Advent 3: 1 Timothy 4

Jason Procopio

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Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been trying to see how the season of Advent isn’t just about getting ready to celebrate Christmas. It is that, but it’s a lot more than that.

Remember, we saw that in the Bible, God’s people live through repeated cycles of waiting and fulfillment: they wait in Egypt before being rescued from slavery; they wait in the desert before God gives them the promised land; they wait in exile before returning to Jerusalem; and they wait for four hundred years before God sends the Messiah, the Savior he had promised them—which of course is what we celebrate at Christmas.

And we’ve seen that we, Christians in the 21st century, are waiting too. We are waiting for the return of Christ, at which time he will make all things new.

So over the last two weeks, we’ve talked about how we wait in times of crisis, and how God encourages us in our wait.

But we haven’t yet talked about how we wait, on a day-by-day basis—what life in exile actually looks like.

In our minds, waiting is almost always a passive affair. You sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. You stand in line and wait for your turn. You sit at home and you wait for your guests to arrive.

But in the Bible we see that these periods of waiting for the people of God are never meant to be periods in which we just get to sit around and do nothing, saying “Where is God? I don’t know. I wonder when he’ll show up.”

At the beginning of Luke’s gospel, we see two really great examples of people who are waiting well.

Reminder: Advent—How to Live While We Wait

We are waiting for the return of Christ, in which he will make all things new. We’ve spoken the last two weeks about why we wait. But we haven’t yet talked about how we wait. What life in exile actually looks like.

After Jesus’s birth, Joseph and Mary bring him to the temple for the ritual of purification that all Jewish boys had to go through. And in the temple at that time we see two people—a man and a woman—who are both present.

The first is Simeon. :

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

So Luke says that while Simeon waited for “the consolation of Israel” (the fulfillment of God’s promises of the Messiah), he was righteous and devout. That means that he had given himself over to knowing Scripture and to obedience to God’s Word in worship. He knew the Word, and he lived the Word.

Advent forces us to put ourselves in the mentality of the Jews waiting for the Messiah, in order to help us wait for our Messiah’s return.

The second example is an old woman—Luke says she was “advanced in years”, v. 36—named Anna. And in Anna’s case, Luke is even more explicit. He says (v. 37):

She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Here’s the point. Both Simeon and Anna were waiting for the Messiah to come. They were waiting for the consolation of Israel. And, like everyone else, they were in a kind of holding pattern: they didn’t know when the Messiah would come.

But they weren’t waiting around doing nothing—they were waiting actively. They had trained themselves in what it means to wait faithfully. Simeon was righteous and devout (which doesn’t just happen on its own); and Anna spent all of her time worshiping the Lord, fasting and praying. They were waiting, but their waiting was anything but passive.

Reminder: the cycle of waiting and accomplishment.

The curious thing is that these periods of waiting were never periods in which the people got to sit around and do nothing, saying, “Where is God?”

Two examples of those who waited well: Simeon and Anna ()

Simeon: righteous and devout. He gave himself over to the study of Scripture and to obedience to God’s Word.

Anna: (even more explicit): v. 37: did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

They were in a holding pattern, like everyone else—waiting for the Messiah. But they weren’t waiting around doing nothing—they were waiting actively. They had trained themselves in what it means to wait faithfully.

,

Reminder: Advent—How to Live While We Wait

So that’s what we’ll be looking at today—what we are called to learn to do while we wait for Christ to return. And to do that, we’re going to go to .

Foundation of why we’re talking about this today—v. 10.

Before we actually get into the text, let me explain really quickly why we’re coming here to talk about Advent. We’ve spent the last two weeks talking about how Advent is meant to help us learn to wait in hope for the return of Christ, as the people of Israel waited for the Messiah to come prior to Jesus’s birth.

We’re going to come back to this later, but in v. 10 (the last verse of our passage this morning), Paul says:

10 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 of those who believe.

So he’s going to give Timothy a series of things to do, and he says that all of this work—all this toil and strife—is done for one reason: because we have our hope set on the living God.

We’re going to look at this question in two places—one in the Old Testament and one in the New.

