Picture of The Last Days

Good morning, that's a wonderful to be with you and listen to you sing and worship with you. I wanted to read from Isaiah 26 in which that song that we sang that hymn that we sang this morning comes from, it's actually a picture of the last days when Christ leads his people into the kingdom and it's the picture of Jerusalem being restored and ready for its king to enter in and lead his people into the city victoriously. And this is written in a time when Israel is in Babylonian captivity and so their hearts are wondering if God's ever going to fulfill His promises because of their sins and their failures and these promises were written to them to be read and understood while they were in Babylonian captivity.

And so he writes to them in chapter 26 of Isaiah in that day, the song will be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city and at the time this is being read, the city is in shambles. The walls are broken down. Everything has been destroyed but he says in that day you'll say we have a strong city. He sets up walls and ramparts for security. Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter. The one that remains faithful and that had to be a work of God because they were not a faithful nation and yet they waited in hope. The steadfast of mine that will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in me. Isn't that a wonderful promise? The steadfast of mine, the person who steadfastly keeps his hope set, his mind set upon the Lord and his promises.

It says the Lord will keep in perfect peace. You know, it doesn't matter what you're facing today. You may not be facing something so dramatic as it described in Isaiah 26. Whatever you're facing today, whatever you're looking forward to and seeing coming your way, the fact is that God's promise is that you go through these things. You keep your mind set upon him and he'll keep your heart in perfect peace. What a glorious God we have. This past couple of weeks I've been in the Philippines and I just kind of wanted to share with you some things that went on over there, some stories I heard of God's grace and the ways worked in life and then just to challenge you a little bit as disciples of Jesus Christ, what we ought to be doing, what God's called us to do.

It's a wonderful thing to be in a totally different culture amidst Christians as they worship God. In the Philippines, there are a multitude of different, there's 80 different dialects. Actually, there are only I think eight major dialects but there's something like 80 different languages. It's really a diverse nation, 7,200 islands. I guess the exact number depends on whether the tide is up or down but a multitude of different kinds of people and for a week, missionaries and pastors from all over the Philippines that work with Philippine Missionary Fellowships. These are all nationals. This is a Filipino group. It's not an American group. It's Filipinos taking the gospel throughout all the islands of the Philippines among all the people, especially to the rural areas and to tribal people and so they're typically very poor.

The average pastor that I spoke to his monthly income is $150. That's if you have family. The single men, their average income is $60 a month. That's what they're living on in order to do the gospel. Some of them have to do other things as tent makers to be able to have food on the table. But it was just amazing to see the joy and the enthusiasm they had for the gospel and the work of the gospel of God is using them. This group, over the last few years, has almost doubled in the number of churches that have been planted. Most of these churches are small little fellowships of about 30 families, wonderful groups of Christians. There's such a great diversity of worship. Every day, Nilo would have a different group lead in worship and their singing was so diverse.

I mean, some days we were singing old hymns like I grew up on. Not the great hymns of the church, but the hymns that we used to sing in Oklahoma and Texas. They would sing those hymns and then some days we would sing contemporary music that was really upbeat and sometimes it was music that I'd never heard before that had been written in the Philippines by different people groups. Just full of joy and worship, it was so good to be with them. It really did remind me of what John says in Revelation chapter 5 that when we get to heaven and when we gather around the throne, it's going to be with people from every tribe and tongue and nation. And we're going to hear people sing the praises of God in all kinds of languages and all kinds of forms that we had never heard before.

It's going to be a wonderful time. And it was a glorious week that I was there. I just praise the Lord. As I went, I've been actually planning this for about a year to go there and teach almost what I teach an entire quarter here at the School of Theology on the Doctorate of Soteriology on the Doctorate of Salvation. That's what they wanted me to do is to come and teach through a theology class. Well, we usually take 12 weeks and it's three hours a week, so it's about 36 hours typically, but it's over a longer period of time, students have time to read and assimilate and ask questions and write papers and do all the same. So I thought to go over there and dump all of the thunders and five days is really going to be something.

But I was absolutely amazed that they're hunger. They really are like sponges. It reminded me so much of the early days of Valley Bible Church when we had all these young radicals like you heard last week, like Angelo Tolentino. He's that kind that he never gets tired of hearing it. When you have him in a class, it's like what you have to do is kind of keep him calm down that he doesn't break out and worship in the middle of class. But these guys, that's the way these people were. They were just, they were so hungry, they were so responsive. They welcomed the word of God. And it was a great joy, just a wonderful time. I want to show you just a few pictures and tell you a couple stories. This is, you remember, Nilo, who was with us, probably a year and a half ago.

