True Spirituality AM

00:02 Greet each one of you this morning in the name of Jesus. Let's give glory to God as we share together in the Word of God this morning. It's a joy to be in the house of the Lord and to see each one of you here this morning. 00:16 I do need to announce that some have been asking since our service last week and through the weekend with Brother Ryan being called and licensed to the ministry what our plans are for selecting a youth elder. 00:34 And we are concerned about the youth that they feel cared for. But it is on everyone's mind, I'm sure, that we move forward with this in some sort of way. We do want to give time for transition, but we also realize that Ryan can't carry a double responsibility. 00:55 And so we would like to, in two weeks, take your voice for nominations for a new youth elder. 01:04 And we will especially listen to the young people and who they would sense they would like to have fill that role. But it'll be something that we all speak into as well. 01:17 So be making that a matter of prayer for the next two weeks so that we can proceed on that and make sure that all of our leadership needs are being filled. All right. If you want to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to First Timothy Chapter 4. In the bulletin, it was not Yolanda's misprint. 01:38 It was mine. It says First Thessalonians 4. I was thinking if Thessalonians has some similar Scriptures, but it was First Timothy Chapter 4. Be looking this morning at verses 1 through 11 on the question of true spirituality. True spirituality. 01:58 If you were to say, "I need to become a more spiritually minded and spiritually mature person, what should I do?" Would you subtract things from your life or would you add things to your life? 02:15 Is spirituality a matter of subtraction or addition? We are reminded here very clearly in First Timothy Chapter 4 that the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 02:38 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. 03:00 For it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. But reject profane and old wives' fables and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, 03:22 but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end, we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, 03:43 especially of those who believe. These things command and teach. We don't want to be overly negative this morning. And it starts out here in verse 1 in a kind of negative tone that the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, 04:03 giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. One of the most hideous things that demons do, and demons are hideous in all that they do, but one of the most hideous things they do is to deceive. To deceive the lost, to deceive the saints, to deceive whoever pays attention to them and gives ear to them. 04:26 But we must think about this in relationship to some examples, not only in Scripture but in our own world. 04:35 Because in order to be a faithful minister, we must remind ourselves and remind our congregation that this is a very real and present danger to be deceived. 04:49 Verse 11 says, "These things we should command and teach." And so that's what we're doing this morning is we're commanding and teaching and reminding that deception is a very real possibility in the lives of not only the world which is deceived, but even among God's professing people. 05:10 One of the areas where deception comes in is in the area of true spirituality. What does it mean to be truly spiritual and to be a godly person? What would you need to have in place in your life to truly be spiritual? Now, there's a resurgence of spirituality in our world today. 05:31 Interesting things happening where people search for spirituality, but they don't search for God. And so they want to find spirituality in some other form. So they look to Eastern religions. They look to mysticism. They look to angels. They look to devils. They look to white magic. 05:52 They look to paganism. They look to Wicca, which is a white magic. 05:58 In fact, an article in our local paper this week was promoting a shop here in town which promotes various witchcraft type things, occultic things, occultic symbols. So there is a spirituality that is not of God. 06:20 And to expose oneself to those things is to expose himself to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils. But there is also in relation to that, what does it mean to be truly spiritual? What does it mean to be a spiritual person? 06:39 And would you become spiritually minded and spiritually mature by adding things to your life or taking away things from your life? The question has been raised a number of years ago by someone that I read an article about, and I've chewed on it for quite some time. Is the Christian life a matter of addition or subtraction? 06:59 And we see in this passage of Scripture both. We see a subtraction and an addition. We see people who speak lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. And then they subtract meats and they subtract marriage and they subtract thanksgiving. 