That is an eschatological sentence. The Savior hasn’t yet returned to earth, he hasn’t yet renewed the earth and completely done away with sin, but one day he will. And we are living in the hope of that day.

So because we are waiting for that day, because we have our hope set on the living God, here’s is what we must do.

We must train ourselves in godliness.

Training for Life (v. 6-7)

Let’s remember what’s going on in this text. (It shouldn’t be too hard; we were in 2 Timothy just a few weeks ago, and the context here is similar.)

Paul is writing to his young protégé Timothy, who is now the pastor of the church in Ephesus, a church Paul himself planted. He wrote this first letter because there were some issues cropping up in the church in Ephesus which Timothy was having to deal with (namely some false teachers who were trying to sneak their way in and preach a false gospel), so Paul is responding to these issues with counsel for Timothy on how to deal with them.

But as always, Paul can’t just give advice; he’s also going to speak to Timothy about Timothy’s faith, and how to care for his own soul in this contentious context.

He begins chapter 4 by talking about the false teachers cropping up in Timothy’s church, who impose weird rules of asceticism that the Bible never does, and he reminds Timothy of why the gospel should free us from those ideas. As Christians we have a great deal of freedom to take pleasure in the things God has created, as long as we do it appropriately, as God intended, because Christ died to fulfill the law for his people, so we are not saved through works of the law, but by grace, through faith, alone.

saying this:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

So in other words, he’s saying, “I

So basically these false teachers are coming in and telling people that things which God created good are actually not good. They’re telling people it’s sinful to get married; they’re telling people that certain foods are off limits. They’re saying you can measure your holiness based on what you give up, rather than by what you love.

And Paul’s reminding Timothy that, no, these are things that God created, and he created them good, as long as they’re used appropriately.

Of course Timothy knows these things, and he knows them because he knows the gospel. He knows that Christ died to fulfill the law for his people, that we are not saved through works of the law (which did require abstinence from certain foods, for example), but we are saved by grace, through faith, alone. Which means that as Christians we are free to take pleasure in the things God has created, as long as we do it appropriately, as God intended.

Now just so that I don’t get any nasty emails saying I told you all it was okay to go out and smoke pot and have pre-marital sex (trust me, it happens), let me be really clear that God did tell us how to enjoy created things. He gives us a framework for nearly every pleasure under the sun, because he created us and knows what is good for us.

Take food, for example. Food is a good thing. Wine is a good thing. These are gifts God has given us, not just for sustenance, but for pleasure. They taste good. They feel good.

But we don’t have to look far to know those things can be abused, right? That food can become a crutch we turn to when we don’t want to feel whatever we’re feeling. That wine can become a means to silence the turmoil in our brains.

All good things can be abused, but rather than going to the extreme and saying we shouldn’t take them at all, Paul is saying we can enjoy them, but when we do, it should be as God intended—not as a way of silencing our pain, but simply to honor the grace of God in giving us these good things, and in telling us how we can enjoy them.

So Paul is reminding Timothy of the gospel he knows: it is not your acts which save you, it is not what you eat or don’t eat, but rather the grace of God in Jesus Christ alone. And that’s going to be really important later on.

So Paul says (v. 6):

6 If you put these things [the truths of the gospel] 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.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Now in v. 6 we have our first big point.

Timothy has been trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine. He knows his Bible well. And he knows it so well that he can communicate it to others—he can “put these things before the brothers.”

I’m going to say something that may be shocking to some of you: learning takes time.

Hearing doesn’t take time; understanding doesn’t necessarily take time. But learning—being trained in something—takes time. And the more complex the subject is, the longer it will take to learn it.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

We saw a few weeks ago in that Timothy had been trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine from childhood (). At this time Timothy was a young man—probably close to my age, maybe a little younger—but he had been learning these things since he was a little boy. Which means that, at minimum, he had twenty or thirty years of learning the faith under his belt.

If you haven’t been a Christian for very long, and you’re feeling a bit frustrated that you’re not progressing as quickly as you think you should, please let me reassure you—everyone feels that way. We all want to move more quickly than we do.

