Good Servants of Christ Jesus

0:34A good servant of Christ Jesus. Verse 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. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for good 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 trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For 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.

1:28This is the Word of God. You may be seated. Like many of you, I was an athlete in high school. I am now a washed-up has-been. But I can appreciate the dedication and all of the training and the sacrifice that goes into being an elite athlete, an Olympian. And I was on the internet the other day, and I came across a link to a WikiHow article. I don't know if you know what WikiHow is, but you basically search for how to do something, and it will give you a series of steps. And I'm not making this up. There was an article called How to Become an Olympic Athlete.

2:14Like, you know, I was in middle management and just kind of wanted a career change. What do I need to do to become an Olympic athlete? Let me show you the beginning of this article. If you want to become an Olympian, you've got to be fairly trained and in good shape. It's a long, arduous path, but it will be well worth it when you stand on the international stage. Meanwhile, at the Olympics, Chris Brooks is doing this.

2:50He is fairly trained and in good shape. The reality is, if you want to become an Olympic athlete, Athlete. You've got to dedicate thousands of hours every single year to training, disciplining yourself to eat well and rest well and to practice hard every single day. We understand that if you want to become an Olympian, that's not something that just happens in a day. It's not something that happens with minimal effort. You've got to train. But I think for many Christians, we would say we want to grow spiritually.

3:28But for some reason, we think that that growth is just going to become natural. It's just going to happen to us. We don't have to train ourselves. We don't have to exert effort. We don't have to discipline ourselves. But Paul will help dispel that notion in this passage that we're going to look at today as he teaches Timothy what it is to be a good servant of Christ Jesus. And so what we're going to learn together is that good servants of Christ Jesus hope in God while training themselves for godliness.

3:58So let's look together at the text, starting here in verse 6. Paul writes, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. Being a good servant of Christ Jesus should be the goal of every professing Christian. Our hope is to live to please our God and our King, our Master. What we want to hear is what we read in Matthew 25 at the outset of the service. We want to hear. Well done, good and faithful servant. That should be the goal for every single Christian. And when you look at the terms that the Bible uses for Christians, it uses words like ambassador and messenger, representative. All of those things are used to describe Christians. And what do ambassadors do? They represent the interests of someone else, the one that they're representing. What message does an ambassador carry? It's the message that was given to them from their master, the one that they're representing, the one that they are speaking on behalf of.

5:09And so as Christians, we are stewards in those ways. We represent another. And so how can we be good servants of Christ Jesus? Paul says here, if you put these things before the brothers. If you put these things before the brothers. Well, what is he referring to with these things? I think we can conclude confidently, he's at least referring to the first five verses of chapter four. And so Paul had just finished telling Timothy that false teachers were creeping into the church and they were encouraging people to depart from the faith by departing from the word of God. And so Paul writes to Timothy to say, don't depart from the word of God. Instead, remain committed to it. Don't believe these lies that people Are saying that if you want to be saved, then you've got to do things in order to be saved, other than believing in Christ.

6:07Because that's what these false teachers were saying, and that's what many false teachers say all throughout the years: is that certain things have to be added to faith in Christ if you want to be accepted by God. And in this case, the false teachers were saying you've got to abstain from certain things. You can't be married, you've got to abstain from eating certain foods. That's what their message was. And Paul says, don't believe those things. Everything that God created is good, it's to be received with thanksgiving. It's made holy by the word of God and prayer. So, certainly, when Paul says, if you put these things before the brothers, he's referring to the things that he just talked about in verses 1 through 5.

6:45But I think it's also likely that he's referring to everything that he's written to this point in the letter. He's talking about his teaching about the gospel in chapter 1. He's talking about how to order the church and to order worship in chapter 2. He's talking about how you find faithful leaders, elders, and deacons in chapter 3. If you put all of those things before the brothers, you're a good servant of Christ Jesus because that's what good servants do.

7:09They understand that they're stewards and they speak on behalf of another. We don't get to make up the message, we deliver the message. And we'll be able to deliver that message if we've been trained. Look at what the next part says. He says, Being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have. Followed. You see, a good servant of Christ Jesus is trained in the words of the faith. Now, this phrase, trained in, the Greek word can also be translated nourished in. And if you have a different translation other than the ESV, that's probably what your Bible says. It says nourished in.

