Faithful to Stand Pt 2: On the Truth

Okay. Good morning. Hey, you guys are already standing. You guys want to go ahead and stand with me? We'll pray and we'll get started. Oh, Father God, we just thank you for the day and I just thank you for my church family, Lord. Just thank you for this wonderful body of believers here, Lord God. We thank you for another opportunity to be here, Lord, to spend some time in your word

and to spend some time praising you, Lord. We ask your blessing upon this time, upon the worship and the word is as it goes out in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning, Lord, may you be praised and glorified. Amen. You guys go ahead and have a seat if you like. We'll continue on. It is your love. We just praise you and we thank you for how great your love is for us, Lord. Lord, we thank you that

you loved us so much that you sent your only son to hang on a cross, to take our place on that cross, Lord. We just thank you.

This last song, I just want to pray that if there's any unsurrendered areas of our hearts this morning, Lord, I just pray that we would surrender those to you, Lord, that we would trust you with those areas of our lives, Lord, that we've been holding back to the place of surrender this morning, myself included, Lord Jesus. I just want to seek you, Lord, unsurrendered to you, Lord. Lord Jesus, we just come to you. Let's pray that we would set everything that's going on in our lives aside and focus on you.

This morning, may your word go out with power. May we have soft and receptive hearts to receive it, Lord God. Ask your blessing upon Pastor Ryan and overflow him with your Holy Spirit. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's take some time and greet one another.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seat, grab your bulletin. We'll get ready to go for some announcements. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A few things to take note of in your bulletin. Just a reminder that this Thursday will be the first of the Rizzios Home Fellowship. So if you're interested in that, go check that out. Also, the Leadership Conference over in Wellington is coming up this Saturday

from 8 to 4. So if you have an opportunity, go check that out. And then there's also a Bible Prophecy Conference coming up at Calvary Chapel of Emporia in a couple of weeks, June 12th through the 14th. So some things for you to take advantage of for some learning and some growing. Also, one thing that is not in your bulletin. Since this is the first Sunday of the month, tonight will be prayer down at the other end

of the hallway. So those are the things that are going on. If you would make sure that your mobile device is silenced. And for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 61. Psalm 61. Looking at the New American Standard so that hopefully we sound the same. If you need a copy, should be one around you. And as you're turning to Psalm 61, if you are able,

please stand in the honor. Psalms, Psalm 61, O Lord ofhte's Word. Psalm 61, 1." The words I'm going to be reading tonight are this, the book that is higher than I. For you have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Sela. Let me take refuge in your shelter of your wings. Sela. You have heard my vows, O God, you have given me the inheritance of those who fear your

name. You will prolong the king's life, his years will be as many generations. He will abide before God forever, appoint loving-kindness and truth that they may preserve him. So I will sing praise to your name forever, that I may pay my vows day by day. And Father, we praise you that you do hear our cry, and Lord, that you are a shelter for us. And so, Father, I pray that as we spend time in your word this morning, that you would

hear our cry, and Lord, that you would speak to our hearts. Father, minister to us where we need to be ministered to, Lord, and instruct us where we need instructions. And so, Father, I pray that you would move, in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Timothy chapter 4, 1 Timothy chapter 4. This morning we come to the second part of our sermon.

This is a series on faithful to stand. We of course have said that every chapter or all of the pastoral epistles will ultimately deal with the theme of faithfulness. And so as we came to chapter 4, we said that the theme of it was faithful to stand. And the first thing that he told them to be, told Timothy to be faithful to stand in is in the midst of apostasy, in the midst of apostasy, and he spent some time talking about that last week.

Today he's going to tell us, he's going to tell Timothy to be faithful to stand. He's going to tell Timothy to stand on the truth. He's going to tell Timothy to be faithful to stand on the truth. He's going to tell Timothy to be faithful to stand on the truth. And so we pick up in verse 6 of chapter 4 and this is what it says. In pointing these things out to the brethren you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus,

constantly nourished on the word of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. yourself for the purpose of godliness for bodily discipline is only of little profit but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds for the present life and also or since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come it is a trustworthy statement deserving of full acceptance for it is for this we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living god who is the savior of all men especially of believers and so as we come to this second part where he tells timothy that he needs to be faithful to stand in particular on the truth

there's going to be three things that he tells them that are going to be important for him to know to stand faithful on the truth he's going to tell him that the three things that are important are instruction discipline and hope instruction discipline and hope and so the first of those that he's going to look at is instruction and so look at verse 6. it says in pointing out these things brethren you will be a good servant of christ jesus constantly nourished on the words of faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following as he talks about this instruction he says timothy it's important that you point these things out to the brethren in other words explain these things to the brethren instruct the brethren about these things