Now I think he preached for us. He had some ministry to him and helped them get a van that they used there in ministry. And that's his wife, Feli, Alicia. Nilo is a wonderful man. He has, God has really equipped him in an unusual way. He has such a love for the word of God, but he is such a people person. They have 270 some churches. And it seems as though he knows everybody in every church. He loves the people of God, loves to preach God's word. He translated for me in the last day that I was there. I preached in a little country church up in the mountains. And there were some aborigini people there, so he translated. And I'm going to, I can tell you that my sermon, I sounded really good coming through him.

Because what I was saying, the way, what I was saying in English, didn't sound near as exciting as what he was saying in whatever language it was that he was speaking. But Nilo has led this group, PMF, Philippine Missionary Fellowship now for the last almost 10 years. And the big thrust that they've had, especially in the last few years, is in planting new churches. I didn't need one faster there that wasn't involved in planting a church besides the church, besides the church that he was pastoring. All of them are involved in this because they see such a great need. This is a Christian, the Philippines is actually one of the only, the very few, countries in the East that is Christian, but it's about 90% Catholic, Roman Catholic.

And it has a lot of syncretism in it. The gospel is quite distorted in many different ways. And so they have a great burden to get the gospel out to all of these different places in the Philippine islands. And it's so neat to see them. I mean, I can't get over the price they're willing to pay to give their lives to this completely. And a very happy, joyful people. And he's been leading that group for the last 10 years. He's just resigned. He's going to plant a church in Mindanao and start a mobile school. He wants to do what we did this past week and travel around and do these week one and two week one training sessions with pastors out there because there are so many men that are pastoring churches around that country that have no training at all, no library at all.

That I spoke to had one book besides the Bible. If they had Matthew Henry's commentary, they felt rich. I own about probably 3,000 books and I thought, as I talk with him, you know, the great necessity is you must have the Holy Spirit and you must have the Bible. You can actually do without 26 or 27 hundred books. If you have the Holy Spirit and the Bible, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. It's obvious they have that. And so God's really been blessing them. This is the group. This isn't all of them, but this is the great majority of them. I don't know if that picture is kind of washed out, but they were a wonderful group to teach. They were quite responsive. Ask me very difficult questions.

When I got there, I discovered that when I teach through surgeryology, what we do is we talk about the sin problem. How the Bible unfolds the sin problem that we have. Our problem with sin is that we as a race are condemned before God because of who we are in Adam. As individuals, our natures are corrupt and we are in the enemies of God and alienated from God and as sinners because of our record, because of our sins, we stand in bondage and condemnation. So we talk about the sin problem. Then we talk about the work of Christ, what Christ has done and propitiating God and redeeming His people and reconciling us to the Father and offering a sacrifice for our sins. And in His obedience, in the place of Adam's disobedience.

And then the final phase is how is that applied to the life? And that's where we talk about seven or eight different things. We start with the election. God's choosing us and eternity past all the way through glorification is conforming us into the image of Christ in the future. But the day that I started before I could even begin to talk about the sin problem, they started asking questions about election, election, election. They wanted to know about what did this mean that God chose before the foundation of the world. And the reason was there are about three men in that group that are Bible teachers in their Bible institute that are very worried about this doctrine and many of them have embraced it because Nilo has been inundated.

The gospel of grace is just overwhelming. The doctrine of grace is what drives him in this church planning process. You see when you discover that God has chosen the people, it gives you this drive to get out there and preach the gospel because you know there are going to be people who come to faith in Jesus Christ. That's what the Lord Jesus told the Apostle Paul when he was in Corinth. And he went there to preach the gospel and right away the same old thing started happening. People started turning to Christ and the Jews got angry and they began to persecute him. And so that night Jesus shows up in a night vision and speaks to him and he says to Paul, don't be afraid, stay in this city because I have many people in this city.

See if you understand that, if you understand that there are many people out there that the living God has chosen, then it gives you this blessed hope as you take the gospel. There are going to be those who hear and believe because the spirit is going to work in their heart. And so it was quite a week because it became this discussion. I tried to keep away from that but it kept coming up and finally the last day my strongest opponent there, I couldn't point him out in that picture because I can't see it well enough, was a teacher in lay teachers at a Bible institute there and they asked some great questions. We had great discussions and a very warm and brotherly discussions about this. And the last day he came to me when he was leaving.

He said, I do want you to know that I've embraced this truth. I believe this is what the Bible teaches. And I want to know if I can use your notes and I said no problem. Just put your name right on there and teach it. But it was a wonderful time. They are very, a very responsive group. This is a group, Suri Gau, is Remy and Rami here, Romi, because I want to mispronounce every one of these Filipino words so I don't want to offend them. But in this group, what I want you to notice is the lady sitting there. Her last name is Castro. I can't even remember her first name. I think it's Lillian but I'm not absolutely positive. But she graduated from Talbot Theological Seminary about six years before I did.