Listen, guys—this stuff takes a long time. You can’t expect to be a theological heavyweight in a day, and that’s okay. You’re not supposed to be. We’re going to be learning about and exploring the nature of God and good doctrine for all eternity.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Now here’s what we need to see here. As simple as this is, it takes an incredible amount of time, and an incredible amount of work. But that work will be pleasant to us if we actually love the Lord the way the text calls us to.

Let me give you an example many of you (or at least some of you) will understand. I’m fairly proud that I’ve taught my son to love Star Wars. Even before he was old enough to see the movies, he had picture books based on the movies, and I read those to him, and we talked about them, and then we watched the movies together when he was old enough, and we talked about them some more, and now he loves them as much as I do.

I was able to do that because I put in the work when I was young. I watched all of these movies (the original trilogy anyway; the others weren’t around yet) over and over again, to the point where I had them memorized. I read Star Wars novels. I had magazines. I had toys. A lot of effort went into building up this storehouse of useless Star Wars knowledge I have.

But here’s the thing: the work didn’t feel like work, because I LOVE Star Wars. I saw the movies, and I was just swept away by them—so the work wasn’t work, it was pleasure.

That’s what God is getting at here in this commandment. He calls his people to love him, the one true God, with all their heart and soul and might. And because they love him, because his words are on their heart, this transmission of what they love to future generations will be so instinctive that it will take over every conversation, every walk outside, every bedtime.

Which means of course that the people are called to know the story they’re called to pass on to their kids. You can’t communicate something you don’t understand. You can make things up about it, but you can’t say anything accurate if you don’t actually know the subject you’re talking about.

So God’s people are called to learn his story inside and out—to know it in their bones—so that talking about it when they sit in their house and when they walk by the way and when they lie down and rise is actually possible.

But let’s be realistic for a minute. The kind of knowledge it takes to do this, if you’re going to actually speak faithfully about God, requires discipline. No matter how much you love something, whatever it is, you’ll have moments when you’re drawn away by other things, when you want a change of scene. I love Star Wars, but I don’t study Star Wars; I’m not thinking about it night and day. First of all, because it’s not worth it—it’s just a story—and also because I'm interested in other things.

Now I think we can all agree that it shouldn’t be that way with God. We’re talking about the most massive truths in all of human history—the truths on which our identity and our eternity are founded. There is only one reason why we would not be interested in these things, and want to keep learning more. And that reason is sin.

But

We have been saved by grace through faith, and we have been given a new nature—but our old nature is still under the surface, fighting to gain back the traction it has lost. The sin in us is always trying to regain control. So it will pull us away. It will make it hard for us to remember just how good God is, and how massive these truths are. It will draw us away from God, if it can.

That is why we talk about discipline, and I believe that’s why God had to actually spell it out to the people that this was how they should live. He knew he had to tell them to love these truths and teach them to their kids, because he knew they’d forget. He knew it would take discipline.

So here’s what we need to realize, and this is why we’re talking about this during Advent: this isn’t going to happen in a day. Or in a year. Or in ten years. This is a day-in, day-out, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, year-by year discipline which will over time form and shape us into the people God calls us to be. This is what we do while we wait.

We are called to teach future generations the Word of God, by repeating them often and reminding one another of them. Which of course implies that we ourselves must know these words intimately.

And that’s exactly why we’re talking about this during Advent: this isn’t going to happen in a day. Or in a year. Or in ten years. This is a day-in, day-out, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, year-by year discipline which will over time form and shape us into the people God calls us to be. This is our life while we wait.

So what does this life consist of?

V. 7:

Paul gives both a negative and a positive command. Let’s look at the negative command first, v. 7:

7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

We’ll go further with this in a bit, but for now, look at these commands.

Literally, this command says, “Stay away from profane old wives’ tales.” He’s talking about ideas which might sound reasonable, but which have no basis in reality.

A while back on Facebook I saw someone post an article that said you should cook onions twenty minutes (maximum) after you cut them, because otherwise they suck in all the bacteria in your house and can make you sick.

That’s an old wives’ tale. People eat raw onions all the time and they don’t get sick.

