Is Spiritual Training Worth It?

Direction for Spiritual Training

Over the past few months in our evening services, at our church in Mt Pleasant, MI, we’ve been giving attention to a part of the Bible called 1 Timothy that was given to us, by God, in the form of a letter. One of Jesus’s servants, named Paul, wrote this letter to a young man named Timothy. Paul and Timothy had been partners in ministry. And they had traveled together to tell people the good news of Christ, to establish churches, and to provide ongoing support and teaching for Christians around the Roman Empire. Now, recently, in this section of the letter, Paul has been reminding Timothy how a healthy church should operate. As part of Timothy’s spiritual training, he’s given some instructions about how Christians should think through men’s and women’s roles, qualifications for church leadership, and the church’s core identity and doctrine.

But in our text tonight, Paul changes course. Before continuing on with instructions about relationships in the church, he takes a time out. And he presses in with his young friend, Timothy. Because Paul wants to make sure that Timothy has a realistic view of the challenges he’ll face in ministry, and the resolve that’s needed to press on in faithful work. So if you haven’t already, please turn with me to 1 Timothy Chapter 4. I’ll be reading the first ten verses of this chapter. But before I do, let’s pray and ask for God’s help as we come to his Word tonight:

[Pray and Read Text]

Identical Methods Doesn’t Guarantee Identical Results

One of the things that Taylor has gotten into over the last few years is making our own plain yogurt. Often for breakfast, we’ll have oatmeal with yogurt, peanut butter, and raisins. And so Taylor will go through the process of pasteurizing the milk – at around 190 degrees Fahrenheit, cooling it down to 120, then adding some yogurt cultures, and then incubating the milk, wrapped in a towel overnight, until the yogurt is fully cultured, and set. It seems like a pretty straightforward process. And yet in practice, the results aren’t always consistent. Sometimes the yogurt turns out really thick and creamy. Other times – it tastes fine – but the texture is a bit more irregular or clumpy. Sometimes the yoghurt ends up a bit watery. The same process doesn’t always produce identical results. Even though we end up with yoghurt at the end, the quality of the yoghurt varies, even when we follow the same steps.

Now as Paul’s been writing this letter to Timothy, he’s been laying out some steps that Timothy should take, to promote church health. Timothy should be giving instructions about good order in worship, and the right leadership structure, and how godliness should be practiced. But then here in Chapter 4 – it’s almost as though Paul remembers that he’s talking to a young minister. Because for young men in ministry, there’s a temptation to think that if you just make all the right decisions, and if you just take all the right steps, then the Church will never have any problems. If you can just be a good enough pastor, then ministry will be simple and sweet and wildly successful. That’s a real temptation – not just for people in ministry, but even for everyday Christians.

Because, right? We can be tempted to think that if we just read the Bible every day, and pray, and we’re generous, and we obey God’s commands – that God will give us an easy life, full of good health, and prosperity, and all kinds of other blessings. It can be tempting for parents to think, if they just say all the right things, and discipline in all the right ways, that they can guarantee the future faith of their children. There’s a temptation to think that if we just figure out the magical formula, and we do things right, then it will always lead to perfect results.

But Paul helps Timothy to see, here – faithful work won’t prevent all apostasy and evil. And yet at the same time, Timothy can be confident – his efforts to advance the truth will produce many good fruits. The work won’t be in vain.

And as Paul sets out to guard Timothy against naïve optimism and needless disappointment – there are four important things that Paul encourages Timothy to be aware of, and attentive to. Four things. First, the key doctrines of the faith. Second, the coming departure from the faith – how there will be false converts who end up leaving the Church. Third, the importance of correct discipleship in the faith. And then fourth and finally, the compelling driver behind our faith. It’s important for Christians and Church Leadership to be attentive to these four things: the key doctrines of the faith, the coming (or continuing) departure from the faith, the correct discipleship in the faith, and the compelling driver behind our faith.

The Key Doctrines of the Faith

So first, it’s important to be attentive to the key doctrines of the faith. Look with me at verse 1 of our text. Paul says, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith…” We’ll get into what departing from the faith looks like in a minute. But keep in mind, in order for departing from the faith to be a measurable and meaningful thing, it must mean that the faith of Christianity is something that’s been clearly defined. There must be certain doctrines – specific teachings that are true, and other beliefs that are false.

