Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Personal and practical godliness.

[0:02] Now, good morning, I’d like to read the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, please.
Genesis in chapter 39.
My privilege to join in this 80th Bible Conference with the Midland Park Assembly.
Always a privilege to be back in Midland Park and work with the Christians here, and as, well see so many who have come from other places.
Thanks for being here.
I have a burden on my heart for this opening message, wasn’t able to really shake it in, full transparency, don’t feel the most qualified to speak on it, but it is a burden I feel first of all for myself and I feel for the assemblies represented here, Christians represented here and in other parts of North America.
Genesis chapter 39, and we’ll begin at verse 7.

[1:00] And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph.
And she said, lie with me.
But he refused and said unto his master’s wife, behold my master, what if not what is with me in the house?
And he hath committed all that he hath to my hand. There is none greater in this house than I.
Neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife.
How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Over to chapter 40.
Stories well known. We’ll just break in for some scattered readings.
Chapter 40 and verse 8.
And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.
And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God?
Tell me them, I pray you.

[1:59] And verse 15, and Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream and there is none that can interpret it. And I have heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it.
And Joseph answered Pharaoh saying, it is not in me. God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.
Chapter 50 and verse 20 speaking to his brothers but as for you you thought evil against me but, god meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive now Over to to the 12th Psalm for my text, really that’s on my heart this morning, the 12th Psalm.
To the chief musician upon Shemineth, a psalm of David, help, Lord, for the godly ceaseth.

[3:17] We will begin with a bit of a lament. It’s not meant to discourage anyone, but hopefully it’ll get our eyes fixed for this weekend.
This is my text this morning.
We heard about a prayer last night, and I was very encouraged by the prayers even of, brethren last night, this is a prayer that’s on my heart, first of all for myself.
Help, Lord, for the godly ceaseth. I would like to speak to you about the necessity for personal, practical godliness.

[3:57] I want to talk in this message about the desperate need. That’s really what we have in this 12th Psalm.
Help, Lord! Save, Lord! The psalmist is in a place where the wicked are camouflaging themselves.
They’re looking faithful. They’re saying the right things, but they’re flattering.
And the psalmist understands this, that I can’t tell who’s true and who’s not, who’s putting on the mask and who’s not. And the faithful and the godly are nearly all gone. And maybe it’s like a Elijah experience for David here and the Lord is going to remind him that there are there are certainly those who are still godly and yet From his heart he cries out, Save us Lord, The godly are gone and I have felt this very much Every funeral that seems to take place where whereabouts I live. I can’t look at the people who pass away and say oh, oh, We’ve lost greatly gifted people. I, I don’t look at the casket and think, oh, we’ve lost people who had a real stamp in our community.
They had a lot of connections.
But we’ve lost godly people, and we haven’t replaced them.

[5:06] And where there is a real need in my own heart, first of all, and in the need, I think, for all of us, for practical godliness.
And it must begin here, with David in the 12th Psalm, with an acknowledgement, with It’s a passionate desperation, Lord save us.
The godly are gone.
Where are the godly? And so that’s what I’d like to take up.
Someone has said this, there is no higher compliment that can be paid to a Christian, than to call him godly.

[5:39] He might be a conscientious parent, a zealous worker in the assembly, a dynamic spokesman for Christ, a talented leader.
But none of those things matter if at the same time he is not a godly person.
The great thing in an auditorium like this with such scattered needs, this is nothing gifted dependent.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a preacher, it doesn’t matter if you have leadership qualities to one day be an overseer, it doesn’t matter if you’re greatly gifted in a certain area.
Godliness is expected and commanded for all believers.
And so I would like to look at godliness today. Someone also wrote, and it quite discouraged me, that to give an address on godliness in the 21st century is to have everyone at the same time to tune off.
Because he said not too many people are interested in practical godliness.
Better to give an address on how to build a church, or on a building project.
Get people excited about things to do, or mission to a city nearby.
Everyone will get excited about that, and we should.
But personal godliness? No one will listen to you.
And then he said something that kind of bothered me.
He said no one in the millennial generation will listen to you.
I think millennials have been given a bad rap.

