Foreign. So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to first Timothy, chapter four, verses six to ten. And we are continuing our series of overflow. And specifically today I want to talk to you about training for godliness. Training for godliness. So first Timothy, chapter four, verse six to ten. If you have your Bibles, you can read along with me, but I'll read it for you. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus being trained.
Say that with me trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine. Say good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather train yourself. Say, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, Godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is a trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Let's pray here together. Heavenly Father, let your words go forth. Let it not just be my words, but I pray here today, Lord, that we will be able to understand that through holiness we are made whole. And God, you will teach us your ways. So let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Redeemer.
So thank you, God, for what you're doing in this house. In Jesus name, Amen. Well, we're in our series called Overflow. And if you were here last week, I will tell you, go back to those and watch those. It's very important. And we talked about, we dived into not just how God is more than provisional, but God is actually providential in those times in your life as a believer. But here's the question that I want to pose to some of you that are here today, maybe those that are watching online.
What happens when you become exhausted? You ever felt exhausted before? How many of y'all you run and you feel exhausted? I just found out that there's something called a runner's second wind. Now, I don't run, so I don't. I don't know any about that. But supposedly there's a second wind. But there are times when you are in a workout for your soul that you just even spiritually feel exhausted.
You ever had some midnight prayers that you had to just pray through and you're fighting this fight and you're unable to contend with the realities of the world. Maybe you get a diagnosis that you've been inflicted with cancer, right? Some serious things. Maybe something in your life has happened. Maybe that's why divorce rates are so high.
And there's this pull from social media that says you have to look like this, you have to dress like this, you have to act like this, you have to do this TikTok dance, you have to do this, right? And there's this pull from every direction. So here's my question. How can the Christian live a godly life in a godless world? How can the Christian live a godly life in this godless world?
So today, what I want to do, if you will permit me, is I want to exegetically walk in between the lines of Paul's words to the young protege Timothy, and how you and I can be able to endure when there is a world that is trying to derail us. And here's. If you're taking notes, for the note takers in the room or those that are online, I want you to understand this. A godly life is shaped by what you feed it, how you shape it and who you walk with.
A godly life is shaped by what you feed it, how you shape it and who you walk with. So let's go to 1 Timothy, chapter 4. Let me give you some context there, because the Apostle Paul, in this moment, he's being released from his first imprisonment. And what he wants to do is he wants to visit key churches that where he ministered from. And he's specifically focusing on the church of Ephesus and what they have been practicing because they haven't been living up to the standards of Christ.
And Paul is really concerned with the godlessness of the people there because there have been an uprise of false teachers and there is a culture that is being bent towards Greek counterparts and philosophy. So there's false teachers, there's the influence of the culture, right? There's the influence of philosophies. And what Paul is trying to do is he's writing to Timothy to help the church to persevere in the face of teachings.
If you look at first Timothy 4:1, it says there will be some that will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons. Not much has changed in today's world. So what's Paul doing? He's writing these, what they call them pastoral letters, first and second Timothy and Titus. And he's writing this as his, like his last words. You know, I don't know about you, but if I Knew this was the last time I was going to talk to you.
I want to give you everything of the Gospel, right? I want to tell you everything about Jesus. I don't want to tell you how good I look or how great I smell or whatever it is. I want to tell you the Gospel saves. And you need to get right. And this is what Paul's doing. This is Paul's last letter. And in these letters you see the. The word for godliness, especially in first Timothy, is actually found all throughout the letter. But why does all this matter? Church? Can't we just all get along?
Can we just all believe? Can we just come to church on Sunday and do life as regular, right? Why do we have to train for godliness? Why do I need to pursue this in my life? And I will tell you why. Because we have a human condition and we are a slave to sin from the first Adam. And as a result, our hearts have become rebellious against God because our flesh is waging war with our souls. Now the question becomes, will you diet?
Will you discipline, and will you disciple your life in active obedience? So here today, if you're taking notes, I want to give you three pillars, three pillars that I truly believe in order for you to live a godly life in a godless world. So here's the first pillar. Number one is diet. Feed on the Word. Let's go back to first Timothy, chapter four. And let's go line by line, starting with verse six. If you put these things. Let me stop right there.