And so here in verse 1 – there’s an underlying assumption that the Church has been entrusted with a system of factual truths. And Christians need to be instructed in them – leaders like Timothy need to hold the Church on course, so that the faith of Christianity will be preserved and passed on, rather than departed from.

And, of course, the same urgent need for this is present today. In fact, the need is probably greater than ever. The distortions of Christianity haven’t gone away. But over the past two thousand years, there are more of them. And through the internet, and podcasts, and TikTok – people have access to more distorted versions of Christianity than ever before. There’s a greater need than ever for churches to be confident and clear in articulating the nature of God, the inerrancy of Scripture, the atonement, the historical resurrection of Christ, justification by faith, and various other things that belong to the Biblical, historical Christian faith. We can’t just teach people what to believe, but also why we should believe it, and why we should be committed to it.

As Pastor Josh pointed out last week, from the end of Chapter 3, the Church – the people who Jesus has called together – as the Church we’re called a pillar and buttress of the truth. The Church has the special responsibility to uphold the Christian faith in its true integrity and purity. The faith isn’t just a matter of personal opinions or spiritual experiences. But there’s a set curriculum for Christianity that we need to be students of. Our definitions need to line up with God’s definitions. The faith we confess must be the same system of faith that’s expressed in the Scriptures. This is important, in order to guard ourselves and others from departing from the faith.

The Coming Departure from the Faith

And yet, Paul points out to Timothy – even if Timothy is leading the church in the right way – even if he’s teaching people about healthy worship, and appointing qualified leaders, and counseling people to have right relationships – that won’t guarantee that the Church will never have issues. Because in verse 1, Paul reminds Timothy: “The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” Paul wants Timothy to be attentive to the coming departure from the faith that the Church will experience throughout the years to come – and this is my second main point, dealing with the Coming Departure from the Faith.

Even though in the Church, we can encourage and counsel each other in the truth – and even though pastors can preach the right doctrines – we can’t cause other people to be devoted to the faith.

I think we all know this. I might be a great fan of Taco Boy, here in Mt Pleasant. I might talk to you until I’m blue in the face, telling you about how good their prices are, how tasty their Super Wet Burritos are, and the value of supporting local businesses – I might even be able to drag you to Taco Boy with me for lunch. But what I can’t do, is I can’t control what your ultimate attitude toward Taco Boy will be.

And the same is true, as we labor to invest spiritually in others. We can do all kinds of things to point out God’s incredible power, and the evidences we see of his mercy, and the reasonableness of Christianity, and the beauty of the gospel, and the practical goodness of what his Word teaches us. But what we can’t do with people around us – inside or outside of the Church – is we can’t cause those people to be devoted to the Christian faith.

And God wants to give us advance notice of this, so that we’re not surprised, and we’re not disheartened by it – there will be people who depart from the faith. Some of these will even be people who have spent considerable time around the Church. Instead of remaining true to the key doctrines of the faith, they’ll instead (unexpectedly) devote themselves to a manner of teaching that deviates from Christ, that diminishes the importance of Christ, that casts doubt on Christ, or that demands a source of righteousness other than Christ, by demanding human works or rituals.

And in this case, Paul even mentions what some of these specific false teachings are. It’s not entirely clear how many of these teachings, if any, were circulating at the time that this letter was written. But notice a few key concerns.

First, these people departing from the faith – they aren’t devoted to the Scriptures, and to the teaching of Jesus’s authoritative apostles – but instead, they’re devoted to some sort of spiritual teaching they’ve received from some other source. This is something we should be wary of today. There are groups out there who call themselves Christian. And yet they deemphasize the sufficiency of Scripture, and they claim that Christians should listen for God to speak to them in some other way – through some sort of direct, spiritual voice that will tell them who they should marry, or what job they should take, or what they should believe about God. The problem with this, though, is that this isn’t what Jesus and the apostles taught. The Bible doesn’t command us to quiet our minds and to listen for personal spiritual messages like this. In fact, Paul gives us reason to believe that people who devote themselves to seemingly spiritual messages like this are at risk of devoting themselves to deceitful spirits, and the teachings of demons. If it’s normal for Satan to disguise himself as an angel of light, as we see in 2 Corinthians 11:14 – it makes sense that he would also disguise his voice to sound like the Spirit of God. The sound spiritual teaching we should devote ourselves to, is the spiritual, apostolic teaching that’s been preserved for us in Scripture.