7:48Good servants of Christ Jesus are nourished in the words of faith. Now, I want you to think about the image of a nursing mother. For a mother to nourish her child, she has to first be nourished herself. This is a problem all around the world in developing and undeveloped countries: is that babies are not getting the nourishment that they need because the mothers are malnourished. If we want to nourish other people, we have to first be nourished. But the scripture often talks about us as infants in Christ and those that need nourishment. And so, where do we get that from? Look on the screen at 1 Peter chapter 2.

8:27Peter says, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. What an amazing word picture that we have here. Like infants, like newborn infants, we should long for pure spiritual milk. We should long to be nourished with the word of God. That's how we grow up into salvation, and we help others grow in the same way. Sadly, many believe. Believers are malnourished.

9:02And we're malnourished because we don't regularly hear the Word of God preached and taught. We're malnourished because we ourselves are not reading, studying the Word of God on a regular basis. And so it's no surprise that many believers are unable to nourish others. They're malnourished themselves. But it doesn't have to be that way. That's why Paul tells Timothy that to be a good servant of Christ Jesus, you've got to be trained up in the words of the faith. You've got to be nourished in them. But you notice that he doesn't stop there. He doesn't only say you need to be nourished in or trained in the words of the faith. Look at what else he adds.

9:41And of the good doctrine that you have followed. And of the good doctrine that you have followed. So he says it's not just that we're trained in or nourished in the words of the faith. We follow it. We follow good doctrine. Knowledge is a necessary component to spiritual growth. You can't grow spiritually without knowledge. But knowledge alone won't help us to grow. Obedience is necessary for our Christian maturity. Jesus connects these two ideas so well in John chapter 13. Look what he says. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

10:36So Jesus says, we aren't blessed for knowing the right things. We're blessed for doing the right things. God is not pleased with us merely knowing the content of the gospel. We must believe it. God is not pleased with us merely knowing what he has commanded us in his word. He's pleased with us obeying it. And so you put everything together from verse 6, and what you find is that a good servant of Christ Jesus knows the word of God, obeys the word of God, and helps other people to do the same. We know it, we obey it, we help others to do it as well. So let me challenge you to evaluate yourself as a Christian based on those criteria. There's so many ways that we could evaluate ourselves, and there's so many ways that people do evaluate themselves in the United States of America that profess to be Christians. But we're called to evaluate ourselves based on God's Word. So let me just ask you a few questions based on what Paul has shared. First, do you know the Word of God?

11:44Do you know the Word of God? Are you hearing it faithfully preached and taught on a regular basis? Are you reading and studying God's Word for yourself? Second, are you obeying? The Word of God. Are you obeying the Word of God? James says that we shouldn't be hearers only, we should be doers of the Word. And so, if you are studying the Word of God, are you putting it into practice by doing what it says? And then, third and finally, are you helping others to know and obey the Word of God? Are you helping others to know and obey the Word of God? Most of us are familiar with the Great Commission, where Jesus commands us to go and make disciples of all nations. Every one of us has a role to play in that. Good servants of Christ Jesus aren't just concerned with their own spiritual growth, and that is one of the most concerning things that I see in the American church today. So many Christians are only concerned with the vertical relationship between them and God. And there's no thought given to the Great Commission and Jesus' commands, not suggestions to us to help other men and women come to faith in Christ and then to grow in faith in Christ. Are you helping others to grow in their knowledge and obedience to Jesus? That's the standard that Paul says that we should use to evaluate ourselves as servants of Christ, not anything else.

13:19And so in verse 7, Paul is going to continue to instruct Timothy on what it is to be a good servant of Christ Jesus by starting with telling him what not to do. Look at verse 7. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. There were obviously a lot of those going around in Ephesus at the time. If you remember back to chapter 1, I'll remind you of verses 3 and 4. Look on the screen. Paul says, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

14:14See, the problem here is that these speculations weren't just a waste of time. The problem is that they promoted, or rather, these myths weren't just a waste of time, but they promoted speculations. They promote speculations. And we don't have to speculate about God. We don't have to speculate about his will. We don't have to speculate about his commands for us because he's revealed all of those things. And yet, that's what many people, even those who profess to believe in Jesus, are doing. They're speculating. They're saying, well, I think God is like this. Well, I think this is God's will for my life or for your life. Well, I think this is what God wants from us. But friends, we don't have to speculate. When we devote ourselves to irreverent, silly myths, that's what ends up happening: is that we just end up speculating about God and His will. But He has clearly revealed who He is and what He wants from us. So we don't have to speculate. We can say, God's Word says, He has revealed to us what He desires. So remember, our calling is to serve as stewards, not to speculate, but rather to deliver God's Word faithfully to others just as it has been passed on to us.