Because when you say if it's a condition, what is Paul saying? If you put these things, Paul, what are you talking about? Well, you have to go into the first early chapters. What is he saying there? He says he's referring to the gospel message, right? Christ came into the world to save sinners in whom I am of the foremost. In chapter 1, verse 15. In chapter 3, he talks about the qualifications of an overseer. Self control, humility.
The end of that chapter, he talks about the mystery of godliness, which is Christ. So what Paul is saying is if you put all of these things, Timothy, if you put all of these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant. That's where we get the word deacon from Diakonos. And it's the. And it also means minister. We all supposed to be ministers of the gospel. Can I say something? It's not just the pastor. It's not just the ministry leader.
You have a responsibility because Christ lives inside of you to minister the Gospel. You don't have to know all about apologetics. You don't have to know how well to defend the faith. Because here's the thing, the burden of proof is not on you. The burden of proof is on other people. They got to prove their case just as much as you got to prove yours. But guess what? You are a living proof. And no one can refute your testimony.
Now, what Paul says, he says, being trained in the words of faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. So here's the point that Paul is saying. Good Christians need a good spiritual diet. When you lack the spiritual diet to sustain a godly life, what you are essentially doing is eating a lot of junk food. Pick your pleasure. Is it Oreos? I was a big Oreo guy. Still am. I just heard my wife say she just shared my sin to the whole world. But that's all right.
Dulce de leche, tres leche, bustelo. There's a lot. Name it. But here's the thing, Church. We are running to these guilty pleasures to accommodate a God. We are running to these things because we say, oh, I find comfort in this. Oh, it soothes me. Oh, it helps me. It helped me to get through the day. I sit and watch Netflix and eat a whole bunch of Haagen Dazs and I just sit there and it comforts my soul. Right? And we do these things thinking that we are going to be justified in what we do.
And sometimes as Christians, we're eating a poor diet. We're not getting enough of the Word or we're getting too much saturated fat and we're getting a little bit heavy. Now look at nobody. I'm covering my eyes, but what I'm saying is sometimes we're eating the wrong things in the Word and we're just using it for our own guilty pleasure instead of dispensing it to people so that they can understand it. Come on, Church. And we're lacking these things.
But what we have to do is reject bad doctrine. We have to begin to reject it. Because doctrine, sometimes it's all over the place. And we don't know what we should practice and we don't know what should we listen to and what YouTuber is saying this and what seminary is saying this. We have to reject the bad doctrine. Anything that goes against the deity of Christ, anything that contradicts the nature of who God is, we reject it. And here Paul goes on to describe it as this.
He says, this is Paul getting feisty now. He says, godless myths and old wives tales have nothing to do with this. And it is the silliness of myths that sometimes comes into our world. And there are some saints that are destroying one another. And Satan is winning on all fronts. He's watching us saying, well, look, they're just killing themselves. They're just hurting themselves. They're acting silly with themselves.
See, what Paul is dealing with here is he's dealing with a certain demon inspired asceticism. Asceticism is this doctrine that says if I just deny all the flesh and I renounce all my physical pleasures, all my personal desires, if I do all this and I just focus on the soul, I'm good. Now they also believe this at this point in the Ephesus, that they don't take part in any of the gifts that God has given them.
You ever talk to somebody who was like really super spiritual, you know what I'm talking about? I know we probably do. We have some in the room here today that we gotta acknowledge, right? And you ask them a simple question, brother, how you doing? I am blessed, never stressed, highly favored by the Lord Jesus the Christ, so help me God. And you're like, just come down a little bit to planet Earth so we can have a conversation here. But here's the thing, right?
They're so heavily minded that they have no earthly good. It's like, you know when you go into the gym and you see someone that's all big on the top and guess what? They never do leg day. That's some of y'all Christians. We're all up here, we're all up here and then we're just wobbling around because we got two legs, right? Because we don't focus on, we only focus on what's the spirit and what's the soul. But not the body, not the diet. We got to focus on the diet.
So this diet from false teachers, what they did, they didn't hold fast to the person of Christ. And you are going to have some diets that maybe some people tell you that it appears like wisdom, appears like wisdom, but it doesn't stop your indulgence of the flesh if it doesn't glorify Christ or if it doesn't defeat flesh church, I don't want any part of it. Now listen, not all self denial is bad, I want to say that. But if it doesn't point back to Christ, it's false and it's silly.