[7:06] I guess I am one, but I think they’ve been giving a bad rap.
Perhaps the reason why we somehow shirk back from a message on godliness is because, we don’t know what godliness is.
There’s a vagueness to godliness and that’s what I want to do today. I want to begin with this need for practical, personal godliness, this desperate cry, save us lord, intervene god.
The godly are gone. But I want to move now to what godliness is. What’s the definition of it?
Let me begin by what godliness is not. Often with virtues in the Bible, if we can begin here. What is godliness not? Godliness is not somberness.
Godliness is not having the longest face possible. It is not gritting your teeth and being morbid, and sad through life. That is not godliness. Godliness is not joylessness. It’s not having, no fun, no pleasure. No, those things are not consistent with godliness.
As we’ve already talked about, godliness is not giftedness.

[8:24] Godliness is not intelligence.
Godliness is not success. Godliness is not being connected. Godliness is not wealth.
You see, I sometimes look just in my little corner of the world and I think, We have successful people. We have connected people. We have gifted people.
But godliness is not any of those things. Godliness is not the absence of wealth.
Just to balance it. That’s not godliness. Godliness is not merely orthodoxy. It is not merely somebody who holds all the right doctrines.
Now, you’d hard to find a person who’s godly who doesn’t hold the right doctrines, but a person could hold the right doctrines and not be godly.
It is possible to be very orthodox in one’s doctrine, upright in one’s behavior, and not be godly.

[9:25] Godliness, we’ll learn, is not optional. It’s a command. It’s a command for me.
It’s a command for you to be godly. What is godliness linked with? This will also help us.
Some people think godliness is linked with kind of like a legalistic, a rigid person, and they follow all the rules. Do you know godliness is linked with grace? Says Paul to Titus, the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly in this present age. And so a person who is Godly is a student of grace. It is grace that produces godliness, not rules. Grace.
Godliness is also linked with persecution. Says Paul to Timothy, all that live godly will suffer persecution.

[10:35] I was thinking about this last night in the prayer meeting. The number of addresses that we would become more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Godliness is linked with Christ.
Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
Godliness is linked with the Lord Jesus. If you would like to be like Christ, You must be godly.

[11:06] So what is godliness? Well, we’ve read an example that we’re going to come to in the life of this man Joseph, but let me give you a definition. We kind of know what manliness is, right? We can see, when somebody’s not manly, right? Manliness, be like a man. Godliness, sometimes we can think, is to be like God. Now, strictly speaking, I don’t think that’s an accurate definition of godliness, at least not the word that’s used here over and over in 1 and 2 Timothy and the book of Titus, and even in your Old Testament, godliness is not so much to be like God, although that is a result of godliness. A person who is godly will become, in a greater degree, more and more like God.

[11:47] But godliness is to be toward God. Godliness is a God-towardness. You say, great, you’ve just explained something we don’t know what that means.
Godliness is to be centered on God, focused on God. Another, I’ll give you what Mr. Vine says, godliness is to be devoted. It denotes a piety, sometimes if you have a different translation of the Bible, a godly person will be called pious. It denotes a piety which is characterized by a God-word attitude, and, does that which is pleasing to Him. You say, okay, the opposite of godliness is worldliness, but I think the opposite of godliness as well is not so much hating God, God, but forgetting God.

[12:41] You see, a godly person is God-toward. Their life is toward God, is centered on God.
The opposite of godliness is like a practical atheism, where we forget God.
Now, no one here, I doubt, is an atheist. But we can all be practical atheists.
There are times in our lives where we can forget God. Like, God doesn’t have anything to do with, that. Some people think that if you’re godly, you’ll never go on a vacation.
That used to be said from pulpits, from what I’ve been told. Now, that’s not true.
But if you’re godly, you won’t go on a vacation without God.