well hopefully you're asking yourself a question right now because that's what good bible study is it's asking yourself a lot of questions what things is he talking about what things is timothy to be faithful to instruct them about to uh point out to explain to these people well all the things that he just talked about in the first handful of verses remember go back to what it says in verse one but the spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits doctrines of demons there will be hypocrisy against the 90 macam we see in verse 1 verse five they will give up their lives to the Will of God for they were everything of righteousness we knew about their lives up until the salビئن

now the gospel records these three things have an important specific role they bring great prominence to this text this is the characteristic of the gospel the second part also on the last part of it I know you like what it's saying that it's talking about what he's talking about these strange things you you have to give the messages that bring warning. Sometimes you have to call people out. Sometimes you have to call sin out. And sometimes you have to call the false out. He says, Timothy,

you need to instruct, you need to point these things out to the brethren. And I think that this is something that we should pay attention to in our own lives. While the pointing out of the false can't be the only thing that we talk about, it does need to be something that we talk about. And for me as a pastor, like I told you last week, one of the things that I need to do as a faithful shepherd is to make sure that when I see the false, that I warn you about the false.

And sometimes that makes me a little unpopular with people because usually when there's false going on, somebody has decided that they really like it. And then you tell them that the thing that they really like so much is not actually in the Bible. And then they get a little offended, but hopefully they eventually get over it. If not, they find a new church. Anyway, but I have

to be faithful to do that. I have to be faithful to instruct about those kinds of things. But I want to tell you something else that remember, we've said that all of these things that Paul is teaching to Timothy, there's application for all of us, whether we're pastors or not. And one of the things that I think that's important for all of us to take note of is when we see false in the world, we should instruct other people about it, right? Like when we see things that aren't good, we should instruct other

people about it. If you know that somebody that is a friend of yours that attends this church that you know loves Jesus, maybe they even attend another church, and you see them starting to go down a path towards the false, and you know it's a path towards the false, you know it's doctrines of demons or deceiving spirits or things like that. One of the most faithful things you can do, one of the most trustworthy things you can do is to warn them about it, is to tell them this is an issue that I see in your life, that this is going to end up leading you down a bad path if you're not careful. And that's a hard thing to do. That's why Timothy had to be told, in pointing these

things out, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ, because it's hard to do that. And we all need to be reminded that part of our role as Christians, is to warn those who we see falling into false doctrine, just like I would want someone to do for me. Hey, that seems not good what you're falling into there. Maybe we should take a little time to think about it. But remember, any sort of confrontation is always for the purpose of

restoration. Therefore, it's always to be done in love. But he tells them, first of all, the first thing you need to do is to instruct, point these things out, explain, instruct about the false. And you know, I didn't intend to include this, but it does bring up a really interesting point that sort of just popped into my mind. If you're going to point out that something's false, you need

to be able to tell them why it's false. You can't just be like, well, I don't like that. Okay, well, why? I just don't, right? Like, listen, it can start with that inkling of the Holy Spirit. It can start with that check in your spirit that the Holy Spirit gives you, and you should pay attention to those things. But then you should study it out, right? Like, the best thing that

happens to me is when somebody says, I believe this. Like, I know I don't believe that, but I can't explain why. And so it's time for me to do some studying to figure out why I know that that's wrong. And God's always faithful. He's always faithful to provide all the resources that you need in order to be able to explain why what they're falling into is false doctrine, because his word is always faithful. He says, explain

these things, point these things out to them. And in so doing, you will be a good servant of Christ

of faith, and of the sound doctrine with which you have been following. He says, if you do these things, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ. In other words, you will be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ. Some of your translations, I think the New King James says, you will be a faithful minister of Jesus Christ. I actually do prefer the New American Standard

translation on this, because that's what that word minister actually means. It actually means servant, because ultimately that's what we all are, remember? Because whether you actually are in the role of Jesus Christ or not, you are in the role of Jesus Christ. And so, if you do these things, you will be a good servant of Christ. And so, if you do these things, you will be a good

We're all a bunch of deacons, right? We're all a bunch of servants, because once we became a follower of Jesus Christ, we ultimately became a servant, because Jesus gave us that example. I was just reading that in John this week, where Jesus washed the disciples' feet, right? And I love that, because Jesus is so faithful to instruct why he did that. He said, do you know why I've

done this to you? And they're all like, uh-uh. And he's like, if I, your master and your teacher, have laid aside my garments to wash your feet, then I have set an example for you to follow that you should do the same for each other. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, the one thing that we are all shooting for is well done, good, and faithful. Remember the word that's used there? Servant, right? Because

ultimately, that's what we all are. He says, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ. What about it will make him a good servant? Well, the first thing is that a good servant's always going to be faithful to tell the truth. A good servant's always going to be faithful to tell the truth. And listen, we have to be faithful to tell the truth. Some of my favorite

stories in Scripture are stories where someone has to deliver a message of truth to somebody that probably doesn't want to hear it, and yet they're faithful to deliver it. They're faithful to deliver that message to the individual. They're faithful to deliver that message to the person. And he says, you're a good servant of Jesus Christ if you are faithful to tell the truth.