What Paul is saying here, silly is actually like two people going back and forth gossiping with one another because they have nothing else better to do. That's what it means by silly here. Let's go a little bit further. Let's go a little bit deeper. Is that okay? Can we go a little bit deeper today? All right. The word train here is understood as an actual workout, right? An actual workout is being nourished with the words and faith. And what's on the menu is good teaching.
I love the fact that we have some good teaching in this house. Amen. Right? How many of y'all doing your daily growth journals? That's some good teaching right there. That's some good diet right there. That we are growing together as a community. And if you haven't got a daily growth journal, we still have some more available for you. But here's the thing. We don't pick and choose what we want to eat. Aw. Some of y'all just got real angry right now with me, but that's okay.
Let me just kind of simmer you down a little bit. I remember when I was younger and my abuela, when we used to eat, she used to put everything so good. Rice, beans, chicken, and then broccoli. And I'm like, grandma, don't you know I'm Puerto Rican? I don't eat this. And I'm like, broccoli? Why? I didn't know the purpose of it. It's green. It smells. I don't want it. Why would I want to eat this? What is the benefit? But she saw something that I could not see. Oh, come on, Church.
Sometimes God's gonna give you something that you may like at the moment. It don't taste good, but it's good for you. And you're like, oh, okay, Lord. All right, I'll eat it. I guess. So like Israel wandering around for 40 years. You know, sometimes we're just wandering around saying, God, when's the next best thing? When's the next thing? God is saying, no, this is the next thing right here. What I'm giving you is the next thing. This diet is the next thing.
And a good diet makes a good minister of the gospel. Now, look, Paul continues to say that. 2 Timothy 2:15, he says, Present yourself to God as one approved. A workman who does not need to be ashamed, who handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 4. 2. Preach the word, be prepared in and out of season. Correct. Rebuke. Oh, sure about that. Yeah. Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience. So that's what I love about our house, is, you know what?
It's okay to correct when you do it in love, because it's for the benefit of Your soul. You can't just look at the correction or the rebuke. Because now, if there's no encouragement that goes along with that. Yeah. Then whoever that person is has to learn. But what I'm saying is that a healthy church rebukes. A healthy church corrects. A healthy brother corrects me. A helpy sister should correct you. Whatever the case is, it's healthy. Because here's the thing, Church. And I want to say this.
I want to be confronted with my sin. Confront me with my sin. I want to be confronted. Now, my wife, she does this so well with me. I don't know. She has a gift for confronting me. Yeah, I got you too, girl. But that's what it means to love one another. I'm going to confront you with your sin whether you like it or not. That's what love is. And we need a diet that is fueled by the word of God. And let me just say this out loud. You either kill sin or you feed it.
You either kill sin or you feed it. And here's the thing. Sometimes we become habitual sinners. I don't know how to kill it. I just keep feeding it and feeding it and feeding it. I keep eating haagen Dazs at 12 o'clock at night. And I know it's not good. I know that's my struggle, y'all. Sorry. I just let everybody know, man. But I keep feeding it and feeding it and I don't work out. And guess what happens? I get lethargic. I get tired and I don't exercise and I don't work out and I don't diet.
I let sin eat me. But what does true godliness do? True godliness is cultivated only through the most godliest book ever written. The word of God. Feed on this. That's why, again, I love our daily devotional because we are continuously feeding. When you open it up, all it is is scripture and is some reflection to help you reflect back on the word of God. A spiritual diet that is malnourished.
If your spiritual diet here today is malnourished, it will produce unhealthy and unfruitful Christians that lack deep roots. That's why I'm a big proponent of the local church. I don't know what happened. 20, 30 years ago, the local church was it. Now it's like, I don't need the local church. I don't understand where in society and culture we got here, but the local church is so needed. If your church is preaching the right gospel and sound Doctrine. It shouldn't be a church that is comfortable.
It should be a church that makes you uncomfortable in your sin. That's why I love our house. We come here. Rebuke me, correct me. I'm not just coming here to coddle your sin. Oh, it's going to be okay. Don't worry. No, get rid of that sin, kill it, and then move on. Because what the enemy wants to do is get you stuck in your sin. Oh, he wants you to stay there. He don't want you to move. Why? Because then you become a threat to his kingdom. Now we know.
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. And what Paul is telling Timothy, he says in 1 Timothy 3:15, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and a buttress of the truth. The church is God's. It's not a static institution, everyone, like some have claimed, but it is the representation of a living God.
