Have you ever heard of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat? It’s a trick where the magician shows you what looks like an empty hat, then he reaches in and pulls out a rabbit! Do you think a rabbit can actually come out of an empty hat? No? Well, you are right, it’s just a trick. Rabbits can’t magically appear, can they?
You know what else can’t magically appear? The universe. The universe is what we call earth, the stars, the planets…all the stuff that God has made. Did you hear that: the stuff that God has made. That’s right, God made the universe.
Well then, who made God? Nobody did, He has always been alive. But that is another question we will answer on a different day.
Macro Evolution, an eternally existing or self-creating cosmos…these are some of the prevailing myths masquerading as truth.
It has been said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
Actually, Darwin made it possible to deny what your own eyes and your own mind are telling you is obviously true…what a child knows is true.
Ironically, tragically…ultimate truth, the gospel, is often thought to be a myth, and prevailing myths are thought to be the truth.
30 years ago, Micro-biologist Michael Behe wrote, “Darwin’s Black Box”
In that book he laid out the case for what is called irreducibly complexity…in the tiny world of micro-biology there are complex systems that had to appear all at once, they could not have evolved slowly…it was a kind of slam dunk.
I read some responses from fellow scientists back when he wrote it, this is my paraphrase, “Behe needs to shup up and get with the program…don’t confuse us with facts, we know what we believe.”
Then there was the brilliant astrophysicist Stephen Hawking’s nonsensical statement about the cosmos.
“Because gravity exists, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
This is all mythology, presented as truth…while the truth is presented as myth.
We know what some of the myths masquerading as truth during the first century were, but we don’t know exactly the details of the one’s that Paul was referring to in his letter to Timothy.
What we do know is the content of the truth that Paul wrote about…the gospel.
Timothy was to focus his energy and attention on that truth…he was to speak it, and he was train to live it.
The content of the myths isn’t that important…myths are invented every minute of every day.
What is fixed is truth, ultimate reality.
The gospel is truth…we are servants of that truth…we are servants of Jesus, who is the truth.
Here is our primary application for this morning: We must continually train, not merely try to be godly.
*We give full effort to train to live fully in the truth of the gospel.
1 Tim. 4:6
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.
What are these things that Timothy is to continually put before the church?
Well, it is what Paul has been talking about so far in this letter: Christ’s supremacy overall, stinking thinking and its negative impact on life, good biblical thinking and its positive impact on life.
If you keep putting these things before the church…you will be a good “servant”
Like a good coach keeps saying the same basic things to his team…but in ever compelling ways…so Tim is to keep putting the truth before the church…but in compelling ways.
What is most compelling is to believe, to live…what you say is true.
Don’t chase the new, train to live in what is true.
There are plenty of new things that humans discover…but none of it is “new to God”
When it comes to ultimate things…Who God is, how we are saved, how we are to live our lives as humans…If it’s brand new, it’s not true.
Timothy was to be a good servant of the truth of the gospel of Jesus.
All leaders in God’s design are servants.
Military, political, business, parents…God gives leadership for the flourishing of those that they lead.
God’s design is that leaders are to serve those who follow them.
Self-serving leadership is an oxymoron.
Pastors are servants…whose primary service is to continually put the truth before the church.
These servant leaders are to train and to be trained…by the “Words of the Faith and good doctrine”
What’s the difference between “words of the faith and good doctrine.”
He is making a distinction between: The foundational truth of the gospel and the application of that truth into life.
Being trained in the words of faith and good doctrine you have “followed”
This is about Information leading to application.
“Followed” translates a compound word, with the prefix… “para” as in parallel or alongside and the word for “follow”
So, it’s not like “online followers”…it means to closely adhere to, to live out, to walk in step with the truth.
Training begins with information, but it will always end in application.
You can learn about tennis, or welding, or the piano…by watching a youtube video…but to train to actually do those things requires hands on practice.
Next he compares training in godliness with its opposite…training in silliness.
7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.
I like the NIV, “godless myths and old wives tales.”
They are contrasted with faith and good doctrine.
“Have nothing to do with” doesn’t mean be we are to be ignorant of these myths per se, and it certainly doesn’t mean we are to be dismissive or mocking of those who tragically hold them.
Jump to his second letter to Timothy…we read this.
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. 2 Tim. 2:23-26
That’s the tone and demeanor…which is very different than what is now common among those who disagree with one another.
So, what does he mean by “have nothing to do with?”
It’s “don’t get sucked in”…don’t be continually sidetracked and diverted by.
Very relevant in our day isn’t it?…you can get endlessly sucked into the cyberspace wormhole of silly stupid stuff.
Christians who spend more time doom scrolling or searching for controversy than learning good theology, or just thinking of things that are true, good, noble, lovely…as Paul wrote…they are not training for godliness…they are training for silliness.
I don’t mean this in a mocking way…but rather as a warning.
Chasing the silly will not make us more resilient and certainly not more godly…it is not “watching our life and doctrine closely.”
Paul was telling Timothy that he didn’t need to respond to every single opponent, he couldn’t respond to every silly argument …to do this would keep him perpetually distracted from his primary calling of living and telling the gospel.
