The Greater Gain of Godliness

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0:19Well, good morning. It's a joy to be here with you this morning. As Josh said, my name is Nate Cordano, and I'm a third-year seminary student at our church's school, Bethlehem College and Seminary. And I'm joined here with my wife, Abby, and our four little ones. We moved here in 2024 from Northern California, a town called Redding. And before we moved here to go to Bethlehem College and Seminary, I worked as a mechanical engineer for seven years. And during those years, the Lord just totally flipped my plan and my desires for my life and gave me a heart for the word and a heart for the local church.

0:59And so, we came out, we visited Bethlehem College and Seminary, and we loved it. I remember, actually, it was the first pastors conference I went to. I called Abby, who was back in California, and I said, "I think I found our people," because we just have loved the vision and the school. So it's my joy to be here to open up the word and to preach to you, my church family. I invite you to keep your Bibles open to 1 Timothy 6. That'll be a help to us. And would you join me as I pray?

1:33Father, we ask for your help now. We ask you to do what only you can do, to work at the heart level and help us see Jesus rightly so that we can worship. Would you help me to do that? Would you help my hearers to do that? Would you help us to grow in godliness so that we can experience great gain this morning? And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. How valuable is godliness? What would be more valuable to a human being? All the money in the world or godliness? If given the choice, what would be worth more? What would be more profitable? What would bring a human more gain, either all the money in the whole world or godliness? Estimates say if you added up all the coins in bills, in bank accounts, in money markets, all the money in the whole world would equate to about $100 trillion.

2:45And it's hard to even make sense of that number. But this past June, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire. So that means if you add up all of Elon's stock and assets, his net worth is $1 trillion. A trillion dollars is a million million dollars. So say we had a pile of a million dollars up here on the stage. That's a million dollars. Get a million of those piles, and that's how much money Elon Musk has. If Elon Musk spent a million dollars every single day, it would take him 2,700 years to spend his trillion dollars. That's $1 trillion. In the whole world, there's 100 of those trillions.

3:31But if you compare the value of all of that money, $100 trillion, to the value of godliness, which one is worth more? Thankfully, we aren't actually left to speculate on this. A human was offered this choice before, and he chose godliness. Matthew 4, again, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, "All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan, for it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve." So in that moment, Jesus knew something. He knew that trading his godliness for all the kingdoms in the world was a bad trade. It was not worth it.

4:34But why, is our question this morning. Why is godliness so valuable? And the answer is in the text that Jonah just read for us. If anyone is wondering, you got all the Bible to choose from and you're a seminary student, why choose a text on money this morning? And I'll tell you why. It's because this text we have this morning is about so much more than just money. I chose 1 Timothy 6 this morning because there's a profound reality in this text, and it's a reality that has helped me in my battle against sinful anger the last two years. It's helped me in my battle against sinful insecurity this last few years.

5:23And this reality is the main point of the sermon today. The reality is this. It's true godliness is more valuable than everything this world has to offer. True godliness is more valuable than everything this world has to offer. So let's dive into 1 Timothy 6. 1 Timothy is a letter from a pastor to a pastor. Paul, the older pastor and mentor, is writing to his mentee, Pastor Timothy, instructing him on how to do this pastor thing well. And a major theme throughout the letter is the relationship between doctrine and godliness. So back in chapter 4, verse 7, Paul had said, "Have nothing to do with the irreverent, silly myths," AKA bad doctrine.

6:12"Rather, train yourself for godliness." And so it is. The same theme pops up when we come to chapter 6. Paul, you can see in verse two, exhorts Timothy, "Teach and urge these things." And what kind of teaching? In verse three, you can see it's the teaching that accords with godliness. But there's a big problem in our text as well, and it's this. It's that false teachers have snuck into the church. They've snuck in to teach bad doctrine, and the result of bad doctrine, we'll see here, is false godliness. Let's look at what Paul says about these false teachers he's writing about. Look at verse three.

