the ground, so it

must be good.

Well, beer in and of itself is not a bad thing, but when we become drunk on beer, it is a

bad thing.

So people might would take passages like this and say, well, everything God made is good,

so therefore I can do anything I want as long as I say, God, thank you for it.

We have to be careful.

Everything that God makes is good, but we don't always use everything God makes in a

good way.

And that's the difference.

God makes things good.

There are a lot of things in this world in and of themselves that are not bad.

Guns are not bad.

You shoot somebody with a gun, that's bad.

You shoot a deer with a gun, that's good.

It's providing food for your family.

Oftentimes, the way we use things is the determining factor of whether it's good or whether it's

bad.

And there are many things that God has made and given us for our good, but we abuse it.

So a passage like this is not just a blanket, I can do anything I want because when you

bowl it all down, everything we have comes from something that God made, so therefore

everything that I do and have is good.

Well, not necessarily.

If you don't use it for good, that might not be the case.

But in the context of this passage, he's talking about, hey, marriage is a good thing.

These false teachers are forbidding it.

The food that God gives us is a good thing.

These false teachers are forbidding it.

But look, those who know the truth know that God made all things and all things are good

so long as we use them in an appropriate way in which God has provided them to us.

All right, verse six.

If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus,

nourished by the words of the faith and the good teaching you have followed.

Okay, so this is good advice.

Paul says, here's what you need to look out for, these false teachers and their crazy

teachings, but know what the truth is and know to stand on the truth and teach these

brothers.

Teach your brothers and sisters these things.

It's good for you, he says.

If you point these things out to brothers, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ.

Okay, so it's good for us when we know the truth and the goodness of God's word to help

other brothers and sisters in Christ, to tell them the truth of God's word.

And what is the benefit of that?

Well, it's nourishing.

That's what we see here.

He says, you're a good servant if you point out these things, nourished by the word of

faith and the good teaching that you have followed.

Okay.

So Paul says, there's a lot of bad false teachings out there, but Timothy, you've been following

the teachings of Jesus Christ.

You've been following a good teaching and that's nourishing.

That's a nourishing thing for you and it's a nourishing thing for those that you are

going to encounter.

So teach them what is good, what is true, what is nourishing.

Don't let them be deceived by the lies and the things that will destroy them.

Verse seven, but have nothing to do with irreverent and silly myths.

Rather train yourself in godliness.

Okay.

This is good advice right here.

Have nothing to do with irreverent or silly myths.

Some of your translations might say old wives tales.

What does it mean when it talks about irreverent things or silly things or old wives tales?

What are some of those examples of those things?

Okay.

We may pay more attention to old wives tales than we realize.

There are lots of old wives tales that we give into.

For instance, I can say to you, we just went on a good vacation and on that vacation, my

truck rolled over 180,000 miles and in 180,000 miles in seven years, I ain't never had a

lick of trouble out of that truck.

Knock on wood.

We got to knock on wood, right?

Because if I don't knock on that wood, do you know what's going to happen?

When I get in that truck to leave, it ain't going to crank.

Now that's an old wives tale, but we do that.

We say stuff and we look around.

People see people do it all the time, but I don't do that.

It's silly.

It's an old wives tale and we don't need to do that stuff.

It's silly.

Knocking on wood don't make no difference.

Now if my truck don't crank tonight, it ain't got nothing to do.

I don't believe with the fact that I said that.

But these are the kind of things that we say.

We say, you know, don't walk under a light or don't cross a path.

The black cat is crossed in front of you.

On New Year's Day, make sure you eat black eyed peas and cabbage because it's going to

bring you wealth.

And so a lot of people eat black eyed peas and cabbage.

These things are wives tales.

These things are just, you can look them up online.

You can find hundreds of them.

And there are lots of these superstitions.

That's what a wives tale is.

It's a superstition.

It's something that we think, if I don't do this thing, this bad thing is going to happen.

Or if I do this thing, it's going to be bad luck.

It's fascinating.

It's fascinating.

It's a fun subject to study.

If you look around the world at all the old wives tales from the different cultures, it's

just crazy.

I'll let you do that on your own time.

But there's lots of them.

And there's lots of them that we do and lots of old things that we've done for years that

ain't nothing to them.

They're just old wives tales that's been passed down and passed down and things that we do

that we don't realize that they would be qualified as these silly myths that Paul is talking

about.

These.

Think some of them are old husband tales.

Well, I don't know about that.

We just gonna go with what the scripture says there.

But we understand what the text means when it says old wives tales.

It's silly myths, as my translations would say.

It's things that don't amount to a hill of beans.

So don't worry about knocking on wood.

It's not gonna, it's not gonna be bad luck.

And if you think it is, then well, you need to, we need to get over those types of superstitions.

Those things are not healthy for Christians to think about and worry about.

So what does he say instead of that?

Instead of worried about a bunch of stuff that don't amount to a hill of beans, essentially,

what he says is train yourself in godliness.

So don't worry about trying to seek out a piece of wood to knock on, but worry about

trying to seek out the word of God because that is going to make a difference in your

life.

If you're eating black eyed peas and cabbage, I'm gonna break it to you, it ain't gonna

make a difference in your life.