Most of the times old wives’ tales are harmless. But when you take these kinds of ideas and apply them to spiritual things, they become irreverent, because they have no basis in the truth God has revealed to us; and the damage can be huge, because you’re not just talking about cooking advice, but about how to care for your soul, how to honor and glorify God.

And unfortunately, there are thousands of these irreverent, silly myths floating around in Christian circles, all the time.

Just one example. Some people will think, “I don’t need to spend time in the Bible, I don’t need to study and learn and grow in the knowledge of doctrine, because I have the Holy Spirit, and he’ll give me everything I need.”

Now they might not ever say it out loud, but functionally, that’s how they operate.

These people will sit and pray, and they’ll say, “Holy Spirit, speak to me.” And they’ll wait for the Spirit to start buffering, and the download to begin. They’ll flip randomly through their Bibles to see if a verse jumps out at them. If that doesn’t work, they’ll throw on some Christian rock worship and see if that helps. And once they start to feel something, they know the Spirit is doing his work in them.

That’s wrong. That’s not how it works. That’s just as wrong as those who say they don’t need to ask the Spirit to speak to them, because they have the Bible.

If you look at how the Bible describes growth in Christian maturity, it is almost never in terms of radical, extraordinary acts of the Holy Spirit in which he comes down and give you a jolt of power, but rather in perfectly ordinary acts of obedience which, over time, make us more like him.

“I don’t need to spend time in the Bible, I don’t need to study and learn and grow in the knowledge of doctrine, because I have the Holy Spirit, and he’ll give me everything I need.”

We read the Bible—yes, we actually read all the words that are written there—and the Holy Spirit works through his Word to slowly and steadily change our hearts…and occasionally he breaks through and does something exceptional.

This is why the spiritual disciplines are so important.

The spiritual disciplines—reading the Bible, prayer, fasting, service, generosity—aren’t the kind of thing that a lot of Christians want to talk about, because they’re not sexy; they’re boring. They feel like work.

But these are the ordinary means of grace God gives us to grow in him.

Literally, “profane fables of old women”.—autrement dit : des idées reçues stupides.

Irreverent, silly myths

I don’t need to ask the Spirit to speak to me, because I have the Bible.

The Holy Spirit download

Here’s an example: a few weeks ago I was going through my reading plan, and I was in the book of Daniel. If you know the book, you know that the first half of Daniel is full of awesome stories we love—the lion’s den, the three friends in the fiery furnace.

I don’t need to spend time in the Word, I don’t need to study and learn and grow in the knowledge of doctrine, I just need to wait for the Spirit to come in and give me a breakthrough.

But the second half of the book gets really, really weird.

This Word vs. Spirit talk is absolutely insane—it’s not a competition between the two.

On this particular morning, I was in one of the weird parts. In , Daniel receives a vision of—I’m not even kidding—a unicorn. (It’s not called that, but that’s what it is.)

The Holy Spirit works through his Word to slowly and steadily change our hearts…and occasionally he breaks through and does something extraordinary.

But it’s not a “normal” unicorn—you know, a horse with a horn coming out of its forehead. This was like that, but it was a goat instead of a horse. The goat-unicorn beats up a ram with its unicorn-horn, and later that horn breaks off and becomes four other horns, and out of one of these horns grows a tiny horn that eventually becomes really big.

I think we can agree: that’s weird. That’s a weird story. And that was my time in the Word that day.

Example: —the goat-unicorn

I’ll just be honest with you: that particular chapter didn’t do a lot to “feed my soul.” I did not get a Holy Spirit download that morning. Of course, there is meaning behind that vision—all the Word of God is profitable to us, and we should try to understand why that text is there.

But that morning, as I read, I didn’t feel much.

The next day I was in chapter 9. Daniel’s coming hot off the heels of this really weird vision, and he’s freaking out. He prays that God would help him understand the vision he had received.

And at the end of chapter 9, the angel Gabriel appears to him to help him understand, and he says (v. 23):

8.27: Daniel freaks out (of course), and (chapter 9) prays that God would help him understand. (I’ll admit I was with him there.)

At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.

At the end of chapter 9, the angel Gabriel appears to him and says (v. 23): At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.