6:55He says, "If anyone teaches a different doctrine." So false teachers teach. But what do they teach? They teach a different doctrine. False teachers teach doctrines different than what are in this book. He says, "False teachers do not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ." In other words, they don't devote themselves to the words of Jesus. They avoid the words of Jesus, and therefore, their teaching does not accord with godliness. But here's the tricky thing about false teachers. They don't tell you that they are false teachers. False teachers are subtle. In 2 Timothy 3, it says this about them, these false teachers.

7:43It says, "They have an appearance of godliness, but they deny its power." And the same thing is going on in our text. But if you look close enough at our text, you can see that false teachers are actually revealed for what they truly are by the bad fruit of their teaching and the bad fruit of their lives. Look at how Paul describes them in verse four. He says, "They are puffed up with conceit. They understand nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy, for quarrels about words which produce," here comes the bad fruit, "envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth."

8:32But there's one last bad apple on the tree of these false teachers, and it comes at the end of verse five. Take a look at it. It says, "False teachers are those who imagine that godliness is a means of gain." They imagine that godliness is a means of gain. And this is a very subtle lie because as we're going to see, the very next verse Paul is going to teach us that godliness is great gain. But here in verse five, we have a lie from the false teachers, and it's all the more deadly because of how close it is to the truth. But what is it? What is this lie exactly? Well, the NIV helpfully translates verse five.

9:18It says, "Those who think that godliness is a means of financial gain." And I think that's clearly supported by the context of this paragraph. In verse eight, Paul mentions food and clothing, earthly goods. In verse nine, he begins his very famous warning about loving money. So I think the subtle lie of the false teachers is if you are godly like us, then that's a good way to get rich. These teachers are imagining that their external appearance of godliness is an adequate means to financial gain. And sadly, there are many, many so-called Christian teachers in our world who teach a very, very similar thing today.

10:04But the result of that bad doctrine is all the bad fruit that we saw in verses four and five. Notice the result of the bad doctrine is not true godliness, it's false godliness. The false teachers are passing on their greedy love for money to others in the church, which is why Paul feels the need to write this famous warning in verses nine and 10. Let's read nine and 10. It says in nine, "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."

11:02So these verses are a sober warning to us in our modern America, in our modern world. But they're also a great irony. The subtle lie of the false teachers is that godliness is a means of gain, right? Profit, increase. But in reality, their teaching takes their followers not up but down. By spreading the lie that godliness is a means of financial gain, it tempts people to desire to be rich. And Paul is warning us, all those who desire to be rich do not rise, they fall. Down into a snare, down into senseless and harmful desires, plunging down and down into ruin and destruction and all kinds of evils.

11:51And I wonder, when you hear this warning in verses nine and 10 this morning, how does it sound to you? What's the tone you hear in Paul's voice? I hope you can hear Paul's pastoral heart in these words. You see, Paul has seen this reality play out with his own eyes. He's seen it. He said, "It is through this craving that some, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." Some Paul once called brother and sister have wandered. They slowly wandered away from the faith, and what they got was not gain. It was senselessness, harm, ruin, destruction, and pain. These were like the seeds sown among the thorns in Matthew 13.

12:46Those who heard the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choked the word, and it proved unfruitful. I hope you see Paul is not out to ruin our fun, to scold us about money. He wants us to see something. He wants us to see false teachers teach false godliness, which leads to spiritual death. But Paul also wants something far better for us. Paul wants us to experience gain, and it's the greatest gain available to man in this life. Let's read verses six through eight. "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.

13:44But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." So after just saying in verse five that the false teachers imagine that godliness is a means of gain, now in verse six, Paul says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." And I think it's because Paul sees just how subtle the lie of the false teachers is. He sees that they've taken something true, something real, and distorted it just enough to make it deadly. Like twisting a compass bearing just one or two degrees off of north, but so that those who are deceived by it a few miles or a few years down the road end up going off a cliff.

14:36But Paul wants us back on true north. So Paul's response to the false teachers imagining that godliness is gain is to say, well, isn't godliness a means of gain? And his answer is yes. If rightly understood, godliness is a means of gain, great gain. But it is not the type of godliness that they will teach you, and it's not the type of gain either. So in our time left, I want to answer two very important questions for this text, and they are this. One, what is true godliness? And two, what is its gain? We've seen that the false teachers' godliness is not true godliness. It's false godliness. It's an appearance of godliness.

