The Resolution Of A Good Servant (December 30th, 2018) - Myles Holmes

You can open up your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 4.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

We're going to be in verses 6 to 10 this morning.

Now, as Mike said, this is the last Sunday of 2018.

There's a script that kind of goes on in our household around this time of year.

I turn to my wife and I say, Amber, in 2019, you're going to be looking at a new mild.

Alright?

Everything's going to be different.

All my bad habits are going out the window.

It's going to be a way better husband, way better father.

You're going to be looking at a brand new man.

And the script doesn't end there in about three weeks.

Amber looks back at me and she says, Hey, where's the new guy?

Where's the new man?

This is the time of year that we often set resolutions, that we often set goals for ourselves, that we often often ask ourselves, well, what do we want to make this year all about?

At the end of this year, at the end of 2019, what do we want to be known as?

This morning, I want you to think about this that there are thousands of titles that you could accumate for yourself over this next year that could stick with you to the end of your life.

It's possible that you could live in such a way that people look at you and they say, hey, wow, that guy's really good with money.

He's gathered a lot of money, or maybe you work really hard this year and you get a promotion, and people kind of see you as this hard worker.

These are all titles that are good and worthy, but there's one title that Scripture promotes above all other titles that as Christians, we are to be pursuing this more than any other title.

There's a resolution that we are to have more than any other resolution.

And Paul tells us of it near the end of his letter, his first letter to Timothy.

He tells Timothy to pursue the most important title he could receive.

And I want you to see it here in verse 6.

He says, Timothy, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant.

See, greatness in this kingdom and in eternity is defined by this.

How well have you served?

Let me ask you this Harvest New Market, at the end of your life, will people be able to look at you and say, This was a good servant?

See, the degree to which we can answer that question is the degree to which we've lived the good life, the life that God has called us to live.

And so think for a moment how Jesus sets this goal up as the ultimate goal for all of his followers when he says these words.

You are to long to hear from Jesus.

Well done, my good and faithful servant.

Think about how Jesus exemplified the good servant when he came to this earth.

This is what we just celebrated in Christmas.

He came and he was willing to serve men and serve God such to the point that he was obedient to the point of death.

Think about how being the good servant was the ultimate pursuit of the disciples who heard from the lips of Jesus in Mark chapter 10, verse 43 Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.

Mark 10:43

Paul would begin by identifying in so many of his letters, he would identify himself not as a great preacher, not as a man of great worth, but as a servant of Christ.

We can shelf the pursuit of being a good servant and pursue things that maybe they're not bad, but they are not the thing that we are to pursue.

And so maybe year after year we've poured all of our energy, all of our toiling, all of our straining into a goal, something like a better career, something like a bigger family.

These are good things, but they're not the ultimate thing, and it leaves us weary, it leaves us tired, it leaves us unsatisfied.

I wonder if you'd hear this morning God's call to you to pursue the goal of being a good servant.

This morning before us is the ultimate pursuit, the pursuit of hearing from the words, hearing from Jesus, the words, well done, my good and faithful servant.

So this is my question this morning.

What are the resolutions of a good servant?

What are the resolutions of a good servant?

If Paul is here preaching on the last Sunday of 2018, what is he going to set before you as good resolutions to have in order to become a good servant?

Now, the context of 1 Timothy is Paul writing to his disciple Timothy, and the occasion that he's writing for has largely to do with a problem that Timothy's facing in his young ministry.

And the problem is this: how is a young minister of the gospel supposed to protect his flock from all the false beliefs that can lead them to wrong pursuits and can ultimately lead them to eternal separation from the Lord?

How is Timothy, as a young pastor, to protect his flock from false belief?

And the stakes are high for Timothy because if his flock does not set the right resolutions before them, if they don't believe the right things, then they won't be led to eternal life.

See, this is life in death.

And Paul tells Timothy exactly what he needs to pursue.

I want you to notice right at the beginning that it's not a greater intellectual ability, it's not a more vigorous attack against his opponents.

The thing that Timothy needs to set his mind on is the humble and meek call to be a servant, to serve God by focusing on what pleases him.

And so in 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 6 to 10, Paul shows Timothy two resolutions of the good servant.

