Training in Godliness
Written by Bruce A. Little |
Monday, December 5, 2022
The Christian life is not about cultural relevancy, morality, or making it through the day. I did not say that Christians need not be examples of morality or of living according to their calling. I mean that the Christian life is about the life of Christ, which is moral, but that is not the heart of the Christian life. The Christian life is a life of the mind, a mind that is set apart unto God that thinks God’s thoughts after Him, that learn of Him. It is a mind trained in godliness and preaching should “accord with godliness” (I Tim 6: 3).
The other day I was looking up a church website and came across its advisement for the church. It explained the pastor’s wonderful ability to extract ideas from the Scripture to help Christians make through the day. How often this is what churches advertise. It made me stop and consider precisely what message that was being communicating and how it squares with God’s purpose of the preaching of the Word.
Having just read through the New Testament I wondered why I never came across language such as what I find on church webpages. When Paul writes to Timothy, we find no instruction for this sort of thing. For example, his words to pastor Timothy (among other things) is to train the congregation in godliness (I Tim 4:8). Here we have explicit instruction on the responsibility of the pastor which is to teach and live as an example of godliness.
How little today is said about loving God through obedience to his Word or the place of the Spirit of God in the daily walk of the believer.
I know that Christians want something to help them throughout the week, but how is that accomplished by giving people four steps to handling disappointment or something like that. Wherever this language appears today it reveals how the thinking of the world has shaped even the content and focus of evangelical preaching. It reeks of pragmatism after the kind found in postmodernism. The relative, the emotive, have replaced loving with the mind (Matt 22: 37). That is not to say that people should not be moved emotionally by the truth and power of the Word, but loving God must begin with the mind. As C. S. Lewis once said, the heart never takes the place of the head, but it can, and should obey it (Abolition of Man). Pastors who give their energy and time to crafting culture affirming sermons are failing their people.
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Love Letter
As long as we have been acquainted with Satan, we have seen sin and destruction. As long as we have been familiar with God, we have seen love and benevolence. That’s why John will go on later to assert, “God is love” (4:16). There can be no richer way to say that love is from the beginning because there is God, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another (1 John 3:11, NKJV)
John’s first epistle is indeed a love letter, not only because it communicates the love of God to us but also because love is a dominant theme. He uses the term “love” over 40 times. He comes at the topic from just about every angle imaginable.
He began the chapter by speaking of the love of God the Father to us. He has just told us that a distinguishing trait of being born of God is a love for the brethren. Now John tells us just how old is this message of love: “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11).
Love is not just a New Testament message. There are those who will try to set the Old Testament against the New by saying the Old had to do with justice, judgment, and wrath, while the New has to do with mercy, grace, and love.
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The Greatest Promise of His Presence
God showed us His desire to be with us in the greatest possible way. He came to us in the person of His Son. He gave this promise of His coming decades before it happened so people would know He was coming—the Messiah, the Deliverer—and they would be assured that He intended to be with them. He gave a promise to King Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah when His enemies besieged him. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
The central theme of the Bible is the relational presence of God. God intends to be with us in real intimacy and vibrant, daily fellowship. This began in the Garden and will be consummated at the end of time with a “new heaven and new earth,” where the Garden will be restored, and those who know Him by faith will live with Him forever. “With you” is the consistent and glorious promise of God to man.
The Promise Until ThenAll along the way in human history, God has made ways for us to be with Him, and He with us. He came to the Patriarchs and spoke through the Prophets, calling us back to Himself. The building of a tabernacle, a “tent of meeting,” was a sign that He was present, as was the temple in Jerusalem, filled with the Holy of Holies. Through a great sacrifice, He will be with us.
Immanuel
God showed us His desire to be with us in the greatest possible way. He came to us in the person of His Son. He gave this promise of His coming decades before it happened so people would know He was coming—the Messiah, the Deliverer—and they would be assured that He intended to be with them.
He gave a promise to King Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah when His enemies besieged him.
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My Soul Magnifies the Lord: The Song of Mary | Luke 1:46-55
This song is a celebration of God’ delight in exalting the humble and opposing the proud. Jesus Himself taught this principle, saying, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11). Christ’s humiliation to the point of death on a cross and subsequent exaltation (see Philippians 2:6-11) is the greatest example of all time.
And Mary said,“My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;for he who is mighty has done great things for me,and holy is his name.And his mercy is for those who fear himfrom generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;he has brought down the mighty from their thronesand exalted those of humble estate;he has filled the hungry with good things;and the rich he has sent away empty.He has helped his servant Israel,in remembrance of his mercy,as he spoke to our fathers,to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Luke 1:46-55 ESVThe opening of Luke’s Gospel ought to sound familiar to students of Scripture: a godly older couple lamenting their childlessness. Abraham and Sarah are the most famous such couple, but then their son Isaac and his wife Rebekah also faced barrenness. In 1 Samuel, we also find Elkanah and Hannah, the parents of the prophet Samuel. Thus, we ought first to read of Zechariah and Elizabeth with great expectation, and sure enough, they were miraculously given a son who would grow into a great prophet.
But Luke’s Gospel is not about their son, John. Indeed, John, like the prophets before him, was only the forerunner to the Christ, who was coming into the world.
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