15:33But what is true godliness? I think put most simply, true godliness is being like Jesus. If you noticed in verse three, there's a connection between the words, the teaching of Jesus, and true godliness, and that connection runs straight through the entire New Testament. I think one of the best pictures of true godliness, and one of the pastors shared this with me very helpfully this week, is in 2 Peter 1:4, where there it's described as partaking in the divine nature. This godliness, true godliness, partaking in the divine nature. It's described there as this, as having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

16:34In other words, true godliness is being like God in the sense that we obey God's command to us when he says, "Be holy because I am holy." And one implication of this is that true godliness, it just cannot be a merely external obedience like that of the false teachers, like that of the Pharisees we've been seeing in Matthew. It has to be real. It has to be an inner reality where the heart says genuinely, "Yes, I love what God loves, and I hate what God hates." That is the essence of true godliness. And if you've been at this Christian life for any amount of time, you know that that kind of godliness is only possible by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, transforming us from the inside out to be more and more like Jesus throughout the entire Christian life. But an amazing verse is Romans 8:29.

17:41It says, "God has promised to create true godliness in every true follower of Jesus." Romans 8:29 says God predestined us to something, and what did he predestine us to? To be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. So why is all this important for us when we look at verse six in our text? I think it's important because we need to see that this chapter is not about money mainly. It's about godliness, true godliness. Remember 2 Timothy 3 said false teachers have that appearance of godliness, but they deny its power. And I think in verse six, Paul is wanting to tell us something about that power of godliness. Something that will help us in our daily battle against every type of sin, whether it's greed or anger or lust or pride.

18:50Paul is telling us that the power of godliness is verse six. The power is this promise, the promise that godliness with contentment is great, great gain. A few months ago, my wife Abby and I got into a disagreement, and don't worry, I did ask for permission to share this. We got into a disagreement, and I'm grieved to admit that many times in our eight years of marriage, during one such disagreement like this, I've reacted towards Abby in sinful anger. This is one of my besetting sins, anger. But a few months ago, this was playing out. We were having a disagreement, and Abby made a comment towards me, and I felt that same old temptation rising up in me to say something back, to get even, to react in sinful anger.

19:57But in that moment, I remember it so clearly. We were standing in the bathroom, so I just can see it. In that moment, this reality came to my mind. Godliness with contentment is great gain. And by God's grace, in that moment, I realized my sinful flesh is telling me that I'll feel better if I get back at her. My sinful flesh is telling me it would be gain if I gave in to that temptation. But the promise, the power of verse six is the promise that sin is a liar every single time. Every time I've given into sinful anger, I don't get gain. I get loss. I get damage. I get pain. Sin always results in loss. But at that moment, by God's grace, I realized the greater gain of godliness, and I chose godliness, and how sweet was that godliness.

20:59So this promise in verse six applies to every battle of every sin that you face every single day. Because every day, Satan is coming knocking at our door saying, "Godliness isn't gain. But here. Here's something else that is. Never mind that God told you not to eat of that tree. God's holding out on you." Every day we hear these lies, no matter what our besetting sins are. But the power of godliness, the power to fight sin, is seeing and believing the greater gain of godliness. Which brings us to the second question. What is the great gain of godliness? Look at verse six with me. Paul said, "Godliness with contentment is great gain."

21:57Now, of all the things he could have added on to godliness, there's a lot of good words that I probably would have thought to put there. But he thought contentment. Why contentment? And I think the answer comes in the very next verse. Look at verse seven. He says, "For," or because, "godliness with contentment is great gain because we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world." If you're reading the ESV, your Bible may have a footnote on that and in the middle of verse seven, showing you that that's actually another for word or because word. In other words, godliness with contentment is great gain because we brought nothing into the world, and we brought nothing into the world because we cannot take anything out of that world. And now we have to ask, how does that answer work?