1 Timothy 4:6–10

Now let's read this text together.

Paul writes in verse 6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

Rather, train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially those who believe.

Would you pray with me before we consider the resolutions of the good servant?

Father, we bow before you and God, we ask for your help.

Lord, none of this can happen apart from you, God.

I can't speak if your spirit won't empower your word.

And God, we can't hear unless you help us.

And so, God, we humbly come before you now and we bow before you, and God, we say, Help, please.

Lord, we want this to be a year where we glorify you by serving you.

And God, I just pray that you would have us so attentive to your word this morning, and that you would speak to us so powerfully that we might be transformed by your grace as you reveal your word to us.

God, we pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

The first resolution of the good servant is this I will set before me what is right.

I will set before me what is right.

First, Paul shows Timothy how.

If you want to be a good servant, what do you need to do?

How do you do it?

How does Timothy become a good servant?

And Paul says this first in verse 6 he says, put these things before the brothers.

If Timothy is going to be a good servant, then in the midst of the controversy that Timothy's in, he needs to be continually be putting before the flock that which will build them up.

Now, when Paul refers to these things, he's referring to gospel-centered theology.

And so if you were to read from 1 Timothy chapter 1 to 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 5, what you would find is Paul is building a gospel-centered theology with Timothy.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention 1 Timothy 4:5

And he's done this by writing about certain things like the proper place of the law, the function of grace in the life of the Christian, the way that the church needs to conduct itself.

And Paul's been building this case that your life needs to be centered around the gospel.

And now what Paul is saying to Timothy is this is the life that you need to continually put before your people, continually preach the gospel to them, continually plead with them to live gospel-centered lives.

See what Paul is teaching Timothy is this important truth that in order to achieve the right goal, you must believe the right truth.

And by holding up the beauty of gospel-centered theology, the flock would be submitted to kind of a holy forgetfulness.

They would forget the things that could lead them be astray and be consumed with the things which are worthy of their pursuit.

Now I see a lot of husbands in here nudging their wives and saying, see, forgetfulness can be a good thing.

Now I'm not taking you off the hook, okay?

That's a bad kind of forgetfulness, but this is a good kind of forgetfulness.

This is why out of this command, Paul's able to say, have nothing to do with myths.

Because what Paul is saying is when you're focused on the right thing, you forget the wrong things.

And so the way you pursue being a good servant is by focusing on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Another way to say this is we pursue the right thing by beholding the right thing.

And so Paul is confident that the right strategy for the church to pursue Christ is to hold in front of them the glory of the gospel.

Now, this is the same way it functions in our own life.

If we want to be a good servant, if we want to find the title pinned to us, the good servant, in the same way, we need to ensure that we're pursuing the right thing by continually beholding the glory of the gospel.

We continually hold the glory of the gospel in front of our face.

And when we see the beauty of the gospel, when we start to grow in our affections for Jesus Christ, we start to long to pursue Him and Him alone, and we start to hate pursuing the things that are worthless to us.

We have laser focus on Jesus Christ.

Now I want to illustrate this holy forgetfulness for you in a way that, in something that happened in our church office.

See, our our everyone in our church office, part of ministry, part of even getting through Bible college, is you need to have a healthy addiction to coffee.

And when I started at uh what was formerly Harvest Durham, we had a little Keurig machine there.

And for the time, the Keurig machine was great, and I would go to it once or twice a day, and I'd put a little K cup in there, and I'd make a coffee and I'd drink it, and I'd be very satisfied.

Well, then one day someone came along and they had this thing called a pour over.

Now, listen, I've heard that Harvest Newmarket has the best coffee in Canada of all churches.

And I'm gonna test to see if that's true after this service.

But we we brought this thing called the pour over, and now there is this grinder, and they're grinding beans, and they're putting in the pourover, and they're they're making this coffee, and I drink this coffee, and it's amazing.

And now this little Keurig machine starts collecting dust.

And every once in a while someone mentions the K cup and everyone laughs and says, Ha ha, remember when we when we liked that horrible stuff.

Now it didn't end with the pure pour over.

See, then Pastor Ian he brought in this espresso machine, and I started drinking Americanos, and all of a sudden the pourover was put in the shelf and no one cared about it.