But the second thing he tells them about a good servant of Jesus Christ is that they are faithful to be nourished in the Word. That they are faithful to be nourished in the Word. And I'm just going to warn you right now, this is a little bit of a theme we're going to talk about kind of throughout the rest of this message is the importance of the Word in our life. So I won't hit it too hard now, but I will in just a minute. But I like the wording that he uses there

because he uses the word nourished. Because that points something out to us about what the Word of God is for us. Because what the Word of God is for us is it truly is our nourishment, right? As a matter of fact, it's referred to as two different things within Scripture. It's referred to as the fruit of the Word, but it's also referred to as meat. And the idea is that there

should be a growing aspect of us that when we were babies, we needed milk. But when we get older, we need meat. And so the idea is that a faithful servant, a faithful servant of Jesus Christ will not only be faithful to tell the truth, but they will be faithful to take in the truth. Because as I read in a commentary this weekend, I don't remember which one I read it in, but it was a great quote, so I wrote it down. The great need for the Christian minister is to be

nourished in the Word. If you're not nourished in the Word, you don't know how to tell the truth from the false. And I'll just be really honest with you right now. The greatest amount of sermon prep that I do has nothing to do, and I've shared this lots of times, it has nothing to do with me getting into a bunch of Word studies. It has everything to do with me spending time with Jesus. Because the things that

the Lord shares with me when I spend my time with Jesus is what builds the foundation for everything else that I do in the studies that I do, both in the Old and the New Testament. Because if I don't have that, I don't have anything else. If I don't have that foundation of my own time of being nourished in the Word, then I'm not ready for what I'm going to receive in my time of in-depth study. And so a good minister of Jesus Christ has to be nourished in the Word, and they need a steady diet of God's Word and sound doctrine. You know what that means? That means you can't just read the

Word looking for an emotional devotional. You need to read the Word expecting to learn sound doctrine. And that means sometimes you need to be taught sound doctrine by other people. He says, in doing this, you will be a faithful, a good servant of Jesus Christ, who is constantly nourished on the words of faith and of sound doctrine, which you have been following.

So the first thing he tells us, you want to be faithful to stand on the truth, you need to have instruction in your life. But the second thing that you need to have is discipline. He says, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself, for the purpose of godliness. For bodily discipline is of little profit, but godliness

is profitable for all things, since it holds the promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving of full acceptance. When he starts to talk about the importance of discipline, the first thing he tells them to be disciplined to do is to know what to reject. To know what to reject. Did you notice what he says?

To reject worldly fables only fit for old women. I love this because, let me read to you a couple of other translations here. To reject profane and silly myths. To reject or have nothing to do with the worldly fables. Now, I read a ton of commentaries on this this week, and nobody ever gave me exactly what Paul was talking about when he said, when he says, worldly fables fit only for old women. They gave some small examples, but nothing concrete enough

that I was like, yeah, that's exactly what he's talking about. So, I was left to my own devices. Then I was left to all of the things that I read. And so, I thought, what does he mean by this? And so, I thought about it, and I prayed about it, and I read about it, and I studied some more. I studied what the word profane means, which means common, that which can be trampled. And so, that's kind

of what that word profane there means, which would carry with it, to me, the idea of worthless, right? So, let me give you Ryan. This translation of this. But have nothing to do with the worthless things of the world that distract you from Jesus. Have nothing to do with the worthless things of the world that distract you from Jesus. Do you know what I mean by that? I mean all of the things that distract you from

Jesus. You know what I see people get distracted by a lot right now? Conspiracy theories. I see it so much. Oh my gosh, there are so many conspiracy theories running around right now. And it distracts me. And we go, and I'm going, but how's that helping you know Jesus? How does proving that help you know Jesus? And how does that help you spread the gospel to other people? Because if it's not

helping you do those two things, if it's not helping you reach in to build up the body in your own walk with Jesus Christ, and it's not helping you reach out with the gospel to the people around you, listen, you should probably reject it. You should probably quit focusing so much on it. And I could use a million other examples. All of the worldly things, all of the things that we occupy ourselves with, that don't draw us closer to Jesus, and don't help us get the word of God out to the people around us. He says, reject those things. Have nothing to do with those things. Instead, what

is he to do? Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. For bodily discipline is of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things. Okay, so I'm going to handle everything that he has to say here. And I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you in mildly reverse order. I'll deal with the discipline yourself towards godliness in just