Let's go to number two. Discipline. Fight the flesh. Fight the flesh. Let's go to the second half of verse seven. There rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way. Train rather yourself for godliness in the Greek is gumnazi de saeuton pros eusebia. I know that's a long Greek word, but it's train rather yourself for godliness. There is a call to exercise yourself, but it's not all external.
Because some of us, we suffer from what I call counterfeit godliness. It's when we imitate without intimacy. Oh, I just want to look. I want to look like a Christian. You know what Christians look like, right? Some of y'all say yes. Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about. You know the Christians that wear the suits and the ties and. No, no, no. What does a Christian look like?
A Christian looks like Christ imitates Christ, but sometimes, and that's what Jesus had to confront the Pharisees and say, yo, y'all some whitewashed tombs. Inwardly, when you go back to ancient Greece, the athletes there, they used to compete without clothing. Now, thank God that we moved along from that. And none of our gyms do that. But they did that because, guess what? The clothing was a hindrance to them in competition. And that's where we get that Greek word there.
Gum. Nazi is where we get The Greek word for gymnasium. Your gym should smell like sweat. How many of your gyms smell like sweat? I'm concerned that if your gym doesn't smell like sweat, I don't know what kind of gym it is. But, right, you go in there and it's like, oh, wow, I get to eat pizza here in the gym. I don't know what this is, this is weird. But sweat is sweat and it doesn't smell good, but it has a purpose. Oh, come on. Sweat don't smell good, but it has a purpose.
And some of us need to put on some spiritual deodorant that I call discipline, so that we could say, okay, you know what, let me do you a favor, let me cover myself in the word. Let me cover myself in prayer, Let me cover myself in some of these disciplines that I know that I have in you. So you should be sweating also. Let me say this, your sweat is attached to your godliness. It's this inner devotion that nobody could deny the power because it's not built on you, it's not built on your looks.
Right? Because sometimes when we go to the gym, we love to look in the mirror. I know I'm hitting some nerves here. Good. We look in the mirror and we say, wow, man, that's a good looking guy. Or we say, hey, I need to work on this muscle group. Or, hey, I need to work on this. But it's not about your looks, it's about his likeness. Do I look like Christ? Am I loving people? Am I showing them the validity of your truth? Am I demonstrating the gospel message to them?
That's how people get to know Christ. God isn't impressed with our piety. God isn't impressed by our performance. And true godliness is not automatic. It is a response to his revelation. You know, I remember a few years ago, I actually competed on stage and, you know, it was for bodybuilding. And it was one of the worst years of my life because I had to diet and discipline myself for an entire year. And if you know anything about, you know, going on stage and that commitment.
And I had a coach and he would tell me, well, you gotta eat X amount of proteins a day, X amount of carbs. X amount of fat. You have to work out this. It was a whole blueprint that he gave me. And I did this for an entire year. My wife hated me because we couldn't eat anything that she wanted to eat. And the egg whites was a problem too. I actually used to just drink the egg whites. Just drink it. I ain't got no time for that. We got a show to win. We got to do some hard things here.
But are we willing to do the hard things? Are you willing to do the hard things? Because even for a year, I only went on stage for 10 glorious minutes. Don't laugh. But only 10 minutes I went on stage and I'm like, wait a minute. That's it. That's it. But it reminded me of a scripture in Psalms 84, where it says, for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I don't know about you, but I want a discipline. I will take every moment of every day. God, show me your way.
Show me your glory. Discipline myself. Because even if I'm in the presence of God for one iota, for one moment, it was well worth it. Well worth it. Come on. You're not just doing this for you. You're doing this so that you understand and see. See the glory of who he is. But, Pastor, when it comes to the things of the Spirit, we struggle with this discipline because it sounds a lot like legalism. I want to talk about legalism. Is that okay? Can I talk a little bit about legalism?
But in order for us to understand how you and I are supposed to embody Christ and live this biblical spiritual life, we have to go back to our human condition. So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Romans chapter 7. I'm just going to read one verse here. But in Romans chapter seven, and I'm just going to read verses 14 to 15. We see Paul's language. And Paul is dealing with law and sin and our human depravity.