Second, though, we’re told that these people departing from the truth – they also have a tendency to make extra standards or requirements to bind the consciences of God’s people, all in the name of religion. Interestingly, some of the specific examples here include forbidding marriage, and requiring people to abstain from certain foods. Certainly, in Church history – we’ve seen examples where regulations like this have been devised. There was an early heretical movement called Gnosticism that claimed that the physical world was inherently evil. So as part of this, they rejected the goodness of marriage and certain food, even though Paul proactively explains in verses 4 and 5 how families, food, and other physical things can (and should) be used in holy ways. Interestingly, though, similar teachings have even shown up later in Church history, through later developments in the Roman Church. Even today, the Roman Catholic Church forbids the marriage of its clergy. And historically, Rome taught that Christians needed to forego eating meat on Fridays throughout the whole year in order to effectively attain to God’s forgiving grace. Since then, this rule has been relaxed – they only push for this in the season of Lent. But it’s interesting to see how the historical church really has been affected by these specific types of errors.

The Correct Discipleship (Spiritual Training) in the Faith

And yet even though errors like this aren’t entirely avoidable, even when Christians are taking all the right steps – this shouldn’t make us any less careful to live out our faith. Even though it’s inevitable that these issues will come, we still have personal responsibility to consider what we’ll do when these things come. And that’s why Paul calls Timothy, here, to promote correct discipleship in the faith. This is my third point: the correct discipleship in the faith.

And there are two main aspects of correct discipleship that Paul draws attention to. First, he makes it clear that correct discipleship involves defending the Church against error. After Paul responds to false teaching, in verses 4 and 5, by defending the goodness of marriage and physical things, he then speaks in verse 6. And Paul says that Timothy will be a good servant of Christ if he puts “these things” before the brothers. Now, Paul isn’t claiming that this topic – fixating on how good the physical world is – will make someone a good servant of Jesus. Instead, Paul’s point is that good servants will teach the Church in a way that defends it from error. It’s not that every sermon or Sunday school class should be targeted against the recent errors of the culture. But teachers need to explain and defend the whole counsel of Scripture, in season and out of season – why we believe what we believe. And teachers need to carefully help people with rightly applying God’s word to everyday life, without binding peoples’ consciences by inventing and insisting on manmade standards or traditions.

The second thing that Paul points out is that correct discipleship involves being trained in the words of the faith. You can see that at the end of verse 6. Even though Timothy, as a church leader, is a maker of disciples – his role necessarily involves him continuing to grow as a disciple of Jesus (a follower of Jesus) himself.

And as we think about what it looks like to be trained by the Word, like this, we’re supposed to see that it involves spiritual exertion and self-discipline. Paul gives some rather specific instructions about spiritual training in verses 7. He warns about giving too much attention to irreverent, silly myths. Timothy shouldn’t get caught up filling his mind with fantasy and frivolous theories people have. It won’t be profitable for himself or others, it’ll be a waste of time. But instead, at the end of the verse, he’s commanded to train himself for godliness.

And when Paul speaks about “training” here, the Greek word is where we get our English word “gymnasium.” The idea involves exertion and exercise – you might think of running laps in gym class, or doing push-ups. And yet, of course, Paul makes it clear in verse 8 – his point isn’t to sell Timothy on the importance of physical training. But instead he urges Timothy – an even bigger priority is spiritual training: “For while bodily training is of some value (a little bit of value, is literally what Paul says here), godliness is of value in every way.” It’s of value for ourselves and others. It’s valuable for refining our inner attitudes and our outward actions. It’s valuable for our physical wellness, our mental sharpness, our emotional stability, and for our volitional strength, to be a good servant of the God who made us. And the benefits of spiritual training aren’t just temporary, for this life. They aren’t just useful for the long-term future. But this training in godliness is of value today and forever.