He had to address false teaching…but he could not spend all his time doing that or he would fail to teach the truth.
In his letters Paul mentions the myths the lies, but he majors on the truth.
Billy Graham was a great example in this: He had a ton of critics…there were entire books written against him…not to mention articles, news reports, on and on.
He could have spent his life…defending himself.
But his prime operating principle was he was not going to spend his life answering his critics but rather he would spend his life proclaiming the truth of the gospel.
This is living strategically not merely tactically.
When leaders respond to everything that they disagree with…every slight and every opponent just has to be answered.
When they live this far down into the tactical weeds…it is very difficult…to live consistently at the strategic level…where they need to lead from.
For Paul…the strategic level is the gospel…nothing is more important than to it keep front and center.
So…he writes…don’t chase myths and silly arguments…instead do this…
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
Instead, of this vain chasing down every lie, everyone who has something negative to say about you, everything you disagree with…
Instead…train yourself to be godly…turn away from that flabby stuff…develop spiritual, mental…muscles
-Train is the word we get our word “gymnasium” from.
And godliness is a favorite word of Paul in his letters to Timothy and Titus.
It is that idea of “watch your life and doctrine closely”…godliness is the truth showing up in your daily life.
Do this in a proactive, “go to the gym” kind of way.
Gospel doctrine that impacts gospel lifestyle…true information that translates to good application.
He doesn’t say “Try your best to be godly.”
Trying is pass/fail, miss or make…training is an ongoing lifestyle.
You can try to hit a ball or try play the piano…and you will probably eventually quit.
Training is ongoing…it includes some success and failure.
We don’t try to be godly…Christ has saved us and he is sanctifying us…making us more like himself
In this lifetime process of becoming more like Christ…we collaborate with the Holy Spirit to train to be godly.
Training in godliness is applying full gritty effort in order to know and live the truth.
Notice: He doesn’t say here “ask God to help you to be godly” that part is assumed.
In fact, we know that God is all for it…we don’t have to wonder it if it is his will for us to become more like Jesus…we know that it is.
If you are wondering what God’s will is for your life in terms of who to marry, what job to take, where to go to school, what to do in your retirement…I can’t answer that question.
But in general terms I know God’s will for your life…it is that you train to be godly…to become more like Christ.
The winter Olympics just finished, and it is a living example of years of focus, self-mastery, stamina…gritty training for a singular objective.
Paul knows how it is going to go for Timothy in his ministry…he knows what he is facing.
Continually being confronted with false doctrine, dealing with ministry fatigue, his own internal personal struggles: Paul knows that all these things will wear Tim down.
He needs to keep a singular focus…to train for godliness…even when he is tired and feeling distracted.
*When I was deployed to Iraq I walked around the base with a cross on my chest and a cross on my cap…that cross said, “I am a chaplain, I am here to help.”
Inside of me, many days I thought to myself, “Please leave me alone, I don’t want to help.”
I didn’t say that and I didn’t live that…but I often felt that.
Paul compares ministry to a struggle, a long hard race, farming, and a war…Paul is telling Timothy and he is telling us…
Don’t quit, step up…you must continually train for godliness…go to the “gym”…train.
Paul acknowledges the value of physical training; it is not worthless…it is worthwhile.
He traveled 15k miles in is life, 9k by foot, 6k by sea and these were not on cruise ships…it was all rough going.
-Physical faithfulness was an assumed necessity for faithful ministry…he said he “pushed his own body, made it his slave…for the sake of the gospel.”
His body had a lot of problems especially near the end…but he knew that he had to be the boss of it and not let it boss him around.
The benefits of being able to move, to work, to serve…to be an embodied being with the corresponding stewardship of caring for that body was obvious to him…it should be to us as well.
Notice that I said physical faithfulness not physical fitness.
Physical fitness has some right column factors…we can choose to move our bodies, we can choose what we eat, we can choose to rest and recreate… but ultimately physical fitness is going to be in the left column.
We can get sick, hurt and we will all die.
Physical fitness is ultimately left column…physical faithfulness is always right column.
Tony was baptized last week…he has obvious physical limitations…he cannot be “fit” as it is often defined…but he can be and is, seeking to be faithful.
This was evidenced by the fact that was up here in front of his church being baptized.
Physical fitness is blockable by factors outside our control; physical faithfulness never is.
The benefits of physical training are obvious…the benefits of training for godliness are often less obvious…but they are much more profound.
Training for godliness has both temporal and eternal value…holding promise for both this life and the life to come.
Okay…verse 9
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.
The saying is trustworthy and deserves your full-hearted embrace.
This is not spiritual mumbo jumbo…that lacks any real-world relevance.
This is not “church-talk”…make believe stuff that doesn’t work out there in the real world.
Look…out there in the real-world people are believing myths…they are training in silliness.
How do I know? Because I can see it? It not hiding, its obvious.
The stuff people chase and the lies that they believe…will fail them at the worst possible times.
Last week I saw an image of Jeff Epstein getting off his jet, tanned and confident…then I saw an image of his body on a gurney…dead at his own hand.
Dead after ruining countless lives.