And starting verse 14, he says, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh and I'm sold under sin. And verse 15. For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. How many of you can say that, man? There's just some things that I just continuously do. I have no idea why I do it. Why do I struggle with this? Why do I do this? It's because we fell in love and we made that thing idolatrous to us. It became sin.
It became our own little golden calf. And we love it so much. Nice little calf, nice. Nice little pride, nice little anger, nice little adultery, nice little porn, nice little this, nice little that. And we've made it into that. But the law and God sets this spiritual standard on how we are to live. The law just tells me and recognizes me and shows Me, my sinful condition. That's what the law is. And it happened through the seed of Adam, because Adam, the seed of Adam, lives in us.
And now sin, what sin has done is caused the death inside of us that we always continuously want to rebel against God. But we are to imitate his character. We are to imitate his conduct. Right? He says it in Leviticus 19, be holy. Because I, the Lord your God, am holy. Well, that's just Old Testament, New Testament. Jesus tells his disciples to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. And this is only possible through a renewal in the image of Christ. And how do we imitate God? Church?
We come up with so many ways on how we imitate God and what we need to do and what mode we need to go into. This is how you imitate God. Love one another. Oh, I know that wasn't revolutionary, but that's what it is.
You imitate God. When I love you, when I love you despite of you, when I'm able to love my Judas, when I'm able to love that person that backstabbed me, when I'm able to love that person that hurt me, when I'm able to love that person that betrayed me, when I'm able to love that person that still owes me some money. Don't turn to the person. I see some of y'all turning some of y'all in the chat right now. Mm. Johnny, I'm coming for you.
Johnny, no. And we do that by loving one another as Christ has loved us. That is how we love one another. But we live in a culture that has forgotten love or they have misplaced it. And I truly believe, as the church of the living God, as us as believers, we have lost what it was to fear God. We love our sin, but we have to hate it because God does not approve of it. We have to fear the Lord. Ecclesiastes 12:13. Fear God and keep his what? His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man.
Keep his commandments. We're still obligated under the moral law. And I remember my son Ethan, we put the Ten Commandments there and on his wall. And he went to the store, and by accident, he took something. Now, this was. This is young Ethan. He was four. Okay? He was four. And then we say, hey, you can't do that. You can't do that. And then we go back later on and we're trying to, you know, discipline him and not to steal. Right? That's a good thing.
And then we noticed that one of the commandments that's erased on his. On his board. Do not steal is gone. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure in Exodus there are ten commandments and not just nine, but some of us, we do that with God. Come on, let me. Some of y'all are Ethans. Well, I was an Ethan. Oh, God, I don't like this. But let me say something about the fear of God, because it goes back to that. The fear of God is necessary for godliness. It's necessary.
There should be a trauma of godliness when you come into contact with the presence of the living God. Moses experienced it on Mount Sinai. Adam became afraid when he heard the voice in the garden. But there was no fear prior to sin, only after. And there's this working out of our salvation with what? Fear and trembling.
The fear of the Lord is not just isolated to the Old Testament, but Jesus actually contrasts it in the New Testament when he says, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who. Who can destroy both soul and body in hell. But there are some of us, we've lacked that fear. We've lost it. We've lost the fear of God because we are still sinning. We are still doing the same thing over and over and over again. And there comes this lack of fear.
So what Paul is saying. You know what those individuals are, Timothy? Those that lack the fear of God. They hold to a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. Church, we are at war with our flesh. You are at war with your flesh. Don't concede to it. The flesh is the enemy. Don't concede to it. And what sin wants to do, it wants an opportunity to not only strike you, but sin wants an opportunity to strike your generations as well. It wants to go after your kids.
That's how serious we have to get back to the holiness of God and the fear of God. Sin you will not have my child. Sin you will not have my son. You will not have my generation. I need some people to act like you're in war. This is wartime here. And sin will not seduce me. I will not be seduced by sin. And it's a struggle. I get it. Church It's a struggle until glorification. We're not there yet. We're just. We're in the middle of the order of salvation. In sanctification, we're in the middle.
We're just trying to understand this walk. But what we have done is we have created our own classism or classification of righteousness. Well, this is what holiness looks like. Let me show you what holiness looks like. You got to wear this. You got to dress a certain way, you got to talk a certain way, you got to look a certain way. Where did we get that theology from? When Christ is just coming just as you are, let him do the rest.
