Understanding Godliness and Its Importance

I’d like us to look at this theme of training in godliness, and the basis of our thinking is 1 Timothy 4:6-10. We’ve read it, but let me read it again: “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 our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.”

Let me begin by explaining what godliness is all about. What is godliness? It’s a word we throw around quite often: “Oh, he’s a godly man. She seems so godly.” But very few of us really get to understand this word well. The word “godliness” is found in 1 Timothy 4:7, which we have just read, and it is the Greek word “eusebeia”. Now this word in the Greek “eusebeia” happened some 15 times in the New Testament, majority of them written by Paul ten times. And out of the ten times, eight times you find it in 1 Timothy. So it’s a very important book to understand the concept of godliness. “Eusebeia” is a compound Greek word. It’s formed by two Greek words. The first is “eu”, which means good, and “sebeia” which means reverence or respect or piety or devotion. So the word “eusebeia” technically means good devotion, and in the context, I think it refers to good devotion to God.

So what is godliness? Godliness at its very core, its heart, it’s about a heart response to God. It’s about a loyalty to God, a piety towards Him, reverence and devotion to Him.

But let’s look on, because Paul talks also about godliness in 2 Timothy 3. He says there are people who have the appearance of godliness, but they deny its power. In other words, they look good. They look as if they are godly, but their lives don’t really reflect that appearance. So they seem to tell people, they seem to appear to people that they are a godly people, but really, their lives don’t show it. So if I may put this together with our understanding of “eusebeia”, which is devotion to God. Godliness is not just devotion to God and nothing else, but real devotion to God will result in a life that is pleasing to God. You will not have just the appearance but deny the power thereof.

The Role of Doctrine and Effort in Godliness

Also, if I may cross reference to 1 Timothy 6, we see that godliness is one of the many things that Timothy is called to pursue. And you can notice some overlaps, isn’t it? Righteousness, godliness… They are pretty much similar things, similar, but not exactly the same. I think righteousness, when put beside godliness, would refer more about the way you live, the way people look at the way you live, and godliness will be more about what goes on on the inside––your devotion, your love, your loyalty to God. So godliness is not just inward, it is also outward devotion and a life that is pleasing to God. It’s not just about your attitudes, but also about your actions. On the other hand, it’s not just about outward actions. It’s about inward attitudes, too.

I am naturally a very lazy, messy and dirty fellow. When I was growing up, I have a room to myself, and if you go to my room, you will have to kind of manoevre your way across a lot of things on the floor. My study desk is in a complete mess, but somehow I managed to find my notes that I want in the midst of that mess. I would often come home after school, and I would generally have a game of basketball or soccer, and I’m sweaty all over. I don’t change, I come home, and, you know, after you come home, you’re tired, and what do you do, boys? Yeah, I’m not so special, right? You just plonk yourself on your bed. Eee…I know, if you don’t have boys at home, this is a complete surprise, but if you have boys, I think it is something that is quite common, at least in my time. We come straight home, don’t bathe, just lie down there. After all, it’s my bed. Who cares?

But there came a day where I had a life changing relationship… with my wife (audience laughs). I got married, and I realised I can’t live that way anymore, because she absolutely detests that. So I must say, I think I’m not wrong to say that since I got married, I’ve never really lied on the bed without bathing. It’s life-changing––marriage. So parents, fathers, Fathers’ Day, if you have your sons who are living like this, what do you need to do? Get them married! (audience laughs)

Well, why do I do that? Why do I change, bathe before I get into the bed now? Because of Winnie, because I’m devoted to her, because I love her, and also because I––don’t tell her––fear her (audience laughs). And I try to please her by not being dirty and messy and sweaty lying on the bed that she lies on as well. Now do I please her in all my life? Certainly not. But I try to, I want to, and I think that’s the same when it comes to a relationship with God. When we come to know God, when you have a life-changing relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, His Son, you love Him, and you fear Him, and you want to please Him. Now you don’t please Him in every area of your life, but you want to, and you strive towards that. I think that’s what godliness is all about. So this is the explanation of the word “godliness”, “eusebia”. It’s devotion to God. Why? Because He’s good and He’s great, because He is to be loved and He is to be feared, and so I live a life that seeks to please Him.