[13:23] Your vacation will be governed by bringing God along with you, by doing it in fellowship with Him. Not by doing it and saying, oh God, I know you care about Sundays, and I know you care about ministry meetings, but like this is a vacation, great deal, I’m going. No, no, no, that’s ungodliness.
Godliness is centered, focused, focused on God. It is the idea when you say God-towardness, it’s the idea of seeing God and bringing God into every area of my life. Godliness, you see, blows apart the compartmentalized life. The life that says, well, this is for work, and this is for my family, and this is for the assembly.” No, no, no. Godliness blows it all apart because Because God has something to say and sway in every area of life.

[14:13] So let’s just look in the remaining time at this example. You know, I think when it comes to, any word, any word we learned, I have children all four and younger, and when they learn a word, it’s not because I open up a dictionary and tell them running means to vigorously extend your right leg in front of your left leg. No, I mean, you could say that and they’ll know, but you just, watch somebody, that’s running! And they clue in, that’s running. And I think for us as believers as well, if you want to know what godliness is, you could listen to what Mr. Vine’s dictionary is, and you could have that definition and do you good in a Bible reading somewhere, but you might not know actually what it means. That piousness, that God-to-word attitude. Yes, it’s okay to say that. What does it mean? And I think we have an example in the life of this young man, Joseph.
You see, we have read over and over in the life of Joseph while he’s in Egypt of specific situations where he brings God right into it.

[15:18] We have read in those verses that we took the time to read of Joseph referencing God. That’s godliness.
That it’s not just when Joseph is with his mom and dad, it’s not just when he’s in the land that’s going to be that promised land, but no, even when he’s out in Egypt, out in the world, like most of us are going to go back to come Monday morning, and Joseph over and over brings, in God. That’s godliness. This is godliness, this God-centered, God-to-word attitude. Godliness, I guess, is a twin of the fear of God. They go together. And so we see it in the life of Joseph.
And let me just go through them in the next 10 to 15 minutes.

[16:03] We notice, first of all, it’s a young man.
I hope there’s nobody here who thinks that godliness is only something I graduate to when I’m 80, and when people visit me, they say, well, that’s a godly sister.
No.
No, we need godly young men.
I have a plea today. A plea. It’s my burden.
I’m not sure how good I’m going to be at getting it all and organizing it all in the life of Joseph, but I want you to understand my burden. We need godly young men and young women.

[16:35] Go in for godliness. Go in for it. Understand this, that your success, whether or not you will be pleasing to the Lord, will not matter so much about how gifted you are, or how successful you are, or how influential you are. Go in for godliness. Go in for living for the eye of one.
Joseph. First of all, we find him, the first time he brings God in, is in this temptation.
Potiphar’s wife. And she comes, and the first time you know it, you know the story, and then she comes again and again. Here’s Joseph in the land of Egypt, Forsaken and sold by his brothers.

[17:29] If there was ever a man who would think, why live for God? It’s Joseph.
Here he is and he’s just been taken to this foreign land, separated from his own father, whom he had a very special relationship with.
Separated from his family, a slave in Potiphar’s house.
Now a temptation comes.
I’ll be very surprised if there is nobody in this auditorium tonight who cannot relate with the temptation that Joseph just felt that we’ve read about.
We live in a seductive, sex-crazed, pornographic world.

[18:13] And it is not my intention to make anyone overwhelmed with feelings of guilt at the, same time, would you like to know how to face temptation in godliness?
Look at this man.
Here comes the temptation.
And this is what Joseph says, How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?
God. God. He brings God into the temptation. And in this foreign land, where there are many gods, Pharaoh’s God, Joseph says, no, there is one God. And when the temptation assaults him, it’s so strong, he just has to flee from it, which the Bible says we must flee from fornication.
But Joseph understands this, that even though he’s separated from his mom and dad, even though he’s in a foreign land where nobody who knows him can see him. He understands this, that even there God sees him, and he’s accountable to God, and he brings God right into the temptation.
That’s how you endure temptation in a godly way. You bring God into it. Bring God into it.
When the temptation comes, hard day at work or school, all alone, laptop, computer, Private browsing is open. Bring in God. It’s for your life. It’s for your life.