And when I read that verse, something occurred to me. I realized that God gave this word to Daniel—he gave Daniel this vision and the explanation of the vision—so that Daniel would write it down, and transmit it to his people (us included). And he gave us this word—this weird vision and its explanation—because we too are greatly loved.

Because God loves us, he doesn’t leave us in the dark. He tells us what he’s doing and what he’s thinking, no matter how strange it may seem to us at first.

And I found myself comforted and moved by the love of my God who would faithfully preserve and transmit his Word, and speak to someone like me, because I don’t deserve that kind of love from an infinite God.

But listen—to get to that point of comfort and encouragement, I had to go through the frankly laborious reading of the goat-unicorn.

Brothers and sisters, this is spiritual discipline. It is laborious, repetitive, and sometimes boring…but God uses it to shape our minds and hearts to love him, and occasionally, he breaks through and meets us in his Word, giving us exactly what we need at that moment.

This is spiritual discipline. It is laborious, repetitive, and sometimes boring…but God uses it to shape our minds and hearts to love him, and occasionally, he breaks through and meets us where we are in his Word, giving us exactly what we need at that moment.

And that is why Paul follows up his negative command to have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths with his positive command (v. 7 again): Rather train yourself for godliness.

Every once in a while

This word “godliness” (also “piety” in some translations) can sometimes throw us off—it means more than acts of worship, or observance of religious rituals. Godliness is being like God. It is sharing God’s loves, God’s hates, God’s desires, God’s character.

Now of course it can seem presumptuous of us to think we know what God is like, but it’s not—he has told us what he is like.

In theology we talk about the incommunicable attributes of God, and the communicable attributes of God. God’s incommunicable attributes are those things that are only true of God—he is all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent, eternal, sovereign.

But God also has a number of attributes that he shares with human beings, and which we can grow in.

He is wise—and we, too, can grow to be wise.

He is loving—we too can grow to be loving.

He is holy—we too can grow to be holy.

So Paul tells Timothy that while he should avoid irreverent, silly myths, he should train himself in becoming like God—train himself in growing in godly character, and in obeying God’s commandments, which are a reflection of that character.

Let me put it simply: Paul’s telling Timothy to train himself in knowing God as he has revealed himself in Scripture, and in living according to what he learns.

And once again, this takes time, and it takes work. Training to do anything well takes a long time, and requires the right tools.

You can only grow in godliness if you know what God is like; and you can only know what God is like if you know his Word, which tells us what he is like.

So let me get super practical for a minute and give you just a small idea of what this looks like for me. There are lots of faithful ways to do this, and I’ll surely refine my routine over time, but this is how it works for me today.

(Ferguson: hand-in-hand with Dad)

Train yourself in godliness.

Train. Toil. Strive.

In what? Godliness.

This means that in the same way that we discipline ourselves in our knowledge of the Word, in our sensitivity toward the things of God, in our prayer life, we are called to train ourselves in obedience to his commandments.

If we know Christ, and if we love Christ, we won’t just talk about him; we will live like him.

We’ll wonder how it came to be that we no longer love the sinful things we used to love. How we now feel strange if a day goes by in which we don’t read God’s word. How we actually want to live holy lives, how sin is no longer attractive to us.

Historically the church has called this work the “spiritual disciplines.” Reading the Bible, memorizing the Bible, prayer, fasting, serving, generosity. These are all disciplines we develop in ourselves in order to grow in our faith.

This kind of knowledge requires discipline. This isn’t going to happen in a day. Or in a year. Or in ten years. This is a day-in, day-out, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, year-by year discipline which will over time form and shape us into the people God calls us to be.

And anyone who has tried to practice these can tell you that they often feel like what they are: disciplines. Let me give you a quick example of just a couple of these.

Most mornings, I typically get up at 5:30 a.m. (Since Zadie was born, because she’s still not sleeping through the night, often that veers closer to 6:00, but it’s almost never later than that.)

If that sounds early, it is. I am not a morning person. My natural rhythm is, go to sleep at four a.m., wake up at eleven, and work until nine or ten at night. I get up so early because I know myself, and I know that if I don’t do it then, it probably won’t get done. I’ll get distracted.