Secondly, in this text, we learn about the exertion that is needed. See, nobody becomes godly overnight. You can’t. That’s the spiritual reality we have to be confronted with. You don’t become godly automatically. You can’t. You need to have some effort and exertion. You need to labour for it. No pain, no gain, because Paul says, “Train yourself for godliness”. The word “train” is effortful. It means you have to put in a lot of hard work. The word “train” in the Greek is “gymnazo”. It refers to athletes in the athletic school who train naked, not absolutely, I think, but with a loin cloth. But they sweat so much, they work so hard. Take away your shirt. No point anyway, it will be so drenched. So you train naked, you work hard in a school of athletics, because you want to excel in your sports. And when it comes to godliness, you also need to train very hard––“gymnazo”. Well, this is a word that, of course, today we use in our gymnasiums. And in a hotel, I go to the gym because we eat so much, we go to the gym, and I see a lot of our brethren also exercise very hard. Whoa, sweat all over, one. But that’s right, you go there to sweat, not like me. You go there to sweat, and you work it out. Christians train for godliness. The question now is, “Where is the gym?” How do I train for godliness? What do I do? I know if I want to train muscles, I lift weights, but how do I train spiritually? Well, the clue is given perhaps in verse six, which precedes verse seven on top. Verse six actually says that, “Timothy,” Paul writing to him, “you have been trained. You are being trained. You are a good servant of the Lord. You are being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.” He learned from his mum. He learned from his grandma. He has been taught these things since young. I just want to highlight to you that there are two train’s there, “train and “trained”. They may appear to be the same word, but they really are not. Similar concepts, I suppose, but different words. The first “train” is “gymnazo” we’ve looked at. The second “train” is another word which means “to be nourished” or “to be educated”. But I suppose the common thread, if we tie them together, is that training must be in the realm of the words of the faith and of good doctrine.

So if you want to be godly, you cannot be godly apart from Scripture, apart from truth, apart from doctrine. It is absolutely essential: “Timothy, you have been trained in doctrine, continue to train yourself in godliness.” I think, in doctrine as well. So feed on God’s word, study God’s Word. Go understand God’s word, plunge its depth. Seek to learn and apply to your life. He also says, “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.” “Have nothing to do” means “to shun”, “to refuse”, “to avoid”. So you are to train yourself, feast on good doctrine, but shun all the false teachings. 1 Timothy is a book that speaks a lot about false teachers and false teachings. So Paul tells Timothy: to be a good servant you need to avoid the false teachings––“Have nothing to do with irreverent…” The word there actually in Greek means “common”, “public”. So you see, it’s a very strange thing. Why does it translate “common” and “public” to “irreverent”? Oh, because it’s temple language. In the eyes of the Jews, and according to God, all of the world is polluted. God doesn’t specifically or specially dwell there, but God does dwell in a special place called the temple or the tabernacle. That place is sacred. That place is holy. Everything else is common, public, not sacred, profane, heathenish. And therefore it is used to refer to something that is unclean or wicked. Public, but it’s wicked and unclean. So have nothing to do with these false teachings that are wicked, unclean. These are “silly”. This is a very difficult word to say in modern days, but in the Greek it means “old woman-ish”, “old wives’ tales”. You hear that? So probably in those days, there were women who have nothing to do. They gather around, drink coffee, gossip, old wives’ tales all come out. Superstitions come out. And Paul says, “Avoid this kind of superstitious chatter. These are myths. These are falsehoods. These are fables. Don’t go to these things. Go to that which is right and good. Train yourself for godliness.”

Now, KL (Kuala Lumpur) is a wonderful place for camp, because I’ve come to realise it’s a place where there is a lot of good food. Seriously, I never knew! I mean, this, I think, is my second time to KL. The first time was several years ago for a Bible conference. I’m such a, I guess, noob, or such a lazy fella, that I only went to the conference venue and then back to the hotel, conference venue, back to the hotel, really guai guai (obediently) just do that. Never travel, never go anywhere, because I’m just lazy. But this time I go to camp five days, there’s a lot of time, and I kind of followed my care group along. And there are a lot of people who are very good at hunting for food, a lot of foodies. So we went on a food tour as it were, kind of had all kinds of food. This is a place where we have beggars’ chicken (jiao4 hua1 ji1) where you cook the chicken in kind of clay or mud. And my son said, “Wow, this is very delicious chicken. The chicken flesh is so tender, so juicy, so good. Can we do it at home?” Well, you notice I’m trying to tempt you for camp next year. You want to have good food? Can go Malacca also have. So we have jiao4 hua1 ji1. We then also went other places. We have great food. I think these are super nice dishes. We don’t have all the photos. We had durian. Durian is great. This is after we left and were on the way back. Why do we try all this food in KL? Because in KL, whilst there, someone had a philosophy that goes, “Don’t waste your calories on not-so-good food”. And so I say to you, don’t waste your time on irreverent, silly myths. Go look for the good stuff. Feed on sound doctrine, words of the faith. Train yourself thereby. In KL, you avoid not-so-good food, so you can eat all the good stuff and shiok (Singlish for “very enjoyable”). But Christianity is: I avoid all the bad teachings and feed myself on the words of God, sound doctrine, that I may be godly. So train yourself herein, exercise yourself therein, put in effort to study the Bible. Too many people don’t bother to read their Bibles, and that’s sad, because you’re never going to really grow in godliness until you train yourself herein.