[19:37] Please understand, it’s not a small thing. It’s gonna affect your mind. It’s gonna affect your life. Bring in God. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in this world. Bring him in. That’s what Joseph did. He understood this, I am accountable to God and he brings in God and then he flees. Moving to the next part, then he’s put into the prison. Things just seem to be getting from bad to worse. He has a revelation from God in his hometown.
I don’t think he shared it because he was proud. I think he shared it because he had a revelation from God and as a result of that he’s thrown into a pit sold as a slave, now he, as a slave, facing a temptation from a very influential woman, He stands righteous and he gets put in prison.

[20:33] I say there are times in our lives where it’s like, God has let me down.
And here’s Joseph in prison. Butler and Baker are there.

[20:45] And Joseph understands this, that when it comes to anything, I’m going to do for God.
Not just my accountability before him and temptation, but anything I’m going to do.
You notice what he said. He says, do not interpretations belong to God. You tell the dreams, to me. Some people have said that this is when Joseph sinned. This was pride from this young man. After all, here he is in Egypt and he says, these things belong to God, but you tell him to me.
I think that is a very low estimation of this young man. You know what I think it was? I I think Joseph understood this, that even though I’m in prison, God is with me.
And the God who is able to interpret your dreams, I rely wholly on him to interpret the dreams through me.
And a person goes through service for God, right? Whatever it is that you’re called to do, whatever it is that God has gifted you to do in your own local assembly, you do that in the good.
How do I serve godly?
By depending on God. By understanding it’s God who is going to do it through you.
This kind of work belongs to God, but God, I rely on Him, and He’ll do it through me.

[22:05] Then he gets put into Pharaoh’s palace, this young man, and it’s been a bit of a while, right?
He tells the butler, remember me? You’re graduating there. You’re going back.
Cup again. Just remember me. Tell Pharaoh about me.” And you know the story, the butler forgets Joseph.
And all these years pass Like just I think sometimes we we spiritualize joseph so much. We he’s a beautiful picture of the lord. Jesus We forget this is a real young man as real as any of you here tonight today, Right. He has a sinful nature. He has a heart that’s deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, This is not a superman. This is a young man, And here he is forgotten by god for years, it seems There he is faithful righteous doing everything right in prison, and now the butler even forgets him, and now, Pharaoh has dreams, and Pharaoh’s calling for Joseph, and Joseph’s shaved, and he’s brought right before Pharaoh, and graduation day has come. Joseph, take the glory! Take it! It’s yours! And Pharaoh says, oh I’ve heard great things about you, Joseph. I’ve heard that you’re the man, you’re the guy who can interpret dreams.

[23:19] And Joseph says, this is only done by God. Right in the midst of success. Can you imagine?
Pharaoh thought he was God. Imagine quoting God, the God of the Hebrews, the God of the Israelites.
That could be enough to get you back into prison.
And yet Joseph doesn’t care. He understands this.
If anything’s going to happen with this man’s dreams, I want you to understand, first of Pharaoh. It’s only going to happen by God. And he brings God into his success.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget God in trial, right? We know that from the life of Job, a misunderstanding of God. God has set me as his target and we can forget God in trial.
I think it’s easier to forget them when things are going well.

[24:14] When the promotion comes, when the new house comes, when everything’s going well, everything’s just great, we forget God.
I think very soberly of another man in the Bible, David. I think he’s also an example of of a godly young man, says of David, his heart, right?
I have sought out for myself one who is after my heart. I don’t think that’s so much means, although it may be part of it, that David had a heart, that was pleasing in the sight of the Lord, but we understand that David’s heart was deceitful as well.
I think when it says he was after the Lord’s heart, it’s just he was after it.
He was pursuing it, right?
Context when that verse is said, David, a man after the Lord’s heart, it said, Saul, who did not do my will. But David, who is after my heart, who will do my will, here’s a person who is searching and longing after God’s heart. And over and over in the life of that man, he inquired after the Lord. He inquired after the Lord, except for one chapter in his life.

[25:30] And it’s all successful. And Saul’s gone. And the armies are conquered.
And you read through that chapter. A time when kings go out to battle and David’s not going.