22:58How does our lack of material goods at entry and exit of this life explain why godliness with contentment is great gain? And I think the logic of verse seven is this. I think it's saying, why is godliness great gain, greater than all other gains? Well, it's because the uncertainty of earthly things cannot be compared with the certainty and value of godliness. Look down with me at verse 17 of this chapter, where Paul commands wealthy Christians to do something. He says, "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God."

23:51So I think the logic of verse seven has three steps. Let's just walk through them quickly. I think verse seven is saying three things. Number one, first, it exposes earthly goods and pleasures for what they truly are. They're fleeting. They're uncertain. They're unreliable. Wealth is uncertain. Health is uncertain. Jobs are uncertain. Relationships are uncertain. And notice, all of these earthly things are not bad in and of themselves. They're blessings from God that many of us experience throughout life. But I think the point is, they're not certain. So don't put your hope in them. Number two for verse seven is, I think by exposing the earthly pleasures, earthly gain in this way, it actually breaks down for us the alluring power that they can so easily exert on us.

24:52We humans are so prone to idolatry, are we not? We're so prone to worshiping created things, whatever it might be for you, rather than worshiping the Creator who gave those things as a gift. But when you realize that an earthly good or pleasure is fleeting, it's uncertain, you can't take it with you, I think the deceitfulness of those things breaks down. Why? Because we all want to be deeply, truly, lastingly happy. We don't want to be fleetingly happy or temporarily happy. Which brings us to number three. I think verse seven is pointing us to something else. I think verse seven is pointing us beyond this life and to the most fundamental truth about why we are here, why we exist.

25:55I think it's saying, why did we not bring anything into the world? Well, it's because we aren't going to be taking anything out of this world when we go. Verse seven is pointing us to the reality of why you and I were made. We were not made for the things of this earth. Good gifts they might be. We were made for God. As Jesus said one time, he said, "One's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." So what does one's life consist in then? I think most ultimately, you were made by God and for God. You were made to worship God. That is the most ultimate reason for your existence, that you might glorify the one who made you.

26:50And there are many good things in this life which that creator God has richly provided us to enjoy, but as soon as we take those things and we make them ultimate in our hearts, we need to realize we're missing out on the very reason we exist. So back to the question, what is the great gain of godliness? It's a hard question Well, for the person who has trusted in Christ, it's something absolutely certain. It's something that cannot be taken from us no matter what. And it's something that we will take with us even after this life.

27:36I think it's something that we were made for, made to experience as gain. If I had to choose a phrase from 1 Timothy 6 to define the gain, I think it's found at the very end of verse 19. Look there with me. The end of verse 19 says, "I think the gain of godliness is that which is truly life." In those verses, Paul is telling the wealthy Christians to be rich in good works. In other words, to be godly. Thus, verse 19, "Storing up treasure for themselves is a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life." I think the gain of godliness is true life, life as it was meant to be lived, the truest life, the very life that you and I were created to experience.

28:41And yes, I think the gain of godliness most fully and gloriously will be experienced in the next life. I think that's true. And how could it not be so when we have texts like Ephesians 2, which say the very reason God raised Jesus and raised us up with him is so that in the coming ages, for age after age, He might show us the surpassing riches of His grace. But I think we are also meant to experience foretastes. Foretastes of that ultimate, future, glorious, never-ending, truest life. We are meant to experience foretastes in this life as well. 1 Timothy 4, Paul had said, "Godliness is a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." So the great gain of godliness is that which is truly life.

29:43The gain is all of the joy, all of the peace, all of the fruit and purpose that comes to a human through a life of godliness, both in this life and in the next. We can worship God when we're rich. We can worship God when the job is good, the marriage is good, health is good, life is good. But there is a powerful, powerful promise here for all those in the room who are poor and needy and suffering this morning. And it's this. There is a great, great gain available to you right now. No matter if you're rich or poor or healthy or sick or married or single, rejoicing or sorrowful. And the gain is this.