We got to talking when somebody told me about her and I struck up a conversation. Her parents were rich Filipinos, which is rather unusual. They were Protestants, not Catholics. And so they wanted to have some religious training, even though they weren't, they're not born again people. She had come to faith in Christ in high school, quite a transformation. And she began to love the gospel so much that that's really what she wanted to do was to take the gospel to people who had not heard it. So they put her through, they allowed her to go to Bible Institute first. And then to university to train to be a nurse. When she got through her training, she's told them that she wanted to come to the United States and get some more training.

So they allowed her to come. They thought that'd be good. She could get some more training because she's going to come back and work in the hospital that they own. She comes to the United States, goes to Talbot Seminary and gets a master's degree in New Testament and goes back to the Philippines and instead of going to work in their hospital, she went to the mountains and began to work with tribal people. And she spent all these years since 1972 working with tribal people, translating the Bible, bringing medical help to them. But the result of her ministry after this long time is a group of churches that have come to exist in pastors who actually, oh, they're understanding of the gospel and the word of God to this woman.

They translated the Bible and taught them the truths of Scripture, incredibly humble woman and mightily used of God, just a real joy to get to know. And then this brother here, pastor, Joli, Rogadio, pastors of church upon Christian church, you can see this is the place that we went on the weekend when I preached up in them. In the mountains, we stopped at this church and we spent the night there. This brother is a great example of this ministry among these people. He has a little church that he pastors about 60 people that he planted and they built this block building you can kind of see. Someone gave them the land, they built this building and every Saturday he teaches eight pastors who come from all around the area and he's teaching them theology.

It's really a quality guy. This brother is obviously a real leader, God's equipped him well. He's kind of a right-hand man to Nonilo and Nilo has taught him everything he gets here. He goes home and dumps it on these guys and they're teaching others and so he gathers these men around him. The young man, those are his sons in the middle of the three sons. The young man on the left, though, is a young man that rode with us and he began to, I have anyone to ask him how he came to faith in Christ. He's 28 years old, just graduated from Bible Institute and he's going to pastor. In fact, he's going to pastor a church in this area and I was asking him how he'd come to faith in Christ. He said when he was 20 years old that he attempted suicide because of his bitterness and anger towards the sins of his family, his father.

He never told me what it was but he said his bitterness was so deep that he didn't want to live anymore. And so he attempted suicide. He was in the hospital and then somebody came along and gave him counsel and this man has in such depression that he wants to die and it was his grandmother. His grandmother was a believer and this young man was not and she came to him and the counsel that she gave him was quite striking because it was so biblical and she said if you want out of this depression what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to forgive your father and you're going to have to repent of your bitterness and your anger. And he said, and I said what happened? He said I repented and God delivered me from my depression and he filled my heart with such a lump of the gospel that I ended up going to school and he just graduated and going to take his first church and he's hoping God is going to bring him a bride along the way to help him do that.

This is Pastor Alan Castadio. This man farms five acres of rice farm and then he pastures a church and this is the church that he pastures. I preached here the last day. These people were moved because of, what is the volcano there? Pinotoba or whatever it is, this volcano that erupted about ten years ago they displaced a huge number of people. And he is one of those people and they moved them all into a community way up in the hills. I mean this is back in the backwards and he started a church there ten years ago. First he built a little building right next to his house and showed me the pad where the church used to be. He lives in a little bamboo house. That house is not as long as this building.

It's about for me to that wall and it's about half that deep. It's two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, five people living in it. He had us in his home about five pastures there where we fell asleep and he started this church ten years ago. This was a 10th anniversary in fact and they built this church. The government actually gave the church this land and they built a church. As we were getting ready to leave that day and Nilo said to me as we were about ready to drive off he said pastor Allen just discovered, just found out from the leader of the community that they're going to, they're offering them the piece of property right next to that building where they could build a sunny school building, a sunny school facility.

It would be a bamboo structure that the kids could have sunny school classes in. And I said well how much is the land and he said a hundred dollars. And I said well our church will buy that land. So I already sent him the money and we bought the land for them and so they're going to build a sunny school facility. Well this day that we were there, well what I want to tell you is he passed his discharge. He has about 30 families there that he shepherds, he farms five acres. And then on Saturdays he walks 20 kilometers one way so that's about 30 miles round trip. 40 kilometers about 30 miles. He walks to preach the gospel to a group of aborigines up in the mountains. In fact you can see them in that picture they're the one standing back by the window.