Now coffee is so technical, you need to put a science coat on, you need to get a scale out, you need a high-tech grinder, you need this thing called the chemics, which I'm not gonna explain unless you're a hipster coffee drinker.

See, this the coffee progressed.

We started looking at greater and greater ways to make coffee, and each time we found a better cup of coffee, you forget the old cup of coffee.

Now it's the same in the Christian life.

When we behold the glory of God, we behold the glory of the gospel, we forget the things that aren't worth pursuing.

The old things won't cut it anymore.

And so the first resolution involves continually placing yourself in front of the beauty of God as he's displayed himself in his word.

Now notice that Paul desires Timothy to be purposeful and putting good things before the flock.

And so he writes to Timothy that doing this will lead them to being trained.

Do you see this in verse six?

Being trained in the words of faith and the good doctrine.

See, Timothy is to train the flock in two things.

The first is the words of faith, which Paul would have surely meant the words that Jesus had given to him that had been given to Timothy.

The second thing that Timothy was to train up his flock in was the good doctrine, which would have referred to the truths that Timothy had learned in his family, as they taught him the doctrine of God, as they taught him from the Bible.

Timothy was to be purposeful in ensuring that he was growing in his knowledge of the gospel and of theology and that he was imparting that knowledge to the church.

And so the resolution is not only to put what is right in front of you, it's also to dig deeper into what is right.

See, church, we don't need any new truth.

We have everything we need here.

What God calls us to is to dig deeper into the truth and dig deeper into the doctrine of God.

And let me ask you this question as application.

What are you gonna do this year to practically and purposefully dig deeper into God's word?

What's your plan this year with God's word so that by the end of 2019 you have a greater knowledge of who God is, you have a greater understanding of his word.

Let me suggest a few ways.

There are some in this room that can rightfully be labeled soakers when it comes to reading God's word.

And so I could talk to you maybe at the beginning of January and say, Hey, what are you reading in your Bible right now?

And you'd be like, Oh, I'm I'm just soaking in the book of James.

James is such a good book.

I'm in chapter one right now.

I'm just thinking so much about trials, and it's so good, and I'm just having so much joy in my trials.

And then maybe in June I come and talk to you and I say, Hey, how's Bible reading going?

What are you reading right now?

I'm like, oh man, I'm in James chapter two now.

I've just been soaking in the book of James, and it's so amazing.

And let me say there is a place for soaking in God's word, and that is such a good thing to study a book in depth.

But maybe if that's your tendency, maybe if your tendency is to read deep into a book, maybe this year you need to start reading broad.

And you need to learn from another group called the speed readers.

Right?

We have the speed readers in here who are laughing right now as we talk about the soakers because they're like, ha ha, for the last 10 years, I've read through the Old Testament once, the Gospels twice, and the Psalms 47 times every year.

So take that, soakers.

This is a great application.

Well, maybe if you've been speed reading the Bible, you need to slow it down.

Maybe you need to start soaking and take a month and just read through the same book every morning and really begin to understand that book.

See, there are ways that we can soak in scripture, and there are ways that we can get an understanding of the big picture of scripture, but the important thing is that we have a purposeful plan to understand scripture more by the end of this year.

What will you do to grow deeper in your knowledge of who God is?

Now notice that Paul adds on to this, not only that you're to be trained, but also that you are to have followed these things.

And so it doesn't say you should follow, it doesn't say read God's word, and it would be really a it would be a good idea to follow it also.

Well Paul says to Timothy is that he's being trained, being trained in the words of faith and the good doctrine that you have followed.

See, our knowledge is completely useless if it doesn't lead to us following God to greater and greater degrees.

Saying this, Paul is noting and praising Timothy that he is a man who not only stands in front of God's word, but also pursues it.

He also follows it.

Timothy's the perfect description of what we're told in James, not to just be hearers of the word, but also to be doers of the word.

See, this, as the beauty of the gospel is set in front of us, it leads to action.

And so one thing you can be sure of is that if you are not growing in the way that you follow Christ, if you are not increasingly obedient by the end of this year to all that God has said to you, then you're not really beholding the glory of the gospel.