Now in the camp we shared about how you can train yourself in godliness. I think in our church, we offer plenty of opportunities for you to do so, ask around, write to us, let your members know, your CG members know and we want to help you train in godliness. You don’t have to train alone. Sometimes you go to the gym, you train alone––very sian (Singlish for “bored” or “tired”), but when you see others do it, they encourage you, you’re inspired. Hey, we want to do this together. To train for godliness is what we aim for.

Practical Steps for Training in Godliness

And in this church camp, we spoke about spiritual disciplines. These are things you put in effort to do. These are practices of the Christian life. These are things and activities you can be a part of so that God can grow you. So we define spiritual disciplines to be practices of the Christian life that create space for the Spirit to grow you. Now I can’t change my life, and therefore I can’t change your life. I know that, and I can tell you, you can’t change your life. But I do see that in the Bible, God’s Spirit changes our lives. Look at 2 Corinthians 3:18,, how when we behold the glory of God in the pages of Scripture, we can be changed from glory to glory by who? By the Spirit of the Lord. So I want to say that there is a way for your life to be changed, and that is by the Spirit as we engage ourselves in the practices of the Christian life.

What are the practices of the Christian life? I summarised them with this acronym called SPACE since it’s about creating space. If you don’t read the Bible, there is no space for the spirit to work in your life. So the first S is Scripture. The second letter P stands for prayer, and not just general prayer for my son’s sickness or daughter’s PSLE, but a specific prayer with regard to spiritual growth, knowing His love, knowing the hope of our glory, to walk worthy of His calling, so on and so forth. There are many scriptural examples of how we can pray for growth, and we need to pray. A is abstinence. In a busy, distracted world like this, we need to take time apart so that we can give time to God and His Spirit to change us. It might be a daily fasting from media. It might be a weekly fasting from your work in the Sabbath. It might be a yearly silence and retreat. But we need to abstain from, maybe, the temptations and the cares and affairs to seek God and let Him work in our lives as we study and pray. C is community, and I think a lot of you are in communities here in this church, and as we say, our community groups here are not primarily about “fei-lo”-ship (a play on the Cantonese words “fei lo” which means “fat man” or “glutton”). Although when you see my church, my CG pictures, you might think our CG is all “fei-lo”-ship, but we really want to be doing spiritual care. And E is examples. Look for mentors. Examples you can follow. These are things we can do. They are not legalistic. In other words, we don’t do these things so that God will love me. No, God loves us in Christ. He doesn’t love us more because we do these things. He doesn’t love us less because we don’t do these things. Because He loves us perfectly, fully, maximally in Jesus Christ. We don’t earn God’s love with these things. That’s not the goal. That’s not the reason why we read the Bible. That’s not the reason why we pray. We are not saying, “God, I read the Bible more, you love me more, ok?” No need. He loves you fully in Jesus Christ.

But we do these things because we know that spiritual growth is not automatic. None of us go to sleep tonight thinking, “Tomorrow, when I wake up, my muscles will be big like Schwarzenegger.” You don’t do that. Muscles don’t grow automatically by themselves. You’ve got to work for it. And if you want to be godly, you’ve got to work for it. Now you don’t earn God’s favour, but God uses your efforts to grow you. So training is not something that is optional if you want to grow, because growth is not automatic and growth is not quick or instantaneous.

I think we had a great time in these five days, four nights, but I trust that you also realise that’s not all you need to do in order to grow. It’s not just one snap of the finger and you keep growing all the day. It’s lifelong. It’s every day. It’s entering into the Scriptures every morning, every night, in prayer, recognising that I need to grow day by day, as God teaches me day by day. D.A. Carson says, “People do not drift toward holiness.” If I may say, people do not drift toward godliness too. If you don’t train, if you don’t do anything, you will not be godly. You will not be more godly.

“Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith and delight in the Lord.” These things do not come automatically. Instead, what comes automatically, if you don’t do anything, is that “you drift toward compromise, and you call it tolerance, you drift toward disobedience… and you drift towards superstition”. So there must be an effort to swim against the tide, because if you don’t do anything, the tide will bring you down. Be like that salmon fish going against the tide, swimming upwards to fulfill its destiny. Exertion, effort. It is needed because godliness is devotion to God that leads to a life pleasing to God. And Paul says, “You’ve got to train yourself for godliness.”