And what we have done is we have become for other people these self righteous puppeteers. And we're dangling their lives over the flames of hell. When we act self righteous, oh, you got to do it like this. Because if you don't fire and brimstone, sin will seduce you until it owns you. It wants to own every facet of your being. It wants to own every part of your life. It wants to control your finances.
That's why I love that for the last two weeks we've been talking about finances because that is a struggle for so many. It's a mindset. Something has to break because there's a sinful pattern that says, I don't want to be in a poverty situation. But you act like it because you don't give to the local church. You don't give to the house of God. So in some ways you're still acting poverish because it's a mindset. If I give, I'm going to lose. God's saying, no, if you give, you'll get.
More will be added unto you. It's abundance is multiplication. In First Corinthians 9. It says every athlete exercises self control. So I do not run aimlessly. Some of us, we're just running this race blindfolded and we don't know. You ever been on the treadmill blindfolded? We don't. Right, try it next time. Go ahead, do it. Do it. Try it. Don't tell them that your pastor said it, but just go do it. Video record it for me and then send it to me because it would be hilarious.
But sometimes we do that with our walk with God when we don't have the disciplines in our life. When you don't have the disciplines, guess what's happened? It's an aimless walk. You know a Christian by how they pray on their knees. I want to see you. I want to see that you're praying on your knees. You know someone that's in their word because it just comes out of them. You know someone that understands solitude and silence because they've been in the presence of God.
The disciplines are there so that you do not walk aimless to keep you on it. And Paul says his I do not box as one beating the air. And verse 27. But I discipline my body and I keep it under control. It's time to keep it under control. Saints, we've been out of control for too long, and the only way to get back in control is to bring back the fear of God and to bring it back now. I love the word discipline there because it actually has the sense of giving somebody a black eye.
Who here gave somebody a black eye before? Someone now, don't raise your hand. You raise your hand. Yeah, the hands are all raised in Brooklyn right here. But it has that sense of giving a black eye or to treat roughly. And Paul is hard on his body because he doesn't want to be enslaved or dominated by the flesh. Let me give you four words that I want you to write down. Stay disciplined, you stay dedicated. You stay disciplined. You stay dedicated. You stay disciplined, you stay dedicated.
Obedience and disobedience. They're opposed to one another and they want to fight for your soul. Let's go back to legalism, because legalism is man's burden. Discipline is God's calling. When you have that legalistic mindset, you're saying, well, I want to show you how I do it, because that's your burden to carry. All you're doing is you're giving somebody your burden. But when you focus on the discipline, it's like, no, the disciplines. God has called me to live this life.
God has called me to pray without ceasing. God has called me to read my word. God has called me to the disciplines of my life. And that's what spiritual disciplines are. They're a means of grace. They are the practices that actually position us to receive and to respond to God's work in our lives. Now, let me say this about disciplines, because we got to get the legalistic mindset out of us.
But they are not ways that we earn grace, but they are ways that you and I engage with the grace that God has freely given us. Now, lastly, Paul states, this is a trustworthy statement, that godliness is of value in every way. Here's number three. Discipleship. Discipleship, follow Jesus, verse 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. Now let me say something about discipleship.
It requires more than us following a whole bunch of practices, but becoming the discipline through incarnational discipleship. Let me explain incarnational discipleship. It's not just discipleship, because you could just have discipleship at your home, but it doesn't go anywhere. You could have discipleship even here at this church.
But if it's not incarnational, if it doesn't touch with people, if it doesn't have some tangibles that are attached to it, it's not just teaching about the gospel, but is actively demonstrating it through our lives and in our relationships. Discipleship cannot happen without incarnation. I want to be in close proximity to your pain. That's what we all should be saying with one another. When you hurt, I hurt.
You know, even as a pastor, you know, we do pastoral care and sometimes we just hear these stories and we're like, man, I wish they would have just told me about it so I could just pray with them. They didn't give me an opportunity to put my finger on their side and to feel like Thomas the Doubter and say, no, no, I'm real, I'm here, allow me to minister to you. I want to stay in that proximity because I want a thicker sense of Jesus. A thicker sense. Don't give me the shallow sense of Jesus.
I want something heavy. Give me the thicker sense of Jesus that embodies the gospel in a way that I'm able to see, to, to and to experience Jesus. People are craving that. There was actually a Barna poll that actually said 7 out of 10 Gen Z's who are practicing Christians say that they actually prefer face to face interactions than digital ones. We're getting to that point. Church, even the Gen Z's want to hang out. Maybe not with the Gen Xers, but they still want to hang out.
And I'm okay with that. Some Gen Xers are fun, but people need people. That's what it means to be incarnational. Because we gotta fight this fight of faith together. Church Discipleship without grace is distorted. Discipleship without the grace is distorted. Because this is what happens with the legalism. It comes back into discipleship.
Sometimes legalism can make its way back into discipleship and then what ends up happening is it turns into a whole bunch of rigid rules and regulations and obligations without any spirit filled real relationships. And without grace, this true essence of discipleship becomes replaced by this outward compliance and behavior modification. Oh, let me just, let me explain that a little bit to you. It's just, I'm just doing breaker one just for the simple fact of just doing it.
Because I like somebody in the church and I want to get close to them. Oh, I'm, I'm just doing our breaker one class because, you know, I one day want to be, I want to take over Pastor Eddie's job one day. I want to be the next pastor. I want to be this, I want to be that, or I'm going to look the part. So what I'm saying is there's this outward compliance that we just are doing it not for the sake of grace, not for the sake of incarnation.
We're doing it for the simple fact of just complying with the rules, and we're just imitating. You ever look at an ingredient going back to the diet, you ever look at the ingredient and it says artificial ingredients. Y'all know what that means, right? It's artificial. It's not that hard. They actually put it in there for you, and it says it right there. Artificial ingredients. It's not real. It looks like may taste like it, but it's not it.
And a lot of us are living artificial ingredient lives in our discipleship that we look like it, we taste like a Christian, I look like it, but, oh, God, I want the real thing. I want the real thing. I want. When people see me, they see the realness. The real vitamins come out, the real, real amino acids come out. That's what real biblical discipleship is about. Now, Paul here is saying in that last.
If you go back to first Timothy, chapter four, he says, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe, especially of those. I want you to underline that, highlight that, and then I want to talk real quickly. Matter of fact, you could stand to your feet, and maybe those that. That are watching you could come up. I know some of y'all are taking some notes. You can take notes standing. That's okay. But he says this. There.
There's a confidence in your salvation that is for the possession of the believer, a possession for you. And it's those Christians who have placed their hope in the living God, and they. Those Christians that pursue godliness, you will not be disappointed. Can I say that to you all? You will never be disappointed when you follow and you pursue godliness. It's not. It's against his nature to do it. Oh, but I'm struggling. But why don't you?
In your struggle, maybe there's something God wants to reveal to you. And sometimes you have to look at it like Job looked at it. Now, sometimes having friends like Job is a different story. But that's a whole nother sermon. Matthew 10:32 says this. So everyone who acknowledges me before man, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before man, I will also deny before my Father, who is heaven.
Now, don't just stop reading there, but if you continue, it does more than just denial. But there's division as well in verse 34. Do you not think I come to bring peace on the earth? Jesus said, I didn't come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. The sword is the metaphorical way of saying it signifies this kind of separation between those who believe in Christ and those who are on the fringe looking in. And here today we've been looking in.
A godly life is shaped by what you feed it, how you shape it, and who you walk with. And it is through godliness that we will make the living God more attractive to others. I want you to see this image here that we have. I took this image, I went away for my doctoral residency in South Carolina. And you know, there in the back of the seminary, there's a place where they could do prayer walks and stuff like that, which I thought was really cool.
I was so nervous, I thought a bear or something was going to come out and just jump me, you know, so. But I look at this picture and I stopped here and I began to weep. And I began to weep and weep and weep. And I put myself right in the middle, and I said, well, if I go this way, the road is already paved for me. It already looks like, oh, this is a nice road to travel. And there's light at the end, and I can see what's happening over.
But then I looked at the right, and then I said, why would I ever want to go down this path? There's no delineation between where you're going in life. There's no view, and there's just trees that are covering. There's a clear path, and I have to go through this, Lord. I have to go through this. But what some of us have done is instead of choosing two paths, we've created a middle one called compromise. I'm not going to take either, God.
I'm going to make my own path, and I'm going to call it compromise. And now Jesus warns us in the Sermon on the Mount about these roads here. And he says this in Matthew, chapter 7. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many entered through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only few find it. Can you put that picture back up? When I look at this, I see some narrow gate, women.