They came those 20 kilometers to worship on Sunday for this special 10 year anniversary. And that's what he does, that's his pastoral ministry. He passes a flock in his community and then every Saturday he walks 30 miles to preach. That's amazing. This group here, I just wanted to point one man, the man in the center, 68 years old. He grew up in an orphanage and that's where he heard the gospel. Kind of like Ruth Spoonmaker who came to Christ in an orphanage. That's where the gospel was opened up to her. And this man came to Christ in an orphanage. In fact he married one of the girls that grew up with him in that orphanage. And they built an orphanage. He's a pastor, they built an orphanage and he ran that orphanage for years.

They had about 275 children, about one third of them, according to Nilo, one third of those kids who grew up in that orphanage are in full-time ministry somewhere today. And he said the great majority of them came to faith in Christ during those years. Some years ago he left that, his wife passed away, he left that ministry. And now what he's doing is he built a dormitory. And the purpose of this is that because the people who live in the hills, he's down in Mindanao, the people who live up in the hills, the tribal people, their children can't go to school because it's too far. There's no schools by them. And so he's both a dormitory by the schools. And these kids come down, a hundred of them, they come down and they live there during the week and he feeds them.

Him and two other adults take care of a hundred kids. Can you imagine taking care of a hundred kids in the United States for a week? But they do that. He said, they've been building on this building for some years, actually. They're about to finish it. They finally got the last bit of money to finish it. I said, what needs to be done? He says, well, now we're going to wire it and have electricity. And so I thought, so you've been housing a hundred kids without electricity. Yeah, they've had four kids graduate from college that went through high school while they were living with them. And just a wonderful man. But not only that, when he started this dormitory, the reason he did it was he was trying to make headway with these tribal people.

He would take the gospel up to them, he'd walk, he's 68 now, he still walks the hills. This is such rugged territory that they can't take motorcycles. There's no kind of vehicle they can go up there, they have to walk. Nilo told me that he went with him to visit six churches that have been planted as a result of this initial ministry. He said he went up there and spent about four days and they traveled around each one of these churches. And he said, I just couldn't keep up with him. I would get so exhausted, I would just have to stop and wait for him to come back and help me because I would be so tired and he's just trudging the mountains. And as he went into among these tribal people is sharing the gospel.

He decided that he wanted some way to show them the truth of the gospel because they had been exploited, especially by political people who used them for all kinds of photo ops. These tribal people to try to get votes of all they were going to do for these tribal people which they never did anything, nothing ever happened. So when he began to think about building this dormitory, he didn't want to tell him about it, he wanted to do it and then show them. And so once they had the basic structure up, he had these people come down and see the building and they literally were overwhelmed. They just wept and wept that someone would want to do such a thing for them. And so he's been doing this ministry now for several years and they have over 100 children there.

Boys, girls in the second story and the boys on the first story and feed them, take care of them. I was so impressed, I wanted to wash his feet just a humbling humbling time to be with these people. The cost that they're willing to pay to be engaged in the work of the gospel is amazing to me. The people that came to this five day seminar, the average person, if I didn't talk to anybody, there were a few people from around Mindana, around Manila, but most of them came from far away, like Mindana. Most of them had took them longer to come and go than it did the five days over there. Most of them had took them over a week just to get there. They would spend three days and three nights on a bun island to another just to come and hear the word of God.

That impressed me, that really impressed me. They were hungry, they were full of enthusiasm about the work of the gospel, full of hope, full of joy. No complaints, I didn't hear any complaints, it was an amazing thing. It's just an amazing thing to be on those people and not hear any complaints. And I kept thinking as I watched them and I thought about all the resources we have, we could pour on them. And then I began to wonder, I wonder if that would help or hurt. I wonder if I thought about computers. In public domain now, there are enough Bible study tools that you could fill a computer hard drive with. All of the old commentaries are digitized now that you can get for free and put on a computer.

You could hand one of these guys to computer and need to have a really credible Bible library, a Bible study library. But what I'm amazed at is how well equipped they feel when they have the word of God and they have the Holy Spirit and they have one another. They have teachers coming who want to teach them and men who are giving their life like Nilo and others to teach the Bible to these brothers and to equip them to do the work of the ministry. It's really a wonderful week. I was quite impressed with these folks and with their heart and with the potential to think that the way that God works in such powerful ways, not by my power, but by my spirit says the Lord. It was really striking to me and it did make me realize those things that we depend on so much that we think are so important.

People talk about building churches in the United States. It's laughable. It is laughable the things that we talk about that are necessary and needy and you have to have and you must do in order to build the church. And these people believe you have to have the gospel, you have to have Christ, you have to have the Holy Spirit, you have to have the word of God. The Holy Spirit must teach you and equip you and help you and enable you and save people. So it was a wonderful, wonderful time. It made me think about a couple of things I just wanted to share with you very briefly. The first is just three things. Matthew 11, you have an account where Jesus gives a call to those who are hearing him to become his disciples.