[25:44] And no mention of God.
Just about David.
Success. Very easy. Very easy to forget God when things are going well.
But Joseph, first thing, he brings God in. Bring God in. That’s godliness.
Bring God into the temptation. If there’s a young man, young woman here today, and this week has been filled with clearing history, hiding, You know what it is to come to the Lord’s Supper, blushing, worried. Listen, bring God into it.
Bring God into it. I’m not giving a simplistic answer. I understand that these things need to be nuanced, but that’s where we start. We start by bringing God into it. We don’t start with programs and all the other things that are helpful and accountability partners.
First, bring God in. Get the first accountability partner. There’s power. If you’re a believer, There’s power and bringing the Lord in, If you’re doing service for God you feel overwhelmed Bring God into it Bring God, Success bring God’s praise into it, David we Joseph I mean we didn’t read about it, but when gifts come from God those two boys, He he names his sons God has made me forget.

[27:07] God, the Lord, has made me fruitful.
Right?
Even in looking at his children, he brings God into it. Gifts.
You see, everything about this young man in his life, I’m not saying by any means he was perfect, but everything about him, he continually is bringing God.
Now, this is godliness.
You say, what does that mean, God-towardness? That’s Joseph.
It’s bringing God in. Centered, focused on God everywhere he goes, no matter the situation, temptation, trials, success, gifts from God.
Likely in this conference there are people, and you struggle with what I imagine Joseph must have struggled with, bitterness.
Bitterness is a dark place.

[28:04] It’s self-eating, destroys a person, bitterness, discouragement, taking pot shots at people.
And it’s one thing to have bitterness, you know, towards the neighbor who put up a fence.
Oh, well, he’s just a person in the world.
But really, I think if we’re honest, most of that doesn’t affect us.
It’s just bitterness within.
It’s just a believer that we can’t believe they did that. Irritation, and the root goes down deep, and then we water the root with our pity and our tears and then it grows up into something that’s very hard to remove.
You know, I don’t know what you’ve been through in your life in the local assembly.
It’s easy to have bitterness creep in.
I doubt that you’ve been through what this young man went through.

[29:04] Put into a pit, stripped, sold, and now here comes bros. There they come.
And he puts them through a test. skipping over that, but he wants to make sure they’re truly repentant.
And now his dad has passed away. Think of all the years Joseph missed of time with his father.
And as he looks at those boys, he could very easily understand it’s all because of you.
It’s your fault! Your fault that I missed all that time and now I buried him!
And they’re all worried. What’s Joseph going to do now that dad’s gone?
And it says that Joseph, he wept.

[29:53] And in a time where bitterness could take over or discouragement, he turns to those boys and he says, you meant it for evil, but God, he brings in God, God meant it for good.
And the man who I think has every really reason to be bitter, he understands this.
God was in control. God was in control through it all. He sent me to preserve your life, to save your life.
And although you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.
You see, here’s a young man, and when it comes to godliness, he’s not put in a bubble. He’s not a monk.
He’s not sitting in a study surrounded by beautiful books from the 18th century.
He’s in a real world, a hostile world, and he’s facing temptation, and he’s facing pride, and he’s facing bitterness.
But Joseph is godly, for he brings in God.
And that brings me to the conclusion for this opening message.
I don’t want to deflate an expectation for this weekend with a conference, but I just want to begin.
I hope we all can unite with this prayer.
Perhaps you know people in your life and they were godly and they’re gone.

[31:23] Save, Lord! Help us, Lord! Intervene, Lord! The godly are nearly extinct!
And more than that, Lord, no matter how gifted I am or not, how successful I am or not, by whatever means necessary, make me godly. Make me godly! That’s what God wants for you.
Godliness with contentment, says the Apostle Paul, is great gain.
And so, this is just my burden for the weekend, really.
That from this conference, through the messages that will be weaved together by the Spirit of God, we would grow in godliness.
We would leave this weekend more godly.
More godly. Hopefully more knowledgeable. Hopefully learning things from the Bible, but more godly.
And so may God, may God intervene.
For the godly are nearly extinct. And yet there is hope, if we begin, as David did, in dependence.

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