Amen. But when I see this, I see some narrow gate men as well. They're about to Rise up and say, I'm going to do the hard things. I'm going to do the hard things even when society says to me, oh, you got to do it like this, man. And there's toxic masculinity. No, I want to be a narrow gate man that actually says no, I'm going to be different from the rest of the world. I'm not just going to be a baby daddy.
I'm going to care for some things and love on some children and build a legacy for a lifetime. Come on. Narrow gate men, narrow gate women. There's only few that will find it. And maybe you're here today and maybe you're watching and you say, well, I thought I was a Christian until after this sermon. And you know what? I rather you say that. I rather you say that than leave here the same. The wide gate is self centered. The narrow gate is God centered.
The wide gate wants the crowds and the applause of people. The narrow gate just desires commitment. The wide gate is concerned with the comfort of this world. The narrow gate is not concerned with the comfort, but just looks to the cross. The wide gate is temporary. The narrow gate is eternal. The wide gate wants the world's approval. The narrow gate, all that the person wants to hear is, well done, good and faithful servant. The wide gate goes after the ease of religion.
The narrow gate craves true discipleship. I want you to pray with me here today and do an altar call in your heart right now. Because this is a moment I believe and maybe for those that are watching right now that you said, I want to walk, I've been walking a compromised life. I want to go in the narrow way. I don't know. I thought I knew what it looked like. I thought I understood good doctrine. I didn't have a proper diet. I wasn't disciplined enough. I wasn't discipled enough.
Well, now is your time to say, God, I'm getting back on the narrow road. Because in Revelation, when you're lukewarm, there's a price to that consequence of sin. Let's pray. Lord, I pray God that the holiness of God makes us whole. The holiness of who you are. Lord, we haven't been training the way that you have given us the plan for. You haven't. You've given us a blueprint right here in your word. And we have compromised it. And we have not looked at it the way. The way with spiritual eyes.
God, we have not seen it, but we have been inclined to do it our own way and put the preferences before the person of Jesus. But here today, God, we want to stand in your presence, show us your glory. Same way Moses wanted to. Just see. Just show me the back part of who you are. Oh God, that's all my heart's desire. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. God, I will do this every second, every minute of every day.
Oh God, if it just says I just get a glimpse of who you are, the glorification that is to come. But God, if I have constructed a middle road of some sorts, whether I call it whatever sin or whatever pleasure, Heavenly Father, I just pray right now that we leave here repented and changed. Where grace, where sin abounds, grace abounds so much more. So, God, I pray for each and every one that is here and watching online that this day, Lord, we bring holiness back to where it should be.
We don't compromise it. We don't make it artificial. We make it real, incarnational. So that when people see us, they see and they see Christ in us, the hope of glory. So thank you, Lord, for what you're about to do. Come on. Every hand just lifted right now. I want you to just maybe take this moment. Just take a few moments. I even believe this is a holy moment for some of you and just start to just cry out to God. Just take some time.
Right now, I want to take a few moments to just get this right. This is not just me just giving you another sermon so that you could just take home and listen to later. This has to be life to you. So come on, lift up your hand. Say God. Greater is he that is in me than him of the world, Lord. Come on, let's just praise him right now. Just give him some praise. Just acknowledge his presence in your life. Say, God, I want more of you. I want more of you. I want more of you, Lord. More of you.
Lord, forgive me, o wretched man that I am. Deal with my sin, oh God. Deal with my complacency, oh God. Deal with the sinful clutter that is in my soul, oh God, I've cluttered it, God, I filled it and it's overflowing now with goodness. And mercy is flowing with sin. It's flowing with hate. It's flowing with pain, oh God, I'm in pain. But there is purpose in my pain. There's purpose in my pain. God, God, you have not given us that which we are not able to bear, but you provide a way of escape.
But Lord, if we've been escaping into the world's arms, forgive us if we've been escaping into the narrative that we have to be a morally good person. Forgive us if we have compromised the way we do discipleship and discipline and diet. Forgive us, God. Today we want to train for godliness because as a good soldier, we don't entangle ourselves with the affairs of this world. But we are going to fight this fight of faith to the very end. Lord. No Christian left behind.
No true believer left behind. So, Father, thank you that you are all powerful for such a time as this. In Jesus name we pray. Come on. Amen and amen. Come on. Put your hands together. Come on. Just praise the Lord what you are.