You're just reading and you're filling your head with knowledge, but it's not leading to action.

Every time we truly behold the glory of the gospel, it leads to action.

Now, here is one action that it leads to, Paul gives us, and he says this.

He says, Have nothing to do with irreverent and silly myths.

He says, if you have your eyes set on the right things, then that means that you will avoid the wrong things.

There are certain things that must be avoided at all costs.

Now, there's many this year that you're like me and you've gotten through this heavy season of eating, like a professional eater around Christmas.

And there are many who will be making weight loss goals and disciplining themselves to avoid the things that they've too easily embraced over Christmas, to try to give all of the cookies and chocolate to other people so that you can avoid them because you've packed on too many pounds.

And what you understand is that if you want to accomplish a goal, and especially a fitness goal, then you need to avoid certain things.

And it's the same way for the good servant.

We need to avoid irreverent and silly myths.

And the myths that Paul talks about are those fictitious beliefs that were filling the church and leading people astray.

The fact that they were irreverent and silly means that these myths were godless and useless in every way.

A silly myth would be like the kind of things that people would talk to.

Maybe they're huddled in a corner and they're gossiping about something, and if you join that conversation, you would leave having no more intellect.

They were useless conversations, they were silly.

Paul says, avoid these things.

And while Paul doesn't tell us exactly what these myths are, his greater concern is that when these myths are believed, when these myths are held, when we pursue irreverent and silly beliefs that leads people astray.

So look what he writes just above here in chapter 4, verse 1.

He says, Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

See, the issue is not so much the context of these beliefs, the issue is the end of their teachings.

Those who follow myths lead themselves to destruction.

Those who follow myths, those who pursue what is not relevant to being a good servant, lead themselves away from serving God and lead themselves away from glorifying God with their lives.

See, the need for us to avoid irrelevant and silly myths leads to the question: Am I willing to be shown areas in my life where my thinking doesn't align with God's truth?

Are you willing for a brother or sister to come alongside you and say, hey, I don't think you're thinking truthfully about this topic?

I'll never forget a time in our church where I was with a pastor and a lady had come into our church, and it was very clear that she had very different views that would have uh very much affected the service, uh the church service that Sunday morning.

And so the job was given to this pastor to go and confront this lady and talk to her.

And I remember him coming to me and just asking to pray together, and he was kind of sharing the issue with me, and in my head I said, Well, no, we've got a handle on this one.

Like, we know God's word, we know what God's word says.

This should be really easy.

And yet, as the pastor prayed, he bowed his head and he began praying, and he began saying, Lord, if I'm wrong in this, would you show me?

Now, I don't know if some of you are like this where other people are praying, and you're praying alongside with them, but you're also thinking at the same time that they're praying.

And I was thinking as he's praying, I'm thinking, there's no way that you could ever be wrong.

You're a pastor.

Pastors can't be wrong, right, Pastor Mike?

He he paid me to say that.

I said, Pastors can't be wrong.

There's no way you're wrong in this.

I've read God's word, I've studied God's word, but what that pastor was modeling for me was a humble confidence in what you believe.

See, we're able to read God's word, we're able to know what God's word says, we're able to have confidence in the theology that we receive from God's word, but we always need to be humble in that and be willing to be shown ways that we are thinking wrongly.

And so we always open ourselves up to arguments because we want to be people of the truth, and if there's a way that we're not thinking rightly, we want someone to expose that in us.

It's a humble confidence we have in our theology.

We don't budge on the core issues, but we're open to have discussions about what we believe.

Now, if we put what is right before us, if we take up the first resolution of a good servant, this will lead us to the Second resolution, which is this I will pursue what holds promise.

If we're going to take up the resolutions of a good servant, we need to take up this resolution.

I will pursue what holds promise.

Now, this talk of avoiding myths leads Paul to the positive exhortation he has for Timothy.

And so this is what he lays before Timothy.

He says, Timothy, rather train yourself for godliness.

Now, Paul calls Timothy to train himself, and the call to train himself means to shed everything he has for the sole purpose of pursuing godliness alone.

In light of the negative command to have nothing to do with false myths, this speaks to the pure devotion of Timothy's single aim to be the good servant, to pursue godliness.