07:19 And then they add to their pursuit old wives' fables and profane and old wives' fables instead of exercising themselves to godliness. So we as Anabaptists are good at subtracting things. Amen? We say, 07:38 as long as you're not doing this or you don't do this, you don't do that, you don't do the other thing, you subtract certain things from your life, then that's a true spirituality. We as Americans are good at adding things to our list. We measure things by the things that we add. 07:58 You need to add a program. You need to add a seminar. You need to add prosperity. You need to add a book. You need to add a new novel teaching. 08:11 And so we find out that people are continually looking at what should be subtracted from my life and what should be added to my life to make me spiritually mature and to make me godly. We'll talk about that this morning as we go through. The problem is when we pretend that our life, that we are spiritual by what we subtract. 08:33 And because we subtract, the process of subtracting makes us spiritual and the process of adding makes us spiritual. Now, Brother Todd, where are you going with this? Well, we'll find out a little bit later as we go through this text. We want to unpack the text here this morning as we work our way through this text. 08:54 And first of all, we see that the Spirit is clear. He speaks expressly that in the latter times some, not all, but some, maybe many, will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. This is consistent with what man's problem has been for millennia. 09:17 In the Old Testament, God said to His people, "This people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them." And you see the Old Testament was a picture, was a progression of breakdown after breakdown after breakdown. Repent, confess, sin. 09:39 Sin, repent, confess. Sin, repent, confess. Sin and be delivered and sin and be delivered. And they could never quite overcome that even till they got to the time of the New Testament. In the times of Christ, they were still sinning because their hearts were far from God. Now, in the New Testament, we also find this thing of openness to deception. 10:00 And many of the New Testament epistles were addressing a certain type of deception that was creeping into the church. May we remind you that even in the first-century church in Ephesus, Paul said, "I know that after My departure, grievous wolves will rise up within your own ranks, within your own group." He was talking to the elders. 10:22 And you must be careful. You must be diligent to keep that false doctrine and false teaching away. But then they were faithful in doing that. But in the process, by the time you come to 90 AD, when Jesus gave His address in Revelation Chapter 2 to the Ephesian church, 10:41 He said, "You have got the doctrinal things right, but you've left your first love." And so they were adding some things and then they subtracted some other things. And they found themselves being rebuked by the Lord. New Testament passage Jude 18 says, 11:01 "The apostles told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts." We certainly see that happening in these last days in which we live. Now, He says, "There will be an apostasy. 11:16 People will depart from the faith." The word depart here means to withdraw or remove oneself, to forsake the faith, to desert the faith, to cease from the faith or to fall from the faith. 11:30 It's related to the verse in Thessalonians Chapter 2, verse 3, where Paul told the Thessalonians that there will be a great falling away. Not exactly the same word, but related and very closely related. It differs from just being in error, which may be a result of ignorance. 11:49 And it differs from embracing a heresy, which may be a particular area of error. But this is a wholesale falling away, removing, departing from the faith. And it will happen specifically in the latter times. 12:10 Now, we know from the book of Hebrews and our study in Hebrews that the latter times or the last days was anything after Pentecost. But we are living in the last of the last days. And as the last of the last days comes upon us, we see a snowballing effect of this falling away. 12:29 The history of the church has been marked by varying degrees of regaining the truth and then falling from the truth and regaining the truth and falling from the truth, abandoning the truth. This will be a characteristic of the last days of the latter of the end days. 12:48 Very similar to what Paul says in Second Timothy where he says, "In the last days, perilous times will come." Apostasy, abandoning the faith. It is under the influence of Satan. The nature of Satan is to deceive. 13:05 Satan himself is transformed as an angel of light and is intent in deceiving not only the unbelievers, keeping them in the dark, but believers who he can entice back into the dark and all of the nations. These demons are hypocritical liars. 13:26 That's what he says. They're deceiving, deceiving, speaking lies in hypocrisy. And they find a mouthpiece through people who are sometimes educated, educated people. He finds a mouthpiece for people in three-piece suits. 