You've been eating black eyed peas and cabbage for 80 years, some of you.

And have you got wealthy yet?

No, probably not.

We still just doing what we do.

Don't make no difference.

But there is something that does make difference in our life.

And that is living by the word of God and being trained in godliness.

And that's what Paul tells Timothy here.

And that's a good command for us as well.

So he says, train yourself in godliness.

Now listen to this verse eight.

For the training of the body has a limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every

way since it holds promise for the present life and for the life to come.

This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance.

Now he gives a real, real basic illustration.

He says, for the training of the body has limited benefit.

Now we understand the benefit of the training of the body.

There are some of you who may run or some of you who may lift weights or some of you

who may have worked out in some way in the past or may work out in some way now.

And what's the benefit?

Well, it might be to lose weight.

It might be to keep your heart rate up.

It might be riding six miles a day on your Nordic track.

There are all kinds of things that we do.

And why do we do this kind of training?

Because we understand that there is some good for us.

It makes us stronger.

It makes us muscular.

It makes our legs stronger and our arms stronger and our hearts stronger and our minds stronger

exercising good.

So we understand the benefit of exercise.

But what does Paul say?

He says, but exercise, the benefit of that is limited.

So there is some benefit in bodily training, but it's a limited benefit because we can

train all we want to.

And maybe we can prolong the inevitable a little bit, but one day, guess what?

Our strength is going to be gone.

And so even the best bodily training has a limited benefit.

It's going to come to an end one day.

And so he uses that as an example.

He says, look, if bodily training has benefit and only for a little while, then you need

to know that godly training is better than that.

If he calls us to train ourself in godliness, he says it's because it's got an everlasting

benefit.

So when we train ourself in godliness, it is both good in this life and in the life

to come.

And that's the difference between our exercise.

And you can exercise and you can be the strongest man or woman in here in this life, but it's

of no benefit to you in the life to come.

So we should exercise and be in good shape in this life.

And the life to come is of no benefit.

So what Paul says is what you need to do is you need to do something in this life that

will benefit you both now and later.

And what he tells us to do is live a life of godliness.

Now when we live a life of godliness, it is good for us in the here and now.

It helps us to trust in God.

It helps us to do the things that God calls us to.

It helps us to stay away from the things that God wants us to stay away from.

Godliness calls us to help our neighbor.

I mean, there's a variety of ways in which living a godly life brings joy to us.

Living a godly life calls us to give to others and it's better to give than to receive.

There's blessing in living a godly life and we experience the blessings and the joy of

a godly life right here and right now.

There's benefit to that godliness.

But praise the Lord, godliness, the benefit that we have for godliness is not just in

one life, but we experience that in the life to come.

So what does Paul say?

He says, look, you need to train yourself in godliness.

You need to train yourself in what is good and what God tells you to do and what is right.

And that will be of great benefit to you here and in the life to come.

Last verse, verse 10.

In fact, we labor and strive for this because we have put our hope in the living God who

is the savior of everyone, especially of those who believe.

So that should be what we labor and strive for.

We should labor and strive for what?

For godliness so that we can have hope in Jesus Christ, so that we can be strong not

to give in to these false and crazy teachings that we will hear in our world.

And you will hear them.

If you don't hear them, then obviously you don't get out enough.

You don't turn on your TV enough.

But if we get out in this world for any period of time, you're going to be confronted with

some really crazy off the wall stuff that goes against God's word.

But we combat that with godliness because godliness makes us stronger.

It helps us to know the truth.

It helps us to live out the word of God and the work of God.

And when we do that, we find hope in Jesus Christ.

The closer we walk with God, the more we walk in godliness, the more hope that we find in

the word of God.

And so Paul gives Timothy this instruction, both for Timothy's sake and his audience's

sake and for yours and my sake, because we need to be on guard against the same things.

We want to be those who know the truth, that we reject the lies, and that we train ourselves

in godliness.

Let's pray.

Father God, we come to you tonight.

We thank you for these good words.

And I pray, dear Lord, that you would help us to be aware that we would not be deceived

by any false or crazy teachings that our world may say is right.

Dear Lord, our world may try to push things down our throat all the time.

We see them, we hear them, but no matter how much our world says things are okay, if your

word does not say it's okay, then it's not, God.

So let us know sin is sin, and let us know your truth over the lies of the world, over

the lies of the enemy.

Let us be those who are trained in godliness.

God, that's why we come tonight.

We come to hear your word and to fellowship and to sing these songs so that we can train

up ourself in godliness, so that we can know your word better and draw closer to you and

try to live by your word.

So I pray, God, that if there's one in this room that does not know Jesus Christ tonight,

I pray that they would put their faith in Jesus Christ.

As the scripture said in verse 10, he is the savior of everyone, dear Lord, to everyone

who would call on him.

And so God, I pray that you just would help us tonight.

Maybe there's one listening or one here that doesn't know Jesus.

I pray that they would repent and put their faith in Jesus tonight.

And God, maybe there are some of us tonight, and we encounter some crazy teachings and

some crazy stuff.

Help us to know your truth.

Help us to live by your word and to try to train ourselves in godliness.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.