Welcome to my ABC'05 Notes Corner
1 Tim 3:16a
"And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness ..."
In the topic of "Great is the mystery of godliness" they can be broken down into five aspects namely :
-> Greatness of Godliness
-> Ground of Godliness
-> Growth for Godliness
-> Garden of Godliness
-> Goal of Godliness
First we will look at Greatness of Godliness.
We have to knbow the Lord as mediator(middle man) and redeemer(bought with a price).
1. life of incarnate Christ
2. as seen of the world (manifest) 1 Tim 3:16
3.life of ascended Christ (born, live die, resurrected)
1 Tim 3: 16 (historical fact)
- Appeared (manifest in flesh)
- Approved (justified in spirit)
- Attended (seen by angels)
- Announced (preached to the nations)
- Acclaimed (received into glory)
Next is the Ground of Godliness
Fear
- Man , Sin and God
- Work on Salvation (Phil 2:12)
The grounding (foundation) is very important
Fear of the Lord
- 2 ways - sin + salvation
Verse Dealing with sin (confession) - 1 John 1:9
Ingredients to the Grounding of Godliness
- correct concepts of the character of God
- apprevasive sense of the presence of God
- a constant awareness of our obligation to God
* Favour of the Lord
God is love, we need to be gripped by God's love.
Calvary's love->Wrath iof God->Sinfulness
* Faith in the Lord
We need to thirst for God, Longing for God
# On Christ the solid rock I stand
Next is the Growth of Godliness
* Training in Godliness
*Principles of Training
- responsibilities
- reasons
- requirements
*Personalk responsibilites "Training yourself"
- Resons for training growth in christ in the essential areas of godliness
- the importance of minimum necessary for training: some irreducible minimums in trainings
*Pre-requsities (requirements)
- Price
- Partner - coach
Who is our coach in spiritual life ?
The Holy Spirit
*Price of Training
- commitment (ps 63:1)
- make every effort to be holy (Hebrews 12:14)
- Make every effort to add to your faith of godliness (2 Peter 1:5-7)
There is a price to commitment and never comes cheaper easily
The verb "Train" - persevering, painstaking effort. Paul urged Timothy to make the kind of commitment necessary to train him to be godly.
*Partners of training
- Learning from a skilled teacher
- The teaching and training of the holy spirit
- expose to the teaching of God's word to grow in godliness
*Practice
- The word of God
-Prayer
- worship
- fellowship
*process of training
- dependence
- discipline
- divine enablement
+The Ultimate Test
- The obedience to God's will (pro 8:13)
- realise our sins
Next is the Garden of Godliness
Gardener->Growth->Godlikeness in fruit
God gives us strength to our growth of godliness
The garden reminds us of the groth and bearing of fruits.
God must be our focal point if we wish to have godly character
*Prayer for growth
- Godcenterness - source - devoted to God
- Godlikeness - food - development of character<
we need to pursue our growth with vigor
Col 5 :22-23 - Fruit of the spirit
Godly character flows out of our devotion to God.
* principles of godly character
- right motive
- source of power
- responsibility and dependence
- put on and put off the characters
- balance growth
* Fruit of the Spirit
Humility, contentment, thankfulness, joy, holiness, self control, faithfulness, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, love
Meeting God's requirements - evaluate your life
All these things we can do and must do if we are to grow in the garden of godliness
Realise that God can cause love to grow and bear much fruit . As we do our part we can count on the divine gardener because he is good , great and gracious.
Lastly is the Goal of godliness
*To reach our goal
- knowing work
- knowing the Lord
- outworking of a yielding life
- development of knowing the Lord firsthand with its out working in a yielded life
Discipline, Dedication and Diligence - 2 Time Chpt 2
Paul's example - deeply motivated , runnning a discipline race, lifelong discipline
Phil 3:12-14
"I press on ........ straining toward what is ahead"
Christ's Objectives - To redeem(Tit 2:14), make us holy (eph 5:25-27), his Lordship in our lives
The practice of godliness is a discipline
It requires serious commitment and effort to reach the goal of godliness
What is the response ?
runnning the race, do not give up, finish the race, train yourself to be godly
Col2:6-7 provides a frame work for our growth in christ
Last Updated - 20 June 2005