And I want you to notice what he says to them. He says come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Now that expression doesn't come true to us as it did to the ear of those people who are hearing Jesus speak. That was an expression that was used commonly by teachers to disciples. They called it yoking up with a teacher. Taking a teacher's yoke and learning from him was referring to the disciplines of discipleship to put yourself under a person and to learn to be like them, to learn what they know, to have their knowledge and understanding passed on to you. You know, we had those commercials for a long time, those little ditty that said, I want to be like Michael Jordan.

You know, every little kid would love to be like Michael Jordan and hang out with him and become a basketball player like him to be as a prince. Well, that's the concept here that Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Come to me and become my disciple and learn from me if you want rest. That's how I will give you rest by you learning to live the life that I live, learning to live what I live and fellowship with my father. And then he says, for I am gentle and humble in heart. That's why his yoke is easy. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. You notice those capital letters. That's right out of Jeremiah and it's a promise that if the people of God will walk on the path that God lays before them, instead of walking in disobedience, instead of going off the path and not walking according to his instructions, if you will walk on the path that he has marked out, he says you will find rest.

If you're without the beaten path in the wilderness sometime and tried to work your way through an untrained place and you get so tired, you can barely make any progress. What God says, if you'll stay on the path, if you'll follow my commandments, if you'll live as I've laid before you, you'll find that you'll have rest in this journey. And then he says, for my yoke is easy and my burdens light. To yoke up with Jesus in this work of the gospel and to learn from him, Jesus promises is to discover an easy yoke and a burden that is light because his commandments, John says, are not burdensome when you love him and when you know about his love for you. And then in Matthew 28, to these same disciples, he commands them, he gives them this commission to go and make other disciples of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came up and spoke to them, this of course is after the resurrection. And he says to them, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore. In other words, because all authority has been given to me in heaven and upon earth, because I've gone to the cross, because I have taken this place of authority through this work, where I have authority over everything that is all heaven and earth. And second Peter chapter one, it says, even unbelieving teachers belong to him because of what he has done on the cross. He owns the world. He has all authority in heaven and upon earth. You will never go to a place where Christ is not an authority. He says, therefore go and make disciples of all the nations of all the peoples of the earth go and make disciples baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In other words, the gospel is going to have this kind of influence over them that they're going to come to want to identify with Jesus Christ to be baptized in his name, to be identified as a follower as an apprentice of Jesus. And then he says, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and low I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Let me ask you something. Do you have any idea if this church has a plan of how we will teach disciples how to observe all that Christ has commanded us? How are we going to do that? How are you going to do that as a disciple maker? How are you going to teach people to observe all that Christ has commanded us? Do you ever think about that? The growth as a disciple is learning how to obey all the commandments that he has given to us.

To follow him, to yoke up with him, to be involved with him so that we actually learn to obey him, to obey his commandments, all of his commandments. Before I left, I was reading a book by someone whose name I can't think of at the moment. It'll come to me in a second. And one of the things that impressed him on my heart as I read this book about disciples here was that it is a common thing for believers to have huge areas in their life where they have no plans of becoming obedient to Christ. And I thought about that. And I wondered if that was true. Is it really true? And I began to examine my own heart. I began to think about my own life. Are there areas in my life where I really don't have any plans of learning to obey him in those areas?

Do you have areas in your life where you know that Christ has commanded you? He has given you clear commands. For example, he has commanded you to make disciples. Are you doing anything about that? Are you a witness? He has commanded you to give sacrificially for the advance of the gospel. Are you doing that? Are you planning on it? And I thought, you know, it is amazing, isn't it? How we can live our lives in such a way that we have these huge areas in our life where we really don't plan on becoming obedient in those areas. And yet Jesus has commanded us to have the kind of influence on those that we witness to and that we lead the Christ to teach them how to obey all of His commandments. He has commanded us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

That we are to come together and invite one another to love and good deeds to sit under the word and worship together corporately. And there are Christians who have no intention of ever becoming consistent and faithful to a local church. How is that? Well, it is because we are fallen and we need to be discipled. We need to be apprenticed. We need to be conformed to the image of Christ, transformed by Christ. We need Christ to have such an influence on our lives that our lives become changed because of His influence over us. I should have come home and come home when we live there. And every evening when I would come home, I would expect to see my son either in the front of the house throwing a football at a tire hanging from our garage door or in the backyard shooting baskets or hitting a tennis ball against the net.