And because it has such great value – we should give some careful thought to what it means to train ourselves in it. Paul doesn’t assume that  godliness will just naturally, effortlessly develop in Christians. But it’ll call for the same sort of regularity as a runner training for a half-marathon. Godliness may involve getting up early, for the spiritual exercises of prayer, studying his Word, memorizing it, and meditating on it. Your spiritual muscles will be stretched in the process. If you’re training yourself for godliness, your spiritual muscles will be worked. But the results of our training will be worth it. When we make it a daily priority to be trained up like this in the words of good doctrine, we’ll be healthier disciples of Jesus ourselves, and we’ll be more helpful in training others to follow Jesus, too.

The Compelling Driver Behind Our Faith

But Paul also doesn’t want Timothy to forget a key motivation, for why he should be eager to train himself in godliness. And so there’s one more thing Paul reminds Timothy to be attentive of, here in our text. He identifies a Compelling Driver behind our faith. This is my fourth and final point – the compelling driver behind our faith.

In verse 10, Paul says, “for to this end we toil and strive” – we toil and strive toward godliness. Why? “Because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” Paul says that the right motivation that will keep us going in our training – that will keep us pursuing Christlikeness and godliness – is if our hope is set on the living God.

Now, what can be confusing here is that Paul describes God as the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. It almost sounds like Paul’s teaching universalism – that all people everywhere will experience the fullness of God’s saving work. But that can’t be what the text is saying. Because other parts of the Bible make it clear that faith in Jesus is necessary to be declared right with heaven, and to be rescued from our corruption and the death penalty that belongs to it. “There is no other name given under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved” – Acts 4:12.

So Paul isn’t saying that everyone, universally, will be saved from sin, death, and Hell. But instead, Bible believing Christians have understood – he’s probably either saying one of two things. Either he’s saying that God is the Savior of all types of people, without exception – not just Jews, but also Gentiles – and then he’s clarifying that God is particularly the Savior of those who have faith in Jesus. That’s one option. Or – this actually seems to fit better with the context – Paul could be using the word “Savior” in a different sense than we normally think of it. And Paul could be saying that God is the Preserver of all people – the one who gives life, breath, and everything to all people – and that he’s especially concerned with preserving those who believe.

The reason this fits better with the context is because sometimes the striving and toiling of the Christian life can be exhausting. The constant fight against temptation, the ongoing struggle to listen to the Scriptures instead of the voices of the world, the continual stresses and demands of work and life in a fallen world – it can easily be tempting to get burned out and even bitter against God, and the life he’s calling us into.

And yet Paul is helping his young Christian friend Timothy, here – and he’s reminding him – our hope isn’t that our work will be easy and wildly successful all the time. The hope that will sustain us isn’t just that we have a vacation in 3 weeks, or that we have a paycheck coming next Friday. Our great hope isn’t even just our own general competence or resourcefulness, or that we have some good friends or family members who will maybe be able to step in and help if we begin to struggle. But the thing that allows us to run without growing weary and resentful, is when our hope is set on the fullness and sufficiency of the living God.

Because the God we have in heaven – he isn’t just a wooden shell, or a bronze idol that’s motionless and meaningless. We don’t serve a God who’s imaginary and invented by man. But the living God is the One who gave us life, the one who will uphold us in life, and the one who will raise us to eternal life. The exhaustion, the training, the effort to know God, and to reflect his goodness – it won’t be something we ever end up regretting. The fact that God gives us the privilege to make progress in godliness, to increasingly bear his likeness – that in itself is a wonderful gift. But what’s even greater is that he’s intimately involved to preserve us and to empower us to wake up each morning and to press on in the faith. And so as we set our hope on the living God – it isn’t just an empty wish. But instead, that’s where we get our fuel. That’s where we find the strength to continue loving the enemies who hate us, and to keep praying for those who persecute us. Our hope in the living God is the compelling driver that energizes us for our spiritual training.

And so whatever struggles you might face – as a parent, as a church leader, as a Christian – don’t lose sight of your hope. The God who upholds the world is especially present to give strength to those who believe. So don’t stop training. And hold on to your hope this week. Let’s pray: