and that we would bear fruits of obedience and especially of faith in order to live now and forever for you, Lord, and not for ourselves. Hear us, we ask. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Our scripture reading this morning will be taken from 1 Timothy chapter three, the very end of chapter three in verse 16, and we'll be reading to the end of verse four. So that's 1 Timothy chapter 3, 16 to 4, 16. And as you turn there, just by way of context, Paul had some 12, 15 years prior to the writing of this letter, established the church in Ephesus, those churches there, And he had departed them after spending three years teaching them with great sorrow, but warning them that at some point wolves will enter into their midst and lead the flock astray. It is now that time that has prompted Paul to write to Timothy. Timothy needed some help. He's saying that the You know what, the elders there at Ephesus have been teaching false teachings concerning traditions, speculations, and legalism. Timothy reaches out to Paul for some help in what to do, because they will not listen to Timothy, the young man. So here he is giving advice, which will go over what occurred in chapters one to three during our sermon. But here, starting from verse 16 of chapter three, Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Now the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, those who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For God created everything good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God in prayer. 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 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 to this end, we toil and strive, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things and immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers. So far, the reading of the Lord's word. May he bless it upon our hearts. I draw your attention in particular to verse seven, the second half of verse seven and verse eight, which will be our sermon text for this morning. Nothing is to be, pardon me. 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. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, did any of you watch the Olympics? Even without all the drama that occurred in this past Olympics. I was never much of a watcher of any kind of sports, even those. But even though they are very interesting, you get this rare event where you have many people coming from all over the world, many nations representing their countries gathering at this single spot. And these people, you kind of wonder, what do they do in between every couple of years of the Olympics? What are they doing with their time? Well, they're training, of course. And it's pretty remarkable, the sort of training. I was curious and had to look it up, kind of seeing what sort of regiments do they have to do. An athlete knows that their body has to be well prepared. It has to be kept in shape in order to get to the place where they can compete in the Olympics. They know that a bad exercise regimen can cause serious physical injury. So I've read somewhere that training to be an Olympian athlete can take anywhere from four to eight years. They need to be very disciplined, and not just in their own sport, their own area, but all around. To decrease the risk of injury, they have to undergo cross-training in strength, and endurance, agility, and speed, no matter what their event is. To properly rest their body and stay mentally sharp, they need sufficient sleep, they need proper nutrition, they need time off. Now, do any of you think that you have what it takes to be an Olympian? I definitely, though, that I don't. My body is not built for that. You also may not be called to the sports arena, but every single Christian is called to contend in the arena for the soul. Every believer is called to be an Olympian, spiritually. And just like a bad exercise regimen can injure you physically, bad spiritual exercise can bring you critical, lethal, eternal damage. Human beings are spiritual beings. We're created to worship God. If we don't have a proper understanding of God by the word and spirit, we can easily be swayed by new age practices, by worldly philosophies, general mysticism or legalism or simply you just entirely neglect your soul with a practical atheism. You speak like a Christian but live like the world. It's common these days. Now the Ephesian churches have taken up bad spiritual practices. And so Paul here is instructing Timothy, be an example in showing them what healthy spiritual exercise looks like. So in coming to chapter four, our theme this morning, as you'll see in your bulletin handouts, is that the spirit trains his people to be Olympic competitors in the arena of the soul. And this training has three parts. First, we have a gospel guide. Second, a diet of doctrine. And third, a diligent disciple. We tried for all Ds, it didn't work. We had to put those little Gs in there. But we're gonna start with those Gs, the gospel guide. Now in chapter three, verse 15, Paul gives us the goal in writing this letter. So here's the main purpose of the entire epistle of 1 Timothy. He wants us to know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Okay, so that is why he wants us to know how we ought to conduct ourselves and why we're gonna conduct ourselves in this way. And then he goes on to give us what that pillar and foundation is in verse 16. Jesus Christ appeared in the flesh. He was vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels. He was preached among by the nations, was believed on in the world, and he was taken up in glory. This is an early Christian creed. These are principles of the faith, the basics of what you need to be a Christian. Now, Paul beautifully confesses the gospel in guide of the church, pardon me, Paul here is confessing that the ground and the guide of the church is the gospel. So the gospel is our foundation that we are built upon, but now contrast that with the first two verses of chapter four. Here we get a glimpse into that, the main issue of what's going on in Ephesus. You're seeing that some are departing from the faith and devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons. They are following things other than the foundation. They have left the foundation, the basics of the gospel. And so this is what Paul originally had been addressing in chapter one. But here, it's not till chapter four that he's now ready to start coaching Timothy on how to enter the ring with false teachings. How do you contend against worldliness and satanic opponents? Well, Paul points out three weaknesses in false teachers. First, we have the real source of their doctrine. Where does their doctrine come from? It's hellish. And here we have to be reminded that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Even when we see the politicians, the pro-choice activists, when we see Muslim radicals, when we see Antifa, we see these things in the world, but we have to remember, the origin of such wickedness is not of flesh and blood. It is from deceiving spirits, devils like the serpent, devils that twist the clear word of God and obscure the way of truth in life. This happens in our own churches as well. False teachers obey demon-inspired lies through mental ascent and action, and they follow them to the doors of hell. This is the second weakness of Timothy's opponents. Because their doctrines come from demons, they prove themselves to be hypocrites. They claim to believe the things of Christ, but they don't know him. And Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2 that with such people, with such hypocrites, the gospel of Christ sounds good at first, but they didn't wholeheartedly love it as the truth and assurance of life. And so God gives them up to those false doctrines that they placed their trust in. And the result is the third weakness of the teachers, the searing of the conscience. You learn your doctrine from demons, and you place your trust in other things. And if you place your trust in other things, you will not listen to good things. Your conscience is seared. Now, I just spent the past summer in Bisalia, California, the Central Valley where most of America's produce comes from, and where there's quite a lot of dairies. So I get to shake the hands of a lot of hardworking farmers and dairymen. You have some here as well. of course. Now you guys have really rough hands, those dairymen and farmers. And it's not just with their grip. They don't just have powerful hands. They have rough hands. They have calluses on them. Those calluses, children, are where the skin hardens over. It forms a protective layer on the hands so that you're less sensitive to things when you touch. Your hand gets harder to break through and injure. But calluses also make your hands lose some feeling when rubbed up on objects. I can say this as someone who plays guitar for many years. I have calluses on the tip of just my fingers. They have less sensation there. Now, when someone is swayed by false doctrine, it's like calluses have built up over their inner moral compass. It's like calluses have built up on their mind, on their heart. It's like their conscience has been cauterized with a hot iron. When you follow false doctrines and put your trust in those false doctrines, you no longer are able to tell or discern what is permissible for the Christian life and what's prohibited. And you no longer can tell good from bad and bad from good. And you see this so much today with the embracing of homosexual membership in so-called churches. You see this in the tolerating of sins and scandal and adultery, pastoral failures of plagiarism, vulgar or hateful speech, idol worship, worldly philosophies, all in the churches. But someone swayed by false doctrine isn't just calloused in their conscience with bad, gross sins that just seem so obvious. So that's an obvious sin. They're obviously calloused in the mind. No, they also become insensitive to things meant to be good. They're not just attracted to the bad things. They're no longer attracted to the good. The Ephesian false elders forbade marriage, for example. And they promoted abstinence from food. That is, they told people, eat as little as possible. You don't want to taint yourself. That was their concern. Their concern over sex and food was so that Christians would do everything possible to pollute themselves with physical, worldly things. And this is what is called asceticism. Physical things, including the body, are evil. Spiritual things, like the soul, are good. By neglecting and depriving the body, they say that you train the soul for holiness and you can get closer to God. This is a common practice with Roman Catholic and Eastern monks, if you think about that. It's a temptation, though, to many of us as well, especially from various fundamentalist, dispensational, et cetera, backgrounds, where you see this world merely as a sinking ship. You don't want to have contact with the things of the world, the societies of the world. But we wanna remember, beloved, that when God looked over his work of creation, he saw that it was good. He saw that it was beautiful, as it can also be translated in verse four. Everything created by God is beautiful and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For God made it holy by the word of God and prayer. Or we could say from Colossians 2, everything was made by him and for him. So it's not that everything is good, things have fallen, this nature has corrupted, but everything was created good and might be used for holy purposes. And so we have to take care to understand what uses are good and pleasing to God and how the fall and human weakness have corrupted the world. For example, sex can be abused. It can be lustful and perverse, whether someone is a homosexual or a heterosexual. God created the marriage bond to be between a man and a woman, and sex is a celebration of that ordained covenant bond, a reflection of the goodness of God in creation. Homosexuality and fornication, adultery, pornography, and all else beyond that marriage covenant are a part of the fallen order, and therefore impermissible, they're wicked. We can take this fairly plain example, I believe, for us, and take it now to something like, say, food, this other example Paul gives here. God wants us to enjoy his provision of physical needs, and the right way that we enjoy the things he's given us is by thanking him for growing the food on our tables, in giving us the means to buy or to butcher it. At the same time, though, we can also abuse food, right? We can be gluttonous. We can just eat every single thing in our sight. We can be even wasteful. And we can even just simply fail to thank God for supplying our physical needs. So with those two examples, we can understand that no matter what it is in this world, the key to the right use of created things is discernment. We ask ourselves, is it honoring and consistent with the holiness of God? This thing that I'm looking at, this thing I'm dealing with. Some things can be hard to figure out, but know that we must trust in the guidance of our teacher. So I ask you all, do you believe the gospel is wisdom for life and that Christ has not left ourselves to come up with answers on our own? Do you believe that he has provided his spirit to instruct us in the things that are pleasing to God? Does God guide you? Is he with you for all things? Do you believe that? First John says, as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, beloved, abide in him. Demon-trained teachers think that only spiritual things matter to God, and ironically, they end up with only the external appearance of righteousness. This is where the prophets speak against them. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil and who put bitter before sweet and sweet for bitter. So whether they are a lawless libertine or an ascetic legalist, like those who Paul is addressing here, the creator is insulted and his gifts are abused. We respond though, congregation, that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. What we want to take away from this first aspect, this first part of this fourth chapter of Timothy is that the righteous must praise God from whom all blessings flow on earth, in sky, and sea. So you can praise him in the church service, but you can take that home with you, those praises home with you. You can praise him in your homes. You can praise him at school with your schoolwork, with listening to the teachers. You can praise him in the voting booth and in the government. You can praise him in the courts. You can worship him in museums. You can worship him in the farm field. You can worship him in concert halls and in sports. In all things that you do, this entirety of the world, they are gods. And so in this world, may God be honored by his people and thanked and glorified throughout his creation. If even the rocks and the trees sing out and glorify him, we shall too, everywhere, not just in church. To do this, though, we need a diet of doctrine, and we're going to move now into this second point. So a bad spiritual exercise routine can cause people to miss out on the goodness of God's blessings in this world. We are people who easily get sidetracked by traditionalism, by speculations and legalism. Reform people especially, we like the intellectual aspects. We like precision and doctrines. It's a wonderful thing. But sometimes we can also get so interested in intellectual and philosophical arguments. We can get interested in things that really don't matter. So, while we're going to be speaking of worldliness in general, we also want to apply what we're about to say to us here, Reformed, that we don't have it all right. We mess up. People in the world who are attracted to New Age things, so-called churches that permit evil practices and perversions into their congregations, all these things are like trying to satisfy the spirits with junk food. Try to satisfy hunger with junk food. When you eat junk food, it fills space in you, but it fails to provide nutrients necessary to sustain you. You're going to get enough energy to keep moving for a bit, but it definitely will not help you if you want to be an Olympic athlete. And it's the same thing spiritually. You need a good doctrinal diet to compete in the arena of the soul. And this is our second point there. Paul now turns from talking about matters in the church to giving Timothy specific and personal instruction. And when he says, if you point these things out, in verse six, he's referring to everything that he's said since chapter one till now. He had been talking about the basis of sound doctrine is love for God, not intellect, not feeling love for God in his ways. He's been talking about this love of God as the basis for sound doctrine. He's been talking about the necessity of right organization in the church. And the organizing principle of a church is worship. We start from worship, things flow from there. He's been talking about we need to pray for all kinds of people. We need to submit to God and his appointed leaders. And he's given us qualifications for office bearers. But all the things that Paul has said in the first three chapters aren't just for the benefit of correcting the Ephesians. It's also an encouragement for Timothy to keep contending for the truth. Because he's gotta be pretty disheartened. His flock isn't listening to him. His elders are fighting back against him. He needs to be reminded that Timothy has, without a doubt, been grounded in the foundation of the church. He was nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that had been entrusted to him as a minister of the gospel. So in other words, we could say Timothy was trained to be an Olympian of the faith. He was given a healthy exercise regimen for this task of competing in the church. Second Timothy 1.5 would tell us that he was catechized, he was instructed by his mother and grandmother ever since he was a child. And he was also taught by the apostle the good doctrines concerning the truths of Christ. We can kind of say it's like he interned under Paul. Now if Timothy stays faithful to God, his ministry would be approved by God even if the issues of Ephesus don't resolve. Even if he continues to be rejected Even if the church fell apart, if Timothy stays faithful to God, his ministry would be approved by God. And such is the case for all of God's servants. We don't apply this only to the pastors or to the elders or the deacons. It's all believers. Our faith, every