Islands, power, pleasure, jet setting on private planes, huge bank accounts, important and surrounded by famous people…it all ended in a dilapidated, dirty jail cell…it ended where it all ends…death.
I know without a doubt that what will matter at the end for everyone…it will be…relationship with God and others.
This is as real world as it gets…Paul tells Tim…this is trustworthy…it deserves your full acceptance…you can do this; you must do this.
Train for godliness and you will live in line with your purpose…do not train for silliness…don’t believe the myths…believe the gospel.
To this end he writes, “We Toil and strive”: Give full gritty effort to live and proclaim the gospel.
Jesus said we cannot save our lives…the one who tries…ultimately loses it.
We will spend or we will waste our lives…no one saves them.
Careful balance is required here
We are not called to Burn out or to Rust out…most are called to wear out over time…to live faithful lives.
What is the wind that blows in your life? Too little margin or too much?
If you are low capacity, the way to grow is to increase the demands not to run from them.
This must not be done foolishly, but faithfully.
Maybe your plate is too small because you are not pushing yourself.
Maybe your plate is too full because you are pushing yourself too much…or in a wrong way.
I strongly encourage you to not trust yourself on this one…let others speak to you…seek input.
Some of you need to hear “go” and others need to hear “slow”
If you are a young man or woman…what you need to do to prepare for the future is to push yourself…this is the time to learn how to sprint.
Sprinting includes a lot of praying and time in God’s word…not just staying busy.
But it is time to learn to push…you want to increase your capacity…so you need to push your current capacity.
Attach yourself to a man or woman in our church who is in the busy time of his or her life job, young family, ministry…and a hundred other things…and is still keeping it all in some form of balance.
Now since they are busy, don’t expect them to sit around with you…they don’t have time.
As a younger man I would go work on my mentor’s houses, or run errands, hang out with their kids (before I had my own)
A lot of you have caught this vision…if you haven’t, it would be good if you did.
We labor and strive for the living God, the hope of the world…nothing is more important to give your energy and life for.
Paul writes…that while God offers salvation to all, all are not automatically saved…people must believe.
Train for godliness
For many of you this means that you need to just keep at it…you are doing this well, just don’t become weary in doing well…you will reap a harvest is you don’t quit planting seeds of faithfulness.
Gaps in sowing lead to future gaps in harvesting.
If you do not believe you are effectively training for godliness then I’ll offer several potential ways forward…then one final training tip for all of us.
- Train harder
We don’t increase our future opportunity if we don’t push our current capacity.
Training is tiring and hard…for good reason we get our word “gym” from it.
Training is “go to the gym.”
Most don’t love to go to the gym, but most everyone loves having gone to the gym.
Training is hard.
But here is the missing mental piece…not training is also hard.
If we train to be faithful physically, or relationally, or mentally, or spiritually…it is going to be hard.
If I don’t train…quess what? It is going to be hard, in fact much harder.
For instance, if you fail to push yourself in your key relationships (which is a part of training for godliness)
It means those key relationships will suffer, which means they will take a lot more effort.
And they effort will mostly be spent trying to recover and repair…rather than effort to grow and thrive.
We need to learn to embrace training…we look to the gain of training, not just the pain of training.
We need to pay attention to the pain of not training.
- Train smarter
You may not have any more capacity to give…you are at full capacity.
It maybe that there are some things you can do differently, or more effectively.
Sometimes we think we need more hours in a day…but we just need to tweak how we do things in the hours that we have.
It could be that you are being drained of energy to train things like guilt (past focused) or anxiety (future focused) and you could learn to live in the present.
I understand that regret over the past is not easily dismissed…I understand that anxiety is not something that can be easily overcome…trust me, I understand.
Remember…I am not advocating for trying…but for training.
Small training gains can make large differences in our lives in these and other areas.
Certainly, the most helpful thing to do in regard to training smarter is to enlist the help of a friend…a battle buddy.
Like Hebrews says, “See to…by encouraging one another”
- Train together
We have talked about this so much that I won’t belabor the point…I will simply say that we can all benefit by having someone we trust put outside eyes on our training strategy.
We often can’t see the gaps or problems in our training.
It’s why there are coaches…even world class athletes need coaches.
The key factor is that we have to actually trust them and take their advice when they give it.
- Remember, We are training to trust
We must remember that we are training for godliness not training to not need God.
In our training we will frequently experience times where our grit is not enough, when our best is inadequate.
We are to give full grit, in order to learn to live more fully in God’s grace.
The goal of our training is to become more like Jesus…to learn to depend on him more not to seek to be more self-sufficient.
This is not a contradiction…it is a necessary tension.
We are to learn what Paul wrote of earlier in this letter “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
That is the tension I am talking about…”Train to trust”
A final word for all of us:
Nothing undermines training for godliness more quickly than the negativity bias that is built into all of us.
When we focus on the negative, when we speak the negative…we are training for ungodliness.
This is the ongoing choice to choose gratitude and thanksgiving…Trace spoke about this last week from the preceding passage.
Training to be godly will always begin and end with training to be thankful.
If you focus on the negative…you are training yourself away from godliness.
Hunt the good stuff…train yourself to be thankful.
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thess. 5:16-18