I mean, for hours, he drove our neighbors absolutely bonkers because you could hear a ball all the time, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, you know, 10 hours a day. Why did he do that? Because he thought he was in training. Now you train, when you train, you don't train to train. He doesn't go out and practice tennis to practice. He practices tennis so he can play. The reason that Jesus has said, we must teach people to obey all that I have commanded you is because His commands are given to us so that we can learn through obeying those commandments to be a fruitful, effective, discipl maker of Jesus Christ. So you practice and you practice and you practice. Think about it in your life. Is there anything in your life that you've ordered in such a way that you're learning how to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ so you can be fruitful so that when you stand before Christ, you will have fruit to offer Him.

And when the Father, when He presents you to the Father and the Father says, well done, have good and faithful servant, that you will have these works that you are planning, you're learning how to do now. Some of you are training for careers. Some of you have trained for careers and you train and you are faithful. I remember I was thinking about this morning, I probably, the thing that I probably trained for more than anything else was learning the Greek language. I remember three hours a day, I get up at five o'clock in the morning and from five to eight I would train and train and train and train because I wanted to master this language, I wanted to learn this language. And I remember driving to work, all my driving time, flipping cards, learning vocabulary.

Why did I do that? I didn't do it because I liked doing that. I did it because I wanted to learn the language so I could use it. So we train Jesus says that He has instructed us, He's given us an example, He has shown us how to learn obedience through the things that we suffer. Have you ever thought about that? The Bible says in Hebrews that Jesus learned obedience. And therefore He wants to show you how to be obedient. So to train you is faithful to be faithful. And then in 1 Timothy 4, Paul tells us the conditions for growth is disciples and he says the same kind of thing. He says in pointing out these things and in the context he's talking about pointing out the truth that you should not waste your time on foolish things that flow through the church.

And so he's warning them about this and he says that in pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine. That means healthy doctrine. That means healthy doctrine. That makes you healthy. Truth that you learn that makes you spiritually healthy. Sound doctrine which you have been following but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. I couldn't find any other translation. That's what every translation says. I always feel bad about reading that. But that's what it says. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of Godliness. Discipline yourself for the purpose of Godliness.

What are you disciplining yourself for what purpose are you disciplining yourself now? Are there any areas in your life where you're disciplining yourself? You're trying to become better at something. You're trying to learn a language. You're trying to get physically fit. You're trying to learn some new trade. Are you immersing yourself in something that you're training so that you can acquire the skill and then have the joy of using that skill? See the fun comes when you train yourself and then you acquire the skill and then you use it without almost thinking. It's fun. It's enjoyable. It's a pleasure. That's what the Christian life is supposed to be. We're to train ourselves for Godliness so that in the trenches when the temptation comes and when the trials come and when the obstacles come and we have to make difficult decisions that we can make those decisions because we've trained ourselves for Godliness.

That's in Taylor. Put himself under a real strict regimen before he went to the mission field because he wanted to learn how to live in difficult places. That's a pretty good practice. I thought I was really roughing it when I was over there. I was sleeping on a bed that was just plywood and it had a little mattress about like that. When I first told my wife I said I was like that but it really was about like that. I thought this is the most austere kind of thing I've ever experienced there. The bathroom has a toilet and a sink and a water bucket there that you take a shower by pouring cold water over you. Every morning I did this dance as I took a shower with cold water. I thought boy this is really roughing it and then I went down to visit a brother exer who came and preached for us last year.

I went down to visit exer who was there who would come four days journey and on the way he had a kidney attack. He had a kidney stone and he was incredible pain. So I went down to see him and talk with him and I discovered here he is laying on a bunk and there's no mattress. It's just plywood. That's all it is and it's a little rice mat. And I look around and that's where everybody is. Everybody there is sleeping on plywood and not only that there's two men in every bed, not one man in every and these are bunk beds. These are single beds. And so scatter around this entire place 92 people come instead of 40 which they thought were coming 92 came and they were sleeping in those conditions and I thought you know this is nothing to them because they've trained themselves.

They've disciplined themselves of necessity and God's uniquely equipped them to do such a wonderful work. But what are you disciplining yourself for? Are you disciplining yourself for godliness for the purpose of godliness? Is there anything in your life that you structured in order to grow in the Christian life? Anything at all? The way you read the Bible? The quiet times that you have? The schedule of your life? Is there anything? Is there any quietness in your life? Are there times of being alone with god of being silent before him? Is there anything at all? Are you memorizing the word of God? The reason I'm talking like this is that I have discovered that most Christians are doing absolutely nothing in their life intentionally to grow.

It's amazing. Now we can get into that rut and then and then we wonder when the trials come when the when the wind blows and the wave comes and our house falls down. It's because we built our house upon sand because Jesus has taught us. He's commanded us how to live and how to order our life and then Paul goes on and says for bodily discipline, bodily exercise is only a little profit. It is to some profit. I understand that. I'm going to start. It is a little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. It is a trustworthy statement. God says this is exactly what how we should think that we should exercise ourselves for godliness.