15:29And I think a lot of times we read these things and we wonder, I wonder what kind of myths were going around Ephesus. I wonder, for that matter, what kind of irreverent, silly myths are going around today. But I think when you consider it, you don't have to spend a whole lot of time worrying or wondering about the irreverent silly myths that are out there. Counterfeit money is produced every single day in the United States of America and around the world.

15:58And it's not hard if you've been trained to spot counterfeit money. Those who have been trained to spot counterfeit money can see right away if the watermark is not there, or if the coloring of the thread is off, or if the ink isn't raised in the right spots, or if the serial number doesn't correspond to the correct year. I know all of this because I was in the CIA. I'm kidding, I was not. I was actually Jason Bourne.

16:32When they train men and women to spot counterfeit money, they don't waste their time putting in front of them hundreds or thousands of counterfeit bills and tell them, memorize all of these. Instead, they put real, authentic American currency in front of them and they say, memorize this. Anything that doesn't look exactly like this is not real. And friends, in the same way, we don't have to devote ourselves to irreverent and silly myths because we're worried that we're going to be led astray by one. All we have to do is devote ourselves to the authentic and pure teaching of the Word of God. If we know this, then we're going to recognize irreverent and silly myths as soon as they come up. So Paul says, don't waste your time on those things. What does he say? Look at the text. Rather, train yourself for godliness.

17:27Train yourself for godliness. Now, this is actually a different Greek word than was translated trained in back in verse 6. This word here means to control oneself through discipline. And the word is gumnazzo. And when it's written down with English letters, it looks like gymnazo. And that should bring to mind our English words of gymnast and gymnasium. This word means to control oneself through discipline. And so you can see how those concepts are related. So, when you watch Olympic gymnastics, I mean, these athletes are incredible. They have muscles on top of muscles, great flexibility, unbelievable body control. I mean, you look at Chris Brooks, that picture of him from earlier. It's like I pulled my groin looking at that. You know? These people are amazing. How can they do it? Well, they've trained themselves, they've devoted 8 to 12 hours a day for years to eating the right foods, getting enough rest, working hard at their craft. They have trained. No Olympic gymnast just woke up one day and said, I'd like a medal.

18:44I'll use WikiHow and figure out how I can get there. That's not how it works. They dedicate themselves, they train themselves, they put in the time. And as anyone who is physically fit can attest, you have to dedicate yourself to living a healthy lifestyle. You have to devote yourself to eating the right food and exercising regularly and all of those things. And this is what Paul's argument is in verse 8. Look at what he says. He says, bodily training is of some value.

19:17Bodily training is of some value. Now, there's a word here for everyone in the church. First, Paul says bodily training does have value. Bodily training does have value. I think there's a lot of Christians that rationalize that because bodily training is less important than spiritual training, it's unimportant. But the reality is, friends, we are whole beings. Our minds and our bodies and our spirits are all interconnected. You can't separate them out from one another. It's difficult to be healthy in every other area of your life when one area is not healthy. Anybody that's ever struggled with mental illness, or if you know someone who has struggled with mental illness, perhaps depression or something else, then they can tell you for sure that's the way that it is. If you're not healthy in your mind, it's hard to be healthy in your body and in your spirit. These things are all interconnected. And so I think it's true that some Christians have trouble studying the Word of God, have trouble praying because they're not physically healthy. They're not eating well, they're not getting enough rest. They're not exercising regularly. And so Paul says that this kind of training translates over into every other area of life. Bodily training does have value.

20:45But notice that he qualifies the statement. He says bodily training has some value. So if you live at the gym, if you count every calorie, if you find yourself obsessed, Obsessing over functional movements. This might be a word for you. Bodily training has some value. It's a good thing, but it's not an ultimate thing. So all of our time, all of our money, all of our energy should not be devoted to bodily training because it's only of some value. If we're spending more time developing our bodies than we are developing our spirits, then our priorities are out of whack. And you see the relevance of the Word of God here because this was an issue in the first century 2,000 years ago.