Many of you train for many reasons. You train your arms, you train your legs, you train your lungs, you train your surgical skills, you train your business acumen, you train your piano, you train your mathematics. But how many of you train for that which is most important––godliness, likeness to God, likeness to His Son?

The Value of Godliness and Its Impact on Life

Let me end by sharing with you the excellence that Paul speaks to Timothy about. He says, “…bodily training is of some value.” Let’s not run down physical training. It’s good. It’s good to train. God has given you this body. Take care of it so that you can live long and serve. Don’t be reckless. Don’t be lazy. This is part of the stewardship God has given to you. So it’s nothing wrong to train your body. It’s of some value. But when you put it besides spiritual godliness, then, nowhere to be compared. Godliness is of value in every way. In what ways? Right now. It holds promise for the present life. It’s good. It’s excellent. Right now. Now we don’t quite see why in Chapter 4, but we’ll soon see why in Chapter 6. Because in Chapter 6, Paul speaks about godliness with contentment as great gain. So when you’re contented and not covetous, when you are godly, when you are devoted to God, you live a life pleasing to God, and you are not desiring to be rich, that’s a super great profit or gain. Why? Because a few verses later, he will tell us that those who are not contented––because they are not godly, they are not devoted to God, they desire to be rich––these people are in big trouble because they fall into temptation, into a trap, a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. They love money, and the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And it is through this craving––not contented but craving––that they have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows or pangs. I don’t think Paul is saying, “Oh, a Christian has lost his faith.” I think what he is saying is that someone who looks like he is a Christian has ultimately wandered away and proven himself not to be in the faith. But you see the danger when we are not pursuing godliness is that we would want to worship something else, and it’s very likely that you will worship stuff, riches, money, and this will be your story. So many have gone this path.

Godliness with contentment is great gain. It’s really good for you, and that’s why Paul says,” Train yourself for godliness”. Because that will keep you away from those heartaches and ruins and destruction. It holds promise for the present life, not only now, but also for the life that is to come. Again, he refers to that in Chapter 6, where he says, “Pursue these things, including godliness, and take hold of the eternal life.” As you pursue these things, you are securing for yourself eternal life. Again, Paul is not saying that you earn your salvation by your works, but you do evidence more clearly your salvation with your works.

“They are to do good, to be rich in good works, be generous and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” The picture is someone who stagnates, doesn’t want to swim, just wants to flow with the tide, will be swept further and further and further and further and further away. They lose their grip of eternal life. They prove that they were not the genuine salmon, the genuine people of God. But the genuine salmon, the genuine people of God, would swim and swim and swim, and by that, they arrive at the celestial city. They lay hold of eternal life because they were the salmon from the word go. That is the evidence of the true believer. So godliness is excellent. It is vital, it is crucial. It is attainable to each and every one of us.

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” This is the fourth time, or rather, Paul uses this phrase four times in 1 Timothy. In other words, saying that this doctrine or this concept is something that is already very familiar amongst the people there. “For to this end, we toil and strive”––so Paul now says, “I, who am writing to you, together with my gang, the apostolic band, we are also in the same way toiling and striving. Tim, you’re not alone in this strife. We all are, and it’s really important that we all are.” What is the most important thing for a Christian leader? Seminary degree, degrees and certificates? Intelligence, eloquence, charisma? Social, economic status? No. What Paul said to Timothy is, “Make sure you train for godliness, because we also are.” 1 Timothy is a book, it’s a letter that Paul wrote to Timothy to encourage him to be that kind of pastor he should be, and to set the church in order. And right in the heart of 1 Timothy is this exhortation to Timothy, “Avoid all those not-so-good food. Feed on the good stuff. Train yourself for godliness. Train hard.” Oswald Sanders says, “If he is unwilling to pay the price of fatigue for his leadership, it will always be mediocre.” We live in a generation where we say people are part of the strawberry generation, soft, easily crushed. Christian leadership must not be like this. There must be a willingness to tire yourself, there must be a willingness to work hard. We learn the word “labour” is the word that means to labour till you’re exhausted. The word that means “strive” means you exert and stretch yourself all the way. I’m afraid we live in a day and age where people say, “Don’t stress me too much. Prayer meeting is too early, Bible study is too long, ministry time is too inconvenient, church is too far.” And we hear all these things, and we say, “No wonder there is mediocrity in church and ministry.” We must fight against that. And I think old saints understand it well. But this, I think, I hope you understand, is instruction given to Timothy but I don’t think it should be limited to Timothy. It’s something we all can learn from.