a minute. But he says, he says, bodily exercise is profitable for a little. Bodily exercise is profitable for a little. Now, I do want to point something out to you. And that's that Paul was writing to a culture with both the Greeks and the Romans that put physical fitness on an incredibly high level, right? Between the Greek games and Roman soldiers, having the elite fitness

was pretty intense at that point in time and held in somewhat high regard. If you had that elite fit sort of body, you were considered someone who was probably going to live forever, right? That was the idea at that point in time. So that's the culture that he's writing to. So when he says bodily exercise profits little, this would have been a shocking statement for the people that would have

been hearing it because they put physical fitness in such a high regard. We don't live in a completely different culture than that. Although I have found that maybe it's the things that I search for the most, but it shows up a lot on my, on my newsfeed right now, on whatever social, media or YouTube platform that I'm on. Um, but I do want to talk for just a moment because it does say bodily exercise profits a little. That doesn't mean that it has zero profit in your life. It just

doesn't have eternal profit in your life. And so I do want to just spend a moment talking about this because there are physical benefits that are continually shown for, for some form of physical activity in our lives, right? And I think that that's really important in the world because then you can go, well, it doesn't matter what I do. I'm just going to, I'm just going to focus on physical exercise. Well, then you kind of become a little bit lethargic, which gives you

a body that's not fit for the work of Jesus Christ, right? Like one of my favorite things to hear about is this guy named Jim Elliot. You know who Jim Elliot is. He was the, the one, uh, that, that gave his life down in, uh, with the Alka Indians, amazing missionary, amazing man of God. But when he was in college, he was a wrestler and, and he, he was actually a pretty good wrestler and,

and he wrote a letter home to his parents and, and he said, you may hear about some accolades that I've won as a wrestler. Don't worry. It's not because I care about the accolades. It's because I want my body to be fit to serve my savior. And I thought that's a pretty good way to look at physical fitness, right? Like if, like if we want to be the best that we can be in order to serve the Lord for as long as possible, then staying physically

fits an important part of that. And so there are, there are massive physical benefits to some form of bodily exercise, but listen, more than that, there are massive emotional and mental benefits to spiritual, to physical exercise. I will tell you right now that if you battle depression, one of the greatest things, and I'm telling you this from experience, battle depression, one of the greatest things you can do is get out in the sunshine and go exercise. It will absolutely change your outlook on life. It will change your outlook on everything.

For me, me personally, the time when I run is the time when I finished putting my sermons together because mentally it's a really important time for me. And so it does have, it does have benefit for us. We don't want to just completely throw that out because when Paul says it has a little benefit, he really means that. He means that that's an important part of our life, but we have to remember that it only profits for a little while.

In other words, it only profits on this side of eternity to be the best that we can be to serve Jesus Christ. It doesn't stretch into the afterlife. It doesn't stretch into eternity. And I tell us that so that we make sure we keep our priorities straight, prioritize it, but keep it where it belongs. He says bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is

profitable for all things. So let's deal with the first statement that he made. Discipline yourself for godliness. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. The word discipline is a very interesting word. Some of your translations may say, train yourself for godliness. But the word discipline or train comes from the Greek word gymnaze, which is where we get our English word gymnasium.

One commentator that I read said, you can smell the sweat all over this word, right? Like, that's the idea behind this word. Like, it's a word that has intensity behind it. And there's an interesting paradox, because remember, Paul just spoke against asceticism, which was extreme self-denial for the purpose of being more spiritual. And yet, while we don't live an ascetic life, we do live a disciplined life. And as believers in Jesus Christ, I do think that we need to remember that while we are saved, we are not alone.

While we are saved by grace, while we are kept by grace, we are not to take God's grace in vain. And taking God's grace in vain is to say, I'm glad that I'm saved, and you never give yourself to the study of the word any longer. You never give yourself to the seeking of God any longer, or you do it on such a nominal level that it's making zero difference in your life. And so he tells us we are to discipline ourselves for godliness. The word godliness means godlikeness or the character and the attitude of God.

Well, you know how I like to be. I don't just read that and go, great, I'll discipline myself for godliness. I want to know how you put tennis shoes on that and make it walk, right? That really felt like the right analogy for gymnasium, right? How do you do that? What does it look like to discipline yourself for godliness? Well, I wrote down five things that I think are really important for us to know if we're going to discipline, if we're going to gymnasium, if we're going to train ourselves for the purpose of godliness.

Okay, these are not going to be shocking to you, but I do want to go through them. Number one is you need to study the word. You need to study the word. I read two fantastic stories. Oh my gosh, I forgot the general's name. Shoot, I should have written it down. First of all was Billy Graham's father-in-law. One of the commentaries that I read told a story about him. He was a doctor, a missionary doctor, and he made it his goal every day.