But that early in the morning, there’s nothing to distract me. The wifi is off (we cut it off at night), my computer’s asleep, my phone is off. So I’ll get up, I’ll get a cup of coffee, and I’ll sit down with my Bible. I’ll read my Bible (and yes, sometimes it is a struggle because I’m still sleepy), and then I’ll go back and pray in response to what I read. After that, I’ll run through the day ahead of me and pray for that day—whatever meetings I might have, or sermon prep, or family time.

I’ll be honest with you—this often feels like work. Especially on days when my reading plan has me in passages like . There’s nothing extraordinary about it; when I read my Bible in the morning, I don’t usually get up from my chair wiping my eyes and shaking from my incredible encounter with the Holy Spirit. It’s not always fun. It’s not always exciting. It’s not always emotionally stirring. It’s discipline.

By the time I’m done with all of that, it’ll be time to get dressed and ready so that I can go wake up the kids.

And once I get them up, we’re off and running. The day begins, and during the day, I’ll have hundreds of opportunities to obey God, or to disobey God.

There will be moments when people annoy me, so I can choose to speak to them with patience and gentleness, or to be harsh with them.

There will be moments when I’m tired at work, so I can choose to press through and work to the best of my ability, or go on YouTube for four hours and watch people fall down. (Yes, that is what I like watching on YouTube.)

There will be moments when I don’t want to talk to anyone, but I have a lunch meeting with someone in the church, so I can choose to be gracious and loving, or to brood in my corner,

There will be moments when I have the opportunity to be generous, or to be selfish. To dwell on sinful things, or to turn my mind to the things of God.

And during those moments, it’s discipline. It’s making the effort to obey God’s commandments in the most practical of situations.

When I’m done with work, I’ll head home, and on the way home I’ll pray for the evening ahead of me—because I honestly don’t know what’s going to meet me when I open the door. Will I find two adorable children who are obedient to their parents and happy to see me? Or will I find depraved little monsters who only think of themselves?

Will I find two adorable children who are obedient to their parents and happy to see me? Or will I find depraved little monsters who only think of themselves?

Will I find a wife who is happy to see me, or a wife who is ready to pull her hair out because she’s just spent all day with the little monsters?

I never know. So I’ll pray that God helps me to love them well, to love Loanne well.

I open the door, and my second shift begins.

I’ll be honest with you—all of this often feels like work. There’s nothing extraordinary about it; when I read my Bible in the morning, I don’t usually get up from my chair wiping my eyes and trembling from my incredible encounter with the Holy Spirit.

The rest of the day, when I’m away from my Bible, is just as much a time of discipline as the time I spend in front of my Bible. Sometimes I do fairly well, sometimes I fail miserably.

When I resist temptation, I don’t feel like a knight defeating a dragon; I feel like a weak man trying to fight off an enemy way stronger than I am. And I fail far more often than I want to admit to anyone.

And I’ll be honest with you—often, this feels like work. There’s nothing extraordinary about it; I don’t get up from my chair wiping my eyes and shaking from my incredible encounter with the Holy Spirit. When I

It’s not always fun. It’s not always exciting. It’s not always emotionally stirring.

But remember the first commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

It’s discipline.

But I can tell you without any qualifications that I love God far more today than I did when I met him seventeen years ago. And I am more obedient to God’s commands during the day than I was seventeen years ago. And I’m able to love other people, and be more generous, and be more self-sacrificing, than I was seventeen years ago.

We train ourselves in godliness—we work at it, we toil at it—because that is how we grow while we wait for Christ’s return. It’s often tedious; it’s not always fun.

But you do it—day in and day out, year after year.

And then one day ten years from now, you’ll wake up and realize that you are mature in your faith, and wonder how you got there.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

How are you doing on that front? Do you love him as fully as you should? As completely as you should? Truly with all your heart and all your soul and all your might?

You’ll find yourself able to counsel others with the words of Scripture, and you’ll surprise yourself—“I didn’t even know I knew that!”

You’ll find yourself able to think back over the entire story of the Bible and suddenly appreciate why the New Testament authors are constantly referencing the Old Testament.