30:34You right now can lay hold of that which is truly life, abundant life, which can never, ever be taken away from you, no matter what may come. So in closing, how should we live in light of this great gain of godliness? And I have three encouragements for us. The first one is realize that choosing godliness is always in your own personal best interest every time. Every time, no matter what the lie of your sinful temptation might say. In every temptation, there's a battle in our heart to believe this truth, that godliness always results in greater gain. Or to believe the lie, that something else will bring you the life, something else will bring you the pleasure, the happiness, the gain that you're longing for in that moment. Doesn't matter whether it's anger or laziness or a bitter refusal to forgive somebody. Sin is offering you something in all of those.

31:56But remember, sin is a liar. And we do know this, don't we? Deep in our hearts as well as from the Bible, that sin is always a choice to settle. Sin is just settling. Settling for lesser pleasures, for fleeting happiness. Every time we choose sin over godliness. It's like C.S. Lewis said, we are just far too easily pleased. So number one is realize that choosing godliness is always in your personal best interest every time. Number two, pursue this godliness and its great gain at all costs, even in suffering and loss.

32:47No one can avoid suffering and loss in this life. And according to verse seven of our text, every time a baby enters this world and every time a person dies, God is declaring to us by those things, your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. Every one of us suffers in this life. And ultimately, if the Lord tarries, every one of us will experience that last great loss. Every one of us will die. But consider, O Christian, that even on that day, that day of your greatest loss, you will not lose.

33:40You will gain. On Monday afternoon, as the tire came through the windshield and killed Steven Clayton and his three-year-old, David, that was a horrific loss. Words cannot describe that loss. And yet, if we could ask Steven right now, as he looks on the face of Jesus, "Brother, was Monday loss or was it gain?" We know he would say, "It's gain." And if that is true, on our day of greatest loss, how much more will it be true about all of the lesser losses which we experience in this life along the way? In every moment of suffering, in every moment of loss, the beauty and the power of godliness is that even in that loss, we can experience a greater gain. This is why Paul could say in Philippians 4, "I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need."

35:09It's because Paul had learned the secret of the great gain of godliness. He had said, "Indeed, I count all things as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." So wherever you find yourself this morning, whether it's deep, deep suffering, or whether it's just the simple humdrum daily battle for holiness of the Christian life, pursue the gain of godliness and do it even when it costs you something, knowing that the gain of godliness will always be greater than the loss. And finally, my third encouragement, trust in Christ for your godliness. Trust in Christ for your godliness.

36:00And here I want to speak to any in the room who have not yet trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. I don't know you, but my guess is just like all the Christians in the room, you know deep down in your soul that you were created for something more than just this life. You know in your heart that you were made for something that can bring you greater gain, greater happiness, greater purpose than you currently have. And my guess is you even know that your sin, your living outside of God's will for you, it can never and it will never satisfy you. And I don't know why you've not trusted in Christ, but I can imagine that when you hear a message like this, you might be thinking about all the good works that you have to go do to get the gain of godliness.

37:03Or maybe you're thinking, "I'm a pretty good person." Your response to a message like this is to think of all the good things you've already done in your life, hoping that they'll outweigh the bad. But whatever your reason might be, my plea to you this morning is trust in Christ for godliness. No one on earth has done enough good works to stand before a perfect and holy God, and we will stand before him, so do not be deceived. No one can attain true godliness by his own power. But the beauty of the gospel is that there is a man, only one man, the God man, Jesus Christ, who had all the kingdoms of the world and their glory offered to him, and who looked the devil in the eye and said, "Be gone, Satan."

38:00Jesus is the only man who ever lived a perfectly righteous life, and this Jesus died on the cross and rose again to save sinners like you and like me, so that all who believe in him can experience the great gain which his godliness alone could have earned. That godliness is on offer to you this morning if you will only trust him. Don't miss out. Don't miss out on the great gain of godliness. Don't miss out on that which is truly life. For the scriptures say, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." So would you trust in Christ for your godliness this morning, and all this great gain can be yours. Would you pray with me?

39:03Oh, Father, that is our prayer this morning. Would you take this word and seal it in our hearts? Help us this week and for years to come to believe that there is a greater gain in godliness than in any lesser gains this world has to offer. And Lord, we confess, we believe, but we need you to help our unbelief. So do that in us by the power of your Spirit, that we might experience true life. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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