He made it his goal every day to wake up at 4.30 a.m. for the study of the word. He did not do any of his correspondence. He didn't do any of his paperwork. He didn't do anything to do with his job for the first two and a half hours of the day. All he did was study God's word. As a matter of fact, I believe it was him who made it his goal to read through the Old Testament once a year and the New Testament four times a year.

And then he went about the business of being a missionary doctor. Which sort of makes you go, maybe I do have time to study God's word. You know, that's the number one thing that I hear from people. The number two thing is I don't know how to do it. But the number one thing is I don't have time to read God's word. Well, then it went on. R. Kent Hughes, same guy that told this story, went on to tell a story about a general in World War II who was not the kind of general that just sat back and let everybody else do the job. He made sure that he was down with the men.

And again, made it his goal. To wake up at 430 every morning for the study of God's word before he ever started into the rest of his day. And if the battle was ever too intense for him not to be able to do that, he would catch up on it over the when when the battle had ended and everyone else was debriefing. And he made it his goal to have that kind of time studying God's word every day. Brothers and sisters, we have to get one phrase out of our minds. I don't have time. The phrase you need to say is I don't want to.

And I know that's a harsh statement. I'm not trying to be harsh right now. But you will always make time for the things you want to do. I know it's just the truth. That's the way I am. If I want to do it, I'm going to make time for it. And so sometimes it's going to require sacrifice. And we have to remember, that's part of not taking God's grace in vain. Taking God's grace in vain means I'm not willing to make a sacrifice. I'm not willing to set aside my desires for what that which is more important. I'm not willing to set aside the okay for the best.

That's taking God's grace in vain. And so the first thing we need to know is if we're going to study the word, you have to make time for it. It has to be a sacrificial part of your life. It's a part of a sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice of worship unto the Lord. But again, the second question people always have is, I don't know how to do it. I was reading this thing the other day, and it said, these are the top 10 reasons why the younger generation doesn't want to listen to your sermons.

And I was like, okay, well, I should read this because I deal with a lot of the younger generation. I want to know why they might not want to listen to my sermons. So I went through several different things, but one of the things it said is, you spend too much time telling them to read God's word and not enough time teaching them how to read God's word. So I thought about that as I was reading this, and I was studying this, and I thought, you know what? I did an entire three-week series on this two or three summers ago, so let's just spend a few minutes talking about it, right?

Like, I'm sure that you didn't memorize that study that I did. Some of you weren't even there, right? So what does it look like? I don't want to just tell you to do it. I want to give you the tools to know how to do it. Well, so if you're going to study God's word, as I've always said, you're solving three problems. There's three problems everybody that's going to study God's word is going to have to solve.

What does it say? What does it mean? How do I apply that to my life? Right? Sometimes the what does it say is one of the hardest things, because you have to look at it and just look and say, okay, so what exactly is this saying to me right now? What, just surface level, I'm not looking for meaning, I'm not looking for depth, I'm not looking for application.

I just want to know, what does this say? Let's use this verse as an example. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. What does it say? Well, that's exactly what it said. You need to discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Okay, now, what does that mean? Well, if I'm going to start determining what that means, I'm going to start asking questions.

Well, what does discipline mean? What does godliness mean? What, what are those things supposed to be in my life? Well, I'm going to look at some other Bible translations. I'm going to say, well, well, first of all, I know that the word discipline also means to train. And so this carries with it the idea of training. So now I'm going to train myself to do something.

What am I going to train myself to do? I'm going to train myself for the purpose of becoming like God, of becoming godly in my life. And then I ask the question, well, what does that mean for me? Well, I came up with five points, right? What does it mean for me to train myself to have discipline in my life to become like God, right? So the first thing you got to solve is what does it say?

You got to have the right Bible, right? I know everybody gets worked up about drop Bible translations. One of my favorite things is when people come to me and they say, you know, the only accurate translation is the old King James. I actually watched a video online one time. And this guy said, I can correct the Greek with the old King James. And I'm like, you're a moron.

I mean, there's, listen, you can't say that nicely. That's the dumbest statement I could ever imagine anyone making. The King James was translated out of the Greek. You can't correct the Greek with it. And yet some people are like, you know, the King James is the only, that's the only translation that there is. And then there's other people who are like, well, you know,

the New American Standard is actually the most accurate translation. Not always, right? Like I tell you sometimes when I think it's the most accurate, and sometimes when I don't think it's the most accurate. Listen, here's what you need to know when you choose a Bible translation. Choose the one you'll read. Choose the one you can understand. God can take care of a whole lot of other things, right?

I'll always say Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, which was not an overly accurate translation. Of the Hebrew to the Greek. And that's the one that Jesus quoted from. So choose the translation that you'll read and choose the one that you can understand. I don't know. I don't know how many kids I've seen and I'm like, do you have a Bible? And they're like, yeah, I've got this old King James Bible.

I'm like, listen, I know you don't like Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, I know you're not going to read that Bible. Because if you can't read Romeo and Juliet, you can't read the old King James Bible. Okay, let's find you one that you can understand. And then you got to start building your library. Need to build. It should start off with a study Bible, something that's going to give you introductory notes.

So that when you start to get into it, you can read an introduction to the book. It'll tell you who it's written to. It'll tell you a little bit of background on who it's written to and a little bit of a reason why it's written. And then there will be cross references in it and all kinds of other fun things. And then you start building things like a Haley's Bible handbook, which everybody should own.

I bought a new one this year by Warren Wiersbe. It's a Warren Wiersbe. Um, reading the Bible for the most it has or something along those lines. And and and I'm reading that along with with my through the Bible reading this year because we all still need those kinds of things. But you need to study what God's word has to say. But then eventually what you have to get to is but what does that say to me?

How do I need to apply that to my life? Because you can know what it says. You can understand what it says. But if it never gets down to meet you where you are, it was just an intellectual. Pursuit. And now you can prove yourself right with an ungodly life. Eventually, you have to get to where you say things like, so what does this mean for me? This is why I'm a huge proponent of people keeping some sort of a notebook.

Call it a journal. Call it a Bible study notebook. I don't care what you call it. Write stuff down. Because one of the most important things you can do is write down what God is showing you because that holds you accountable. Right? I love to at the end of the week. Sort of kind of look back through and see what I've learned in some weeks. I'm like, wow, I really learned a lot and some weeks.

I'm like, wow, I was really sleepy, right? Because there's not much got written down or or it doesn't make any sense. And everybody gets a little bit where it will. What if somebody reads my journal? Listen, if you're like me and you have handwriting like a five-year-old, no one can read your journal. Okay, that's all that there is to it. My girls could pull that thing out today and go,

I have that English that that thing's written in. I don't even know what that says, right? You got to keep track of those things. Study the word of God and let it change your life. That's the first thing that you do to discipline yourself for Godliness. The second thing that we're going to do is we're going to pray prayer is such an important part. And again,

this just keeps being emphasized over and over and over again. In my mind is that if you will really take time to pray, if you will really take time to pour out your heart to the Lord, it's amazing. First of all, how much that discipline changes you, but it's also amazing how much that discipline changes the world around you. I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story about kind of what's going on over at the college right now.

I get to start FCA at the college this year, which is kind of cool. We get to meet on campus this year and I want to tell you about about a couple of prayer warriors who started several years ago praying that God would move on the campus. I got a phone call from somebody about three years ago. And they said, man, there's not very much of a of a spiritual influence at Cali College right now.

Not not much of a spiritual influence there at all. Could you just start praying with me? And so and so we decided we were just going to start praying. We didn't meet together to pray. I knew that person was praying. I was going to be praying. I brought a couple of other people in on it as well. And we have watched a change take place on that campus. I've actually talked to teachers on that campus and they're like they're starting to be a different feel there.

Now it's they're starting to feel different. They're now why well, because people prayed and because people have been praying. I've watched the same thing happen out of Arc City High School this year where where God's changing things for the better because because people are praying God's word is incredibly important, but it is empowered to prayer it and and sometimes we need that discipline in our life. And one of the things my wife and I learned is if we didn't set aside a time and it can't be a legalistic thing, but but if we don't set aside a time and decide, okay, at this point in time, we're going to get up in the morning and we're going to we're going to pray.

We're going to pray for our daughters. We're going to pray for the church. We're going to pray for these things, then it probably won't happen because if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. It's kind of one of those things, right? And so it became a discipline in our lives where we got up. My wife drug my lazy rear end out of bed every morning at 545 because she's really good at that and I'm not and and and we started praying together every single morning and we're watching God do amazing things through that.

And so it's really cool, but it's a but it's a discipline and you have to have that discipline to pray. You have to have that discipline to say today. I'm going to give all of these things to the Lord. You should keep a prayer list. I don't care what you call it. I just keep a list written down in the front of my Bible Journal. Well, these are the things that I'm praying for because I'm too confused not to do that.

I too many things go into my head and I and I'll forget that's part of my discipline in my life is to keep a list of all the things that I'm praying for, but it's amazing how that changes things. So number two is prayer. Number three is scripture memory. Scripture memory. I've been harping on this a lot and I failed to get it in the past two or three weeks into the bulletin.

I need to get back on that again. I need a little more discipline in my life. But but that scripture memory is really important. And again, in the same way, if you will decide these are the things I'm going to memorize, then it's amazing how that changes. But if you don't have a plan, you'll never do it. Yeah, I should really start doing that. And then you go about the rest of your date.

No, write it on a note card, write somewhere where you're going to remember it all the time. Have an accountability partner where you're memorizing. Scripture together. Why? Because you are disciplining yourself for the purpose of godliness. It's not so that God will love you more. It's so that you can become more like him. The next thing I'll tell you about that.

I'm really really really bad at is fasting. Again, this is something the Lord's kind of been speaking to me about and I have been full disclosure right now. I have been fighting God on because I don't know if it goes back to when I cut weight or what, but the minute I decide I'm not going to eat today. It's like there is something. There's something that goes off in my brain where it's just like don't do it.

You're going to hate it, right? And so it's just a struggle that I have, but I do know that there's massive the times when I have taken time to do it. There's massive benefits in it because it is setting aside of the temporary for the focus on the eternal. It's setting aside on the temporary desires for the focus on the eternal good, right? So fasting and then I'm going to tell you the last one.

I think this is really important because if you are to discipline yourself, if you were to train yourself, then you can study God's word, you can pray, you can memorize scripture, you can fast, but eventually you've got to start serving. You've got to start serving. You have to serve the people around you and part of that means you're going to have to tell them about your faith. You got to serve the people that are around you.

Listen, anybody can tell you that you can do all in any sport. You can do all of the working out that you want to but until you get in the game, none of that does you any good until you start to experience. Real game time. Nothing in you will really change because the game will remind you of what you need to grow in. The game will point out to you areas that you need to grow.

And so get in and start serving people. Listen, I talked about this Wednesday night with with Elijah because Elijah had had gone into heaven. He was taken up in the whirlwind and the mantle fell down and he likes you looked at the mantle and he had a choice to make am I going to pick up the mantle and serve or am I going to look at it? And just walk away and brothers and sisters.

I need you to know something you can come to church and you can enjoy coming to church and it can be great. But until you start serving in church, you'll never get anything out of it. You you'll you'll learn a little bit but you won't really grow until you start to serve in church because serving in church and serving the people that are around you that will begin to reveal to you the areas where you need to grow that will begin to reveal to you your need for the work of the Holy Spirit in your life because you'll find that the hardest thing to do is to serve other people. And even more than that the hardest thing to do is to serve God because he will call you to serve some of the hardest people in the world to serve

and you will realize that the only way that you can do that is through the power of Jesus Christ and it will create discipline in your life and you will become more like Jesus if you serve in the power of the Spirit. And so he says discipline yourself towards godliness for bodily exercise, which is important, but it only profits a little because it's only on this side of eternity. Bodily exercise has a little bit of profit. But godliness is profitable for all things.

This is where I want to pick up because it holds into verse 8 promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It has benefits for this life and it has benefits in the future. I was thinking back through this and I've read this to you guys before but I wanted to read it to you again and I was thinking about the benefits of this prayer. Well, what are some of the benefits of this?

Present life will become more like Jesus. That's good. But there's this article that came out and I see a reference sometimes. It's it's let me get my numbering right here. The nine tangible benefits of consistent Bible reading. You guys remember do you guys remember me reading this to you at some point in time? Let me read these to you when somebody really gets into the word of God more than once a week.

It has to be at least four times or more a week once a week doesn't have that much change on you twice a week. Doesn't have that much change on you three times a week. You start to notice change but four days a week or more you'll notice change and these are the differences that take place on this side of eternity for somebody who disciplines themselves towards godliness. Number one feelings of loneliness dropped by 30%.

This is a this is a survey of 40 to 80,000 people. I don't remember how much what the number was and these are the reportings loneliness dropped by 30% anger issues dropped by 32% bitterness in relationships dropped by 40%. Alcoholism dropped by 57% sex outside of marriage dropped by 68% feeling spiritually stagnant dropped by 60%. The viewing of pornography dropped by 61% these are really cool numbers sharing of your faith jumped by 200% and discipling of others jumped by 230%.

Yeah disciplining yourself towards godliness has benefits on this side of eternity. As a matter of fact, it sounds like it just might change who you are. It just might change the fabric of who you are because you just might become a little bit like Jesus. And so it has benefits on this side of eternity. But not only that has benefits for the other side of eternity after all we will spend eternity with Jesus.

Why wouldn't we get to know him as well as we can on this side of eternity before we get there. It has benefits for all those things. So he says number one is if you want to stand on the truth and will require instruction number two. It will require discipline. But the number three it will require hope notice what it says for it is for this that we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of believers.