You’ll find yourself reacting patiently to something that would have thrown you into a rage ten years ago.

You’ll find yourself comforted and restful in the middle of a situation that would have sent you into a spiral of anxiety and fear ten years ago.

One day, you’ll wake up and realize that you are more like God now than you were ten years ago, and it happened without you even noticing it was happening.

That, brothers and sisters, is the Christian life. That is training for godliness.

So that’s what it looks like. That is training for godliness.

No? OK, so we still have work to do.

But here’s the question: if it really is that much work, if it really takes this much effort, why is it worth it?

Training for Eternity (v. 8-10)

Now you may think you’re doing okay on the discipline front—that most of that work is done—but we’ll know we’re done when we can say we’ve accomplished v. 5.

How are we doing there? None of us love God as we ought.

This isn’t going to happen in a day.

And what kind of people is that? What is the goal of this discipline? That we might love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and might.

Spiritual disciplines

Discipline Lived ()

Paul tells Timothy (read starting at v. 7 again):

Take the love of the Lord you have, and the Word you have learned, and put them to work in living holy lives.

The words of the faith, the good doctrine, is the foundation for holiness.

If you’re doctrine is off, your obedience will be off.

Example: If you accept the prosperity gospel, you will give foolishly, well beyond your means (when God never asks you to do that), and in so doing endanger your family. And then you’ll wonder why you haven’t gotten that gift back tenfold.

The Holy Spirit download

I don’t need to spend time in the Word, I don’t need to study and learn and grow in the knowledge of doctrine, I just need to wait for the Spirit to come in and give me a breakthrough.

NO. The Holy Spirit works through his Word to slowly and steadily change our hearts…and occasionally he breaks through and does something extraordinary.

Example: 8—the goat-unicorn

8.27: Daniel freaks out (of course), and (chapter 9) prays that God would help him understand. (I’ll admit I was with him there.)

At the end of chapter 9, the angel Gabriel appears to him and says (v. 23): At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.

And I realized that God gave this word to Daniel, to be written down and transmitted to his people (us included), not to confuse us, but because we too are greatly loved. That because God loves us, he doesn’t leave us in the dark. He explains his will to us.

And I found myself comforted and moved by the love of my God who would faithfully preserve and transmit his Word, and speak to someone like me.

(Ferguson: hand-in-hand with Dad)

Train yourself in godliness.

Train. Toil. Strive.

In what? Godliness.

If we know Christ, and if we love Christ, we won’t just talk about him; we will live like him.

Then we’ll look up in ten years, realize how far we’ve come, and wonder how we got there.

7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 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. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 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 of those who believe.

A Good Servant of Christ Jesus

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

We talked about Simeon and Anna at the beginning—these two people who were actively waiting to see the Messiah. There is a beautiful moment in when Simeon, this devout and righteous man who had been waiting for the Messiah, finally sees him. Luke tells us that the Spirit had told Simeon he would not die before seeing the Messiah with his own eyes.

And then Mary and Joseph bring the baby Jesus into the temple, and he knows. He knows that this baby is the Messiah God had promised.

So we see here this beautiful picture of a man who had run his race well, who had arrived at the end of his life…and he knew it. You would think that knowing you would soon be dying would be a depressing idea—but we don’t see any depression in Simeon at this moment.

He takes the baby in his arms, and he blesses God, and says ():

29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,

according to your word;

30 for my eyes have seen your salvation

31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and for glory to your people Israel.”

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

All his years of learning and discipline and waiting, all his years in training himself in devout righteousness, had brought him to this moment—when he was finally able to enjoy what he had been waiting for.

That is what Paul is trying to express to Timothy in v. 8-10. We’ll read starting at v. 7 again:

The people of Israel waited four hundred years for God to send the Messiah…and then Christ was born. And

Brothers and sisters, if all of this sounds like a lot of work, it is. But it is work with a purpose. There is a goal in view.

And if you want to know how important that goal is, look at Paul’s example of bodily training.

No matter how much I hate to say it, I can’t dispute that physical exercise, and eating right, is good for your body. You’ll feel better, you’ll be stronger, your overall quality of life will improve.