21:36You look at the stadiums of today for college and professional athletics. You look at how much money we spend on sports and watching them, supporting them, and you think this is out of control. But if you've ever traveled to Rome before and you've seen the Coliseum or you've seen the Circus Maximus built without any modern technology, you see that they idolized the exact same things. They idolized the body. They idolized athletic performance. They spent a ridiculous amount of money and energy and time on those things, just like us. There's nothing new under the sun. There's just new people making the same old errors.

22:17So in contrast to bodily training, which Paul says has some value, look at what he says. Godliness is a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and all. Also, for the life to come. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. This is such an amazing verse. Godliness, Paul says, has value in this life and in the life to come. What an encouraging word. It's an investment for us today as well as in the future. But what other investment is like that?

22:58I mean, if you stop and think for a moment about investing in your retirement plan or in your savings account, these are decisions that you make where you say, I'm going to sacrifice today to realize a better thing in the future. When you invest in your retirement or savings, you have less money to spend today on yourself or your family or whatever else. It's a sacrifice. So it's good to invest in the future, but it means that you have to sacrifice today. Paul says, when we invest the time and energy and resources to become godly, it holds promise for today as well as for the life to come. What an amazing investment that benefits us both now and in the future. Now, I think a lot of us can understand why investing in godliness would benefit us in the future. We have some concept that the Lord will reward those men. And women who invested in eternal things. We can understand that. But I think for a lot of us, we think to ourselves, how will godliness benefit me today?

24:13Well, first of all, what is godliness? We could define it as reverence for God revealed in our words and actions. Reverence for God revealed in our words and actions. So, who is a godly person? A godly person is a man or a woman who is increasingly displaying the fruit of the Spirit in their life. Increasingly displaying the fruit of the Spirit in their life. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, love. You think about all of those things, and especially you focus on ones like joy and peace and self-control.

25:05And you consider how beneficial godliness is for this present life. When you have little reason to be happy because your health is not good, or because your financial situation is not what you want it to be, or because your circumstances are not what you have chosen, not what you would have chosen, in Christ. You still have joy. When things happen to you that you could not foresee, that you could not influence or change in any way, and you feel out of control, in Christ, you still have peace.

25:52And when all around you, people are ruining their lives because they cannot control their eating or their drinking or their spending or their lusts, in Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin. You have self-control because you have the Holy Spirit. And so, friends, when you think about all of those things, you consider the reality that godliness does have advantages even in this life. Joy and peace and self-control chief among them. But it does require an investment.

26:36It requires training to become a godly person. Friends, no one has ever become a godly person on accident. No one has ever become a godly person on accident. But I think that's what many of us think. That, you know, if I want to be good at my hobby, or if I want to be good at my hobby, My job, or if I want to be a good husband or father, I've got to invest. I've got to work. But when it comes to godliness, we think, well, that will just happen. But no one becomes a godly person on accident. To become godly, we've got to train ourselves in the words of the faith, got to nourish ourselves in them. To become godly, we've got to learn and practice, practice and learn. Again, Jesus said, if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them, put them into practice. So let me challenge you to make the necessary investment to become a godlier person. Nobody who just put a few dollars into their retirement account every once in a while would expect to retire with a great sum of money.

27:52And in the same way, when we only come to worship a few times a year, when we only read the word on occasion, we can't expect to become godly people. It doesn't just happen. If you want to grow spiritually, you've got to make a serious investment. And friends, that means you've got to think about the long-term impact of all these things. The long-term impact of any one sermon is probably not that much. But the long-term impact of hearing hundreds of faithful sermons, The long-term impact of going to dozens of classes about God's Word, the long-term impact of reading God's Word daily, of sharing your faith regularly, of helping people grow in Christ. What is the long-term impact of all those things? You're going to become a godlier person because you've made an investment.

28:53The question is, how do you stay motivated for years, maybe decades? Paul answers that question for us in 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. Why do Paul and Timothy toil and strive to become godly? Why do they discipline themselves? Why, as you could translate this as well, are they willing to bear reproach and suffer hardship?

29:35The answer is that they have set their hope on the living God. They've set their hope on the living God. See, so many people are toiling and striving. It's not just professing Christians in America. If you look around the world at professing Christians, if you look around the world at Muslims, at those who practice Hinduism, at those who practice all kinds of religions, you will see millions and millions of people toiling and striving. And they're toiling and striving because I think the default position for every human being around the world is: if I do enough to prove myself to God, he will accept me, or the gods will accept me.