For two for it is for this that we labor and strive for what what are we laboring and striving for? Well, it takes us back to verse seven godliness. What are we striving for? We're striving for that godly character in our lives, right? That's that's the goal. We're moving for that word striving is kind of an interesting word that word strive comes from the idea of to contend in the games.

It's where we get our English word agonize which is kind of interesting. We go wait Ryan. I thought life with Jesus was supposed to be peaceful. It is. It's the most amazing thing you can ever imagine. So why am I going to be in the gymnasium agonizing? Because without that there's no glory, right? Like like that's what leads us to where we're supposed to be that agonizing is what brings us to the glory, right?

It's not an Olympic year, but I do always love a good Olympic here because all of those stories are all about the agonizing. All of those stories are all about the gymnasium. Not so that they can become an athlete. But so that they can become the best athlete there. They're already an athlete that's secured, but they want to become the best athlete. So they agonize they contend in the gymnasium and in life reaching for the goal and their goal is temporary.

Our goal is eternal godliness. But you say right? I thought this was a hope that sounds hard. Notice what it says for it is for this that we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope. On the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of believers. Now we're reminded of the balance. We strive we agonize we discipline ourselves. We put 100% of ourselves into this walk with Jesus Christ, but we remember who produces the fruit.

We remember where the hope really lies and that is in the living God. I want to quote for you. You might just write down. The margin of your Bible first Corinthians 1510 first Corinthians 1510. It says but by the grace of God I am what I am this grace towards me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all yet. Not I but the grace of God which was with me yet.

Not I but the grace of God which was with me why because we hope in the living God. We hope in God for our salvation. We hope in God for our sanctification. We hope in God for our glorification. But at the end of the day man has responsibility. We have responsibility to pour our whole self into this salvation that we have been called to to pour our whole self into this grace that we have been called to so that we will not take the grace of God in vain.

He said that our hope is in the living God. The one who actually produces the fruit matter of fact, he calls him the savior of all men, but especially of believers. He's the hope of salvation for everyone. He's the reality of salvation for everyone who believes and so brothers and sisters. We are reminded that we are to be instructed and to instruct others about the false and we are reminded that a life of standing on the truth will require discipline.

Listen, if it was easy, everybody would do it right? If it was easy, it'd be popular. But it requires discipline. But at the end of the day, our hope our hope is not that our discipline will be strong enough. Our hope is that our God is big enough. Amen. Well, this morning is communion Sunday. And so I would like to spend just a few moments talking about communion.

Before we get ready to partake of this meal together. I like to invite the worship team to come up to inside of each. Of these trays, of course, are the communion elements two cups stacked together. Nothing new bottom cup has the cracker. The top cup has the juice. It's what they stand for. That's the most important thing for us because what they stand for what they symbolize for us is our hope of salvation is our hope as believers in Jesus Christ because we're reminded on that last night of the feast.

Jesus took that bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body, which is broken for you. And we are reminded every time we partake of it, but that's exactly what Jesus did for us is he sacrificed his body on the tree for us so that we could experience the salvation that comes from God alone. And of course that top cup has the juice in it that juice that represents the blood of Jesus Christ.

And we are reminded that it is the blood of Jesus Christ that continually cleanses us. From all sin. And so we're told that as we partake of this, we're not to do so in an unworthy manner that we are to know and understand and discern the body. And so we need to make sure that first of all that we are in the faith. But second of all, as those that are in the faith that our hearts are right before the Lord that we deal with things that need to be dealt with sins that we have harbored unforgiveness that we haven't given sometimes the grace of God,

that we've taken in vain. We allow God to bring that cleansing into our lives. So as the worship team sings this last song as the ushers hand out the elements, I would ask that you would take a moment to allow the Holy Spirit to do his work in you that you would allow the Holy Spirit to move through your heart revealing what needs to be revealed. That you would do the business with the Lord that needs to be done.

And as you receive your elements, if you'd please stand. And we'll partake together. Bow with me. Father, we come to you now and Lord, I praise you for the work of the cross. Father, I thank you for sending Jesus to come down as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Father, I thank you for his body that was broken for us. Lord wounded for our transgressions bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace.

For our peace laid upon him Lord and by his stripes. We are healed and father. I praise you for the blood of Jesus Christ that is enough to cover all of our sins. Lord, may we never take for granted the fact that the only reason we have hope is because of the sacrifice that you made for us. So father, we praise you for who you are. We praise you for what you've done for us in Jesus name.

Amen. Let's partake. And if you'd bow with me one last time. Father, as we as we head home, as we depart from here, Lord, may your word continue to sink deeply into our hearts. Father, as always, I pray that only the things of you would remain father that the things of me would fall by the wayside. And Lord that you would move in the hearts of everyone here this morning to draw us near to you.

Father, we just thank you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.