And I hope that at the end of today and at the end of the camp, at the end of this week, you will think for yourself a fitness plan. Draw up for yourself a plan. I can’t draw that up for you because I do not know what time you wake up, how crowded your house is, what Bible you use, what commentary you use. Where do you stay? Who are your care group members? I don’t know these things, but you know. I just want to impart the principles and encourage you and engage you to think about a fitness plan, because if you don’t plan, well, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So have a plan. Don’t have a big plan that says tomorrow I’m going to be like LeBron James. You’re going to die. But start something for yourself that is sustainable and attainable. Start small. It might be, “I need to sign up for Bible study. I need to sign up for shepherds training. I need to look for a care group. I need to get a mentor to help me read my Bible. I want to join the avenues of prayer. I want to learn and grow. I want to train myself. I’m willing to work hard.” Work hard a bit more, and then a month later, work hard even more. Start small but grow deep. That’s all. It’s not easy. Road to heaven often feels like hell, and the road to hell often feels like heaven. Hard choices, easy life; easy choices, hard life. I believe this. I believe make tough choices that are good for you, and it will pay off handsomely. Live for the here and now, and it will be a difficult life.

Faith is seeing beyond what is before us. We live by faith, not by sight. Hanniel, who preached the sermon on Day 2 (of church camp) gave a wonderful quote, or wonderful, I think, summary statement: “Will this camp be one day or day one? You decide.” Will all these things that I’ve learned these past five, six days be just something I learned one day, one conference, or will it be day one of many, many days to come? Will this training camp lead you to a training lifestyle? Perhaps for many of you, will this training sermon be the catalyst for our training lifestyle? May God have mercy on us that we will be a people relentlessly pursuing godliness. How beautiful that will be. We’ll be more and more godly. We will bring glory to God in the way we live. This will be a godly community. That will be quite a sight to behold. So may you think deeply about your fitness plan.

Let’s bow for a word of prayer together. I’d like us to take this time, a minute or so, think, pray, ask, “God, what will you have me to do in response to this message?” It’s one thing to hear God’s word, it’s another thing to respond to it and to obey. I want to challenge you today to think hard about your own fitness plan. Maybe God has always been speaking to you these weeks and months about joining a Bible study group, about getting someone to help you read the Bible, maybe joining another care group, or join in the shepherds training, or join in the church in prayer. Whatever it looks like. It might also be, “Lord, I want to start something simple. I just want to read the Bible every day.” Nobody drifts towards godliness, and Paul says to Timothy, “You’ve got to train for godliness.” We can be so intentional about buying holiday tickets, eating food, going for shopping, planning for our schools and careers. Surely we can be more intentional in that which is of greater value: godliness. So take this time and ask God. Where will I go from here? Swim like the salmon. Reach for the heights. Ask God to plant my feet on higher ground.

For all who are not Christians here, I understand this might be very irrelevant to you, but maybe you have been in church and you hear about this thing, this teaching about godliness, and you say, “Yeah, it’s good to be godly. It’s good to live a life that is righteous and holy and virtuous.” And maybe you say to yourself, “I want to be a Christian. I want to be virtuous, but I’m not good enough, so I can’t quite come to God yet.” I want to say to you, God is not looking for virtuous or good people to come to Him. The fact is, no one is ever going to be ever good enough for God. But this is the amazing good news of the Bible, that while we were wretched and wicked and dirty and smelly, God says, “Come to Me just as you are, and I will cleanse you, I will make you godly. I don’t accept you because you’re godly. I accept you and I will make you godly.” So maybe you have been in church for a long time. You’ve heard the gospel that Jesus died and rose again to pay for all my sins, but you say, “I’m scared. I’m not able to come. I’m not worthy to come.” I say to you, it’s absolutely because you are unworthy. That’s why you can come. The moment you think you are good enough to do something for God to accept you, you are not ready to come. But when you are down in your pits, when you realise that you have nothing to offer, but you can only cry out to God, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner”, that’s when you can come and that’s when you can be saved. So this morning, you can be godly. How? By first repenting and believing in Jesus and let Him cleanse you and change your life. Let Him give you a new heart. The Bible says, “Be born again.”

Father, thank You so much for Your Word. May sinners be saved and may Christians be galvanised to not just go for a training camp, but to embark on a training lifestyle, to be trained for godliness that You may then be seen in Your church and glorified through us. Plant our feet on higher ground. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.