This is the devotion that Jesus speaks of when he talks about the person who finds a treasure in a field and then sells everything in order to attain it.

This is the race that one must set aside every weight and sin that clings so closely in order to run.

This is the pure and undefiled, resolute devotion to the pursuit of godliness.

And Paul is calling Timothy to it.

Now, in the midst of everything that we could be solely devoted to, I want you to notice that our devotion is to be to godliness.

See, we could be many things, we could have many things, but if we don't have godliness at the end of our lives, we really have nothing.

Paul says, train yourself for godliness.

And later Paul will write to Timothy, and what Paul will write is a pretty uh well-known verse.

What Paul says to Timothy is this if you have godliness plus a really gigantic house, that's great gain.

Is that what Paul says?

Or does he say, if you have godliness plus the perfect family, that's really great gain to you.

Now, if you know that verse, you know that what Paul says to Timothy is godliness plus contentment is great gain.

See what Paul is saying is if you have godliness, if you're pursuing godliness, you are pursuing everything.

Think for a moment about our Lord.

Think for a moment about Christ.

He came to this world as a king, yet he had no riches.

He was born in a home, and he lived his entire life relatively free from possessing everything.

The scriptures say he had no place to lay his head throughout his life.

He pursued nothing that did not lead to the greater glory of his father.

All that he had at the end of the day was godliness and to his commitment to serve God.

In his final days, he possessed nothing but the cross that he was bearing on his back as he walked to die on it.

And from a worldly perspective, this commitment to serve God was really a bad choice, wasn't it?

People were mocking him and saying, Aren't you supposed to be the king of the Jews?

Is this the kind of end that the king of the Jews has where he owns nothing and no one's around him?

And yet Jesus had made the right choice.

He had pursued the glory of God by serving man and dying as their ransom.

He was a true embodiment of the good servant.

And so let me ask you this: are you resolved by the end of 2019 to be more godly this year than you were by the end of last year?

See, the problem is that many of us just kind of float through the Christian life, don't we?

We might make goals in our career, we might make goals in our personal life, we might make goals in our family life, but when we talk about spiritual goals, sometimes there's this kind of like, oh, I don't want to be legalistic.

But don't you understand that if we're beholding the glory of God, then we want to make every effort to train ourselves for godliness.

And so there is a place to make spiritual goals.

But the problem is that so often we'll just kind of float in the Christian life.

I wonder how ridiculous it would sound if I told you about someone who went to the gym like five hours a week.

They went five times a day.

Or not five times a day, but they went for an hour, five times a week, and they trained at the gym and they just kind of you know lifted weights and ran on the treadmill.

And then when you went to ask them, you said, Hey, why do you go to the gym so much?

Why are you like this crazy gym, crazy person?

And they said, I don't really know.

I just kind of come here.

It's I don't know.

It's not really fun.

I don't, I don't really care about fitness, I don't really care about health.

It's, you know, I just kind of do it, it's what I'm supposed to do.

You would look at that person and you'd say, You're crazy.

Like I can think of a million better things to do than to go to the gym for an hour if you don't care about anything that you could accomplish at the gym.

In the same way, in our life as Christians, so often we'll do the Christian things, we'll do the right things.

But if we're if someone were to press into you and ask you, why do you do these things?

Our answer isn't anything more than, well, it's just the right thing to do.

And what Paul is calling us to here is to be doing everything that we're doing for the sake of growing in godliness.

That means when we come to church on a Sunday morning, our hearts are prepared and we're saying, God, God, use this.

Use this this morning.

I want to be more godly.

This is my goal, this is my pursuit.

It means when we open up God's word in the morning, when we pursue a life of prayer, we are saying, God, I want to be godliness.

This is this is part of me training to be godly.

It means when we're going to small group, when we're participating in the life of this church, we are saying, God, use this that I might grow in godliness and use my life that others might grow in godliness.

That means when we come to pray for 24 hours, we're praying, God, God, help us to be a church that is serious about godliness.

We are serious about pursuing you.

And so, with this singular devotion to godliness in mind, Paul continues with the athletic metaphor, and he says, this for while bodily training is some value, godliness is of value in every way.