30:30But, friends, Paul is saying precisely the opposite. Rather than saying, I work to earn God's acceptance, Paul is saying, I'm already accepted by God, and that's why I work. He already knew that he had God's acceptance, and he had that acceptance because his hope was set on the living God. You see, Paul knew better than anybody what it was like to set hope on yourself. Paul knew that better than anybody. He knew better than anybody. You couldn't become a godly enough person or religious enough person on your own to impress God and earn his favor. Very few people were as obedient, very few people were as religious as the Apostle Paul. Listen to his autobiography in Philippians chapter 3.

31:23If anyone else thinks he has a reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised. On the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless. This is who Paul was before he came to faith in Christ. Before Paul came to faith in Christ, all of his hope was in his religious performance. He looked around him and he said, I am better than anybody else I know. My performance is better. It is more faithful. No one could say that they were a better Jew than Paul.

32:14But he came to realize after Jesus revealed himself that his hope had been misplaced the entire time. He wasn't hoping in God. He was hoping in his own performance. And Paul came to see that that hope was misplaced because his performance wasn't good enough. However good Paul's performance was, however good our performance may be, it is not perfect, and that's what God requires. Perfection. Not merely a solid effort, but perfection. So Paul concludes this chapter with these words. Look again on the screen. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count every As loss, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

33:31You see, friends, 1 Timothy 4, verse 10 is great news for everybody. 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 or that is those who believe. That verse is great news for everybody, no matter where you find yourself on the spectrum of religious performance. Has your religious performance been good, like the Apostle Paul's? That was my story. I was a very religious kid. I was in the church building every single time the doors were open. I loved being there. And I prided myself on the fact that outwardly, I was not as sinful as my friends around me.

34:22And my hope was set on my performance. I was convinced that if I just tried hard enough to be a good enough person. And a religious enough person, God would accept me. But, friends, my performance and maybe your performance as well, if that's where you find yourself, is not good enough. All of us, God says, have fallen short of His glory. Not one of us keeps the law perfectly at all times. And what that means is, we need a Savior.

34:55We need someone who can stand in our place, who did obey the law perfectly. And that's Jesus. He came to fulfill the law, to fulfill all righteousness, and then died in our place for our sins. So if you're a religious person like I was, maybe that's where you find yourself. But maybe your religious performance hasn't been good at all, and you know that. And when you look back on the course of your life, you see a string of failure.

35:28You see sin and the consequences that it's brought to your life. You may see yourself failing even now and wonder if God could ever accept you. Well, friends, the good news of the gospel is that you don't have to set your hope on your performance. In fact, you cannot set your hope on your performance because your performance is not good enough. But you can set your hope on the living God who is the Savior of all.

36:01Jesus died for your failures. He stood in your place. He took your punishment. And then he rose again on the third day. That is the good news for everyone who has failed, who has not been a good religious performer like the Apostle Paul. And every person who hopes in Jesus alone for forgiveness and reconciliation with God will be saved, will be accepted into God's family, will be adopted. And friends, when your hope is set on the living God, then you can toil and strive for godliness, not in the hope that God will accept you because you are trying to become godly, but rather because you are already accepted in Christ. In Christ, you can toil and strive for godliness because it has promise for this life and for the life to come. Good servants of Christ Jesus hope in God while training themselves for godliness. Let's pray.

37:34Father, we thank you for revealing yourself and your will to us through your word. We thank you that we don't have to speculate about what you're like or what you want from us because you've made that known. I pray that we would be men and women who are nourished in the words of faith and the good doctrine that we have followed, that we've put into practice. I pray that we would be people who are willing to invest, to train ourselves for godliness, because we believe not just in our minds, but in our hearts, that it holds value for this life as well as the life to come.

38:28God, I pray for everyone who is gathered here today because I know that we have people all over that spectrum. We have people who are here today that, like the Apostle Paul and like me, are trusting in themselves, are hoping in themselves rather than in you. I pray that today is the day that they turn away from hoping in themselves. And they place their full hope and trust in Jesus, who is the Savior that they need.

39:10And Father, I pray for those men and women, kids who are here today, who are convinced that you could never accept them. Their religious performance in their minds has been too poor. They've failed too many times. They may have failed again last night. And I pray that they would see you for who you are, the Savior of all people. And that they would recognize that they too can be saved by placing their faith in Christ. God, we want to be a church filled with people who are increasingly becoming more godly. Help us to do that. Help us to challenge and encourage each other.

40:09We pray that you would be honored by our lives together because they're an accurate, although imperfect picture of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.