single one of us, our faith and obedience must look up to Christ. We have to serve him first and foremost. We have to show it in the serving of others, even serving those who don't acknowledge our deeds for them, acknowledge the things that we do for them. We have to serve people even when they don't thank us. We witness to people even when they don't want to hear it or repent. We leave the conversion work to the spirit. Our task is to continue to hold to the good teaching of Christ as our basis. Our task is to be faithful and obedient, because this is the basis of not only wisdom from heaven for this life, but also it is the source of life eternal. We want to hold to the good doctrine, this good deposit of faith. Now, children and teens, a word to you now. Going through family devotions in the catechism can be a bit boring, it seems, don't you think? I really wanna encourage you, be patient, and pay careful attention to what your parents are teaching you. Understand that it is God who is teaching you through them. Like Isaiah says, all your children shall be taught by the Lord. and great will be their peace. Elsewhere, listen to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. You probably do devotions after a meal. Think of it like your parents are now giving you your most favorite food to your soul. If you're presented with your favorite food, I mean, when I'm presented with my favorite food, I pretty much want to pick up the plate and lick it clean. We want to have this same sort of approach with that time of catechism and devotions with our parents, with our family. And so kids, as you get older, you're gonna see that the world is gonna try to give you spiritual junk food. It might taste good, but like I said earlier, it will hurt you. It does not benefit you. It does not nourish you. It does not sustain you. So let your parents feed you good food. Let your parents feed you spiritual food. You're gonna be so full, your stomach's gonna be happy, and you won't even wanna eat the junk of the world. And of course, this is a good thing for all of us to keep in mind. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales. One of the best way to not be influenced by ungodly ideas is to have nothing to do with them. have nothing to do with godlessness. Rather, train yourself to be godly. The sound doctrine, right teaching, is a feast for the soul. It is a foretaste of the eternal supper in the new creation. Hey, this is kingdom food. This is kingdom food, and you're having it presented right here, right now. But what about after you leave this building? What do you eat throughout the week? What do you feed your children throughout the week? Who here eats one big meal a single day, but then won't feed themselves for the other six days? Obviously you'd wither up, or you'd end up sick and dead. Do you do this to your soul? Do you do this to the souls of your children, your grandchildren, or whatever else? Would you do this to a child's soul? We often do it to our own. Dear friends, you can't eat only on the Lord's Day. Feed yourself every day with the word and prayer. Take the worship service home with you. What is given to you today is a to-go bag for your heart. The minister and the elder are to assist with the training of children, but it's the primary responsibility of the parents, of the family. It's not their school, even if it's a Christian school. It's not their babysitter, not their catechism teacher, but you. I assure you, if you do not catechize our children, the world will. So take the teachings that you yourselves receive and impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up. Feast with psalms and hymns with your family. Pray together not just for your meals but with doxologies and intercessions for the nation and the church and the world. Serve yourselves portions of scripture and devotional comments from sound teachers. And if you yourself don't have kids or perhaps all of your children have grown up, you still have a capacity in praying for your grandchildren, in praying for the children of your brothers and sisters, in praying for your nieces and nephews, praying for the children of your congregation, and perhaps even spending time with the children of your congregation who aren't your own, teaching them life stories. The older must spend time with the younger, and the younger must spend time and learn from the older. It could save us a lot of heartaches. We all have a good word for one another in that way. So congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, have a good diet of doctrine. Don't eat junk food, because godliness is of everlasting value. And that is why we labor and strive. Because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. Look now here. in this third final point. What does it take to be a diligent disciple then? Healthy spiritual exercise follows the gospel's guidance for wisdom and discernment of what is good and pleasing to the Lord and what is inspired by demons. So to grow in this wisdom and discernment, we need a well-balanced diet of doctrine. We need growth in the knowledge of the teaching of the word and we need diligence by the spirit. And that is what it takes here in this third point, diligence by the spirit. Okay, Paul has just encouraged Timothy by reminding him of his spiritual training in good doctrine, that solid ground of faith. He's been well catechized. In verse 11, he now reminds Timothy of his office. Now, Timothy is a young man, and likely the elders of the church are undermining his corrections. And by young man, it's, I mean, most likely in his upper 30s. When Paul tells Timothy, command and teach these things, he's telling Timothy, use your ministerial authority. Command them to trust and obey, not you, but the doctrine that we apostles have been given from Christ. So verse 14 in 2 Timothy 1 say that Timothy was ordained by the laying on of not only Paul's hands, but these very Ephesian elders who are now rejecting him. They confirmed him, they ordained him, and now they are disrespecting him. But respect is due to him. And not just for his own sake, but because he has been called by God to bear Christ's office of the