And so, Paul, in order to show the value of godliness, compares it to something that has a little bit of value.

He tells Timothy to think about bodily training for a moment.

Bodily training and exercise do have some value for this life, but all of its effects are temporary.

And what Paul wants to show Timothy is if people will train their bodies, if people will be concerned about physical fitness, how much more should we be concerned about our spiritual fitness?

How much more should we be concerned about training ourselves for godliness, about growing in godliness?

Now, I want to take a moment right here just to hit pause and to apply something from this text.

See, in the Christian worldview, there is a place for being concerned about fitness, there is a place for the resolutions that many of us make around this time of year, whether it be to lose weight or to gain muscle or to get healthier or to eat healthier, there is a place for that.

Paul doesn't say that bodily training is of no value.

He says it's of some value.

See, the issue is that so many, for so many people, the gym, physical fitness can become this idol.

And we live in a culture where this is a hyper idol, where it's constantly flash in front of us.

And what we are told is that you need to have a six-pack, you need to be this weight, you need to have a ton of muscle, and if you don't have that, you're a failure.

And that is not biblical, that is not from the Christian worldview, that is anti-gospel.

Instead, when we think about exercise, when we think about fitness from a Christian worldview, what we find is that it is some value so much as it contributes to us glorifying God.

See, God gave us our bodies, and he gave us things like sport, and he gave us things like fitness, and he gave it to us so that as we pursue those things, we could glorify him in it.

The problem is when it becomes an idol in itself.

The problem is when instead of serving us fitness, we began to serve fitness.

And we begin to pursue it as an idol, we be it begins to be the thing that takes up all of our attention and all we want is to lose weight or to have that figure or to be like that celebrity.

And Paul says bodily training has its place as long as you are pursuing it to glorify God, and as long as you understand that spiritual fitness is of far more importance.

So remember that in comparison to the pursuit of godliness, the pursuit of physical fitness is valueless because godliness is eternal.

See, Paul says it's promise, the promise of pursuing godliness, the promise of training for godliness is, he says in the text, it's for the present life and also for the life to come.

And so he says, while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way.

As it holds value not only in the future life, but also in the life to come.

Now, many of us understand how godliness holds value in the future life.

We understand that we can pursue godliness and we're rewarded with eternity with God in heaven.

We understand that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ and that leads to obedience to Jesus Christ, that we're gonna spend eternity with him.

And a lot of us have our minds set on the gains we'll receive from godliness as heaven.

But what Paul is also saying is that the best way that we can uh pursue joy today is by pursuing godliness today.

See, if you pursue greater godliness today, you pursue the greatest joy today.

Because godliness holds value for the present day.

See, along with godliness comes gain not only in eternity, but also in this present life.

So when you train yourself for godliness, when you align all your values with God's values, this becomes very relevant to the situations that you're facing today.

Now I wonder if there are some in this room who came this morning and they said, I need to hear a real specific word from God.

And you came, and maybe your marriage is in shambles, or maybe your finances are in shambles, and there's something that even in the midst of this message, even in the midst of worshiping God, you know that thing that's in the back of your head, it just keeps popping to the front of your head, this pressing issue, and you're just saying, I really wish God had a word for me this morning on that issue, and I want to let you know that God does.

See, God says that the most pressing need for you this morning is godliness.

God says, you know what you can pursue in the midst of your situation that will hold value for today?

He says, Pursue godliness.

You say, No, no, no, no, no.

I need to hear, I need to hear five ways to make my marriage better.

I need to hear three principles for financial health.

And God says, no, you need godliness.

You need more Jesus Christ.

That's why if you come to this church for long enough, every time you come, you just hear the gospel every week.

Isn't that the most amazing thing?

I had a youth come up to me uh last year and she said to me, uh, every week you preach on the gospel, and I feel like we should get into deeper things.

And I was so thankful.

I was so thankful.

I was like, if I want to be pegged with one criticism, I want to be the pegged with the criticism that we talk about the same thing too much.

Because what's the most relevant thing that you could hear for your situation this morning?

It's the gospel of Jesus Christ that leads you to desire more and more godliness, that leads you to desire to train yourself for godliness.

If you aren't convinced that your the best life lived is the life of godliness, then you need to read through the book of Proverbs.

And the book of Proverbs is a book that if even an unbeliever were to apply 99% of what the book of Proverbs says, they would live a very successful, a very good life.

But in Proverbs, continually we find that the one who fears God is the person who has wisdom.

And what Proverbs teaches us is that if you start with fearing God, if you start with a right relationship with the Lord, what that leads to is the wise life.

What that leads to is success in God's world.

What that leads to is knowing how to live in the world that God created.

So you need to hear this this morning.

The greatest, most logical, most sensible thing you could do this morning with your life is leave here, resolved to pursue godliness.

Now, every once in a while in Paul's letters, he'll add kind of this seal where he says, like, this is truth.

You need to listen to this.

And Paul does that here, and he does it by saying this the statement is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

And Paul kind of uses this uh formula of words whenever he really wants to stamp something and say, this is something you need to give your life to.

And so he reminds us that as we pursue godliness, this is the right thing to set before us.

Now, in verse 10, I want to put before you three characteristics that need to inform our pursuit of what actually holds promise, our pursuit of godliness.

First, I want you to see that in our pursuit of godliness, we must toil.

We must strive.

And so Paul says in verse 10, for this end we toil and we strive.

See, in our pursuit of godliness, we need to be working hard.

And what Paul says is that even though it's not easy, it's worth it.

Paul doesn't say that the pursuit of godliness is gonna be a walk in the park.

I can remember when my mom and I came to Christ, uh, a person said that to my mom who was a Christian, she said, Oh man, life is gonna be so easy for you now.

It's gonna be so great.

Your your winter tires are gonna last longer.

Things are just, it's just blessings are gonna be coming your way.

But then you become a Christian and you realize that your tires last the same amount of time they did before you were a Christian.

And you realize in many ways it's actually a lot harder.

That's why, whenever Jesus preached the gospel, and sometimes in our standards, he would be a really bad preacher because he's he would stand up, and maybe with I sometimes I imagine no introduction, he would say, Hey, take up your instrument of death and follow me.

And people would be like, Whoa, that sounds really hard.

That's not what I want to sign up for.

See, the pursuit of Christ is a pursuit of toil, it's a pursuit that requires hard work.

That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, he says, Do you not know that in a race all runners run?

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

But only one receives the prize.

So run that you may obtain it.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

So listen to this I do not run aimlessly.

I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

See the pursuit that Paul is calling us to, it requires toil, it requires that we pour out sweat.

Now, what does that mean for us?

Well, it means that it may be beneficial for you to think of some ways this year that you can pursue godliness in a more practical way.

Maybe there's some spiritual disciplines that you need to take up, not because God's gonna love you more if you do this, but because you love God so much that you want to pursue Him, that you want to be more like Him.

And so you're saying, God, I want to do these things because I love you, because I want to be closer to you.

See, the way that we pursue spiritual disciplines is like the way that I pursue my wife.

When I bring flowers to my wife, I don't bring flowers to my wife and say, Hey, I got these flowers for you because it's the thing that a husband should do.

Isn't that really great of me?

What would uh wives, what would you do to your husband's flowers?

You would take them and you stomp on them and you'd light them on fire and you throw them and you take, say, take your garbage flowers.

Maybe not that extreme, but something close to that, figuratively.

No, what I do is I come and I say, I got these flowers because I'm trying to express how much I love you.

Here's this act of service, and I love you so much, I just want to be near to you, and I want to express my love for you.

And the spiritual disciplines take that place in our life where we love God, we love Jesus Christ, and we want to be close to Him.

And the spiritual disciplines are a way that we can grow closer to God, and so we take them up joyfully, not as a burden, but because we want to, because we love God so much.

So maybe you can look at your prayer life and you can honestly say that you have not toiled in the area of prayer.

Let me ask you, when are you gonna do this year to strain and toil and strive for greater growth in your prayer life?

What about fasting?

What about the spiritual discipline of fasting?

What about journaling?

What about witnessing?

What about fellowship with other believers?

Which of these can you take up that will cause you to experience more joy in Jesus Christ?

Which of these are you lazy in?

Can I just speak to the men for a moment?