For it is for this we labor and strive. Those are strong words. They mean to work to the point of exhaustion to exert ourselves because we have fixed our hope on the living God. We have fixed our hope on the living God. What is filling your heart with joy right now about the future? What is that you're looking forward to more than anything else? If some of you are sitting here and you're thinking that this is going to be great when we get out here, Super Bowl. Man, it's going to be on all day long. We're going to see 192 commercials. The most unique and wonderful commercials. And it just fills our hearts with joy as we anticipate this. But Paul says, we labor. We stream. We agonize because we have fixed our hope on the living God.

Who is the savior of all men, especially of believers. And then he tells Timothy, prescribe and teach these things. You know what that means? The word prescribed means command. And the word teach means instruct. Command these things and then teach people how to do it. Command people to discipline themselves, to godliness, to arrange their lives in such a way that they're actually growing and they're preparing to be used by God. And I can tell you there is just, there is no, there is no place in the Christian life. Where you should not be preparing for the future. All of you who are, we have, we have several of you, the most energetic people in our church are in their 80s. And they're still preparing for the future.

Still disciplining themselves for godliness because God has more for us to do. And discipline yourself for godliness, Paul says to Timothy. In other words, working hard at this, working hard at the disciplines of the spiritual life. And I want you to know something. It is not to earn. And that's why we must always be careful. It isn't legalism. We're not talking about doing this to earn God's favor so that he would bless us more because we earn it through our efforts. But it is to learn. It is disciplining ourselves to learn. One of the things I've noticed about guys who are really into sports. I've noticed this about my son when he was and I know this about Ken, watching him play tennis. That they can work and sweat and exhaust themselves.

And yet they enjoy it. Why is that? That's exactly what exercising yourself to godliness will be for you when you begin to take this seriously as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Dallas Willard has a unique way of arranging the disciplines. He takes these from the life of Jesus. And he basically categorizes them in two different ways. It's not that you're to take all these things and begin to order your life around these 20 things or so. It's not that. It's that here is simply a way of looking at the life of Christ and the way he disciplined himself. And think of this. This is the God of the universe, the God man. And yet the God man fasted. The God man prayed. The God man went and was alone with the living God and cried out for help and strength.

If the living Christ who had no sin needed God needed the spirit to work in his life needed to discipline himself for godliness. Do you think we do? And so as he looks at his life, he categorized in these two ways, first disciplines of abstinence that is solitude. You ever give up a lot of commotion just to be alone with a living God or silence. Is it amazing how hard it is to be quiet? Notice how uncomfortable we get when it's silent in church or fasting is a biblical fast? Oh, absolutely. If the new covenant, it's part of the new covenant. Jesus said, well, I'm here. They're not going to fast. I'm the bridegroom. But when I'm gone, they will fast. And there's purpose to it for quality. In other words, not looting up to all that you can, not spending everything that you have and squandering everything you have to have everything you want, but instead actually decide to live more simply in order to advance the cause of Christ or chastity keeping your heart and your mind and your thought like pure being serious about it.

Watching over your eyes, be careful of lies, what you see or secrecy, actually serving Christ and not wanting to get any credit for it. Dave Beckman once told me that years ago, I asked him one time, I said, how would you describe a person who is truly committed to Jesus Christ? How would you describe him? And he began to give me this picture of a person who would be willing to go to the other side of the earth to do one thing for the cause of Christ that only he could do, that God had called him to do, tell no one about it and know that he was going to die and obscurity and no one would ever know that he had done this thing for Christ. It's so hard to serve Christ without getting credit, isn't it?

And I think it's wonderful to give one another credit to thank people for, I am so appreciative of the sacrificial service of so many people in this church, but to serve at times in ways that nobody knows about, just to serve Christ as a discipline or sacrifice, actually give up something that you don't have to, that you freely sacrifice just to grow as a disciple. And the other category he gives is the disciplines of engagement, that is involving yourself in something. Study of the Word. Are you serious about growing in your understanding of the Word of God? Do you study it? You read it. Some I've been doing differently last few months is meeting with a couple of guys and all we do is read the Bible.

We read a lot of the Bible, but that's all we do is read the Bible. And I've discovered something, the Bible is really better than any study book I've ever used. Isn't that surprising? That the Bible itself can have greater impact on the hearts of believers than anything else that they can expose themselves to. Better in Chuck's Windall, John MacArthur, or anybody else, an amazing thing, how the Bible has power and penetration. Worship. This is one of the reasons that you're not to forsake yourself, not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together. The reason we're not to abandon meeting together and worshiping together is because it is one of the disciplines of the Christian life. There's times I come to church over the years, for years I can remember on Tuesday nights of Valley Bible Church years ago when I was in business and I would work all day long and I used to work six long days, 12 hour days, and come home and not want to go to Bible study.

