Exercising Towards Godliness
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Do you remember the last time you left a service all fired up to change? You were determined to be different. "This time," you said, "I mean it; I am going to become the person that God wants me to be!" "No Really! I'm going to change! I won't give in to that temptation. I will read my Bible every day. I'll pray every morning when I get up and every night when I go to bed. I'll be more conscious of the lostness of people.” Then a few days go by and we are the same as we were before we went to worship in the first place!
It's like when you first became a Christian. Do you remember the day that you were baptized? Your desire, your dedication, your determination was at its peak. Later, however, maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks, maybe even years later, you begin to wonder what happened. You are not as dedicated, your decision has been forgotten, your determination is just not as determined.
I think sometimes that we want instant godliness, but I want to let you in on a secret. "Instant Godliness Won't Happen!" When you listen to those people we claim to be the most godly people, they say, "I have not arrived. I am not at all what I need to be.." We may have instant pudding. We may have instant potatoes and instant coffee. All of that may be great and wonderful, but "Instant Godliness Won't Happen!"
The Bible is very clear, however, about how godliness does come.
6 If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. 7 But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. 8 For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. 9 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. 10 For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.
"Exercise yourself to godliness;" Train yourself in godliness; "Discipline yourself to become godly." No matter how you say it, it is understood that time is involved. Those who go to the Olympics train for years. Boxers exercise constantly. Any athlete requires rigid discipline and it takes time. How can we think that it would be any different for Christianity? for Godliness? And honestly, it is worth whatever time it takes.
We need to realize that there is no option about being godly. We are commanded by the Lord do be godly, and to discipline/train ourselves to be so. We are told in the scriptures to be holy, for the Lord is holy; to be perfect like our Father is perfect. It is certain that we will never reach that level in this life, but it needs to be our goal! We need to become more like God each day, living lives that are reflecting our Lord to others. The goal of training to be godly in this life is to think, say, desire, and do what He wants us to.
But how do I train or discipline myself. That is the question that we need to answer! A characteristic involved in Exercise, or training is Work. The end result has never been easy. If you want a nice house, it requires work. If you want a nice garden, it requires work. Anything with any real quality requires work and usually hard work. It means daily effort. It means it will not come easy, neither will it be instantly.
Honestly, if there was a pill that I could take that instantly gave you bible knowledge and instantly made you godly, I would want to be one of the first ones in line to get that pill, but such a pill does not exist. So we all need to get to work on ourselves. We need to realize that we are “works in progress.” We are all under construction, training in Godliness!
For the next few minutes I want to talk about how you can train or exercise in godliness.
1.) Training in godliness requires self- evaluation.
Let us search out and examine our ways, And turn back to the Lord;
Most of us do not like to examine ourselves because we do not want to see anything wrong with ourselves. I remember when I first became a Christian. Part of me was so afraid of reading the scriptures because I didn’t want to see how much I needed to work on and how wicked I truly was before I became a Christian. But we need to look in the mirror of the scriptures, because only God’s word will reveal to us the blemishes that we have in our lives that need fixed.
Some people have avoided going to the doctor, because they do not want to find out that something is wrong. But let me ask you, if there is something wrong do you think that it will go away just because you don't know it? What if your car has a problem and you don't know exactly what it is? Do you just keep driving after you start hearing a noise and just wait for the car to break down? Of course not. If your check engine light comes on, you take the car to get looked at so you can know exactly what’s wrong with it so you can fix the problem. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away! Willful ignorance of our faults does not make one godly!
Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you are disqualified.
Would you fly in an aircraft, if you knew it had not been tested or examined? You are putting your life in as much or more danger when you do not examine yourself regularly, even daily. We need to look in the mirror of God’s word as much (if not more) as we like to look at ourselves in our mirrors at home! Unfortunately, we are too often more concerned how we look in appearance to the world than how our hearts look before the Lord!
2) Second, Training in godliness requires self-denial and humility.
Which at times is not the natural or most comfortable thing to do
Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
Jesus is not talking about denying yourself of something. He is talking about denying your
self, denying your will and denying your own desires. As he did when he said, "Not My will be done, but YOUR will be done. Not just some of our own desires, but all of them.