13:44 And he finds a mouthpiece in people in robes and on radio and television, sending out deceptive words and speaking lies in hypocrisy, spreading lies without conscience. You see, every pastor, every preacher of the gospel, every teacher of the gospel should have in his mind, 14:06 "What if I am not speaking correctly? If I'm misinterpreting the Scripture? If I'm leading people astray? If I'm teaching error?" This would be of a man of God would be a very important, crucial question that he would continually have before him. 14:26 We want to be accurate. We want to be biblical. We want to point people to Christ. We want to point people to heaven. We want to see people find their way to glory. But the apostate deliberately speaks lies in hypocrisy, pretending to want what's best for people, 14:45 but in the process destroying them as his end game, camouflaged behind respectability, spreading lies without a conscience, and being branded by Satan and seared with a hot iron. His conscience no longer functioning. He no longer cares to get it right. 15:05 He is bent on doing wrong. He has abandoned the faith, and he is taking others with him. Jeremiah 7, verse 28, "So you shall say to them, 'This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God, nor receive correction. 15:22 Truth has perished and has been cut off from the mouth.'" Jeremiah 7:28. Now, he uses an interesting... He takes us an interesting direction in the text here. 15:35 He uses two interesting illustrations where this is happening in their current day and in the passage of time, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods. Now, what has this got to do with the last day's deception? 15:57 Well, what it is doing is promoting a false spirituality that is based on asceticism. Now, what is asceticism? 16:09 Asceticism is a denial of God-given legitimate pursuits and practices and functions. 16:21 It's to find out and to think that because I deny myself of the bodily pleasures, that that is spirituality. Now, like I mentioned a little bit ago, we as Anabaptists are really good at that, and we'll talk more about that later. 16:37 But so were the early churches where you had the rise of monasteries and monasticism, 16:47 where you had monks and nuns who lived in convents and monasteries thinking that they could find spiritual life and connection with God by denying themselves food and drink and God-given legitimate pleasures and enjoyment. 17:08 Now, they would deny themselves of women, marriage. They would deny themselves of physical pleasures. They would deny themselves of meats. And they would deny themselves of social interaction. 17:26 Anything that gave any pleasure in life was crucified so that we could pursue spirituality. The problem is not that we don't need to subtract things from our life. The problem was the subtraction was the goal rather than godliness the goal. 17:48 That's the difference. And so they would deprive themselves of comforts of life. They would live in monasteries, give themselves completely to a life of prayer, meditation, and in some cases, good works. The monasteries in the early church and early church age, the first several hundred years of the faith and of the church, 18:10 and then also into the Middle Ages, they did some good things. They kept scholarship alive. They kept translating the Bible in some cases. They kept copying the Scriptures in some cases. 18:24 But the end goal was not godliness as it evolved, but the end goal was asceticism, to deprive themselves of God's good gifts. And so we had monks and nuns as religious recluses throughout the Middle Ages. 18:44 The monasticism played a vital role not only in spreading Christianity, but also in improving literature and learning. One of the epitome of one of the primary examples I use of asceticism is a man by the name of Simeon Stylites. And I don't know if you've heard of him or not, 19:05 but you maybe have, and I explained to you what he did. Simeon wanted to live a life fully dedicated to God. And he got kicked out of the monastery for being too strict with himself. And he decided that he would live on top of a pole. So he would set up a pole. 19:25 And that pole, in some cases, he had different ones through the years. In some cases, it was even up to 50 feet tall, about three meters square. And he also lived on one for a while that was about one meter square. 19:40 And on this, he lived for anywhere up to 37 years on top of a pole to deprive himself so that he could get close to God. That's what I'm talking about, subtracting things in our lives. Is that a measure of true spirituality? 20:00 Well, I can't judge the man's motives. And maybe that's what it took for him to get close to God, but I don't think so. But he would have opportunities to share the gospel. People would come to him, flock to him for answers. In fact, he would build a little bit higher so that he couldn't be bothered with all the people. 20:19 And they'd have a pulley system that they could put food and a little bit of food, a limited amount of food up to sustain him. 20:28 And that was an example of asceticism, depriving no wife, no enjoyment, nothing. And thinking that that in itself is spiritual is the type of thing that Paul's talking about in verses three, 20:48 four, and five, asceticism. We as Anabaptists, as I mentioned, are pretty good at that. In the past, if you deprive yourself of a colored car and drive a black car, then you'd even deny yourself. 