One of the most heartbreaking things that I've experienced in my ministry is time and time again I talk to men and especially young men who they work so hard in their career, who they'll even sacrifice their families so that they can work hard in their career, who they'll even listen to their boss more than they'll listen to their wife.

When their boss loads work on them, they'll say, Yes, sir.

When their wife asks for them to be home, they'll say, I gotta be at work.

When God calls them to strive for godliness, they take up work first.

And I see so many men that are able to work hard at work, but when it comes to working hard at pursuing godliness, they're lazy.

They're lazy.

And listen, just because you work hard at work does not mean that you're a hard worker.

The hard worker works hard in every area of life.

And so let me call you men to strive after godliness above every other thing.

To even say no to your boss at times.

Because you realize that if your work life balances out of whack, you can't pursue God the way that he calls you to.

You can't serve your family the way that he calls you to.

You can't serve your church the way that he calls you to.

And so, would you make the resolution this year?

I'm gonna stand up to my boss and I'm gonna say no when I need to say no.

See, the pursuit of godliness requires toil.

Second thing I want you to see is that the pursuit of godliness requires that we hope.

And so what Paul says is that for to this end we toil and strive, but look what he says, because we have our hope set on the living God.

See, in the end, we pursue godliness because we know it's not gonna be in vain.

Do you know that one day you're gonna stand before the Lord and no one will ever question an ounce of effort they put towards pursuing godliness when they stand before the Lord?

You will be thankful for every effort you made to strive to be like Christ.

You will be thankful for every moment, for every second that you spent nearer to the Lord, so that you could grow to be more like Christ.

You'll be so thankful for every act of obedience you took, even though it was so hard in the moment, even though you had to sacrifice so much in the moment.

Do you know that you have this hope before you this morning that you will stand before the Lord and you will scream because you're so thankful that you pursued godliness while you were on this earth?

See, we pursue with hope, and I wonder if there's someone in here this morning who is weary, who is tired.

You've been living the Christian life and you are just wondering if it's worth it anymore.

And I want to give you a word that it is worth it, that in this pursuit we have a living hope because we are pursuing living God.

Third thing I want you to see is that in our pursuit we must believe.

And so Paul says this of Jesus Christ, he says, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

Now, what Paul's putting forward here is not universalism.

Universalism is the idea that no matter what, at the end of the day, everybody's going to be saved.

This is the key verse for the universalist.

They go to this verse and they look, say, look, look, God is the savior of all people.

That means all people are going to be saved.

Yeah, we know that there are many other places in scripture that contradict that idea.

What God is saying here, what Paul's writing to us here, is not that God universally saves everybody, but that God universally shows grace to everybody.

Whether you've placed your faith in Christ and received eternal salvation in this special way that Paul talks about, or you haven't placed your faith in Christ, God is being gracious to you.

And let's for a moment just let me talk to you if you're an unbeliever.

You might ask me, well, how is God being gracious to me?

He hasn't given me my salvation, I haven't placed my faith in him.

Well, let me just point out to you that you are here this morning.

Let me point out to you that you are breathing this morning.

And in order to draw a breath, the creator of this world has to say, Okay, you can breathe this time.

See, God is graciously sustaining us.

Something the theologians call common grace that He gives to everyone.

To sustain the whole world.

But beyond that, I believe that there's a greater way that God is giving you grace this morning.

God is giving you grace by having you here.

See, it's not by accident that you're here.

It's not by accident that we've opened up God's word.

See, God has a word for you, and the word is this believe.

Believe.

Do you know that if you cast your faith in Jesus Christ, you will be saved at this very moment?

Do you know that if you you believe at this very moment in your chair, in your heart, you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, you will be saved from destruction.

See, this is the grace that God wants to show you that you can have salvation in Him as you pursue in belief.

Church, think about 2019.

2019 can be a year of many things.

2019 can be a year of growth in many ways.

But will 2019 be a year where you accomplish the ultimate thing?

Will you serve God and at the end of the day be called a good servant?

Will you this year continually, day after day, hour after hour, put before you what is right?

Will you behold the beauty of the gospel this year?

Will you pursue the thing that holds promise today and forever?

Godliness.