Jesus’ prayer in the garden has been very interesting to me. We so often put something like Jesus’ prayer in our own prayers. We so often say, nay your Lord be done Lord, not mine,” but once our prayer is finished, we go and do our own thing. That clearly was not the case with our Lord. He was resolved to do the will of God. He truly denied Himself and His natural interests of not drinking the cup of suffering that was going to be given to Him
There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'
29 "'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. ()
We too often are like the second son! We tell the Lord we will do His will, that we will rid ourselves of sin; that we will help others to know Him and grow closer to Him, but then we don’t live up to what we told Him we would do. We need to learn self-denial if we want to be godly!
It is also clear that self-denial must be everyday. We have to deny ourselves every day
because we do things the same way every day. We have habits. We have traditions. We have rituals that happen every day. So every day we have to learn self-denial all over again. A smoker for example who has been smoking for fifteen to twenty years is not likely to stop cold turkey. It has been done, but my point here is that they will have they urge every day and they will have to fight that urge every day probably longer than they had the habit. I know people who have not had a cigarette for years, but every one of them has told me that they would enjoy it today. Self-denial is a never ending struggle.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
The self-denial part of spiritual exercise is the losing weight stage. We need to, as the Hebrews writer wrote, to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” A “weight” or “encumbrance” would be anything that hinders us in our way of serving God, and it could be something that is or is not sinful of itself. We cannot be disciplined in our service to the Lord if we constantly have the things of this world getting in the way. It would be as profitable as running a race looking backward. We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, our greatest of examples, and conform our lives to look like His. That is the goal of our training, and that cannot happen unless we are willing to lose weight! A poor spiritual condition or lack of service is due to too much “weight”!
3) Training in godliness requires gaining weight also!
28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
The Lord has weight to put onto us spiritually also, good weight in comparison to the weight that we need to lose. He will give us rest from the weight that the world puts onto our shoulders, but he also will put a yoke/ burden onto our shoulders to carry, and that includes learning from Him and following Him.
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your
old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (NIV)
Run in such a way that you may obtain the prize... 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
We need to teach ourselves to do the things that the Lord wants us to do. We need to study God’s word, see what he wants us to do, and daily do it.
Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
When we waiver in our discipline in doing things that we should be doing as Christians, we can only become weaker in our faith. I believe that it is true that if you are not growing in Christ you are probably falling away because of a sense of contentment and complacency.
The old saying of Edmund Burke is certainly true: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
(ESV)
40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
The crux of the matter on why we always feel like we have not attained godliness lies in what the definition of Godliness is: to be like God. Whenever you think of it from that perspective, the truth is that no one can say that they have attained that goal perfectly, but that doesn’t mean that we have the right to give up because we will never meet the standard.
We need to train ourselves to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We need to be like our Lord who said to the Pharisees, “My Father is always working, so too I must work.” That’s the attitude we need to have daily in our service to God.
Jesus not only tells us to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses, but He also tells us that if we want to be His disciples we need to follow him. We too often follow the Lord at a distance, and too often take breaks along the way. We need to resolve to no longer linger. To no longer allow ourselves to constantly fall into complacency. Let’s be disciplined. Let us discipline our bodies to be faithful to the Lord, and not to the world.
What does it mean to be faithful?
Husband- Wife?
4) Remember why we train.
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
We have a great prize before us if we complete this race faithful to the Lord!
ILLUSTRATION
There is an old story about the Greek Marathon. Muscular, conditioned runners paced nervously near the starting line for the long-distance race. The time was near. They "shook out" their muscles, inhaled deeply, and put on their "game faces."
In the midst of it all, a young stranger took his place at the starting line. His physique was awesome. Taking no notice of the other contestants, he stared straight ahead. Two prizes would be awarded the winner of the Marathon: a magnificent bouquet of flowers and the honor of standing beside the king until the conclusion of other contests.
There seemed to be no question among the runners about who would win the prize. It is alleged that the stranger was offered money not to run. Someone else attempted to bribe him with property. Refusing the offers, he toed the mark and awaited the signal to run. When the signal was given, he was the first away. At the finish line, he was the first to cross, well ahead of the rest.
When it was all done, someone asked the young man if he thought the flowers were worth as much as the money and property he had refused. He replied, "I did not enter the race for the flowers. I ran so that I could stand beside my king!"
“I am Resolved”
I am resolved no longer to linger charmed by the worlds delights
Things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sights
I am resolved to go to the Savior leaving the my sin and strife
He is the true One, He is the just One, He has the words of life.
I am resolved to follow the Savior, faithful and true each day
Heed what He says, do what He wills His is the living way.
I am resolved to enter the kingdom, leaving the paths of sin;
Friends may oppose me foes may beset me, still will I enter in.
I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free
Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to thee.