21:08 If you deprive yourself of food, and there's a time and place for these things, the time and place for fasting. But if fasting is not in and of itself spiritual, it is a means to connect with God. 21:27 And that is what creates spirituality. Another thing that has been forbidden by many is the use of meats. Now, this would refer to the Judaizers. When God created and gave us meats, He did not intend that those meats would be scorned, except in the Mosaic Law. 21:47 In the Mosaic Law, they were to abstain from certain meats, but that was the covenant between Moses and God, Israel and God. It was not meant to be forever and all times. In fact, when God gave us meat to eat in Genesis 3:9, He says, 22:07 "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you." Up to that point, it was just we were all vegetarians. Now, one could make a case for health that maybe we stopped living so long in the first 11 chapters of Genesis because we started eating meat. I'll let you figure that out with your vegetarian friends. But at any rate, when God said in Genesis 9, 22:28 "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs, but you shall not eat the flesh with its life, that is, its blood." So the prohibition was eating blood, things strangled, uncooked, raw, bloody, and that type of thing. 22:49 But other than that, God said, "I have given you things, these foods, to be received with thanksgiving." Verse 3. By those who believe and know the truth, for every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving." I guess this could be a thanksgiving message. 23:09 So when you eat your turkey or you eat your ham, thank God that we have grace to eat ham. We have grace to eat bacon. Don't eat a lot of it. It might clog your arteries, but you'd have the grace to eat it with thanksgiving. Been sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. It is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. 23:30 Verse 5. It is made holy. It is set apart as a God-given gift to be received as such. Jesus said in Mark 7:19, "Do you not perceive that whoever enters a man from outside cannot defile him because it does not enter into his heart, 23:50 but his stomach and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods, or thereby purifying all foods?" Peter's vision, we could go into that. 24:01 God said, "Rise, kill, and eat." I don't think that was just a matter of killing unclean animals, but it was a matter of teaching Peter about the Gentiles coming in. But he used meats and food to illustrate that what I have called clean, do not call unclean. 24:24 But the problem with this is when we equate subtraction, subtracting things from our lives with spirituality, rather than saying, "Okay, I'm going to go on a fast so I can connect with God and become godly, 24:43 not so that I can consider myself spiritual by the process, but I consider myself spiritual by connecting with God." So let's expand the issue a bit. The other side of the ditch is spirituality is what we add to our faith. 25:04 And I'm not talking about... Neither is Scripture talking about adding virtue and character qualities. In fact, in Second Peter, it says that we should add to our faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge self-control and to self-control brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness agape love. We add to our faith. 25:24 Those are character qualities of godliness. What he's talking about here is adding things like that are ungodly and unbiblical, such as profane and old wives' fables. Now, we talked about that a little bit in Chapter 1 of First Timothy, the profane and old wives' fables, 25:46 where they would add stories and kind of create a biblical fiction. They would add a bunch of fictionalized accounts to biblical characters. And so it would kind of like a religious historical fiction. 26:05 That's the word I wanted, religious historical figure of fiction. And they would talk about these genealogies from the Old Testaments and weave elaborate stories together and take the lists of the Old Testament passages and come up with long lists of names and imaginary biographies and thinking that, 26:25 "Well, you need to have this higher form of knowledge, this higher form of wisdom, which comes by listening to this teacher and that preacher and this person and this story and this account and thinking that if we add all kinds of information, even if it's not true, to our lives, 26:44 then we'll be spiritual." No, he says, "Reject that. Don't add it, but reject it." They had elaborate mythology of the gods, each with his own story and biography and genealogy. 27:00 This led to a certain intellectual elitism and arrogant speculation for the spiritual elite and enlightened of a chosen few. So he says, "Don't add that. 27:16 Reject that." Now, so he's saying you can add some things that you should or that you've been told to withhold, but you should also withhold some things that you've been told to add. Now, this gets a little bit confusing as we work our way through this passage. "If you instruct the brethren in these things, 27:36 which we're doing this morning, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed." So what is the answer here? 27:50 The answer is to pursue biblical doctrine, pursue biblical godliness, exercise yourself to godliness. Verse 8, "For bodily exercise..." or verse 7, "Exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, 28:11 but godliness is profitable for all things, having both gain in this life and in the life to come." So let's bring this down to some practical applications. I've mentioned here a couple of times this morning that we as Anabaptists are good at subtracting things. 