I've heard everything Phil Howard had to say we've been friends a long time. I didn't think I was going to learn anything new and I was so tired and I just wanted to stay home. And I can remember just the discipline of dragging myself there because I knew what I should do and then having God just kick over a barrel of honey and fill my heart with the presence of Christ in a way that was so wonderful. And make me realize there's nothing, nothing like the joy of worshipping with God's people and celebration times and we should celebrate with exuberance. It was wonderful to watch these people worship at times. There was especially one group that led the worship one day that I thought this guy was going to strip a gear.

He was so happy and so energetic. He was quite athletic in the way he led worship. But it was really joyous. It was a wonderful thing and prayer, disciplining yourself and your prayer life, not just praying over your food. It wouldn't surprise me that some of you the only time you do pray is when you pray over your food. We can get like that fellowship. The kind of fellowship we actually fellowship around the person of Christ, not just get to get and go fishing, but we actually share Christ with each other. We talk about him. We talk about spiritual things. We actually fellowship with this eternal life that we have. Confession. Confess your faults one to another. Having someone you're close enough to that you can be honest with and can be honest with you.

Nothing helps me more than having people who will be honest with me and tell me when I have huge flaws. I was sitting in that little church just before I preached that little country, that little hill church and I had gone into the bathroom this thing and it was about this high and there was a tree over it and I had to get down. When I got in there, I got some big thing on the back of my head and I didn't know it. So I walked in church and I noticed these little kids behind me just giggling and laughing and finding some sweet lady walked over and took it off my head and fixed my hair. Sometimes we need people to do that for us, don't we? Sometimes it's obvious to everybody else in the body of Christ that we've got a huge problem and nobody will tell us the truth.

And we need people to tell us the truth. We need to practice truth and that's a discipline in the Christian life to care about each other that much and then of course submission. Maybe that's the hardest discipline law. Well, these are just things. There are ways of looking at what is it in your Christian life as you think about the order of your Christian life right now. Do you intentionally, are you intentionally ordering your life in such a way that you're growing as a disciple of Jesus Christ? What if God would put you in a situation where you would have to make very, very difficult situations? Are you in shape to do that? You know, it's kind of like spiritually, if all of a sudden you were down, you fell off the side of a cliff and the only way you could get up was to pull yourself up with your arms.

Could you do that? I couldn't. I have to lose 40 pounds to do that. Same way in a spiritual life. What if God puts you in a situation and you're going to have to say no to temptation? You're going to have to say yes to Christ when it's going to be costly. Are you in condition spiritually to do that? Discipline yourself to Godliness. First Corinthians chapter 9, therefore I run in such a way, Paul says, as not without aim, I box in such a way. He's talking about the Christian life, living this Christian life, as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave. You see, that's the issue. It's your body. You think about it. The issue in your Christian life is your body and you know it.

That's what you have difficulty with is your body. It's disciplining your body to act under the authority of Jesus Christ. He says, I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not become disqualified. I won't be put on the shelf. And then he says in Romans 12, therefore I urge you, brethren. I urge you, brethren. I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies, a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. You know why he gave you a body? So you could use it to glorify Him. That's why you have a body. And he's calling us to discipline ourselves, our bodies, so that we can use our bodies for the glory of Christ.

And he's going to give you opportunity this week, you watch. And see if you're ready. See if you're disciplined towards Godliness so that you're ready to use your mouth, to use your will, to use your human potential in order to do this. And see if you're spiritual in order to advance the gospel instead of hiding from it. That's great. Our Father, we've gathered today to worship Christ. And we have felt the joy that there is in praising Him with our lips and with the music of our hearts. We thank You for the Holy Spirit that is here to mediate the presence of Jesus Christ personally among us. There are moments when we feel like we are singing just to Him. We thank You for that. And we pray, O God, that You would help us to discipline ourselves for Godliness.

Help us, Father, not to fall into the trap of simply living a stream of consciousness life where we have no intention of growing or going on with Christ, of being disciples of Christ, like He's called us to be and made us to be. We pray that You would energize us as a fellowship. Help us to incite one another, Father, to love and good deeds. Not to be passive in our relationships with one another, but to see every other believer in the body of Christ is someone that You've called me to encourage in their walk with Christ. Because bad things happen, serious things happen and believers fall into them and they fall into all kinds of trials. We have believers in this church today that are falling into serious trials.

We pray You'd help us to equip ourselves, to discipline ourselves, to Godliness so that when those come upon us and upon others that we are prepared and ready and able to minister in the power of the Spirit to them we pray for the glory of Christ. Amen. Amen.