But no matter how much you exercise, you’re still going to get old. Your body will still wear out. You’ll get wrinkles. The muscles you pride yourselves in will get spongy. You’ll come to the point where even sleeping will start to hurt. You’ll wake up in the morning feeling like you’ve just finished running a marathon, when you’ve just been laying there.

Bodily training is useful, but its usefulness is limited.

That’s not the case for training in godliness. Paul says, 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.

Or to put it another way: while we are living on this earth, the Christian life is practice for heaven.

Training in godliness holds promise because in the life to come, in heaven, godly is all we will be. Christ will return, and renew this earth, and glorify us; he will eradicate sin and its effects. So we will be, through his power, like him. We will be godly, down to our DNA.

That’s really important, because it is only through godliness that we are able to enjoy God.

C.S. Lewis famously said, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” What he means is that our nature, as beings created in the image of God, longs to be united to the place in which God is everything. And as we grow in godliness, we feel that longing—we feel that desire for heaven—more and more.

When Christ returns and renews us, we will finally be able to enjoy that which we have desired for so long, maybe without even realizing it: namely, God’s glory. And we will enjoy his glory because we were made for it—only godly people love God’s glory, and we were made to be godly.

So Paul is saying that training for godliness gives us the ability to enjoy God forever, and to start enjoying God now, while we wait. We can start to experience a foretaste of the joys of heaven, as we grow to be more and more like God.

And if you think about it, it makes total sense.

Think of the kid who wants more than anything to become an astronaut. He dreams of being in space. Most kids move onto more realistic dreams as they get older, but some of them stick with it. And eventually, those kids will grow up, and they’ll train, and they’ll get to visit NASA. They’ll get to experience flight simulators and zero-gravity machines.

And I guarantee you, on those days, when they get a little foretaste of what it will be like in space, they will be happier than just about any other time in their lives. Because even if they’re not there yet, they get to experience a little taste of what it will be like.

The Christian life is practice for heaven. The joys we’ll spend eternity experiencing start now.

But ultimately, that joy isn’t found in any one thing we find in heaven—renewed bodies or a renewed earth or a lack of pain or sickness or death, as good as those things are. Ultimately, our hope is not in any of these things, but in God himself.

V. 10:

10 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 of those who believe.

Everything we do—all of our work, all of our toil and strife, all of our training in godliness—we do because we have our hope set on the living God.

The better you’re able to swim, the more you can enjoy the water. The more like God you are, the more you can enjoy who God is.

And enjoying God is what we were created for. God himself is the great promise of heaven. He is the standard of our godliness, and he is the goal of our godliness.

One day Christ will return. One day he will make all things new. One day he will make us new.

But he hasn’t come back yet. We are still here—exiles in this fallen world, waiting for our Savior to return.

And the good news is we don’t have to wait for his return to begin living our eternal life.

So brothers and sisters, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Reject those ideas of the Christian life which seem logical at first but which have no basis in Scripture.

Rather, train yourself in godliness. The only way you can reject irreverent, silly myths is if you have been trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine. So learn to know your Bible well—all of it. Don’t worry if it takes time. Don’t worry if it’s hard. Be patient. Keep at it. Do it together.

And live what you learn. Be obedient to the Word.

Grow in godliness. Grow to know God as he has revealed himself in Scripture, and to live according to what you know. Grow to be more and more like Christ, more and more foreign to this broken world.

And do it all in order to enjoy God more here and now…

Toil, and strive, because you have your hope set on the living God.

And as you grow in godliness, in this broken world which is the place of our exile, hold on to the promise that our living God, our Savior, is coming.

We wait, and we groan in our sufferings, and we lament over the state of this broken world.

The Christian life is practice for heaven.

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. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 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. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 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 of those who believe.

In the Christian life, we begin to experience a foretaste of the joys of heaven.

But we wait actively, as those who have a sure and solid hope—that our waiting will soon be over, and we will be like him, and we will see him and know him as he is.

This is why we do what we do. This is how we

11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Our joy, and our life—now and in eternity—is not in whatever we’ll find in heaven, but in the living God himself. HE is our hope.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

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