word. It's Christ's office that he possesses, not Timothy's office. So it's time that these false elders recognize that submission to Timothy is submission to Christ. But Timothy isn't to be a tyrant. He can't be what we often in these continental Dutch tradition churches call a domine. He cannot lord over everyone and bully them every time, every single person into submission. We can't force people to align with us, beloved. We can't simply just exert our wills over them and make them believe the things we do. Verse 12, set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. One commentator puts it well. The way to stop people from looking down on you is to make sure that they look up to you. So Timothy's mouth, his actions, his heart for God and neighbor, his trust in Christ and his teachings and his general morality, all these things of the Christian life reflect a maturity beyond Timothy's years, a heavenly maturity. It is the grace of the gospel that is then seen by others. And the grace of the gospel is wisdom for all of life. So Timothy is kept to a healthy spiritual exercise regimen. Timothy is then able to contend in the arena, but Timothy's fight, the fight of the Christian Olympian, is not with swords loud crashing, but deeds of love and mercy, as the hymn says. So verse 15, be diligent in these matters. Give yourself wholly to them so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Now it's not that Timothy's deeds and actions convert souls. It is not Timothy's work himself. They merely attest to the trustworthiness and the visible, tangible effect of his main task of verse 12. The main thing, he is an example by the spirit in him of right speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. But he has, pardon me, he has a main task then in addition, or I should say that supersedes all of this. His principal work is the preaching of the gospel. the preaching and teaching of the word. Until I come, verse 13, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation and teaching. And this gives us here an ancient scriptural account of the same thing that we're doing right now. The flock gathered under a man to hear scripture read. Then this teacher preaches, or in Greek, he exhorts, gives encouragement and builds up the listeners. And he then teaches or catechizes with explanations and instructions for assurance and for their obedience. Without this pillar of devoting ourselves to the public reading of scripture and to exhortation, there is no church. There is no reason to gather for worship. There is no strengthening of faith. We can say, then, that a preacher who neglects to provide sound, hearty doctrine ends up with sickly, bony sheep. Now, friends, let me tell you something. For some, it sounds as an overreaction, or maybe it sounds a bit alarmist, but it's reality. The Western church is facing the biggest battle against false teaching and apostasy since the Reformation. Hear me again. We are in the biggest battle ever since the wickedness of the medieval church in Rome. Now, some in our churches still think of Rome as the main threat, or maybe they go and focus on Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever. Those are erroneous. Some are even heretical. Again, those Mormons and Jehovah's Witness. But the deceitful spirit of modernity does more today to undermine sound doctrine than Rome. Modernity and ideas like critical theory and whatnot, these things do more damage to us and are more of a threat to the church than Rome is today. Those various movements that you see, whether it's LGBT, BLM, crit theory, cultural Marxism, or whatever, they have already made themselves comfortable in the churches. Now, I want us all to understand that. We are 40 to 50 years behind on the battle of critical theory and modernity. We didn't detect it half a century ago in the universities. And meanwhile, the church's defenses fell. We became comfortable. American Christianity wanted short sermons. They wanted concise information. They wanted feel-good truths. Doctrine got watered down. The worship service turned into a place for entertainment, for concerts and jokes. It became a place for anything to make church easier, anything to make church less boring or more attractive to the modern mind. We start tailoring church to the world's senses. What do you think happens? Elders become unwilling to discipline or guard the pulpit and the table, and home devotions and family time die away. The children leave the table and go to the couches. and TV catechizes the kids while we have our meals. Beloved, Christianity lost its ground to the culture, to the world, because we got lazy. We started being satisfied with junk food. We've sent weak, anxious, malnourished competitors into the Olympic arena of the world. If you sent A malnourished, frail athlete to go into a gladiator stadium. What do you think would happen? They get slaughtered. Many denominations are hemorrhaging members, including the RCA and the CRC, because they keep making poorly trained, ill-equipped disciples. Christianity professing Christians, according to a recent survey, now only, pardon me, let me amend this, anyone that attends a religious service, Christians, Muslims, Jews, anyone, according to a recent survey, now people only make up 47% of America's population. This means not only Christians, anyone of religion is now the minority in America. We've not contended well for the faith. The ministers in such congregations are accountable for failing to preach, teach, and rebuke and correct. Such ministers forsake their ordination. Of course, maybe they are morally good guys in speech and in conduct and purity, but they fail to love, but they fail when it comes to the most simple commandments, love for God and his neighbors, because they have not adequately fed and trained those that they have been given. They have not cared for the sheep. They fail in the faith that they do not give them the gospel as their guard or the rich doctrinal food of their souls. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is a matter of life and death. You're going to go into the arena. You're back in it tomorrow. Your children go off to college.