28:32 And so we think many times that if we don't do this and we don't do this and we don't do this and we don't do this, then we are spiritual. I mentioned driving a black car instead of a red one. Maybe you want to drive a red one, but you're spiritual. So you're going to drive a black one. 28:52 And by virtue of driving the black vehicle... And this is just an example. I'm not picking on people to do that. So just an example. By virtue of driving the black one, you have reached a level of spirituality because your car is black. I could do that. 29:11 We could do that. I don't wear a necktie. And so, men, am I spiritual? Because I don't wear a necktie. I have reasons for not wearing a necktie. I can go over those with you sometime if you're interested. But I will hasten to say, me wearing a necktie does not make me spiritual. 29:32 It does not make me spiritual. It may contribute to my pursuit of spirituality and my pursuit of godliness, but it is in and of itself not an evidence of true, genuine spirituality. 29:52 We do that with a lot of things. So if we don't gamble, we don't dance, we don't watch R-rated movies, we don't watch movies at all, we don't watch television, we don't listen to music, we don't listen to instrumental music, we only listen to a cappella music, 30:13 we don't eat certain foods, we don't drink caffeine, we don't do a lot of things, eliminate from your diet all starch, white flour, and white sugar, and butter, and coffee, and all the things that are supposed to be bad for you. You eliminate that. 30:30 And then now I have reached a level of spirituality because I have eliminated and subtracted things from my life. Wrong. Spirituality is not about subtraction. Now, let me hasten to say this. Don't misunderstand me. 30:49 There are legitimate things that we subtract, but it is not for the purpose so I can say I subtracted it. Now I'm holy. I have subtracted it in my pursuit of God and of godliness. So in my exercise of godliness, I may take some things out of my life. 31:10 In fact, there are some evil things in my life that have to go. They have to go because they're sin. We're not talking about those things. We're talking about things that we think aid us in our spiritual maturity. I hope you're understanding what I'm saying. 31:30 I'm not arguing for licentiousness. Now, the other side is if we can just add some things. We're going to add activities. We're going to go to church all the time. Now, do we need to go to church? Yes. But does going to church make you spiritual? 31:49 No. Unless you do something when you're at church that you pursue godliness. You can go to church five times a week. And if you don't know Jesus, you are not spiritual. We add activities, seminars, Bible reading. Read through the Bible in ear. Is it good to read through the Bible? 32:08 Absolutely. But reading through the Bible does not mean that you're living a godly life. Now, hopefully, it contributes to that. But it must be more than the pursuit. It must be the destination of godliness. So if we add some spiritual gifts, let's add some spiritual gifts. 32:29 Let's add some prosperity. Let's add a certain prayer style. So a number of years ago, the Prayer of Jabez book was out. And boy, if you are going to be a spiritual person, you better read the Prayer of Jabez and you better pray it every day, or you just have not arrived yet. I say that a bit tongue in cheek, 32:49 but that was kind of the attitude with the Prayer of Jabez. This is the secret. Add to your faith the Prayer of Jabez and you'll be spiritual. No. 33:03 Now, the Prayer of Jabez may help you pursue God, but you can pray it all day long and still not be spiritual. Associations with a particular group, spiritual experiences, even tithing. Is tithing a good thing? Yes. It's a biblical instruction. It's a biblical imperative. But tithing will not make you spiritual. 33:24 Tithing is a result of being spiritual. So what is true spirituality? I think we find it in verse 8, verse 7, and 8. 33:39 "But reject profane and old wives' fables and exercise yourself toward godliness." Godliness. What is godliness? True spirituality is a result of our pursuit of godliness. 33:55 Godliness here means to be devout with the piety of a godly attitude that is well-pleasing to God. It is an attitude and manner of life of reverence, worship, and devotion to the Lord. He says, "That's what you need to pursue. 34:16 That's what you follow after. That's your goal is godliness. And you will drop some things off along the way and you'll add some other things. Those things in and of themselves may assist you, but they don't define godliness. 34:33 They don't define spirituality." 34:37 Then he talks about this bodily exercise. "Bodily exercise profiteth little," the King James says. The New King says, "Profits a little." Yes, we have a temple to take care of. Exercise will help that temple. But it's amazing to me, brothers and sisters, 34:57 how much of the pursuit of the body, it could be called the cult of the body. The Greeks worshipped the human body. They loved its symmetry. They loved the creation. They loved to fine-tune it into... You look at Greek architecture and Greek sculpture. 35:17 It's about the perfect body, finding the perfect body. You know we're still in pursuit of the perfect body? I never found it. Certainly wasn't my body. You don't have to say amen to that. It's not your body either. 35:33 In fact, all the exercise that we can have is just going to profit a little, a little. But boy, you listen to the world around us and you think that the body is the only thing that really matters. The cult of the body is still in place today. Beauty, athletic ability, sports, running, 35:53 bodybuilding, spas, tanning salons, hair care, skin care, dental care, soap, shampoo, diet plans, fads, fashion, styles, clothing. The whole consumer culture is built around the body and what it wants to be beautiful. He said, 36:15 "Don't pursue that. Pursue godliness, which is not only going to give you a better life here, but it's going to give you an eternal life forever." So we need to add fiber and vitamins and add a new car, add a new job, add new makeup, add another vacation, and come up with a new you or eliminate sugar, 36:37 white flour, stress, worry, butter, toxic people, toxic masculinity. By all means, eliminate all suffering from your life. That's the cult of the body. By the way, the body was such a cult that that's where the word gymnasium comes from. Gymnasium was a place where they would work out and they would work out. 36:59 They would have a trainer and work out naked so the trainer could see every muscle of the body and have an exercise and a training for it. That was in Greek culture, the cult of the body. Take care of your body. Yes, it's a gift from God. 37:18 But exercise yourself to godliness. Pursue godliness. How do we exercise ourselves to godliness? Well, suffering is part of that. Discipline is part of it. Waiting is part of it. Silence, prayer, confession, praise. 37:39 Spiritual 37:42 disciplines can be part of that activity to exercise toward godliness. But again, the goal is godliness, not the pursuit. It's the end goal of spirituality, of godly holiness and godly living. Verse 10 and 11. 38:04 Verse 9, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance." Paul says, "This needs to be accepted by everybody. This goal, this teaching needs to be accepted by everyone. 38:20 And for this purpose, we labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially to those who believe." Why was Paul suffering reproach? The word suffering reproach, there has the idea to defame, to rail at, to revile with abusive words. 38:41 He was railed on by those who would just chew him out up one side and down the other. Why did he pursue that? Why did he go through that? For the message of the Gospel. Laboring, feeling tired and fatigued because he was laboring for the Gospel because we trust in the living God. 39:03 He had his confidence in God and he commanded this and taught this to the development of godliness, the development of godliness. And another message we might pursue is, what does it take to become godly and holy in our lives? 39:25 Why did the early church succeed where we are failing, one writer says? How did they transform the Western world in such a relatively short time? They did it because they did things that baffled the Romans. The early church didn't pick it. They didn't boycott and they didn't gripe about what was going on in their culture. They just did things that astonished the Romans. 39:46 They took in their abandoned babies. They helped their sick and wounded. They restored dignity to the slaves. They were willing to die for what they believed. And after a while, their actions so softened the hearts of the Romans that they wanted to know what more, wanted to know more about who these Christians were and who the God was that they represented. 40:07 Without confrontation, protest, or debate, love did its work. True spirituality, drawing near to God that He would draw near to us. Heavenly Father, we thank You this morning for this passage of Scripture. Quite honestly, Lord, 40:26 it's a bit confusing passage of Scripture as to all the implications. But we know that the clear focus is that the Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is that which we pursue to become godly in Christ Jesus. 40:50 That Your gift of salvation and Your Holy Spirit's presence in our lives and the transformation that comes from being a child of God is not a work of man, but it's a work of God that we pursue and strain towards with every fiber of our being. 41:11 And so, Lord, I pray that You will develop within us true spirituality, not a false sense of spirituality, not a worldly or even a demonic sense of spirituality. 41:24 Protect us from all those things, but let us pursue godliness, holiness, and pursue God through Jesus Christ in relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen.